- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. ♪ to her viewers joining us

from the united states all around the world, [ cheering ]>> the 15th time is a charm for kevin mccarthy, after four days and a bruising floor fight, the california republican is officially the new speaker of the u.s. house of representatives, all the dramatic scenes unfolding exactly 2 years after a violent mob stormed the capital in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election, we will show you how the white house marks the anniversary. >> the promised christmas fire fails, spending the holiday and bomb shelters. ♪ ♪ live from cnn center, this is a cnn newsroom, with layla harak.

15 bouts and evening of high drama but kevin mccarthy secured enough votes to become speaker of the house. never has a leadership contest taken so many votes in modern times and out of 222 republicans in the house it only took six hard-line conservatives to derail him in the 14th ballot on friday night, a vote he had believed was in the bag. but right-wing firebrand matt gaetz, who had sworn to never vote for mccarthy, cast the deciding vote that doomed him on the ballot. the house was stunned. as one democrat said later, wow. what followed was extraordinary political theater rarely seen on camera, tempers flared amongst republicans, one member mike rogers had to be restrained as he moved towards matt gaetz, but mccarthy was not done, he and his allies made a beeline to the key

holdouts, on the 15th ballot, all six rebels, including matt gaetz, voted present, assuring the gavel to mccarthy, here is some of what the new speaker had to say afterwards.>> a commitment for the future that is built on freedom, where children come first and are taught to dream big, because in america dreams can still come true. a commitment for a government that is held accountable. where americans get the answers they want, need and deserve. our system is built on checks and balances, it is time for us to be a check and provide some balance to the presidents policies. >> now that the marathon is finally over, here are the details on how the vote went down.>> after the longest

speaker vote since 1859, kevin mccarthy finally secured the >>'s gavel following a chaotic several days including a near altercation on the house floor late friday night when he was surprised that he ultimately did not get the votes, angering some of his closest allies, leading to a feud on the floor but ultimately getting to where he needed to go, getting the votes to become the next speaker of the house. claiming the gavel after making a range of concessions to members of the far right part of the conference, were not convinced that he would lead them and make changes to the institution. he did offer several changes on policy issues as well as giving them more power throughout the legislative process, including giving them the power of one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker, raising questions about how long he might be able to hang on to the job. kevin mccarthy flipping.

and only lose four in the near majority. 214 votes, 4 shive what he needed, he told me he had the votes, he was confident on the 14th ballot he would get there, when the vote happened, things went awry, they voted ways he was not expecting including at the very end, came down to congress in matt gaetz, a fierce opponent of kevin mccarthy's, he needed matt gaetz to vote yes, instead he voted present, and mike rogers. a close ally of mccarthys, mike rogers lunged at matt gaetz on the floor, he was restrained by one of his colleagues and things got very tense. ultimately he wanted the house to adjourn until monday, they were about to adjourn until a

deal was struck, donald trump called some of the members on the far right block of the conference, and some of them change their mind and decided they were going to vote present also thought it effectively lowered the threshold of the now amount of votes that kevin mccarthy needed to become speaker, ultimately with 216 votes, securing the jett huff after going through the 15 ballads that stretched from tuesday until early morning saturday to finally get the job. now it will be up to him to govern this fairly and narrowly divided institution and badly divided republican conference, to put together a policy agenda and go against the senate democrats who control their chamber across the capital, not to mention a democrat in the white house, the power of the purse and the senate but investigative powers in the house, expect them to wield subpoenas early on in their new majority, but for kevin

mccarthy he is relieved that after this very tense several days he finally has claimed the >>'s gavel. speaker gavel. >> mccarthy things donald trump for helping him get the votes, saying no one should doubt his influence, the former president congratulated his fellow republican after what he called a crazy selection process. in the meantime senate leader chuck schumer thought all of this could be a sign of more gridlock to come, saying speaker's mccarthy dream job could become a nightmare for the american people and president joe biden said i am prepared to work with republicans to work, and americans want republicans to be prepared to work with me as well. now that it has been decided, time for the process to begin. joining me now from los angeles, ron brownstein, a senior political analyst and a

senior editor at the atlantic, so good to have you with us, thank you for staying up this late. some truly remarkable and extraordinary moments, we have witnessed, put this into context for us? >> if you look at the big art here, kevin mccarthy did what john boehner and paul ryan, his two predecessors as republican speakers of the house would not do, he essentially gave a veto over the parties direction to the hard right, far extreme of his conference. and the perfect symbol for what happened tonight was after the vote, what was the first thing that happened to kevin mccarthy? he took a selfie with marjorie taylor greene, the very right wing member from georgia, who democrat stripped of her committee assignments because of her history of promoting conspiracy theories and making remarks that seem to promote or condone violence.

and then kevin mccarthy went and thanked donald trump for getting him over the top of the second anniversary of the january 6 investigation. this is the reality, he won the prize that he is long-sought, but he is not only given away a lot of the power of the speaker, but more importantly he has ceded enormous leverage over shaping the parties image and setting its agenda to the most militant members immediately after an election in which the image of extreme is a significantly hurt republican since in competitive districts and states. >> what we know about the concessions that mccarthy may have given to them in exchange for their votes and secure the election as speaker of the house? >> two sets of conditions, some are about process and basically loosening the holdover legislation that the speaker's have exerted over the last 30 years. ironically it was newt gingrich

and the republican revolution in 1995 that began the process of centralizing power in the>> 's office, something that they happily continued but now there is this demand mostly from the right in the caucus to unwind some of that. that is one said. the other were very specific concessions to the most militant numbers of his caucus, including apparently giving them essentially veto power over the rules committee by having three appointments there, that could allow them to block any legislation from coming to the floor, and that is how things get to the floor. and some of the commitments he gave in more revealing, over what the investigations would look like, including the idea that the u.s. government funding, was involved in the development of covid and maybe even more importantly than that, the idea of a select committee that will investigate

alleged weaponization, their word, of the fbi and the department of justice against conservatives. again, that is something that will be very popular on fox and with the most conservative members of the base but is not something that will be reinforcing the extremism and a commitment to democracy that hurt the party so much and more competitive districts. >> ron, this has been a very bruising experience, particularly for the gop, that 10 years since the protest and the rights at the capital, a very fraught process play out for the entire world to see. how do you reflect on this moment in time? >> a reminder that we are in the midst of the challenge. in the election in november, in competitive races, almost all the election deniers were be, particularly for posts were they would have control of the 2024 election.

and 160 or 170 republicans that were elected that refused to acknowledge the results in 2020, and many of them in the house, voted to deny the results in 2020, including the incoming speaker, kevin mccarthy. and as i said to have the end of the process be that kevin mccarthy was repeatedly making concessions to election deniers and that even then he needed donald trump on the second anniversary of the riot to come in and make calls to push them over the top just shows you how deep the ideology remains. the roots remain within the mainstream republican party. and the challenge going forward i think is going to be whether this house majority once to govern or whether it believes it has been sent to washington

primarily to have a series of culture wars and confrontations with the biden administration. after watching it last week, you would have to bit more the latter than the former but we will see. >> time will tell, ron brownstein, thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. ♪ ♪ the drama on the house floor came exactly 2 years after the january 6 attack on the capital, democrats and one republican marked the anniversary by honoring the officers that defended the building that day. at the ceremony outside the capital, they read the names of those who died after the chaos. the democratic leader hakeem jeffries praise the officers for standing up to election deniers and keeping democracy intact. at the white house president joe biden recognize the efforts of the officers and other individuals, awarding the metals, saying history would remember their courage.>>

america is a land of laws and not chaos. a nation of peace and nonviolence. we are not a land of kings and dictators and autocrats and extremists. as we see in today's honorees, we are a nation of we the people. that toughened our fiber and renewed our faith, and strengthens our cause. just remember who in god's name we are, the united states of america. >> the mother of a woman who died in the january 6 attack has been arrested near the capital, according to please they were part of a group protesting on the capitol grounds without a permit on friday, officers said they told her to leave but she refused and asked to be arrested, facing two charges including illegally blocking traffic, her

daughter, ashli babbitt, was a pro trump writer killed by police as she and the crowd pushed towards the capital doorway. one of the first writers to enter the capital two years ago has been sentenced to 46 months behind bars, jared hughes had pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding, when he breached the building, also behind other writers, eugene goodman, following several flights of stairs, in a sentencing hearing, hughes apologized to the officer, to congress and the country. a former state lawmaker who was convicted for storming the capital says he will run for congress back in june. derek evans was sentenced to 90 days after pleading guilty to a felony charge for his role in the riot. on monday he said quote, while my name will indelibly be part of it, they should also use it as a chance to remind ourselves about why democracy is so important, he will run for

ukrainians keep the holiday spirit alive despite alleged russian strikes on orthodox christmas eve. ♪ >> ahead, families head to bomb shelters but still find a way to mark the holiday. than lysol disinfectant spray. ♪ (jennifer) the reason why golo customers have such longng term success is because the golo plan takes a holistic approach to weight loss. we focus on real foods in the right balance soou get the results you want. the release supplement makes losing wght easy. release sets y up for successful weight loss because it sports your blood sugar levels between meals so youren't hungry or fatigued. golo is real, our customers are real, and our success stories are real. we have a 98% satisfaction rating.

why not give it a try? we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on all this cash. if you own a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or

visit coventrydirect.com.

how do i do it all? with a little help. and to support my family's immune health, i choose airborne. unlike some others, airborne gives you vitamin c and so much more. it's an 8 in 1 immune support formula. airborne. do more. the u.s. and germany are promising to send more heavy military hardware to ukraine just as the embattled nation prepares for an expected uptick in fighting this spring. the u.s. says its new package includes 50 bradley armored infantry fighting vehicles, dozens of howitzers and air defense missiles. president zelenskyy says the aid is coming at just the right time.

>> translator: for the first time, we will receive bradley armored vehicles, which is exactly what we need. we will get new guns and rockets, including high-precision ones, new missiles, new drones. it is both timely and robust. this package of support from the united states totals nearly $3 billion. >> after washington's announcement, mr. zelenskyy met with u.s. senators jack reed and angus king in kyiv. senator reed said the u.s. weapons will help ukraine break through the front lines and hopefully push russians out of the country. germany, meanwhile, says it will send about 40 of its martyr infantry vehicles along with a battery of u.s.-made patriot missiles in the next few months. and ukrainian troops will be trained in germany on how to use the vehicles. in response, russia slammed washington and berlin for the new military aid. but german chancellor olaf

scholz told mr. zelenskyy on friday he can count on more. the day of russia's promised holiday cease-fire was anything but peaceful. that's a ukrainian tank opening fire after russia attacked ukrainian positions in the east and south. ukraine says some of the attacks happened after a unilateral cease-fire ordered by president vladimir putin went into effect on friday. he told his troops to cease hostilities for orthodox christmas, which most orthodox christians celebrate on january 7th. but russia accused ukraine of conducting new strikes on friday even though kyiv had not agreed to the cease-fire. cnn's nina dos santos joins us from london with more. no peace on the battlefield in ukraine on orthodox christmas. >> that's right, laila.

just in the last hour, we've seen religious figures and also observers gather at a 1,000-year-old monastery of the cave in south central kyiv to celebrate orthodox christmas for the first ceremony in ukrainian language. but just as people in the capital are able to do that in safety, as you just pointed out, in the south of the country, in the east, in donetsk, these contested areas, well, people had to head to the bomb shelters and spend christmas eve there instead of being able to celebrate this important and usually peaceful occasion inside the country. and this is despite the fact that we're now many hours into this unilaterally declared 36-hour cease-fire that russia floated earlier on in the week, swiftly rebuffed by president zelenskyy of ukraine, saying this was just a ruse for russia to regroup and rearm and also to get ukraine to temporarily push the pause button so that they're

able to do that. ukraine has continued to fight to try and reclaim this territory. but they say even despite the cease-fire, they've witnessed one missile attack and various, if not 12, attacks by rocket launchers. and these have been hitting civilian infrastructure. in particular, they say 19 civilian settlements were hit in one direction. we also saw another 15 civilian settlements hit towards the direction of bakhmut, which of course has been that pressure point in terms of the battle over the last few weeks. and so there's no sign of letup in the battle despite this week, which has been dominated by talk of a cease-fire, which, as i said, was rebuffed. but also ukraine has energy now given the fact that of course there's been these promises of increased military hardware not just on the united states that you mentioned before, but also from france and germany, and the u.s. saying they're hopefully going to be training the ukrainian troops as soon as possible, possibly as early as this month in europe and

possibly even in ukraine. laila. >> nina dos santos reporting, thank you so much. ukraine's former defense minister, a major architect of military reform in his country. he's also the chairman of the center for defense strategies, a security think tank based in ukraine. he joins us live from an undisclosed location. good to have you back with us. >> thank you. >> how would you characterize the security situation across ukraine right now? >> certainly russians are preparing a new mobilization most likely because the current situation is not helping them. they are struggling with advancing in the east. they cannot essentially reach their operational objectives, and most likely we will have some kind of new offensive with the mobilized personnel, which they gathered last year, currently undergoing training. most likely we will see some

intensification probably in february or early march. >> sir, i want to ask you about the additional lethal support to the ukrainian army that's been announced by the u.s., germany, and france. we're seeing a real shift in their policy. weapons that ukraine previously asked for and material that ukraine asked for repeatedly will now finally be sent. why is this happening now? is there an expectation that a major russian offensive could take place soon? >> first of all, yes, it could be that expectation. and also the fact that western leaders, after some hopes for some negotiated settlement or some peace agreement or peace talks, they see that russia is not interested in any of that strategically. they're still pursuing the goal of destroying ukraine despite of the setbacks and losses they have. so western leaders understand that they need to help ukraine to win, and basically right now we have also substantial shift

in rhetoric of the european leaders. for example, president macron started to say that france is helping ukraine until ukraine wins, which never happened before. so they were very reserved about those verbiage about winning, military victory. we see that there is a shift in western politicians' understanding that unfortunately russia is still going, and we need to keep pushing them out. there's been some success last year. it needs to be continued, so they bump up ukrainian capabilities to achieve that. >> i want to talk more to you about that. are you surprised that they're crossing their own red lines, not only the likes of president macron, but also specifically chancellor scholz breaking previously held taboos in a very remarkable way? >> i think they would be realizing political establishments of the western countries, they would be realizing true essence of this war more and more. and unfortunately it's not

getting towards peace until russians still expecting some victories. as we see that despite major losses, incredible losses, russian president is still pushing for the offensives. so it's clearly a situation where the western coalition and ukraine obviously, they need to stay strong. and we see that strength coming up, and this is a remarkable development, i have to say. >> 11 months of war. is ukraine any closer to regaining its territory, pushing russian forces out? what would be the game-changer for you in terms of military capability? >> we believe that game-changer would be a critical mass of the equipment, which we still expect to come, so that when we have some sort of a parity at least in general with the russians on some specific sections of the front. we have seen already some

substantial counteroffensives, and i believe this war will go exactly the same way. there will be areas where ukraine suddenly starts to push russians out. then there would be another and another area. so it would be a piece by piece. but the overall game-changer, it would be when we see some critical equipment coming, long-range firepower, tanks, armored vehicles, et cetera. >> thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. a speaker at last. how kevin mccarthy finally secured the top spot in the u.s. house in the 15th round of votes.

migraine hits hard, so u hit back with ubrelvy u level up u won't take a time-out one dose of ubrelvy works fast it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours without worrying if it's too late or where you are unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u learn how abbvie could help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. aah, it's a good day to cough. oh, no! bye, bye cough. later chest congestion. hello 12 hours of relief. 12 hours!! hmmm, ok. not coughing at yoga? antiquing not coughing? not coughing at the movies?! hashtag still not coughing?! aaah. oww! mucinex dm gives you 12 hours of relief from chest congestion and any type of cough, day or night.

it's not cough season. it's always comeback season.

welcome back to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. i'm laila harrak and you're watching "cnn newsroom." the u.s. house finally has a new speaker after the longest leadership battle in 164 years. republican kevin mccarthy secured the gavel in the 15th round of votes early saturday. a small group of gop hard-liners had been holding up the process for days. in a dramatic moment after a failed vote, mccarthy confronted congressman matt gaetz. he and other key holdouts finally relented after several concessions and phone calls from donald trump. mccarthy says the former president's support was key to his victory. >> i do want to especially thank president trump. i don't think anybody should doubt his influence. he was with me from the

beginning. some wrote to doubt whether he was there, and he was all in. he would call me, and he would call others. and he really was -- i was just talking to him tonight -- helping get those final votes. what he's really saying really for the party and the country, that we have to come together. we have to focus on the economy. we've got to focus, make our borders secure. we've got to do so much work to do, and he was a great influence to make that all happen. so thank you, president trump. >> joining me now from palm desert, california, is kabc talk radio host john phillips. thank you so much for joining us, john. i want to get your reaction quickly to what we just heard the speaker of the house thanking former president donald trump. what does that tell you? >> well, it tells you that donald trump did come through in the end, when the chips were down. not only donald trump, but jim jordan, who is one of the more respected members of the freedom

caucus. but you've been showing these images all night of the scene on the floor of the house of representatives. now that we live in this modern digital age and you see the cell phones being passed around, i think marjorie taylor greene was one of them who was on the phone with donald trump, handing the phone to people whose votes were still up for grabs. and he was whipping up those votes until the final votes were cast. so certainly kevin mccarthy owes a portion of his victory tonight to the former president. >> so he's done it with the help of the former president. kevin mccarthy now house speaker on the 15th vote. is there a sense of relief that this vote is now finally over? >> oh, sure. tonight was a reminder that democracy is not like domino's pizza, where you get it in 30 minutes or it's free. sometimes it takes longer than you want it to. sometimes there's yelling. sometimes there's bad words. but ultimately what you end up

with is compromise. you end up with something where not everyone gets exactly what they want, but you get something that you can all live with. and kevin mccarthy now has an opportunity. he'll now have the speaker's gavel. he'll now have a chance to follow through with all the things the republicans promised in the last cycle on crime, on the border, on inflation. and he'll have his chance to be able to enact this agenda. and if he gets it done, he'll be speaker for quite a while. and if he doesn't get it done, he'll be the one in the peanut gallery sitting next to george santos being regaled with stories from his days at goldman sachs. >> this is what i was going to ask you. is this a pyrrhic victory, a win at such great cost that it actually outweighs the benefits? >> it's not uncommon. what you described is true, that we haven't had a battle like this with this number of ballots in a very long time for the speaker's position. but going back to nancy pelosi's

run this last name to be speaker. that was not a foregone conclusion. you had various members of the democratic caucus who ran for election, saying they would not support her for speaker. so she had to make concessions to her caucus, including imposing self-imposed term limits on herself, letting them know she wouldn't stick around for ever. there was a moment in time that marcia fudge, who was then a congresswoman from ohio, was threatening to run for speaker against nancy pelosi. so what pelosi did to bring her on board and to eliminate that threat was to make marcia fudge part of the democratic leadership, by co-opting her, giving her skin in the game to make sure that the suck es of the -- success of the majority was important to her and not just nancy pelosi. in many ways what kevin mccarthy did, while it took longer and was more acrimonious than what happened with pelosi, many of the tools he used to get to the

magic number were tools that have been used by people in the past. >> voters who are watching this, paying attention to these proceedings, how do you think it will impact their perception of the republican party? will the gop retain their support? >> well, i mean it certainly looked dysfunctional, but this is democracy. this is what happens when you put together winning coalitions, when you put together the votes that you need. i think that for the political animals, they were certainly following all of the pal ace intrigue, and if politics is something you're interested in, oh, my gosh, the drama that's been playing out has just been catnip. for your average person, i don't think they follow the ins and outs of every single vote that took place. i think ultimately what they will judge kevin mccarthy on and the republicans in congress and anyone else who was involved in what you just saw play out is did they deliver on their

promises? did they deliver on what they campaigned on? and two years from now, that's when voters will evaluate them in totality and decide whether or not they deserve to remain in power. >> my final question to you, how did the party get this way? >> well, the republican party has always been a party that's had very different aspects of its coalition. i mean, look, if you're in europe and you have 9,000 different parties, then you have a lot of people who are ideologically on the same page. but when you're dealing with the american political system, you know, you have everyone from matt gaetz in the republican party to the most liberal rockefeller republican, who are playing on the same team. for the democrats, you have joe manchin in the same party as aoc. and when you have margins that are as thin as what you have in this congress and what you had in the last congress, you need these disparate elements to vote with one another in lockstep.

and that's just something that is not easy to do. you're going to have conflict, and that conflict is not going to go away. you're going to see what you saw play out over the last several days on any major vote of any kind of consequence. and it's kevin mccarthy's job to keep it together and to keep moving forward and to check off as many boxes as he can on his agenda. >> thank you so much for taking our questions. >> thank you for having me. police in virginia say an elementary schoolteacher is hospitalized in critical condition after she was shot inside a classroom. the alleged shooter is a 6-year-old boy. it happened at a school in newport news. police say there was an altercation between the teacher and student, and they do not believe the shooting that followed was an accident. the student was taken into police custody. it's not clear how he got the gun. the police chief said the teacher suffered life-threatening wounds but was showing some signs of improvement.

we're getting new details about the evidence police uncovered as they investigated the murder of those university of idaho students almost two months ago. a law enforcement source says the suspect, bryan kohberger, thoroughly cleaned his car and was seen several times wearing surgical gloves days before he was finally arrested. well, according to the source, authorities also observed kohberger at his family's home in pennsylvania, putting trash bags in a neighbor's garbage bins. the items were recovered and sent to the idaho state lab. as the families of the victims try to come to grips with the tragedy, one father told cnn it's clear the killer singled out his victims far in advance. >> you read the affidavit, and you just find out that nobody understands exactly why, but he was stalking them. he was hunting them. he was just a person looking for an opportunity, and it just

happened to be in that house. and that's hard to take. good news for the nfl player who collapsed on live television. just ahead, an update on the condition of damar hamlin. let it pull you. past t the doubt. past the pain. and past your limits.. no matter what, we go on. biofreeze.

even the most chill of parents know when it's time to go into protect mode. nothing kills more viruses on more surfaces than lysol disinfectant spray. ♪ hi, i'm michael, i've lost 62 pounds on golo and i have kept it off. most of the weight that i gained was strictly in my belly which is a sign of insulin resistance. but since golo, that weight has completely gone away, as you can tell. thanks to golo and release, i've got my life and my health back.

the buffalo bills player who suffered cardiac arrest live on tv during a game is breathing on his own and talking. the team confirmed that damar hamlin's breathing tube has been removed. in a surprise, he appeared on-screen for his teammates on

friday. here's ryan young with the latest. >> we got our boy. the excitement was beautiful. it was amazing. >> reporter: a team overjoyed with good news. >> to see that boy's face, to see him smile, see him go like this in the camera. it was -- it was -- it was everything. and then to hear him talk to us, it was literally everything, and that's what we needed. >> reporter: the buffalo bills announcing more progress after damar hamlin's breathing tube was removed overnight. >> he said, i love you, boys. >> reporter: the 24-year-old now able to breathe on his own, briefly joining friday morning's team meeting with players and coaches via facetime. >> to see the players' reaction, they stood up right away and clapped for him and yelled some things to him. >> reporter: hamlin injecting his sense of humor into the call. >> the thing that makes me laugh is he did this to the guys, you know, right away. he made the heart symbol

probably more than anything. >> reporter: the signs of progress welcome relief for players and staff. >> i don't like how he went down. >> reporter: new audio of the intense moments on the field after hamlin's collapse as medics fought to save his life. a reminder of how far hamlin's condition has improved. >> i don't think we could emphasize enough the immediate medical response. >> reporter: the medical team treating hamlin crediting those first responders with his improved condition. >> in addition to having paramedics, emergency physicians, respiratory therapists all right at his bedside in less than a minute from the collapse, that speaks that he had good profusion to his brain that led to no identifiable neurologic deficit. >> reporter: the player on the other side of that routine play, tee higgins, speaking out. >> obviously it's been hard just because i had something to do with the play. he's doing good, so i'm in a

good place right now. >> reporter: all of this coming as the bills prepare to face off against the patriots on sunday. >> all the improvements of damar make life so much easier to focus on, as you mentioned, the task at hand and that being the new england patriots. >> reporter: buffalo teasing a special number 3 patch that players will wear this weekend, including highlighting the number 3 on the field. >> it will be emotional. it really will be. >> reporter: as the players now shift their focus from that traumatic moment to future games -- >> we're going to use all the positives to help us win. >> reporter: -- their teammate's future still top of mind with a long recovery ahead. >> his future in professional football, it's entirely too early to have that conversation. he's still critically ill in the icu. our focus is on getting him better. >> we've been using the word unprecedented all week. the nfl stepped in to make some

moves when it comes to the playoffs. they said the afc championship could be played at a neutral site in needed. also if the bengals and ravens have to face each other in a wild card game, home field advantage will be determined by a coin flip. but everybody right now is happy and pleased with the improvements that have been made during this week. ryan young, cnn, cincinnati. and we'll be right back. are stopping you in your tracks... choose stelara® fromom the start... anand move toward relief after the first dose... with injections every two months. stelara® may increase your risk of infections, some serious, and cancer. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, sores, new skin growths, have had cancer, or if you need a vaccine. pres, a rare, potentially fatal brain condition, may be possible. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. feel unstoppable. ask your doctor how lasting remission

can start with stelara®. janssen can help you explore cost support options. we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on

all this cash. if you own a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. buried in receipts, invoices and other paperwork that's preventing you from doing what matters most? then get the all new epson rapidreceipt smart organizer to scan, digitize and organize your documents and receipts. receipts go in, and stress goes away. it's the only solution on the market specifically designed to extract and digitize key data trapped on receipts and invoices. and it integrates with financial software like quickbooks and

turbotax. transform paper documents like contracts, tax records, warranties, wills, even recipes into searchable pdfs. so the information is always right at your fingertips, safe and secure. you can even turn business cards into digital contacts, and it scans up to 100 pages at a time. even different sizes in one batch. with this exclusive tv offer, you'll get the epson rapidreceipt smart organizer and over $300 in added value! act now and save up to $100 for a limited time. this rapidreceipt has made a huge difference. it categorizes everything for me. it puts everything into the right files. i don't misplace a thing anymore. no more losing receipts means no more losing money. people everywhere love the epson rapidreceipt. organized at last and made so simple. you can use this for both business and household. that's the smartest move i ever made for my business. it even helps organize me for taxes and expenses. there's even a mobile

rapidreceipt you can use when you're on the go! this has changed everything. as soon as i get a receipt i just scan it, and store it away immediately right here into the laptop, no matter where i am. with this exclusive tv offer, you'll get a mobile or desktop epson rapidreceipt smart organizer, and over $300 in added value. act now and save up to $100 for a limited time. go online or call to get an epson rapidreceipt smart organizer delivered right to your door. i came, i scanned, i conquered. epson rapidreceipt - visit buyrapidreceipt.com or call. piece of cake baby! the u.s. food and drug administration has granted accelerated approval for a new drug to treat alzheimer's in what could be a breakthrough in

fighting the disease. the drug appears to slow the progression of cognitive decline in phase 3 trials. but there are safety concerns because of adverse events like brain swelling. the accelerated approval program permits early access to certain medications while studies continue. if trials confirm the benefits of this new medication, the fda could grant traditional approval. encouraging news. that wraps up this hour of "cnn newsroom." i'm laila harrak. paula newton picks up our coverage after a quick break. do stay withth us.

even the most chill of parents know when it's time to go into protect mode. nothing kills more viruses on more surfaces than lysol disinfectant spray. ♪