tv CNN Newsroom Live CNN December 28, 2022 1:00am-2:00am PST
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so let's go. the digital age is waiting. if you run a small business, you need the most from every investment. that's why comcast business gives you more. more innovation... with our new gig-speed wi-fi, plus unlimited data. more speed... from the largest, fastest, reliable network... and more savings- up to 60% a year on comcast business mobile. all from the company that powers more businesses than any other provider. get started with fast speeds and advanced security for $69.99 a month for 12 months. plus ask how to get up to a $750 prepaid card with qualifying internet. hello and a warm welcome to
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our viewers joining us in the united states and all around the world. i'm bianca nobilo live from london. max foster has the day off. just ahead on "cnn newsroom." >> this is absolutely insane. >> the next flight that was offered was in january, and they couldn't even get us home. >> optimistic to be back on track before next week. >> she saw mark meadows burning documents in his office fireplace. >> that adds to the accumulation that suggests crimes were committed. >> the supreme court says that a public health authority known as title 42 will remain in effect. >> this is just a band aid on a broken immigration system. >> announcer: live from london, this is "cnn newsroom" with max foster and bianca nobilo. it is wednesday, december 28th. 9 a.m. here in london, 4 a.m.
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here in washington. the massive travel delays impacting thousands of americans are expected to continue for the next few days causing a ripple effect into the new year's weekend. southwest airlines has already canceled more than 4500 flights for today and tomorrow. the carrier's ceo apologizing for the meltdown. >> i want everyone who's dealing with the problem that we've been facing, whether you haven't been able to get to where you need to go or you're one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airline to know that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation. and please also hear that i'm truly sorry. with a large fleet of airplanes and flight crews out of position in dozens of locations and after days of trying to operate as much of our full schedule across the busy holiday weekend, we reached a decision point to significantly reduce our flying to catch up. >> the southwest fiasco has left
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thousands of passengers stranded in airports waiting in long lines for hours just to find out it could take them several more days to get to where they're going. mountains of unclaimed luggage piling up in several airports and the u.s. transportation secretary says he'll be holding the airline accountable. >> meltdown is the right word. this is an unacceptable situation. you look at the number of passengers who are stranded and you look at how hard it is even to get somebody on the phone to address it. from what i can tell, southwest is unable to locate even where their own crews are, let alone their own passengers, let alone baggage. this really has to deal with decisions and choices in terms of the investments that this airline has made or failed to make over the years that seem to be catching up to them now. what's really concerning here is that while all of the other parts of the aviation system have been moving towards recovery and getting better each day, it's actually been moving in the opposite direction.
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obviously we'll follow through and use our authority to issue fines if that's what it takes to get something done. >> we like thousands of others wanted to know why every other airline has been able to recover but southwest is still struggling so we sent our gabe cohen to find out. >> reporter: the meltdown at southwest airlines just gets worse. >> it's a total you know what show here. >> reporter: southwest canceling more than 2500 flights on tuesday. more than 85% of all u.s. cancellations. thousands of passengers stranded at airports still hoping to see family were struggling to get home. >> they said keep checking back but they said there probably won't be anything until saturday. >> 72-year-old pat shelby has been sleeping at baltimore's airport since saturday. >> other than that, i really haven't got jenny good sleep. i'm scared i'm not going to get
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out of here. >> reporter: southwest blames last week's winter storm for the chaos but the southwest pilots association says there's more to southwest problems than ice and snow. >> the storm that hit last week was the catalyst to this, but what went wrong is that our i.t. infrastructure for our scheduling software is vastly outdated. >> reporter: southwest executives acknowledge that saying, quote, matching up those crew members with the aircraft could not be handled by our technology. our system today cannot to that. >> they don't know where we are. they don't know where airplanes are. >> reporter: travelers stuck in snaking lines or on hold for hours. >> phone calls were busy. you couldn't get ahold of anybody. it was awful. >> reporter: customers also trying to track down their luggage. pam says she's diabetic and needs the medicine in one of her bags which may be at a different airport. >> i'm scared that i could go
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into a diabetic shock. >> reporter: christmas with family never happened but now she's just trying to get home. >> i love my family. i really had my hopes up that i was going to be able to see them. and it hurts. >> reporter: southwest officials say they are offering a full refund or a flight credit. have created a website to try to make that process a little bit easier, but some of the lines to rebook are still hours long and the line to reach customer service is longer in some cases. some customers saying southwest can't rebook them until january. gabe cohen, cnn, baltimore, maryland. p mp we asked the transportation secretary what people are entitled to and how the airline should be res responding? >> another thing you should
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know, when the airline is responsible, you can get those kinds of vouchers for hotels, restaurants, but what i talked about with southwest ceo is a passenger shouldn't have to request that. they need to be proactively offering that. he pledged that they would and again we'll be watching to make sure that they follow through. >> it's finally stopped snowing in buffalo, new york, and warmer temperatures are expected across the region. all this snow piled up will start melting today and officials are worried about possible flooding. this is buffalo's all-time snowiest start to the season. city's been smothered with nearly 52 inches of snow since friday and since october more than 100 inches which is more than 2 1/2 meters. the big issue is to get critical supplies in need and to reach people who are stranded by the huge snowbanks. the storm has claimed more than 30 lives in eerie county and
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that number is likely to grow as emergency crews reach people they couldn't get to before. one of those victims was a 22-year-old woman who was found dead over the weekend after getting trapped in her car. this is the last video she reported while still alive. her family said that she worked as a senior citizen center and was only a six-minute drive from her home when she became stranded in the whiteout conditions. her family said she called 911 but help did not arrive and they're waiting for answers from the authorities. some of those who were saved, whether by emergency crews or good samaritan snowmobilers, are speaking out about their close calls and so are their rescuers. >> it was wind blowing. >> the people are like this. you couldn't even see them. put onto the back of me and hang on for their lives. >> i've been there.
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i thought i was dead. witness transcripts reveals more information about the insurrection investigation. they include allegations of burning documents, documents of a quanon conspiracy. jessica schneider has this story. >> reporter: we are now seeing the intricate details of all four times that cassidy hutchinson testified before the committee. the last time in june 2022 really the most illuminating because by that point she left her trump world attorney for a neutral counsel who told the committee she needed to correct some of her previous testimony to clear up the record about what she had previously said. the details that she gave are,s indeed, damaging. first off she told the committee she saw mark meadows burning documents in his office fireplace about a dozen times, which she says amounted to about once or twice a week between
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december 2020 and january 2021 and be that at least twice she saw meadows burning dock iemts after meetings with the republican congressman scott perry who was ultimately subpoenaed by the committee but never complied. in addition to that, hutchinson told the committee how discussions about some qanon conspiracy theories permeated the white house after the election. she said mark meadows brought it up. congresswoman marjorie taylor greene, she made mention of this far right wing political movement that has those outlandish conspiracy theories. and then cassidy hutchinson said she had this exchange with peter navorro and at one point i had sarcastically said, oh, is this from your qanon friends, peter? because peter would talk to me frequently about his qanon friends. peter said, have you looked into it, cass? i think they point out a lot of good ideas. you really need to read this.
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hutchinson said, i did not take it assar camp. so in addition to that while getting new details from deputy white house press secretary, he told the committee he heard gossip the week after the 2020 election from some of his colleagues at the white house that trump in fact was considering conceding and considering inviting the bidens to the white house. judd said he was looped in on this, on the conversations because he is the one who would have been arranging the press access for any sort of visit for the bidens. neither of those things happened. of course instead, trump refused to concede and held onto the claims of the stolen election. jessica schneider, cnn, washington. legal experts say former white house chief of staff mark meadows could find himself in trouble over the claims he burned documents at the white house. >> well, that sounds like somebody who wants documents that can never be discovered by anybody.
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i don't know if they're notes he made. me memos, we don't know. mark meadows has been around long enough to know if this ever came to -- push came to shove and a criminal investigation was launched, he might be in the sights of obstruction for that activity. we'll need to know more before that is apparent, but it's a very dangerous act, particularly since they're government documents. >> it's not just burning the documents. a couple of those episodes were after meadows met with congressman scott perry. we know he's in the justice department's bull's eye. they seized his phone. that's another bad sign and then there's keeping the meeting secret. keeping them on the qt. so there's a lot of evidence here that is troubling, and it adds to the accumulation that suggests crimes were committed. meadows is one of those doj is making -- receiving criminal referrals from the committee on,
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and now we know more why. >> and perhaps more legal trouble could be coming from donald trump. a source tells cnn the u.s. house ways and means committee will be releasing the president's former personal tax returns on friday. the highly anticipated release comes after the committee last week asserted the irs failed toll properly audit the former president's taxes while in office. it detailed six years' worth of trump's tax returns including his claims of massive annual losses that significantly reduced his tax liability. the legal wrangling has left thousands of migrants at the u.s. border. on tuesday the u.s. supreme court decided to temporarily leave and replace title 42. with no clarity on when title 42 will be lifted, migrants are wondering when they'll be able
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to seek asylum. the biden administration hoped to end the controversial policy, the white house says it will comply with the ruling. >> we will follow it. >> the white house is also calling on lawmakers to solve the problems p with bipartisan support. title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure and it should not be extended indefinitely. to truly fix the immigration system, we need congress to pass comprehensive immigration rae form measures like the ones president biden proposed on his first day in office. we have the story. >> reporter: there was a bit of a disappointing mood in conversations that i had with
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many of the migrants here. there was one mother who told me she was fleeing violence in venezuela and she took months bringing herself as well as her two young children, including a toddler all the way here so they could arrive in mexico. they wanted to get into the u.s. legally but because of title 42, she was sent back. many of the migrants echoed the same sentiment. they have nowhere to go at this time. the city says they have capacity at shelters but many of these migrants say they fear getting on any sort of bus not knowing exactly where they will end up not having trust in any sort of individual who may be trying to help them. so the city is saying this is an issue trying to find a place where they can fit some of the migrants that have come up that are refusing to go into shelters and staying on the sidewalk
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here. you see children and toddlers under blankets sleeping overnight. the other big thing the city is continuing to deal with, they are moving ahead with contingency plans. they are working onge two vacant schools to serve as potential shelters in the future because despite this decision from the supreme court that keeps title 42 in place, they still expect to have a lot of migrants because of what they're seeing across the border. seeing a lot of migrants just waiting for their moment to enter into the u.s. whenever that may be. i did speak to one shelter who said to me -- an organizer at one of the shelters that said he, too, was disappointed with this decision seeing this was something that could extend the bottleneck they're seeing and put unsustainable pressure on them. for republicans, this is a win. the republican states that
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escalated this fight, this is a win for them. governor greg abbott here in texas was very request i can to tweet when this was announced. layla santiago, cnn, el paso, texas. still to come, analysts predict a summer spike in u.s. gas prices. we'll hear from an expert about how high they could go. plus, online returns could cost you more after the holidays. why some retailers are were charging extra to send things back. then a high profile opposition leader is speaking out from prison. we'll tell you about the claims lexi navalny is making through a series of tweets. stay with us. including the cocovid-19 virus, on more surfaces than lysol disinfectant spray. lysol. what it takes to prprote. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell y you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.
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if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on aixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock
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you bought online. it's all part of a new strategy to cut the cost of returns and get rid of old stock. the national retail federation says customers have sent back $816 billion worth of merchandise this year putting a strain on retailers to process all of those returns. u.s. gas prices could shoot back up to $4 a gallon as soon as may. that's according to an analysis by gas buddy. if all goes as expected, analysts say the u.s. could avoid the wild swings in prices seen earlier this year. cnn's matt egan has this exclusive. >> reporter: hey, bianca. there is definitely some good news here. gas buddy is predicting prices will average 349 a gallon this year. that is a significant decrease from $3.99 this year. if they're right, this would translate to families spending almost $300 less on fuel than they did in 2022.
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the bad news is gas prices could get back above the dreaded $4 level this spring and summer as people drive more and they switch over to summer fuel. summer gas is better for air quality and costs more to produce. gas buddy is predicting the national average will climb from $3.10 a gallon today to $4.05 in may and could hit $4.25 in august. listen to what gas buddy's patrick dehahn said. >> 2023 is not going to be a cake walk for motorists. it could be expensive and made better or worse depending on the luck of the draw. refineries are a tremendous story. we've seen prices that are unseasonably high. >> beyond refineries, there's a lot of swing factors we need to pay attention to.
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fri for example, if russia's oil flow gets interrupted, gas prices could surge. on the other hand, if the economy stumbles and ends up going into a recession, you could see gas prices stabilize. thankfully gas buddy is not expecting a return to the $5 gas we saw in june. patrick de haan said the $5 gas is improbable but not impossible. it set off recession fears. of course, since then prices have plunged and they're currently sitting at 18-month lows which is pretty incredible given everything that's happened. hopefully after a year of painfully high prices at the gas pump and at the grocery store, 2023 brings some lasting relief for consumers. bianca? >> thanks, matt. the kremlin is trying to ban oil sales to any country or legal entity where the price cap
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is directly or indirectly written into the contract for the sale. russia says president biden vladimir putin signed a decree on tuesday. it's a move seen as largely symbolic. countries implemented a $60 per barrel cap and have largely ban the import of russian oil. the price cap policy is aimed at moscow's remaining oil buyers. companies that provide shipping insurance and other services. russian opposition leader lexie navalny says he's been injected with an unknown drug while being held in the security prison. he made the claim in a veer resideese series of tweets. it's part of a plan to get information from him as he's battling back pain. let's go to claire sebastian. who is this going to hurt?
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what's the intention behind it? >> well, this is something russia has said it was going to do, it wasn't going to sell its oil to anyone. are i wouldn't say it lives up to the rhetoric there. isn't teeth in this one. any contract where the sale is directly or indirectly provided for the use could affect price maybe suggests you could have a contract where it doesn't suggest it. it's temporary and expires in july of next year. there's a call in the decree that the president any time he wants can grant a waiver. even if it violates the decree and goes under the price cap. so clearly i think russia does not want to shoot itself in the foot and come up with oil exports. i think that's clear. it also shows perhaps the g7 and the eu is working the way they
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set the price cap. it means russia most likely will continue to produce oil close to the current level. >> and now let's turn to the horrifying reports that i just mentioned about alexey navalny and his treatment in prison and what he claims being injected with an unknown substance. what do we know about how he is being treated? >> we only know what he is saying. we haven't had a response by the russian government. essentially he's saying they are trying to use his health as a way to pressure him. get this from a series of tweets. see how the system works when you are not allowed to beat up a person but your leadership orders you to hurt them badly. for example, i have a problem with my spine. it is clear to make the problem worse, keep me immobile as much as possible. he has been sitting in a cell type room separate from the barracks.
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his daughter said in december he was only allowed to sit on this iron stool fastened to the wall for most of the day. clearly this is aggravating his back problems. he had to file a request. then he was injected with this unknown substance. no one told him what it was. he said it might be b vitamins. after that he tried to see his medical records. he filed a request. the when they arrived they were mostly illegible. he continues to fight against his treatment and he continues to openly fight against the war in ukraine. >> claire sebastian, thank you. still to come -- >> she says that she thought that her daughter was going to die overnight because it was so cold. they had just crossed the river. they were wet. >> thousands of migrants are wondering what's next following the supreme court ruling on title 42. we'll have more reaction from them coming up. and the northeastern u.s. is
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welcome back to "cnn newsroom." i'm bianca nobilo. if you are just joining us, let me bring you up to date with the top stories this hour. southwest airlines has canceled more than 2500 flights today and thursday. they have issued an apology for the meltdown and hopes to get services back on the regular schedule by next week. they're working on processing refunds. new transcripts released
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from the january 6th committee reveal the extent of the coverup from the trump white house. including testimony mark meadows burned documents in his office fireplace. the winter storm hammering the northeastern u.s. is over but the country's weather worries are not. >> reporter: from one weather extreme to another. as fast as the temperatures dropped, they're warming up. high temperatures today. still cold enough for the snow pack to hang around. chicago 24. st. louis the freezing mark. buffalo only 24 degrees. look at denver, already a high of 60 today. rapid city, 57. overnight they had a wind chill of minus 10 degrees. snow pack across the u.s. and of course in canada. le still very high and getting heavier in the mountains and british columbia. a lot of snow in the upper midwest. winnipeg picked up 200 meters of snow and that's the earliest
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they've picked up that much snow. travel ban still in place in and around buffalo. the governor of new york has opened up the freeways. the only advisory, it is just an advisory, is water town and the surrounding counties. the warmup begins with problems. they get up above freezing in buffalo and stay that way. however, rain comes in saturday, sunday, monday. with this massive warmup coming, flood problems we could see with ice jamming the drainage areas, we could see the water main breaks, that could be a problem. how much much above average for the east, staggering. out to the west, the first in a series of storms have moved in. heavy mountain snow. heavy coastal rain. about 100,000 lost power and trees are down, winds are so high. this atmospheric river is like a fire hose. it's not one system, it's a series of them. it's a multi-day event that will see this atmospheric river.
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with all of the fires out west, burn scars could create some debris flows. it's going to be flash flooding as heavy rain in san francisco sliding down towards l.a. and the mexican border. you're looking at live pictures of the latest spacex launch at cape canaveral, florida. falcon 9 launch which is happening now aims to take them into earth's lower orbit. it will expand the company's ability to provide more internet. and thousands of migrants at america's southern border remain in limbo after the u.s. supreme court temporarily blocked the biden administration's plan to lift title 42. now the trump-era border restriction will remain in place while the court settles a
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lawsuit. although this is a blow to the biden administration, the white house says it will comply with the ruling. rosa flores has more on what the migrants are saying. >> reporter: 1-year-old brenda has no shoes. her tiny feet bare on the cold pavement of an el paso parking lot. are you going to sleep outside again? what are you going to do? her parents say they wrapped this rose ri around her ankle for protection when they left venezuela four months ago and say it has saved her life multiple times in the darian gap. he says that the most dangerous part of the journey was through the darian gap. he and his daughter almost lost their lives three times and they say that they saw adults who died. they saw children who died. brenda's most recent brush with death, they say, crossing the rio grande into el paso.
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she says that she thought that her daughter was going to die overnight because it was so cold. they had just crossed the river. they were wet. desperate. she said she started knocking on doors asking for help. she says that she played to god that she hugged her daughter as tight as she could and tried to warm her with her own body heat as much as she could to try to save her daughter's life. the blanco family is part of the growing number of migrants crossing into the u.s. during the latest surge. this as the supreme court ruled that the trump era pandemic health rule known as title 42 remains in place while the legal challenges play out. migrants like them line the streets of el paso near a catholic church that turns into a shelter overnight. many here have no money for transportation and some have no family in the united states.
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they said they don't know anyone. the texas national guard erected over two miles of fencing along the u.s. side of the rio grande in el paso in the past week. the barrier is not deterring up to 1,600 migrants border patrol is encountering every day a federal law enforcement source says. migrants like this venezuelan mother of two has decided to wait in mexico where shelters are at capacity, which means sleeping on the street. officials there say they don't know how many migrants are waiting in their city for title 42 to end. advocates and officials in the three northern mexican cities estimate nearly 22,000 migrants are waiting in shelters on the streets and in camps. as for the blancos, they credit
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the rosary for saving them in the journey. brenda's parents and other migrants hear in el paso are confused with the implications of the supreme court ruling. they don't know how it's going to impact them. i'm also in contact with advocates and officials on the mexican side of the border. there leadership is afraid of delivering the message because they're afraid of how they're going to react. i'm in contact with one migrant in one mexican border city who says he wants to cross over illegally into the united states. now a lot of the people that you see behind me, that's where they were before they crossed the border. some of them taking the risk of entering the country illegally. rosa flores, cnn, beings el paso, texas. meantime, border cities are grappling with the massive number of migrants still crossing the border into the u.s. every day. city officials say they're doing everything to prevent a humanitarian crisis but the immigration system also needs to
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be fixed. >> title 42, you know, the city alone has done a lot to make sure we continue to take care of the asylum seekers. we've opened a county coliseum. we've actually opened two schools to make sure we have plenty of shelter and we'll continue to do that. we have warming centers all over the city because we want to make sure we don't lose anybody. we want to make sure people are treated with dignity and respect. we've had incredible support from the federal government. we've gotten $10 million in front money to be able to provide the service but, again, this is just a band aid on a broken immigration system. the system has to be fixed. we can't continue to build this. still to come, heroic rescue. how one woman's appeal to social media saved a man's life. that story and more after the break. he lives in a group home. this man is not about to die
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over here. i need to get this man some help. joe. listen to joe. how you feeling, joe? joe ready to go. i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, rememb the three ps. what are the three ps? the threps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price?
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did i embellish my resume? yes, i did, and i'm sorry. and it shouldn't be done. i'm still the same guy. i'm not a fraud. i'm not a cartoon character. i'm not some mythical creature that was invented. i'm no russian puppet. >> congressman elect is defending his resume and his campaign. george santos admits to lying about his jewish background and college education. he suggested he worked for goldman sachs. now he says he worked for a company that did work for them. some are calling for an ethics
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investigation into santos. others are going so far as to demand that he resign. despite the controversy, santos says he's still ready to begin his term in congress. an arizona judge has ordered republican karri lake $33,000 for her election loss. those fees will go to hobbs who defeated lake. lake is now appealing to the state supreme court. and a man convicted in the plot to kidnap michigan's governor has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. a federal judge handed down the sentence to adam fox on tuesday. the jury convicted him and an accomplice in august of kidnapping, conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. prosecutors said fox was the
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leader of the 2020 plot to kidnap governor gretchen whitmer from her summer home. they asked for fox to be sentenced to the maximum of life in prison. the chaos of the winter weather in the u.s. comes a happy ending. a woman in new york became an unlikely hero after taking in a man stranded in the deadly blizzard. that act of kindness saved his life. cnn's gary tuchman has the story. >> reporter: the worst of mother nature bringing out the best of human nature. this is buffalo resident shakira autry, facebook live. >> i currently have an older 64-year-old white man in my house. i found him yesterday heard him screaming for help. >> reporter: she spotted and heard the man in terrible pain in the frigid cold outside her house on the morning of christmas eve. her boyfriend carried the man inside. that man is joey white seen in
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this picture in a toronto bluejays baseball cap. >> he got away from his home and he lives in a group home he told me. >> joey's sister says her brother is mentally challenged. he works at a move street ter, may have gotten scared during the blizzard and tried to walk home getting lost in the heavy snow. she did her best to take care of him, comfort him, plead for him. >> this man is not about to die over here on 111. i need to get this man some help. >> reporter: her neighborhood was virtually impassable. he was in immense pain. >> joe, listen to joe. how you feeling, joe? joe ready to go. he ready to go. he needs to go because he needs medical attention. i have to -- he had a ring on his finger. i had to use these to cut the ring off of his finger. i'm not no surgeon.
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>> with three children by her side he tried to comfort joe. >> joe -- >> he -- >> look, you feeling better? trying to feel better? can you hear me? no, you not going to die. we not talking about that. this how you know he needs help. >> and that help was about to come. good samaritans showing up in a vehicle that could make it through the snow. joe was on his way to the hospital. >> i'm right here, joe. >> and she went with him. >> joe, see, i'm right here. you okay? i love you too, sweetie. you okay. >> joao riefd at the hospital safely. >> this man could have died. 64 years old, could have died outside. i wasn't letting that happen on my watch and he wasn't going to die in front of my kids. >> he has severe frostbite. it's touch and go whether his hands can be saved and she is so grateful for shakira.
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>> this woman did something that an angel would do. she took in a perfect stranger, stranger, took him in in her home on christmas eve. >> joey's life was saved by a woman who cared deeply about a man she had never met. >> i'm right here. i'm right here. >> reporter: gary tuchman, cnn, atlanta. and stick around for cnn this morning. shakira autry who seems like the best person be to have around in any crisis will join us live. as beijing continues to peel away layers of covid restrictions, officials are taking precautions to make sure they don't bring anything with them. the island joins japan and india. meanwhile, hong kong is scrapping mandatory pcrest tests
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just in to cnn, pope francis says his predecessor pope benedict is very sick. he's asking for prayers for the 95-year-old former pontiff. the appeal came at the end of pope francis's general audience at the vatican wednesday. they gave no further details. benedict was the first pope to resign. he's been living at the vatican ever since. changing gears to the nfl and questions about why the miami dolphins quarterback was placed in concussion protocol earlier this week. the chief medical officer could not pinpoint a specific moment in sunday's showdown against the green bay packers during which tua tagovailoa might have been injured. he played the entire game. it's unclear if he'll be able to face the patriots this weekend. tagovailoa did suffer a concussion earlier in the season
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and some suggest the league may be taking extra precautions now after not taking his initial head injury seriously enough. >> the first game that this all started, the game he had against buffalo, which was a big time divisional game earlier in the year when he slammed his head against the ground and got up and stum nbledstumbled, that wa biggest problem because four days later we all witnessed on thursday night football him playing against the bengals and those horrific images of him laying there motionless. >> i would look at the breadth of the season and say use your brains. we know this problem. we know from the concussion movie. this has been a decade of conversation at least in the nfl. the tragedy of the loss of life of suicide by some of these men so troubled, their brains so damaged that they have killed themselves and maybe you should be -- maybe err on the side of caution. i think the answer is they felt
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things were okay. obviously many of us would say, boy, that was the wrong decision to make. one of the greatest defensive players in nfl history is announcing his retirement. j.j. watt of the arizona cardinals says this will be his last season. the 33-year-old was named defensive player of the year three times. he played for the houston texans for ten seasons. watt tweeted this picture with his wife and son after sunday's game, his last home game ever. watt says his heart is filled with love and gratitude. now to the nba where luca doncic has a new page in the record books. the dallas mavericks guard finished tuesday night's game with 60 points, 21 rebounds and 10 assists. doncic is the first player in nba history to finish with stats like that leading his team to an amazing overtime come back against the new york knicks. after the game the 23-year-old slovenian superstar said he
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needed a recovery beer. definitely earned one. that does it here on "cnn newsroom." i'm bianca nobilo. "early start" with whitney wild is up next. when they're sick, they get comfortable anywhere and spread germs everywhere. wherever they rest protection nothing kills more viruses, including the covid-19 virus, on more surfaceses than lysol disinfectant spray. lysol. what it takes to protect.
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