freedom to all ukrainians. - wherever we are, we will be together today, and together we will look into the evening sky. and pope francis has called for an immediate end to the war in ukraine during his christmas day message. hello and welcome to bbc news. more than a million americans and canadians are facing christmas day without power as a winter storm continues to barrel its way across north america. the so called bomb cyclone has brought heavy snow, strong winds, and freezing temperatures. at least 20 people have died because of icy roads, and high winds uprooted trees. howard johnson reports. sub zero temperatures. ..whiteouts. .. ..and flooding. from toronto to new orleans, north america is experiencing a winter storm of epic proportions. nearly 250 million americans and canadians are believed to be affected, with more than 1.5 million people without power. thousands of flights have been cancelled and major roads closed, ruining christmas travel plans. a 46 car pile
even when we get to the stub stations substations, we find there is structural damage and it is frozen. those are the biggest challenges. what is happening on treacherous roads, trying to clear them, getting people that are stranded in vehicles, we recovered many of them. also what is happening inside the homes, we have vulnerable senior citizens we re trying to get to. we restored power to 300,000 people. i do want to point to the successes. ho however, there are still 23,000 people in buffalo. we ve been trying to plow the way to the stations, help them manage the restoration of power. so we don t have an estimate. we did have power back on in a large part of the city. it went out again because the infrastructure was not able to withstand the storms around it. so that has been the challenge. so i am hoping in the next day, but we can make no guarantees because just when you think the day is getting brighter, mother nature comes back and hits us once again. we have enough
first, new year, new congress and new problems for kevin mccarthy as he struggles to secure the speaker s gavel. the pushback he s getting from his caucus with time right nowing out to secure the votes he needs before republicans take control of the house. it s one of the busiest travel days for what has been one of the craziest travel seasons in recent memory. ahead, we re on the ground at one of america s busiest airports. and you ll want to turn up the volume for this one. who stands to benefit from new big changes for retirement plans and student loan payments this year? how it could affect your bottom line. plus, the new restrictions for women in afghanistan that groups say will cost lives. about 25 hours from now, the 118th congress will convene with republicans in charge of the house of representatives. but it s still far from certain who their next speaker will be. nbc news has obtained a letter written on sunday by a group of nine current and incoming house r
clashed for the second day running in central paris. the unrest was caused by a deadly shooting on friday at a kurdish cultural centre. those are the headlines on bbc news. now on bbc news, zelensky: the making of a president. for weeks, volodomyr zelensky has been leading from the front as ukraine resists russia s invasion. explosion comforting the war s many victims, berating ukraine s enemies. sobs ..and demanding more from her allies. a war that was supposed to last days has now lasted months. russia s advance has stalled, and in places it has been pushed back. applause president zelensky is now lauded as the man of this moment. i think your leadership has been extraordinary. but it wasn t always like this. before the russian attack, questions were being asked as to whether zelensky, a former comedian, really had what it takes to lead ukraine. in 2019, i was very sad, it was like a tragedy knowing that zelensky could become president of ukraine. i wouldn t say he had poli
last week the hard line rulers announced women were banned from attending university. now on bbc news our world: harvesting turkey s tea. hello there. for most of us, christmas day is going to turn out to be quite a mild day with temperatures pushing into double figures. on saturday, we did manage a bit of sunshine across the midlands and north east england but otherwise it was a lot of clout around it we will continue to feed in rather cloudy skies for christmas day as well with the south westerly winds dragging in mild air around this area of low pressure to the north. it s really late in the day that we ll start to see some colder air returning, particularly to parts of scotland and in the northwest of scotland late on you could see a few snow showers. so one or two of you could see a white christmas. but for most, it s going to be a mild day for christmas. south westerly winds then will continue to push bursts of rain across the country. the wettes