raging. the omicron strain's surging case numbers officially topped the delta variant's peak in early september. nbc news reports more than 2000 deaths on wednesday alone. we're going to dig into the massive strain the surge is putting on hospitals nationwide as well as the airline industry on a busy holiday weekend. multiple airlines forced to cancel hundreds of flights today because the virus is hitting crew members so hard. we'll look into what this means for the rest of the country as the u.s. lets travel restrictions to eight african countries. plus guilty on all counts. exminnesota police officer kim potter is behind bars this morning after the jury rendered the verdict in a shooting death of dawn ray wright. how much time she could face in prison and when she's set to learn her sentence. also a potential bomb shell reportedly being considered in the committee investigating the january 6th insurrection. the committee is now focussed on former president trump's hours of silence during the attack. and even weighing criminal referrals. in a few minutes i'll talk to one of the reporters behind the story about how significant a step we could be looking at. we begin with the latest on the omicron variant. nbc's kathy park is live in times square. dr. roy is with us, the director of covid isolation and quarantine sites for housing works in new york city. and we also have associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the university of virginia and an msnbc medical contributor. good morning to all of you. thanks for being with us on this christmas eve. kathy, we'll start with you. infections in new york, a broken record. highs for six straight days. now we're learning the big new year's eve bash in times square will go on but scaled back a bit. what are the new plans? >> the iconic new year's eve bash in times square is on but scaled back. typically we see about 58,000 revelers. that number is going to be closer to 15,000. and the mayor yesterday said they are going to be taking a lot of safety precautions when they move forward with this event. everyone will be required to be fully vaccinated. you'll have to bring your i.d. as well. and, of course, there will be a lot of celebrating and cheering because we are ending quite a year. so everyone will have to be fully masked. so a lot of safety precautions in place as this event is still a go. however, i want to point out that here in new york city, we continue to follow the testing strain. you mentioned we are seeing cases explode. more than 38,000 yesterday alone statewide. that's another record. and a lot of folks, it's crunch time to get those test results in. and we are hearing just a lot of frustration, a lot of headaches with people who are waiting in line in hopes of getting a test. in fact, there was a mobile van over to my right. there were people waiting in line for hours this morning. but they realized a couple hours ago that this location isn't open. so they moved onto a different location. across the street the city has a separate testing site. there a massive line. one for pcr tests. another for rapid tests. i spoke to a family who plans on going to the netherlands today in a matter of hours, and they need to get tested. as you know, netherlands, they locked down because omicron cases are skyrocketing in that region as well. so they need to have a negative covid test before they board their flight. i was just told a few seconds ago she stopped by, that the line there, they have just kind of maxed out their capacity as far as the rapid tests go. and they receive one of these. these free at-home tests and results 15 minutes. but they do need that official test before they head back home. so wishing them all the best. but that is kind of the frustration we're hearing from folks. people who want to be covid free, obviously, before they meet with family members later on today or tomorrow. some people have been exposed and that's why they are braving the cold and the long lines to ensure that they are safe this holiday season. >> kathy, keep a tight grip on the rapid tests. they're in high demand. dr. roy, it was just more than a month ago the mayor announced hundreds of thousands of people would crowd times square for new year's. of course, we were in a different place. that was before omicron emerged. what do you make of these new precautions the city is taking? is it enough to scale back? >> good to see you again. we've already learned this omicron variant is more transmissible and more infectious than any previous coronavirus variant. and it's kind of like what yogibera says. deja vu all over again. if we're not careful, we're going to see hospitalizations and sadly deaths follow. but the good news is we know what to do. we know vaccinations, boosters, masking and avoiding crowded spaces particularly indoors is going to be key. we just need to implement these measures and make sure that people are taking this seriously. and to your point about the mayor, he knows that new york city has a lot of the risk factors for omicron to really take over again, because it's a big city. a diversity of populations of demographics, including vulnerable people, some ineligible to be vaccinated. in crowded spaces, it's one of the congested cities in the united states. i think he's taking appropriate measures to keep the city and the people here safe. the people need to follow these measures and take it really seriously. >> i also want to bring in josh letterman at the white house. josh, let's talk about the biden administration now lifting travel restrictions to those 8 african countries. the u.s. remembers stopped travel at the onset of omicron and a senior biden administration official announced those restrictions will be lifted in about a week. what more do we know? yeah. this might seem like an odd time to be scaling back restrictions given the surge in cases that we've been discussing. but the white house emphasizing that this is being guided by the science. and, in fact, president biden has been signaling for some time that he was likely to lift the restrictions. pointing out that the point of putting this travel ban into place was not some idea that we were going to keep omicron out of the united states. it was to try to buy the united states more time at the very beginning when we didn't really know much about the variant to learn more about it and figure out what tools we needed to be able to tackle it. a senior administration official tells us there are two reasons why now is the right time to be lifting those restrictions. number one, according to the cdc, we now know that the vaccines that we have are effective at preventing serious illness from the omicron variant. particularly for those who are boosted. and secondly, the white house saying that these restrictions are really most effective very early on when a variant is spreading. now that omicron is very widespread in the united states, the dominant variant according to dr. fauci, there's less effectiveness at actually keeping those restrictions in place. so on december 31st, at 12:01:00 a.m., that restriction will go away. people from those eight southern african countries will be allowed to come to the united states. but they will be subject to the stepped up travel restrictions that are in place across the board for anyone coming to the united states. meaning a negative test not within three days but within one day before traveling to the united states. >> and doctor hilton, we are seeing the impact of this virus in a huge way on the airline industry. it is one of the busiest seasons right now. hundreds of flights were cancelled on this christmas eve because omicron is hitting work crews so hard. how big of a warning signal is this for the rest of the country? >> it should be an incredible warning signal. what we're looking at even the case load in the united states versus the rest of the world, our daily average in the last two weeks as increased by 55%. for the rest of the world, by 20%. the united states of america is on fire. and it's not just about who goes into the hospital. that is definitely a big problem, because right now 23 states are reporting they're under high stress as far as the hospital load. but what we also have to consider is even the persons who don't end up in the hospital, those persons who have mild or asymptomatic covid, what we saw at the university of pennsylvania, they report that 50% of those persons will develop long covid and the mayor clinic said three-fourths of the persons that they have seen now with long covid had mild cases. so if at this point we've had 52 million infections, america, we literally have a problem. and we have to mitigate this spread. wear your n-95 masks. just to be an added safety benefit after testing, we're going to do this rapid test before we meet and wear our masks. because an infection is not something we can risk. >> how early did you do the christmas shopping, doctor? >> it was weeks in advance. and thanks to amazon, we had some issues, but it is that necessary, because, again, even when we're thinking about our young children, if you look in massachusetts and rhode island, those places, the kids are outpacing the adults in terms of infection. and what does it do to the young developing body? we had that severe inflammatory response. we cannot risk that for our future generations. >> you mentioned long covid. we have a piece on nbcnews.com. a woman who was athletic before the case and now can't even do ten minutes of exercise so many months later. let's talk about the numbers. the number of new confirmed cases is up to 242,000. it puts the seven-day average to more than 167,000 according to nbc data. that's higher than the peak of delta in september. so how long do you see these numbers trending up? how high are we going to get? >> i think if we're anything like south africa, again, south africa has a fantastic system in place because they had to battle hiv and tb. they have a sequencing system we didn't have. the travel ban, as we mentioned before, is a problem. they were just the first to detect it. if we're looking at what happened in south africa, it was like a wildfire. very steep up tick in the cases and then a downward steep indication not being reported anymore because it burned through that population. what i am telling america is we'll see a steep increase in the cases. and then we'll see that drop. but you don't want to be in the up tick of cases. you don't want to be infected in the first place. the way you're going to do that to make sure you're not included in that number of 200,000 people can go reported as positive yesterday, is that you wear your mask. is that you do these rapid antigen tests and make sure if you're indoors and have the windows and doors open or an adequate ventilation system. if you're going into a restaurant and you take your mask off, understand you've now broken the rules of the game with covid, and covid does not care if you felt like eating the appetizer instead. you will come in contact with someone with omicron within the next few days and the difference between whether or not you become a person with omicron is what do you do to protect yourself and your family? >> a warning there. i have to be quick here, but we know the strain of omicron is really tough for hospitals right now. a consulting firm found that the country would have been dealing with surgical backlogs into next year before omicron. what are you and your colleagues up against and what does it mean for patients who need other types of care? >> yes. so glad you brought up this critical point. this massive strain on hospitals has been a major concern among health care workers and frontline health care workers such as myself and fellow physicians, nurses, respiratory ther pis, physical therapists from the start of the pandemic. i think of my personally, my own father who is in his 80s who has congestive heart failure, has had three icu level hospitalizations in the last two years because of breathing. our family was trying to keep someone like him safe. this applies to millions of people across the country who have chronic conditions who are older who are compromised for various reasons. we need to protect these individuals from covid. but there are people with all these other conditions who need hospital level care. and right now the hospitals are already almost at capacity or many of them are at capacity. we need to have -- we need to reduce that burden on hospitals and frontline health care workers like myself who are truly burned out. emotionally, physically, mentally burned out. we need to make sure we reduce the cases of covid so the hospitals and hospital staff are able to take care of all people with all types of conditions. >> it feels never ending for us. think about the people staffing the hospitals. doctors and josh, thank you for your help. coming up, we're live in minneapolis with new reaction in the guilty verdict in the trial of kim potter and the latest on her sentencing. later, all eyes on the supreme court as former president trump officially asks the january 6th committee to be blocked from getting his records. records. we'll pay off your phone up to $1000. you can keep your phone. keep your number. and get your employees connected on the largest and fastest 5g network. plus, we give you $200 in facebook ads on us! so you can reach more customers, create more opportunities, and finish this year strong. visit your local t-mobile store today. ever notice how stiff clothes can feel rough on your skin? 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hmm! it's not the same if she's not here. oh. -what the. oh my goodness! i don't suppose you can sing, can you? ♪ the snow's comin' down ♪ -mommy? ♪ i'm watching it fall ♪ watch the full story at www.xfinity.com/sing2 we want to dip into live pictures. the first lady speaking. you see the president behind her as they visit the children's national hospital in d.c. let's listen in. >> one of the things we do is we put those bags down the driveway, and we put candles in them so that when we come back from church, it's all lighted as we come toward our house. wait until you see them in your room. it will be beautiful. and beau, what are you doing? is it beau? >> yes. >> we have a son named beau and a grandson named beau. >> yes. >> same spelling. >> yeah. >> beau, do you want to talk a little bit about your project? >> you made a beautiful tree. >> yeah. and a ornament. >> a snowman. that's so great. >> and look at the dog. >> the dog on there, beau. what a great job you did. great job, beau. >> yeah. >> great job. >> that's really cool. >> and how about you, samuel. what did you make? oh, this is his family. look. see his family? how great that is. you have a lot of people in your family. do you? yes? this is great. i love this. >> he also has a stash of -- >> oh, yeah, goldfish. >> watch out, i'll try to steal one. >> you never know when you're going to get hungry. >> nice to see you. merry christmas. happy holidays. what's in your bag -- or what's on your bag, i guess i should say. >> a christmas tree. >> a christmas tree. >> and look at all the people on the screen. i don't know whether they can see us. >> they can see you. >> wave. oh, look. joe, come here. >> these are our kids in the hospital. great to see you. merry christmas. >> so kids, do you want to hold up your projects so everyone can see? yay. >> they're beautiful. >> that's cool. >> so we have a census of over 300 kids. all the kids in the hospital have received a book, and they also have received a copy, i mean, some of the art projects so they can be working on them as well. >> wow. how about you guys? what have you done here? >> everybody, we have been listening to the president and the first lady at the children's national hospital in washington d.c., paying a visit to children who are waking up in hospital beds instead of their own homes on this christmas weekend, on this christmas eve. i want to bring in josh letterman at the white house right now. josh, before we started playing this live when we were in commercial, one of the kids told the president and first lady they just wanted their cancer to go away. that puts a lot in perspective. >> yeah. what a moment that was. there's a long tradition of first ladies paying holiday visits to children's national hospital. about two miles from where i'm standing at the white house. but this is the first time that a sitting president has joined the first lady for such a visit. we are told that while they are there, in addition to this crafts project we see them participating in now, the first lady will be reading aloud "the night before christmas" to the children there. we should point out the bidens have their own holiday tradition of going every year to the virgin islands for christmas. if omicron, that wasn't possible. as a result, we see the first family in washington for the christmas holiday. >> they'll be spending a few days in delaware between christmas and new years? >> that's right. they'll be here on christmas, but we expect the president to go to his home in delaware for part of the period before things pick up early next year. >> josh, thank you. we'll continue to monitor this and bring you any updates if they come into us. but we also want to get to other news we're following. former police officer kim potter is spending the morning behind bars after the jury found her guilty of manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old daunte wright. the minnesota jury handed down guilty verdicts on charges of first and second degree manslaughter. potter faces a maximum of 15 years in prison and her sentencing is set for february 18th. shaquille brewster has been following this trial from minneapolis and also with us is katie fang, an msnbc legal contributor and co-host of money court on cnbc. shaq, it took the jury 27 hours to deliberate. you were there all day yesterday when there was a lot of reaction outside the courthouse. what are we hearing from both sides and also what are the next steps? >> yeah. you are still hearing a lot of surprise. it was partially because of how long it took the jury to deliberate. those 27 hours over the course of four days, they were locked away, tucked away in those deliberations. one thing that we realized from the verdict form is that the jury came to the agreement on the second count fairly quickly. they came to that agreement on tuesday, but they were held up the next day and a half on that first degree manslaughter count that kim potter was convicted of. she faces up to 15 years in prison. she's waking up in the jail for a first full day this morning. but, again, you go back to the reaction that you saw outside of the courthouse yesterday. and the surprise that you heard. i want to take you to one of the conversations i had with someone who came down, saw the verdict there, and was celebrating almost while -- celebrating and she explained why she was so relieved by this verdict. >> something we already been faced with. day after day, you know, we got to raise our kids to accommodate how the police react to us. and that baby was scared and the police took his life. so we got guilty just like chavez was guilty. something we've been saying for a long time. myself, i've been saying for a long time, but to this day, you know, we still are seeking justice one by one, and each victory is a victory for all. >> reporter: one common thread that you heard yesterday was that this was not just about one person, but t a push for police reform and for accountability in the field of policing. now, kim potter, i mentioned she faces up to 15 years in prison. there will be a sentencing that takes place on february 18th th. before then, though, you'll hear attorneys from both sides. the prosecution and the defense, go back and forth over where she should go and how long she should serve. sentencing guidelines put that at about six to nine years. the prosecution is asking the judge to consider a higher departure from that while the defense is asking the judge to consider a lower departure from that. it remains to be seen where that will end up. she's facing up to 15 years in prison. >> katie, weigh in on that for us. we know the first charge, we saw the graphic, the first count, 15 years, is a statutory max. the second count is ten years. but it's my understanding that just that first count, she wouldn't have to serve, for example, 15 and 10 if she does, in fact, get the max. what else will be considered in her sentencing? >> yes. so lindsey, she's not going to be sentenced consecutively because it's pretty much the same course of conduct even though there's two separate counts. like shaq says, the normal range would be anywhere from 6 to 7 years to nine years on the top. the aggravating factors the prosecution is going to argue are similar to what they argued in the chauvin trial. she abused her authority when she murdered daunte wright and she also basically put the community at large at risk when she fired her gun at him and then his car went careening out of control. he could have injured other people that were public at the time. so the defense is going to say she has 2340 no priors. she was law enforcement for 26 years, but there's a lot to be said about the facts and the evidence that was presented during the trial that both sides are going to rely upon at that sentencing on february 18th. let's be clear. as a law enforcement officer, now former, because she retired just two days after the killing of daunte wright, she's going to have a very tough time being in prison as former law enforcement. but as we just saw with the bidens going to that children's hospital, daunte wright will not be home for christmas. he had a one-year-old son at the time of his death. his one-year-old son will not have his father on christmas day. >> digging into the facts of the case, we know she says she shot wright with her gun when she meant to grab her taser. the first count required the state to prove that the harm was reasonably foreseeable. look, we all have seen these cases. there's been a lot of cynicism and doubt that have been sewed because of some of the conclusions of some of the trials that were caught by surprise. were you surprised to see guilty verdicts on both counts? >> i was. and part of the reason why is as shaq has explained on other reports, there were only three questions that came from the jury during the 27 1/2 hours of deliberation. one was asking the judge what do we do if we can't reach a unanimous verdict? as a former prosecutor when you see or hear that question, you get nervous. that indicates they cannot reach a consensus on this count. the fact that they did come to a guilty verdict on count 2 quickly goes to show they were struggling to determine whether or not former officer potter recklessly handled that firearm. recklessly handling of a firearm in minnesota is a misdemeanor. count one which is the first degree manslaughter required the jury to find that she committed a misdemeanor and that somebody died as a result of it. they had to find she recklessly mishandled it. let me be flank, the prosecution's expert was impeccable. he made it specific, different weights, triggers, types. it was clear you should not confuse your taser for your firearm. >> different sides of the body and she's a multi-decade member of the force. thank you both so much. still to come, we're going to dig into a new report in the washington post. the headline? the january 6th committee is focussed on trump's hours of silence during the attack and weighing possible criminal referrals. one of the reporters behind this reporting joins me next. new vicks vapostick. strong soothing vapors... help comfort your loved ones. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. - [narrator] every three minutes, a child is born with a cleft condition. without surgery, some will die. those who do survive face extreme challenges. operation smile works to heal children born with cleft conditions. we need you. there are still millions in dire need of healing. go to operationsmile.org today and become a monthly supporter, or call. 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"the washington post" reports the congressional committee investigating january 6th is focussed on former president trump's silence during the attack on the capitol. and is even considering criminal referrals against him. meanwhile president trump is asking the supreme court to step in to block the national archives from turning over records to the committee. for more, let's get justy respondent pete williams to weigh in. pete, what kind of timeline can we expect in terms of a digs in whether or not the court will take this up. >> i don't know. normally if the court followed the usual rules, it wouldn't even consider whether to hear the president's appeal until february, and then if it did, it would schedule argument for a month or two after that and we wouldn't get a decision until late june at the earliest. the house is urging the supreme court to move faster. it says it needs this information that it's requested from the archives to help guide the investigation. it's asking the supreme court to hurry up and decide this by the middle of january, schedule oral argument quickly so it can get this case resolved. we know the supreme court can move fast when it wants to. it recently scheduled oral argument for january 7th th on the question of the biden administration's vaccine mandates for large employers and health care workers. so the court can act fast if it wants to. the question is number one, will it agree to hear the president's appeal? that's the first question. and secondly, if it does, how quickly will it decide it? we don't know the answers yet. >> jackie, you report the committee is particularly interested in, quote, why it took so long for him to call his supporters to stand down. an area of inquiry that includes obtaining several versions of a video trump reportedly recorded before finally releasing a message 187 minutes after he told his supporters to march on the capitol during the rally that preceded the attack. what is the committee chairman saying about this? >> yeah. lindsey, my colleague and i had a long and wide ranging conversation with the chairman earlier this week about where -- what the committee has done so far and where they are going. and in that conversation, the most interesting threads that we pulled out were one, as you just noted, that the committee has started having discussions about whether or not they're going to make a criminal referral to the justice department if they ultimately believe that a crime has been committed. of course, that would ultimately be up to federal prosecutors to decide whether to pursue that charge. and then two, the case that the committee is building to decide whether or not they're going to make that charge and thompson raised these outtakes of a video that have come up in conversations with witnesses along with information gleaned from previous media reports including reports done by "the washington post." and that's why these archives, the national archives and records request that the committee has made are so important to the committee. they believe that these videotapes and outtakes that will give direct insight into president trump's demeanor and the language that he took prior to ultimately releasing a message to his supporters, will be key to determining whether or not to make that referral. so the committee has expressley explicitly requested those videotapes, and they're hoping to get them sooner rather than later. >> what's the likelihood of those potentially becoming public, jackie? >> so that a really good question. it's something that we're wondering as well. i think that if those tapes do exist in the archives, if the committee to able to get their hands on the various outtakes which thompson says what he's heard is president trump struggling to articulate the message to supporters to go home, that the committee is very likely to show these. they're going to put on a series of public hearings in the next year. they want them to be block buster hearings. they want to tell the story of what happened and support the case or why they might be making criminal charges. and i think in those public hearings, we potentially could see the videos come out. >> obviously the committee doesn't have the power to charge. that would be the justice department. if we were to get ten steps ahead and that referral would be in the justice department's hands, how rare would it be to prosecute a former president? >> it would be very rare. you have to remember a referral on something like this is different than the referral for contempt of congress. there congress is saying you know, this person disobeyed our request, our subpoena. we want them held in contempt. and there's a federal law that says the justice department must consider that. there's no such federal law if congress refers and says we think the president obstructed congress here and tried to interfere with our vote count, that has no legal weight. and it probably wouldn't be telling the justice department anything it doesn't already know. plus there is this rule of federal prosecution that says you shouldn't bring a charge unless you believe there's at least a 50% chance that a jury would convict. the justice department would have to consider how serious is a case by saying the president's failure to urge the people to leave the capitol amounted to affirmatively obstructing congress's ability to count the vote. we're ten steps ahead. lots of really difficult questions that confront the justice department. but it would be history-making. >> all right. pete williams, jacqueline, thank you both. >> thank you. still to come, president biden says he now supports changing senate rules to pass one piece of his agenda. which piece, next. next. 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>> yes. >> what does that mean? >> that means whatever it takes to change the senate rules to accommodate a major piece of legislation without requiring 60 votes. >> you support a carveout of the filibuster? >> the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, i support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster. >> joining me now, sam stein. sam, this is the most deliberate that we've heard from the president talking about a filibuster carveout. what's the white house strategy? >> good question. i don't know if there is a strategy behind this. they need to get 50 democratic senate ♪s to change the rules of the senate chamber. president biden weighing in like this, it's as deliberate as he's gotten. he's hinted this is his position in the past, but there was no caveats here. but does that change the actual vote? what he needs if he wants this to happen is to convince senator joe manchin and kyrsten sinema and probably two or three others skeptical of the rules reform that it is in their best interest, the party's and country's best interest to change the rules to make this legislation happen. >> and jen was asked about voting rights legislation yesterday. let's listen to what she said. >> some of the rights activists are calling for action on the legislation by mlk day. does the president believe that's realistic? >> the president is going to continue to work with lewder schumer and his team and other democrats in the senate to move this forward. i'm not going to give an additional timeline from here. there are a lot of passionate advocates out there who have been out there protesting and calling for movement on this. we agree with and understand that. but we'll be working in lock step with leader schumer's office. >> that's january 17th. how unlikely would that be? >> extremely unlikely. there's so much more going on, too. day one of resuscitate the build back better act after senator manchin said he could not vote for the house version of the bill. you would have to go through this procedural rules change which takes time in its own right. you still have to convince the senators that it's in their best interest in the country's interest to do so. so i do not foresee a situation in which january 17th you have anything remotely happening legislatively. now, action, the word action can take a couple different forms. you could have legislative action. you could have more federal intervention from either the justice department or perhaps there's some new executive actions or executive orders they can issue. but the real sort of end game here is a federal bill passed through congress that can set standards nationally for voting laws in each and every state. >> want to push from voting rights to who will be on the ballot next year. 23 house democrats have announced they're not seeking reelection. what does this mean for the balance of power here and for some of the seats? >> so two things here. one is when you see this sort of avalanche of retirement announcements, usually that portends bad things for the party. these things are astute viewers of the public and private polls, political landscapes. they have a sense. there's also a small democratic majority in the house. they know the historical trends and likely republicans will take over. and honestly, very few house members like being in the minority. it's kind of powerless. they want to get out now. the other thing, though, which is on the flip side is that a lot of these retirements are from democrats who are unfairly safe districts. what's happening is the districts are being redrawn at the state level and being redrawn in a way that makes almost all of them noncompetitive. there are few house districts that are competitive. it may not be that bad for democrats with this much retirement, because many of these members are coming from districts that are already safe. that said, historical trends seem to take precedent, and the expectation is that by november 2022, you're going to see republicans have a -- >> thank you for joining us. >> happy holidays. >> there's a special edition of all in with chris hayes has chris brings the podcast, why is this happening on screen. and his crossover episode, he's joined by two guests to discuss what he says as american democracy on the knife edge. including one legal expert on the state of civil rights, voting rights, and the nature of the american democracy. don't miss it tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. we are now hearing the harrowing story from congresswoman after she was carjacked at gunpoint in philadelphia this week. she was walking to her car in a public park when another vehicle blocked her parking space. let's listen to what she told nbc 10 philadelphia. >> two people got out of the car, and approached us with guns, and one of them said give me the keys. so i did. the fact that this happened in fdar, a place where so many find refuge from the hussle and bustle of urban life is particularly upsetting. five teenagers have been charged with robbery. coming up, amazon's new settlelment with the federal labor board. what it means for worker's rights and their ability to unionize. ability to unionize say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. try spring daydream, now part of our irresistible scent collection. when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. [daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. this morning a major win for labor rights activist. amazon just reached a settlement with the national labor relations board in multiple cases clearing the way for workers to unionize. the company has seen a wave of workers to do so in recent years. jay has been following this closely. what can you tell us about this deal and how significant it is for amazon workers? >> amazon workers across the country, and you have to remember it's the second largest employer after walmart, and they are working to get the last batch of gifts out before christmas. they also suddenly have new agreements with the national labor relations board, new rights under the agreement that allow them to stick around longer than their shift and show up earlier than their shift. there were complaints coming out of warehouses in staten island and chicago that they had been basically dissuaded from warehouse management from doing so and they said that was their time to get together with other workers and talk about the possibility of unionizing. under the agreement that came out earlier this week, they can stick around and they can pull the trigger on enforcement actions faster than before. we are seeing a sharper aattack. in this one there's no denial of wrong doing, so some new teeth we are seeing. but more broadly, we are talking about a company that at its founding was going to be named relentless, and that was the original name for the company and it was a model that he invented was going to be temporarily, never intending them to work there for a whole career, and it is bumping up against the new wind of unionizations. amazon, again, the second largest private employer in the united states, lindsay. >> thank you so much. that does it for this hour. next hour we are live in miami as people line up for those covid tests who are seeing family for the holidays. so what do you need to know before you gather for the holidays? we'll be right back. son of a— —beth? if it's “i thought we said no gifts” season, it's walgreens season. fine, no one leaves the table until your finished. if it's “i thought we said fine, we'll sleep here. ♪♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. if you're washing with the bargain brand, even when your clothes look clean, there's extra dirt you can't see. watch this. that was in these clothes... ugh. but the clothes washed in tide- so much cleaner. if it's got to be clean it's got to be tide hygienic clean. no surprises in these clothes! couple more surprises. small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. comcast business. powering possibilities. good day, and merry christmas eve to all who celebrate. i am lindsay riser. we have another busy hour, including the urgent development in the rise against omicron. travel restrictions lifted to african countries where flights stopped at omicron emerged. several u.s. airlines are grounding hundreds of flights because the virus rapidly is spreading among employees. we will dig into what this means for so many hoping to gather with family this holiday. plus, new developments in the house investigation, into the january 6th attack. nbc news learned rudy giuliani associate is now prepared to publicly release new documents by the end of the week. what this could mean for the investigation. the white house responds to russian president vladimir putin saying it's the west that is inflaming the region.

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