the statistics are bad enough. more than 26 million people in the united states are known to have been infected with covid-19. more than 442,000 americans have died. add to that, america is struggling with the vaccination roll-out, and there s growing concern about new variants of virus. dr. michael osterholm is in the university of minnesota for infectious disease and policy. he said that a surge of the uk variant could happen in the u.s. in the next 6-14 weeks. i think right now, in advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we can to reduce the serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead. meanwhile, millions americans remain out of work. tomorrow the s the first of the month. rent s due. so, it may be good news that ten senate republicans are proposing a relief package in hopes of a bipartisan solution. it is significantly smaller than president biden s $1.9 trillion proposal. today, they wrote
cracking down on protesters demanding the release of opposition leader alexei navalny. i m pamela brown in washington. you are in the cnn newsroom on this sunday, and we have breaking news tonight. a covid relief package pitched today by a group of ten republicans does not go far enough for the biden administration. the $600 billion gop proposal has a significantly lower price tag than. splan. i spoke to a senior official who said biden is open to some negotiation including scaling down stimulus checks to households making more than $150,000, but the official i spoke with said the republicans counteroffer, quote, is not going to scratch the itch. the more now from the white house. arlette. the let s start with the republican plan offer today. what s in it? well, this counterproposal from senate republicans is much smaller than what the biden administration had been pushing for. this gop proposal is roughly $600 billion, and just to go down the list of a few of the things
sweden s greetings. enjoy your first payment on us when you lease a new volvo. now through january 2nd. tonight, the deadly storms as we come on the air. the tornadoes touching down. one tornado reportedly on the ground for 63 miles. children put in ambulances and tonight, winter alerts across 20 states. oklahoma, up through the northeast, cars and trucks off the highways. and tomorrow morning s commute, the storm system slamming cities in the east. ginger zee timing it out. also breaking news at this hour involving boeing and their 737 max jets. after those two deadly crashes, just in tonight, boeing now halting production of its max jets. what does this mean for thousands of american workers? two midair scares tonight. the san diego to chicago flight making an emergency landing when flames are seen shooting from the engine.
and tonight, news of another passenger jet flying from paris to chicago, also forced to land. the historic vote on impeachment, 48 hours away. and
his eventually obituary, that is how we wrap up our wednesday night broadcast. thank you so very much for being here with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. it is wednesday, the 18th of december in the year 2019 and president donald trump is impeached. the vote in the house of representatives tonight to impeach the president was not close. it was 230 to 197 on the first article, which was abuse of power. one democrat voted present. on the second article, obstruction of congress, it was a vote of 229-198, again, with one vote present. these were not slim margins. the successful vote to impeach the president tonight, of course, does not remove him from office. the decision of whether or not to remove him from office will now be made in the united states senate, where he ll be put on trial in a proceeding overseen
by the chief justice of the united states supreme court. we re talking about that as if it is a forgone conclusion, as if that s the next obvio