we are just two days from christmas with over 100 million expected to hit the holiday world, as the fda gives approval for more vaccines. >> police are reporting new details this hour. millions petition for reduced punishment for a truck driver behind a deadly crash our morgan hadford of small businesses flourishing as a

result of the supply chain crisis. >> i'll drink to that. an auction featuring the rarest bour bonne to help tornado victims. a good cause indeed. "early today" starts right now i'm phillip mena the omicron variant has been in the u.s. in less than a month but it's been in every corner of the nation the highly transmissible strain has been confirmed in all 50 states they recorded 240,000 new cases, there are over 2,000 covid-related deaths the u.s. air force announced 10,000 requests for religious exemptions for airmen and the space force. so far, the military branch heard none the supreme court will hear a mask mandate for large employers and healthcare workers

oral arguments will begin on the 7th. until then, mandates will remain in effect. there is good news on the horizon as the fda released the first pill to treat covid-19. >> reporter: the medication is 30 pills taken over five days by people in the early stages of a covid infection who are at risk of developing severe disease >> in the early clinic alda that it is 90% effective at preventing hospitalization and deaths, even in unvaccinated populations. this could be game changing. >> game changing, because it could lessen the stress in hospitals. >> we need to protect ourselves, that means getting vaccinated, getting the booster, wearing masks, social distancing, those things that work. >> reporter: getting telsted in

hard parts to come by. perhaps too late in areas where the omicron surge has already arr arrived. >> this should also be anticipated. >> is are the nhl says covid cancellations have disrupted its schedule too much. new york city he's new york festivities are on track for now. they see emerging trends from south african and europe and emphasize we already have the tools to fight covid >> this is a different christmas, it's not december 2020 it's more hopeful. what we do will dictate what january lookslike. >> a move oughtal time in the pandemic the holiday travel rush is in full swing despite a massive spike in covid across the

country. airlines are working to keep things running smoothly for everyone involved. >> reporter: for the airlines, it all comes down to the final christmas push every single hour, more than 100,000 travelers are passing through airports nationwide, coming off the runway in washington today flight 2565 from dallas. chalk under the wheels and the countdown begins they got 45 minutes to turn this plane around for it next flight to orlando two minutes after arrival, the cabin door opposite. >> good morning. >> at 3 minutes, the cargo door pops a. minute later, the first bags are on the belt just as 180 passenger step into the step bridge. time is money. being on time a top priority. >> our number one job is to turn an airplane. speed is of the essence, it's so important. everything we do is time. >> reporter: the job here, sort the bags, priority bags, connecting bags, those that are

staying here given to the carousel within 20 minutes. >> reporter: 20 minutes later the ground crew steps on, caterers and cleaning staff, underneath, the fuel is hooking up, the pilots are rotating out. >> i'd say 75% of the time we change aircraft. >> reporter: american turns 85 flights a day at reagan airport. >> an active duty military person, welcome aboard. >> reporter: 20 minutes after arrival, the next flight's passengers are aboarding as the next officer does his inspection walk around. >> i'm here as sort of that last check to make sure everything is the way it should be. >> reporter: ten minutes before departure, the cabin door closes again. blue skies helping the flight to orlando to leave on time a very tightly choreographed operation at reagan national as at all airports.

as for the national airspace, we have been watching that out, into today and thursday looking good minimal delays yesterday we had fewer than 400 going into the afternoon and evening hours, it was the northeast with wind deicing delays with wind the big question will be, okay, what about after new year's? we will be watching that closely. >> tom, thank you. nearly 5 million people have signed a petition up a line for a colorado truck driver involved in a deadly crash in 2019. they're asking the governor to commute his sentence saying that 110 years is too harsh our reporter picks up the story from there >> it seems like it's been 15 years. it's only been eight days ans he was sentenced. >> reporter: a lot happened in the eight days, he said his team filed a clemency application this week after sentenced to 110

years in prison for a deadly crash on i-70 that killed four people in 2019, tuesday governor polis says his office is reviewing it they are asking for a hearing to reconsider the sentence. they say it's been a lot >> i think he feels the same way of his family, which is his head is spinning because it's happening so fast. all of the emotions you could think of you can experience in that week-long period of time. that's what's going on with him. >> we do believe that was an unjust sentencing. >> reporter: nearly 35 million signatures in an online petition tuesday night says may have played a hand in this. >> it's unlike anything i have seen this kind of public pressure is causing the politicians to question what they did and to try to get out in front of it. >> reporter: the democratic district attorney says tuesday's expedited motion was filed, in part, so the victim's families can be heard by the court.

>> nothing is guaranteed, so, you know, we're hoping that both of them can work out so we're keeping our hopes up and optimistic about both. >> thanks for that report. overnight five suspects are in custody of a u.s. congresswoman was held at gun point pennsylvania congresswoman mary gay scanlon was attended a park in south philadelphia two men threatened her at gunpoint, demanding the keys to her car and took personal and work belongings. >> police say they tracked the stolen car to a shopping center in delaware and found five people in the vehicle. all five are being treated as suspects and are treated for prosecution. scanlon's office says she was not harmed and thanks the philadelphia police department for their swift response in a totally unrelated carjacking one night earlier, illinois state senator kimberly

lightford was carjacked in suburban chicago police are searching for possible suspects. the house committee investigating the january 6th insurrection is requesting an interview with gop congressman jim jordan they believe he communicated at least once with then president trump on the die of the capitol attack they are now asking for details about those and other conversations. representative jordan did not respond to nbc news' request for comment. in an appearance on fox news last night, he said he would review the letter. on tuesday, republican scott perry of pennsylvania declined to cooperate with the committee. the pandemic is taking its toll on the college football landscape in the midst of bowl season, texas a&m announced they are pulling out due to covid issues and injuries within the program the 25th ranked aggies were scheduled to play wake forest before the announcement

they said they are working aggressively to find a replacement team next friday the college semifinals kicked off next friday with it the playoff management committee announced teams canned a have aens to the final and win the championship if opponents forfeit do you to covid issues if both teams in a semifinal game were unable to compete, the winner of the other game would be crowned national champion the national title game scheduled for january 10th cannot be rescheduled later than january 14th we are counting down hours for santa, janessa webb is tracking your holiday forecast, good morning >> hi, good morning, yes, we will see a white christmas with pacific northwest. if you are a snow fan, that good news, flood watches have been put in place across california they will continue to expand throughout northern california for today. we're talking about accumulation rainfall wise at least

three-to-five inches if you are hitting the interstates in this area, that's going to cause some concerns watching this into the plains, there is also mixes in with a little bit of snow and we are talking about 24-to-36 inches for the higher elevations, but this makes its way into the rockies, also salt lake city going into your afternoon ald ve northeast. upper 30s in most spots. man, we have record highs for christmas day. we'll take a look at that forecast coming up. >> we'll check out those numbers later. thank you, janessa a fed-ex driver was taken to hospital with multiple injuries after his delivery truck was hit

by a train the driver's identity has not been released was crossing railroad tracks when a southbound kansas city train collided with the truck. the train crossings are marked but no advanced warning system news you want to hear for anyone out there, a part of the $1.57 trillion in student loan debt a small business success story where orders are up 1,400% for one entrepreneur we're back in 60 seconds we're back in 60 seconds >> microban keeps killing 99.9% of bacteria touch after touch for up to 24 hours. these leading disinfectants do not. use the sanitizer 4 out of 5 doctors would use in their own homes. microban 24. with age comes more...

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at your christmas feast, the tsa announced guidelines how you can travel with popular holiday eats a rule of thumb, they say solid foods are good to go, treats like candy canes, pies and christmas ham. but if you can spill it, spread it or pour it, it's best to pack it into your bags, jams, syrups, beverages like egg nog or champagne should get checked in. if you have gifts, wait to wrap them once you get to your destination. as christmas gets closer, many americans are ready to get around the supply chain problems by shopping small and local to find their holiday gifts this year nbc news' morgan radford spoke to holiday owners who are seeing a big boom in sales. >> for this furniture maker, the supply chain crisis is nowhere to be seen. >> i can just jump out, go there, pick up what i need and work on my pieces.

>> reporter: like 95% of small business owners selling on the website etsy, the north carolina craftsman gets his materials locally. so everything you are using, trees, lumber, are you using locally and are you building locally? >> that's right. >> reporter: and its paid off. >> from 2019 to 2021, the percentage changes over 1,400%. >> reporter: i'm sorry, i want to run that back you've increased your business 1,400% >> 1,400% during the pandemic. >> reporter: it's a surprising trend playing out nationwide with more small businesses seeing increased revenues over the past month than in 2020 and customer spending surging by 18% over last year on small business saturday alone but others here are still feeling the pinch. just down the street, spicer green jewelers, they say they've seen the supply chain slowdown first hand. >> we had one customer who ordered a beautiful pair of

golden pearls, it took 16 weeks to get them. they say they are having foreign supply chain issues, so they made their own supply. so you are transitioning from using things overseas and building it here >> yep, that's exactly what we've done we've gone away from that. it's hard to compete with the labor. now because of covid and supply chain issues and we want to create jobs again, we brought it back. >> reporter: an international problem being solved right here at home. morgan radford, nbc news, asheville, north carolina. still ahead, brittany teases new music. does this rift make the cut? we'll let you be the jgeud plus the crowd goes wild for the surprise proposal. of invisible dirt left behind. try mr. clean magic eraser for a deep down hygienic clean. magic eraser removes the messes you can see as well as more of the dirt and grime you don't. all you do is wet, squeeze and start erasing dirt and grime all around the house

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>> after the termination of her 13-year conservatorship, britney spears with work on new tunes it looks like she hasn't released an album since 2016 "glory. she is seen here working on high notes with a caption "new song in the works." a utah jazz dancer thought she was working on a routine and ended up with another proposal again. this is what happened. her teammates broke out into some unfamiliar choreography she tried to follow along and spotted her boyfriend who went on the court and got down on one knee the surprise had fans cheering and on social media, the video went viral. >> i hope they left them on the floor for days. >> any reason to be distracted is that after that proposal. >> there you go. it is one of the busiest travel days of the year, up

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. the recovery process continues in kentucky after those deadly september tornadoes. an online auction raised more than $2 million for victims by selling one of kentucky's best exports, bourbon dave mattingly has the story. >> reporter: the online auction site of the kentucky bourbon benefit bidding for rare bourbons rocketed from impressing to astonishing. in the aftermath of the deadly tornadoes, auction organizers put out a call for donations individual collectors responded

donating their prized bottles. >> we were flooded we got so many donation requests that we had to start turning them down in order to focus on the auction. >> reporter: there turned out to be a whole herd of unicorns up for grabs with single barrels attracting bids from the hundreds to the thousands. distill erreys donated too, rare barrels fetching tons of thousands or more. organizers passed their goal of a million dollar in bids in 48 hours. >> the stores kept coming at us with incredible offerings, a 19-year-old barrel of willett. that's unicorn juice you don't find that anywhere >> on the last day of bidding, it was topping $270,000 a. barrel of extra age four roses was exceeding 215,000. also contributing to the auction was the owner of cars steakhouse in mayfield, destroyed by the

tornado, the owner of his premium bourbon out of the rubble a dozen of the scratched and battering offerings were attracting bids of $1,000 to $10,000. >> they came in not just with the bottles we donated and the entire auction what they're doing is incredible >> to dhanks to david mattinglyd being trued to unicorn juice actress isla fisher and zoe dechannel and pop star katie perry, about dak shepherd. now compare ryan reynolds and ben aflac. what do you think? nah, not so much ryan reynolds says he has been mistaken for aflac when he visits a certain pizzeria in new york. >> now they have to issue a

correction that's no good >> i don't, i also don't accept anything, like they're not giving me free pizza based on this factor. i do everything normal like everybody else they think i'm ben aflac they ask how

the rain and wind intensifying over parts of the area. we are broadcasting on your television, also streaming right now