hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. i'm rosemary church. just ahead here on "cnn newsroom," israeli forces carry out a fresh round of attacks in gaza. now the biden white house is facing increasing pressure over calls for a ceasefire. plus, we're just hours away from a keynote on a commission to investigate the january 6th insurrection. why a top republican wants to vote against it. and a cnn exclusive report,

migrants and smugglers use new military-style tactics to avoid being captured at the u.s. border. ♪ thanks for joining us. we begin this hour with growing pressure from democrats in the u.s. congress for president biden to push israel for a ceasefire in the middle east. a new round of israeli air strikes today has killed four more civilians in gaza including a local journalist. that is according to the official palestinian news agency. the death toll stands at 218 in gaza, while 12 people have been killed in israel. the israeli air force says a 25-minute attack by more than 50

jets hit a weapons depot. a rocket launcher and a command and control center in southern gaza. outrage over israel's air strikes prompted widespread demonstrations across the west bank and east jerusalem. at least four people were killed in clashes with police. journalist elliott gotkine joins us live this hour from the southern israeli city of ashdod. elliott, what is the latest on this deadly exchange of fire that continues despite these efforts to find an end to the violence? >> reporter: rosemary, it does continue. actually, as you were speaking in that introduction i heard around about ten kind of dull thuds which suggested those were air strikes taking place in the gaza strip which is about 20, 25 kilometers to the south of where we are right now. so there is no doubt that this is continuing. prime minister benjamin netanyahu seems to be saying that at least for now there is

no end in sight. >> translator: hamas and islamic jihad received blows they didn't expect. we have taken hamas years back. we will continue as long as necessary to bring the quiet back to the citizens of israel. >> reporter: and rockets have also -- till being fired at israel as well. as you referred to yesterday, there were mortar rounds or projectiles being fired from the gaza strip, one injured a soldier, that prompted the authorities to close the crossing there between israel and the gaza strip which had been opened temporarily to allow for humanitarian aid to go into gaza strip. two migrant workers from thailand were killed when a mortar hit the agricultural packaging factory they were working with which was just outside the gaza strip. the sirens were not always going

off, there were not always warning signals for people to hear to enable them to try to take cover. now, at the same time as we've been discussing, things seem to be -- momentum seems to be gatheringed on the diplomatic front. there were reports all over the israeli media today saying that perhaps a ceasefire had been agreed already and that it would come into effect on thursday. now, cnn spoke with a senior hamas leader and he said that those reports were simply untrue, but that there is continued efforts to try to reach a negotiated ceasefire. we know that the egyptians and the french and the jordanians are also pushing that and, of course, hopes that the biden administration will also come on board as well. >> indeed. elliott gotkine bringing us the very latest from ashdod israel, we appreciate it. some u.s. lawmakers are growing impatient with the biden administration's behind the scenes approach to diplomacy. that was clear on his visit to

dearborn, michigan, home to one of the largest arab-american communities in the united states. president biden spoke with rashida tlaib, the first palestinian-american woman to serve in congress. she's been harshly critical of the president's stance on israel. >> i tell you what, rashida, i want to say to you that i admire your intellect, i admire your passion and i admire your concern for so many other people and it's from my heart i pray that your grand mom and family are well, i promise you i'm going to do everything to see that they are on the west bank. >> well, despite the administration's quiet diplomacy a white house official says president biden did use a firmer tone with prime minister netanyahu in their latest phone call, but kylie atwood reports international allies are pushing for more. >> reporter: the biden administration continues to

engage in diplomacy in an effort to bring an end to the violence in gaza, the west bank and israel. most recently secretary of state tony blinken had phone calls with his counterparts from bahrain and morocco. they discussed outreach to try to bring an end to the violence. also their concerns over the fact that this violence is now continuing on. but this diplomacy, quiet and intensive diplomacy, as blinken has described it, comes as there is growing pressure on the biden administration, particularly from their own party, to call more clearly for a ceasefire. now, president biden has said that he would support a ceasefire, but he has not outright demanded or called for one. there are questions as to why the biden administration is not putting more pressure particularly on israel to call for and to engage in a ceasefire. and this is putting the biden administration more and more isolated from its even party on

this issue. kylie atwood, cnn, the state department. and just hours from now the house of representatives faces a key vote whether to move forward with a bipartisan commission to investigate the january 6th capitol insurrection. the bill is expected to clear the house easily but the republican house leadership is making no secret of its opposition. house minority leader kevin mccarthy says he will vote against the bill and mccarthy's number two in the house steve scalise is now urging other house republicans to oppose it, too. cnn's ryan nobles has more on what their motives might be. >> reporter: the plans for a commission to investigate the january 6th capitol insurrection have hit a serious road block. in a statement rejecting the bipartisan deal, house minority leader kevin mccarthy said, quote, given the speaker's short-sighted scope that did you

see not examine interrelated forms of political violence in america i cannot support this legislation. he is insistent that groups like black lives matter an antifa as well as the good friday death of a capitol police officer be included in the commission's work. >> if you're going to have a commission you should look at the whole broad spectrums. we just went through a whole summer of riots throughout this city. we should grasp that as well. >> reporter: the bill can pass the house with only democratic support but would need ten republican notes on the senate side. senate republican whip john thune said the passage of the commission now is, quote, uncertain as senate minority leader mitch mcconnell weighs his options. >> i think i'm safe in characterizing our conference as willing to listen to the arguments about whether such a commission is needed. >> reporter: mccarthy himself to be a key part of the panel's work, especially given the phone call he made to former president trump as the riot was heating up. >> i engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the capitol

at that moment in time. the president said he would help. >> reporter: mccarthy told other republican members trump told him during the call that the rioters cared more about the election results than he did. some have even suggested he could be forced to testify in front of the commission. >> i wouldn't be surprised if he were subpoenaed. i think that he very clearly and said publicly that he's got information about the president's state of mind that day. >> reporter: and then there is the politics of all of it. trump could become a focus of the investigation and in recent weeks mccarthy has gone to great lengths to tie himself to the trump wing of the party helping purge liz cheney from republican leadership. congressman matt gaetz celebrating mccarthy's decision tweeting, quote, now finally mccarthy sees it my way. hakeem jeffries says -- >> it's hard to take kevin mccarthy sear suss i didn'tly point. >> reporter: during the lengthy

gop-led probe into the benghazi attacks mccarthy bragged about how the process damaged hillary clinton politically. >> when you look at the poll numbers of hillary clinton they've dropped. >> right. >> unfavorable is pretty high. >> reporter: despite the fact that republican house leadership has said very specifically that they don't want their republican members to vote for this 1/6 commission bill it seems likely it will pass the house easily on wednesday and will do so with at least some republican support. the bigger question is what happens when it makes its way to the senate, it will need at least ten republican votes in order to pass. the senate majority leader chuck schumer promising on tuesday that the bill will make its way to the senate floor. ryan nobles, cnn on capitol hill. reaction to mccarthy's opposition to the bill has predictably split along party lines. democratic congressman jim mcgovern had scathing words for mccarthy suggesting the house minority leader was motivated by

fear. >> i think the only reasonable conclusion is that he is afraid of donald trump and he doesn't want to offend him, doesn't want to get disinvited to mar-a-lago, but it is sad and it is pathetic and getting to the truth matters here. my hope is that my fellow republicans will stand up to the bully in mar-a-lago and do the right thing and get to the truth. >> but some republicans say it's actually the democrats who are afraid. >> this is going to be impeachment round three, it's going to be one more attack and broadside against president trump. the democrats are afraid he's going to run again. that's why they want this commission. to just go after him one more time. >> the commissioners are going to be named by congressional leaders including speaker pelosi who is, let's face it, ultimately responsible for security of the capitol. if there was security collapses, and there were, she needs to be held accountable as well and if she's picking commissioners that will never happen.

and we are following a legal setback for the trump organization. the new york state attorney general's office is now actively investigating the trump organization in a criminal capacity along with the manhattan district attorney. the probe is no longer solely a civil matter. the teams are investigating whether the trump organization improperly inflated assets on financial statements to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits. they are also investigating how trump organization employees were compensated. former president donald trump has called the investigation politically motivated. well, protests took to the streets in north carolina after the three sheriff's deputies involved in the fatal shooting of andrew brown jr. were not charged. officials said they were justified in their actions and will be reinstated and retrained. cnn's joe johns has a look at the new body cam video showing

the fatal interaction, but a warning, some of the footage is graphic. >> mr. brown's death, while tragic, was justified. >> reporter: the final word from the pasquotank county district attorney andrew womble on the investigation into the fatal shooting of andrew brown jr. no criminal charges for the officers involved in the 42-year-old's death. >> when you employ a car in a manner that puts officers' lives in danger, that is a threat, and i don't care what direction you're going, forward, backward, sideways. i don't care if you're stationary, and neither do our courts and our case law. >> reporter: newly released video shown by the district attorney shows the attempted arrest on april 21st when deputies in elizabeth city, north carolina, were attempting to serve brown with two felony warrants and a search warrant. this was the first public

viewing of the much discussed body cam videos and the entire incident lasts just 44 seconds. in the videos you see deputies jump from the back of a truck before confronting brown in a parked bmw. you see the vehicle move and deputies shout for brown to stop, and then the deputies opened fire. the vehicle eventually comes to a stop after 14 shots are fired. the da says brown used his vehicle as a weapon against the officers, a sharp contrast of what the brown family's lawyers said after they viewed the police body cam footage last week. >> when the first shot fired he was sitting in his car and then he began to back up. at no time did we see him go towards a sheriff deputy at any time. the first shot was fired and what we saw was after it was fired he began to back up because he wanted to get out of there. >> reporter: they say brown's death was white washed today by the district attorney. >> dr. kelly determined brown suffered two gunshot wounds, one

to the right shoulder, upper arm, that was nonlethal and a second wound to the back of the head at the base of the skull near the hairline. >> reporter: a contradiction to the independent autopsy commissioned by brown's family. >> what our preliminary autopsy report shows is that there were five penetrating bullet wounds to the body of andrew brown jr. >> reporter: the family released a statement following the press conference saying in part, to say this shooting was justified, despite the known facts, is both an insult and a slap in the face to andrew's family. yet another demonstration here in elizabeth city on tuesday night. protesters have called for the recusal of the district attorney. he says he's going to keep doing his job. but as far as the federal government is concerned, this case may not be over. the charlotte field office of the fbi has announced a civil rights investigation. joe johns, cnn, elizabeth city,

north carolina. >> and earlier cnn spoke with several of the attorneys of andrew brown's family. they remain adamant the officers involved were not justified in using deadly force. >> the da is wrong. this was not a justified shooting. anybody watching that video can see that mr. brown was attempting to get out of the way of these deputies who were pointing weapons at him. >> this da sound more like a criminal defense attorney. he has cherry picked, unilaterally picked what he wants to show to try to make a justification of these officers act. in fact, even with the attempt to do as that -- to do that, he still -- the video still is clear that this is not a justifiable shooting. so even his efforts to try to cherry pick, you don't have anything to cherry pick because it still shows an unjustified killing of andrew brown. >> they are now asking the justice department to intervene

in the case. meantime, the fbi has separately announced it will open a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting. extreme weather is barreling across parts of the southern u.s. right now, more than 100,000 customers are without power in texas, many of them around houston. flash flood warnings are issued for the area. in neighboring arkansas officials report flooding has damaged homes, trapped cars and forced rescues. meteorologist pedram javaheri has more. pedram? >> good morning, rosemary. a concerning weather pattern across portions of eastern texas, western louisiana, parts of arkansas into oklahoma as well. the elements in place here to dive and bring gulf moisture directly towards this region of texas and louisiana and unfortunately the past couple of days have played out very similar to this where 72-hour totals have brought down as much as 16 inches of rainfall across this region and over 30 million americans now underneath these

flood alerts and some areas flood warnings meaning flooding is imminent nent and occurring. counting the past 12 hours almost 50,000 lightning strikes. you speak to the difficulty of getting through the night here when it comes to the risk of flooding. talk about how loud it is outside here with these thunderstorms just roaring right through in region of eastern texas. densely populated areas. that's a level 3 there on a scale of 1 to had for flooding and excess rainfall there. for houston into lake charles, that's for this morning into this afternoon. the threat shifts a little farther towards the north and east there and minimizing just a little bit but unfortunately does keep houston in line on a level 3 going towards thursday afternoon. the moisture directed towards this region similar to an atmospheric river pattern w he see this across the western starts of the united states where you see a deluge of rainfall. the energy remains directed towards this region. of course, a lot of severe

weather as well in recent days, upwards of well over 100 severe weather reports, nearly 30 of them related to tornadoes to go along with all that mess that's in place. and then there is the big time heat. look at the eastern u.s., the warmest weather of 2021 upon us here, temps in new york city, in washington, rosemary, climbing up to near 90 degrees while back towards the southwest triple digit heat in the forecast, phoenix up to 101. rosy? >> thanks so much for that pedestrian gram. appreciate it. just ahead the one time epicenter of the coronavirus here in the united states takes a big step towards normalcy. also ahead, the international olympic committee responds to growing concerns over the safety of the tokyo games. i'm mayim bialik, and i love brains—it's why i became a neuroscientist. i also have a brain. and i love the brain supplement neuriva plus for both of those reasons.s. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance, to keep your brain on its toes--figuratively speaking.

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the united states has reached a hopeful milestone in the pandemic. on tuesday the cdc reported 60% of adults have at least one dose of a covid vaccine. since receiving authorization last week more than 3 million children ages 12 to 17 have their first dose as well.

and some good news from the world health organization, new covid cases around the world have declined for the third week in a row. 4.8 million infections were recorded last week a 12% drop in new cases. cnn's erica hill has more now from new york. >> reporter: reopening 2021 brought to you by vaccines and falling case numbers. >> yesterday cdc reported 17,724 new cases of covid-19, the lowest daily case numbers since june 2020. >> reporter: hospitalizations and deaths also dropping. these 15 states did not report a single covid-related death on monday. >> we are winning the war on the virus and we need you to help us finish the job. >> reporter: nearly 60% of the adult population in the u.s. has now had at least one shot. kentucky's governor now urging

kids in his state to roll up their sleeves. >> we need your help to protect people. we need your help to overcome a challenge that we adults can't do on our own. >> reporter: ohio's governor note add major boost in vaccinations on the heels of that fda authorization for 12 to 15 year olds and his state's new vacs a million plan which will award five $1 million prizes to vaccinated ohioans. >> last week was the highest number of shots administered in the last three weeks. >> reporter: the cdc warning that low vaccination rates in rural areas could prolong the pandemic. the nation's top infectious disease expert embracing the cdc's latest guidance. >> i am now much more comfortable in people seeing me indoors without a mask. >> reporter: california won't adopt that guidance for another month, but fully vaccinated new

yorkers can drop the masks and distancing tomorrow. >> if you are vaccinated, you winfrey dom. it's as simple as that. >> reporter: baltimore not ready to loosen restrictions despite maryland dropping its statewide mandate last week. >> it's a little confusing county versus city. >> reporter: in texas requiring masks could earn counties, public health officials and school districts a $1,000 fine. texas governor greg abbott signing an executive order on tuesday which bans state governmental entities from requiring face coverings. now, public schools can still require masks through june 4th but after that it's not allowed regardless of age or vaccination status. texas lifted its statewide mask mandate on march 2nd. erica hill, cnn. meantime, india is reporting its deadliest day of the pandemic so far. the country has recorded more than 4,500 deaths from covid-19 on wednesday. the most deaths in a single day

since the pandemic began. that's in addition to at least 40 people dead as monster cyclone sweeps through india. the storm has destroyed roads and buildings, impacting coronavirus relief efforts across the country. cnn's anna coren joins me now live from hong kong to talk more about this. anna, as india hits an unwanted grim death toll it's also dealing the aftermath of that deadly cyclone. what is the latest on all of this. >> reporter: it's the western states of the country that have been severely impacted by this storm, particularly where the prime minister narendra modi landed a short time ago, he is going to be surveying the damage by air traveling over the hardest hit areas whilst meeting with the state's chief minister. it really has complicated the situation in those states. many of them had been seeing a surge in infections in the last

few weeks. so with this cyclone, as you say, it's the strongest to have hit this region in over 20 years. it has suspended the vaccination program in many of these areas and now the cleanup and the wide scale destruction that it has left in its wake is just going to cause more and more problems. narendra modi, he has said when he addressed the public yesterday that they really need to scale up vaccine production. we have to remember that he and his government have come under widespread criticism for the handling of the second wave, but also of the vaccination program and the shortage of supply. the serum institute of india, which is one of the largest manufacturers of vaccine in the world, its ceo came out yesterday saying that they did not export vaccine at the

expense of indians. its focus now very much on producing for local demand. there are only 3.2% of indians have been fully inoculated. such a long way to go, rosemary. >> just incredible, isn't it? anna coren brings us the very latest on what is happening across india. appreciate it. well, tokyo is under intense pressure to cancel or postpone the olympic games this summer due to the pandemic. the international olympic committee is addressing those concerns and just a short time ago the ioc president announced the games will be held in a safe way and he believes tokyo 2020 officials are managing the situation and the risks. for more on this we want to bring in cnn's blake essig. he joins us live from tokyo. good to see you, blake. 80% of people across japan don't want to see these games go forward. what is the latest on the likely future of them? >> reporter: rosemary, these

games have been deeply unpopular for a long time and with the chorus of criticism that has been flowing for days and weeks now, you know, those deep frustrations surrounding the fact that these games are still moving forward is only going to continue to build. during the opening remarks to kick off this three-day meeting ioc president thomas bach did say that the olympic and paralympic games will be held in a safe way and announced that the ioc offered additional medical personnel and believes that at least 75% of people who plan to be inside the olympic village will be vaccinated. tokyo 2020 president also spoke saying that the point of the meeting is to focus on prot tex of athletes and the public, though it's worth noting that throughout this -- these opening remarks very little was actually talked about regarding protecting japan's population. so far only about 1% of the japanese population has been

fully vaccinated and roughly 70,000 volunteers are expected to work at the games, they will be given two masks, hand sanitizer and a requirement to socially distance as protection. some will be going in and out of the athletes village and getting on public transportation. these olympic games which have been deeply unpopular, the reason is because of the fact of tens of thousands of athletes from all over the world will be coming to the olympics and it's the feeling that sport, money and politics are being put in front of the health, safety and well being of the japanese people, rosemary. >> we will continue to watch this story. blake essig bringing us the latest from tokyo. many thanks. still ahead here on cnn, exclusive migrants and smugglers going to extraordinary lengths to slip into the u.s. along one dangerous stretch of the border with mexico. stay with us for that.

some stunning new images from suta where we now know a total of 8,000 migrants made a dangerous swim to reach the enclave. one person drowned. around 4,000 migrants have been sent back to morocco. the eu says it stands in solidarity with spain over this crisis which has again highlighted the issue of illegal migration. it's remote, mountainous and dangerous, but that hasn't stopped a new influx of migrants

trying to enter the u.s. through one treacherous area along the arizona-mexico border. officials say smugglers will using new tactics to evade border patrol. cnn's jim sciutto has this exclusive report. >> reporter: due south of tucson, arizona, one of the most treacherous stretches of the u.s.-mexico border. 262 miles of hot, dry, often mountainous terrain, and yet more and more migrants are still coming north. encounters in this sector are up more than 150% from last year. detections by the border patrol's drones have tripled and migrants and smugglers are using new military-style tactics to avoid capture. we joined agents from the u.s. border patrol tucson sector on operations tracking and apprehending migrants from mexico, central and south

america. it is a challenging, highly technical and sometimes dangerous effort, encompassing helicopter patrols, unmanned aerial surveillance and border patrol agents on foot. atvs and horseback. >> migrants coming here they don't want to be caught. they are not giving themselves up to get into the legal system in the u.s. they're trying to cross on their own, avoid border patrol along the way. so lots of times when they're spotted they don't give themselves up, they run, and that max the job of border patrol agents that much tougher. these are not families and unaccompanied children, border patrol says 85% who cross here are single adults, some with criminal records. the crossings now resemble military operations. migrants wear camouflage, boots made from carpet to obscure their footsteps and crucially come across in multiple small groups dropped along the border and told to enter at different

times to outwhit and overwhelm the border patrol. >> what they're doing is we call it swarming. so instead of in years gone by where we would have a group of 20, a group of 30 crossing the border, currently we see two groups or ten groups of two. they split up, cross the border and it takes two agents or one agent to address each one of those individual groups so we become task saturated. >> reporter: why the surge now? many mieg grants believe falsely that u.s. law changed with the new administration. >> the laws for immigration have not changed. so our job has not changed. we will still enforce the same laws we've been enforcing for many years. >> reporter: construction of new border wall including the 137 miles built in this sector has been halted, leaving wide gaps like this one. this is part of the new border wall, 30 feet high, made out of steel, and this is the kind of barrier it replaced in a lot of sections of the border here, something just about waist high,

meant to stop cars to the people, easy to get right under it. what's happened in sections like this as they are incomplete is they become new transit points. the barbed wire bent up so you can crawl under it, footprints showing lots of foot traffic. we are told that smugglers have built a road here for better access to this entry point to make it even easier to cross. so the bulk of the work remains with agents making capture operations like this one the border patrol's primary mission. under way 24 hours a day, seven face a week. no break for weather or nightfall. on aerial patrol once again we get word that agents may have spotted another group of migrants closer to the border. >> i'm at your 10:00 and they're headed west. >> reporter: on searches like this one they have some particularly helpful partners, a

belgian shepherd, one member of the bp's k-9 unit and agents mounted on horseback, fast and durable in the mountains. after nearly an hour in the air ascending and descending the ridge loan at as low as 20,000 feet altitude and hours of painstaking searching by agents on the ground they find their target, seven men in telltale camo camouflage, single adults directed like soldiers to go all they can to avoid capture and come north. jim sciutto, cnn, in the air over the mexico-arizona border. coming up on "cnn newsroom," antony blinken and sergei leaf rof will meet for the first time today. we will tell you what is expected to be on the agenda. that's next.

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relations the stage is set in iceland for a meeting of the u.s. secretary of state and russia's foreign minister. it's happening on the side likes of an arctic council gathering where the eight member states will work together on issues like sustainable development and environmental protection. cnn's fred pleitgen joins us now live from moscow. good to see you, fred. when blinken and lavrov meet on the sidelines what all will they likely discuss and what might be said on the ransomware attack on the colonial pipeline? >> reporter: well, that's certainly going to be one of the topics but in general i would say that there probably are very few people in the world who need a meeting more than sergey lavrov and antony blinken. there currently are so much issues between the u.s. and russia and the relation right side frost at the moment. neither the u.s. aim in moscow nor the russian ambassador at washington are at their post. most have been recalled back to their countries for

consultations and haven't returned in a long time. that ransomware attack will be something that most probably will be on the agenda but other moves as well like, for instance, the u.s. quite concerned about some of the military moves that the russians have been making especially on the southern ukrainian border where some of the troops have been pulled back but still the russians do have quite a presence there and in the black sea as well. the russians for their part quite angry about some of the sanctions that have been put in place by the biden administration in response to that solar winds attack, in response also to the ransomware -- or not to the ransomware attack yet. but certainly right now the relations are more than frosty. the other thing that many people are looking for, many people are waiting to see what's going to happen is whether or not the two men might flesh out something or whether or not we will get some sort of information about a possible -- or that possible summit between president biden and russian president vladimir putin. that could be certainly something that those two men will talk about as well to see

if they can find common ground. of course, president biden has said that he wants that meeting, the russians so far have been more coy, they've been saying it's something that could be discussed that's being discussed in the kremlin. we will wait to see if we get this i info there. the main reason why both men are there is the situation in the arctic which is also a place where tensions between the u.s. and nato and russia certainly have been heating up as the planet has been heating up. there is a lot more mill tar sfwlags going on up there, also the place becoming more important for trade and natural resources as well, rosemary. >> let's hope some of this gets resolved. fred pleitgen bringing us the latest from moscow. many thanks. well, thousands of gas stations in the u.s. remain try right now. nearly two weeks after that colonial pipeline suffered a cyber attack. the supply chain has struggled to catch up after the fuel supply got back on line this week. on tuesday the company restored a key system for ordering and

deliveries saying the hours' long outage was not related to the ransomware attack by russian hackers. still to come, some restaurants and bars are reopening in france today and the country eases covid restrictions. we will have a live report from paris. that's next.

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♪ thousands of people this china fled after a skyscraper mysteriously began shaking. it started to sway tuesday afternoon even though meteorologists say the weather was fine and there were no earthquakes reported in the region. some 15,000 people were inside at the time. they flooded the streets running to safety. no one was hurt and authorities are investigating what caused that building to shake. nonessential businesses across france are welcoming back customers today as the country eases its covid restrictions. people there are out enjoying outdoor bars and restaurants as they reopen at half-capacity. earlier french president macron posted a video on twitter of himself and the french prime minister enjoying cups of coffee

on a terrace. and that is exactly what cnn's melissa bell is doing right now, sitting at a café. we were sitting a at cafe earlier in paris. this is truly encouraging news, isn't t for the people of france and indeed people who love traveling to france, this is a move in the right direction. >> reporter: these people, these tourists might once again be able to return. one thing is for sure paris is as quiet as you're likely to see it anytime again without the tourists. the most visited city in the world. they can look forward to some of that french life that for so long we've been deprived of. cafes like this, the possibility of having a camp chino on a terrace, having lunch, going to a cinema impossible since october. the sense of enthusiasm for the french once again despite the terrible weather to be able to come out and enjoy it is huge. the weather has done nothing to

dampen that enthusiasm. i'm going to ask my neighbor what she thinks about coming out. coming out of prison she tells me. once again, we live again. it had been home, it had been home, it had been work. once again we are outdoors, able to enjoy our coffee. she woke up especially early to come and enjoy her coffee on the terrace this morning. that is the sense of enthusiasm in france at the moment. the good news for people beyond france outside of the european union is once again they should be able to enjoy terraces like this and the museums and sights like the ones here in one of the most visited parts of paris from the 9th of june. the idea is from that date certificates that show that people have been vaccinated will allow them once again to be able to come back to paris and enjoy its sights, its sounds, its flavors and for the french

economy, for the european economy that is going to be crucial. the restrictions that have been in place essentially since last autumn throughout so many european countries have been such that the economies have been in great trouble. we've seen the european union go back into a technical recession after two quarters of contraction. we now know that they are really counting on the kinds of lifting of restrictions we are seeing in paris today to finally get the economies pack up and running to get back to a sense of life as usual, rosemary. >> and do you know what, even a rainy day in paris is glorious. certainly seeing you at a café, fantastic. melissa bell, a joy to talk with you. thank you so much. one of the most famous rock formations in the galapagos islands has collapsed. on the right you can see how it looks like now, the top of the arch crumbled into the sea as a result of erosion. now just two pillars stand at

the unesco world heritage site. it's not what you would expect to see when driving down the highway. a wisconsin police officer says a tesla driver appeared to be asleep behind the wheel while his car was on autopilot. the officer followed the car with lights and sirens blaring for about two miles before the driver pulled over. >> he was totally sleeping. tot totally. perfect. you were sleeping. you were totally like this in the car. why would we drive like that? >> i was okay. >> no, you were sleeping. >> i was a little bit tired. >> you were sleeping, sir. i was aside of you and you were doing this, your eyes were closed. i understand you have autopilot, but if something was to happen you are not able to make that conscious decision to stop in a hurry. >> he wasn't convinced he was sleeping. the deputy issued the driver a citation for inattentive driving and ordered the car to be towed

from the scene. a lamborghini is going green and we don't mean the paint color. the luxury car maker says all of its new cars will be plug in hybrids by the end of 2024. that means they will still have the feel and sound of an internal combustion engine but can also operate under purely electric power at times. so fear not, lambo fans, they will still go fast and sound fast. very reassuring. thanks for your company, i'm rosemary church. "early start" is up next. you're watching cnn. have a wonderful day. wet dishes? residue?

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we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. all right. good morning, welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world, this is "early start." i'm christine romans. >> good morning, christine. i'm laura jarrett. it's wednesday, may 19th. it's 5:00 a.m. here in new york. we begin this morning with a big extension of the big lie expanding coast to coast. today house lawmakers are set to vote on legislation to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection at the u.s. capitol, but republicans who was lives were put in danger by that mob, are reluctant to learn more. cnn has new reporting this morning on what house minority