World. I m kim brunhuber. This is cnn newsroom. Afghanistan s valley now the focus of taliban efforts to completely take over the country but antitaliban forces are fighting back. Panjshir is the only territory not under taliban control. Fresh fighting was reported saturday with both sides claiming successes. Cnn cannot independently verify the accuracy of those reports. And the largest currency exchange market reopened for the first time in nearly three weeks, but banks are limiting withdrawals. Ben farmer is in kabul and is joining us by phone. So let s start with that fighting, what is the latest on the conflict there? we know that there have been several days of heavy fighting in panjshir, and as you said both sides have said that they have had successes and victories, but all we know independently is that the taliban have penetrated into the valley as far as a hospital which is run by an international aid charity. And it is a significant way into the valley. So the situation of th
Pete: that is our nation s anthem on our nation s birthday. Happy independence day, america. So glad you re here. Honored to be here with rachel and will. Rachel: happy independence day. You guys look amazing. Pete: as do you. Rachel: we re all in rhett, white and blue. Will: happy 4th of july all day long today. Happy 4th of july. That was the quantico brass quintet performing the national anthem live on fox square. That is happy independence day to all much us. We ll celebrate all morning long celebrating our nation s birthday. We would love for to you celebrate with us. Send your pictures to foxnews. Com. We ll be outside of the studio having a good time. You re somewhere out in america, barbecuing, hanging out by the pool with your friends and family. Shows us where it looks like. Rachel: we re in new york. Across america in little towns everywhere there will be amazing parades and barbecues. We want to see all of that, definitely, definitely send that stuff in. As we celebrate our
Rolls. Remember florida in 2000 and georgia last year? tonight republicans revealed those things were pretty much bs. Given the chance to debate those republican friendly ideas on voting, they punted. Not one republican voted to advance debate on the bill. Surprise. Because the bill didn t meet the 60vote threshold to fill a filibuster, it won t get the chance to be debated. Vice president harris tasked with the voting rights portfolio spoke to reporters afterwards. And i think it is clear certainly for the american people that when we re talking about the right to vote, it is not a republican concern or a democratic concern. It is an american concern. This is about the american people s right to vote unfettered. It is about their access to a right to vote in a meaningful way. Nobody is debating, i don t believe, whether all americans have the right to vote. The issue here is there actual access to the voting process, or is that being impeded. The bottom line is that the president and
what it is? as new migrant caravans head toward the southern border, the white house says they ll reinstate a trump era immigration point what? will it work? we ll discuss later in the show. and ray monday. raymond. this season you may want to include an apology with your salvation army donation. coming up, how they ve been accused of going woke for the holidays. but first, fears of a new covid variant first discovered in south africa have countries racing to contain it. white house restricting travel from affected countries starting monday. although cdc says no cases of omicron covid variant have been identified in the u.s. yet, dr. anthony fauci, of course, says it s only a matter of time. surprised if it is. we have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility and you re already having travel-related cases that they ve noted in israel, in belgium and other places, when you have a virus like this, it almost invar
african countries. benjamin: researchers say the variant caught them offguard. experts are calling it a big jump in the virus s evolution. it has a large number of mutations. the concern is when you have so many mutations it can have an impact on how the virus behaves. benjamin: jonathan serrie is following it live from atlanta. it doesn t sound good. researchers are just beginning to stud ooh he the new variant. there are a lot of unknowns. international health officials are concerned the sheer number of mutations may make this new variant first detected in africa more dangerous than previous variants. listen. the early indications we have of this variant it may be more transmissible than the delta variant and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it. britain imposed a temporary ban on flights from six african countries and requiring british travelers returning from those countries to quarantine in hotels. each time the coronavirus spr