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>> we begin with a wide-ranging attempt to restore americans' confidence in the u.s. economy, after weeks of troubling financial indicators. treasury secretary janet yellen spoke under oath today to answer questions about the controversial actions she and the federal government took to rescue silicon valley bank. >> our banking system is sound and that americans can feel confident that their deposits will be there when they need them. this week's actions demonstrate our resolute commit to ensure that our financial system remains strong. >> yellen also said that no taxpayer money is being used to reimburse those depositors. more on her testimony in just a moment. but first, let's check object markets right now. stocks are surging on word that major banks are in talks to rescue ailing first republic bank. cnn's matt egan is here with us. so talk about this potential rescue of first republic bank.

>> yeah, bianna and victor, over the weekend, we had this government-led rescue. now it looks like we have an industry-led rescue in the works for first republic bank. that is this regional bank, it's based in san francisco. has almost $200 billion in deposits. now, a person familiar with the matter confirms to cnn that first republic bank is in talks to get a capital infusion from big banks. a group of big banks, that includes bank of america, jpmorgan, citigroup, and wells fargo. now, this news first reported by "the wall street journal" has been given the financial equivalent of a standing ovation over on wall street. regional banks were plunging before this news came out. they've all turned higher. big banks are up. the broader stock market was down on the day. it's moving higher. the regional banks up 11% there, first republic. earlier this morning, it was down 36%. that is quite the turnaround. now, we should note that no deal has been announced just yet. all of the banks, they are all declining to comment. but a deal, according to a person familiar with the matter

could be announced as soon as today. clearly, this would be a very significant development, as u.s. officials and now the industry, they try the restore confidence. everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop here. and everyone is kind of wondering what other banks fit the profile of silicon valley bank. namely, a lot of uninsured deposits. like first republic fits that description. that's why its stock has been plunging in recent days. but now if you have a rescue led by the biggest banks, including jpmorgan, that would be a huge boost to confidence. >> let me ask you about this hearing today with the treasury secretary. a lot of frustrations and some fears expressed by senators. what did you hear? >> well, obviously, secretary yellen doing her best to try to get everyone to calm down, try to restore some confidence in the system. there was an interesting back and forth. senator mark warner called out some of the venture capital firms that had been advising their tech start-ups to pull their money from silicon valley bank. the bank lost $42 billion in deposits in one day.

and warner, he equated it to virtually yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and said this will go down in history as the first internet-driven bank run. listen to what secretary yellen had to say about this. >> if a bank has an overwhelming run that's spurred by social media or whatever so that it's seeing deposits flee at that pace, bank can be put in danger of failing. one of the reasons we intervened and declared a systemic risk exception is because of the recognition that there can be contagion in situations like this. and other banks can then fall prey to the same kinds of runs. >> now, we should remind everyone that the fdic insures deposits up to $250,000.

that's per borrower, per bank. but in the last few days, it's obviously shown a willingness by u.s. officials to go above and beyond that and yellen was asked specifically, are all deposits protected now? and she sort of dodged. she said, yes, they are protected, if the majority of regulators at the fdic and at the fed and if she and the president all sort of agree that there's a systemic risk here. >> all right. matt egan, thanks so much. joining us now, john leer. he's a chief economist at morning consult. and gena smilewick, an economy and federal reserve reporter for "the new york times." good to have both of you. let me start with you and the question of how much of what we've seen over the past couple of weeks, specifically starting with svb could have been prevented if the rollbacks from 2018 and 2019 were not in place. is that a clear answer yes if

this could have been prevented by keeping those elements of dodd/frank in place? >> no, it's not clear at all. it's very difficult to tell how much those 2018 rollbacks really mattered. i spent all day yesterday talking to experts about exactly this issue, trying to figure out which ones mattered. and i think that the takeaway here is that it wasn't so much any individual change, as it was the message that those rollbacks sent, which was that mid-sized banks, banks in sort of this sort of regional size band, they didn't pose a systemic risk. you know, they weren't a threat to financial stability on the whole. and that message got sort of engrained in the system. i think it sort of informed how supervisors looked at banks, and that was probably pretty problematic. we just saw this bank was systemic. it coming down caused the government to react in this very dramatic way.

so there'll be a lot of soul searching about not just what went wrong here, but how it could change. >> now there's new reporting that some of the banking behemoths led by jpmorgan may be infusing cash into the beleaguered first republic bank. that, as we heard from matt, is supposed to calm nerves and convince investors that the financial system as a whole is in tact. could that possibly send the opposite reaction, though, that if yet another bank we're hearing about needs this infusion, that that could lead to some kind of contagion and concern about other potential banks out there? >> that's exactly right. i think in the near-term, it calm invs investors and the financial sector. in the longer term, it does highlight how exposed the financial sector is, largely to what jenna just mentioned, which is that we're coming out of a period of five years of very pretty lax bank regulations, supervision, and those low interest rates that we've had, you know, really starting in 2010, 2011, have driven risk and

risk-taking activities in banks that require a high level of supervision and oversight. and we just haven't had that. as interest rates are rising, i think the message for investors is that we will continue to uncover new risk across the financial sector. >> and speaking of interest rates rising, gena, before the collapse of svb, we heard from the fed chair that there would be an accelerated increase, potentially of rates higher than once expected. now we've got this instability. what's the expectation of what the fed will do next week? >> yeah. what a wild week in fed watching world. you know, we previously thought that given how hot inflation was, given how strong the economy has been, that it's possible that we see a really big move from the fed at their meeting on march 22nd. i think that's now much less likely. they're not going to want to be super gaggressive into a moment of instability. that's what most of the

economists i've spoke to are suggesting. we're increasingly seeing a situation where people expect them to raise rates by a quarter point, which is their normal, steady as she goes interest rate increase, which would send a signal that they're still worried about inflation, still trying to bring it down, but they're making maybe being cautious and taking a look around as they wait to see how the situation plays out. >> interesting that we saw the ecb, the european version of the federal reserve, step in and raise rate by 50 basis points today, despite everything that's been going on over there with credit suisse namely being bailed out by the swiss government. people had expected the same, there would be a pause, perhaps a cutback. they kept it as expected. john, let me ask you about what else we heard from treasury secretary yellen today. she said, aside from the banking system remaining as a whole, sound, that svb, much of the investigation into the failure of that bank will be done and conducted by the fdic. is that the appropriate arm to conduct this investigation? >> well, first of all, i want to quickly mention the ecb. i think one of the big

differences here is that the federal reserve was earlier in raising interest rates and the ecb is trying to catch up with the fed. that gives the fed a little bit more leeway. as it relates to the regulatory environment, it's hard to see a world where, you know, congress will accept the federal reserve conducting an investigation of its own actions. and so i would expect at some point, that we'll see some independent assessment. whether that's the fdic or some other oversight branch remains to be seen. >> all right. gena smallick and john leer, gena has a great new book out. incredible video just declassified and released shows the moments a pair of russian fighter jets forced down a u.s. drone over the black sea. in moments, we'll hear from the pentagon and bring you that live. and another call made by former president trump to a top georgia lawmaker in 2020 emerges. where he yet again makes a plea

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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. we have stunning new military video to show you that was just declassified today.

and it shows the moment a pair of russian fighter jets approached a u.s. drone over the black sea and then forced it down. >> the u.s. military says it was able to extract this video in the last 24 hours after the first video was less conclusive. cnn national security reporter natasha bertrand joins us now from the pentagon. natasha, explain what we're learning from this video. just walk us through it. >> yeah, victor. so what we're seeing is this video taken from the drone's perspective. we see the fighter jets kind of rushing up to the drone suddenly, releasing a whole lot of jet fuel on top of the drone, and then the camera kind of cuts out. and that, we are told, is the moment of impact. that is when the jet actually collides with the u.s. drone that was operating over the black sea. after that camera footage comes back, we can see that the propeller on the back of the drone has been damaged. that is proof according to the u.s., all of this is proof, i should say, that that russian

fighter jet did physically hit the u.s. drone. it is important to note here what the russians have been saying about this, which is a denial, essentially, for the last three days, we have been saying that they did not physically hit this drone. and that their pilots acted in a very responsible and professional manner. well, the u.s. has released this video now, according to the white house, in order to show that the russians, quote, flat-out lied about how this incident went down. we should note that this was not the action of a rogue pilot, according to our sources, the u.s. believes that russian -- that russian -- senior russian officials within the russian ministry of defense actually did order the pilots to take this kind of action and to harass the drone to intercept the drone. whether that clipping of the propeller was on purpose remains to be seen. it is still unclear what their actual intent was there. but the fact remains that the u.s. believes that this video really vindicates their description of events. it really solidifies their narrative here. and shows that the russians have been dishonest.

in terms of whether the u.s. or russia for that matter are going to be able to recover any wreckage, that remains to be seen. we are told that the russians have arrived at the site of the crash, but it's going to be difficult for them to recover anything sensitive, because, again, according to u.s. officials, the u.s. has taken steps to wipe any sensitive information from that drone so it does not fall into russian hands. victor? >> the russians traditionally, as of late, at least, have had problems with the truth. they also said that this took place over russian territory, right, and air space. >> or they just flat-out lie. >> that's another way of putting it. >> natasha bertrand, thank you. >> joining us to discuss is colonel cedric layton and jill dougherty. colonel, to you first. in terms of what stands out to you in this video. clearly, we can see both of these russian jets approaching this drone. but what's interesting is the russian's response here in terms of at least what we're hearing if our own intelligence, that

this wasn't perhaps just one or two rogue pilots, that this order may have been given from the top of the military command there. >> yeah, that's right, brianna. in fact, when you study the russian air force, the way in which they do business, they are very much controlled by their ground controllers, who are, of course, in turn controlled by the commanders of the various units and all the way up -- all the way to moscow central. these guys do not act on their own. they are very much a force that does the bidding of the higher-ups, and rogue pilot in that military is a very rare thing. it does happen, but it's very rare. in this particular case, i'm certain that the pilot was acting on orders from above. >> jill, a couple of outstanding questions, varying degrees of relevance here. whether the pilot intended to clip the drone, whether the instruction from the russian defense ministry was to clip the

drone, but the harassment according to sources did come from the top of the defense ministry. above that, this general campaign of an tagonizing u.s./british assets, that comes from putin. whether he ordered this specific harassment, the campaign we've seen over some time, that comes from the kremlin. >> oh, it's been going on for a very long time. in fact, in other areas, you know, up in the baltics, you have constant flights coming close to borders, a lot of harassment, and kind of, you know, tempting fate with very close maneuvers, getting close to military carriers in the ocean. so this is not new. but i think what the russians are trying to say is, we got a special military operation ongoing in that region. and we got into your space and

we said it's a special military operation and that is our space. the united states says, that is international waters and the united states and others have a right to freely travel in that region. and i think that is where you're going to have to keep watching this, but if the united states says it's going to continue what it's been doing and russia says that's our territory, it does lead us into potential areas in the future. >> and we heard from the defense secretary the other day defiant, saying that we will continue our operations in international territory and air space, as well. let me ask you, colonel, about what we saw out of poland today, the announcement that they would be supplying ukraine with four soviet-made migs. how significant is that? already we have the white house responding that this doesn't alter their decision to not give the u.s. planes at this point. but these four migs, how significant is that for ukraine right now? >> well, symbolically, bianna,

it's a huge deal. now, four migs, that's, you know, adds a little bit to the ukrainian capability. it's certainly four migs they didn't have before. they are very good aircraft. now they've reached the end of their operational life and polish president duda has specifically said that they've reached the end of their operational life. poland has a total of 28 of these aircraft. they want to retire those and get new aircrafts, including f-16s, and that's why they're fairly free or feel fairly free to give these to the ukrainians. symbolically, this is a big deal. it won't change the course of the war yet, but if the ukrainians get all 28 migs from poland, it could perhaps change some things tactically. and that, of course, is a significant thing. >> we're awaiting an update from brigadier general pat ryder at

the pentagon nmews conference. i expect he'll talk more about this video. live camera there. before we go into that, one more to you, jill, on this collision between the rupssian jet and th drone. there's not a suggestion yet from the administration that there will be consequences for that militarily, diplomatically, even economically with sanctions. if there is no concentrated consequence for that, what's the message to putin if there is one? >> well, i think the message is still being delivered, that the united states is going to continue doing what it's doing and russia will just have to accept that or not. and so backing down, i think, for the administration really would be bad. it says, we are continuing, we have the right to do it in international waters, and that's it. so i think there actually is an answer. and you know, another thing about this, it's very difficult to figure out whether incompetence by the russian

military, the air force has played a role here. because we do know at least it's understood that there was intentional harassment. but whether or not those pilots actually wanted to crash into it and hit it is another question. because there was a lot of -- still a lot of incompetence and hot dogging, as americans would say, by the russian air force. so i think -- some of this a little -- still a little unclear, i think. >> jill, we're tight on time, but i would be remiss not to ask you since you watch russian media so closely, how is this being depicted on russian media right now? >> not a whole lot. >> i was looking to see whether anyone had included the video. i have not seen them replaying the video. just kind of quoting what russian officials have said, which is, you know, we didn't do it. we didn't touch it, et cetera. so we'll have to see how we -- this is difficult for them to deal with, as you can imagine. >> that video tells a different story from their own. colonel cedric layton and jill

dougherty, thank you. and as victor just said, any minute we'll receive an update from the pentagon on the release of the downed drone video. we'll bring that to you once it begins. and the family of a man who died while in police custody. they're holding a press conference right now after seeing the video of the incident. you'll see more of what they're saying and what comes next for the seven officers and three hospital workers charged in this case. you could save hundrededs. that's a great idea,a, tv dad. listen to your tv dad. drivers who switch and save with progressive save nearly $700 on average. ♪ what will you do? will you make something better? create something new? our dell technologies advisors can provide you with the tools and exrtise you need to bring out the innovator in you.

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donald trump's former personal attorney michael cohen says that new york prosecutors have a mountain of evidence in their investigation into hush money payments made to stormy

daniels. now cohen, who wrapped a second day of testimony before a grand jury yesterday, now the second day just this week, told cnn despite what the public may think of him personally, he believes the former president should be held accountable. >> and i'm prepared to tell you, they have a tremendous amount of information. a lot of people have attacked my credibility. truth be told, at the end of the day, they can attack me all they want. this -- this case is not going to be predicated on any one individual, but rather, it's going to be predicated on the documents, the evidence, the text messages, the e-mails. >> daniels also met with prosecutors wednesday and agreed to testify as a witness if needed. the former president has denied any wrongdoing. now turning to russia, where fulton county investigators have more audio of donald trump pressuring state officials to overturn the 2020 election. jurors on the grand jury that investigated the former

president tell "the atlanta journal-constitution" that they held a december 2020 conversation between trump and george's late speaker of the house, david recalston. >> this is the third known reporting of the former president urging republican officials to push election lies. so what's on these tapes? >> okay, so this is new to us, just that the call was recorded. again, as you said, it was former president donald trump and he was essentially urging the late speaker of the georgia house to try to convene a special session so that they could overturn the results of the 2020 election. now, actually, ralston spoke about this call in an interview, and here's what he said about his conversation with the former president. he said, obviously, he would like a special session of the georgia general assembly. he's been clear on that before and he was clear on that in the phone conversation yesterday. you know, i shared with him my belief that based on the understanding that i have of georgia law that it was going to be very much an uphill battle. now, it would have been an

uphill battle for two reasons. georgia's general assembly can only be called into a special session in one of two ways. one would have had to have been through the governor, brian kemp, and trump tried to pressure kemp. kemp rejected that. the other way would have been for the general assembly to convene themselves as a special session. and what we've learned at that time is that you would have to have the signatures of three fifths of the house members to actually go forward with this, and they just didn't have enough republicans at that time. again, this was a recorded call, and as you mentioned, these jurors said that they were listening to this as part of their evidence that they were presented with. and this is, again, just the third recorded call that we know has been presented in this case. when you look at this, it's all different manner. one, you have trying to convene a special case. on the second one, frances watson, he was trying to encourage her to find fraud in the election. and the other, secretary of

state brad raffensperger. they were trying to get him to quote/unquote find votes. the reason this is so important, it gives us more of the insight into what exactly the grand jury was hearing and seeing as it was asked to recommend or decide upon these indictments. >> kristen holmes, we'll see how influential this is on the decisions made in this case. thank you. an alarming report from the cdc. the maternal death rate rose significantly once again. so what's driving the uptick and who is impacting the most? that's next. a man, his family, and his tractor, penny. these are the upshaws. and this is their playground there's a story in eve piece of land, run with us on a john dee tractor and start telling yours. ♪ this feels so right... ♪

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black sea. so we are going to be check back in there we hear from the spokesperson speaking right now, not on this issue in particular, but of course, we're monitoring it for you and as soon as he does, we will bring viewers there. >> the video, about 40 seconds shows the moment of impact of this russian jet with the u.s. drone. and the longer video is about 30 to 40 minutes, we're told. but you can see here, the dumping of the fuel over the drone, as described by the u.s., denied by the russians, and then there's a highlighting of the damaged propeller that forced u.s. remote pilots to have to bring it down into the black sea. it's now under 4,000 to 5,000 feet of water. the russians now in the area who say that they are going to try to retrieve that. let's bring in now, retired colonel cedric layton ahead of hopefully the section where they talk about this video at this briefing. we'll take everyone there. what are you expecting to hear, colonel, once we check in with

brigadier general pat ryder? >> yes, so what i'm expecting to hear is perhaps some more detail, victor, on exactly what happened. you know, we do know that they dumped fuel on the drone, as you mentioned. we also know that they clipped the propeller and we saw that damage that you pointed out there. so those are things that affect the air worthiness of the drone. it could have caused serious damage, it could have caused the damage to careen into an area where it could have potentially killed somebody if it had been over land. of course, it wasn't. it was in the black sea. what also is interesting is that this occurred in waters that are not only international, but much closer to turkish waters or bulgarian waters than to russian or ukrainian waters. it's very interesting to see the story about this. but i'm expecting more technical details and perhaps some indication of what the d.o.d. response is going to be to this in terms of more flights and

more things that they might do from a reconnaissance perspective in this particular area. >> colonel, two bits of information that we got today, i would love to get you to respond to and weigh in on. one is that we heard from u.s. sources that intelligence suggests that this wasn't perhaps just one or two rogue pilots. that it may have gone up to the head of the russian military in terms of ordering this interception, right? and the question is whether or not actually hitting this drone was their intention. but the maneuvering was. it's clear of that. the other issue is that we heard today from military officials that this aggressive, the increase in these intercepts and russia's aggression has dramatically increased since march and that the russian military has been conducting similar-type operations and dangerous maneuvers in syria. so does this tell you perhaps that this is sort of a new strategy being conducted by the unction military? before you answer that, i do want to hear you answer, we're going to go to the pentagon, because they're just addressing

this drone. >> if you could talk a little bit more about why the pentagon decided to declassify the video of the drone. and whether or not releasing it, you know, increases the risks of russia framing this conflict instead of being a conflict between russia and ukraine, but being between russia and the west. >> first of all, it's not unusual for us to release imagery of unsafe, unprofessional incidents. we've done that in other situations. particularly in this case, given the reckless and dangerous behavior and to demonstrate publicly what type of actions the russians had taken, we felt that it was important to provide this imagery. certainly, there are certain considerations that we have to take into account when dealing with imagery to include the classification, to ensure that we're not inadvertently putting out sensitive information, but in this case, we're able to work through that and provide that. as far as russian perceptions,

again, i think it's important to take a step back and look at the big picture here. the united states' focus in the region, the focus with ukraine is solely on providing ukraine with the support that it needs to defense itself. you've heard us say before that ukraine has a right to defend itself and we have a right to help them alongside the international community to do that. so the united states does not seek conflict with russia. we do not seek escalation with russia. and so we're going to continue to stay focused on our primary mission in the ukraine area, which is supporting ukraine in its fight. >> and declassifying the video and releasing it, you know, russia has suggested that it didn't show the actual contact. how does this really just counter that narrative and show that this happened the way that the pentagon has said it has? >> well, i think that our words and our actions speak for themselves. and similarly, russia's inaccurate information, false

information, obfuscation, grasping at straws, changing narratives also speaks for itself. we're going to stay focused on the facts and stay focused on our mission. let me go to the next question, liz? >> first part of my questions are, did the u.s. ask for an apology from russia on taking down the drone and did russia offer an apology? >> no, we did not ask for an apology. again, our focus was on highlighting the fact as we've made very clearly publicly and privately that the united states will continue to fly and operate in international air space in accordance with international law. >> thank you. and my second part is, it's come out that russian officials ordered the pilots to be aggressive towards the drone and today the centcom commander told the senate armed services committee that he's seen increased russian aggression in the middle east. is this something that the u.s. is concerned about? does the u.s. have any promises that russia will decrease its

aggression? >> liz, what i would tell you is again, our focus is on conducting our operations in support of our national security interests, our allies, and our partners around the world. ultimately, the russian military and the russian government is responsible for its own behavior. and when that behavior is unsafe and unprofessional, we'll call it out as we've done in this case. and so that will continue to be our focus. you've heard secretary austin, you've heard the general in europe and others call on the russians to be safe and professional in conducting their operations and that would be the expectation going forward. thank you. will? >> so, secretary austin has said that the u.s. will continue to fly wherever international law allows. in light of that, has the u.s. operated mq-9s over the black sea since the collision and crash? >> so i'm not going to get into talking about specific missions, routes, timelines of operations.

i think secretary austin was pretty clear that we'll continue to fly and operate in international air space where international allows and that includes the black sea region. thank you. travis? >> thanks, pat. i had a couple of questions about the suicide working group. i think i heard you say that the secretary is immediately implementing some of the recommendations that the working group will be looking at the other recommendations. i wanted to confirm whether the recommendation for new restrictions on the purchase and storage of personal firearms on base is included in the first tranche or if the working group is still considering -- >> thanks, travis. that will be something that the working group will examine in further detail and come back to the secretary with their assessment and their recommendation. >> and if i could just follow up, on the recommendations that the secretary did decide to implement, why did he choose those specific recommendations? >> sure. so those recommendations are primarily focused on behavioral

and mental health. there are areas where the department already has the authorities necessary to take immediate action. and so that was the primary driver, was of those recommendations, what are the things that we can move on right now that will make a difference for our service members? thank you. over here to roe and then to chris? >> thank you, general. two questions. first, that japanese prime minister kishida met with south korean president today in tokyo and agreed to normalize the operations -- >> we're getting into some other questions there, but we heard from general ryder there that the u.s. does not seek conflict with russia, and essentially, the strategy here is to continue these reconnaissance flights there above the black sea undeterred. let's bring in cnn pentagon correspondent oren liebermann and bring back retired colonel cedric layton.

first, oren, headlines out of what we just heard. >> general pat ryder hit home on the point that the u.s. seized this as international air space and the u.s. will continue to operate there with surveillance drones and other assets as it sees fit. the u.s. has every right to do that. brigadier general pat rider hitting home on that point. then asked, why release the video, and he said, the u.s. release videos when it sees fit, after it goes through a declassification process. we were tracking this video as it was moving through that declassification process, essentially. but it also underscored that the account of the u.s. was the one that more accurately depicted what happened here. this after the russian ambassador to the u.s., pretty quickly after this all came out, denied that there was any contact, physical contact between the russian and fighter jets and the drones. it was important for the u.s. to put this out there to make clear what actually happened here, victor and bianna. and it was also note that the

brigadier general said that no apology was asked for, and none was given. not that we expect one from the redu russians. but we did see whether this was a new tram. this more aggressive behavior by the rupgs military and more of these intercepts not some in the black sea, but in the middle east and in syria. he sort of deflected that question. so i'm hoping you with your expertise can weigh in and give us your thoughts. >> i definitely think that that is the case, bianna. the key things here is that the russians go in waves. sometimes they will be much more aggressive when it comes to intercepting reconnaissance flights. with their more aggressive approach, that all changes. the rule book becomes a different one. and what the russians end up doing is they end up taking very

aggressive maneuvers against manned and unmanned areal vehicles. and so that can have some significant consequences, not only in the black sea area, but in the baltic and other areas along the russian border. >> colonel, this drone is now under about a mile of water. is this the retrieval worth the work for either the u.s., which says that it's unlikely they'll retrieve it, or for the russians, who have some assets in the area and say they will go after that drone? >>y yeah, it's going to be hard for either side to do this, victor. the russians will look at it as getting a propaganda coup if they can get this up in a profitable fashion. if they can pull it up and say, look what we have, that will be a propaganda thing for them. as far as the u.s. is concerned, you know, it would certainly be good if we could take it back, if we could get the pieces and parts that have crashed into the

black sea and safeguard them from the russians. but it is not absolutely essential that we do so. basically, with the rendering null and void of the software that was onboard, it really takes out all of the intelligence parts that are really important that would be useful to the russians and so if that is true, they were able to in essence zero all the data that was important and it's not that important that we get this back. but symbolically, it would be good for us to take possession of it rather than having it fall into russian hands. >> it would be questionable also if the russians would divert any resources to try to recover this drone, given how strapped they are in terms of fighting in the eastern ukraine, as well right now. oren liebermann and colonel cedric layton, thank you. >> look at this mess. this is key west. there's a seaweed invasion. that's what we're calling it,

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rule on whether to overturn the fda's approval of the abortion bill mifepristone says he will release his opinion as soon as possible. the agency approved use of the drug more than 20 years ago. the plaintiffs seeking to ban the medication say it's unsafe, but the majority of the medical community disagree. >> elizabeth cohen joins us now. how common are medication

abortions, and the big question people are asking because this drug has been around for 23 years now, are they safe? >> they are very common, these drugs, and they are very, very safe. so let's take a look beyond the numbers. first, i think a lot of people don't know exactly how these medications work. the first step is one pill of mifepristone is taken. usually that's in the first ten weeks of pregnancy, and then a day or two later, four pills is taken, that is a second, a different kind of drug. and so if you take a look from the time that this drug went on the market in 2000, the popularity has really grown. so right now, more than half of abortions in the united states, about 53%, are done with these pills. not as a surgical procedure. that is more than 490,000 medication abortions every year. now, let's take a look at the

safety. of course, no drug is completely safe. if you look at mifepristone, it's about five deaths per million users. penicillin, very common antibiotic, 20 deaths per 1 million users, and viagra, 49 deaths per million users. these drugs are very safe and very common. if this lawsuit is successful, about 40 million additional women are not going to be able to access these drugs to have abortions, and remember, these drugs are also used for miscarriages. they're not just used for abortions. victor, bianna. >> fda approved. if this lawsuit is successful, what's the potential for the fda more broadly? >> it's really kind of an overwhelming, what this mean for the fda more broadly, when you think about it. drugs go through an fda approval process. actual teams of scientists spend lots and lots of time making

sure a drug should go on the market. so one judge in just one random judge is allowed to say no, the fda was wrong. we're going to take that off the market. that could be quite scary because what other judge drugs judge going to say, i don't like it, i think it should come off the market, and pharmaceutical companies could say do we really want to invest in these drugs, we get them through the fda, and some random judge says i don't think this belongs on the market. it's really allowing judges to decide things other than scientists. >> we're awaiting the decision from this judge. elizabeth cohen, thank you. some florida beaches are seeing a large amount, and our producer called it a gargantuan amount, i think that's fair, of seaweed coming ashore, and listen, this won't be the last of it. >> this thick, bushy, and smelly species, a huge blob of it

stretching over 5,000 miles is reportedly floating in the atlantic ocean right now. bill weir joins us. we're not really selling this and describing this as, i don't know, surprising and shocking as it is. >> the blob, the 5,000-mile blob. >> what is this? >> did you know that in the middle of the atlantic is the sargasss sea? this species is contained by these currents that keep it in place as it breaks down and then sinks. this chunk got away and is now sort of hitting the yucatan peninsula, the mayan riviera. some islands say we need like 15,000 dump trucks a day to move this stuff. when it starts rotting, it creates a sulfate gas which is be stinky and bad for your health. it's good in the ocean, great for fish and for ecosystems. it's great at pulling down carbon, but hitting the beaches can be devastating to the tourism community down there. it's been growing. we don't know if it's the result

of warmer waters and nutrient pollution, which drives a lot of red tides and toxic algae blooms around florida. all yourfort fertalizers and hurricanes mix them up and you see these toxic blooms. it could be a similar trend with this stuff. it could also be an ally, and there's a fix for this, actually. i was talking to agua culture specialists who are in the business now of capturing carbon with seaweed, and they tomorrow, you could have a dozen guys from maine down there with the equipment to do it, use trawlers and nets. crop it up on barges at sea and put it in the ocean. it pulls carbon out of the sea and sky and locks it away below. right now, there's no incentive to do that unless whether the states or cities or -- >> or hotels. >> exactly, get those guys going down there. i guarantee you're going to see an increased call for this as it gets closer to florida. >> keep the bags packed. if the beaches look like this

for the next several months, they're getting a call. >> you said it's safe and healthy in the middle of the ocean. not as much when it's coming onshore. >> marty oddland creating an ocean community called running tide. he's using seaweed that sinks near iceland to look at this as a carbon sponge. maybe there should be clean beach credits for every fisherman who is ship in and keep that stuff from hitting the shore. it's much harder when it hits shore. >> a 5,000-mile smelly blob is a tourism turnoff. hopefully they'll get that fixed. >> there is time. it probably won't hit until july. >> a few months there. bill weir, thank you. top of a new hour on cnn newsroom. i'm victor blackwell. >> i'm bianna going lodryga. we heard