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hello and thanks for staying up with us. i'm matt pieper in new york, and here are the top stories on "cbs news roundup." president biden goes back on prior statements and pardons his son hunter. president-elect trump picks a loyalist to lead the fbi, setting up what could be a bruising confirmation fight. and the northeast gets hit by a major snowstorm as a record-breaking holiday travel week comes to a close. president biden announced on sunday night that he has issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son hunter biden, sparing him a possible prison sentence for felony gun and tax convictions. it all comes after the president and his deputies repeatedly denied he would offer his son clemency. cbs's natalie brand has the details. >> reporter: president biden sunday night confirmed he signed a pardon for his son hunter. in a statement the president said from the day he took office he said he would not interfere with the justice department's decision-making and said he kept his word even as he watched his

son being unfairly prosecuted. he said, "hunter was singled out only because he is my son" and alleges an effort to break hunter, who is 5 1/2 years sober. he also blamed political opponents in congress for instigating the charges. hunter biden was set to be sentenced later this month after being convicted of felony gun and tax evasion charges from federal cases in delaware and california. the gun charges stemmed from hunter biden's purchase of a firearm in 2018, when he was battling an addiction to illegal drugs and lied on paperwork to obtain the gun. separately he pleaded guilty to nine tax evasion charges. president biden had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence. >> i'm extremely proud of my son hunter. he has overcome an addiction. he's one of the brightest, most decent men i know. and i am satisfied that i'm not going to do anything -- i said

i'd abide by the jury decision. i will do that. and i will not pardon him. >> reporter: the reversal comes less than two months from when president-elect trump will take office. republican congressman james comer of kentucky, chairman of the house committee on oversight and accountability, said in a statement of his own, "the charges hunter faced were just the tip of the iceberg" in what he called the blatant corruption that presidnt biden and the biden crime family have lied about to the american people. mr. biden said he made his decision over the weekend, which he spent with his family including hunter in nantucket. natalie brand, cbs news, washington. meantime, president-elect donald trump has picked kash patel, a loyalist who served in the first trump administration, to head the fbi. weijia jiang reports from west palm beach, florida. >> reporter: kash patel has stood by president-elect trump since his first term, when he served in multiple roles including chief of staff at the pentagon. >> kash patel is here, one of our real warriors. >> reporter: in his announcement

picking patel to lead the fbi, trump says he played a pivotal role in uncovering the russia russia russia hoax, referring to the doj's investigation of moscow meddling in the 2016 election. >> and we are on a mission to annihilate the deep state. >> reporter: patel has vowed to dismantle the fbi, which he sharply criticized in his book, writing it will remain a threat to the people unless draft i can measures are taken. >> i'd shut down the fbi hoover building on day one, and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. >> reporter: democratic senator chris murphy is urging colleagues not to confirm patel. >> kash patel's only qualification is because he agrees with donald trump that the department of justice should serve to punish, lock up and intimidate donald trump's political opponents. >> reporter: on "face the nation" republican senator ted cruz called patel a strong candidate. >> all of the weeping and

gnashing of teeth, all of the people pulling their hair out, are exactly the people who are dismayed about having a real reformer come into the fbi and clean out the corrupted partisans. >> reporter: the current fbi director who was appointed by trump in 2017 still has three years left on a ten-year term. so he would have to resign or be fired for there to be an opening. in a statement the fbi says wray is focused on the people of the fbi and the work they are doing. weijia jiang, cbs news, west palm beach. massive snowfall sunday prompted emergency declarations and disrupted the post-thanksgiving travel for millions of people in the northeast. cbs's rob marciano has more from the thick of the storm. >> reporter: the people who live around the great lakes know snow. >> this ain't nothing. you get used to this kind of weather living here. >> reporter: but the cold and snow slamming parts of new york and the midwest has meant trouble for anyone traveling

through it. coming down as fast as three inches per hour in some places, the snow is burying vehicles and blinding drivers. parts of new york under a state of emergency. >> so many people traveled from out of town to see loved ones and family and friends, and now they're getting back on the roads in the middle of a major snowstorm. so we're there to help. >> reporter: and in pennsylvania a disaster declaration after relentless lake effect snowfall stranded drivers on interstate 90. back in buffalo bills fans out in full force for the game at highmark stadium, working in bitter cold and low visibility overnight to make sure their beloved home team could take on the 49ers. for conner kolb's snow removal service the combination of football and snowfall means a busy start to the week ahead. >> it's been wild. to go from no snow to, you know, two feet in one weekend. obviously with the timing, you know, and people in from out of town for the bills game, you

know, it provides different challenges i'd say. >> reporter: this event has certainly been bad timing for anybody trying to get to that football game or just trying to get home for this holiday season, driving through this snow. the lake effect snow bands will be shifting a little bit to the south but likely will be reinvigorated by more cold air coming into the northeast by the end of this week. rob marciano, cbs news, orchard park, new york. >> the harsh weather coming on what was shaping up to be the busiest travel day in tsa history. cbs's elise preston is at los angeles international airport. >> reporter: the home stretch of a record travel rush. >> so you're saying it's crazy, the travel day today. >> it's crazy to travel today but you muscle through even though you have two kids and and it's very complex. >> reporter: passengers packed major airports nationwide. the faa says there were 232,000 flights from last sunday through thanksgiving, an all-time high. another record, the low number

of delays. just 1%. >> my computer says the flight's on time. so hopefully we're going to get out of here. >> reporter: and people didn't just fly home. an estimated 72 million travelers drove, fueled by lower gas prices. for those who braved traffic, bad weather and airport crowds, a sigh of relief. >> everybody's so helpful and nice. it's nice that we missed all that thanksgiving traffic. i think we did the timing right this time. >> reporter: if you're dreaming of your next getaway look for deals on travel tuesday. that's when airlines and hotels offer up bargains. elise preston, cbs news, los angeles. when "cbs news roundup" continues, we will go to ukraine, where women are now taking up the jobs formerly held by men who are fighting on the front lines. ♪♪ it's going to be ok. ♪♪ ♪♪

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this is "cbs news roundup." i'm matt pieper in new york. the incoming trump administration is expected to bring big changes to u.s. support for ukraine in its war with russia. ahead of that ukrainian president zelenskyy is changing his position on possible talks to end the war. he said if nato extends membership to the part of ukraine under government control it would end the hot stage of the war and negotiations could begin concerning the parts controlled by russia. meantime, with so many ukrainian men fighting to defend their country women are taking up their jobs on the home front. holly williams reports from kyiv. >> reporter: in the suburbs of kyiv olga mischenko is retraining as a truck driver. a widowed mother of two, she used to be a stay-at-home parent. but with so many men now serving in the military, ukrainian businesses are recruiting women to take on traditionally male jobs. >> it's absolutely not normal now in ukraine to drive a big car.

so it's maybe a first year when women sit in big car and start driving. >> reporter: when people see you -- >> oh, it's -- >> reporter: how do they react? >> they say, olga, this is your car? i say yes. >> reporter: ukrainians are stepping up to serve their country. but some fear it's running dangerously short of manpower on the front line. this field of ukrainian flags is a memorial to this country's fallen soldiers. in nearly three years of war ukraine's military death toll alone is estimated to be around 70,000 but may in fact be much higher. more than 100,000 russian soldiers have also been killed in this conflict, according to u.s. officials. but russia has over three times the population of ukraine, and moscow's forces have recently been bolstered by more than

10,000 north korean troops. it's a big challenge for ukraine because russia is so big and ukraine is small. >> small, but we -- but we're very strong. we're more strong than russians because we know why we do this. we want to live here, not in another places. so we will do anything to live in our country, in our independent country. >> reporter: this war has always been a david and goliath battle. a small nation paying the price for vladimir putin's ambitions.

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target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. a growing number of airports across the country are branding themselves carbon neutral. that means they've cut airport emissions to nearly zero. now, that may be true if you don't count the pollution coming out of the planes. david schechter has that story. >> reporter: lifting a plane into the sky that weighs hundreds of thousands of pounds burns a lot of gas. that's one reason why flying is a significant source of carbon dioxide, which causes climate change and warms the planet. but at dallas-fort worth international the airport is telling travelers about its committee to harmony between

aviation and the environment, and it's the world's largest carbon-neutral airport. >> stylish. >> reporter: with all the carbon emissions in aviation how do they pull that off? >> it's like an active site here. >> this is the real deal, yeah. >> reporter: chris mclaughlin is the chief operating officer at dfw. the airport is investing in more efficient facilities like this $230 million utility plant, almost half paid for with federal grants. it will heat and cool the sprawling terminals, using less energy. >> we expect to contribute about 80% less carbon into the environment as a result of this facility. >> you're pretty excited about this, aren't you? >> i am so excited about this. >> reporter: when it comes to emissions at an airport, how much are coming from the terminals and how much is coming from the airplanes? >> so generally speaking, i would say that the number coming from the airport is less than 10%. >> reporter: according to the

faa, less than 2% come from airport operations including the terminals. at dfw they're cutting emissions with the new utility plant with buses burning cleaner fuels and by buying 100% renewable energy. but the airplanes parked beside the terminals that take off and land hundreds of times a day, the faa says they contribute around 98% of an airport's emissions. but to be designated as carbon neutral airports don't have to count the planes. >> and we're doing that consistently with the industry not just in the u.s. but globally. that's how airports are looking at the math right now. >> is it misleading a little bit to tell the customer hey, we're carbon neutral here at the airport but not include the planes themselves? >> well, we certainly do not intend to mislead anybody, and sustainability isn't a marketing strategy for us. our goal, our commitment is to do what we can as stewards of this resource. >> well, welcome to springs

farm. i'm a full-time researcher but i live here on this farm. >> reporter: chuck collins writes about sustainability and aviation at a progressive think tank. he wrote a paper called "greenwashing the skies." that's the practice of misleading the public about how green a product really is. >> i think they're essentially saying we've got this covered. you're worried about carbon emissions and global warming? don't worry. you can keep flying. you don't have to change your behavior at all. to me that's greenwashing. >> reporter: so what can the aviation industry do about its emissions? well, at the moment there are no scalable solutions. electric planes are too small. and then there's sustainable aviation fuel like ethanol fuel made from corn that we put in our cars. sustainable aviation fuel would largely be derived from crops. >> so we're just going to push that down like three inches in. >> it actually smells really good already. we're planting garlic to grow garlic. >> reporter: because chuck also farms he knows that growing the

crops it would take to produce enough sustainable aviation fuel would require a whole lot of farmland. one estimate concludes the country would need all the land currently used to grow corn in the u.s. plus another 40%. >> it's magical thinking. we are not going to scale alternative aviation fuel at the speed of climate change. they need to be talking about the planes, the activity that is their reason for existing. >> wouldn't it be useful to tell the whole story, not just part of the story? we've got this figured out over here but this is a really big problem and we don't know how to fix it yet? >> we're very open about our strategy. we think it's our job to tell our story, and we'll rely on our partners to tell theirs. >> reporter: an airport doesn't have control over the kind of fuel an airplane is burning. but it does have control over the messages it shares with the public about the impact of

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it's all a subject to debate. >> i'm a purist. i would think it needs to be gin and vermouth. but i'm willing to bend and say okay. if there's no vermouth in there, i don't know how you can call it a cocktail. >> reporter: simonson says the martini was probably named after a vermouth company. it was invented in america in the 1870s or '80s when bartenders mixed gin with ver vermouth, a fortified wine made with herbs and spices. >> it's a very big player in cocktail history. >> reporter: in the early 20th century the very dry martini became very popular. ice cold gin or vodka garnished with a lemon twist or an olive or an onion. but only a little vermouth. or maybe not even a little. >> why is it that so many people would want gin or vodka without vermouth? >> because for years and years and years it was stored improperly. it should be in the fridge.

>> reporter: samantha kasuga is the head bartender at temple bar in new york city. >> so in the story of bad martinis people thought vermouth was the villain. turns out to be the victim. >> correct. this whole time. >> reporter: kasuga's classic martini is two parts gin, one part vermouth. >> cheers. >> cheers. >> reporter: with a twist of lemon. >> mm. that's great. >> i'm delighted to be here. >> reporter: she suggests that you probably shouldn't order it the way james bond does. >> a martini, shaken, not stirred. >> when you're making a martini, are you always stirring? >> i personally am. >> is part of the reason for the popularity of shaking a martini that it puts on a little show behind the bar? >> i mean, definitely. people love a good shake. >> let's go. one, two, three, four. one, two, three, four. >> reporter: people also love to have a martini made just the way

they want it. >> i think martini drinkers tend to be specific. are martini drinkers obnoxious? >> i would say -- >> this is already sounding very diplomatic. >> no. there's a luxury behind that. to have your own preferences not only listened to and then executed is like that's the luxury itself. >> reporter: writer robert simonson says that a martini can also add a little luxury to your thanksgiving. >> there are very few american inventions more american than the martini. >> grownup american drink. cheers. >> cheers. >> kelefa sinee reporting. we'll be right back.

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it's monday, december 2nd, 2024. this is "cbs news mornings." breaking overnight, president