president biden today. you delivered on roads and bridges, now deliver on voting rights. later this hour, i ll talk to grant lewis, the mother of late georgia congressman john lewis, the name sake of one of the bills. i ll ask him what this battle means for his family and what john lewis would tell us today if he were still with us. then major developments in the 11-hour texas sin nothing standoff now being called an act of terror. two teenagers have been arrested in the united kingdom in connection to the standoff. what the fbi is now revealing about what the hostage takers said repeatedly during the negotiations. in a fight against omicron, the numbers keep climbing and climbing fast. there are nearly 1 million new cases in this country every single day. we re going to talk about australia s controversial new tactic to deal with the pandemic. let it rip. we are going to start with the voting rights fight as we honor the life and legacy of dr. martin luther king junior.
And what he s talking about right now is just as you mentioned, voting rights. we know that reverend warnock, other top democrats from the state of georgia, stacey abrams and the king family both here in georgia and there in d.c., are really using this day essentially to be a rallying cry. we ve seen the pressure mounting from those who were saying this is a time to pass democrats voting legislation on washington, but there really are sticking today, saying that essentially, call it hypocritical for people to quote dr. king, but in their words, fight against the very things he spent his life fighting for. we re listening to reverend warnock. he s using his pulpit to put pressure on his colleagues in the senate. we re expecting to hear more from vice president harris later on today. but this really is kind of a sticking point. i want to mention as well, we also heard from the doctor of king. she used her time to push for
Aide i spoke to said this is what the caucus wants. they want everyone to go on the record. they re not willing to give up now. and one activist i spoke to deeply involved said it would be highly demoralizing for the civil rights community after a year of pressure trying to get this done that they simply pull the plug now and this activist argued any cost to doing this is already sunk. they further said that they don t want senators to be able to sink key portions of the democratic party s agenda simply with words. they want to put everyone on the record, and that s what we re likely to see in the coming days. i m going to talk about that with the congressman in a moment. i want to go back to gary for just a moment. gary, on this mlk holiday, you have hundreds, if not thousands of folks walking on the streets of washington. have you gotten any indication from them what they may do if and when the bills don t pass later this week?
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And they will continue whether or not this happens in the house and the senate. all right. gary on the move there in washington d.c. sahil, two voting bills stalled in the senate. the freedom to vote act, the john lewis voting rights act, freedom to vote act includes things like expanding voter registration, creating universal mail-in voting, adding rules for election officials. and then the john lewis voting rights act. less sweeping, but still would require certain cities and states to get preclearance from the justice department before changing voting laws. the senate majority leader says he s going to bring the two voting bills to the floor tomorrow for debate. right now unless something has changed in the last few minutes, the leader does not have the full support of his party on those bills. so sahil, what s next? craig, it is looking like a do or die week here in the united states senate for the