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More Storms Pummel California; Southeastern States Assess Damage from Dozens of Tornadoes; More Classified Material Found in Biden Home; Yeti Airlines Passenger Plane Crashes in Nepal; Dozens of Ukrainians Unaccounted for after Russian Missile Strike; Search for Ana Walshe; World Leaders Condemn Iran's Execution of Alireza Akbari; Over 300 U.S. UFO Reports since March 2021. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired January 15, 2023 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all watching us here in the United States, Canada around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM:
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GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): The reality is, this is just the eighth of what we anticipate will be nine atmospheric rivers. We're not done.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Severe weather is once again pounding California. Looks like it's not going to let up any time soon. I'll discuss with a climate expert how unusual this weather really is.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): And new documents mean new questions for the Biden administration. Look into what this new timeline means for the president.
Plus:
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): A race against time in Ukraine to save the people believed to be trapped in this rubble after a Russian missile strike.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: We begin with the storms that continue to slam central and northern California. Over 25 million people across the state are under flood watches, where a powerful storm fueled by a strong atmospheric river hit the region Saturday.
And another one coming today. President Biden approved a major disaster declaration, clearing the way to help the state in the following weeks of storm and torrential flooding. The governor warning people to prepare for more weather disasters, here he is.
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NEWSOM: We're mindful this is all occurring as we're experiencing a 1,200 year megadrought over the western United States. And here we are, by some estimates, 22 trillion to 25 trillion gallons of water, stacking of these atmospheric rivers, the likes of which we've not experienced in our lifetimes.
The reality is, this is just the eighth of what we anticipate will be nine atmospheric rivers. We're not done.
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BRUNHUBER: Take a look at this video of a swiftwater rescue in Laguna Hills, California, Saturday afternoon. The emergency command center received a call for a person hanging onto a tree in a creek as flood waters rushed by.
They were picked up by helicopter and taken to safety. Natasha Chen has more on 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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BRUNHUBER: J. David Neelin is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of California/Los Angeles.
Thanks for being with us. Put this in context for us.
How unusual and historic is what we're seeing in California now?
J. DAVID NEELIN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/LOS ANGELES: I'll give you one hand and on the other hand.
California always gets big swings and extremes, always has. There was a huge flood in 1862 that swamped most of Sacramento. And the lake in Los Angeles was about 10 miles long instead of 100 miles long.
We get all our rain in relatively few storms per year. So if the track of those storms coming across the Pacific swings a little to the north and hits Seattle, Oregon, we get less rain. If it swings south and hits us straight on, we get a lot more rain.
So we've always had extremes. That being said, our extremes are gradually getting worse and that is substantially due to climate change.
BRUNHUBER: And we have been sort of telling the story about drought, which has been exacerbated by global warming and climate change. But explain to us -- we're seeing the drought map right now and how that has sort of been changed by all of this rain.
But is there also that link between this opposite phenomenon, the extreme wet conditions and climate change?
And how is that paradox possible? NEELIN: Yes, the increase in droughts and the increase in extreme precipitation are linked to each other. The basic aspect is, warmer air can hold more moisture. And when you come to a strong storm, the circulation is bringing the moisture in. It holds about as much as it can.
It holds more so there's more available to rain out in the storm's circulation. At the same time, you have to have a balance with the amount of water that's evaporated and with the global energy balance.
So if you're raining more intensely in some spots, you're going to have longer between rain storms in other spots and in other times. And that, when you talk about longer times between storms, that means more inclination to drought from precipitation side.
And at the same time, your land is warmer and it's losing water faster. So that contributes to drought in a very substantial way as well.
BRUNHUBER: So it's this kind of weather whiplash, I guess, as it's called, not just California that sees this. Explain how many other places in the world could be seeing sort of similar phenomena as well.
NEELIN: Yes, and I love that you used the term weather whiplash. A couple of years back, we were writing a paper, Daniel Swain (ph) at UCLA was the lead author. My group and Alex Hall's (ph) group at UCLA were working on this.
We were looking for a term that would convey the switch between extremes. At that time, we had moved from a drought to a situation where the orahole (ph) down had recently had a major spillway incident in large rain. And whiplash seemed to be the right term to capture just how strong this switch between extremes is.
So not everywhere will get the same amount of whiplash. If you are further north in Seattle, for instance, the increases in rain tend to predominate the droughts, you know, the tendency to drought is there but not as bad as in California.
If you go down to Mexico, Central America, the tendency to drought can be even stronger in that region. So it will vary from one place to another in the world.
But the basic thing, warmer temperatures, more water vapor, greater swings between strong rains and longer periods between them, stronger evaporation losing water from the soil, leading to drought, that will be quite widespread in many parts of the world.
BRUNHUBER: I appreciate your analysis, J. David Neelin, thanks so much.
NEELIN: My pleasure, good talking to you.
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BRUNHUBER: President Biden approved a major disaster declaration for the state of Alabama. This comes as people in the Southeast continue to clean up and sort through the damage left by a string of tornadoes this week.
And it allows communities devastated by storms to receive federal aid for loans, temporary housing, home repairs and other programs.
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BRUNHUBER: At least nine were killed, seven in Alabama, two in Georgia, including a 5-year-old boy. No casualties were reported in the historic civil rights city of Selma, Alabama, but people were still devastated. Here's what the mayor of Selma had to say.
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MAYOR JAMES PERKINS JR., SELMA, ALABAMA: It's tough. A lot of people are hurting. The devastation is real. We've got a lot of work to do.
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BRUNHUBER: The National Weather Service says survey teams will be assessing the damage for the next several days.
In Washington, questions are growing for President Biden about his handling of sensitive materials from his time as vice president. Officials found more documents with classification markings in Delaware. Sources say none were marked top secret. CNN's Evan Perez has more on what was found and how the White House is reacting.
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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 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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BRUNHUBER: Earlier I spoke about the document scandal with Charlie Dent, a CNN political commentator and former House Republican, and asked him what strikes him most about the latest development in the story. Here's what he said.
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CHARLIE DENT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I guess what I find most remarkable about this whole situation is that President Biden was so careless and reckless and irresponsible with classified material.
I had the privilege of being able to review classified material. I thought the rule was you were supposed to view classified material in secure settings. And we'd read the material, there was someone there to answer the questions if we have them and return the material. There's no taking this stuff out of that secure location.
That is what's so stunning. We've also had the drip, drip, drip of, you know, when there's bad news, it never gets better with time.
Why would they not have announced all of the materials that have been located, not just those at the Biden Center in Washington and also at his home and his garage and by his Corvette?
I mean, it just struck me as terrible public relations that they would have to release this information on separate days. I think it just looks awful.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. They haven't fully accounted for that, even though we've been asking them about that.
But how much of this -- how much of a boon is this to Republicans politically?
DENT: Certainly some like congress man Jim Jordan, who is going to be forcing the Judiciary Committee, is probably salivating and is giddy over this opportunity to secure the president.
As a political matter -- Donald Trump seemed to be obstructing.
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DENT: And he wasn't complying with the DOJ and Joe Biden appears to be cooperating. But as a political matter, Republicans have been able to change the subject.
They can turn away from what happened with the speaker election and with George Santos and now they can focus their fire on a serious misstep by President Biden. So in many respects, I think the Biden team has given Republicans a little bit of a lifeline.
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BRUNHUBER: Next hour, we'll be live from Washington with more on this story.
Rescue crews are racing against time after a Russian missile strike in Ukraine.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Still ahead, rescuers try to communicate with survivors, who may still be trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building.
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BRUNHUBER: Plus we're tracking the crash of a passenger plane in Nepal. The latest in a live report coming up.
Plus a husband arrested after the disappearance of his wife was accused of threatening her years earlier. The latest clues in the search for Ana Walshe -- ahead.
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BRUNHUBER: Developments in Nepal where a local official said at least 32 people are dead in a plane crash west of Kathmandu. Yeti Airlines confirmed 72 people went down on board. State media say the flight was on a short run from Kathmandu. The prime minister said he's deeply saddened by the crash.
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PUSHPA KAMAL DAHAL, NEPALI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): The incident was tragic. All forces have been deployed for rescue operations. The investigation is going on now. I have called an emergency cabinet meeting and I'm going to the cabinet meeting.
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BRUNHUBER: Kristie Lu Stout joins us live from Hong Kong with more.
Kristie, we're learning more details.
What more can you tell us?
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Just imagine for a moment, the agony of the families taking in these new details and just processing all of this. a Yeti Airlines jetliner crashed on Sunday in Nepal. This took place earlier today. At least 32 were killed, including a baby.
According to the airline, there were 72 people on board the ATR 72 plane, including four crew members, 68 passengers; 57 Nepalese citizens were on board and 15 foreign nationals, including five from India, four from Russia, two from South Korea, one Australian, one Irish national, one Argentinian and one French citizen.
And a spokesperson from the Nepal civil aviation authority said rescue operations are indeed on. According to "The Rising Nepal," a state-run newspaper, the plane had flown from Nepal to Kathmandu 10:00 local time on Sunday and crashed in this Seti River Gorge.
Earlier today, the prime minister of Nepal took to Twitter to address the tragedy, he said this.
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." unquote.
The spokesperson for Nepal civil aviation authority says that the weather was clear at the time of the accident. We know that Pokhara is some 80 miles west of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
We know that Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including the world famous Mt. Everest. It sadly also has a record of air accidents. Search and rescue is underway. Of course, so, too, the agonizing wait for information and answers. Back to you.
BRUNHUBER: We'll keep track of that story, Kristie Lu Stout, thanks so much.
The death toll keeps growing as rescuers dig through the rubble of a building obliterated by a Russian missile strike in Ukraine. At least 20 people are dead after a Russian missile hit this apartment building in Dnipro on Saturday.
More than 40 still are unaccounted for, as crews look for victims believed to be trapped. More than 70 people were wounded. And have a look at this.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Those rescuers were trying to communicate with survivors, who may be stranded in the rubble, urging them to shout so rescuers could hear where they are.
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.
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BRUNHUBER: We're also getting a first hand account from a witness who saw that missile strike in Dnipro. Scott McLean has the story.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Smoke rises from the rubble. The aftermath of one of more than 30 Russian missiles fired across Ukraine, largely aimed at energy infrastructure.
But this was no power facility. It was a nine-story apartment building in the city of Dnipro. What's left of it looks like a hellish scene.
CLARA MAGALHAES, MISSILE STRIKE WITNESS: We could see debris on the street, many cars on fire and exploding still because of the impact of the fire. We saw a dead man near the cars on the sidewalk, many people trapped in their apartments, yelling.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said emergency crews are fighting for every person, every life. Some rescuers scaling the twisted debris to look for survivors.
Others lifting cars, hauling away a broken tree in the hopes of finding anyone still alive. The painstaking moments of success at times overshadowed by fears the death toll will grow.
And it wasn't just Dnipro. This neighborhood near Kyiv was rattled awake in the early morning hours.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
MCLEAN (voice-over): This man was sleeping when he heard an explosion that shook the windows and saw this massive crater. There were no warning sirens.
Ukrainian officials say most of the country was under air raid alerts Saturday. In Kyiv, people took cover in the underground metro. Ukraine said about two-thirds of missiles were shot down. Ones that landed hit energy facilities in five regions, the worst in Lviv and Kharkiv.
On the front lines, Ukraine insists there are still fierce battles raging in Soledar in the east of the country, despite Russians' claims they're in control and the chief of the Wagner private military claiming he's visited.
If Soledar falls, nearby Bakhmut could be the next major target. Lyudmila Mnogoditna's husband disappeared there in May. Natalia Kudlai's son went missing in June, they were among the hundreds of mostly women who gathered in central Kyiv to draw attention to missing and captured soldiers.
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LYUDMILA MNOGODITNA, WIFE OF UKRAINIAN SOLDIER (through translator): I fall asleep with tears in my eyes and wake up with tears as well. The only thing I ask God is to know my husband is alive.
NATALIA KUDLAI, MOTHER OF UKRAINIAN SOLDIER (through translator) There are no bodies, nothing. I have a big hope that they are in captivity. My heart feels he is alive. I know that. I'm praying and asking God for that.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Tanya Zhukova's husband is fighting in Bakhmut right now and he's not her only worry. Her 55-year-old father volunteered to fight in this war. Now he's in a Russian prison colony.
TANYA ZHUKOVA, WIFE AND DAUGHTER OF UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS: It's killing me, it's killing us. And it's just hard, you know. It's just -- you were a family. And now you need to survive each day.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Scott McLean, CNN, Kyiv.
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BRUNHUBER: And Ukraine's military is getting some help from Western allies ahead of an expect Russian spring offensive. On Saturday Britain became the latest country to promise tanks to Ukraine following a similar pledge from France.
The U.K. said it will provide 12 of its Challenger tanks. Poland and Finland are also moving to supply the German made Leopard tanks but they still need a green light from Berlin to do that.
A top Ukrainian general said last month his military needs about 300 more tanks to beat the Russians back.
Just ahead, deluge and drought. It's been pouring in California trillions of gallons of rain even as the megadrought shows no signs of wrapping up.
Plus despite warnings from the initial community, Iran executes this British Iranian national. A live report on the diplomatic fallout next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I am Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
As a 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 confirmed 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 the prosecutors. Brian was arrested after his wife went missing around New Year's and has been charged with misleading investigators.
CNN's Gloria Pazmino has details.
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GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Law enforcement sources have confirmed that the person involved in the 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 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 children.
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PAMELA BARDHI, ANA WALSHE'S FORMER COLLEAGUE: 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PAZMINO: Law enforcement sources confirmed to CNN they have collected several pieces of evidence at three different locations, including near the Walshes' home. We also can confirm they did find a hacksaw and some bloodstained materials.
All of this will be looked at over the next several days. We're 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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BRUNHUBER: And CNN reached out to Brian Walshe's attorney but hasn't heard back.
Back to one of our top stories. More than 25 million people across California are under flood watches as another atmospheric river event hits the region today and yet another one is right on its heels tomorrow.
Wind alerts are also in place across much of the Coastal and Valley portions of the state, where strong gusts are possible, which could lead to downed trees and power lines, especially since the soil is already so saturated.
Forecasters say up to six feet of new snow is possible through Monday in the Sierra Nevadas. California is obviously no stranger to extreme weather and the effects of climate change. But even as the state has seen a deluge of rain and snow in recent weeks, it's still not enough to get it through the megadrought.
CNN's chief climate correspondent explains.
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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Kim, it has just been relentless, seven atmospheric river events since Christmas in California.
A little respite now but more coming for especially the northern part of the state as well. This is not unprecedented. There were really big ones in 1861 that drowned hundreds of thousands of cows.
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WEIR: And it killed about 1 percent of the population in California. And there is predictions in science that on a warmer planet heated up by fossil fuels, at those sites, megaevents are much more likely.
This is a fraction of that, what they're going through now, right now. But there are millions more people living there than in the olden days as well, 40 million people. And about 19 fatalities so far in this storm.
It's the mudslide aspect of this, a lot of burn scars from the wildfires exacerbated just by the relentless storms there as well. Daniel Swain at UCLA put out a study a few years ago that said, you
know, as the climate changes, possibilities for a megaflood saw a trillion dollar storm, something much bigger than any earthquake worries.
He talked about the big one in California. Could be more likely in the next half century or so. Again, this is a fraction of that but maybe a good warning for officials to think about new ways of water management.
The mega drought is ongoing. This does help soil moisture but it doesn't fill the reservoirs nearly enough to end the drought, which is the worst in 1,200 years or so. And how to store this kind of water that comes all at once and save it for the summer growing seasons could be the engineering question of the next generation in California.
For now, 25 million people are under flood watches or warnings and they just hope for a break. Kim, back to you.
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BRUNHUBER: And before we go to break, we want to leave you with the words, sounds and images from this week's storms across California. Have a look.
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SHERIFF TINA NIETO, MONTEREY COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We've been watching the storms since December 26th. That's a long time. That's over two weeks. And we're concerned about because it's a slow moving event, unlike wildfires.
When rivers are cresting, we're watching the crest. Right now, we're watching it in the Spreckels area. We're talking about the Salinas River. This is John Steinbeck's river. And moves slowly but like John Steinbeck said, it can be a dangerous river.
And unfortunately, to get to the Monterey Peninsula, we only have like three ways to get in. And these are all areas that can be overcome by flooding, depending on Mother Nature and the amount of rain.
When it comes to water, for whatever reason and maybe because we don't get enough of it here in the state of California, they see the river. They think it's pretty.
And rivers are dangerous. You know, the fury of a river, you don't know, standing water, you don't know how deep it is.
You know, one foot of water can move a car. You know, we've lost lives up and down the state, from people who've driven into flooded areas, thinking it was safe, and caught in their cars; people, you know, trapped in their homes, not heeding our evacuation orders and warnings. And then the fury of the ocean on top of it.
AMY ETTINGER, JOURNALIST: We woke up to incredible wind and rain this morning, I'm getting notices about evacuation warnings or evacuations happening just a couple of miles away from my house right now.
Sheriffs are going door to door. We've been very lucky in that we're fortunate. We'll do what we can to help with rebuilding. We're going to come together as a community and make sure that we're all taken care of.
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BRUNHUBER: There's global condemnation after Iran's execution of dual British Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari. French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the act, calling it despicable and barbaric.
Iranian state media reported that Akbari was hanged after committing espionage and corruption. Nada Bashir joins us from London.
There's been plenty of international outrage over this execution. Take us through the reaction you've been tracking.
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Outcry from across the globe, particularly here in the United Kingdom. Akbari was a dual national. We've had response from the British government.
And the foreign secretary in a tweet laying out how the U.K. government plans to hold the Iran regime to account. They've are going to discuss his execution as well as the announcement of new sanctions against Iran's prosecutor general, who, they say, is at the very heart of Iran's use of the death sentence across the country.
Crucially now the United Kingdom is planning to temporarily recall its ambassador to Iran for consultations. And there has been suggestion there could be further steps still ahead the U.K. may take to hold the Iran regime to account.
But in response, the Iranian regime has also summoned Britain's ambassador to Iran because of what they described as unconventional interference in Iran's internal affairs. Alireza Akbari was detained in 2019 after allegations of spying on behalf of the United Kingdom, previously worked under the defense ministry.
And according to a news outlet affiliated with Iran's judiciary, he was arrested and sentenced to death after identified by Iran's intelligence ministry for spying on behalf of MI-6 and receiving reportedly large sums of money for providing important national information.
These are allegations that Alireza Akbari and his legal representatives long denied. These are allegations that the British government and members of Alireza Akbari's family say are politically motivated. Take a listen.
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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: Alireza Akbari's execution, centered around the allegations of spying, comes after at least four young men were executed for their participation in antiregime protests.
We've heard outcry from rights groups, saying this is yet another indicator that the Iran regime is clamping down on any act of dissent within the country. And there are concerns dozens more could face execution in the coming weeks. Kim.
BRUNHUBER: Thanks so much.
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BRUNHUBER: Give you an update on a story out of Nepal. Local officials say at least 64 people are dead in a plane crash west of Kathmandu. Domestic carrier Yeti Airlines confirms the flight went down with 72 people. State media say the flight was on a short run from Kathmandu to Pokhara.
We'll be right back.
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BRUNHUBER: A Pentagon report is detailing a dramatic increase in UFO sightings, more than 350 since 2021. Many of them are explained as being drones, birds or weather events. But about half of them remain unexplained. CNN space and defense correspondent Kristin Fisher has details.
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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.
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FISHER: And 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.
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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(SPORTS)
[05:55:00]
BRUNHUBER: That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Follow me on Twitter. For viewers in North America, "CNN THIS MORNING" is next. For the rest of the world, it's "MARKETPLACE ASIA."
