also tonight, cnn has learned that former president trump s lawyers are now in direct talks with the u.s. justice department about the january 6th criminal investigation. stand by for our exclusive new reporting as sources now reveal that trump s attorneys have warned him that indictments, criminal indictments are possible and wnba star brittney griner is sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted by a russian court on drug charges. the u.s. is now reviewing for moscow to accept a proposed prisoner swap aimed at bringing griner home. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. let s get straight to the breaking news right now. a texas jury awarding more than $4 million to the parents of the sandy hook shooting victim suing alex jones over defamation and distress over his repeated lies about the tragedy. cnn correspondent drew griffin is working the stor
announcing that she will be reinstating the indoor mask mandate. that will run from december 28th through january 31st, wolf. amara, thank you. amara walker reporting for us. let s get more on all of this. joining us, dr. peter hosatez. also the dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor school of medicine. he s the author of preventing the next pandemic. also dr. zeke emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania and the author of which country has the world s best health care? thanks to both of you for joining us. dr. hotez, new york state seeing this threefold increase in covid cases in just one week. and nationwide, cases, hospitalizations are rising. we haven t even seen the full impact of omicron yet. so how bad could this get? well, the reason it s going to get bad, wolf, is not only because of delta and the high
one in five are covid-19 patients. i m worried that the surge in the coming weeks will be worse than what we saw last winter. reporter: meanwhile, south africa has passed the peak of its omicron outbreak. there is some evidence that in south africa, where a lot of this started, that it s dropping off. reporter: health officials stress the antiviral pills are not a substitute for getting vaccinated. let s be clear. unvaccinated people are at a hi higher risk of getting severely ill from covid, getting hospitalized, and dying. reporter: and underscoring just how rapidly omicron is spreading, new york saying that it has broken its own record again for the fifth time in less than a week with the highest daily total of covid-19 cases. cases up 24% from the previous record, wolf. amara walker reporting for
dispute. wolf? amara walker reporting for us, thank you very much. very disturbing. to our viewers, thanks for watching. i m wolf blitzer the situation room. you can follow me me on twitter and instagram and tweet the show. erin burnetfront starts right now. outfront next president obama warns the country is in danger pushing a major election reform bill that s all but doomed in the senate as republicans in georgia oust election officials that don t see eye to eye with them. two of those officials are out outfront . pressure mounting on allen weisselberg as he could be indicted as soon as next month. a covid outbreak shuts down a florida government building leaving three dead and two hospitalized. the only person that worked with the six employees that didn t get it was vaccinated. let s go outfront .
to comment on the case to cnn because of the pending lawsuit. and that was cnn s amara walker reporting. cnn reached out to trooper dunn and haven t heard back yet. the driver of the car explained to our chris cuomo why she didn t pull over that night. listen to this. i never would have thought the police would hurt me. so you didn t pull over just because you thought that it wasn t easy enough to do on that road. right. i didn t feel like there was an adequate amount of space on the side of the road for my car and the officer to be standing beside it. now, harper did suffer injuries that night, but delivered a healthy baby in february. she s seeking at least $100,000 in damages. just ahead on cnn newsroom, a special get together on the sidelines of the g7. the u.s. first lady and the uk s duchess of cambridge will meet