sensation. >> the idea that this is actually based on a real life story. >> tell them -- >> the poor bear died, but i'm laughing at the movie. it's funny. >> and the other thing you told me about. >> oh, there's now a meth gator. i think it's by the sharknado people. >> i had no idea. >> what are you going to do? sad the real bear died, but the movie looks like it's fun. wasn't that ray liotta's last movie? >> yeah, he is in it. okay. well, now that you know all of that, you know everything this morning. >> you got the crew laughing, high bar. >> "cnn newsroom" starts right now. >> is it a high bar? >> it's a high bar. >> guys -- >> it's a high bar. ♪ good morning, top of the hour here, i'm erica hill. >> and i'm jim sciutto. next hour the supreme court will hear arguments about president biden's student loan forgiveness

program, a ruling that will impact millions of people, one of the court's most influential cases this term with implications beyond the student loan issue. the plaintiffs which include six republican-led states, two borrowers who do not qualify for this program, are challenging the legality of the plan which would cancel up to $20,000 in debt for some borrowers. >> so just to give you an idea of the scope here, outstanding student loan debt in this country is more than $1.7 trillion. the vast majority of that, we're talking more than 90%, is from federal student loans and those are the ones that would be eligible for some forgiveness under biden's plan. so far 16 million borrowers had been approved for that relief. when the legal challenges put the plan on hold, officials estimate the program could cost some $400 billion. education secretary miguel cardona speaking with cnn this morning talked about why the administration is so focused on this and why the administration believes this program is so

important. >> 90% of the dollars in this benefit would go to people making under $75,000. so it's not a wholesale cancellation of loans, we're targeting it to people that need it most. you know, with regard to whether or not there is authority, the last administration used this same authority to pause the new loans. if that administration can use it, we can use it as well. >> cnn correspondent ray marsh is outside the supreme court. a lot of activity behind you there this morning as people wait to learn more. what are you hearing from folks there this morning rene? >> reporter: yeah, erica, good morning. yeah, within this crowd you have students, you have graduates, you have advocates, they are all here, some of them even spending the night outside of the court, making sure that they were in position for oral arguments when they begin this morning. when you talk to the people out here, they say, yes, this is a case about student debt relief, but it's actually a lot bigger

than that. this is about their financial future and their financial freedom for years to come. >> on board my flight headed to d.c. for the people's rally for student debt cancellation -- >> reporter: 25-year-old sabrina traveled from new york to washington, d.c. to rally outside the supreme court when justices will hear oral arguments on the legality of president biden's student loan debt relief program. six republican-led states and two dks bo texas borrowers argu administration does not have the authority to cancel the school debt of 40 million americans but the biden administration says congress gave the secretary of education expansive authority to alleviate hardship for student borrowers during a national emergency like the pandemic. on the eve of the arguments advocates already outside the court for a case that could change the trajectory of their lives. >> my first student loan bill it was about $350 of a payment and

i hadn't secured a job at that point and so for me it felt really impossible. >> reporter: graduating from college in 2019, she has nearly $30,000 in student loan debt. when the pandemic hit repayments were paused. she could now contribute to household costs for the home she shares with her parents. when the biden administration extended the pause this past august, multiple lawsuits followed. the program was halted and is now before the supreme court, leaving her in limbo. >> my family would be eligible for up to $50,000 of student loan cancellation. so as a whole family, that's huge. >> reporter: federal data shows america's student debt crisis is multigenerational, spanning from recent grads to grandparents, with $2.6 million borrowers over the age of 62. 72-year-old vietnam vet cecil hamilton is one of them. >> i never got the -- the amount

paid off. >> reporter: in 1977 hamilton says he took out a loan for an associate's degree for $5,250. nearly five decades later he still owes nearly the same amount. >> i thought i would have a good job and a home and all the things that people like to have and then enter retirement on a good note, but instead i'm -- i'm back in the hole again so i'm just surviving as i go. >> reporter: he says despite the government garnishing 15% of his social security disability payments for the loan he defaulted on, interest and fees made it impossible for him to put a dent in the principal. now, while the president's plan would help people like hamilton who you just saw in the piece there, he says he can't ignore the harms that his debt has caused throughout the last 40 years of his life.

it's ruined his credit. he has not been able to provide for his children in the way that he has wanted to. so the harm for him at this stage in life, he says, has already been done. as far as the decision, we don't expect a decision to come down from the court until late june/early july when they usually release their rulings. >> $1.7 trillion debt across the country. thank you so much. we're joined by cnn's senior supreme court analyst joan biskupic. so many issues here. personal experience should not be decisive for justices but they are human beings, they have their own experiences with college and paying for education. what do we know and how that might factor in? >> good morning jim and erica. big morning with the court, i'm eager to get over there with rene. on the surface these nine justices might seem detached from this kind of problem, most are wealthy, graduates of the ivy league schools but they all have their distinct experience

with having to pay for college and finance t i will start with someone like justice clarence thomas who grew up in georgia in modest means and he wrote about his own loan burden back in a 2007 memoire, he had gone to holy cross for undergrad with some tuition help from the school, but then when he was at yale he had to take out loans. he said he and his young family at the time were really struggling with the bills and the loans he took out, jim, from yale, he was still paying off when he became a supreme court justice in 1991 at age 43. sometimes we do think about young people shouldering a lot of this burden, but as rene pointed out, it's people who themselves have become parents and grandparents shouldering it. justice thomas as i said was quite aware of the burden of financial loans. both he and sonia sotomayor, who sonia sotomayor was our first hispanic justice, they both did

have some advantages with scholarships, justice sotomayor actually went to princeton and yale, both on scholarship, but then let's take some of the other justices who were lucky enough to be able to finance their own education, but now have children. justice amy comey barrett has seven kids, some college age who she is paying for to go to college. the chief justice john roberts has two children in their early 20s and obviously went to colleges and then he and neil gorsuch and some of the other justices we know from their financial disclosure forms have been able to put money into tax exempt college savings. even now these justices make close to $300,000 themselves and aren't the kind of people who usually have to worry about money they have distinct experiences. whether those experiences will play out in the courtroom i have to say it's unlikely, they will probably look at this case much more from a legal lens on

executive branch power. jim, erica? >> joan biskupic, appreciate it as always. we will let you run over there now to join rene as you said. thank you. >> thank you. joining us to discuss university of texas law school professor and cnn lega l analyst steve steve vladic. is there anything that you see in terms of past opinions as a barometer for this court. >> it goes on two different directions. on the substance of the program the biden administration has lost a series of cases where similar arguments were advanced about what congress had authorized agencies to do from the cdc eviction moratorium to the osha vaccination mandate to the epa's clean power plant. there the conservative justices are coming to this case with a healthy dose of skepticism about whether the heroes act, this

2003 statute, really does authorize such sweeping relief. on the flip side, it's also the conservative justices who have spent most of the past 25 years really making it much, much harder for plaintiffs to establish what's called standing to show that they are the right parties to challenge a policy because they were somewhat injured in a unique and particularized way. i think we are going to see both of those threats today with justices worried about why any of these plafs have standing but also whether it's a fair reading of the statute that congress authorized the secretary to take this action. >> okay. this case by itself important enough, but it does have -- or can set a potential precedent here for the ability of states, state attorneys general, to challenge federal policy here, to challenge executive action. can you explain to folks at home why they need to be watching this carefully? >> yeah, jim, i mean, it's a technical point, but i think

we're seeing a lot more of these lawsuits where texas, for example, has filed almost 30 lawsuits challenging biden administration policies, where red states challenge blue president policies and blue states challenge red president policies. the supreme court has never actually blessed that. indeed, 100 years ago the court said we don't usually want states to be the lead plaintiffs because otherwise that will mean every single policy gets challenged in court right away. that's not the state's job. so one of the things really swirling around these cases today is whether the conservative justices because of their skepticism of this program are actually going to be inclined to allow states like nebraska, missouri, to lead challenges to this kind of policy. and, jim, if they do, it's only a matter of time before we will see an explosion in states from across the political spectrum, attorneys general from across the political spectrum, seeing it as their job.

basically the day any new federal policy comes out to march into the nearest federal courthouse. >> goodness, imagine that. steve vladeck, we will see where the justices come down. thank you very much. >> thank you. hundreds of u.s. flights already canceled this morning as severe winter weather bears down. coming at folks on both sides of the country. >> it's hard to keep track because you are in shorts one day and then you are in snow boots the next. storms are expected to dump several inches of snow across the northeast, boston could get up to 6 inches. hazardous driving conditions expected in upstate new york and parts of new england. cnn's athena jones is in new york. not quite as bad in the city, but are things worse farther to the north? >> reporter: hi, jim. wlg, yes, they are expecting to see more snow north of the city outside of here in new york city. i want to point out what we're seeing in central park. look around at the amount of snow on the ground, not a ton,

but this is the most snow we have seen all winter. they are calling it the most significant measurable snowfall in new york city this winter. up until last night central park had seen less than half an inch. as of 7:00 a.m. it has snowed 1.8 inches bringing the snowfall total for this winter so far to a grand total of 2.2 inches. now, usually central park has seen 2 feet of snow by now in winter, so this is the lowest seasonal snowfall on record, but as you mentioned, not nearly as bad as it could be. we're seeing sloppy roads, messy commutes, but in other parts of the country we've seen records. milwaukee saw just over 2 inches of rainfall, that's a new record as of monday, parts of wisconsin saw an inch and a half of rainfall over the course of six hours and in california a storm system left people stranded in the san bernardino mountains due to rain and high elevation snow. also students who were at

science camps in orange county found themselves stranded. so a bit of wacky weather. here in new york the first real snow so you see people out running and enjoying it here. jim, erica? >> athena jones, thanks so much. coming up next, treasury secretary janet yellen making her own surprise visit to kyiv, promising financial support there. also weighing in on the inflation fight back home. i'm going to get reaction from an economist who thinks the fed -- the next fed rate should be higher and that the fed hasn't quite gotten a handle on inflation. plus the epa administrator headed back to ohio as the biden administration says cleanup from that toxic train derailment is moving swiftly. cnn is live in the town, one of the areas where that waste is being moved. and new this morning, the russian president admits to losses in his military ranks as a fierce battle rages in eastern ukraine. we will take you live to moscow for new details about the morale problems in putin's army.

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u.s. support for ukraine, u.s. treasury secretary janet yellen made a surprise visit to the capital kyiv. >> yellen meted with president zelenskyy to discuss u.s. economic assistance as well as efforts to impose severe sanctions on russia. cnn's melissa bell is live in kyiv for us this morning. i know you spoke exclusively with the secretary in the ukrainian capital. what more did she tell you? >> reporter: well, it was interesting, erica, we're seeing the secretary's emotion really as she came here, i think this has been true of all the american leaders and politicians. it is one thing following this war, another thing funding it and still different when you come and see yourself. about $50 billion of american support have allowed ukraine to achieve so far, but she had already been expressing her emotion, secretary yellen in bangalore just before she came here since she had been at the g20 summit there, had

contentious remarks for the russian delegation, accusing them of complicit really not mincing her words. i wanted as i met her to ask her about that but also the latest round of sanctions. the round that washington described as the most significant. >> do you think moscow is listening? >> i think that they are listening. i think we have imposed very serious costs on them and they hear from not only the united states but a large coalition, many allies, the morale outrage that we feel and they see our determination to make them pay a price. >> reporter: secretary yellen went on to explain that she believed that the sanctions so far really have taken a hit on the russian economy and specifically on its ability to continue waging this war, preventing it, for instance, from replacing some of the

equipment that its lost so far. what she said is that unreliable channels like north korea and iran are now back-filling but she believed that allies would be able with the united states in the coming days, in the near future, to stop that. i asked her also about the possibility that china might choose to send lethal aid to moscow, this is something the administration administration is watching very closely. she said that there would be severe consequences to that and that the american administration was continuing to keep a very close eye, jim and erica. >> melissa bell in kyiv, thanks so much. treasury secretary also chimed in on the u.s. economy while visiting ukraine. have a listen. >> look, inflation still is too high, but generally if you look over the last year, inflation has been coming down and i know the fed is committed to continuing the process of bringing it down to more normal levels. >> here is with me now former

chairman of the council of economic advisers jason furman. good to have you on this morning. >> good to be here. >> you heard yellen there saying inflation is coming down, the fed is committed. you say, in fact, the u.s. has made little if any progress on inflation. tell us why. >> yeah, so we're actually talking two different things, the secretary and myself. the actual inflation experienced by consumers has gotten better, the price of gasoline has gone down from $5 a gallon to $3.25. the headline inflation rate has fallen from 9% to 6%. that's the progress she's talking about. economists in the fed, though, are focused on something else called core inflation or underlying inflation that excludes the volatile components. that's where we've made no progress at all and that's what's scary going forward because the dis inflation we have had is the easy part, the remaining part has been really,

really much more stubborn than any of us expected. >> you've made the point that easing of supply chains post pandemic was supposed to bring down that core inflation. why hasn't that happened? >> look, there's been this debate about how much of inflation is soo supply, things like a microchip shortage, how much is demand, send people checks and they spend a lot of money. the truth is that it's some combination of both, but at this point most of the supply problems are a lot better. they are not perfect, but they are a lot better, and so what we're left with is an economy with a very low unemployment rate, lots of job openings, two job openings for every unemployed worker and that's just putting a lot of pressure on inflation and our economy. >> i mean, in effect it sounds like to the layman what you're saying is the economy is just too hot, it remains too hot, even with this pretty remarkable increase in rates over the last several months. what do you believe the fed needs to do? it sounds like you're saying

they need to raise them in the half percentage point range as opposed to the quarter point range which they've come down to. >> yeah, so what the fed said is that they're data dependent. no one understands exactly what's going on in the economy, you have to look at the data each month and update your views each month. they had been on track for a quarter point increase, but in the last month the data has just been extraordinary. inflation much higher than expected, job growth much higher than expected, job openings much higher than expected, consumer spending much higher than expected. so they need to be data dependent, adjust to that and raise by half a point at their next meeting. >> now, if i'm listening to this at home, i'm thinking it's good to have a good job market. i'm worried that the fed overreacts here and then drives the economy into recession. how does the fed avoid doing that? are you worried about the economy tipping into recession? >> you know, you need to be

worried about both sides when you're sitting there. none of this policy is super precise, all of it has long and variable lags. but, look, americans right now are being paid less on average adjusted for inflation than they were prior to the pandemic. this inflation really has taken a painful and terrible toll that needs to be the fed's focus and the remaining elevation in inflation s you know, really, really stubborn and going to be hard to get rid of. they need to stick with that project and everything else follows from it. >> now, you know the politics here in washington well, particularly having served in government. the republican contention is that this is all about spending, too big a covid relief bill at the beginning of the biden administration. is spending, government spending, also a factor in continued inflation, core inflation? >> look, i think that the spending we did was excessive. it was one factor that set this

inflation off. the fed being behind the curve was another. and the supply chain issues we talked about was a third. you do have inflation all over the world. at this point, though, the government isn't spending a lot, it's not the main thing driving inflation, it's really just become a self-perpetuating cycle and that's the self-perpetuating cycle that the fed really needs to do even more to break. >> jason furman, thanks for breaking it all down for us. >> thank you. still to come, we will take you live to east palestine ohio, the epa he had straighter making a third visit to the town after that toxic train wreck. what a new study says about the long-term risks of this next. 50% off?! that deal's so good we don't even need an eight-time all-s-star to tell you about it. wait what? get it before it's gone on the subway y app! introducing new sweet and savory crepes.

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the epa administrator michael regan is back in east palestine, ohio, today for the third time since the toxic train derailment more than three weeks ago. crews still trying to clean up the chemical spill now taking that waste to two additional sites as it is hauled away from east palestine. >> while regan and transportation secretary pete buttigieg have made trips to the area critics say president biden should visit as well. this morning buttigieg defended the white house response. >> he's been very concerned throughout this process about what the people of east palestine are going through. i think also a visit at that level can sometimes have a lot of disruptive effects so people of this community are going through a lot, they need to see that their administration is working for them, as we have

been, with personnel from -- from the epa, from my department and others on the ground from the very first hours of this situation unfolding. >> cnn's miguel marquez is live in east palestine where regan is set to speak later today. miguel, what are residents hoping to hear this morning and what are they hoping for that may be different this time around? >> reporter: yeah, i think they are hoping to hear that there is a roadmap to when the major part of the cleanup will be done and when they can start to resume their normal lives. they are still moving thousands of cubic yards of waste from the -- solid waste from that site to four different locations, three in ohio, one now in indiana, and then there is a lot of liquid waste as well. there are also the rivers or the streams that run through east palestine itself that are still showing signs of contamination that they have been on since day one trying to clean those up and trying to purify those streams

again. the epa is here in big force now, this is the third time the administrator has been here, they've now moved into a local business in the middle of town, literally the middle of town, and they are preparing for a press conference here. he is going to the scene, the site of the train crash to see what the process is and see what the progress is there. he's going to meet with business owners in east palestine, they have been very concerned because this has just been a massive black eye to the entire community and people concerned about the business prospects here, and he's going to meet with teachers and students as well. high schools and others have canceled sporting events here in the east palestine area out of an abundance of caution, even though all the air monitors everywhere in town and around have showed no contamination. so people here really looking for that sense of normalcy again. back to you guys. >> i'm sure they are. and some sense of hope. miguel marquez, thanks so much. so what are these chemicals

specifically that are being monitored in east palestine? a group of scientists now says the current high levels of some of those toxins in the air could lead to long-term health issues, one of the reasons understandably people are concerned. >> cnn's elizabeth cohen joins us now. walk us through what we know. >> right. what we know is that the study was done by carnegie melon and texas a&m. they are saying they're concerned nine chemicals monitored by the epa that exposure to spell possible long term health problems or in the long term could pose health problems for residents. they seem to focus in on acura lean used to control plants and rodents and other things and it is known that it can be toxic, it can cause problems to the respiratory true andact, to muc membranes. this is the big question and where people disagree, are people breathing in enough of it that they are really concerned?

so the scientist who wrote this, one of them said it's not an evacuate the building kind of thing where oh, my gosh, acutely you are in trouble, they are worried about the long term. let's read a statement from the environmental protection agency, they say the long-term risk referenced by this analysis, meaning the ones by the folks at the universities, assume a lifetime of exposure which is constant exposure over approximately 70 years. the eps does not anticipate levels of these chemicals will stay high for anywhere near that. in other words, they're saying, yes, you know, there may be levels of it now, but that's not going to continue. so where does that leave residents? they leaves them with a lot of question marks. it's so hard for them to know what's going to happen as miguel just told us, you know, they just want things to return to normal. they are not going to have firm answers about what these chemicals might or might not mean for their long-term health. >> and that's tough, right? the great unknown is the hardest thing to deal with. thank you.

still to come here, a critical admission by russian president vladimir putin as he concedes he is losing soldiers in ukraine. we are live in moscow next. ♪ start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand.

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♪ get it with gurus. cargurus. russian president vladimir putin is admitting this morning to losses in their ranks while addressing his top security officials about the war in ukraine. >> ukraine's military says that russia is now sending its best fighters to bakhmut in the east and the situation is getting, quote, extremely difficult there for ukrainian forces. aerial videos show, goodness, just the extent of the damage there. cnn's fred pleitgen is in moscow this morning. fred, i wonder what else we've learned from the president's speech and if you have any sense of reaction there.

>> reporter: yeah, i mean, first of all, i think it was a really important speech for vladimir putin obviously to the fsb, the federal security service, intelligence agency which is where vladimir putin comes from, he was an msb agent back in the day. these are people that he knows and trusts as well. some of the lines that he said were definitely very interesting where he thanked the federal security services for their big involvement so far in what russia calls the special military operation. obviously the war in ukraine. i want to listen in to what some of vladimir putin said just a little bit ago. >> translator: 2022 was a special year for the whole country and for your service. the fsb units were directly involved in the special military operation, they were solving complex, nonstandard operational tasks here, covering the state border, actively fighting terrorism, organized crime, corruption and extremism. i would like to thank the management and all employees of the department, especially those who acted at the forefront in the liberated territories, in the front line zone and i would

add behind enemy lines. i want to thank you for this work, dear comrades. >> reporter: so there he's saying that they were also operating behind enemy lines as he put t obviously that is a very important admission. i think one of the things that you guys said was obviously very important that he did say there were operatives from the fsb who have been killed so far in the war in ukraine. when he's talking about so-called liberated territories there he means the territories occupied by russian forces in ukraine right now, the russians of course say that they consider those territories to already be part of russia. so certainly a very important speech for vladimir putin but one of the other things that he also pointed out which stood out to us is that he called on the fsb and other intelligence services in russia to step up their became because he says he believes that western intelligence services and ukrainian sabotage units as he put it were active in those areas that are occupied by the russians and of course active in russia as well.

so certainly vladimir putin saying that those special services as he puts it very important. and i think also important for us to point out that this really has been part of vladimir putin's game in the last couple of days, really in the last weeks as he's been trying to drum up support and morale among those special services, just yesterday was the day of the special operations forces, vladimir putin speaking to them as well, guys. >> fred pleitgen, really appreciate it. thank you. joined by "new york times" white house and national security correspondent david sanger. good to see you this morning. you know, interesting those comments as fred was pointing out and what we heard from vladimir putin this morning. when we look at the fact that he is admitting these losses, we also have been talking almost since the very start of this -- of this war, when russia invaded ukraine, about the low morale, about the poor training among russian troops. they are still carrying out orders. is there a point that you see any of that changing? >> it's a great question, erica, and, you know, the estimates

that we're hearing from the british, from the united states, some outside groups, is that russia has suffered 200,000 casualties and maybe upwards of 60,000 of those dead. put that in perspective, that's more dead than we lost in the entire vietnam war. it's more dead than -- or more casualties, i should say, than the russians have had in all of the conflicts they have been in since the end of world war ii that we know of or that we can count. so this has been enormously expensive for him. i think what you have seen him do now is both play to his base, the intelligence services, the fsb here that, quote, guards the border and also manages to do a lot of the operations as he said behind enemy lines. i think the other thing that's really notable is that in the past few days he has talked about a program within the west

to dismantle the entire russian federation. now, that's completely fanciful, it's total disinformation, there is no such plan that i've been able to find and i think that you're -- cnn, our cnn colleagues have found, but it tells you that he's got to get a very nationalist operation going here to make the case that this is about more than ukraine. >> yeah, it speaks to a certain level of desperation really when you put it in that perspective. i'm also struck by putin recently announcing that he's suspending the only remaining nuclear arms treaty between russia and the u.s., the new start treaty which would expire in 2026. how do you think the u.s. should be preparing at this point? >> well, i think we've got to prepare with the thought that there will be no follow-on treaty and the treaty, as you said, expires in february 2026, we have three years. it's hard for me to imagine, erica, a negotiation with russia on a replacement treaty and the

way the old treaty was written, there's no more extension. it was a one five-year extension that president biden did in his first few days in office. getting to the new treaty would be difficult enough if it was just with russia, but it's pretty clear that china is building up its nuclear force toss a point that the treaty to make sense would probably have to include them as well, though there are some who dispute that case. i think we have to go into it with the assumption that we're going to be living for the first time in five decades with no nuclear arms limitations on russia and the united states. does that mean that we need to go off into an immediate arms race? not necessarily. i think we probably have plenty to do what we need to do, but there will be a lot of pressure and a lot of political debate in the coming presidential election. i suspect about whether or not we need to trigger a new arms race. >> and also, as you point out, that important element of china.

if something else were to move forward. i do want to get your take on this. ukraine as we know has continued to ask for f 16s, i was struck by comments yesterday, the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee telling cnn they could be a real game changer in his estimation in this war saying it's time for the administration to stop dragging its feet and it's his words to, quote, arm ukraine to the fullest. is he right? >> well, this was a huge source of debate at the munich security conference, where there were about 50 members of congress out in munich weekend before last, including a good number of republicans and some democrats making this argument. here is the problem, the issue is an escalation. if the ukrainians have f 16s they can reach moscow and that could easily be used as an excuse by putin to escalate, to make more nuclear threats and so forth. so the administration's argument is right now at this stage of the war there is no need for the

f-16s. the middle ground since it takes a long time to train ukrainian pilots to fly the f-16, they don't have anything like it, would be to start their training now and make the decision later because it would take a while in any case for them to be able to fly them. >> david sanger, always appreciate your insight. thank you. >> great to be with you, erica. still ahead, the murdaugh double murder trial is back in session, crucially the jury expected to visit the site of the killings later today. plus the sudden death of a former american swimming champion, the latest on the investigation in the u.s. virgin islands. stay with us. ♪ to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make themem real. ♪ [s[sfx: stomach gurgling] itit's nothing... sounds like something. ♪ when you have nausea, heartburn, indigestion, ♪

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right now, alex murdaugh's double murder trial is back under way in south carolina. you can see the live pictures there. the prosecution plans to call several rebuttal witnesses thaz are called. the defense rested their case yesterday. >> and now today, the jury is going to go to the hunts property as it is called where

murdaugh's wife and son was killed, and yesterday, the defense called a crime scene expert to the stand who said that two shooters were responsible for those murders. >> the individual who shot first with the shotgun minimally was stun and probably bloody material in his eyes and may have been injured and would have taken some degree of time to recover. >> why would one shooter bring two long rifles, two long weapons to the event? you cannot handle and shoot two of them. so you either have to put one down, use one, and then swap out and grab another one or i suppose you could have one in a sling, but that is quite awkward. >> we will monitor the trial for you, and we will bring you an update in the next hour. we are turning to the death of a former american swimming star in the american virgin

islands. >> we have jean casarez following these details. what are we hearing from the details? >> they are doing the work and not talking much. there are some press releases, but this is a 42-year-old woman, but in the late 1990s, she was one of the top 16 athletes in her swimming division in this entire country. she won many medals, and so this is someone who had a work ethic, an bound for success. here are the facts that we know them today, as we know them. it was last tuesday, and it was 12:08 a.m., and her boyfriend left a bar to go check on her. and this is according to the police. check on her. when he arrived at their home, she was on the floor, and she was unconscious, and he got a friend of his to get her into the vehicle, and they went to a hospital, a clinic, and there

they began cpr on her and then they rendered her dead is what they called it they also said that she was dead on arrival. that what we know at this point. now, here is what is interesting. the criminal investigation bureau has taken on this case. now, it may be protocol for unexplained death, but also normally, you have death investigations versus criminal investigations, and they are not saying it is criminal, but it is being undertaken by the criminal investigation bureau, and i spoke to a close friend of hers yesterday who had gone to school with her at the bowles school in jackson, florida, and it is for athletes who are bound for huge success in swimming, and he said that she had a work ethic unlike anyone he had erseen, and she would lift weights more than anyone at that school to be a stronger swimmer, and now we have to see what exactly happened to her, because if it

is nefarious and if it is criminal activity, someone needs to be brought to justice. >> appreciate the update, jean. and still live at the supreme court where the justices are hearing challenges to president biden's plan to forgive student loans for billions of borrows. ♪ to guide you thrhrough a changing world. ♪ typepe 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. in my ozempic® tri-zone, i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studi, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintainedt. ozempic® lowers the risk of major carovascular events such as stro, heart attack, or death in adults also with knn heart disease. and you may lose weight. adults lost up to 14 pounds. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles.

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top of the hour this tuesday, i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm erica hill. protesters gathering outside of the supreme court as the justices are hearing about president biden's student forgiveness program. it is going to have an immediate impact on the student loan program at a staggering