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happy thursday to you. i'm victor blackwell. welcome to "cnn newsroom." starting with warnings of life-threatens cold. an arctic surge is pushing south and a bomb cycle in the west. a once in a generation event. 100 million people under windchill alerts extending from canada to mexico. grow go to east kansas. what you can see there. almost no of kansas can you see. feels like negative 6 degrees. officials in idaho as low as 61 degrees. blizzard warnings in iowa, indiana, ohio, michigan. travel conditions could become

impossible and all happening on the busiest travel day of the year. president biden said the federal government is ready to help. >> it's not like a snow day, you know when you're a kid. this is serious stuff. please, take this storm extremely seriously. >> all right. with me now, cnn's lucy kafanov, and cozy comfy all bundled up. what havoc is happening where you are? >> reporter: remember the good old days, victor, 50 degrees, yesterday, talking how the bad weather was about to start here. yeah, well, that dropped by 60 degrees. saw negative 11 earlier today. feels like negative 20, because apparently the human suffering of the correspondent isn't enough. what happens when i toss this

cup of boiling water in the air, turns to something like snow. i think. we did manage in our efforts to show you just how cold this seth is, to xpex this lovely bottle of chardonnay from 2022. california chardonnay, nobody drinking this. poured it in a glass three houration. frozen solid. it that what it's doing to wine obviously not a great idea for humans to be outside. so local officials are urging people to stay indoors if they can. obviously denver has a large unhoused population and seeing an influx of migrants. more than 103 migrants, victor, arriving to the city since early december. a lot of folks held in various shelters to stay warm. we were also talking to yesterday in front of the denver col coliseum, active as a 23-hour warming center.

it you're watching this, if you are in these kinds of conditioning, please, don't do what i'm doing. don't be outside. stay home. stay warm. prol p prolonged exposure could cause frostbite. in parts of the plain seen windchills 60 blooelow zero. that is incredibly dangerous. authorities aren't joking when that he say these are dangerous conditions. dropped 23 below near denver, colorado. almost a record of more than 33 years. looking forward to get back into a warm studio. >> temperatures dropping there in chicago. how are officials preparing for what's there now? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, a massive operation, you can imagine, victor. you can see the elements picking up but notice the snow isn't going back up and down, but

basically sideways across my body. familiar to many chicagoans even flying in, say, massive salt dome here in the city of chicago. it contributes to really, stores salt, you can see. this is 50,000 tons of salt inside, and basically, this bulldozer helps gather the salt and then the salt trucks come in here, get this salt put in the backs of their trucks, and then they go out to try and treat the roads. again, it's a massive operation. 50,000 tons here. 400,000 across the city, and just a few moments ago i spoke with the commissioner of the city's department of streets and sanitation who told me a little about what it's going to take here and take ap listen. >> over 300 pieces out on the street pretty much now through end of this thing overnight to try to keep up with this snow. the goal is to keep up with it, but like i said, fighting the wind. that wind's coming at us and we could be getting snow about an

inch an hour. so our spreaders can only move as fast as traffic allows. with that rush hour it's going to be, take it slow. be safe. make sure you have fuel in your car. >> reporter: and that's one recipe for potential disaster, difficulty here. elements, snow coming down and what would be rush hour for people working. there are many out and about today. the other aspect here is obviously, this isn't a ton of snowfall we're getting right now, and people here aren't new to snow, but it's really this combination of snow, the rapid drop in temperatures that we'll see by this evening where we'll be well into the negatives, and the winds that over the course of later today through tomorrow morning could gust up to 50 miles an hour here and all of those things combined create low visibility and potential recipe for disaster in parts of this area. >> certainly people traveling over the next 48 hours or so.

omar, thank you. let you get inside as welling. take a quick look at st. louis. a camera to show you and again visibility is low as the weather is moving through. 10 degrees there in st. louis. let's go to derek van dam now. voom out for us, derek, and show us the big picture how this is slamming parts of the country and temperatures dropping so quickly. >> ears have to perk up and take the storm seriously. because it reached negative 42 degrees farenheit in casper, wyoming, shattering a record that has stood for over three decades. right? bear with me on this. i found this very interesting. right? a popular travel destination between houston and dallas, interstate 45. hypothetically traveling north from houston to dallas on 45. you could theoretically be leaving in shorts, short-sleeved shirts but in a couple hours'

time, a 53-degree temperature drop, on exposed skin, the windchill, and where it's currently located and heads up. headed your way located in houston to the gulf of mexico. my point being that some locations in the deep south of the u.s. will experience temperatures they are not used to. prepare your home, and your family, as well as your pets, because this is dangerous cold. right? jackson, mississippi, below freezing for three days or longer. more of the same for birmingham sb and in houston three days of below normal temperatures. 60 million will experience temperatures below normal for this. this is like a gut punch to the u.s., so to speak. 24 hours ago, 28 degrees warmer yesterday at this time in dallas-ft. worth. the cold front is racing east. look at the temperature drop in nashville. by this evening dropping 30

degrees. atlanta, you're next. victor? >> derek van dam for us in the severe weather center. thank you. bring in stephanie felt, emergency management director of a county in minnesota there. start with your number one concern, stephanie, what's your biggest concern? >> number one concern would be stranded motorists. people are thinking that since we had a calm this morning, we had some sunshine, there wasn't the winds, the heavy snowfalls had stopped. people thought, hey, the weather looks fine to me, but what happened at noon for us is those extreme winds are starting to kick in. so even though we're not getting new snow falls the winds are blowing around what fell yesterday. so visibilities are rapidly dropping and people stranded on the roadways, it's a life-threatening situation, but also is very, very dangerous for our rescuers and responders who

have to go to those stranded motorists. >> we know across the area there had been reports of crashes and spinouts, even a rollover of a semi there in your area. what are the latest reports? are people still venturing out and are you seeing people in trouble on the roads? >> well, unfortunately, people always do go out even when no travel is advised, and that's why i had mentioned it's dangerous for the responders. so when we do, whether a crash or someone just slides off the road and they're stranded, we have dedicated responders, but when they're going from vehicle to vehicle to vehicle, that's exposing them to these cold temperatures longer than we want them out there. so we both want to keep our citizens safe, but we also want to keep our responders safe. so it's very important to not venture out, if you don't have to. >> so you say that you're done

with the precipitation there, but the wind continues. they could, of course, snatch down power lines. are there reports of significant outages, and are you all prepared for those? are you able to, as you hear from the utility companies, get people back online? >> yeah. we have not had any reports of that so far. but we are poised to kick in emergency response, if needed. we're fortunate that we have a good network of cooperation between the departments. so when the power company is notified that they do have an outage, we work closely with them to know how long is it going to take to get it back online, because with this bitter cold, it's different than a popoup power outage at different times of the year. this is no joke. we work closely to see timelines

and implement emergency plans, if necessary. >> stephanie felt, thank you for the work you're doing. busy, and we'll check back in. appreciate your time. so the storm is sweeping in on one of, as we said, the busiest days for airports. kathleen banks is spokesperson for flightaware and a former commercial airline pilot. we're going to lean on both of those there. start with the airports of most concern right now as we advantage over the next 24 hours or so. >> well, i think actually that list might be shorter, which one's we're not concerned about, bhaut but what we're seeing is moving from the west into the midwest, seeing numbers in chicago and midway, even into the east coast, those cancellations. already at 2,000 cancellations today. we had 600 yesterday. we're already looking at 1,000 tomorrow. example would be the regional carrier, canceled one third of

flights for form these numbers will continue to grow, unfortunately. >> you say that the list would be shorter for those not impacted. once you flick over that first domino, the plane supposed to leave, say, laguardia, grounded because of the weather headed to orlando, isn't going to be there, although the weather in orlando is fine. this is impacting most of the country? >> exactly right. doesn't necessarily mean how the weather is in your area but how it affects where it's going and the airplane nep. they have to anti-ice because of precip precipitation. chicago, o'hare, they're as ready as they can be a new de-icing facility the size of 17 football fields, but still, it's so hard to keep up with that, and that anti-ice and de-ice of

those aircraft really slows things down this time of year. especially with a storm of this magnitude. >> what's the primary concern? if i am trying to figure out if i am going to, and i use "i" generally, not like i have a flight to catch at 9:25, if i am trying to determine which element, which variable will impact my flight, is it the wind? is it the ice? is it the snow? is it the temperatures? which one primarily should i look toward? >> well, it's yes, yes, and yes, but the big thing is ice. there's no airport that can deal with widespread surface icing. we saw that earlier this year with those giant winter ice storms that came through texas and dallas-ft. worth shut down two days in advance. not just the airlines but the airport. no way to remove ice over large surfaces of the airport. if it's icy it's dangerous to get to the airport and a good chants for flight will be canceled anyway. the one thing almost impossible

to counteract, widespread surface ice. >> top advice for people traveling over the next day trying to get on these flights, get to a connecting flight. is there something they should download? a number to keep? what do you have for them? >> well, dercfinitely airline a download and use your app you may get an alert a flight is diverted, delayed, rescheduled. canceled. get out a map. use florida as an example. perfect one. suppose you're going from new york to tampa and flight's canceled. orlando, fort myers, sarasota. all within an hour or two drive. you might be able to get to the airport to rebook you to a different destination, or even on another airline and either drive, uber or find way to actually get to your destination for the holidays, even if the flight to that one airport is

canceled. >> kathleen bangs from vowall walla walla, washington. appreciate the expectese. waiting the release of the january 6th committee's final report. putting out transcripts from star witness cassidy hutchinson and the lengths the trump team went to influence her testimony. we'll talk about it, ahead. and roast beef. withm this sub isn't slowing down any time soon. i'll give it a run for its money. my money's on the sub. it's subway's bibiggest refresh yet. when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. [daughter] slurping don't pay fowater. pay for clean. it's got to be tide.

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breaking news. the senate just passed a $1.7 trillion spending way in will avoid a government shutdown. cnn's manu raju joins us from capitol hill. give us details here. >> reporter: the bill just passed 68-29 was the final tally here at the united states senate. 60 votes for final passage exceeded that with bipartisan support to get the bill past the finish line. massive proposal. $1.7 trillion funding all aspects of the federal government. something that should have been done at the deadline, couldn't get a deal by december 16th and punted to a deadline by this friday and leadership with key

appropriators unveiled the team tuesday morning. here we are a couple days later, the senate passed the proposal to keep the government funded through the fall. this is significant because it changes the dynamics heading into the new congress. the new congress, republicans take control of the house. leadership in the house wanted the plb republicans in the senao delay this, punt to next year and have a stronger relationship. they disagreed, did not think stronger and concerned. narrow house majority on republican side could make things harder to avoid a shutdown and get what they wanted particularly on issues like defense spending and the like essentially rolled, house republicans, senate gop did and ultimately sided with democrats, got this bill over the finish line and after arduous negotiations in a last day nast

to get finalized and over to the house. the next step, victor, we expect the thousands take the bill up, probably very late tonight and send it over to the president's desk to sign this into law before the friday shutdown deadline ending a chaotic series of days and weeks as we end this congress where it has democrats in all control of the house and senate. now going into january 3rd, the new congress will be in here. final act on a very, very busy session of congress as democrats and some republicans join hands to push this spending bill through. >> a shutdown has become a christmastime tradition. manu raju, thank you. the january 6th committee released transcripts with star witness cassidy hutchinson. saying her trump-aligned lawyer pressured her against talking even if put at risk against charges. the report could drop at any moment.

paula reid is with me now. what are we learning from her testimony? >> reporter: the transcripts and new reporting from cnn reveal these details about the pressure campaign that hutchinson faced from allies of the former president. hutchinson is, of course a former aide to white house chief of staff mark meadows and told the committee that her first lawyer stefan passantino repeatedly asked her to downplay her role in the white house and say she did not recall certain events. she said he and other trump associates dangled job offers around the time of her first two depositions with the committee. her lawyers and others told her to remain loyal to trump and she would "be taken care of." how she described her experience with her lawyer to the committee. she said, it wasn't just i had stefan sitting next to meep it was almost like it felt i had trump looking over my shoulder, because i knew in some fashion it would get back to him if i said anything he would find disloyal.

the prospect genuinely scared plea. i've seen this world ruin peoples lives or try to ruin people's careers and seen how vicious they could be. she did stress that passantino never explicitly told her to lie. hutchinson said her breaking point with passantino came in june when he advised her not to speak to the committee anymore, risking contempt is a small risk but running to the right is better for you. hutchinson eventually hired another lawyer before her blockbuster testimony for the committee, of course, we know, proved some of the most damning testimony against the former president. cnn reached out to passantino for comment an hutchinson's interview and provide add statement earlier to cnn this week saying he was ethical when presenting hutchinson and said he believed her initial round of testimony to the committee was truthful and that she was being cooperative's in a statement said i believe ms. hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the committee

throughout the several sessions in which i represented her and we're expecting more transcripts over the next couple days and also expecting, expected this yesterday, to get the final report from this committee if they can get it out today. >> standing by to stand by. paula reid, thank you for reporting. bring in harry litman, former u.s. attorney and former assistant deputy attorney general and lydia, former attorney to vice president mike pence. we remember hutchinson's test about lunging forward in the car on january 6th. told her then attorney about that, he told her, no, no, no, no, no. we don't want to go there. we don't want to talk about that. does that qualify as obstruction of justice for him to tell her, no, don't talk about that? >> it does and also qualifies when she said perjury. told her repeatedly, just say

that you're better go-to, i don't recall, even if you do recall the committee won't know it. now, those are top charges in general to bring, tough charges to bring. there's corroborating testimony, told her mother at the time, job offers and such a high-profile case and the kind of thing that really enrages the department of justice. whatever happens to passantino, look at pages 50 to 60 of the cassidy hutchinson deposition, the second one it is pure mob lawyer stuff, and it's really harrowing. >> hmm. olivia, what's your reaction to the descriptions of how cassidy hutchinson said she felt that it felt like trump was right over her shoulder, because these trump allied attorneys, she expected all would get right back tolt former president? >> yeah. look, i read that transcript and i got to be honest with you.

it made me very emotional. i can only imagine the fear cassidy hutchinson was feeling and deep loneliness feeling in that moment. that is the type of pressure campaign these people do and coming at her from all directions and from an extensive circle. right? we see the conversation where bondi former attorney general of florida calls her trying to connect her once again to other people in the trump world and all of that. i think it's disturbing to see this, because a lot of these people are still out there, powerful people, and then you have this young fwwoman in her mid-20s wanted to serve her country went to the white house and ends up in this situation. aisl i'll say this. the conversation with her mom saying they will ruin my life that is very real. you heard. of us well familiar with what that feels like, and when that comes at you, you do feel alone especially when you don't have the means to push back on it.

especially financially. and they know that they have you cornered and just speaks to her strength and integrity. >> all right. let's put a pin in this conversation and go now to capitol hill. senate majority dchuck schumer talking about the $1.7 trillion spending bill. >> pardon -- maternal care amazing. child care, increasing 30%. so many good things in the bills hard to get them all out as you know the electoral college was in and we funded lods of the promises such as the c.h.i.p.s bill and the -- the -- bill to help the veteran whose were hurt. the pac dec hurt by the burn pits. summer lunches for kids every

summer. increase in pell grants. so we've concluded this congress, one of the most productive in decades with one of the best omnibus packages in decades. here's one of the things that amazes me. the amendment process made it better. usually when you have a big omnibus the amendment process makes it worse because the minority is trying to undo a lot 69 things in the bill, but here we stood firm and got it done. again, as i said, it was a great two years. one of the most productive congress we've had in a very long time. i am so proud of my colleagues. every single one of them. to do this in a senate that had 65 would have been momentous. to do it in a senate with 50 was, i say this about my colleagues. their unity was mairaculous and wow. so i feel very, very good about all of this. al of these things.

we could go on and on about all of the things that we did, all the things in the omnibus and look at it carefully, because -- >> all right. that is the senate majority leader chuck schumer, who is remarking on not just the passage of this $1.7 trillion funding bill, just a day before funding runs out, but also what he sees as the accomplishments of the 117th congress listing some of those bills off. of course, that funding bill will head over to the house, expected for a late-night vote and then off to the president for his signature. we'll keep an eye on capitol hill as we move on here. ukraine president volodymyr zelenskyy makes an urgent plea to the american public for more support. newest round of u.s. security assistance is already drawing putin's ire. and disgraced ftx crypto founder sam bankman-fried just left a court after being extra dieted from the bahamas. new reports about what happens next. this who

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the former ceo of the now defunct crypto exchange ftx just released on $250 million bond. this is video of sam bankman-fried walking out court moments ago. a judge agreed to a bail package requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. following the developments, and tell us more about this bail agreement. >> reporter: yeah, victor. so the big number here is $250 million. what prosecutors say is an unprecedented amount in a financial fraud case. a fraud they said was on the

scale of epic proportions. so in addition to the $250 million bond, which bankman-fried and his parents and two others have to sign the judge said he would be subjected to home detention. he is now required to stay in his parents' home in palo alto, california, and also subject to electronic monitoring. he was fitted for an ankle bracelet before walking out of the courthouse today. the first time he's been unu.s. soil since his arrest last week. this is the first time we have seen him in a courtroom in america. he was escorted in by u.s. marshal wearing a navy blazer and you could hear clinking of the shackles around his ankle. only spoke once when the judge asked if he understood the consequences not abiding by bail and he said yes, i do. his parents seated with him. third row behind him in the courtroom.

they didn't say anything while in there. a relatively short hearing and the judge said they would return to court next month for arraignment on the criminal charges of wire fraud and conspiracy. quite a lot of journalists given first time we've seen the so-called former crypto king in the u.s. to face these charges, victor. >> what about his now former lieutenants? how will their cooperation play a role in this? >> reporter: significance of developments ober night. prosecutors at u.s. district attorney's office announced co-founder of ftx and carolyn ellison. she was former ceo of the research hedge fund also intertwined in this alleged fraud. interestingly, today prosecutors also revealed a little bit more about the evidence they have. they said knicks to those cooperating witnesses they also have testimony of dozens of former employees of ftx and alameda as well as encrypted

messages. stating that the amount of evidence in this case is strong, something the magistrate judge acknowledged also in this matter. having the cooperation is really key for prosecutors especially in a complicated financial fraud case. someone who can help walk, wrote the prosecutors and potential jury through evidence of what happened and why they have encrypted messages and will be able to explain what happened. as we've learned from the bankrupt of ftx so far, seemingly a disorganized place, didn't have financial statements in some of these areas, some of these business units. having the help of insiders is really very significant to prosecutors and adds to the pressure bankman-fried is facing. victor? >> outside the courthouse there. thank you. today marks the fourth day of a family's desperate search for a missing baby in ohio. twins kasen and kylie thomas abducted outside a peetizzeria n

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says he's heading home with good results after whirlwind day in washington. >> translator: i thank president biden for his assistant and international leadership and his commitment to victory. i thank the u.s. congress to both houses to all parties that support ukraine, to all those who wish us victory as much as we wish it. the victory will come. >> one of those good results, $1.8 billion package from the white house including that patriot surface-to-air missile system. the pentagon says it will start training ukrainian soldiers to use the system very soon. now, the kremlin is not pleased with that. spokesperson dmitry peskov rote -- the weapons supplied to ukraine does not contribute to a speedy settlement of the situation. on the contrary leads to the fact suffering of the ukraine people will continue longer than it could have. let's discuss with cnn commentator and former moscow

bureau chief jill dougherty. did to see you. the russian response to the visit and the new missile system is both muscular, where they say, we are going to invest in new weaponry, we're going to increase the military by 50%, and then on the other side this kind of whiney, they didn't talk about what we want while they were there. put into context this response we're seeing from russia. >> reporter: yeah. i think it's really important, victor. you're right. the day that zelenskyy was here, putin meeting with his defense minister, talking about really major reinvestment in the military, reorganizing it, increasing the numbers. new hypersonic missiles, and, in fact, even president putin himself said we need more drones and we have to put them everywhere. so there was a big emphasis on that, and then also i think in

that kind of muscular messaging you're talking about, president putin was saying, you know, this is a conflict with nato. and we can answer nato. we can find anywhere. we can put as much money as is necessary into this, and then he even added, you know, war is tough. people die. it's really too bad, but better now than later, and then the other whiney side was, i think you know, if you were president putin, i think you'd have to be kind of -- i don't know -- hurt by the fact that there is president zelenskyy on the world stage, meeting with the president of the united states, and the imagery coming from the kremlin was, president putin in the kremlin behind, you know, in a suit behind a podium, a very kind of old image of a leader, whereas zelenskyy is there, you know, in his fatigues in that olive drab looking very much

like a wartime leader. very different pictures. >> yeah. very different pictures. not as robust image of president putin president putin. let me ask you about the patriot missile system here. every installment of -- of military support from the west, from the u.s., comes with this threat from russia. sometimes it's nuclear. sometimes not. i wonder how they see the addition of this patriot missile system? of course, ukraines think this is a step forward. how escalatory do the russians believe it is? >> reporter: well, i mean, let's look at what president putin said today. he said, yeah, it's an old system, and we can knock it down. so he's really, you know, dismissing it. he said that it's not as good as our s-300s. so i think, that's his response, kind of dismissing it. what militarily they think, i'm sure is that it is a potent system.

granted, there's only one battery at this point, but i think symbolically, and that's, you know, we're talking military, but also symbolism, it is a sign of the escalation of the aid coming from the united states militarily for ukraine. so i would presume that moscow would be worried about that, and hence, that's why you have the kremlin saying, well, this is just going to create more problems and more suffering. i think all the message, victor, coming from moscow is, this is going to go on for a very, very long time, and i would say that putin has really upped the ante in this definitely by what he said and what he did. >> all right. jill dougherty, thank you. this has been labeled a once in a generation event. temperatures plunging, bringing life-threatens conditions to millions of people across this country. cnn has reporters across the u.s. on this winter storm. we'll bring you a live update ahead.

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more -- better diagnostics and prevention, but unfortunately now we've seen it go down for the second year in a row. so let's take a look at what the cdc found in this report. they found that the life expectancy in 2021 was 76.4. that's a seven-month decrease from the year before, and this is really a gut punch. the biggest drop -- the biggest drop in life expectancy was for people between the ages of 35 and 44. so very young people. the two drivers as you mentioned were covid and drug overdoses. so nearly 1 in 8 u.s. deaths in 2021 was due to covid-19, and nearly 107,000 deaths were from drug overdoses. now victor, i hope that when we're sitting here a year from now when they do the 2022 report that we will hopefully be able to say the life expectancy went back up again, but we will have to see. victor? >> yeah. hope so. e- elizabeth cohen, thank you. first there were questions

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brand-new hour here on cnn. good to have you in the newsroom. i'm victor blackwell. meteorologists around the country are warning of a once in a generation winter storm. the national weather service says a mix of subzero temperatures, fierce winds, heavy snow could be life-threatening in some parts of the country. it advises the 100 million americans who are in the path of this deep freeze to start preparing now. our affiliate keyc in minnesota is starting to see dangerous road conditions. they can barely see anything here. the massive blizzard warning is coming today, and affiat