coming up, everybody, a look at the power crisis in puerto rico with outages across the island. i'm yasmin vassoughian in for stephanie ruhle. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right now. >> and good morning. it's 10:00 a.m. eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. i'm jose diaz-balart. the battle over vaccine requirements is heating up and republican-led states are fighting back, as the biden administration develops rules that could force millions of workers to get a shot in the arm or face weekly testing. on capitol hill, the house returns today to take up a short-term extension to the nation's debt limit, but the fight over the debt ceiling is far from over. >> meanwhile, in puerto rico, residents are angry and demanding answers as the u.s. island territories' power grid may be on the verge of collapsing. and we're less than 24 hours away from seeing captain kirk boldly go where no star fleet captain has ever been before, space. the real space.

the final frontier. and begin this hour with the latest on the fight against the coronavirus. just last night, texas governor greg abbott issued an executive order banning vaccine mandates statewide, a direct rebuke of president biden's plan to mandate vaccines or testing for government workers. he called president biden's mandate federal overreach. he's not alone. 24 attorneys general have threatened legal action over the federal rule. joining me now is heidi przybyla. >> some have no concerns at all.

i'm outside of colubia sports and the ceo says, we opposite in over 90 countries. we don't have a problem. in fact, when he looks around the country here in the u.s., he thinks this is the only country that actually has a problem. when you talk to ceos, though, for instance, in the deep south, as i did, ceo lex taylor, of a machine parts company in mississippi, he says, i have tried to give incentives to get vaccinated and yet only 30% of my population, of my employees are vaccinated. and here in a nutshell are the two very different reactions. take a listen. >> we want to have a safe working place and we believe the best way to provide that in addition to other hazards that are known is to have people vaccinated against covid. >> you're going to let -- you're going to have to let those go until they come back with a negative test and/or you're going to tell them, you're fired because you don't -- because you won't get a vaccine. it's going against all

convention. it's just not good thought and good logic in this process. if they were to try to enforce. >> so many taylor there, jose, he has he can't have a vaccine mandate, because he'll risk losing so many of his employees who could potentially go to smaller companies so therefore he's left with this testing protocol, and he says, how much is that going to cost me to test on such a regular basis? what's the record-keeping going to look like. how can i ensure people are negative before they come into the workplace? very different reactions depending on geography and interesting. >> interesting. >> kerry sanders, while these debates are going on, covid continues to sweep through some police departments across the country. what are you hearing, kerry? >> reporter: jose, we have seen different subsets of groups across the country that have pushed back against vaccines. some teachers who have said they don't want to be vaccinated, some nurses who say they don't want to be vaccinated and we've

seen the same thing among some police. but the statistics that are revealed here are quite troubling. when you look at the leading cause of death for officers since the pandemic began, the leading cause of death is covid. take a look at these numbers here on your screen. we have more than 700 officers who have died result of covid. and when you look at the states, there is california, texas, and florida that are the leading states. in california right now, there is a mandate for the officers and members of the l.a. sheriff's department to get vaccinated. but the sheriff, alex villanueva says he cannot force that on to his employees, because he fears officers will begin quitting. and he's already concerned about the lack of number of people that he has on the department, 18,000, which is the largest in the country. he can't afford to lose 10%. he is not going to force that. i'm here in coral gables, where the police chief, ed houdack

says, because of collective bargaining, i can't have a mandate like they have at the sheriff's department in los angeles. but what he has done to encourage officers, especially the young ones, is to say, i would like you the fill out a living will. many of those young officers are like, what is a living will? he explains to them, if you get coronavirus, we've seen statistics where people die within three days. so you have to have a living will. the idea is to sort of starlet them into reality and he says, in some cases, that has been very successful. jose? >> kerry sanders and heidi przybyla, thank you very much for being with me this morning. for more on all of the covid news, i'm joined by dr. lilian abel, chief infectious disease specialist at the university of miami health system. doctor, good to see you. let's start with a booster shot rollout. "the new york times" writes that the booster rollout has complicated efforts to persuade the unvaccinated to get their first round of shots. one vaccinated man in ohio told

"the times," quote, it seems like it's just a short time and people are already having to get boosters and the fact that they didn't realize that earlier in the rollout, shows me that there could be other questions that there could be out there. does this match the conversations that you and your colleagues are having with patients, doctor? >> i think from the beginning, we knew this was a new disease. we have a vaccine that's highly effective, but as you know, viruses can mutate. and as new strains of viruss have appeared, we are understanding better how effective are the vaccines for these new variants. for example, the delta variant. we also know from other vaccines like hepatitis and other conditions or even the flu vaccine that immunocompromised patients sometimes do not respond the same way to the same doss as other people. same thing for elderly people with the flu vaccine. this is not unique to covid. we're learning more about this disease in a short period of time. and for immunocompromised patients, we have robust studies

showing that they're not responding well to the doses and they do need this third dose. >> so what about the folks who are not immunocompromised? is there a need, you think, an urgent need, for those people who have had, let's say, the pfizer two-shot variant? is there a need for them to go out and get a booster, as well? >> for elderly, more than 65, or for people that have other conditions, other medical conditions at risk, this is a recommendation. and the same for health care workers. because what we're seeing in multiple studies in the u.s. and internationally is that your antibodies wind down after several months. i personally as a health care worker in the front lines, i just got my booster last week. and many of our health care workers are getting it. normal, healthy, young people right now, there's no strong recommendation from cdc or w.h.o to get that third dose. i would limit it to at-risk populations like health care

workers, elderly, or immune immunocompromised. >> we were just showing a picture of you getting two different vaccines at the same time, one per arm. one was the booster and the other one was for influenza? >> yes. many people, patients and other providers ask, is it safe to get both? and i said, you need to lead by example. i cannot tell people, go and get two shots, it's safe, if i don't do it on my own. we're starting the flu season. influenza kills 20,000 people a year in the u.s. and i got my booster, because i want to stay protected, protect myself, my loved ones, and my patients. >> doctor, in the height of the pandemic crisis in south florida, jackson memorial hospital had, i think, in june, if i'm not mistaken, about 500 plus covid patients in icu, in jackson memorial hospital. how many do you have now and are you seeing the end of this surge

happening? >> yeah, the worst of the surge was july and august, where we really saw this summer what we saw last year, a significant increase crunching our resources. the delta wave was really, really critical. most of them were unvaccinated patients, including young people, who we would not expect who would end up in the icu. this is improving. we are not back to the numbers that we had back in may, but this is significantly better. to give you an example, we have around 120 hospitalized patients across the health care system with covid. back in june, early june, we had 50 to 60. so we're still twice of what we had, but it's much better than what we faced in the summer. >> you're talking about the younger people. officials are preparing vaccines for kids ahead of the rollout expected to begin as early as november. for parent who is may be, well, hesitant to get their kids vaccinated, what's your message?

>> my message is that these infection does not discriminate your age, your race, your age. protecting our children is our responsibility. my kids are vaccinated. the studies are being done. people are worried about infertility. so far, there's no evidence of infertility. and we do have studies showing that these vaccines are safe and children and are protecting them. we want our kids to grow healthy, to enjoy their winter, go back to school, as they have been going, and really prepare so we don't have anymore of these surges and waves. i would encourage people to please consider getting your children vaccinated, educate yourself, speak to your pediatricians, and get educated before you make a decision. >> doctor, thank you for being with me this morning. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thank you. turning now to the latest from capitol hill. today, house lawmakers are poised to pass a bill that would prevent the u.s. government from defaulting on its debt by

raising the debt ceiling, at least until december. the bill passed in the senate late last week. with more on this, i'm joined by ali vitali, nbc news correspondent, capitol hill. ali, it's great to see you. should we expect any last-minute roadblocks before this bill finally makes it to the president's desk? >> i never say never, but we're not expecting any road blocks on this one. the house coming back from recess. they're going to be back on recess after they do this vote. but to finish the work that the senate finally did last week, coming together to push the debt ceiling crisis further down the road into december. what this sets up is another series of floating deadlines, some of which are really hard and fast, that the senate and the house are going to have to deal with. others of them, a little bit more fluid, based on how negotiations go. the hard and fast ones are on the debt ceiling and government funding. all of those crisis are set to hit now around december 3rd. there are some estimates now that once this debt ceiling hike is passed now, it could actually

take the u.s. credit line through the mid-december or even early january. that would allow congress to decouple these two economic crisis and deal with government funding and the debt ceiling as separate entities. they could also still deal with them all at once. we'll see how that goes over the course of the next few weeks. but then in terms of the fluid deadlines, we'll hear more about this from speaker nancy pelosi this morning, when she meets with reporters here in just a little while. but the house is still on track, at least in her mind, to try to do something on infrastructure by the end of october. we know that they extended highway funding until then, because that was part of the bipartisan infrastructure plan. but what's also happening behind the scenes is a lot of negotiating on what's going actually going to end up in this bill. price tags are floating around, some between 1.9 and 2.2 trillion. joe manchin, the senator from west virginia, who has been so central to all of these negotiations, reminding us last week that his number is still $1.5 trillion. all of these negotiations now bring us to a place where

democrats have to really thread the needle, because many progressive democrats see this as a moment where it's their once in a lifetime opportunity to actually do big things that will change the social fabric of the country, things like universal pre-k, child care bolstering, as well as free community college. all of these things central to what many democrats feel is joe biden's agenda. we know the president himself onboard to get as many of these items as he can into this package, but it becomes more difficult to see how this happens by the end of october. it's also true that there are only about 26 days that the house is supposed to be here and voting and active. that's a lot of work to do in a short period of time. but we'll see where these negotiations land, as lawmakers are still very much entrenched, trying to figure out what the path forward is on this. >> and you know, december is right around the corner. ali vitali, thank you. great seeing you. a quick programming note. in the next hour, my colleague garrett haake will be joined by

agricultural secretary tom vilsack. it's national school lunch week and they'll talk about funding for the school lunch programs, that's expected to come back from the build back better plan. that's ahead, 11:00 a.m. eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. still ahead, investigators are trying to figure out what caused a small plane to go down in a california neighborhood, killing two people. we're live with the update. plus, puerto rico is under a state of emergency after a wave of blackouts being blamed on seaweed. we'll explain, next. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." ching "jos diaz-balart reports. people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ you are my sunshine ♪ ♪ my only sunshine... ♪ rybelsus® works differently than any other diabetes pill to lower blood sugar in all 3 of these ways... increases insulin when you need it...

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18 past the hour. puerto rico has declared a state of emergency as the island's power grid is said to be in, quote, critical condition. the u.s. territory is experiencing constant power outages, blamed on mechanical failures and at aging electric

plants throughout the island. people are taking to the streets to demonstrate against the blackouts with another round of protests planned for this friday. the island's power grid has been in a fragile state since it took a direct hit from hurricane maria four years ago. nbc news correspondent gabe gutierrez is in san juan with the latest. gabe, good morning. >> reporter: jose, good morning. this island with its more than 3 million american citizens has facd power problems before, but there is new frustration and in congress, a house committee is now looking into the outages here. this morning, across puerto rico, an urgent power struggle. frequent blackouts, at times impacting hundreds of thousands of people. >> we are having practically weekly shutdowns. >> reporter: four years ago, hurricanes irma and maria slammed into the island, decimating puerto rico's already crumbling infrastructure. now officials say the island's power grid is in critical

condition. >> it's a combination of different factors that led to where we are. >> reporter: prepup is the government utility, and says the problem is outdated equipment, not enough money, and surprisingly, seaweed. some people look at this and say, really, seaweed? that's causing problems here? >> yeah, because we have on our screens a lot of seaweed and, it was preventing the water to getting into the condenser. >> reporter: this summer, a private company, luma energy took over bringing in 3,000 workers. >> power in puerto rico has been in a terrible state for a very long time. >> why is it worse now than it was before you took over? >> i think in many ways, there have been improvements in the way that people contact us, in the way that, you know, we rolled out some new digital

tools. >> but the lights are still going out? >> what i say to customers and what i say to customers every day is, this will get better. >> reporter: brenda otero owns a bakery near san juan. every time the lights go out, she loses money. >> i think the last week, i could lost like $1,000. >> reporter: how frustrating is it when the power goes out over and over again? >> i get frustrated. we get mad. we really get mad. >> gabe, i know that hurricane maria was just devastating to the island. i mean, it was a really, really horrible hurricane. but it seems to me, gabe, as though this power issue is not just four years old in the making. >> reporter: yeah, no, this is decades in the making. obviously, it's no secret that puerto rico's infrastructure has been difficult for decades. so much frustration here.

there have been allegations of corruption by local public officials. accusations of mismanagement in the public utility. a lot of questions remaining. fema has set aside nearly $10 billion to help rebuild the power grid here. there are projects in the pipeline, but they might not be approved until at least next year. and many residents here are sick of waiting and jose, you have to wonder, what the reaction would be if something like this was happening on the u.s. mainland. jose? >> u.s. citizens all in puerto rico. thank you, gabe, for being with me. next hour, a maryland couple is scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in west virginia. federal prosecutors allege jonathan and diana toebbe sent thousands of government documents about nuclear submarine propulsion systems using peanut butter sandwiches to someone they thought was a handler, but actually was an undercover fbi agent. i want to bring in nbc news intelligence and national security correspondent, ken dilanian. ken, good morning.

what can we expect to happen when the toebbes appear in court? >> reporter: good morning, jose. as of recently, they have not had lawyers, at least according to the court records. so we may see public defenders appointed on their behalf, and there will be a question about whether they should remain in detention. the government is arguing that because these charges carry a term of life in prison, that at least jonathan toebbe should remain locked up, pending trial. so the judge may take a look at that question. and we're all looking to learn more about this bizarre and intriguing case, this middle class couple. she, a ph.d, who taught at a private school in indianapolis. he, a nuclear physicist who worked for ten years for the navy. why they risked everything in an attempt to sell secrets to somebody they thought was a foreign government. of course, turns out, it was an fbi undercover agent in a sting operation. but why they were seeking up to $5 million, according to the

criminal complaint, in exchange for these secrets related to american nuclear submarines. we're all looking very closely at how this hearing will unfold, jose. >> who did they think they were selling these secrets to? >> that is another big question. the government is not saying which government they initially approached. there's some reason to believe, jose, that it was an ally as opposed to an adversary like china and russia, because the information was turned over to the fbi, and then in the court filing, there is reference to a signal at the country's embassy in washington, and presumably, the fbi wouldn't have been able to arrange a signal at an adversary embassy like china or russia, but they're refusing to say which country was initially involved. what they are saying, though, is that the toebbes are charged with very serious crimes that carry a term of life in prison. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much for being with me. one of the highest profile, highest paid coaches in the nfl is stepping down over racist,

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what are you waiting for? ♪ ♪ 28 minutes past the hour. we're following two big stories out west. jon gruden is out as coach as the las vegas raiders football team this morning after a workplace misconduct investigation found that he sent

e-mails containing raze, homophobic, and misogynistic comments. and in san diego, officials are investigating that horrific plane crash that killed two people in southern california in a neighborhood there yesterday. joining us now with the latest on both of these stories, two of our very own reporters, steve patterson in l.a. and emily kata. so this jon gruden thing, what does the resignation mean for the team? >> i think there will be major trust issues on that team especially when you have an openly gay player on the roster and you'll find out why in a second. but i think this is less about the team and more about the league. those e-mails opened up a torrent of, you know, just language describing sexual and homophobic remarks that were found in almost a year's worth of e-mails. they were discovered in a separate workplace investigation during the time that gruden was

espn analyst. in them, he describes a racist trope to describe marcus smith, uses offensive language to insult nfl commissioner roger goodell. he disparages players who protested during the national anthem. pans female referees, mocks concussion protocols. even uses a homophobic slur to describe the league's first openly gay player, michael sam with carl nassif, now on his own roster. gruden exited with an apology. he said he was very sorry and didn't want to distract from the team. meanwhile, the focus will now be on the 650,000 email that the colleague was combing through as part of their original investigation, which actually uncovered these investigations into the washington football team and now what it may reveal about other franchises and other players and other people and legal officials that may be mentioned with maybe more bombshells to follow. so this could lead to some real

change in the nfl. it all depends on what happens over the next weeks and months to come. jose? >> thanks. emilie, where you're standing, it looks just like a bomb went off. when we look at the videos of the crash scene, it's just horrific. what have investigators learned so far? >> reporter: you'll see the plane's path of destruction behind me. witnesses describing the wing of the aircraft first clipping the u.p.s. truck before launching forward into several homes, setting off a massive fire and thick plume of smoke. you can see this block of neighborhood in santee, california, a suburb of san diego, completely unrecognizable. we expect to see the ntsb out here really parsing through the rubble, trying to. it what led to this deadly crash. and what i can tell you right now is at least two people have died. fire officials, though, warning that number could rise. one of those fatalities, the

u.p.s. driver. and we showed you visuals of that really just a shell of a vehicle, completely incinerated. just a story of the wrong place at the wrong time. a terrible tragedy. the other thing i will note is that we know the owner of the cessna twin engine plane out of yuma, arizona, the hospital, his place of employment, releasing a statement saying that he leaves behind a lasting legacy, though they would not say for certain or confirm that he was the one behind the controls or on the plane. we're still working to find more information about that. but some chilling recordings released from air traffic control. you can hear them pleading repeatedly with the pilot to increase their altitude throughout the flight. so it's just some insight, possible insight into the situation. a terrible situation that has raised so many questions. and jose, i will point out one

other thing. this is the third deadly plane crash here in santee in the last six years. back to you. >> emily, if you would, just describe what's behind you. it's just horrifying. what's behind you? >> reporter: it's tough to see with the sun right now, it's certainly tough to see with the sun, but it is horrifying. it's completely unrecognizable. the shell and frames of multiple vehicles of homes. the bulk of the damage is these two homes behind me. it feels almost apocalyptic. just rubble scattered everywhere and you'll see this caution wrapping around the block. >> thank you both very much for being with me this morning. classes are canceled at the university of north carolina chapel hill today throw students focus on their mental health. this comes after authorities over the weekend found one student dead in a residence hall and received another call about an attempted suicide. death by suicide is the second

leading cause of death among college-aged people. i want to bring in nbc news now's issa gutierrez. good morning. what does this tell us about how college students are feeling in this covid age? >> reporter: jose, good morning. prior to the covid-19 pandemic, this was already an age group that face ld a lot of change, a lot of instability, a lot of insecurity. mental health experts are telling me when you add on a pandemic to that, it really compounds the stressors for college students. according to a recent national survey, over 50% of college students reported suffering from mental exhaustion. now, here at unc chapel hill, i spoke with some students who told me that they're overwhelmed with school, covid, and now with the deaths of their peers. take a listen. >> i was really upset and a lot of my classmates were upset

because they were students just like us. and it just almost feels like a lot of pressure, that's put on us to always be going all time without any breaks. >> and like you mentioned, jose, classes are canceled here today on campus. this is following the student government sending a letter formally asking university leaders to cancel classes actually for two days. they ended up just holding off on classes today, although some professors did choose to not ask their students to come in yesterday. the student government said that they needed this time to grieve, to reflect, and most importantly, to really get uninterrupted time to go out and seek mental health help. we did get a statement from the school's chancellor, who said that they will be adding new support networks for their students and also be holding a mental health forum later this month for university leaders to really decide how to tackle this crisis right now. jose? >> issa gutierrez at chapel hill, thank you very much. and if you or someone you know

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that constant threat along with rising poverty and political upheaval -- they just killed the president just a couple of weeks ago there -- have prompted thousands of people to leave haiti in hopes of a new life in the united states. here with me in person, fresh off reporting from haiti and the sorin border are nbc news correspondents, jacob soboroff and morgan radford.radford. i am in the best company i could imagine. you just got back from haiti. what did you find there? >> desperation. the final saturday i was there, there were 20 kidnappings in one day in port-au-prince. it's not just the violence, the violent gangs control much of the city. it is extreme, extreme poverty. we traveled to the south where the earthquake struck in lakai and saw hunger in a way i've never seen before. and of course, there's the political instability with the assassination of the president. there's no elections coming in the foreseeable future. and you have more people

outbound by boat now from haiti to cuba, to try to get to florida, than you have in recent years. i think three times as many over the course of the last year. >> and this is a country that has seen so much upheaval. i mean, you know, the 2010 earthquake, so, you know, hundreds of thousands of people died. and then, you know, tropical storm is, hurricanes, and you have the political issue. >> and when we talk about politics, the biden administration has professed to create a fair, safe, equitable immigration system in the wake of really the horrors of the family separation policy, the trump years, and many other immigration policies. that's why there are big questions today about the idea that they are expelling 7,600 haitians from del rio, texas, back to those conditions in haiti. the u.n. and other organizations basically saying it's an inhumane situation to send people back to. >> maybe being sent back to a country they haven't been to in over a decade. >> that's right. >> morgan, when people do get to the borders, and you, as always,

did some incredible reporting. talk to me about what you found? >> it's a great question. because the conditions are horrible. once they get to places like the encampments in mexico, but as jacob mentioned, this really does come down to policy, right? it comes down to title 42, which is a section of the u.s. health code which is something that you can enforce during a thing like a pandemic, which basically keeps these asylum seekers in limbo. and once they get to these encampments, they're exposed to the elements. kids with second-degree burns walking around because they had the sun exposed on their face all day. they don't have baby food or formula or running water. take a listen to what one haitian immigrant named natasha told me about her experience in mexico. >> why did you decide to come here? so things are really complicated -- life is complicated in your country? so, for example, your daughter

is only 10 years old, but she can't go to school because you don't have the money to send her school. your family is hungry, your daughter is hungry. you don't have a president. you also had an earthquake, you lost two of your family members. so it's very complicated right now. for that reason, you all left. to look for a better life for your family. and so then when she gets to mexico, jose, she was planing, there's racism and colorism once i get here. people don't want to rent to me as a haitian, people call me a, quote, dirty haitian, they won't serve me food. so she had to go to an official ngo camp just to stay clean and wash her clothes. >> such a tragedy. jacob, i know you've been following the backlog in the reunification of separated families. the biden administration has promised to reunite them. what's going on? it's so slow. >> it is very slow. and part of that is because of

the horrific record keeping of the trump administration during this family separation -- >> or no record keeping. >> exactly. i think there are over a thousand families. i know, as a matter of fact, that there's a thousand families that still have yet to be reunited. the big question beyond that, though, is accountability. the president said it was a criminal policy in that debate with kristen welker. he said there would be a thorough investigation to our colleague of jeff bennett of the policy and that hasn't materialized yet. and a lot of those families, justice is not just reunification, it's what's going to happen to the members of the administration for putting that policy into place. >> it's so slow and what we are not realizing is those are human beings, those are people separated and they still have not been reunited. let's get this movement going. thank you both. hey, jacob, before i let you go, i just got your book, which i love. talking about this issue. will you sign it for me? >> it would be my honor. >> a real-life jacob soboroff

autograph? >> thank you. >> thank you for putting the light on something that is oftentimes kept in the dark. >> morgan, thank you. we're following breaking news overseas. a powerful earthquake has rocked the greek island of crete. the developments next. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. as someone who resembles someone else... i appreciate that liberty mutual knows everyone's unique. that's why they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [ nautical horn blows ] i mean just because you look like someone else doesn't mean you eat off the floor, or yell at the vacuum, or need flea medication. oh, yeah. that's the spot. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ age before beauty? why not both? visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond.

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the island this morning, just weeks after an earthquake there killed a man and damaged hundreds of buildings. joining us now with the details, nbc's ali arouzi is in london this morning. ali, good morning. what are we hearing about the damage from this earthquake? >> good morning. initial reports seem to suggest the damage was very minor and there were no casualties. but it was a big old earthquake, 6.3 magnitude earthquake centered at sea off the east coast of the island. obviously people there are pretty anxious, because on the 27th of september there was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake there that killed one man and damaged a lot of buildings. there's been a lot of seismic activity there over the last two weeks. >> over in the u.k. parliament just released a new report critical of the country's covid response. >> that's right. members of parliament here have released the long-awaited

150-page report highlighting both the successes and failures in this country from the beginning of the outbreak of the coronavirus. and the report says the country's initial response was the worst public health failure ever. they said the government's response, which was backed by scientists, was to manage the situation by achieving herd immunity through infection. this led to a huge delay in enforcing a lockdown, which cost the lives of thousands of people. the report also just to put this in some sort of date perspective for you, the report says that in the u.k. on the 23rd of march, a national lockdown was enforced. but on the 11th of march they allowed a soccer match to go ahead where 50,000 people attended. two days after that, they allowed the horse racing festival to go ahead, which was attended by a quarter of a million people. the report says those almost

certainly spread the virus. it also says that on the 20th of january the u.k. was one of the first countries to develop a covid test, but they didn't launch a test and trace until almost june, so they didn't capitalize on any of that initial technology. the report also said that the vaccine rollout and the development of the vaccine was one of the most effective initiatives in british history. a mixed bag of good and bad. >> yeah. meanwhile, north korean leader kim jong-un is vowing to build a, quote, invincible military, and had very strong words for the u.s. >> that's right. he's blaming the u.s. for all the animosity that exists. he says that washington harbors a lot of animosity towards north korea and he says that's one of the reasons he wants to develop this invincible army. but he says that army is not

aimed at south korea. he said there's been too much conflict between the north and the south, it's cost too many lives and they shouldn't be pitted against each other by washington. but president biden did say he is willing to hold talks with north korean officials at any time, any place without preconditions. but kim jong-un said, does anybody actually believe him? we're just a day away from seeing the most famous star fleet captain in history blast off for space, for the real space for the first time. a review, next. e for the first e a review, next shingles? oh... you mean bill. he's been a real pain. again with the bill... what? it looks like a face.

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you have the flexibility you need to unveil them to the world. ♪ . this time tomorrow jeff bezos's blue origin will be back in outer space. among the passengers, actor william shatner, who's 90 years old and will become the oldest person ever sent to space. morgan chesky has the latest. >> reporter: hard to believe we are less than 24 hours away from launch time, tomorrow 8:30 local time we are going to watch that rocket rise once again from the west texas desert just outside the city of van horn where we are now. this time it's going to have a little bit different crew. it will have a four-person team inside that capsule sitting atop the rocket, including, of course, as you mentioned,

william shatner. captain kirk himself going to experiencing that 3 minutes or so of weightlessness before he and the crew members will be dropped back to the earth's surface with that capsule via a parachute for hopefully a soft landing here in the desert. we know this launch had to be pushed back by at least a day because wind gusts were hitting around 75 miles an hour here, definitely not the conditions you want to have when you're launching a rocket to space. we had a chance to hear from shatner himself. >> do you think there was a connection subconsciously with playing the role of captain kirk and getting you to this point? >> i'm so sorry to disappoint you. >> no connection? >> but all that was fiction. i'm going to see the vastness of space and the extraordinary miracle of our earth and how

fragile it is. >> while there is some nervous energy ahead of the big launch, blue origin says all systems are go. the astronauts are stationed near the launch site. the weather appears to be cooperating as of now. it's hard to believe whenever william shatner took that role as captain kirk, that was still three years prior before the u.s. even put a man on the moon and now he's going to have a chance to go to space himself. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz balart. reach me on twitter and instagram @jdbalart. garrett haake picks up with more news right now. good tuesday morning. i'm garrett haake. right now, quote, difficult

decisions. speaker pelosi is telling democrats they may have to pick and choose their agenda priorities in order to get the biden agenda done. we'll hear from the speaker about 30 minutes from now live. plus, stopping a debt ceiling disaster. today the house will vote on that short-term fix to the debt limit, but they're pushing the hard questions off by about two months. december means a lot of difficult decisions will be converging all at understand, incluing things like dental coverage for medicare recipients. ahead i'll talk to agriculture secretary tom vilsack about expanding the free lunch program and more. and the latest plot point in the real life espionage drama. right now, anme