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>> don't get fooled and everyone knows what's going on. >> what the. >> except ben, what have we done? >> the joe schmo show premieres january 21st on tbs. >> closed captioning is brought to you by nutrisystem. >> lose weight and live healthy. >> check out what's new at nutrisystem, get new diets for high protein and low carb created to support your own weight loss approach. nutrisystem has a solution for you. this is cnn breaking news. >> i'm brianna keilar in washington with breaking news. >> officials describing apocalyptic scenes as four separate wildfires are raging out of control across los angeles county. at least two people have died, and officials say there are high numbers of injuries as the flames are destroying homes and buildings. tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. >> ferocious, tornado like winds are battering the area, and that is making an extremely difficult battle. >> even worse for crews who are already stretched to the limit. we have dramatic video now from

a passenger on a plane arriving at lax, who said that? >> people gasped in shock as they looked down at the fire below. >> the faa has now banned flights near these wildfires here, and we're also seeing the terrifying moment that a resident and a friend tried to evacuate a home. well, i don't. >> oh. all right, dude. yeah, let's get out of here. we tried. we tried. >> los angeles officials are warning people they need to be able to leave at a moment's notice. >> you heard the folks there saying we tried. >> and then leaving. right now, though, there is no sign of relief in sight. >> we have been in constant communication with both our fire and law enforcement partners across l.a. county and beyond to ensure that all

available resources that are needed are being deployed strategically and effectively. but we are prioritizing life over everything else. >> cnn's stephanie elam is with us live now from the front lines of the biggest fire we have, which is the palisades fire. >> we also have cnn's julia vargas jones with us from the front lines of the eaton fire. >> steph, let's start with you here. tell us what you're seeing. >> it's very eerie out here as the winds pick up and then the smoke starts to billow towards us and you can't really see. we are just watching down here though. and it's so smoky. i don't know how well you'll see it, but it looks like this seafood restaurant here along the pacific coast highway looks like it may have some fire burning there. and what you really need to understand about these fires is they spread so quickly when it's this windy, because it just takes a little bit of an ember that catches on the wind and blows into the rooftop of something else and blows into some brush, into the

palm trees. and that can ignite, ignite a whole new area. and that is the fear out here. this is why there has been no containment, because the winds are still very, very strong. i want to show you this building here. we watched overnight while the top of it burned down. there was a massive hurricane force gusts that came through here and that just lit up the building. and it's blowing us around now. and it made the whole sky light up. and then that part burned down. and then firefighters came in here and shut down sunset boulevard so that they could go in there and stop this fire. but you can see it's still smoking very heavily. all of this leading to some 5000 acres or so burned here in just this one fire. the difference, though, brianna, with a lot of the fires that we talked to you about, is it's way more sporadic where you find houses. this is densely populated. that's what's making this so scary. is that right inside the

pacific palisades, there's a lot of windy, twisty streets. it's hard to get in and out. that's why you saw people abandoning their cars. and you just look across the county and you can see that there are just so much of a drag on resources for all of the firefighters. that's why here they're asking firefighters if you're off report to duty. that's why they're bringing in firefighters from other parts of the state so that they could come here and help. and that's why they're also saying for some people, no water right now, because we need to put that water to fighting fires. all of this impacting everyone in the county. when i woke up this morning, i could smell the fire. and i don't live anywhere near here. you can see that it's shut down. schools. they've closed schools today because of this. and this air quality is also a huge part of the issue here. and that is it's. brianna, i know you're from california too, but like i've never seen conditions like this, especially in january. and that's why you've got to point out climate change. the fact that we're so dry, the driest start to any year. what water year that

we've had here in california. it's so dry right now for any record over the last 80 years. so that just shows you that dryness, combined with the closeness and all that brush, because we haven't burned in here, making it very difficult for firefighters to break this fire and bring it down. >> yeah. it is. it's hard to believe what we're seeing right now there. >> steph, thank you so much for that. let's go now to julia vargas jones. you are there julia, in altadena we see crews working on a fire behind you. >> tell us what's going on there. >> well, brianna, we didn't expect to see this just a few minutes ago. maybe 20 minutes ago, we saw these fire trucks pull up in front of this house. and this tree now completely charred. it was a healthy, normal tree. the billboard businesses to the left and to the right. this house going completely up in flames in a matter of just minutes. as

we've been waiting here, we've witnessed the destruction, the ferocity of this fire. how quickly things spread. you know, we are parked just a block away from this. it is quite destructive and moving so fast. and one thing i will say, we're seeing all these resources in this area being pulled into this one spot. we know this means this is a hot spot and they want to stop it to avoid further damage. this is just like the palisades. it is a very densely populated area. every street we have been down, we've seen damage on both sides of the street, not just damage. i'm going to correct myself. i mean, active fires, homes, people's homes where their children grew up in both sides of these streets. this fire is jumping so quickly and in part is because of this wind that i'm sure you can see behind me. this wall of smoke over this way. this is angeles national forest. this is the the foot where the foothill of

these mountains. and this is the community of altadena. that is where the fire is coming from. but we are at least about 15 blocks from that. it is not close. and just like stephanie, i also smelled the fire this morning when i woke up inside my house and also i live at least like 30 minutes from this location. it's everywhere and it's it feels apocalyptic. it's the sense that los angeles is now just surrounded by the fire on these 3 or 4 different locations. 30,000 people here under evacuation orders, and it doesn't feel like there's any end in sight. brianna, this is the desperation of this day. we've talked to folks in this three four block radius, but they said they left last night thinking that they would come back today and be able to check on their homes and get their things, get their affairs in order. and the regret that we heard from them,

the regret of coming back home this morning and realizing that everything that they left in there will go up in flames. and it's not anyone's. it's anyone's best guess. what will happen next? and another thing i'll say is we've also seen a lot of volunteers trying their best to douse homes in water with water from their hoses, trying to keep it from spreading any further. but at this point, firefighters are saying, turn around, leave, it's too late. you might not be able to save this. go home, stay safe, because the priority here it is to preserve life. brianna. >> yeah. and that's i know a lot of people in these areas may not be used to that, but that is the equation right now with this fire traveling on the wind. >> julia vargas jones. thank you, stephanie. thank you as well.

>> boris, a resident of pacific palisades who had to evacuate her home, said that seeing her community surrounded by flames felt like being inside the movie war of the worlds. and she spoke to cnn earlier today. >> there were just vehicles on fire on the road burning. um, there's a church school at the bottom of the hill. um, some of my students go to it. it is. it was on fire. um, the grocery store, the i mean, it it actually, it was so surreal. i felt like we were in that movie, the war of the worlds. um, it i didn't recognize the streets that i were on as our own. my family is safe. um, my daughter, luckily just went back to college a few days before, um, we have our pets. um, everyone i've spoken to all of our friends, um, my clients, everyone is safe. um, i would say half of the people i know, um, i have about 200

students. i think about half of the people i know have lost their homes joining us now live on the phone is los angeles county supervisor lindsey horvath, and she represents pacific palisades. >> lindsey, thank you so much for being with us. just first, if you could get us an update on efforts to contain this specific wildfire that's threatening your community, i understand there are several obstacles in the way of getting that effort started. >> all right. well, it is a very complicated set of circumstances. >> i will say, when the palisades fire started, um, it started in the city of los angeles with the city leading, but within two hours we were in unified command city, county and state fire entities working to address what was going on on the ground. and and so there's a lot that's at stake in an area like the palisades, which are densely populated and in the hills, as opposed to some of the more spread out or

sparsely populated areas in the santa monica mountains, where perhaps we've seen some of these other fires. so there's a challenge also with the topanga canyon area, which is densely populated in this canyon that is very difficult to access. so we had to evacuate the entire canyon last night. last year at this time, we also were facing a road closure of the topanga canyon because of landslides, because of wet weather. so we know these extreme weather conditions are contributing to these crises, and we are grateful to those who are on the front lines, working hard to keep everybody safe at a time like this. >> no question about that. they are putting themselves in danger to protect others. lindsay, i've learned that something like a thousand structures have been destroyed by destroyed by the palisades fire so far, including your community library. could you give us a sense of where the damage is concentrated? is it in residential areas,

businesses? or a combination of both? >> it is widespread. >> um, it is not concentrated in any one kind of area. we have widespread loss of business businesses and, and uh, as well as residential structures. um, and so we are still working hard to get this thing contained overnight. the winds picked up between 10 p.m. and 5 p.m. 5 a.m. this morning. they were hurricane like conditions, so we had to ground all of our aerial vehicles, which are typically tools that we can use to to move faster at getting this fire under control. unfortunately, we couldn't use those tools last night because it was too dangerous. so we're hoping that we'll be able to get to a situation where we can deploy them later on this afternoon, but we are still in red flag conditions through the end of day tomorrow, and, um, you know, this is an ongoing, challenging event. so we're asking everyone to follow evacuation orders and to support our first responders by doing this. it's not only about

keeping our residents safe, but the longer people wait. when an evacuation order has been issued, the more we're putting our first responders at at stake. so we have to make sure that we're all working together. this kind of partnership is what's going to ultimately lead to success, but right now, it is an incredibly complex set of circumstances. >> yeah, such an important message to get out there. i just want to let our viewers know this. these are actually live images from los angeles. you see what appears to be a home there, fully engulfed in flames. lindsay, i also am curious about the human cost of these fires and specifically in your community of pacific palisades. i understand there were several injuries sustained overnight and into the early morning hours. i'm wondering what the status of that is now. has there been any loss of life? >> we don't have a total number of injuries. our sheriff did report this morning that there were two fatalities in the altadena area, which is a different fire than the palisades fire, but there are

several simultaneous fires ongoing throughout los angeles county. another fire, the hearst fire, is in a different part of my district. um, but that one is also ongoing. and so we have unified command on all of these all of these fires. we have, you know, we're throwing everything we've got at all of them to get them contained. but, you know, we never could have predicted that this confluence of circumstances, that this number of fires would hit us all at once. and so we are doing our best with every resource we have. and i am grateful to everyone who is stepping up to work hard on this. >> and we are grateful for you giving us this update. lindsey horvath, thank you so much for the time. please keep us updated on where things stand in your community. >> will do. thank you very much. >> so firefighters are up against brutal wind gusts as they race to contain the flames. we want to get an update now from the cnn weather center with meteorologist allison chinchar, who's tracking conditions. allison, what can we expect in the

coming hours? >> all right, so the good news is we will start to see some of these winds come down in the coming hours. but you have to look at what they've been. look at some of these wind speed gusts that have been measured so far, 80, 90, even 100mph. so keep in mind, even if we cut these numbers, say, in half, by the time we get to the evening hours, you're still talking 40 to 50 mile per hour gusts. that is plenty to continue moving these fires along. and it's not just one fire, it's four. you've got the eaton, the hurst, the woodley and the palisades. now, for people who are not familiar with this area, we've put some points on here that maybe you would understand where they are. say, for example, the hollywood sign, dodger stadium, the rose bowl stadium. to kind of put this in perspective. now, the palisades fire specifically, again, having some of those areas that zoomed down where you could see where that fire was, one of the concerns is going to be the wind gusts here. again, you're still looking at 30, 40, 50 mile per hour wind gusts even as we go through the afternoon, as well as the evening hours, we really don't start to see the improvements that a lot of these wind speeds until we get

to overnight tonight and into tomorrow. >> allison chinchar thank you so much for that important update. stay with cnn. there is much more of our coverage on the deadly fires across los angeles throughout the hour. plus, we're looking at the fallout from president elect donald trump's comments about controlling greenland and the panama canal, how foreign leaders are reacting today. >> in kobe, the making of a legend premieres january 25th on cnn. >> safe repair safelite replace. >> nobody likes a cracked windshield. >> ha! >> but at least you can go to safelite. >> com and schedule a fix in minutes. >> can confirm very easy. >> safelite can come to you for free. and our highly trained techs can replace your windshield right at your home. >> safelite repair safelite replace. >> go to safelite.com and schedule a replacement today.

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>> in the meantime, trump's suggestion that the u.s. should control greenland and the panama canal and rename the gulf of mexico the gulf of america is rattling u.s. allies around the world. greenland is part of denmark, a danish lawmaker being clear, saying in an interview with cnn, quote, greenland is not maga. with us now, congressman brandon gil, who is a freshman republican from texas. welcome to washington, congressman. you are going to love it or hate it. i am confident and we appreciate you being with us. i do want to ask you in this press conference yesterday, trump was asked if he would rule out using military force to get control of greenland and the panama canal, and trump would not rule that out. how would acquiring that land help everyday americans better afford their day to day expenses? >> well, first of all, brianna, thanks for having me. really appreciate it. listen, president trump is bringing us into a golden age of america. this is the new

manifest destiny acquiring reacquiring, the panama canal, acquiring greenland, renaming the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america. this is the the light of america expanding. you know, we have a very clear strategic interest geopolitically, both in greenland and in the panama canal, the panama canal, as you know, was created with the blood, toil, tears and sweat of american citizens. we've put an enormous amount of money into it. i don't think we ever should have relinquished control of the panama canal. so president trump is really just undoing some terrible decisions that have been made in past administrations. and that's going to be a key theme of his presidency. you know, the biggest job for republicans coming in this, this election cycle, after this election cycle is cleaning up the chaos and destruction that democrats have unleashed on this country over the past four years. president trump was a leader in border security. we had a. >> can you answer my question? >> trump, can you answer my

question? i'm asking you a question about the economy, because that really, if he does have a mandate, that's so much what it's about. >> i will also note that when it comes to the labor on the panama canal, so much of it was not american. we know that. but when it comes to helping americans afford spent four years telling us that the economy was in the greatest shape of our lives, telling americans to not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears, not believe their pocketbooks that they were looking at at the end of every week and trying to force americans to believe that we were in a booming economy, and now all of a sudden, democrats are obsessed with bringing inflation down and inflation. >> not long ago, they, they said, didn't exist. so the economy was great. >> i understand your i understand your frustration, biden. i understand your frustration with democrats. >> it's a mess that the democrat party created. >> i understand you have some frustration with democrats. >> but looking forward here as republicans will be controlling both chambers of congress and the white house, how does something like acquiring the

panama canal, greenland? how is that going to help economically? i hear you saying there are geopolitical advantages. maybe you can make more of a case there, but how is this going to help everyday americans? >> brianna, we've got clear trade interests in the panama canal specifically. but you know what? i want to know what's going to help americans is going to be securing our border. you know, i'll tell you, because you want to look forward. let's look forward. let's look at what happened just yesterday with the new congress, where republicans under speaker mike johnson's leadership brought a bill to the floor of the laken riley act, which was a modest proposal which simply stated that criminal illegal aliens who were on our territory, on our soil, who are committing burglary and theft, should be detained by dhs. that is unbelievably modest, that bill, had it been enacted two years ago, would have saved laken

riley life. in 159, democrats voted against it. i find that absolutely disgusting. this is a democrat party that is more interested in advancing the interests of criminal illegal aliens on american territory, committing crimes against american citizens than they are in advancing the interests of this nation. i find that utterly repugnant, and that is something president trump is going to fix. and listen, i think that the people of panama, i think that the people of greenland, i think that the people of canada, for that matter, should be honored that president trump wants to bring these territories under the american fold. >> okay. they don't seem honored, just to be clear, but i do want to ask you, because of this idea of using american military force, you were born on a military base. you know, you were a military kid. your dad was air force. do you support americans fighting, which always means

potentially dying for the u.s. to acquire greenland or the panama canal? thank you. >> it's really funny that you bring that up. you know, i'm going to leave the the methodology to president trump and follow his lead here. but democrats have made the world a much less safer place. over the past four years, we've had over half a million people die in the war in ukraine. >> that would have never happened if president trump was in the white house. that would have never happened about american lives. >> congressman, i'm talking about that. all of a sudden you're concerned about people dying in wars whenever a weak foreign policy under president joe biden is the reason that that the entire world has erupted in chaos. >> my concern, congressman, and people dying in wars is not sudden. and it is earnest. and so when you're talking about the possibility of americans as we are here, can you please answer my question?

>> i'm telling you, and president trump mentioned it at the press briefing yesterday. he's leaving options on the table. i will leave that up to him. >> you have an opinion. you're a congressman. you can leave that up to him what he wants to do. but you have an informed opinion on this. what are your concerns about that? >> listen, what i'm concerned with is advancing america's interests. i don't think we should have ever relinquished control of the panama canal. i think that we have a clear strategic geopolitical interest in greenland. you know, president trump can handle the process for how that goes about over the next few years. but i'm interested in america's interest. and that's something that's that's quite refreshing to see from the white house. we've had an america last foreign policy over the past four years with joe biden and democrats in congress, and that's changing. and it's great, and it's incredibly refreshing to see. >> congressman brandon gill,

thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks for having me on. >> we are watching these fires in los angeles. they're spreading so quickly that people are racing to stay out of their path as evacuation orders expand. and ahead, we're going to speak to someone who had to evacuate twice to stay ahead of the flames so what are you thinking? >> i'm thinking about our honeymoon. >> what about africa? safari? hot air balloon ride. swim with elephants. wait. can we afford a safari? great question. >> like everything takes a little planning. >> or put the money towards a down payment on a ranch in montana with horses. >> let's take a look at those scenarios. >> jp morgan wealth management has advisors in chase branches and tools like wealth plan to help keep you on track when you're planning for it all. >> the answer is jp morgan wealth management. >> speak now or forever hold your only took for our cough liquid.

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los angeles. it is scorched more than 5000 acres. it has just razed homes. it is just moving through them. businesses, local landmarks as well. mandatory evacuations are underway right now for the eaton fire, which is another one that is in pasadena and altadena, where officials confirmed that at least two people have died and several more have suffered. what they are calling significant injuries. cnn national correspondent julia vargas jones is on the ground in altadena. we're coming back to you, julia. there's been a lot of development there on the ground where you have been. tell us what you're seeing and what it should be. a downtown street that you can clearly see down, but is very much not. >> yeah. i mean, brianna, i think that is the shocking part of all of this, right? we see and we're used to the idea of wildfires. this is in the middle of the city. this is the main drag. there's businesses, there's billboards. you know, we just are in front of these

firefighters. they just finished with this one house. they're emptying out their hoses. they're rolling out and going to the next hotspot because and you see this all of the smoke. this is from this this one house and this one tree that has been on fire nonstop. they are stretched thin and they have to keep on moving 100 mile an hour winds in this region that is hurricane level strength winds. but instead of water, we have fire moving along with these winds. so they have to move quickly. these firefighters are working. some of them 36, 48 hour shifts. they are exhausted. governor gavin newsom just actually called in the national guard to help in these firefighting efforts. of course, these high winds, brianna, mean that it's really difficult to help fight these fires from the air, adding another layer of complexity here. and you can smell the the idea of it being an urban

center. you can smell the chemicals in the air. you can smell the construction materials in the air. it's not a regular fire. these structures are burning. there's chemicals. it's toxic. they're telling people, get out of here now! save yourselves. prevent any further loss of life. your house might not be safe, but at least you are all right. >> julia vargas jones, thank you so much for that report, boris. >> the harrowing stories coming out of the palisades have been heartbreaking and at times difficult to hear, and sharing their stories. some residents have broken down in tears, describing how they had to flee for their lives, sometimes on foot, not knowing where they were going or if their homes would survive. here was palisades resident and actor james woods, sharing his story with cnn. >> we got to walk out and i'm 77 years old, man. i can't walk up these hills. it's like mount everest here. it's like, you know, pretty steep. so, you

know, it's just you. i posted this on x, but but sarah was on with her eight year old niece last night. and. she came out. i'm sorry. just, you know, one day you're swimming in the pool, and the next day it's all gone. but she came out with her little yeti piggy bank for us to rebuild our house. >> we're joined now by palisades resident mariam zahr. she's the immediate past chair of the pacific palisades community council, and was also forced to evacuate her home. miriam, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us or your morning, i should say, out in the west coast. how are you holding up right now? >> hi. well, i'm holding up okay. my phone is in my hand. as you can probably tell from my neck bobbing up and down, because as i think most palestinians are doing, we're all texting each other and trying to share information to the extent that we can get it from either our fire department or lapd or the council office,

we're trying to collect that information. i'm on the phone now with our school board elected rep, who's going to drive through and see what happened to the schools. but we're all holding up by just exchanging sort of well wishes and information and trying to figure out what's going on. obviously, the news is also informing us and what we see and hear on tv and on the radio is disheartening. >> sure. >> i wonder what the process was like when you had to evacuate. i understand that you've had to move a second time now. >> right? um, so we live on a ridge that's not too far from where the fire broke out. um, so i think i was probably one of the first people to smell it. i was, you know, sitting in my backyard on the phone with my mother, and i said, wow, i smell burning eucalyptus. and i looked around and i saw nothing. and she said, well, it's windy. maybe you're just smelling the eucalyptus as it's coming off the trees. and

i said, no. there's an unmistakable smell of burn. um, and, you know, in the palisades, we always know that there's fire risk. and we had also been under a fire risk warning for a couple of days because there were high winds. and we knew that. so within a couple of minutes, i looked to my left and i could see the smoke rising. i called the fire department. i texted the people i know there. some other people had already called, and then within about ten minutes we heard the helicopters and i could see, i mean, i could see with my eyes that it was just growing exponentially. nothing like we'd seen before. i mean, as i say, the palisades gets fires once in a while. they're usually small. they're they're put out pretty quickly, and you can sort of tell that the fire department is getting their hands around it. but this one was just growing exponentially. so within probably about 15, 20 minutes, i was inside the house. i was telling the kids to get up, pack up. we probably have to evacuate. um, and i don't know the timing, but it wasn't too far after that where it was obvious for a lot of people that we had to go. so that was where i was as it unfolded. >> yeah. what is that like for

you emotionally to have to see your community endure this and then have to gather your children and motivate them to get out the door as fast as possible, knowing that what you've spent so much of your life working to build may not be there when you get back. >> well, it is mixed emotions and it isn't easy, but you're sort of going task to task and you're thinking quickly and you're moving quickly. you're not sort of sitting around saying, oh, this is horrible. um, although in the back of your head you realize that it is. i mean, with this one, i'm sure that i realize it was and i think a lot of people looking up could also probably guess it wasn't going to be the usual, um, we tried to put together the things that we thought we would need in case we weren't coming back to the house. so it was passports, you know, valuables, a few pictures. my husband wasn't home. obviously it was a monday or it was a tuesday. so i tried to gather what i thought he might need chargers, phones, laptops. um,

you know, the things you think you might need. ask my kids to do the same. um, you know, your your adrenaline is pumping and you're moving pretty quickly. by the time we did all of that and we packed the packed, i mean, you know, shoved everything into the two cars and started heading down that sense of eeriness was setting in because we could see open flames. i could see open flames in my backyard. and as we were driving down our street, there were a couple of front yards where embers had already landed and they were on fire. and then i came down. i'm sure you've already covered this, but pacific palisades is a is a hillside community. it only has 2 or 3 ways out. um, and so one of the arteries that i had to come down was an artery shared by, you know, hundreds of other homes. so by the time i got to that main artery, it was already clogged. and so people were sort of sitting around looking behind them at billowing smoke. >> it is a harrowing story. miriam khuza'a, thank you so much for sharing it with us. we hope the best for your family and for your community. thanks.

>> thank you. can i quickly add something? if you've got 10s? i just wanted to say that as as we were all stuck on that road trying to come down, it's called bienvenida. um, the council, our council office and our police department was in touch with me and probably a few other people in that lane, and we told them that it wasn't moving. they mobilized dot, which is our department of transportation, and they got things moving. so as far as evacuation, it was, um, i mean, it happened. everybody got out. so that was commendable. >> well, miriam, thank you so much for sharing that with us. again. we are hoping for the best as we take a look at these live images coming into cnn. you see smoke surrounding homes, an immense, immense fire. actually, four separate fires surrounding communities across southern california. we're going to keep an eye on this story and many more and take a quick break. stay with cnn kobe the making of a legend

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the sentencing. but let's put this into context. this is expected to be a pretty short proceeding. there will be no penalties. and he's even allowed to appear virtually because the judge is making a rare concession to his status as president elect, saying, look, i know there's a lot of physical and mental demands on you right now because you are going to be president. so i'll let you appear virtually. and that's what we expect trump to do. so now they're asking the supreme court to step in and stop this. but trump's team believes that his status as president elect should not only delay the sentencing, but mean that the entire case should be tossed out. so in addition to the immediate issue of what happens friday, they also have these larger appeals that they are filing, arguing that as president elect, he should not be subject to any state level proceedings, and also arguing that the supreme court's immunity decision on trump's january 6th case earlier this year. that also means that this verdict on 34 counts of falsifying business records should be tossed. now, it is unlikely that those arguments are going to succeed. they have failed so far at the lower

courts. but right now we're watching and waiting. what the supreme court does. look, this court has surprised us in the past on some of these trump related issues. but given the way that the judge has tailored the sentencing, it would be highly unusual if the supreme court were to delay. >> all right, paula, thank you so much. we'll be watching to see what happens here. there are some sharp questions for meta after the company said it's getting rid of fact checkers on facebook and instagram and following in the footsteps of elon musk's ex. we'll have that next have you seen the papers? >> apparently, it's already decided. >> this year, one choice leaves no doubt conclave is director edward berger's stunning cinematic achievement in a stellar ensemble cast. >> burn up the screen. >> now, afi has named conclave one of the best pictures of the year and conclave for 11 critics choice awards, including best picture of the year. >> wasn't the outcome i expected? >> no, but it's wonderful all

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facebook, instagram and threads just loosened the rules on what it considers hate speech on its platforms. yesterday, meta ceo mark zuckerberg announced sweeping changes to content moderation, including replacing independent fact checkers with user generated community notes. at least one company executive acknowledged the move is directly related to the changing administration. let's get the latest now from cnn media correspondent hadas gold. hadas, tell us more about how these quiet changes to hate speech rules might affect users. >> yeah, this is definitely being seen as a reaction to the new administration. remember that president-elect trump once threatened to jail mark zuckerberg. >> but what's notable is not only the changes to the fact checking that they're getting rid of in the united states, at least of the fact checking, but also the changes, as you noted, to the hateful conduct and content that was once banned on facebook that now will be allowed. >> and so one of the things that will now be allowed that meta is saying is that they say we do allow allegations of

mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality, and common non-serious usage of words like weird other things that you can now do on meta platforms are calling things, calling women objects, or household property, calling transgender non-binary people as it, arguing that women or some lgbtq people should not hold certain jobs when the content is based on religious beliefs. and this is something that the new facebook's new policy chief said. you know what? we realize that you could say some of these things in congress, but you couldn't say them on our platforms. and we didn't think that was okay. now, this is raising a lot of alarms in the lgbtq community. and even amongst one of the co-chairs of meta's own oversight board, who says they are concerned because they have seen how hate speech can lead to real life harm. >> for us. >> hadas gold, thank you so much for that important update. still ahead on cnn news central fires are tearing through los angeles county, and we are

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