high against the texans. there was no stopping baltimore's quarterback, lamar jackson. he threw two touchdown passes and he was out there running like a reindeer. he went dashing for 87 yards in the game, including this 48 yard score. and then lamar ran into the record book in the third right here. moving past michael vick at the top of the all time rushing list for quarterbacks. baltimore wins 31 to 2, improving to 11 and five on the season. their one game up on the steelers, now for first place in the afc north. the chiefs took on the steelers in the first game of the day. patrick mahomes leading kc out to an early 13 point lead, and they were never really threatened by pittsburgh. mahomes threw three touchdown passes, including one to his favorite target, travis kelce. travis 77th career touchdown catch early in the fourth, breaking kc's all time touchdown receptions record. he dunked the ball to pay tribute to the former record holder, hall of famer tony gonzalez.

the chiefs lock up the top seed in the afc for the fourth time in seven seasons with a 29 to 10 win. and kate, it was a very merry christmas for the chiefs. santa showed up to help them celebrate in the locker room, but this is actually their head coach, andy reid. and then check out the jolly old elf showing up to give coach, aka santa, a game ball. the chiefs, earning their franchise record 15th win on the season. incredible stuff. now, i know earlier we talked about how good we would all maybe look in a santa claus outfit, but i don't think anyone could. top head coach andy reid. that's stellar. >> i love andy reid, not only for how he acts on the field, but the commercials that he cuts. i mean, the man is hysterical and clearly just loves his life. cowboy, great to see you. thank you darling. got it. new hour of cnn cnn news central starts now. >> a dispute over what caused a

plane crash in kazakhstan, killing 38 people on board. russia, initially blaming a bird strike, but others pushing back on that and saying russia may be to blame for the crash. the president elect has floated the idea of taking back the panama canal, and now he's named the man who will be front and center as donald trump potentially pushes for u.s. expansion. the presents have been opened and the bags are now packed for the return trip home. but you might find some delays. snow and rain on the way. we are tracking the forecast. i'm sara sidner with kate bolduan. john berman is out today. this is cnn news central. this is just in to cnn. nato now calling for a full investigation into the christmas day plane crash that killed at least 38 people in

kazakhstan. it is preliminary report. russia is claiming that a bird strike may have forced the attempt to make an emergency landing, with the plane looking like it was falling out of the sky. but ukrainian officials and others now pushing back on that this morning, saying that a russian air defense system shot down the aircraft. 29 people, including two children, remarkably survived the crash, some of them walking away from it. but 11 people are still in critical condition in the hospital this morning. cnn's nadia bashir is joining us now from london. what are you hearing about the possible causes of this crash? >> well, look, sarah, there is certainly a lot of speculation at the moment as to what led to this fatal crash. as you mentioned, we heard earlier yesterday from russian aviation officials saying that initial preliminary information would suggest that the pilot had been forced to attempt an emergency landing as a result of a bird strike. but we have been getting more details and of course, that investigation that

is being conducted by a commission set up by the kazakh government is still ongoing. but there are questions around why the flight. the plane may have been rerouted, why the pilot was forced to attempt that emergency landing. there have been images and videos now emerging showing the wreckage following the aftermath of that crash, appearing to show perforations and holes in the fuselage, which might be consistent with the impact of debris and shrapnel. and of course, as you mentioned, we have heard from one ukrainian security and defense official who has alleged that this plane was downed as a result of russian air defense systems accusing russia of failing to close down the airspace in this area. and of course, this is an area which has seen airport closures in the past as a result of drone activity. we have learned that, of course, the plane crashed shortly after a drone strike had taken place in parts of southern russia. so real questions as to how these

all may be connected, if indeed they are important to underscore, of course, that the investigation is still ongoing. there are no firm conclusions coming from this newly established commission just yet. those questions remain up in the air, and we are waiting for those final confirmed details as the investigation continues. but certainly a tragic moment for many of those who, of course, have had their loved ones on board. as you mentioned, it was remarkable to see 29 people surviving that crash, including two children. they were all, of course, taken to hospital for immediate medical care. some are still said to be in a critical condition, but of course, dozens were also killed and thursday is being treated as a day of mourning. now in kazakhstan, sara and again looking for a full investigation. >> now the rest of the world wondering what exactly caused this plane to go down and if it was nefarious. not of bashir. thank you so much for your reporting this morning, kate. >> and that deadly crash came around the same time that

russia unleashed a massive attack on ukraine's. ukraine's energy infrastructure with explosions reported across the country. the president of ukraine says that russia launched more than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles and more than 100 attack drones, in that onslaught, causing blackouts in several regions. in the midst of the bitter winter cold. president biden condemned the attack and asked the defense department wednesday to continue surging weapons deliveries to ukraine. joining me right now is david sanger of the new york times, political and national security analyst for cnn. it's good to see you. david, this war now grinding into its third winter, you've got this new attack from new attack from russia on ukraine's energy infrastructure. with biden on the way out and trump on the way in, he's been unclear. i'll say it best in how much support he's willing to offer ukraine. what's ukraine preparing for? what are nato allies preparing for here? >> well, kate, first and happy

holidays. um, i thought it was striking that president biden issued that statement yesterday, but we didn't hear from, uh, president-elect trump on this issue. >> uh, we heard from him on panama and greenland, but not on the the strikes on the on the ukrainian grid. >> um, it seems pretty clear that the russians are quite intent on gaining both as much territory and as much upper hand as they can ahead of the president elect coming in to see whether or not he's willing to go ahead and, you know, negotiate his the deal he said he could make in 24 hours. >> now he's backed away from that a little bit lately. and i think it's because he recognizes that if there is a deal that is given to or foisted on the ukrainians that basically says, you have to give back to the russians, the 20% of territory in ukraine they already hold. >> i think the president, president elect may be

concerned that that looks weak, looks like he's giving up territory. >> and it's not clear what he would get. uh, in return. we also don't know that vladimir putin is ready to. negotiate. >> good point. and this also fits into the bigger picture of countering iranian influence. the outgoing national security advisor had a very interesting take in speaking with cnn's fareed zakaria. he was talking about in an interview that played over the weekend, that the one lesson that he's learned in the four years that they've been in office is that something good, when something good happens, something bad is lurking right around the corner. let me play this. >> one of those things is if you're iran right now, and you're looking around at the fact that your conventional capability has been reduced, your proxies have been reduced, your main client state has been eliminated, assad has fallen. it's no wonder there are voices saying, hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now.

>> and david, you have some really interesting new reporting on the internal debate in trump world on what their approach to iran will look like. what are you learning? >> well, the first thing is, mr. sullivan's got it exactly right. >> the iranians have never been weaker. i mean, hezbollah and hamas are, uh, have their capabilities largely destroyed. and that was iran's main way of being able to reach into israel. iran's own missile attacks into israel largely failed. >> um, so the big concern right now in the u.s. government, and he was giving voice to this, is that iran will conclude that its only option right now is to raise for a bomb. they have not seen the evidence of that yet, but certainly the iranians have the fuel around for at least 4 or 5 weapons. it would take them a number of months to build it. um, it is not unreasonable to think that

prime minister netanyahu wants president elect trump is inaugurated, will come to him and say there's never been a better moment to destroy the iranian nuclear complexes. he has, um, gone right up to the edge of that before. uh, it may also be that president-elect trump sees a moment here to negotiate. kate. uh, and but basically to do a coercive negotiation to say you're going to turn over all of this or you're going to lose it. >> how much of a new like, nuclear iran threat that is out there, or could be coming, um, that trump might face could be. a in part, a problem of his own making, given that he pulled out of the iran nuclear deal. >> it's very much of his own making. i mean, the iran nuclear deal was working when he pulled out of it in 2018. i know he argued at the time they were cheating. there was very

little evidence of that. once he was out, the iranians, uh, a few years later, began to say, well, if the united states isn't going to abide by it and will reimpose sanctions, which the u.s. did, iran would build up its own capability. and that's exactly what's happened. uh, there was an effort by the biden administration to revive the old deal that failed. today, though, i think the idea of putting the old deal together is pretty much gone, kate, because it would have expired in 2030. that's not all that far away. there would be no sense in reviving a deal that would basically allow the iranians to make what they wanted after 20, 30, just five years from now. >> yeah. the choices in front of the incoming trump administration and how to counter iran and what and the choices that iran will be making, that is going to be very important and interesting to watch. great reporting. david, thank you so much for coming in it. great to see you. thank you. so the president

elect also has a new obsession with the panama canal. and he now has a new ambassador who's got an even bigger job. it appears ahead of him. and a pet food recall linked to bird flu. what you need to know. >> andy, it has been one wild year. >> i know that whole live stream was crazy. >> what you have been following actual news, right? oh, boy. >> new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and streaming live on max. >> achy joints reach for the spray muscle soreness. reach for the spray with title next generation pain relief title cryotherapy spray and the all new tidal heat therapy spray. reach where it hurts and penetrate deep for rapid relief. the 360 degree spray reaches anywhere, dries fast and lasts. >> it relieves the pain quickly so i can continue doing what i love. >> trusted by athletes in over a million satisfied users. title available online or at your favorite retailer, this is

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>> for ben and erin. the work's never done. i'll never stop until the whole town is transformed. >> they know what they want. >> they don't know where to find it. we do. >> hometown season premiere sunday night at eight on hgtv. >> president elect donald trump making more job announcements. announcing his pick for u.s. ambassador to panama as he continues suggesting that it is time for the united states to take back the panama canal. his pick, florida county commissioner kevin marino cabrera, will now be tasked with sorting out what exactly the president elect wants there, besides the panama canal. donald trump also used his christmas day message to continue his talk of taking canada and buying greenland. cnn's steve contorno tracking all of it for us. steve on panama, what are you learning about donald trump's pick to be the next ambassador? >> well, cabrera is a south

florida republican. republican, someone who is very representative of donald trump's sway in this part of florida that we have seen in recent years. and also among the latino community. cabrera is someone who was a member of the latinos for trump group that was part of trump's campaign. he is a elected to the county commission in miami-dade, where he has served for the past two years. it's a job he won, in part on the strength of an endorsement from donald trump. and he, after taking office, actually sponsored legislation to rename a road down here after donald trump. he also was a member of the platform committee at the republican national convention, which wrote a very pro-trump agenda for the gop moving forward. and he is someone who also previously worked on trump's campaign back in 2020. and obviously, he comes into this job with a potentially busy agenda, given what has transpired in the past week, not necessarily a job that we

anticipated would become a contentious, uh, nominating process. but certainly there will be questions on capitol hill about trump, trump's plans for panama, given everything that's transpired. and trump, even in his announcing, cabrera nodded to his newfound interest in panama, writing, quote, i am pleased to announce that kevin marino cabrera will serve as the united states ambassador to the republic of panama, a country that is ripping us off at the panama canal far beyond their wildest dreams. not sure what their wildest dreams were in terms of their plans to rip us off, but that's trump's verbiage there. so what remains to be seen going forward is what trump actually wants out of panama, and how far he is willing to go to get it. i've asked the trump transition team, is he talking about getting the military involved, or is he just trying to to pressure panama to give the u.s. a better deal? and so far i

haven't got a response. all all they have said is this is in line with trump's other agenda on trade, and it's been fitting very much with his focus in that area. >> kate, the vagueness there may be entirely intentional. steve, it's great to see you. thank you so much, sara. >> all right. let us discuss with democratic strategist and former white house director of message planning under president biden, megan hayes. also, cnn political commentator and republican strategist shermichael singleton. welcome to both of you. on this holiday week. look, it's good to see your faces. merry christmas to you both. i see the tree behind you there, megan. it is beautiful. i wish we could just talk about this or maybe beyoncé or something else, but this is what we're doing today. buckle up, donald trump, you know, announced his pick for ambassador, as you heard to panama. but he's been threatening to take back the panama canal. and i want you to sort of listen to what the wall street journal editorial board said this morning about

trump's newest obsession. it says, forgive us if we missed it, but we don't recall donald trump campaigning to invade panama and retake its famous canal. but there was the president elect on the weekend threatening our central american ally with punishment if it doesn't meet his demands. don't they have a point? shermichael this, that this is sort of a sideshow. the american public didn't vote for. >> i don't i don't think, actually disagree with that editorial. >> there are five principal zone ports in panama. china controls to the united states doesn't control any. we controlled the panama canal completely up until 77. we entered into a mutual agreement with the panamanian government in 1999. we handed over complete control to them. and fast forward to 2023, 2024. now china controls two of those zones. trump is mad about it. and in my opinion, sarah, he is right to be mad. the chinese government, they're not playing checkers here. they're playing 4d chess to dominate the global stage. and in my opinion, they're moving in. what i would argue is an area

and a pace that should concern u.s. leaders. and this idea of the u.s. trying to at least somewhat usurp china's complete dominance in the in the region isn't necessarily new. members of congress have been concerned about this. in the past, there have just been debates about what is the right course of action to sort of minimize china's growing influence in the panama canal. and i think it's important for trump to really put a spotlight on this. >> we should talk about the fact that it is a subsidiary of a hong kong company that is in control of, or not in control of, that is administering a couple of ports, but there is an autonomous government agency that controls the canal. so it doesn't mean that china is in full control. when you look at this, this influence, i mean, what is the end game here? megan, what do you see as the end game? is it to get a better deal of transit fees or, you know, where is this coming from in your mind? >> he doesn't have an end game.

>> he doesn't have an end game for anything he does. >> he's throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. >> it's panama today. greenland yesterday, canada a week ago. he is just trying to muddy the waters to underscore, to get people all riled up about something. because really governing is harder than campaigning. and these are campaign things that he is just throwing out there. >> and to actually get these things done is going to be extremely challenging. >> he will not be able to just take the canal away from a sovereign government or take canada from another sovereign government. that is a dictatorship. so i think that let's not have the american people be fooled here. he there is actual policies that he wants to enact, and we will see if he can get them done. but this is just muddying the waters, just like he did in his first term, when he said mexico was going to build a wall that never was built and never paid for. so, you know, this is just, i think, donald trump's policies, this is how he he governs. >> all right. i do want to talk to you about what? sarah. sarah. go ahead. go ahead. >> if i could just as a possible recourse if nothing happens in a vacuum as it pertains to china. and you're right, sarah, to point out that

it is a hong kong based company that runs these two ports. but what if they have one company from china that manages one port and a u.s. based company that manages another port? i don't think that's necessarily a bad argument for the president elect to make. it's a very pivotal port for u.s. trade. and so i think, again, to to pinpoint this and say, wait a minute, this appears to be unbalanced. i don't think he's necessarily wrong in that regard. >> but sure, michael, he's saying he's going to take back the panama canal. that is very different than why not have these negotiations with the country, with the president, who he has completely off, for lack of a better word, with just throwing this out there that he's going to take over. i mean, it's one of those things that you wonder is, was there not a negotiation that could have happened when he is in the seat of the presidency? we will move on, though, to russia. we have seen this intense christmas day attack on ukraine that was clearly, you know, meant to make the civilians

miserable and suffer because they went after infrastructure in the frigid cold. so attacking things like the electricity grid. i do want to ask you about whether you're seeing a shift here, potentially in what donald trump may do and the policies towards ukraine, because we heard his pick for the special envoy for ukraine and russia, also on top of joe biden criticizing this, criticizing russia's assault, saying that christmas should be a time of peace. yet ukraine was brutally attacked on christmas day. that was from retired lieutenant general keith kellogg. is this a signal you think, shermichael, that trump might be more into helping ukraine than previously believed? >> yeah, it's certainly possible. i mean, general kellogg is certainly more of the traditional american disposition as it pertains to the conflict between russia and ukraine. we're already dealing with china in terms of being an international adversary. now you have russia appearing to want to be more of a regional

adversary. we certainly don't want them to also potentially make their way to looking at the international stage. and so if you can set up roadblocks wherever possible against the russians, so that we can put most of our focus on the chinese, then i certainly think it's in the u.s. interest to do so. i agree with general kellogg. i think you are going to potentially see some shifting policy positions long term here. sarah, coming from the president elect, as he gets more details about how important this region actually is to u.s. interests. >> megan, i want to ask you about something else donald trump said, you know, over the weekend, he talked about the department of justice and saying he's going to direct the department to vigorously pursue the death penalty. this is, of course, after president joe biden pardoned all but three of the 40 federal death row inmates. the law dictates what offenses are eligible for the death penalty. right. so what is what is the end game here? do you see, megan? is this to make himself, you know, sort of look powerful and going after crime

or what? >> i think it's just to disagree with president biden. >> i think that anyone who has followed president biden or voted for him in 20 knew that he was not for the federal death penalty. >> it was on his platform. in 20, he had put a stay, a moratorium on death penalty, federal death penalty cases when he took office in 21. so this is not a surprising move. i think that the president elect is just trying to look powerful, and this is a policy difference, and that is fine. and the american people voted for him. so he can then now vigorously pursue whatever he would like to do when he takes office. but this is a policy difference. and i just think that this is, again, just like more muddying the waters, more throwing stuff at the wall just to see where it sticks. >> megan. hey shermichael singleton, thank you both for coming in on the day after christmas. thanks, sarah. how lovely of you and sarah. >> we're matching green and blue. >> we are matching. i have noted that. thank you for that christmas miracle. all right. you guys have a great rest of your day. all right. kate. thanks, sarah. >> one of the busiest travel weekends of the year is now upon us. also upon us. some

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got rain and snow right now from seattle down towards portland. some lightning strikes coming onshore with some of that snow there too, as this storm again really starts to develop, we have winter alerts in effect, especially these highest elevations where we can have a foot of snow possible just from this round. wind gusts could also get over 60mph, could cause some problems with downed trees, and power lines could blow around that snow in the highest elevations as well. so you can see that rain and snow coming on shore today. and will continue as we go into friday. it's just going to be like train cars. one storm after the next through friday alone, we're looking at 2 to 4in of rain, a foot or so of snow in some of the highest elevations. but that's just through friday. we'll still have more rain and snow to contend with through the weekend, so problem spots again expected. seattle, portland and san francisco. we have another storm that's brewing along the gulf coast here that will cause some problems from dallas to

houston. memphis today where we have showers and storms firing up and they could be strong to severe. we have a level two out of five severe risk today for damaging winds, large hail and even a couple of tornadoes. that tornado risk could be highest around that houston area from houston to austin. something to watch out for today. and then you could see there the travel headaches that could come with that from the heavy rain and the severe weather. all of this starts to shift east as we go into friday, that storm moving east. and then by the weekend, we could be looking at those travel headaches up and down the eastern seaboard from atlanta, up through nashville and then d.c., new york, boston. as we go into sunday, as all of that rain starts to move east. sara. >> all right, spelling it out for us. thank you so much. elisa raffa appreciate it. kate. >> so moments ago, president biden's motorcade left the white house. he's headed to the u.s. virgin islands for vacation. he's also setting his agenda for the final days of his presidency. and president elect donald trump will next month. he inherits biden's

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to this term, but also to his five decade career in public service. the white house has announced that he will be traveling to rome and to the vatican, in particular for a visit with pope francis in mid president biden in 2021 met with the pope before attending the g20 summit in rome, and at the time, it was a very consequential visit because he accepted communion from pope francis after questions from the church about whether biden's position on abortion would disqualify him. so this is expected to be yet another consequential visit for president biden. then we also expect him to deliver what is a continuation of speeches on his record on various topics. he gave a speech at the brookings institution back in december on his economic legacy. and we also expect, based on our conversations with aides, for him to highlight his work on climate and foreign policy in the coming weeks. of course, as the forthcoming trump administration looms large. but as far as policy. kate. white

house officials don't really expect to be able to advance much policy because of the expectation that anything they do in this 11th hour could be overturned by president-elect trump and his team. so certainly, this is going to be more about capstone events and trying to frame the narrative of biden's presidency rather than trying to check off any last items from his campaign to do list. kate. >> kayla, thank you so much for your reporting. sarah. >> all right. new this morning, the weekly jobless claim report showing layoffs, activity slowed, but the number of people receiving ongoing jobless benefits. more than 1.9 million people hit a three year high. president-elect trump is about to inherit this economy in just a few weeks. so what will his plans bring? cnn economic and political commentator catherine rampell is here with us now. thank you so much for being here. happy holidays to you. we're in the final stretch, of course, of the biden presidency. where is the

economy? the economy right now? everybody, of course, over these last few years have been struggling with prices of things. while the economy seems to be revving up. >> yeah. it's interesting. it's the typical consumer. >> they're still pretty dour about the u.s. economy, but on paper, the u.s. economy looks pretty darn great, certainly better than most of our peer countries around the world. gdp growth is strong. investment is strong. unemployment is not at an all time low, but but close to historic lows. inflation is, you know, always the outlier here. but even that has come down quite a bit. and it's not at the target. but it's it's far below what its peak had been. and kind of a stone's throw from where the federal reserve would like it to be. all of those things suggest that the economy is doing quite well, that, you know, we seem to, you know, knock on wood, have pulled off, potentially

pulled off this desired soft landing that the federal reserve has been trying to achieve. now that that doesn't mean that consumers are making things up. obviously, when they are frustrated by the economy because the price increases that we saw a couple of years ago are still very salient. you know, people are still experiencing price shock every time they go to the grocery store. and perhaps wrongly anticipating that grocery prices are going to go back to what they were, which is not going to happen. basically, what the fed is hoping for is instead that grocery prices and other prices kind of plateau. not that they revert to what they were pre-pandemic, but that they plateau. so the way a wonky economist would look at things would be to say things look pretty good. um, even if consumers are still frustrated by what they've experienced over the past couple of years. >> so if economists are saying, look, he's being handed an economy that is in good shape and, you know, it's going to

do better, trump is is looking at, you know, tariffs. and he's big ones for he said canada mexico and china. can he do this unilaterally or does congress have to weigh in here. and if so how would this all work and what would be the repercussion? >> so as i have said before, i think the best thing trump could do for the economy is just basically nothing at all. uh, you know, be the hype man that this u.s. economy needs because as i said, it has a lot going for it, even if consumers aren't yet recognizing it. the kinds of policy measures that you just mentioned. you mentioned tariffs on canada and mexico and china. remember, trump has threatened them on all imports from around the world. and a lot of that, yes, he can do unilaterally. some of it will be challenged in court. but the president has a lot of discretion to levy tariffs, particularly if he uses excuses

or pretexts like national security, which he used quite a lot in his first administration. and so i think it's quite likely that he will do something. now, we don't know what we don't know if he's actually going to carry out the exact promises that he made on the campaign trail. certainly markets don't think that because if markets did believe him and take him at his word, you would see a lot more turmoil in the stock market because automakers. apparel maker. you know, retailers, all of those companies would be badly hurt as as would their customers. right? that's that's the real risk here. that again, we've been talking about how inflation has come down a lot. but if you levy tariffs, if you raise the the cost of almost everything, americans buy almost all the goods, americans buy some of that, if not all of that will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. >> let's talk also about trump's proposed tax cuts. when you look at those and what

that might mean, how might that impact the economy as a whole? certainly people are worried about the debt. the united states has the deficit. >> yes. so those would cost a lot of money. the cbo, the congressional budget office, which is sort of a neutral scorekeeper for congress, has made that quite explicit, as have many other outside independent analysts. that would cost quite a bit of money just to extend the existing tax cuts that were put in place in 2017. and then remember that on top of that, donald trump has also pledged to lower the corporate tax rate, down from 21% down to to 15%. also to exempt taxes or exempt from from from income taxes, a bunch of other categories of income tipped income, social security income. uh, what am i forgetting? overtime, income, all sorts of other things. so all of these things would be very expensive in the near term. that would potentially stimulate the economy. but in the longer term, the cbo has found that it would likely slow

economic growth and potentially contribute to higher inflation. >> we're going to leave it there. catherine rampell, thank you so much for coming in on this holiday week. appreciate your time this morning. all right. just ahead, a recall this morning after a house cat died from eating pet food. pet food tested positive for bird flu. and wouldn't winning $1 billion be nice? a nice way to start the new year? well, you got a chance. it might be a really, really, really, really small chance, but we're saying there's a chance. >> all the best or the worst? 2024. tonight ather you need to lose ten, 20, 50 or over 100 pounds, make the healthy choice with galo. >> head to golo.com. that's. golo.com. >> i'm nfl hall of famer dan marino. you know i used to be

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>> never too much new year's day at eight on cnn. >> we do have some breaking news coming in. in an update on that deadly plane crash in central asia moments ago, reuters is now reporting that, according to multiple unnamed sources in azerbaijan. azerbaijan, with knowledge of the investigation, they now believe the passenger jet was downed by a russian air defense system. now, russia has denied that claim, and lawmakers in kazakhstan have so far suggested it was a bird strike that brought down the jet. but this reuters reporting now changes things dramatically as this investigation is underway. nato calling for an investigation of this as well. at least 38 people were killed in this crash. another 29 people survived, including two children, many of them still in critical condition. we'll continue to bring you updates on this. sarah. all right. >> thank you. kate. from devastating wildfires to record breaking rain and scorching temperatures, the impacts of

global warming on our planet dominated climate stories throughout 2024. cnn's chief climate correspondent bill weir has a look at the top ten stories. >> at number ten. a rare moment of national unity and wonder. >> wow. >> thanks to the celestial dance of sun and moon, april's eclipse stretched from texas to maine, putting over 30 million americans in the path of totality. >> we won't see another one over the u.s. until 2044 at number nine, this year's hajj fell in june, drawing millions of muslim pilgrims to mecca just as thermometers hit 125 degrees in the saudi kingdom, reported over 1300 heat related deaths at number eight. wildfire nationwide, while july's park fire was the fifth biggest in california history,

texas saw their biggest ever with the million acre smokehouse creek blaze, and in the northeast, the worst drought in decades led to over 500 wildfires just in new jersey at number seven and fueled by record high ocean temps. hurricane beryl roared to category five strength in july. the earliest storm to ever hit the top of the scale. while it hit texas as a weaker cat one, millions lost power around houston, and it took nearly two sweltering weeks to get the air conditioning back on at number six. tornadoes and lots of them the most in a decade. of the two dozen billion dollar disasters this year, over half included twisters. and while oklahoma saw two monster f fours. >> climate change is shifting tornado alley from the great plains to the southeast at number five, earth's overheating atmosphere is like a giant sponge in the sky,

soaking up more water, wringing it out with a vengeance, and causing the national weather service to issue an unprecedented 91 flash flood emergencies this year. >> and at number four, the deadliest rain fell in spain, where in late october, a year's worth fell in hours. around valencia, the surge broke, riverbanks turned streets into raging rapids and took over 200 lives. at number three, the devastating duo of helene and milton, back to back hurricanes that began with a 15 foot surge in florida's big bend, but got worse in the mountains of appalachia. up to 30in of rain around asheville, north carolina, brought horrific flooding, while spun up tornadoes helped make helene the deadliest since katrina. and then came milton just two weeks later, jumping from a tropical storm to a category 5 in 20 four hours. milton is just the latest example of rapid intensification in the age of climate change. but at

number two, we have the rise of climate denial. after promising fossil fuel executives deregulation, donald trump retakes power with a promise to hamstring the nation's clean energy momentum and pull the u.s. out of the paris climate accord for a second, and possibly final time. the american election cast a pall over cop 29 in azerbaijan, where petro states that agreed to transition away from fossil fuel at cop 28 transition back to praising oil. and at number one, the heat driving so much of this destruction. eight years ago in paris, the world agreed to limit global warming to 1.5°c. but this year topped it. it was over 100 degrees in phoenix for 113 consecutive days, shattering the record by 37 days. so first responders now carry body bags and ice. and the city has embraced a policy of shade signs that

humanity will have to adapt because 2024 could be the coolest year of the rest of our lives. bill weir cnn, new york. >> bill, thank you so much for that. we're also watching this. a brand of pet food has now issued a nationwide recall for one of its products. after testing positive for bird flu. northwest naturals is the company. it says people should toss what you're looking at right here. this raw, frozen cat food with a best by date between may 21st and june 23rd of 2026. this comes after a cat in oregon died after reportedly eating the contaminated food. and you've got another chance at $1 billion, friends, albeit a very slim chance with the mega millions jackpot. the jackpot ballooned to $1.15 billion after no one won the christmas eve drawing. this is now the fifth largest mega millions jackpot in history. the next drawing tomorrow night. >> what's the first thing you do if you won? >> call in sick. >> i was going to say i'd shut my trap.

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