choose the app that fits your investing style. ♪ u.s. president donald trump finally signs the coronavirus stimulus bill after millions of americans were due to lose their unemployment aid. authorities identify the men they say blew up an rv in nashville on christmas day after finding his dna at the scene. and 19 million u.s. coronavirus cases and rising. now, dr. anthony fauci warns a post holiday surge could be on its way. live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here in the united states, canada and

around the world. i'm kim brunhuber, this is "cnn newsroom." after nearly a week of drama and uncertainty, u.s. president donald trump has finally signed the massive coronavirus relief and government funding bill into law. this comes after mr. trump initially refused to sign the deal, throwing many into financial limbo and sparking fear of a government shut down. now the $900 billion relief package is set to deliver funds to small businesses and millions of struggling americans. cnn's jeremy diamond has been traveling with the president and has the details from west palm beach, florida. >> after the president threw

coronavirus inrelief into limbo the president has now signed that legislation. the president signing that $2.3 trillion spending bill that includes $900 billion in coronavirus relief on sunday night here in south florida. the president, though, only signing this legislation after unemployment benefits for more than 12 million americans lapsed on saturday night after the president didn't sign the legislation then. and the president's signature also comes after he threw millions of americans into financial uncertainty by delaying signing this piece of legislation. those americans who were counting on those $600 stimulus checks to soon be arriving will have to wait longer for the stimulus checks and then of course there are the millions of businesses counting on additional ppp funds to come through. now they will be coming through but only after a period of five days of uncertainty here. the president in explaining why he finally signed this

legislation, he says this in a statement released by the white house, quote i am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, and money for ppp, return airline workers to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution and much more. the senate, he says, will start the process for a vote that increases checks to $2,000, repeal 230, and the last two items, it's not clear what the president is talking about because there isn't stand alone specific legislation to accomplish those goals but there's a piece of legislation being advanced by house democrats that would increase the $600 stimulus checks to $2,000 in accordance with the president's demand, and it appears the president has secured a commitment from senate majority leader mitch mcconnell to bring that to the floor, whether it passes is another matter. a number of republicans remain

opposed to $2,000 stimulus checks. regardless, this comes because the president had checked out of governing after the election. for weeks after the election as the negotiations were underway, and it was only after congress passed this legislation with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and we should say with the endorsement of the treasury secretary steven mnuchin who was negotiating on the president's behalf, it was only after that legislation passed that the president began to raise his objections. all the the president accomplished is sinking more americans into financial uncertainty at a time when we have 20 million plus americans unemployed, all during the holiday season. jeremy diamond, cnn. the congressional leaders celebrated the fact that the legislation was signed. republican senator majority leader mitch mcconnell sent a tweet that read in part, i i pla applaud the president's

decision. democratic house speaker nancy pelosi called for quote further action to help americans struggling to stay afloat. the house will begin consider legislation upping direct payments to $2,000. meanwhile representative adam smith says this is all standard behavior. >> the president deciding to do that is good news. it points out his limitations as president. he doesn't pay much attention of the details of the legislation he's working on or to the impact it has on people or he would have signed this in the first place. this is the deal that his white house negotiated. i'm glad he's signing it. but it does point out his approach to the presidency. >> helping us with the details, john defterios, tell us what's in the bill and what can folks expect to get the money? >> you asked a key point there,

kim, but let's cover the anxiety everybody had to go through over the last, what, seven days when the bill was passed by the senate republicans and the house democrats and also keeping global markets on edge. there's some relief. and we can get to that in just a moment. it is surprising because it was treasury secretary steven mnuchin who was sitting at the bargaining table since they started the last round of negotiations over the last four months. it was really a tumultuous period of time that of course made it very difficult. what's in the packages is key here. 12 to 14 million americans that needed to have their jobless benefits extended will have them through march 20th. this also avoids a shut down of the government which is crucial and often overlooked. that was going to start on tuesday. there's a moratorium to block evictions on renters who can not make the rent payments. that's only extended to january. you also talked about additional support to small business. when will people get the payments, the u.s. treasury

department suggesting we could see that within the next couple of weeks. that was the case in march as well. nearly half of the working population did get their paychecks in the first two months. if you're registered with the internal revenue service. that's a caveat. of course many of those getting the checks are homeless. they don't have a permanent address. some have to pay taxes because they don't meet the threshold, and have a snail mail set out for them. i'll talk about the global markets here. we have some relief with the markets pressing records before the christmas holiday. they're up about a half percent or just blelow that. the wild card of course is what the house democrats do if they do pass the legislation, to boost the stimulus checks from 600 to $2,000. that will put pressure on the senate republicans.

he's trying to support republicans because they didn't support an investigation into voter fraud. nasty politics from the president even though he's outside of washington as we speak. >> that's the theory. thank you so much, john defterios, appreciate it. to discuss this, i want to bring in thomas gift, the director of the ucl center on u.s. politics. thanks for coming in. nice to see you again. i want to get your reaction to the chain of events last night. what, if anything, has the president accomplished in all of this other than sowing chaos. >> he does thrive on chaos, so taking the country to the brink with the spending bill is consistent with how he has governed throughout his administration. it's possible he had every intention of signing the bill, but wanted the satisfaction of senate democrats and republicans to peer over the precipice.

about political retribution and improving his continued relevance. basically trump waited until the 11th hour to sign this bill because he could and the fact that benefits many americans needed hung in the balance, and a government shut down was looming didn't matter to trump as long as he could capture the news cycle. >> back to what nancy pelosi was saying, on monday, the house will vote on expansion of the direct payments, and presumably pass. how big of a nightmare is this for senate republicans? >> well, i really think that this proposal is going to be dead on arrival. trump does continue to push for separate legislation that would increase the size of direct checks from $600 to $2,000. democrats in the house want to support that, but republicans in the senate have shown no interest in capitulating to that demand. i think it's largely political theater at this point. it might make republicans look

obstructionist, but, you know, they have been saying from the very outset that they're not willing to go over that $1 trillion mark and they're not willing to entertain any proposals that would see direct checks to americans over the $600 figure. >> and so they're willing to further cross the president and all of that, you know, puts georgia republican senators, leffler and perdue in a tough spot, having supported the bill which the president turned around and called a disgrace. presumably all is well because the president says he's going to come to georgia for a rally on the eve of that vital duel runoff which will determine control of the senate. i want to talk about the amount of money here. one of the candidates, jon ossoff has become the best funded candidate of all time, setting fundraising records. what role do you think money will play in determining these races here? >> i think it's natural that so

much money is flowing into this race on both sides, partly because it's becoming a national contest. there's just so much at stake here. now, if you look at what the research says on money and politics, there's a lot of disagreement as to whether funding money actually helps candidates win or those candidates that are already looking like they are going to win are more likely to attract funding. so i think ultimately money helps on the margins. certainly it's good to have a robust fundraising base. i think it does reflect the fact that there's a lot of enthusiasm. at the same time, i think ultimately this will be about gav galvanizing the base, ensuring that the political left for democrats and on the political right for republicans show up. certainly what we know is that this is going to be lower turnout than the november 3rd presidential election. that means that on the democratic side, the voting block is going to be more

progressive and more conservative on the republican side. ultimately i think this is about getting the key demographics. >> we don't have much time left, but i did want to ask you about president trump's decision to pardon the four blackwater private security officers convicted of a massacre in baghdad. in 2019, you covered a peace following the pardons of soldiers around this time last year, so it's a long and interesting piece. we don't have time to get into it now, but if you can, just explain quickly what these types of pardons might have on the military and the military culture. >> that's a really good question, as you suggested back in 2019, right around november 15th. donald trump pardoned or granted cl clemency to several u.s. service members who were either convicted or accused of committing war crimes. there's big concern within the military that these decisions essentially granting reprieves

for individuals who have committed atrocities in war could ultimately lead to a situation where it's more difficult to enforce enormous of civilian protectionism, makes it more difficult that the united states military is going to abide by international humanitarian law. so it's a big issue, and certainly the fact that donald trump has pardoned these blackwater operatives could potentially pardon additional u.s. service members before he leaves office i think is a big worry for many both within and outside the military. >> yeah, it's an interesting piece if people are interested in the issue, i suggest you look it up. thomas gift, thank you for joining us. i appreciate it. >> i appreciate it, kim, thanks. authorities investigating the christmas day bombing in nashville, tennessee, have released new images of the explosion and named a culprit but have yet to determine a motive. using dna evidence and the rv registration number, authorities have identified the bomber as

63-year-old anthony warner. they believe he carried out the crime alone. >> based on the evidence that we have gathered at this point, we have come to the conclusion that an individual named anthony warner is the bomber. that he was present when the bomb went off and he perished in the bombing. we based this conclusion on forensic evidence including dna evidence that you'll hear about as well as evidence gathered at the scene of the bombing. >> police roeleased this video n sunday. it shows the street just before and after the rv bomb went off, along with the blast that injured three and damaged dozens of buildings. authorities say the song downtown blared from the rv just before the detonation. an officer who worked to evacuate residents described those terrifying moments. >> as i turned around, for me it

felt like i only took three steps, and the music stopped and as i'm walking back, i just see orange, and then i hear a loud boom, and as i'm stumbling, it rocked me that hard, started stumbling, i tell myself to stay on your feet, stay alive. >> investigators are pouring into the home in antioch, they are trying to work out why he did it, and haven't connected the bombing to terrorism. a neighbor described him as a mer h hermit. it only took a week for the u.s. to add a million more coronavirus infections. and dr. anthony fauci warns the darkest days may still be ahead. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose.

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the u.s. surpassed 19 million known cases of the coronavirus over the weekend. that's according to data from johns hopkins university. the u.s. has the most cases in the world by far, almost double that of the country with the second most, which is india. vaccinations are entering their third week.

the latest figures show nearly 2 million americans have already received their first dose, and while there are lags in reporting, it looks like the u.s. will fall short of its original goal to inoculate 20 million people by the end of the year. hospitalizations at near record levels. 118,000 people spent sunday in the hospital according to the covid tracking project. it's the 26th straight day with over 100,000 patients currently hospitalized. vaccines are offering some hope of a light at the end of the tunnel, but experts are warning the worst may still be to come. in large part due to behavior during the holidays. here's how the country's top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci puts it. >> we're really at a very critical point. if you put more pressure on the system by what might be a post-seasonal surge because of the traveling and the likely congregating of people for, you know, the good warm purposes of

being together for the holidays, it's very tough for people to not do that. even though we advise not to, it's going to happen. so i share the concern of president-elect biden that as we get into the next few weeks, it might actually get worse. >> dr. anthony fauci said he expects the vaccine rollout to gain momentum in the coming weeks. it will be several months until they're available to most people. >> once you get there, what i call open season, namely when anybody who's anybody, you don't have to be a priority person should get vaccinated. i think we're going to get there end of march, beginning of april. if we start vaccinating the general population in april, from a pure logistics standpoint, it's probably going to take several months to get those people vaccinated that would get us to the 70 to 85% group. i think that's going to probably be by the middle to the end of the summer so that i hope, i hope that by the time we get to

the fall, we will reach that critical percentage of people that we could really start thinking about a return to some form of normality. >> chinese authorities have quickly tested millions of people in the port city of delion after a new cluster of covid cases in november. they have finished mass testing 6.4 million residents. an independent chinese journalist has been sentenced to four years for her reporting in wuhan. she traveled there in february to report on the pandemic and efforts to contain as authorities began reigning in state run and private media from reporting on it. selina wang joins me live. what's the latest. >> reporter: this independent chinese journalist was found guilty of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a broad offense that's used to target

both journalists and human rights activists in china. we have video here that you can see a heavy police presence outside of the shanghai court where she was sentenced to four years in prison. she is a former lawyer who had traveled to wuhan in february to report on the coronavirus. she had for months been documenting what life was like there, what it was like under lock down for residents under harsh conditions. she had video footage of overflowing hospitals, of shops completely empty, and according to her lawyers, she began a hunger strike in june and she is now being force fed via a nasal tube amid growing concerns about her health. now she is the first citizen we know of to be sentenced for her role in the reporting of the pandemic, but we know of a number of citizen journalists who have disappeared who have been detained for their reporting in wuhan. this also comes in tandem as china has been clamping down on reporting on the pandemic and as

state media has also been aggressively pushing the narrative that beijing was both timely and effective in its covid-19 response. kim, i do want to bring up this quote from a hong kong based group called chinese human rights defenders that puts the situation this way quote under the guise of fighting the novel coronavirus authorities in china have escalated suppression online by blocking independent reporting, information sharing, and critical comments on government responses. now, according to reporters without borders, china is the biggest jailer of journalists around the world. it tightly controls information at home, and most forward media is blocked via the great fire wall. kim. >> thank you so much, selina wang, in tokyo. israel is ramping up vaccinations as the country enters its third national lock down. officials say they hope the third lock down will be the last. israel's prime minister wants to double the rate of vaccinations

by next week, so for more on this, let's bring in elliott gotkine in tel aviv. are the restrictions easier to bear knowing that the vaccine is being rolled out as we speak. >> reporter: i think it depends on your perspective. if you're a small business owner, for example, being forced to close once more and due to run out of money, then knowing things will get better, the government has been trying to drum up a large dose of optimism regarding the vaccine and vaccine campaign. a hundred thousand israelis were vaccinated yesterday, bringing the total to almost 400,000. and according to one report, israel leads the world in vaccinations per capita, something prime minister netanyahu was happy to tweet out from his account on sunday. in practical terms, we were here yesterday, you would have seen lots of people around here, getting their last minute

shopping in before shops were forced to close due to the lock down. the shops are closed now, and it's pretty much desserted, one of the exemptions for straying from your home, plenty of people running through here or walking their dogs, which is also allowed or biking through here, so there is a lock down. it's not as onerous as previous lock downs, and one particularly interesting thing that happened after we spoke yesterday, kim, was that the education committee in parliament overturned the government decision regarding the education system that grades 5 to 10 would have to go back to home schooling. they overturned that. now the schools are open for everyone. that decision was called retched by the health minister which says it will inevitably prolong the lock down. >> that's a debate we have in this country and many countries as well. thank you, elliott gotkine, appreciate it. coronavirus cases are spiraling out of control in california. how hospitals there are

stretched so thin, they may have to ration patient care. stay with us.

welcome back to all of you watching here in the united states, canada and around the world. i'm kim brunhuber, and you're watching cnn newsroom. nearly one week after the covid-19 relief bill was passed by congress, u.s. president donald trump has finally put his signature on it. the president said he only approved the bill after getting the senate to agree to considering increasing the amount of the stimulus hechecks from 600 to $2,000. for those collecting jobless benefits, it includes a weekly

$300 boost through march. millions will likely not receive a payment for the final week of the year because of the delay in getting the bill signed. a d.j. who's currently unemployed, he joins me now from san diego. thank you so much for joining us. i imagine you would be, you know, normally super busy this time of year. give me a sense of how everything has changed with the pandemic and how bad things are right now? >> yeah, usually in december, this is where d.j.s or people in the entertainment industry make most of their money, you know, we've got christmas parties, everybody's out, you know, we've got our big new year's gig. so this is usually the month where we all do pretty well, and you know, for me personally, i've got no income right now coming in for december, you know. we basically, a lot of us have to choose between doing the right thing right now, and just

staying in and, you know, not djing in places that aren't safe. >> yeah, i mean, on that, i'm sure there are jobs you could have done, gigs you could have taken. then i imagine, you know, your girlfriend comes home from work at the hospital where she's a nurse. i mean, that must change your perspective on the risks out there. >> yeah, it's strained some friendships i've had. it's strained business relationships where there's been pressure to dj certain events and i'm just not going to do it man, not going to do it. i need to be safe and make sure i'm not going out there and exposing myself to somebody who's on the front lines, battling in the hospital every day. so i need to make the right decisions with that. >> so to make ends meet, you were getting those covid unemployment checks. they ran out this weekend because the president didn't sign the covid relief bill. he has done that now. it means you and others will miss out on a check or two at

least. how do you feel now that it's been signed, and how do you feel that the president waited this long to sign it. >> there's a lot of relief. it kind of feels like being where your mom and dad are divorced and they're fighting and they're trying to make each other look bad, instead of taking care of the kid, and that's how it seems on both sides of this. it's nice that it's actually going through. i know some people's opinion are like, oh, it's not enough. for those of us running out of money, it's something, you know, more than nothing, so we're really really happy to be getting that. so really exciting to have some flow come back for money because, i mean, there's only so much you can dip into your savings, and you know, people are just running out of money. >> and finally, you know, what happens now, i mean, eventually the checks will run out.

how are you going to make ends meet? are you able to make rent? how are you going to cope going forward? >> i was working the elections and that wasn't fun to be part of that process. obviously that's over now. so it's tough to try to find work where i have to commit to, you know, i dj'd for sports teams. i have weddings that will be coming up when the time is right. it's something that i don't want to switch my profession. i want to stay in this. so, you know, i'm open to work, and to do jobs, trying to find the right one, you know, trying to find something that makes sense. >> and that's safe. >> yes, absolutely, that's safe. >> listen, we wish you the best of luck, and hopefully things will turn around sooner than later. certainly the vaccine will be the game changer. we really appreciate you coming in and talking to us. >> thank you for having me, appreciate it.

>>. california is one of the places hardest hit by the coronavirus. reporting some of the highest new daily cases. hospitals are filling up so quickly that in some places, medical services are spilling out into the parking lots. as paul vercammen reports, health officials are worried about running out of resources. >> here in california, the blare of sirens at huntington hospital in pasadena, 189 patients in the hospital with covid-19. they have set up surge tents to accommodate other patients with other problems and keep them away from the covid-19 patients. in all, 20,000 covid-19 patients in hospitals in california. and something of concern here, if there is a tidal wave of cases after new year's eve, top officials at the hospital say they may have to ration health care. >> indeed, that's what we may

have to do. that's really the ultimate triage, we have a limited number of ventilators, icu beds, a limited number of plastic tubing for oxygen tankings. a lot of those decisions, we're not there yet, but we're going to have to make those decisions. that's a decision no onements to have -- wants to make. >> reporter: the infectious disease expert served in africa in the fight against hiv. now, they are just crossing their fingers and hoping that californians pay attention to smart social distancing and don't get out of control by not wearing masks or by getting together for large gatherings during the new year's holiday. i'm paul vercammen, reporting from pasadena, now back to you. >> dr. robert kim farley is a professor at ucl field health,

and former director of disease prevention at l.a. county health. he joins me from l.a. doctor, thank you so much for being with us. sadly, every time we speak, the situation where you are keeps getting worse, so tell me what you're seeing now. >> thanks, kim, and again, thanks for having me on the program. it's always good to be with you. yes, you know, when we talked before, we talked about there were surges. now i'm saying saying we have a viral tsunami on our hands here in california and los angeles. >> what do you mean by that? >> well, it just means that we characterize former things like waves or surges and i think just the magnitude of the amount of disease that we are seeing really needs to have a better term, which i think a tsunami probably conjures up in people's minds or alternatively we talked about the idea that we were having a match book and throwing a match book into the forest, and occasionally have a flare up

of disease in covid frror examp, but now we have a raging viral wildfire occurring here in california. >> those dramatic terms underscore the numbers that we're seeing, record upon record falling, in terms of the case, hospitalizations, the number of beds that are available are shrinking practically to zero in some cases. so how might all of this affect the quality of care for those who actually need treatment? >> yes, well, when you use up your capacity of your hospital, you have to move to what they call surge procedures or protocols, which means turning off elective surgeries, changing the staffing ratio of patients to nurses, it means maybe moving people out of an icu bed, sooner than you otherwise might have done. it means you may not be able to move someone from the emergency department into the icu bed, which backs up the emergency

department and ambulances leading to that. basically you begin to compromise the quality of care, and previously, you would sometimes handle an overstressed hospital by what we call mutual aid, sending people to other hospitals and asking for additional staff to come and help you. but when you have the situation occurring everywhere at the same time, you lose the ability to have that mutual aid of others that may be having more capacity coming over to help you. everyone is busy. everyone has, you know, turned out all hands on deck. >> i mean, this just emphasizes the paradox of los angeles, and california writ large that despite all of the very strict restrictions, stay-at-home orders and so on, it's leading the country in terms of the cases and everything, and there's some evidence that people are ignoring these orders. we saw a survey by the university of southern california there found 30% of people had visited friends or relatives or had them over,

which is prohibited, and that's just the people that admitted it, and people i talked to always tell me i'm just getting together with a few people. obviously a few is clearly better than many, but when it comes to, you know, family, people tend to let down their guard, they lower their masks and so on. are people underestimating the risk even of small business gatherings. even of getting together with family. >> you're exactly right. i think all of us are surprised about this level of magnitude of tsunami as i mentioned. i think that what's happening, we have a mixture of things, we have basically a pandemic fatigue that has set in where people maybe aren't wearing masks when they should be. they're beginning to try to go out and see friends or have friends over, and i think we have really amplifying events that have occurred with the back-to back-to-back holiday seasons. halloween followed by thanksgiving, followed by now hanukkah and christmas and soon

to be new year's eve, and so what's happening is that people are, for example, over the christmas holiday becoming infected, but then they go out to a party on new year's or have people over to their house on new year's, and that's exactly the time when they will be coming up with virus such that they could be then transmitting to others, and they could in an asymptomatic, and presymptomatic stage and not know that they are indeed transmitting to loved ones and families some that may have preexisting conditions for whom covid could be a death sentence. >> we'll leave it there. dr. robert kim farley, we appreciate it as always. >> a pleasure. the european union has launched its vaccination program, aimed at giving shots to around 450 million people in the months to come. we're live in madrid and london next. stay with us. it's time for the lowest prices of the season on

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the european union's mass vaccination program is now

underway. the plan calls for the vaccination of some 450 million people across the block. front line medical workers and older citizens are the first in line to receive the doses. the rollout comes as governments race to contain the spread of a new covid-19 variant that was first detected in the u.k. journalist al goodman joins us from madrid spain, so the elati elation at seeing the vaccine arrive has been a bit tempered by a delay. >> reporter: that's right, kim. already a delay on what was to be the second shipment of some 50,000 doses, some 350,000 doses to spain. this monday, the spanish health ministry saying that pfizer of spain told them that pfizer of belgium, the factory had a logistics problem loading and shipping these out to spain and to seven other european countries. we're trying to get the identity of those seven countries, but there is a delay. it will start on tuesday. on sunday, however, there was an

optimistic note and about 10,000 doses across the country were issued including at this residence, senior care center in madrid where about 50 residents got the vaccination. we have just started to talk to some of these residents. an 87-year-old woman told us she had been a nurse during her life, and she said she's never in her life as a nurse had to give a vaccination as important as this one. she hopes this will be the last of these kinds of vaccinations to tamp down the coronavirus. now, the health minister speaking, reiterated that by the end of summer, the end of august, he expects and authorities expect 60 to 70% of the spaniards to be immunized and hold down coronavirus in this country, which has got nearly 50,000 deaths, more than 1.8 million cases has been one of the very hardest hit countries in europe, and in the world.

and the center of the problem has been in many cases at these senior care homes which didn't have enough supplies and the virus spread, not at this one so much, but others, so quickly during the hardest months last spring. kim. >> thank you so much for that report from there, and stay safe. appreciate it, al goodman, according to british media, a vaccine candidate may receive a green light from the mhra, the british agency ha regulates medicine. for more on that, let's bring in cnn's salma abdelaziz joining us from london. great news that there is soon a new weapon in the fight as the enemy evolves. >> that's right, kim, in a matter of days, we are expecting the oxford astrazeneca vaccine to be approved. it could be rolled out as early as january 4th and of course the british government is very excited about this because this is the home grown vaccine, the one made right here in the u.k. now, there's been some controversy about the efficacy

of this vaccine. early trials show it top about 70% effective in immunizing people against the virus, but the researchers say that they have a winning formula. so if you remember, there's a second dosage that has to be given. that winning formula, according to these scientists is that the second dose would be a half dose that could increase the efficacy to 90%, putting it on par with the pfizer biontech vaccine. that's not the only advantage, it's cheap, about the cost of your morning latté, 3 pounds and does not need to be stored at extra cold temperatures. a lot of advantages here, and it couldn't come soon enough. this country is of course battling with a spike in cases and most importantly is battling with a new variant of coronavirus that the authorities say is more transmissible, not more deadly. because it is more transmissible, it's blamed for the spread of cases in london

and other infected areas. a lot of hopes pinned on this vaccine to be rolled out quickly, and effectively and soon. again, as a way to fight off this new variant and to get a grip on the cases here. kim. >> great news. all right, thank you so much, salma abdelaziz in london. for much of the year. many around the world have been working from home, and a great number of them hope that will continue even after the situation improves. we'll have the details next. stay with us. i love audible because it's changed my life for the better. whatever question i have i feel like there's an avenue to seek the answer. hit that app and you start a a story, you're on an adventure. download a new book within seconds and it's ready to go. there's something for everybody on audible. i like short stories. short stories are easy. they're quick. i like long and like intricate stories, that's really what i love. audible originals. i like biographies. self-help. fantasy. true crime podcasts. i love it so much. i can literally listen to anything.

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. among the many things that changed in 2020 was of course the vast number of people working from home. with millions around the world settled into their new work environment for months, could this be the new normal? anna stewart takes a look. >> reporter: this was the year working from home went main street right around the world. this was a how to work from home video that i made all the way back in march. i thought this might be the way of things for a couple of months. wow did i get that wrong. as we reach the end of 2020,

many of us haven't returned to the office. we're still on zoom, skype, webex, slack. while video conference fatigue has set in for some, others are happy with the new way of working. twitter is one company that's embraced the change and is allowing some employees to choose to work from home permanently. >> we've got about 80% of our employees working four or five days in the office, so pretty much full-time in the office, and, you know, a very small percentage, single digits of people who were working full-time remote, and that's almost flipped. coming back out of it, in the single digits, people who want to spend four or five days in the office, and much more in terms of a third of our work force want to be full-time remote. productive has remained steady but people's perception is increasing as they figure this out. >> reporter: productivity is critical. 90% of workers surveyed in the u.k. said they would like to continue working from home,

often or all the time. however, only 70% felt they were as productive or more so. >> i think we'll be moving to more hybrid forms of working where people do actually work a lot more at home than they used to before the pandemic. so it has ushered in a major change, i think, in the landscape, in terms of how we work, where we work. >> reporter: the shift has had a devastating impact on local economies. cafes, bars and shops are reliant on workers who may not go back to their offices nine to five. companies could give up expensive leases all together. >> people choosing to work from home two, maybe three days a week, and there still is the requirement, then, of the office. people will come in for a different reason. >> reporter: the great work-from-home experiment has sparked long-term change in the

way we work. it isn't for everyone, whether it's unsuitable home environments, noisy children or wayward pets, some of us will be hoping to get back to the office in 2021. tennis great, roger federer will miss the first australian open of his career, a tournament he has won six times. organizers announced on sunday he would have to withdraw. he's still recovering from two knee surgeries. the australian open, the first grand slam will start in early february, delayed by three weeks due to the pandemic. that wraps this hour of cnn newsroom. i'm kim brunhuber, "early start" is up next.

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welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. we have reports this morning from florida, tokyo, london, california, tel aviv and delaware. this is "early start," i'm christine romans. >> and i'm ryan nobles, congratulations, it's monday, december 28th. that means you've made it to the last week of 2020. it is 5:00 a.m. in new york. >> nice to see you, ryan. nice to see you. we begin this morning with the news breaking overnight that the president, president trump, has signed the coronavirus relief and government spending bill into law. abruptly signing this, narrowly averting a shut down in a fragile economy that would have