[ bleep ] asap. donald trump jr. texted, again and again, urging action by the president. quote, we need an oval office address. he has to lead now. it has gone too far and gotten out of hand. >> reporter: also, texts from several fox news hosts who just hours later would publicly downplay the insurrection, including laura ingram. >> this is hurting all of us. he is destroying his legacy. >> reporter: and sean hannity. >> can he make a statement? ask people to leave the capitol? >> reporter: cheney suggested the former president may have illegally obstructed an official proceeding of congress, which is a felony. >> did donald trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes? >> monday night, the former white house chief of staff addressed the move to hold him

in contempt. >> this is not about me holding me in contempt. it's not even about making the capitol safer. this is about donald trump and about actually going after him, once again. >> reporter: the justice department will ultimately decide if meadows will face criminal charges similar to steve bannon. also today, retired general keith kellogg, who was mike pence's national security adviser and reportedly was with president trump on january 6th, met with the one-sixth committee to provide a deposition. norah. >> chris van cleave, thank you. the "cbs overnight news" will be right back. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. call coventry direct to learn more. we thought we had planned carefully for our

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the fact that we are losing so many lives from this right now. >> reporter: new cdc data shows the omicron variant increasing in the u.s., making up nearly 3% of all new infections. a study out of south africa today shows the variant appears to be more resistant to two doses of the pfizer vaccine. knocking down efficacy against hospitalization to 70% and against infection to 33%. but if authorized by the fda, a new treatment pill could be available this month. >> this pill can reduce approximately nine out of ten hospitalizations. it's very, very sensitive to this antiviral. so speck technical tack lar results. >> today, dr. anthony fauci said omicron will dominate the u.s. because of its rapid growth. the nfl is tackling covid spread, mandating boosters for coaches and some team employees. this comes after 65 players across the league tested positive in the last two days.

>> to come back here a year later, and be in this room is just really surreal and i have just been so grateful. >> reporter: it was one year ago today in this room that sandra lindsey became the first american to get a covid vaccination. the critical care nurse is now a strong advocate for all americans to trust the science. >> we're exhausted, and we really want to see people protected. >> what does that exhaustion feel like? >> it just feels like a big weight on your shoulders. >> reporter: meanwhile, infections among children are spiking. up nearly 24% since last week. starting today, new york city will require children ages 5 to 11 to show proof of at least one vaccine dose. and december 27th, children 12 and up will have to show they are fully vaccinated. norah? >> enjoyed seeing that nurse again. elise preston, thank you so much. well, santa may be able to deliver all his presents in one night but the rest of us need to plan ahead. the deadline for shipping your

holiday gifts is fast approaching if you want them to arrive before christmas. cbs's meg oliver reports. >> reporter: when did business really start to pick up? >> i would say at least a week before thanksgiving. >> reporter: this week, holiday mailing sbengs intensifies with christmas only days away. ongoing long island, new york, fedex courier raymond is hustling to keep up. delivering up to 250 packages six days a week during the holiday season. do you feel like you can keep up this pace? >> i don't think anybody can. >> reporter: tornado damage in the central u.s., supply chain shortages, and a surge in online shopping are adding to the delivery pressure. fedex expects to ship 100 million more packages this-holiday season, compared to 2019. >> we sort 6,000 packages an hour here. >> reporter: the net mail branch is managing director of tri-state district fedex express. >> what's different about this year? >> the volume is obviously higher.

our residential volume is much higher than it has been in the past. >> reporter: the company is hoping to hire 90,000 extra employees to help them through the peak season. ups is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers. the u.s. postal service expects to process nearly 2.3 billion pieces of mail this week. making it the busiest time for holiday shipping. though the delivery rush means longer hours for wenz, he's not complaining. it must feel good when you see people's faces when you are delivering these packages. >> every one i take out. they always ask you like your job? i says no, i love my job. >> here at this fedex facility, there are 84 miles of conveyer belts to sort these packages. now, if you miss tomorrow's ground-shipping deadline, you have until december 22nd to send two day and december 23rd to send overnight but fedex is closed on christmas day. norah? >> they deserve the day off. meg oliver, thank you.

all right. there has been so much turmoil and suffering in haiti this year, and tonight at least 66 people are dead and dozens more wounded after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and exploded in northern haiti. we want to warn you that some of the images you are about to see are disturbing. >> reporter: flames from the explosion towered into the sky after a truck loaded with fuel crashed in a neighborhood, and desperate residents rushed to collect the leaking gasoline. daylight reveal the the devastation in haiti's second largest city, at least 66 dead with dozens more injured and hospitals overwhelmed. unfortunately, many people died said the city's mayor. we couldn't save them. fuel is scarce in haiti, as gangs that control more and more of the country hijack and block the trucks transporting it. this disaster is the latest in a series of crises here. from a presidential

assassination and massive earthquake this summer, to kidnappings, poverty, and hunger afflicting the population. >> we are sort of on overload in terms of tragedies. >> reporter: leoni is with miami's neighborhood center. part of a group of organizations working to send aid. >> we know that the people from cape haitian were definitely overcome this tragedy. but it is absolutely a tragedy that did not need to happen. >> reporter: for now, she says medical assistance is the most pressing need. manuel bojorquez, cbs news miami. still ahead. the new punishment for former nyquil severe gives you powerful relief for your worst cold and flu symptoms, on sunday night and every night. nyquil severe. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, best sleep with a cold, medicine. feeling sluggish or weighed down?

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the prilosec otc two-week challenge is helping people love what they love again. just one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. because life starts when heartburn stops. take the challenge at prilosecotc dot com. former new york governor andrew cuomo is being ordered by a state ethics panel to turn over more than $5 million he received for his book on the pandemic. the ethics panel approved the book deal last year after cuomo promised to write it on his own time and not use state resources or workers but an investigation last month found his staff members worked numerous hours on the book during office hours. cuomo's lawyer says he won't give up the money without a fight. all right. coming up next. in the midst of tragedy, our fellow americans rise to meet the challenge.

we want to return now to kentucky where the destruction of mother nature doesn't hold a candle to the humanity of the people there. here's cbs's mola lenghi. >> reporter: katherine owns a food truck in louisville, kentucky. >> actually, i just put up my truck for the winter. we are done. >> reporter: or so she thought until she woke up saturday morning and saw the devastation in mayfield. >> turned on the news and i just bawled. i'm like, oh, my god. i know people are going to need food. >> reporter: she had a few inedient a food re topletehe recipe. so, wong raised $100,000 online. she called a few food truck friends, and wound up here cooking alongside the disaster aid charity world central kitchen. that team is used to driving

into situations like this. meeting people like marc anthony and his mother whose home is unlivable. >> it's ti-- it's totally trash. i absolutely love this home. i don't even want to leave it. >> reporter: so, she didn't. instead, she converted it into a food distribution hub for other victims of the storm. >> we are all in this together. we are all sharing people helping. >> reporter: it is not a profound concept but it's not meant to be. >> we are human beings. we help each other out. >> we're here for everybody because everybody's here for us. >> reporter: people in need who somehow still find something to give. mola lenghi cbs news, mayfield, kentucky. and that is the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you, the news continues. for others, go back to bed or check back later for cbs mornings. and follow us online anytime at cbsnews.com. reporting from the nation's capital, i'm norah o'donnell.

this is cbs news flash. i'm tom hanson in new york. we begin with breaking news. the house has voted to hold former white house chief of staff mark meadows in contempt of congress. meadows defied a subpoena for the committee investigating the insurrection. the case will now head to the justice department, which will decide whether to press charges. holiday travel appears to be fwouns bouncing back. according to aaa, more than 109 million americans are expected to hit the roads for the holidays. a number approaching pre-pandemic levels. and steph curry is now the three-point king of the nba. the golden state warriors' star guard knocked down his 2,974th three-pointer agains the knicks, passing ray alan for the

crown. for more news, download the cbs news app on your cell phone or connected tv. i'm tom hanson, cbs news, new york. >> this is the "cbs overnight news." good evening, and thank you so much for joining us. we are going to begin with te most heart-wrenching witness accounts we have heard since that once-in-a-century outbreak of tornados across america's heartland. in kentucky tonight, the state is in a res kie-and-recovery mode with more than 120 people unaccounted for. but the governor says he believes that number is even hire residents are trying to pick up the pieces in what could be a years-long recovery. experts say insurance losses from the destructive tornados could reach $5 billion across six states.

the death toll now stands at 88 and we are now learning that includes at least 13 children, including 9-year-old aniston rackly from missouri. this photo was taken as she sheltered in place inside a bathroom with her two sisters just moments before the storm hit. well president biden today approved an emergency declaration for counties in tennessee and illinois where that amazon warehouse collapse claimed six lives. the president also declared an emergency for kentucky a couple days ago and he will visit the state on wednesday to survey the damage. and that's where cbs's lilia luciano will lead off our coverage tonight in dawson springs. good evening, lilia. >> reporter: norah, good evening. everywhere you look here, the devastation is just disorienting. nothing makes sense. and so many people are still missing. the kentucky national guard and fema are assisting in the search over here for any signs of life. and today, we traveled to an even smaller town that lost 6% of its population in just one night.

cattle rancher danny miller says he has seen tornados in his life time but none like the one that took the lives of his brother billy and his wife. >> they lived in a double wide that just exploded i reckon. they said they was found outside the house laying on their sides facing each other. >> they were always together. so, that's the way they went home. >> reporter: danny and his wife jane say they depended on billy to keep loss valley farm which has been in the family for four generations but when the tornado killed 40% of his cows, he said he wanted to quit. >> lost this many at one time. >> it's hard to make it on a small farm, especially to your total livelihood comes from it. >> reporter: at least 1 1 people were killed in a town of 200. >> we still definitely are in rescue and recovery. we have people missing.

um, i still expect that we will find at least some more bodies. there is just so much destruction. i hope that that's not the case. but it's -- it's still an expectation. >> reporter: at least 17 people died here in hopkins county. there is an urgent search-and-rescue mission for more than 80 people who are still unaccounted for. >> all right. let's break. let's go get it. >> reporter: david jarden and his volunteer group hit the ground in dawson springs soon after the tornado struck to provide natural disaster relief. >> we are all veterans, we're all first responders. we have seen bad things. if we find a body, it's going to be a bad day. if they find a body, it could very well be a neighbor, friend, family, lofbd oloved one. it would be an excruciatingly bad day so if we can take that off their plate and that -- we'll -- we'll shoulder that and as far as not letting them have to. >> reporter: danny miller, whose small cattle business was devastated, told me he won't quit after all because he is

thinking about the next generation. i asked him what would you tell president biden who is going to be around here tomorrow? and he says we need help. norah. >> they do need help. i am so thinking of the miller family. thank you, lilia. well tonight, we are tracking a cross-country storm that could hit tornado ravaged communities with heavy rain and damaging winds. just think about that. tomorrow, southern illinois and kentucky could get gusts up to 50 miles per hour. across the plains, gusts could hit 70 miles per hour. rain is likely every day from wednesday to saturday. seems cruel. and tonight, there is wild weather in the west. floodwater sent an empty car floating down the la river, and in orange county, neighborhoods near an area burned by wildfires were evacuated because of mud slides. we are learning more about what then-president trump knew during the january 6th insurrection on the capitol. his chief of staff turn order more than 9,000 text messages

but when the congressional committee investigating the riot asked for his call records, mark meadows stopped cooperating. that's why the house voted tonight to hold him in contempt. cbs's chris van cleave reports from capitol hill. >> reporter: tonight, mark meadows becomes the first current or former house member voted in contempt of congress in nearly 200 years for refusing to cooperate with the january 6th committee. >> it useems like a tiny handfu of people who think that somehow they are above the law because they know a former president of the united states. and i am sorry, that's just not how our legal system works. we have no kings here. >> reporter: the vote comes after ywyoming republican liz cheney read text messages from january 6th including from donald trump jr. >> he's got to condemn this [ bleep ] asap. donald trump jr. texted, again and again, urging action by the

president. quote, we need an oval office address. he has to lead now. it has gone too far and gotten out of hand. >> reporter: also, texts from several fox news hosts who just hours later would publicly downplay the insurrection, including lawyer laura ingram. >> this is hurting all of us. he is destroying his legacy. >> reporter: and sean hannity. >> can he make a statement? ask people to leave the capitol? >> reporter: cheney suggested the former president may have illegally obstructed an official proceeding of congress, which is a felony. >> did donald trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes? >> reporter: monday night the former white house chief of staff addressed the move to hold him in contempt. >> this is not about me holding me in contempt. it is not even about making the capitol safer. this is about donald trump and about actually going after him,

once again. >> reporter: the justice department will ultimately decide if meadows will face criminal charges similar to steve bannon. also today, retired general keith kellogg, who was mike pence's national security adviser and reportedly was with president trump on january 6th, met with the 1-6 committee to provide a deposition. norah. >> chris van cleave, thank you. former-york governor andrew cuomo is being ordered bay state ethics panel to turn over more than $5 million he received for his book on the pandemic. the ethics panel approved the book deal last year, after cuomo promised to write it on his own time, and not use state resources or workers. but an investigation last month found his staff members worked numerous hours on the book during officer office hours. cuomo's lawyer says he won't give up the money without a fight. the "cbs overnight news" will be right back.

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this is the "cbs overnight news." >> i am ben tracie in washington. thanks for staying with us. if you are planning to ship any of your holiday gifts, well you are running out of time. fedex, ups, and the u.s. postal service say today is the last day to order online presents for ground shipping to make sure they arrive before christmas. meg oliver is at a fedex facility outside new york city getting a firsthand look at the holiday rush. >> reporter: the continued supply chain shortages and popularity of online shopping

are adding to the delivery chaos. fedex expects to ship more than 100 million more packages this-holiday season. when did business really start to pick up? >> oh, i would say at least a week before thanksgiving. >> and you have been going nonstop ever since? >> nonstop. >> reporter: fedex courier raymond delivering up to 250 packages six days a week during the holidays. >> do you feel like you can keep up -- keep up this pace? >> i don't think anybody can. >> reporter: fedex says they are delivering twice as many packages this-holiday season as before the pandemic. >> we sort 6,000 packages an hour here. >> reporter: nanette is managing director of fedex express. >> the volume is obviously more higher. our residential volume is much higher than it has been in the past. >> reporter: the company is

hoping to hire 90,000 extra employees to get them through the peak season. and fedex isn't the only delivery service expanding its operation. ups is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers, as they typically do, and they are working faster than last year. they can now process 130,000 additional pieces an hour. the united states postal service is also growing. they say they have hired more than 185,000 employees since the beginning of the last-fiscal year. though the delivery surge means longer work days for wenz and perhaps santa, too, wenz knows his job is particularly special this time of year. >> it must feel good when you see people's faces when you are delivering these packages. >> everyone that i -- i train a lot of people. and everyone everyone i take out, they always ask me you like your job? i says no, i love my job. >> reporter: he loves his job. fedex has 84 miles of conveyer

belts in this facility alone to help sort through packages. you have till the 22nd to ship by two days and the 23rd to ship overnight but it will cost you but fedex wants you to know they are closed on christmas day. a lot of people are discovering some of the items on their christmas list are simply impossible to find. and part of the problem is due to what are called grinch bots. these computerized programs scan the internet for popular products, and snap them up by the dozens. they are then resold at a huge markup. some members of congress want to put a stop to this but it's, sadly, too late for this-holiday season. here's mark strassman. >> reporter: take sony's ps5 gaming console. a hot item in this second covid christmas. about 500 bucks retail but good luck. no store seems to have one. ask dave kennedy, a father of two teenaged boys. >> i have been on marketplace and ebay and that.

and they're astronomical. >> how much? >> the lowest i they have seen is about 950. you kno, it's frustrating, absolutely frustrating because, you know, there is kids that want it and there is adults buying these things to resell them. >> reporter: think of shoppers shoving each other aside in stores. online, that stampede is invisible. grinch bots, automated softwar relentlessly searching, finding, snapping up hot consumer items before you can. >> it's not illegal but it's certainly unethical. taking advantage and ripping people off ior higher prices. >> reporter: we met pam murphy, ceo of imperva, a cybersecurity company at their headquarters outside of san francisco. >> here, we have got an example of a bad bot trying to get through. >> reporter: their customers include major retailers. they face a perfect grinch-bot storm. the pandemic, a surge in online shopping, and america's supply chain crisis. >> they basically go onto retail

sites, and they basically scan the inventory at a rate often more than once per second and they effectively buy it up before the average consumer can. >> the average consumer doesn't have a chance? >> it adds no value to the economy. you have bot operators taking the margin and it goes into an underground economy. it is not a good thing for society. >> reporter: during the pandemic, bot activity on retail sites doubled. that's why online, you are seeing more of this captcha command. it's a bot-blocker. >> nobody gets all of them, right? >> you are right. it can never be 100. >> nintendo introduced its gaming console, the switch oled edition. grinch bot activity doubled. last christmas, the ps5 was new. bot traffic surged 800%. murphy -- a mother of two -- looked for one everywhere. >> i ended up purchasing it at a multiple of what the street market is from a very -- from a site that i wasn't sure honestly was genuine. >> how much over retail did you

wind up paying? >> 2 to 3x. >> how it that make you feel? >> frustrated. >> reporter: like dave kennedy this christmas. >> i will keep trying, yeah. >> even though you know what you are up against? >> sometimes you get lucky. >> reporter: he knows the underground economy he is up against, no ifs, ands, or bots. mark strassman, cbs news, san francisco.

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for many of us, the holiday season is a time to remember loved ones who are no longer with us. found one way to reconnect in the middle of a forest. >> reporter: in a corner of the pacific northwest, muffled by moss and trees that are centuries old sits an out-of-place relic. a rotary phone that's connected to nothing except the wind. >> hey, ellie belly. how are you? i miss you, little fwirl girl. >> every few week, andre and aaron sylvester and the rest of their young family trudge out to priest point park outside olympia, washington, to use that phone to call joelle, their

4-year-old daughter. >> this never gets easier. >> reporter: without warning, joelle died last year from an infection. but out here, joelle is somehow there. on the other end of the line. >> literally, i can hear her. >> hi, baby. i always feel lighter. ready to go back into the real world of, you know, without my daughter. >> reporter: the phone mysteriously appeared shortly after joelle died. >> no one was here and i thought this might be a good place. >> reporter: put there by photographer and amateur carpenter cori denbeck as his way to grieve. >> just couldn't imagine if something like that happened to my daughter. and um, just was something i had to do. >> i am right behind you. >> reporter: one of his own daughters was friends with joelle.

she is now 5. >> i don't think i got -- really got, um, how many people would, um, really, really, really needed something like this. >> reporter: for weeks, that phone was there and few knew. but then, word quietly spread. soon, complete strangers were braving the northwest rain. making the longest of long-distance calls. lori provo was one of them. >> when you are grieving, you -- you look for any avenue to try to connect that you can. to -- to make that emotional connection. and that's what the telephone i thought would do for me. >> and did it? >> it did. it did. hi, tyler. it's mom. >> reporter: she lost her 27-year-old son tyler last year. >> i will be back to talk to you again. of course it's very emotional, as soon as you pick up the phone

the tears flow and i have been out here several times and it's been the same experience every time. i have kleenex in my pocket. you can't explain why the emotions are flowing as soon as you pick up that phone. but they do. >> reporter: the desire to connect with lost loved ones is universal, especially when the end comes so fast. in 2011 in the wake of japan's devastating tsunami survivors started flocking to this small phone booth high on a hill. put there months earlier by a man who just wanted to talk to his cousin who had died of cancer. [ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: for all the lost

souls who the sea never returned, that phone of the wind became one of the few places to offer a kind of inexplicable solace. [ speaking foreign language ] >> reporter: that idea had blown across the pacific. cory heard about it and it stuck for reasons he still doesn't know. >> i just thought it would be perfect for now and as far as i know, there wasn't -- at the time wasn't one that i knew of in the united states. >> reporter: much to his surprise, that old phone helped cory, too. >> my mom passed away, i never really, like, dealt with it i guess. hey, mom. it's me. >> reporter: the impulse to call her, he says, just came out of nowhere.

>> i -- i miss you. i guess i will talk to you later. all right. bye love you. >> reporter: it makes no logical sense. to dial a phone connected to nothing. yet, for the siylvesters and countless others, speaking their grief to the wind seems to offer a certain kind of connection that heals. >> i think one of the most dangerous things, um, that you can do to yourself is to keep your feelings -- whatever they are -- locked up inside. bye, ellie. >> i love you. >> something so simple and old rotary phone on a tree. >> right. >> is just -- is just crazy how much impact that that has. >> reporter: whispers in the wind. you might not hear them unless you listen.

butterfly lovers in california are all the flutd flutter over the return of the magnificent migrating monarch butterflies. carter evans has the story. >> reporter: at the crack of dawn, the golfers here are not alone. >> you want to count in groups of five or ten. >> reporter: researcher richard brockman is also on the green counting monarch butterflies just hanging out behind the ninth hole. >> here, we have like a few hundred that are clustering close together. they just look like pinecones or dead leaves or whatever. most people walking by would never even see them. >> reporter: an estimated 200,000 migrating western monarchs are spending winter here in california. last year, only 2,000 were spotted and they were thought to

be on the verge of extinction. >> one of the biggest factors that are impacting monarch populations are insecticide, as well as habitat loss. >> so is there a big comeback? >> i think it's way too early to tell and we will need a few years of decent numbers in order to see if this is a really a comeback. >> in cool weather, the monarchs cluster in trees, only flying off to feed and pollinate when temperatures rise. conserving energy for spring when it's time to reproduce. future generations will then fly to other western states for the summer, before making the long journey back to call next winter. >> what i love most about monarchs is they can help so many other insects and so many other plants, if we help protect them. >> reporter: carter evans, cbs news, los angeles. >> and that he is the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you, the news continues. for others, check back later for cbs mornings. and follow us online anytime at cbsnews.com. reporting from the nation's capital, i'm ben tracie.

this is cbs news flash. i'm tom hanson in new york. we begin with breaking news. the house has voted to hold former-white house chief of staff mark meadows in contempt of congress. meadows defied a subpoena for the committee investigating the insurrection. the case will now head to the justice department, which will decide whether to press charges. holiday travel appears to be bouncing back. according to aaa, more than 109 million americans are expected to hit the roads for the holidays. a number approaching pre-pandemic levels. and steph curry is now the three-points king of the nba. the golden state warriors' star guard knocked down his 2,974th

three pointer against the knicks, passing ray alan for the crown. for more news, download the cbs news app on your cell phone or connected tv. m tom hanson, cbs new it's it's wednesday, december 15th, 2021. this is the "cbs morning news." overnight, historic vote on capitol hill. the house holds mark meadows in contempt of congress for defying the january 6th investigation. what happens next for the former white house chief of staff. heading to kentucky. president biden will visit areas ravaged by a series of tornadoes. the estimated damage costs across the states. 800,000 deaths. the u.s. reaches a somber threshold in the covid pandemic as we learn more about pfizer's vaccine efficacy against the omicron variant. good morning, i'm elise

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