disastrous holiday weekend continues to come at the expense of their customers. also this hour we ll check on the next storm system as buffalo residents begin to dig out and get back on the road and hopefully avoid tlooding in their communities. and an update from officials as doctors continue around the clock supervision of pope benedict from his bedside in a vatican city monastery. some new developments in the southwest airlines debacle just in the last few minutes. southwest is now announcing plans to, quote, return to normal operations with minimal disruptions by tomorrow. but still today thousands more flights have been cancelled. thousands of fliers still struggling to figure out how they are going to make it to their final destinations. other airlines like american, delta, united have offered to try to help putting a cap on flight prices between certain cities to give customers more options. it s unclear whether that s work ing. let s bring in nala charles. what
we had some of the strongest winds here so far. good evening, once again, i am stephanie ruhle. we are continuing live coverage of hurricane in, the category four storm made landfall on florida s west coast this afternoon, and it is still battering the state with heavy rain and hurricane-force winds. right now, more than 2 million homes and businesses in the state of florida are without power. let s get right to nbc meteorologist michelle grossman for the latest. michelle, i know you just got the 11 pm update for the national hurricane center. what have you learned? i will look at it with you, because it s right at the presses. we re still looking at a strong storm. we re looking at heavy rainfall, gusty winds, and we will look at what we are seeing in terms of wednesday, because we are holding on to the strength. let s hold back for a second because you saw wind speeds up to 135 miles per hour. this was a historical storm, if it is the big historical, catastrophic. we ll
and simon schuster, and nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is with me on set. talk to me where we are in this moment and why the speech could be critical. you ve been on the front lines for months. ukraine is trying to do everything it can to stay relevant, to keep the attention on ukraine. ukrainian money, and weapons and wants sanctions to be maintained on russia. i think many are watching. some nations seem to be wavering, maybe it s time to strike a deal. maybe it s time to bring putin back in the fold. perhaps ukraine should give away some of its provinces in exchange for peace. and ukrainian officials are trying to counter that narrative, saying we can t stop. putin is not going to stop even if we cut off part of our country and give it away to him. this leads to greater appetites of dictators. there s a tremendous desire from president zelenskyy personally to make sure the world continues to focus on ukraine and stay with ukraine. do you get a sense
next up is the house, and they plan to take up the bill on friday. it s expected to pass, again, along party lines just as it did in the senate. once that happens, the white house plans to seize the momentum. while the president will be talking about this and explaining it absolutely to the american people and what it will look like is trying to explain in very practical terms why this matters for people s lives. the president will, our entire team will be out making the case. obviously right now we re focused on the last steps in this process, getting the bill through the house and to the president s desk for signature. let s go live to the capital and cnn s jessica dean. jes jessica, there are some wide-reaching provisions in this bill. lay it out for us. yeah, there s a lot in this bill. you mentioned that it s headed to the house. that s what comes next after senate democrats notched a big victory on something that frankly many of them didn t think they would see. t
cooperate. we ve had discussions with him about potentially appearing before them, trying to make sure we understand what it is they re asking for. as i always did when i was in service to america, i m happy to cooperate with things that are fair and transparent and deliver good outcomes to the american people. we ve learned the committee has already spoken to treasury secretary steve mnuchin. both pompeo and mnuchin discussed using the 25th amendment to remove trump from office. and trump s former chief of staff, mick mulvaney, testified before the committee just yesterday after he offered to come in voluntarily. suffice it to say the list is growing fast. here s how committee member jamie raskin puts it. it s like a waterfall of truth at this point. when you have more than 1,000 witnesses coming in and telling you what had happened, it s the tiny handful of people who are either lying or refusing to participate who begin to feel very nervous about the situation. acc