♪ good morning, everybody. so grateful to see you here on the last day of 2016. i'm christi paul. >> good day, i'm martin savidge in for victor blackwell. >> nice way to step up, there, mr. martin. the countdown, here it is, sydney, australia, ringing in the new year. there they go, folks, live to sydney harbor. >> the count. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> it's very intense music they have going on with that. >> nice fireworks going on. sydney, one of my favorite cities in all of the world. let's go to sky news reporter amy greenbank. she's there and hopefully able to hear us and talk about what she's seeing. amy? >> reporter: well, happy 2017 to you in the u.s. sydney is the first major city to ring in the new year or at least we would like to think we lead the world in the celebrations. of course, we're doing it in style. this year we're bringing it to you live from the top of the

sydney skyscraper, just take a look at this birds eye view. now the harbor is being lit up with 30 tons of fireworks that are now exploding in the skies above. the pyrotechnics display has honored and music entertainment legends we lost this year, gene wilder, david bowie, prince. our people paying tribute to our australian aboriginals. the golden sun will be the be seen shortly. about 1.5 million people are here. security has been extra tight this year as the threat level, the terror threat level remains probable. there are around 2,000 extra police officers patrolling the waterways and the streets to keep australians safe this new year's eve and right now just look at this. isn't it spectacular?

not just the fireworks being lit from barges underneath, exploding across the skyline. it is the biggest and the brightest light display they're telling us yet, so record crowds and a record light display to match. they're saying it's going to be so bright it will be reflected right down the harbor. >> wow. that is spectacular. amy greenbank, thank you very much as she is reporting to us from the future. it's already 2017 there. we are still waiting back here in the past. >> pretty good point. >> yeah, well. let's move along. national outrage now after a vermont utility company found russian hacking malware on one of its computers. this after officials confirmed that a code used with the russian hacking operation was protected. and although this was not connected to the company's electrical grid system, it still does expose the nation's vulnerability to foreign threats. what were the russians intending

to do? cnn's polo sandoval has more on the details. >> this move shows that the russians are trying to penetrate our grid and carry out an attack. vermont utility company reported it found malware. they received a warning from the department of homeland security a warning about cyber threats what the federal government refers to grizzly was on the computer here in question. this is the same malware that was used to influence the election in november. the company said it was not connected to the power grid that serves close to 20,000 customers. had it been this could have been kas strosk. nonetheless, it is concerting for officials including the governor for vermont who responded in a statement. i want to read you a portion in that statement which he is clearly expressing outrage here. he said, quote, this episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put to an

end the sort of russian meddling i call upon the federal government to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure this never happens again. this government warning initially led to the big red flag and the discovery of this vulnerability. the recommendation here marlten and christi is for some of these companies to take a hard look at some of their network security systems. guys? >> polo, real quick, beyond that, though, anything else they recommend they should do? is the u.s. government going to actively try to help them protect this infrastructure? >> federal officials have been involved and recommending some of these private companies to try to really close in on some of their network security because they are very familiar with what's happened. for example, ukraine december of 2015, a fairly cyberattack that crippled hundreds of towns

there. many towns, many homes losing power. officials here in the u.s. are familiar with what can happen particularly here in the winter. to answer your question, we could see a revamped effort by the feds to try to make sure these organizations are aware that the threat is very real. >> polo sandoval, thank you very much for that report. i want to talk about what is happening with vladimir putin. he is congratulating donald trump. the question is what will donald trump do beyond this? he is getting president obama the cold shoulder, vladimir putin is, in this year's statement, his new year's statement. donald trump, meanwhile, as you just heard, he is praising putin's decision not to expel u.s. diplomats in russia. he said great move on delay by the putin. i always knew that he was very smart. i want to point out senator john mccain is calling the

cyberattacks a war, so to speak, and he wants to see something more happen. he supports the -- he supports what president obama has administered with the sanctions. he thinks more need to be done -- more needs to be done and there's a hearing coming up this week to discuss how to handle russia and the cyberattacks. cnn takes a look for us here. >> reporter: good morning, martin and christi. president-elect donald trump has not yet said what he will do with the u.s. sanctions against russia. the tone of the statements and the tweets coming from the president-elect is certainly sending a very distinct message. president-elect donald trump is out with new praise for vladimir putin, applauding the russian president for with holding retaliatory sanctions on the u.s. trump tweeting -- great move on delay by v. putin.

i always knew he was very smart. but as the president-elect determines his next move responding further to russia and the new u.s. sanctions, his advisers are calling out the obama administration for what they see as politics at play. >> we've been talking about this for a while. i think that all we heard all through the election was russia, russia, russia when ever it came to anything donald trump said or did it seemed most days. now since the election, it's this fever pitch of accusations and insinuations. >> trump transition officials are speculating that the administration sanctions against russia are a distraction to undermine his win and tie his hands on russia before he becomes president. >> i will tell you that even those who are sympathetic to president obama on most issues are saying that part of the reason he did this today was to, quote, box in president-elect trump. that would be very unfortunate if that were the -- if politics were the motivating factor here.

>> reporter: since the sanctions were announced, trump himself has only issued a blunt two-line statement thursday night saying in part, quote, it's time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. a posture he has taken publicly in recent days. >> i think we need to get on with our lives. i think computers have complicated lives very greatly. the whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what's going on. >> reporter: but the president-elect has now agreed to sit down with the intelligence community. >> we need to get to a point ourselves where we can talk to all of these intelligence agencies and find out once and for all what evidence is there, how bad is it -- >> reporter: that closed door meeting likely to take place in new york next week where trump will be presented with the evidence the intel community says points a finger at russia for the hacks. >> maybe at that time or maybe later he'll have a response, but right now we're just not in the position to sit here and respond

to all of these details before we have a full blown intelligence report on this particular matter. >> reporter: in the past, trump and his aids have been publicly skeptical of the intelligence community's conclusions. >> i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. could also be lots of other people or somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay? >> reporter: and have attempted to deflect blame away from the russians, vowing during the campaign to improve the relationship with russia. >> wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with russia and these other countries? wouldn't that be a positive thing? >> reporter: once sworn into office in january, trump has the power to reverse the sanctions or keep them in place. that decision still hanging in the balance. and all of this continues to play out over twitter after trump posted that tweet last night. it was only a matter of minutes before the russian embassy and the u.s. retweeted that tweet, of course, that being praise of the russian president.

martin and christi? >> let's talk more about vladimir putin's new year's speech. we want to bring in matthew chance who is live with us from moscow. matthew, what specifically -- catch us up on what president putin had to say about president-elect trump specifically. >> reporter: well, i mean, when it comes to his new year's speech, there's a couple of speeches that have been had. there's a lot of activity. when it comes to his new year's speech to russia which just started to air on tv it's a vast area with nine time zones. he doesn't talk about donald trump in this speech. he doesn't mention the u.s. elections or sere yarks it's just a general congratulations to the people of russia for what has been in his words a challenging year in 2016. but of course throughout the

past, you know, couple of days, past 24 hours there's been this flurry of diplomatic activity, a flurry of speeches from vladimir putin and comments. you talk about how when donald trump he spoke about on his website, the kremlin website when he was congratulating world leaders, he notably left off president obama from that congratulates on the new year but did congratulate donald trump and said when donald trump is sworn in as u.s. president the two states russia and the united states will act in a constructive and pragmatic member and take real steps. so, putin and the kremlin are looking forward, cutting paths, reaching across the last few weeks of the obama administration and looking forward to doing business with the trump administration when it takes office. >> you know, there have been a lot of conversations about donald trump and the fact that he does not have political experience and because of that it's hard to prognosticate what he's going to do, where he's going to go.

is donald trump a risk to putin in some manner because putin doesn't necessarily know what donald trump will do. he is not familiar the way perhaps a regular politician would be. >> reporter: yeah. i think, you know, on the one hand there's a lot of hope and expectation that putin is going to get a lot from donald trump. they're going to come together on a whole range of issues like syria, nato expansion, like ukraine. but it could all go very badly wrong. russians are aware of this, the officials i've spoken to, ordinary people as well, donald trump is an unpredictable character, that's how he's perceived here in russia. you know, where as they may not have liked president obama but they kind of knew how he was going to act and the same with hillary clinton. they didn't like her here but they knew she was kind of consistent in many ways. but with donald trump, they don't know where he's going to go, so i think that does pose a real danger for the future of relationships between the united states and russia. >> very interesting.

matthew chance, we appreciate your insight. thank you. and still to come, a utility company in vermont as we've been reporting says it found russian hacking malware on one of its computers. what that hack tells us about the nation's readiness to combat cyber warwarfare. expert analysis just ahead.

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17 minutes past the hour. new this hour, u.s. officials confirmed russian malware was found on a computer belonging to a utility company in vermont. now the russians did not actively use the code to disrupt any operations. the breach highlights the vulnerability of the pow egrid. >> it was discovered a day after the president -- two russian compounds located in new york and maryland have been shuttered and its residents have until tomorrow to leave the country. so let's bring in the director of the cannon

constitute and ellis henican. welcome to both of you this morning. i'll give you a happy new year i know i'm early but here we go. >> thank you. >> matthew, we don't really know when the russians may have put this malware or how it was placed or the timing exactly of when that malware got on. but in light of these new sanctions, it does sort of take what had been theory and brings it to the forefront that this was really happening here. i'm wondering do you think the sanctions the u.s. has now put in place will deter these kind of future attacks? >> no, i don't think that's going to happen. the challenge is -- by the way i should note it's complete coincidence i'm talking to you from vermont right now. i had no idea that this particular -- but family vacation new year's. but look, this stuff is going on around the country, around the world all the time and it's not just the russians targeting america targets it's vice versa. it engages the chinese and other

global actors. remember earlier in the iran nuclear crisis, there was malware installed that we found out the israelis and perhaps the united states were responsible for. this is the new weapon of choice. in some ways it's like we're at the beginning stages of the nuclear weapons era after world war ii. the thing is we know that these weapons are incredibly powerful. we were talking earlier about how the affect this might have had had the russians pulled the trigger and tried to derail electrical power in vermont or in other parts of the united states. there have been mysterious power outages in parts of russia as well. we don't know what's responsible for those. these are incredibly powerful weapons, but the thing is, we don't know what the rules of the game are for deterring the use of those weapons. so these sanctions are an attempt to sort of send a signal to the russians, we the united states, we won't tolerate this behavior. yet we don't know if that will cause the russians at this point to retailuate and, in fact, exacerbate the conflict or to back down and say, oh, no, what

you've done to us is unacceptable. the evidence is far is that there will be more escalation. so that's very scary. we're at the beginning of a new age with new weapons without clear rules of the game. >> let me bring in ellis now to join this conversation and in response to obama's decision to expel the russian diplomats, the russians decided to wait and respond after president-elect trump takes office. trump tweeted the famous quote, boy, putin was very smart. what do we make of the relationship the new relationship as this new president comes to power here? >> that's an easy one, victor. the decision is made in moscow that the new president will be a whole lot more compliant than the new president. we'll place our bets on the guy who is coming and ignore the guy who is there now. we don't know exactly what he'll do. every tweet day after day suggests that he's in a much

more generous mood when it comes to russia. >> and matthew, back to the point that you made regarding the seriousness and this new world and this kind of scary new world in that we don't essentially have the ground rules now yet between countries. i think we could get really out of control with this, couldn't we, quickly? >> we absolutely could. by the way, i would point out it's not only that from the kremlin's perspective, you know, they've only got to wait a couple of weeks and they get to deal with a new president who maybe is going to be more open to compromise or cooperation with moscow. they have not fore sworn retaliatory measures. when putin says he's not going to expel 35 american diplomats for a it or at the. he doesn't say he's not going to retailuate in other way. the entire premise of this conflict is that we only learn over time after the election

when it's already too late we learn what has been done because it's been done covertly. and so i fully expect there are going to be retaliatory covert russian measures and let's not forget that a part of the white house announcement several days ago about the nature of these sanctions was to that we will respond in ways and at a time of our choosing which we will not necessarily make public. so there's a whole dimension of the conflict that is escalating now -- albeit continuing conflict that's been going on for years, which is spy versus spy stuff, very reminiscent of the cold war. >> let me just stop you there, matthew. i want to bring in ellis for at least the last word. ellis, it looks like rite now the russians are winning in all of this. >> they are. let me push back against some of this hand ringing. that's lot of stuff we could do. even if we don't know exactly the russian intentions the concept of retaliation is something that all nations understand. and you know what, we could do

more than toss their diplomats out or shut down their summer homes. there's all kind of nings we could reveal about the business dealings of the leaders of russia, impose additional sanctions. what will be interesting going forward is let's watch how the republicans in the senate push trump on this. that's really the fight to come and that's going to tell whether we're going to get more of it, none of it or somewhere in between. >> matthew and ellis, thank you both for joins us this morning. happy new year, guys. >> and to you. thank you. >> and to you, gentlemen. thank you. this weekend i know a lot of you are cleaning up some ice storm remnants, an ice storm in maine took a building out. jennifer gray has been looking at all of this for us. hi, jennifer. >> we could see another round of snow for northern portionsover new england tonight into tomorrow and storms in the south. we'll talk about all the trouble spots for your new year's eve

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snow, thunderstorms, just cloudy skies, take a pick, it could be anything for some of you this new year. >> it could be. and jennifer gray has been peering into the future. not that hard to do, less than 12 hours -- a little more than 12 hours. >> yeah. we can pinpoint this one a

little bit easier. we are going to get a little bit of everything on this new year's eve. we're going to have snow for northern portions of new england, actually already got snow over the past couple of days. another very fast moving system is going to dump a little bit more. we're not talking about huge amounts. we're talking anywhere from 2 to 4 inches, maybe up to 8 inches in those higher elevations, but we do have some video from maine, the university there, and actually the sports dome collapsed due to the snow. so you can see it right there. very heavy snow over the last couple of days caused that. unfortunately more snow on the way. but the good news is it's not going to be quite as much. so, you could have a little bit on your plans this weekend. we're also going to see some rainfall down in the south. we could even see thunderstorms for places like new orleans, birmingham and that rain is going to push even into the atlanta area as we get into sunday morning, could also see more snow for the west, the rockies, even the pacific northwest. if your in new york watching the

ball drop, the temperatures is not all that bad. they'll be in the 40s feeling like the 30s, but it is going to be windy. prepare for that. that will cause the wind chill to be in the mid 30s. 20 to 25 miles per hour winds around mid night. we'll see the winds stronger at 30 to 35 miles per hour, so guys, those wind tunnels that go through the city, it may be a little bit brutal with that wind. >> it will make it hard to hold on your funny hat. >> sunglasses and all that. >> jennifer gray, thank you. ronda rousey back in the octagon after 13 months and it wasn't pretty. >> no, it wasn't. let's say if she drove herself she could have double parked and made it back to her car without a ticket. >> oh. andy scholes has the blow by blow.

so good to have you with us, 31 minutes past the hour, i'm christi paul. >> and i'm martin savidge in for victor blackwell. it's already 2017 down under. it is a celebration so nice it's worth looking at twice. so here it is again in that beautiful harbor. ♪ >> i will say the best fireworks

so far of 2017. >> oh, very nice. >> but that's not going too far out on a limb. >> it is the first, but they are going to be hard to counter, certainly when you look at that show. we want to talk about some of the recent terror attacks in germany and france right now. they have new york city obviously on high alert as we head into new year's eve celebrations because there's so many people that will be down there. >> 2 million people, i believe, is what they are projecting or at least expected to fill times square for that big countdown. that's where we find jessica schneider. jessica, what's the beefed up security measures that you're seeing down there so far? >> well, martin, the nypd stresses that this times square will be the safest place in the city to be tonight and that's because of those increased security measures. the nypd has the numbers to prove it. in fact, take a look at these stats. new this year there will be 65 sanitation trucks in the perimeter of times square. they'll be filled with sand and that's all to prevent any sort of truck style isis-inspired

attack like we saw overseas. the nypd does stress no credible threat here in new york city or times square. also 100 blocker vehicles, that's double the number from years past. 7,000 nypd officers will be around the city. that includes 550 new graduates and in addition, 65 viewing pens. each pen is to be filled with 3,000 spectators. you can see things in times square, still a bit empty out here. the crowds start arriving in probably the next hour or two, yes, they do arrive that early even though the ball drop isn't until midnight. but when they do get here, they'll be going through bag searches. they'll be going through security screening and radiation screening. there will be very visible hef weapons team, water craft is patrolling the waterways around manhattan and up above helicopters. in addition, at 1 pp, the

headquarters for nypd, there will be 30 representatives from various city and state and federal agencies. they'll be keeping an eye on all the cameras here that will be watching all of the spectators that will be flooding in here to times square, one of the best places in the world to watch the ball drop and see -- ring in the new year. martin and christi? >> we hope it's a safe, wonderful, healthy and prosperous new year for all. jessica schneider, thanks very. >> that includes you too, jessica. thank you. you do not want to miss our cnn special tonight. our new year's eve extravaganza. you can expect the unexpected from anderson cooper and kathy griffin. new year's eve live at 8:00 p.m. right here on cnn. ronda rousey's ufc comeback. >> andy scholes has more in this morning's bleacher report. >> didn't my face give it awa, too? >> we hadn't seen her in the

octagon in more than aier. after last night, we might not ever see her in the octagon again. leading up to this fight, roussy did not speak with the media at all. instead she said she was spending all her time training for this comeback, but this comeback was short lived. roussy got pummelled by amanda nunez in the start from this one, taking multiple shots to the face. the ref had to stop the fight 48 seconds in. roussy was guaranteed $3 million for this fight compared to just 200,000 for nunez. for roussy made about $63,000 a second to stand there and get punched in the face. roussy, once again, not speaking with the media after the fight. the ufc president dana white said he doesn't know if roussy will ever get in the octagon again. unless you're ronda rousey, 2016 was an amazing year in sports and here is a look at our top ten moments from this year -- college basketball's march madness living up to his name and then some this year. the finals coming down to

villanova and north carolina, their championship game coming down to the final seconds. >> two seconds to go. to win it, he made it! he made the three from the right wing at the buzzer! cats win it all! cats win it all! cats win it all! chris jenkins the hero as the wildcats win their first championship in 31 years. in 2016, we saw one of the biggest underdog stories of all time. >> we are in the heart of the storm here in the very middle of leicester city and you can see that hundreds of fans have congregated here. >> the soccer club leicester city's odds of winning the premier league was 5,000 to 1 when the season started and they not only won it, they won it easily. being called the greatest sports upset of all time and a movie is currently in the works to tell the story of leicester city's incredible championship season. team usa had an amazing run at the rio olympics, but it was nearly overshadowed by lochte

gate. >> the story of a gunpoint robbery that police there in brazil say was a lie. made up by ryan lochte and three other of his swimmers. >> the guy pulled out his gun. he cocked it, put it to my forehead. >> i overexaggerated that story. >> lochte lost many of his endorsement deals and with us suspended by ten months for u.s. swimming but he did compete on "dancing with the stars." >> 2016 finally saw the end of deflategate. tom brady was suspended sprt first four games of the season and decided against appealing his case any further. brady's suspension not slowing the patriots down, they're once again the favorites in the afc and brady seems to be over deflate gate having fun in a recent foot locker commercial. >> doesn't mean anything is going on. why can't some things be great. >> just a question. >> starts request questions and questions turn into assumptions and assumptions turn into vacations. >> 2016, we saw the final

chapter of the brady/manning rivalry. manning's denver broncos beating brady and the patriots to reach the super bowl. manning would do what few quarterbacks have been able to do, go out on top. >> i fought a good fight. i finished my football race. and after 18 years it's time. colin kaepernick began a nationwide discussion by kneeling during the national anthem before games to protest social injustice in the u.s. >> people are realizing the injustices and the oppression that's taking place in this country and it's something that needs to be addressed. >> some nfl players and other athletes like u.s. women's national soccer star megan rapinoe joined kaepernick. kaepernick revealed he didn't vote in the presidential election saying it would have been hypocritical. leading up to the rio olympic games, much of the talk about dirty water, zika virus

but it quickly turned to the dominant performance by the united states. gymnast simone biles won four gold medals with his teammates dubbed the final five. in the pool, the u.s. was unstoppable. 19-year-old katiely decky winning five medals in the most decorated olympian of all time, michael phelps rode off into the sunset with five more gold medals. in june, we lost the greatest of all time -- muhammad ali passing away after a long battle with park kin son's disease and unfortunately he was not the only sports legend to pas away in 2016, golfing great arnold palmer died at the age of 87. mr. hockey, gordie howe and pat summit died with a battle after early on set dementia. in the nba, the golden state warriors breaking a record few thought would ever fall. team going 73-9 in the regular season, topping '96 bulls record

with michael jordan. they had a 3-1 lead in the finals but lebron and kyrie irving led the cavs to three-straight wins. >> believe it cleveland. saver it. soak it in. the kid from akron has come home. the cavaliers are nba champions. and the impossible dream has come true. >> lebron making good on his promise to deliver cleveland its first championship in 52 years. >> my one mission was to bring a championship back to ohio, back to cleveland and back to akron. and look up there, it's right there. >> this is what a 108 year drought celebration looks like and for the first time in a life time the cubs can call themselves champions. >> it's unbelievable. go, cubbies. >> i can't move. i don't care. this is unbelievable. this is what you dream for as a

kid. [ cheers and applause ]. >> you know what, guys, i don't want to be a downer or anything, 2017 has a hard time living up to 2016 sports wise. with the cubs drought going away, cleveland winning a championship, i don't see it happening. >> pretty extraordinary. >> 2016 will go down as one of the best sports years ever. >> all you athletes need to step it up a notch. andy scholes, thank you. on a more serious note, a member of the kennedy family could be headed back to prison. the connecticut supreme court reinstated the murder conviction of michael skakel. the question we look at is what has changed? taking a holiday in britain, are ya doll?

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headed back to prison for murder after a connecticut judge overturned an earlier ruling that freed him. in 2002, michael skakel was convicted of killing martha moxley, a 15-year-old neighbor back in 1975. skakel is the nephew of ethel and robert kennedy. the ruling said skakel's lawyer had not represented him well. now that decision has been overturned by a judge who disagreed. mr. skakel has always maintained his innocence. his current lawyers sent this statement to cnn. quote, we haven't fully had time

to fully digest the opinion at this juncture, but of course it's a setback. we're going to be dealing with other legal procedures that are available to avail michael of any and all his constitutional rights. >> let's talk with paige pate, the forensic evidence here first of all because there was a lot of it, paige, but none of it pointed to skakel in the first place. it was all witness testimony. >> right. exactly. it's a very circumstantial case. >> were you surprised he was convicted or let go? >> i was a little surprised at the conviction because it was all based on testimony. no solid hard evidence that linked him to the crime, but i was also surprised that it was overturned. when you overturn a conviction based on ineffective assistance of your lawyer, you don't just have to show that your lawyer made a mistake or even a really ridiculous mistake. you have to show that the lawyer did something that no reasonable

lawyer would have done and that that made a significant difference to the verdict. and so it took many, many years but eventually his lawyers proved to a judge in connecticut that his lawyer was ineffective, set aside the conviction and released him from prison. >> what would your strategy be if you were his defense attorney? >> i would ask the connecticut supreme court to reconsider its decision. it was a close call. it was a 4-3 decision, just overturning the judge's decision which overturned the conviction. so i would ask them to reconsider, number one. number two, they still have a federal claim that they can pursue. they put that to the side while they focussed on this appeal, so their appeal's process is not done. there's still a lot more they can challenge. >> can that appeals process be exhausted, though? can they go too far with it? >> eventually, yes. the case has been to the united states supreme court once. they turned it down. they have the opportunity to ask again if that court will accept it, but eventually perhaps 50,

60 years down the road the case will finally be over. >> oh my goodness. i want to move on to the supreme court as we look ahead to 2017. they're at reduced strength in a sense. there's eight of them. >> oh, yeah. >> based on what we know and the political landscape, how expe di shous do you think it will be? >> we know that president-elect trump has been thinking about this even during the campaign. he released a list of 21 people he thought would make good supreme court justices. that list, i think the federalist society, a very conservative legal organization helped him put it together. we see some names coming to the top. judge william pryor who practices here in atlanta on the 11th circuit court of appeals well connected to the trump administration. i think we'll see an appointment very soon after the new year. >> there are a lot of sensitive things on the docket. we have immigration they'll be deeming with transgender issues. we have a lot of things that

revolve around race that are delicate. how do you think that will move forward without dividing this country more? is that snobl. >> i don't know that it is possible. but i think we see the same divisions now at the supreme court that we do among everyone else. among politicians, among congress, even the voters. right now as you mentioned not only are they short staffed, they're at a deadlock. they literally have four appointed by a democratic president, four appointed by a republican president. they've been turning down the higher profile cases because they were concerned they couldn't reach a decision. >> and they're waiting. >> absolutely. they're waiting on the next vote. they're waiting on the next vote. so this next person, the next justice will make a tremendous difference in how they look at the cases that are currently before them, the cases they decide to accept and that's going to continue on, not just during the trump administration but for a generation or more. >> is there any one particular case that you're looking forward to seeing them adjudicate this

year? >> they'll look at voting rights case which is are very important, usually very politicized because obviously one side is trying to gain an advantage over the other. they handled some of those cases last term but they really kept them sitting in the background, on the table waiting for the next justice. we're also going to see issues about transgender rights and i also expect some religious liberty cases that are percolating their way up there. i doubt we'll see much on the abortion front. we can remember trump saying it's automatically gone. that's not going to happen, overturning roev. wade. >> paige pate, always appreciate your insight. thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> day before new year's. happy new year to you. >> happy new year to you. >> martn? >> a massive man hunt under way in pennsylvania this morning after a state trooper was shot and killed in the line of duty. authorities are searching for this man, he is considered to be armed and dangerous. state trooper landon weeber was

responding to a domestic-related incident when the suspect opened fire. pennsylvania's governor issued a statement saying in part, quote, i have full confidence that the person who committed this senseless act of violence will be captured and brought to justice, unquote. two people were shot and killed this morning after rapper meek mill's concert in connecticut. two ore people were injured. it happened in the parking lot outside the toyota oakdale in connecticut. the victims have not been identified yet. isis claiming responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings in baghdad. at least 28 people are dead, more than 50 others injured. police say two bombers detonated their vests on a busy street near a market earlier today. the blast destroyed businesses in a historic part of that iraqi capital. well, you know millions of people are already ringing in the new year. we're behind the times here so

to speak. 2017 kicking off first in new zealand. fireworks at the sky tower in auckland. there they are. and down under, an incredible show with the sydney harbor bridge as this centerpiece. that's just a few minutes ago. ♪ lly sick. and there's a lot that he isn't able to do, and make-a-wish stepped in. we had to climb up the mountain to get the injured hiker. he fell from, like, a rock. he's been the one that has been rescued so many times. he said to me, "today, i got to be the hero."

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complaining about the heat. the arctic is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the planet and mid november this entire region was 35 degrees fahrenheit above normal. it's not just here, this is happening all around the world. in 2016, is expected to be the hottest year on record. this spring, a drought in india was so intense that it reportedly led some farmers to commit suicide. in may, monster wild fires forced 88,000 people in canada to flee. in july, a city in kuwait hit a stunning 129 degrees fahrenheit or 54 celsius. that month was named the hottest ever, until august tied it. scientists are getting better at tying these events to us, a flood in louisiana killed 13 people in august. scientists said that event was made 40% more likely because of climate change. locals voted that same month to abandon their village which their ancestor lived in for 400 years. the coast is crumbling. are we causing all of the bad

weather? no, but we are burning fossil fuels which is heating up the planet and that puts our fingerprints on the extreme weather more than ever before. well, hong kong has changed in the 21st century. they have the skyscrapers, the high end stores, but there are some parts of the city that are still unchange and they're quite unique. >> we take a look at the past and the future of the city in this week's edition of around the world. ♪ welcome to hong kong. so we're in the pavilion. the art scene in hong kong is changing so rapidly, it's amazing to see how in a short four years how this has accumulated such an amazing collection. it's practically the one major institution that kind of encompasses art and design from all of asia.

it's almost like very much set in the asian context. ♪ so we are in the fabric market. as you walk down these streets, it feels like nothing has changed in the last 30, 40 years and this is probably one of the last remaining neighborhoods that still has kind of that old hong kong quality that is still largely untouched. ♪ we are in another market, one of the best wet markets in hong kong. as much as we're living in the 21st century, i think there's still kind of that tradition going where there's still kind of that joy of that routine of going to the market and buying your food. you still have this kind of crazy food street, but in e middle of this whole urban gentrification with luxury apartments a block away, i think that's part of the charm. >> that is another city i love. well, don't you go anywhere. i don't mean that as

threatening. >> he's got that voice, doesn't he? it sounds like it. but "news room" is going to start right after this short break. we have a lot to talk to you about in terms of politics in terms of what's happening with the russia and the united states. do stay close. the world is full of surprising moments. they're everywhere. and as a marriot rewards member, i can embrace them all. the new marriott portfolio of hotels now has 30 brands in over 110 countries. so no matter where you go, you are here. join or link accounts at members.marriott.com.

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