Why your favorite stores may not have the gifts you are shopping for this year. this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening breaking tonight, the fda authorizing covid booster shots of the pfizer vaccine, but keeping with an outside advisory panel s recommendation only giving the green light for that third shot for people 65 and up or at high risk currently there are 182 million fully vaccinated people in the united states. though, adding boosters potentially changes the definition of fully vaccinated the late-day decision by the fda still leaving some confusion as it only pertains to the pfizer vaccine. for now the j&j and moderna vaccines are not up for review the white house first raised expectations of boosters for everyone, getting ahead of the fda. stephanie gosk reports. reporter: tonight a decision on the pfizer booster. the fda authorizing a third shot for people over 65 or at high
The pressure on the white house are escalating this hour. also tonight the fda is on the brink of authorizing covid-19 booster shots for people with weakened immune systems. and after a long, bitter battle, britney spears father says he intends to step down as the pop stars conservator. does it mean brittney will be free at last? welcome to our viewers. i m jim acosta. and you re in the situation room. wolf blitzer is off tonight. this is cnn breaking news. we are covering the crisis in afghanistan from every angle in the capital of kabal and here in the u.s. we begin with barbara star. barbara, what are you learning about this new deployment of about 3,000 troops? obviously a lot to explain over there at the pentagon. good evening, jim.
Trials. let me also get your thoughts, yesterday sometimes contentious fda advisory vaccine on authorizing covid vaccines for children under the age of 12. you spoke to one of the doctors involved in that last night. what were his concerns? well, he was framing this as a risk versus benefits, which is the correct framing. that s how everyone is framing it so that wasn t a surprise. the thing is the risk obviously to children is lower than it is to adults. so the benefits are going to have to outweigh those lower risks so you have to have a higher bar of evidence for the benefits. it s worth keeping in mind still, wolf, that younger people are becoming increasingly the reservoir of covid in this country, that s why vaccines are important. even though they re not hospitalized and don t die nearly as often, they still, if they get infected, there could be long-term symptoms as we ve talked about, wolf. you don t want to get this infection. finally as we go back into the fall, wolf, th