after giving him some much needed affection and water, rivas posted the video on social media and he helped reunite the pup with his family. >> i mean, a pup emerging from the ashes, reunited with his family, that's the essence of good stuff. >> a nice little silver lining in this terrible fire story. cnn's coverage continues right now. a good thursday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. poppy is off this week. we begin with breaking news this hour. right now, closing arguments under way in a moscow courtroom for the wnba star brittney griner. the two-time olympic gold medalist who also plays in russia during the off season pleaded guilty to drug charges last month. a prosecutor seeking those charges are minor 9 1/2 years of jail time. griner just spoke moments ago.

let' s listen. [ speaking russian ] >> i want to apologize to my teammates, my club, the fans and the city for my mistake i made and the embarrassment i brought to them. [ speaking russian ] >> i want to also apologize to my parents, my siblings, the

phoenix mercury organization back at home, the amazing women of the wnba, and my amazing spouse back at home. [ speaking in russian ] >> i never meant to hurt anybody. i never meant to put in jeopardy the russian population. i never meant to break any laws here. [ speaking in russian ] >> i made an honest mistake and i hope that in your ruling that

it doesn't end my life here. [ speaking in russian ] >> i know that everybody keeps talking about political pawn, and politics, but i hope that that is far from this courtroom. [ speaking in russian ] >> i want to say again that i had no intent on breaking any russian laws, i had no intent, i did not conspire or plan to

commit this crime. [ speaking in russian ] >> i hope you take into account all the documents, all the character lists, everybody that sent in on my behalf. [ speaking in russian ] >> again, i want to apologize to my teammates, and the organization for any damage that i may have done to them. i never intended on hurting them. this is my second home. and all i wanted to do was just win championships and make them proud. [ speaking in russian ]

>> thank you, your honor. >> you've been listening there, just moments ago, to the comments inside a russian courtroom of brittney griner, the wnba star, as she awaits sentencing there for drug charges. she said she wanted to apologize to her teammates, fans, siblings, the wnba, she said she had no intent to commit a crime. she also said interestingly she wanted the phrase political pawn to be far from the courtroom. now we will await what the court decides in terms of her sentencing, while negotiations continue for a possible prisoner swap to earn griner and perhaps other americans currently held

in russia their freedom. cnn senior international correspondent frederik pleitgen is live outside the moscow courtroom, also cnn national security correspondent kylie atwood. fred, what happens from here, how long before we expect to hear a decision on sentencing? >> reporter: yeah, we just got word from the court, jim, that they have for now are taking a break and they expect to be back in about an hour, 45, maybe an hour and 40 minutes from now and that's when we can expect to -- a verdict, right within that time frame. it could take a while for the court to then establish itself, but that's around the time that we expect a verdict to come down. but a lot really happening today. we just heard some of those remarkable words there from brittney griner that she just did addressing the court. even as she came into the court, earlier today, she immediately held up a picture of the team she plays for here in russia. you'll recall when she took the stand a couple of weeks ago, she said she wanted to get back to her teammates so badly that she quickly packed her stuff and got

on that plane, that maybe in that haste she accidentally packed those cartridges which contained that cannabis oil, that according to the prosecution. brittney griner holding a picture earlier today. the prosecution for its part calling for a very tough sentence, asking for 9 1/2 years in prison. that's 9 years and 6 months. on top of that, a fine of about 1 million rubles, i'd say that's about between $16,000 and $17,000. they are saying that there is no doubt that she intended to take the vaping cartridges with cannabis oil in them to russia. again, there was a plea by her defense team, closing arguments by them, and they were then saying she absolutely didn't mean to take them here. they also believe there were procedural errors conducted by the authorities when brittney griner was apprehended at the airport near moscow, the airport on february 19th. for instance, she didn't have enough access to a translate, she didn't know the documents

she was signing, what they were about, they also called into question some of the analysis that happened as well. a lot of today was also about brittney griner's character, though, jim, where they said, look, brittney griner is a model athlete, someone who is very popular around the world, and also very popular here in russia. and who has done a lot for the team and for russia and because of that, they believe that more leniency should be in order. one of the things we need to mention, jim, is that the court, the judge has a lot of leeway as far as the actual verdict is concerned. the prosecutor asking for 9.5 years. the judge could remain well below that. there is a lot of leeway. we're going to have to wait and see, but we do always have to remind our viewers that russian courts definitely not known for leniency, jim. >> thank you, fred. kylie, we would be remiss not to mention the political implications and influences here that russian courts and trials, the kremlin's desires as well and they have a history of turning americans and other

foreigns n foreigners into bargaining chips. what are the offers for a prisoner swap, the us u..s. off to swap viktor bout for her and paul whelan. are those negotiations still ongoing? >> here is the thing, jim, today will have a significant impact on those ongoing negotiations. and here's why. u.s. officials have long said that they believe griner would have to admit guilt, which she did with that guilty plea back in july, and we heard it again today with her reiterating this was a mistake, she never meant to break russian law, and that she would also have to have sentencing as part of this trial. that's what we're expecting will come today. before there could be any actual prisoner swap that would come to fruition. but even though u.s. officials expected that both of those things needed to be in hand before a prisoner swap could actually happen, they did put that offer for a deal on the table back in june to try and get the wheels spinning towards that direction.

now, the russians came back with a counteroffer saying in addition to viktor bout, this convicted arms smuggler facing a 25-year prison sentence here in the united states, they also wanted another russian who is serving a life sentence in germany right now for murder. now, the biden administration said that wasn't a serious counteroffer. so the question now is that at the end of today, when this sentence is in, will a serious counteroffer from the russians come in? and i also think it is important to note that the state department is watching this incredibly closely and there isn't really any sort of assumption that there won't be sentencing here because there is a 99% conviction rate in the russian judicial system. so the question is now that this is over, can they move forward on these conversations over a prisoner swap? the backdrop, of course, being the fact that russia is still engaged in this invasion of ukraine, and the kremlin may see

having brittney griner as having leverage over the united states now. brittney griner saying she doesn't want politics to be part of it, but politics are inherently part of this awful situation for her. >> no question. and enormous pressure from russia given the kinds of people that they are attempting to exchange for brittney griner here. we will continue to monitor events from the courtroom. fred pleitgen in moscow, kylie atwood at the state department. another story we're following this morning, korean air is canceling flights into taiwan for the next two days because china's firing multiple missiles towards the water very close to the self-ruled and democratic island. the live fire military drills are a response, china says, to house speaker nancy pelosi's visit to taiwan. you can hear the drills off the coast. china has called pelosi's visit, quote, irresponsible and

irrational. taiwan is accusing china of acting like north korea. there has been some bipartisan support here in this country for pelosi's visit to taiwan. this morning, nancy pelosi's focus on the korean peninsula, she is in south korea right now for her latest leg of her trip to asia. cnn's senior international correspondent will ripley is in taiwan. will, this morning secretary of state antony blinken said he hopes beijing will not manufacture a crisis. from taiwan, do they see this blowing over in the coming days or do they see a new level of tensions now? >> reporter: i'm not sure that they are, you know, concerned to the level of, like, red alert, you know, danger is imminent, but this is extraordinarily troubling. i mean, you just look at the pictures of people who are living here in taiwan and they're seeing, you know, those explosions, live fire drills, just off the shore, you know, 16 kilometers, some of the sites were that close.

this is a deliberate attempt by china, by xi jinping, to intimidate, to intimidate people here in taiwan, to intimidate the leadership of taiwan to try to intimidate the united states, and to see speaker pelosi now, you know, potentially traveling to the demilitarized zone, she might be planning to do that, she's in south korea, i covered that flashpoint, north korea, south korea for many years, and to now be sitting here at yet another flashpoint where you have once again missiles flying, it was north korean missiles that were landing, you know, in japan's economic zone and for the first time japan says chinese ballistic missiles landed in in their zone. this not only pulls in the united states, speaker pelosi was in china, uses that as the excuse to start this activity but now japan is worried about their security with chinese ballistic missiles landing closer and closer to their island. it is not the kind of dynamic you want to see evolving out here in a very heavily nuclear armed part of the world. but this is the dynamic that we

are in now, where every little thing could trigger something else. and maybe china was going to do this anyway. clearly these military drill plans didn't just get sprung up overnight. maybe they would have done it when she was here in april. we have no way of knowing. but they're doing it now and now it is up to taiwan and the united states, and japan and others in the region to figure out what, if any, response there is going to be. >> and it is china, by the way, firing those missiles, right? will ripley, thank you very much. in the next hour, the jury in the alex jones trial will return to deliberations after just a wild final day of testimony that included the lawyer for the parents of sandy hook revealing they have alex jones' phone. remarkable. plus, the justice department sends a subpoena to yet another trump white house official as its january 6th investigation continues. who that is pictured there, what he might know just ahead. and democratic senator kyrsten sinema remains the lone

holdout in her party on president biden's economic package. now the president might be sending her a message.

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first on cnn, the justice department has now subpoenaed former deputy trump white house counsel patrick philbin, part of its ongoing investigation, criminal investigation into the january 6th attack on the capitol. this comes just a day after we learned the federal grand jury has also subpoenaed his boss, the white house counsel pat cipollone. joining me now, katelyn polantz. should we look at this as just complementary to the subpoena to cipollone, or something specific and different they may be looking for from philbin. >> we should be looking at these together at the very least. these two men are people that were there in the crucial days of the trump administration, at the very end, and the one thing that they witnessed that we know

of at this point, we don't know a lot about what philbin himself witnessed. we haven't seen him a lot in the house select committee hearings at least, but he did testify to them, they were there for that meeting on january 3rd where donald trump wanted to replace the attorney general. and they were part of the group that said everyone is going to resign if you do that. you can't do that. we're not going to continue investigating election fraud. get over it at this point. so we know he was there for that. we also know, you know, he is in that white house counsel's role with pat cipollone. they are extremely high ranking people, well respected people inside the white house, giving advice and so that's the sort of thing that the prosecutors are probably looking to nail down, both replicating what they said to the house and also fleshing out other things we weren't willing to say to the house, potentially things they claimed executive privilege on, trump claimed executive privilege on and we know the justice department may be trying to line up to get a court to say, no, we should have access to that. >> just a month ago all the talk

was what is the doj up to and now there is something going on at the justice department. cnn also learned the secret service has now temporarily -- or may disable text messaging on employee cell phones as it faces these ongoing deep questions about what happened to all the text messages surrounding january 6th. what is the importance of that? >> it appears to be a reaction to all of this interest now in what happened to their text messages, both at the secret service and also this other news that there are secretary level people at dhs, same agency, where they're text messages were deleted. but what we know now, my colleagues were able to report yesterday that the secret service director james murray, he sent a memo on tuesday, agency wide, saying that they were considering temporarily suspending the use of these text messages while they can figure out how to retain them, if there are gaps in their procedures, in their systems. now, fully disabling texting for secret service, that could potentially be a problem that they don't want to bring about.

that is a way that law enforcement communicates. so there is some indication they're going to make sure they don't shut off all avenues of communication for agents if they do that, but it is something they're looking into clearly when this retention is at issue for a lot of places. >> questions keep going deeper. katelyn polantz, thank you so much. joining me to discuss, elie honig for the southern district of new york. i got to ask you, you ever seen so many records go missing, you know, around a key date and in this case from multiple agencies, secret service, dhs and the defense department? does that add up to you as coincidence or something deliberate? >> no, jim, it doesn't strike me as a coincidence, and no, i've never seen this type of mass record disappearance. it raises so many questions. and honestly if this had happened while i was prosecuting a case, the case would have been dismissed. if i went in front of a judge and the defense lawyers said we need to see the text between you

the prosecutor and some of the agents on the case, some who work for the secret service and we said we lost them, we did a communications upgrade and they're gone, that case would have been thrown out of court and i would have serious questions to answer. i think there are major organizational questions. the fact that secret service is even contemplating suspending the use of text is really an embarrassment for secret service, but i think it says something, it is like a parent saying i no longer trust you with the keys to the car to a teenager. th i think that's how serious this situation has gotten. >> dhs, they prosecute cybercrime, right? they should be good at tracking this kind of stuff down. the dhs ig says his office was conducting a criminal investigation into the missing text messages, what exact laws would or could have been broken here? >> yes, so i found that really

interesting when it came out that there was potentially a criminal investigation because if there is mass organizational incompetence, that's not going to be criminal. people may need to be fired. congress may need to get involved. but when you see there is potential criminality, that's tells me there was some intentionality about this, some decision made, hey, let's not preserve these, because we may not want them to fall into certain hands, or even worse yet, let's delete them. we don't know, we haven't seen concrete evidence that either of those things happened, but if they're looking at this criminally, jim, that's the kind of questions they're asking. >> okay. let's look then at patrick philbin, deputy white house counsel, a point was made yesterday that for him and for cipollone, the grand jury situation different from january 6th, and they can't claim as broad an executive privilege here to refuse to answer questions. i wonder do you agree with that? i know it is going to go to court. it is go to be fought out. do you agree with that and do you think they'll be compelled

to testify to some of those issues? >> i believe that grand jury subpoenas carry more weight and courts tend to give more deference to the criminal grand jury subpoena. there will be an executive privilege argument here. we saw cipollone in front of the committee in his videotaped deposition a couple of times he said i'm not going to answer that, i'm going to cite executive privilege. but it appears from our reporting that doj is not going to accept that, they're not going to accept his assertions of privilege, and they're going to go into courts. now, the upside for doj is if they win, and i do think they will win, i agree with renato that they have a stronger case to make in a criminal context, then they get those key conversations. the downside is delay. it takes time, we have seen these court battles and you have to include appeals take months and months and months, which is incumbent on doj to get in there quickly if they have this quickly, and on our courts, our judges, they can hear cases as quickly as they choose to do so. if you get a case and you're a

federal judge, please put it at the top of the pile. >> is this the kind of thing that would go to the supreme court to give some guardrails around what exactly is executive privilege and how far it gos? >> it could. it would start in a federal district court, which is the trial level. whoever loses there essentially automatically gets to go to the court of appeals, the intermediate court. whoever loses there will try to get it up to the supreme court. but, of course, the supreme court doesn't have to hear anything they don't want to hear, but these are sort of novel questions of executive privilege. we don't have a lot of law on these things, so it might be of interest to the supreme court, but, yeah, up to the court itself if they want to take it. >> elie honig, good to have you on. >> thank you, jim. still ahead, i mean, stunning courtroom moment yesterday, revelation in the alex jones trial begging the question how did his own legal team send two years of incriminating texts potentially incriminating texts to the plaintiffs' attorney. more on all that and the damning

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just minutes from now, jury deliberations will resume in the defamation trial against infowars host alex jones. their verdict will determine how much the right wing conspiracy theorist must pay two sandy hook parents for, quote, reckless

lies he told, denying the school shooting happened. the jury could deliver a decision today. yesterday we witnessed some shocking, amazing moments in the courtroom, when the plaintiffs' attorney revealed that jones' own lawyer had sent him the contents of his cell phone, including damning text messages by mistake apparently. cnn's senior media reporter oliver darcy joins me now. oliver, man, it is incredible and the moment when the lawyer -- the parents' lawyer revealed this to jones on the stand was just unforgettable. >> yeah, jim. it was something like you would see out of a movie. a shocking moment to happen and watch in court. i set it up for viewers by letting them know as well that alex jones is really not used to being in this kind of environment, right. when he's on his show, he's the one in charge, he's the master of his universe, it is produced by him. he is very out of his element in court, not able to control what is going to happen, and you can

see it really on his face during this moment where the plaintiffs' attorney reveals they have obtained his cell phone records for the past two years. >> your attorneys messed up in sending an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you have send for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way, and as of two days ago it fell free and clear into my possession and that is how i know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text messages about sandy hook. did you know that? >> see, i told you the truth. this is your perry mason moment. i gave them my phone. >> and after that moment, the attorney for the plaintiffs also was caught on a hot mic basically saying, wait until law enforcement gets a hold of this phone. obviously alex jones was at the capitol on january 6th. there might be some interest

there. the jury is deliberating. they're expected to deliberate any moment now and their verdict, or their decision will determine how much alex jones ends up paying for these sandy hook lies. he's been found liable for definition and inflicting emotional distress, but now they're going to determine how much he has to pay. the plaintiffs are asking for $150 million, jim. >> we don't want to get lost in this, he lied that sandy hook didn't happen and attacked the parents of those -- some of those dead children. that's how he's in court for this. oliver darcy, thanks so much. >> thank you. let's speak to criminal defense attorney and cnn legal analyst joey jackson. you've been involved in a lot of trials. have you ever seen, witnessed, heard of a defense attorney sharing a cell phone -- the contents of a cell phone including messages which it appears he lied about with the prosecution? have you ever seen it? >> yes, so, jim, good morning to you. so what happens is is that you have all kind of mistakes that happen in trial, but just put

this in context. before a trial happens, you don't have trial by ambush in this country. both sides, whether it be a criminal or as this trial is a civil trial, a process of discovery. and in that process, both sides are allowed to make requests. when you step into the courtroom, everyone should be conversant with the facts, the issues, the circumstances, the text messages, the email, the surveillance, it should not be a surprise. in this case, again, in context, those text messages were asked for. they were asked for a long time ago and they were told that they didn't exist, that there are no such text messages relating to the issue of sandy hook communications at all. bingo. it was a lie. why? because apauparently in a mista, those messages were sent to the attorneys representing the family in error indicating that not only, jim, do text messages exist, but two years' worth of text messages exist to different parties regarding different

circumstances, concerning this case, so, yes, mistakes happen where discovery is provided, right, maybe unwillingly, unknowingly, et cetera, but that should have been provided a long time ago, and it is a significant discovery violation to the extent that it wasn't, it just so happened that you see him there, mr. jones, was the recipient of being caught in a major lie, saying they didn't exist, guess what, they do, and he was found to have fabricated on that issue. >> okay, so what is his legal exposure now for perjury, and i imagine is the defense attorney also liable here because he knew about text messages that it seems to me they denied they had? >> so great questions and here is the answer. what happens is you have an obligation as it relates to perjury to tell the truth. clearly as related to that issue and several other issues, he was found to be lying. any witness can say, jim,

whatever they feel like saying, but when you are confronted with facts, with documents, with specifics, it is really hard to overcome that. and so, yes, in the event that a referral needed to be made with respect to him lying, that could be made. that's not it. certainly there is -- where it comes to the attorneys there are what is called sanctions. you have an obligation to turn over discovery, you knew it existed, you knew the requests were made for it, you failed to do so. so the judge has a number of remedies, right? one of those remedies including sanctions and penalties, not only to mr. jones, but potentially the lawyers, right, there are significant things in terms of the bar, right, that you have to worry about, we have a license for a reason and that certainly could be yanked and there are consequences there too. so not good all the way around. >> okay, so consequences for this trial, we now know the january 6th committee interested in these text messages because they're examining jones' role in plotting or inciting the january 6th attack and to sort of add insult to injury for jones, his

ex-wife tweeted she plans to subpoena those text messages. so, what is the path forward for jones after this revelation? >> yes, so that's in the broader context, right, and great point, jim. it is not only about this particular trial, and the damages issue that the jury is assessing as to whether and what he should pay economically to the family, it is in the broader context of what is on that phone, what communications not only related to sandy hook, but related to january 6th or other criminality, remember there is a bankruptcy proceeding he's trying to protect himself in the event the jury assesses an award, that gets you to the irs, and other financial people, who would have an interest in assessing his truthfulness, his tax returns, et cetera. a authority as a result of the revelations in this trial to january 6th and to other issues will be interested in evaluating and investigating and obviously holding him accountable if there is anything on that phone that speaks to the issue of

criminality or other things potentially. >> joey jackson, always good to have you on. thank you. >> thank you, jim. so, if you want to know more about how jones got to this place, you don't want to miss the cnn special report "alex jones: megaphone for conspiracy." that airs tomorrow night at 11:00 eastern. still ahead, we will go to capitol hill where democrats are deciding how and this may sound familiar to convince senator kyrsten sinema to drop her demand, her demands regarding their reconciliation bill, in particular to ax a critical piece of new tax legislation there. what the majority whip is saying this morning. that's coming up.

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may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala. all right, this morning negotiations within the democratic party over its budget bill may sound familiar. here we are again. a new tweet from president biden appears to be a message for senator kyrsten sinema, the lone democratic holdout, on that climate tax and healthcare bill. sources tell cnn the sinema wants to lose a carried interest tax provision in the bill. politico first reported sinema wants to lose that provision that would raise a small fraction of the overall increased revenue, the real big increase will come from setting a corporate minimum tax rate of 15%. melanie zanona joins me live with the latest developments. it seems like folks could live without the carried interest

thing, do we know where she stands on setting a corporate minimum tax here? because in the past she expressed support for that? >> reporter: yeah, our colleagues, manu raju and alex rogers, reported that the business community has been pressuring her over this corporate minimum tax of 15%. we know sinema has aversions to some of the tax provisions. cnn has confirmed she wants to eliminate the language that would narrow the so-called carried interest loophole, which would change the way some investment income is taxed. but democratic leaders including dick durbin this morning aren't saying whether they're willing to make those changes, just continuing to express hope that eventually sinema might come around. but the reality is democrats might need to make some of these changes in order to get sinema on board, and amid all this news about sinema, president joe biden, tweeted yesterday, reiterating the importance of making corporations pay their fair share, he tweeted yesterday for far too long big super

wealthy corporations haven't paid their fair share in taxes, we're going to change that with the inflation reduction act. so, all eyes on sinema now, they absolutely need her vote, and time is running short here, so the schedule and timing of all of this is still very much up in the air, jim. >> all right, just the saddest of stories yesterday, jackie walorski and two of her young staffers killed in a car accident. tell us reactions you're hearing on the hill and how lawmakers were honoring them this morning. >> reporter: this has been an absolute tragedy and it has completely stunned the capitol hill community. jackie walorski was a member of congress since 2013, she was really close to gop leadership and had multiple key committee assignments. and her two staffers were really young. so this is really shocked and saddened the community up here and the tributes are pouring in. house gop leader kevin mccarthy put out a statement referring to walorski as a dear friend and a

trusted adviser, congresswoman ann wagner said the two of them were so close, they used to finish each other's sentences. and indiana senator mike braun said the new was was like getting punched. so it has been absolutely tragic up here. no word yet on the memorial services, but the flags at both the capitol and the white house are flying at half-mast in her honor. >> staffers look like kids. so young. melanie zanona, thanks so much. still ahead this hour, could the era of six feet apart be coming to an end? cdc is expected to soon ease some covid-19 guidance just as kids are returning to class.

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so the end of an era. the cdc is expected to update its covid control guidance just in time for the new school year. a preview of the plans obtained by cnn shows the agency will do a couple of things. ease quarantine recommendations. also remove recommendations for six feet of social distancing. elizabeth cohen joins me now to discuss. how are they going to ease quarantine requirements? >> let's talk about that in a second actually. first i want to say that the six-feet rule which i think is going to get a lot of attention, people and practice haven't been doing this for quite a while, jim. but it is a milestone that the cdc is saying this and also making the quarantine rule change. now, this is based on a document that cnn obtained that cdc made in preparation for changing these requirements. now all of that could change, but this is what we're expecting them to announce in the next few days. so, first of all, removing the

six-feet rule. just getting rid of it. also not recommending screening in most circumstances. for example, what's been done in schools for quite a while now. also easing quarantine rules for those behind on vaccinations. currently the cdc has very specific quarantine rules and they're going to be easing those really pretty much to the point of getting rid of them. also they will be recommending masking for high-risk people in 81% of u.s. counties. i think that last one i want to focus on that one for a minute because what this tells us is that they're changing it to more of an individual kind of recommendation. so not necessarily recommendations for the entire country, but hey, if you are high risk, if you're, for example, immune compromised, you really ought to be wearing a mask in most parts of the country. i think we'll be seeing more of that. more individually tailored sets of recommendations. jim. >> just to be specific here, they're not easing quarantine requirements for people who become infected? >> well, those would be isolation requirements.

i know it sounds like i'm splitting hairs. but once someone is infected, that's isolation. that's not what they're talking about. this is quarantine when you've come in contact with someone. >> okay. understood. so monkeypox still an outbreak. we're hearing that lab techs, some are refusing to take blood from possible monkeypox patients? what's going on here? >> yes. both quest and lab core say, yes, many of our phlebotomists are not taking blood from patients. from people that lived through the hiv outbreak, this feels reminiscent of that. why would they be scared of taking blood from monkeypox patients, they take blood from patients with various viruses and the cdc is very clear that doctors and health care professionals need to be taking care of patients with monkeypox. let's take a listen to david harvey who's with a coalition of sexual health clinics. >> the fact thajt this is

happening is an echo of the earliest days of hiv. we, i thought, had come a lot further. this is a grave dereliction of duty. >> not only is it stigmatizing he says, but it is slowing down their treatment process, their ability to identify people and isolate people who are infected and get in touch with contacts when phlebotomists refuse to do their jobs. monkeypox numbers are very high. they have gone up 42% just in the past week. labcore and quest are busy trying to look at their policies and possibly make adjustments. >> elizabeth cohen, thanks so much. the next hour we are watching the courtroom near moscow where a verdict could be reached and read soon for brittney griner. we will bring that to you live. prosecutors asking for a nine and a half year sentence. we'll have a live report coming up.

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good thursday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. we begin with breaking news. moments from now a russian judge is expected to sentence wnba star brittney griner, the two-time olympic gold medalist pleaded guilty last month to drug charges. the prosecutor seeking nine and a half years of time in jail. in the last hour, griner addressed the court ahead of her sentencing. >> i want to apologize to my teammates, my club, the fans and the city for my mistake that i made and the embarrassment that i brought. i want to also apologize to my parents, my siblings, my organization back at home, the