Hallie Jackson NOW - April 1 | NBC News NOW

[Music] tonight Peak tornado season coming out with a bang parts of the country right now under tornado watches the millions who could be in the path of powerful Twisters tonight and more hard time for Alec Murdoch the man already convicted of killing his wife and son getting sentenced to decades more behind bars and a multi-million dollar fine while the judge gave a harsher sentence than even the prosecution was asking for in Dallas Police reportedly searching for Kansas City Chief's receiver R

asheed rice as they investigate a massive car crash that we heard what we heard from the team president just before we came on the air and in Idaho the start of a bizarre murder trial while prosecutors say A man was driven to kill two children because he thought they were devil possessed zombies and a man in Texas diagnosed with the bird flu our health expert on the potentially concerning transmission from animals to humans that's later in the [Music] show tonight Peak tornado season coming out

with a bang parts of the country right now under tornado watches the millions who could be in the path of powerful Twisters tonight and more hard time for Alec Murdoch the man already convicted of killing his wife and son getting sentenced to decades more behind bars and a multi-million dollar fine while the judge gave a harsher sentence than even the prosecution was asking for in Dallas Police reportedly searching for Kansas City Chief's receiver Rashid rice as they investigate a massive car cr

ash that we heard what we heard heard from the team president just before we came on the air and in Idaho the start of a bizarre murder trial while prosecutors say A man was driven to kill two children because he thought they were devil possessed zombies and a man in Texas diagnosed with the bird flu our health expert on the potentially concerning transmission from animals to humans that's later in the show hey I'm Aaron in for and right now a tornado watch is in effect as tens of millions acros

s the Southern Plains are at risk of severe weather including dangerous overnight tornadoes with the first day of peak tornado season quickly kicking into high gear the weather could also bring with it large hail torrential rain and heavy winds stretching all the way from Texas to West Virginia this system recently battered the West Coast flooding major highways cars practically floating in the water dumping hail H all over San Diego and hitting the mountains with more than 2 feet of snow in som

e places Jesse kers is standing by just outside Cincinnati Ohio but first let's go to meteorologist Michelle grman now Michelle how serious is this storm system and what should we be looking out for who should be concerned most most hi there Aon great to see you yeah this is a strong late storm system we are looking at a spring storm system we're looking at the start activity starting to ramp up right now so looking at radar we are looking at some storms right now and this is on a 3-hour loop so

the latest frame showing us where we're starting to see all this lightning as expected the daytime heating kind of gives that oomph to these storms and that was what we're seeing now now we could see some large hail up to 2 3 in that's tennis ball size hail could see some damaging winds winds gusting up to 80 mil per hour and also watching the chancef for tornadoes some of those will come overnight which makes it double as dangerous so as we're looking at Radar Radar right now we zoom in a litt

le closer we do have watches and warnings right now where you see the yellow that is a severe thunderstorm watch that is until 9:00 on both sides of the tornado watch which extends until 9:00 central time so we're going to watch this very closely most likely we're going to see these extended because we expect this activity to extend into the overnight hours a lot of moisture with this system too you can see those darker colors the Reds the oranges the yellows this extends all the way into the Oh

io Valley so we do have a flood risk a flood watch as we go throughout tomorrow where you see the Green from Springfield to St Louis Indianapolis Cincinnati over to Pittsburgh could see some flooding conditions and then it's going to move move into the uh Mid-Atlantic as we head towards Wednesday but for tonight still 40 million people at risk for severe weather a few strong tornadoes ef2 or greater in some spots damaging hail 3 in or larger that is really large and it can cause a lot of damage

also looking at winds gusting up to 80 m per hour that's going to bring some power outages uh into play and some power trees power lines down as we're looking at the colors here we're looking at Dallas Oklahoma City Springfield Kansas into St Louis also Cincinnati those are the likely spots we're seeing some really strong storms especially where see this red here Oklahoma City kind of the target of that and then also the orange really likely to see some really strong weather as we go throughout

the next couple of hours this hatched area here kind of corresponds to ef2 or greater so we are expecting strong storms and again this will happen overnight so that's when it becomes especially dangerous you want to have your tornado plant in place then we look towards tomorrow still a really tough day weather-wise 21 million people at risk winds once again gusting to 60 MPH could see some hail also a few large tornadoes so Aaron we're looking at Columbus down to Chattanooga also Birmingham tomo

rrow back to you okay Michelle thank you so let's go to Jesse kersch right outside of Cincinnati Ohio Cincinnati Ohio and the surrounding areas with the potential of 2 to 4 in of Rain by tomorrow and we are also looking at the possibility of flooding in this area we spoke with an official from the fire department in Cincinnati just across the river that is Cincinnati right there we're in Kentucky right now and earlier we spoke with a fire department official about what they are doing to prepare

for this bout of weather and the fire department told us that they are meeting with officials to discuss potential steps to take in case there is any flooding in this community one of the things that they're going to be watching is the water level here on the Ohio River they are expecting the water level to rise and they will be keeping an eye at how things develop even Beyond when the rain stops because of potential concerns over flooding we already have a trickle of rain coming in here it was

sunny earlier the sky certainly more ominous now and we're brazing for what more is to come in this area in the hours ahead back to you Jesse thank you two major abortion rulings in Florida tonight with the state supreme court upholding a 15-week abortion ban but also allowing a proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion Protections in the state constitution to appear on the ballot this no November the Court's decision to uphold the 15-week abortion ban means that a six-week ban signed by G

overnor Rona santis last year can take effect the six- we ban includes exceptions for rape incest and the life of the mother but the Court's ruling to allow the Constitutional amendment to appear on the ballot means voters will have a chance to undo those restrictions this fall Marissa par is joining us now so Marissa walk us through this Court ruling and the Nuance with this 15-week ban the Court ruled on and this six- we ban hey Aon so these are two separate Florida Supreme Court decisions rul

ings that dropped simultaneously within the last hour and so I'll walk you through the one that we were expecting to hear about and then the one that did come is a little bit of a surprise to everybody who is waiting to find out the state of abortion rights here in the State of Florida so there was a Grassroots effort that came about to try to get abortion on the ballot to begin with and so this was we mentioned a Grassroots level effort they got over a million signatures they well surpassed the

minimum required but under Florida law the Florida Supreme Court has the right to review the language for proposed ballot initiatives so they took their time reviewing the language the Republican attorney general was arguing that quote viability which is an exact word that is part of the ballot initiative she was saying that that's too vague too confusing and this is around 24 weeks by the way when it comes to viability but she said that was too confusing well the Florida Supreme cour court tod

ay decided that it can in fact be something that voters can weigh in on but the one that did come as a surprise because we didn't know when the other ruling would come around whether that would be this week whether that would be sometime in the summer but that was in fact at the same time today the ruling that the 15 we abortion ban that is currently in place is constitutional there was a challenge to that they ruled that it is constitutional though and that means that automatically a six week a

bortion ban will now go into effect in 30 days now this was something that was already signed by the governor last year and so just to really simplify things because I know that I just said a lot of words here in 30 days a six-week abortion ban will take effect and in November Florida voters can potentially overturn that if 60% of Voters decide to do so Aaron okay so what are people there on the ground saying about this issue now apparently being decided by voters and what are the political impl

ications of the East ruling right and and that's a very interesting thing because we know that this will have an impact transparently speaking this just dropped within the last hour so I've only had a chance to speak to one voter um we know abortion is a sensitive topic not everybody is jumping at the chance to talk about that on national TV on camera but we did hear from one voter I'll let you hear from her and then I'll explain it on the other side take a listen I think it's really sad to even

think of having to the option to have an abortion in our state I think that people should be have more morals so I have been asking people for the last few days how they feel about abortion rights in the state of Florida and actually this is the first person that I specifically talked to on camera who said she was against abortion I'm also in what is considered to be a more Progressive area this is Miami Dade County remember um Florida we've talked about how much uh how much progress conservati

ves have made in the State of Florida there are significantly more conservative areas that would reflect what you just heard a lot more so obviously as we know it depends on who you talk to um but one thing that is really interesting here aarin when we talk about how this might have an impact on the election that's coming up I mean one we now have abortion officially on the ballot so you have the potential for a lot of people going to vote in November because abortion will be on the ballot that'

s one part of this but then we also have a senate race that is getting increasingly more competitive so this is a race between the incumbent Republican Rick Scott and then you have um Debbie mcer Powell the Democrat who is challenging him she's a a local politician here in the Miami Dade area and so now that abortion is officially on the ballot what I'm seeing just in the last hour all over my timelines on social media all in my inbox Democrats are already galvanized trying to make a push saying

this is why we need to take to the polls and we know voter turnout has been an issue with Democrats in Florida Aaron it remains to be seen will this be the push that they need to once again make purple instead of the trends that we've been seeing in the conservative Direction so lots to report on in the coming months yeah a lot to look out for Marissa para thank you so much now to the man at the heart of South Carolina's trial of the century learning tonight he will have to pay back Millions to

the people he duped for years with a new 40-year sentence tacked on to the life he already faces in prison we're talking about Alec Murdoch you see the sketches of him in court today this time on financial fraud charges nearly two dozen do crimes he pleaded guilty to back in September that includes a demand to pay back almost $9 million he stole that sentence from a judge even harsher than what prosecutors recommended in part because they found another 11 victims who lost about a million dollar

s lawyers for the victims today saying they hope this is a step towards Justice there's a staggering human toll attached to every single sent this is blood money people bled people died people had funerals to get compensated and Alec took it and he prayed on them now we should know though this is not more time in prison for Murdoch he's already in there for life for the double murder of his wife Maggie and Son Paul not to mention dozens of years for State financial crimes all of it part of that

trial we all remember the disgraced former lawyer story capturing the attention of the nation including multiple true crime documentaries priia sther is outside the courthouse in Charleston South Carolina so priia these accusations here are damning including one where he defrauded a quadr quadriplegic man and we also heard from some of those victims including the son of the former Murdoch housekeeper yeah that's right so two of those victims were inside the courtroom today they addressed the jud

ge prior to his sentencing and they said that they actually forgive Murdo and they're praying for them one of those victims you mentioned Pima pikney her son hakee was involved in a car accident where he became a quadriplegic and ended up dying in a nursing home and uh Murdoch ended up stealing that insurance settlement money from them um we got a chance to speak with her outside of the courthouse let's take a listen to what she had to say it's not about the money it's about what we lost I lost

my son that would never be [Music] replaced and so there you see her again being very forgiving and saying that this was more about Justice than anything else for her okay and you asked the lead prosecutor about that nearly $9 million I want to play that exchange and the $8 million in restitution do you expect the victims will actually see that money that's yet to be determined how much we can recover in terms of restitution okay so walk us through the next steps here so the Department of Justic

e hasn't made it very clear exactly how these victims are going to get that money some of them have gotten money uh through some of the other people who have been implicated in this case but so far um especially given the fact that investigators say that six of the $12 million that Murdoch allegedly stole from these client s is unaccounted for he has previously said that he used them for drugs and his extravagant lifestyle because he had an opioid addiction but prosecutors are saying they're not

buying it they don't think that those numbers add up so the victims in all of this have yet to be repaid and it's unclear exactly when that will happen or on what kind of timeline okay so today we also heard from Murdoch in court and from his attorneys what are they saying is this the end of the legal Road for Murdoch or are there additional investigations going on so I did get a chance to ask the prose or sorry the defense you know whether or not Murdoch plans to appeal this sentence you know

he obviously did plead guilty to these 22 federal charges back in September but let's take a listen to what his defense attorney had to say will he appeal I mean I I'll talk to him about that later today but he's ready to move on and we're ready to move on frankly [Music] so when it comes to those murder convictions his defense attorneys were actually trying to throw out the entire murder murder trial and get a new trial because they said that the county clerk in that case was tampering with jur

ors however a judge ruled that no they aren't going to be able to get a new trial so now Murdoch's defense team is going to pursue appeals through the South Carolina court system they uh vehemently deny that Murdoch had anything to do with the killings of both both his wife and his son Aaron okay Priya thank you well tonight a lawyer for Super Bowl champion Chiefs player Rashid rice is telling ESPN that rice is working with local police and taking all steps to address a big high-speed crash invo

lving multiple luxury cars in Dallas you can see how it goes down here in this dash cam video there's two cars a Corvette and a Lamborghini according to police that speed by eventually losing control and causing a chain reaction crash you see it there at one point that portion of the highway is closed off as police investigate the Dallas Morning News is reporting that one of the cars involved is leased or registered to rice and that Rice may have been the one behind the wheel of the Corvette acc

ording to a police call sheet reportedly seen by the newspaper NBC News has reached out to rice and the Kansas City Chiefs but has not heard back the NFL has declined so far to comment Priscilla Thompson joins me now so Priscilla lots of things still up in the air tonight first of all do we know where rice is and what more can you tell us about how it all went down yeah it's unclear where he is at this moment and earlier today we're at Police Headquarters I asked police here if they had spoken t

o him if they were if he was cooperating and they declined to say anything about any of this only saying that they were continuing to look for the people suspected of driving those vehicles that caused this crash and you see it there that terrifying uh dash cam video police say that there was a Lamborghini and a Corvette driving at an extremely high rate of speed both of those drivers lost control of their vehicles the uh one of the cars slamming into the center median the other one appearing to

spin out there were two people who were treated at the scene and two people who were taken to the hospital thankfully all with minor injuries but the other key piece of this is that police say that after that accident happened the occupants in the two cars beli to have caus that accident left the scene they police say that they did not check to see if anyone needed medical attention or to provide their information and so those are the folks that police are now looking for and they are asking an

yone who recognizes those men that you see in this video to come forward so that they can try to identify them and see what their involvement is here as well okay and on that note Priscilla we're also hearing from bystanders people involved in the crash and what are they saying yeah that it was terrifying there was a woman Kayla Quinn who posted on Facebook that she was driving home from a day at the zoo with her four-year-old son when she was hit in and part of this crash and important to note

there were six cars that were part of this crash and she said that it could have been far worse and that she is so grateful that despite being hit by both cars she and her son were able to walk away from this accident and we're also getting a first uh response from the Kansas City Chiefs the president uh speaking with KCMO talk radio and I want to play what he had to say about all of this in all these situations you have to wait until you have all the facts and uh frankly we don't have all the f

acts at this point we'll get to the bottom of it we'll get we'll gather the facts and then we'll react accordingly and as you as you mentioned the NFL saying that they are not going to be comment commenting on this matter for now Aaron all right Priscilla Thompson thank you crews in Baltimore now making progress clearing out thousands of tons of Twisted Metal and concrete from the catastrophic bridge collapse divers using torches to cut up massive chunks of the bridge it has been a week since th

e deadly crash which killed at least six construction workers the bodies of four of those men still missing the governor late today saying the complicated cleanup is going to take time as the president gets ready to make a trip there Friday we need to do more work clearing the channel in order to move forward now I know there's an urgency to move fast and nobody feels that urgency more than the people standing up here today but we have to be clear on the risks well this as we're also just learni

ng they've opened a temporary channel to get some essential ships in and out of one of the nations's busiest ports with the economic impact of this accident shaping up to be huge for Baltimore with the Ripple effects spreading across the globe Aaron Gilcrest is following all of it from Baltimore and joins me now so Aaron what's the latest here in terms of the cleanup operation how long is it expected to last well the how long is something that we simply don't have an answer to the the officials

here are not offering any projection about how long it will take to clear tons and tons thousands of tons of this bridge that has fallen and the ship as well that's is sitting on top of I can tell you we were able to go out today with the Coast Guard into the Patapsco River here right up to the wreckage site we were about a 100 yards away from the dolly and the Key Bridge that is sitting on top of it I have to tell you it was surreal to see this uh so close we were able to see the pieces of the

bridge that are really entangled with these container ships that are still sitting on the uh on the dolly and at this point we know that the crews that have been at work here 24/7 since late last week were were able to get out there on the water this weekend with some cranes and with some cutting torches and start cutting the bridge into chunks we were able to see as we were out there today on the water uh a a big piece of the bridge that was cut away over the the weekend we think about 200 tons

which really is just a drop drop in the bucket for what NE is necessary to remove from this wreckage site and so that's the work that will continue you mentioned this temporary shipping channel that's been opened that happened this afternoon we were able to see the first ship go through that channel right before we went through it today these are all going to be this channel is going to be accessible to ships that are part of this Salvage operation uh and the hope is at some point they'll be ab

le to let some commercial vessels through that space as well although none of the big big cargo ships that we would typically see moving here this is just the first step really in getting this Waterway back open getting that ship out of the way and then of course uh Aaron being able to get into the water to recover the bodies of the four men who are still missing at this point just stunning scenes that you described there Aaron let's talk about the economic impact what more do we know about that

assessment well we know that there are about 8,000 uh workers that work at the Port of Baltimore and so right now we're looking at a wage loss of about $2 million a day as so much of the work that normally happens there is not happening right now that's something that's frustrated a lot of the people who who work at the Port because they haden't gotten any answers about when things are going to return to normal at the same time there are uh impacts on businesses outside the port as well some 14

0,000 workers have some sort of contact some sort of link with the Port of Baltimore and then there are all the other businesses that are related as as well we know that the small business administration has opened a resource center here in the Baltimore area so that folks business owners can go in and start that process of getting these low interest loans that were made available over the weekend of up to $2 million we should note Aaron as well that President Biden is planning to come here to B

altimore on Friday to tour the site himself the wreckage site and also to meet with some of the folks who've been working to get this situation cleared okay Aaron Gilcrest thank you we're just learning air strikes destroyed and Iranian consulate building in Syria in the last couple of hours the Syrian government says Israel is responsible the White House says it's looking into it as we're just getting in this stunning video of the aftermath in Damascus Iranian revolutionary guard says two top mi

litary commanders and five others were killed in the strikes the IDF tells NBC News it does not respond to foreign media reports as Israel's parliament just passed a law that could ban Al jazer from operating inside that country something prime minister Netanyahu is pushing hard for all of it as Israel's military is now withdrawing from gaza's main hospital after two weeks of fierce fighting in and around alifa Israel claims to have killed hundreds of Hamas Fighters the Israeli defense minister

says the quote terrorist base there is now eliminated remember the bodies of at least two Israeli hostages were found near alifa back in November officials in Gaza say they're now finding the bodies of hundreds of dead civilians there too as we're getting this new disturbing video of what's left of alifa now hospital beds in the middle of the widescale destruction alifa now unrecognizable let's bring in Josh Letterman so Josh let's start with the latest in Syria what more do we know about this d

eadly strike well according to the Iranian ambassador to Syria Aaron it killed up to seven people essentially level to the ground the part of the embassy that deals with Consular issues and among those who were killed according to the Iranian state official media were not one but two senior commanders of the Revolutionary guard which is of course the Elite paramilitary Force of Iran that is so active in working with those Iran backed militias like Hezbollah that have attacked Israel and in a way

this is just the continuation of this Shadow War we've seen playing out for months if not years between Israel and Iran but every time there is one of these incidents an assassination across border strike it raises the fear that potentially this could be the incident that sets off a whole domino effect and leads to something much broader than this tit fortat kind of situation and could actually lead to a a direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran which is exactly what the United St

ates has been prevent trying to prevent from happening now Josh it comes as there's also this potential ban of Al jazer in Israel again what more does that say about the calculations of isra Israel's leaders uh that that they're making right now well it may speak to the fact that Israel knows that the public and international uh coverage and reaction to the devastation in Gaza is really taking a toll on support for Israel now prime minister Netanyahu says aljazera is a terror Channel he says the

channel is guilty of incitement is working uh with Hamas but we know there's been a long history between the Israel and this Channel at jazer which is based in Qatar uh there was the killing a couple years ago of a female Al jaer journalist during an Israeli raid in the West Bank and earlier in this conflict we saw alero's bureo Chief uh his uh wife two children and grandchild all killed in an Israeli air strike and so there's no love loss there but certainly Al jazer is condemning this decisio

n tonight uh and freedom of the press groups are saying this is no way for a democracy which Israel Prides itself on being should behave towards the Press especially in the middle of a war and Josh let's talk about alifa once regarded as the backbone of gaza's Health Care system now that footage just shocking it shows a hospital completely destroyed Israel seemed to be in firm control of alifa back in November now this intense fighting what what happened there well as you know from your remarkab

le reporting both in Israel and in Egypt the destruction of the already fragile health system in Gaza has really exacerbated humanitarian crisis here now Israel says that after it eliminated Hamas from that hospital back in November Hamas essentially went back they regrouped and were using it to plan additional attacks on Israel and so they went in raided for two weeks they have now left Israel calling this a success saying they were able to achieve their goals without civilian deaths but offici

als in the Gaza Strip say that's totally false that there were hundreds of deaths many of them civilians Children of the elderly and others and now uh the Gaza Strip is without its largest hospital really the Cornerstone of its health system and so this is really going to lead to even worse humanitarian conditions there and I know the who says it plans to visit alifa tomorrow Josh Letterman thank you so much well coming up at least seven children shot in a mass shooting in Indianapolis why polic

e are placing some of the blame on their parents and a data breach hitting tens of millions of AT&T customers what it means if you were affected that's later in the five [Music] things a police in Indianapolis tonight are asking parents to be more aware of their kids' whereabouts after a mass shooting over the weekend that injured at least seven people the victims were all under 17 years old police are still searching for suspects this is the third consecutive weekend with a mass shooting in Ind

ianapolis people in the community expressing shock over the violence where do seven people get shot at one time other than a war zone this is a crisis omora Barrett is joining us now we just heard there this is being called a crisis what is the latest on the status of the victims and this particular investig it's extremely concerning Aon especially as we've learned in the last hour that police are saying the shooting was not random now we don't have a lot of details as police say that this is st

ill a very active investigation they're reviewing surveillance video they say they have several leads and there are two people uh detained but they were juveniles police say uh that resisted police and I asked for clarification on whether or not they those specific individuals were involved in the shooting the police said they could not confirm or deny that and so there's still not a lot of answers when it comes to suspect or motive though police have said uh that there appeared to have been som

e sort of altercation that escalated into gunfire now as for the victims they ranged from 12 to 17 years old incredibly young uh luckily they are all stable what we've learned from local hospitals one had been admitted in critical condition but has since leveled out and uh the police say that none of these victims are facing any life-threaten injuries okay so let's talk about the big picture what is the city doing to try and stop this kind of violence well you heard that Community leader talk ab

out crisis and he and other community leaders had suggested that a minor a curfew for minors could be a solution that's something that we've seen here in Chicago after a string of violence with minors uh but we have heard a lot of criticism about parents not being aware of where their kids are and I think that's something that was particularly shocking to see especially as we deal with so much gun violence across the country not just with minors the Indianapolis mayor did put out a statement ech

oing that to an extent saying a 12-year-old child has no business being out late at night anywhere without parental or adult supervision but he acknowledged that Solutions around gun violence will require uh the to address the ease with which our youth our youth access and turn to Firearms to solve their conflict specifically in Indianapolis as many cities are grappling with this they have introduced a new staff position uh within the city $150 million in to address gun violence and the youth sp

ecifically Aaron all right Mora definitely does make you wonder where the parents were thanks so much well let's get you over to the five things our team thinks you should know about tonight number one AT&T says personal data from tens of millions of its current and former customers was found on the dark web some of the information leaked includes Social Security numbers and passwords the company is reaching out to customers is impacted by the breach and has reset the passwords of current users

AT&T says it will pay for credit monitoring services in certain cases and investigation is underway number two United Airlines asking its pilot to take unpaid time off next month due to Boeing's production delays United says it doesn't expect to get all the aircrafts it ordered for both this year and next year so this move aims to reduce excess Staffing almost all the issues have to do with the Boeing 737 Max planes which have had multiple problems over the last several years Boeing has not yet

responded to a request for comment and number three gold prices hitting another record high today more than $2,200 an ounce it comes as the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates in June and generally as interest rates drop buying gold becomes more appealing to Consumers and number four a new study revealing that dogs are actually able to understand that some words refer to certain objects the research team working out of Budapest looked at the brain activity of 18 dogs and found that

they can activate a memory of an object when they hear its name similar to the human brain and number five another royal family is getting a bunch of attention on social media Japan's Imperial family is now on Instagram their account has posted dozens of images in just the last day and already has more than 350,000 followers the idea behind the account is to better connect the world's oldest monarchy with younger people well tonight we're learning that a person in Texas is now being treated for

bird flu a virus we rarely see in humans according to the CDC and state officials there they say the patient had Direct contact with an infected dairy cow the virus mostly impacts birds hence the name but it can spread from wild birds to chickens that end up in grocery stores and other animals too like cows the CDC says most human infections come from people who've had unprotected exposures to these sick or dead animals and that the risk to the public is low Dr John Torres joins us now so Dr Ta

urus how does this infect a human and what are the symptoms and Aaron what happens is it changes when it's in an animal especially a chicken and then moving over to humans and sometimes in between if you think back in 2009 the swine flu pandemic moved from pigs into humans and then human to human coron virus 2019 started moving from animals to humans and then human to human and here we have the h5n1 the bird flu which went from birds to cows cow to human what we don't have yet is moving human to

human and that's when we start getting concerned now the symptoms you see here are a little bit like the flu but there's some atypical Parts as well like the flu you can go ahead and get flu like symptoms which are basically that cough sore throat fevers feeling achy fatigue you can see there but this person here just had conjunctivitis that red eye the pink eye type symptoms sometimes people can get difficulty breathing and those GI symptoms as well the nausea vomiting diarrhea but again with

this flu it seems to be atypical and they seem to be getting that or at least in this case that ey redness which clude the doctors to treat to go ahead and test for this and then subsequently treat Erin okay so bottom line how worried should people be so at this stage you shouldn't definitely Panic about it you shouldn't even be TP that concerned about it but you should certainly be aware of it because right now if you look at bird flu it's affected 48 states the cow flu going from bird to cow h

as only been five states and the states they are in right now are very isolated you can see right there they're the states that have this bird flu and we're talking Texas Kansas Michigan Idaho and New Mexico if you're in those States be careful with unpasteurized milk because it can be transmitted in milk otherwise if you're in any of the other States including these five be careful with the birds themselves if you see a sick bird or a dead bird just leave it alone if you're taking care of chick

ens and they happen to be sick be very careful with them a lot of handwashing and like we talked about Aon during the pandemic you make sure that you cover up when you cough and sneeze stay home if you're sick and that's the way to avoid spreading any of these Ain lots of great tips John Dr John Torres thank you so much we still to come Wild video shows an Oregon man escaping a saw by milliseconds we'll show you the rest later in the local and then why New York state prisons are going on total l

ockdown for next week's total solar eclipse that's coming up the trial of a man accused of murdering his wife and then his girlfriend's children started in Idaho today Chad DeBell scene earlier in court faces capital murder charges over allegations he killed his wife making it look like she died in her sleep and then conspired with his new girlfriend to kill two of her kids apparently because they believed the children were zombies who were possessed by dark Spirits Lori valow debel who Chad mar

ried just weeks after he allegedly killed his wife was sentenced to life without Parole in her own trial last July here are the three people dbel is accused of murdering his wife tamy and Lor's two children Tye who was 16 and JJ who was 17 NBC's Dana Griffin is following this for us now Dana prosecutors say this trial could go on for as many as 10 weeks and this is all extremely bizarre yeah and Aaron what makes this case so bizarre was that these kids hadn't been seen for months starting in Sep

tember 2019 now Chad's Wife Tammy dies a month later of what appeared to be natural causes but an autopsy later revealed that she actually died of asfixiation 2 weeks later this is now mid November 2019 Chad and Lori got married and it was a grandparent who initiated that call to police nearly two months later concerned about those kids late November police conduct a welfare check on the kids and the apartment was nearly empty and it wasn't until December nearly 3 months after the kids were last

seen alive that they were officially declared missing now Lori and Chad were seen in Hawaii vacationing they were seen without those kids the kids bodies were later found buried in Chad Dell's backyard the following summer now prosecutors say Lori and Chad Dell spewed doomsday Focus beliefs to justify the deaths of those kids and his wife and added that this was all part of a scheme to eliminate any obstacles to their relationship and to obtain life insurance money now Chad D Bell is charged wi

th murder conspiracy to commit murder and insurance fraud if convicted he could face the death penalty now Aon jury selection is underway as we speak if he is found guilty the jury is already being told to prepare they could be sequestered until they determine whether he gets life and prison or the death penalty and as you mentioned Lori D Val is currently serving a life sentence after being convicted last year in the deaths of her two kids Ain okay Dana thank you well NBC covers hundreds of sto

ries each day and because it's tough to read watch or listen to them all our Bureau teams have done it for you this is what they tell us is going going down in their regions in a segment we call the local out of our Western Bureau check out this video of a guy in Eugene Oregon he's just walking into a liquor store then all of a sudden a huge saw blade comes hurdling towards the place where he just was take a look at that it smashes right into the wall like something out of a final destination mo

vie The 4ot Wide saw is used to cut through concrete and it apparently came loose from a nearby construction site also out of our Western Bureau we're seeing new body cam footage of police in New Mexico chasing an alleged shoplifter on Horseback albaquerque police say the man was accused of stealing about 230 bucks worth of stuff from a Walgreens he tries to make a run for it right into a busy highway but he just didn't have the horsepower to get away and from our Northeast Bureau prisoners in u

pstate and Western New York will not be enjoying a view of the solar eclipse next Monday the state announced that 23 prisons directly in the path of the eclipse will be on lockdown that means prisoners will be in their cells no visitors officials say it's a safety precaution and coming up California's fast food Workforce is getting a raise while that's generating a whole lot of controversy [Music] see starting today most fast food workers in California started getting paid at least $20 an hour t

hanks to a new law that just kicked in lawmakers hope it will give more Financial Security to workers in a historically low-paying field listen to this longtime McDonald's worker now I'll be able to save a little more money have a little more extra and be able to buy things that sometimes I wasn't able to buy well the new rule applying to some of the biggest chains McDonald's Starbucks Chipotle and other places with more than 60 national locations but the big concern now is the ripple effect it

might have like higher prices for customers layoffs and the pressure it puts on smaller businesses who are competing for the same workers David Nora joins me now so David you talked to someone who owns franchises of a big chain what is she telling you about her concerns Erin Hi yeah so Carrie Harper Hoy is uh she and her family own 21 McDonald's all in the LA area I interviewed her about what she thinks about this minimum wage increase take a listen to a bit of what she said we'll exp experience

loss of profit we'll experience loss of savings loss um in a variety of different ways we will of course as everyone else is have to to increase prices in some way shape or form But ultimately we are we can't price raise our way out of this situation so these individual franchise owners are definitely going to feel the pressure as a result of this wage increase remember that it's going up 25% overnight right from between yesterday and today that's going to be hard on people's balance sheets int

erestingly though that same franchise owner told me that she intends to find ways to make up for this with without laying people off or cutting their hours which is something that I think a lot of franchise owners are going to try to do because they even you know in spite of this they still need to be attractive employers to the people in their neighborhoods the people in their communities who are looking for work and how is she achieving that and what are experts saying so she's still figuring

that out as the short answer but basically efficiencies finding other ways to cut costs um as far as experts you know some of the biggest chains including McDonald's also start bu and chipotle have said that they intend to raise prices as a result of this minimum wage increase but they haven't said by how much and you know economists estimate anywhere between two and 5% I interviewed Michael rice who's a labor Economist at UC Berkeley here's what he anticipates based on prior wage increases take

a listen $5 Mac that would be a dime 10 cents for a TCO that was $3 it would be 6 cents that's uh it's an increase and people notice it but I don't think they'll change their behavior you know that said Ain this is California it's a very expensive place to live a lot of people here already are having trouble affording Basics like housing and food so we'll see how these Ripple effects actually play out uh you know amongst regular consumers all right David thank you well still ahead our preview o

f a March Madness rematch between two of women's basketball's biggest Stars the Clark versus Reese Showdown that's [Music] [Music] next you know those legendary star matchups in sports Ali frasure Bird magic now reys Clark this is what we're talking about tonight a potentially land Mark moment for women's basketball with a rematch of last year's NCAA tournament final this time in the Elite 8 in one corner the defending champs LSU led by Angel Reese going up against Iowa and the all-time scoring

champ Caitlyn Clark the other matchup might be just as good with two Rising Stars yukon's paig Beckers and USC's Juju Watkins all of it against the backdrop of a wild controversy look here notice anything about the three-point line for the women's Regional in Portland that's right one side is six Ines closer to the basket than the other and it was like that for five games Sam Brock joins me now so Sam we know there's an investigation they say it'll be fixed ahead of tonight's game but it's just

another black mark for the NCAA and actually giving male and female stars equal treatment right yeah I mean look Aaron it's embarrassing right the NCAA hires a company to install its Courts for all NCAA tournament games so the question becomes how does this happen they released a statement where they talked about the center of basket being punched into the middle of the court and they go through and they examine to make sure all the dimensions make sense but in this case they were off as you sai

d by 6 in here is the official statement while the ncaa's vendor has apologized for the error we will investigate how this happened in the first place the NCAA is working now to ensure the accuracy of all Court markings for future games the NCAA regrets the error was not discovered sooner as you mentioned Aaron five games ago here's the results in terms of how players are shooting right now on the correct Basket in terms of the dimensions it's about 33% of the shots that are going down on the ot

her side they're actually shooting 25.8% even though it's closer so go figure there's all that going on but against the backdrop of larger issues within the sport we've seen a number of of black eyes as you said uh both in terms of of conduct how women are treated and also the sort of racially charged allegations that have been made here's just a sample of them the Utah women's basketball coach saying that she and her team were harassed that the n-word was used against players that they were rac

ial epithets being hurled towards them as they were going out to dinner Hannah hialgo there in the middle of your screen she's an All-American point guard for Notre Dame she was asked to remove her nose ring Midway through her contest and had to leave the game for four minutes and then Kim mki of course from LSU had made a big to-do about a Washington Post article that was going to come out and then it turns out over the weekend an LA Times article appeared to have very discriminatory language a

nd it describing her team as as dirty debutants in a battle of good versus evil LSU versus UCLA a lot of players white and black on LSU took issue with that characterization the LA Times had to ultimately amend its language and say it didn't meet its editorial standards so there's been a lot going on swirling the women's game the last couple of weeks okay and all of that taking away from what we're expecting to be a record night for this sport right walk us through that huge absolutely enormous

right so we talked about the fact that you have Angel Ree and Caitlyn Clark it's a rematch of last year's national title game that LSU won well the numbers on that game last year were almost 10 million that was record-breaking and it is shaping up to be more of the same you see for the round of 32 Caitlyn Clark here in her senior year Drew almost 5 million viewers for a second round game can you imagine what this rematch is going to do tonight expect a lot of eyeballs and again the trends 2023 t

he elite eight there has 2.2 million viewers up 43% from just the year prior so we are moving definitely in the direction of an explosion of interest in women's college basketball and what are the two stars Caitlyn CL Clark and Angel Reese saying about tonight's game right so their beef was well documented last year Angel Reese came out yesterday and said I don't have any hatred toward Caitlyn Clark nor she to me he says if she saw Caitlyn out in the street she'd be like hey what's up but on the

basketball court obviously the competitive juices are flowing and you can expect this to be a huge tightly contested game tonight some of the best talent in all of women's college basketball is going to be on that floor I for one will definitely be watching as will I so much to look forward to Sam Brock thank you well that's a wrap for this hour coverage piigs up right [Music] now tonight Peak tornado season coming out with a bang parts of the country right now under tornado watches the million

s who could be in the path of powerful Twisters tonight in Florida breaking news as the state supreme court allows an abortion rights amendment on the November ballot the impact that could have in one of the few southern states where the procedure is still legal and more hard time for Alec Murdoch the man already convicted of killing his wife and son getting sentenced to decades more behind bars and a multi-million dollar fine why the judge gave a harsher sentence than even the prosecution asked

for and in Dallas Police reportedly searching for Kansas City Chief's receiver rasheid rice as they investigate a massive car crash that we heard from the team president just before we came on the air and Indi and in Indianapolis calls for better parenting from police after seven children were hurt in a mass shooting why officials say they should have been at home and not In Harm's Way hey I'm Aaron for hle and right now tornado watches are in effect as tens of millions across the Plains and th

e Midwest are at risk of severe weather including dangerous overnight tornadoes with the first day of peak tornado season quickly kicking into high gear the weather could also bring with it torrential rain and heavy winds and large hail you see here stretching all the way from Texas to West Virginia the system recently battered the West Coast flooding major highways cars practic Ally floating in the water dumping hail all over San Diego and hitting the mountains with more than 2 feet of snow in

some places Jesse kers is standing by in Covington Kentucky right outside of Cincinnati but first let's go to meteorologist Michelle grman so Michelle another tornado watch just popped up for parts of Illinois and Missouri the risk now stretches pretty far should the people there be concerned hi there Erin yeah it's a large area that we're looking at the ch for severe storms as we go throughout the later part of the evening into the overnight hours we're already seeing uh the storms pick up at t

his hour and we have a lot of people under this risk tonight we're looking at 40 million at risk with a few strong tornadoes the biggest threat tonight will be hail it will be large hail two to three Ines about a tennis ball size the tornado threat's really going to ramp up tomorrow in some spots then we're going to see winds gusting up to 80 mil per hour that's going to cause some damage as well but look how far this stretches all the way to the Southern Plains to the Ohio Valley including Dall

as Oklahoma City Springfield St Louis into Cincinnati where you see the red and the orange that is a likely spot of seeing some very strong storms and again we could see them overnight that is double as dangerous as daytime storms then by tomorrow 21 million people at of risk the top threat here will be tornadoes as we go throughout Tuesday winds cting up to 60 mes hour as well that could cause some damage damaging hail an inch or larger not quite as big as today and then a few tornadoes are pos

sible from Birmingham to Chattanooga Nashville Lexington Columbus and Charleston this is what is happening on Wednesday we're going to see this is to move off to the east so this fear weather threat kind of calms down on Wednesday but still we have the chance for some strong storms from Atlantic City DC norpol down to Wilmington we can see winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour there this is this is what's happening right now notice we're starting to see a lot more lightning strikes come into tha

t last rain that's telling us that we're starting to see the atmosphere really get Juiced up and we're going to see some strong storms starting to pop from the Southern Plains all the way to the Ohio Valley this is where that lightning strike is in portions of Indiana and also Illinois so as we look at the tornado watches and warnings we're looking at a tornado watch that is in the Red Tornado a thunderstorm severe thunderstorm watches in the yellow these are until 9:00 local time this one right

here is until 11:00 so this is going to last for several hours and then we have a lot of moisture with this system that's going to cause some flooding where you see these darker colors the Reds the oranges the yellows that's where we're looking at the uh heaviest rain falling right now so we're going to watch that too very closely Erin all right Michelle thank you let's go to Jesse Cur just outside of Cincinnati Ohio Jesse how are people preparing for the storm I understand you've already had s

ome thunderstorms there yeah we've heard some Thunder off in the distance eron we haven't seen any light in here and as you can see it's dry right now and actually the sun is popping back through it had been Sunny earlier then it became overcast you started to see some of those more ominous clouds they're still here there those light gray clouds we don't have the dark clouds overhead right now uh but the sun has come back out but there's definitely that that moisture in the air if you will that

that sense that the storms are coming right it's hard to exactly put words to it but I think we all know that feeling when you can right before thunderstorm so there there is that that feeling in the air that that things might be evolving we've had a drizzle on again off again and again the sun poking through right now but we spoke with officials earlier with the fire department about what they're doing and the the fire department told us they were convening a meeting uh to with with various gro

ups of officials to f figure out what the plan of action is because this area is potentially going to see up to 4 in of rain uh through tomorrow evening there's the risk of flooding the risk of flash flooding in isolated areas as well and right behind me is the Ohio River and that's Cincinnati right over there and the fire department told us that they're going to be one of the things they're going to be watching is what happens with the river not just as it's raining but beyond that here's part

of my conversation with one of the fire chiefs here in Cincinnati even when the rain stops the risk doesn't necessarily go away here no absolutely not because you you have the downpour and then as it drains into the Ohio River it eventually continues to build [Music] up so again even after the rain is subsides here Aaron there is still uh concern that officials will be keeping an eye on uh both in terms of uh it'll be keeping in in the days ahead an eye on the safety of residents and also uh ris

ks to infrastructure from potential flooding as well but again at this point we're just waiting for uh this breakout the potential breakout of storms here in the area Aon okay Jesse thank you well two major abortion rulings in Florida tonight with the state supreme court deciding to allow a proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion Protections in the state constitution to appear on the ballot this November while also upholding a 15-week abortion ban that decision clears the way for a six w

e ban signed by Governor Ronda santis last year to take effect but voters will have a chance to undo those restrictions this November Marissa par is joining us now to break down this ruling when does the six-month abortion ban take effect and what would the proposed amendment do if it passes in November hey Arin so we'll start first with when the sixe abortion ban takes effect and that is in 30 days uh that was automatically triggered by the ruling that came down from the Florida Supreme Court t

oday and so as you mentioned we got two when it comes to abortion from from the Florida Supreme Court I'll start with the ballot initiative first this was a Grassroots effort um there was over a million signatures which was well beyond what the limit was necessary to even make this an actual proposed measure for the ballot the Supreme Court in Florida had the right by law to review the language in that proposed ballot initiative so what we had was Republican attorney general Ashley Moody was arg

uing that the language was vague that it was confusing because in this you see viability in quotes on your screen there there was questions about whether or not that would be too confusing that's roughly 24 weeks well the Florida Supreme Court decided today that it was not too confusing that Florida voters can in fact decide on this and vote on this so simultaneously Aaron as we just mentioned as you just mentioned um the Florida Supreme Court decided to uphold the current 15we abortion ban and

what that means is that triggers the six we abortion ban that was previously signed by Governor Ronda santis as we mentioned that goes into effect 30 days from now but because of the ballot initiative that means that voters can overturn that in November if 60% of Voters choose to do so or more of course aarin so it remains to be seen what'll happen in November okay so let's talk about the reaction what are folks there in Florida telling you so we have had a chance to speak to to a couple of folk

s here on the ground we spoke to a number of Florida voters over the last few days asking how they would feel given any possibility here right um and so what I have heard overwhelmingly is a lot of people talking about the fact that abortion is high in their list of concerns I want to take you to one person that we just spoke to she says she identifies typically as a republican but here's what she had to say about how abortion factors into her decision-making this November I feel like women shou

ld not be told what to do to be honest so I think the government needs to stay out of it it is one issue that I do feel strongly about as far as women having a choice but at the same time I'm a big picture yeah type of girl too so Aaron I will mention that we have seen before how States even conservative States like Kansas when they have abortion on the ballot we have seen voters come out and even if they are conservative or republican have struck down the possibility of stricter abortion laws i

n the state now we don't know of course yet what's going to happen here in November in Florida but we do know that Democrats are definitely taking this as a win progressives are taking this as a win we've already seen my inbox is flooded with Democratic candidates and activist groups saying that this is the reason why you need to head to the ballot in November and so there's a big question on whether this will have an impact on voter turnout in November we know Democrats really trying hard to ke

ep Florida purple and away from you know conservatives have made a lot of inroads in Florida so it remains to be seen if this will in fact have an impact on how Florida's how Florida voters uh turn out in November aarin all right Marca paraa thank you well now to breaking news out of Georgia a man is in custody after ramming his SUV into a gate at the FBI's field office in Atlanta you see the crash right there the red truck crumpled up against this gate the guy apparently tried to run inside but

security tackled him within seconds Blain Alexander is just outside of Atlanta Blain the man apparently didn't Geto too close to getting inside the office but we're just now hearing from an FBI spokesperson what are they saying yeah I spoke with the spokesperson uh Tony Thomas who's the spokesperson here at the FBI field office it happened at the security gate right behind me so typically what happens is if somebody's trying to enter as you've seen at many of these security checkpoints one car

goes through before a barrier is raised well what happened here is that the suspect were told tried to tailgate after another vehicle obviously of course the barrier is engaged and he rammed his car into that barrier that caused significant damage to his car he wasn't able to go any further so then according to the spokesperson he jumped out of his car and tried to actually run in himself but I'm told that he only made it just a few feet away from his car before he was tackled by uh agents and u

ltimately taken into custom now of course as you can imagine something like this was taken very seriously we understand that the bomb squad came out and checked the car as a precaution we know that no weapons were actually found inside that vehicle uh but it is a very serious offense right now we know that both state and federal charges are being considered uh and we're still waiting to find out more about this entire incident including the suspect's name which the FBI spokesperson tells me they

will not release just yet did the spokesperson say anything about a potential motive they don't have a motive as of yet that's a great question they do not have any motive uh somebody was asked about this during a very brief press conference at FBI officials gave earlier uh and they said basically that it was too early to tell whether or not uh what the motive was or whether or not it had any potential ties to Terror all right Blaine Alexander thank you well now to the man at the heart of South

Carolina's trial of the century learning tonight he will have to pay back Millions to the people he duped for years with a new 40-year sentence tacked on to the life he already faces in prison we're talking about Alec Murdoch you see the sketches of him in court today there this time on financial fraud charges nearly two dozen crimes he pleaded guilty to back in September that includes a demand to pay back almost $9 million he stole that sentence from a judge even harsher than what prosecutors

recommended in part because they found another 11 victims who lost about a million dollar lawyers for the victims today saying they hope this is a step toward Justice there's a staggering human toll attached to every single scent this is blood money people bled people died people had funerals to get compensated and Alec took it and he prayed on them we should note though this is not more time in prison for Murdoch he's already in there for life for the double murder of his wife Maggie and Son Pa

ul not to mention dozens of years for State financial crimes all of it part of that trial we all remember the disgraced former lawyer story story capturing the attention of the nation including multiple true crime documentaries Prius sard is outside the courthouse in Charleston South Carolina these accusations here are damning including one where he defrauded a quadr quadriplegic man and we also heard from some of those victims including the son of the former Murdoch housekeeper yeah that's righ

t so two of those victims were inside the courtroom today they addressed the judge prior to his sentencing and they said that they actually forgive Murdoch and they're praying for them one of those victims you mentioned Pima pikney her son hakee was involved in a car accident where he became a quadriplegic and ended up dying in a nursing home and uh Murdoch ended up stealing that insurance settlement money from them um we got a chance to speak with her outside of the courthouse let's take a list

en to what she had to say it's not about the money it's about what we lost I lost my son that would never be replaced and so there you see her again being very forgiving and saying that that this was more about Justice than anything else for her okay and you asked the lead prosecutor about that nearly $9 million I want to play that exchange and the $8 million in restitution do you expect the victims will actually see that money that's yet to be determined how much we can recover in terms of rest

itution okay so walk us through the next steps here so the Department of Justice hasn't made it very clear exactly how these victims are going to get that money some of them have gotten money uh through some of the other people who have been implicated in this case but so far um especially given the fact that investigators say that six of the $12 million that Murdoch allegedly stole from these clients is unaccounted for he has previously said that he used them for drugs and his extravagant lifes

tyle because he had an opioid addiction but prosecutors are saying they're not buying it they don't think that those numbers add up so the victims in all of this have yet to be repaid and it's unclear exactly when that will happen or on what kind of timeline okay so today we also heard from Murdoch in court and from his attorneys what are they saying is this the end of the legal Road for Murdoch or are there additional investigations going on so I did get a chance to ask the prose or sorry the d

efense you know whether or not Murdoch plans to appeal this sentence you know he obviously did plead guilty to these 22 federal charges back in September but let's take a listen to what his defense attorney had to say will he appeal I mean I I'll talk to him about that later today but he's ready to move on and we're ready to move on frankly so when it comes to those murder convictions his defense attorneys were actually trying to throw out the entire Mur murder trial and get a new trial because

they said that the county clerk in that case was tampering with jurors however a judge ruled that no they aren't going to be able to get a new trial so now Murdoch's defense team is going to pursue appeals through the South Carolina court system they uh vehemently deny that Murdoch had anything to do with the killings of both his wife and his son Aaron okay Priya thank you well Cruz in Baltimore now making progress clearing out thousands of tons of Twisted Metal and concrete from the catastrophi

c bridge collapse divers using torches to cut up massive chunks of the bridge it has been a week since the deadly crash which killed at least six construction workers the bodies of four of those men still missing the governor late today saying the complicated cleanup is going to take time as the president gets ready to make his trip there Friday we need to do more work clearing the channel in order to move forward now I know there's an urgency to move fast and nobody feels that urgency more than

the people standing up here today but we have to be clear on the risks well this as we're also just learning they've opened a temporary channel to get some essential ships in and out of one of the nation's busiest ports with the economic impact of this accident shaping up to be huge for Baltimore with the Ripple effects spreading across the globe Aon gilchrest joins me now what's the latest here in terms of the cleanup operation how long is it expected to last well the how long part is somethin

g that we simply don't have an answer to the the officials here are not offering any projection about how long it will take to clear tons and tons thousands of tons of this bridge that has fallen and is the ship as well that's is sitting on top of I can tell you we were able to go out today with the Coast Guard into the Patapsco River here right up to the wreckage site we were about a 100 yards away from the dolly and the Key Bridge that is sitting on top of it I have to tell you it was surreal

to see this uh so close we were able to see the pieces of the bridge that are really entangled with these container ships that are still sitting on the uh on the dolly and at this point we know that the crews that have been at work here 247 since late last week were were able to get out there on the water this weekend with some cranes and with some cutting torches and start cutting the bridge into chunks we were able to see as we were out there today on the water uh a big piece of the bridge tha

t was cut away over the weekend we think about 200 tons which really is just a drop drop in the bucket for what NE is necessary to remove from this wreckage site and so that's the work that will continue you mentioned this temporary shipping channel that's been opened that happened this afternoon we were able to see the first ship go through that channel right before we went through it today these are all going to be this channel is going to be accessible to ships that are part of of this Salvag

e operation uh and the hope is at some point they'll be able to let some commercial vessels through that space as well although none of the big big cargo ships we would typically see moving here this is just the first step really in getting this Waterway back open getting that ship out of the way and then of course uh Aaron being able to get into the water to recover the bodies of the four men who are still missing at this point just stunning scenes that you describe there Aaron let's talk about

the economic impact what more do we know about that assessment well we know that there are about 8,000 uh workers that work at the Port of Baltimore and so right now we're looking at a wage loss of about $2 million a day as so much of the work that normally happens there is not happening right now that's something that's frustrated a lot of the people who who work at the Port because they hadn't gotten any answers about when things are going to return to normal at the same time there are uh imp

acts on businesses outside the port as well some 100 40,000 workers have some sort of contact some sort of link with the Port of Baltimore and then there are all the other businesses that are related as well we know that the small business administration has opened a resource center here in the Baltimore area so that folks business owners can go in and start that process of getting these low interest interest loans that were made available over the weekend of up to $2 million we should note Aaro

n as well that President Biden is planning to come here to Baltimore on Friday to tour the site himself the wreckage site and also to meet with some of the folks who've been working to get this situation cleared Aaron okay Aaron Gilcrest thank you well tonight a lawyer for Super Bowl champion Chiefs player Rashid rice is telling ESPN that rice is working with local police and taking all steps to address a big high-speed crash involving multiple luxury cars in Dallas you can see how it goes down

here in this dash cam video there's two cars a Corvette and a Lamborghini according to police that speed by eventually Los control and causing a chain reaction crash you see it there at one point that portion of the highway is closed off as police investigate the Dallas Morning News is reporting that one of the cars involved is leased or registered to rice and that Rice may have been the one behind the wheel of the Corvette according to a police call sheet reportedly seen by the newspaper Now NB

C News has reached out to rice and the Kansas City Chiefs but we haven't heard back the NF has declined to comment Priscilla Thompson joins me now lots of things still up in the air tonight first of all do we know where rice is and what more can you tell us about how it all went down yeah it's unclear where he is at this moment and earlier today we're at Police Headquarters I asked police here if they had spoken to him if they were if he was cooperating and they declined to say anything about an

y of this only saying that they were continuing to look for the people suspected of driving those vehicles that caused this crash and you see it there that terrifying uh dash cam video police say that there was a Lamborghini and a Corvette driving at an extremely high rate of speed both of those drivers lost control of their vehicles the uh one of the cars slamming into the center median the other one appearing to spin out there were two people who were treated at the scene and two people who we

re taken to the hospital thankfully all with minor injuries but the other key piece of this is that police say that after that accident happened the occupants in the two cars believe to have caused that accident left the scene they police say that they did not check to see if anyone needed medical attention or to provide their information and so those are the folks that police are now looking for and they are asking anyone who recognizes those men that you see in this video to come forward so th

at they can try to identify them and see what they're involvement is here as well okay and on that note Priscilla we're also hearing from bystanders people involved in the crash and what are they saying yeah that it was terrifying there was a woman Kayla Quinn who posted on Facebook that she was driving home from a day at the zoo with her four-year-old son when she was hit and and part of this crash and important to note there were six cars that were part of this crash and she said that it could

have been far worse and that she is so grateful that despite being hit by both cars she and her son were able to walk away from this accident and we're also getting a first uh response from the Kansas City Chiefs the president uh speaking with KCMO talk radio and I want to play what he had to say about all of this in all these situations you have to wait until you have all the facts and uh frankly we don't have all the facts at this point we'll get to the bottom of it we'll get we'll gather the

facts and then we'll react accordingly and as you as you mentioned the NFL saying that they are not going to be comment commenting on this matter for now Aaron all right Priscilla Thompson thank you we're just learning air strikes destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria in the last couple of hours the Syrian government says Israel is responsible the White House says it's looking into it as we're just getting in this stunning video of the aftermath in Damascus Iranian revolutionary guar

d says two top military commanders and five others were killed in the strikes the IDF tells NBC News it doesn't respond to foreign media reports as Israel's parliament just passed a law that could ban Al jazer from operating insigned that country something prime minister Netanyahu is pushing hard for all of it as Israel's military is now withdrawing from gaza's main hospital after two weeks of fierce fighting in and around alifa Israel claims to have killed hundreds of Hamas Fighters the Israeli

defense minister says the quote terrorist base there is now eliminated remember the bodies of at least two Israeli hostages were found near alifa back in November officials in Gaza say they're now finding the bodies of hundreds of De dead civilians there too as we're getting disturbing new video of what's left of alifa hospital beds in the middle of the widescale destruction alifa now unrecognizable let's bring in Josh Letterman so Josh let's start with the latest in Syria what more do we know

about this deadly strike well according to the Iranian ambassador to Syria Aon it killed up to seven people essentially leveled to the ground the part of the embassy that deals with Consular issues and among those who were killed according to the Iranian state official media were not one but two senior commanders of the Revolutionary guard which is of course the Elite paramilitary Force of Iran that is so active in working with those iran-backed militias like Hezbollah that have attacked Israel

and in a way this is just the continuation of this Shadow War we've seen playing out for months if not years between Israel and Iran but every time there is one of these incidents an assassination across border strike it raises the fear that potentially this could be the incident that sets off a whole domino and effect uh and leads to something much broader than this tit fortat kind of situation and could actually lead to a a direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran which is exactly

what the United States has been prevent trying to prevent from happening now Josh it comes as there's also this potential ban of Al jazer in Israel again what more does that say about the calculations of isra Israel's leaders uh that that they're making right now well it may speak to the fact that Israel knows that the public and international uh coverage and reaction uh to the devastation in Gaza is really taking a toll on support for Israel now prime minister Netanyahu says Al jazer is a terr

or Channel he says the channel is guilty of incitement is working with Hamas but we know there's been a long history between the Israel and this Channel at jazer which is based in Qatar there was the killing a couple years ago of a female aler journalist during an Israeli raid in the West Bank and earlier in this conflict we saw alero's bureau chief uh his uh wife two children and grandchild all killed in an Israeli air strike and so there's no love loss there but certainly Al jazer is condemnin

g this decision tonight uh and freedom of the press groups are saying this is no way for a democracy which Israel Prides itself on being a should behave towards the Press especially in the middle of a war and Josh let's talk about alifa once regarded as as the backbone of gaza's Health Care system now that footage just shocking it shows a hospital completely destroyed Israel seemed to be in firm control of alifa back in November now this intense fighting what what happened there well as you know

from your remarkable reporting ER both in Israel and in Egypt the destruction of the already fragile health system in Gaza has really exacerbated the humanitarian crisis here now Israel says that after it eliminated Hamas from that hospital back in November Hamas essentially went back they regrouped and were using it to plan additional attacks on Israel and so they went in raided for 2 weeks they have now left Israel calling this a success saying they were able to achieve their goals without ci

vilian deaths but officials in the Gaza Strip say that's totally false that uh there were hundreds of deaths many of them civilians Children of the elderly and others and now the Gaza Strip is without its largest hospital really the Cornerstone of its health system and so this is really going to lead to even worse humanitarian conditions there and I know the who says it plans to visit alifa tomorrow Josh Letterman thank you so much well still ahead a confirmed human case of bird flu in Texas our

dock on whether or not you should be worried and United telling its Pilots they can have a ton of time off this summer if they want but they're there's a big [Music] catch well police in Indianapolis tonight are asking parents to be more aware of their kids' whereabouts after a mass shooting over the weekend that injured at least seven people the victims were all under 17 years old police are still searching for suspects this is the third consecutive weekend with a mass shooting in Indianapolis

people in the community expressing shock over the violence where do seven people get shot at one time other than a war zone this is a crisis well MOA Barrett is joining us now so MOA we mentioned this is the third straight weekend with a mass shooting in Indianapolis what is the city looking at to try and stop this violence yeah Erin now these three past mass shootings haven't all necessarily been involving minors the way we're seeing here now that victims all from 12 to 17 years old but that d

oesn't mean that the city isn't worried about the issue of gun violence uh Community leaders have suggested curfews uh for miners specifically that's something we've seen in other cities like here in Chicago is being in effective uh the mayor has also said that they're looking into a crime prevention uh investment they're hiring a new staff position to tackle gun violence and youth violence specifically uh but there's been questions spiling all day about parent accountability and if there's any

way uh by law that they can be held accountable considering that these kids these teenagers were unsupervised so late on a Saturday night I want you to hear from the police chief when asked that question prosecutor MIRS and I have had conversations today and uh and we we're uh looking at all avenues of the law to see what we can and can't do to hold adults accountable now it's interesting in that the city of Indianapolis actually does have a law that is illegal for anyone under the age of 15 to

be out that late unsupervised and so that's something that police are emphasizing here they're also emphasizing it's still an active investigation uh they're looking for the suspects they haven't arrested or confirmed uh that arrests made Con in connection have been involved in the shooting specifically uh and we do know luckily that the victims uh involved are all stable some of them have been released from the hospital so there is at least a little bit of good news there Aaron all right Mora B

arrett thank you for that report report let's get you over to the five things our team thinks you should know about tonight number one AT&T says personal data from tens of millions of current and former customers was found on the dark web some of the information leaked includes Social Security numbers and passwords the company is reaching out to customers impacted by the breach and has reset the passwords of current users AT&T says it will pay for credit monitoring services in certain cases and

an investigation is underway number two United Airlines asking its Pilots to take unpaid time off next month due to Boeing's production delays United says it doesn't expect to get all the aircrafts it ordered for both this year and next year so this move aims to reduce excess Staffing almost all of the issues have to do with the Boeing 737 Max planes which have had multiple problems over the past several years Boeing has not yet responded to a request for comment and number three gold prices hit

ting another record high today more than $2200 an ounce it comes as the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates in June and generally as interest rates drop buying gold becomes more appealing to Consumers and number four President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden welcoming tens of thousands of visitors to the White House today for the annual Easter egg roll Mr Biden says it's a time to cherish the blessings the possibilities that we have As Americans and number five the new Powerbal

l jackpot $1 billion as of today it's been 3 months without the big winner and it's only the fifth advertised Powerball jackpot ever to hit $1 billion that is a lot of money and tonight we're learning that a person in Texas is now being treated for bird flu a virus that we rarely see in humans according to the CDC and state officials there they say the patient had Direct contact with an infected dairy cow the virus mostly impacts birds hence the name but it can spread from wild birds to chickens

that end up in grocery stores and other animals too like cows the CDC says most human infections come from people who've had unprotected exposures to these sick or dead animals and that the risk to the public is low Dr John Torres joins me now so Dr Taurus how does this infect a human and what are the symptoms and Aaron what happens is it changes when it's in an animal especially a chicken and then moving over to humans and sometimes in between if you think back in 2009 the swine flu pandemic m

oved from pigs into humans and then human to human Corona virus 2019 started moving from animals to humans and then human to human and here we have the h5n1 the bird flu which went from birds to cows cow to human what we don't have yet is moving human to human and that's when we start getting concerned now the symptoms you see here are a little bit like the flu but there's some atypical Parts as well like the flu you can go ahead and get flu like symptoms which are basically that cough sore thro

at fevers feeling achy fatigue you can see there but on this person here just had conjunctivitis that red eye the pink eye type symptoms sometimes people can get difficulty breathing and those GI symptoms as well the nausea vomiting diarrhea but again with this flu it seems to be atypical and they seem to be getting that or at least in this case that IR redness which clude the doctor to treat to go ahead and test for this and then subsequently treat Erin okay so bottom line how worried should pe

ople be so at this stage you shouldn't definitely Panic about it you shouldn't even be TP that concerned about it but you should certainly be aware of it because right now if you look at bird flu it's affected 48 states the cow flu going from bird to cow has only been five states and the states they are in right now are very isolated you can see right there they're the states that have this bird flu and we're talking Texas Kansas Michigan Idaho and New Mexico if you're in those States be careful

with unpasteurized milk because it can be transmitted in milk otherwise if you're in any of the other States including these five be careful with the birds themselves if you see a sick bird or a dead bird just leave it alone if you taking care of chickens and they happen to be sick be very careful with them a lot of handwashing and like we talked about Aon during the Pand mic you make sure that you cover up when you cough and sneeze stay home if you're sick and that's the way to avoid spreading

any of these Ain lots of great tips John Dr John Torres thank you so much well up ahead one European country becoming the latest to at least partially legalized weed what the new law means for them and a Race Against Time in Switzerland as Rescuers frantically look for Avalanche [Music] survivors the trial of a man accused of murdering his wife and then his girlfriend's children started in Idaho today Chad deel seen earlier in court faces capital murder charges over allegations he killed his wi

fe making it look like she died in her sleep and then conspired with his new girlfriend to kill two of her kids apparently because they believed the children were zombies who were possessed by dark Spirits Lori valo debel who Chad Mar mared just weeks after he allegedly killed his wife was sentenced to life without parole in her own trial last July here are the three people dbel is accused of murdering his wife Tammy and Lor's two children Tyle who was 16 and JJ who was 17 NBC's Dana Griffin is

following all of this for us so Dana Chad dbel is Lori valow uh their cases were supposed to be tried together right but dbel successfully had them separated because their defenses will supposedly contradict each other how should we expect their stories to differ exactly well we'll be waiting to see what that will look like I can tell you that Lor's case centered around money power and sex according to prosecutors now Lori was photographed vacationing in Hawaii with the defendant while this mass

ive search was underway for her kids now her defense was that people did not start to die until after she met and started having an affair with Chad debel defense attorneys blamed him for those nutty Doomsday theories and her attorney also said that any lies she told in the process were only to protect Chad now since Lori has already been convicted convicted as you mentioned of murdering her kids and conspiring to kill Chad's Wife Tammy it's likely that D Bell's defense will focus the blame on h

er now Dave Bell's attorney did a recent TV interview and said that his client is looking forward to telling his side of the story he did not say whether Chad will take the stand or if his wife Lori will testify now the judge in this case issued a g order after that interview to prevent attorneys and prosecutors from talking about this case prior to jury selection which is underway as we speak and part of that was because potential jurors had to fill out questionnaires last week and the judge di

d not want media attention to taint the potential jury pool now they are trying hard to get an unbiased jury seated this week attorneys can speak publicly then the trial is expected to last 8 to 10 weeks Aaron what a bizarre case Dana Griffin thanks so much NBC covers hundreds of international stories each day and because it's tough to read watch or listen to them all our teams around the world have done it for you here's a look at what they're watching in a segment we call the global in Switzer

land we're just learning that three people are dead and one other is hurt after an avalanche in the Alps today officials were searching for any survivors earlier but heavy snow impacted their efforts no word on the identities of the victims in Germany the government partially legalizing cannabis people held smoke inss at iconic spots across the country where they lit up joints and danced to music the new law legalizes owning up to 25 grams of marijuana and growing up to three cannabis plants for

personal use and in Japan a new study suggest that the entire country will have the same last name in a approximately 500 years that name researchers say is sat why it's the only country in the world that requires married couples to have the same surname this study is part of a campaign to raise awareness about this issue the person in charge of the project says he hopes leaders will consider the fact that family names could disappear and coming up California's fast food Workforce is getting a

raise why that's generating a whole lot of controversy starting today most fast food workers in California started getting paid at least $20 an hour thanks to a new law that just kicked in lawmakers hope it will give more Financial Security to workers in a historically low-paying field listen to this longtime McDonald's worker now I'll be able to save a little more money have a little more extra and be able to buy things that sometimes I wasn't able to buy well the new rule applying to some of t

he biggest chains McDonald's starbu chipotle and other places with more than 60 national locations but the big concern now is the ripple effect it might have like higher prices for customers layoffs and the pressure it puts on smaller businesses who are competing for the same workers David Nora joins me now so David you talked to someone who owns franchises of a big chain what what is she telling you about her concerns Erin Hi yeah so Carrie Harper Hoy is uh she and her family own 21 McDonald's

all in the LA area I interviewed her about what she thinks about this minimum wage increase take a listen to a bit of what she said we'll exp experience loss of profit we'll experience loss of savings loss um in a variety of different ways we will of course as everyone else is have to increase prices in some way shape or form but also timately we are we can't price raise our way out of this situation so these individual franchise owners are definitely going to feel the pressure as a result of th

is wage increase remember that it's going up 25% overnight right from between yesterday and today that's going to be hard on people's balance sheets interestingly though that same franchise owner told me that she intends to find ways to make up for this without laying people off or cutting their hours which is something that I think a lot of franchise owners are going to try to do because they even you know in spite of this they still need to be attractive employers to the people in their neighb

orhoods the people in their communities who are looking for work and how is she achieving that and what are experts saying so she's still figuring that out is the short answer but basically efficiencies finding other ways to cut costs um as far as experts you know some of the biggest chains including McDonald's also Starbucks and chipotle have said that they intend to raise prices as a result of this minimum wage increase but they haven't said by how much and you know economists estimate anywher

e between 2 and 5% I interviewed Michael rice who's a labor Economist at UC Berkeley here's what he anticipates based on prior wage increases take a listen $5 Mac that would be a dime 10 cents for a taco that was $3 it would be 6 cents that's uh it's an increase and people notice it but I don't think they'll change their behavior [Music] you know that said Aaron this is California it's a very expensive place to live a lot of people here already are having trouble affording Basics like housing an

d food so we'll see how these Ripple effects actually play out uh you know amongst regular consumers all right David thank you well still ahead our preview of a March Madness rematch between two of women's basketball's biggest stars the Clark versus Reese Showdown that's [Music] [Music] next you know those legendary star matchups in sports Ali Frasier Bird magic now ree Clark this is what we're talking about tonight a potentially Landmark moment for women's basketball ball with a rematch of last

year's NCAA tournament final this time in the Elite 8 in one corner the defending champs LSU led by Angel Reese going up against Iowa and the all-time scoring champ Caitlyn Clark the other matchup might be just as good with two Rising Stars yukon's Paige Beckers and USC's Juju Watkins all of it against the backdrop of a wild controversy look here notice anything about the three point line for the women's Regional in Portland that's right one side is 6 in closer to the basket than the other and

it was like that for five games Sam Brock joins me now so Sam we know there's an investigation they say it'll be fixed ahead of tonight's game but it's just another black mark for the NCAA in actually giving male and female stars equal treatment right yeah I mean look Aaron it's embarrassing right the NCAA hires a company to to install its Courts for all NCAA tournament games so the question becomes how does this happen they released a statement where they talked about the center of basket being

punched into the middle of the court and then they go through and they examine to make sure all the dimensions make sense but in this case they were off as you said by 6 in here's the official statement while the ncaa's vendor has apologized for the error we will investigate how this happened in the first place the NCAA is working now to ensure the accuracy of all Court markings for future games the NCAA regrets the error was not discovered sooner as you mentioned ER five games ago here's the r

esults in terms of how players are shooting right now on the correct Basket in terms of the dimensions it's about 33% of the shots that are going down on the other side they're actually shooting 25.8% even though it's closer so go figure there's all that going on but against the backdrop of larger issues within the sport we've seen a number of of black eyes as you said uh both in terms of of conduct how women are treated and also the sort of racially charged allegations that have been made here'

s just a sample of them the Utah women's basketball coach saying that she and her team were harassed that the n-word was used against players that there were racial epithets being hurled towards them as they were going at to dinner Hannah hialgo there in the middle of your screen she's an All-American point guard for Notre Dame she was asked to remove her nose ring Midway through her contest and had to leave the game for four minutes and then Kim mki of course from LSU had made a big to-do about

a Washington Post article that was going to come out and then it turns out over the weekend an LA Times article appeared to have a very discriminatory language in it describing her team as as dirty debutants in a battle of good versus evil LSU versus UCLA a lot of players white and black on LSU took issue with that characterization the LA Times had to ultimately amend its language and say it didn't meet its editorial standards so there's been a lot going on sring the women's game the last coupl

e of weeks okay and all of that taking away from what we're expecting to be a record night for this sport right walk us through that huge absolutely enormous right so we talked about the fact that you have Angel Reese and Caitlyn Clark it's rematch of last year's national title game that LSU won well the numbers on that game last year were almost 10 million that was record-breaking and it is shaping up to be more of the same you see for the round of 32 Caitlyn Clark here in her senior year Drew

almost 5 million viewers for a second round game can you imagine what this rematch is going to do tonight expect a lot of eyeballs and again the trends 2023 the elite eight there has 2.2 million viewers up 43% from just the year prior so we are moving definitely in the direction of an explosion of interest in women's college basketball and what are the two stars Caitlyn CL Clark and Angel Reese saying about tonight's game right so their beef was well documented last year Angel Reese came out yes

terday and said I don't have any hatred toward Caitlyn Clark nor she to me she says if she saw Caitlyn out in the street she' be like hey what's up but on the basketball court obviously the competitive juices are flowing and you can expect this to be a huge tightly contested game tonight some of the best talent in all of women's college basketball is going to be on that floor I for one will definitely be watching as will I so much to look forward to Sam Brock thank you well that's a wrap for thi

s hour coverage piigs up right now thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media