donoghue. the allies who helped our troops did not make it to the airport gates in time. we believe there are still a small number of american, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in afghanistan and want to leave. the taliban celebrating the u.s. withdrawal with fireworks and gun fire after midnight and taliban fighters surveying the kabul airport and the destroyed arms, ammunition and aircraft that the americans left behind. coming up, we ll be speaking with former defense secretary and the cia director leon panetta on the withdrawal from afghanistan and what comes next. we re also following the devastating aftermath of tropical storm ida. millions of residents along the gulf coast could be without power for weeks. louisiana governor john bell edwards is scheduled to hold a press conference. we ll bring that to you live when it happens. first, the latest on afghanistan, nbc s chief white house correspondent peter alexander and pentagon correspondent courtney k
that the protection given by two doses of the pfizer and astrazeneca covid vaccines starts to wear off within six months. do you have any questions about the protection offered by these jabs? we will be speaking to an expert at 10 clock this morning. get in touch on twitter @annita mcveigh using the hashtag #bbcyourquestions a new lead in the case of the missing chef claudia lawrence 12 years on, police search gravel pits near her home in york and it s a golden start in tokyo for paralympics gb as cyclist dame sarah storey takes the 15th gold of her career. president biden has rejected british calls to extend the united states forces airlift in afghanistan beyond the 31st of august , saying it would be too dangerous. in a televised address from the white house last night, president biden said each day of operations brings added risk to our troops of an attack by extremists linked to the islamic state group. some us soldiers have already started to leave as the rescue ef
huge security challenges in even getting to the kabul airport, it s his first news conference since the takeover last week after president biden told top advisers to come up with contingency plans if they miss the deadline. also today, the white house, the military have two congressmen, military veterans both, peter meyer traveling secretly to kabul yesterday, taking up seats on a military aircraft for their return flight, what many call political grandstanding. on the coronavirus johnson & johnson supporting data for a booster shot eight months after the single-des vaccine, the vaccinations ramping up nationally with 6 million americans getting shots in arms in the last seven days. the delta variant continues to wreak havoc in communities across the country. nearly 1 million new u.s. covid cases in the last week and a 23% increase in deaths. also today the select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection is submitting their first broad records request, giving agen
play out. we re expecting to hear from the president this afternoon on his decision. this morning he addressed an emergency session of the g7 about that timeline. let s get back over to white house. phil mattingly is standing by. what more are you learning about the reasoning behind biden s decision to stick with this august 31st deadline? okay. this has been something the president and his top national security officials have been waking now for several days. obviously the key component, how many americans, how many afghans, can they evacuate before that deadline and most importantly, how will the u.s. defense department, the pentagon have to scale down to meet that deadline in seven days. keep in mind, you mentioned he had the virtual meeting with g7 leaders this morning. many of the key allies have been pressing the president to extend the deadline. democrats and republicans have been doing the same. very concerned there isn t enough time in seven days to get out the num
also, westerly winds take hold. that s what is going to help push the storm back out to sea. the thing is, regardless of where it ends up going in the short term or where exactly it makes landfall, you have a lot of heavy rain expected for this area in the northeast. rip currents also going to be a concern from north carolina all the way up through massachusetts. we talk about the heavy rain and, yes, it ll be heavy along the coast. even inland, upstate new york, envir vermont, new hampshire could get several inches of rain. you have the moderate risk of flash flooding across several northeastern states. the ground is very saturated, not only from the rain they expect from this storm, but the remnants of fred earlier this week dumped a tremendous amount of rain in this area. so because that ground is saturated, it does not take very strong winds to bring down trees and power lines, but you are going to have strong winds. 60, 70, 80-mile-per-hour winds possible for several sta