ice, wind chill alerts. plus, the january 6th committee just released the final report recommending donald trump be barred from ever holding office again. and for the first time in public, vladimir putin says what the world has known all along, he s wagging war on ukraine. it is friday. welcome to our viewers in the you states and around the world. i m christine romans. let s begin with this. a christmas gut punch from mother nature as a once in a generation storm blasts across the country with the worst yet to come. more than half the u.s. population is under some kind of weather alert. from florida west to washington state. more than 200 million people are under wind chill alerts. more than 80 million under winter weather alerts. more than 40 million other bracing for high winds. needles to say it is a mess for holiday travelers. thousands of flights were canceled thursday. nearly 2700 flights already canceled today with hundreds more delayed. and look at power outage
a product on amazon and other sites. knowing the history of a product s price is important because sometimes companies will jack up a price and mark it down and saying you re getting a good sale. we need to be wary of it. there are sales and good sales. consumers need to evaluate that. a couple of years of malls being bleak, mall santas are coming back. tell me more about the santa industry. mall santas are back. chris cringele is back in stores and malls this year, christine, without restrictions. kids couldn t sit on santa s lap or they had to do it behind plexiglass or do virtual santas, but this year it s back to normal. i spoke with mitch allen who s the founder and head elf of santa staffing agency hire santa. demand is up 20% from a year ago. people want their pre-pandemic experiences. not everybody can be a real