Morning News NOW Full Broadcast - March 29
[Music] good morning i'm savannah sellers i'm joe fryer right now on morning news now the prospect of peace another round of high-stakes diplomatic talks between russian and ukrainian delegations happening this morning in istanbul it's the first face-to-face meeting in more than two weeks we'll take you behind closed doors as the white house ramps up its damage control tour after president biden's controversial off-the-cuff remark about regime change in moscow also this morning unacceptable and inexcusable the growing fallout surrounding the smack seen round the world will smith now taking to instagram apologizing to comedian chris rock for the outburst when he posted plus a deeper dive into the complicated past of the prestigious pair second thoughts the pandemic era great resignation that we've all heard so much about is now morphed into well the great regret for some workers i'll tell you about this latest office space phenomenon that has new hires thinking twice about their move and another small step for man will take you to the deserts of west texas where the eyes are being dotted the t's crossed from blue origin's latest mission to the edge of space will tell you who's on board this time around and of course how much they paid have a front row seat in history spoiler it's a lot yeah we used to cover these things like very extensively now we're like ah another person going to space whatever i was seeing this very we'd be enrolling coming for hours after our normal show covering it another like at the end we'll tell you if somebody's launching on a rocket today right right until we do it ourselves [Laughter] we begin now with the latest on the war in ukraine delegations from russia and ukraine are meeting face to face in istanbul this morning a new round of peace talks is underway as troops continue to clash on the ground nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the latest ukrainian and russian delegations met for the first time in two weeks for peace talks in the city of istanbul the mood was described as cold there was no handshake at the start ukrainian officials say they are only looking for a ceasefire and will not surrender one inch of territory to russia the ukrainian side more confident after recent battlefield successes ukrainian troops are proving to be a tough underdog clawing back territory from russia around kiev retaking a town east of the capital and ukrainian officials say the kiev suburb of erpin where russia launched one of its earliest and most notorious attacks on civilians killing a family escaping the fighting the mayor of earpin says the suburb which russia hoped to use as a gateway into kyiv was liberated but while russia is losing ground or perhaps because of it russian forces continue to carry out indiscriminate attacks against ukrainian towns and cities in a hospital in kharkiv this morning the hallways are full of ukrainians wounded by russian attacks they're in the halls because russia dropped two bombs near the hospital blowing out the windows andre an electrician was in his home on the outskirts of harkeef when suddenly russian forces he says bombed the area i heard a whistle and then i lost consciousness he says he woke up to find most of his thigh muscle gone the bone showing he says he somehow managed to get his wife and daughter into their car and even drive but as they were leaving russian forces hit the moving car i felt the car lift up andre says his wife tatiana 24 years old and studying to be a hairdresser told him i'll be with you forever they would be her final words andre was recovered by ukrainian troops his injured daughter was taken by relatives he has no idea where his wife's remains he says are still in the car too dangerous to reach her for burial why do you think this is happening i've thought a lot about this and i don't know why he says we weren't bothering russia we are the same people but they just seem to want to kill us and make us handicapped so many stories like that of families whose lives were ripped apart here in the city of kharkiv and even more further south in mariopo where the morgues are overflowing just heartbreaking richard engel thank you in washington president biden is trying to clarify his controversial remark made over the weekend that vladimir putin cannot remain in power nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander joins us now peter good morning to you so many heard that remark as calling for regime change in russia what's the president now saying about all this yeah we heard from the president in full his initial remark punctuated a powerful speech in poland and appeared as you noted joe to suggest that he was calling for regime change in russia which obviously would have marked a major change in u.s policy the white house just minutes after that initially happened rushed out a statement trying to clarify his words but when pressed by reporters here back at the white house on monday president biden he stood by that comment he defended it insisted that he was sharing his anger personally not any change in policy take a listen i'm not walking anything back the fact of the matter is i was expressing the more outrage i felt toward the way putin is dealing and the actions of this man just just brutality i want to make it clear i wasn't then nor am i now articulating the policy change i was expressing the moral outrage that i feel and i make no apologies for it on monday the president argued that nobody believes he was talking about taking down or removing vladimir putin and while some praised him for his blunt initial statement critics slammed that ad-lib remark it was not in his script in the teleprompter at the time they viewed it as a gaff warning intended or not that it could escalate tensions with russia just as the u.s and italies are trying to find a diplomatic solution to end this war joe i mean yeah peter mean one of those allies in europe especially french president emmanuel macron they've warned any escalation in words or actions could undermine peace talks how much does something like that worry the president worry the white house yeah i think that's i think that's right the white house insists that it's not worried we heard the president himself he disagreed with that assessment he said that his comment does not complicate diplomatic efforts he insisted that putin is going to do what he's going to do regardless of the president's words here's how he framed it given his recent behavior people should understand that he is going to do what he thinks he should do period he's not affected by anybody else including unfortunately apparently his own advisors this is the guy who goes to the beat of his own drummer and the idea that he is going to do something outrageous because i called him for what he was and what he's doing i think it's just not rational the president making the argument effectively that vladimir putin has already proven that he's listening to nobody and just acting on his own interests and ambitions right now effectively saying this will have no impact going forward i mean yeah that's the big question i mean what does putin make of it do we know what the kremlin's response to this has been so far well we heard from dmitry peskov he is the spokesperson for vladimir putin he's spoken initially right after vladimir excuse me president biden's comments over the weekend he said that it is not for joe biden to decide that vladimir putin is elected by the people of russia but we did hear again from him yesterday the kremlin saying that it that the president's statement quote makes us worry and that it will continue to closely monitor president biden's remarks joe all right peter alexander peter thanks so much my friend for more on this let's bring in joe cyrencione he's a distinguished fellow at the quincy institute for responsible statecraft joe good morning thanks for being with us so i want to start where we just left off with joe and peter by getting your reaction to biden's comments and of course what peter alexander just referenced at the end the kremlin's reaction how do you think this is going to impact the conflict well you know they say that the definition of a gaffe in washington is accidentally speaking the truth and that is a lot of what bill biden said a lot of us feel the same way this man cannot be in power there's been three fundamental reactions to this one is that it felt that he's weak that he's not capable of being president that's basically coming from fight to help criticize everything he does the other is more serious that it's dangerous that you need putin in power to negotiate a peace uh pact and so calls for to remove him are uh counter to achieving a negotiated entity of the war and the third is that it's hypocritical that we support dictators who are waging brutal wars like saudi arabia's vicious war in yemen so what's the difference i personally think that biden's press conference yesterday pretty much put an end to this i think this is the last rounded stories you'll see on it more people in washington are talking about the slap than the gap yeah that's a good point so with that let's talk about this diplomacy another round of talks are underway in turkey do you think any meaningful compromises will come out of that what does a meaningful compromise look like at this point we are getting closer and you can see it in the public statements of both sides russia has reduced its demands remember it wanted complete neutrality and a demilitarization of ukraine you no longer talk about that it's clear they wanted regime change in ukraine now they're talking about the dunbas region similarly with the zielinski he's dropped his demand to or desire to join nato is also talking about neutrality but i think we're going to have to have weeks more on the battlefield before both sides are willing to make the painful compromises that they'll need today's meeting is a good sign but we're a long way from a peace deal now president zielenski has called for tougher sanctions against russia this just happened yesterday the u.s of
course has announced that ban on russian oil imports which sent gas prices skyrocketing but a lot of europe has not done this of course it's one way to really make moscow feel the pain do you think we could see more european countries follow the us's lead i think you're going to see more european sanctions but this you know this oil and gas thing it is tough because you're talking about in some cases cutting off 30 40 of a country's energy supply it's just not possible for them to do this so i think you'll you'll see more you'll see countries striving to find more ways of putting other sanctions on them and there also will be a push in the middle east none of our middle east allies have sanctioned russia that includes saudi arabia and israel india one of the biggest economies in the world is still not sanctioning russia so you'll see other push and especially from ukraine but also the united states pushing to get some of these other countries around the world to join in global sanctions all right a lot to talk about this morning joe thanks so much appreciate it yeah speaking the truth too about what's going on thanks joe all right there's growing concern this morning the critical ukrainian port city of odessa could be the next target of russian attacks the people there are already preparing for the worst nbc news 4 and correspondent molly hunter joins us now from there with the very latest hey molly good morning hey savannah good morning to you now i can't show you any of the military checkpoints they are at every single intersection what i can show you though is this city center absolutely fortified there are sandbags uh there are tires right there you have huge hedgehogs right now this is the historic city center and the people here savannah are ready for a fight the famed odessa opera house now one of the most heavily fortified buildings in ukraine more than two centuries old it survived two world wars lead choreographer gary savoian says the iconic building is the city's heart and soul what does it feel like when you walk into work into this building the building itself urges you to create he says adding the building has a great history it's the best theater in the world but today this is as close as we can get it's now under military protection and since before the war started odessa has been preparing the jewel of the black sea nestled in ukraine's southwest corner the cultural center dear to so many ukrainian hearts and historically russian ones too now a fortress with monuments shrouded in sandbags the city's famous white sand beaches usually packed with tourists now according to officials many lined with explosive mines we've been hearing some activity over there but this entire beach and you just heard it again this entire beach is locked down there are no civilians out here and you heard that again right there but this is how close this war is getting to this strategic city according to the u.s about two dozen russian warships are off odessa's coastline blockading the strategic port home to ukraine's navy one of the highest ranking ukrainian naval officers here on shore tells us the russian ships have been moving in and out calling it psychological warfare but he says the russians are out of options so you don't think they can take odessa no chance he says we will kill them as they approach an estimated half the city has stayed behind to fight nikolai vakonsky heads a volunteer coordination center supporting the community here and sending vital supplies to the east until recently it was a trendy food court it was bars oysters and champagne and the volunteers who work here are the same people who used to hang out here why are people staying because it's our home i stay here because i have to support our people our army our civilian and it's my duty now around the corner from here like i said we're in the historic city center around the corner there are anti-tank mines on the cobblestones the people we are talking to them some say there could be an attack at any moment and some say they don't think putin would dare to strike the center of this historic city i'll send it back to you guys molly hunter it is something when you see a sign for aperol spritzes inside what has become a headquarters to support a war thank you so much great reporting let's get a check on your morning news now weather which means bill cairns is back with us hey bill hey good morning so one of the big stories this week is going to be what's going to happen in the next two days with severe weather because unfortunately a chance of more tornadoes the storm right now looks kind of harmless it's just sitting here over southern portions of california and arizona it's brought a little bit of snow to the high elevations in california and some beneficial rain and now that rain and snow is moving through arizona and also portions of new mexico and in colorado but the severe weather will wait till after sunset today the storms will fire up and then they'll move through the night areas from iowa southwards all the way to dallas if we get tornadoes today the best chance would be in between dallas and oklahoma city roughly about 7 p.m to about midnight other everybody else for the most part worried about wind damage this just sets the stage for the most dangerous day of the week and that's going to be wednesday we already have that red bullseye there right over the top of mississippi portions of louisiana also a little slice of arkansas and east or western sections of alabama that's a moderate risk of severe weather that's very similar to a forecast to what we had last week when we had 50 to 60 tornadoes so again it's possible we're going to have a tornado outbreak wednesday maybe even likely at this point and we may even have some of what we call strong long-track tornadoes or tornadoes that stay on the ground for a long period of time and if that wasn't bad enough even if we don't get a lot of tornadoes it's almost guaranteed we're going to have a line of very strong thunderstorms with wind damage extending anywhere through this red box and we have the potential for a ratio now we get these ratios they happen a couple times every year they're long-lived wind storms produced by thunderstorms the damage can go for hundreds of miles it has to at least go for 250 miles to be considered a ratio and these can leave extensive long lasting power outages through the region so it doesn't always have to be a tornado that does a lot of significant damage and then we finish up our severe weather threat this week on thursday as the storm reaches the east coast from raleigh to richmond to washington dc to baltimore is included in that slight risk and then a little another area from tallahassee all the way to macon so for today's forecast it's hard to imagine that you could have severe weather on thursday in the northeast when right now in the mid-atlantic temperatures are in the teens and wind chills are very cold but the air mass will change considerably by then but uh you get the idea a dangerous day in the southern plains once again over the next two days and uh you know it's a this is a classic spring storm we're going to have snow and we're going to have severe weather with this storm too all right bill thank you so much appreciate it look forward to thanks bill all right coming up on this hour of morning news now an instagram apology from will smith to comedian chris rock after the slap scene around the world we'll tell you what the decorated actor had to say plus multi-million dollar mansions luxury cars flights on private jets all paid for using taxpayer dollars that were supposed to go toward covet relief we'll take you inside what one former top u.s attorney is calling the biggest fraud in a generation up next welcome back we'll have more of our coverage on the war in ukraine coming up including the accusations of war crimes against vladimir putin and what it would take to hold him accountable but first here are some of the other stories making news this morning will smith is now apologizing publicly to chris rock for slapping him during the academy awards over the weekend smith took to instagram on monday where he said he was out of line and wrong he also called his behavior unacceptable and inexcusable the apology came hours after the academy released a statement condemning the actions and announcing it was opening an investigation many people are still talking about that unforgettable moment but what they may not remember is sunday's show is not the first time these stars have crossed paths after the slap that stunned the oscars oh wow wow will smith is smack out of me will smith is offering an olive branch to chris rock posting on instagram overnight i would like to publicly apologize to you chris smith has gotten physical in the past in 2012 slapping a prankster who often provoked celebrities on the red carpet and tried to kiss smith the difference this time a bigger stage in a deeper history and his wife the target of the joke the oscars the actor said this joke was to blame jada i love you g.i jane 2 can't wait to see it all right picket smith has alopecia an autoimmune disease which causes hair loss it's not clear if rock knew pink and smith had a medical condition smith and rock have shared the screen before including as far back as the 90s in an episode of the fresh prince of bel-air rock has also joked about the couple on the academy awards stage the comedian hosted the 2016 ceremony during the oscars so white controversy just weeks after pinkett smith announced her plans to boycott over the show's lack of diversity jana got mad jaina says she's not coming protesting i'm like is she on a tv show in the years since the famous couple has been open about their marriage publicly discussing a relationship pinkett smith had with someone else and then i got into an entanglement with august that's what i said an entanglement yes yes a relationship yes smith has also recently been public about challenges he faced growing up speaking with hoda last year about his troubled childhood discussing why he chose to describe himself as a coward in his memoir i would have never picked that word with you right you know it's it's uh you know in that in that same chapter uh i talk about the idea uh my father was abusive with my mother and i was too scared to do anything you know it's like what kind of kid stands there and lets somebody hit their mother and they don't do anything you know and you know that became um really the the core trauma of my childhood that my personality and my persona became to form around to be the opposite of that yeah you know that i was never going to be scared again we have reached out to chris rock and both will and jada smith for further comment beyond smith's statement last night have not yet heard back one interesting note an abc executive tells variety rock's joke about jada was ad-libbed and was not scripted before air not a renewed hope in the fight against coveted fewer than 800 coveted related daily deaths are being reported across the country and that's a number that hasn't been seen since august of last year the seven day average of new cases has also dropped to around 30 000 cases that's the lowest number since july but officials remain on alert as new york and texas report a rise in cases over the past two weeks this comes as the omicron sub-variant that's what's called ba2 is expected to become the dominant strain here in the u.s nbc news
medical contributor dr kavita patel joins us now for more on the latest covet headlines dr patel good morning always great to have you with us so i want to start with something we actually reported on last week it has to do with vaccines and hearing loss the world health organization is now investigating a potential link between tinnitus and covid vaccines what do we need to know about this and should we be concerned yes savannah so we've administered 11 billion doses across the world of covet vaccines that's an incredible amount of doses and what they found in this who report was about 367 cases of tinnitus that's ringing in the ears buzzing in the ears i've actually suffered from that since the age of about 22. and it's prep it's pretty common occurs in about 10 of the population so keep in mind 11 billion vecting doses about 367 cases it's important but not something that should be worrisome there is also about 164 cases of hearing loss that means people who have reported after a vaccine not having hearing do we know if the vaccine caused it what the mechanisms what vaccines in particular i think those are all the details that the who are going to explore further and it's good to know these things but i will say 11 billion doses and if we have about five to 600 of these reports that's still incredibly rare yeah wow all right really important context there thank you so much now i mentioned that texas is seeing a rise specifically austin texas city officials are reporting a 47 percent increase in the coba transmission rate following that south by southwest festival of course we all saw a bunch of that all over instagram austin had dropped its mask mandates as many cities as many states have is this a sign that we should still be wearing masks what do you make of this i mean can we expect to see jumps like this and is that sort of okay is that how we live with this what does it mean yeah savannah we're going into a bit of unchartered territory because as you mentioned we've had pretty much a withdrawal of all restrictions even testing and now we're going to have even more difficulty with access to testing as the federal funding dries up so i here's my rule of thumb for myself and what i tell my patients if you're going into kind of a crowded area indoors especially because parts of the country are still pretty darn cold and people are packed in it's a smart idea to wear a mask you may be low risk yourself as an individual but keep in mind you don't know who people are around you immunocompromised people who can't get vaccines yet children so i still think it's a good idea we still have faa public transportation keeping masks on until until mid april i hope they extend that because of exactly what we're talking about with the majority of the country going on spring break and traveling all across the world it's just a good idea to stay safer even though you're probably low risk as an individual and just quickly on that what would you say for people going on spring break or like at south by southwest where some things are outside what do you say to mass outdoors absolutely outside is safe and we have seen very rare cases of transmissions outdoors unless you're seriously packed in which i know you can be in a festival so that's the time when you might want to put a mask on outdoors is safe being around people that you know have been tested and vaccinated like the state of the union in congress and the supreme court that's also very safe but a majority of people are dropping these tests as an individual i've got rapid antigen tests that the government has provided and that i have access to i i would carry those with you on travel so that you can tell if your sniffle is covered or if it's something else that's true i just had the stomach blue which isn't really related symptom wise but i started testing myself for covert at home just in case all right finally quick one for you elon musk says he tested positive for cobot it's the second time that that's been the case for him do you expect more people to be infected more than once and anything we should know about that i do and it's especially common for people who got infected before omicron because that immunity did not last and did not really protect people from omicron including probably ba2 so i think these reinfections new infections are going to be more and more common and what's really important is do these reinfections lead to hospitalizations if you're vaccinated and hopefully the answer is no we're watching the uk and europe really closely savannah so we can see what the trend is there absolutely dr kavita patel as always thank you nbc news is relaunching a historic series the fleecing of america in an exclusive interview nightly news anchor lester holt sat down with the top cop who's making sure trillions of dollars in pandemic relief and taxpayer money went to the right places over the last two years the federal government approved a historic five trillion dollars in pandemic assistance for struggling americans small businesses and health care providers but now experts say hundreds of billions have been lost to fraud in a fleecing of america this 3.5 million dollar florida mansion seized by the irs was bought with taxpayer dollars that were supposed to rescue american jobs and small businesses instead according to law enforcement it funded a swim up bar and a horse stable the buyer got 7 million dollars from the federal government allegedly claiming he had 400 employees according to prosecutors he had none have you been surprised by how quickly fraudsters moved in on this money unfortunately not really michael horowitz is the top cop overseeing the effort to make sure the 5 trillion in taxpayer dollars went to the right place this is his first interview in his role as the head of the pandemic response accountability committee when the small business administration in sending that money out basically said to people apply and sign and tell us that you're really entitled to the money and of course for fraudsters that's an invitation the fraudsters are bold buying luxury cars flights on private jets mansions like this los angeles couple who led a massive 20 million dollar fraud ring using fake ids to apply for loans for fake businesses they texted about the cash that was available you need to apply 10k guaranteed they don't check for blank it's all automated days later texting they got the money i did seven applications last night and four of them got email that it's funded i'm telling you to apply to bluevine an online loan processor how much they send you like over 500 so far raising questions as to how they got the money in the first place congress now investigating bluevine one of the third party service providers who processed billions in loans and touted that a business could get loan approval in five minutes what didn't happen was even minimal checks to make sure that the money was getting to the right people at the right time authorities have pointed to red flags like the couple listing identical payroll every month we wanted to ask the company why that didn't tip them off bluevine would not do an interview but sent us a statement saying in part they used robust compliance to reduce fraud in accordance with government guidelines but say it's regrettable that the government's loan programs were abused by bad actors despite our best efforts when federal agents arrived at the couple's door they allegedly tried to stash this bag of 450 thousand dollars in their backyard once convicted they fled abandoning their teenage children arrested finally in montenegro investigators insist there are so many more cases like this to uncover one of their data scientists in california programs computers to find discrepancies it's basically impossible for humans to go through it by hand it would take way too much time just one red flag this building in san francisco that they found listed on more than thirteen hundred different loan applications we have our data scientists pouring through those records looking for anomalies matching addresses these are people who are betting on the fact that you may not be looking and what we're here to tell them is we're looking that was lester holt reporting nbc news national security correspondent ken dylanian has been covering issues of covert relief fraud he joins us now with more on the policing of america again i know you spoke with a former u.s attorney who called this quote the biggest fraud in a generation is it possible for the federal government to recover any of the billions that fraudsters took from the ppp program sure joe they're going to recover some billions a small number of billions but the vast majority of it experts tell me is probably unrecoverable and it's it's it's been really difficult as i've been reporting on this to convey the enormous scope of this fraud one way to think about it joe is that by some estimates the amount of money that was misspent and stolen rivals the amount of federal money that's in president biden's 10-year infrastructure program so this is real money that could have paid for roads and bridges and subways and school lunches and student loans and all kinds of stuff it wasn't all stolen as in gone out of the country but a lot of it went to the wrong hands to people who didn't need it because joe there were no checks on these ppp loans the basically the trump administration designed a program uh that was intended to shovel money out the door with no scrutiny because they believed that any kind of security checks would slow the program down and people did need the money but experts have since said that was a ridiculous decision i mean companies like amazon and google do secure transactions every day rapidly and they verify who they're doing business with the federal government didn't and now you have people spending money on ferraris lamborghinis mansions i stood in front of a fam single-family home in miami that the couple got a million dollars for saying it was a farm all anybody had to do was drive out there to find out it wasn't a farm but they got the million dollars now they've been prosecuted but they are one of the few joe so here's an interesting example in lester's report he mentioned a california couple convicted of stealing 18 million dollars the fbi says that it cut off their ankle bracelets they fled the country while they were awaiting sentencing most of the defendants in these cases have been freed while awaiting trial or sentencing despite stealing millions of dollars of being accused of stealing millions of dollars why is that you know that's a great question it has a lot to do with covid uh obviously during the covid pandemic fewer people were being sent to jail and bail is designed mainly for violent offenders but there have been a lot of these cases there's a a computer software engineer just down the road from me who is accused of stealing 17 million dollars was also let out on an anchor ankle monitor the other day prosecutors accused him of trying to defraud a bank again and send him to jail so this is happening joe and it's really a failure of the criminal justice system to take this matter seriously it's not violent crime but it is a great injury to the american public so ken all this begs the question what is being done to make sure this level of fraud doesn't happen again so the good news is that the biden administration tighten down on some of the rules and ver and increase the verification on some of these ppp loans and other kinds of covet relief money but i really feel like the country has not come to grips with the dramatic failure here and there haven't been the kinds of high profile congressional hearings that this matter deserves there hasn't been accountability for the people who designed this program and joe there's only been 178 convictions of people for coveted fraud and experts believe there were thousands of people who stole the money and sadly most of them will get away with it joe it's a pretty low percentage right there all right ken thanks so much for your reporting appreciate it coming up we've heard the ramped up rhetoric from world leaders including president biden himself accusing russia's vladimir putin of being a war criminal for his actions in ukraine but what does that really mean to be a war criminal and how can one be tried for war crimes turns out it's a pretty arduous process we'll explain after the break [Music] welcome back some world leaders including president biden are calling president vladimir putin a war criminal for his invasion of ukraine and all the devastation it's caused now defining a war crime is pretty straightforward but prosecuting those responsible can be very complicated actually nbc news now anchor joshua johnson explains what it would take to hold putin accountable intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime what we have seen already from vladimir putin's regime in the use of the munitions that they have already been uh they've been dropping on as on innocent civilians uh mr speaker uh in my view already fully qualifies as as a war the crime will continue to make putin accountable for his war crimes some world leaders may agree that vladimir putin is committing war crimes but that's not just rhetoric a war crime is an actual crime law professor rebecca hamilton spent two years at the international criminal court's prosecution division so a war crime can be any number of actions like um killing like torture horrible crimes what is characteristic about many of the war crimes that we're seeing in this particular conflict is that it is targeting civilians so in war there are laws of war long-standing laws of war that say when you are in the midst of a conflict you can target people who are combatants who are your enemy but you cannot target people who are civilians and if you do then you could be responsible for a war crime a grave breach of the laws of war buddhist days after russia invaded ukraine the icc opened an investigation war crime prosecutions are one of the court's main duties involving an extremely thorough process you have to not only as an investigator show that the horrible acts have been committed the things that we're all seeing on television right now the the bombing of buildings dead bodies injuries it's not only a case of of showing that but also trying to figure out how do you hold an individual criminally responsible for those actions and that requires what investigators call linkage evidence between the bad acts that have happened and an individual perpetrator for example a leader in the russian military that they ordered those attacks knowing that there were civilians who would who would be harmed the international criminal court was established in 1998 its powers are unique but limited only 17 people have ever been held in its detention center and appeared before the court its judges in the hague have issued ten convictions and four acquittals thirteen people remain at large the icc also does not have its own police force it relies on other countries to cooperate with making arrests so what the court does is says yes we're going to issue an arrest warrant and then it is up to states in the world um to actually execute that arrest warrant obviously the russian police are not going to arrest vladimir putin right now um so he would have to travel to a different country for there to be a police force that would arrest him the court can still pursue charges with or without an arrest that might be as far as it goes for putin professor rebecca hamilton of american university says others might be more vulnerable i think the likelihood of charging is extremely high a slightly different question is the likelihood of actually seeing them in the dark and for putin that is very hard to see that in the short term i think the situation is is very different for his generals that are in the field in ukraine uh they are at risk of being um arrested once once these charges are made um and you know regarding putin i would say even though it seems impossible to imagine him on trial right now historically we have seen other leaders who seemed all powerful in the moment who have nonetheless ended up facing accountability vladimir putin would not be the first head of state wanted by the court back in 2009 the icc issued an arrest warrant for sudan's former president omar al-bashir and that was unfortunately a case where even when he did travel and there was an arrest warrant states weren't executing the arrest warrant which is why he hasn't been transferred to the hague yet the sudanese people themselves ended up overthrowing omar bashir and putting him in jail inside sudan and you know the court has been doing other cases primarily though in um nations in africa and so i think it would be a big deal and really um important for the court to show that it can prosecute a case that is taking place in the heart of europe as well some critics have said the international criminal court focuses too much on africa the international criminal court is a reflection of what i think is structural racism within the international legal order it's not that any of the cases that the icc has prosecuted are not watertight legally in terms of the case that they should be prosecuted at the icc it's just there are plenty of other situations of atrocities being happening around the world that the icc hasn't investigated because it hasn't had the cooperation of other states to undertake those investigations the most powerful states in the international legal system work pretty hard to try to avoid accountability on themselves most of the world is rallying behind ukraine including through resolutions at the united nations but it's hard to know what to expect once the icc investigations are complete what we're witnessing is an extraordinary moment where things that hadn't seemed possible in terms of the unity of condemnation for this illegal act of aggression it gives me real hope that there is the political will in this particular case to move accountability forward i don't think we're going to see putin himself in the dock anytime soon but i think that that his general should be concerned lots of good answers there the questions i know a lot of us are asking our thanks to joshua johnson for that explainer let's take a look at what's making news around the world this morning janice mackey freyr is back with us this hour from beijing hey janice hey guys good morning we begin in mexico with a mass shooting at a sport fighting venue police say that they were called to reports of an attack at a place known to host illegal betting on cockfights there they found the bodies of 16 men and three women an additional victim died on the way to hospital officials are blaming the violence on gang-related cartels involved in drug trafficking and the fuel trade heavy rains in eastern australia are triggering a fresh round of flood evacuations for people living there this is the second time this month they've had to leave authorities are warning of intense weather for at least 24 hours several towns across two states are still trying to clear tons of debris from floods earlier this month that left 21 people dead and destroyed farms and livestock and finally the queen is attending a memorial service today for her late husband prince philip that'll be held at westminster abbey other members of the royal family will be there as well prince philip died last year at the age of 99. this is the first major event that the queen will be attending this year she's 95 she went through covent in february but this service is meant to celebrate prince philip's public service and quote a long life lived fully all right look at headlines janice thank you so much and there's still so much more to come on this hour of morning news now just ahead the great regret why some workers who quit their jobs or move to a different one over the pandemic are now having second thoughts plus it's the final countdown for blue origin's latest mission to the edge of space we'll tell you who's on board and how much they pay next [Music] first it was the great resignation now for some the great regret workers across the country fled their jobs in record numbers during the pandemic looking for better pay hours and flexibility well now a new poll shows that some of the people who resigned regret it senior consumer investigative correspondent vicki nguyen has this story hey there it appears the grass isn't actually greener after all some workers who left in search of better passengers even tried to go back to their old jobs this morning the questions to ask yourself and your next boss to ensure the job you're leaving for is better than the one you already have did you flirt with the idea of quitting or changing careers during the pandemic you're in good company labor statistics show about 4 million employees have left their jobs every month since june but a new poll reveals some of the workers who joined the great resignation wished they'd stayed put of 2 000 workers surveyed one in five regrets quitting their old job and a third are already searching for a new job in september maddie machado left her position as a recruiter at microsoft to work for meta formerly known as facebook the new role meant a big raise from 135 000 a year to 185. that was really the only reason i
left microsoft i love the company i love the culture but she says the new gig was nothing like what she expected one of the reasons i was looking to leave was because i wanted more of an impact did you ever think to go back to microsoft about three months in i knew it wasn't a fit so i reached out to microsoft and was just like can i please come back but unfortunately they didn't have any positions machado's experience is reflected in the poll results 30 percent of workers say their new role is different from what they expected and 24 say they didn't thoroughly evaluate the pros and cons of leaving we know that the new boss is the same as the old boss and a lot of times the grass is not any different on the other side of the fence professor dietrich von beedenfield studies employment trends at the university of houston downtown he says it's mostly younger employees driving the career changes we're an instant gratification culture generally but especially in that millennial gen z area if you are one of these people thinking about resigning to go to a new job what are the questions you should be asking how many hours am i expected to be in the office versus working remote what is my team going to look like ask your interviewers when you first came what was the most unexpected aspect of the job he also recommends asking to shadow an employee to get a feel for the daily routine and company culture something that's hard to gauge if you're only interviewing over zoom your title may imply that you get to send out cool emails and go to fancy lunches and the reality is you're on the phone all day answering customer complaints as for maddie we spoke on her first day at a new job at linkedin coincidentally owned by her old employer microsoft she says she thinks it's a better fit but it came at a cost i did take a 20k pay cut but it was worth it and we did reach out to metta about maddie's experience but they declined to comment on personnel matters another tip check out sites like glassdoor and team blind they allow workers to leave reviews of their job experiences and maddie says look for trends if a lot of reviews have positive or negative comments about the same thing take note back to you all right vicki thank you so much good tips there all right it's time for our cnbc money minute the biggest financial headlines of the day and why they matter to you frank holland is with us this morning hey frank good to see you hey good morning guys we'll start with some big e-commerce news fedex founder fred smith he's stepping down from his role as ceo of the package delivery company he started more than 50 years ago president and chief operating officer raj subramaniam will now become the ceo of fedex on june 1st smith will now transition to executive chairman of the fedex board subramaniam joined fedex more than 30 years ago and has served in several marketing and management jobs in asia and the u.s he's also served as the top executive of fedex express amid the growth of online shopping walmart will stop selling cigarettes in some of its nearly 5 000 stores across the u.s this as the retail giant recently rolled out more self-checkout registers and other grab-and-go items near the front of its stores to replace tobacco products cvs became the first u.s drug store to take cigarettes off the shelves back in 2014 while target ended cigarette sales in 1996. walmart stopped sales of
e-cigarettes at its u.s stores in 2019 due to growing regulatory uncertainty and the price of bitcoin it's really surged above 47 000 extending a rally that began late on sunday when the cryptocurrency broke past the key level of 45 000. the digital currency has been rising since friday gaining nearly 7 in that time and erasing its losses for 2022. now there's no one particular catalyst for the recent moves but institutional demand for more exposure to bitcoin has really been growing in the last week goldman sachs last week became the first major u.s bank to trade bitcoin over the counter and ray dalio's bridgewater has said it's about to make an investment into a crypto fund those are two pretty big endorsements on the wall street side for crypto investing all right over to you frank thanks so much appreciate it thank you blue origin is preparing for its fourth crew trip to the edge of space on thursday but this time no famous faces are on board after snl star pete davidson had to drop out that's right taking his place as the designer of the new shepherd that's the reusable rocket that will launch a team of six sixty miles above the earth's surface i think we may have somebody with us right now but i'm not 100 positive the controller is going to last out there we go cnbc anchor morgan brennan joins us now hey morgan good morning so who is going on this trip especially as joe mentioned after pete davidson sadly had to drop out and what should they expect yes so what you can expect is basically the same suborbital joyride that jeff bezos took just last july what is going to be a little over a 10 minute ride past the edge of space it's going to lift off in the new shepard reusable capsule and rocket vertically as soon as thursday morning it was originally planned for this morning it was delayed because of weather forecasts it's the ns20 mission as you mentioned gary lye who is a blue origin engineer and designer who actually designed this new new shepard space system is going to be on board in place of pete davidson along with five paying passengers now in terms of the price we don't actually know that blue origin has never actually disclosed that but it's most direct competitor in this space tourism suborbital space tourism um arena is virgin galactic which is currently charging 450 000 for a flight so this is going to take place in west texas as i mentioned as soon as thursday morning and it perhaps what is the most noteworthy about this is the fact that in terms of space flights commercial space flights we've seen so far it is not particularly noteworthy or sensational which really kind of speaks to how commonplace dare i say these private space flights are now quickly becoming yeah and william shatner kind of raised the bar for news coverage there it's good it's not captain kirk yeah we don't care so i mean we don't know the exact price but we know it is spendy is there any indication at some point the price tag is going to come down say 200 yeah oh my gosh well we'll have to see when it actually gets that affordable but it doesn't matter who you speak to within this industry whether it is the jeff bezos and richard branson's of the world or the folks that have been long time in aerospace i think there's this anticipation that you're going to see a very similar trajectory to what you saw in aviation in the last century where it starts with very deep pocketed very wealthy individuals being able to take these rides you see these systems move to scale become more commonplace and as that happens the price tags begin to come down that's a process that's going to take a bit of time but i mean just to speak to how common dare i say we are seeing these private space flights become this isn't the only one that's scheduled over the coming days you actually have an even bigger one an historic mission to the international space station with axiom space and spacex next week as well that's also going to involve paying passengers yeah so that's exactly what i want to ask you about it's kind of what else is going on so this one that we're talking about this week the first someone that we were talking about blue origin that's jeff basis spacex elon musk you just mentioned virgin galactic richard branson all these billionaires all these space companies i mean what is next especially as we do sort of cover them less we don't go into rolling coverage as we used to do for hours when a launch was happening i mean what is to look ahead to for for viewers who are wondering like you know where are we at right now um what is to look ahead is you're going to see more and more of these space flights so in the case of a blue origin just recently the company said a few weeks ago that they are poised to double the amount of space flights that they conducted human spaceflights crude spaceflights that they conducted last year they did three last year so you're already seeing that service begin to ramp by the end of this year you're going to see virgin galactic potentially roll out its customer its commercial service as well spacex has more orbital missions private missions that are scheduled to happen as soon as later this year as well but the other thing to keep in mind is this is just one piece of a bigger broader vision to essentially commercialize low earth orbit and then of course from a nasa standpoint get americans back to the moon in the next couple of years as well all of this is just increasing the entrance interest in space over the last year you know it's reignited for me the conversation about like oh we're not going to do it quite yet because we're checking on some things i'd be like cancel my seat sorry morgan really interesting stuff and i think we will all pay some attention when pete davidson does go up morgan thank you so much that does it for this hour of morning news now but the news continues right now thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking 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