party. they can ignore john fetterman all they want because, i mean, and i get it. they want to let trump derangement syndrome and now this ellen derangement syndrome kind of be their driving factor going forward. then they should do that. but that didn't work out so well for them on november 5th. and i would just point to their idea of moving this country forward in the last week. in their own words, been to get under donald trump's skin by calling elon musk the president. so i don't think that's what voters are looking for. the wall street journal has a story out this morning that says a blue state governor did a poll. 2 to 1 voters want people to work with donald trump. they want democrats to work with donald trump. so that's it's going to be up to the democrats. far be it from me to give them any advice at this point. >> isaac. we ran out of time. but great to have all of you. thank you for being with us for the full hour. it's been a pleasure to be with you as well. i'm rahel solomon cnn news central starts just about right now. i'll see you tomorrow.

>> breaking overnight. president biden is commuting the sentences of more than three dozen people on federal death row. why? he says he's showing mercy to convicted murderers. >> very soon, luigi mangione, the man charged with the with the killing. the united health care ceo. he's going to be back in a new york city courtroom. we are tracking that one for you live and also new this morning, honda and nissan announce possible merger plans, a deal that would create the world's third largest automaker and help both catch up in the race toward electric vehicles. i'm kate baldwin with sara sidner. john berman is out today. this is cnn news central. >> new this morning, president biden, in his final weeks in office, has now commuted the sentences of nearly every

federal death row inmate. there were 40, but now 37 men are no longer facing execution, but rather life in prison without the possibility of parole. biden, without saying president elect trump's name, did say the next administration is part of the reason behind his decision. the move this morning considered a major blow to trump and a key campaign promise he has made. let's get right to cnn's mj lee. live outside the white house. what is the president saying this morning? and this is certainly a 180 from where he was in 1994. >> that's absolutely right, sarah. in one of his last major acts as president, president biden is choosing to use his clemency power to commute the death sentences of 37 inmates who are on federal death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. as you noted back in the 2020 campaign, president biden had campaigned on getting rid of the federal death penalty, and there had been a swirl of speculation in recent weeks

about whether he might, at some point before leaving office, take this kind of action. he had come under pressure from human rights activists and other advocates, who will argue that the death penalty tends to disproportionately affect black people and other people of color. i do want to read for you, sarah, a part of the statement from president biden. in announcing this, he said, make no mistake, i condemn these murderers, but guided by my conscience and my experience, i am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. in good conscience, i cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that i halted that last reference there to a new administration resuming executions. i halted. that, of course, refers to incoming president donald trump. remember, during his first term as president, 13 federal death row inmates had been put to death, and in his most recent presidential campaign, donald trump has made quite clear in

his public statements that he intends to bring back an aggressively seek more federal executions. this is a little bit of a sampling of some of the things that donald trump has said over the last year on this issue. >> and i'm hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an american citizen or a law enforcement officer. we are an institute and a powerful death penalty. we will put this on. we have to bring in the death penalty if we want to stop the infestation of drugs coming into our country. >> now, after this morning's clemency announcement, as you noted, sarah, three people still remain on federal death row. these people responsible for some of the most notorious mass killings and and acts of terror. they include the murderer who killed nine black worshipers at a church in charleston, south carolina, one of the people responsible for

the boston marathon bombing, and then robert bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. i will just note, sarah, that president biden, of course, is a devout catholic, and the white house recently announced that he is going to be traveling back to italy for a meeting with pope francis. of course, the pontiff was among those who had publicly called on president biden to take exactly this action and commute the sentences of those on federal death row. sarah. >> m.j. lee, thank you so much for your reporting for us this morning. >> kate. >> also, we are standing by this morning for another court appearance by the suspected killer, luigi mangione. he'll be back in a new york courtroom to be arraigned this time on the state charges he faces. those are the 11 state terror and murder charges that he was hit with last week in the shooting and killing of ceo of unitedhealthcare, brian thompson. let's talk more about what today means in the grand scheme of everything that he is facing now with a former

deputy director of the fbi and cnn. cnn senior law enforcement analyst andrew mccabe. it's good to see you. andy. thank you so much for jumping on. so this this i mean, a lot of people will remember this is the arraignment that essentially was expected to have happened last week. but then the proceedings were postponed when federal authorities announced that they were bringing charges, he was whisked off to a federal courtroom, catching everyone, most people by surprise. and how it all played out. so what does today now look like now look like so the the anticipation of this hearing and the kind of excitement around it is a little bit honestly, kate, it's a little bit overblown compared to what's actually going to happen in the courtroom. >> so the, the arraignment or initial appearance, the purpose is to inform the defendant of the charges against him, to make sure he's represented by counsel, maybe give him an opportunity to request bail. and of course, he'll have to enter a plea. it's really very

administrative in nature. i don't expect anything surprising to happen. it seems like the surprises we got all those last week with the surprise announcement of the federal charges. so you'll see him go in. they'll offer to read the indictment. he'll probably decline that. he'll enter, no doubt a plea of not guilty simply because that preserves his rights as the process goes forward. and i think he's also almost at a zero chance of being offered bail under any circumstances. and so it's likely he may not even ask for that. >> you also pointed out you're also pointing out that the first degree murder charge especially, which is rare and which is a very rare one in new york. it also gives prosecutors additional leverage in possible plea negotiations. talk me through how you see that or what you see in that what you see in that? >> sure. so the top charge that he's facing on the state side is that first degree murder charge. and he's he qualifies for it only because the the prosecutors have said he

executed the murder as an act of terrorism. so meaning to intimidate or coerce some portion of the population or change in action of government and to rely on that or the evidence they'll rely on to prove that is the fact that he wrote in those infamous writings that were seized from him when he was arrested. things about wanting to kill the health care ceo because it would send a message, and it was a way to strike back against that corporate community. and then, of course, the murder had the result of putting an entire class of kind of corporate leadership in fear of their own safety. it's still a bit of a, i don't want to say an overreach, but it's a tough charge to prove. but simply having the first amendment charge on the indictment gives the prosecutors the opportunity to plead him to a lower level of murder, which is murder in the second degree, so that that sort of bargaining leverage is

very, very helpful to the prosecution. it could still end up, uh, landing with a guilty plea of a very serious murder crime that would give him a lot of time in prison. >> one thing we've talked about since all of this began is the kind of surprising, kind of morbid fascination and support that mangione has received. we've talked about what we've seen online. we've talked about kind of how that somewhat contributed to that very rare, aggressive in public perp walk we saw last week, and we saw again, another example of it in a surprising places on saturday night live just this weekend, andy let me play what happened on snl luigi mangione dropped yeah, yeah, definitely. >> woo.

>> you're wooing for justice, right i mean, he asked it with like, you know, a smile and a laugh, but it was, like, surprising even to hear it play out with that live studio audience. >> i mean, this this will have, of course, zero impact on a legal case against mangione. but from an fbi threat's perspective, andy, this isn't going away. how troubling should this be i think it's incredibly troubling, kate. >> i mean, like, i'm not, you know, that concerned about saturday night live. it's a comedy show. this is kind of what they do for a living, but it's the the kind of this publicity moment that mangione is experiencing online, i think reveals a very concerning undercurrent of american culture right now. the fact that he is appearing to so many people as bold, courageous or heroic in some way is really concerning. there is a very small, very small but concerning number of people

that might take that to the next level. we've seen this with we've seen this particularly with mass shooters time and time again in the past. people like the columbine shooters or the christchurch shooter, who are embraced by a very small but concerning part of the culture, that kind of lionizes what they've done and kind of creates this mythology around these acts, of these horrific acts of murder that can in some circumstances, inspire others to take violence into their own hands. so i think it's it's a it's a sad commentary about what people are interested in right now, but it could actually be a portent of some threats that we may have to face in the future. >> and it's good to see you as always. thank you so much, sarah. >> all right. this morning we're expecting our first look at the house ethics report that former congressman matt gaetz did not want the public to see what his colleagues found about accusations of sexual misconduct, drug use and

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>> go to deal dash dot com right now and see how much you can save. >> do you one of these things? >> yeah, it sounds fun. this looks wild. >> i went to this last year the winter classic outdoors wrigley field. i'm having a new year's eve party connor bedard, wrigley field december 31st blues, blackhawks on tnt and streaming on max. >> new. this morning, the house ethics committee will release its report on the conduct of former florida congressman matt gaetz. the years long probe investigated numerous allegations against gaetz, including illicit drug use and sexual misconduct with a minor. gaetz has denied the allegations. in a stark reversal, the ethics committee quietly voted earlier this month to release the report before the end of this congress. cnn's lauren fox is live in d.c. for us. lauren, what are you learning this morning? >> yeah, this has been a long time coming, sarah. if you

remember, back in november when matt gaetz was nominated to be donald trump's pick for attorney general. the house ethics committee actually voted and declined to release this report, despite the fact that there were many lawmakers who were pushing for its release. given the fact that he was up for that job, then what cnn learned is that earlier this month, the committee met again and secretly voted to release this report. we do expect to see this report sometime today. now, what's interesting here is that a lot of republicans have argued that this will break with precedent of releasing a report of a member who is no longer in congress, but what we are learning, obviously, is that there is some past precedent for these reports being released after a member has left congress. there are two examples that we have looked into, both the example of representative bill bonner and the example of john ensign, both of whom had resigned when

the ethics reports were released into their past behaviors last week. once this was reported that this report was coming, representative matt gaetz, former representative matt gaetz tweeted, quote, in my single days, i often sent funds to women i dated, even some i never dated, but who asked? i dated several of these women for years. i never had sexual contact with someone under 18. any claim that i have would be destroyed in court, which is why no such claim was ever made in court. matt gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. we should also note that the justice department declined to bring charges back in 2023. >> sara loren fox, thank you so much for your reporting this morning. still ahead, a horrific crime on a new york subway. police say a man intentionally set a woman on fire. she died. how? three teenagers helped police catch the suspect. and we're tracking two storms. as many of you

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tragic incident happening early on sunday morning. it appears that this woman was asleep inside the subway car. it was at the end of the subway line in brooklyn, in coney island. she appeared to be asleep. and that's when police say this man approached her out of nowhere. there seems to be no interaction between the two of them. before this, he uses a lighter that he had on him to light a blanket that she was using to cover herself, lights her on fire. she immediately is engulfed in flames. and as you said, as she is burning, he steps outside the train, sits down on a bench and appears to watch as this woman is dying. now police were on the platform pretty much immediately. they had been patrolling that morning. they saw the smoke. they responded right away. they tried to put her out. ems were called. unfortunately, she could not be saved and she was pronounced dead at the scene. but because those officers were on the platform, they were able to capture pretty incredible photos of the suspect, who, as you mentioned, was sitting on that bench. they actually walked right past him. so it

was a combination of the officers walking past him, capturing him on their body worn cameras. >> unbeknownst to them at the time. right. exactly. >> as well as surveillance video captured by a camera that was inside the subway train. this is a relatively new thing for new york city subways to have surveillance cameras inside of those cars. so pretty quickly, we actually had a lot of information about who the police were looking for. he was found about eight hours later on the same subway line on the f train in manhattan, in midtown, far from the scene, and he was spotted by three high school teenagers who had seen the photos, recognized them, and reported it to the police. they were able to arrest him right inside of that subway train, so a combination of technology, good old fashioned police work, and new yorkers who were paying attention after such a horrific crime. i want you to take a listen from the law enforcement officials talking about this incident last night. take a

listen. >> this is amazing work done by the public and the police working together once again, someone saw something. we got it out through technology in numerous ways, and we were able to make a quick arrest on this. nothing less than a heinous crime that occurred in our subway system. >> kate, we're still waiting to learn more about the suspect. we do know that he was an individual who came in from guatemala in 2018. we don't know more about his immigration status just yet. we're waiting to hear those details, and we're also waiting to see what charges he will be facing, as well as learning more about this victim. >> we don't know that much of anything about the victim quite yet either. thank you so much, gloria. she's going to have much more updates on this horrific crime for us coming up. also ahead, president elect donald trump is talking about elon musk and batting down suggestions that musk is having an outsized influence now on the republican party as they're about to head into office. and a mega merger just announced two japanese automakers could

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become harry harry. >> harry. >> in his first rally speech as president elect donald trump took the stage in phoenix yesterday. speaking at a conservative convention, trump said he was offering up a small preview of his second term agenda from the podium, promising his coming crackdown on immigration, promising to, quote, stop woke and also talking about sitting down very soon with vladimir putin. trump also pushed back on the refrain that we heard from democrats really pick up last week about a co-presidency that trump now has with none other than elon musk. cnn's steve contorno has the latest. >> speaking from arizona on sunday, donald trump delivered what his campaign called a rally style speech in front of a friendly conservative audience, his first since winning election last month. and it was certainly reminiscent of many of the campaign speeches that he

delivered over the past two years, with a heavy focus on immigration and his plans for the us-mexico border. he did, however, tread some new ground, saying that he was open to allowing tiktok, the chinese social media company, to continue to operate in the united states. he also considered taking back control of the panama canal, and suggested that he would meet early in his term with russian president vladimir vladimir putin about the ukraine war. he also pushed back against democrats criticism that he has allowed billionaire elon musk to become the de facto leader of his party and the country. take a listen to what he said there on a new kick russia, russia. >> russia. ukraine, ukraine, ukraine. all the different hoaxes. and the new one is president trump has ceded the presidency to elon musk. no, no, that's not happening. no, he's not going to be president. that i can tell you

and i'm safe. you know why he can't be? he wasn't born in this country. >> during his remarks on saturday, donald trump also signaled a show of support for many of his controversial picks for his incoming administration. he stood by robert f kennedy jr. and his plan to, quote, make america healthy again. he also gave a show of support for pete hegseth, his pick to lead the pentagon as defense secretary, as well as tulsi gabbard, his choice for director of national intelligence. >> but to get wokeness out of our military and restore the unquestioned strength and fighting spirit of the american armed forces. i have appointed pete hegseth to be our next secretary of defense. he's going to be great to make our intelligence community respected even more. i don't even think the word even is right, because we had some bad years with these people. but

i've nominated tulsi gabbard as our director of national intelligence. >> one thing trump did not mention the chaotic end to congress's 2024 session, where trump nearly caused a government shutdown with his 11th hour demands to push off a debt ceiling vote beyond 2024, many of trump's allies, also speaking at the conference, threatened republicans that if they continue to stand in his way, they could find themselves with primary challenges. steve contorno, cnn, west palm beach, florida. >> all right, joining me now to discuss cnn political commentator and former trump white house communications director alyssa farah griffin and democratic strategist joe trippi. i'm going to start with panama because this seemingly came out of nowhere. trump is demanding the u.s. takes control of the panama canal. i will start with you, alyssa. where is this coming from and why? >> i take back everything bad i've ever said about trump. it's hilarious. >> no, listen, he says these things at the end of his first

term, he wanted to purchase greenland. >> these are ideas that float around with him. i'm going to chalk it up to kind of his business background that he thinks everything is sort of a negotiation or for sale. i don't know that this reflects an actual policy position, but it shows you sort of the chaotic nature in which he's entering the global stage and where leaders are trying to get a read on where he's going to be and what he's going to do and what to take seriously. so obviously, seeing the immediate pushback that no, from the president of panama is not unexpected. i don't think that it means much more than he's kind of just ribbing people. >> joe, there is a treaty in place signed by both countries. what do you make of this? and is this a little bit more about china? because china has some control over the ports in the panama canal well, it's it's chaos. >> it's interjecting his, you know, he clearly doesn't understand sometimes how things like treaties and how and by the way, i don't think he really cares about a treaty.

tear it up. and so it's just him doing this unilaterally. i mean, just making the statement and then watching everybody react and and watching the chaos happen and geez, what could go wrong? it's the panama canal only so much of the world's goods flow through there, whether from china or to anywhere else in the world. um, jeez, that's not going to help inflation, i don't think. but again, this is donald trump. and by the way, it's another you know, i think we're seeing another four years of governing by rally. i mean where he goes out into these rallies says provocative things, gets a reaction. um, and you don't know what's real and what's not real. and people are confused by that. it's chaos. and that's what i think this presidency is. you know, what a lot of us thought was going to happen is happening. >> all right, joe, stick with me. because we heard from outgoing senator manchin, who, of course, left the democratic party. he said this about the

democratic party to our manu raju. take a listen. >> do you still consider yourself a democrat? >> i am not a democrat in the form of what? what the democratic party has turned itself into the national brand? absolutely not. and they know that. here's what i told them. i said, you ought to figure out how you lost somebody like me. the brand got so bad that d. brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of it's just it's toxic. >> all right. you hear him saying that it's toxic. he did talk about the republicans didn't have, you know, very nice things to say about the republicans either. but he's talking about a party he was once a part of. and it seems he's talking about social issues that the democrats are trying to push certain social issues to be mainstream ideas that are too far left. does he have a point here? what do you make of his statements? houthis dana bash to know. >> look, i worked for senator

doug jones when we when we won the election in alabama in 2017. um, and you could see we just barely survived the toxicity of the national brand of the democratic party. uh, and frankly, the demonization of the brand, some of it self-inflicted. i'm not denying that. but the demonization of the brand across a number of networks. and now you have elon musk and acts as well, uh, chiming in the the destruction of the democratic brand. and again, we're we're wings of the party. add to it. so it gives them fruit and fire and fuels it. um, i don't disagree with him at all about that's a big problem. we barely survived it in alabama in 2017. by three years later in 2020, there was no hope to survive it. and i think you're seeing some of the consequences of that in the 2024 election results. um, and

i think, yes, the party needs to look at, you know, we we have to look at not just how do we rebrand ourselves with the american people, but also the messaging mechanisms. i mean, we have to have our own, um, there is no, uh, sort of. while they built breitbart and x is owned by elon musk, and fox news is out there, there is no real, um, information distribution place for a reasonable democratic message to get out that has to be built, i think. >> alyssa, i do want to ask you about one of the big issues that trump won on, which was immigration. um, now we're hearing from trump's border czar, who says that he is going to go hard. he's going to be very aggressive on immigration, including going into sanctuary cities, as they're talking about these mass deportations. this seems to be setting up a real battle here. how do you see this playing out? >> yes, i mean, immigration, border security was one of the primary issues that put trump ahead in this election. and for

years, republicans were saying it's an issue. some democrats in swing states were saying it's an issue. and i think democrats were behind the eight ball in actually doing something. what i'm kind of trying to see is how much actual shock and awe is there going to be. what are we going to see that's out of step with what we've seen in the past? obama was the deporter in chief, deported a like a historic number of illegal immigrants in the country. but i do know that donald trump is going to want to make a splash in the first quarter of the of january, the first quarter of 2025. i think that his relationship with eric adams is interesting. i think that you can expect that you're going to see some efforts in new york city, for example, but expect that's going to be his chief priority is showing he is the border secure president. >> and the big thing is showing. yes, exactly. >> making sure people see it and feel it. >> yeah. all right. thank you to both of you. really appreciate you alyssa farah griffin and joe trippi. appreciate you coming on. a couple days before christmas. we really, really are glad you're here. all right kate i call it the extended christmas eve, which means no one should be working. >> moving on. new this morning, japanese automakers honda and nissan are announcing big

merger plans, a deal that would create the world's third largest automaker. the new company would be worth more than $50 billion. what's driving it all? the race toward electric vehicles, for one. cnn's vanessa yurkovich has much more on this. she's joining us now. so, vanessa, what else have you learned about this? >> well, these two companies, nissan and honda, have announced plans that they're going to be talking for the next six months to decide whether or not they're going to go through with this merger. >> essentially, they need to remain competitive, and this merger would help them in their fight against other rivals like toyota and volkswagen, which have the number one and two spots. and if this merger went through, they would jump to number three ahead of u.s. automaker stellantis and general motors. also involved in this is mitsubishi, which has an alliance with nissan. but why are they doing this? well, of course they want to remain competitive. they said in their press release that they need to increase and boost sales. also, nissan is on very

shaky financial footing right now. a lot of people expect that they could file for bankruptcy soon. so a partnership merging with honda would be very good for them also. nissan does have better ev capabilities right now compared to honda. so that would. that merger would create a better sort of business model for the two companies to, as you said, kate, compete in the electric vehicle market. and what does this mean for consumers? well, it's good to know what's going on in the car market. but it's also interesting to note that if they do merge, the idea is that maybe some prices could come down on those vehicles because they would have sort of a bigger global powerhouse. and you can see honda, nissan and nissan trending behind toyota there. lower prices. does that mean more sales? of course that's what they're hoping for. if honda and nissan end up merging, this would really go into effect in 2026 and there would be a whole new, um, there would be a whole new company trading on the stock market because of this merger. so a

lot of changes, but a lot of people in the car world say that this is not only going to happen, but it has to happen for these two companies to remain viable. kate. >> so interesting. great to see you. vanessa, thank you so much, sarah. all right. >> just ahead this morning, holiday travel is in full swing as it should be. it's shaping up to be a record breaking week. get ready for the crowds in the north. winter weather has already caused some delays. and in california, a series of storms could trigger severe flooding or flash flooding. meteorologist derek van dam is tracking it all for us. we know we should plan extra time for travel. derek. so tell us what we're in for well, that's ot 12 americans traveling today either by. well, this week, i should say, either by a car or a plane or a train. you've got to pack your patience and any wiggle with the weather that could cause kind of that knock on effect in terms of how we

get to grandma and grandpa's house, how we get to our family and friends house, and we do have some of those, what we like to call a close call, right? nothing major in terms of storm systems, but there's enough to cause some disruptions across the great lakes where we could see some minor weather delays in and around chicago o'hare. this system will move to the east coast, bring some festive flakes on christmas eve morning for the big apple, but it's also going to play some potential havoc in and around our nation's capital. there it is, moving to the east coast. sarah mentioned the potential for flooding. this is because a series of storms move over the same areas across the southern mississippi river valley. through the course of this week. look at tomorrow though. christmas eve. and this is very interesting because what do we have here? some delays in and around washington, d.c. it is because of the storm system that will bring that 2 to 3in of snowfall today across the northern tier of our country. there it is on the radar. it is not a big precipitation maker, but it will gather some steam, pick up some moisture. and and

we also have these winter weather alerts that are in place now for maryland, the district of columbia. this area in particular tuesday morning as you head out to family and friends, look at this. here comes that system. and then notice that shading of pink right over the nation's capital. that's a mixture, perhaps even some light freezing rain. it only takes a little to cause a big mess on the roadways and at the airports. so we want to keep that in mind, especially with the volume of people traveling this week to get to their loved ones. in terms of the precipitation through the next several days, taking you through the holidays, the snow and the guaranteed white christmas where you'd expect it. northern new england, michigan. but here's the rainfall that certainly will not bring a white christmas to places like texas and arkansas. they've got a lot of rain ahead of them. the potential for some stronger storms as well. so be weather aware this derek, dare i say i always give you a hard time for bringing us a forecast. >> it's difficult. this looks pretty freaking good for the winter. >> this looks i would say it's about as good as it can be with the asterisk of washington,

d.c. tomorrow morning. we'll put that there. >> all right, we'll watch it. meteorologist derek van dam, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> kate, don't don't go. washington, d.c. an asterisk. don't you dare coming up for us. director and actor justin baldoni now dropped from his talent agency just after blake lively accuses him of sexual harassment and a police pursuit ends with the car crashing into a busy texas mall. what we now know led up to this terrifying incident

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be ready for new year's eve. maybe you are ready. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn. >> i'm doctor sanjay gupta in atlanta, and this is cnn well, the cowboys held off the buccaneers under the sunday night lights, denying tampa bay's playoff chances in the process. >> carolyn manno joining us now with this morning's cnn sports update. sara. lots of things happening. i will discuss the game i went to after you finished. okay. >> i look forward to it. >> that's my team. >> we'll start with the cowboys. i mean, eliminated from playoff contention hours before their game in prime time even kicked off on sunday, they ended up playing some of their best football with absolutely nothing at stake. no pressure. right? dallas never trailed last night, but the bucks kept it close in the fourth quarter. baker mayfield touchdown pass to ryan miller cut the dallas lead to just two with less than three minutes to play. now tampa did get the ball back with a chance to win the game.

mayfield trying to avoid the sack, flipped the ball to rashad white, who turned up the field, but dallas ended up forcing a fumble and the recovery, sealing the 2624 win, costing the bucs control of their playoff fate. it was also a memorable moment between father and son during sunday's final round of the pnc championship. i don't know if you caught this, but charlie woods, the son of legendary golfer tiger woods, teeing off with a seven iron here on the par three fourth, ended up hitting his first hole in one. it was really cool. his dad, his teammate at this particular event right there to embrace him shortly afterwards. and that might be the first of many aces for the 15 year old. he just resembles his dad in almost every way. on the course they walk the same, they talk the same. the woods family ended up losing to the langers in a playoff, but charlie said it was the most fun round he's ever had. and tiger said that moment right there with his son was the thrill of a lifetime and a big congratulations to penn state head coach katie schumacher. callie and her women's volleyball team on winning the national title. the nittany lions did not need to

look far for motivation. schumacher callie was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer back in september. she has continued to coach through chemo i'm inspired by the young kids that are sick. >> you know, i told you i did my i'm doing treatment at upenn and every time i walk into the hospital, i walk right past the children's hospital. and so, you know, i'm sure if i can be an inspiration to someone, then i take that. but, you know, i feel good, and i'm lucky to have the people around me. and i think that's why we're successful. >> with sunday's win, coach katie, as she is known, also became the first female coach to win an ncaa volleyball championship. she won it as a player in 1999. big moment for her. i want to hear about your experience as a player. >> first of all, just to coach katie. just i cannot be more proud. it is really, really hard and it takes a lot out of you being on chemo and doing your job, but it also helps. and to have that support of the team, great. secondly, i went

to a jets game. my first it was 15 degrees and i have two things to say. one, the rams were playing. that's why i was there, my husband and i, because that's our team. two jets fans are true fans. oh yes. they go through so much heartache and heartbreak and yet they still show up when it's freezing cold. and they also chant something i hadn't heard in other places. they chant sell the team over. >> and can you blame them with what they've been through? those poor fans, poor poor fans. happy holidays jets fans. >> you got to give it to them. they show up even though they know they're going to get their hearts broken. carolyn manno, thank you so much. you did not break our hearts today. >> thanks you are so funny. >> the entire crew is like, yes sir, yes, yes. and also just to return back to something else. i too know someone who is an inspiration to everyone around them for how they keep going in the midst of treatment and tragedy and treatment and challenge. so i think i'm looking at her right now.

let's go to this a holiday light show gone very wrong in florida. it happened saturday night when several drones collided and then started falling from the sky. a child was injured in this incident. a seven year old hit in the chest by one of the drones. here's the boy's mother one of the drones. >> just like lost it, i guess went haywire. literally looked like a bird that was diving for fish. not only is he laying there like, you know, the emts are trying to help, but he was losing consciousness. his his heart beat kept stopping. i was freaking out that i was going to lose my baby because he was losing consciousness. >> terrifying, his mother also told cnn affiliate wesh two that her son is now undergoing heart open heart surgery. because of this, the faa and orlando city officials are now conducting an investigation to find out exactly what happened here in a new civil rights

complaint, actress blake lively is accusing her. it ends with u.s. costar and director of sexual harassment and retaliation. lively claims that justin baldoni and his team launched a smear campaign to destroy her reputation after she accused him of misconduct on set. the complaint alleges that baldoni and another man repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. in a statement to cnn, lively says this i hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted. baldoni's attorney denies the allegations, calling them completely false and outrageous. and officials are now investigating what happened at a popular colorado ski resort that left more than 170 people stranded for hours. you see the end result there. this is how they got there. the gondola lift at winter park automatically stopped when it detected a crack in a structural piece of the lift just after noon on saturday. that's according to a spokesperson with the winter park resort. it eventually

forced the resort to evacuate all the skiers and snowboarders who were stuck, lowering them down by ropes, a rescue that took about five hours to get everyone down safely. thankfully, no one was injured. thankfully, sara. >> that looked scary. i'm just saying i don't want to be lowered down by a rope. if i can avoid it, i will. all right. the fda has approved the weight loss drug zepbound for obstructive sleep apnea. it's the first prescription medicine to be approved to treat moderate to severe forms of a sleep condition closely associated with obesity. cnn's meg tirrell has all of the details. is this beyond obesity? because, of course, zepbound helps people lose weight. that this drug works in conjunction with that. >> no, you're exactly right, sara. so this has been approved for people with obstructive sleep apnea and obesity. those two conditions are very closely related. and so often you already see that weight loss is recommended to reduce the

severity of obstructive sleep apnea. and so what we're seeing here is one of these very popular glp one medicines. this one is the drug tirzepatide. the brand name for weight loss is zepbound. it's made by eli lilly. they did these trials and they showed that this drug through helping people lose weight most likely really helps them with their obstructive sleep apnea as well. and this is a common condition. it can affect an estimated 30 million people in the u.s., perhaps even more. a lot of folks don't even realize they have it. it's characterized by these sleep disruptions that you get because the airway starts to close, and you can feel really sleepy when you're awake. you can snore, but it's a lot stronger than that. it can have really severe health impacts on folks. and so what they found is that in this clinical trial, they ran two trials, one where people were already on cpap machines. these continuous airway pressure machines that keep your airway open while you're sleeping. and even on top of that therapy, they found that people, on average, started with 50 of these breathing disruptions per hour overnight. and after a year of treatment, people taking the drug even on top of cpap, had 29 fewer per

hour. so more reduction of more than half of those events. and a lot of people saw even greater results than that. they also saw this on top of the weight loss we see with these medicines, about 18 to 20% of their body weight lost over a year. that equates to about 45 to 50 pounds. and so while these drugs are already approved for people with obesity, what i'm understanding about this is that it could potentially improve insurance coverage for some folks, because that can still be really difficult, particularly on medicare. sara. >> all right. our meg tirrell, thank you so much for bringing us that really interesting kate. >> we're also learning new details about the man police say crashed into a texas mall on saturday and continued driving, hitting several shoppers as he was being chased by police. this happened just outside of austin. police say officers eventually shot and killed the 53 year old driver inside the mall. cnn's camila bernal has more this all started when a texas highway patrol trooper tried to stop a pickup truck in belton, texas.

>> this was after they received a phone call of someone possibly being intoxicated. that suspect did not stop, and instead this became a 19 mile police chase. at some point, the suspect exits the highway and goes into the parking lot of the killeen mall, but he does not stop. instead, he drives through the entrance of the jcpenney, driving through glass doors and continuing to drive through the store, hitting multiple people. we know at least four people were injured and taken to the hospital. one other person went to the hospital on their own, and authorities say the victims range in ages from 6 to 75. it's unclear what the status of those injuries is right now, but authorities describing the chaos and describing how this ended. take a listen to what the dps sergeant said about this trooper and the killeen police officer continued on foot after this vehicle, which was driving through the store,