♪ alexei navalny found.

the jailed russian opposition leader has been missing for two weeks and suddenly turns up. what his legal team is saying this morning. new video this morning of thousands of migrants starting their trek from southern mexico to the u.s. border. secretary of state tony blinken is headed to mexico city this week to address the crisis. a ground breaking surgery helping a young girl find her voice for the first time and opening up a whole new world to this 9-year-old and her family. i'm kate bolduan with sara sidner, john berman is off today. this is a very christmas "cnn news central." ♪ new this morning, russian opposition critic alexei navalny has been found. the head of his russian foundation says navalny is in a penal colony in the far reaches of northwestern siberia.

his team has been trying to locate him for at least two weeks after he was suddenly and without warning moved from detention near moscow. cnn's nada bashir is following all the developments for us. what are you hearing from the navalny team now, because there was a moment there where no one, no one knew where he was, except for obviously the russian government. >> reporter: you're absolutely right. there has been mounting concern over the conditions faced by navalny, his whereabouts over the last two weeks. we are just getting more details about his current whereabouts from his legal team and of course the director of his anti-corruption foundation. we are now learning that he is being held and has been moved to a penal colony near siberia, some 2,000 miles away from moscow, in comparison to the penal colony he was held in before, believed to be held in some 150 miles east of moscow. there is concern around the conditions he may be facing in this penal colony. we have this statement from the director of his anti-corruption

foundation saying just a little while ago navalny is in colony 3 in kharp, polar north, one of the northernmost colonies. the conditions are harsh with a special regime in the permafrost zone, it is difficult to get there and there are no letter delivery systems. his lawyer is said to have visited him at the penal colony confirming his presence there. alexei navalny a key critic of president vladimir putin. he was sentenced back in august of this year to 19 years in prison for charges relating to extremism. he had already been serving 11 1/2 years in prison in a penal colony for other charges including fraud. these are charges that navalny has consistently denied, he, his lawyers and his supporters have accused judges of handing out this charge and the prison sentence, the politically moat jated sentence is how his

supporters have called it. he has posed the most serious threats to vladimir putin's putin legitimacy during his rule and has faced continuous threats from the kremlin. of course, now there will be serious concern over the situation. he may be facing particularly with little contact between his team, lawyers and alexei navalny. >> for those who are following, you know, what happens to dissidents in russia, one of the scariest and most dangerous times for them is when they are being moved from one place to another. oftentimes they disappeared. nada bashir, thank you for your reporting and have a good holiday. on this christmas morning there is new reporting that thousands of migrants are joining a caravan in mexico, moving toward the u.s. southern border. it is the largest caravan the united states has seen in over a year and this also comes just two days before secretary of state tony blinken is headed to mexico city to try to hammer out new agreements to better control the flow of migrants making their way through mexico.

this caravan would clearly add to the migrant surge already overwhelming u.s. border crossings. federal authorities have reported an average of nearly 10,000 migrant encounters a day along the u.s. southern border so far in deese. cnn's rafael row mows is in texas following this for us. what are you hearing about this caravan and what are you hearing from authorities where you are? >> reporter: kate, good morning to you. merry christmas. the caravan departed a city at the mexican border with gaut mall l.a. we are talking about thousands of migrants who will be here at the u.s. southern border in the next few weeks, in addition to the ones that have already arrived here. we are in eagle pass, texas, at the border with mexico. this is a community of less than 30,000 people that has to deal with thousands of immigrants arriving every week here and what you see behind me is a holding area where those migrants who surrendered to immigration officials either at points along the border or at a port of entry wait to be

processed. troy miller, the interim director for customs and border protection earlier said that the influx of migrants that they're currently seeing across the southwest border is presenting a serious challenge to cbp personnel. this new migrant surge, kate, is also putting a lot of pressure on local law enforcement. this is what maverick county sheriff tom merber had to say about this great challenge. let's take a listen. >> the law enforcement side we're suffering because we don't have the manpower to take care of what we call the local business, the criminal elements, and then the immigration problem. so it's causing us a lot of manpower and of course the federal government and the state troops, too, you know, they are not here in the river like they're supposed to be, they're processing. >> reporter: and how many immigrants have entered the united states recently? you may ask. according to the latest figures

released by customs and border protection, nearly a quarter of a million people were detained at the u.s. border with mexico during the month of november. in a statement cbp said that u.s. border patrol apprehensions so far in fiscal year 2024, which started on october 1st, are lower than at this point in the previous fiscal year, but, kate, it remains to be seen in that changes once december figures are included. now back to you. >> that's a great point, rafael, thank you very much from texas. we will be checking back in. and we are just a week away from a new year. congress is on a holiday break and there's still no clear border deal on the horizon. negotiations are ongoing but south carolina republican senator lindsey graham says there is one major snag keeping things stalled, a policy that allows migrants to stay in the united states while they seek asylum. listen. >> the hangup is parole. this administration does not want to let go of a tool they

are abusing. under our parole law you can admit people into the country who are outside the country or inside the country on an individual basis. they've been taking the parole statute and granting mass parole, blanket parole. >> all right. with us now axios national reporter sophia guy. thank you for being here on this christmas. hopefully there is some sort of bonus that comes to you today, but we will air the grievances later. speaking of grievances, there is a huge caravan of desperate human beings making their way to the u.s./mexico border. what is the president supposed to do when congress can't seem to pass comprehensive immigration policy? >> yeah, biden is facing a lot of pressures, he's got not only those logistical challenges that you see, but also, you know, the political pressures because on the one hand he can't be seen as doing nothing, but on the other he can't lose the democratic base to turn out for him next

year in the election year. so what you see is, right, biden reaching out to the president of mexico, urging him to do more on the mexican side of the border to prevent, you know, some of these migrants from crossing, as well as you hear speaker mike johnson, my colleague julie grace reported earlier this week, saying that speaker johnson wants biden to do more of the executive action. so, you know, he's grappling with a lot. he's told congress -- signaled he's willing to compromise on the border and i think that says a lot about where he's at and how tough a position he is at when it comes to the border. >> and the fact that this is all contingent upon whether or not ukraine gets funding, whether or not israel gets funding and you throw this in. it's a complicated mix. you know, there is a crisis at the board sh, that is no doubt. you look at the pictures, you look at the numbers, there are record numbers of people who have been coming up and through the border but nothing seems to be deterring them.

what does it look like as we get any closer to a potential deal how this might affect the politics of the presidential election? because you mentioned democrats aren't so happy with the biden administration and certainly republicans are not, either. >> yeah, so i think if you dig down into it you see a lot of the chc congressional hispanic caucus members protesting saying, you know, at one point there was not a single latina member involved in those high-level negotiations. and republicans, right, lindsey graham who we just heard from, he is one of 15 conservative senators who have written out to say that the negotiations are rushed and silent. and so, you know, those republicans are going to be incentivized to really put their foot down and push for very harsh measures that look like putting back in remain in mexico as well as third safe countries, so saying that if you've moved from another country through

mexico to the u.s., you cannot come in, as well as including those parole programs that lindsey graham and others want to be chopped out. they want that to be done with. that's kind of where things stand for biden. all of this is in the context of a president who is facing reelection next year. >> and another person who is hoping to be president, who is really honing in on this, donald trump as well. sophia cai, thank you for coming in on this holiday. appreciate you. now to the weather which is always a factor when it comes to holidays. a large storm system is bringing rain and snow to a big part of the country. they're seeing blizzard conditions in the central plains and some flood threats in the southeast. let's get over to cnn meteorologist chad myers for this. we all love a white christmas, it is definitely not that in new york. what are you seeing across the country? >> i'm seeing thunderstorms from

georgia to florida and a blizzard across parts of the dakotas, nebraska and kansas, two tales of this big storm system here and an awful lot of i think probably ground travel today, driving travel, going to be going through all of this rainfall. so let's get right to it. this is where the blizzard warning is with winds out of the north at 50 miles per hour, as the storm continues as we roll into tuesday and wednesday. yes, we are talking the plains, but even by later on tonight into tomorrow that's when even denver gets in the mix and if you're flying through denver they do a fantastic job with snow removal, but when you get winds that big and all of a sudden it's still snowing you can certainly get slowed down. where do we go from here? this is tonight and the rain is moving off to the east. as we move farther to the northeast for tuesday and then by wednesday, this rain, wind and clouds, low cloud cover, that's all going to be over the big airports in the northeast. there's your snow into denver, i think the skiers are going to

love that, but this is the whole point here, you're driving through it, getting back on 80, 76, going 70 over the mountains there will be slowdowns here. by wednesday here is the rain in the northeast. a lot of people going home on wednesday, we know that that's a really big travel -- not so much today, but by wednesday everybody is trying to get on an airplane and it is going to be slow. >> we will be watching that and tracking it throughout today to see where things are headed. thank you so much, chad. >> you're welcome. coming up, donald trump says it was his duty to question the results of the 2020 election. his latest effort to get the federal indictment against him thrown out. israel is increasing strikes against hamas as some aid and food supplies are arriving in gaza on christmas eve. and how did an unaccompanied 6-year-old headed to visit his grandmother end up on the wrong flight? we will explain.

just 70 days from today donald trump is scheduled to stand trial for his federal election subversion charges, but the path to get there of course a lot more complicated. a federal appeals court will soon hear oral arguments from both sides. the former president wants the court to toss the case out completely. this is after his latest attempt to claim presidential immunity. cnn's katelyn polantz is joins us with more on the arguments and timing of all of this. not a surprise. just about every defendant tries to get something thrown out, but this is a former president and this is a huge case. what do you know? >> reporter: it is, sara. everybody who is a criminal defendant tries to get their case thrown out just like you said, but there are only a couple ways that you can actually put everything on hold and go to an appeals court to

try to get the case thrown out if you lose at the trial level. donald trump lost at the trial level, he had a judge, judge tanya chutkan, saying there is no court ever that has granted immunity around the presidency in the way that donald trump is seeking it here and so he is appealing. there are oral arguments scheduled before the d.c. circuit court of appeals, the intermediary court between the trial level and the supreme court. so those appeals, arguments, are taking place on january 9th and everybody is preparing for that because it is a really big case. it's a lot of legal arguments about the constitution, about the presidency, about the immunity that could be given to the president for things that they were doing while in office. trump is saying he can't be tried, he shouldn't have to sit for trial. it is something the supreme court is very likely to look at in the future no matter what the d.c. has decided, but trump already this weekend is in his preparations, his team has filed a brief to the circuit preparing

for that argument and they're going shakespearian in their language. they say that it is a plague on the nation that a former president or anyone who has been in the presidency would be prosecuted criminally and he says that the unbroken tradition of no president ever being prosecuted that died this year. that's a quote. and the historical fallout is tremendous. so a lot of strong language from trump's legal team, but there is a lot of law that the courts will have to work through here on whether donald trump can go to trial in march. >> i would assume that jack smith will be going with the constitution, no one is above the law type of thought, maybe not so shakespearian. katelyn polantz, thank you so much. we will see what the courts decide. a poet in his own right joining us now, cnn legal analyst joey jackson. joey, let's work through some more of the argument that's laid out in this filing made by trump's legal team just late on saturday night. in addition to being shakespearian, here is one argument that they are making, the 234-year tradition of not

prosecuting presidents for official acts, despite ample motive and opportunity to do so, provides powerful evidence that the power to do so does not exist. what do you think of that argument? >> yeah, kate, good morning to you. i think of it that prosecutions are predicated upon facts and if you can't have facts that are analogous, that is, not identical, but similar to this one, then it's really a false comparison. perhaps the reason that you didn't prosecute presidents in the past is that the presidents didn't engage in conduct that would rise to this level and if or when they did there are other forums like impeachment that we've seen in previous circumstances that could. here we have a president who it's alleged has done something extraordinary to warrant prosecution, says jack smith. so i don't think you can paint with a broad brush and look at 236 years of history, you have to look at specifically what you did and what the consequences

should be and i think that's what the special counsel is doing here. >> you mentioned impeachment, actually i was surprised to see that trump's legal team is also pointing to impeachment as part of their argument why the president cannot be prosecuted here. trump's acquittal in the second impeachment as a reason for immunity. here is what they write, president trump's acquittal by the senate bars prosecution for the conduct alleged in the indictment. before any single prosecutor can ask a court to sit in judgment of the president's conduct, congress must have approved of it by impeaching and convicting the president. that did not happen here and so president trump has absolute immunity. what do you think of that one? what do you think of that line of thought? >> yeah, so, kate, what happens is good lawyers and certainly he has, that is, the former president, very good ones, are going to make any argument available. so that is an argument. a double jeopardy argument. to the extent that the president

was tried in terms of an impeachment from an impeachment perspective, does now a criminal proceeding constitute double jeopardy? i think it's a stretch of an argument. look, everyone is innocent until proven guilty and trump that applies to, too, but the issue is that i do not see any precedents, i don't see any legal authority or anything else which would suggest that simply because there are impeachment proceedings that that would operate as a bar to a federal prosecution. so very good, clever, creative argument, i just don't know, kate, that it carries the day. >> if this is more about delaying the process as much as possible than it is about winning the immunity argument, if you will, how much does this filing late saturday night go to delaying this process? because we know jack smith had tried to go to the supreme court and have them kind of short-circuit around this step. how much could all of this, you know -- there has to be a domino

effect here. how much could this delay things? what about the timing? >> yes, so remember what the end result or end goal could be. in the event that mr. trump wins the presidency then there would be nothing to see here. why? because then he would be in control of the justice department as president and could either ask the justice department to dismiss the case or in the alternative attempt to pardon himself. so the end game is the delay because you get closer to the election, closer to being potentially elected and then you have much more control. so that's the issue. i do think, though, kate, that it was very important for the supreme court to reject an immediate appeal. i think there needs to be a process, that process we're going straight to the supreme court is it's not so much unique, but it's not done so often. i think that if we're going to say that president trump is -- former president trump is like every other person, then treat him that way. i think it gets really more confidence and integrity in the system when you go through the requisite steps. we know the d.c. circuit court,

that's the appellant court, is evaluating the immunity decision, it's expedited so we will hear oral arguments in january and quite frankly that's the way it should be. we will see what the supreme court does thereafter because you know, kate, that's exactly where it's going in terms of the losing party. >> absolutely. thank you, joey, for coming in. merry christmas. >> merry christmas. thanks, kate. >> thank you. all right. the chances of this happening is 1 in 2 billion, an alabama woman who already had two uteruses which is quite rare in and of itself just gave birth to twins. meet her miracles ahead. but first the desperation building in gaza after palestinian officials say dozens of people were killed in a round of intense air strikes. new images of the destruction coming up.

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to gaza now where hamas says an israeli strike killed at least 70 people at a refugee camp on sunday. video from the scene shows people digging through the rubble looking for survivors. the ministry is calling the strike a massacre, claiming it hit in a crowded residential square. idf says it is looking into this incident but the israeli military has said it is intensifying its operations inside gaza, even as the humanitarian situation gets more dire by the way. joining us now is senior international correspondent will ripley. will, what does it look like for those who are living there in gaza right now, and knowing that -- i know you went to the west bank as well, just the reaction of people and how they're trying to live through

this. >> reporter: well, even though the global pressure is mounting on israel to try to negotiate a ceasefire with hamas, just yesterday that attack you just described could be one of our deadliest days in recent memory in this conflict because the death toll is being reported widely here as being even higher than the at least 70 we have been able to officially confirm. the situation is very dire. there is desperation that is evident everywhere. who can forget this video we saw come in from the rafah crossing on sunday where these aid trucks, a convoy of aid trucks were essentially ambushed by a crowd of people so desperate to get their hands on anything because they're short on everything, they're short on food, they're short on water, they're short on medical supplies, they're short on supplies to build temporary tents to house their families and up until today on this christmas day the weather is nice, but the last several days it was a cold whipping wind, thunderstorms, very heavy rain, enough to drench you to the bone

if you stand outside just for a few minutes, never mind if you are a family living out in the elements, exhausted and starving and being told that you have to pack up and move everything to a place you don't know where it will be safe and yet that's what happened when israel announced it was expanding its military operation from the north into central gaza and into the south telling people who already had to move two or three times that they have to move yet again. perhaps one of the biggest, most pressing and urgent situations is the food situation and health care situation according to the world health organization. just listen to this. >> everybody who we speak to is hungry. there is the risk of a famine here in gaza actually and even here in the hospital, everybody says that they only have rice, they have very often only one meal a day and they're hungry. in gaza today there was a challenge with food we brought for one hospital that was taken along the road because people are so desperate for food. >> reporter: president biden did speak with the israeli prime

minister benjamin netanyahu, they talked about, among other things, the objectives of the war, the phasing of the war, the united states privately is pressing israel to find a way to go after hamas leadership without hurting and killing so many innocent civilians because in addition, sara, to the staggering death toll of well over 20,000 reported by the hamas controlled health ministry, that same source says the number injured have surpassed 53,000 people. 53,000 people injured and almost no functioning hospitals able to treat them. >> all right. will ripley, thank you for that reporting there, live from tel aviv. to you and your team, i hope you can have a little bit of a holiday. >> joining us to talk much more about the status of things there, cnn military analyst and retired u.s. air force colonel cedric leighton. i want to ask you first about prime minister benjamin netanyahu, his message sunday was that the israeli military is intensifying operations inside of gaza. from your analysis of what has

already happened in like the first seven weeks or so of its military operation, can you give us some perspective on how intense -- how intense it's been already and what's stepping that up at this point could even look like? >> yeah, good morning. good christmas morning to you, kate. there are so many different aspects to this that i think we really need to pull apart here, but the key thing is this, when you compare the u.s. operations in mosul, for example, with the operations the israelis have conducted so far in gaza, the israelis have been working this for, you know, like you said, about seven weeks or so in eight or nine months the u.s. forces basically did about a third to a half of the work that the israelis have done so far in terms of the destruction of building and the destruction of all of the different infrastructure that occurred in those areas. so when you look at what happened in gaza, this is

probably the most intense bombing campaign that has taken place in the 21st century so far. we don't have figures yet on ukraine, however, this seems to be far more intense and far more localized than anything that has happened there. when you compare all the operations that the israelis have conducted so far, what you're seeing is destruction of about a quarter of the buildings that have been damaged. we are talking somewhere around 30,000 buildings -- excuse me, 40,000 buildings almost that have been damaged in gaza, of those at least 10,000 have been completely destroyed. if they do any more intensive operations what you are looking at basically is them moving into the central and southern sectors of gaza. this is where all the people have been moved to. they've been dislocated from their normal homes. they have nowhere else to go. so the intensive nature of this fight will get even more desperate for the civilian

population when you look at all of the things that are happening here, the situation can only get worse for that civilian population. >> we've also heard idf spokesperson over the weekend and the way they've put it is we're approaching the final stages of gaining operational control over the north of gaza. that means what? >> so what they're talking about there, kate, is that they are in essence trying to exercise complete control, in other words, eliminate all of hamas in the northern areas of gaza. that's a really tough thing to do given the way in which hamas has deployed itself throughout different buildings that are there, even those that aren't standing in a complete fashion. you also look at the different tunnels that they have used and, you know, we are talking somewhere around 1,500 different tunnel entrances that the israelis have discovered. so this is the idea of

operationally controlling northern gaza is something that they won't be able to achieve with 100% certainty and if they move toward the south and central parts it's going to be even more difficult for the israelis to exercise complete control of the territory they have gained. complete 100% total control will be impossible for them to achieve. >> colonel, thank you always for coming on. thank you very much. merry christmas. >> thank you. merry christmas to you, kate. >> thank you. before we take a quick break we want to take a moment now to share some holiday greetings from u.s. service members serving abroad this christmas. watch this. >> i'm captain vincent martin with the 40th id in the wonderful country of jordan. want to say happy holidays and what's up to the family and the great state of alabama. >> i'm sergeant amman, currently deployed in jordan. i just want to wish everybody back home a merry christmas and happy holidays. >> hi, i'm major danielle for

res, currently deployed with the 40th infantry division. i love you and miss you, happy holidays and see you soon. with . i lolove you andnd miss you,u, holidays a and see youou soon. ch infantntry divisioion. i loveve you and m miss you, h hoholidays andnd see you s soon.

also on our radar this hour, police have issued an arrest warrant for the gunman in connection to the deadly shooting at a mall in florida on saturday. police are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the man's arrest. the suspect has been identified as 39-year-old albert j. shell jr. one man was killed and a woman was injured in the shooting. police say the man is wanted for

premeditated first-degree murder and attempted premeditated first-degree murder in what they call a targeted incident. spirit airlines is apologizing after putting a 6-year-old boy on the wrong flight right before christmas. young casper was supposed to fly from philadelphia to fort myers, florida, to visit his grandmother. he was put on a flight to orlando instead. his grandmother was understandably panicked when the fort myers flight landed and he did not arrive. >> how did that happen? did they get him off the plane? did the flight attendant at the mom handle him with paperwork? did she let him go by himself? >> after it was confirmed that casper was okay and landed in orlando, the family opted to drive the 160 miles to pick him up. spirit airlines offered to pay for the drive but the family says they just want to know how this was able to happen. the airline says it is conducting an internal investigation.

now, the chances of this one are 1 in 2 billion, an blam woman with a rare condition of having a double uterus has given birth to twin girls, each baby grew in their own separate womb -- god, they're cute -- after a combined 20 hours of labor roxy was born first on december 19th, then rebel was born on december 20th. here is their rock star mother kelsey hatcher. >> everybody got super emotional when roxy was born because it was like we did it, like we successfully did this. lots of tears. lots of clapping. it was fun. but then the reality hit that, okay, well, we have another one we have to take care of, too. >> think about that one. we made it through one labor, you've still got another one to go. every woman knows that is crazy to think about. if you are wondering, even though the girls were born on different days and grew in two different wombs they are still considered fraternal twins and,

yes, having a double uterus is rare and occurs in 0.3% of women. they are so cute. >> can we just keep those pictures up all day. >> they don't look like little babies they look like delicious mushy. >> mushy goo. >> let me squeeze them. >> put them up every hour and it will make us feel better. >> back to rebel and roxy. our new cnn correspondents. as one would be. >> as one would be. as a second child born. all right. the last week of 2023 begins with some welcome news on the economic front. yes, there is some good news. shocker. after more than three years of steady increases inflation finally slowed. last month with prices falling on a monthly basis for the first time since april 2020. yeah. economic experts say it could be a sign the u.s. economy could reach a, as they're calling it, soft landing, sort of reigning in inflation without massive job cuts. russia's war on ukraine has continued to affect grain and

energy markets, however, and attacks on commercial ships passing through the red sea could have an impact on oil prices, although gas is down for now. joining me to discuss ken rogoff an economics and public policy professor at harvard and former chief economist at the international monetary fund. thank you for coming in on this holiday. i'm just going to -- >> merry christmas. >> you are a harvard guy, i'm going to ask you a really simple question. today is christmas so can you give us the good news first, please? >> 2023 was a good year, a lot better than anyone expected. jobs grew a lot, wages went up, as you just said, inflation came down, growth was decent, the stock market blew through the roof. so from many perspectives it was a surprisingly good year. >> i mean, can we say that the economy has truly avoided a potential recession? >> well, i mean, it certainly looks that way.

usually when inflation gets as high as it did, bring it down, the federal reserve has to raise interest rates a lot and it causes casualties. it certainly did some and it may still, but, you know, so far, so good. it really looks like going into 2024 the u.s. at least is in decent shape. i think if you want to buy a house, not so much. i mean, interest rates are high, housing prices are high. certainly not everything is golden, but compared to what many people thought, including myself, things were a really good year. >> we've seen some numbers in sort of the way people feel about the economy rising as well because those are often two different things, that happened at two different times. i do want to ask what the threats might be to an economic recovery, what you see that could cause havoc potentially. >> well, i think the biggest thing still is that interest rates have come down, but they're probably not going to

come down to what people were used to before the pandemic. they're probably going to stay higher, not peak, but higher for the next decade and over time that's going to cause problems. you know, commercial real estate is really in the doldrums. there are many other parts of the world which are having problems. i said the u.s. had a good year. germany tipped into recession, china had a terrible year. you talked about the geopolitical uncertainty in oil prices. so there are certainly things that can go wrong and the one thing we can be sure of is it's a very volatile economy still, but, you know, we can celebrate the end of this year. >> i think we're going to leave it there, ken rogoff, celebrating the end of the year sounds good to me. thank you for being here. happy holiday. >> happy holiday to you. coming up for us, she was not capable of speaking for the first nine years of her life, but now this little girl has a voice. the remarkable surgery and the

first words she spoke. that's next.

now to the remarkable story

of a 9-year-old who was born with her airways and vocal chords almost completely blocked, leaving her unable to speak. >> now a rare procedure is helping this young girl find her voice for the first time. >> one scoop or two scoops? >> reporter: 9-year-old eliza diaz is practicing to use her new vocal chords. she was born with a condition that causes problems throughout the body. derek lamb, her doctor, showed us with this model. >> this area from here to here, including just below the vocal chords, was not formed normally. the vocal chords were present, but there was just no opening between them. >> reporter: she learned to communicate using her tongue and cheeks to make sounds and form words known as buckle speech. >> can you say mama?

>> say thank you. >> she was thriving like any other little girl, except, of course, that she had no voice through any of that time. >> reporter: but last year, she and her family decided to go ahead with a complex and rare reconstructive surgery to open her vocal chords. her mom was nervous. >> i thought she wasn't ready yet, but she was. >> reporter: the surgery took eight hours. >> the bottom part of the voice box and the top of the wind pipe, had to cut that out and drill out the opening between the vocal chords here, and then add more cartilage borrowed from her ribs to make this part wider. and then connect up the bottom part of her windpipe to the reconstructed voice box. >> reporter: she wasn't able to speak with her vocal chords right away. but after months of therapy, her new voice emerged. >> that's fantastic. that's the first time i heard you say a sentence with your

normal voice. >> reporter: she's working hard to improve her voice. >> can you say, eeee. >> eee. >> ooo. >> ooo. >> something for the rest of us that is unconscious, for her she's had to learn to use her vocal chords. >> reporter: and she still often uses what she and her mom call her squeaky voice because it's easier. though she's been through a lot, she has a message for other kids who may be facing challenges. >> she says don't be scared. that everything will be okay. >> reporter: after years without working vocal chords, she can now use hers to say some of the most important things. >> i love you. >> i love you, too. >> reporter: meg terrell, cnn, reporting. >> that was just so sweet. megger erterrell, thank you.

finding her voice. all right. found after vanishing from a russian prison two weeks ago, where the jailed putin critic is right now and what we are learning about his current health condition. all that i is coming u up.

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right now, israel's war on hamas intensifying in gaza. dozens of palestinians reportedly killed overnight ad the idf is ramping up attacks. found after disappearing for two weeks. imprisoned putin critic alexei navalny no longer missing according to his team. where they say russia has moved him. dreaming of a white christmas? the grinch is bringing rai