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The president doesnt resolve the Voting Rights battle first. In the middle of all this comes another big push from the president. Minutes from now he will speak on a new gun Crime Prevention and Public Safety plan. But will politics get in the way of this too . Cnn chief Congressional Correspondent manu raju is live on capitol hill for us. An Infrastructure Meeting is about to kick off with white house officials 30 minutes from now. Where do those talks stand . Reporter the white house meeting is with the Bipartisan Group of senators. Theyre trying to figure out exactly whether they can reach an agreement on how to finance this package. The democrats who were involved in these talks told me today that they believe it is essential today to try to figure out a way to get an agreement on how to pay for a 1. 2 trillion package over eight years. There are still disagreements about how to do that. At the same time there is pressure from the left, particularly from progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and the like who are concerned about the direction of these talks and calling for these talks to essentially end so democrats can move on their own on this major sweeping package and try to pass it straight along party lines, saying time is running out. What concerns you about these bipartisan talks . Is how much time theyre chewing up and how much delay they keep putting into the process when they recognize thats not the whole infrastructure package. It is a subset. Right off the top before the negotiations even began, the people involved acknowledged it was not going to solve the problems that we face on infrastructure. I am certainly out of patience and were running out of time on infrastructure. Reporter so i asked one of the members involved in these discussions about these concerns. Chris coons, a Delaware Democrat very close to joe biden. He said some of my progressive members have been saying for weeks. I have reminded them repeatedly in order to go along Straight Party lines, they need to go through this bipartisan process first. The democrats are trying to see what they can do on a Small Erbi Er bill and see if they can get a bigger caucus together on a big bill. The democrats are not in line. So frustration is building on infrastructure. It seems to be boiling over already on Voting Reform. That bill failed in the senate. Democrats are now split over what to do next. What options do they really have . Not a whole lot, because theres pressure from the left also to gut the senates Filibuster Rules to move from a super majority of 60 votes down to a simple majority of 51 votes in order to advance legislation. There is resistance among moderate democrats to do that, people like joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. Angus king told me he does not support lowering that threshold down to 51 votes. That means at the moment they need to get ten republicans to break ranks and theres no sign this is going to happen. Thats why democrats want to make this an issue heading into the midterm elections and blame republicans for blocking their efforts. Now to the president s plan to take on crime. Kaitlan collins is live at the white house. Tell us about this meeting hes soon hosting and the strategy hes laying out. Reporter i think what this shows is the white house realizes this is an issue, so they want it to look like President Biden is at the forefront of it and is addressing it and also addressing ways to change the numbers and send them in the other direction. Of course, given the rise in Violent Crime weve seen play out in the United States over the last few months, thats why theyre dedicating an entire day to it, having him meet with the Attorney General and senators throughout the day and then hes going to come out and make remarks on it. Theyre saying gun violence is the driving issue here. Theyre going to layout steps President Biden is taking inc they also say theyre going to let communities use some of those covid19 relief funds to Hire Police Officers, pay them overtime, take communitybased initiatives. Essentially they want to look like they are on top of this issue and President Biden is taking steps to address it given theres a concern this shcould continue throughout the summer, this trend in the rise of Violent Crime. Thats whats driving these remarks you are seeing from the white house today. There are two aspects here that are good, notable context, which is that this is something that is a divide in the Democratic Party, seeking to do Police Reform while balancing that with this trend we are seeing. Also President Biden himself, given the baggage he has here given his role in past crime bills when he was a senator in that 1994 crime bill which he touted at times and expressed regrets over some of it. Joining us now is the mayor of rapid city, south dakota, steve allender. He is also the citys former police chief. Its great to see you. We see you are at the white house because you are about to meet with the president along with other state and local leaders. What do you want to hear from him and what is your message to him . Thanks for having me. What i hope to hear from the president today is that theres a rollout of some evidence based programs that were going to be able to access. Not only that, but perhaps be able to scale for the Hometown America communities. Sometimes the federal government upsizes everything for the largest communities. We have similar problems on a smaller scale. What i Homeowners Association to convey to the group and to the president is that theres a real need here and theres a need on the local level to be able to access tools to support our Law Enforcement and to also support our community so that Community Violence intervention is a very important part of this. I know you have focused on that in your community specifically. Before we dive into the solutions, lets talk about the root cause of the problem. This year alone there have been 296 Mass Shootings and 16 mass murders where four or more people have been killed according to the gun violence archive. Your own City Report Add 100 increase in homicide from 2019 to 2020. Why do you think Violent Crime is surging . Youre right, its not good, but i think its two major components are causing the surge. One is that weve had Preexisting Problems and society produces violent individuals, and theres the whole psychological and upbringing discussion to be had there. The other is this is part of the post pandemic consequence that were experiencing here. Not only is violence up, but many other activities are up that i think would have been pretty significantly unable to estimate prior to this. Youve called them crimes of opportunity. As i was looking at your stats everything from robbery, Motor Vehicle theft, burglary and aggravated assault, there are increases there as well. You spent 29 years in Law Enforcement starting as a Patrol Officer and working your way up, so you have a unique perspective. In terms of solutions, what works and what doesnt . Well, for one ive touched on it a little bit. Taking a program that would seem to be effective in chicago and trying to transplant that in a Smaller Community somewhere else in america may not be appropriate in all cases. I think first and foremost on the shortterm, the solution is being able to support plolice officers. These Police Agencies across the country are suffering because theres high stress, high burnout with the negative public reaction thats occurred over the last year and a half. Its been a very undesirable career field. In many cases funding isnt really even the issue. We would Hire Police Officers if we could find them, if we could get them through our Background Checks and training programs, i think we would hire them. But we have very much burned out and in need of support from not only our communities but also other governmental agencies that can help with either funding or some type of agreements to work cooperatively together. We know the Biden Administration is expected to announce embedding federal agents with some of these local homicide teams and doing nationwide sweeps for wante ed fugitives. That may be part of the solution when you talk about not having enough local Police Officers to get a handle on the crime and uptick in violence were seeing. I want to ask you about what were seeing there in washington with lawmakers pointing fingers, blaming the other party for just about everything. Crime is no exception. Why do you think this issue has become so political . I think every issue has become political. There are really only two political parties, the good and the evil. You belong to the good one and everyone else belongs to the evil. Were divided on every issue. Violence should be no exception to that. Its across the board. These divided communities will not be helpful in addressing the Community Problems because the views each side has on how to approach it is radically different. Therefore, were just watching in congress those things play out from our elected representatives. At this point its really no surprise but it is thoroughly disappointing. Mayor steve allender, good luck with the meeting today. We have some breaking news. Live pictures of a Pedestrian Bridge that has collapsed onto an interstate in washington, d. C. Pete muntean is covering this. Reporter this is happening on a critical route in d. C. Right at a critical time, just before the start of the afternoon rush. The Interstate 295, you can see the Pedestrian Bridge has collapsed there in a critical area. This is a place where the bridge connects two sides of Interstate 295 neighborhoods. Firefighters tell us this bridge collapsed with three cars underneath. Thankfully nobody trapped inside and three people have been reported as having minor injuries. D. C. Police will investigate this. But its so fitting that you talk about infrastructure at the top of the hour. Americas roads and bridges are failing. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave bridges a c grade. We will keep look into this bridge as we get more governments. It is case in point that infrastructure in america is crumbling literally. Pete muntean, thank you again. Minor injuries reported in this Pedestrian Bridge collapse. A new lawsuit over vaccines. Students at Indiana University go to federal court because of the schools Vaccine Mandate. Their lawyer joins us next. Plus, another report torching trumps big 2020 election lie. This time, its coming from republicans. And Britney Consspears Expe to speak out today not on social media or on stage, but in court. I was drowning in student loan debt. I was in the process of deferring them, paying them. Then i discovered sofi. Completely changed my life. Lower interest rate. My principal is going down. Sofi is a place where you can start to tackle those money goals today. Compared to where i was three years ago, im kinda killing it. Sometimes you wanna go where Everybody Knows your name and theyre always glad you came welcome back, america. It sure is good to see you. When we started carvana, they told us that selling cars 100 online wouldnt work. Welcome back, america. But we went to work. Building an experience that lets you shop over 17,000 cars from home. 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Dr. Anthony fauci calls it the greatest threat to the progress made against the virus so far. But something can be done to stop it. The good news is that the vaccine protects against it. Thats really another very powerful reason why we want people the get vaccinated, because this is a threat. Nearly every death due to covid19 is particularly tragic, because nearly every death, especially among adults due to covid19, is at this point entirely preventible. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here now. How worried should we be . This variant is really of concern. Lets talk about the two reasons why. Number one, this Delta Variant, this is the variant first spotted in india. It looks like it is around 60 more transmissible. Thats compared to the variant first spotted in the u. K. , which in and of itself is more transmissible. The second reason is there are early studies that show it leads to higher than usual hospitalization rates. In other words youre more likely to lend upend up in the hospital. The Delta Variant represents about 20 of cases. Of all the cases in the u. S. , about 20 of them are this new variant. Its grown enormously just in the past month or so. You get pockets of people who are not vaccinated. Youre going to see higher rates. The reason for that is that the vaccine works quite well, not perfectly, not 90 something percent, but it really does work quite well against this new va variant. The concern here is about people who are not vaccinated. Lets take a look at europe. The European Center for Disease Control and prevention forecasts that the Delta Variant is going to make up to 70 of new cases by the beginning of august and 90 of new cases by the end of august. As goes europe, so goes the United States. Despite the news that every covid death now is almost entirely preventible, Vaccine Hesitancy is still high among young adults, especially members of gen z and millennials. Thats becoming a problem as more colleges require vaccinations before returning to campus. Eight students are now suing Indiana University, saying its Vaccine Mandate is unconstitutional. The attorney representing those students, james bop, joins us now. Why are the students suing . Theyre suing because theyre being stripped of their Constitutional Rights to make medical treatment decisions for themselves and to protect their own bodily integrity. After all, they are adults and they would like to weigh the risks and consequences of taking the vaccination or getting covid. Unless theres really compelling situation which no longer seems to be the case now, then they have that right to do that. I think people would take issue with it being compelling enough when we have over 600,000 americans who have died from the coronavirus. Deaths are still happening and the spread is still happening particularly in places where there are lower vaccination rates. Indiana is one of those states that is behind the National Average right now in terms of vaccines. The university has already required vaccines for other types of illnesses, for mmr, for meningitis. This was all before the pandemic and they do allow for exemptions. So why is there a problem with this one . Well, of course your recitation of what has happened is an interesting historical recitation, but you need to start at the beginning. I think everybody agrees, i agree that it appears that it was a very serious pandemic that required drastic measu