t www.vitac.com as coronavirus cases surge across dozens of u.s. states, a white house official makes a comment that has some people wondering whether the trump administration is signaling defeat. plus france's covid-19 daily cases are skyrocketing, despite strict restrictions. so, are those lockdown measures really working? we're live in paris. and later, millions of people are being tested in northwest china after just one asymptomatic case was reported.

live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome to you, our viewers here in the united states, canada and around the world. i'm kim brunhuber, and this is "cnn newsroom." with just over a week to go before election day in the u.s., now a startling admission from the trump administration. despite surging coronavirus cases and more than 225,000 dead, the white house chief of staff says there's only so much that can be done to contain the pandemic. >> here's what we have to do. we're not going to control the pandemic. we are going to control the fact we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation. >> why aren't we going to

control the pandemic? >> because it is a contagious virus like the flu. >> why not make efforts to contain it? >> we are making efforts to contain it. >> by running all over the country not wearing a mask. that's what the vice president is doing. >> we can get into the back and forth. let me say this. we need to make sure we have the proper mitigation factors whether it's therapies, vaccines or treatments to make sure people don't die from this. >> he also wouldn't discuss the extent of the outbreak around the vice president. mike pence spent sunday campaigning. his office says he tested negative for the virus and won't change his schedule. at least five members of the vice president's inner srkal have now tested positive for covid-19. and just to be clear, according to cdc guidelines, mr. pence should be in quarantine. but here's what president donald trump said when asked whether the head of his coronavirus task force should leave the campaign trail after exposure.

>> here's white house correspondent john harwood with more on all of the. >> reporter: events on sunday encapsulated the dilemma facing president trump and his campaign with just over a week to go before election day. the president was campaigning in both maine and new hampshire, insisting we're rounding the corner on the pandemic, appearing without masks or social distancing, getting very close to voters. but reality intruded with a major outbreak of coronavirus with people close to the vice president, including his chief of staff marc short, as well as his body man, the one who travels most closely with mike pence. despite that, the white house continued to have mike pence out on the campaign trail. he disregarded cdc guidelines, did not quarantine himself. the white house chief of staff mark meadows confessed in a conversation with jake tapper that we can't control the pandemic. we're simply waiting for therapeutics and a vaccine.

the challenge, of course, is for the president, the coronavirus pandemic is the number one issue for voters, and they have a harsh judgment of the president's handling of it. nevertheless, he's pressing on. he ended the evening on sunday with a trick or treat halloween even at the white house, the president appearing without a mask. however, he was not handing out the candy itself. that was done by white house staffers who were wearing masks and gloves in a different location. john harwood cnn, the white house. democratic vice presidential nominee kamala harris was back on the campaign trail this weekend. she had to cancel all travel a week ago after two people in her orbit tested positive for the coronavirus. sunday in the battleground state of michigan, harris criticized the vice president for ignoring the advice of his own health experts and refusing to quarantine. she attacks the trump administration for its handling of the pandemic. >> they are admitting defeat,

and i've been saying that and joe biden has been saying that since the beginning. this is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of america. and he went on to say he can't control it like the flu. and yet again, they're suggesting to the american people that this is like the flu when we have known from the beginning and they knew since january that it's five times more deadly than the flu. >> harris made several campaign stops in michigan, and here's why. michigan has traditionally been a blue state. president trump was the first republican to win there since 1988, but he won by a razor thin margin of fewer than 11,000 votes. michigan is home to the bloc of blue collar workers that delivered the election to conservative ronald reagan in the '80s. the number of americans casting their ballots early shows how energized voters are this year. already 59 million people have

voted across the country. that's more than all of the pre-election voting in 2016. it's shattering records in several states, include new york. on sunday, more than 100,000 people voted on the second day of early voting in new york city, a record that broke a set on saturday. president trump's supreme court nominee amy coney barrett is expected to be confirmed to the high court later today. senate republicans voted overwhelmingly to advanced barrett for tonight's likely final confirmation vote, despite objections from democrats, of course. she's set to fill the seat of the late justice ruth bader ginsburg. a source tells cnn that after the final vote, president trump is expected to host a swearing in ceremony at the white house during an outdoor ceremony. all right. so, for more on the u.s. presidential race, let's bring in chief palmer, university of

london and visiting professor at the london school of economics. thank you very much for joining us. i want to start with the administration's response to covid. on the one hand we have the president saying, you know, we're handling it, we're rounding the corner and so on. but then we have his chief of staff as we reported there saying we're not going to control the pandemic. so, forget about the public health merits of this, as a campaign strategy what's the thinking here on one hand projecting confidence, on the other resignation like it's almost gone and even if it isn't, there's nothing we can do. >> i think one message is just purely for the people that president trump may be speaking to at the moment when he's on the campaign trail where he thinks it serves his interest to say it's getting under control or rounding the corner. the other one is really more consistent with the strategy of herd immunity, which this administration has followed pretty much from the beginning. and without a vaccine herd

immunity basically is an admission that you're not going to do anything effective about the coronavirus pandemic. you're just going to let it run its course. that is consistent with the trump strategy from the very beginning. they have a view that science is unimportant, is not useful. they're not following guide lipos guidelines by the cdc and so on. and i think they thought this thing was going to effect blue states and they did everything in their power to carry that on. and his orders to liberate michigan, liberate virginia and so on and so forth. that encouraged very right wing people. i think they're doubling down on their electoral strategy. that is stick with a big, big message that you don't need to wear a mask, you don't need to social distance, this will run its course, government has no rule. and at the time when you're running for president is an abdication of leadership to most people, i think. >> on the issue of leadership,

you've written that the pandemic is awful and deadly as it was. just in purely political terms was an opportunity for the president to unite the country and not having done that will cost him at the polls. so, you wrote that in july. so, we're now at the end of october. any reason to change your mind? >> not really. i think that president has -- there is a kind of -- there's a political electoral strategy which is i think they thought it would just be a problem for democratic states and democratic cities like new york and so on. but i think underneath it all was a philosophy which is that there's a deep state, that the deep state is made up of civil servants, public officials and so on and that he's untrustworthy, he's not going to be very efficient in doing anything. in fact, the administration is against the deep state. and i think that underlying viewpoint has not changed one little bit. and there are investigations done by other publications like

"vanity fair" into the investigation of jared kushner in march when private companies offered a plan to build ventilators and ppe and distribute it and so on was rejected by kushner. i think we're seeing a very consistent strategy, an antigovernment strategy. and i think right now, i think president trump is actually trying to just galvanize his own support to turn out. and second thing is i think he's relying on a contested election in order to have any chance of remaining in office. >> all right. so, let's delve into the campaign here with so few days to go. democrats have their eyes on a number of traditionally red states. this week biden coming here to georgia where no democrat had won since clinton in '92, kamala harris going to texas. do they have a shot or should they be focusing more effort on the conventional swing states like pennsylvania, florida and on? >> i think they have quite a lot

of attention, unlike candidate clinton in 2016 to those states. and i think they are edging in the lead or strongly in the lead in some of them. that was the national level. i think they're trying to make inroads in senate seat, congressional seats and so on as well, which is to say they're looking for a unified government following this particular election. that is, the presidency, the senate and of course the house. and i think that will really cement the possibilities of a progressive agenda, which many in the democratic party are supporting and are urging harris and biden to implement after this election is over. >> all right. we'll have to leave it there. thank you so much for joining us, professor. appreciate it. >> thank you very much. covid-19 cases rise across

many parts of the world, in the u.s. no fewer than 58,000 americans have tested positive every day the past week. that number has topped 80,000, setting a new daily record. not a single state is currently trending in the right direction and the u.s. continues to lead the world with the most recorded cas cases. across the atlantic, spain's prime minister declared a new state of emergency on sunday. it includes a nighttime curfew and travel restrictions until may of next year. france reported more than 52,000 new cases on sunday breaking its new record for the fourth day in a row. the country's positivity rate is more than double the u.s. let's go to melissa bell live in paris. melissa, it was that positivity rate that struck me. i read that it was 7% a month ago, now 17%. >> it's been a massive rise, really exponential rises. the positivity rate, the number of new cases above 52,000

yesterday, an all-time record here in france. and still those localized concerns here in the greater paris region. we're now at 65% of icu beds taken up by covid-19 patients. that is a massive rise over the course of the last six weeks or so. that is what authorities are looking attosee whether further restrictions are going to be needed. for the time being, the restrictions put into place here, the curfews for instance that apply to a large part of the country simply haven't managed to bring the numbers down. what the regional head of the health authority says is this week's crucial. by tuesday or wednesday if they're not starting to see a change in those figures you're going to have to see a further typing of restrictions, things like for instance bringing earlier bringing down the begin of the daily curfew, things like that are going to be considered everything that might stop short of a second lockdown but that would allow the figures to be brought to acceptable levels. for the time being that balance has not yet been found.

>> more restrictions perhaps on the way there. thank you so much melissa bell in paris. coming up -- nigeria's police chief says enough is enough and deploys the country's entire police force to stop the ongoing violence there. also ahead, unacceptable comments by the president. details from istanbul. stay with us. the confidence to take on the day. that's why airborne is the only #1 pharmacist recommended immune support brand. airborne. your daily dose of confidence. and your new audiobook. with everything from mel robbins to blake griffin, is there a more fascinating place than audible? no. and i've done the research. of course you have. audiobooks, podcasts, audible originals, all in one place.

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authorities used tear gas and stun grenades on thousands of protesters in belarus sunday. nearly 150 people were arrested. president alexander lukashenko is ignoring opposition. the opposition leader is calling on belarusians to boycott government services. protests have been going on for 11 weeks following a presidential election the opposition claims was rigged. nigeria's chief of police

has deployed the country's entire police force to deal with the ongoing unrest there. africa's most populous region. protests calling for an end to police brutality started with calls for police unit called the special antirobbery squad. c lanny, many nigerians are worrying which will be worse, the unrest or the police crackdowns. what's the latest. >> exactly right. you've got curfews across the various states in the country, in lagos in particular. it starts at 8:00 p.m. and ends at 6:00 a.m. it's the city that never sleeps. usually you have traffic throughout the day even early hours of the morning. so, it goes to show just the extent that the governor is taking to try to curve the

violence we've seen. we've seen property, not only public infrastructure but also private, and of course what we've also seen on the ground is just this general discontent. we've seen disgruntled youths. i was looking at some of the headlines coming through today. the business says without a generation without a future explodes in nigeria's protests. what you see is the underlying issues bubbling under the surface for a long time. the campaign was a fight against police brutality. what we saw is every part of the social spectrum joining in that fight. so, you saw executives, business people, government officials. then there's others, protests turn to violence over the past couple of weeks. and you saw a curfew reinstated tuesday. that resulted in men dressed in military uniform opening fire on peaceful protests. this was a big trilogier for what we've seen over the past few weebs. we've seen incredible violence coming from many parts of the

country. there's been a chorus of voices, business people, religious leaders, governors from around the country calling for calm and trying to unify the country. the voice nigerians wanted to hear from was from president ma'am dhue ma'am due buhari. many nigerians feel uneasy, scared, numb, feel police again are using brute force to try to deal with the situation. president buhari of course was talking about an investigation that's currently under way to try to figure out who gave the orders to the military. was it the military? we know the military has been denying they were involved in what transpired on tuesday in an affluent area of lagos. the economic fallout has been immense. you've seen the looting of warehouses across the country, food that was destined to feed people during the pandemic, medical warehouses as well.

so, the issue is absolutely ongoing. what i'm hearing on the ground here, kim, is that there's still uneasiness and discontent and big worry about what's to come. >> the story we'll be following closely. thank you so much. appreciate it. coming up in the next hour, human rights activist will join me live to talk about the unrest and her own experiences standing up to police in nigeria. now to growing tensions between france and turkey. france is recalling its ambassador over comments the french president made about emmanuel macron. suggested mr. macron needed, quote, some sort of mental treatment over his attitude towards muslims in france. it comes after mr. macron vowed to crack down on radical islamism after a french teacher was beheaded in class. the teacher used satire.

more from istanbul. arwa, what's behind this and how far do you think the fight will go? >> reporter: it could potentially go quite far, kim, because there have been tensions between macron and erdogan for quite some time now. but these latest comments, this back and forth is centered around, according to some analysts, political gain for both presidents. now, as you outlined there, the backdrop of all of this was the brutal beheading of that french teacher that showed the very controversial cartoons of prophet ma' prophet mohammed. france did broadcast the same caricatures vowing to crackdown on muslim groups. there's widespread concerns this

rhetoric is going to exacerbate tensions with the muslim world you have the comments that came out from turkey's president, . here's what he had to say. >> translator: macron needs some sort of mental treatment. what else is there to say about a head of state who doesn't believe in the freedom of religion and behaves this way against the millions of people living with different faiths in his country. >> reporter: it's hardly the first time turkey and france have traded barbed comments, especially over recent turkish exploration in the eastern mediterranean and then of course over the warfare that is taking place in libya. but this is really pitting two nato allies against one another. but, kim, it's also worth talking about what's happening with france and turkey against the broader context of the arab

world and how they are reacting to what's taking place and france. no one is condoning this brutal beheading. many in fact are condemning it. but they are condoning and standing in opposition to how they believe france has reacted. you have a number of muslim and arab countries that are calling for the boycott of french goods. you also have in some countries protests that have emerged against france, the burning of the french flag. and in france itself there have been a handful of attacks against its muslim population. and so there are these broader wider spread concerns that as the situation does potentially escalate it could further exacerbate tensions between france and the muslim world. and also of course between france and turkey. >> very worrisome. appreciate the analysis. arwa damon in istanbul. british forces stormed a

tracker. seven suspects have been detained and the crew said to be safe. the liberia flag vessel left from nigh jaer i can't and was expected to leave southampton. it made zigzag maneuvers in a possible attempt to alert authorities. coronavirus numbers are rising across the u.s. and the trump administration's hands off approach seems to have backfired. but one doctor says we could get numbers back in line if people wore masks. >> why not make efforts to contain it? >> we are making efforts to contain it. >> by running all over the country not wearing a mask?

welcome back to you, our viewers until the united states, canada and around the world. with a little more than a week until election day, vice president mike pence campaigned in north carolina sunday, a day after news emerged that several of his staffers tested positive for covid. he and his boss spent the weekend campaigning for re-election. vice president says he's tetsed negative for the virus and won't quarantine. white house chief of staff says pence is adhering to safety protocols on the campaign trail. >> i can tell you that what he's doing is wearing a mask, socially distancing. and when he goes up to speak, he will take the mask off, put it back on. but he's wearing a mask as it relates to this particular thing because the doctors have advised him to do that. >> it is an alarming trend in the u.s. coronavirus infections are rising in at least 37 states and

not a single state is heading in the right direction. data tracked by johns hopkins university shows there were more than 60,000 people diagnosed with the virus on sunday. it's of course a high number, but it is a sizable decrease from the more than 83,000 new cases reported both on saturday and friday. this past week, kentucky set a record for its highest number of new cases in a week since the pandemic began. let's talk about this with dr. chris loeffler. thank you so much for being with us today. i want to ask you, we know masks work to reduce transmission. there's some protective effect for the people wearing it. but mainly we know overall if people wear masks, it stops transmission. the question i had about is about mask man dates? what happens when governments force everyone to wear a mask? the reason i want to explore this with you is we had dr. fauci say the other day it may

be time to consider a mask mandate. and we had the former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb saying it's time to consider a limited temporary national mask mandate. and he made that point again yesterday on tv. listen to this. >> there's things that we can do to slow the spread. i mean, a national mask mandate can be put into place. it doesn't need to be backed up with fines or stringent enforcement. we have other requirements that we expect of a civil society that we enforce with political jawboning, leadership. we give people warnings at first. so, i think masks are one thing that we could be doing. >> so, that's why i want to speak with you, doctor. you were co-author of a study looking at that very question. do mask mandates work? what did you find? >> we did find that it helps the countries where a government recommended that the public wear masks within 20 days of the on

set of their outbreak. 1.5 million whereas the countries that didn't recommend masks had a mortality over 200 per million on average such as the united states which was at 240 per million. so, i think a mandate from the government, whether it's nationally or whether you did it by 50 states each making their own mandate, either way it's the government communicating to people how important it is to really wear their mask. and i think it can help lower both infection and mortality. >> all right. so, some might hear this and wonder, okay, maybe your study didn't control for certain variables. maybe it was an outlier. but there have been several other studies done as well, some comparing different countries, others comparing different states and when they introduced mask mandates. so, let's say we were to throw out your study. would your conclusion still stand? >> i think so. the one you were looking at with other states was a study in

health affairs and they found that the states that implemented masks or mask mandates quicker also had low erer infection rat. we controlled for lockdowns, temperature, obesity of the population, age of the population, all sorts of variables were controlled in our study. so, given the increased number of cases that we're seeing, given the fact we're going to have to spend more times indoors with the bad weatherer and so on, do you think there should be a federal mask mandate? >> well, again, whether it's done nationally or whether you have 50 states doing it, one way or another i think it's a good idea for the government to require. >> well, clearly there's zero support for this idea from the current administration, the president and his aides have access to all of this evidence that you're talking about there, yet they continue to be lukewarm

at best about mask wearing, certainly not setting an example in public and often mocking people who do wear masks. just yesterday here was national security adviser robert o'brien. listen to this. >> ultimately the only thing that's going to stop this virus, there's no magic way. masks won't do it alone. more ventilators won't do it alone. what will is a vaccine. and we're on track to have a vaccine for americans in less than a year. it's really incredible. >> so, instead of hammering home that what we can do is wear masks, they're pinning their hopes on a vaccine and experts including one i had on yesterday had made the point that a vaccine won't be a magic potion that will, in o'brien's words, quote, stop the virus. so, how frustrating is it for you when you're trying to tell americans we have proof that if we do this relatively simple thing there's less chance of dying, more chance of going back to whatever normal might be

sooner. but those at the top won't listen. >> well, i think that we've really come a long way compared to when i first started working on the in march. and there's much more acceptance both among the scientific community as well as in the public. so, i think we're making progress. and we still have a little way to go to get everybody on board with wearing masks. but i think we've come a long way and i'm optimistic about the future in terms of getting people to do this. and the nice thing about masks the something we can do today or we can do tomorrow so we don't have to wait months and months and months. it's something we can do right now. >> let's hope if the federal administration isn't listening, at least the governors and mayors are listening. thank you so much dr. christopher loeffler. we appreciate you joining us. >> thanks for having me. appreciate. in wales, mixed emotions over a new fire break lockdown that went into effect this

weekend. it's said to last two weeks in order to fight the spread of covid-19. let's talk more about this with cnn's nina dos santos. what's been the response so far. >> reporter: the response has been decidedly mixed. i spent the past weekend traveling various parts of wales, from the big capital city of cardiff, very cosmopolitan place. and whoever you speak to they more or less tell you one of two tales. some people say well this national lockdown which doesn't quite close down wales' borders but effectively tells everybody to have a legal obligation to stay at home to control the virus, a different strategy to the one just a few months down the road in england. some people say that's a good thing. they need it. the short shops. there's a lot of people, in particular the business community and also the hospitality community sector

which is very, very hardly hit by this, very, very present in wales. they've been delegated. they say they don't have enough support and that this probably won't work. it will have to be extended longer than two weeks. in the meantime, this is what the roads look like in rush hour in this small town of harwood just a couple of miles into wales over the border from the big industrial heart lands of north western england. there are a few cars. the rules still stipulate that you can go to work if you can't work from home and you have an essential job. you can still go shopping for essential food items, medicine. but otherwise, this part of the uk has a very different to other parts. quick question over whether or not it's working. well, it's been in place around about three days so far. public health wales say that they have seen a drop off in cases, but they're still identifying more than 1,000 covid cases in this part of the uk every single day, kim. >> all right.

we appreciate it. thanks so much nina dos santos. well, china says it's taking no chances with covid. why millions of people are being tested in the country. we'll have that next.

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. health officials in china's western region of xinjiang say they're in the process of testing 4.7 million people for covid, this after a single asymptomatic case was reported in cash guard city on saturday. authorities say that so far the mass testing has identified 137 additional asymptomatic cases. cnn's steven jiang joins me from beijing. the first detected case in over a week from mainland china. the good news, the incredible scope of testing they're able to marshall to get it under control.

>> that's right, kim. from the chinese officials' perspective, this is a tried and true method that has worked well to contain several outbreaks in recent months. that's why in this instance as soon as they found the first case on saturday they launched the process again. mass testing and locking down four towns once they identified the cases you just mentioned. and this testing process is ongoing because they are going to test the nearly 5 million people. they're more than halfway done, but the whole process is going to be completed by tuesday. the beijing government is sending experts to the region to help them conduct even more epidemiological investigations because there are several baffling aspects about the cluster of patients. they have never left town since january. they have no known contact with previous cases, so they really need to do more investigation to find out what really happened in

xinjiang. but still the kind of swift and drastic response is why officials say they are confident they were able to contain the latest cluster quickly as well. coincidently the chinese leadership is meeting here in beijing starting today behind closed doors to char the course for the country's economy is other major policies for the next five years. this is a regular occurrence but with added importance this year because of the ongoing pandemic and beijing's worsening relations with washington. we don't have a lot of details, but we know they're going to emphasize increasingly domestic consumption, domestic investment as the growth engine for this economy and reducing its reliance on washington. they're also going to emphasize more on self-reliance, not to be choked by the u.s., for example, when the washington administration tried to restrict export of technologies. but still the message is very clear. the fact they are able to -- the leadership is able to sit down here and talk about the next

five years where many of the governments around the world can barely plan the next five days, the chinese government is trying to tout the superiority of their top-down approach of beijing has worked well for the chinese people. >> interesting stuff. thank you so much steven jiang in beijing. appreciate it. the australian state of victoria will ease covid-19 restrictions after reporting no new cases for the first time in more than four months. from wednesday, the city of melbourne will move out of lockdown with residents allowed to leave their homes. all retail shops, cafes and pubs will be allowed to reopen. victoria's premiere is urging people to say vigilant, saying until a vaccine comes there is no normal, only covid normal. tropical storm zeta has its sights set on the yucatan peninsula. our meteorologist updates us on the storm's latest track. stay with us. want to brain better?

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robinwithout the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. russian president vladimir putin isn't going along with one of president trump's campaign attacks on joe biden's son.

in an interview on state television, mr. putin said he doesn't see anything criminal in hunter biden's dealings in russia. mr. putin also dismissed a "new york times" report that russia paid the taliban to kill u.s. soldiers in afghanistan. he said several high ranking u.s. officials were unable to corroborate the record. frederik pleitgen joins us from moscow. what are we to make of this? is putin covering his bases should biden win? >> look, there might be a lebl of that. but on the whole, one of the things that russians have said is they understand no matter who's going to win the election, they are going to have to win -- they are going to have to deal and work with any sort of new administration that comes into office, whether the president is going to continue to be donald trump or whether it's going to be joe biden. it's been interesting because you have seen only comments come out of the kremlin where in the past couple of weeks where

vladimir putin says on the one hand he has good relations with president trump. he likes the sings he's seeing and hearing. as far as arms control and the future of arms control treaties as far as the nuclear powers is concerned, we've seen a little bit of that happening over the past couple of week. one of the things that is very remarkable is the fact that he's now talking about the possible business dealings of hunter biden and kind of positioning himself in that as well. he was talking about alleged dealings president trump brought up in the last presidential debate between joe biden and president trump talking about alleged dealings here in moscow with the wife of the former mayor of moscow. vladimir putin there saying, look he really has no knowledge of any of that. and then he took on especially these comments about hunter biden's business dealings in ukraine and said that he saw nothing illegal about that.

let's listen in to what vladimir putin had to say. >> reporter: yes, in ukraine he indeed had business or maybe still has business there. this has nothing to do with us. this is a matter of americans and ukrainians. yes, there's at least one known company he was basically running and it looks like he made good money, but i don't see anything criminal here. at least we don't know anything about this. yeah, he worked for a company that was producing oil and gas. >> so, we have vladimir putin commenting on all the alleged business dealings of hunter biden in ukraine with some pretty remarkable comments, i would say. kim, you also mentioned some of the things he said about afghanistan where he tried to shoot down that notion about russians allegedly paying bounties to the taliban to harm americans in afghanistan. i think one of the interesting things he said there as well is that contrary to what some people had been saying, some people in russia had been

saying, he believes a security presence by the united states in afghanistan does have good things for russia as well because he believes there could be big instability if and when the united states leaves that country, kim. >> interesting. thank you so much fred polite gwen in moscow. parts of mexico are under hurricane warnings. zeta is expected to strengthen into a hurricane and could make landfall on the u.s. gulf coast later this week. let's bring in meteorologist pedram javaheri. what's the latest? >> it was just less than three weeks ago we had delta make land fall across the yucatan peninsula of mexico. that was a category 2. since then we've had several storms now total 27 for the hurricane season which ties the most on record for the atlantic hurricane season, and of course 21 of them being official

hurricanes that are named, and 6 being the greek alphabet. zeta next in line. this is a well-structured storm system in an area that's rather conducive for maintaining intensity and strengthening the storm on approach towards the yucatan of mexico. we think landfall across monday across portions. this storm could be a category 1 as it makes landfall across the region and reemerges across the gulf of mexico. the concern is typically storms in the gulf intensify quickly here. we know it's late in the season. water temperatures a little bit cooler now. we do expect the intensity if anything to be weaker on approach. model of variability here. look at the american model on the left side of the screen saying a potentially stronger storm on approach towards southeastern louisiana, not far from new orleans, while on the right side of the screen you've got the european model bringing it in much later in the day, possibly as a weaker storm.

we'll see what plays out. when you get late in the season the forecast guidance and the steering environment and the atmosphere, water temperatures, all of them really weaken and change significantly. what we do know will play out is going to be a significant amount of rainfall in areas that have been hard hit. speaking of areas hard hit in recent weeks, you've got to look into portions of the western pacific. you have a storm that's made landfall in the last couple of days across vietnam, molave and another system behind it developing over the coming couple of days. molave is equivalent to a category one hurricane. forecast now to move over the south china sea, potentially strengthen just a little bit, get up to a strong category 1 and approach areas of vietnam yet again later on by the middle portion of this week. now vietnam has had da nang and

now potentially molave. vietnam is dealing with this in their wettest time of year. so, certainly a lot of people on the alert here kim for another round of heavy rainfall and a tropical system. >> a lot to watch for, thank you so much meteorologist pedram javaheri. attempts to remove the first nest of asian giant hornets in the u.s. seems to have worked. scientists used radio trackers to find the so-called murder hornets in a nest in northwest washington. the experts then vacuumed the hornets out of the nest so they can be studied. the species is called murder hornets because of how aggressive and efficient they are at skilling their prey. scientists have been trying to locate the nests since last december after they were first sighted in the u.s. that wraps this hour of "cnn newsroom." i'm kim brunhuber. i'll be back in just a moment

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