draw. colorado is a beautiful perfect rectangle. wyoming also rectangle. very easy states to draw, right? utah also easy, it s a rectangle with a notch. new mexico is easy. it s a rectangle with a notch in its notch. some states are very easy to draw even if like me you cannot draw at all, but when your state s borders are formed by mountain ranges or by rivers in particular, your state by definition is hard to draw well because its borders are all wiggly. perhaps none more so than the wigglest, kentucky, bordereded by the great mississippi river and over the whole wiggly top of the state it s the ohio river. and on the northern part of that wiggly arc where the wibble-wobble border sticks out the most there at that spot this week you will find an american political miracle because there at the northern pokey bit of kentucky that sticks out like it s trying to start a fight, there at covington, kentucky, there is the southern end of a huge double layer cantilevered truss brid
footsie with his far right colleagues. now because mccarthy is quarreling with that same group today does not mean he is resembling a moderate. it does not change the fact that right now in humiliating public fashion, kevin mccarthy is clawing and scraping his way he hopes to the speakership, trying desperately to halt what looks like at this hour, at lee, a runaway train. it s where we begin today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. nbc news senior correspondent, garrett hague, covering the action. and former stpho claire mccaskill is here, and claire and david are both msnbc contributors. ferret, what is happening now? right now we are seeing the third vote get ready to take place here, and this one will have kevin mccarthy introduced by steve scalise and placed in nomination by steve scalise, and for the second time in a row, you have people that could be foes to mccarthy, placing his name in nomination. the last round we saw with jim jordan, and far mor
already-devastating flooding. and, is taiwan on the itinerary? it s still a mystery as house speaker pelosi leaves for asia. putin makes his move. the kremlin s counter offer to bring brittney griner and paul whelan back home. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom, with kim brunhuber. we begin with the humanitarian tragedy in the u.s. president biden has issued a major disaster declaration for the state of kentucky, as catastrophic flooding has killed at least 16 people, including six children. and that death toll is expected to rise. the raging waters decimated entire neighborhoods. scores of people are still missing. the kentucky governor andy beshear say it s hard to get a fix on the exact number since cell service is out this many areas, and he added that the state has never seen anything like this. here he is. there are still so many areas we still can t get to. the water hasn t crested in some parts of eastern kentucky. so we can t even get into some ho
kentucky. it s hard to put into words the amount of devastation that we ve seen. you know, you re talking about some really, really good people here in eastern kentucky don t have a whole lot. and a lot of them have lost everything they ve got. you can hear just sorrow in his voice. the fast rising flood waters forced many people to evacuate, but the storms ended up catching a lot of people by surprise because they happened the middle of the night. and we are learning some really heart breaking stories, like this one in knotts county, four people killed when kids and their parents were forced to go to the roof. the young ones were swept away as their parents tried to hold on. there was a house there and this trailer with this family of six. and it just washed them away. cnn s joe johns joins us live now from hazard, kentucky. you can see some of the damage behind him. joe, tell what you say the latest is. reporter: well, just let me give you an idea, sara, of wher
this is still an emergency situation. we are in search and rescue mode. again, that count is going to continue to go up and we don t lose this many people in flooding. it is a real tough one. rescuers are working around the clock. the national guard from kentucky, tennessee, and west virginia are lifting hundreds from the floodwaters. more than 600 already. washed away roads and bridges adding to the already very complicated recovery efforts. cnn s evan is at a command center for the research and rescue efforts. how are they coordinating what, is going on? reporter: well, hi, fred, when they say command center, they mean a place people gather. this is a parking lot of a shopping center here in jackson, kentucky, that is in the middle of where the floodwaters happened and behind me agencies are coming from all over the country, all over the state to work to try to help find people who might be trapped or still need help in the floodwaters and they re also working with a