The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper

This episode follows CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper's efforts to shine a light on the harrowing story of C.J. Rice, a Philadelphia man convicted of attempted murder in 2013. Two years before his conviction, Rice, then 17 years old, was shot three times, with a bullet fracturing his pelvis, making it nearly impossible for him to walk. He turned to his childhood physician and Tapper's father, Dr. Theodore Tapper, to help him recover. But just three weeks after Rice was shot, he was accused of shooting four people and fleeing the scene, which, according to Dr. Tapper, would have been virtually impossible to commit in his poor physical state. Despite Dr. Tapper testifying to that fact, Rice was later convicted of these crimes in 2013 and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

After speaking with his father about the case, Jake Tapper published a thorough, long-form investigation in The Atlantic in October 2022 called "This Is Not Justice: A Philadelphia teenager and the empty promise of the Sixth Amendment," diving into what happened the night of the shooting, how little evidence there was against Rice, and revealing how ineffective representation led to his wrongful conviction. Rice's attorneys, Karl Schwartz, Amelia Maxfield of the Exoneration Project, and Nilam Sanghvi of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, made this precise argument that Rice was denied his Sixth Amendment right to adequate counsel to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. District Attorney Larry Krasner's office investigated the matter and agreed. On the morning of Monday, March 18, a Philadelphia judge granted a motion from the Philadelphia District Attorney exonerating Rice. C.J. Rice is a free man after more than twelve years in prison.

"Covering C.J.'s struggle and the efforts of my dad and the amazing lawyers to get him out of prison has been one of the most remarkable and rewarding journalistic experiences of my life," Tapper said. "I'm so glad the story has a happy ending, and I am immensely grateful to The Atlantic and to CNN for giving me the platforms to tell this story."

In an emotional reunion, Tapper and his father reconnect with Rice, who speaks for the first time in an expansive interview. In "Justice Delayed: The Story of C.J. Rice," Tapper recreates the scene of the shooting and the events that followed to illustrate clearly how the system failed Rice. The episode also follows Rice's time in prison in his own words through the powerful letters Rice sent to Dr. Tapper throughout the years.

CNN Anchor and Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga marks the six-month anniversary of the deadliest attack in Israel's 75-year history with an emotional episode.

Six months after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, Golodryga speaks with family members of some of the over 250 men, women, and children kidnapped on October 7, 2023. She speaks with parents who have seen the capture of their children in footage released on social media by Hamas and a woman who survived by barricading herself in a safe room, only to find that her children, who had been staying in their father's home nearby, had been taken. Frustrated by little movement towards a hostage deal, one of the families set up a protest station near IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. In the past six months, some have since reunited with their missing family members, and some continue fighting.

"It is important to remember that the hostages are people with brothers and sisters, spouses, children and parents," said Golodryga. "What these families have endured is unimaginable, and I'm honored they shared their stories with CNN and the world."

Golodryga also speaks directly with released hostages about the conditions of their captivity and their emotional messages for those that they were forced to leave behind upon their release.

CNN Chief International Security Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh takes an inside look at the fatal conflict playing out between elephants and mankind in Sri Lanka. 

In Sri Lanka, it's an all-out war between man and the Asian elephant. As the human population surges and their territories expand, the habitats for elephants are rapidly shrinking, leading to daily confrontations between the people who are trying to protect their homes, and the elephants who are losing theirs. Paton Walsh embeds with locals on overnight patrols who risk their lives to protect their crops from being trampled and villages from being charged by elephants during the night.

"This is not just a story about us taking away the spaces and greenery elephants have existed upon for centuries: be in no doubt, we are forcing them into tinier spaces so we can have more and more for ourselves, all the time, in the name of growth. It is a story about every fight for space happening on the planet now," said Paton Walsh. "Wars, migration, land disputes – they are all a symptom of our species' ravenous need to expand. In Sri Lanka, it is visually writ large. Elephants and people do not naturally interact, but here they scrap over a pumpkin. This conflict, which kills hundreds on both sides every year, is just a very vivid way of seeing the impact of our greed on the natural world that sustains us."

There are about 6,000 elephants in Sri Lanka and in 2023 humans killed 476 of them; elephants killed 169 people. As both elephants and people continue to die at an alarming rate, this violent struggle may be an ominous sign of what's in store for other wildlife across the globe impacted by climate change and human expansion.

CNN Correspondent Donie O'Sullivan investigates the surge of misinformation on Americans' social media feeds, in their churches, and in their homes. Just over six months out from the next presidential election, a battle for facts, decency, and democracy is playing out far from debate stages and TV studios. O'Sullivan dives deep into this undercurrent of viral misinformation by speaking directly to those who believe in conspiracy theories and those trying to battle them.

"Conspiracy theories that might have been considered fringe in the past are having an increasingly important effect on the American political mainstream," said O'Sullivan. "The convincing of millions of Americans to falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen has opened a gateway to an alternate reality of more conspiracy theorists – a world where it wasn't really Trump supporters that attacked the Capitol on January 6 and a world where Taylor Swift can rig the Super Bowl."

In "MisinfoNation," O'Sullivan visits a church where scripture competes with QAnon, meets a January 6 felon who is now running for Congress, spends a day in the alternate reality of the Trump social media universe, goes behind the viral Taylor Swift Super Bowl conspiracy theory, and speaks to a Neo-Nazi skinhead turned pastor who has a warning for America about Christian Nationalism.