a personal level. it was true that my first days in the senate when i needed help very badly and it was through my last days in the senate as well. in 2008 fritz and i became close friends and i sought his counsel many times. i was asked to join the ticket with barack obama. i was, as i usually was, on amtrak going home. i commuted every day. they later told me over 220,000 miles on amtrak they should name a station after me. he called me after it was clear he was the de facto nominee. he said he would like me to join him on the ticket or at least consider it. could he do a background check on me. would have to do that background check, and i said, no, thanks. barack. i thought he was dragging that bloody cloth through the senate like presidential nominees do to get everybody excited and involved. there s only one other person i m considering. ba barack, i don t want to be vice president. he said why? i said, basically just stand by equipment. i said what i want to do and b
we have challenges. [music] tonight, neomi judd. it will be tragic and joyous on so many levels. i m pamela brown in washington you are live in the cnn news room on this sunday. we begin this hour in ukraine with a climber of hope from one of the bleakest sites. these are images from mariupol. 100 civilians were evacuated today from the steel plant that was the final stand of recision. hundreds of people huddled in the basement there for weeks with food, water, medicine running out. just living there in desperation and several hundred are still there. evacuations are due to resume just hours from now. reports of new russian shelling could jeopardize that. the city has been relentlessly bombarded since the first days of the russian invasion, the sprawling complex, as you can see, has been reduced to ruins, every single building appears to be gutted or leveled. house speaker nancy pelosi led a surprise visit to kyiv and the delegation, the top u.s. official to meet with
civilians left lying in the streets where they died. it is hard to imagine that it could get worse, but that is exactly what we re hearing tonight. ukraine bracing for the worst in the east as vladimir putin tries to refocus his murderous efforts on the donbas region. the pentagon calling it the early stages of a new offensive. russia amassing troops and equipment. cnn has geo located this vehicle showing a large column of russian vehicles today traveling in the direction of the donbas. after his 75-minute meeting with putin, austria s chancellor has this grim warning, quote, the attack being threatened cannot be underestimated in its violence. when you think about what we ve seen, the warnings of worse to come, they re appalling. disturbing reports just coming out of the possibility of a strike involving chemical substances of some kind of a target in mariupol today. those reports unconfirmed, but president volodymyr zelenskyy warning the possibility should be taken seriousl
rioters. we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly. i don t want to send any signal that it was okay to defile the capitol. how concerned should you be about the newly detected version of omicron? it appears to be more contagious. does it invade the immune system, most of the evidence so far is preliminary suggests it doesn t. also tonight, around 100 bags of fentanyl found in the bedroom of a 13-year-old boy who died from presumed fentanyl exposure at his school. the fentanyl found in the bedroom had a very high purity rate, 60% pure. you usually only see 1% to 2%. and the nfl football player who won t give up until abuse victims stories are heard. i m pamela brown in washington. you are live in the cnn newsroom on this sunday a. new measure of the escalating fears that russia could soon invade ukraine. a u.s. senate aide says all senators will get a classified briefing thursday from senior administration officials on the russia/uk
controlled a small section in south eastern ukraine. fast forward to today, and most of ukraine s south and east are now occupied by russian forces. russian losses are mounting, however, especially in the black sea. the two year anniversary comes just days after ukraine suffered a major defeat retreating from avdiivka and conceding the key eastern town to russian troops. ukrainian forces are running low on ammunition and artillery, as a multibillion dollar us funding package remains tied up due to congressional infighting. but resolve remains strong. our correspondent andrew harding returned to the east of the country. he s been following the story of one ukrainian soldier, a medic working on the front line, who he first met at the start of the conflict. two years of war, seen through the struggles of one ukrainian doctor. this was the first time we met 0leg kravchenko back in 2022 in a besieged town called lysychansk. 0leg had justjoined ukraine s army as a volunteer medic