. good morning, everyone. welcome to cnn this morning. it s december 31st. yes, it s the last day of the year. happy new year s eve to you, martin. happy new year s eve to you as well, amara. thank you. we are, of course, following breaking news this morning. pope benedict emeritus has died. pope francis had been asking for prayers. for the firstet time in modern history he resigned in 2013, citing advanced age, which paved the way for pope francis to head the church. cnn s delia gallagher with more. reporter: in many respects, benedict xvi was the pope who got a bad rap. nearly 24 years as pope john paul ii eternal enforcer and the german chancellor lived in the shadows of hitler s regime, referred as god s rottweiler. years of anything tev publicity caused many of his accomplishments to go unnoticed. he was the first pope to go green, making the vatican the first country in the world with a zero carbon footprint, putting solar panels on its rooftops, and bringing
those attacks in kyiv. friday, explosions in kyiv and elsewhere this morning two days after putin s bridge to crimea was damaged. reporter: yeah, certainly was a rude awakening for us here in kyiv early in the morning. a little past 8 when the first explosion happened. i ll get out of your way so you can see what s going on here, rescue recovery crews have been working this whole time. right now they re taking away some of the cars that were absolutely mangled by the explosion. we believe the impact crater is where those people are standing around there. you can see that water coming out as well. seems as though the water lines underneath were damaged, the explosions were that strong. there s also one person at least was killed here. we have seen the recovery crews remove at least one body from the scene as we ve been working here throughout the entire morning. in total, the authorities have said that at least five people have been killed, but of course, christine, as you c
southwest. of. 2800 u.s. flights already canceled today, 2500, about 90% are southwest. challenge for our flight crews being stuck in locations not where they need to be along with the aircraft. at this point we re working to accommodate our customers as best we can and offer the most options we can. cnn s lucy kafnov is in denver. i wasn t anticipating a nightmare but it is. reporter: christmas is over but for thousands of customers the travel nightmare goes on. they canceled our flight. they said they can t help us so we don t know what to do. reporter: southwest airlines at the top of the list for cancellations. the airlines ticketing counter at baltimore s bwi airport a zoo. denver s lines for the southwest ticket counter even longer. we had to wait in a line that was four hours and it was horrible. nobody is giving us a direction on what line to get in. it s a total you know what show here. reporter: for those tlieg to call to get through, good luck get
john berman here in for anderson. answer for that will depend on the answers for a string of other questions. can the committee in the coming weeks make the ambitious case it laid out last night. what will the justice department that already brought hundreds of charges in capital assault do with the information the select committee uncovered and will the hearings generate the kind of political census that might be needed before the attorney general decides to aim as high as the select committee is already suggesting might be necessary. president trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack. you will also hear about plots to commit seditious conspiracy on january 6th, a crime defined in our law as conspiring to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force, the government of the united states. or, to oppose by force, the authority there of. committee vice chair liz cheney said those words, plot to commit seditious conspiracy while putting the forme
televised hearings next week. ryan noble at the capitol with us for the very latest. what are two contempt charges he is facing . reporter: so these are reled to the defiance of the subpoena sent to him via the january 6th committee, one has to do with his refusal to hand over documents the committee is interested in as part of their investigation, the other is his refusal to sit in deposition for interview with the committee, both could result in serious jail time and a hefty fine, so far he has been defiant as he was pri was prior to the subpoena issued, he claimed he had executive privilege protection extended to him by the former president donald trump, obviously the committee felt different as did the department of justice. so what happened in court next. reporter: there were some the theatrics, complained about the way the fbi knocked down on his door, complained about the way they arrested him at the airport in washington as opposed to asking him to come in and s