when president eisenhower signed the official proclamation, 92 years after the u.s. bout the land from russia, that was 1867 for 7.2 million. two cents per acre. todd, you're partly right. alaska was 59, so was hawaii, august of 59 was hawaii. then we had alaska. got that? look who is here sitting in for neil. it is ashley webster. did you get the answer to alaska statehood? ashe i'm glad you asked. i said 1948. 1959 is not that long ago. remarkably. what a deal. great to see you, back, stu. happy new year to you.

ashley: welcome to "cavuto: coast to coast." i'm ashley webster in for neil cavuto. some of the top headlines we're watching this hour, to test or not to test. america's top doctors are split whether a covid test is needed after infection. the cdc is reducing isolation guidelines. we'll get reaction from one of the country's top infectious disease experts. a lot of questions for that person. senator joe manchin getting ready to face the senate colleagues first time in person, since the pushback against the "build back better." chad pergram, who else, will join us what lies on capitol hill what lays ahead for the president's agenda as politics get back to work. chaotic start to the new year for air travel, what is new? could get more hectic with winter storms. we're live at philadelphia airport for the latest on the

travel mess and what passengers can expect next. good afternoon, everybody. it is just after noon. the president biden is facing a series of covid challenges as the country is trying to get back to work and school. jacqui heinrich at the white house with the very latest. good afternoon to you, jackie. reporter: good afternoon, to you, ashley. dr. fauci floating a possibility of a policy change after latest series of confusing remarks for the cdc and top public health officials. dr. rochelle walensky defended not testing that the pcr test can show positive 12 weeks after infection even if you're not trans misting virus. rapid tests don't say if they're transmissible after the end of disease. fda has not authorized the test for the use and a negative test can produce a false sense of

security she said. with the aftermath and blowback from the shortening the quarantine period from 10 days to five, cdc will determine whether they test after isolation. >> pcr test after infection, can be positive for 12 weeks. that will not be helpful. >> people are concerned why not test people at that time. i myself feel that is a reasonable thing to do. reporter: there is renewed focus on hospitalization rates, data from london two month wave from start to finish with the omicron strain. former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb, this weekend predicted a national peak one month from now, places like mid-atlantic, northeast, florida, med west and advanced with progress than other areas of country. >> i don't think you will see a national peek until we get into february. parts of the country have not been hit by omicron yet. the try russ will spread around

the country. reporter: test something a big piece of the administration covid problem. they are trying to buy 500 million tests to send to americans for free. the contract isn't signed and could take months. many school districts are requiring students to test negative before returning to class. on "fox news sunday," education secretary cardona keeping schools open for in-person learn is extremely important. the administration is doing everything in its power to make sure that happens, including making access to testing easier. ashley? ashley: the debate goes on with a very snowy d.c. jackie, thank you very much. parents scrambling to get their kids back in school this week as the teachers union calls for another pivot back to remote learning. jonathan serrie live in atlanta with that part of the story. jonathan? reporter: hi, there, ashley. as many kids go back to school today the fda expanded its

emergency use authorization for pfizer's booster shot for children as young as 12 years old. the agency is also shortening the six-month minimum interval between the second and third pfizer dose to only five months for everyone 12 and older. the idea is to expand protection for more americans, but in particular more school-age children as the omicron variant drives surge in covid cases for all ages. concerns over this surge prompted more than 2,000 schools nationwide to remain closed today or take instruction online. they include public schools here in the city of atlanta but some medical experts say school closures although well-intended create their own public health risks. >> we can monitor this much more closely in a school than we could ever do by letting them go into the happens, university students will spread in the community on home trying

to learn online. reporter: most schools in massachusetts are reopening today despite calls by the teachers union to remain closed to allow more time to take educators to take covid tests delayed by supply chain issues. u.s. education secretary mig fell cardona says testing is important but not the only strategy for keeping children and students safe. >> the testing protocols are put in place but not done in isolation. increasing vaccination help. increasing mitigation strategies we know work are also part of the strategy. reporter: the highly infectious omicron variant is driving up cases. if you look at the graph, it is a near vertical incline that is expected to continue couple weeks. this thenwill plummet in the opposite direction near vertical if the u.s. mirrors what happened in south africa where the omicron variant was first

identified. ashley. ashley: jonathan serrie in atlanta. thank you so much, jonathan. by the way dr. fauci is teasing new testing guidelines despite the shortages 6 those tests. how will this work without causing more chaos and confusion? i kind of feel like it is too late. we're already there. joining me infectious diseases doctor, johns hopkins school of public health, senior scholar dr. amesh adalja. thank you for joining us. dr. fauci is it talking about the reduced quarantine from 10 days to five days. the cdc says no test. dr. fauci suggests they could have a test. what are your thoughts on that? >> we had data for some time the one size fits all 10 day isolation period really didn't reflect where transmission was occurring t tended to be clustered in the early days of infection for most people and i think we tried to get to a precision-guided isolation pea. i think tests will make that

easier to do. some people may be five days, four days, six days. we get to the point people can test themselves all the time to know their status to make decisions based upon it. that is what we'll likely see the cdc guidance evolve to. there is shortage of tests, it is so scares in. parts of the country it was not operationally feasible there. is reflection on that and criticism. hopefully we will get precision-guided isolation periods to use tests as a great piece of technology to live in this pandemic world. ashley: part of the reasoning the cdc gave because they didn't think the rap rapid tests were particularly accurate. you could remain positive for 12 weeks. they decided it wasn't worth it. >> that is the pcr test is positive for 12 weeks. that the he criticized. we're not talking about pcr. home rapid antigen tests which are good am i safe to be around

others, am i contagious, to i have enough virus in my nose and mouth to infect somebody else, using them as public health tool. that is it what we're talking about here there is enough data to use them that way. indeed many people are using them that way. ashley: well the question of course as you mention there is a shortage of them. those tests it could be several weeks. what do we do in the meantime? >> it will be very difficult until we get enough tests in peoples hands to use them the way they were designed to be used. we always undervalued tests. we underused them on timly. we are lagging with testing needs. there is no real reason for that to be the case. tests are going to be real important this. is something the administration, prior administration should have prioritized, we'll see tested for foreseeable future as people try to understand how safe some activity will be, wanting to

know their status. ashley: want to switch gears a little bit, doctor, get into this issue. new york city admitting it will consider race when distributing life-saving covid treatments s that a slippery slope? critics say this is ridiculous? what is your response? >> we do know that covid-19 didn't hit every group in this country wally. for example, certain racial groups like african-americans have other coexisting and preexisting conditions at a much higher rate, namely diabetes, obesity, hypertension. they were hit disproportionally hard. they are often individuals that may not be able to social distance or have lower vaccination rates. i don't think it is race, but race is a stand-in for several factors that we know covid-19 preys upon. we want to use the scarce resources and treatments in the best way to have most impact preserving hospital capacity. that could be one way you use it. it should be thought of less as

race, but getting to places where it will have the biggest impact putting this pandemic in the rear-view mirror. ashley: it is not the first time you're saying we have prioritized vulnerable communities and essentially that's the theory here, right? >> yes. we know that covid-19 tends to prey on people with certain comorbid conditions, people who can't social distance, people who are not vaccinated. may be the best way to opt apt y use resources, use supplies in the best way to do that. ashley: so very quickly, last 30 seconds, doctor, do you agree with the hypothesis once the omicron variant peaks perhaps mid to later part of january there will be a steep drop-off as we've seen in south africa? >> that is what we're hoping for, this follows the same couple week cycle we saw in

south africa and we get back to a level of normalcy in terms of the number of cases so we have less disruption from it but in that meantime we know omicron will infect a lot of people. we know it will cause a lot of disruption f you're a high-risk, unvaccinated person, now is the time to get vaccinated because omicron will spread rapidly in the next couple weeks. ashley: we've certainly seen that. dr. amesh adalja thank you so much, doctor, for your insight this afternoon. we really do appreciate it. thank you. coming up next, senator joe manchin starting the new year with new thoughts perhaps on the "build back better" agenda? we'll have the very latest on the senator's new demands when we come back. ♪♪

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powering possibilities. ♪. ashley: okay. new yearnew senate term. lawmakers returning to capitol hill for the first time in the new year with democrats still eyeing the passage of the "build back better" bill. hmmm. fox news congressional correspondent of course, chad pergram, has the very latest from capitol hill on what senator manchin is looking for to get this through.

chad. reporter: good afternoon, ashley. well congressional democrats ended the year with a bust. now they hope to reconfigure their approach in the new year there is still a plan for democrats to pass the social spending bill and voting rights legislation in the senate. some democrats are pushing executives orders. >> there are executive actions that the president can take today to actually make life better for people and to you know, let's up the ante a little bit to make sure that we do get legislation done because the other path has to be executive action. reporter: the gop rejects that approach even though many republicans embraced executive orders under former president trump. >> the dictatorship it is not. we are a republic. obviously congress has to be involved, number one. reporter: but there are limits on what president biden can do, otherwise he would have already done it. democrats are mulling alteration of the senate custom on the filibuster for voting rights. that any changes require the

sign-off of all democrats. >> yes. rule changes are on the table. we're discussing them actively with the senators and as i said in the dear colleague that i issued a while ago, we are going to vote on voting rights shortly including considering rules changes. reporter: democrats want to use one six as a reason to pass voting rights. schumer wants to do that before january 17th. the year begins where last year finished. all eyes are on democrat joe manchin. ashley? ashley: indeed they are. chad, thank you very much. as senator manchin returns to talks, could we see him cave to the president's demands as he has in the past? let's ask national taxpayers union evp brian arnold and walser management, rebecca walser. thank you for being here. rebecca, let me begin with you,

do you see joe manchin caving, and if so what will he give up? we had 4 trillion, 5 trillion, manchin was just looking at 1.8 million which won't fly with the democrats? >> certainly want as slimmed down package. i think this bill is a alive like the knight from the monte python movies, keeps getting arms and legs chopped off but it's a flesh wound. in 2009 struggling with obamacare passed, what did they do, they sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the states like nebraska, cornhusker kickback, the louisiana purchase, they effectively bout off senators. that is very much an option right now. as is the case where they slim down this package to make it more amenable to senator manchin this. is a live-fire exercise and taxpayers ought to be very, very concerned. ashley: i certainly so. it is just a flesh wound. i love it. rebecca, look, the point here

is, will mr. manchin, senator manchin cave, as joe biden doesn't want to cave to the progressives? so you have this pushing, pulling, tugging as you do on capitol hill but how do you think this plays out? >> you know, ashley, this is just the wrong timing. i just don't know why everyone isn't talking about that. why are we talking about passing a multitrillion dollar package after we already passed a trillion dollar package, after we spent $8 trillion fighting corona? we're still federally stimulating the federal reserve 120 billion, we haven't started to taper yet? what is going on? this is cognitive dissonance. now we want five trillion, now it is 3 1/2 trillion and we'll take 1.75 trillion. but the penn wharton budget office scored it analyzed it as 4.26 trillion-dollar package even at the reduced version. if joe manchin caves on anything in his life, this is not the

time to cave. stick to your guns, joe manchin. america is behind you. ashley: very quickly, i want to follow up on that, rebecca. so you know, inflation running rampant, how naive do you think joe biden is to propose this massive spending bill? i mean in the middle of a covid crisis at the same time? >> let's get this under control. let's get the world back to whatever level of normal we can. we do do not have the ability at this point to keep borrowing this much from the central bankers of the world. we printed $25 trillion and counting because of coronavirus worldwide, 8 trillion in the united states of america alone and we're still printing money as we speak today. let's get this seriously under control, unless we want marxism, socialism, communism, will follow because of this big of a debt burden. our children are enslaved. our grandchildren are enslaved and great grandchildren are

enslaved under terms of this bill. it has got to stop. ashley: brandon, they brought up the issue of executive orders, does he go down, cherry-pick what he can and ram through as executive order? >> that is possibility for sure. it is limited to what the president can do perspective order. we need to rein in executive power whether a republican or democrat in the white house. joe manchin expansion of federal minimum wage, minimum wage by second system order, people working on park land that has impact on the private sector. they're looking at every particular option they possibly can. i think the initial plan is legislative in nate tush. hopefully they will run out of options real soon and run to the executive option. ashley: we shall see as they say. i want to get on to this issue, the massive spending bill just one of the issues weighed by

investors. there is inflation, the fed, covid, the midterms, it goes on and on. all of that is certainly a consideration. analysts, growing number of analysts say it could be a rocky year for stocks. inflation up, stocks down, volatility. rebecca, would you agree with that analysis? >> absolutely, ashley. anyone out there prognosticating a banner year. might turn into a banner year but we're going to experience some pain. we're looking at mean to the reversion, if you don't have economic fundamentals to support it, 10 million plus jobs openings, massive year-over-year inflation we haven't had since 1982, with the china economy on verge of collapse, they're just not reporting, all these property management companies in china are failing. china is on the verge of collapse. that will have contagion impact on the u.s. federal reserve will taper. talking about three rate hikes. we talk about massive inflation. a political economy going nowhere. country feels like we're heading into the wrong direction. we have midterms. ashley this is a recipe for

disaster. a global pandemic still not under control. people need to brace themselves. let's be real. ashley: very quickly, brandon, i literally have 20 seconds, inflation, do we get our arms around it or continue to roll along the rest of the year? >> i'm pretty concerned about inflation. the biggest concern of course is the threat of this "build back better" package. there is only so much government can do. one thing they can do is make the problem worse and that seems unfortunately the path biden, pelosi and schumer want to go down. hopefully they get off of this and we address some of the supply chain concerns, reduce tariffs and things like that that i will improve the inflation situation instead of digging the ditch already deeper than it is. ashley: you're absolutely right. great stuff, rebecca and brandon, thanks for being mere on the first day of the new year and trading everything else. we look ahead with hope, that's for sure. thank you so much. >> amen. happy new year. ashley: a mixture of winter weather -- happy new year to you

both. a mix of winter weather plus the latest omicron fueled covid surge has left travelers as you can imagine dealing with another week of airline chaos. we'll have a live report from philadelphia international airport after this. ♪. ♪♪ care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care.

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♪. ashley: welcome back, everybody. a lot of people didn't have a white christmas but they're certainly having a white january. over 14 million people now under watches and warnings as a winter storm working it as way across the mid-atlantic. fox meteorologist adam klotz following it. >> just off the coast there is very heavy rain. along the mid-atlantic, d.c.

area, stretching up to philadelphia, currently heavy snowfall. this is snowfall as of 10:00 a.m. a couple hours agower seeing spots getting up or near half a foot and that is only going to continue to come down and it has and it will. we're looking weather alerts for large portions of northern virginia, getting into maryland, stretching up into the new jersey area where there will be a couple more inches of snow. this is the future forecast. this is really targeting just the mid-atlantic. as it lifts up farther to the north you're not seeing a whole lot of snow getting up into new england as this ultimately pushes offshore. this will be additional snowfall. not including what we already have. the lighter blue colors, getting into the three to five inches range. so we could see some spots getting up to a foot of snow pretty easily when all sad and done. this is a true cold front sweeping across the country. you noticed if you live on the east coast yesterday it was incredibly mild. well a lot of cold air funneling

in. 30 degrees in new york city, 17 grease in chicago. very winner-like weather suddenly sweeping across the east coast. ashley, back to you. ashley: wow, says it all. thank you very much, adam. new year, same travel troubles, not just the snow with more than 2700 flights canceled yesterday across the country, more than 2700 already canceled today the misery goes on. our good friend jeff flock trying to get his head around it, trying to help. he is at philadelphia international airport, where, let's face it, jeff, it is groundhog day. reporter: you said it, ashley. we thought maybe it was going to improve but not so much. as you pointed out over the weekend it was terrible. not quite as bad today. maybe you see out on runways at philadelphia international snow here but not debilitating snow. combine that with omicron issues with personnel it is a real mess. i will take you to newark.

it is even worse there. some pictures from inside of the terminal at newark liberty. that is one of the most hard-hit ones today along with reagan national. over 400 cancellations there. and dulles is bad. baltimore is bad. overall numbers now, we're over 2,000 cancellations today. we're pushing 3,000 delays. and here's the deal, it continues into tomorrow. they are already canceling flights tomorrow as well, not as many. 263 tuesday and another 73 already canceled for wednesday. so this is not going away anytime real soon. you know, you wonder, we said where tough airports were today. today the tough airports over the weekend, oh o'hare had 1400 cancellations, denver a lot and newark as well. that was largely weather. today is largely weather but it is hard to separate out the

issues caused by omicron and lack of personnel on parts of the airlines as well as the faa. one thing here to leave you with that is even worse. the new 5g, couldn't think of it there for a minute, 5g is going to be rolled out this week and the airlines say that is going to cause them problems and delays because of issues with their radio transmission. what next? ashley. ashley: [laughter] locusts i believe. jeff flock, thank you so much, braving the weather and everything else outside of philadelphia international airport. some airlines turning to temporary salary hikes in hopes of solving those staffing shortages. some united airlines pilots are being offered triple pay. spirit airlines offered double pay for flight attendants but so far doesn't seem to be working

that well. talking of which, former spirit airlines ceo joins me now. ben, great to see you, you're the perfect person to address this. my first question is, how did we get into this mess? >> well, ashley, it is great to be with you, thank you. we got into this mess early on in the holidays because of weather but then like what jeff said combine the omicrons call-ins for sick it has been difficult a major airline pilot union leader tell his pilots, if they have even been exposed or believe they have been exposed to the virus they should call in sick. and so what you have is a period of time, these holidays, when airlines typically see more sick calls because people want to stay home with family. now with omicron spreading around, airlines have gotten way behind the eight ball and too many people are calling in and they just can't catch up.

ashley: talking of the holidays, ben, it seems that the airlines went ahead and scheduled all these flights to keep up with demand because a lot of people were flying for the holidays and so that kind of made the situation even worse. if you kept to a tighter capacity, you would have been able to handle these, you know, the demand. i know lot of people were trying to get on planes but the decision to schedule all of these flights in a very uncertain period kind of made that situation worse, did it not? >> it did. you saw the same problems this summer in the same way. airlines just have a tough time not putting planes in the air when they see there is demand and sometimes the schedule planners, the people who designed the schedule and decide how much to fly aren't as well-connected as they need to

be to the operations team who know how many people they have, how many pilots and they have, how many gates at airports, things like that. that coordination needs to get greater. the industry had a pretty decent thanks giving so i was optimistic they learned from the summer. as we got to the christmas, new year's holiday, you realize they have still not linked operations up with schedule planners quite well enough yet. ashley: so far those offers of extra money, double time, triple time, isn't really working. why do you think that is? >> well let's put it this way. you don't want sick people to come to work of course. so if you offer double or triple time, you have to be assuming at least some of the people who are calling in sick aren't really sick, meaning they could come in to work and accept that double pay. if everyone calling in truly is sick, or truly is, you know,

tested positive for the virus, then it doesn't matter how much you pay them, they're probably not going to come back to work. so on the one hand they might have been betting on the fact that there were you know, people calling in that didn't really need to but maybe they're just are not that many of those people and it seems to me a good idea they tried that incentive and i'm sure it got a few more people back in but not as many as they needed. ashley: is there concern in the industry we're doing all these stories, all the media doing these stories every day it will really hurt demand in the next, i don't know, next two to three months? people have seen all the pictures of people sleeping at the airports, taking two, 3:00 days to get home, how much of a black eye is this for the airline industry? >> you know i think it will resolve itself pretty quickly and let me explain why. typically the month of january

is a very weak month for leisure travel. most people aren't traveling for vacations in january or even in early february. and normally businesses pick up their travel during this time but businesses just aren't traveling the way they used to. and aren't traveling right now as much because of omicron and others. so airlines are really going to have a little bit of a breather here over the next 30 to 40 days where everyone who is not coming in now, even if they tested positive will be through their quarantine period. also airlines are hiring in big-time hiring mode. so they're involved in hiring a lot of people, training a lot of people and what their real next challenge is going to be is the natural peak of leisure demand that happens in the back half of february and march when kids are on spring break and things like that and that's when we'll see how the industry is really recovered. the good news in a sense for the

industry, there will not be a lot of demand for the next 30 to 40 days. ashley: right. >> hard to say that is good news but in terms of getting operations back, that is good news. ashley: i guess it is in this particular case. hopefully things will sort themselves out quickly. ben balldazza, former ceo of spirit airlines, thanks for being here. >> always great to be you. ashley: good stuff. tesla on a tear to start the new year. we'll tell you what is behind the acceleration coming up. ♪.

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susan li joins us with more on that and other top business headlines. susan. reporter: tesla, the best performer on the s&p 500 and the nasdaq 100 so far today. we're talking about those blockbuster fourth quarter deliveries that was almost 50% more than what analysts have forecast. so that is over 308,000 cars in the final three months of the year. so that takes the entire year's worth of deliveries in 2021 to almost a million vehicles. that is astonishing. the numbers really solidifying. tesla one trillion dollar valuation yet three inevident investment banks raising the tesla target prices because of outstanding delivery prices. deutsche bank going up to $1200 a piece. you had great news from norway, going mostly electric, over 65% of the cars sold in that country is now all ev and electric. you can imagine a lot of those cars are teslas. speaking of electric and technology, we have the consumer electronics show, ces, yes it has been shortened and smaller,

owing to omicron risks and fierce. so three days instead of four-days. many big tech players pulled out. that includes google and amazon. guess what, fox business is still there as always. liz claman will show you new gadgets designed for 2022. staying on tech, high-tech, the biggest of them all apple, close to making history. they hit a record high. we're a buck, actually now 80 cents away from crossing $3 trillion in market cap. we've gotten close before. some pointed to the resistance but magic mark to cross is 182.896, the price that apple stocks niece to get to close out to 3 trillion. apple is first to get two to trillion. the first to get to one trillion dollars. if you look at their sales, every segment, every business segment is a fortune 100 company on their own. we're talking about a combined $300 billion plus this year in

sales. that is a third of a trillion dollars. over $100 billion in cold hard profits. you can see why the company is worth $3 trillion. ashley: my eyes are spinning on all of those numbers, really incredible. susan, thank you very much. reporter: huge. ashley: it is huge. 78 cents away from the three trillion dollar mark, apple, amazing. the tampa bay buccaneers boosting antonio brown for his mid-game meltdown yesterday. why brown's behavior may have cost him more than just his spot on the team. the story when we come back. >> antonio brown, that is antonio brown without his uniform we are told, without his jersey. ♪.

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♪. ashley: another high-profile politician banned. twitter permanently suspending congresswoman marjorie taylor-green's personal account for what it calls a fifth strike, for spreading covid-19 misinformation. fox news correspondent alexandria hoff live in washington, d.c. this afternoon. with the very latest. reporter: good afternoon. twitter implemented the strike system in march of last year to

combat covid-19 misinformation. a permanent meant sus is pension of an account comes after five or more strikes. the tech giant didn't cite the exact tweet that pushed the georgia congresswoman over the limit. she referenced unverified user generation information about covid-19 vaccines and cited falsely, quote, extremely high amount of covid vaccine deaths. in response to the ban representative greene took to the alternative telegram to ask those why involved with terrorist organizations have not been suspended or democrats that support black lives matter? twitter is an enemy to america and can't handle the truth. democratic congresswoman jayapal said this. >> it is no secret that our social media companies have been part of their algorithms promoting disinformation. i think that these steps are important but frankly a little too little and a little too late reporter: according to twitter for covid-19 content to be

considered a violation it must first advance a claim of fact expressed in definitive terms, be demonstrably false or misleading, available on authoritative sources other impact public safety or cause serious harm. twitter added strong commentary remember or condition is not a violation. that has done little to soothe concerns over the power of big tech, especially in another major election year. it also marks the first decision regarding a politician under new's ceo, greging aer walled. congressional greene account made active. that should be emphasized. that was not to be found in violation. back to you. ashley: thank you, alexandria, thank you very much. fascinating. social media suspensions, sideline meltdowns, nfl wide receiverrer antonio brown no longer a tampa bay buccaneer after a pretty bizarre outburst

at the stadium. fox news 24/7 sports ainge matted. do we know what exactly brown over the edge. >> there was reports of playing time he was getting. bruce aryans, told brown he wanted him to go into the game on two separate occasions, brown refused. those close to brown he was battling an injury, that is why he told coaches he didn't want to go into the game. seems up and down is what exactly happened. lo and behold we got most viral moment of an nfl sunday this season. ashley: just to be clear he is off the team? he is looking for a new team potentially. if that is the case who would take him? >> at this point i don't see anybody wanting to take a shot. yes, it is true, bruce air rans said at the end of the game he is no longer a tampa bay buc. that is the end of discussion.

no one wail really want to pick this up. this is frankly more of the drama we've seen from antonio brown the past three years. we had a range of incidents that cost him his job on the patriots. i comes back to the tampa bay. seems like he is on the straight-and-narrow. last few weeks we saw him suspended three games for falsifying covid-19 vaccination. he came back to the team. the team looked at him differently. one thing the buccaneers touted going into the season that they had a fully vaccinated roster. that ended up being false itself. ashley: what about tom brady? i wonder what he had to say? he certainly catches tome brady's throws. what has brady been saying? >> tom brady stood up for antonio brown a lot. they were teammates on the patriots before ab's release from the patriots amidst sexual assault allegations. brady gave him ultimatum, i'm giving you second opportunity, you need to take this.

even lived inside of tom braid did he's whom. brady showed compassion towards brown citing mental health issues as possibility of this all fallout. people responded this is more of the same. you think antonio brown is on the straight-and-narrow, finally getting things together, and lo and behold we fall into the drama, have we heard from braun since he ran off down the tunnel. >> funny you mentioned it. he actually released a song, called, pit the not the palace, a rap song two minutes long. i don't know if it is really anybody's style. quite interesting piece of music. talks more about his lavish lifestyle than what happened on the field and the game. he has been hinting posting weird, odd things and not really trying to allude to what happened on the field yesterday. kind of like he is going about his day. going on with his career after football. he posted an ad for nova fashion. it is very interesting the direction he is trying to take, shrug it off, what happened

during the game? i don't know. i guess the bucs won. nothing happened in his eyes. we've seen video he was in uber leaving the stadium, getting escorted by police and security. very interesting of events. frankly i don't see any road for him to come back to the nfl right now. ashley: continue to follow it. bizarre is one word to use. matt napolitano thanks for the insight on antonio brown. that is the end of the first hour. after the new year, bringing new questions over vaccine mandates, coast to coast. we'll break down the legal fall out and what businesses are bracing for when we come back. ♪ my daughter has type 2 diabetes and lately i've seen this change in her. once-weekly trulicity is proven to help lower a1c. it lowers blood sugar from the first dose.

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♪ ashley: all right, there you see , stocks are up slightly on the first trading day of 2022, a muted upward movement except on the nasdaq up 116 points good for three-quarters of a percent gain. welcome to the second hour of cavuto "coast to coast" i'm ashley webster in today for neil to our top story this hour, with the omicron variant continuing as states are scrambling to get

people tested and vaccinated , and boosted. lydia hu is here with the latest reporter: hi there, ashley. we start with a look at what texas is doing, like much of the country, texas is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases, at the end of december, they are reporting more than 10,000 new covid cases per day, that was up from about 4,000 new covid cases a day near the end of november. texas governor greg abbott now requesting help from the federal government for testing and treatment and urging the feds to step up the effort to protect texans explaining in a statement that, "testing sites additional medical staff and continued shipments of therapeutics from the federal government will help us continue to save lives and mitigate the spread of covid-19" now, while governor abbott has opposed vaccine mandates about 58% of the state's population is fully vaccinated. that's according to johns

hopkins and ashley, happening just hours ago, three big decisions from the fda, the agency authorizes a pfizer booster now for kids between 12 and 15, also kids ages five to 11 who are immunocompromised particularly those who have had an organ transplant, they are also eligible for a booster, and finally, the time for all boost er shots is narrowed by a month making all people eligible five months instead of six months after their primary doses the cdc director dr. wolenski must willest in on the fda's decision before the changes can take effect. now finally to encourage this , the state of maryland starts two hours of paid leave for state employees who get the booster shot. it's retroactive so that means employees who already got the booster can show proof and they can still get that pay, the state is also bringing back the mask mandate, but for now, only inside state buildings,

some counties are also mandating masks be worn inside all buildings like we have here in new york, ashley. ashley: yes it goes on, all right, lidia, thank you very much. 2022 kicking off with some uncertainty in the business world to put it lightly. the supreme court will hold a special hearing on january 7 to debate president biden's vaccine mandate. it comes as 24 states are filing appeals to block that mandate. hillary vaughn is at the white house to sort it all out for us, hillary? reporter: hi, ashley. well if the supreme court does not overrule this vaccine mandate starting on monday, when it goes into effect about 80 million workers will face a choice either they need to get vaccinated to go to work or they need to get tested before they go into work. the supreme court is having that special hearing on friday to look at whether the vaccine mandate for certain businesses should be blocked. osha, the occupational safety

and health administration, created the workplace rule. it applies to employers with more than 100 workers but some cities like new york city, are already moving past these one dose vaccine mandates for some, and are already looking at requiring booster shots, as a mandate too. >> require teachers, police officers, other city workers, to get a booster shot? >> it's our next move and decision. we're going to examine the numbers if we feel we have to get to the place of making that mandatory we're going to do that but we're encouraging them to do it now. reporter: some industries are bracing for a legal battle worrying this mandate is going to make an ongoing labor shortage even worse, in critical industries like air travel. >> we think it should be a decision made by each pilot, and we'll continue that position going forward. the mandates, at this point, have been paused, it felt which is a good thing for us and we'll see how this court ruling moves

forward, but we still remain that a pilot should have his choice to be vaccinated. reporter: 24 states though are suing the biden administration over it, one advocacy group led by former vice president mike pence filed a brief urging the court to overturn the mandate saying the biden administration is not truly seeking to mitigate workplace hazards through the emergency temporary standard but rather is attempting to use osha to accomplish an end that it has been unable to persuade congress to support the mandatory vaccination of the american public and ashley, the senate, a few weeks ago, did vote to overturn this vaccine mandate, so there certainly is not support in congress for these mandates. ashley? ashley: yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out hillary thank you very much. the question is what are the chances these mandates will be shutdown and could this lead to legal fights against local mandates? it goes on and on, possibly. let's ask former federal

prosecutor katie cherkesky. katie thank you so much for being here with us. let's start with the supreme court if we can. it's an issue, is it not, of government overreach versus private business doing what they want to do. i mean, how does the supreme court sort this out and where does it put the most weight? >> yes, absolutely, and that's a great distinction to make and on the federal side, this mandate is really an unprecedented mandate on businesses to police their own employees in a way that has never before been used, and so this is really a question of has the federal government over reached on its authority to issue rules pertaining to federal workers? private businesses are not so regulated. they can make rules that require employees to vaccinate but the federal government is a completely different story, regulated by the constitution, of course so that's what the supreme court will be looking at. has this mandate gone too far, overreached in authority.

ashley: what do you think? we know we have a conservative supreme court. let me put it that way. is there a good chance this gets shutdown, do you think? >> i think that a lot of legal scholars will tell you that there is a good chance this will get shutdown. it is very creative interpretation of osha's regulation to say that this mandate is warranted under federal law. typically seeking the federal government does not have the same sort of broad police power to enforce health standard s that states do so that's where i think there's a lot of confusion that comes in where states and private businesses can enforce things that the federal government cannot, so those workers are looked at separately and differently because it's a different standard under the law ashley: right. i believe at least 24 states have filed an appeal against the mandate. i guess that will kind of go away once we get a ruling from the supreme court, right? >> well, it's interesting because right now, what the supreme court is doing is really acting on an emergency

basis with the mandates to determine if they can be put in place, while the other litigation is pending but as we know, when we see what the courts and the justices do with this emergency kind of temporary decision that will lead us to kind of see their big picture idea about whether this is really constitutional, so right now, it's for the immediate short-term enforcement but ultimately i think we can read into a lot of what we find out from their ruling here. ashley: well it's interesting, isn't it, because a pandemic, the government i'm sure is going to argue that the pandemic is, you know, a national threat and government does have the ability and i'm sure this is the argument they're going to make for the good of all to take this step. >> well absolutely, but this is really not a question of whether the ends justify the means, but it's a question of whether the law has been followed, whether the federal agencies are overreaching on their authority and really, at this point there's a circuit split between the fifth and sixth circuit so it's a question of how you

interpret how the supreme court interprets the statute that authorizes osha to make regulations, so it's a statutory interpretation argument of how broad or narrow is that authority, and as i mentioned it's unprecedented in many ways to have this sweeping of a vaccine requirement that impacts so many people, even though they can justify it on kind of smaller examples, but nothing like this has ever been seen before. ashley: i had a question about osha. why are they making these decisions? i know that they're supposed to create a safe work environment and there are rules to follow but this is a medical issue. >> right and so that's why the supreme court is now involved with this , because as i mentioned, the federal government really is so limited in terms of how they can make these rules, so osha's authority was kind of the closest they could come to in terms of an agency that has authority that kind of relates to some health issues in the workplace, so the question is, is that really what osha is intended for

or is this a complete over reaching of their actual authority that's just very creative interpretation. ashley: there are thousands and thousands of people who have refused to get the vaccination and have since lost their job, if the supreme court says that this mandate is illegal or should not be enforced do they have any legal standing? >> i would absolutely think they do, absolutely because this is the reason they were terminated or threatened with termination certainly i'd think that that would cause a cause of action for each of those folks so hopefully there's good news on the horizon or something that has impacted some folks out there. ashley: well fabulous stuff, we're out of time i could go on and on, katie thank you so much for joining us today, will be fascinating to see how the supreme court decides on this issue but thanks for your input today and your insight. >> absolutely. ashley: all right interesting stuff. let's move on, a kaiser family

foundation survey shows about 5% of the u.s. workforce has quit due to mandates it's quite a lot and that was before the omicron surge, so how will the labor markets stay afloat now that mandates and cases are on the rise unless the supreme court steps in, but joining me now are good friend economist john lonsky. john good afternoon to you. let's start there, with these mandates, i mean, what is that doing to the labor shortage situation? >> well it's making it worse. you know if you have fewer people working, you're going to have less output when you combine the mandates along with omicron, i can't help but think that this consensus forecast of 3.7% growth for the first quarter is going to be way too high, growth might be well to come in say at 2.5%. ashley: so what gets people back to work?

you know, we know there are millions of jobs open. we have employers or perspective employers at, you know, adding benefits, perks, raising wages, it's still not enough. i mean, how does this play out? >> well, it be very helpful if you got rid of this covid risk factor and it may turn out that the omicron wave of covid turns out to be so mild that we approach the next wave more cautiously than we did the current ones that would help on the employment front, and regardless of the medical issues , if you got rid of mandates, that be a positive for hiring for employment and in turn the economy would benefit, more output, perhaps would mean less upward pressure on prices. ashley: as we begin the new year , i was going to say head into the new year, we are in the

new year, we know inflation is high. how much is that hurting the economy's recovery? >> i think it's hurting the recovery more than commonly thought. you know, my sense is that the government data on inflation is perhaps understating inflation and we have some proof to that extent because of how government some years ago changed how they measured cpi inflation so that if we went back to the 1970's methodology of calculating cpi inflation, we be looking at a rate that's well-. don't be surprised if in the first quarter, you begin to see weaker than expected readings on real consumer spending that goes into real gdp , you find out that real consumer spending is weaker than expected because consumers are beginning to pullback on spending because of the higher prices they have to pay for

necessities like utilities. ashley: and i've got 20 seconds and i know that's not enough time but john, how does the perhaps weaker data then affect the move of the fed? what does the fed do? >> well, it reduces the likelihood that you'll get three rate hikes this year. you may end up with just two rate hikes in 2022, nevertheless , inflation is running hot and the fed has to do something. ashley: all right, very good, 20 seconds on the nail, john lonski , fabulous stuff as always thank you, john, appreciate it. all right, coming up, straight ahead, thank you, all right same to you. straight ahead, happy new year, how about more flight chaos coast to coast? we're going to have the very latest of what travelers and airlines are facing after the break. ♪

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available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. ashley: flight cancellations, well they're piling up across the country for the second week in a row, as more than 2,600 flights have already been canceled today, across the

country. rich edson is at reagan national airport with the details from there. rich? reporter: hey, good afternoon, ashley and the snow just stopped here about 20 minutes ago or so , and it left quite a mess, it's a mess getting to the airport and if you can manage to get to the airport it's a good chance your flights been canceled in fact here at reagan national airport about 60% of the flights that are supposed to leave this airport won't today. that's according to flightaware, also some more nationwide about 8,000 total delays today, 4,000 cancellations today, and these are numbers that we have seen climb steadily throughout the day. this is on top of delays from the weekend, thanks to storms in the west and midwest, travelers coming home from the holidays and covid side lining airline staff across the potomac river from here no press briefing at the white house since federal offices in the region are closed , so are schools, federal

and d.c. government workers are also teleworking today, the d.c. mayor muriel bowser just held a press conference updating the city on what they expect to happened to. they say they have enough equipment to plow roads and take care of everything. the schools, d.c. government offices are closing, also when you're circling back on the issue of covid, the covid testing sites around d.c. unless you go and pick-up your own at- home kit those are closed today so all of this compounding throughout the day, to make quite a mess here in the nation 's capitol and around the country, if you're stuck in an airport. ashley? ashley: is there anything more miserable than that? all right rich edson thank you very much. at least the snow stopped for now. all right, coming up after this new year, new mayor, old policies, why eric adams is being called deblasio 2.0, when we come back. ♪ saturday in the park, i think it was the 4th of july ♪

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ashley: new york city mayor eric adams is picking up the pieces that bill deblasio left behind as outgoing mayor. fox business correspondent madison alworth is in new york and takes a look at the issue as mayor adams gets down to work madison? reporter: ashley, hey, yes we are at an iconic restaurant in the city that's been here for over two decades and the owner tells me that with the current business environment and visitors to the city, something needs to change. the hope is that eric adams can be that change but of course is yet to be seen if that will happen. this new mayor is inheriting a list of long lasting problems so first when it cops to the city the financial capitol of our country is struggling to build back, the current unemployment rate here in new york city sits at 9%, that is nearly double the

national unemployment rate that we're seeing across the u.s.. with many workers still at home, working or not, mayor adams says a mandate for booster shots is on the table. >> if we feel we have to get to the place of making that mandatory we're going to do that but we're encouraging them to do it now. reporter: so it's not just covid that the mayor is dealing with. he's also dealing with crime. we seen an incredible increase over the past couple of years. take a look at this. from november of 2020 to november of 2021 a 21%, excuse me, over 21% increase in crime, and crime does not just impact those of us that live in the city but it also impacts businesses, the owner of nello telling me here that crime needs to be fixed for the sake of business take a listen. >> has to clean-up the city, clean-up all the drugs and the guns and all the crime that's been going on so the tourists and the new yorkers and the usa citizens can feel

free and safe to come back to new york. reporter: yeah, it's not just the workers that need to come back but also those visitors as well. adams actually dined here on christmas day so he's around the city and he sees first-hand just what these business owners are dealing with and the ones i've spoken to they really hope this new mayor can turn it around but ashley, as you're well aware, he's got a lot on his plate and a lot to tackle. ashley: he certainly does. all right, thank you so much madison, appreciate that report. new york city council minority leader joe borelli joins me now and i have a feeling he has all sorts of things to say about that. joe, look. it already, mayor adams has expanded those mandates enacted by deblasio, so any hopes for a quick change already out the window, right? >> yeah, it's very disappointing. i'm someone who is optimistic

about eric adams. he's looking at a problem left to him by bill deblasio on crime for example, and he's reversing course and changing direction and he's doing all the right things and has the full support of so many new yorkers, but then when it comes to the mandates on vaccines, we can see that they just aren't working. we can see the case numbers ris ing. we can see the vaccinated becoming infected almost as frequently as the non- vaccinated population , so sticking with this mandates is only going to expand our already-problematic issues with our finances, as you report mentioned our unemployment rate right now is over 9%. it's double what it is nationally. this can only be attributed to bad economic policies. ashley: yeah, and almost every day joe we speak to business owners within new york city, who say they're barely hanging on, desperately making appeal to the lawmakers to say look you've got to give us some leeway, all the steps you've taken and to your point, what have they done other than keep

people not only out of their business, but out of the city. i mean, how long is it going to take for new york to get back to where it was if ever? >> it'll be months. i mean, it should have been months ago where we started this genuine push, but again, these vaccine mandates are only keeping people out of the office towers that you're surrounded by right now, and as you know, you know, the salad places on the first floor, the small restaurants, the news stands, the coffee shops and small businesses which actually employ the vast majority of new yorkers , actual local resident new yorkers are the ones that can't sustain themselves to be open during the day. until we get the city re populated by tourists and workers, we're just not going to see the recovery. adams is saying he wants that to happen. he's right to say that, but matching that with policy that actually encourages people to come here and work seems to be the challenge. ashley: it certainly does. let's talk about the other as well, the issue that he ran his campaign on, a lot of it is

crime. its been out of control in new york city, and the surrounding areas. that must be one area where we have hope. he's a former cop, he can really get a handle on that issue. >> yeah, and he's done two things all right he said he's going to return on plain clothes crime units to the city, these are men and women, some of the toughest cops we have who would go day in and day out and wrestle guns out of the hands of perpetrators we need that back and he's going to put that back. he has again my full-throated support on that and he's also returned punitive segregation to the jails on riker's island. we've had stabbings happening more frequently than we ever have in our jails and yet the deblasio administration would never put someone in solitary confinement or segregate them from the general population at least adams is doing that. here is where his rhetoric actually matches his actions so i'm happy the city looks like we are on the horizon of a

better day when it comes to law enforcement. i just hope he catches up with that mandates as well. ashley: well that's true and you know new york is a mecca for tourists, but when you get those crime statistics and high profile shootings in areas like times square it's a double whammy, is it not? i mean, the crime issue has to be addressed very quickly. >> yes, and we see it in our bottom line too at city hall. the hotel occupancy tax and sales taxes are sort of the recurring revenue streams a city like new york has, so without those people coming in, and cashing in their money at the cash register we're suffer ing financially, but again , all of that doesn't change unless new york becomes a place where people want to be, because they feel safe, because they feel like the police are there to protect them from the elements that they don't want to, and again, they also want to make sure they're coming to a city that welcomes them in the broadway shows, welcomes

them in the restaurants. there are places in the eu that do not allow people under 12 years old to be vaccinated right now, so those people aren't even permitted to be in restaurants and shows in new york city. how can we encourage tourism if we still have rules like that? >> you're exactly right. well hopefully it's a brighter future and we'll see what mr. adams, mayor adams can do. joe thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today. really appreciate it. >> thank you, happy new year. ashley: happy new year to you. all right, coming up, goldman sachs is asking all u.s. employees to work remotely until january 18. we'll have the very latest developments, with charlie gasparino, coming up. whether you've enjoyed the legendary terrain in telluride, the unparalleled landscape of park city or the famed peaks of whistler,

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ashley: wall street walking back

its return to office plans, goldman sachs now asking its employees to work-from-home until january 18. these dates keep getting pushed back further and further charlie gasparino following it all has the very latest on this story, charlie? charlie: hey you doing, ashley? happy new year to you. i guess you could say, this is back to the future. i mean, we're at a point now, i think, on wall street given the surge in the latest variant, ashley, that it's march 2020 essentially, at least and i'm not saying it's going to be like 2020 but at least for january, it looks like it's going to be march 2020 for the big new york firms, big new york banks. here's what we know. banks have been working, banks have basically said to every employee, we strongly advise you to work-from-home. this is depending on the bank, will be for the next week or for the next month, goldman sachs it's until january 18, but all this is sliding.

jpmorgan it's between the manager and the employee, morgan stanley it's until further notice, who knows what that mean, same with ubs, bank of america, about mid-month. that's where we are right now, ashley. it's a wait and see period and it's clearly a redo of what happened in march 2020 when all but essential workers were working from home. what is an essential worker? well someone that has to trade. when it's hard to run a multi million dollar book of trading when you're at home. you kind of got to be in the office, at least some of the times. the computer people have to keep the banks going. there has to be some staff at the branches. those are the essential people that may have to go to work, everybody else is being advised to work-from-home. now, the kind of interesting thing here is, you know, wall street firms are big with data analytics. they're crunching the numbers, they're trying to figure out how long this variant, the omicron variant, is going to be burning

through the population. the best estimate i've heard, and this is coming from senior executives at the major wall street firms, is that they think this thing will burn through the u.s. population, and particularly the new york population, where a lot of their employees are located, probably by the end of january, or maybe early february, so we're talking about whatever, what's today's date i forgot, the third we're talking about like 29 more days of this stuff or whatever the end of the month is. it's going to be a rough month and, you know, this is going to have implications for the new york economy. less workers means eric adams is going to, businesses are going to have less people in their restaurants and services is going to be less demand for services that's going to have an um pact on new york's budget and income finances and the new mayor eric adams is going to have to deal with that. that's where we are again this is a moving target let's see what happens next week, but

that's the best guestimate we have about wall street lockdowns as of now. back to you, ashley. ashley: all right, charlie great stuff. it seems these dates are continually being pushed back, so we'll see. maybe early february we'll have to wait and see charlie, thank you very much. by the way, president biden is about to meet with independent farmers and ranchers to discuss the administration's effort to boost competition and reduce meat prices. the wall street has made accusations of price gouging within the industry. they're not happy about that as you can imagine but guess what? former reagan economist art laffer, my good friend from nashville joins me now. art, good afternoon to you. >> good afternoon, ashley. so nice to be with a fellow nashvilleian. ashley: [laughter] it's the accent that gives me away every time. they used to ask me in nashville , where are y'all from and i'd say kentucky. they used to give me a straight

look. love it. anyway, let's move on. high meat prices, the biden administration would have you believe that it's the mean corporate profiteering people who are taking advantage of a situation to raise prices. well, the meat people will tell you that they've been in the same situation for 30 years, and that the biden administration just doesn't get it. what say you? >> well, they're completely right. the meat people are completely right. whenever administration has a problem with inflation, they always blame it on producers, on other people, never on themselves, and what has happened with jimmy carter, he always was blaming it on oil gougers. it was gouging, excess profits taxes under jimmy carter, under biden it's the same mental set and they are blaming everyone else except for the correct person, the one they should blame is themselves. themselves and that's what's causing this inflation. ashley: exactly right. it's interesting, is it not, that in a world of rampant

inflation, that they're talking about wanting to get this build back better bill that will be $4 trillion worth of spending. oh, by the way in the middle of a pandemic. i mean, how naive do you think this is? >> i think it's very naive. i mean, these people don't really care about the inflation except as it might hurt them. they do not believe this bill will help inflation. they, not to a person, believe it. they think that bill will make inflation worse as all the rest of us do. we've all had econ 1 and this is a classic econ 1 problem, ask larry somers, any of the other professional economists and they all know this will cause more inflation not less. they're just putting a political spin to get their way and its just a shame. ashley: well, i just want to get into the crystal ball a little bit, and you know, how does this impact the mid-terms? because people are not happy. the president's approval ratings are falling, and with the economy and inflation really biting everybody's bottom line,

this is not going to turn out well for the democrats if this continues. >> you're completely right. i don't think it will, and inflation is very hard to stop once it gets going, because you get a little consumer price index increase, then wages have to rise to match that, wholesale prices have to rise and it becomes a system that feeds on itself, and inflation begets more inflation and i don't see how this process stops. i mean, if you look at the wholesale price index, the inflation on the wholesale price index year-over-year is much-higher than it is on the consumer price index. now, wholesale prices precede consumer prices, and i'm wrong a lot on my forecast just for the record, but if you look at it, i think we're in for a great deal of more inflation over the next year or two. it's going to be erratic but i think we're going to have a lot more inflation. ashley: yeah, and you know, massive government spending certainly isn't going to help that. how would you describe the

economy right now, art? i know we've had covid. i know that that's kind of a special circumstance, but since president biden has taken over, what direction have we been going in? >> we have a shortage of workers, ashley. we have a shortage of workers. it's not the unemployment rate. the unemployment rate is very very low because people have dropped out of the labor force and aren't working because they are getting so much welfare, so many paychecks they don't really need to work so all the people who don't like their jobs have left the labor force, and what we're left is a shortage of labor, a shortage of goods and services if you have less goods and services and more people buying goods and services you're going to get more inflation. our problem right now is the participation rate, is at a very very low period, when reagan, when we came in under reagan, the participation rate was where it is now, and we got it backup to 66-plus percent. this is just the opposite of what's happening here. the last years its been dropping like mad and there's nothing

that biden is doing that will attract people to move back into the labor force and work, and that's our killer, without workers we do not have an economy, we don't have prosperity. ashley: there's millions of jobs out there, art, but no one to take them even when you offer perks and raise the wages. it's just not enough. >> i know it's amazing. well they're paid too much by government. why would they work if they don't like their job. i've got plenty of money. they are getting all these benefits and now they cut, get rid of the student loan program, all of this stuff, it's just crazy what they're doing and if you look at that build back better bill, it will make things a lot lot worse for years to come, ashley, and it's a travesty because our economy could be strong, it could be good, but it's not. ashley: yes. on that sad note we'll leave it there but there's always hope, art laffer my good friend in nashville, great to catch up with you and look forward to speaking to you again soon. >> me too, ashley, thanks,

visit us. ashley: i will, soon, i promise. actually, i threat. anyway, thank you very much, art coming up, omicron delays return to normalcy, and that includes back-to-school work, even the gym, we'll have more, after this. ♪ goldshore resources is an emerging gold developer

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ashley: quick market alert for you, we talked about it and it is happened. apple just crossing $3 trillion in market cap as you can see , apple shares up now, close to 3% it was 182.86 we went past that, by the way, apple has tripled its valuation in under four years. remarkable. there you have it. all right, school districts across the country are delaying their return to in-person learning, in response to the omicron surge, and there is another deadlock in chicago where the teacher's union and public schools are squaring off. grady trimble is in chicago with the very latest. grady? reporter: hey, ash. chicago public schools are back in session in-person today, but

the chicago teacher's union is threatening to walk out later this week. they put in a request to the school district amid the rising cases to go back to virtual learning for two weeks while the school district implemented new safety protocols. they asked for a requirement that all students and staff show a negative covid test to return to the classroom today, they asked for 300 testing sites across the district and for the district to handout better face masks like n-95 or k n-95 that didn't happen the district insists classrooms are safe without those measures and now the union will vote tomorrow whether to walk out on wednesday. there's a similar back-to-school standoff taking place in new york city because of dispute between the district and the union, and more than 2,100 schools across the country are either closed for the first few days of the new year, or are going all virtual for a week or two, to start the new year, because of these rising cases. all of this though, despite the

fact that public health officials and the education secretary say classes should take place in-person. >> any decisions on very short-term or emergency closure s are most likely based off of a staffing issue and ultimately those are safety issues when you don't have adequate staff but the goal is full time in-person learning for our students they suffered enough. reporter: and that is what's happening at most of the large school districts across the country, ashley. they are back-to-school in- person today, say for a few districts like washington d.c., which has pushed things back a few days because they had to get some tests into make sure everybody who was coming back was negative, we'll see how things shake out though, later this week, when that vote happens tomorrow with the teacher's union here in chicago. never a dull moment with chicago teachers union involved. ashley: never, any indication, grady, of which way that vote may go? is it going to be close or not? >> so they had a conference yesterday, ashley, and 80% of

the people on that conference call reportedly voted in favor of walking out. we'll see what happens with the official vote. maybe some of the people in attendance were those who would lean in that direction and people not in attendance might have a different opinion. have to wait and see. ashley: we will, indeed, grady trimble in chilly chicago, grady thank you very much. we should mention tech stocks starting 2022 in the green, the nasdaq now on pace to snap a four-day losing streak, after a few rocky weeks at the end of last year. you can see it up 125 points we'll have more cavuto "coast to coast" when we come back. ♪ (judith) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? don't you just ride the wave? (judith) no - we actively manage client portfolios based on our forward-looking views of the market.

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ashley: the omicron surge is put aghdam per on new year's gym resolutions. planet fitness things were at a peak in november. where are things now. the ceo joins us. chris, how is business. >> thanks for having me on today. happy new year. we had great second quarter, great third quarter. third quarter was best in company history. we saw the seasonality change last year. as the vaccines are distributed, people started to come in through the summer months we

typically don't see that. come nothing new years, we're really excited for it. a lot of trends, 40% of our joins were first-time gym members. rejoin number which runs 20% of our joins. rejoins were 30% of our joins. people rejoining us faster than ever in the past. ready to get out in the gyms and ready to get physical. ashley: how do you convince them it is safe to work out at planet fitness? >> yeah, good point. our gyms are large, 20,000 square feet. big open-air gyms. high ceiling. a lot of equipment to spread out as you see fit. we have crowd meter on the app, before you leave the house you can check the crowd meter, to adjust your schedule when the club is not busy you can do so with the phone. on top of that, happy to announce that this morning we announced we received first fitness brand receive well health safety rating from the

international well being institute. usually they do hotels, office buildings. they're the first fitness center. go through our protocol, our cleaning, our solutions, our air quality, everything. and give us the well safety seal. you see the seal on your door know you are safe in our clubs. ashley: very quickly, chris, how do you convince someone who is so used to working out at home throughout the pandemic, i know we kind of emerged from that a little bit. people got used to working out at home. how do you persuade them it is even better at the gym? >> i think first, you know, you never will have a true gym experience at home. the quality of equipment, variety of it equipment, comradery of others not being in the basement or spare bedroom. cdc, reported that 40% of americans gained 29-pounds during the pandemic. they weren't working out at

home. they might have bought equipment but weren't using it. they need to get active. a lot of thing people first gravitate towards the physical attributes, vanity part of exercise. ashley: right. >> what it does to your inside. helps with depression and anxiety. with mental health situation we see today, it is accelerated greatly unfortunately because of covid. ashley: chris he will we'll have to leave it there. thanks for joining us. good luck with your business. charles payne, my good friend, happy new year. you're here to take us through the next hour with the dow up. charles: happy new year's eve my friend. good afternoon, i'm charles payne, breaking now, first day of trading in 2022. so-called smart money crew they're still on therapy heels after missing the 2021 really by larger margins than usual but it appears they have not learned their lesson. more messages of doom and gloom.