lockdown inviting them to a bring your own booze party to which about 30 or a0 people turned up in the gardens in lockdown. that was breaching rules because of the time you are only allowed to meet with one other person from outside your household outside. even that day, government officials had been on television warning people that those were the rules. so it was seen very much as a real embarrassment at the very least to the government at the time, orwhen very least to the government at the time, or when it came out, rather, a year later. so they will be no doubt that will be talked about in question today in the inquiry. then we will be hearing from lee cain, the director of communications for the director of communications for the prime minister, and that is going to be significant also, because we have also had an indication of the private correspondence going on between lee cain and other senior officials during that time which gives you a bit of a glimpse of some of t
starting from sweet 16 to the final four and now the national college basketball championship. two teams are in it to win it. news doesn t take the weekend off, and neither do we. cnn weekend early start begins right now. let s get to that developing story off the coast of san francisco. the u.s. coast guard trying to reach injured crew members aboard a crippled racing yacht. it is the geraldton western australia. the boat was hit by a massive wave that took away most of their steering and injured four crew members as well. they re around 400 miles off the coast of san francisco. the bay area was supposed to be the next stop in this 40,000 mile round the woshld yacht race. levi reid joins me now from san francisco thanks for joining us. what s the latest. where are rescue crews right now? well, currently the coast guard is en route of the vessel, clipper venture six, and they are expected to be in range about 8:00 pacific time this morning. in range means it s going to be
good morning. it is friday, august 26th. welcome to american morning. it s all about the hurricane today. i wish i could say happy friday, happy friday for those not living along the northeast coast. and whom it hasn t reached yet. exactly. let s talk about hurricane irene. now said to be a massive and powerful category 2 storm sitting just off the east coast. 50 million people could feel its force by this weekend. new hurricane warnings are now up, they stretch from north carolina to new jersey. states of emergency have been declared as far north as new england. irene totally hammered the bahamas yesterday with torrential rain, 115-mile-per-hour winds, north carolina like i is next. in atlantic beach a surf shop boarding up, mandatory evacuations under way along the outer banks and could be the biggest storm to hit new york in decades. people all the way up the coast are being asked to leave or to get ready. i understand sometimes folks think that people overreac
getting around by foot is probably the best idea. folks who left their cars around town, they are got to get the shovel out and get to work in order to get to where they need to be. for the most part, this city shut down, kyra, and more snow coming in. we may approach a record right now top five in snowstorms but that s only part of this particular story as you ve been talking about and reynolds and the rest of the gang have the other part. back to you. let s move on to reynolds. rob, thank you so much. reynolds is just about 300 miles south in st. louis where a blizzard warning is in effect for about four more hours. is that right, reynolds? absolutely. we really did luck out here in st. louis. we certainly had our share of winter-like precipitation and yesterday was freezing rain and then sleet and snow. about 2 to 4 inches of snowfall in western st. louis. the snowfall we have is dry stuff. you try to make a snowball, all
rain. then another 40 miles to our west some locations up to 20 inches of snowfall. so st. louis very fortunate. it could have been worse. roadways, including parts of i-70 were closed from st. louis to kansas city. that is now open. the airport open also but 120 flights canceled so far and winds picking up later this a h afternoon, there would be more cancellations. we saw the front page of the st. louis post dispatch. that kind of says it all. the salt truck even on its side. did you see that this morning? i saw it. i ve heard people talking about it. they have been talking about it in the coffee shop. it s been a wild ride and still a long way to go for winter. just wondering what is maybe right around the corner. what is funny the brunt of this moving through chicago and next on the line is going to be parts of the northeast. boston especially may get hammered pretty hard. interesting to see the story how it unfolds up there. reynolds, thanks.