When President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last week, many people, regardless of political ideology, agreed that the probe into possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia needs a special prosecutor. As a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has found, the number of people who approve of a special prosecutor is actually overwhelming: 78 percent of Americans called for a special prosecutor while just 15 percent supported an investigation led by Congress.

On Friday, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.) demanded that if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein does not name a special prosecutor to the case, he should resign. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pushed back on such calls, claiming a new investigation "could only serve to impede the current work being done."

For The Atlantic, David Frum wrote that "of all the types of independent investigation that have been suggested, a special prosecutor is the most likely to disappear down rabbit holes — the least likely to answer the questions that needed to be answered." On the other hand, "the need for an independent actor who can both investigate and prosecute criminal wrongdoing in the executive branch is clear, because the attorney general and the Justice Department cannot be reliably impartial about their own bosses," The New York Times editorial board wrote in February.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reached 800 adults between May 11 and May 13, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5. See the full results here. Jeva Lange

To everyone who missed Monday's total eclipse: Don't worry, you've got another shot at seeing one on April 8, 2024. In exactly 6 years, 7 months, and 18 days, the moon will once again eclipse the sun.

While Monday's eclipse spanned from Oregon to South Carolina, the 2024 eclipse will be visible from Mexico up to Canada, crossing the paths of American cities including Dallas, Indianapolis, and Cleveland. Take a look at the map below, and start planning for 2024. Becca Stanek

On Monday, President Trump stared directly at the sun during the solar eclipse and proceeded to give the moon a big thumbs up. As Trump snuck a peek sans glasses, defying common sense and the advice of scientists, a bystander reportedly shouted: "Don't look."

The president watched the rare event from the White House's Truman Balcony. He was joined by first lady Melania Trump and their 11-year-old son Barron, neither of whom appeared to look directly at the sun without the necessary protective eyewear, which is intended to prevent permanent eye damage.

Watch Trump watch the eclipse below. Becca Stanek

On Monday afternoon, portions of the United States fell dark as the moon eclipsed the sun. For those who missed the rare coast-to-coast event — or for those who simply want to relive its spectacular beauty — check out some photos and videos of the total solar eclipse below. Becca Stanek

Spanish police confirmed Monday that they shot and killed 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaquob, the man suspected to have driven the van down Barcelona's La Rambla on Thursday in a terrorist attack that killed 13 people in the city center. Police shot Abouyaaquob in the outskirts of Subirats, a region west of Barcelona, after an extensive manhunt took place over the weekend. He was apparently wearing a fake suicide belt.

Abouyaaquob escaped from Thursday's crash scene on foot and was believed to be the last remaining member of a wider terrorist cell suspected of planning last week's attacks in Barcelona and the coastal city of Cambrils, where another vehicle attack killed one and injured six. Kimberly Alters

GOP Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) isn't so sure President Trump will be the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2020. While Trump apparently doesn't think it's too early to start campaigning for 2020 — he's holding a campaign-style rally Tuesday night in Phoenix, after all — Collins said in a MSNBC interview Monday that she thinks it's "far too early to tell now" what the future will hold for Trump.

"Do you think he will end up the party's nominee in 2020?" MSNBC's Hallie Jackson asked. "It's too difficult to say," Collins said.

Collins, notably, did not support Trump as the party's nominee in 2016, and she was one of three Republicans to oppose the party's ObamaCare repeal. At this point, Collins said she is particularly disappointed in Trump's hesitancy to directly condemn white supremacists in the wake of the Charlottesville, Virginia, white nationalist rally. "I think the president failed to meet the standard we should have expected a president to do in a time like that," Collins said.

Watch the interview below. Becca Stanek

The New York Times has been talking about today's total eclipse since 1932. On Monday, ahead of the solar eclipse that will sweep the country from Oregon to South Carolina, the Times shared an archived clip from 85 years ago that accurately predicted the totality of today's eclipse:

Citing a study by Dr. S.A. Mitchell, director of the Leander McCormick Observatory of the University of Virginia, the Times warned that if viewers didn't catch the Aug. 31, 1932 eclipse, they'd be waiting until Aug. 21, 2017 for "conditions that are really favorable and promise scientific success."

With that prediction seemingly coming true, we'll have to wait and see if the Times is also right in predicting the next similarly phenomenal solar eclipse — mark your calendars for April 8, 2024. Becca Stanek

How many voters could ousted White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon take from President Trump? The question has become pertinent since Bannon's firing Friday, as it is still unclear how the once and future (err, current) Breitbart News chief will use his role in relation to the president.

Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight has done the math: By Enten's calculations, the "Bannon wing" of the Republican Party — which he defines as "Trump voters who are pro-police, against free trade, against the U.S. playing an active role (militarily and diplomatically) in the international community, strongly against illegal immigration, and in favor of more infrastructure spending" — accounts for about 15 percent of the GOP voter base. That's the proportion of Republicans who agree with Bannon on all five of those points, though there are certainly more who support only a plurality of these positions. Only 2 percent of Republicans disagree with all five.

While 15 percent is not a huge number, it's more than enough to swing an election. For comparison, Enten notes, Hispanic voters for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election accounted for just 12 percent of her vote. And in the GOP primaries, Trump won only 45 percent of Republican support, a figure that makes 15 percent look pretty crucial.

Of course, it's not as if Bannon could simply command these voters to drop Trump, but he is positioned to significantly influence their assessment of Trump's service come 2020. Bonnie Kristian