superspreader event. fears fueled by rising cases in the host city. daily numbers hitting almost 2,000 this week, a six-month high. olympic dreams dashed for more than 20 athletes so far testing positive or being placed in the covid-19 protocol including five members from team usa. most taking the covid proet columbus and lack of fans protocols and lack of fans in stride. when you re lined up with the best of the world you re not worried about the stands or the people there. you re worried about going out and competing to the best of your ability. reporter: despite the oly olympics first ever spectator ban, some are making the most of it. some watching the opening ceremony from outside the stadium. i was so moved in my heart. so yeah, that s so special. reporter: closing out the opening ceremony, the reveal of the torch bearer to light the caldron. four-time grand slam women s
and generally speaking it is health, safety and surge in cases, not the olympics, that dominates the conversation, with some saying that it is hard to get excited about these games. i m even told even though they are happening here in tokyo, it doesn t really feel like it. still the games are already under way and the opening ceremony albeit a subdued affair is set to take place here shortly and when it does, only 950 dignitaries will be inside the 68,000 seat stadium including united states first lady jill biden, she arrived in tokyo yesterday. all that being said, despite the surge in covid-19 cases in tokyo, the pandemic is still raging in many parts of the world, but the caldron will be lit later tonight. all right, blake, appreciate the coverage. blake essig live in tokyo for us. now the white house is adopting a tone of greater urgency over covid-19 after cases in the u.s. jumped more than 50% since last week.
terminology anymore. before we get to that, time to play our favorite game. that is who won the week? that is with me, cari champion, our resident champion, and our returning champion latosha brown is back with us. so who do i start with first? cari, we will stick with you. who won the week? naomi osaka clearly. i m going say that because not only are we right at the opening ceremony of the olympics and she lit the caldron or the torch, if you will, for japan because she is representing her home country of japan, but because a few days ago she was on the cover of sports illustrated looking like a fire cracker. before that i want to say she won the month because of her new york times article, her op-ed where she was clearly honest about what was going on with her mental health. she made it so, so okay not to be okay. yeah. and she is so young. this little girl, not even little. let me say this. this young lady. yeah. in her early 20s, she has won
silence and to suppress the truth about our history. but at the same time, you know, we get this bill commemorating juneteenth, and the reason it s so ironic, reverend al, is because of what juneteenth represents. it represents the efforts of white supremacists in texas to keep black people from knowing that they were free. right. and that freedom was the pre-cursor so us becoming full citizens as we redeemed under the 14th amendment to the constitution. so this effort to limit our freedom, to limit our citizenship is as much expressed in the voter suppression legislation, is as much expressed in police brutality, the violent actions of the state against unarmed black people, as it was in keeping the news from newly freed slaves for two years in texas. right. so when you put all of this together, it s a kind of confusing caldron, and i think it s entirely appropriate for us to lift up and celebrate that
how do we make sure that people do feel empowered to speak up? and those are questions that workplaces are still trying to grapple with? and the question is, will there be a sweeping under the rug or a clear transparency in this respect? absolutely. it s also notable the way that these issues have permeated the culture beyond reporting about cbs or any other company. think back a few months to the brett kavanaugh confirmation hearings and how so much of what we re talking about was on the table during those confirmation hearings. you, of course, were doing reporting about this, as well, are there lessons to be learned from the kavanaugh experience? well, i would say, that was a case where there were a number of women with very credible allegations and then there was a separate circus playing out in the media where there was an immense amount of partisan sniping happening. and all of this went into a caldron of mistrust and entrenched elm animties on the hill and the american public