only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ millions ready for impact as elsa barrels toward the coast. dangerous winds, heavy rain, a state of emergency as we come on the air, expanded now across florida with tens of millions of people from the south up to new england in its path over the next few days. we are live on the ground and with its track. plus in south florida, going inside that nonstop search for survivors in surfside where

officials say more than 100 people are still missing. the latest ahead of an official update next hour. i'm hallie jackson in washington with catie beck in st. pete beach, florida and meteorologist michelle grossman with us as well. katie, let me start with you. take us to what's happening on the ground on florida's gulf coast as we get closer and closer to elsa making landfall. >> reporter: hallie, this storm is 120 miles offshore and the conditions are slightly better than they were earlier today. we're still seeing the wind gusts pretty substantial out here, somewhere around 65 miles an hour, but the rain has stopped. the sun is making its way out. you can see the storm surge the waves crashing along the sea wall. the beach is pretty much evacuated but we see some people making their way out to see what the conditions look like today. the real threat now is that once elsa makes landfall and moves inland, all of this weather is going to move inland as well.

that could mean downed trees, power outages, additional flooding as elsa makes her way across the state and heads up through the carolinas, virginia and eventually the northeast. now the sunshine state has been watching elsa for a week now, this would be the third landfall this storm makes today and obviously got up to hurricane status and then was downgraded. there is a small chance that it could achieve hurricane status again as it makes landfall, but odds are that it won't. at this point now as i said the threat is going to be the path of the storm moving forward. >> michelle, let's talk more about that track and not just today but over the next few days, because i understand folks living in the northeast, for example, may need to get their umbrellas ready, right? >> i know.

can you believe it? hi there, hallie. that's thursday night into friday in the northeast the impacts of elsa holding strong, like the little engine that could. where katie is what happened overnight elsa jogged to the left so it spared where katie was in st. pete and parts of tampa were spared as well. we see the heaviest rain just to cheekland, florida. if you draw a line to the left you see where the center is. heavy rain in fort myers, lightning and thunder. we have a six-hour loop, ft. myers under the gun of the tropical rain for six hours straight. that's fatiguing. we'll see improvement there as well as this lifts to the north. as it stands, the latest on elsa looking at 65-mile-per-hour winds, still a tropical storm. it could become a category 1 storm, a weak category 1 storm but it will enter the coast soon over the next few hours so location 35 miles west of cedar key, florida, moving at 14 miles

per hour, a pretty good clip. so for the rest of today we'll see the worst impacts in northern florida, we could see some heavy rainfall, still seeing that storm surge with the southerly flow pushes that water onshore, it's very flat land, too, so easy to inundate and then this is going to move quickly into georgia. that's where we're concerned about localized flash flooding, that is the most dangerous weather in terms of tropical systems. it's going to zoom into the carolinas as well, the carolinas low-lying especially in low country. we could see those flash flooding as well. that would be thursday. then as early as thursday night in the mid-atlantic, we could feel the effects of elsa with tropical rainfall at times and pretty gusty winds. new york city by friday morning, commuting back into the city or wherever you may be, your friday morning commute dealing with gusty winds and new england you will be feeling that later on friday. hallie, we've been talking about elsa since last thursday when it became named and it is really

was named so early, usually we get a named storm right around or a hurricane as early as august 14, so this is well ahead of schedule and going to hold its strength as it goes along the mid-atlantic. >> michelle grossman, catie beck, thank you. elsa spared the area around miami, not stopping the search for survivors in surfside right now as we get our closest look yet inside that 24-hour effort. look at this video here, crews looking through the debris, bucket by bucket. so far moving more than 5 million pounds of it. they're stressing that yes, this is still a search and rescue mission, but they are acknowledging the crews have not been able to find any signs of life. eight more bodies have been recovered in the past 24 hours reaching the total number of lives lost that we know of to 36. morgan chesky is in surfside. you can access firsthand to this thing. take us inside the search and what you saw on the ground

there. >> reporter: yes, hallie, we had a chance to walk up to the collapsed site yesterday evening and i have to tell you, you can see all the stories about this, the videos and the pictures but until you stand and view it with your own eyes, you don't understand the sheer scope of this debris pile that search and rescue crews have been on top of nearly 24/7 since this collapse took place nearly two weeks ago. we're talking about pieces of concrete as big as cars, rebar jutting out and sprinkled within that mangled mess you see personal belongings, you see someone's couch, you see pictures there in the debris, and you realize just how many lives were impacted by this collapse, more than 100 people still missing in that pile of rubble there, and we have watched the rescuers move it bucket by bucket. fortunately, they've been able to get some heavy equipment in there, some cranes, that expedited the process, allowed them to get deeper inside this

pile and one of the reasons unfortunately we saw the death toll increase in a significant way yesterday. unfortunately, that may be continuing today. on top of that, the first funerals for those who lost their lives in the collapse are now beginning to be held. yesterday in particular just a few blocks from that site we saw the guada family of four remembered, mother and daughter, two young girls ages 10 and 4, and the family had decided to place those girls in a casket together, marked with a pink and purple ribbon, and you see that take place, just blocks away from a memorial, that only grows, pictures of the missing are lining there and now volunteers are now having to replace flowers at that site, because we are entering two weeks now and everyone realizes that with every passing hour, every passing day, the chance of someone coming out of that pile alive only grows dimmer.

hallie? >> morgan chesky live in surfside. difficult to cover, i know, to be there. i appreciate you being with us. thank you. we have major breaking news out of haiti this morning where the country's president has been assassinated at his own home. he was killed during an attack earlier this morning. the haitian acting prime minister says both the president and his wife were shot. the first lady did survive. she's being treated now. bring in national security and global affairs reporter dan dalous following this. we heard from the white house press secretary saying the administration is getting information on what she called this horrific attack. talk to us about the overall security concerns in the region and the implications about what happens next. >> so this is happening in a very volatile country. there have been protests, political violence kidnapping gang violence and president moise had been accused of clinging to power and he was

trying to move the country in an authoritarian direction, so this is a very fragile situation. the interim prime minister is going to try to keep calm and keep the situation stable. this is a country that's had a history of coups and dictatorships and refugees of course fleeing to the united states. we still don't know who was behind this but moise said recently in february even that there was a plot to kill him and that it had been disrupted, so the danger was there. >> dan deluce live in our washington newsroom, covering that story with big international implications, thank you. in 50 minutes or so, former president donald trump set to make an announcement, irony free on first amendment rights. what we're hearing what it is and might mean for big tech for facebook and for twitter. plus that newest cyber attack in the u.s. linked to russian hackers now putting

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in just about 45 minutes from now "axios" reporting former president donald trump plans to announce class action lawsuits against mark zuckerberg and jack dorsey the ceos of the two media companies that banned mr. trump, the platforms, twitter, facebook, google, keeping the former president off after he spread lies about the 2020 election and stirred up violence around the january 6th attack on the capitol. so you have donald trump now expected to rail against those bans as a form of cancel culture, a culture he himself has engaged in. remember when he wanted to cancel goodyear and coca-cola? what about the boycott he wanted against macy's or the country's, the whole countries of mexico and italy, even oreo cookies were not immune to the donald

trump cancel culture tear. joining me political white house reporter tina nguyen. can you hear me okay? >> i can, thanks for having me. >> of course. nbc news has not confirmed mr. trump is planning to announce these lawsuits today although i did speak with somebody in his orbit it's going to be big news, folks would want to tune in. what is donald trump doing here? it seems to be a signal he is acknowledging these social media companies are important for his political future if he wants to have one come 2024 as far as the reach beyond his core base. >> this has been a longstanding story line in trumpism since he began his political life on twitter. it goes a little bit beyond that as well but at the core, this is trump saying this is, my power has been based on social media, facebook, twitter, and having my voice silenced there is akin to

having my free speech taken away from me. whether that's true or not is a legal debate that's focused on the communications act and yada yada yada. the core thing is that this has been a problem that his base struggled with for ages, how do they get their views on the internet without running afoul of the rules and regulations that these private platforms that they willingly engage in plays on them in order to use their platforms, and the solution all of a sudden now seems to be let's just get rid of those laws completely. let's make these private companies public utilities, make them things that will let us say what it is we want. >> this is also in many ways tina this escalation of the sort of conservatives versus big tech frame we've seen develop over the last year and a half or so. >> correct. you've seen congress and senators who are maga oriented

and aligned and put forward these hearings and proposed legislations in order to punish social media companies for "censoring their speech" or canceling their accounts. right now ron desantis in florida recently tried to pass a law that punished social media platforms for taking down someone's account because of their speech. a judge threw the case out. he said it had a lot of first amendment problems inherent in it but it's a huge political rally. it's super potent within the trump base and even if this case goes absolutely nowhere, which i doubt it will, it's going to be a big rallying point for his base, it's going to be a potent fund-raising tool for his allies and as we saw with social media coming up in the past couple of days it opens a large market for conservative leaning, conservative-friendly tech sites. >> tina, i want to ask you about

something else that's new, this reporting from the "wall street journal's" michael bender, writing this highly anticipated book coming out soon on donald trump. according to "the guardian" in the 2018 meeting and actually bender says it was on a visit to europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, former president trump told his then chief of staff john kelly are that hitler "did a lot of good things" to which john kelly, of course a former retired marine corps general took exception with, and gave this sort of impromptu history lesson to the former president. i should note here bender reports that former president trump denied saying that, and i actually got a statement from a trump spokesperson saying this is totally fake news, likely made up in the words of trump spokesperson liz harrington but a disgruntled former general, denying he ever said this, but it is not the first sort of

jaw-dropping revelation that has come out from one of these books. i wonder, as somebody who also covered the trump administration, what you make of this new reporting here from michael bender? >> michael bender is a fairly renowned journalist. i wouldn't imagine that he didn't put this in if he couldn't back it up, and it does fit into a longstanding history of trump mitigating the actions, the words and histories of white nationalists and white supremacists. recall in 2017 when he said that the white supremacists at the charlottesville rally that ended up with a woman dead called some of them, there were problems i'm paraphrasing both sides and some of them were very fine people. it's not a surprise that trump would try to find some way to justify his admiration for a certain policy by saying okay, he did yada yada but some of the things he did were fine.

this case it happened to be hitler. >> yeah, and it is jaw-dropping to say the least. tina nguyen, thank you for your reporting and being with us as we look ahead to the news conference as afternoons you can call it that. we're not sure if the former president will take questions in 40 minutes. coming up on "msnbc reports" on the ground with kabul with new nbc news reporting on the withdrawal of u.s. forces and the pentagon pushback of the criticism so far. and america's fastest woman officially off the u.s. olympics team, not competing this year. we're taking you to tokyo for sha'carri richardson's reaction overnight and whether u.s. olympic officials hands were really all that tied. that's coming up.

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just over two weeks to the tokyo olympics with the fastest woman of the nation off the team. sha'carri richardson not chosen for the 4x100 relay roster after being disqualified from the 100 meter dash, testing positive for marijuana, cannabis is a banned substance. track officials defending the

decision with the growing public outcry from all tommers. >> reporter: it is hard to believe that the fastest woman in america sha'carri richardson will not be competing at any events at the tokyo olympics. there was a small chance she might be named to the women's relay team, that's not happening and now usa track and field is explaining their decision while richardson is also speaking out. this morning, team usa's track and field team is set for tokyo, but one of its biggest stars, sha'carri richardson, is not on the roster. the high-profile sprinter had a chance to be named to a relay team, when american track officials deciding not to include her. initially, richardson earned her spot with this decisive first place finish in the women's 100 meter at the u.s. olympic trials, going straight from the finish line right into the stands, hugging her family. >> my family has had me grounded. this year has been crazy for me,

going from this last week, losing my biological mother and i'm still here. >> reporter: but following that emotional moment, the stunning headline, richardson suspended from the team, the 21-year-old tested positive for marijuana, a banned substance. >> i know what i did. i know what i'm supposed to do. i'm allowed not to do, and i still made that decision, but not making an excuse. >> reporter: richardson telling savannah in an exclusive interview she used marijuana after learning her biological mother had died. >> i would like to say to my fans and my family and my sponsorship, i apologize. >> reporter: there was hope she could be selected to run on the women's 4x100 relay team. her one-month suspension expiring before that event but on tuesday usa track and field naming the six runners who

finished behind richardson to the team. track officials saying while they are sympathetic and applaud richardson's accountability "our credibility as the national governing body would be lost if rules were only enforced under certain circumstances." but acknowledging the rules surrounding marijuana use should be re-evaluated. overnight, richardson tweeting she's grateful that fans are paying attention to her sport. the star sprinter is vowing to come back stronger. sha'carri richardson still has a lot of competition left in her. she's only 21 years old. she's vowing to come back stronger and promising to be a world champion next year, she is definitely a fan favorite and it's not just because of her speed or her life story. she has an energy and charisma she brings to every single race and no doubt will one day hopefully make it to the olympics. hallie? >> that's for sure. a lot of people hoping to see that. tom llamas in tokyo for us. with us kamitha davidson report

he were for "the athletic." thanks for being back on the show. >> thanks for having me. >> explain this. track officials could have added her to the relay team the 4x100. they're saying they did it because of credibility concerns. how is that ringing more widely in the athletic world today? >> not well. everyone had the same reaction when they first heard she would not be going to the olympics which is basically that sucks, you know? there's kind of no other way to put it. it's bad for the olympics. it's bad for her obviously. it's bad for track and field fans. the u.s. track and field association did have some leeway here, but i really don't think they had a lot of it. now, i do think there is a lot of conversation that needs to be had about why marijuana is on a banned substance list in the first place, whether the usatf in the break from the rules and

whether wada needs to overhaul its rules. a lot of us were holding out hope for the two alternates in particular already notified they were going to be on this team, and that's a really difficult position to put them in, in order to have sha'carri in here and it's just an unfortunate situation completely all around. >> you mentioned something important, the story is at the intersection of politics, sports and culture. the idea cannabis is banned in the first place and there's a few reasons the agency and that the officials that oversee that have given. one of them it's a health risk because it impairs motor functioning, but one of them is that it doesn't fit the role model status of an olympian and you talk about how this reason, this role model reasoning falls into a line of moralizing about substances that seems to be arbitrary in doping conversations. explain that. >> yes, i think that's really kind of the heart of this issue.

we can talk for days about how 40 countries around the world have legal marijuana in some form. 20 states in the united states legalized recreational weed and attitudes about this substance have been changing over the years but when it comes to doping the three criteria wada lists as weather it considers a substance to be banned, whether it's performance enhancing which is one. two is what you mentioned, the health risk to the athlete and three is it doesn't fit into the spirit of the sport, a role model argument. the first thing is interesting to read the language how wada and the usatf talked about this, seemed to completely contradict each other. marijuana is performance enhancing in recovery time and allowing athletes to focus, on the other hand it's bad for athletes health because of impairing motor function and hand/eye coordination. those two things don't seem to

be aligned but the third aspect of it and i wrote about this in my book with jessica luther "loving sports when they don't love you back" speaks to the kinds of drugs, the kinds of substances we either think are ruining the purity of the sport or the purity of the athlete, which is a really kind of gross notion to reconcile with especially when talking about a drug like marijuana that has been used for a decade especially in this country to incarcerate black people at a higher rate than others, and that's really something we have to deal with. >> do you think they are ready to deal with this now or do you think sha'carri richardson incident and whole situation is going to catalyze that, kavitha or are you not hopeful? >> the usatf saidout right they hope wada uses this to reevaluate its stance on marijuana and after this public backlash, wada will be forced to. it had to remove cbd and i believe alcohol in 2017 and 2018 from its banned substances so

they can absolutely move quickly on this, probably not quickly enough ahead of tokyo, but it does seem like there is enough of a public outcry and at least an institutional outcry from the usatf to try to address this and try to get wada to change the rules. >> kavitha davidson, thank you very much for the conversation. appreciate it. coming up, president biden about to leave the white house for illinois, where he's going to make the case for his infrastructure package. we'll talk about that. a former associate of congressman matt gaetz requesting a in sentencing as he keeps cooperating with the feds. what this might mean for the florida congressman, next. colum. we do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; it's important. we walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. - we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. after about 30 days of taking it,

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new questions this morning about what prosecutors are learning from former associate of congressman matt gaetz joel greenberg requesting a 90-day delay in his sentence so he can keep cooperating with federal

prosecutors. remember that investigation into greenberg sparked a separate one into congressman gaetz in part involving whether he had a sexual relationship with a minor and paid for her to travel with him. gaetz is not charged with crimes and denied wrongdoing. with me is pete williams. can you give us some context here on the amount of time greenberg has been cooperating with prosecutors, anything you can read into that and what this request for a delay on sentencing might mean? >> sure. remember he pleaded guilty in may, may 17th. he'd already been cooperating at that point and the government wanted to get his cooperation nailed down, so he pleaded guilty. they dropped a whole raft of charges against him. he did plead guilty to six counts. they carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 years in prison, but there is a federal statute that allows prosecutors to seek relief from those mandatory minimums if someone offers substantial cooperation. so that's what's in it for joel

greenberg. he wants to try to get down below that 12-year mandatory and get his sentence potentially reduced. on the other hand, it takes time, you might say well, gee, two months of talking, what else is there to say. >> right. >> he makes statements to the government but then the government has to verify them. it has to look at records. it has to potentially talk to witnesses, maybe it has to bring them back into the grand jury. so it's not a matter of simply taking him at his word, that's not uncommon in these cases, where people cooperate and then the government checks it out. they raise new questions, they come back. so both he and the government are asking the judge here for a 90-day extension so basically to let him continue collaborating for three more months. >> if both of those parties in typical cases, pete, make that request to the judge, is the judge typically, do we know is there a pattern on what judges typically do in situations when the defendant and the prosecution are making the case? >> well for sentencing delays, yes, they almost routinely grant them. there's no need, there's no

reason the judge wouldn't, so there's no speedy trial act issue here. he's already pleaded guilty. the judge will almost certainly agree to this. >> pete williams live in washington, thank you for the context. appreciate it. this morning overseas the taliban making newness vas in the northwestern part of afghanistan. local officials telling reuters fighters atacked and more than 200 prisoners escaping as security forces fought back. for now they're holding off the taliban and evacuations of areas nearby, the u.s. gives an update on the withdrawal process there, more than 90% complete but the troops who are now out left more than a few things behind especially at bagram air field, where we find richard engel on the ground. >> reporter: this is bagram air field. it was the biggest u.s. airbase in afghanistan, now u.s. troops have left and they've left behind millions of things from vehicles, lots and lots of

vehicles, some have the keys inside of them, some don't, but also gym equipment, medical equipment, and bicycles. the soldiers used bicycles like this one because the base is really the size of a small city, and in order to get around, you can't just walk and i'm now biking onto what was one of the main runways. this airstrip at one point was one of the busiest runways in the world with american jets and drones taking off from here almost nonstop in order to carry out air strikes against the taliban, and al qaeda. now it not just feels like a ghost town, it feels post apocalyptic. the way this base was handed over has created some controversy. the afghans say that the americans simply packed up, itemized all their stuff and

then left one night without telling the local commanders and that the local afghans who now run this base woke up and suddenly find that the americans are gone. the pentagon informed senior afghan leadership and that there was a proper transfer, but here on the base, many afghans thought that it was rude and that after 20 years of cooperation, the americans simply packed up, dropped their keys, turned off the power, and left. either way, it is an end of an era. >> richard engel there at bagram airbase. courtney kube joins us from the pentagon. interesting stuff brought up by richard. how is the pentagon responding this morning? what are you hearing from sources about these reports that there are those in afghanistan who are troubled, felt like it was rude, as engel pointed out there, that this exit was hasty

and poorly communicated, in their view. >> so what this entire withdrawal process is shown, the u.s. does not trust the afghan government, the afghan partners they've been there, heard for years, standing shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand. it's clear they don't trust them with information like specifics when the u.s. is leaving specific bases, so if you look back to several weeks ago when the u.s. turned over the base at southern kandahar in afghanistan there were a series of small rocket attacks and mortars that came in on base that set a tone. there was a lot of concern about providing any specific information when the americans and nato allies would be leaving some of the bases. bagram as richard was showing there is this enormous sprawling base and there were tens of thousands of u.s. troops, nato

troops, contractors there at one point. it was a huge feat to clear it out and so the u.s. did tell the afghans this is about the time we were going to leave, we were hearing it was late june/early days of july, when they would be leaving, but they did, clearly did not provide the military commander there at the base with the very specifics down to the hour of when the u.s. was going to leave, and that was because of security concerns. we really pressed pentagon press secretary john kirby about this issue yesterday and he had to acknowledge we didn't tell them because we're worried about information like that falling into the wrong hands and potentially injuring american and nato forces who were there trying to leave, hallie. >> courtney kube reporting there live from the pentagon, great reporting, thank you for that. appreciate it. coming up on the show, a ticker tape parade honoring covid essential workers about to begin in new york city. we'll take you there. you can see that's where it's getting ready to start.

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this morning, the republican national committee is rushing to reassure supporters after confirming overnight one of its third party providers was hacked last week. bloomberg first to report the news saying a group of russian hackers named cozy bear allegedly made their way into the computer systems of an i.t. company hired by the rnc. this is just the latest cyber attack linked to russia, at least that we know about. president biden seemingly drawing a red line at the summit in geneva, one that may have been crossed with the latest hack. >> in fact, they violate these basic norms, we will respond. cyber. >> national security correspondent ken delaney joins me now. we have the white house indicating a response or president biden will address this. he himself has said there will be a response to these kinds of things. talk about what that response

should look like. i should note for viewers president biden is on his way for this covid speech later on today out in the midwest. i understand he is speaking to the reporters we don't know what's saying as regular viewers of the show we don't know what he's saying until we get that tape back. it's possible he's being asked about this. what is your expectation for any retaliation, ken? >> it's important to unpack, hallie, that this rnc hack may be a different animal from the ransomware attacks we're seeing. this looks to me an important espionage the united states conducts between russia and china every day. that doesn't cross a red line as uncomfortable as it is for us to hear about. these criminal ransomware attacks by groups giving safe haven in russia is starting to become a national security threat and threat to the american economy and so president biden is confronted with what does he do about it? does he try to ratchet up sanctions against russia which is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world or does he contemplate a military cyber

offensive response for perhaps against the group itself, revil that carried out the latest attack on dark side, which hit the colonial pipeline. there is actually a debate going on inside the u.s. government will whether it's even legal for the military to take action against what are u.s. to take action against transnational criminals. and there is questions around thunderstorm. they could take down the servers, but then a week later the groups could migrate to different servers. it's not clear how much impact we could actually have in cyber space, but there is a consensus that the united states needs to raise the cost to vladimir putin and russia for tolerating these criminals outside of russia. >> if you see this, all of this together, right? the rnc situation, what happened with this, do you see this as

putin testing biden? >> 100%. when biden laid down the law and said he needed to stop doing this or else, vladimir putin wants to know what else is and where the line is and how he can push it. what russia has perfected is a gray zone war fair. doing attacks on the u.s. whether it is interfering on our election, tolerating ransomware stuff. putting human spies here to mess with us. all of it is just high of an act of war and testing to see what the american response has been and frankly it has not been very robust. and now all of this is in president biden's lap to decide how much he wants to up the ante in terms of responding to russia. as you were speaking we just learned from our colleagues that

cover the u.s. there that the president was asked about his message to president biden. the president also discussing that breaking news that we mentioned. our shanks to you on that. we're minutes away from a update from sir much side officials on the latest of a search for survivors there. arch for survivors there.

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in just a couple minutes from now, new york city is set to get on their next ticker tape parade. even in a moment of celebration there was still major cause for concern in unvaccinated areas. why? because of the highly contagious delta variant that is spreading. president biden calling for a

door to door vaccine push. but door to door campaigns only work when there is someone home. experts warning that we could see a wave of evictions when the cdc eviction moratorium ends. i want to bring in the programs now becoming available to help some of those people. >> you remember that congress passed more than $45 billion in rent assistance. but states have trouble getting that money to renters. the application process is lengthy and con vusing. renters can stay in their homes, landlords can be paid and it eases the burden on courts. >> i thought this was, i thought that was it. >> sonia jones started to rent this how in philadelphia as the pandemic hit. a few months later she was laid

off and could not afford the $1500 a month in rent. >> i had to file for unemployment. i informs tears and i didn't know what i would do. >> more than 5.8 million households fell behind on rent. the problem is hitting people of color more than average. >> before covid it had the fourth highest eviction rate nationally. during the pandemic, they introduced the eviction diversion program. of the nearly 1500 households that participated nearly 90% avoided eviction. here is how it works, they're now required via city court order tore go through the city's rent assistance program and attempt a mediation like this

one. >> the housing counsellor, the application is usually under review with the city of philadelphia. >> and a certified mediator. >> if there's one thing we should learn is that people need to sit down with one another. when there is conflict and differences. we're looking to change the culture around evictions. >> they agreed to a payment plan and the rent assistance was just approved. a success story that is proof that the program works. >> the program needs to be modelled in other states and cities. >> and sonia calls her landlord a blessing. other landlords have alarmer properties focusing on property. >> i started giving up and he never gave up. >> in the end it benefits sonia, it benefits me, and the city of philadelphia. it's really a win-win-win scenario. >> sonia's housing counsellor

seeing higher races across the country and it's where we see the lowest rates of vaccination. and that's why they're pushing other states and municipalities to prevent a new wave of evictions and municipalities. >> thank you thank you all for watching at hour. you can find us as always on twitter. we have a lot coming up for you a lot of news developing this morning, craig melvin picks up our coverage as we speak. good wednesday morning to you. we're in new york city this hour. all eyes on florida because we're watching an intense splint

screen moment. we're watching for elsa to make landfall with heavy rains and strong winds. we're going to go there live in just a moment. this is the scene in clearwater. meanwhile we expect surfside officials to give us a update on the search and rescue effort in the wreckage of that collapsed condo building into two weeks after the collapse. we'll take you there live as soon as it starts. the president of haiti assassinated overnight. in his own home. a group of gunmen that also shot his wife. this hour how the united states is responding and as we speak president biden is on his way to illinois to make his case for investing in new infrastructure. this is the scene at joint base ann drews. you can see the president