good day, i m chris jansing live at msnbc headquarters in new york city. the defense with its final chance to keep alec murdaugh out of prison on murder charges. his lawyer picking apart the prosecution s theory about why he would have killed his wife and son and accusing state police of faking the evidence, the very latest from south carolina as we get close to jury deliberations. plus, president biden heading back to his old stomping grounds on capitol hill this hour, his mission and his message focused squarely on keeping democrats in charge in 2024. and as if delays and cancellations aren t enough to worry about, multiple cases of weapons trying to be smuggled to planes, a near collision, dangerous turbulence, the latest worries for an already exhausted flying public, more on the search for answers and for someone to fix this mess coming up. but, we begin at the alec murdaugh double murder trial. the defense had e wrapped up its closing arguments on an emotional note.
their blackberries, i remember that. a lot of stuff going on in the background. certainly, that does it for cnn news central. but don t go anywhere the lead starts right now. a new chapter in the battle over abortion rights, republicans and democrats unite. the lead starts right now. attempts to restrict abortions in two separate states shut down. i ll speak with a group of women who pulled off a legislative maneuver to stop one band from moving forward. plus, a new wave of russian attacks across ukraine, an apartment building among the targets hit. a cnn team is on the ground as the death toll continues to rise. and downsize, as more people turn to drugs such as ozempic to drop the pounds, it s taking a toll on household names in the weight loss industry. welcome to the lead, everyone, i m bianna golodryga in for jake tapper. we start in our health lead and the fight over access to abortion front and center as state legislatures are cracking down on abortio
in georgia and lucas tomlinson outside the white house. but we start first with rich edson in harrisburg, pennsylvania, where all eyes are on the nail-biter race between fetterman and oz. rich, good afternoon. reporter: good afternoon, mike. this is a government union headquarters here in harrisburg, the capital city of pennsylvania, john fetterman just finished rallying supporters here, he s been highlighting union workers here, the union vote. of he was rallying with union officials and workers yesterday in the philadelphia area. he said at this rally here that he plans on continuing to recover from his stroke, and he wants to win this election. c. oz has never forgotten every day that i had a stroke. in january i ll be much better, but he will still be a fraud. reporter: oz ripped fetterman for refusing to debate, and when he agreed, did so only once, two weeks before election day, and after hundreds of thousands of early votes had been cast. oz and republicans natio
but they are actually saying it s all or nothing. the house is saying that we will not do anything unless it s t going to be a total ban, and we in the senate are not going to let that happen. they can put this bill up again and again, which they have, and we will stand up again and again, and our language will get tougher, and we will get madder. they don t have the votes to pass this and they won t until they try to get us kicked out of the senate. my own senate majority leader actually told the press locally that basically he would have a response for me in 2024. so i guess five females is too many out of 46 senators. i don t know. it s a sign of the times and gives you a sense of what the five of you have accomplished. you heard your colleague say that she believes the cutoff mark should be at 12 weeks. you believe it should be at six weeks.
many in iran now fear, that would certainly be a very concerning turn of events. what do you think is going on here? what are you hearing? well, as your colleague say, chris, this started back in november in the religious city outside tehran, but now it s spelled to multiple cities, the capital tehran, multiple schools and other small cities, so it no longer looks like an incidental issue or arbitrary. it s clearly coordinated. there must be powerful forces behind this, and it s also coming on the back of months of essentially a feminist uprising in iran where women and young girls were at the forefront of these protests against the entirety of the system, discrimination against women, the mandatory hijab rule. so there s various different theories, but overall, there s massive amounts of anger across the country, especially by these parents who some of which