Surfside, florida. 118 people are still missing as they work ahead of a tropical storm brewing in the region. Joining me now with the very latest from surfside, nbc news correspondent vaughn hilliard and also with us as well is nbc news meteorologist michelle grossman. We ll get to you in just a moment, michelle. I want to see what the preparations are on the ground. Talk to us about what you re seeing in terms of the search and rescue teams, what they re doing ahead of tropical storm making land fall. They re making as much much progress as they can. Got news here, i ll let michelle address the actual path here. It changes hour by hour and the potential impact on surfside. But essentially the crews cut back at is being a. M. This morning. They have been working nonstop eper since. Targeting some areas with that other building being collapsed or demolished overnight. They re now able to access some other areas of that building that they have not been able to get to over the last 12 day
Increasing criticism about the speed of america s exit. Welcome, everyone. Covid19 fears ramping up all over again as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads across the united states and abroad. The world health organization says the variant has now been detected in 100 countries. And in the u. S. , it now accounts for more than half of all new infections. That could be because the nation is still far from reaching herd immunity with less than half of the population fully vaccinated. And on top of all of that, pfizer now saying it is seeing waning community from its covid19 vaccine. The company tells cnn it will seek emergency use authorization from the u. S. Food and drug administration for a booster shot. But on thursday, the fda and centers for disease control and prevention issued an unusual joint statement saying americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot right now. Meanwhile, there s growing concern that low vaccination rates across the u. S. Could
king. memorial day holiday weekend, the dos and don ts, safety tips if you will and compliments on the vaccine rollout heading into this holiday weekend. to the right of your screen that s the floor of the united states senate, a key vote under way right now, will the united states senate proceed to debate whether we should have an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the capitol insurrection? we expect the answer to be no. but this key procedural vote is under way right now. it should wrap up any moment from now. democrats need ten republicans to break ranks to keep the idea of this commission alive. let s get straight up to capitol hill and our chief congressional correspondent manu raju. as it plays out right now, explain the significance of the vote that should be concluded in a matter of moments. reporter: the significance here is that there are 60 votes to move ahead there s a possibility that an outside commission could be created to investigate the janua
Stelter. Evan, take us thus what happened here. Alisyn and victor, until now we haven t been able to tell this story. Until just a short while ago, this has been sealed under a federal court order, preventing cnn s lawyers from telling the story of what happens a monthslong protracted legal for months, belonging to cnn s pentagon correspondent barbara starr. This was a fight going on in secret over months. It continued even while a judge told the justice department that, quote, their reasoning was speculative and stun unanchored. It begins in july of 2020, when the justice department when cnn s legal department receives an order from a judge, from the justice department saying that they want two months of barbara starr s email records from 2017. Now, this includes at the time a gag order that prevented david vigilante, our lawyer, from discussion this issue with a limited number of people. In november of 2020, cnn goes to the court and asks for this order to be narrowed, because the in
And that is because before this bill passed the house of representative, mitch mcconnell came out publicly and said he was not going to support it. That was a big sign to his republican colleagues on where to stand on this issue. There has been a lot of discussion both behind the scenes and publicly about the formation of this commission among republicans. The majority of republicans are just following the lead of their leader mcconnell and choosing not to support it. Just to highlight this. This is a significant moment. All americans saw what happened on january 6. This commission would be bipartisan and independent. We have heard from four former dhs homeland secretaries saying that politics should be put aside, saying we need to get to the bottom of this. Yesterday we heard from the mother of an officer who died a day after the attack on the capitol calling on the lawmakers to follow the constitution. It looks like this will fail. But right now i want to get to other breaking news.