australian open? it s way too early for this. good morning and welcome to way too early, the show that has always been and is now more than ever team federer. i m jonathan lemire on this monday, january 10th. we ll start with the news. at least 19 people are dead including nine children after fire and smoke filled the inside of an apartment building in the bronx here in new york city. fire officials say it started yesterday morning with most likely a malfunctioning space heater in an apartment where the door was left open, allowing smoke to rise to every floor. many were rescued, but some people were trapped in the stairwells. nbc news correspondent kathy park has more on this story. reporter: flames shooting out windows on the second and thirty floors. karen was making breakfast when she heard it all started i heard people screaming help, help, help. reporter: the smoke quickly spreading throughout all the floors in this building of more than 100 apartments.
country? and americans are far from alone in this nightmarish deja vu. european countries are enacting new restrictions, canceling events, even in some cases, putting residents back into lockdown. all of this creating turmoil on wall street, where the markets are seeing big losses already this morning. there is some good news, moderna says its vaccine booster shot provides increased protection against the omicron variant. and in other news this morning, democrats plotting their next steps after west virginia senator joe manchin may have dealt a fatal blow to their huge bill, aimed at reshaping the social safety net and fighting climate change. plus, any minute now, closing arguments will get underway in the trial of former minnesota police officer who shot and killed a young black man during a traffic stop. we will take you inside the courtroom when those arguments begin. but we start with that record-breaking wave of coronavirus. let s start with that record-breaking wave
just filed an explosive new lawsuit against multiple teams and the nfl. tonight, coach brian flores on his bombshell allegations of racial discrimination and more. then, the new york times uncovered new memos that lay out the origins of the fake trump electorate plot. plus new reporting on donald trump s plans to pardon january 6th insurrectionists and congressman pete aguilar on why he says the former president s witness tampering tampering. and the awful truth on america s response to the pandemic. wind all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i m chris hayes, we are here, february 2nd in the midst of two extremely important seasons in american life. they always ride together. black history month in february and of course super bowl season. those two things, race and football, are related in a whole lot of important ways in this country. we have seen it for more than 100 years since the founding of the professional american football association, precursor to t
balkanizing, football remains this kind of centerpiece of our national political popular culture. and there has been renewed focus on race after, of course, since former san francisco 49ers quarterback colin kaepernick elected to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racism. he has never played football again after that. this week we are seeing new high-profile examples of how issues of racial justice, racial oppression and hierarchy play out in fraught and profound ways in this sport. it is one of the last remaining sources of entertainment that can bring together 100 million american viewers, the only one left. today was a momentous day for the national football league as the washington football team announced their new name, the commanders. nearly two years ago the team finally, finally dropped their long time name and mascot, widely considered to be a racist slur. activists had been calling for change for years and years. the team s own
britons were under lockdown. spotify and podcaster joe rogen respond to growing backlash in their role over spreading covid misinformation. and a very exciting nfl playoff season ends with the bengals and the rams punching their tickets to the super bowl. and we begin with the latest on the escalating tensions between russia and ukraine. at this hour, the united nations security council will hold its first meeting on russia s threatening actions against ukraine. u.s. ambassador to the u.n., linda thomas greenfield talked with abc news about the u.s. expectations for this session. we re going to go in the room prepared to listen to them, but we re not going to be distracted by their propaganda. and we re going to be prepared to respond to any disinformation that they attempt to spread during this meeting. this comes as a russian news agency reports russian foreign minister sergey lavrov and secretary of state tony blinken will speak by phone tomorrow. days after the u.s