vaccination, beginning today. this as the u.s. is bracing for impact of the omicron variant. it has been detected in at least 30 states, but a report from the cdc found cases have mostly been mild so far. joining me now, dr. kavita patel, nbc news medical contributor. doctor patel, great to see you this morning. we re dealing with this pandemic, just the idea that we ve now lost 800,000 americans, it s astounding to me every single day, every single life that we continue to lose. on top of that now, we have this natural disaster in the middle of the country, hospitals overwhelmed. one of the lowest vaccination rates are in the state of kentucky. how are they going to be able to deal? yeah, yasmin, unfortunately, they weren t dealing well to begin with, because of rising rates. and a lot of the areas affected, especially in kentucky and the surrounding states are very rural, very low, kind of hospital and provider capacity in general, minus the pandemic, minus the natural disaster.
and covering bowling green from mayfield where tom is. talk to me about that community. what they need most. sure. thanks for having me, yasmin. bowling green is a couple hours from mayfield and not hit quite as totally. there s pockets that are totally destroyed. as i was driving to bowling green there s signs of destruction. and then you get to the city and some pockets of it are entirely leveled as you can see here. i talked to some people dejected. many people had very i would say positive attitudes picking up the pieces. probably the biggest thing people need and ways to donate and there s drives, blood drives and important to get supplies to towns affected and a biggest way
to be going on all day. certainly one of the most divisive issues in this country right now. yasmin vassoughian and ken dilanian in front of the supreme court, thank you very much. an august nbc news polls that nearly 50 years after roe v. wade was decided, more than half of americans polled say abortion should be legal. joining me now, cecile richards. she is the former president of planned parenthood federation of america, currently the co-chair of american bridge. talk to us about the gravity of this moment. the importance of this moment. well, this is the case that, of course, we ve all been waiting for, that the supreme court should have never taken this mississippi case. this law is clearly unconstitutional. but as was said earlier, what s happened is politics have intervened. we had donald trump, who committed to only put on
that. like his life was not valuable. like that was not a life, like bullets will not take a life. that was vaughn hillyard reporting. so you heard the assistant district attorney say it was a classi suicide-my-cop scenario, but here s what his dad told our yasmin vassoughian yesterday. christian was full of life and he was wronged of the opportunity to live it. i mean, here s the bottom line, i forced myself to watch that video. christian had his hands up the entire time. his hands were up. he never once pointed that gun at a single police officer. joining us right now, eric guster, civil and criminal defense attorney and sarah
great to see you. coming up, everybody, a look at the power crisis in puerto rico with outages across the island. i m yasmin vassoughian in for stephanie ruhle. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. and good morning. it s 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i m jose diaz-balart. the battle over vaccine requirements is heating up and republican-led states are fighting back, as the biden administration develops rules that could force millions of workers to get a shot in the arm or face weekly testing. on capitol hill, the house returns today to take up a short-term extension to the nation s debt limit, but the fight over the debt ceiling is far from over. meanwhile, in puerto rico, residents are angry and demanding answers as the u.s. island territories power grid may be on the verge of collapsing. and we re less than 24 hours away from seeing captain kirk boldly go where no star fleet captain has ever been before, space.