maine. a potentially dangerous mix of snow and freezing rain blanketing major roads. airlines cancelling more than 2,700 flights. the severe weather also causing significant delays. power now knocked out for more than 267,000 customers across georgia, alabama, florida and the carolina. this storm expected to shift up the east coast now with some cities like pisi expecting up to four inches of know. let's go now to cnn meteorologist tom seder who is monitoring the movement of this storm. tom, tell us how things look right now. >> well, jessica, we are in day two of a three-day event. you can see where the winter warnings are in effect now. from areas of the deep south all the way up towards say maine. mississippi to maine really. but yesterday it started it as the system dug out areas of the dakotas. 8 to 12 inches of snow. des moines, iowa, 14 inches, snow all the way down through areas of arkansas and memphis hit good and then can you still see the snow falling in areas of mississippi. it's a big dynamic-shaped storm with so many elements of severity that millions are going to see different things and some could see a variety of these different elements. first of all, the snow. as you look at it trying to make its way into nashville, a little bit of rain, sleet, freezing rain mix south of nashville and franklin several inches. it the continues to make its way up to the east and to the northeast. if you get down towards atlanta, we've had sleet and freezing rain waiting for that cold air to drop down to change it over to snow and it hasn't done that. it's going to take a few more hours as we see the snow coming from alabama across jam of. accumulations are real treating travel chaos because temperatures have been hovering right around freezing in the south and they will drop. now, you get into the carolinas from the piedmont in towards central, virginia. it will be a devastating storm with mainly an ice event that could knock out power to millions. you already mentioned a couple hundred thousand that we're out. in the infancy of the storm. some of the totals that you can see here getting well over 9, 10 inches, gatlinburg, expect snow here, but some of the areas are really staggering when you look at the amounts. that's just tip of the iceberg. now the ice. it is beginning to really form. already a quarter of an in. you're looking at an inch of ice in some areas of south and north carolina. atlanta, sure, you'll have your travel problems, just not used to this, but look at the snow moving up. i-95, jessica, will be the rain-snow line and rain in the bigger cities to the east, but they will get walloped with heavy snowfall. the big concern is that accumulation of ice. you lose power and you're without power for a day, maybe a week. >> that ice can be so destructive. it's not just the winter weather that you've walked us through. a possible done so that richard through a golf course in ft. myers, that's a lot of power there. what do you know about tornado watches and warnings near that area? >> well, there is one more tornado warning still in effect. it's mainly on that eastern coastline now. basically, if you've -- we've got radar for you here as well. in the ft. myers area, this is a pretty good-sized tornado. several videos are running throughout region and online that you can see the debris and obviously the damage. the national weather service out of tampa is already on the way with the crew to estimate the ferocity, how strong these winds were. what they will give a tornado a scale, but the warning now is all the way off on to the east coast so it's southeast, text yeah, excuse me, they will see that warning come to an end by 3:00 p.m. so that final line is making its way through miami right now and small spinups are possible until this exits the entire portion of the florida peninsula. >> wow, so many americans. >> yeah. >> so many americans getting wild weather this week. thanks so much, tom seder, we appreciate it, and we have some breaking news now on the dramatic hostage rescue in texas. cnn has learned the identity of the suspect. the fbi identifying him just a few moments ago at 44-year-old molik faisal akram, a british citizen. killed in laefa standoff in colleyville, texas. he took the rabbi and three others in a synagogue hostage as the services were being livestreamed. one hostage was released several hours into that standoff, and after hours of negotiations, an elite fbi rescue team then breached the synagogue freeing the remaining hostages. the president today calling the case an act of terror. >> i spoke this morning with the attorney general to get a rundown. he said there was overwhelming cooperation with the local authorities and the fbi, and they did one hell of a job. this was an act terror. this was an act of terror. >> the nick payton wall somebody in london for us. we'll get the first with ed lavandera who is live with us in colleyville, texas. what more do we know about the suspect and also his motive for taking these hostages last night? >> reporter: well, law enforcement officials have said that the moist, at least the preliminary indkafgs all of this is that the suspect m ha li k faisal akram, was primarily focused on this jihadist who was -- who was imprisoned here in the north texas area by the name of aafia siddiqui, and that was the focusing of much of his discussions and the reason for taking the people at this synagogue hostage, but this afternoon law enforcement officials here still working at the scene of the synagogue where all of this unfolded. nearly an 11-hour hostage situation, and we're also hearing from pastor charlie crtron-walker -- sorry, rabbi charlie cytron-walker, taken hostage throughout much of the day. he posted this morning saying he's thankful and filled with appreciation for the vigils and prayers from around the world, and he's thankful to the law enforcement and first responders who saved him. he says, quote, i am grateful that we made it out. i am grateful to be alive. and, remember, this was an incredibly harrowing moment, especially for the hundreds of people who belong to this synagogue who were watching on a livestream, and we can play a little bit of that for you now so you can get a sense of what the members of this synagogue were trying to process here just a little over 24 hours ago when this ordeal first started. you might have heard a reference to his sister siddiqi, not his biological sister, and we want to be clear about that, but all of that is just a sample of what members of this synagogue were watching on the livestream for the better part of an house, so you can imagine how harrowing and terrifying it was for the members of this synagogue to watch all of this unfold. >> there's no doubt about it. just watching that. ed, what else do we know when the negotiations went down this afternoon, and we know this elite fbi team ultimately went in. >> yeah. hostage negotiators were working throughout the day. fbi officials said last night that it was constant communication, that there were some periods where the suspect would not engage with them but it was real constant negotiation and the head of the fbi office here in the fbi area credited those hostage negotiators with prolonging and keeping the conversation going. he says that in large part this came out to the outcome that it did because of those hostage negotiators and essentially that gave time for the hostage record team from the fbi, 60 of them that flew in from virginia, and they were the ones who put an edge to this hostage system and fbi officials say it was the hostage negotiators who created the opportunity to make that happen. >> today's result, which was four safe hoffert action and the situation resolved, was really the result of a long day of hard work by nearly 200 law enforcement officers from across this region. the fbi hostage negotiate teams, one of the crown jewels, their mission is to conduct deliberate hostage negotiations when necessary. in this case we had a necessity for that, and they were successful. very proud of them. >> jessica, you know, the four hostages. we note rabbi of this synagogue sat home this afternoon with his family. >> no place he'd rather be no doubt about that. ed, thanks so much. let's go now to nick paton walsh live for us now in london. this suspect in this case was a british citizen. what else do we know about that? >> reporter: at this stage limited amount, around certainly authorities here will be cooperating as best as they can who early on pointed out they had reached out to london-based officials to try to get some assistance on this, and the questions, of course, they will be asking is was this individual known to the security services in the uk? could he have any travel or communications that might link him to areas in the world, possibly linked to terror groups? i would have to say, and you may possibly agree, listening to him in that recording there, isn't always coherent. doesn't sound like the most well-sophisticated or well thought through plans here and nonetheless no less terrifying on those held hostages, and i'm sure authorities will be talking to family members, if possible and trying to get as much detail about the motive which preponderance of the evidence joe biden said it was already too early for people to begin to suggest why this had occurred. the uk's foreign secretary, equivalent to the secretary of state, said that this was an act terrorism anti-semitism that they condemned here, so a lot of work clearly has been happening, will be happening here in the unit kingdom to learn more about a man i understand most importantly known at faisal akram, quite how he came to the united states. if anything about his history here might suggests links to terror groups, i have to say my hunch here is more predominantly we maybe look at an individual with mental health issues possibly and also talking to his family, for his and their possible, if there were any cases where they brushed with law enforcement in the past and trying to build a picture here as to exactly what kind of individual we're talking about. whether this was the man who was perhaps prepared by others to launch this attack or does seem more the case here acting on his own possibly with mental health issues involved as well. still though, too early, say people i speak to here and are stateside president biden for a motive really to be designed but the foreign minister here condemning this as an act terror. >> thanks to you both for those reports. still ahead this afternoon, tennis star novak djokovic will not be defending his title at the australian open. he's left the country after losing a last-ditch appeal to lose deportation. how he's responding. that's just ahead. plus, top u.s. health officials warning not to expect the omicron variant to peak in the coming days as at nation continues to be gripped by a surge in cases and hospitalizations. how the biden administration is responding. that's ahead. spots? 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dupixent helps keep you one step ahead of eczema with clearer skin and less itch. hide my skin? not me. don't use if you're allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, which is severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems, such as eye pain or vision changes, or a parasitic infection. if you take asthma medicines, don't change or stop them without talking to your doctor. ask your doctor about dupixent. you booked a sunny vrbo ski chalet. with endless views of snow-covered peaks. but the thing they'll remember forever? grandpa coming out of retirement to give a few ski lessons. the time to plan your get together is now. find it on vrbo. novak djokovic is no longer in australia. the world's number one tennis player left the country today after a federal court upheld the cancellation of his visa. and that means he will not be defending his title at the australian open which kicks off on monday. the country's immigration minister said the court made the right call adding, quote, australia's strong border protection policies have kept us safe during the pandemic. policies are also fundamental to safeguarding australia's social cohesion. djokovic's visa was revoked twice, once over an invalid vaccine exemption and then again over concerns he could stir up anti-vaccine sentiment. let's bring in don riddell. host of cnn's "world sports." what has been the reaction from djokovic and his supporters so far, don? >> reporter: there's been a lot of reaction. of course, he has an enormous profile within this sport and also the global sports industry. a lot of fans in tennis, a national hero in serbia, whether he likes it or not and he's also become a poverty boy for the anti-vaccine movement, but the most prominent reaction has been from the serbian government, pretty scathing. they accused the australians of harassing him over the period of 11 days. they accused him of orchestrating a witch hunt and described it as an unprecedented media lynching. djokovic has a lot of friends on the tour, amongst the other players. some of them have been supportive. they have all been asked about it. some follow that he brought this entire situation upon himself, and i would say i think all are just glad that this circus is now over because it has been enormously disruptive to the tennis and the australian open which starts in a few hours time. >> right, especially when athletes want to be focused and ready to play their best. what do you think this means for djokovic going forward? will he have to potentially skip other tournaments, do you think, because of his vaccination status? >> he might. i just counted it up. he's won titles in 16 different countries so djokovic and all top tennis players are on the road all around the world all the type. it's so hard to know because the fight globally against the pandemic is just a fast moving and ever-changing landscape but he might find it very, very difficult to get into other countries. going back them to europe now. typically the next trip he would make would be to the u.s. where non-residents need to be vaccinated in order to get into the country so is he going to have difficulties there in the next major tournament is the french open, recently the french president emmanuel macron said he wanted to make life very difficult for non-vaccinated people so it might ultimately behoove him to become vaccinated which is what some of the other players have been saying. if he had just been vaccinated in the first place, none of this would have happened. djokovic is very resistant to that. he's into the big fan of surgeries or medication but he did a few years ago get a very big and important elbow surgery done because he knew he needed it to prolong his career. he might now recognize that he's in a similar position with the vaccine, and i can't imagine he's going to want to go through what he's just experienced ever again. >> yeah. it's very interesting. quickly, before we let you go. i know you talked about some of the other players glad that this has been resolved and this is not a distraction anymore, but do you think losing the number one player that's ranked number one takes any shine off the tournament or do they proceed kind of as normally now? >> after, what they have all been through i think they will be glad that the tournament is happening and he's out of the way, quite honestly, because it was really a stain on the all thing. they want him there. won the australian open nine times it, the most successful player. if he played and won he would have gotten history by getting to 21 grand slams titles, so his absence is a huge setback. there's no roger federer this year so this particular turn cement suffering from a dearth of big names, but i think after everything they have been through they will just be glad that they can play tennis and new stars lynnestbly emerge. >> they always do. don riddell, thanks so much. we appreciate it. still ahead. snow crippling ice and strong winds. we've got the latest on a massive winter storm that's hitting the eastern united states. two loads of snot covered laundry. only one will be sanitized. wait, what? adding lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of bacteria detergent alone, can't. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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>> this is actually the first real break that i've had in a while from the ice pelting me in the face. this is ice, crunchy. it's ice underneath there and in some areas a quarter to valve an inch of ice on the roads. that's the concern. there's more than 200 traffic accidents dealing with the storm across the state, and, look, the state said that because of staffing shortages they are not going to have the type of manpower they need it. may take them longer for them to clear the roads. the advice right now is for people just not to drive. look, that's what we were seeing to begin, but in the past hour or so as the roads are starting to get a little bit slushy while people are driving. we're seeing more and more vehicles on the road as the weather continues throughout the day. >> all right. thanks so much. be careful, you guys. that ice is serious stuff. diane gallagher and nadia romero fours both. thank you so much. still ahead. free at-home covid testing kits, are they an answer to stem the spread of the virus? 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♪ ♪ ♪ sometimes you want to go ♪ ♪where everybody knows your name ♪ ♪ ♪and they're always glad you came ♪ the being zjd is warning today the u.s. should not expect a national peak in the omicron variant in the coming days and that the next few days will be tough telling our jake tapper the biden administration needs to focus on testing. >> as the president said, we certainly have more to do on testing and that's a message that's clear from the public and to his team that we need to pull every lever possible. that's why you've seen so many additional spigots open, if you will, when it comes to testing and why that supply will continue to increase in the months ahead. >> an emergency medicine physician joining us me now. doctor great to see you. thanks for being here. i first want to get your assessment of this administration strategy and its response to the pandemic. have they been prioritizing things appropriately? >> oh, i think they were working from a place where they had a lot of things that needed to be done. i think we still need a little bit more expediency. a couple months ago we would have been working to ramp up testing, especially at-home testing so we're a bit behind. i'm hoping that we catch up. it's good to see we'll be seeing movement and i'm still a little bit worried about how the home testing is rolling out. the reliance on a website which we know is going to be overwhelmed wherever the first couple of thursday it launches, if not within minutes and the fact that we still have 33 million american adults without health insurance who can't file for rim burstment. they can't file for the tests. they really need do more in terms of getting tests to people, having it so that you can pick up tests at the grocery store, corner store, basically anywhere that you go where people, are you should be able to pick up a couple of tests. send them home from kids in school so that every home can be stocked with these tests, test when they have symptoms and the if they are positive they can isolate. >> meeting people where they are. let's talk about hospitals. how do you think they are faring right now? we know it's not good. the secretary-general, who we just heard, from said that the next few weeks will be tough. the past few weeks i know have been incredibly hard, but what are you seeing? >> the hospitals are stretched as thin as they have ever been. every year people say we've gotten a large flu surge, but i've never seen anything like that. never been there when they have been delayed and we're sending people who need surgical procedures that they have to be able to do. we're so stretched thin. where we've had all of that and except in the last period and hospitals are stretched as long as they could be. people -- and that's a huge concern, a huge worry and we're losing our health care system and they arep unaware what's going on there. >> it seems to be out of sight, out of mind, if you're enough where you don't have a medical emergency, and if you're not there you're not seeing this day to day and this cannot go on this way. >> it's a really tough situation. it's a little bit out of sight, out of mind. i've been talking to our paramedics and they tell me there are so many diversions that they have had to go to find one. that's an unbearable situation and one that really is not great for patients because patients are staying in ambulances and that means those planses are not back out getting more patients who need help. >> the u.s. supreme court's decision to block the president's vaccine and testing requirements aimed at large businesses. leaves the next step in business' hands. what's your message to big businesses out thereto? >> that's a huge hit to public health initiatives. this is not the way things like this should be decided. public health initiatives should not be left up to this kind of a decision. this decision has stripped away osha's power in trying to help with this pandemic and protect workers. what this does, like you said, leave it in the hands of businesses. it makes it very difficult for individual businesses to make these decisions. they are not public health exports, and it makes it very difficult for the public to make decisions about which businesses have vaccine mandates, which ones don't. this is not the way public health should be done and what there,will result in is more surges. it will allow this virus to continue to persist where we had a real opportunity to say if you're working for a business, you have to get vaccinated just like you have to get vaccinate federal you're working in a hospital. those are the right things to do. we need expanded mandates in order to get more of the population vaccinated to stem this pandemic. >> dr. nathan, thanks so much for your expertise. we sure do appreciate it. >> thank you. earlier this week house democrats introduced legislation to make at-home covid tests widely available to americans and with me now is representative don buyer of virginia. congressman, it's great to see you. thanks for make time today. we heard from president biden that testing efforts are ramping up regardless of insurance status. tell us what will the free at-home test for all to act and provide to americans. >> the press should moved in the right direction announcing 500 million tests for americans, so that's only about 1.5 tests per person. what our legislation does is says two free tests per person per week. now the good news is when you do that kind of volume, the costs per test going to plummet dramatically, but if we go back to two years ago, you had people like nobel prize winning economist role romer saying if you could test everybody realtime in their homes, then right away the spread of the virus would drop dramatically. we discovered in the last couple of days, last couple of weeks when tests are available, you can do them in your home and you know -- especially with omicron that doesn't have many symptoms, that people can stay at home and stop other people from getting stick. a great way to stop the spread. >> right, and i hear what you've saying and we've nope for a while that testing is incredibly important. i'm wondering why you all are just now putting this together nearly two years into the pandemic. why do you think it took so long both for the administration to prioritize testing but also for an act like this to be put together? some of this is just trying to figure out what the urgency was at the moment and the biden administration spent much of this year focusing on vaccines. they rolled out as the president was being inaugurated and we have something like 76% americans with at least one shot. what we're running into the remainder are very vaccine hesitant. they are resisting, and, you know, it would be great to make more progress and at the supreme court decision that may not be happening so now we have to really switch strategies and make testing the next best step to stop the spread. >> mm-hmm. >> and vice president kamala harris has defended the administration's approach to how it's handling the virus. we can take a listen to her recent answer on this. >> it is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down. >> congressman, you know that answer got a lot of criticism for kind of being again rick and not really answering the question directly. do you think it's a fair criticism to question the biden administration's strategy? do you think they should be change the way they are doing things, or do you think they continue to push ahead with the strategy they have? >> well, i think they continue to push ahead, but the strategy continues to evolve. if we go back, to you know, january a year ago, the great need was to get vaccine shots in as many arms as possible. we've seen that anyone vaccinated is much less likely to go to the hospital, almost very unlikely to die from this, and yet we have more than 1,000 deaths a day from people who run vaccinated. so if we can get to 100%, we'd be in a very different place. >> right. >> but we're not so the policy has to evolve and the test is the next big step. >> quickly before i let you go on your legislation with the testing. do you have republican buy-in on this? do you have any support thon? obviously if you guys pass it is in the house it's got to go in the senate. are you reaching out to any of your republican colleagues? >> we, have and this is especially helpful for our republican colleagues who are either vaccine resistant or defend the people who are vaccine resistant. okay. if you're not getting the vaccine these tests, two per week also, give you a chance to be safe and keep yourself from spreading it to others so it's a really helpful thing, a bipartisan thing. >> congressman, thanks so much. thanks for joining us this afternoon. >> thanks, jessica. democrats are still trying do the seemingly impossible which is get this voting rights legislation past the finish line is. there any hope? 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>> he never gave in and gave out, but disappointment, yes. he'd be greatly disappointed and say that america must and will do better. he would never have accepted what we are going through at this point. >> reporter: ting had hoped that bringing president biden to georgia, the epicenter of the voting rights battle works have put enough pressure on the few democratic senators holding up legislation to relent. >> pass the freedom to vote snookt following biden's following address. >> pass it now. >> reporter: i sat down on the front porch of the home where martin luther king was born with his son martin iii, and mark morrall and king shared the private conversation he had with the president earlier that day. what did you tell him? >> we talked about literally the full faith of the white house. we saw you do that with infrastructure. we want you to do that for the right to vote. >> i've been having these quiet conversations with members of congress for the last two months. i'm tired of being quiet! >> reporter: do any of you share that sentiment? tired of the president being quiet? i mean, he said he was tired of being quiet. >> yes. we're tired of him being quiet as he's tired of being quiet and it's time to elevate this battle, elevate this fight to what it is, and that's a fight for the future of this nation? >> 80-year-old civil rights leader reverend jesse jackson who marched with king for civil and voting rights more than half a century ago also attended biden's speech. he believes the ongoing battle for the ballot is worth it. >> we have an obligation to fight back, to save the sun try. >> reporter: why are you so optimistic? >> my back is against the wall. there's no future in hopelessness. there's power in hope. keep hope alive. >> reporter: king was encouraged by biden's call to lower the senate 60-vote threshold to get national voting rights legislation passed but at the same time realistic about its chances of getting the necessary approval. >> i can't say even today my own self i'm confident that it will pass, but the fact of the matter is if you continue down the pathway that it feels like we've gone down, you're definitely doomed. >> two days later back in washington, king's fears were realized. the voting rights bill effectively died after democratic senator kyrstin sinema of arizona announced she would not support changing the senate filibuster rules. king said history would remember sinema unkindly hand her home state could pay. >> you may remember that arizona was one of the last states to pass the king holiday bill. >> yes. >> and one of the things that happened was the super bowl was removed. >> reporter: saturday the king family will mark king's bit day in arizona to keep up the pressure on voting rights, and on monday the mlk day holiday. their fight is in the nation's capitol where they are asking americans across the country to honor king by promoting voting rights and registration. >> they are all heirs to what he stood and died and fought for, and i think what we're simply saying is that this is a time, this is a day of action. >> well, there will be plenty of action here on capitol hill in washington. votes scheduled for the voting rights legislation as well as the senate rule changes. the king family will join house speaker nancy pelosi here in washington as well to keep up the pressure on lawmakers to make this their top priority. they will start their march at the frederick douglass memorial bridge sending a message saying, look you fought for these bridges, now fight for voting rights. get done. >> jessica. suzanne malvo for us on capitol hill. thanks so much. we have much more in our newsroom ahead. i always dreamed of having kids of my own. ♪ ♪ now i'm ready for someone to call me mom. at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. have you checked singlecare? 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