week. >> he thought wearing a purple tie it would make up for it. we have another shot in two weeks. >> they do deserve something. >> you are doing awesome stuff. on new year's eve, you have to be watching on new year's eve. >> thank you, friend. >> some other person you're hiding out with. >> sara sidner. we will have fun on new year's eve, i hope you will be watching and to that end happy new year. so good to see you both. >> likewise, i'm bitter i wasn't invited. i will hope for next year. cari champion, thank you as always. we love you. "cnn news central" starts right now. ♪ >> if we can stay up past midnight. ♪ president biden is about to leave the white house, just as his secretary of state is on a mission in mexico to try to find some agreement to ease the crush

of migrants at the u.s. southern border. what's their plan now? power, revenge, dictatorship? three words front and center on a word cloud as voters describe donald trump's political goals. so why did trump decide to post this himself? and cnn investigates a cryptocurrency scam that is cheating americans out of billions of dollars. >> it's been a living hell day in and day out. >> i'm kate bolduan with sara sidner. john berman is on the night shift today. this is "cnn news central." ♪ we begin with breaking news this hour, a new court move that impacts the 2024 election. a state supreme court in michigan has just rejected an effort to remove donald trump from that state's primary

ballot. cnn's katelyn polantz has all the details coming in early today. this ruling comes eight days after colorado's supreme court ruled that trump should be removed from the ballot. tell us about what the supreme court in michigan is saying now. >> well, every state is following their own rules and their own processes for how to have candidates on the ballots and this is why we're seeing something so different in michigan today. the highest court in michigan, seven justices, determining they're not going to get involved. the lower courts in michigan said that they acknowledged that there were challenges to trump being on the primary ballot there and the lower court said, we also are not getting involved. this is not something for us to determine. and they weren't weighing in on the general election, either, at that time and so now this case goes to the michigan supreme court. they looked at it and they said, yeah, we're not going to do anything here, either. but one of the justices in michigan did write today in this ruling that michigan is very

different from colorado. the laws are different around who qualifies for their primary ballots there, and that is one of the reasons why that state is ending up with a different situation about determining whether or not donald trump can be on the ballot because of the constitutional ban on insurrectionists run you go for office. in colorado there was a limitation on who can be on the primary ballot, you have to qualify for it. in michigan it's different than that. and so now we have michigan's highest court saying we are not persuaded, the questions presented should be reviewed by this court related to the primary election in michigan and whether trump qualifies and can be voted for in that election. still remains to be seen what happens in the general if he does win the primary votes across the nation for the republican nomination. and also, a big question remains of what the supreme court will do whenever he very likely goes to them and asks for some clarity on these clauses. >> katelyn, is this the final

word? is there an opportunity for appeal for this effort in michigan? >> i mean, my understanding is this is the highest court in michigan. >> right. >> so this would be the final word for them. >> yeah. >> there always are opportunities to go to the supreme court and ask for clarity on these sorts of issues where the states will split, but one of the things to remember here is it's not the final word on all of the insurrectionist ban challenges to donald trump on the ballots. a lot of these states, including michigan, are having to look at it, colorado, too, they're having to look at it and the primary election right now because that's what's pending. what are the state's rules for who gets to be on their primary ballots? the general election in some of these states is going to be a different question that arises whether donald trump wins or loses and gets to be on those ballots. >> wow. getting even more complicated than it already is. >> extremely. >> now we have an answer out of michigan in this one situation.

thank you for jumping on, katelyn. appreciate it. all right. we're standing by now to see if president biden says anything to reporters as he leaves for vacation, which is going to happen any minute now. we will bring it to you as soon as we see him coming. he is sending his top officials at this moment to mexico amid mounting pressure to do something about the unprecedented migrant crisis that is happening right now on the southern border. hours from now the skrst, alejandro mayorkas and the white house adviser will all meet with officials in mexico with hopes of trying to drive down the record levels at the border crossings. this morning 11,000 migrants are waiting just to cross the border in mexico, 3,800 are in tijuana and more than 7,000 more near texas' southern tip. there are scenes of long lines at cross points as a new caravan of migrants with roughly 3,000 more people is trekking north.

although that number is actually down in the last few days. frustrations are reaching a fever pitch on the border, in washington and as you might imagine on the 2024 campaign trail as the white house faces fierce criticism. cnn's priscilla alvarez joins us now. what do we expect the president to say potentially as he leaves knowing that some of his cabinet members are in mexico now trying to deal with this unprecedented crisis? >> reporter: well, the president has been coming under increasing pressure from border towns who are simply overwhelmed by this unprecedented surge. his senior u.s. officials will be going down to mexico with specific asks to have them drive down or at least help drive down the numbers at the u.s. southern border. it's clear just how urgent this is by who is going. his highest ranking officials including secretary of state antony blinken and homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. now, officials tell me that these requests include the following, for example, move

migrants in the northern border of mexico further south, also controlling railways used by migrants to more quickly get to the u.s. southern border and also providing incentives like visas for migrants to remain in mexico and not continue to regularly migrate to the u.s. southern border. all of this of course an extension of that call between president biden and the mexican president last week where the two agreed that additional enforcement is needed. and the u.s. has often and historically looked at mexico for help when it came to moments of crises like we're seeing now. this is a step that the u.s. is taking to try to provide some relief to these border towns. but, sara, this year started with the president speaking with his mexican counterpart in mexico to talk about tackling migration and how to handle the record flows of people in the western hemisphere, especially after the pandemic. it is now ending with that same topic as the two countries still

try to get a grasp over this situation which is only worsened over the last few months. >> yeah. i mean, the policies of other countries as well play a huge role in this and also the level of poverty. we will be watching this and i know you've been all over this story. priscilla alvarez, thank you for your reporting. there are also new warnings this morning out of the middle east that the israel-hamas war could spill over to become the bigger broader war in the region. over a ten-hour period tuesday the u.s. navy intercepted a barrage of drones and missiles over the red sea. u.s. central command says that they were fired by the iranian backed houthi rebels out of yemen and one day before that president biden ordered strikes on another iran-backed group in iraq as retaliation for an attack that wounded u.s. service members at erbil air bass. natasha bertrand is tracking all of this in washington and joins us now. natasha, this round of attacks over the red sea yesterday, what more are you learning about this? >> reporter: just a very chaotic

day yesterday in the red sea in the houthis firing roughly 17 missiles and drones that the u.s. then intercepted. a u.s. navy destroyer as well as u.s. fighter jets intercepted these missiles and drones over the southern red sea and, you know, this comes as the houthis have really not been deterred at all by a u.s. maritime task force that was set up essentially just last week that was aimed at bolstering security in the red sea, bolstering the presence of u.s. and allied ships there to try to get the houthis to back off essentially and it has not worked clearly. but, you know, in the barrage yesterday there were 12 one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land attack cruise missiles, just a really, really dramatic escalation here and the u.s. is really bearing the brunt of it, shooting down a lot of these attacks coming from the houthis, although there are other allied ships in the region that are there to try to reassure commercial ships that they will

be secure if they transit through the southern red sea and up through the suez canal. a lot of these ships are still opting to not go through that area and it's really having a major impact on international trade and commerce here. but it's important to note that the houthis are not doing this alone, according to the national security council, which released declassified intelligence on friday about this, the iranians have provided the houthis with very specific tactical intelligence that has allowed them to target these commercial vessels in the southern red sea on a very specific basis and according to the national security council spokesperson, wrote, iranian support throughout the gaza crisis has enabled the houthis to launch attacks against maritime targets that iran has offered deterred decision-making authority to the houthis. the houthis have independence in what they target but are getting specific targeting information from the iranians and this is why the u.s. has made clear to iran they expect them to try to

rein in the iran-backed proxy groups but so far obviously iran is not listening to that is correct kate. >> shat that, thank you so much. joining us to talk more about this just this very thing retired army lieutenant general ben hodges. good to see you. let's talk about the broader threat. the pace of the attacks on u.s. and allied forces and interests in the region, it really has picked up significantly. this week is a perfect example, from the red sea to the indian ocean, israel and lebanon now to iraq and syria. how close do you think this is getting to spilling over to being a broader regional war, drawing the u.s. in further? >> well, kate, obviously iran is the center of gravity for all of this. i mean, everything that you just described is linked to iran and iranian influence, weapons, intelligence and resources. so until the united states looks -- connects the dots, if you will, of all of these different things, back to iran,

and starts using all the different elements of national power that we have along with our allies, including economic power, diplomatic power, not only military power, then we're going to continue to have to deal with this. and of course iran is russia's most important ally. so i don't think this is a coincidence that now we're being distracted away from support for ukraine. all of these things are connected and unfortunately as much good as the administration has done, there's now a legacy of escalation avoidance in russia -- or in ukraine against russia, as well as in the middle east. and so, you know, if we don't flatten the sites from which all these missiles are coming we're going to keep doing this. >> i want to ask you about escalation avoidance as you put it. i had an army major on yesterday, the way he described u.s. deterrents strategy right now in the middle east is playing whack-a-mole and not showing iran that the united

states is serious about this. talk to me about what you see in u.s. deterrent strategy so far. what is working? what isn't working? >> deterrents requires capability, demonstrated capability, and demonstrated will to use that capability. we waited an awful long time before we started hitting back at forces that were attacking american bases in iraq and syria. and now they've been shooting -- the houthis have been launching missiles at ships out in the red sea and now even the indian ocean and it's been quite a while before we actually started shooting back. now, of course, avoiding escalation is going to be at the top of the list for any administration, the problem is because we did so much of the last several years to avoid any kind of provocation on russia, an escalation there, the signal to iran, russia's most important allies, is that we would also seek to avoid escalation here. so now we're having to -- we're

having to pay the price for everybody feeling like they could attack us whenever they wanted. so, you know, if you step back and look at the whole region, not just the middle east, but connect it to russia and think about what we have to do diplomatically, coalitions, economically, isolating iran from everybody as well as having the adequate military capability to really damage their capabilities, that's -- we are not going to be effective in trying to deter this. and of course as you know, kate, china is watching all of this. does the united states have the political will, the defense industrial capacity and military capability with our allies to address all these. and i think right now they're not sure that we do. >> bottom line, no matter how complicated and complex it is, which it is, there's -- there's no questioning that, more is what i'm hearing from you, more is needed in order to stop this from spilling over, spreading, whatever word you want to use,

at getting a whole lot worse for more people. lieutenant general -- >> go ahead. >> i was going to say a legacy of escalation avoidance guarantees more escalation. >> lieutenant general ben hodges, thank you for coming in. still ahead, donald trump leans into the most dierg warnings about his potential second term. reposting a word cloud that includes things like revenge, dictatorship and corruption. we will talk about that ahead. plus, a man left trapped in his mangled truck over christmas after an accident drinking only rain water for six days to survive. you have to hear how he was finally spotted and finally rescued. also, protesters over the war in gaza add an extra layer of concern to new year's eve celebrations here in new york city. what the mayor says they're going to do to try to beef up security this year.

here is what voters told the daily mail, they think donald trump is after revenge, dictatorship and power if he wins the white house again and the former president seems to agree with them. trump shared this word cloud on his social media account, it shows the top results of a poll where voters were asked to describe what both president trump and biden want out of their second term. axios senior contributor margaret talev and republican strategist alice stewart is joining us now. let's start with you, margaret. donald trump is leaning into this idea of dictatorship, of power, of revenge. is this something that is -- i mean, it clearly is working for him, is it not? the polls still show he is the number one front runner for the republican party. >> good morning, sara. thanks for having me. look, it is sort of stunning to

see a former president who is running for president again lean into something like this and embrace these descriptors. i would look at this in two ways, first of all, he is not at this exact moment running for general election, he is running to secure wins in key early states in the primaries and first caucuses. so iowa, new hampshire, i don't know if it will work as well in new hampshire, but he's still in a primary election. but second of all this is sort of a long tested sort of donald trump play which is when confronted with something critical you don't apologize or change course or back away, you recommend brace it and you lean into it. so maybe that's all that this is. there's something else interesting at work, though, there's a really interesting harvard caps poll that came out a couple weeks ago that shows that more than half of americans think that if donald trump were reelected he would behave more like a dictator in the second term in a subsequent term, but also even more of respondents said that they believed democrats are trying to scare

people into thinking donald trump is going to behave like a dictator. so i think that is part of the strategy at play here. >> it's interesting. he himself said that he would be dictator for a day when he was asked during a town hall. i'm curious, alice, when you see these words and that 1,000 likely voters all use sort of some of the same words, the big ones coming up like dictator and revenge, in the end what do you think voters as a whole will do when you consider that this is something that's on the top of their minds when it comes to the general election? >> again, i agree with margaret in terms of he embraces these words because this is music to the ears of his base, and any other person would run from these types of words used to describe them, but this is donald trump's dream scenario, for people to perceive him as someone with these attributes and seeking revenge, that's what he's been trying to encourage and explain to his base for the

last several years. he's actually obviously happy that they recognize that. most other leaders would prefer to have words like leader, empathetic, proven leader, someone who can get things done, accomplished, but this is not donald trump. he is embracing this kind of language, he uses this really as a badge of honor and if nothing else this just goes to show if anyone thought he was going to turn the page or soften the rhetoric they're sadly mistaken because he is doubling down on this. this is certainly going to help him as he makes his way through iowa and new hampshire and these gop states, but that is not the kind of language and descriptors you want for someone who is heading into a general election. that's why these other candidates are leaning in on the message that they are optimistic, they are a younger generation, they will work across the aisle. those are the kind of words that anyone who wants to do well and be electable in a general

election are going to be using. >> alice, i want to talk to you quickly about a conversation i had with -- and i will get back to you, margaret -- a conversation we had with new hampshire governor chris sununu who has full-heartedly endorsed nikki haley. here is what he told you. >> i'm not anti-trump as much as i am pro republican party, right? so, you know, i supported trump in 2016 and 2020 and we had a great working relationship. thank you for your service, we're moving forward. for me it's about galvanizing the republican party, getting the country to move forward not litigating the past. that's it. and nicki can do that. >> interesting to say i'm not anti-trump, i'm pro republican party, which seems a little bit like an oxymoron in that people believe that the party is donald trump's. when you hear chris sununu saying that, is this something that can catch fire with voters, do you think? >> well, it appears to be because nikki haley is gaining in support and that's a similar message she's been communicating

as she campaigns in iowa and new hampshire. following up on my conversation i had just about half an hour ago with the governor, his point with donald trump is that, look, he's -- hasn't won, he is a proven loser, he didn't promise -- he promised to build a wall and didn't follow through on it, he added to the debt, he has made things more divisive in this country and indicates over and over that donald trump is not where we need to go in terms of winning a general election. and he pivots back to what nikki haley has been able to do in terms of communicating a message that resonates with not just primary voters, but general election voters and her message and her idea resonates well in new hampshire the live free or die state. she looks at supporting individual rights and reducing federal government regulations and that's a winning message he believes in new hampshire and i think a lot of republican voters are looking to, again, not anti-trump, not never trumpers, but they are pro republican party and that's the message

they want to get out there moving forward. >> margaret, what is your take on this idea? sununu is really popular in new hampshire, he's been reelected and he's putting his weight behind nikki haley but it's just one state. >> but it's a state that could matter a lot, right? so nikki haley still has a deficit, the polling suggests, to overcome in new hampshire. chris sununu does not have a job to do in iowa, he does not have a job to do in south carolina. he has a job to do in new hampshire. what he's trying to do is twofold, trying to consolidate the non-trump vote around nikki haley to move past chris christie or anyone else who is left in the field, make it all about haley. number two, to address those questions that the pro trump pac put out recently suggesting -- using sort of misleading context to suggest she was going to raise people's taxes and stuff. when chris sununu is talking about live free or die he's talking about taxes and a more

subtle message to female voters in new hampshire about preserving their right to make their own reproductive choices which haley is anti-abortion but has also suggested that she doesn't want to take away rights in states for individual women. >> yeah, she's sort of threaded that needle in a way. go ahead. >> right. and made it more of a nuanced message in terms of let's not talk about abortion ban, but abortion limits that both sides could come to an agreement on. >> which the polling numbers do show that americans are sort of back that, not the bans, but limits. margaret talev and alice stewart, thank you for coming on this holiday week. appreciate you. coming up for us, there are new concerns around security for new year's eve celebrations in times square. what the mayor is now saying. we will bring you that. and trapped in his car for a week, how two fishermen saved this man's life. >> and i looked inside and moved the white air bag and there was a body in there and i went to

touch it and he turned around d and that jusust -- it alalmost kikilled me.

i'm a little anxious, i'm a little excited. i'm gonna be emotional, she's gonna be emotional, but it's gonna be so worth it. i love that i can give back to one of our customers. i hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. oh my goodness. oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. bold. daring. expressive. contra costa college allows me to be whoever and whatever i want to be,

providing the stage, the canvas, the tools to use my voice and write my story. find your passion and create your future at contra costa college. start today at contracosta.edu police in indiana are calling this a miracle. two misfishermen saved a driver from his mangled truck, he had been stuck there for nearly a week after he crashed when they found him. police say the driver may not have survived another night had they not been able to locate him. danny freeman is following this. how is the driver doing and what happened? >> i mean, listen this, story is truly incredible and i think the word miracle is thrown around a

lot. >> haphazardly. >> this is a miracle and could have gone completely differently had this not happened. it started yesterday 34r5 in the afternoon. these two men they were in portage, indiana, 40 miles southeast of chicago, they were looking to fish, you know, post-christmas, cast a line, trying to get a fish out there. >> it's warm enough, it's not frozen. >> exactly. and mario, the older gentleman, sees something shiny under a bridge. he doesn't see a truck initially. he and his son-in-law go to investigate, they see a truck. mario moves back an air bag on the truck and see what he thinks is a lifeless body. >> oh, my god. >> reaches out, touches the man and at that point he wakes up, turns around and they realize they have a lot more of a problem here. >> oh, my god. >> so it turns out the man had been in his car, he crashed his car, last wednesday, so six days prior, and just take a listen to mario how he describes that moment of finding this

gentleman. >> we were getting to the fishing hole and the truck was a little distance, but it was more like a mangled -- you couldn't tell it was a truck or not. it caught our curiosity. i walked over there first and he followed me and we went up to it. i looked inside and moved the white air bag and there was a body in there and i went to touch it and he turned around and that just -- it almost killed me there because it was kind of shocking, but he was alive and he was very happy to see us. like he was really like -- i never seen a relief like that. >> never seen relief like that. incredible story. the man pulled out was a 27-year-old, first responders were able to tick take him out of there. it's unclear what caused the crash but first responders say that he survived for six days by drinking rain water. incredible story. >> and he's recovering now. >> he's recovering, he was taken to the hospital, he was able to talk a little bit as i understand to first responders. but, again, the luck that it has

not been that cold as you mentioned. >> exactly. >> truly incredible. >> wow. >> and it rained and that probably saved him. >> yes. >> great humans. yay. yay for great humans. and great people in indiana. >> thank you. >> danny, thank you for bringing us that. >> thank you both. all right. this morning new york authorities boosting security as the city prepares for the big new year's eve celebration in times square, the one and only. mayor eric adams saying that protests over the israel-hamas war in gaza have officials concerned about potential disruptions on new year's eve. the city is putting new strategies in place, including limiting how many officers are going to be staying on the scene at an incident. cnn law enforcement reporter mark morales joins us now live with more details. are there specific threats that are causing concern because every single year there is the concern of terrorism, every single year there is a concern of a security breach there. >> reporter: right. share ration as you mentioned, naturally because it's new year's eve there's always a

heightened sense of threat, but specifically for this, the concern are those demonstrations. as you mentioned, those protests have started in the city ever since the israel-hamas war started back in october and they released some numbers yesterday and they just wanted to go through some of these with you. they have almost 500 protests that have happened in the city since the beginning of the war. they estimate just over 160,000 demonstrators have attended these protests, so there's obviously a lot of deployment, a lot of manpower done by the nypd, and there is precedent for this concern. if you remember police had to make numerous arrests during the rockefeller center tree lighting ceremony because demonstrators had gone there to disrupt that event as well. i asked mayor adams about this yesterday during a briefing and he told me there were two main ways they were going to really combat this, one was going to be technology and the other deployment of officers, the idea

being they were going to deploy the right amount of officers, no more and no less, but just enough so that they can address the situation without creating a vulnerability elsewhere. take a listen. >> there's something that's known in policing particularly when there's some type of terrorist action of secondary devices and things like that. they want to draw attention from one area to go to specific target area. we are really exercising our mental muscles to make sure that that does not happen. people have to maintain their locations and use minimum deployment from where a particular incident is happening so that we do not allow people to take us off our goal. >> and as far as technology is concerned, there's going to be some that we see and some that we don't. we will see a lot of drones, they've been really pushing how many drones they've acquired over the last several months, but we're also going to see vehicle scanning devices and

radiation detection devices both of which have had seen technology really advance over the last couple years. sara? >> yeah, we know that it gets real crowded down there at times square so we will be waiting and watching, i know you will be all over this. mark, thank you so much. coming up for us, lives destroyed, billions of dollars stolen. cnn investigates a sophisticated scam known as pig butchering, the victims losing their lives savings to fake promises of love. >> i got a russian girl, a russian girl fake profile. i need to scan a paper. 80% file for fake love.

billions of dollars scammed and stolen from americans, a sophisticated crypto scam run by people on the other side of the globe forced into labor camps. it's a new cnn investigation into the scheme that has earned the name pig butchering. cnn's ivan watson reports. >> please help me, jessica. please help me. >> it's been a living hell. >> reporter: in northern california c.y. is piecing together his life after losing more than a million dollars in a crypto scam. >> i can never forget or forgive myself, losing this kind of money. >> reporter: c.y. is one of hence of thousands of victims of a fast growing new form of financial fraud called pig butchering. he asks to remain anonymous to protect his family.

it started in october 2021 with a text message from a stranger. >> what was the name of the person you were communicating with. >> she a claims her name is jessica. >> reporter: the two quickly became friends, she shared photos and c.y. talked about the pain of caring for his dying father. after nearly a month the conversation turned to money. >> she started to introduce me into cryptocurrency, trading gold using cryptocurrency. >> reporter: jessica showed c.y. how to invest by installing a trading app on his phone that he says looked legit. little did he know he was a victim, pumping money into a sophisticated con. for the scammers, a pig fattened up for the slauter >> i logged back in, the account is gone. what did i do? that's 30 years of my wife and my life building up this wealth. >> reporter: wealth that had suddenly disappeared.

panicking, c.y. begged jessica for help. >> please help me. i don't know what else i can do. i don't have any more money. i cannot buy anything else. i lost everything. >> reporter: but jessica disappeared and probably never even existed. >> this is the professionalization of fraud services. >> reporter: the fbi says it's seen exponential growth in lasses due to pig butchering scams. >> the bad guys are getting good and they're getting better. >> reporter: an organization representing scam victims tracked their crypto transfers halfway around the world to this border region in myanmar. >> u.s. scam victims say they've been able to trace their money to places like this. this walled compound across the river is just inside the territory of myanmar and that is where we're learning about the conditions inside that some people who work there, they say that they were forced against

their will to try to scam americans out of their hard earned money in conditions that they describe as amounting to modern day slavery. >> reporter: this compound is where an indian man named rakesh says he was forced to work for more than 11 months without pay for a chinese criminal gang. >> the guards have spotted us. >> reporter: until they recently released him back to thailand. >> where was the job supposed to be? he, too, was the victim of a scam, rakesh, who doesn't want to be identified, says he first flew to thailand for what he thought was an i.t. job, instead he says he was tricked into crossing the border to myanmar where a chinese gangster told him to work or else. >> he threatened to kill you. >> he warned me like that. >> reporter: and the job spend 16 hours a dayton social media targeting americans with a fake profile. >> like they were providing for us, i got a russian girl, a russian girl fake profile.

>> reporter: posing as a salt lake city based investor, he flirted online with potential targets. >> 70 to 80% fall for fake love. >> reporter: he showed secretly filmed images at what at first glance seems to be an ordinary office but says bosses routinely punished workers forcing them to do hundreds of squats and beating them if they didn't produce. >> you've helped rescue people who are trapped inside behind the barbed wire of that very compound. >> yes. >> reporter: michelle moore is one of a group of aid workers based in thailand who have helped rescue hundreds of victims of trafficking like rakesh over the last 18 months. she drives me along the border. >> there is a guard tower just there, green roof. >> reporter: showing compounds only a stone's throw away where she says trafficked victims are forced to work as online scammers. >> that's why this is modern

slavery. and it's right under everybody's nose. >> reporter: satellite images show rapid construction of these compounds on the border territory of myanmar over just three years. thailand's minister of justice labels these facilities as hubs for criminal scamming activity. >> translator: these scammers have to use telephone signals to communicate, that's why they base themselves by the thai border to use the telephone net network. >> he says they have to jurisdiction to crack down across the border of myanmar. cnn asked why they haven't taken action against alleged criminal gangs operating on its territory and did not receive an answer. so for now it looks like no one is going to stop this poisonous cycle of exploitation. ivan watson, cnn on the thai border with myanmar.

>> wow. ivan, thank you so much. ivan watson bringing us that report and that investigation. thank you. all right. drivers are stranded after blizzard-like conditions shut down parts of i-08 across nebraska. the latest on a winter storm now moving east that could make for some really unpleasant travel. and why the flight carrying migrants from texas to new york ended up in philadelphia. we will discuss coming up.

200 migrants were onboard. the flight left from el paso hours after landing in philadelphia, and the group was then put on busses and continued on to new york.

the massive winter storms blanket the east coast and that's not the only area to watch out for. sorry, guys you're looking at video now out of south dakota and blizzard conditions that hit the central u.s. over christmas are beginning to end, but only after dumping heavy snow and it caused dozens of crashes. cnn's derek van dam is joining us from the weather center. that was bleak. and any given tuesday. still dangerous, right. that same storm system is wreaking havoc along the east coast, but a completely different manner. this time it's fog and rain and of course, that can have trouble -- travel trouble concerns at the airports and on the roadways, as well. i've been watching this web cam. this is an earth cam from new york city, and you can see the east river and there's the

brooklyn bridge and we've seen raindrops now just spattering on the lens and the lowering on the cloud and aka fog that has settled into the city and it's been fluctuating in and out of the big apple and we've had areas of fog that have dropped the visibility levels below a quarter of a mile. look at farmingdale and islip and this is incredible to see what's going on and very difficult travel conditions across the area as we continue with fog and rain across the northeast. sara? >> all right, derek. you have to do better for us in the coming year, but i guess i'll take it. >> keep it coming. >> the weatherman shaming has been epic this week. derek, we love you, we hate you and we can't quit you. that's how we'll leave it. [ laughter ] >> you're relentless. relentless. coming up for us, secretary of state tony blinken is on his way to mexico right now to meet with top officials about the crisis

at the u.s. border. the ask that tony blinken and other top u.s. officials are bringing down there with them. my sport propels me forward.

contra costa college saw potential in me that i didn't know i had. focus. determination. drive. contra costa college helped me blaze the trail. now i'm a comet, and there's no stopping me. come on, this is your shot. take it. join the team at contra costa college. start today at contracosta.edu