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Yeti Airlines Passenger Plane Crashes in Nepal; More Classified Material Found in Biden Home; Dozens of Ukrainians Unaccounted for after Russian Missile Strike; World Leaders Condemn Iran's Execution of Alireza Akbari; Former Brazilian Justice Minister Arrested; Flights from Cusco, Peru, Resume; England to Ban Variety of Single-Use Plastics; Over 300 U.S. UFO Reports since March 2021. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired January 15, 2023 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching here in the United States and around the world. I'm Laila Harrak.
Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the White House is on the defensive after more classified documents were discovered at President Biden's private home.
Plus live images from Dnipro, Ukraine, where a search is underway for survivors trapped in the rubble of an apartment building after a Russian missile strike. The latest in a live report.
And global condemnation after Iran executed a British Iranian national. Now we're hearing from the man's family, who says he's innocent.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Laila Harrak.
HARRAK: We'll have those stories and more for you in just a moment.
First, we're tracking breaking news out of Nepal. State media report a plane from domestic carrier Yeti Airlines has crashed west of Kathmandu. CNN's Kristie Lu Stout is tracking events from Hong Kong.
What more have you learned, Kristie?
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Just imagine the agony for family members, who are waiting for any information. Right now, this is what we know.
We know that a Yeti Airlines jetliner crashed on Sunday in Nepal. We know at least 32 have been killed. A spokesman for the Nepal civil aviation authority says rescue operations are on.
Pokhara is 130 kilometers west of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, which is home to eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world and it also has a record of air accidents. We've been monitoring local media in Nepal.
And it says that the plane was flying from Pokhara from Kathmandu 10:30 local time on Sunday. Also 72 people were on board, including the 68 passengers, two pilots, two crew members. It crashed, according to "The Rising Nepal," it crashed in the Seti River Gorge in Pokhara.
Sunday, the prime minister took to Twitter to address this tragedy. We have that tweet and this is a rough translation.
He says, quote, "I am deeply saddened by the sad and tragic accident of Yeti Airlines ANC ATR-72, flying from Kathmandu to Pokhara with passengers. I sincerely appeal to the security personnel, all agencies of the Nepal government and the general public to start an effective rescue."
The spokesperson for Nepal civil aviation authority the weather was clear at the time of the accident. We do know search and rescue is underway but so, too, the agonizing wait for answers.
HARRAK: Kristie Lu Stout, reporting on breaking developments, thank you so much.
Now to a new disclosure from the White House. The president's lawyer has acknowledged that more classified items were found this week at Joe Biden's Delaware home.
A day after discovering a single classified document in a room adjacent to the garage, officials found five additional pages with classification markings alongside it. It happened on Thursday, the same day that a special counsel was appointed to investigate Mr. Biden's handling of sensitive records.
So far, CNN estimates that a total of 20 classified documents have been found, both in Mr. Biden's home and at a think tank office he once used. We get more details now from CNN's Evan Perez in Washington.
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EVAN PEREZ, CNN SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Lawyers for President Biden say they turned up another five pages of classified documents during a search of his home this week.
That's the second time in two days that the White House has had to correct what it says was incomplete information about the number of documents that it has found in searches of a number of locations associated with the president.
Altogether, we're talking about 20 classified records that the Biden team has found and turned over to the Justice Department.
The shifting story line has created a major political and legal headache for the president, who is now the subject of an investigation by a special counsel ,appointed in recent days by attorney general Merrick Garland.
This all began with the discovery of government records, including 10 classified documents from the Obama era --
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PEREZ: -- at a private office in Washington that Biden used during the presidency of Donald Trump.
The second set of classified documents was found at Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware, on December 20th. But the White House didn't disclose any of this until just this week.
And even then they told a misleading story, only mentioning the initial set of 10 documents. The president's lawyer, Bob Bauer, issued a statement.
He said that Team Biden has tried to be forthcoming and cooperative.
He said, "The president's personal attorneys have attempted to balance the importance of public transparency, where appropriate, and the established norms and limitations necessary to protect the investigation's integrity."
We should note that the Justice Department didn't prohibit the White House from disclosing everything that the president's team has turned over. We don't know the level of classification of the latest records found.
We do know that among the initial batch of 10 were documents that were marked "TS/SCI," sensitive compartmented information. These are among the most sensitive government secrets, which raise concerns about the exposure of sources and methods.
One of the questions that the new special counsel, Robert Hur, will have, are there any more documents out there that have not been accounted for? -- Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.
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HARRAK: Ron Brownstein is a CNN senior political analyst and a senior editor at "The Atlantic." He joins us now from Los Angeles.
Ron, so good to have you with us.
What more do we know about these additional documents found at President Biden's Delaware home?
And do we have an understanding what these documents are?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: We don't know the specifics.
We know that this is what, the third round of documents that they have found?
And the lack of specificity or maybe even more precisely the lack of an endpoint, I think, is part of the problem that Biden is facing at this point. We don't know exactly how far this will go.
HARRAK: We don't know how far this will go.
From a political perspective, how damaging is this for President Biden?
And what does it mean?
Just give us a handle of how big a deal is this?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, I actually think this is going to -- this could end up being a bigger deal for former president Trump than for President Biden.
I mean, based on the current facts, it does not seem that this will, to me, significantly change the trajectory of Biden's fate as president. It's going to be a headache. It's given Republicans a lot of ammunition to kind of -- a stick with which to cudgel him.
But I think that his fate, ultimately, as the incumbent, based on current facts, is more likely to rest on bigger factors, like what happens with inflation and the economy.
Where I think this really does present a complication, despite all the legal differences that analysts and lawyers and former prosecutors have pointed out, practically, it certainly makes it more complicated for the Justice Department to pursue charges against former president Trump, for his mishandling of classified documents, if they choose not to against the current president.
HARRAK: And former president Trump stored classified documents from his time in the White House at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
HARRAK: Do we know where things stand with that investigation?
BROWNSTEIN: That's another special counsel that is looking into it. One big difference is, multiple Justice Departments have concluded that you cannot bring criminal charges against a current president, even if there was cause. You can bring it against a former president.
You know, I think this is actually more complex in terms of what it means for Trump because, through American history, we have never had a former president indicted by the Justice Department.
But as it stands, Trump is now being investigated on two fronts: on his handling of the classified documents that he took with him from the White House but also, of course, his role in trying to subvert the 2020 election and in instigating the January 6th riot.
I guess I've always wondered, if the Justice Department has never indicted a former president, would they do it twice?
Would they bring charges against him on both the classified documents and on the 2020 election?
And if this, in fact, does make it more difficult for them to pursue the classified documents, in a strange way, it could give them more latitude to pursue the charges I think most Americans would agree are more serious and fundamental, which is his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, what happened on January 6th.
So on the one hand, I think it does make it more complicated for them to pursue the classified documents charges against the former president. On the other hand, I don't think it lets him out of the woods, it may even increase his vulnerability on what is the bigger issue.
HARRAK: So there are parallels but the circumstances are very different, from what I gather from your answer.
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HARRAK: Let's talk about Robert Hur, the special counsel overseeing the Biden document probe.
What will he try to figure out?
Is there a timeline, how long this investigation will go on for?
And will his findings be made public?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, the history of special counsels is they go on longer than you think. Certainly, you know, you have an obvious timeline in the 2024 election approaching. Hur is someone who comes out of kind of the Trump world.
Merrick Garland went out of his way to pick someone who would be very hard for the Republicans to criticize as being biased toward the president, the current president, in any way. I suspect that there will be some revelation at the end of what he finds if he does not pursue criminal charges.
But again, the only thing I think I can say is that, historically, these investigations have gone on longer and often open unexpected doors. That's why presidents view them as a headache, even if their exposure does not seem particularly great, as it might not seem for President Biden at this moment.
HARRAK: To be continued. Ron Brownstein, thank you so much for joining us.
BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.
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HARRAK: U.S. President Joe Biden has approved a major disaster declaration for California, clearing the way for federal funds to help the state following weeks of storms and torrential flooding.
More storms and powerful winds are expected to hit central and northern California today while some people in San Bernardino County, south of San Francisco, have been ordered to leave their homes because of severe flooding.
Hundreds in another county had been rescued from flooding. Cameras captured the rescue of this young victim, who was picked up by helicopter and taken to safety.
More than 25 million are under flood watches. The governor is warning people to prepare for more weather disasters. But the state may finally get some respite from the storms. Forecasters say there could be a break in the deluge later in the week.
CNN's Natasha Chen has more on the flooding and mudslides from Fairfax, California.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is a common sight around town: urban flooding; the roadways marked with signs so drivers can be told to be careful and slow down.
While there has not been as much rain on Saturday compared to the storms in the previous couple of weeks in California, the ground and the rivers are so saturated that it doesn't take much for flooding to happen, for mudslides to happen.
Like the one that happened here in Fairfax, just one street over, where multiple trees crashed into the back of an apartment building, causing 19 residents to have to evacuate.
There were evacuation orders in Santa Cruz County, Santa Clara County, areas prone to flooding. Here is one of the residents, who had to evacuate from the building in Fairfax here, describing the moment the mudslide happened.
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MARK FLEISCHER, FAIRFAX RESIDENT: I thought I heard thunder. It was not thunder. It was a hillside giving way behind the two flats behind us. Trees went into their bathrooms. There were little kids there.
There is, fortunately, a lady across the street, is a EMT/fireperson in San Francisco. We had no idea what was happening until I came outside. And there were floods. This is nothing. It was coming down, this broad and about this deep, all mud flow.
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CHEN: Fleischer told me he's lived here since the 1980s and has never seen anything like that. Thankfully, everyone was OK and got out of the building.
Another dangerous situation, on Saturday, CAL FIRE shared pictures of a situation in Pescadero, where part of the road there fell off of a cliff. So again, a lot of warnings to residents and drivers, just that, even though the rain is less than they may have seen over the last couple of weeks, the ground is extremely saturated.
At one point on Saturday, more than 30,000 customers were out of power and more than 25 million people under a flood watch -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Fairfax, California.
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HARRAK: The death toll keeps growing, as rescuers dig through the rubble of a building obliterated by a Russian missile strike in Ukraine. The latest word is that at least 20 people are dead after a Russian missile hit this apartment building in Dnipro on Saturday.
But officials say more than 40 others are still unaccounted for, as rescue crews look for the victims, who are believed to be trapped in the rubble. More than 70 people were wounded in the attack.
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HARRAK: Some residents of the city are apparently offering a helping hand at the site. Take a look at this young girl, caught on ,camera doing what she can to help clean up the debris.
The strike was part of a wave of missile attacks targeting energy facilities across Ukraine on Saturday. Officials say the power is out in many places across the country and crews are working to fix the damage.
Ukraine's capital also took a hit, which forced some residents to shelter in subway stations. President Zelenskyy responded to the attacks in his evening address.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): No amount of persuasion or just passing the time will stop the terrorists, who are methodically killing our people with missiles, drones bought in Iran, thrown artillery, tanks and mortars.
The whole world knows what can stop and how it's possible to stop those who so did.
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HARRAK: For more now, Barbie Nadeau joins us.
What can you tell us about those that are still trapped in the rubble and those that have been rescued?
BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know that, among those 40 people still unaccounted for, there are still children missing. Among the dead, 20 official death toll right now, there was a 15-year-old girl involved in that.
You know, there are more than 70 people injured, including four who are in critical condition. These are scenes you more likely see in a natural disaster, not something like this.
This is a residential building and so the people around, neighbors are trying to do everything they can to try to save as many people as possible. But we expect the death toll could rise in this.
HARRAK: Barbie, the U.K. is offering, on another note, offering Ukraine Challenger 2 tanks. Other countries are following suit, with one notable holdout.
NADEAU: That's right. Germany is that notable holdout. These tanks that are being sent from the U.K. and from France and Poland are German-made tanks. And now Germany has to sign off on the reexportation of these tanks.
They say they're not going to stand in the way of that but the rest of the European Union is really looking to Germany to actually also send their own tanks from Germany. That's going to be a clear signal for the rest of the bloc to continue their support.
Of course, everybody's worried about escalation and Moscow's response to this, because these tanks are obviously used against the Russian military.
But as this war rages on in Europe, the European Union is continuing to bolster their support. There's going to be a lot of pressure on Germany in the week ahead to also sort of -- you know, they've been sending artillery, other things. But they really want Germany to lead the way and send the tanks, those German-made tanks.
HARRAK: Barbie Nadeau, thank you so much.
Still ahead, Iran executes a British Iranian national, evoking international condemnation. We'll have latest reactions.
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HARRAK: Iran is facing international outrage and condemnation following its execution of British Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari. French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the act, calling it despicable and barbaric.
Iranian state media reported Saturday that Akbari, a former deputy defense minister, was hanged after being convicted of espionage and corruption.
And joining me now live from London is CNN's Nada Bashir. Nada, Alireza Akbari's murder has evoked widespread condemnation.
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.K. has been clear in its condemnation, also now clear on the steps it will be taking to hold the Iranian regime to account.
We heard yesterday from the U.K. foreign secretary, James Cleverly, laying out those plans to hold the regime to account on Twitter. First and foremost, he announced they would be summoning Iran's charge d'affaires to discuss the execution.
Also U.K. placing sanctions on Iran's prosecutor general, who the foreign office says is at the heart of Iran's use of the death penalty across the country. But crucially now the U.K. has also followed up by announcing it will be recalling its ambassador to Iran.
Of course, these are significant steps, something many activists have long called for since the eruption of protests back in September and in response to the brutal crackdown that we've seen by the Iranian regime.
There will be a lot of focus on this and whether or not this sets the tone for other European nations to follow suit. But of course, there has been a response by the Iranian regime. They, in turn, have summoned the U.K. ambassador over what they've described as unconventional intervention in Iran's internal affairs.
Akbari was detained back in 2019, the former defense ministry official accused of spying on behalf of MI-6, Britain's secret intelligence service, in return for large sums of money, according to a news agency affiliated with Iran's judiciary.
This has been criticized and denied by Akbari, his legal representatives and family members. We've heard from politicians, as well as other relatives, who have described this as a politically motivated charge.
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RAMIN FORGHANI, ALIREZA AKBARI'S NEPHEW: It was a surprise, the accusations that did come out of Iranian media. They were not expected by me. I don't think that they're correct. The character that I knew would have never done anything to harm the country nor the regime.
I can speculate that it was only a political game both in the country but also they to potentially influence U.K. politics toward Iran.
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BASHIR: U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak also responding to Akbari's execution, he described this as a callous and cowardly act by a barbaric regime with no respect for human rights of its own people.
There is serious concern for those detained in relation to the ongoing protests, which have taken place in Iran the last four months, with concerns that dozens more could face the death penalty in the coming weeks.
HARRAK: Nada Bashir, reporting live from London, thank you.
Earlier I spoke with Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. I asked him about the timing of Akbari's execution.
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TRITA PARSI, QUINCY INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: He has been in jail for three years. There seems to have been some significant suspicions against him for having spied for the U.K.
Whether that's true or not, we don't know yet. But the timing of this very much suggests that it's also wrapped into the domestic politics and the turf wars that are currently being fought within the Iranian regime, which is, of course, under a lot of pressure because of the ongoing protests and the legitimate crisis that it suffers from.
At the same time, it is happening at a time when the British government, for some weeks now, have been signaling that they are planning to put the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an organization that this person was a member of, on the terrorist list of the United Kingdom.
So we're already seeing clear signs there was going to be more tensions between the United Kingdom and Iran. And of course, this has certainly pushed the two countries in that direction.
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HARRAK: And thanks to Trita Parsi for joining me earlier for that analysis.
It's been a week since a mob of Bolsonaro supporters attacked government buildings in Brazil's capital. Now an ally of the former president has been arrested.
Plus a husband, arrested after the disappearance of his wife, was accused of threatening her years earlier. The latest clues in the search for the victim ahead.
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HARRAK: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Laila Harrak.
One week after anti-government riots in Brazil, the government is stepping up its efforts in investigating the attacks. Former justice minister, Anderson Torres, an ally of former president Bolsonaro, has been arrested.
It happened as Torres was returning to Brazil after a vacation in the United States, according to our affiliate CNN Brasil. Meanwhile, a federal police report says more than 1,800 people were detained after last week's riots. For more on this story, we go to CNN investigative producer Katie Polglase in London.
What has your investigation revealed about what happened on January 8th and the role that the police played?
KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCHER: Laila, we looked specifically at the visual evidence -- so anything on Twitter, TikTok, Telegram, even YouTube livestreams. We built from that quite a detailed chronology of what happened on January 8th.
It's clear to us that, around midday, the protesters start walking. They're walking quite calmly, slowly, toward the congress, which is about seven kilometers away. Police are there but they're not stopping them necessarily. They're walking them through, checking bags.
Some are even smiling at them, giving them the odd thumbs-up. By the time they get to congress, there is some pushback. There are some police officers with barricades, some of them spray some pepper spray. They try to stop them getting access to these main buildings.
But it doesn't work. The crowds are so large, they overrun them very quickly and chaos ensues. We see chaotic scenes of police officers being thrown from horseback and other police officers still standing by.
One even filmed the events.
So the question is, why was this response so divided?
Why was there such a lack of coordination between the different police officers on the ground?
One of the most telling videos we found was just outside the presidential palace. There's one officer standing, talking to the other officers.
And he says to them, "Command your troops, damn it."
And the other officers look at him, they hesitate. They're unsure whether to respond, whether to obey this order. It really speaks to the lack of coordination, the uncertainty on the ground as to how to deal with this attack.
HARRAK: The official investigation is still ongoing.
What do your findings tell you about how planned this attack was, who could have known about it?
POLGLASE: It's a good question. We found very early on that the Telegram conversations, this social media app, there was open planning for what was going to happen days in advance; January 5th, 6th, they were talking about going to congress.
Detailed maps highlighting the buildings themselves were being shared. Even bus bookings, arranging transport to the capital, were being arranged. It was these buses that were notified to the intelligence agencies.
They saw the very high volume of bookings of these buses to Brasilia. They notified the government authorities that this may be a cause for concern.
However, for whatever reason, this warning was not heeded and the protests went ahead. There are two key figures under suspicion at the moment. One is Anderson Torres. He was the head of security at the time. He was arrested yesterday, on Saturday, when arriving back in Brazil from the United States.
And notably, he was the former justice minister under the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. It is a claim that he was supportive of the protesters' intentions, something that he has strenuously denied.
The other figure is Fabio Vieira. He was the head of the military police, the commander. These are the people you see in these videos, with the military police on their backs. They are the ones, some of them smiling, some of them filming, some of them giving the thumbs-up, some of them attempting to push back but losing control of the situation.
He is also under suspicion, as the supreme court continues this investigation into what happened on January 8th, Laila.
HARRAK: Katie Polglase, live in London, thank you.
In Peru, flights have resumed from the tourist city of Cusco. Service had been suspended because of the ongoing protests throughout the country. Several airports in the country have been the target of protests, which erupted in December after the impeachment and removal of president Pedro Garcia.
According to Peruvian government figures, 48 people have died since the protests began. One protester died and at least 19 Peruvian police officers were injured during anti-government clashes in Cusco on Wednesday.
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HARRAK: As the search for a missing Massachusetts woman continues, a newly revealed police report from 2014 shows Ana Walshe told police someone had threatened to kill her and her friend.
Police confirm her husband, Brian Walshe, was the person named in the report. It was filed in Washington before the two were married. The case was dropped when Ana refused to cooperate with prosecutors. Brian was arrested after his wife went missing around New Year's and he's been charged with misleading investigators.
Authorities also reporting a grisly trail of clues as they search for Ana, including a bloody knife in the family's basement. CNN's Gloria Pazmino has more details.
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GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement sources have confirmed to us that the person involved in that 2014 report was Brian Walshe. However, the victim, the alleged victim in that case, decided not to cooperate with the prosecution, which is why it never went anywhere.
The two eventually went on to get married. Now Ana Walshe has been missing since the early morning hours of January 1st, almost two weeks ago. And here's what we know about the case.
We know that she went missing shortly after New Year's Eve. We know that her husband, Brian Walshe, was seen on surveillance video at a Home Depot the next day, spending hundreds of dollars to buy cleaning supplies.
There was a search that was eventually called off by local police. And now we are learning more about Ana Walshe from those who knew her. They say she was an ambitious young woman, who deeply cared about her family and her children.
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PAMELA BARDHI, ANA WALSHE'S FRIEND: Everyone's shattered. Everybody is looking at this and I think everyone across the world looking at this case feels a connection to Ana and feels this sense of empathy.
And I feel that collectively the world knows something awful has happened. Seeing everybody come together in the midst of all this has really been beautiful in such a dark time.
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PAZMINO: Law enforcement sources have confirmed to CNN they have collected several pieces of evidence at three different locations, including near the Walshes' home. We also can confirm that they did find a hacksaw and some bloodstained materials.
All of this will be looked at over the next several days. We are told that law enforcement is likely trying to find a DNA connection between these items, as well as Ana Walshe and possibly her husband, Brian Walshe -- in New York, Gloria Pazmino, CNN.
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HARRAK: And CNN has reached out to Brian Walshe's attorney but has not heard back.
A second-generation daredevil, Robbie Knievel has died at the age of 60.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's done it. HARRAK (voice-over): Knievel was probably best known for being the
son of pioneering daredevil, Evel Knievel. Well, Robbie's website says he performed more than 300 motorcycle jumps, setting 20 world records, leaping over the fountains at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and over planes on an aircraft carrier and elsewhere.
His brother says Robbie had been in hospice for several days with advanced pancreatic cancer. Robbie Knievel once summed up why he did what he did.
Quote, "I do it for the excitement and the quick money."
Daredevil Robbie Knievel died at the age of 60.
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HARRAK: England has announced that it will ban a variety of single- use plastic items later this year.
According to government data, the country uses 2.7 million pieces of single-use cutlery each year, along with more than 700 million single- use plates, the majority made from plastic. But out of all those plastic plates, forks, knives and spoons, only around 10 percent are recycled.
Under the new rules, plastic bowls, trays and balloon sticks will also be banned, along with certain kinds of cups and food containers. The new rules come into effect in October, giving businesses time to prepare. Some London food vendors have mixed feelings. Others said they're ready to cut down on plastics.
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GIULIANO CRISPINI, CHEF, ROTISSERIE WANDSWORTH: We only use biodegradable packaging. Always have done. So we've seen the cost of it come down because, as more and more people have used it, it's dropped slightly.
Obviously not during the pandemic, when prices went up a huge amount. But the more people are using it, then it becomes the norm and the price comes down. So good for the environment, good for us.
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FRANCISCO PRITEL, CHEF, MACHI'S BBQ: In our case, we use the plastic forks because we serve steak and a wooden fork is just too blunt for the steak. We use cardboard boxes but they've got forever chemicals in them, sort of Teflon. Plastic works. We'll keep using it and we encourage recycling.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) xxx HARRAK: We're joined by Steve Hyndside, policy manager for the advocacy group City To Sea, and he comes to us live from Bristol, England.
So good to have you with us. Banning some single-use plastics, an important measure.
Will it really make the impact that environmentalists like yourself in England are hoping for?
STEVE HYNDSIDE, POLICY MANAGER, CITY TO SEA: So I think there are two answers to your question there. First I want to say, everything on this list is there because they're some of the most polluting single- use plastics.
They're the items we find most commonly on our beaches, in our rivers, in our oceans. So removing them from the market will have a significant impact. However, these are minimum standards. These have already been agreed all across the European Union.
A ban has been in place for over two years in all of our neighboring countries. This is really the bare minimum, that we're just playing catch-up with our neighbor countries. So I would say our government needs to go further and, significantly, it needs to go faster as well.
HARRAK: On that note, consumer packaging will still be used, I understand.
A missed opportunity?
HYNDSIDE: Absolutely. As I say, this just scratches the surface of the single-use plastic problem we face. So this isn't going to have an impact in supermarkets, for example.
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HYNDSIDE: But we know there is legislation that could be done. So, for example, France, our nearest neighbor, they've introduced some legislation that will see some fruits and vegetables being -- the plastic being taken off them and those fruits and vegetables having to be sold with no packaging at all.
And for some fruits and vegetables, this is a common sense solution, that could help us reduce our plastic footprint.
HARRAK: Steve, is there a willingness among the general public to reduce plastic consumption?
HYNDSIDE: So we know from our own surveys and other bits of research have told us this, that there's a huge appetite within the British public and I think probably internationally as well, that they want to make environmentally friendly and sustainable choices in the purchases they make.
But there's another crisis I think we need to talk about alongside the plastic crisis and that's the cost of living crisis in the U.K. For many people, they feel they're being priced out of these eco choices. This is where we say that government and business need to step in and play their part as well.
HARRAK: That's an important note to make.
Do you feel that the focus should also be more on potentially introducing reuse schemes?
HYNDSIDE: Absolutely. So I think one of the pitfalls here is the idea that we can just replace single-use plastics with other single-use items. I think that's folly.
What's really important is that we keep in mind the waste hierarchy. So we look to reduce our packaging as much as possible.
So in that example, where someone goes to take -- have a takeaway, do they get given cutlery as standard?
Or do they leave it for customers to ask for cutlery?
Often eating takeaway chips, for example, fries, sorry, there's no reason why you can't be eating those with your fingers. So no need for cutlery at all. That can save costs and it can save the environment.
And then a level down from that, we've then got to be completely shifting away from single-use and toward reuse. And that's something we as environmentalists are keen about. Coca-Cola, for example, the biggest plastic polluter in the world, currently has a business model based on pumping out 200,000 single-use plastic bottles every minute.
But we also know in some markets, for example, in Brazil, they're really pushing a refill and reuse model as well. So we know these solutions are there. We just need the business will and we need the political will to make it happen.
HARRAK: Before I let you go, briefly if you can, a final thought. A lot of medical related plastics, like gloves, masks, gowns, they're not included and won't be for the foreseeable future.
Do you think plastics will continue to play an important role in our lives?
HYNDSIDE: I think it's absolutely essential to separate off this idea of being opposed to plastic pollution doesn't mean you're opposed to plastics in all situations.
What we are opposed to is the level and intensity in which we're pumping out single use plastics at moment. We're talking about 4.25 billion single use plastic pieces of cutlery in England alone that we use.
It's just not sustainable. So we're talking about attacking these major causes of pollution, whilst, of course, we can carry on using single use plastics in medical settings and such.
HARRAK: Steve Hyndside, thank you for joining us.
HYNDSIDE: Thank you.
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HARRAK: Coming up, UFOs. What the U.S. government just revealed about them and why some of it only adds to the mystery of what's really out there.
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HARRAK: in the U.S. there are new questions about unexplained phenomena in the sky. This week, intelligence officials revealed that, since March 2021, they've received more than 350 reports of UFOs. About half of these sightings have been identified as manmade objects. But as CNN's Kristin Fisher reports, the other half remain a mystery.
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KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Capitol Hill has been waiting for this report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the ODNI.
What this report found is there have been more than 300 new sightings of what the government calls UAPs or unidentified aerial phenomenon or more commonly called UFOs, since the last time that ODNI put out a report like this in 2021.
Back then, the ODNI could not explain 144 sightings of UAPs. This time, now they can't explain 171 one of them.
One part of the report that stands out is this one. It says that some of these uncharacterized UAPs "appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities and require further analysis."
So is it advanced U.S. technology?
Is it advanced technology from a foreign adversary like perhaps China or Russia?
Or is extraterrestrial in origin or something else entirely?
We just don't know. And the U.S. government says it doesn't know either or at least it will not say so publicly in this unclassified report.
But they did give some explanations for about 163 of the sightings that have been detailed in this report.
And here's how they explain those. The vast majority are either balloons or balloon entities. A handful were drones. Another handful were what they called airborne clutter, things like birds, weather events or airborne debris like plastic bags.
So the bottom line here, members of Congress say this is a step in the right direction to reducing the stigma associated with reporting sightings of UAPs. It's also a step in the right direction to enhancing national security.
Because, remember, a lot of these sightings happen right around military bases or assets.
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FISHER: But while it's a step in the right direction, members of Congress say the Pentagon, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, still have a long way to go to giving them the answers they ultimately want.
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HARRAK: Friday the 13th turned out to be a lucky one for a ticket holder in the U.S. state of Maine, as the person won the second largest Mega Millions jackpot in history.
The identity of the winner or winners hasn't been revealed but the state's lottery says the ticket was sold at a gas station in the town of Lebanon, a small, rural community. The station's owner says he thought the 6:00 am call from the lottery office was a scam at first.
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FRED COTREAU, OWNER, HOMETOWN GAS AND GRILL: It's almost incomprehensible to think about. I mean, it is. Just to wrap your head around how much it would change somebody's life, regardless of your status and where you are, to that kind of payout.
We're just glad to have it here in our small town. Again, I've been a long-time supporter of the lottery. I play responsibly and I suggest everybody do the same because, somewhere out there, somebody does win.
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HARRAK: The next drawing for an estimated $20 million is slated for Tuesday night. Good luck to you all.
Thanks for joining us. I'm Laila Harrak. My colleague, Kim Brunhuber, will be back after this short break.
