good to be with you. i'm katie tur. the supreme court is about to have a vacancy, handing president biden the most powerful tool to help shape the future of this country. justice stephen breyer will retire at the end of the current term, after 27 years on the court. breyer is one of the three remaining liberal justices. now it is up to president biden to appointsuccessor. on the campaign trail he vowed any nominee would be a black woman and mike memoli reports the white house has a list.

the top name in speculation right now judge katanji brown jackson, joe biden recently appointed to the d.c. circuit court of appeals to replace merrick garland. jackson is a former clerk of justice breyer, confirmed in a 53-44 majority by the senate. joining me is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, chief legal correspondent and host of "the beat" ari melber, kelly o'donnell and "slate" legal correspondent dahlia lithwick. pete, you broke this news. justice breyer himself has not announced it or made it official but can you tell us anything about the decision-making process behind his decision to retire? >> well, our understanding is he came to this decision within the last several weeks. he's obviously in good health. he is 83. he's the court's oldest member but that apparently did not -- his age or health did not play a

part in this. we're told he's well aware of the current political climate. in the past supreme sort justices did not time their decisions in terms of stepping down in terms of elections or political considerations but things are so much more acrimonious now and over the past year, he's been progressives have had a steady drumbeat suggesting that he should step down while democrats control both the white house and the senate, which would have to vote on confirming his successor. so we believe that his decision is to step down at the end of the current term, but because there's been no formal letter received yet at the white house, we don't know whether that would be the plan or whether he would say that he would say as justices sometimes do, stay on the court until his successor was nominated and confirmed, but in any event, it would end 28 years on the supreme court. he was nominated by bill

clinton, the second clinton appointee after ruth bader gins ginsburg and he's been a moderate to liberal member of the court and is now the court's senior liberal. >> so joe biden and the white house are being tight-lipped about this, waiting for the official confirmation from the justice himself, but president biden was asked about it earlier today. here is what he said. >> no announcement from justice breyer. let him make whatever statement he's going to make and i'll be happy to talk about it later. >> kelly o'donnell, tight-lipped but from our own mike memoli's reporting, the white house does have a list of people that are in consideration or potentially does, and joe biden did make a promise on the campaign trail that any nominee that he had to the supreme court would be a black woman. >> he made that promise publicly, and typically those who are in the counsel's office and those with responsibility to help the president in this decision-making process always

have a list, because we know there are times when a vacancy comes by an emergency. we've covered a number of those. i have a vivid memory of the tv pool telling president trump that ruth bader ginsburg had died. that was a shocking moment, and even though she had been known to be ill, that's how president trump appeared to have been notified. so that can happen, and so typically, it is a part of the work of the counsel's office to have a list of choices at the ready, in part, they want to have the background on various candidates, and in a more current way, they are nominating judges to serve in federal positions around the country. that's been a very robust process for president biden. he's had quite a number of judges who have been confirmed. what that gives you is a very recent record of current senators who are serving and how they voted on potential picks, and all of the background

materials already assembled on potential nominees for the high court. one of the things, especially in this modern age, that makes this such a rigorous process is the intense exposure of every part of the life of the ultimate nominee who would be chosen so they need a lot of information. they typically don't start with a blank page and so it is really prudent for a white house to have that information so mike's reporting makes a lot of sense, that they would have names on the list and the supporting documentation to go with that. we've also seen that presidents sometimes go beyond that. president biden has in fact boxed himself in publicly, saying he would like an african american woman, the first to be put on the high court, and so that may narrow the field and make the selection process a shorter search period because if you're looking for current federal judges, that's not a requirement of the court, that is certainly not the case but it certainly makes it an easier

process. so what comes next? obviously even in a world with fast-paced developments, the president wanted to give the sitting associate justice of the court the chance to be the first and also the president was in an event with a number of ceos and that was not the time or the moment that he wanted to announce anything. so we would expect there will be an event at the white house when the white house is ready to do that, along with the justice, a chance to celebrate the work and the legacy of justice breyer, and then at that point, the real search heats up and sort of they open the floodgates for all the sides to weigh in and that kind of thing. we have some steps to go and it will certainly be intense. >> no official announcement has been made, no official confirmation has been named but one that is out there i mentioned a moment ago, judge katanji brown jackson.

why would she be a leading contender? >> i think maybe the leading contender, there's a sense in some circles that this is a foregone conclusion, because she's just such a strong contender, in part because she's young. she's only 51. she clerked on the u.s. supreme court, which is seen as a thumb on the stale for legitimacy. she was recently confirmed so it's hard to generate arguments against her. she's an interesting nominee, among other things, because she does have a real history from criminal justice reform n sentencing reform and some of the issues that that are really salient to progressives. she also wrote a blistering opinion about donald trump and don mcgahn's effort to be immune from scrutiny. in some ways i think the most

strong opinion about donald trump and his presidential claims. so she is a really interesting nominee. it's going to be hard for folks who voted for her last time to flip this time. >> let's talk about what this is going to mean for the supreme court, and what it currently means. the decision right now to retire by justice breyer, dahlia, pete was saying usually you don't take presidential politics into consideration, but that times have changed. what is your reporting or what can your reporting tell us? >> i mean, in some sense, this must be breaking justice breyer's heart more than anyone. he, more than any sitting justice, has staked out a reputation, a career-long reputation on the principle that judges aren't partisan, they're not political actors. the words he always uses are "we're not junior varsity

politicians," and the more he was pressed in the last year to step down, the more he dug in, and the more he felt as though he had to model that idea that we don't time our retirement or favorable replacements, even though he was starting to say that maybe he had to think about that. the other thing that i think is so heartbreaking is, when i interviewed him just a year ago, he said, you know, this is a job that is about compromise. it is about small wins, but big, big compromise. it's about repeated interactions with people that you respect, all of that has really been thrown into question this term by the court, and so it feels as though he is the least apt to be comfortable with a political retirement, even though this is one of the most politically timed retirements i've ever seen. >> ari, talk about that. expand more on what this means for the court going forward.

if it is something like ketanji brown jackson, who is considerably young, she'll be on the court for decades. donald trump's nominees were pretty young, they'll be on the court for decades. if she were confirmed or joe biden appoints something liberal to moderate, the balance of power in terms of etiology on the court would be the same. >> as you and dahlia were discussing the court tries to be this nonpartisan apolitical institution but the confirmation process is forged through politics, the winning president who has the mandate from the american public making those decisions and then they try to be independent and i think breyer, it's true, has certainly represented that, and i think more so and better than some other justices, but here we are. it's a real world reality. people understand that president obama didn't get even a hearing, let alone a vote for his choice for that vacancy that he had, that we are in tense times and so i think what we're looking at is, yes, the voting block of a

clinton appointee to a biden appointee is not expected to somehow swing the court, but the type of juis could be different in some ways, more progressive. biden's democratic party coalition is certainly in a different place than clinton was in the '90s era and a lot of other big picture issues defending democracy, civil rights, voting rights, the calls for police reform in america and against that backdrop, something you and others reported and it's important and a sitting fact of all this, which is 95% of every member, every supreme court in history, 95% of all justices have been white men. so having a president make this rather unprecedented vow also speaks to where the country is trying to potentially or part of the country trying to grow and change. >> dahlia, how quickly could we get the confirmation from justice breyer? >> the reporting i heard, and pete may know this better, is that he's going to make a statement tomorrow, so we will

have that confirmed tomorrow. i think he is planning to stay on through the end of this term, and obviously any case that he sat on until now, he can still decide on. if he sits through the end of term, which is the end of june and july, i think what he's trying to do here is give the biden administration more than a really compressed two months this summer to name a nominee, to have a rollout and put that person onto the bench. i think he wants to give the president a little bit more of an on ramp to sell his nominee and to do all that, july would have been just too tight. >> dahlia, ari, kelly and pete williams, who had to run because he's always on the phone, always breaking stories. everybody, thank you very much. we've got more breaking news, this from the federal reserve which just indicated it could soon raise interest rates for the first time in more than three years. the first hike could come in

march, a move to combat historically high inflation. we expect to hear from the chairman of the federal reserve just about this. jerome powell is scheduled to speak in about 30 minutes. joining me is senior business correspondent and msnbc anchor stephanie ruehl. so steph, raising rates in march signaling very clearly, so they don't shake the markets, what's it going to mean? >> well, listen, we're going to get a rate hike most likely in march, and we've been expecting this. all sorts of analysts have been saying it should have happened already, and why. we know we are clearly in an economic recovery. when rates are at zero, that's when the economy needs help. that's when businesses need rates low so they can have a better, easier time borrowing. they've got to do something because inflation is so high, and so while they say the biggest risks are covid variants emerging in the coming months, one of the biggest problems

right now is inflation. they'll raise rates come march and hopeful loy over time that will slow down the fast pace of prices going up. no one is happy and a politically difficult situation for biden. >> what else is the fed or did they announce or might jerome powell announce in roughly 30 minutes that could have an impact on inflation? >> exact -- i just said it, what he's going to do, they're going to raise rates in march. >> okay, i meant like -- okay, all right. what does it mean, sorry, steph, what does it mean for just the average person who is going to try and maybe buy a home or get some sort of line of credit? >> okay, so for the average person out there, this whole thing is a little bit tricky. it's like eat your vegetables. it's going to make it a little more expensive to get a mortgage, to get a bank loan, on your credit card, but you're going to be nobody wants that. but paying a little bit more for those things might be worth it, because if raising rates is effective, they're doing it so

they can slow inflation, that's going to be good for everyone. so while we're going to have this small raise in rates, which remember, we're coming from zero, the last time inflation was this high, rates were above 5%, so we can stand for rates to go up a little bit. this is all meant to start to even out the economy, and really have us standing on our own. the stock market and the economy should no longer have this giant safety net of the fed constantly hugging it. we got to stand on our own. >> stephanie ruehl, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you. and still ahead, what are members of congress saying about justice breyer's retirement and will democrats have trouble getting president biden's pick confirmed? ahead, the u.s. urges its citizens in ukraine to leave now warning the situation there could "deteriorate with little notice." breaking point, jacob soboroff takes an ambulance ride. >> you see any light at the end of the tunnel or this is how it's going to be? >> i don't think there's light

at the end of the tunnel. not right now. at the end of the tunnel america. crest.

our actions over the past week have sharpened the choice facing russia now. we've laid out a diplomatic path. we've lined up steep consequences, should russia choose further regression. we've stepped forward with more support for ukraine's security and economy, and we and our allies and partners are united across the board. now we'll continue to press forward and prepare. it remains up to russia to decide how to respond. we are ready either way. >> this afternoon, america's secretary of state confirmed that the u.s. sent russia a letter, a list of ways to avoid an invasion of ukraine, while addressing moscow's concerns about security. this development followed a new warning from the u.s. embassy for all americans to leave ukraine as soon as possible, citing a situation that could deteriorate quickly.

richard engel is in eastern ukraine with more. >> reporter: russia asked for these written responses from the united states and nato about its security concerns, and those written responses have been delivered. secretary of state antony blinken has clarified them to a degree. he didn't present what the documents were, but it's apparent from what he has described and what i'm hearing from diplomats as well that in no way did they meet russia's demands. russia was asking, because it was citing security concerns that nato not expand ever into ukraine or georgia or any other countries near the russian border, and in fact, nato contract and move away from the border in order to make russia feel more secure and to address its security concerns, and secretary of state blinken said that nato retains an open door policy, meaning it's not ruling out anybody's membership and you only really have to hear that to

know this is not acceptable to russia. many western officials have said that russia's demands were so expansionist, so over the top that these written responses were perhaps even a trap to get the united states to commit on paper to rejecting russia's demands so vladimir putin can go to his people, the public and say here it is in writing, the united states and nato aren't taking our security concerns seriously. therefore, we need to act. now the world is watching. what will happen? will vladimir putin enter the country? will he make good on the threat that he is clearly presenting by putting so many troops around the border? nato is responding sending troops to the east to prevent a russian invasion expanding beyond ukraine and pushing deep near europe but nato and the united states have made it clear they're not going to send troops

into ukraine. so here in the country, they would have to fend for themselves to try and fight off russia for their own survival with the u.s. saying it will provide, it will carry out united sanctions against russia but wouldn't fight against russia to preserve ukraine. >> richard engel, thank you very much. joining me is msnbc military analyst and retired four-star general barry mccaffrey, he served in the national security council and was a gulf war division commander. general, thanks for being here. i'm wondering if you could pull back the curtain for us. take us into the thoughts of the security council right now, the thoughts of the biden administration as they're looking at all of their intelligence, as they're looking at the troop movements with russia, and considering the diplomatic talks, what are they considering right now? how are they feeling right now? what are they taking into account as they see all of these moves being made by russia?

>> it's a very competent group, no question secretary blinken has put this in the appropriate context, trying to internationalize our response to get nato to actually act to bring in the u.n. to a certain degree. secretary austin staying off camera, which is probably good. there are a series of measured, cautious moves that are deterrence oriented, 8,500 troops on enhanced readiness so they're being very careful. we're not going to fight in the ukraine, period. the military commander on the spot is a u.s. air force four-star general, todd walters. the supreme allied commander of europe, shape headquarters, mons belgium. he has a shaky coalition. the germans essentially disarmed to a large degree. they are subject to russian counter-push on natural gas and other measures.

they're just not with us. we just fired -- they just fired a german navy three-star admiral who was pro russian and making public statements in india. that's an astonishing situation. the french are talking separatist, independent eu, not nato, and the uk, our other crucial ally, is, had a prime minister who is on the dump seat to leave office. we don't have a lot of tools to deal with it. >> we'll cover that later, because as the scandal itself is wild, but it does have geopolitical consequences, given what's happening. in europe right now, you got to what i've been so interested in, which is whether we are on the same page with our european allies and whether russia senses that we're not. you mentioned germany. ukraine is really upset with germany. germany is sending helmets to ukraine. they said what are you going to send next?

pillows? france is having separate talks, don't want the u.s. as involved, want it to be eu business. if you're vladimir putin and looking at this alliance, are you saying hey, this is a good time for me, because they aren't that unified. they are not on the same page. this wasn't, this isn't the same nato, isn't the same alliance he was facing ten years ago. >> well, i think that's pretty accurate summary of what we're facing, in the short term, putin's got all the tactical cards, the equivalent of 60 italian combat teams in belarus and russia proper that could, in my view, take down the ukrainians in probably 90 days. but when you back off it, russia's in trouble. putin's an autocrat. his gnp is less than that of apple, stock prices. he has no strategic military taking into account in terms of naval and deployable air power.

the europeans are frightened of him. this isn't good for russia's future. if he goes into ukraine, he may be making the pivotal mistake of russia in the last 50 years, so we're still -- the u.s. is still a gigantic military and economic power. russia isn't. putin's a risk taker. he's a thug. he's on the verge of a major mistake. >> general barry mccaffrey, always good to have you, sir, especially in these very tense moments. coming up next, we'll return to the breaking news on the retirement of supreme court justice stephen breyer. what will a confirmation fight look like in a senate with a thin democratic majority? also ahead, new details emerge about a surprise birthday party organized for boris johnson during the peak of the uk lockdown. an aide now saying and i'm quoting this person "it was cake by ambush" or "ambush by cake." .

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expected cases will drop off rapidly. if the wave passes quickly, the economic effects should as well. and we would see a return to strong growth. that said, the implications for the economy remain uncertain and we have not lost sight of the fact that, for many afflicted individuals and families, and for the health care workers on the front lines, the virus continues to cause great hardship. the labor market has made remarkable progress and by many measures is very strong. job gains have been solid in recent months averaging 365,000 per month over the past three months. over the past year, payroll employment has risen by 6.4 million jobs. the unemployment rate has declined sharply, falling two percentage points over the past six months to reach 3.9% in december. the improvements in labor market conditions have been widespread, including for workers at the lower end of the wage

distribution as well as for african americans and hispanics. labor demand remains historically strong. with constraints on labor supply, employers are having difficulties filling job openings and wages are rising at their fastest pace in many years. while labor force participation has edged up, it remains subdued, in part reflecting the aging of the population and retirements. in addition, some who would otherwise be seeking work report that they are out of the labor force because of pactors related to the pandemic, including caregiving needs and ongoing concerns about the virus. the current wave of the virus may well prolong -- >> fed chair jerome powell talking about the justification for the rate hike, a little bit later this year. joining me is robin farzahd. robin, make sense of it for me. >> rates have to go up. it's not easy, as much as you

want to churn out the legalese jargon, it's not like he's going to freak out, guys, inflation's crazy! work with me! it is what it is and i think in one final kind of good-bye, rates are not going up right now but almost certainly going up in march and going to continue one final round of asset purchases and as i've said before, it's not going to be easy to pull the bowl away from the party. yes, it shouldn't be a party. we're in a pandemic but it has been an incredible environment for risk takers and that has risk pouring over into the rest of the economy and causing runaway inflation. >> what's it doing to the market? the market has been on a wild ride the past few days after just soaring to new heights. what is this going to mean? >> well we are coming from zero, and this stock market was saved by zero, if you will. immediately the fed took rates down to nothing and on top of that, with extraordinary financial aid and bond purchases and everything else we saw that you guys covered in congress

with ppp and c.a.r.e.s., there's been an unusual, unprecedented level of financial aid. i think the fed's balance sheet is about $9 trillion. so it's not like we're going from zero percent to 5% or 6% of the fed funds rate. they're going to take it up seemingly incrementally but the target against inflation, which is anywhere from 5% to 7% is scary. >> robyn farzad thanks for helping us with the rate hikes. we are continuing to follow the breaking news out of the supreme court. sources familiar tell nbc news justice steven briler step down at the end of the current term, leaving president biden to nominate a successor. how easy or hard will that be in the election year with the current makeup of the senate? joining me is punch bowl news co-founder and msnbc political contributor, jake sherman. this makeup of the senate, jake,

is this going to be a tough sell especially if it's somebody like jackson brown or brown jackson who was confirmed by the senate, she was confirmed by a majority, manchin was on board, sinema was on board, a couple republicans were on board. >> you know, katy, supreme court nominees are quite partisan the last couple of years, usually fall on party lines. i only made a couple hours of phone calls and talked to the leadership. it doesn't appear this is going to be an extremely hard-fought nomination. the senate is democratic. the president is a democrat. you'd have to guess whoever the white house chooses will get through quickly and remember, katy, very important to point out, susan collins has voted for every supreme court nominee since she's been in the senate, except for amy coney barrett. so you'd have to imagine that would be a big break from her traditional history as somebody who supports the president's right to choose somebody for a judicial post like this.

listen, this is going to be really, really frantic for the next couple months. you'd have to imagine that the white house and my sources tell me this, the white house will want to move quickly. senate democrats will want to move quickly and take no chances, so you'd have to guess this is going to happen in sometime this winter or in the spring. they're going to want to fill the seat and one more thing, katy. there's precedent for filling the seat while the justice is still on the supreme court. i think george bush did this, so breyer doesn't have to step down for the president to nominate somebody, have them under consideration, have them confirmed and then have the justice shep down. so again, really long, long way of saying that of course it's going to be hectic. of course it's going to be crazy but i guess biden will choose somebody who could sail through the confirmation process. >> there is a lot of lobbying within the democratic party for who he should choose. the progressive wing of the party has different preferences

and the more moderate wing of the party, what are you hearing so far from democrats on the hill about who they want from joe biden? >> it's going to have to be a black woman. joe biden said it's going to be a black woman. he has lots of amazingly qualified choices, and of course, everybody's going to have a choice. everybody's going to be lobbying the white house both publicly and privately to choose somebody that they like, but the list is already, i mean everybody kind of has the list at hand. everybody kind of has the top choices you mentioned one, there's a couple other across the country, but listen, brown jackson is somebody who sits on the d.c. circuit, a very prestigious post, somebody who has gotten through confirmation hearings in the past and remember, katy, when you're putting somebody up for the supreme court, you want somebody who has been through the confirmation process before. so you know where the fault lines are. you know the history of what they've said, what they believe, what they think.

their judicial philosophy, that's something very important and the white house tells me, this is going to be a judge, they're going to choose a judge. this is not somebody out of left field that you've never heard of before. this is going to be a known quantity to the public and to the senate. >> jake sherman on capitol hill, glad you're in front of a camera in front of your computer in that space you say is an office. >> it is an office, as a matter of fact, but. >> sure. looks like, i don't know. >> reporter: like a can. >> jake, thanks. embeatled british prime minister boris johnson remains defiant amidst calls for resignation. he faced another tough day in westminster ahead of an anticipated cabinet office inquire nye into allegations of illegal parties. he told members of parliament he would not resign and not comment on the ongoing criminal investigation into the parties that he hosted and attended at downing street during lockdown. instead his allies, those left

at least are out commenting for him and insider reports those excuses are met with mockery in the uk, namely the explanation from one mp, the parties were not planned but rather johnson was "ambushed by cake." join me is raf sanchez. he was ambushed by cake. how is that playing? >> reporter: ambushed by cake that is going to answer the political lexicon in this country. you can bet on that. boris johnson's own explanation in parliament for what he was doing at the may 2020 bring your own booze party in the garden here at downing street was he thought it was a work event, which raises questions of course about what kind of work events are going on here at the heart of the british government. the uk is still waiting for the publication of this sue gray report. we don't know exactly when it's coming. we do think it is going to come before the end of the week. boris johnson has promised that

he will go back to parliament. he will answer questions from mps both from the opposition and from some frustrated members of his own conservative party. he had a little bit of a spring in his step in parliament today saying, look, you're asking me about cake and about parties and about things that happened last year. i'm very focused on vladimir putin's threatened invasion of ukraine, trying to say that, you know, this is a serious time. we need to take this seriously, but really, politics is kind of in suspended animation right now. the whole country is waiting for the publication of this report, and then waiting to see what boris johnson's conservative party will do afterwards, because if 54 members of his party submit letters saying they have lost confidence in the prime minister, then he is going to face a leadership competition inside his own party and who knows after that, that could be the end of his political career. katy? >> might just be the showdown with russia that saves him from

this scandal. again, people do not like you breaking the rules you are imposing on them especially in such a blatant way. raf sanchez, good to have you on the story. coming up, jacob soboroff rides with ems workers for a firsthand look at a health care system overwhelmed by not just the omicron surge but non-emergency calls as well. n s n s non-emergency calls as well. and maintain remission. and it's the first and only s1p receptor modulator approved for uc. don't take zeposia if you've had a heart attack, chest , stroke or mini-stroke, heart failure in the last 6 months, irregular or abnormal heartbeat not corrected by a pacemaker, if you have untreated severe breathing problems during your sleep, or if you take medicines called maois. zeposia may cause serious side effects including infections that can be life-threatening and cause death, slow heart rate, liver or breathing problems, increased blood pressure, macular edema,

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the omicron surge is burning out health care workers. ems crews are dealing with big spikes in non-emergency calls and hours' long waits to drop off patients at overwhelmed hospitals. jacob soboroff went for a ride in sacramento to bear witness to the overload. >> reporter: here hospitals are seeing more patients than ever before throughout this entire pandemic. there are side effects to that, one is hospitals running out of

staff and beds in order to holded patients and emts are forced to wait sometimes outside the possible to get the patients seen and they tell me they've reached a boiling point. [ sirens ] we're with an ems crew in sacramento as they respond to another day of unrelenting calls. so where we're going now, there's a serious accident. this one a major car crash where the driver could have had life-threatening injuries. look at the inside here. this is a horrific rollover car accident and you're telling me that somebody who went through this, there's no guarantee they're going to be able to get in and see someone in a hospital? >> that's correct. >> reporter: captain parker wilbournes with sacramento metro fire the omicron wave crippling staff shortages and high number of 911 calls have exacerbated an existing problem, long wait times at hospitals to off-load patients. >> we had one of our crews sitting at an ambulance at a hospital up to 12 hours and multiple ambulances that had

been there over five hours. >> reporter: the men and women responding to 911 calls are at a breaking point. >> the call volume has significantly skyrocketed. >> reporter: do you see any light at the end of the tunnel or this is how it's going to be? >> i don't think there's light at end of the tunnel, not right now. >> reporter: we're on our way to a call for a 34-year-old that is said to have been coughing up blood. when we pulled up, the patient wasn't having a life-threatening episode. >> this is one of the difficult ones because what would seem to be an emergency for them is obviously not an emergency to us. essentially all we're doing is giving him a ride to the hospital at this point. >> reporter: and you think he'll get in right away when he shows up? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: no? >> no. we're going to be -- this ambulance will be out of service for at least one hour. >> reporter: the loss of time and resources leaving paramedics strained and under pressure. how much longer can you keep going like this? >> i'm really unsure. we're working as much as we can. i don't know how much longer we can do it.

>> reporter: first responders in sacramento testified before the state legislature hoping there is a legal fix to what they see is a severe crisis taxing each and every one of them. those solutions include potentially finding hospitals that make ambulances like these wait over 20 minutes outside that hospital in order for their patients to get seen. another hospitals enlist their own emts on staff to have a clean handoff so the ambulances can get back out in the field and respond to emergencies. back to you. >> jacob soboroff, thank you so much. after 24 years, jamaica's bobsled team is back. you heard me right. jamaica's bobsled team is back. to living. (vo) for me, one of the best things about life is that

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we're about to feel the rhythm and feel the rhyme. the spirit of the film "cool runnings" is alive at the olympics again. jamaica's bobsled team has qualified for the first time in 25 years.

♪♪ >> reporter: there is only one team that warms up like this. the jamaican four-man bob is back. out on the track, and ready for beijing. just. it was only in september that you had first gotten a bobsled together. is that normal? >> it's not normal, but it's jamaica bobsledding. >> reporter: the pilot rides up front. he serves in the r.a.f. during lockdown, with nowhere to train, he pushed a car around just to keep going. even the queen laughed about it during a call she held with the armed forces. >> i suppose that's one way to train. >> it's amazing. it just doesn't feel real.

it's a great honor to be a part of that, and trying to inspire the next generation of jamaican athletes. >> this is not about glory, fame, or fortune. it's about breaking barriers and doing things that people don't normally do. >> reporter: it's the backstory that makes it so special. how four jamaicans went to the 1988 games, and were celebrated in one of the most iconic films of the '90s. >> feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. >> people love the movie. it was such an uplifting fish out of water story. it was so funny, when they would go, you know, what country are you from? the audience would yell, jamaica. it was in montreal, london, it was crazy. everyone wanted to root for these guys, and it was

fantastic. >> reporter: i'm not sure the value of your sporting advice for these guys, but what would it be? >> feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. it's bobsled time. >> reporter: they fly to china later this week, ready for the run of their lives. >> it's so fun. that is so fun. i love that movie. and if you're wondering, no, they're not training in jamaica, obviously. it's quite cold where they are, they're in bath in the uk. that will do it for me today. halley jackson picks up our coverage, next. coverage, next oh, that photographer? he's looking for something a little more zen, so he's thinking, “i'll open a yoga studio.” and as for the father of the bride? he's checking to see if he's on track to do this all over again...and again.

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breaking right now, the news you saw here first. justice stephen breyer retiring from the supreme court. we have new reaction. and an official retirement coming. >> there has been no announcement from justice breyer. let him make whatever announcement he's going to make. >> we'll talk about the short list of nominees. and senate democrats already promising