♪ ♪ [ singing in spanish ] ♪ ♪ [ cheers and applause ] this is "nightline." >> juju: tonight, campus uprisings. >> we will not stop, we will not rest! >> juju: protests over the war in gaza erupting across college campuses. students clashing with police in multiple states as the war between israel and hamas rages on.

and the israeli american hostage seen for the first time in more than 200 days. his parents' message back to him. >> we love you. stay strong. survive. plus trashed. how your plastic waste ends up on the other side of the world. >> europe. uk. >> juju: an abc news investigation, using trackers to find where some of your plastic bags really go after you send them to be recycled. plus our attempt to get answers from one big box executive. >> these are pictures of the facility that your plastic ended up in in indonesia, that's in malaysia -- that's -- ♪ cause i'm your lady ♪ >> celine dion, the superstar using the power of love to slowly return to the spotlight. >> to see show business again, it took a lot, a lot out of me. >> juju: opening up in french "vogue" about the rare

neurological disorder she first revealed on instagram back in 2022. >> it's been really difficult for me to face these challenges. >> juju: could we see her back on stage any time soon? the world-class athlete on stage any time soon? the world-class athlete getting the barbie treatment. pain means pause on the things you love, but... green... means... go! ♪ cool the pain with biofreeze. and keep on going. biofreeze. green means go. - ugh. - cabin crew cross check. that yellow's not gonna fly. - buckle up! - whoa! ♪ reality checkup ♪ there's toothpaste white, and there's crest 3dwhitestrips white. whitens like a $400 professional treatment. [pilot] prepare for non-stop smiles. crest.

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>> thanks for joining us tonight. scenes of chaos from coast to coast. tensions spreading across college campuses with pro-palestinian protests bubbling up over israel's war in gaza at usc. police moving in on protesters at the university of texas in austin. three palestine state troopers in riot gear, some on horseback, clashing with students. >> it's a mess. it's very chaotic. >> and at columbia university, those living in tent encampments negotiating with the embattled university president, all of this coming as the war passes. 200 days since hamas attacked israel, with the death toll in gaza at 34,000, according to the hamas run health ministry, roughly 100 israeli hostages still being held by hamas and other militants. but for one israeli american family, we've spent time with, this day offered the first real glimmer of hope. hamas earlier today releasing a proof of life video

of hirsh goldberg. pollan kidnaped from the nova music festival in israel. hirsh can be heard saying, i am the son of jonathan and rachel, his parents, originally from chicago , releasing their own statement. >> hirsh. if you can hear this, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days. and if you can hear us, i am telling you, we are telling you we love you. stay strong, survive. live. >> our thoughts tonight are with the goldberg, pollan family. we will continue to monitor all the latest developments in the unrest across college campuses, online and on good morning america tomorrow. we turn now to the singer celine dion, the superstar opening up in a new interview and talking about the health crisis she's battled for two years out of the spotlight. could she be making her way back? here's abc's deborah roberts. >> here we go. rolling your body. shush. take two please. >> it's a new day for celine

dion. >> hello, vogue. this is celine dion, the superstar singer gracing the may issue of vogue france, sharing details about her rare and incurable neurological disorder. >> stiff person syndrome, which affects just 1 in 1,000,000 people, causing muscles to go rigid. reporter young dion, known for iconic hits like my heart will go on, cause i'm your lady and the power of love are my mother, telling the magazine i haven't beat the disease, as it's still within me and always will be. i hope that we'll find a miracle, a way to cure it with scientific research. but for now i have to learn to live with it. going on to say, five days a week. i undergo athletic, physical, and vocal therapy. >> i've been dealing with

problems with my health for a long time now, and it's been a really difficult for me to face these challenges. >> the singer shocking the world, announcing her diagnosis in 2022. in an emotional instagram post. >> unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life and not allowing me to use my vocal chords to sing the way i'm used to. >> dion had to postpone the return of her vegas residency and her tour, and has not performed since 2019, singing. >> it's what i've done all my life. >> she is powerful, she is strong, and she really is putting a face to something that a lot of us didn't even know was a thing until she first revealed her diagnosis. >> cause i'm your lady. the five time grammy winner, largely out of the public eye until this year, when she made an emotional

return to that very stage in february when i say that, i'm happy to be here, i really mean it from my heart. dion describing that moment she walked out with her eldest son by her side. >> it was a very nerve wracking and at the same time a big honor. it took a lot, a lot out of me. but my son rené charles rc came and gave me his support. >> rene charles, one of dion's three sons that she shared with late husband rené angélil angelil, battled throat cancer in 2015. dion telling me about the day she learned it had come back. it was december 17th and i will never forget because it was a wedding anniversary and i was rehearsing for the voice and after the rehearsal, i went back in my dressing room and i saw him looking pretty devastated and shock, and i was like,

what's going on? >> and he said, dad! and he said, i have cancer again. the doctor just called me and i have cancer again. and at that moment, honestly, my heart started to beat faster. but my body shut off and i was like, i'm going to go put makeup on and i'm going to go sing incredible and i'm going to forget how i feel. right now. incredible and i went on, i san the song, we were incredible. and then we went to the hotel and then reality started to strike. >> celine and rene met when she was just 12, and he became her manager, her mentor, and later the love of her life, helping turn those early ballads like because you loved me into gold, i'm everything i am because you loved me. dion decided to step back from her lucrative residency at caesars palace in

vegas to care for her husband and their young sons. >> he can't use his mouth, he can't eat so i feed him. he's got a feeding tube. i have to feed him three times a day. and. and you did all. >> you did so much of this yourself. >> i do this myself. >> rené angélil passed away less than a year after our interview today. >> for me, it's like i don't live with him physically, but i live with him inside of me. >> a true showwoman dion returned to the stage shortly after he would be over here watching the whole show. >> i have to find a way. >> is there any one song now that when you sing it, it's all about you and rene? >> when i sing, the show must go on, because when i was sick or when he was sick, he always said, show must go on, the show must go on. >> while she hasn't performed in nearly five years, dion hinting at a return to the stage,

telling vogue france i can't stand here and say to you, yes, in four months, i don't know. my body will tell me on the other hand, i don't just want to wait her own health struggles, adding to the many trials she's faced in her life. >> i think fans are just so proud of celine. i think that they are proud that she is still willing to give them a glimmer of hope that she's going to get back out on the stage and i think they just love hearing that she is willing to fight celine dion's determination and strong will just the way she is, and that's the way this thanks to deborah when we come back, the shocking journey of many of those plastic bags, we think we're recycling. >> this is steve. steve takes vokzalna. this is steve stomach where vokzalna can kick some

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♪ >> juju: welcome back. most of us who recycle plastic bags think we're helping the environment. but not all that plastic ends up where we think it does. an abc news investigation traced the journey of bags slated to be recycled and found some of them on the other side of the planet. here's abc's chief national correspondent matt gutman. >> we want to make people who send their waste to malaysia know that we need your help. >> reporter: pul lives on the front lines of the plastic pollution crisis, a once naturally green landscape now

marred by countless plastic dumps. many of them illegal and home to some of the most plastic-clogged rivers in the world, which in turn drown our oceans in waste. this is where tens of thousands of tons of plastic waste that most americans think is being recycled gets sent every year. >> people from u.s. waste affects the health of my family, my children, also destroys the future of my people. >> reporter: abc news set out on a groundbreaking investigation, deploying tracking devices hidden inside plastic bags that took us from impacted communities here at home to pul's backyard 9,000 miles away. abc news along with nine offer on affiliate and owned stations across the country assembled bundles of recyclable plastic bags, each containing metal tracking devices super glued inside.

our team spanning out across ten states. >> this is north side walmart in austin. >> reporter: dropping them off at major retailers which have thousands of stores with recycling bins labeled for plastic bags. we deposited 46 bundles and monitored each tracker's location for months. and we watched as the vast majority never pinged from a plastic bag recycling facility, with many ending up at landfills or incinerators. it looks like a building-sized blow torch. we still had questions on several trackers we reported on last year. three trackers had been dropped off at walmart recycling bins in different states and ended up overseas on the other side of the world in southeast asia. two of them pinged in malaysia, not far from the hometown of pul lapeng. >> we have about 50,000

receiving here. surrounded by forests. surrounded by rivers. but now it's changed. >> reporter: malaysia became one of the top destinations for the world's plastic waste after china shut its doors to the trade in 2018, citing its harmful environmental impacts because so little of it could actually be recycled. >> a lot of recycling from china, it came here. they say it's such a haven to run illegally. >> reporter: since 2018, dozens of plastic dumps and smoke stacks have appeared on the outskirts of town, she says most from plastic recycling facilities without a license. to show us what she's up against, she takes us to a recycling community outside town, one she's reported to authorities multiple times. >> okay. just outside the facility, we found a lot of rubbish. >> reporter: directly beside the facility, she shows us a dumping

site that's on fire. it isn't long before she finds imported plastic and electronic waste. >> this is europe. >> reporter: from the u.s. and all over the world. >> italy. ireland. this one is uk. >> reporter: inside the facility, filthy plastic can be seen piled up in the open air and directly behind it, pul finds what she says are more signing of illegal dumping. >> the plastic shedding plastic. >> reporter: this facility does not appear to have a license to import plastic waste according to a 2023 list of license holders we obtained from a malaysian parliament member. pul says it's a violation that is rarely punished. >> in malaysia it's so easy. >> reporter: one of our trackers last pinged from a facility on the shores of the langat river

in malaysia. it does not appear to have an import license and raises questions as to why our plastic bag tracker is even there in the first place. >> i believe that the trackers that were put in by abc is evidence of smuggling. >> reporter: there's no way of knowing exactly how our trackers ended up here. the malaysian government wrote to abc news saying that they take the illegal plastic waste trade issue raised by abc news very seriously. and that they will certainly analyze and investigate, and any misbehavior will face severe consequences. we wanted to ask walmart what they knew about the southeast asian facilities where three of the 19 plastic bag trackers we dropped off at their stores ended up. after months of attempting to arrange an interview, they declined our request. so, we decided to attend the reuters responsible business usa conference, a gathering of senior leaders from some of america's largest corporations.

including walmart's kathleen mclaughlin. >> i'm the chief sustainability officer at walmart. >> reporter: after the panel, we approach her to ask questions about the trackers that went abroad. i'm matt gutman with abc news, how are you? >> good. >> reporter: we are doing a story about plastic that was earmarked -- plastic bags earmarked for recycling by walmart. >> yes. >> reporter: and ended up as plastic waste in indonesia and malaysia. these are the pictures of the facilities that your plastic ended up in in indonesia, malaysia -- >> let's get time to talk about this i'd love to learn more. >> reporter: we have a room right here -- >> i have to go but let's talk about it. >> reporter: we've been trying for a year now and have been flatly rejected by your team. i wonder if you'd go on the record, because this is important. there are people whose lives are being impacted by the environmental fallout -- >> i want to understand more -- >> reporter: after a few more

minutes, manage laughlin suggests we should email her to arrange a formal interview. >> if you want to get into it, i'm happy to meet with you. >> reporter: as they suggested, we reached out to mclaughlin and her team to set up that interview. they initially agreed and set a date. but canceled a few days before we were scheduled to sit down, asking us to email our questions instead. walmart did not answer any of our specific questions, and instead provided a statement that said in part, "we strive to do the right thing, and while our bag recycling program isn't perf perfect, it does provide access to recycling for millions of customers, and we are committed to continuously improving our recycling." they pointed to enhanced contracts that explicitly require companies they work with to ensure and prove that eligible materials collected through their program are recycled to the maximum extent practicable. >> juju: our thanks to mat. see more of his investigation "trashed: the secret life of

plastic exports" now streaming on hulu. when we return, the trail-blazing figure skater immortalized with her own iconic doll. immortalized with her own iconic doll. yep, that iconic doll. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease... put it in check with rinvoq... a once—daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief... and reduced fatigue with rinvoq. check. when flares kept trying to slow me down... i got lasting steroid—free remission... with rinvoq. check. and when my doctor saw damage,... rinvoq helped visibly reduce damage of the intestinal lining. check. for both uc and crohn's: rapid symptom relief... lasting steroid—free remission... and visibly reduced damage. check. check. and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death.

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♪ >> juju: finally tonight, mattel's latest barbie inspiring women honoree, inspiring indeed. figure skater kristi yamaguchi given her very own barbie. the olympic champion was the first a little american figure skating gold medalist. she's the author of several best-selling children's books and a staunch advocate for childhood literacy. mattel says she joins the ranks of courageous women who took risks, changed rules, and paved the way for generations of girls to dream bigger than ever before. the kristi yamaguchi barbie is dressed in her 1992 olympic gold medal outfit, right down to the skates. just in time for aanhpi month. that's "nightline."

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