variant. we'll dig into that in moments. also in a few hours, president biden is scheduled to have that high stakes phone call with vladimir putin. at the center of it all, the tens of thousands of russian troops gathering for weeks on the ukrainian border. plus breaking on the economy. new weekly jobless claims are in and are lower than expected. 198,000 people filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week. and we'll start this hour with jake ward in san francisco. gary grumbeck in washington d.c. and a physician and fellow at the brookings institution. we also have dr. ere win redlener. sam, we're going to start with you in florida. that state shattered the one-day covid record with nearly 50,000 new cases. what are you seeing there at that testing site? >> reporter: these testing lines have been through the roof. really for about two weeks now. there was a brief highuate us. it let up a little bit. no longer the case. this is one crush of cars over my shoulder. that is just the tip of the iceberg. that line moves all the way over to a second tent. beyond that the cars wrap around the entire park and spill out into the streets. check out this time lapse i shot over the weekend. this was as the christmas holiday was going on. we saw cars going on for three miles down the road. this isn't even on the site. this is off site. i could not get to the end of the line. those folks were waiting for five and six hours as florida just broke a record. almost 47,000 new cases in 8 0% increase in a two-week time span. this is not just domestically, but in europe. generally what happens in europe, it's a mix of trends that happens here, italy, france, and spain smashing their records. the director general for the world health organization addressing this yesterday. listen to his language. >> i'm highly concerned that omicron being more transmissible circulating at the same time as delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases. >> reporter: here is the up shot as it concerns. omicron as it concerns the massive surge in cases in the southeast. when you look at who is ending up in the hospital, eight or nine times out of ten, either those folks that are unvaccinated and then when you look at the vaccinated population, many are hyper immune compromised. if you're healthy and have your booster, the chances are so slim, please, go get a shot. >> those lines just unbelievable. sure makes disney world at spring break look like nothing. given the lines and given the numbers just keep climbing, what are your concerns? i mean, how much longer do you think these case numbers can keep going up? and how high could they go? >> yeah. if we look at other countries' experiences, we should see peaks over the next several weeks, but peaks mean potentially as high as a million plus cases. by the way, i think we're probably at a million plus cases a day. because we have so many people that are not testing, can't get a test or are testing at home. and that generally isn't reported into these statistics. i think given this, i think any families or people listening and can pause their activities, even if they're confident, small gatherings with vaccinated people, that can be fine, but take a revisit any activity you're doing in the upcoming weeks, because we're going to be seeing just a crush of people. and again, as sam pointed out, if you're vaccinated, you're protected. so we're not trying to strike fear into people, but we just need time so we don't overwhelm the medical system more. half our workers are sick. we don't have staff to even provide the tests. so we just need a reprieve so we can kind of catch up and be able to provide the care that people desperately need when they need other medical conditions to be attended to. >> jake, you're in california's bay area. normally tomorrow is a huge day for the service industry. but omicron is throwing a massive wrench in things. what are restaurants dealing with there? >> well, alison, we see, of course, across the country this alarming spike in cases. and with it comes this ongoing economic effect. typically the week we're in right now, between christmas and new year's is the big week for restaurants. and after the devastating year and a half that restaurants have suffered, they are, of course, hoping to come back. this particular new year's eve, that was the hope. here the water bar over my shoulder here, buzz going to be enjoying the fireworks on new year's eve in san francisco. those have been cancelled and cases are on the rise. we've been talking to restaurant owners who say the financial and psychological milestone that it represents is one part of it, but they really need the economy to come back in order for them to regain their footing. have a listen. >> we really need to see those employees back in the offices, and just getting back into a little bit more of a normal pattern. we would like to be able to focus more on the food, the wine, and the guest satisfaction. >> reporter: you have to consider the way that the american cultural landscape has been transformed by the pandemic. and, of course, restaurants are part of that. the national restaurant association estimates that about 20% of diners basically said they would not go out to eat again once the delta variant hit. we're probably going to see that again here with omicron. it makes you wonder new year's eve has been transformed. the restaurant industry is transformed. how will american life be transformed in an ongoing basis? >> it's a big question we're asking over and over again. >> doctor, i want to play something a doctor from the university of minnesota said today on "morning joe" about what the next few weeks could potentially look like. take a listen. >> over the next three to four weeks we are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically that we're going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating. already we're seeing it in our health care settings. if we could easily lose 10% to 20 % of health care workers not available to work at all. a difficult market already. >> and we learned this week that 30% of the new york city fire departments' ems workers are out sick. that's worse than the peak in march of 2020. given all that, how worried are you about what's to come in the next few weeks? >> yeah. i'm incredibly worried, but i also think some of the cdc revisions will actually probably help many essential workers come back. i wish we could have a testing option so we could just have a little bit of security that bringing people back to work is safe for everyone involved. because nobody wants to come to work sick. i know that. nobody wants to put their colleagues at risk. but i also want to emphasize, like, it's easy to kind of get lost in these numbers. they're very distressing. but i want to stress that we have decoupled and been successful at at least keeping down hospitalizations and deaths to very lower -- much lower proportions than we had seen previously with delta. that is a success. we need the staffing. federal guard and national troops are in our facilities, but the case shows there's so much virus around. one in three people, count the people around you, the odds are somebody has it or is going to get it over the next several weeks. being mentally prepared for that will help so you have a plan if you think you might be positive. that's what people can do. you'll also help the health system from being overwhelmed. essential workers should be in that category. we need to think about what will happen. i haven't gotten covid yet, but i probably will and i need to think about how to help my colleagues if that happens. >> yeah. we are hearing that over and over. i have a friend who was a doctor who said the same thing. he got covid and expects that a lot of people who go to work, their co-workers will experience that very same thing. let's go to gary in the nation's capitol. d.c. has the second highest two-week case spike in the nation behind only florida. but gary, you say health officials are worried they might be undercounting positive cases. why is that? >> yeah. i'm at a pcr testing site, city-run, here in d.c. we are seeing lines at this location not to what sam has seen but lines across the city. but these take two or three days for results to come back. and if you're having symptoms and you're in this line, you want results and you want results now. that's where the rapid at-home tests come in handy. d.c. has handed out more than 108,000 of those rapid at-home tests but only results back and reported from 17,000 people that have done that during the self-reporting tool that d.c. has. many people don't even know they can self-report, because d.c. is ahead of the curve on that. a lot of cities and states around the country don't have those self-reporting options from those at-home tests and d.c. is about to take the self-reporting honor system to an entirely different level next week. d.c. public schools is making 90,000 students rapid test on tuesday before they can even walk in to the school building on wednesday. 90,000 tests have to be taken on tuesday, reported back by the children by the parents that day before they can get into the schools on wednesday. d.c. is calling this the largest single data collection they have done since the pandemic began. >> doctor redlenner, i want to go to you with a little bit of good news. we haven't had that much lately on this pandemic. johnson & johnson announcing this morning it's vaccine demonstrated 85% effectiveness in africa when omicron was dominant. what could it mean for countries and the u.s.? >> i think it's fair to say that all of us are looking for any bits of good news. that is certainly good news. that means that -- basically it means that yeah, we're going to be able to make progress against stopping some of the spread and stopping people from getting as sick as they have been. that's good, except we're still in pretty much unknown territory, and we don't know where this is all going, but i think that is good news. the problem for me is that we don't really know what the situation is even as we speak. we have a combination of delta and omicron in circulation. this other virus when it comes to children, in addition to getting the covid-19, they're getting other viruses as well simultaneously. with the increased number of cases among children over the last week. but they're not getting all that sick. so it's a constant mixture of good news, not good news, and uncertainty. that's what we're going to be living with for a while. >> i want to add to that good news that might be going away. this one glimmer of hope we had during the omicron wave, hospitalizations, weren't spiking along with case numbers. "the baltimore sun" system reporting record numbers of hospitalizations. more than 2000 people in the hospital. could that be a sign of what's to come in other states? >> well, i think right now we're in the middle of a strongly buffetting winds here, because we haven't even had new year's celebrations and gathering together, and there is definitely surging among the various strings that are out there. i think it's too early to make any kind of big predictions like that, but i think the end of january and beginning of february we'll be seeing news. i don't know whether that's going to be good news or not so good news, but i think it's a little bit on thin ice to try to be too definitive in predicting where we are. >> doctor, this morning the biden administration announced a $137 million deal to produce more of a key component in rapid tests. t part of the administration's plan to ramp up production of these at-home tests. what do you make of that deal, especially in light of the fda saying these antigen tests could be less sensitive to the omicron variant? >> i think the fda putting out the notice this is limiting in sensitivity is just kind of catching up with what we're seeing in the real world of evidence. we saw this before omicron. you can't solely rely on these rapid antigen tests. they're useful, especially when we have no alternative, but to rely on them solely and especially with pcrs taking several days is probably just not necessarily the only option. the biden administration putting money in was absolutely the right thing to do. my concern is that kind of to irwin's point, we're not going to see results fast enough. you're watching the lines wrapping around and all the cities having town gatherings across the country, combined with school reopenings, that's going to be the exact time when we would need all these rapid tests, and we're likely not to have the results of the deal that was announced today. but i do hope, by the way, it's never too late to prepare for the next surge, because we will inevidently have whether they're smaller and on less levels, we'll have future surges. having the production and supply in place is critical, and shouldn't be seen as a loss leader at this time because we'll need it no matter what. and having all of these tools ready including more therapies which we should see online in the second quarter of '22, oral pills, that can be a pretty big game changer. >> yeah. i think if we've learned one thing from this pandemic, doctor, it's you can never be too prepared. jake, doctors, thank you all so much. coming up, president biden just hours away from that high stakes phone call with russian president vladimir putin. how the white house is preparing and what biden will say about the russian troops on ukraine's border. plus ghislaine maxwell convicted. we'll break down the jury's decision to find jeffrey epstein's long-time associate guilty on five sex trafficking charges and how many years she could face in prison. and how mae could face in prison in about four hours president bide p will get on the phone with rush president vladimir putin. the white house says the kremlin requested that all ahead of security talks between the u.s. and russia on january 10th. russia is massing tens and thousands of troops along the ukraine border raising concerns about an invasion. the kremlin claimed russia has never been the source of tension. mike memoli is in wilmington, delaware with president biden. i want to bring in richard engel and david ignatius. mike, the kremlin says both leaders have a lot to discuss before the start of the negotiations. what do you know about the plan for today's call? >> well, we know when these two leaders spoke just over three weeks ago both sides laid down their clear markers. president biden said if russia were to invade ukraine, they would respond with severe economic sanctions but president putin said he was not willing to back down until he got something of a commitment from the u.s. from other nato allies not to admit ukraine into that alliance. so it was pretty clear it was hard to find a middle ground there. there have been followup conversations at a lower level over the last few weeks. no discernible progress concerning no backdown significant numbers of the russian troops amassed at the ukraine border. white house officials are saying the goal today is for first president biden to reiterate they want to see a diplomatic pathway forward and it can only begin if russia does start to deescalate, withdraw some of the forces from the border. they want to lay the groundwork for a broader set of talks happening in geneva in january. january 10th between the u.s. and russian officials and then subsequent conversations with other allies in the days after that. but lastly, they want to make sure that as president putin has only added to his list of demands since that initial conversation, the u.s. is prepared to respond with some of their concerns as well. this is sort of a clearing of the air for both sides ahead of those talks in january. so in anticipation of the call today, we've seen u.s. officials including secretary of state tony blinken working the phones to make sure our allies are fully briefed and also still on the same page. the u.s.'s biggest point of leverage is the unity of our nato allies and that's something that is concerning to president putin, clearly, and part of what's going to be discussed today. >> david, what would vladimir putin gain from a phone call with president biden right now? the white house has made a point of saying the russians requested it. >> well, i think above all, he gets to be taken seriously. that's putin's in some ways biggest desire. he has a chip on his shoulder. he thinks russia isn't taken seriously as a great power anymore. he regrets the passing of the soviet union. here he is requesting a call with the president of the united states. bide will listen. we know from a senior white house official that briefed reporters, one of the things they'll talk about in addition to iran and the need for some return to an iran nuclear deal that caps their nuclear program. from putin's standpoint, being asked to work together with the united states, being treated like a super power is part of what he wants. i think they'll also talk about a framework for ongoing discussions in january. there will be three separate meetings involving the u.s. and nato allies and russia. in a sense, that's the kind of recognition that putin wanted. that's why he's been so belligerent. we'll see if he gets enough out of the meetings that he can say i got what i wanted. i won security for russia. it's still some months away. richard, you've been reporting from ukraine has russian troops have been a lining up at the border. how are ukrainian troops reacting to that, and what is being placed on u.s. and the west should russia invade? >> they are placing a lot of hope in the united states in particular. and nato. they think that's really the best chances they have for survival. russian ukrainian troops will admit openly, and this is from the basic soldier to the chief of staff of the army that in a all-out fight, the ukrainian military as battle hardened as it is, couldn't last very long against a russian onslaught. they want more american troops. they want more u.s. weapons. they want more promises that maybe perhaps one day they might become part of nato. those were promises obviously that vladimir putin is trying to object to. so the ukrainians are nervous, however, about what's happening there. because there is already a war going on with russia. most people don't necessarily appreciate that. there are exchanges of fire every week between ukrainian troops and effectively russian troops. they are russian-backed separatists that are backed directly by the russian military. those exchanges of fire happen not far from the russian border deep in eastern ukraine, and ukrainians worry that an escalation there, an exchange of fire that suddenly causes an unusual number of casualties. or an errant mortar round that causes a high number of casualties could be used as a pretext for a much larger invasion. and they also are concerned about what is going on in the russian media. they listen to the russian broadcasts, and they hear a lot of talk about ukrainian aggression. how it is ukraine that is provoking this conflict. that it is the ukrainian government that is carrying out abuses, human rights abuses against these pro-russian separatists that are operating inside ukrainian territory. so there are a lot of potential trip wires that could cause an escalation on that very militarized border between ukraine and russia. so that is why they want assurances from the west. that is why they want troops and weapons from the united states. they hope to calm things down and to show vladimir putin that there would be a cost if he were to escalate things further. david, in a recent op ed you said president biden's team has gotten one thing right in spades. the effort to restore america's global alliances and partnerships after four years of maligned neglect under donald trump. none of the alliances may be more important in this context than nato. how can nato help dial down the tensions? >> the first thing, obviously, that nato needs to do, and has done, is to make clear to putin that an attempt to intimidate ukraine, to intimidate all of the nato frontline countries will not be successful. the nato military council met in the last two weeks. they made specific plans of what they would do if russia invades ukraine. they would move forward, not back ward. they would move toward russia to protect their space. there's been a specific conversation between polish officials and u.s. officials in the last few days to reassure poland, a grantline state the united states would be there to support guarantee the article five commitment to the detend poland, a nato member by going to war if necessary. i think this is the one real asset that the united states uniquely has in this crisis. biden has been wise to restore it. and that is this network of strong alliances. putin doesn't have anything like that. he's got bell arus, for goodness sake. what good does that do him staring down britain, france, germany. that part of policy has been pretty well executed. >> richard, do you think the threat of nato retaliation is enough to deter vladimir putin or is he looking at nato, the u.s. and the west differently after the withdrawal from afghanistan? >> so he's not so much concerned about nato retaliation, because as david ignatius was saying, article five which is the basic charter of nato, the basic tact, an attack on one is an attack against all doesn't apply to ukraine. ukraine is not a nato member, but why ukraine is so important is many of the states around ukraine are nato members. so poland, obviously, is a front-line nato member. the baltic states to the north are nato members. from russia's perspective, he's looking at almost a wall of nato that is to his western flank, and he sees ukraine as a hole in that wall. and that if ukraine were to flip and become a nato country, it would be a much more solid wall containing russia. so that is his larger pre entrance. it is an old cold war grievance. russia feels it's been entangled, encircled by nato and trapped in by nato, and to a die de gree, there is some truth to that. nato has been expanding over the recent decades toward russia. but what he does not want is he doesn't want to see nato reinforced. he doesn't want to see nato advancing toward him. he doesn't want to see more weapons poured into ukraine, and he doesn't want to see his economy brought to a standstill. the biden administration is very openly talking about cutting russia off from the swift system. the swift system is the international banking code system that allows money transfers to go around the world. and if you're not part of the swiss system, you are out of the international financial system. it makes -- the -- by being relatively isolated, having allies like bearus that you can count on, it means there are big consequences if nato starts marching toward you and you are cut off from international finances. >> all right. richard engel, mike memoli, david ignatius, thank you. guilty. long-time jeffrey epstein associate ghislaine maxwell. will she spend the rest of her life behind bars? ind bars rld how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ only in theaters december 17th. ghislaine maxwell woke up this morning a convicted sex offender. a jury found her guilty of helping her former companion, epstein, sexually assault teenage girls. the jury came to the decision after five days of deliberation. joining me with the latest, kathy park. kathy, what do you know about ghislaine max well's sentencing here? >> well, right now we are still standing by for a sentencing date from the judge, but impased on the verdict yesterday and the five guilty charges she's looking at decades behind bars. she is 60 years old now. she turned 60 christmas day. she's looking at up to 65 years in prison. essentially she'll be spending the rest of her life in prison. we can tell you also shortly after the verdict came down the lead attorney for maxwell issued a statement and said they are beginning the appeal process right now. her family also said that they believe her innocence and believe that she will be vindicated, but also, her legal battle isn't over just yet. in fact, she's still facing two perjury counts which were severed from the sex trafficking trial. >> kathy, there have been so many victims who have come forward over the years. what are you hearing from them today? >> reporter: so yeah, this was a long time coming for these victims. decades in some cases. these were young girls at the time, 14, some as young as 14. now they are women. we heard from a virginia roberts who was not part of the sex trafficking trial but is a prominent maxwell and epstein accuser, and she said justice has been served but really just the beginning. we heard from annie farmer. she is an accuser who actually used her real name and took the stand in this trial. and she didn't believe this day would actually come. but she is grateful that the jury convicted maxwell on those charges, and also grateful that they recognize her, the fact that she actually was part of this sex trafficking ring and was part of epstein's orbit. >> right. kathy park in new york city. thank you. amazon responding to a pretty scary error in alexa. the virtual assistant. alexa reportedly told a challenge to take a potentially reitl challenge. the ten-year-old asked alexa for a challenge. it told her to touch a penny to exposed prongs. that could have given her a serious electric shock or even started a fire. an amazon spokesperson told us as soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it. the company didn't specify what the swift action was. weekly jobless claims dropping to their lowest level in decades. pries are up on everything. from nasa's mission to mars to civilians in space. we made huge steps in 2021. up ahead, what could be taking flight in 2022? >> to the next generation of dreamers, if we can do that, just imagine what you can do. mao breaking economic news this morning, weekly jobless claims out today show 198,000 americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. that's around a 52 -week low and fewer than expected. contining claims lower. the best they've been since right before the start of the pandemic. the biden administration saling into strong economic head winds in 2022. what does that mean for you? "the washington post" saying strong consumer demand, continuing supply chain trouble and the e her vens of the omicron variant threaten to prolong -- making inflation the premier economic challenge of the new year. high prices could be a big problem still in 2022. i want to bring in peggy collins, and katie tubman. beg gi, if you had to boil down the story of the economy in 2011, what's the biggest take away and what are the big things you're watching in the first few months of 2022? >> well, when we look back on 2021, two of the key things were the labor market. we saw a lot of jobs come back. we saw a lot of workers gain power when it came to wages. we saw some of the highest quit rates we have in a generation. the other key theme was the one you just mentioned which is inflation. we've seen the highest inflation numbers in decades come out, because of the issues that you identified. supply chain crunches and the virus ongoing much longer than people expected and really royaling the global market. the biggest things were the mysteries and anomalies in the labor market and also the roaring back of inflation. >> let's dig deeper into inflation. that's making it expensive to shop at the grocery store and fill up our cars. how much worse can this get? and how do we fix it? what can we do that we haven't already tried to do here? >> good morning. yes. when we're looking at inflation right now, a lot of americans are feeling it very much in their pocket. especially those lower to middle class. they're feeling it at the grocery stores, filling up their cars with gas. all these issues are going to actually -- we expect new projections from the federal reserve that said in order to combat this inflation, it's going to be aggressive tactics taken to raise inflation -- to raise interest rates and then americans are going to definitely feel that going forward as we've heard over and over again, there was an expectation that the administration, the biden administration's build back better bill would help alleviate the financial strain that many americans have been feeling throughout the pandemic. but there isn't much in sight around that. what we can expect is things are probably going to get a little bit more tough for americans in the first half of 2022. we're expecting some changes with supply chain disruptions and also with job increases to come to the next half of the next year, but they are going to feel it in the first half. >> yeah. the prevailing wisdom seems to be you've got to hang on until at least the spring or summer and then things might start to get better. peggy, economists are warning of inflation inequality. a recent analysis found that low and middle income houses spent more than the 2019. that translates to about $3500 for the average household. $3500 is no small chunk of change, particularly for people living paycheck to paycheck. does this bolster the message that americans need more help and the build back better agenda will help solve this inflation pressure? >> it's true in terms of who gets hurt the most by some of the rising prices. when you think about food, gas prices if we have a cold winter, and you think about rent. rent prices we have seen in particularly a lot of cities. really head up over the past year. and that really can take a toll on people who are more closely living paycheck to paycheck. so it certainly doesn't -- does add to this theme that the biden administration has been pressing on that we still need to get help out there to people who have maybe suffered the most during covid, and we still continue to see some gaps in the labor market. we've had great numbers including jobless claims today. but our reporting is showing that depending on where you are across the country, there are particularly communities of minority communities in the number of cities that are still seeing big gaps in their unemployment rate compared to the overall average. >> katie, the service industry is a really interesting mirror for what's going on in the jobs market right now. a lot of restaurant workers don't want to go back to the pay and the conditions they dealt with before and during the pandemic. so a lot of them just aren't. i've been to restaurants in new york city this fall that have to close early pause they don't have staff. one restaurant owner telling me she'd normally have four dishwashers. she has one. it's not just restaurants. plenty of people are saying take this job and shove it. so let's talk about the potential long-term effects here for both workers and consumers. >> right. i mean, when we think about this entire pandemic and what it's done to really put a focus on low-wage workers and the impact they have on our economy, it's very grand. and so what sooef been seeing in the past several if not months but the past year or so since the pandemic began is that a much more, a greater focus on the fact that low-wage workers want more. they've been asking for more. they've been arguing for higher minimum wage and asking for the federal minimum wage floor to be lifted. what we're now catching up on in many states over half of the states in the u.s., are actually proposing it to raise the minimum wage in 202. we're seeing a reckoning coming forward which is looking at the lower wage workers and the folks hit hard by the pandemic and it impact on the economy. those folks are going to be looking to be paid more, to be valued more. and it's going to be super competitive for businessess you mentioned, that are looking for employees to raise their wages to make sure these workers are coming and are attracted to them. >> all right. thank you both so very much for being with us. 2021 brought us the billionaire space race. so who might boldly take to the skies in 2022? we'll get a preview. ot a weeken. fifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i'm taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. have a great flight. thanks. we'll see ya. ah, they're getting so smart. choose the app that fits your investing style. ♪♪ 2021 was a landmark year for space exploration. this year the first billionaires raced to leave earth's atmosphere for a few moments. on christmas day nasa launched a telescope replacement that is 100 times more powerful than it's predecessor. we look back at this year in space and ahead. . >> if 2021 proved anything, it's that the age of civilian space flight is here if you're rich, famous, or you know someone who is. a billionaire paid for three civilian astronauts to join him on a three-day trip to raise a $220 million for st. jude's children hospital. >> welcome to our dragon capsule here in space. >> jeff besos sent wally funk to space and william shatner. what does 2022 hold in store? >> if we can do this, just imagine what you can do. a lot of unfinished business. richard branson went to space over the summer, but his virgin galactic has not carried a single paying passenger as they work out redesign issues. they hope to start the backlog by the end of 2022 including justin bieber, lady gaga, and tom hanks. next month elon music plans to zest his rocket that they hope to send astronauts back to the moon. they could be in the class that is just announced. ten kal dates stroezen from 10,000 applicant can'ts. but the bigger prokt is -- project is a floating business part ready in five to eight years. but the coolest mission of 2022. nasa's dart. it will crash into as asteroid's on a next fall. >> it is so go hit an asteroid and see if we can move it. >> nasa hopes to use that know how. >> we want to demonstrate the med and to learn what happens when you crash at high speed into an asteroid. china is going big on space builds it's own space station with plans to put humans on the moon as soon as 2030. space race 2022 is about to heat up. >> that was tom costello. coming up in the next hour, the challenge that some states are going through to get at-home covid tests to millions of people and the new military personnel being dispatched across the u.s. to help overwhelmed hospitals. when you have xfinity, you have entertainment built in. which is kind of nice. ah, what is happening. binge-watching is in the bag, when you find all your apps, all in one place. find live sports faster just by using your voice... sports on now. touchdown irish! [cheering] that was awesome. and, the hits won't quit, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. all that entertainment built in. xfinity. a way better way to watch. when you're born and raised in san francisco, you grow up wanting to make a difference. that's why, at recology, we're proud to be 100% employee owned with local workers as diverse as san francisco. we built the city's recycling system from the ground up, helping to make san francisco the greenest big city in america but we couldn't do it without you. thank you, san francisco. gracias, san francisco. -thank you. -[ speaks native language ] let's keep making a difference together. good day, we have another busy hour ahead starting with the omicron variant. in just the last week the u.s. recorded more than two million new covid cases as state after state shatters records. we'll go live to one of those states in moments, connecticut, that is seeing the highest positivity rate since the pandemic started. >> so today had come and we must learn to be smarter, live with covid, and ensure we protect everything we can. >> jet blue is prepared to cut nearly 1300 flights between now and january. and the count down is on. a focus on tens of thousands of russian troops along the ukrainian border. we'll start with the omicron variant. antonia hilton is on