tensions over ukraine, no doubt, on top of that agenda. and mourners pay their respects to antiapartheid hero archbishop desmond tutu. we ll go live to africa. announcer: live from london, this is cnn newsroom with max foster. it s thursday, december 30th, with just two days left in 2021. we are now seeing the coronavirus pandemic explode right around the globe. according to johns hopkins university, the world is averaging an all-time high of more than a million new infections a day. experts warn things will only get worse. this virus will continue to evolve and threaten our health system if we don t improve the collective response. concerned omicron will be more transmissible, circulating at the same time as delta is leading to a tsunami of cases. infections are also rising quickly in the u.s.. the country is averaging more than 300,000 new cases a day in the past week, and that s another record. johns hopkins reports close to 490,000 cases on wednesday. and more
and the nation s heartland now faces a severe weather threat to start the week. our weather team times it all out. also tonight, seven children shot outside a mall in indianapolis. the victims ranging in age from 12 to 17. i need four medics right now. police plead with parents to keep their kids out of trouble. as they search for a suspect. benjamin netanyahu faces surgery at a critical moment. his government facing mounting protests with more than 100 israeli hostages still held in gaza. a key member of the super bowl champions wanted to police his possible connection to this serious chain reaction crash. a deadly plane crash in northern california. the plane going down while attempting to land. what we re learning about the victims. two successful tech entrepreneurs. cranes and crews begin the painstaking work of removing the wreckage from the key bridge. transportation secretary pete buttigieg with the timeline for reopening the baltimore harbor. the at&t
four survivors originally from the ivory coast and guinea gave their accounts to coastguards after being brought ashore. the three men and a woman had initially been rescued by a cargo ship. on monday, according to a recent report from the international organisation for migration at least 4m refugees drowned between january and march, marking the deadliest three month period since 2017. the report also reveals over the past decade, the mediterranean sea has claimed around 25,000 lives. these grim numbers do not fully capture the extent of the tragedy as the actual death toll might be even higher. in recent days there have been a number of rescues from the island and these pictures from the weekend show rescue workers helping migrants in trouble on the lampedusa coast. 0ur rome correspondent sofia bettiza has been following the story. this is not the first tragedy in the mediterranean sea this year. as you mentioned, we do know that 41 migrants died, and they were killed i
spies, lies, bribes, and russian disinformation. it sounds like something out of a novel, but it is a very real drama playing out washington right now. a long time fbi informant who provided explosive allegations of a biden bribery scheme, now charged with lying to the fbi and accused of passing off false information that he got from kremlin intelligence officials the claims from x and format alexander smirnoff or a central part of house republicans impeachment inquiry of president biden. but for now, the gop has no plans to pull back on that probe. cnn s kaitlan polantz is tracking all of this. kaitlan. what more have we learned about this case? well, jessica, this is a major case from one of the special counsel working within the justice department. it is case against a man named alexandra smirnoff, who lives in las vegas, an american citizen. but as an fbi informant over many, many years, was putting disinformation into investigative authorities in the us, spec