this is the cbs "overnight news." good evening. the sun was thankfully shining today across much of the east coast. but for millions of people, the weekend was a whiteout. a powerful nor'easter swept from virginia to maine, bringing blizzard conditions to many areas, and leaving a trail of power outages. fortunately, the damage is not extreme. but massachusetts bore the brunt of the storm's fury. boston is now recovering from one of the biggest snowstorms in its history. that's where we find our reporter tonight.

good evening. >> reporter: well, good evening. the relentless all-day storm buried boston and most of new england. today, the city emerged and began to dig out. homes were encased in a shell of snow and ice when the sun rose over massachusetts. sea spray froze on the houses, as hurricane force winds lashed the east coast. the ferocity forcing some to evacuate. >> we got some sandbags. we elevated things in our basement. but this is one of the worst storms i've seen so far. >> reporter: on cape cod, the storm left this home hanging by a thread. and on flooded nantucket, homes are under water. the storm brought snow from south carolina to maine, including nearly two feet in boston. it was one of the city's biggest single day january snowfalls on record. >> at times, the snow was coming down at more than three inches an hour. it was very, very fast, very intense, and so we did reach zero visibility and whiteout

conditions. >> reporter: new york is digging out from 20 inches, while temperatures in the teens are creating a new danger. >> i want to remind all new yorkers, it's going to be very, very cold. >> reporter: but for this providence couple, the storm only made their wedding day more memorable. >> i now pronounce you husband and wife. >> reporter: unfortunately, it wasn't all happy endings. three people did die on long island while shoveling snow. here in boston, schools will reopen tomorrow. people will return to work. wort ady to go. >> thank y> weurn now to the co pandemic. new cases topped 500,000 on saturday. that's down 33% over the last two weeks. cbs's reporter is in los angeles with more. lilia. >> reporter: good evening. new infections here in l.a.

county have dropped nearly 50%. and today, it's football, it's weekend fun that's on people's minds. but officials are still urging caution. a sigh of relief this weekend, as the omicron surge starts to stabilize in cities nationwide. >> it's scary to be out because there's so many people around. >> reporter: covid deaths skyrocketed 86% since new years, but new infections and hospitalizations are now dropping. and there's some welcome optimism on the new variants front. the former fda commissioner says it appears vaccines could fight the variant ba.2. >> there's data out of the uk that suggests a fully boosted person may be more protected against this new varnl than they were against the original strain of omicron. >> reporter: still, just 31% are boosted.on't gotten a sinshot. yet the nation is eager for normalcy. san francisco will be the first major city to roll back its indoor mask mandate starting tuesday.

and in arkansas, the governor is calling for a whole new mindset. >> we need to move from a pandemic status. i think we need to move out of the panic mode. >> do we know why the death rate skyrocketed since the new year? >> reporter: that's a reflection of the time it takes between initial infection and when people become severely ill. that could take between two to three weeks. of course, now that cases are coming down, we should expect that deaths will too in the coming days. >> all right, thank you. a horrific crash in las vegas has killed nine people. it happened saturday night when a driver sped through a red light, causing a six-vehicle crash. the driver and his passenger died, along with seven others. a former teacher and mother of five from kansas is under arrest in virginia tonight, charged with leading an

all-female isis battalion in syria. the justice department alleges she trained women and children on the use of ak-47 assault rifles and suicide belts. she's expected to appear in federal court tomorrow in alexandria, virginia. ukraine's president is trying to tamp down talk of war. christina is at the white house as the u.s. and allies in europe are engaged in some high-stakes diplomacy. christina? >> reporter: good evening. the white house says that it understands the difficult president the ukrainian president is in. but points out while he's down playing the threat of a russian invasion, he's also asking for hundreds of millions in aid to guard against it. ukraine's ambassador said today her country knows very well what russia is capable of. however -- >> we cannot afford to panic. >> reporter: this follows comments by the ukrainian

president that increasingly dramatic warnings from the u.s. and eu are threatening to destabilize his country. >> panic is not a policy. >> reporter: but biden administration officials say their rhetoric reflects reality. >> so there's no sign yet of any kind of deescalation? >> on the contrary, he's moved more forces since we've been encouraging him to deescalate. >> reporter: over the weekend, the state department posted guidance on land routes out of ukraine for any americans needing to leave. >> i'll be moving u.s. troops to eastern europe and the nato countries in the near term. >> reporter: the u.s. has 8500 troops on stand by to reinforce nato allies. and the uk is considering making its biggest possible offer of military support. meanwhile, after eight years of war with russia, soldiers on ukraine's eastern front wait to see what will happen. and civilians have already seen too much. >> translator: make peace. reach an agreement. we're all adults.

>> christina, switching gears. last night, north korea launched its seventh ballistic missile test this month alone. do we have any idea what we should make of that at this point? >> reporter: north korea has been stepping up missile testing in the region recently, and the u.s. military overnight released a statement saying it should refrain from further destabilizing acting. now, north korea restarted those missile launches after the failed talks between president kim and then president trump in 2019. however, the biden administration said it's willing to meet with north korea without preconditions at any time. but so far the north koreans have not taken anyone up on that offer. >> christina, thank you. >> the cbs "overnight news" will be right back.

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this is the cbs "overnight news." welcome back to the "overnight news." i'm jericka duncan. investors are bracing for the start of yet another wild week, both on wall street and in the world of bitcoin. the most well-known cryptocurrency has been plummeting in value over the last two months. last week, the price of each bitcoin dropped to $33,000, down more than 50% from its november peak. so where will cryptocurrencies go from here? while bitcoin may be a part of our future, many people still don't fully understand it.

our reporter went mining for a little clarity. >> it's the safest and easiest way to buy and sell crypto. >> reporter: at some point, not long ago, crypto trading went main stream. >> old money is out. >> reporter: it was probably during a commercial break. >> fortune favors a break. >> reporter: act now, get in soon, the ads suggest. but there's a strange truth about this hot new thing. bitcoin, the king of digital currencies has already existed for 13 years. >> what is a bitcoin? let's put it up on the screen. >> reporter: yet it can be hard to pin down what it is or what role it might play. >> this is the place we found. we believe it will take bitcoin. it took weeks of hunting to find a place we could use the digital currency. we landed at helen's pizza in jersey city, new jersey. >> i got my app.

>> reporter: jacob goldstei, a financial wall street with a bitcoin wallet loaded on his phone, offered to buy our slices. >> this is go time. wait, we don't want this here. send now. two-step verification. got to open the authenticator. >> reporter: one reason bit cois cumbersome to use is because its block chain, the public place where every transaction is recorded, can't handle that many entries at a time. but the idea of using independent computers to separately record and verify transactions is also what potentially up-ends the way banking has worked. always before you needed some central authority, the government, a bank, an insurance

company to kind of keep track of everything. but with bitcoin, you don't need that central institution. a bunch of people can get together and use technology to do it themselves. >> if everyone keeps the list, no one needs the list. >> bitcoin code is for everyone to see. it's just this code. >> reporter: the code went live in january 2009. satoshi created a revolutionary scheme. bitcoin would be earned by helping maintain the record of transactions. >> it's mining right now. >> reporter: this man has been doing it for years. >> every bitcoin people buy was mined at one point or another. >> this is what it's running on. thousands of systems like this. >> exactly. and then go try to shut that down. >> reporter: he describes bitcoin mining as a competition

to guess a password. >> we think they're going to get upset when they do this. >> reporter: a password that gets harder. >> so imagine having this in your house. >> i might get kicked out. >> reporter: it's become a computing arms race with environmental consequences. bitcoin mining now consumes more electricity than some entire countries. all of these processors competing for the 6.25 bitcoins that are currently minted about every ten minutes. >> it used to be more. it staed with 50. >> now we're makinge. that computer could have mined all of them in 2009. >> the password was just much easier. >> much easier. >> nobody knew about bitcoin. it was not worth anything, until the pizza day. >> pizza day. it's become a kind of holiday. >> there's your pizza.

>> reporter: it remembers may 22, 2010, when this man offered 10,000 bitcoins to anyone who would deliver him two pizzas. when the pies arrived, the world was different. bitcoin, a currency backed by nothing but code, had done the work of real money. like gold and paper before it, it had value because a certain group of people agreed it had value. unlike money, you can't keep pr printing it. folks are understandably evangelical. if they can get more people to believe in bitcoin, the price will go up. >> my husband likes to tell me about it. i black out after a little while. >> reporter: but 11 years after pizza day, pizza still can't buy much anything. it does let you store and acros government meddling. china found that so threatening, they banned bitcoin. el salvador made it so

appealing, they made it an official currency. so the dream is somehow, not just bitcoin, but all the different cryptocurrencies all doing slightly different work, could swoop in and take over. there's lots of things in the financial world that aren't great, when there's unnecessary thieves and too many middlemen. try buying a house. please, crypto, make it cheaper. it's weird that it's been the promise for so long now. like when somebody told me about this ten years ago, i thought that's interesting and excited. maybe it will be money, but it hasn't happened yet. >> reporter: it might happen as big players take over the digital dollars. >> goldman sachs ramping up its bitcoin trading operation. >> reporter: that were first nurtured by anti-establishment people. >> i don't want to see a repeat

of what happened 15, 20 years ago. >> reporter: democratic chairman of the senate banking committee sees the marriage of crypto and wall street as possibly a dangerous bubble. >> regardless of how popular it is, our job is to protect the financial system from being infected with risk that could bring everything down the way this same kind of crowd, if not the exact same people, brought the economy down a decade and a half ago. >> reporter: the biden administration's newly planned executive order will try to make regulation happen by bringing together many parts of government. so far they've all been stalled, in part by uncertainly over whose job it is. >> it's appropriate they be regulated. >> reporter: because of uncertainty, again, over what it is. >> is bitcoin a security, a commodity, a ponzi scheme, what is it? >> i guess i could be all four of those. >> reporter: so now there's a battle to control and define this thing that has already made

some people lots of money. >> i did buy my tesla with bitcoin. >> i bought a house with bitcoin. >> reporter: but who profits now, and how? senator brown says americans probably shouldn't be allowed to trade bitcoin anonymously. more likely, they'll be pushed to use a deep dpocket crypto exchange. >> when you have huge sums of mon yiey invested, regulators mt crack down but won't get rid of it. >> i'm not sure what we do with it. >> and pizza may not be it in >> i don't think pizza is going to be it. the cbs "overn 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.

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do you struggle with occasional nerve aches in your hands or feet? try nervivenerve relief from the world's #1 selling nerve care company. nervive contains alpha lipoic acid to relieve occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. try nervivenerve relief. airlines are struggling to find enough pilots to keep flights running on schedule. next year, they expect to have a shortage of more than 12,000 pilots. one of the country's biggest airlines is taking a new approach to fill the flight decks of the future. we show you how the program gave a long-time flight attendant a chance to move from the aisle to the cockpit. >> lifting off at dawn in the siniora desert means catch thing special morning view in the valley of the sun. >> it felt like a joyride. i move it. i love flying.

>> reporter: mother of two ricky foster is at the helm, learning the ropes with her flight instructor. a former flight attendant, she's been inspired to upgrade her wings. >> you're too old? well, i'm 38, and some people in my class are older than me. so we're getting it done. >> reporter: foster is one of 59 students in the inaugural class of unite ed. this is their effort to combat the staffing shortage on the flight deck, which has forced route reductions. >> we have over 100 regional aircraft that effectively aren't flying because there's not enough pilots to fly them. >> reporter: by faa regulations, pilots have to retire at age 65. almost half of them will within 15 years. couple that with the pandemic, which slowed the rate of new

pilots taking to the skies, and it's almost impossible to keep pace with all the open seats. >> one of the biggest sources for the airlines is the military. the problem today, there aren't that many pilots in the military. they're all drone pilots. >> reporter: united expects 50% of its pilots to come from this program, and half of those will be women and people of color. the airline offers some scholarships and priority to relatives and staff, which helped this former university football player follow his father's flight path. >> they're trying to cut down some of the financial barriers. it's just opening the door for a lot of people. so i try and show them how cool aviation is and anybody can do it. >> reporter: for foster, who was originally from jamaica, this journey is also about how her 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter see her. >> they got to come in and check out the airplane, and i have a picture of my son sitting by my

name. he was so proud in the picture. >> reporter: future flyers. >> the cbs "overnight news" will be right back.

good luck! you too! and the united states has done it! a very generous congratulations. bitter rivals but absolute respect.

type two diabetes is one of the chronic health conditions that raises the risk for covid-19. with more than a third of american adults in danger of developing diabetes, doctors have a new warning on how to protect yourself. elise preston has more. >> reporter: this woman has a family history of diabetes and knew she was at risk. wasn denial for many years. >> reporter: when she went from prediabetic to diabetic, she enrolled in an education program to take control of her health. >> i learned what was triggering my blood sugars to be high. >> reporter: the most recent statistics for the centers for disease control show 88 million americans be prediabetes, which means higher than normal blood

sugar levels. >> it's a serious health condition that puts people at risk for other serious health conditions, like heart attack, stroke, and of course, type ii diabetes. >> reporter: one of the biggest challenges in treating prediabetes is it usually has no symptoms. most people don't know they have it. that's why the cdc and the american medical association joined forces with a series of public service announcements. >> with early diagnosis, early diabetes can be reversed. >> reporter: life style changes make all the difference, including exercise and the right diet. >> they would want to have a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, very little so no processed foods. >> reporter: gooden followed that advice and turned her diabetes around. >> anyone who says they have diabetes, even if it runs in

their family, i say go get checked. >> reporter: elise preston, cbs news, new york. >> that is the overnight news for this monday. from the cbs broad cast center in new york city, i'm jericka duncan. have a great week. this is cbs news flash. spotify will add content advisories to podcasts discussing coronavirus. the streaming giant's move comes after a handful of artists had their content removed saying it allowed joe rogan to spread misinformation regarding covid-19. actor howard hessman has died. he was best known for his role as dr. johnny fever on "wkrp in cincinnati. " hessman died of complications from colon surgery. he was 81. the bengals and rams will hit the gridiron for super bowl lvi. the teams will battle on the rams home turf sofi stadium in california. the big game will take place

february 13th. for more news, download the cbs news app on your cell phone or connect to tv. it's monday, january 31st, 2022. this is the "cbs morning news." digging out. a powerful nor'easter slams the east coast, but the aftermath of the winter storm poses a new problem. isis arrest. a woman who once lived in kansas is captured in syria. her alleged plots against the u.s. garafalo under pressure -- donald got there -- in the air, intercepted by the rams! >> super bowl set. the thrilling finishes as the rams and the bengals advance to the biggest stage in all of football. well, good morning, and good

to be with you. i'm anne-marie green.