good morning! and welcome to way too early, the show that wants to hear more about this four-day workweek idea. we re going to tell you about that little bit later on in the show. i am kasie hunt on this tuesday, march 16th. we ll start with the news. europe s fight against coronavirus just hit another snag as more countries hit pause on the astrazeneca vaccine due to concerns about side effects. germany, france, italy and spain have halted use of the vaccine after reports of blood clots in some people who had recently received shots. denmark and norway halted the shots last week. astrazeneca says a review of 17 million people found no increased risk of blood clots and the world health organization is urging countries to continue using it. this comes as europe faces a third wave of coronavirus amid a slow vaccine rollout. the shot, which was developed with oxford university, has not yet been approved for use in the united states. the fda is still reviewing data to determi
at our southwest border now. the homeland security department out with this dire warning. at this rate we could encounter more people there than we have in the last 20 years. we re going to dig into what s being done to deal with it including a total transformation of a major city s convention center. but we start on this tuesday with our reporters following the biden administration s push to sell that covid relief package. nbc s chief white house correspondent kristen welker is there at the white house, and priscilla thompson is in delaware county, where president biden will be visiting today. she is in chester, which is a suburb of philadelphia. kristen, let me start with you. help us understand why president biden is focusing on pennsylvania s small businesses today with promoting this covid relief deal. reporter: he s doing two things, craig. one, president biden trying to now sell and explain that sweeping $1.9 trillion covid relief package. so he s going to talk about
shots into arms, and america is a world leader in the vaccine distribution, and there s big news today from moderna which has began testing vaccines on children from babies to preteens. the news so many parents have been waiting for. but and this is important, we are at a critical juncture, and i know, i know, i know you have heard this a million times before, still, how we handle the next few weeks could either propel us back to normality by midsummer or we could end up like europe, gripped by what the french president called today a third wave. italy has returned to lockdowns. more infectious variants have become the dominant strains there and we are in a race against time before they become the dominant strains here. across europe the vaccine rollout has been sluggish and now there are concerned about the astrazeneca vaccine which is widely used there. a wave of european countries hitting pause on the vaccine because of concerns over dozens of cases of blood clots out of
bank accounts. with so much money being pumped into the economy, the question is whether it could be too much of a good thing. and the crisis on the southern border. the biden administration sends fema to help manage the surge of unaccompanied minors. question is, how will the u.s. government safely accommodate the more than 4,000 children in custody? plus, the latest on the scandal surrounding new york governor andrew cuomo, as democrats turn up the heat and urge him to resign. the question is, where does the president stand? it s way too early for this. good morning! and welcome to way too early, the show that s also following music history being made. we re going to get to that just ahead. i am kasie hunt on this monday, march 15th. we ll start with the news. the president and vice president will hit the road to begin promoting the new covid relief package this week. the president begins with an event at the white house today, while vice president harris will a
massive $1.9 trillion bill. amanda, catch us up to speed on the latest border crisis. reporter: the department of homeland security has instructed fema to begin to get involved with the unaccompanied migrant children coming over the southern border and trying to mitigate and shelter and move them into other facilities to help the influx we re seeing. to note the data points we have so far, about 3200 unaccompanied children being held at cvb facilities it comes as a 28% increase. this is all coming both with the biden administration trying to tackle the immigration issue but it s taking notice here among lawmakers within capitol hill. keep in mind, the influx we re seeing of this of the migrant children coming through across the border is due in part to a couple of factors including devastation from hurricanes in the last year as well as the covid pandemic impacting where the communities are as well as looking forward to anticipating more relaxed border protection and en