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good morning. i'm john avlon. i hope you all had a very merry christmas. victor and christi have a well-deserved morning off. we're following breaking developments in nashville, tennessee, where investigators have found what might be human remains inside of what may appear to be an intentional bombing. it you injured at least three people. meanwhile, with millions of americans traveling for the holidays, melt officials warn another surge could be weeks away. hundreds of thousands of patients are in the hospital across the country. and experts warn it will strain the nation's already stretched health care system. and after today, more than 12 million americans will lose their extended unemployment insurance. that's because president trump has not signed that covid stimulus bill which was specifically flown from washington to his home in palm beach yesterday morning. the bill would extend moratorium

on evictions, provide federal loans for small businesses and provide direct $600 payments to americans struggling. millions of americans are waking up after christmas to this cruel new reality. they're out of money because of a fight over covid relief in congress. senator lindsey graham said he's changed his mind he voted to pass earlier in the week still sitting on the president's desk. now, trump's calling for his colleagues to back bigger administration checks. that leaves many americans twisting in the wind as they need money to pay for food and rent. for more, let's go to sarah westwood in west palm beach. sarah, we should know it was republicans who initially declined to go higher on payments. is there any indication that republicans will follow senator lindsey graham and back the president's latest push for more money? >> reporter: well, john, graham

coming out in the call for the $2,000 stimulus checks is sure to put more pressure on americans who up until now seemed to be treading water. and thinking that the president's all six to topposit bill. and we didn't have an idea how seriously the president was planning to oppose the bill. the video he shot of opposing the bill took a lot of republicans and aides and there hasn't been much communication from the white house whether the president decides to sign it, veto it, let it sit there, not a lot of clarity. i want to read what graham tweeted after he spent the day on the golf course. after spending some time with president trump today, i am convinced he's more incombined than ever to increase stimulus payments to $2,000 per person and challenge sext 230 big tech liability protection. that section 230 that he mentioned is the reason the

president defeated the defense bill. the president is tweeting this morning, end section 230 before it's too late. just like the relief bill and spending package that congress passed earlier this week, an overwhelming number of law enforcements did vote for it. the president yesterday doubled down on his opposition to it writing made many calls and had many meets with trump international in palm beach. why would politicians not want to give people $2,000 instead of $600. john, you mentioned that $600 figure was actually the proposal of trump's own white house. the republicans concerned about the deficit they claimed did not want to go much higher than $600. it was a problem of the white house's own making and if it wasn't complicated enough, on monday, the government is going to run out of money because it doesn't include that omnibus

spending bill. there's a lot riding on whether the president puts his signature on this. >> republicans doubling down, and backing into the corner, sarah, in addition to all of that, the president issued 41 pardons this past week. what are the big names left on this potential pardon list? >> reporter: yeah, john, hard to believe there's any big names given the marquee ones he's granted clemency, roger stone, paul manafort, charles kushner including rick gates who was involved in the investigation of manafort p paul manafort. and of course, there's speculation whether the president attempts to pardon himself before leaving office, facing the potential of legal woes once he's no longer president. the pardons are something we're watching very closely as he's expected to finish the final weeks in office.

>> sarah westwood, thank you very much. joining us congresswoman maxine waters. congresswoman, republicans in the house made it clear just this past week, they would not support a $2,000 check to americans but, of course, some democrats would love the increase to that amount. do you think the president should sign the deal or push it back to congress in hopes to get more money? >> well, first of all, democrats would love to have $2,000 to all of our families. we fought very hard for $1200. we wanted at least what we had in the c.a.r.e.s. act. the president and his negotiator mnuchin and the republicans refused. they didn't want any money. and we had to beg and plead and fight and leverage to get $600. then out of the blue, the president came out and said he wanted $2,000. i don't know what kind of game he's playing. i don't know what the republicans are going to do,

but, you know, they're all frightened of him. he's intimidated them. they don't have any guts. so, let's see if he's going to make them come up with support for the $2,000. i don't know what's happening over there. i don't know what kind of politics the president is playing. and, of course, as you said, as was said, lindsey graham played golf with him. and he's changed his mind. so, we're hopeful that the president will support $2,000. and sign the bill. and not try to leverage that on the question of liability, or anything else. >> all right. so, it sounds like you are hopeful. you would welcome that. but if the president vetoed the current bill and congress can't override him or get it together for a new bill, there is always a possibility that a biden administration will need to start from scratch. so should the president-elect pursue a bigger package from jump? >> absolutely. absolutely. i want to tell you the american

people expect their government to come to their aid in this time of crisis. so, yes, i would absolutely expect that biden would take this issue up. that we would do the right thing. we would not only have more money for stimulus payments, but i had had $100 billion in the original heroes act which was moved down to i think $25 billion. i had $100 billion -- yeah, they cut it back to 25 billion. so, we need way more than that. so many people are threatened for eviction. and these small landlords in particular with two, four, six, eight, ten units, this is their retirement income. many of them still have mortgages. so, yes, i expect biden will do what needs to be done to support the american people who are waiting on their government to come to their aid. >> all right. let's talk about the president's pardons and his friends and

allies this week, including roger stone and paul manafort. many are convinced the president will now move to pardon even his adult children or even himself. is there any action that the house intends to take on this front? >> well, as you know, unfortunately, the constitution gives the president the right to pardon. and the president certainly is abusing that right. by pardoning all of his criminal friends and allies. and it's such a shame because we have so many people in prison for minor crimes, and many of them are people of color. african-americans and latinos, et cetera. and they're not going to get a shot because the president does not care about them. all he cares about is living up to the promising he's made to his criminal allies that if they keep their mouths shut, and if they don't tell what will they know about him, that he would pardon them. and that's exactly what he's doing. >> so -- >> yes, go ahead. >> so, no talk of censure or

anything toll date. i want to move on, though, there's a lot i want to get to you in particular when you're chair of the armed services committee. what have you learned about the solarwinds act and the impact on the government and private industry? >> well, here's what i know about russia and putin. they have in fact you know, compromised this president. and this president will not condemn them, will not criticize them. and even when he knows it's a threat, whether it is our election systems or to our energy systems, he is not going to do anything to disagree with them. because he's a compromise president. he's a president whose met in secret with biden. he's a president whose allies here in the united states are connected to the oligarchs of

russia. and they have money agreements, et cetera, et cetera. so, we cannot expect any pushback. we've got to rely on biden. and we've got to rely on the new administration to stand up to russia. and to stand up to china. and to be the kind of government that's looking out for the best for their country and america. and that's what we're relying on. we cannot expect anything from this administration. >> so, based on your briefings, you have no doubt russia was behind that, correct? >> oh, absolutely. as a matter of fact, all of the intelligence has supported that. his own, you know, administration, folks in the administration are saying that this is true. it's only the president who can't open his mouth and basically live up to the expectation of the american people or support the enemy. >> i want to end with covid because your home state of california is in the middle of a dramatic covid surge. now, you tweeted that you hate needles but you'd grit your

teeth and take the shot. here's my question, have you been vaccinated for covid-19 yet? >> yes, i have. and i have taken the shot for many number of reasons. number one, you know, our experts have told us that we should do this. fauci has been behind it. my age is such that i am vulnerable. the airports and the airlines are all places where, you know, that the virus tends to be able to, you know, undermine all of our efforts and to basically infect people. and so, i'm in washington. i did not go home. i've been here all the holidays from thanksgiving on through christmas because i didn't want to be one that would create to this crowd in the airports where people are being infected. and so, yes, i took the shot. i did. i closed my eyes. i grit my team and i took it.

>> chairman waters, thank you for joining us on cnn. be well. >> you're so welcome. thank you. let's bring in commentator of "you decide" podcast errol louis. the president called this a disgrace this week after his administration negotiated many of the terms. now, he's pushing for a $2,000 direct payment to americans. house republicans rejected that on christmas eve. lindsey graham now supports it. so what in the world is going on here and do you think the gop is going to get on board with the president's demands? >> what's going on, john, is the very thing that the president wanted which is chaos. he lost the election and now reverting to his prior businesses as a commercial operator and a game show host which you kind of at the last minute walk away from the deal or threaten to blow up the deal even if it's one that you yourself negotiated. that is what he's doing. so donald trump gets the number one thing that he wants which is all of us asking what is it that

donald trump wants. so he's put himself back in the middle of the negotiations. center stage of politics, even day by day, he gets closer to having to leave the white house and leave power forever. so this is the way he operates. this is the way his game show would sort of proceed here, you know. you're kind of on pins and needles waiting to see what will happen. the unfortunate part of all of this, of course, it's going to leave millions of people, at a minimum uncertainty. and at a minimum with less aid than they would have gotten had the president simply signed the bill that his administration negotiated. so that's where we are right now. and it in fact could get worse. >> that's, of course, the thing, this isn't a reality show. people are waiting and suffering. now, the president also issued a wave of pardons this week. no notably, the most noticed special counsel. can we expect pardons for the

president and his family? >> absolutely. this president is going to use any power he has. this is one that is unchallengeable, unreviewable and that allows him to personally put favors on allies and co-conspirators, you can expect him to use it up to the very last day. i will expect to see clemsency notices, pardons coming out closer and closer to january 20th to noon. that's the way his favor-granting operates. and i think it's going to get closer to the inner circle. the most outrageous, and frankly, we've seen this with other presidents, the most outrageous acts of clemency are going to happen at the end, john. >> we won't often read president trump's tweets but this stands the defense bill, a gift to china and russia and big tech and making 5g almost possible.

it's worth mentioning, president trump vetoed that bill. congress now plans to override trump. but there are other things in particular, tough cyberregulations, that would not welcome china or russia. so, do you think congress is able to muster the bill to override the act? >> there's no indication based on past behavior that you're going to see the republican majority in the senate vote to override. it's not in the cards, frankly. it would be nice it if it were, one getting the feeling that the real target is the section 230. the president wanting to deal a blowback against some of the social media companies that he thinks helped joe biden beat him on november 3rd. so if that's what the real aim is, everything else is just a distraction. and congress will either go along with it which is a considerable possibility. or take sort of a middle course and just vote to extend and extend and end.

get some continuing resolutions in place for the next couple of weeks in order to keep the government running until the day after this president leaves and then go back to something resembling normal behavior. and make sure that defense authorization is passed. >> errol louis, thank you very much, my friend. >> thank you. all right. despite repeated warnings, millions of americans are traveling this holiday season making a new coronavirus spike all but certain. and now there are new rules on travelers flying into the u.s. from the united kingdom. will it make a difference? we'll be discussing that and more with dr. sang u mathieu.

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let's listen. >> if you can hear this message, evacuate now. if you can hear this message, evacuate now. >> natasha chen joins us live from nashville. natasha, investigators are saying there is no indication of terrorism. what else are we hearing from investigators? >> reporter: well, they've just said it's an intentional act, we believe. they don't know much more than that. they're still piecing it together. they have us stand on 2nd avenue but it's very far removed from their perimeter. it happened several blocks down that way and we see police blocking off that area. in fact, they're trying to keep everybody for the most part outside of this downtown

nashville area to stay away. the curfew lasts until sunday afternoon. yesterday, they confirmed that they told us yesterday they found tissue of human remains at the scene. i asked specifically where that was found or maybe a person who may have been in the rv. the police chief told smme theye not really to discuss that yesterday. sending debris everywhere. you see on the ground, the mayor said at least 41 businesses were destroyed in a historic core, and one building collapsed on itself. we heard from terrified residents who live near the blast, heard the gunshots at first. called 911. evacuated when they heard the recorded message. here's one woman describing to anderson cooper about how she was driving home again thinking that perhaps this was a false alarm because they did not hear

the blast go off at the end of the 15 minutes. but lo and behold, they did see the explosion as they can driving back. here's what she saw. >> i pull over to our building. i drove up as far up to our building through all the glass and took a couple of pictures and our christmas tree was still on. we could see the christmas tree. there's a window. >> yeah. >> where it was still burning. >> and all of that area is just really in ruins right now. and the mayor specifically said this has been a very tough year for nashville. seeing this scene reminds him of the damage they had already gone through earlier this year when tornadoes came through this area. so, really tough for the city. he did make sure to compliment those six police officers who responded to the scene. and when that recorded message was playing, giving the countdown to the explosion. they really worked hard to keep

people out of the area and evacuate the people mwho lived there. john. >> real heroic, natasha chen from tennessee. let's bring in andrew mccabe, former deputy director for the fbi. andrew, the blast damaged 41 businesses. walk us through what the method would be to collect evidence, over a few blocks. >> sure. so, john, this one reminds me most of the efforts we put down in boston, after the boston marathon bombing. and that was a similar of a similar crime scene that spread over five blocks. so what you'll see today is a phalanx of agents and crime scene investigators and local police and other federal agen agencies really dividing that massive space up into smaller and smaller quadrants.

and they will go through every inch of that ground to try to recover pieces of anything that might have been related to either the device or the week that carried it. and that work won't just be done on the ground. it will also include the flat surfaces above buildings. so the rooftops of all of the local buildings. you might remember in boston we recovered one of the most essential pieces of evidence, that being the lid from one of the pressure cookers, you know, one of the actual bombs, on the roof of a nearby building. so, essential pieces of evidence can really be scattered quite a long distance. it takes a really meticulous effort to pull all of that together. >> so that radius of damage is really what's key. how difficult is it for investigators to find pieces of the explosive device itself or identify any potential human tissue? >> i mean, it's quite difficult. you see the mess there on the ground. the video that we're getting

through seeing is pretty extraordinary. despite that difficulty, we're typically able to do it. you know, think back to the 1993 bombing in the world trade center. where a piece of the axle of the presented truck that was used to deploy the devices is what identified that truck. it had a vehicler issial number serial number on it and that's how he ultimately unraveled that crime. it's the hard work of many dedicated folks who will sift through what is on the ground to figure out who deployed this device. because, john, that's the most important device right now. we need to know who put this device there and detonated it. and it's only after you figure that out you that start to talk about things like motive or purpose or terrorism or anything like that. >> that's exactly where i want to go next because there's so many unusual hallmarks about

this intentional explosion that we know to date. investigators have not declared terror foreign or domestic in this bombing. but is there anything at this point so far that might point to that direction under your expert eyes? >> there's no specific facts that we have i think that point to, you know, terrorism either domestically or internationally. and i can tell you that over 20 years of working around these sorts of incidents. investigators wait until they have a distinct link. some piece of evidence that either ties an individual to a terrorist group. or at least the thought process. that can be, you know, a video or something that's posted on to the internet that would indicate what their desire was -- or what, you know, what sort of message they were trying to send. we don't have anything like that here yet. so, it's, i think, entire appropriate that people are

being very careful before they start describing terrorists or any other motives to this crime. >> yeah. no question about it. it's difficult to speculate about motive. here's what we do know, there does seem to be a desire to warn people ahead of time. something that was a hallmark of the i.r.a. bombings. in the hospitality and tourist area, but the area was nearly empty that hour of the morning. do you think it was to dead natu detonate the bomb later in the day or might speak to a more conflictive motive to the person doing the bombing? >> we can't say it was supposed to detonate early or later in the day. but secondly, it did detonate with the particular effort to minimize casualties in saying that the device is going to go off. all of those things point to

maybe they weren't willing to provide mass civilian casualties. however, this was a massive explosive device deployed to a public place and put in a public place. that's not a typical scenario for a suicide or someone who is up set about their life and deciding to kill themselves. you have to keep both in the possibility that this person must have been trying to send some sort of message here. we really just don't know what that is yet. >> former fbi dispute director andrew mccabe, thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thanks, john. now, christmas is over, now there's new year's. and coronavirus cases are already at record highs. after the break, find out how you can prevent a post-holiday surge that experts warn could have a catastrophic. 7 moisturizers 3 vitamins

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despite repeated warnings, millions of americans traveled over the holidays, raising concerns that the nation is weeks away from yet another devastating new spike in covid-19 cases. cnn's alison kosik joins us now. alison, three weeks after the thanksgiving holiday, we saw a surge across the country and now it looks like we're in it for another round of new infections. is that right? >> reporter: that is the big worry, john, yes. abdomen we are in the middle of a holiday, but certainly week not getting a holiday from the coronavirus. that as cases spike from new york to california. now, there's a new travel restriction in place, a

requirement that looks to keep a new infectious variant from coming to the u.s. but even dr. anthony fauci says that new strain may already be here. starting monday, in the uk, all passengers must have a negative covid-19 test within three days of boarding a flight to the u.s. new york governor andrew cuomo praised the decision by the cdc for passengers to be tested flying from the uk. testing people before they get on planes is common sense. we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. and we wuft continue to do everything we can to keep new yorkers and americans safe, cuomo said on friday. the centers for disease control and prevention announced new testing requirements for travelers but research by the agency's own scientists shows the rule may have only a small impact on the spread of the strain of the new coronavirus.

a team response team testing three days before a flight might reduce the risk of spreading the virus by 5% to 9%. pfizer and moderna are testing to see whether their vaccines work against the new variant which thus far has not been detected in the u.s. southern california is grappling with surging covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths as the state passes another grim milestone. reporting more than 300 new covid deaths for a third straight day. in los angeles county, a person dies every ten minutes from covid-19 the county health director says. >> i think people think coronavirus won't happen to them. they think coronavirus happens to another family. but there is no safety other than those public health measures that we've been preaching from the mountain tops. >> reporter: as christmas comes to an end and we head into the new year, experts say the safest way to celebrate is at home, with the people you live with or

online with friends and family. for those that host a new year's celebration, the cdc suggests staying outside, limiting the number of guests, wearing and making extra masks available. and keeping background music low to avoid shouting. >> well, we've just seen, you know, these amplification events and that's what's happened at the end of this year in the u.s. we had -- yeah, thanksgiving, labor day, we had halloween. and each one of these events brought lots of people together. and just gave the virus more fuel to move through the population. so, christmas is going to do a similar thing. >> reporter: and just days before christmas, the tsa says more than 1 million people passed through airport checkpoints across the country that's worrying health experts that we'll see another spike in the coronavirus and those cases on top of the spike we're seeing

now. john. >> 1 million people traveling. alison kosik, thank you very much. joining me now to discuss primary care physician and private health care physician dr. saju mathew. dr. mathew, great to have you with us. the cdc announced it will require negative covid tests for all passengers in united kingdom. as a doctor on the ground how important do you think that is in preventing the null pew pote contagious strain? >> yeah, john, you have to do everything you possibly can. just looking at one measure of negative covid test you're only going to catch 7% or 9%. it's a simple indication, if you get tested on tuesday before your flight on friday, you might be negative on tuesday but if you're in your community and hanging out with friends and

catch a flight on friday, you could be reexposed and not know about it. i think a couple better ideas would be to get the test. when you arrive at the u.s., maybe get a rapid test at the airport. or you quarantine for seven days upon arrival and then get tested again. as you can see, john, it becomes complicated. that's the whole point. this virus is so contagious and unrelenting, you really have to do everything possible and not just rely on a negative covid test. >> book ending rapid tests is one of your recommendations. but let's talk about the new variant because some experts say it's probably already in the united states. so can we test for it, and if so, are we doing it? >> you know, if you look at the entire world, the united kingdom does half of these gee nomic

sequencing. in the uk, if you look at the number of times we've done the sequencing in september, the uk has done over 900 tests. we have a long way to cap up given the fact that the rna virus mutates so quickly, john, we should be sequencing and watching out for the strains. by the way, the good news about the mrna vaccines, the pfizer and moderne that is that you can adapt the vaccines to these possible new strains. >> that's such an important point and that gets me to the point i want to ask you about next. the ceo of pfizer says he's optimistic that their vaccine will work against the new strain. without any further adaptations, is there any reason to think that it won't? >> i think it's absolutely going to work. and the reason for that is, you have to remember, when you start to attack the spike protein, you're attacking the spike protein on different parts of the virus, not just on one

specific part. really, ultimately, the good news is even though there are 50 to 20 mutations, it hasn't really affected the entire anatomy, so i think the vaccines should work. >> all right, listen, as we head into new year's people are going to have temptation to get together. with the celebrations around the corner, what advice would you give to people to make this celebration less of a public health disaster? >> right. i mean, that's the right word disaster john. i mean, ultimately, if you look at it, and this is the most difficult part. you could have all of the vaccines in the world and all of the wonderful therapeutics against this deadly virus. but what you have the least impact is on human behavior. people are going to do what they want to do so what i've done is sort of change my messaging as a primary care physician to more talking to people about risk reduction. if you're traveled already, listen, it's not too late. if you're going to gather with friends make sure you try to do

it outdoors. if you're visiting grandma, i would not hug grandma. even though you have a negative test. when you come back after the extended holidays you should quarantine and get tested again before you go out there. and if you're sick, you absolutely make sure you're at home for at least seven to ten days before you get tested. >> be safe, be smart and listen to the good doctor. dr. mathew, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, john. democrats are outraising their republican rivals in georgia as they vie to take control of the senate. the big runoff race is january 5th. more on that next. -the app helps you take the foods you have and gives you creative ideas for meals. -you can choose any workout you want to fit with your time frame. -there are a ton of zero point foods that i love. i never feel restricted. -the new tools boost my mood and help keep me hydrated. more holistic. more personalized.

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rinvoq. make it your mission. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. early voting is under way in georgia for not one but two senate runoffs and it's already on track for the most expensive race in u.s. history. senator kelly loeffler on the campaign trail this morning hosting a rally with supporters. and later this afternoon in effort to have voter turnout, dozens like dave matthews and the foo fighters will take part. let's go to ryan nobles. for more on this, ryan, let's start with following the money. so much being spent on these races what dot curre the curren numbers look like? >> reporter: john, it's unbelievable when you look at how much money is being raised and spent in the state of

georgia in what is really a condensed am of time january 5th. take a look at these fundraising totals october 15th through december 15th. jon ossoff, the democrat leading with $106 million. rafael warn noc, the other democrat, $103 million. david perdue and kelly loeffler, both raising more than $60 million. then look at the total on the bottom. the total number of dollars spent on just ads in this race, approaching the $500 million mark. john, you know it seems as though the democratic candidates are raising more money than republicans. that's true, the democrats themselves are raising more but that doesn't tell the whole story. there's hundreds of millions of dollars being poured in from outside groups from both the republican side and the democratic side. so that just adds to the total amount of money pouring into the state. as you mentioned, john, the day after christmas, these candidates back out on the

campaign trail as voters are casting ballots leading up to the runoff. >> while money is not always determine tiff, particularly in senate races, that number, almost half a billion dollars in ads spent to date. ryan noblts, thank you very much. still ahead, it was a tough year for sports. but up next, even in a year with so many bad headlines, we will still look back on some of 2020's biggest and best highlights.

sports are centered around level playing fields, which may be why the impact of covid-19 hit them so hard. but there were still plenty of

amazing moments. andy scholes looks back on some of them. a big part of sports is the emotional ups and downs and in 2020 the highs were high, but the lows were as low as we've seen in a long time. from kobe's death to big time event cancellations, to coronavirus leaving stadiums empty, sports had a tough go of it this year. 2020 started off like any other year in sports. >> and the tigers of lsu, a team of destiny and a team for ages, capturing the national title. >> reporter: lsu won their first college football national championship since 2007, but then the sports world was dealt a devastating blow. >> this is cnn breaking news. we're following very tragic, very sad breaking news. the nba legend kobe bryant has

died in a helicopter crash. he was only 41 years old. >> reporter: the sports world mourning the loss of kobe bryant, his daughter and seven others for weeks. >> god knew they couldn't be on this earth without each other. he had to bring them home to have them together. >> when kobe bryant died, a piece of me died. now he's got me, i'll have to look at another crying meme. >> reporter: when the lakers eventually took the court, they held an emotional tribute. in february, patrick mahomes would lead the kansas city chiefs on a comeback to win over the 49ers. andy reid finally had his super bowl title and the chiefs their first in 50 years. >> i followed by dreams and now i'm here winning the super bowl.

>> reporter: soon after that on march 11th, the entire sports world came to a stop. >> the nba has just announced that the season is going to be suspended. >> the ncaa is now canceling men's and women's basketball tournaments over coronavirus fears. >> reporter: the nba, the first league to shut down, the ncaa tournament was canceled for the first time ever, major league baseball sent their players home from spring training. sports everywhere was put on hold due to covid-19 with no return in sight. >> even if we're out for a month or six weeks, we could still restart the season. >> reporter: for more than three months, we had no sports to watch. over the summer, events did start to slowly come back with nascar being the first to allow fans. the sport's only back driver successf successfully campaigned to ban the con con fed rat flag.

>> the entire sports world and wallace's peers rallying around him. >> drivers wanted to show support of me. >> announcer: in the end, the fbi determined the noose was a garage door pull that had been in the garage before wallace was assigned to it. >> it looks increasingly like i'm going to be watching an unprecedented amount of sports on tv pretty soon. >> reporter: in july, the nba returned, moving all operations to a bubble at disney world. it was a great success with the league having zero positive covid-19 tests for the nearly three months the teams were in the bubble. the nhl and wnba following the model, also competing without positive tests. at one point the nba players nearly walked away from the successful restart in order to stand up for social justice. >> nba playoff games, all three of them tonight have been postponed in protest of the shooting of jacob blake. >> in a show of solidarity teams

across the wnba and major league baseball also halting play. athletes in 2020 more than ever using their voice to encourage change. >> we at the national football league -- >> believe black lives matter. >> we've always been about this fighting. we want to represent our communities as best as we can. >> it really woke the world up and let them know that we're serious, we need change, we need more love in the world. >> reporter: the nba playoffs did resume, with lebron james capturing his fourth nba title and first for the lakers since 2010. >> to be able to get to the finish line and be able to cross it, this is just unbelievable. >> reporter: the city of los angeles wasn't done celebrating in october after a rocky regular season dealing with outbreaks, the dodgers winning their first world series in 32 years, beating the rays at a neutral site in texas. about 11,000 fans were attendance for the games, and while fans did return to sporting events in 2020, it looked much different.

>> it feels sad, but we're going to make the best of it. >> reporter: college football saw conferences tackle in different ways. the big 12, fcc and acc were determined to play, while the big ten and pac-12 postponed their season. >> we believe there's too much uncertainty at this point in time in our country to encourage our student-athletes to participate in fall sports. >> reporter: nearly all conferences eventually decided to play in the fall, but faced significant postponements and cancellations. >> this week's slate of college football games is the hardest hit yesterday by the pandemic. >> 18 games in all have been called off this week because of covid. >> announcer: the nfl also struggling to the finish line of their season dealing with cases on teams from week to week. >> the fifth tennessee titans football player just testing positive for covid-19, prompting the nfl to tweet the steelers/titans game will be moved to later in the season.

>> the nfl is postponing this night's game between the ravens and steelers after the ravens confirmed multiple cases of covid. >> a masters in november, and big games played in empty stadiums, 2020 was a very different challenging year, but with vaccines on the way there's hope the sports world will return to normal in 2021. memorable highs and lows in a year like none other. we'll be back in a moment with "cnn newsroom." order in the app for quick and easy pickup. or, get contact-free curbside pickup! staying home? get delivery! so many ways to get footlongs contact-free! subway. eat fresh. she always wanted her smile to shine. now, she uses a capful of therabreath healthy smile oral rinse to give her the healthy, sparkly smile she always wanted. (crowd cheering) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores.

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good morning. it's saturday, december 26th. i'm john avlon and you're in the "cnn newsroom." grif the clock is ticking as president trump needs to sign a desperately needed covid relief bill. after today, more than 12 million americans will lose their extended unemployment insurance, adding to uncertainty for millions of americans. the threat of another surge of covid-19 infections as well. there are more than 100,000 people in the hospital right now and it could get worse. first, investigators in nashville have found what might be human remains fear the site of an explosion.