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of course, there is still the mueller investigation. this hearing, we can tell you, is still running a bit behind schedule. that s because a spokesman for the judiciary committee says chairman nadler was involved in some kind of crash today on his way from washington to new york, we re told that the congress is okay, no one was hurt. but it is delaying things just a bit there on the hill. so while we wait, let s turn to our reporters. nbc s garrett haake is following the hearing for us on the hill. i want to bring in our justice correspondent pete williams. garrett, i ll start with you. the attorney general s first appearance before the committee. obviously democrats are going to want answers about a number of things. i just laid out a few of them. walk us through what you think will be among the most contentious topics, shall we say. democrats have long sought the hearing with this attorney general. for months they wanted to get him here to talk about all those issue ....
election day. you re looking at long lines in philadelphia this morning, on the last day of early in-person voting there. right now the campaigns are storming those key battleground states. today president trump will hold rallies in michigan, wisconsin and nebraska. his bread ses sore, former president obama will be campaigning for joe biden in orlando, florida, and biden himself is going to zero in on georgia. coming up in a few minutes, i ll talk to one of the democratic senate candidates who could flip a seat there. but hanging over all of it, this pandemic. this morning president trump says all everyone wants to talk about is, quote, covid, covid, covid. hard not to. here is why. hospitalizations in the united states are up 40% in the last month alone. let s start on the ground with our reporters covering the candidates. nbc s monica alba at the white house, mike memoli is following the biden campaign in warm springs, georgia, and nbc s garrett haake is in orlando ....
pandemic as we speak. today, biden expected to unveil a 12-person coronavirus advisory board. we will be watching and listening to find out precisely when that is going to happen. as you can see there on stage, the president-elect with vice president-elect kamala harris getting that briefing. let s get to mike memoli in wilmington. he is following the biden/harris team as they press ahead to wednesday, january 20th. mike, the biden team clearly making the pandemic its top priority. we just got that glimpse of the president-elect s meeting. his team rolling out this new advisory board with some key names. what more do we know about who is going to be on that advisory board at this hour, sir? reporter: yeah, craig, the last time we saw the president-elect, the vice president-elect, they were celebrating saturday night with the great fireworks display. now, it s all about the work ahead. so, of course, joe biden s final weeks in the campaign, months really, were all abou ....
a good thursday morning to you. craig melvin here. just this morning new weekly unemployment numbers are out and they re terrible. more than 6.6 million americans filed for unemployment benefits just last week. so to give you perspective here, that s more than the entire population of missouri. it also doubles the previous week s 3.3 million jobless claims, and that was considered a record at the time. it shows just how quickly things are moving. this morning we re also watching this, the surge in coronavirus cases here in the united states. right now more than 217,000 known cases. that s almost 2,800 more cases than the same time yesterday. so far, the virus has killed more than 4,800 of our fellow americans. health care workers continue to give us a sobering reality check as our hospitals are slammed with new patients. we are scared of becoming exposed to covid-19 and transmitting to other patients and to our families. we see other nurses and doctors dying and peopl ....
beef, chicken, pork. in fact, you may start noticing it by the end of this week. we re covering all of that for you this hour. but we want to start on this tuesday morning with the sheer frustration facing millions of americans right now. maybe you re at home sitting down, checking your bank account or mailbox every morning for that stimulus check that has not come. maybe you re a mom or dad who is out of work, waiting for that unemployment claim to be approved. maybe you are a small business owner, watching big companies get millions of dollars in aid while you re struggling to figure out how to pay your handful of employees. americans are looking to their government for help and in many cases that help heretofore has not arrived. there are new hurdles, too. if you re in california or new york or florida, unemployment systems are strained, not just from the millions of player cans applying, but from tech issues hampering the system. i want to start with nbc news busine ....