Us. Heres what were watching. Thousands of homes are without power as Tropical Storm ophelia lashes the coast with strong winds and heavy rain. We have a look at the cities in the path and the impact well see throughout the day. Its quickly hurdling toward a shutdown as talks have broken down over a deal to fund the government. How federal agencies are preparing and the talks happening today to try to keep a shutdown happening. Hollywood writers and executives will meet again today to try to work out a deal to end the Writers Strike that has paralyzed the industry for months. What will it take to get production up and running again, even after a deal is made. Plus cnn taking you inside the new High Speed Rail Service connects parts of florida. Why some say it could usher in a new era of rail travel in the u. S. Lets start with Tropical Storm ophelia. It has now made landfall in North Carolina. This pretty strong Tropical Storm washed ashore about two hours ago with winds around 70 Miles Per Hour. The storm is bringing life threatening storm surge, Flash Flooding and Power Outages. You see some of the flooding there. 53,000 people are in the dark in both North Carolina and virginia with a majority of those outages being in coastal carolina. The impacts of the storm are expected to stretch all the way up to new york and new jersey. The governor has declared a state of emergency. The Washington Nationals and braves have postponed tonights game that was scheduled to happen in d. C. Lets get to allison chinchar. Lets talk about first the biggest impact of ophelia right now. Thats going to be the rain bands, but we also do have some Tornado Warnings beginning to pop back up. Thats going to continue through the afternoon. We got the latest. Winds dropping down to 65 Miles Per Hour. But they are still gusting up to 85 Miles Per Hour. You still have the wind gusts that will be Hurricane Force winds at Tropical Storm force. The storm moving to the north, you have a lot of rain bands as far away as new york, pennsylvania, new jersey, but the focus of the real heavy rain is still going to be across North Carolina and virginia for much of the morning. We also have the Tornado Warning just to the west of elizabeth city. We will likely see more Tornado Warnings pop up throughout the rest of the day. Theres also the potential for damaging winds and even some large hail with some of these storms. As the track continueses to move off to the north, its going to veer back towards the east and out over the atlantic as we wrap up this weekend. But in the time between, youre still looking at very Heavy Rain Bands that will spread from North Carolina and virginia today. Baltimore, philadelphia by the time we get to the evening and tomorrow the focus becomes the northeast. Places like boston likely to pick up rain showers. Flood ing is going to be a big concern. You have the james river in virginia. The location at james town at malk flood stage. Were headed towards low tide. That should drop back to minor flood stage over the next few hours. But by 6 00 this evening when high tide returns, that number is expected to go back up to major flood stage. That will flow over into the roadways and unfortunately maybe into some homes and businesses. Thats not the only location where we have the potential for some flood ing. You can see that spread out over virginia, North Carolina, even into places like new jersey and delaware. Tomorrow the main focus becomes places like new york and philadelphia. Allison chinchar, thank you so much. Were also watching for potential chaos on capitol hill. Were now one week away from the government shutting down if congress doesnt do its job and pass a funding bill. The initial plan let Kevin Mccarthy strike first. Then send it to the senate for changes before heading back to the house for final round of votes and negotiation, but now with the infight ing in the house, Chuck Schumer is ready to step in and start. Leader mcconnell and i are talking. We have great deal of agreement on many parts of this. Its never easy to get a big bill done, but i am very, very optimistic that mcconnell and i can find a way and get a large number of votes both democratic and republican in senate. Jasmine wright joins us from the white house. A lot to keep an eye on. A lot of implications from the white house. What is the Biden Administration doing to prepare for a shutdown . The white house is directing federal agencies to effectively get ready for a potential shutdown. They issued that guidance on friday as we saw many House Republicans leaving washington with no clear plan in place. So the White House Office of management and budget issued guidance that agencies get are ready their plans and procedures to if a shutdown were to happen. When we know that the deadline is september 30th. So that includes things like how many employees would have to be furloughed. What employees would be deemed essential and have to work through the shutdown. Now we know that was happening on the white house side. On the capitol hill side, we know that Kevin Mccarthy and the House Rules Committee were preparing a set of individual longterm Spending Bills that Kevin Mccarthy would want to put on the house floor by saturday hoping they would garner enough gop vote ss to pass. That work is continuing throughout the weekend. But we dont even know if those longterm Spending Bills than what we expected would get enough votes to pass. On the house side, we know they have basically no democratic support. Take a listen to the white house describe their reaction to Kevin Mccarthys plan. The question for House Republicans is very simple. Do they continue to pursue increasingly extreme bills that would hurt their constituents by slashing education, slashing health care, with Meals On Wheels and much more, or do they keep their promise and abide by the bipartisan agreement. Twothirds of House Republicans voted for this bipartisan agreement just for it back in may. Its not complicated here. Truly not complicated because a deal is a deal. So there we heard from thes Press Secretary Outlining clearly that the white house is not in favor of the new plan. We know these four bills, if it they dids the house would be dead on arrival on the senate side. So according to the house side, the senate side and now the white house, we are still as we wake up this saturday morning, no closer to a potential shutdown. Thank you very much. Homeland security secretary is headed to the Reese Yoe Grand Valley in texas today. Thousands of migrants crossed into the u. S. Near eagle pass in the past two days and the citys mayor says they feel abandoned, so they are pleading for help. Now governor Greg Alabbott Ss hes sending additional pus buss to eagle pass to assist border communities Priscilla Alvarez has more on the challenges at the southern boarder. Reporter the white house concludes the week with more than 8,000 daily encounters on the u. S. mexico border each day this week. Thats a marked increase from late may, when there were about 3,500 daily encounters. Those are numbers that held for much of the summer, but the latest surge is causing strain on federal resources and fielding concern within the administration. Now Homeland Security officials are monitoring the situation. They cant quite say what exactly led to the surge, but they do cite Economic Conditions in latin america and the lclimae crisis as drivers of migration. Now the administration took steps this week to try to alleviate some of the burden along the u. S. mexico border in communities sending 800 new active duty Military Personnel to serve in a support roel. Thats something they have done before. As well as adding capacity to border facilities. Those facilities are ill equipped to care for people longterm, but this is to build out capacity so they can at least accommodate those writing to process them through. Officials also said they are continuing to conduct deportation flights. But all of this really underscored in the images underscored the immense humanitarian political and logistical challenge for the administration as they face unprecedented Mass Migration across the western hemisphere. Now Homeland Security secretary will be visiting the border today where he will be joining the president of honduras. The two will be in the rio grand valley. Another area of the border thats been seeing an increase in border crossings. They are expected to talk about cooperating to try to stem the flow of irregular migration and thousand how the two can Work Together along with partners to address what is an immense challenge across the western hemisphere. Priscilla, thank you so much. Senator bob menendez is rejecting calls for his resignation after being charge ed with offenses by the jthsz department. Maine innocent december and his wife are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for the senators influence. This is the second time in the last decade that menendez is facing Corruption Charges. Prosecutors say the prescribes including gold bars, cash, Home Mortgage payments and a mercedes. Menendez said hes not going anywhere and he and his wife plan on fighting the charges. Kara scannell has the latest. Some of the cash was stuffed in the senators jacket pockets. Reporter indicted again, new jersey senator bob menendez facing Corruption Charges for the second time in ten years. Prosecutors announce ing a threecount federal indictment against the democratic senator and his wife over their dealings with three new jersey associates and businessmen starting in at least 2018. The senator and his wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for the senator using his power and influence to protect and to enrich those businessmen. They include 550,000 in cash hidden in the senators home and Safe Deposit Box a convertible, and gold bars worth tens of thousands of dollars among other things. The indictment also alleges the Senate ForeignRelations Committee chair, quote, provided Sensitive Information and took other steps that secretly aided the government of egypt. Behind the scenes, Senator Menendez was doing those things for certain people. The people who were bribing had him and his wife. The senator issued a defiant statement in response to the u. S. Attorneyss latest allegations. I have been falsely accused before because i refused to back down to the Powers That Be and the people of new jersey were able to see through the smoke and mirrors and recognize i was innocent. Menendez has long maintained his innocence in the latest probe into his dealings telling cnn back in april this inquiry will end up in absolutely nothing. Reporter the senator faced similar Corruption Charges in 2015. He fought off conspiracy, bribery and other fraud charges relate ed to political favors. Can those digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, i know who you are, and i wont forget you. Reporter that case ended in a mistrial, a partial acquittal and all charges against the senator being dropped. In this latest case, menendez remains defiant saying he wont be distracked by baseless accusations. A lawyer for the senators wife said she denies any wrong doing. All five defendants are due in court to face these charges. The u. S. Attorneys office says this investigation is still ongoing. That comes amid growing calls by new jersey lawmakers for the senator to resign. Kara scannell, thank you. Up next, President Biden is getting some encouraging news in the race for 2024. Well show you the positive numbers hes seeing in New Hampshire. Plus the latest on a pair of major strikes. The negotiations happening in the Auto Industry and in hollywood. Also the white house unveils its latest step to push gun violence. How the new office of Gun Violence Prevention could make a difference. Rs. Theres a story in every piecece of land. Run with us on a john deeeere gator™ xuv and ststart telling yours. And i saved hundreds. With the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. Oh. [dog barks] no its just a bunny only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Trelegy for copd. Birds flyin high, you know how i feel. Breeze driftin on. [coughing]. By, you know how i feel. 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