i think ken jennings. from a cinderella story. nice way to transition, not just pick another celebrity after the treb trebek era. >>> organizers in new york city have begun preparing for the new year's eve ball drop under strange scircumstances. they did the first test run sending the ball up. no one is allowed near times square to watch the ball drop in person because of the pandemic and nypd is busy shutting down streets and subway entranes but you can watch the ball drop virtually on dick clark's "rocking new year's eve" here on abc 7 and will feature the last interview of the year from president elect joe biden. so, there won't be the usual 1 million people in times square for obvious reasons. spencer, i wonder what they will do at nfl and basketball games and pipe in crowd noise. >> i've thought about that. that's probably a pretty good idea. do whatever you can to make it feel like you're there with other people. yeah, i think it will be interesting. i might actually tune in to see how it feels. >> yeah, i will, too, and i'l

our champion, ken jennings, is within a couple hundred thousand of that. and k.c. are here to prevent him from breaking that record. they wanna start winning money. let's see what happens. good luck. jeopardy! round starts us off with the one daily double in one of these categories. first off, we have... we'll give you the kids. you identify the pres. next we have... and... "i-c-k" in quotation marks. ken, you're the champ. you go first. presidents by kids for $200, alex. - ken. - who is john adams? - right. - presidents for $400.

episodes will air the first week of january after that, you'll see episodes with the new guest host ken jennings. >>> tonight a remarkable story of generosity and giving for a pair of brothers in the south bay who suffered two unthinkable tragedies in about one year. i am so honored to bring you this surprise moment of giving and resilience this holiday season. little does grandma roseanne know i'm not doing a story why her daughter nicole and two grandsons came to live with her. >> boulder creek and they came here that night, about a week later we found out the house was gone. >> reporter: compounding their pain. >> they lost their dad a little over a year ago and then the fires came. >> reporter: lung cancer, despite their father never smoking a day in his life. add in the pandemic and mom didn't have time to think. >> took enough items to get us by but i still, i just was not thinking that our house would be gone honestly. >> reporter: i'm there after grandma wrote to a brks krrbc 7 asking how to obtain one of the hottest gifts, the xbox series x for her grandsons winston and sebastian ages 1

i'm truly sorry for your >> ken jennings has been revered by so many jeopardy fans as the greatest ofecause you know, alex trebek, he has left behind such a legacy and for people to now see that it's kind of tainted. i don't know about you sandra, but you watch it with your family and it's a very wholesome show and then you have ken jennings with these offensive tweets. he did apologize but that's transparency that comes with social media and people will find these things. >> sandra: lessons learned for a brand-new year. happy new year to you, hope to see you in person soon. president trump and first lady melania trump are about to leave florida for washington a day earlier than expected. all of this as congress continues to fight over the president's demands for those $2,000 stimulus checks. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell rejecting calls for a stand-alone boat. welcome to a brand-new hour of "america's newsroom." i'm sandra smith. it's great to be with you this morning. >> leland: happy new year's to all of you, i'm leland vittert. the speaker mcconnell is accusing nancy pelo

ken noh. we do a lot of show and tell, jen. a lot of show and tell. this book -- i don't want to say it is underappreciated but i think it deserves a lot more circulation. it is an outstanding piece of scholarship and it does a really good job of connecting his ideas to others. it is a fine book. ken, i believe, has a new book coming out on weather and the american civil war. jen did her ph.d. there. she has taught at the university of virginia and now she is teaching at oklahoma state university. is that the sooners? i can't remember. >> oh, pete, i think you lost all your fans in still water. get your big 12 football correct. we are the oklahoma state cowboys. >> since i am an indiana state hoosier fan, my knowledge outside the big ten is limited and it takes all of my energy and all of my patience to follow the hoosiers, although they have turned things around. not oklahoma state, not even remotely close to that, but they're now watchable. one other important point here is jen's excellent important book in which jen murray, and you can complicate m