germany this week to meet with leaders there. this comes among increased drills near the ukrainian border and the kremlin is denying a report that they re emptying their embassy in the ukrainian capitol. also this morning, former president trump could be gearing up for 2024. we have new details about how his political operation is already organizing and how some former administration officials hope to stop him. also this morning, an urgent call for a delay in the rollout of 5g cell technology. airlines warning of possible devastating impact. lawmakers have serious safety concerns as well. what, if anything, will be done ahead of tomorrow s planned launch? lots of news that we are covering this morning. we are beginning with the growing global tensions over russia s increased military action near and around ukraine. our reporters are covering all the angles. let s begin with cnn s senior international correspondent, matthew chance, in ukraine s capital kiev. secretary of
major obstacles stand in the way of passing new voting rights protections, namely democratic senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, who refuse to change senate filibuster rules. overseas, tensions continue to grow between russia and ukraine and the west. secretary of state antony blinken urged diplomacy on a call he just held with his russian counterpart, this as a bipartisan group of senators return from a trip to ukraine where they met with the ukrainian president zelensky. we ll have more on that story in just a moment. we begin with cnn s manu raju joining us from capitol hill. manu, has chuck schumer given any indication of what he will do if and when these votes likely fail? reporter: he needs all 50 senate democrats to weaken the senate s filibuster, which now requires 60 volt0 votes to over filibuster. they want to change that so a simple majority, 51 votes, 50 democrats with. have the harris breaking the tie could be enough to get this bill to the president s
good morning, everyone. i m poppy harlow. so glad you re with us on this christmas eve. merry christmas eve to those who celebrate. sadly, another covid christmas and right now the omicron variant is disrupting the holiday season in more ways than one. cases are up dramatically as millions travel to visit friends and family. this morning more than 400 flights have been canceled due to staffing shortages. in new york, new infections were up 34 persian in one day forcing officials to scale back new york city s new year s eve celebration. and all week, all across the country, we have seen hours-long lines for tests, but here s what s different from last year. this is really important. we know so much more about this virus and hospitalizations are not surging. vaccines would protect from severe ill ens and death and many hospitalizations are readily available. just this week the fda authorized new treatments for those infected with covid. our aviation correspondent pete muntean s
Exaggerating. that s right. we had a big conference in 1989 about to launch the hubble space telescope, but wa do we do for an encore? 30 years later, we have the answer. james webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built going up tomorrow morning. the whole astronomy community is on tenterhooks. i know they are. i think you ll have a hard time sleeping tonight, my friend. walk us through why this mission is so important. like, i ve been raepding about exoplanets, i don t know what those are. what will it tell us? right. one of the key things that james webb wants to do is look at the very first galaxies and stars. and so hubble gives us good pictures of galaxies that are by astronomer standards nearby,
A quirk in the earth s rotation. it made it appear as though this asteroid was approaching much slower than it was. so that really rattled nasa and the astronomy community, and so that s part of the reason we now have the first planetary defense mission ever under way right now, the dark mission. it s going to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid in just a few months. fingers crossed we don t have another quirk, right, in the earth s orbit in the next coming hours. thank you so much. very good tuesday morning to all of you. i m jim sciutto. i m bianna golodryga. we begin with this hour with ongoing voting rights fight. senate will open debate on two key pieces of voting rights legislation this afternoon. as democrats push ahead with efforts that are likely dead on arrival.