officials caution, severe pediatric cases are on the rise in several states. gift cards: boom or bust? they are seemingly everywhere this time of year. cbs carter evans reports, many go unused, wasting billions of dollars. and, on the road. cbs steve hartman looks at the true meaning of extended family. this is the cbs evening news with norah o donnell, reporting from the nation s capital. garrett: good evening to our viewers in the west. thank you for joining us. i m major garrett, in for norah. tonight, more than 200 million americans are under some form of winter storm advisory heading into christmas weekend. the national weather service alerts range from washington state to maine, and the gulf coast from texas to florida is under a hard freeze warning. the midwest has, and is, suffering the most, with near-whiteout conditions reported in minnesota, iowa, wisconsin, and michigan. in the east, flash flooding has inundated communities across several states, inc
armor and what zelenskyy did another reason ukrainian moral seems to remain high. russian president vladimir putin is usually hundreds of miles away in moscow when he gives out medals. this past startling week, a tale of two nations and enthusiasm for the fight. moscow s manpower crisis so acute, this video is apparently from a russian prison allegedly showing the man called putin chef. afghan personally recruiting convicts for the front line. he tells prisoners that war is hard, if they get taken prisoner, take drugs or have sex with foreign men or women in the fight. an undesirable message to an undesirable crowd. russia increasingly less looking like a nation united in what it won t even call a war yet. even putin turning, here again undermining the kremlin that brutally put him in power. if you ask me, i would enact martial law and exhaust all possibilities to end the conflict with these demons. unlike a volunteer for russia, he said writing later quote we are at war with
a publicly owned utility company. the city s mayor is taking responsibility and apologizing on behalf of the power company. he said that poor communication has been part of the problem. austin energy says that unlike 2021, it was not a power grid failure causing the mass outage this time. i see trees brought down power lines. but either way, those without power are the ones who are still suffering. there is one problem that is similar to 2021. a lack of enough state support. it has been up to austin, it s ct leadership and it s publicly owned to turn the power back on. texas can and must do better for its people. that s it for today. i am castro, in for alicia menendez. i will see you tomorrow for more american voices. but right now, it is time for a man. hey, always a pleasure. great to see you. thank you so much.
freezing! some of you have seen record low temperatures this weekend. not washington, new hampshire they saw windchills of negative 100 degrees. that s right, negative 100 degrees. here in new york city, the overnight low was four degrees. as much as i love filling in for alicia, this latest texan might need to get a better coach next time. but my home state has had its own severe weather this week. the same storm bringing coal to the northeast delivered ice to parts of the south. dangerous sleet and freezing rain covered parts of texas. at least eight deaths are blamed on the storm. and hundreds of thousands have had to deal with power outages. this may sound like a familiar story. because it is. almost exactly two years ago, more than 200 texans died after a massive power grid failure. what happened this year is different. from that. first, many of the outages were focused around austin, texas,