and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation. we have watched not only over the course of the war but even before as u.s. aircraft including reaper drones which we could track on flight tracking websites for the most part as well as knowing that russian aircraft were operating over the black sea have done so for more than a year at this point. but this of course is the first such interaction we've heard of essentially a collision, ramming of some sort, between the russian su-27 fighter jet and u.s. air force drone forcing the u.s. to bring it down. how does the u.s. respond? how does the u.s. view the severity of the incident? john, those are very important questions that the u.s. will have to answer. >> a very important question. was it a cowboy incident, was it a miscalculation, was it deliberate? we appreciate the breaking news and know you'll get the details as they come in. ♪

hello. we'll have much more on our breaking news here in just a moment. a russian jet striking a u.s. drone over international waters in the black sea. first, though, today, a collective sigh of relief after the latest inflation numbers and a market rally have the u.s. stepping back from the brink of economic disaster. inflation has cooled for the eighth straight month with the consumer price index at a level we haven't seen since september of 2021. that doesn't mean the prices are back to normal. any trip to the grocery store makes that very clear. but overall they are trending in the right direction. right now regional banks are rebounding. there you see some of the surging stocks and paired with that deposit outflows are apparently slowing, meaning the collapse of two banks in recent days has not as of now sparked a domino effect. but moodies has just down graded its outlook for the entire u.s. banking sector. matt, what a difference a day

makes here, right? first republic was under serious pressure and now it is leading the market rally. what is going on? the worst over? >> let's hope so. it does seem like cooler heads are prevailing. let's look at the bank stocks. regional banks got clobbered yesterday. first republic was down 62% yesterday alone. look at this. up 48%. we're seeing across the board gains, western alliance, all of them moving higher. this is encouraging. remember, banking and finance, this is really a confidence game. when people are not confident, they will take out their deposits. unfortunately that is what we saw late last week leading to this collapse of silicon valley bank and signature bank. what u.s. officials have done is announced this shock and awe rescue plan trying to save the depositors, trying to get confidence back and in an encouraging sign a u.s. official from the treasury department says deposit outflows are what

they want to see to make sure the banking crisis is going it to end and no other banks are going to collapse. >> tell us what the fed is looking at and likely to do. >> the latest numbers show consumer prices up by 6% in february. that is not a good number, actually three times hotter than considered healthy. you can see inflation spiked in late 2020, 2021. stayed high last year. but now the trend is going in the right direction. 6% is not good but it is way better than 9% last summer. that is not to say inflation is gone. it is not. look at the price hikes we are still seeing. jewelry, groceries, a big one. natural gas. air fare. pet food. all of those prices continue to go up significantly. the big question is what is the fed going to do? they face a very difficult balancing act.

they did before these bank failures. they do more so now. because if they keep raising interest rates, they risk causing a recession. that's been the risk all along. now they have to worry about adding more stress to the banking system. they don't want to do that. at the same time they can't accept 6% inflation. they don't want that. the jobs market outside of the tech sector remains pretty hot, uncomfortably hot if you are the fed. there is a lot of debate over whether the fed is going to raise interest rates at next week's meeting or if they'll just hold steady. >> then facebook, the parent company meta announcing another 10,000 lay-offs. another example of the tech industry being an exception in what is a booming labor market. >> absolutely. this is 10,000 lay-offs just announced by facebook owner meta. remember, this company just announced 11,000 lay-offs a few

months ago. we need to keep all of this in context. the tech sector, clearly. they are laying off workers. this shows the spike in lay-offs. we can see it really began late last year as the impact from the federal reserve's interest rate hikes as the downturn of sector played out. look at all these job cuts. but when we keep it in context you have to think about the fact that the tech sector is only 0.3% of total payrolls. that means that one sector of the economy could lose jobs. overall, the jobs market still looks pretty healthy. 3.6% unemployment rate. that is near the lowest level since 1969. the other point here is that the tech sector, they hired rapidly during covid and added many, many jobs. in retrospect they hired too many people and now are correcting. >> good news overall. cold comfort for folks facing those lay-offs here. thank you search for walking us through all of that. university of michigan economics

professor justin wolfers is joining us now. thanks for being with us. i want to start with the svb fallout. is this threat of a domino effect over? is that too soon to say? did the biden administration take the right actions here? >> yes. what i want you to listen for right now is listen real close. the most important thing that happened today is something that you didn't hear. it was yesterday and on friday my phone was blowing up with alerts about banks going bust, about financial stocks going south. people were texting me. there was all sorts of worry. today no such thing. and so it looks like the actions the government took effectively saying if your bank is in trouble we will help out, you don't need to worry, well, folks, your viewers appear to have taken that message to heart and that in itself is enough to create stability in the financial system so it is working. and the best story of the day is the story of the stories not

being written. we're not getting bad news. that is fantastic news at this point. >> yes, it certainly is. then, though, you look at moody's down grading the sector. should people as they look at that news, should people, companies be worried if they have money in some of these relatively smaller banks? >> no. let me come back and qualify that. most of our viewers have less than $250,000 in the bank. if that is the case you are insured a week ago. you are insured today. you will definitely get your money. if you are running a business and you've got more than that in the bank, the government is effectively saying, not explicitly but implicitly, we're going to guarantee your funds. you are safe as well. even more so the big concern was contagion from one bank to others. if one person starts worrying it causes others to worry. what we're seeing today is folks just aren't worried because folks believe and trust that the

government's response is enough and that is enough i'm not doing anything to my portfolios. >> let's talk about the new inflation numbers. do you think the fed is less likely to raise interest rates next week given today's report and the svb fallout? >> i think a lot of people aren't getting this right. there is one way to think about the fed. it's like it has two buildings with two jobs. one job, one building is full of a whole lot of worry about financial stability and they do things like making sure the fed can provide loans to banks that need them. there is a different set, think about a different building, and they worry about inflation and they use a different tool. the fed definitely wants to keep fighting inflation. it has different tools to support the financial system and so far they seem to be effective.

i don't expect to see a big feedback from financial instability to what the fed does with interest rates. so if not at this minute probably at this meeting it will continue to raise rates until it can be a little more confident it has inflation under control. >> all right. professor, we'll be watching that with you of course. thank you for your time today. >> a pleasure. right now we are tracking some severe weather that is slamming both coasts. a powerful storm has already dumped 2 feet of snow across parts of the northeast and that is causing delays in flights. it's knocking out power for more than 280,000 customers. in california, which has already been just ravaged by storms, another atmospheric river is hitting. more than 30 million people are under flood alerts. that includes parts of los angeles. you can see in this stunning video where some neighborhoods have just been turned into lakes. we've got full coverage with athena jones at laguardia airport in new york and in california near monterey.

athena, i want to start with you. are travelers starting to see serious delays there? >> reporter: they are. we've been here for several hours. this board has changed quite a bit. when we arrived there were mostly delays by maybe an hour, 45 minutes, hour and a half. now a lot more cancellations are what you're beginning to see here. this is significant. laguardia is representing about one-quarter of the almost a thousand, around 900 cancellations nationwide last check. there are over 1700 flights or over 2100 flights delayed. that is also something that has changed over the last couple hours. so laguardia over 200 flights delayed. newark has over a hundred. boston has over 260 flights. we were able to catch up with a group that was leading a high school band with directors, coming on a trip to new york. they're heading back to dallas and having a lot of trouble getting there. take a listen to what one of their chaperones had to say.

>> so one thing after another. hopefully not stuck overnight but we're trying to make it work to get our kids home. so right now they're all pretty tired and ready to go home. we're just going to do the best we can, try to feed them inside the terminal and make sure they are taken care of and do whatever we can to keep them happy. >> reporter: so that is a big group kind of hanging around waiting to figure out what they were going to do. their flight was canceled. they had to split into two different planes. officials at boston and newark airports are telling travelers they should check with their airlines before they arrive at the airport. anyone going to any airport on the east coast should be doing that and then also travelers should take extra care to allow extra time before they get here in order to not be delayed. in terms of waivers several airlines are delayed. delta, american united, southwest, jetblue, and spirit are all offering waivers so people can adjust their travel and avoid this mess here.

>> that is good news there. you are in northern california and we can just see how bad the flooding is behind you there. >> reporter: we are in monterey county, really ravaged, about 1700 people in this community have been displaced. the shelter is at max capacity and you can see why. we are standing in what is normally one of the main streets here in this community. just going to move us over a little bit because there are some cars coming through here. at least they'll try to but if you can believe it the flooding has receded about a foot, possibly even more in the last 24 hours. it was a lot worse. there was a second levee breach and because of that some of the water has gone into the ocean and has provided a little relief for this community. not a lot, though. the water is contaminated and going into residences and it

businesses. and it will be months before the homes will be livable. the monterey county sheriff tells me they've had to conduct about 200 rescues over the last couple days some because people refused to leave their homes. some of them because they just could not get out in time. here is what she had to say. >> our worst nightmare came through. we had failure at the levee. we knew that if there was failure at the levee it would inundate the community. you don't want this to happen to you. >> the rain was really coming down this morning and has since stopped. the wind is picking up and that is another concern. the ground is super saturated. there are concerns trees could topple and there could be a whole other set of issues. >> it certainly does bring those issues. thank you so much to both of you. we have breaking news. a russian fighter jet forced

down a u.s. drone over international waters. we have the latest details from the pentagon, next. if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefununds.com can see if it may qualify for a papayroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee. all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then work with professionals to assist your business with its forms and bmit the application. what's the #1 retinol brand used most by dermatologists? it's neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair® smooths the look of fine lines in 1-week, deep wrinkles in 4. so you can kiss wrinkles goodbye! neutrogena®

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and it's natural. treat it that way. aveeno® daily moisture with prebiotic oat is proven to moisturize dry skin all day. you'll love our formula for face, too. aveeno® now to our breaking news. a russian jet has forced down a u.s. drone over the black sea after damaging its propeller. we're at the pentagon gathering details on this. tell us what we're learning about this. >> reporter: this played out early this morning over international waters of the black sea according to u.s. air force europe. an mq-9 reaper drone, u.s. surveillance or spy drone was flying over the black sea when according to the air force two russian fighter jets conducted what they are calling an unsafe and unprofessional interception. that is just the beginning of it. according to the air force the two russian su-27 flanker

fighter jets repeatedly flew in front of the mq-9 reaper drone in an apparent attempt to disrupt or disturb its flight pattern, even dumping fuel in front of the u.s. reaper drone. according to the air force, one of the fighter jets damaged the propeller of the reaper drone forcing it down. the propeller on a reaper is behind it so somehow the russian fighter jet managed to damage the propeller, forcing the u.s. to bring down the drone in international waters. this is of course a very severe incident and u.s. air force europe issued a statement essentially referencing how severely they view this. let me read you part of this. this incident demonstrates a lack of competition in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional. these aggressive actions by russian air crew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation. according to the national security council president joe biden was briefed on the incident earlier this morning by national security adviser jake sullivan. he was given that information about how this played out

earlier today. according to the nsc there have been other interceptions between russian and u.s. aircraft but none as severe or as potentially escalatory as this where we see an actual in air collision. the key question now, how does the u.s. respond? how severely do they view this? how deliberately do they view this? certainly the statement from u.s. air force seems to say the russians were very deliberate in flying in front of the drone, dumping fuel in front of the drone, then damaging the propeller, forcing it down eventually in the black sea. now we'll wait to see how the u.s. chooses to respond to the incident. we have also reached out to the russian ministry of defense for comment. >> just to be clear of course the ukrainian port city of odesa on the black sea, we don't know specifically where this happened? >> reporter: it is our understanding we have been able to track many reaper drones over the black sea before and they

essentially fly an almost circular pattern either in the western part of the black sea west of crimea or southwest of crimea. we don't know exactly where this happened but we've seen reaper drones flying on almost a daily basis since the beginning of the war and even earlier than that. we know russian jets have flown as well. what is different here is the interaction, the collision between the jets. u.s. air force says it happened in international waters where both the u.s. and russians are absolutely entitled to fly under international law but not like this. >> certainly not. oren lieberman live for us at the pentagon, thank you. let's talk about this with a cnn military analyst, former commanding general, u.s. army europe and 7th army and david sanger is with us as well the white house and national security correspondent for the "new york times." all right. general, first off, i mean just explain how significant this is. >> this is typical of shadowing and intercepts in europe

truthfully. what you see is russia does this all the time in international air space. on top of international waters. russia often considers the black sea theirs, which is wrong. it doesn't apply that way. you will see russian aircraft continuously having these intercepts or shadows but nothing like thisment airplanes get close. there have been years where there are over a couple hundred of these kind of things, incidents occurring every year. it is normal procedure. when you get this close and interfere with flight paths of other aircraft either manned or unmanned it is certainly not under international law and certainly is going to create quite a distraction in this campaign. but as oren just said it is possibly in western black sea region to the west of the

autonomous region of crimea. it is just russia again interfering in international air space with other aircraft. >> how do you think the u.s. government is looking at this as they are trying to figure out how to respond? >> i'm pretty sure they'll respond pretty calmly. i think they will denounce it but it is an unmanned aircraft and that means fortunately there are no casualties. i'm sure president biden is going to be thinking that what what he is trying to avoid here is of course escalation with the russians. his first goal in this war has been help the ukrainians. his second goal in this war has been avoid escalation and anything that could lead to world war 3. we've had surveillance craft taken down before the most famous case in modern times was a chinese collision with a manned american surveillance craft in international waters as

in this case. the chinese pilot ended up being killed in that incident and the americans survived but were taken captive for a while and eventually returned to the united states. this does not rise quite to that level because it is unmanned, but it nonetheless tells you that the russians are now willing to take more risk to push back on the american involvement in the war. and the question is where does that end? >> where does it end? certainly the u.s. is concerned about escalation, potential escalation as we hear from the air force general but i wonder if that isn't sort of the point and i also wonder if from vladimir putin's perspective, you know, something like this happening in the black sea is, perhaps, good for him. a place where he has suffered some embarrassment, right, when you think about the flag ship of the black sea fleet being sunk? >> i would not agree with that.

i'm sorry. go ahead, david. >> please, mark, go right ahead. >> i would not agree with that, briana. i think this is baiting. i think a pilot made a mistake. they were trying to, like oren said, intercept which means escort and see what's going on but when you clip an aircraft to cause its, either land or crash, then you have a different situation right now. yes, russia has certainly been embarrassed in the black sea with the sinking of several vessels by a country that doesn't have a navy. that's ukraine. but, certainly, when you are interfering with international aircraft in international air space, that is not purposeful. that's baiting and it is interception. you know, this is not something that we're, again, mr. putin is trying to puff up his chest a little bit and say, see what i can control in the black sea. these reapers were more than

likely not only looking for intelligence but also over watching some of the fleets going through embargoed territory out of ukraine and up the canal. these are things that are all parts of this. again, all of this is conjecture on my part what that reaper was doing there. certainly when a russian aircraft interferes, clips it, and knocks it out of the sky, that is a little bit more serious. haven't seen one of those things happen since this war began. >> this is incredibly serious. i wonder, david, how vladimir putin might respond to this versus how he might see this as something that obviously should be avoided. but how he might respond. you wouldn't expect he'll come out and give a heart felt apology to the u.s. >> no, he certainly is not. you know, think about the more

recent case of the balloon, another kind of surveillance vehicle over u.s. territory and china complained when the u.s. took it down but of course in that case it was clearly over u.s. territory. the key part here is this was in international waters. one of the big questions mark raises here and you do as well is what, did putin himself order this, did the russian military order this? was this a russian pilot who saw an opportunity and was sort of acting on his own? we may not know that or we may take us a while to go figure that out. my guess is right now the administration will denounce it but you won't see them take a similar action. the reason is pretty clear. putin has until now been pretty cautious about keeping the war

inside ukrainian territory. there have been some cyber attacks on poland, but other than that, there's really been no case we've seen where they've gone into nato territory, where they've shelled into that kind of territory. i don't think putin wants to bring nato into this, so my guess is both sides will probably cool it down even while declaring themselves in the right. >> that was really my next question, general. we know these russian jets -- this isn't the first time they've gotten close to u.s. drones. this is something they do as a practice, getting close. right? these interceptions. this is the first time we've seen some sort of contact which has in this case brought the drone down in international waters. would you expect then that russia might be looking at lessening some of the behavior it's been engaged in up to this point, that led to this? >> certainly not.

i mean, russia has been overt in committing violations of international law on multiple occasions not only in ukraine but around the nato territories. like i said, these kind of intercepts occur with russian incursions into international and territorial waters of nato on numerous occasions. there was one year where there were over 300 of these. what i suggest is contrary to what we're just talking about, yeah. there's going to be a denouncement of this issued by the united states. this was probably a big mistake by a russian pilot. i would bet knowing the u.s. air force europe and also ucom you won't see any drones flying alone. you may see a couple aircraft intensifying, u.s. aircraft, nato aircraft, intensifying their presence in the black sea area immediately. i'm talking about within hours or if not days. because that is what they've done in the past when these kind of things have occurred.

>> we'll be watching for that. general, thank you so much. david, really appreciate your insights as well. former president trump ramping up his attacks on florida governor ron desantis as new cnn polling reveals trump is still the front-runner for the gop nomination. we have that, next. the monster, the outlaw... and you can't forget about the boss. sometimes- you just want to eat your heroes. the subway series. the greatest menu of all time. we got the house! you did! pods handles the driving. pack at your pace. store your things until you're ready. then we deliver to your new home - across town or across t country. ds, your personal moving and storage team. ♪ ♪ ♪ a feeling this electric is invite only. ♪

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if you're wondering what the 2024 gop primary fight could

look like, well, former president trump just gave us a little preview of what he thinks. last night in the first iowa visit of his third white house bid, trump set his sites squarely on his likely top rival ron desantis, days after the florida governor visited the state. >> did anybody ever hear of de-sanctis, desanctimonious? ron desantis strongly opposed ethanol. do you know that? he also fought against social security. he wanted to decimate it and voted against it three times. voted against social security. you have to remember, ron was a disciple of paul ryan. who is a rino loser who is currently destroying fox. to be honest with you, ron reminds me a lot of mitt romney. >> joining us now we have ron brownstein, senior editor at the atlantic and scott jennings who was a special assistant to president george w. bush. scott, i wonder what you think

besides whether trump needs to work more on his nicknames. i hate the name calling but i will say i don't know if that one is working. we should mention, desantis hasn't even declared that he is running. we have to keep that in mind. but is he at risk of appearing weak if he doesn't respond here? >> well, there is no evidence that any of the attacks trump is leveling whether nicknames or these ridiculous attacks he somehow opposes all social security, there is no evidence that any of this is working. if you look at ron desantis' favorability ratings within the republican party at the state or national levels, they are quite high. and he has virtually no detractors in the party. right now i don't know there is any reason for desantis to have to respond. i think what trump is doing looks weak, desperate, and none of it is really sticking. he is kind of flailing things at the wall. some spaghetti here. it is kind of running down and not sticking up there. i think desantis is okay for now. obviously trump is not going to stop and he'll ultimately have

to engage him. but he is not even a candidate yet as you pointed out and it doesn't appear to be hurting him. >> what really matters is what voters or caucus goers in iowa think about this, right? this is what some of them outside of trump's speech said. >> true trump voters are going to stay with trump. he's already proven himself. so we know what he is capable of doing. and ron desantis an awesome governor. i love him as the governor. i just think it's not his time. >> i think mr. desantis should wait his turn and he is a good governor. you know, great. i think he would make a great president as well but he has to wait his turn and let president trump do this again. >> when you look at this new cnn polling, ron, trump is holding this slim lead over desantis with republican voters, 40% to 36%. if you are ron desantis, what are you thinking when you hear that? >> well, look. this poll, the cnn poll out

today is better for desantis than some of the other recent national and state polls have been. but whether the poll showed trump ahead or desantis ahead, they all show some similar patterns that i think are going to drive this race. the most important is as in 2016 there is an enormous divide in attitudes about trump along lines of education in the republican coalition. in this poll donald trump is winning 43% of republicans without a college degree which is very similar to his showing in 2016. but he is only winning 23% of republicans without a degree. which is considerably weaker than his already modest showing in 2016. those white collar voters ultimately i think have to be the foundation of any coalition that can beat him in the primary. i think one question for desantis is that he is leaning so hard into culture war confrontations, basically saying he is offering republican voters trumpism without trump. i will fight your cultural wars

but i am not facing investigation for, you know, hush money to a porn star. the risk for him is he is going so far this direction that he does not consolidate what is clearly the biggest bloc of voters in the republican electorate that are dubious trump which are the college educated republicans. >> interesting. according also to the new polling, scott, i think something that is very significant, which is in just four years the number of republicans who say the country's increasing racial, ethnic, and national diversity is threatening american culture has nearly doubled. it is still at a minority here but that is a big minority. 38%. it is nearly doubled. what do you think is going to happen here? will that continue to shoe horn republicans into continuing to play footsie with white nationalism even if they don't want to but they're going to go that direction? >> i totally reject the idea the republican party is based on or has anything to do with white nationalism. i think it is completely wrong

and you do not have to do anything with it in order to be the republican nominee. it has no place in our party and no place on the american political spectrum. i do think there are legitimate concerns being raised by republicans out there about corporate endeavors and other sort of cultural push and pull that, you know, some people on the left want. some people on the right want to go against that. so you're going to have that kind of debate but it is a far cry from saying if i oppose say dei, you know, and corporate america, i am somehow in bed with white nationalism. so i just don't really accept the premise of that idea. trump to go back to what brownstein said a minute ago, ron, i think he is exactly right. trump on the noncollege totally correct. desantis on college educated is correct and i have an easier time believing desantis can cut into the noncollege than i think trump could cut into desantis' existing college educated base. that is why i've always thought even in the polls that show trump ahead desantis har more

room to grow than trump because i'm not sure where he'll find the extra coalition out of college educated voters. >> at some time i think if you think back to mccain, right, and how he would make sure to speak up and push back on maybe something that a voter would say or he would be very vociferous. and this is something you used to hear more from republicans that if there was another republican who was saying something that they thought was bigoted, and they didn't think should represent the party, they would come out against it. right? i mean, sometimes you'll see that they don't come out as vociferously as they used to. i wonder if when you're looking at voters trending in that direction, if that is going to make it more difficult for republicans to do that. >> well, i will just think back on recent examples of this since you're saying sometimes.

which is a nebulous term. the most recent example is when donald trump had kanye west and the other freak over for lunch and virtually every major national republican from every wing of the republican party immediately denounced it. and so i think what you'll find if you look into it is that when people stray off in this ridiculous direction most republicans actually know the difference between right and wrong on this. i'm not saying trump does necessarily because he obviously makes terrible decisions but i think at least in that most recent example where somebody was trying to include somebody that has sort of a stupid and horrific ideology, it was widely condemned by virtually every corner of the republican party. >> look, it is a continuum. there are very few republican voters, very few americans over all who share the preaccepts of outright white nationalism. there is no question the republican coalition particularly in the trump era is centered on voters most uneasy about the way the country is changing, demographically and

culturally. you see in polling up to three-quarters of republican voters say discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against minorities. over #please 0% say the growing number of immigrants is undermining american culture. society is too soft and feminine and punishing men for acting like men. donald trump in his speech in iowa noted last night he got louder applause talking about how classroom teaching of race, gender, and sexual orientation than talking about economic issues. that is where the energy in the party is now and what desantis is trying to appeal to by essentially offering trumpism without trump. the question remains though is that a national majority? i mean, the dividing lines between the parties now is not so much economic as it is how you feel about the way the country is changing. that is a fundamental fault line in our politics and it is clear the energy in the republican party is for candidates who express resistance to that in all sorts of ways from classroom

censorship to book bans to what is happening on lgbtq rights in the red states. >> you can't compare -- it is not right to compare a -- >> that's the thing. >> a republican parent who has concerns about what is happening in the classroom with a white nationalist. it is just not correct to say, well i think schools ought to have this kind of curriculum. that doesn't make you a white nationalist to be concerned about what is being taught in a school. >> i'm not saying -- >> you are trying to link them together but it is not true >> i take your point. >> it is not the same thing but it is on a continuum of concerns about the way the country is changing. >> scott and ron, thank you so much for the spirited discussion. i do really appreciate it. certainly one that i think has to be had. it does. thank you, gentlemen. we do have breaking news of course. a russian fighter jet forcing down a u.s. drone over the black sea.

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back to our breaking news a russian jet has forced down a u.s. drone over the black sea in international waters after spraying it with fuel and colliding with the drone, damaging its propeller. cnn's oren lieberman is at the pentagon gathering new information. >> reporter: we have the latest update from the national security council where the u.s. says it will continue to fly drones over the black sea in international waters where it has flown drones and reaper drones such as this, surveillance platforms, and spy

platforms since even before the start of the war. the u.s. defiantly saying if russia's intent was to deter the u.s. from flying in international air space it simply won't work and there is no need to use the line between the u.s. and russia to keep carrying out these missions, carrying out these operations over the black sea, and that very much is the u.s.'s intent even after a russian fighter jet or two russian fighter jets tried to disrupt a u.s. reaper drone earlier this morning and then damaged the propeller, forcing it down. the u.s. says it will also reach out via the state department to russia to see if there is any explanation or information from the russian side about this. cnn has also reached out to the russian ministry of defense to see if there is a comment about what the u.s. is calling an unsafe and unprofessional intercept carried out by these two russian fighter jets one other point that's worth noting here, just to give our viewers a better perspective of this. the reaper drone is a large

platform. 66-foot wingspan and it can weigh more than $10,000 pounds. for a russian fighter jet to ram this or collide with it in the air, even puts that russian jet at fairly significant risk. and u.s. air force europe also points this out, that that collision risk downing more than just the drone but the russian aircraft as well. an extremely severe incident here as we wait to find out not only how the u.s. will respond, but also the latest on the recovery incident. u.s. air force europe saying they brought down the drone in international waters of the black sea. so we're waiting for an update on whether that has been recovered and how that operation is going at this point. brianna? >> thank you so much for the latest on that. the judge in a major case involving abortion says his court has been targeted with a barrage of death threats. we have that next.

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- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. a federal judge in texas is citing a barrage of death threats and other harassment directed towards his courthouse for why he told lawyers not to publicize a hearing in a major medication abortion case that is set for tomorrow. media outlets and legal experts have criticized this judge who is trump-appointed after "the washington post" reported that he was privately trying to delay announcement of the hearing. he's overseeing a lawsuit seeking to block the use of

medication abortion nationwide. with us now, jessica schneider. what more can you tell us? >> this was all shrouded in secretly until the judge announced tomorrow's hearing would be happening. we've obtained the hearing where the judge explained why he wanted to keep the date and time of tomorrow's hearing off the public docket until the very last minute. he put it this way, because of limited security resources and staffing, i will ask the parties avoid further publicizing the date of the hearing. this is not a gag order, but just a request for courtesy given the death threats and hazarding phone calls and voicemail that this division as received. we want a fluid hearing with all the parties being heard. i think less advertisement of this hearing is better. but, of course, news outlets over the weekend ended up reporting all of this and the judge did finally announce the hearing last night and the reason this is all unfolding

with so much scrutiny and a little bit of secrecy is because this is the first major abortion case since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade last june. and this just is being asked by an antiabortion group to block access to an abortion pill that's ben approved by the fda for 20 years and it's used in the majority of abortions nationwide, meaning the majority of abortions are now performed with this medication. so if this drug is blocked, women in states that already ban most abortions, they'll have their access to abortion virtually disappear and even women in states where abortion is still legal, they will have a much tougher time because access to in-person clinics will be harder to come by if this medication abortion is no longer available since it's the most common method of abortion up to about ten weeks. there is a lot on the line here in this politically charged case that really could affect millions of women who might rely on medication abortions now and in the future.

so this is a hearing that will play out in a texas courtroom. it will be tomorrow morning. 9:00 a.m. central time, 10:00 a.m. eastern. it has drawn a lot of scrutiny, a lot of controversy and who knows what we'll see outside the court tomorrow. but obvious concerns about any violence or protests. brianna? >> many people will be watching this across the country. jessica, thank you for that. that does it for me. we have much more on our breaking news on russia -- a russian jet colliding with a u.s. drone over the black sea forcing it down. stay with us for that.

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