Queen Misses New Year's Church Service
BERMAN: This morning new health concerns for Queen Elizabeth. She did not attend the traditional New Year's church service. She cited a heavy cold which had also forced her to miss Christmas mass. Now despite her absence, a royal source tells CNN the 90-year-old queen is up and working. CNN's Phil Black live outside Buckingham Palace with the very latest. Good morning, Phil.</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning, John. We can only assume that the Queen is still feeling pretty awful from what is consistently described as a heavy lingering cold, which is she is recovering we are told. But of course there have been concerns ever since Christmas or as you say, she mentioned the Christmas church service. You mentioned the New Year church service again, missed that just yesterday. And so it's pretty extraordinary for the Queen to miss these sorts of events because she takes her role as the effective head of the Church of England so seriously. These are significant absences. But the palace behind us, her advisers, are really going out of their way to tell journalists and thus the wider public, that the Queen, the 90- year-old monarch, is doing OK. That she is up and about. That she is, they say, working. That means she is still receiving the documents, the briefing papers that she receives from government and must stay on top of as part of her official role as the head of state. So by all accounts, her absences from church have simply been a precaution really. And it is probably fair to say that Britain's winter weather is no place for anyone with a cold. Let alone a 90- year-old whose health has been knocked around for a couple of weeks now -- John.</s>BERMAN: Phil, how is the Duke of Edinburgh? Because we think he had the same cold as well. And how about the other members of the royal family? Are they stepping in to assume some of the ceremonial roles that Queen nearly -- normally takes care of?</s>BLACK: So we saw Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen's husband. He did attend church yesterday. And you're right, he fell ill with a cold around the same time. He appears to have bounced back very quickly. He was at the Christmas church service. He was at the church service again marking the new year. Now this time for the Queen at Sandringham Estate, over the Christmas holiday period, it's traditionally personal time. So that's usually what she gets up to. She gets to spend time with her family, explore the huge spectacular grounds of that estate near Norfolk in England. And so we believe that that's what she is still doing, but she's pretty much confined indoors. She hasn't got to go out and about. So there's not a lot of other royal business, not a lot of other appearances to be made at this time. But we'll get a sense of the Queen's health going forward. She is due to appear publicly at next week's church service near Sandringham Estate. And we understand she is going to be in residence at the estate all the way through January. And another point that her advisers stress, again indicating that she's doing OK, is the fact that she is still there. She hasn't been moved away for medical care or for any other reason at this stage -- John.</s>BERMAN: All right. Phil Black for us outside Buckingham Palace. Thanks so much, Phil.</s>ROMANS: All right. 16 minutes past the hour. 2016 was the deadliest year in Chicago in nearly two decades according to the Chicago Police Department. There were 762 murders last year, the most in the city since 1977. The city also saw a surge in gun violence numbering more than 3500 shooting incidents, more than 4300 victims. Police investigated 27 shooting incidents, a dozen of which were fatal just in the last week of December. 2015 was Chicago's second bloodiest year since 1997 with 480 murders.</s>BERMAN: The hunt is on for the vandal caught on surveillance video lending a little "high" comedy to the iconic Hollywood sign. It was altered to read, "Hollyweed." Police say the culprit used tarps to change the O's in the sign to E's. This happened between the hours of midnight and 2:00 a.m. Authorities have since changed the sign back to its original form.</s>ROMANS: Well, I have almost nothing to say about that. That is cool.</s>BERMAN: Well, on the subject of almost nothing to say about that.</s>ROMANS: Yes. Mariah Carey blaming a malfunctioning ear pierce for that onstage meltdown during a performance on New Year's Eve.</s>MARIAH CAREY, SINGER: All right. We didn't have a check of this song. So we'll just say it went to number one. And that's what it is. OK. Feels like --</s>ROMANS: You can hear Carey say that they didn't have a sound check with that song as she struggles to make it through her '90s hit "Emotions." Representatives for the singer telling Billboard the production set her up to fail. CNN has reached out to Dick Clark Productions for a response. You know, it is unclear. I mean, yesterday, there was some reporting from the "New York Times", you know, culture editor that the technical people said no, everything was technically OK. There was some other kind of meltdown. But clearly a live performance on New Year's Eve, you know.</s>BERMAN: Boy, it was live performance. I mean, clearly it wasn't that live because the whole thing was sort of lip-synched or there was a background track anyway. So let's just stipulate right there. Some of it was ever going to be live and she didn't even do that part flawlessly. But if the technical people messed up, they messed up, who knows what happened? All I know is that a lot of people were watching. They didn't get the performance they deserved.</s>ROMANS: She is mostly -- she tweeted I think after happy new year to everybody and, you know, good health to everyone.</s>BERMAN: Certainly a lot of people are talking about it. A lot of people are talking about Mariah Carey this morning.</s>ROMANS: Absolutely. Absolutely.</s>BERMAN: All right. Kim Jong-un says North Korea is close to testing an intercontinental ballistic missile. The details of the country's growing nuclear capabilities. That's next.