Why the US Just Indicted a Former Cuban President

It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, May 26th and Wednesday, May 27th. Open your PC Optimum app to get your coupon. Hello and happy Wednesday. I'm Coi Wire. This is CNN. It's also at Your Word Wednesday. So listen closely to see if the vocabulary word you submitted on my socials helped us write today's show.

A lot of great stories for you today, including acknowledgement of today's date. March 18th, 2026. Today is Global Recycling Day, a worldwide reminder that one person's trash can be another's resource. From plastic bottles to old electronics, experts say recycling helps conserve natural resources and cut pollution. But let's be honest, we still have millions of tons of waste ending up in landfills each year.

The movement encourages us and governments and organizations to treat recyclables as a seventh resource alongside Earth's six natural ones water, air, coal, oil, natural gas, and minerals. And in Metro Atlanta, one program is taking recycling to the next level because not everything can fit into your curbside cans. The Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials, or Charm, gives things like old paint.

Electronics, batteries, and household chemicals, a second life. Our Issa Cardona gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how they get it done. Global Recycling Day is an a great day to remember that we all need to recycle every day. We have, you know, three to four hundred visitors a day that separate all their plastics and all their other materials and bring it here so it can properly be recycled.

Planning for a move overseas, as a matter of fact. And we have some things that can't be used over there, so we wanted to make sure it got into the right hands for people. who could use it here. Hard to recycle just means that you can't put them in your curbside bin and they can be easily recycled. They are things that take a specialty recycler to remake them. For instance,

Styrofoam. Styrofoam is one of those things that if we send them to the landfill, eventually it gets covered up, we plant grass on it and move on. So what we do here is we take the the raw material. and we put it into a machine that literally shreds it and blows it up, recompresses it, and makes a material that looks like this. But all of it can be recycled and it's made into a material that is soft and smooth.

What happens to this is it's taken and it's sent to a local company that makes ceiling tiles for insulation in your home. On the bottom of all plastic, there is a triangle. Which gives you a resin code. And what the resin code is, is it tells you what type of plastic the plastic is made of. We have so many plastics in our world that we need to make sure we recycle them. Instead of using oil, they're all come from oil.

And petroleum is very expensive these days. So we want to make sure we recycle to make new materials out of these. Just remember, when you purchase something, what am I going to do with it when I'm done? Am I going to reuse it or do I find a way to recycle it?

Now to Hawaii, where residents are dealing with the devastating aftermath of a powerful weather system known as a Kona Storm. The seasonal storms form in colder months and get their names from the Hawaiian word for the leeward or western side of an island, but this storm shattered a seventy-five year rainfall record on the island. spurring severe flooding, landslides, and power outages.

And on the second largest island of Maui, torrential rain swallowed entire roads, even houses. One couple watched a small creek that's normally seventy five feet from their home transform into a raging river, sweeping their dream home away. Never expected my whole house to disappear but yeah. So everything's gone. Mother Nature wins and she wants ya, she takes ya. She didn't take us, she just took the house. So we're grateful for that. We have each other and we're we're doing fine.

Now to a turtly awesome story worthy of a celebration. In southern India, hundreds of Olive Ridley sea turtle hatchlings were making waves literally and figuratively as they were released into the sea in a bid to help the species recover. Normally these teeny turtles go at it alone, but concerns over poaching and human disturbance led forestry officials to take matters into their own hands.

were moved to the safety of a hatchery, and the youngsters were escorted to the surf to ensure safe passage. Named for their bright green carapaces or shells, these turtles have been listed as endangered since nineteen eighty six, and today's biggest threat getting caught in commercial fishing nets as they make their way to shore during mating season. But thanks to conservation efforts there's new hope that this species will keep swimming on forward.

Pop quiz hot shot. Actor Josh Gadd plays La Fu in Beauty and the Beast. What's another Disney character he's voiced? Flounder in The Little Mermaid? Olaf in Frozen? Stitch in Lilo and Stitch or Lightning McQueen in cars? If you said Olaf, warm hugs. The frozen filmmakers actually rewrote the character to match Gad's natural warmth, comedic improv style, and childlike delivery. He was originally written as a more mischievous snowman. Do you want to build a snowman? The engineers at Disney said.

Already done. They created an incredibly realistic and interactive Robo Olaf, the scene-stealing star of the Frozen franchise, will make his public debut at Disneyland Paris. Later this month, ready to melt hearts. Our Julia Vargas Jones got to go one on one, even got some warm hugs. And the behind the scenes peek at the tech that brings this ebullient snowman to life. I'm old and I like warm green. Here's a special one just for you. Hunts from everywhere. No, only

Jeff has not jumped out of a movie screen and into the real world. Although for a second there, I thought maybe he did. He is a robot created by Walt Disney Imagineers and will make his public debut at Disneyland Paris on March twenty ninth. Oh my goodness! Ha ha ha. It's almost Like uncanny, right? We were able to work with the actual animators that worked on the film in order to bring this character to life. You're almost as tall as me actually.

So before we ever even build a robot, we create a virtual world where we bring a character into simulation and we teach Olaf how to walk, how to interact. um how to wave. And that allows us then to focus on these incredible details that allow us to bring Olaf to life in a way that no one's ever seen before. An update now on a story that's been appealing worldwide. The abandoned baby monkey known as Punch is finally finding his social circle at a zoo in Japan.

If you've seen the viral videos, you know Punch and his stuffed toy have been pulling at heartstrings everywhere, our Hanako Montgomery reports. Amid a constant stream of unsettling news, this little monkey has brought comfort to millions, young and old.

See we we need this warmth and uh love right now. You know, when you're scrolling through the feeds you're scanning negative, negative, when you see something like an animal coming up and just hopefulness and just n they have nothing but care and and love to give. Japan's punch is the internet's latest star. Videos of him dragging around a stuffed toy, his adopted mom, or getting bullied by bigger monkeys, have tugged at heartstrings around the world.

As you can see, Punch has quite the fan base. Hundreds of people are here from all around the world just to see this baby monkey. Yeah, I think we all could relate into some sense being in an unfamiliar environment, um, not knowing the people around you and then just trying to fit in as much as we can. These days, Punch may have found a friend. His keeper says he's relying on the toy less, mostly holding on to it when he sleeps, relaxes, or after getting scolded by older monkeys.

He's been doing his best to grow, learning from those early experiences. Now he's communicating with other monkeys, and it's great to see him reaching those milestones. 一段階見れるのは Punch still spends a lot of time alone, and isn't fully part of the group yet. But when things get tough, Punch still has someone to cling to.

Today's story getting a 10 out of 10 an after school club teaching young girls how to maintain their natural hair and grow their confidence between every twist, braid, and ponytail. I just remember how I felt about my hair at that age and I see it a lot in them. Kids used to make fun of me, they would be like they can't see around me in class because my hair was so big.

Growing up with a single dad, fourth grade teacher Jade Lambert had to teach herself how to do her own hair. Now, as a teacher, she's passing down the skills she learned to her students. The natural hair isn't some form of being uncapped. Actually maintaining your natural hair is probably the most care you can take to do hair at all. I'm gonna show you and then I'm gonna undo it so you could do it.

I have a mannequin at home and sometimes I like to practice what we learned in school. Learning more about my hair so I can do it on me too. start adding pieces of the longer hair. We have a lesson coming up where they're gonna make their own products based on like their hair texture and type and porosity. It's quite literally an act of protest to wear your natural hair out. So I just feel proud that I can like give that information to them.

Way to grow, team. Big congrats to our Your Word Wednesday winners, Early College Academy High School in Los Angeles, submitting ebullient, an adjective meaning very energetic, positive, and happy. Mr. Medina or Mr. Medina or AKA Mr. Gucci, your students say you are a bullet and quote, the fliest history teacher in the game. Rise up. And I'm a shout-out going to my friends at Beauford High School in Buford, Georgia, Mrs. Pruitt.

Coach Jackson, Reese Carson, Hunter, Melody, Sebastian, Zeke, and the Alexes. Thank you for all the love. And this shout out goes to Mrs. Bagnall at the Horizon School in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'll be in your city soon. To see and cover the final four. So holler if you see me. Rise up and make it an awesome day, everyone. I'm Koi Wire, and we are CNN.