right now, 37 states detected the new variant. west virginia becoming the latest. in new york, the positivity test rate is doubling at a speed never seen before. forcing officials to debate whether new year s eve at times square, expecting a return to prepandemic crowds of thousands, should be canceled now. in a sports world, the nba and nfl and nhl are all changing covid-19 protocols in hopes of preventing the cancellations of games. and this year s miss world competition in puerto rico is now postponed after 23 of the 97 contestants tested positive. we should say this as well, amidala amid all the warnings there is a silver lining. despite record-breaking daily case rates, hospital admissions continue to be lower than previous waves. still, g-7 health ministers are calling omicron the biggest current threat to global public health. our team following all of the latest. let s begin with shimon prokupecz on the ground in new york city. this positivity rate in new york, this i
college. now i don t remember exactly what i was doing at 14, but i will tell you, i was not starting my own business. and ever since, terry has brought the same grit and determination to everything he s done. from public service to business to being a husband, to being a father of five amazing children. so the guy knows how to work hard. and he s persuasive. and terry knows what it means to lead. a lot of times you see candidates say one thing to one group of people and then they act a little bit different with another group of people. they don t seem sincere. they don t want you to know what they re really all about. but with terry, you don t have to wonder what he s going to be like as governor. you ve seen him. he walks the walk. doesn t just talk the talk. as your governor, terry kept virginia on the right track after the great recession. he helped create 200,000 jobs. drove unemployment down in every city and county in virginia. not just in the sections of northern virg
and testifying about the final days of the trump presidency. general mark milley. also revealing he doesn t regret talking to the journalist bob woodward. the peril author standing by live. we re standing by also on a judge s ruling on whether to end britney spears conservatorship after the pop star spent 13 years under the control of her father. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. this is cnn breaking news. we begin with breaking news. top house and senate democrats making an 11th hour trip to the white house, as deepening divisions are pushing their party, congress, and the nation to the brink of crisis. ryan nobles is standing by up on capitol hill where the clock is ticking toward a critical vote and a potential government shutdown. but first, let s go to our senior white house correspondent, phil mattingly. phil, what are you learning about nancy pelosi and chuck schumer
the votes to pass a bipartisan trillion dollar infrastructure bill tomorrow as promised, but pelosi says she is confident democrats will pass that bill sometime this week along with the president s massive $3.5 trillion reconciliation budget bill. we have a team of correspondents covering this for us. arlette saenz of the white house and let s start with melanie zanona on capitol hill. this could be a consequential week for the democrats. what are they doing today? not just a consequential week for the democrats politically but also a consequential week for the economy. speaker nancy pelosi said in a letter over the weekend that the house must pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the massive economic package as well as a bill to fund the government because government funding runs out at midnight on thursday but it s not clear that democrats have the vote to pass either of their priorities. just take a listen to what some of the key players had to say this morning about
all russian oil imports by the end of this year. earlier than planned and remove the biggest bank from the s.w.i.f.t. network, a big impact for financial transactions. all this as russia says it will destroy, attack nato convoys of weapons headed into ukraine. let s begin this morning though with cnn international security editor nick paton walsh in ukraine. this is remarkable. so you met with some of the people, really, a handful of people able to escape the steel plant on buses. there were many more buses. they re not being used. what does that tell us about all this? reporter: look, this is according to a source i spoke to close to the evacuation effort. we saw for the world s five buses emerging with just over 100 evacuees from the azovstal steel plant and 50 others according to the ukrainian presidency that didn t get out. i understand that there were another 50 that were part or close to that evacuation effort that did not end up having people upon them. remember, jim