good monday -- monday? what am i doing here, jim, that is not good. good wednesday morning, everybody. i'm erica hill. >> and i'm jim sciutto. lots of new economic data in this morning, new numbers show americans are spending, slightly less, but positive news on

inflation. prices fell dramatically last month for manufacturers. of course, those costs passed down to consumers eventually. the flip side, there are still banking fears simmering, futures way down ahead of the opening bell, you can see there. what all of this means as we get another big decision coming, that is, the feds, whether it will raise interest rates again. plus this morning escalating tensions after an alarming encounter over the black sea, a russian fighter jet colliding with an unmanned u.s. drone. that $23 million aircraft then crashing into the sea and the race is now on to recover it. extreme life-threatening weather continues to hammer both coasts this morning. record rain, swamping california, heavy snow, 3 feet in some areas, burying the northeast. this morning nearly half a million people without power. we are going to get to all of that, but we do want to begin with the economy this morning, this new data that just dropped, cnn chief business correspondent christine romans is with us.

these are the latest numbers. what do these numbers show? >> okay, these numbers show inflation cooling pretty dramatically at the frakt ri floor and that's what we want to see, quite frankly, 4.6% is the annual inflation rate for the ppi, the producer price index, and month on month it actually fell, prices fell. factory-level inflation down month to month. so that's an important number. when you look at the chart of it, it really clearly shows that a peak has been put in on the inflation front here and dramatic retreat in those inflationary pressures. important to watch there. retail sales a separate government report, very important because the consumer drives so much of the american economy, right? the consumer spent less. consumer spending fell, retail sales fell 0.4% from january to february. still up year on year, these are not adjusted for inflation, but you can see how choppy it's been, the consumer spending number, the retail sales number has been pretty choppy here.

i think both of these two numbers taken together maybe give the fed, the federal reserve, a little bit of space to go slow on rate hikes in the very near term here because inflation is cooling, the consumer might be slowing down a little bit, isn't that what the fed wanted to see, right? taking some of the froth out of the u.s. economy, guys. >> you have this other concern that those rising rates helped spark the banking crisis we saw over the weekend. after some positive signs yesterday in the markets, we're now seeing futures down and concerns particularly about those regional banks. i mean, is the fear of contagion back after it seemed to have receded yesterday? >> i think we should, everyone, prepare yourself for some choppy days ahead here as we figure out what's exactly happening in the banking system. the concern today doesn't come from those regional banks, it comes from europe where credit suisse is down 20%, record low there, a few other european banks have actually halted

trading because they have had big dramatic moves. credit suisse announced to its investors and this has had several scandal -- scandal-plagued in the past year, year and a half or so, but this bank said it found some material -- some material inconsistencies in its numbers, it's got to try to raise some more money. so there's some issues happening with credit suisse but it's just sort of reinvigorating the other concerns we have been seeing overall in the banking system, both in europe and in the united states. >> so not necessarily connected but the timing couldn't be worse. >> timing couldn't be worse. we saw some stability in regional banks yesterday but this morning you have larry fink the ceo of blackrock with a out out to his investors talking about the sins essentially of years and years of easy money. we don't know what's going to happen and what kind of weaknesses are in the system. that's according to larry fink. >> christine romans, thanks so much. we will check back in with the markets when they open at the

bottom of the hour. joining us now to discuss, new economic data, cnn economics and political commentator katherine rappel. >> great to join you. >> lots of questions given there's a lot of data. >> ppai way down, consumer prices down, though not quite as much, concern about rising interest rates and how that contributed to these banking troubles. does that give the fed in your view enough room to not raise rates at the next decision or at least raise them less? >> the fed has a bunch of different difficult tradeoffs to consider here, right? the war against inflation is not over, however, the things that they need to do to tackle inflation have these unintended consequences of potentially destabilizing the economy and we have already seen potentially destabilizing financial markets. so i think it's a little bit unclear. if you look at today's ppi numbers, yes, the headline number is down, but that was largely driven by egg prices returning back to more normal

levels, like 8 0% of the overal decline was about egg prices returning back to where they should have been. that has nothing to do with overall inflation trends, that's just the avian flu primarily. how much weight the fed will put on this particular report i do not know. i do think they will be likely more cautious about raising rates as aggressively in their next meeting because they want to err on the side of not breaking the banking system at this point. >> you also write in your most recent piece in "the post" this isn't -- while they may be more cautious, certainly on monday morning there was a lot of talk about maybe the fed won't raise rates at all at their next meeting and you said that shouldn't actually be the course here because there still needs to be some action taken. >> i think at their next meeting, which is next week, to be clear, it would be reasonable for them to say, okay, we're going to do a smaller rate hike than the markets may have expected, you know, before this whole meltdown with silicon

valley bank, or even a pause, as long as they are clear it is just a temporary pause, it is not a full-blown stop. because, again, the war on inflation is not over. it is true that raising interest rates partly contributed to the turmoil in the banking system, but the bigger problem in the banking system in my view has to do with poor risk management and probably poor oversight from regulators at the fed and elsewhere, which is not strictly about interest rates rising, it's about silicon valley bank making some really dumb decisions about where it invested its money, things that should have been caught and anticipated by the regulators, by the supervisors before all of this happened. so, again, i get they have -- the fed has really tricky obstacles in every which way, every possible direction, but if they signal to markets that they're giving up on inflation, which i don't think that they're doing, to be clear, but if a

pause were interpreted as a stop, it could be interpreted that way, i think that could be very bad. it means that the -- the inflationary forces which we have seen so far could become more entrenched and harder to fight later on. you know, this battle isn't over. i do not envy the fed its choices at present, but, yeah, it's difficult. >> listen, they could have acted earlier so i'm not going to exactly cry for them. >> i agree. >> you mentioned oversight here. there were stress tests put into place after the 2008 financial crisis, the banks involved here went through stress tests, those stress tests did not watch these big bets on interest rates as you mentioned here. do the stress tests need to be fixed or tightened? >> well, there was -- there was a partial roll back, as you know -- >> i know. >> -- of the dodd/frank regulations that basically said banks of this side did not need to be stress tested as frequently. we don't know if that is the reason why this wasn't caught. if you look at silicon valley

bank's annual financial filings, they were saying in pretty clear words what they were doing and some of these dumb risk management decisions that they were making that basically they weren't hedging against the expected rise in interest rates. i think some of the stuff maybe should have been caught, even without the, you know, obscure technicalities of a stress test. i think we don't know if the failure here was about that deregulation or if it was about regulators asleep at the switch who should have caught this independent of that particular test being conducted. i think it's going to take a little while to figure out out where the screw up was essentially. >> katherine ra pell, thank you. an important programming note for you, tonight on cnn prime time, bank bust, what's next for america's money? be sure to tune in, hosted by poppy harlow, as we take a closer look at what happened and what it means for your money. right now officials working to ensure that a downed u.s. military drone does not fall into the wrong hands, this after

russian fighter jets forced it down, it happened over the black sea. >> the white house is calling the incident, quote, unsafe, unprofessional and reckless. moscow denying its jets ever came into contact with the drone. cnn national security correspondent kylie atwood is at the state department with more. kylie, walk us through the u.s. version of events here. i saw john kirby very much dismissing that russian denial here and also does the u.s. even have the possibility of recovering this? >> reporter: well, look, what the u.s. is focused on right now is trying to make sure that any information that was on this drone isn't compromised. so they say that they have taken steps and there are no definitive answers as to if it's actually going to be recovered. right now this drone is in the black sea, u.s. officials are saying that, you know, their efforts to recover it, but they don't actually know if they are going to be able to do that. right now what we're hearing from u.s. officials, however, is that this isn't going to stop the u.s. from flying drones in international air spaces and

this was international air space. so they are being very definitive this morning and yesterday and saying that even though this incident occurred, which the secretary of defense this morning called aggressive, risky and unsafe on behalf of the russians, they're not going to be changing their behavior. i think that is a really key point to be making this morning. listen to how john kirby put it on cnn this morning. >> they don't belong in ukraine. secondly, they certainly don't belong in crimea. we were flying, again, well outside of air space that was -- that's claimed by -- by ukraine or any other country. the black sea doesn't belong to russia, it belongs to many countries and the united states has been operating there on the sea and in the air and we're going to continue to operate again in complete accordance with international law. >> reporter: of course, one thing that we will be watching for over the course of the next few days is if the u.s. puts out any imagery of this incident

actually occurring. we know from john kirby there is imagery that the u.s. has collected. we will see if the pentagon puts that out. that could rebut the russian versions of events here saying that nothing actually happened. and also what else does the u.s. do going forward? obviously they have delivered very clear messages to russia in public, they have also done so privately. they summoned the russian ambassador here in washington, d.c. to the state department yesterday to deliver some clear messages on this, but is there anything else that the united states does in response to this specific incident? and we also heard from the kremlin spokesperson this morning talking about u.s. russia relations being at their lowest point. today we're expected to hear from president putin himself. we will watch to see what the secretary of state says in terms of how this incident impacts those relations. guys? >> all important questions. kylie, appreciate the reporting. thank you. joining us now to discuss cnn military analyst retyrrell commander general mark hertling.

as we look at where things stand this morning, i know you told anderson cooper last night that you doubt this incident was a result of a direct order, that it was more in your frame a pilot that did some really dumb things. how concerned are you that an episode like this could escalate? >> you know, erica, this is normal operations in europe, truthfully. the nato air policing has been involved using aircraft to intercept and scramble against russian incursion into air space. so that is what's normal. what's very abnormal is the way the russians fly. there have been multiple times when they have gotten too close to aircraft, it's one thing to try to intercept a plane or shadow a plane, a nato plane, it's another thing to get this close where you damage an aircraft, dumping fuel on an

aircraft. that's just unprofessional, unsafe behavior like the white house and john kirby has said. i'm not as concerned about intercepts of aircraft, i am very concerned and have been for a very long time, even during my time in europe, about the quality of russian pilots and the way they intercept and conduct their operations. >> there's a big picture issue here as well because it's the second time in about six weeks where you have had a super power shoot down another super power's aircraft or take it down. you had the chinese surveillance balloon flying over u.s. territory, the u.s. shot that down, thankfully in both cases these are uncrewed drones, as opposed to crewed aircraft, but you do see increasing boldness in terms of who flies where, and who is challenged. what is keeping these incidents from escalating? >> not a whole lot, jim, truthfully. this is violation of the norms of an international agreement. with the chinese they put a balloon across the middle of the

united states, inside sovereign territory. with the russians they believe -- they actually believe that the black sea is their personal lake and as you just -- as kylie just mentioned, there are multiple other countries surrounding the black sea, turkey, romania, moldova, all have access to the sea. so this is not a national territory for russia. and to interfere with an aircraft that's in international air space or a ship that's in international water is just a violation of the laws of global commerce and relationships. so that's the difference here. russia thinks they can continue to violate these kind of rules, as does china in many cases, and i think it's, you know, important to stand up and say, no, we will not be impeded by these kind of incursions into international territory. >> talk to us quickly if you could about that hardware and the reality of whether or not this drone is going to be recovered, and recovered i would say most importantly by the

united states. >> you know, what i'd like to say, erica, is i'm really concerned is how did the propeller on this reaper get damaged? that propeller is in the rear of the aircraft and it doesn't stick out that far. so there must have been some hellacious flying by this russian pilot. in terms of recovery of the drone, i don't know. if you tell me where it landed or where it was and its track, i might be able to give you a better indication, but it's -- if it's in the middle of the black sea, monitoring either russian military activity or merchant shipping activity, as part of the grain embargo, then i could give you a better idea might it be recovered. truthfully, nato's navys don't have a lot of presence in the black sea. there's a yearly exercise called sea breeze but that hasn't happened in a while where they put 12 or 14 nato ships in that area, they might be able to recover t it's not a matter of just going offshore and picking

up a drone. we don't know where it is, the american people don't, i'm sure the government does. we don't know where it is, we don't know how deep in the water it is, we don't know how we can get to it. i don't think the chances of recovering is very high. >> would be remarkable if the pentagon releases video that districts the russian allegations here. mark hertling, always good to have you. >> pleasure. thanks. coming up next, parts of new england buried now in more than 3 feet of snow causing major travel disruptions, power outages, got to be cold, too. hats ott omicron variant to this utility worker trying to put the lights back on in the midst of blizzard conditions. in california torrential rain, mudslides and hurricane force wind gusts, one of those caught on camera. >> and i started to tell him it looks like it's leaning -- there it goes. there it goes.

oh, my god. oh. >> we will take you live to california and massachusetts. >> anyway -- also ahead, seven sheriff's deputies in virginia arrested, charged with second-degree murder for the death of a man in police custody. what we know about the case. that's what you get from the m morgan stanley client experience. you geget listening more than talking, and a persrsonalized plan built on insights and innovative technology. you get grit, vision, and the creativity to guide you through a changing world. ♪

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create dangerous conditions. you're either getting rained on or snowed on on the east coast and west coast. let's go to natasha chen in ventura county, also derek van dam freezing it up in massachusetts. derek, we talked to you yesterday, it was getting worse then, how much snow fell and what do we expect today and going forward? >> reporter: i mean, so many people were catapulted back into winter with this latest nor'easter. it took an entire winter season to get our first nor'easter along the new england coastline and, boy, did it deliver. some people might have called this a dud, in boston you only had half an inch of snow, in new york city you had a trace, but don't tell that to the people of coal rain, massachusetts, to minors or let's say stony creek, new york, they both received 3 feet of very heavy, very wet snowfall that is extremely difficult to plow and to clear. i call this heart attack snow

because it is that heavy and that challenging to shovel manually. get to my graphics, i want to show you what's the latest with the storm system. you are looking at what is called a water vapor imagery. you can see that counterclockwise motion with this low just meandering off the east coast and this thing is driving in very strong winds. so that heavy wet snow that i showed you a minute ago, it was accumulating on top of the trees and the power lines. so with the wind picking up, a ne northeasterly wind, the potential still exists for those power outages to increase through the course of the day today as winds will gust in excess of 50 miles per hour. the snow tapering off, that's not so much a concern, but double-check your flight as you head to the airports today because there could be some delays still as a ramification of this latest storm system to impact the east coast. incredible to see that both sides of the country being impact bid wild winter weather. >> it really is. as we look at what's happening

on the west coast, natasha, this is the 11th atmospheric river to sweep through california, i think it's a term that most of us only learned this year, and now we're looking at number 12? >> reporter: yeah, erica, this is coming next week, another one, but i do want to point out that this neighborhood has been flooded like this since the january storms. this has been sitting like this for two months, and i'm not going to step too much further back because it's actually quite muddy down here and the feet are getting stuck on the bottom but i do want to show you over here is actually someone's driveway, they thankfully removed their cars with the worst storm in january that hit and because there have been so many storms back to back they've now gotten a lot of practice, a lot of sandbags. so people here are just bracing themselves for more rain coming next week. another problem that we saw within the last 24 hours was not just heavy rain, but also places

experiencing extremely high wind gusts. take a look at this video from san francisco, this would be the former bank of america center where people noticed that things were falling from the building and it was actually glass. it was the window cracking and falling there that local officials said was because of the high winds. extremely dangerous and frightening to the people around that block. and in contra costa county they posted a photo we saw of a couple small planes that were flipped at their airport. so a lot of different issues going on and as you mentioned another atmospheric river coming next week. thankfully for this neighborhood we are talking about 20 homes or so here, you know, they do have a different way out of here, but it is certainly extremely inconvenient and the only silver lining is perhaps they might have an easier time during wildfire season because of all the moisture, jim and erica? >> goodness. extremes at both ends.

natasha and derek stay warm. thanks so much. another story we're following this morning, disturbing, seven deputies in virginia have been charged with second-degree murder after a man died in police custody. the prosecutor's office says the deputies were transferring the man to a hospital when he became combative and had to be physically restrained, say police. >> cnn's brynn gingras is following this investigation. brynn, there are still a number of unknowns at this hour, specifically some unknowns about the timeline leading up to his death. what do we know this morning? >> reporter: a lot of unknowns that the family is asking about and we are asking about as well. the timeline is so important. first, the person that has died in police custody now with this seven deputies charges his name is irvo otieno. 28 years old. what we've learned from the police department is they were responding to a burglary in that neighborhood of where otieno lives on march 3rd. then they had some sort of interaction with otieno and

based on that interaction they said they was in some sort of mental distress and placed him under an emergency custody order. so then otieno is transferred with police to a hospital where he apparently according to this release became combative with these officers and so then he was actually arrested and charged with basically -- basically charges relating to some sort of altercation with those officers. he was then brought to a jail and he remained in custody for three more days and what we've learned then is that during that time while he was in jail he was, again -- there was some sort of combativeness or distress that was happening where they were going to transfer him again to a hospital facility. again, three days later at 3:58 on that day, march 6, he was transported to this hospital, now three and a half hours later all we know is that the virginia state police were called in to investigate because otieno died in that custody. all we were told by a press release, officials, is that he died during the intake process.

so many questions here. what exactly happened? we've reached out to the medical examiner's office to get an idea of when we might expect an autopsy to tell us what did he die from. there's really no details about that. also what caused the transfer to the hospital in the first place. again, all we now know is that seven deputies with this county are charged with second-degree murder, not light charges, very serious charges but we don't exactly know exactly what brought those charges on. we do know that they were going to be in a court proceeding this morning for those who didn't have an attorney, again, we're asking all these questions, what happened here because there's a lot of unknowns. >> certainly. glad you are on it, brynn. appreciate it. >> we will update as we learn more from the investigation. brynn gingras, thank you. still to come this hour, president biden touting his prescription drug plan today. he is expected to make the case for his budget proposals aimed at lowering prices as well. details coming up. n flings made it smell like dave was in his happy place... ...the massage chair at the mall.

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you can see the dow down just under 500 points there, it was down more earlier, but folks clearly nervous. >> cnn chief business correspondent christine romans joining us now. when we look at those numbers, the dow down, not quite 1.5%, what else are we looking at this morning? >> we need a few minutes for everything to open. what we are looking at here is everything to open. what we are looking at here is weakness in the banking sector again and this is stemming from europe. a credit suisse is a big european bank, stock down 20% a few other european banks halted in their trading the banking industry writ large

because of now a year of the federal reserve raising interest rates. it sort of like exposes weaknesses right and left, right, when you have interest rates that have risen so dramatically so fast. when we look at the regional banks, regional banks had bounced back very, very nicely yesterday and now are giving back some of those gains again here today. erica and i were just, jim, looking up the 52-week high of first republic bank, the 52-week high, $174.21. >> wow. >> those shareholders have just been pummeled here. that bank has said it has funding from the fed, funding from investments from jpmorgan that it is on solid footing but there is just this feeling among regional banks that there is some concerns -- concerns about what they hold in terms of their investment portfolios and th as liabilities and of course whether people will be pulling their money out, looking for higher interest rates in a different bank to make sure they're covered by the insurance limit from the fdic.

>> sometimes feelings can trump fundamentals. >> that's for sure. i do think it's important to point out, christine, you said this earlier in the morning for folks at home your money is safe this morning. >> oh, yeah, the banking industry under pressure, your money is safe. >> christine, appreciate it. we will continue to collect in with you. beginning next month a lot of medicare recipients are actually going to pay less for dozens of prescription drugs. this is part of the sweeping health care and climate bill that president biden signed last year. >> later today at the university of las vegas the president will tout his budget proposal which he says will help americans save even more money, as the nation continues to deal with high inflation. cnn's priscilla alvarez joins us from the white house. tell us about those changes. what specifically do they mean for folks watching at home? >> reporter: well, president biden is concluding this west coast swing with a focus on reducing health care costs, which he is expected to do more of in the following weeks and months. so what this means is that some medicare beneficiaries will pay less out-of-pocket for 27

prescription drugs. those are drugs whose prices went up and rose faster than inflation did last year. so that would mean that seniors would, for example, see cost sharing drop from $2 to $390 per average dose for medications. now, in addition to this being cost saving, officials also say that it would serve as a disincentive for these drug makers to raise their prices. and then secretary becerra mentioned that they would also be reviewing this on a quarterly basis, in fact, in a statement the hhs secretary said, quote, president biden made lowering prescription drug costs for americans a top priority, and we're using every lever we have to deliver results. so expect to hear some of this in president biden's remarks this afternoon as he and his administration really focus on the measures that they are taking to save americans some money with those out-of-pocket costs and then today

specifically what that looks like for seniors and medicare beneficiaries. jim and erica? >> priscilla alvarez, thank you. a new report shows a staggering rise in the number of americans living with alzheimer's. so what is behind this alarming increase? we're going to take a closer look ahead. e was hiring local talent. if i knew about upwork. i would have hired actually talented people from all over the world. instead of talentless people from all over mymy house. hey bud. wow. what's allll thi? hawaii was too expensive so i brought it here. you know with priceline you could actually take that trip for less than all this. i made a hrible mistake. ♪ go to your happy price ♪ ♪ priceline ♪

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an alarming new statistic, the number of people living with alzheimer's is expected to double by 2050 and that's from a new report from the alzheimer's association. >> cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen joins us now. this is a significant jump. i wonder, what's behind this number? i mean, is this about better counting in part, people living

longer i imagine a factor, or is this just becoming more common? >> jim, it really is just kind of demographics. i mean, it's many things, but the aging baby boomers are really behind this. let's take a look at what this means numberwise. this year 6.7 million people will be diagnosed with alzheimer's/dementia. if you look at 2050 it's going to be 12.7 million. the implications for this and what we need to help, it's a lot of things. one of them is more geriatricians, we need more people who specialize in care for the elderly. we also need more good treatments for alzheimer's that are actually affordable. there are two treatments out there that can slow the progression of the disease, but there's two issues, one, there are some questions about how effective they really are, and two, they are enormously expensive and many insurance policies are really, really not so -- you would have a hard time getting your insurance to pay for them. so those are really two big

problems that we're seeing right now. >> once again, cost rearing its ugly head. the report also found, which i found really interesting, part of the issue here is that people aren't talking to their doctors about some of the early warning signs, specifically cognitive warning signs. is this just sort of an embarrassment, you don't want to admit that these things are happening, or is there more to it than that? >> experts say that that very much is part of it, erica, that it's just embarrassing, you know, you've been successful all your life and all of a sudden, wow, i'm having trouble remembering things. and fear, denial. you don't want to think that you're headed towards alzheimer's. another thing that's standing in the way and this is part of the denial is that people think it's just a part of aging. it's not necessarily a part of aging. so let's take a look at what some of the symptoms are of mild cognitive impairment. mild cognitive impairment you can think of as almost like a precursor to alzheimer's disease. so losing things often, forgetting events or appointments that you should

know about and having more trouble coming up with words when you compare yourself to other people of the same age. so don't just attribute these things to, oh, i'm getting older, you want to make sure that you know exactly what this is. now, to be clear, your doctor might not have a lot of great prescriptions for you, but they will be able to help you think about what could lie ahead and how to plan for it. >> all important. elizabeth, appreciate it. thank you. all right. to the planet now. after a dire warning about antarctica's record low sea ice levels cnn chief climate correspondent bill weir went to the bottom of the world to learn more. he captured these stunning images you will only see them here on cnn. wow, that's beautiful. just last month scientists warn that the sea ice hit record lows for the second time in two years. >> that is not a record that you want to see. our chief climate correspondent bill weir here with more details from your latest assignment. this was your seventh continent. you got to check that box. >> exactly.

>> the pictures are stunning. what did you find in addition to these beautiful vistas? >> i found that these iconic species at the south pole are already being forced to adapt in dramatic ways because of our warming planet. we made landfall one of the first times you step foot in the peninsula you're greeted by colonies of penguins, but soon sort of the wonder turns to worry when you realize that a lot of these nesting moms those chicks and eggs there is no way they can survive because they got freakishly late snow. they're supposed to be hatched by christmas. like we have had bizarre weather patterns in the states they're seeing the same thing down there. as the sea ice goes away that is the key habitat for krill, they feed everything from the penguins to the sea birds to the humpback whales. now ecologists, we were hanging out with whale specialists who have proven when sea ice goes

down, krill goes down and hamp back whale pregnancy weights go down. we were using darts on crossbows, that's how you give a pregnancy test to a haumpback whale. penguins and whales are our metaphorical canaries. what's happening down there, the water is heating up so much, melting that sea ice and we worry about our lives being impacted at sea levels, from miami to shanghai with one of those big glaciers breaks loose. >> such stunning pictures, i'm envious but also tremendously important reporting. so you actually found some hope down there. please share it. >> i did, jim. i did. i came away realizing that antarctica is sort of like this cold laboratory of human cooperation. it's the only place on the planet not owned by any countries, set aside for peace and science. how often do you hear that combination of words? since the antarctic treaty when

12 nations signed oon there is now 55 nations, they stopped the slaughter of humpback whales back in our great-grandparents' generation, killed them by the millions, this he would kill the penguin, use their blubber to kill the whales. all of those species, many of them have come back fully now. there are other new pressures, the climate change, ocean pollution, ghost nets, shipping traffic that threatens these creatures as well. but as an example of what can happen if humanity agrees on something, some people even think we should use antarctica for a model of how to behave in space and how to think about colonizing the moon or other planets as a cooperative way. we learned our lesson down there, the request he is can we keep that going and extend it, create blue corridors for some of these massive creatures, turned out to be my biggest climate allies. so i came back inspired of what we're capable of when it comes

to realizing our limits and pulling back and letting nature heal. >> what we're capable of, let's hope we follow through. bill weir, thanks so much. we will be watching for that special to come. >> you got it. still ahead, a look at some march madness teams that could become a bracket buster. you're going to want to take note of this. i certainly will be taking notes as you make your picks. tuff! ♪ woop woop! ♪ whooo! smsmells great, downy! ♪ ugh, culul de sacs. downwny unstopables. you gotta sniff f it to believe it. the hiring process used to be the death of me. but with upwork... with upwork the hiring process is fast and flexible. behold... all th talent! ♪ this is how we work n ♪ somewhere out there is that one-in-a-million. someone who thinks with their hands. who can shape raw materials into something meaningful.

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so you have some really important work ahead of you today, and i'm not talking about the work you actually get paid for. it's about your bracket. we put the finishing touches on our march madness brackets here so that jim can win because i'm probably going to lose. the first round tip-off is tomorrow so we are going to get working on that. >> the deadline is saturday so you have loads of time. >> funny. >> cnn sports anchor andy schultz with the proviso that you tell me and not erica. the teams, fighting for the spot, how often do they advance

or go further? >> the teams that we're watching in the first four last night and tonight they never win tournament and it's worth paying attention to them. teams that grab the 11 or 12 seed in the first four they've gone to pull off an upset in the tournament since 2019 and ucla have gone from the first four to the final four. mississippi state played a great game, back and forth, 21 lead changes and jamarius burton made a ump jer with ten seconds left and mississippi state ran a great play and shaquille moore got a wide-open 3 and the tip no good, as well so the panthers win a nail biter 17-69 and they'll play xavier on friday and you have corpus christi winning their ncaa win in program history beating 75-71. next up for them they'll play

the overall top seed, alabama on thursday and after the game head coach steve lutz says his team plans on making the most of the opportunity. >> our guys are battle tested. they're not scared of the moment. you've got to go play, and you've got to embrace it, but history tells you that not many one seeds beat 16 seeds and so that's why you have the ncaa tournament and you get situations like this to go out and shock the world. >> you have two games on our sister channel trutv tonight and the number one seed purdue and arizona state against nevada just after nine for a shot at number six, tcu. the women's tournament is also tipping off with the first four starting at 7:00 eastern. guys, pay attention to the 11 seeds that win. since 2010, 11 seeds actually have a winning record against six seeds.

popular upsets is always 12 versus five, but it's trending more toward 11 versus six is the to go. >> 11 over six, wrote it down, andy. >> erica doesn't need to hear that, to be clear. >> andy scholes, i'll call you after the show. thank you. >> a federal judge set to consider whether to take an fda-approved abortion drug off the market. it was approved more than 20 years ago. we are live outside the we are live outside the courthouse next. was hiring local talent. if i knew about upwork. i would d have hired actually talented people from all over the world. instead of talentless people from all over my house.

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♪ ♪ good wednesday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm erica hill. this morning a major abortion case under way in texas and it could cut nationwide access to the most commo