plane back here on the earth s surface any moment. joining us now to discuss from new mexico is cnn innovation and space correspondent rachel crane. rachel, the astronauts have just touched down after the historic virgin galactic flight. sum it up for us. reporter: that s right, jake. i m just a few hundreds yards away from unity right now. hopefully we ll see richard branson and hear his emotion and what this experience was like, after he took his historic space flight for him and his team. everyone has been pegging this as the billionaire space race. today richard branson they got to where they wanted to go. it was a sub orbital flight. richard branson passed the 50-mile mark and will receive his astronaut wings. that s a ceremony we ll see in a few moments, him and two additional mission specialists on board. they ll be receiving their astronaut wings today. blue origin, their direct competitor in the suborbital space, they re set to make their first cruewed flight o
you ll remember that republicans squashed the chance for that bipartisan independent commission. melanie broke the details on mccarthy s decision about the select committee and joins us now from capitol hill. melanie, what led him to decide to participate and who will he name? reporter: initially there was a debate about whether to boycott this as a way to cast the entire investigation as partisan. once speaker nancy pelosi appointed a republican, liz cheney, to her side of the committee, which essentially assures that democrats will have bipartisan buy-in for their work it became clear that was no longer a viable option. so instead kevin mccarthy is in fact planning on naming republicans to the select committee, but he wants them there so they can push back on democrats, shape the counternarrative, run defense for donald trump and essentially throw sand in the gears of the investigation as much as possible. as far as names, you can definitely expect to see some trump allie
colorado, and the golden gate of california. america is coming back. and on this july 4th, we celebrate our nation s independence and our renewed freedom to come together. tonight, the largest fireworks show on television with dazzling displays in cities all across the usa, and powerful musical performances including the beach boys with john stamos, billy ray cyrus, black eyed peas, blues traveller, brad paisley, chicago, flow rida, cool and the gang, nelly, neo, reo speed wagon, sammy haggar and the circle, tasha cobbs leonard and tricia yearwood. now a special cnn event. the 4th in america. we are live in washington, d.c. with spectacular views of the u.s. capitol and national mall. look at the crowds already gathering at the lincoln memorial. our country has been waiting for this moment. a time to celebrate. you can see people are gathering to do just that. and soon, fireworks will light up the monuments on this very special independence today and you will see it happen
anger over a proposed one per cent pay rise senior doctors in england will be consulted on possible industrial action if there s no improved offer. the family of saskia jones who was murdered by a convicted terrorist at a prisoner rehabilitation conference near london bridge speak about the impact of her death. people need to know what has actually happened here. the enormity of what happened. and what a devastating effect it has had on our family and a number of other people. and not even a teenager yet 12 year old sky brown is set to become britain s youngest summer olympian of all time after being named in the team gb skateboarding squad. good morning. labour has narrowly won the batley and spen by election in west yorkshire. the new mp kim leadbeater now represents the seat previously held by her sister, jo cox, who was murdered in the constituency in 2016. the result will ease pressure on labour leader sir keir starmer after recent election defeats for his party.
shot may give people protection. the company did not provide the data to back it up. the cdc and fda responding with not so fast informal we ll address the confusion from. but here is what s clear. vaccines work. and they are saving lives. need proof? take what we learned out of maryland. 127 people died there from covid in june. none of them were vaccinated. cnn s elizabeth cohen joins us. what are we learning about why pfizer put out this statement on boosters? i m going to start with, actually, why people think it s crazy that pfizer put out this statement on boosters. it really is the numbers that you just showed. there is so much data showing that these vaccines work. pfizer did not put out any new data. they said we re going to ask for approval for this booster. it would be a third shot, the same as the first two but a third shot. and we think that immunity is waning. lots of criticism that when you re trying to get a third of the country to be vaccinated, that s how