hello and welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm alison kosik in new york. ahead on "cnn newsroom," competitions at the 2020 tokyo games are in full swing. team usa gets its first covid as covid knocks out another top name in one sport.

covid cases are up and vaccination rates are down here in the u.s. i'll discuss the mistrust taking place in getting the vaccine. major cities around the world are seeing protests like this over covid restrictions. we'll take you to france on what the protesters are demanding. the u.s. has racked up its first medals at summer olympics in tokyo but not the only country adding to its tally. and a positive covid test taking out more big names from the competition all together. patrick snell with cnn world sport is standing by in atlanta with all of the latest competition. pat, let's start with another reminder about the clear and present reality of covid-19 at these games including how it's impacted one huge american star

from the world of golf. >> yes, that's right, alison. one huge american name and one huge name from spain as well, the top ranked men's golfer in the world, jon rahm within the last few minutes the reigning u.s. open champ testing positive for covid-19 for a second time in recent months, out of the games as a result. rahm testing positive on his third covid-19 test prior to departing for tokyo according to the spanish golf federation. in june of this year rahm was withdrawn from the memorial tournament after testing positive for covid-19. he won't be replaced for the games given the lack of time. this coming on the heels of american golfing superstar bryson decechambeau out of the olympics. the 27-year-old from california testing positive for covid as a part of the final testing

protocol before he left the u.s. for japan. patrick reed will replace him. dechambeau, who won last year's u.s. open at wingfoot in new york quoted as saying in that statement "i am deeply disappointed not to be able to compete in the olympics for team usa representing my country means the world to me. it is a tremendous honor to make this team. i wish team usa the best of luck in tokyo. two huge names from the world of golf. >> great story lines this sunday a gold for team usa in the pool. give us details. >> team usa causing a splash in the pool. take a dive into the olympic pool. the united states with its first medals of the games, both golds in the pool so chase kalisz, a

data save, growing up not too far from michael phelps in maryland and another moment in the pool, this video is the teenaged tunisian winning gold in the 400 meter freestyle, 18 years of age, the team had a powerful finish to overcome the rivals to win. great video alert, this is amazing. look at the emotion there. he can scarcely believe it. he can't believe it, fighting back all the emotion there is, incredible when you reflect on the fact he was 16th best, we the 16th best time going to these olympics, that says it all those images. back to you. >> that is one reason why we love the olympics, that raw emotion. we can feel it with him. thanks so much.

covid cases are up nearly 68% from last week in the united states and the delta variant driving the surge is targeting the unvaccinated. just three states account for 40% of all new cases. missouri, texas and florida. florida alone accounts for one in five of new infections nationally with a stunning 73,000 reported in just the past week. governor desantis refused to put stricter protocols in place so the numbers are likely to climb. for those who think the worst of the pan demme sick behind us, this alarming visual may change your mind. louisiana's spike in new cases is rising to levels not seen since the winter surge. the state now has the nation's highest rate of new infections per capita and hospitalizations have quadrupled in the last three weeks. making matters worse, louisiana is among the least vaccinated

states in the u.s. cnn's suzanne malveaux reports. >> reporter: it is a dire situation in the state of louisiana as it leads in the number of new covid cases per capita, more than any other state in the country at this time. there are pop-up vaccination sites trying to address this crisis situation, but if you just take a look at the numbers alone, 208% increase in number of covid cases over the last couple of weeks. 80%, more than 80% coming from the delta variant. 40% of those in louisiana residents receiving at least one out of two doses of the vaccine, that is much too low, according to the governor who says that louisiana has a long way to go, despite the fact that there are some 1,400 vaccination sites throughout the state, where folks can get it for free. there is still a sense of urgency here. take a look at these numbers, it is extreme here, of those people

who are testing positive for covid, 92% not fully vaccinated. of those hospitalized, 90% not fully vaccinated. of those who recently died, 91% not fully vaccinated. health care professionals who are monitoring and running this vaccination site as well as the global outreach say that these are the main factors. these are the things to be concerned about, what is driving this now. >> we look at vaccine and the barriers to vaccination, there are four major factors that impact that and the way that i categorize them is number one is the issue of mistrust, the second one is misinformation. the third is complacency, and that alludes to that fact and the fourth is convenience. >> health officials are using a program called faces in spaces, going to where people are to reach them and try to convince them to get vaccinated, whether it's at a crawfish boil or a

fish fry or the loaundromat or here at the mall to express the urgency in setting that vaccination. the delta variant is also behind a surge of coronavirus cases in ka california. friday, los angeles county reported over 3,000 new cases for the first time since february. there's also a comparatively sharp rise in hospitalizations since mid-july. this despite l.a. county being one of the only places in the country with an indoor mask mandate even for people who are fully vaccinated. california is one of the states where more than half the population is fully vaccinated, although many are choosing to skip the shot. cnn's pauler have cammen is in los angeles and spoke with the county public health director to find out why some people are hesitant to get the vaccine. >> reporter: another disturbing amount of new covid-19 cases in

los angeles county. the public health director telling us while the number of new cases is slightly dropped, there are 688 hospitalizations and ten deaths, a dramatic rise. here in los angeles today, public health officials went out and they were trying to find out why some people were still vaccine reluctant and tried to get them in here so a gymnasium and get a shot in their arm. they had some successes. dr. ferrer explained why some were hesitant. >> we heard misinformation, people scared to get the vaccine. the most two dominant themes today were we don't trust the government's numbers, we think they're not telling us the truth about the vaccine and how safe it is and we have heard of people that we think had a bad experience with the vaccine. >> reporter: as an example of that, right here, at this

vaccine clinic today, a 45-year-old man walked in. he said he just did not want to get the vaccine before, but he said he's a smoker, he realized he's vul nerable and weeks and weeks from a public health nurse explaining him the signs and information that he understood that the vaccine would protect him as the delta variant rages through los angeles county. reporting from los angeles, i'm paul vercammen. back to you. the daily average of americans getting fully vaccinated is at its lowest since january. just 49% of the u.s. population is fully vaccinated, far from the number needed to reach herd immunity. 30 states have yet to vaccinate at least half their residents and cam alabama and mississippi haven't cracked 35%. gary tuchman asked residents of alabama why they were hesitant to get the shot. >> most of my family has been vaccinated and they've been

pushing me and i've been putting it off but the delta variant kind of scares me. >> reporter: that's why you got it? >> yes. >> reporter: how come you waited this among? >> based off a lot of stuff i heard about the internet, what people were saying about the covid shot. >> reporter: basically rumors? >> rumors. >> joining me is dr. reed tucson, founding member of the black coalition against covid. he's also the former health commissioner in washington, d.c., during the hiv/aids crisis and former chief of medical affairs at united health group and he joins me now on the show. great to see you. >> thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you. >> of course. i want to start with maybe talking about vaccine hesitancy. the cdc is currently saying that recent patterns suggest a narrowing of racial gaps in vaccinations at the national level for hispanics and blacks, black people, but we've got a ways to go here when it comes to

covid-19 vaccine hesitancy. you're saying that for many african-americans and many conservative evangelical republicans there's mistrust about getting the vaccine. >> there's a lot going on in our society today and for african-americans we have a tradition and history unfortunately of our experience in this country of being mistreated by a variety of the major infrastructure elements of our society. clearly the outrage that so many people of color have from the police departments and criminal justice systems issues, the disenfranchising of black votes. all of these over a long period of history have led to a great deal of distrust between many members of the black community and the institutions of our society and unfortunately, those seeds of distrust, which are long held, are being watered and nurtured even today.

so that becomes a big challenge for many people. we also see others particularly evangelical republicans in rural states particularly in the south are being given an extraordinary amount of misinformation and a lot of political pressure that encourages them to distrust the vaccine and not participate and so together, these are really frightening trends and we have a lot of work to do to overcome them. they know the consequences of these decisions, of these behaviors are dire not only for the individuals and their communities but for the entire nation. >> president biden says this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated and there were some strong words from alabama's governor about this. i want to you listen and we'll talk on the other side. >> it's blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. it's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us done. i've done all i know how to do.

i can encourage you to do something but i can't make you take care of yourself. >> dr. tucson, do you agree with her? >> i think she's right. we've done a lot of things. we still have more work to do i can feel the pain of the governor for the coming weeks and months and the country. she needs to do a lot more to gather around other political leaders including the head of her party who needs to do 180-degree flip on the way that former president trump has been acting. there are a lot of people in power, particularly also those at fox news who have a major responsibility in all of this. so i hope that her pleas are not just to the people but her pleas are to the leaders of her own party and to the leaders of her own news media. >> what has to be done to counter the mistrust in communities where you've got the

vaccine hesitancy? >> it's going to take multiple efforts. there's no one single bullet. let's start with trusted voices. we know that physicians and health professionals particularly in the black community have a lot of weight and power. so we need to continue to use our position voices as a part of the conversations. our ministers and pastor also reach a lot of people and intriguing new thing now, working with barber shops and beauty salon owners. so much of black culture is spent in those environments. the barbershop and beauty salon are cultural icons for us. spending time getting factual information into those centers and even using them as vaccination sites will be important and then there are some people who will be influenced by celebrities and so we're going to continue to push forward having our athletes and entertainers speaking as well. it's going to take a variety of things for the white evangelical

and republican folk, take people like former president trump and the people at fox news, they are the ones who really are on the point. if they don't turn this around those deaths will be on their hands. >> dr. reed tucson, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. still ahead we'll hear fray front line nurse in arkansas who is fighting covid misinformation in her community. she tells cnn she tufsuffered a torrent of insult and accusations throughout the pandemic just for doing her job. >> we heard it more than once we were fudging the numbers or killing people on purpose to make covid look like it was worse than it was. >> now she's fighting back with truth and facts. her story is coming up. protests are fueled, but not stopping lawmakers looking to extend it, a live report from france, when we come back.

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covid restrictions. the protesters in greece used petrol bombs. they want the government to back off requiring vaccines for health care workers and greece isn't alone. this was the scene in paris on sat saturday. this was the scene in paris on saturday, some protests turned into violent clashes with police, but across france, tens of thousands of people rallied. they're rejecting mandatory vaccinations for health care workers and a proposed extension of the country's health pass system. for the latest on what's happening in france, jim bitterman is live for us outside of paris. jim, what are you seeing? >> reporter: alison, that demonstration was the most recent. there are about 160,000 demonstrators in the streets across france and they had to use, the police had to use similar sort of tactics as in

athens with tear gas and water cannons against the more unruly protesters. as large as the numbers night sound and the dramatic as the videos are, 66 million people are in the country. over half are fully vaccinated. they completely qualify for the health pass the government is trying to promulgate. the idea is to encourage people to get vaccinated and it certainly seems to have, they have obtained that objective just by talking about it. it hasn't been enacted into law. we expect that perhaps by the end of the day, it will be a fact of law. the senate overnight voted approval with some exceptions and they did modify it somewhat softened some of the provisions of the law. we expect a conference committee between the national assembly bill and the senate bill and between the two they'll work

something out finally approved perhaps as early as the end of today. alison? >> is there a realization do you think in those crowds of protesters that this is an attempt to try to keep the country from being actually under lockdown, that restrictions need to be in place to prevent that? >> i think there is but just as you find elsewhere around the world there's a lot of misinformation out there and as a consequence, some people are willing to follow fake news and other sorts of news that they get off their social websites, that may not be very accurate and as a consequence, you see people in the streets protesting, but really, when you come down to it, this health pass will allow people freedom. they can go into places and feel free from being infected by the virus. it's a kind of win/win situation as far as a lot of people are

concerned here, and in fact when you ask people in polling, the public opinion polls indicate that more than 60% of the french basically approve this idea of the health pass. alison? >> jim bittermann, thanks for the great context. >> yes. still to come on cnn, a look at which countries lead the overall medal count right now at the tokyo olympics. plus a newly named tropical storm could impact the tokyo olympics. we'll get the latest from the cnn weather center, after the break. behind neuriva plus. unlike ordinary memory supplements, neuriva plus fuels six key indicators of brain performance. more brain performance? yes, please! neuriva. think bigger. do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol.

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welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm alison kosik, and this is "cnn newsroom." competitions at the 2020 tokyo games are in full swing and china and the u.s. lead the overall medal count right now at 8:00. china has the most gold medals with four and andy murray has given up his chance to defend his gold medal in the men's singles tennis tournament. he withdrew from the singles competition due to a quad strain. he won the singles gold at the 2012 and 2016 olympics. murray will continue to compete in the men's doubles tournament. cnn's blake essig joins from us tokyo with more. we're not just watching the competition. we're not only keeping our eye on covid cases but i understand the weather is also a factor. >> yes, alison. there are a lot of things to keep an eye on here at the tokyo 2020 olympic games, covid,

weather, also history being made at these olympic games on the second day of official competition both surfing and skateboarding made their olympic debuts earlier today and the 22-year-old uto origami of japan won the men's street final in skateboarding. the tokyo born gold medalist grew up skating at plazas and parks with his father, also a street skater. other olympic sports making debuts in tokyo include karate, speed climbing, as well as baseball and softball, which are making their return to the olympics after 13 years and the legacy of these olympic games will be defined of course by the global health crisis, no question about that. before covid-19 turned the world upside down it was the weather supposed to dominate headlines around the olympic games. while cases in tokyo are surging and olympic related cases

continue to climb, the weather could cause problems for organizers in the coming days because a tropical storm is approaching japan and could hit tokyo on tuesday. the storm could bring heavy rain, strong winds and high waves with it. as a result rowing events have been canceled on tuesday and pushed back to wednesday or thursday while surfers have avoided the tropical storm for now. other athletes have high temperatures to contend with as the threat of heatstroke say constant problem throughout the games. listen to what people who live here have to say about the heat. >> translator: japan's summer is abn abnormal. there's humidil iity and the hes ridiculous. frankly speaking, even without the virus, i don't think this weather is suitable for the olympics. >> according to japan's public broadcaster nhk, more than

50,000 are hospitalized and hundreds die each year in japan as a result of the heat. in the past few days i've personally seen several people on the side of the road being treated by medical personnel for heat-related issues and alison, it is worth pointing out when the olympic games were last held in tokyo in 1964, they were pushed back several months to avoid high summer temperatures. >> blake essig live in tokyo, thanks. more problems could be on the way from the olympics, the tropical storm he was talking about is bearing down on japan. it's one of two major storms churning right now in the western pacific ocean. for more let's get to meteorologist derek van dam. what is the latest? >> so many -- yes, so many angles to cover here with the covid crisis on the ground and oncoming tropical system. the heat and humidity impacting the athletes there. did some research on the japan

meteorological agency website and there were reports of humidity levels between 80% to 90% in temperatures that skyrocketed into the mid-30s so we're talking about 90-degree plus, feeling hot and sticky for the athletes playing in some of the outdoor stadiums. two different tropical systems, nefartak to impact japan and the olympics by tuesday. more in one moment. this is tropical storm infa, downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm because it made landfall, 12:30 local time. it did so just in the port city south and east of shanghai. according to the china meteorological administration, they had winds of 140 kilometers per hour, 86 miles per hour, equivalent to a category 1 hurricane for our domestic viewers. at will weaken as it interacts with lane but rain itself out, a

significant amount of precipitation in and around the greater shanghai area. 26 million people call this location home, big-time impact. winds over 100 kilometers per hour especially near the coast and extremely heavy rain through the course of the day today. tropical storm fefartak, a b beeline toward central japan, 65 miles per hour, that makes it a tropical depression so we are anticipating the storm to stay to the north of tokyo but outer bands could lash some of the venues for the olympics, a tuesday to wednesday time frame so the main concern heavy rain and gusty winds out of this particular system. you can see the forecast starts to deteriorate tuesday and into wednesday with nepartak's arrival. >> derek van dam, thank you. follow the games with cnn's instant coverage on our website,

go to cnn.com/olympics. a new law in hungary is being condemned as moto phobic in the streets of the nation's capital. ♪♪ about 30,000 people joined a pride march in budapest saturday. they protested the newly adopted law that prohibits any discussion of lgbtq issues in schools. it also bans gay and trans characters and certain others from appearing on tv for much of the day. but prime minister viktor orban says the law is about letting parents decide how their kids should be educated. he also announced a referendum on the law likely before the end of the year. still ahead, we head to arkansas where a front line nurse says she's battling covid misinformation. now she's using social media to fight back. plus the covid vaccine culture war has a new battlefield. coming up, how the issue is now

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nepartak. . covid-19 cases are rising sharply in the united states according to the tell ta variant. infections have jumped nearly 60% from the week before according to johns hopkins university and slowing vaccination rates are making matters worse. 30 states have less than half of the residents fully vaccinated including arkansas. we spoke to a nurse fighting to save people's lives but also misinformation about the vaccine. here's her story. >> it was extremely difficult to

watch so many people die and then have people tell you on facebook or in walmart that you're a liar. >> reporter: sunny worked on a covid floor of the hospital at the height of the pandemic. being a nurse was hard but made it surreal living in western arkansas where many people even some in her own family said covid was overblown, just the flu. >> nurses were the symbol for the whole pandemic and almost all of the hate has centralized around us. nurses have ptsd. a lot of us are suffering from it from last year and now we're having people come in and look us in the face, no, i didn't get the vaccine and now i'm sick. >> reporter: arkansas has the third lowest covid-19 vaccination rate in the country. 36% of the population is fully vaccinated. like many places with low vaccination rates, it's now seeing a spike in cases. are you going to get the vaccine? >> i have not and i will not. i'm not a guinea pig.

there's no change. >> you got covid? >> i did. that's the reason i didn't get it. after i got over the covid i had a heart attack. >> reporter: why would you not get the vaccine? >> that's good. that's better. i believe that it's a freedom issue and i wore a mask probably a maximum of one hour in the entire whole thing. if it's so communicable, why am i still standing? >> reporter: we had people accuse us giving their loved ones something else so they'd die and we could report it as covid, we heard more than once we were killing people on purpose to make it look real when it wasn't. for the first majority of the pandemic we wore the same n95 for one to two weeks at a time. >> reporter: what do you think the health care here is? >> sucks. >> reporter: why? >> they dubbed us health care

heroes. it gave the public this wrong impression we were sacrificial lambs and willing to die for them. we want to help people. i want people to get better but not at the expense of my family's lives. the public going you signed up for this. no, i didn't. when i was 17 i enlisted in the army and knew i could die for my country. when i was 22 and went to nursing school i didn't volunteer to die for my country. with the vaccine it's a highly politicized thing for no good reason. >> reporter: last year, sunny starting venting on tiktok. >> you're trying to spread fear. >> if that's what it takes to get to you listen to me, sure. >> i had avoiding posting about covid for a long time because of the negative reactions i got, it hurts my feelings but just a couple weeks ago people in my inbox threatening to kill me, calling me a murderer saying i helped kill those people.

i get called a crisis actor all the time. is my thing to respond to indicate comments? put $10 moo nigh covid account, i made about $1-. >> reporter: wait, really? >> yes. >> reporter: people send you $10. yeah, i'm not a crisis actor. >> covid is real, like surprise. so i'll tell you the truth. not the truth you wanted to hear. >> reporter: sunny says dark jokes bring some relief from a darker reality, that her own health is at risk. her fellow nurse hazel bailey got covid and was on a ventilator for 42 days. >> it's real. covid is real. i nearly died from it and will probably have issues from it for the rest of my life. i have family, they believe that it's real but they are not concerned with taking the vaccine. they understand some people get it and it's not bad, but i got

it and it was bad, and now we're seeing this new variant hit and it's really hitting arkansas. >> it's hard. sorry. my sister hasn't had the vaccine. >> reporter: sunny said covid patients have got continue at church. this week arkansas had its biggest spike in cases since february and has the worst case rate in the country. the state is offering vaccination incentives like free lottery tickets. it hasn't convinced many. >> did anyone get covid? >> my son. >> reporter: how old is he? >> 8. >> reporter: it's rare for a young kid. what was that like? >> he was sick a lot. he's been sick a lot for a while and still sick. want him looked at and see if there's further damage. i don't know. fever every day for weeks. >> reporter: are you going to get the vaccine?

>> no. >> reporter: how come? >> i don't trust the government. >> reporter: are you going to get the vaccine? >> absolutely not. my kids are not getting it, none of us. >> how come? >> reporter: i figure i'll let the world work its natural ways. we are taking none of the vaccines. >> reporter: are you able to get religious exemption for your kids? >> no, we take the stuff if we have to. >> reporter: what do you mean when you say you don't? >> we didn't do the pig swine flu thing, any of the befores. something i don't believe in. only comes about every presidency and seems like it's crowd control or whatever you want to call it but i want my family to have nothing to do it w it. always been healthy and seems to work better that way. >> reporter: not everyone around here feels this way. >> i think you need to get it because it's not only helping you, it helps your whole family, everybody around you. better to take a chance on the shot than the covid. cowboy up and get a shot and come out of there like a

grownup, you know? >> come here. come here. >> reporter: one of my biggest fears is the new wave of covid seeing nurses with compassion fatigue opinion i'm scared how that is going to play out. a lot of the cases are nonvaccinated individuals. if i had a patient wasn't vaccinated i'm still going to treat them to the best of my ability but i know some nurses that had to quit because they don't have it in them to do that. a lot of arkansasian would give you the shirt off your back to help you out for a stranger. i think a lot of people being anti covid and anti vaccine is just a product of the way that we were raised here but they're not bad people. >> divisions over the covid vaccine are playing out in the locker room. while the national football league has been pushing players and staff to get the shot, on friday, we learned a minnesota vikings coach may be seeking an exemption to the league's vaccine requirement, just one example of how the issue is

creating divisions in the sports world. cnn's omar jiminez has the story. >> reporter: as professional sports return to full capacity, so do fresh concerns over covid-19, driven by the delta variant. >> he's playing the drums in there. >> jonathan bornsteen is the defender for the chicago fire. >> double points there. >> reporter: he played all over the world, even stints in the world cup for team usa. he couldn't wait to get the vaccine. >> i wanted for myself to be protect myself and protect the people around me. i was one of those very open people to follow what was going on and when i got the opportunity to take advantage of it. >> not everyone feels that way as i'm sure you know, even within the professional sports "your world today." >> reporter: some have been reluctant to share where they stand. >> me being available to my teammates on the floor is me taking care of my body, you know. me doing everything i can to

make sure i'm available mentally, physically and spiritually as well. >> do you mind me asking if you're confirming you did get the vaccine? >> it's not a big deal. >> reporter: as the olympics begin in tokyo, notably without fans, several american athletes won't be there either after testing positive for covid-19, raising suspicions over whether they were vaccinated. swimmer michael andrew says he wasn't. >> i didn't want to put anything in my body i didn't know how i'd react to. i didn't want to risk any days out. >> reporter: it is still possible to get covid post vaccine but the effects are less likely to beccording to the cdc. some prefer the freedom of choice over the threat of hill. coal beazley made that clear in june tweeting "if you're scared of me then steer clear or get vaccinated, point blank period.

i'd rather die of living." the envelope policy is players get tested every two weeks and unvaccinated every day. the league told teams any covid-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players would lead to the team's forfeit and loss if the game can't be made up. across leagues vaccination rates have climbed in recent months. >> covid-19 vaccine. >> reporter: the wnba led the way announcing in late june 99% of its athletes were fully vaccinated and major league soccer hopes to follow the trend. >> the most important thing was education. our team doctors were available for any types of questions we had for them. >> reporter: do you worry that somehow because someone else isn't vaccinated that it would affect your health in any way? >> a lot of guys are taking care of themselves on and off the field. it hasn't been something in my mind a lot lately but the more that you hear about the delta

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you're looking at the bootleg fire in organize oh, it burned more than 400,000 acres since early july and just 46% contained. it's burning so hot, it's creating its own weather. meteorologists have confirmed it even spawned a tornado last weekend. here you can see not only trees burned but trees snapped and ripped apart by the tornado. the bootleg fire is one of at least 88 wildfires raging across the united states right now, mostly in the west. california and nevada have declared states of emergency as firefighters struggle to contain the flames. wildfires are one consequence of climate change. another is torrential rain and devastating floods that we've been seeing in china, india and

germany. scientists say it's only going to get worse as alison chinchar reports. >> reporter: by raft, by bulldozer, even on the backs of rescuers, people are ferried to safety from the floods that submerged parts of china this week. the waterlogged area is now recovering from the equivalent of a year's worth of rain dumped on it in just a few days but there is more rain in the forecast, compounding the misery of some residents. >> translator: i would never have thought my home would be completely destroyed. all of my belongings were damaged by water. >> reporter: it's the latest nexus of extreme weather that has been unleashed across the globe in recent weeks. monsoon rains continue to deluge parts of india, downpours lasting for days, washing away houses and bursting riverbanks. >> translator: i cannot see

anything here. my house, my people and my neighbors, i cannot find anyone. >> reporter: studies show that monsoons in india are getting stronger and more erratic empowered by climate change. the world meteorological organization says that water related hazards dominate a list of global disasters over the past 50 years. one expert explains how warmer air allows for more water to be evaporated into the atmosphere and what goes up eventually comes down. >> when you have a wet towel, you squeeze so much water out but if you have a much wetter towel, you squeeze a lot more water out so therefore when you have more moisture in the atmosphere, if you can squeeze out the water, which then becomes rain, then you have a lot more water to be squeezed out. >> reporter: scientists say climate change is likely to increase the intensity and the frequency of large flooding events, like the kind seen in

germany recently. germany's transport minister estimates the flooding caused more than $2 billion worth of damage to infrastructure in the affected areas. many roads, buildings and bridges just not equipped to weather such conditions. subways particularly vulnerable to flooding like these scenes in new york city earlier this month. a summer of rain soakers and a warning that the waters will continue to rise if climate change continues to go unchecked. i'm meteorologist alison chinchar, cnn. >> i'm alison kosik in new york. thanks for spending part of your day with me. follow me on twitter and instagram. i'll be back in a more with more "cnn newsroom."

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the united states strikes gold at the olympics, even as covid strikes again with another top name out of the competition. details in a live report from tokyo. the pandemic of the unvaccinated, the delta variant has u.s. leaders and health officials issuing a new call to action. and firenado, how a wildfire started its own tornado. live from cnn world headquarters, here in new york, welcome to all of you watching