ten days. overall the national picture is bleak. the wall street journal reports that, quote, since the school year kicked off in late july, at least 1,000 schools across 31 states have closed because of covid-19. a data service is monitoring school closures at 1,200 districts nationwide, and that includes the 200 largest districts. altogether these headlines paint an uncertain future for america s students. the majority of whom are still not eligible to get vaccinated against a virus that shows few signs of slowing down. so the question now is, how much worse could the fourth wave get and will we look back on this moment and regret sending our kids back to school? nbc s we have a pediatrician and an msnbc public health analyst, and president of the american federation of teachers. what a great panel. thanks to all of you for being here. guad, according to the american association of pediatrics, one in five new coronavirus cases in the last week of august were in children.
top of the hour. thanks for staying with us. i m victor blackwell. and i m alisyn camerota. we have just learned that president obama will speak from the white house at 4:30 p.m. eastern time. and that will be to explain his critical decision on afghanistan, that u.s. troops will withdraw by that august 31st deadline. the president told world leaders today that the threat to u.s. troops is the key reason for sticking to that initial date that was set in the agreement with the taliban. president biden, though, has asked for contingency plans in case he decides that the u.s. needs to stay in the country longer. and the taliban, meanwhile, have reinforced their hard line today. they say they will not accept any extension of a u.s. presence beyond that date, which is now one week away. and the taliban declared today, afghans cannot leave and ordered the crowds at kabul airport to just go home. a few moments ago, a taliban spokesman said the roads to the airport are only open
the head of the national institutes of health joins me live to talk about the need for booster shots, and what s the best way to get people to take the vaccine? the carrot or the stick? we ll discuss when all in starts right now. good evening from washington, d.c. i m mehdi hasan in for chris hayes. one of the many enduring haunting images from january 6th is this scene moments before ashli babbitt was shot and killed. she and a group of rioters tried to break through this set of doors, leading into the speaker s lobby just outside the house chamber. where members of congress were gathered. they demand the officers guarding the doorstep aside, and eventually managed to smash the glass windows. now, nearly all of the rioters you see here have been charged with crimes. for example, 39-year-old christopher greater pictured here in the red hat with the yellow don t tread on my flag tied around his neck allegedly tried to push open and kick the lobby doors. he was indicted i
the infrastructure bill that had passed in the senate. that s when he was asked about the decision by governor cuomo to resign. and just a sign of how unanimous this was across democrats that cuomo simply has to go, even the president saying that he supported that decision. an upheaval in american politics. new york governor andrew cuomo announcing his resignation. the best way i can help now is if i step aside and let government get back to governing. and, therefore, that s what i ll do. reporter: the news marking a dramatic fall from grace for the three-term governor, a fixture in national politics for decades. we re new york tough. reporter: and hailed a hero for his response to the covid-19 pandemic that ravaged his state. the enemy landed in new york state. covid launched the attack here. you unified, and you rose, and you overcome, and you saved lives. and that was powerful. it was beautiful to see. and it was an honor to lead. reporter: but the governor com
allowed to spread by the ignorance of some of us. i ve been bugging my team with this analogy for months now. what we re seeing happen in the world today is so reminiscent of what was portrayed in the aliens series of great movies in which arrogant, ignorant humans decide that they can outwit and make use of a deadly alien species that has the ability to learn from its human hosts, mutate and become increasingly deadly to mankind. here s a clip. what if that ship didn t even exist? do you ever think about that? i didn t know. so if i made a major security situation out of it, everybody steps in. administration steps in and there s no exclusive rights for anybody, nobody wins. so i made a decision and it was wrong. it was a bad call, ripley. it was a bad call. bad call? these people are dead, burke! do you have any idea what you ve done here? oh, god! see, burke f ed around and found out but that is the ignorance and arrogance displayed by republican politicians who ar