breaking news tonight the new Aftershock as we come on the air after that rare earthquake rocked the Northeast one of the strongest in the last century the Earth cam from a top the Statue of Liberty capturing the images as the 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New York City the Tremors felt as far south as Washington DC as far north as Maine rattling homes barber shops coffee shops and now the concern after that new 4.0 Aftershock also tonight Israel's milit AR dismissing two senior officers from t
heir positions after that deadly strike on Aid workers what it now says went wrong and our NBC News exclusive my conversation with the families of American hostages nearly 6 months since Hamas abducted them how do you put one foot in front of the other like I live my life in in agony in sadness their new plea to prime minister Netanyahu the fire at Senator Bernie Sanders office in Vermont in investigators late today saying it was arson President Biden in Baltimore touring the sight of the deadly
bridge collapse and meeting with First Responders and victims families the countdown to the total eclipse the excitement causing a business boom in some of the most unlikely places this is NBC Nightly News with Lester Hol good evening and welcome a lot of conversations here in the East today began with the words did you feel it well potentially tens of millions of people did on unusually strong earthquake fell from Maryland to Maine the Shocker setting tall buildings swaying in Philadelphia New
York and Boston among other places and a new Aftershock shortly before we came on the air this evening at 4.8 magnitude folks in the west would likely have been unfazed by this morning's Quake but earthquakes of this intensity in the East are not common this is the strongest in this region in over a decade it struck a little before 10:30 a.m. eastern time this morning its epicenter was in northern New Jersey there are no reports of widespread damage though Crews did survey Bridges airport runwa
ys and the like Emily aeta is near the epicenter in New Jersey with the latest scenes like this are typically out of the West Coast but just before 10:30 this morning a 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the New York City area with shock waves felt 300 M away stopping people in their tracks at the barber and rattling nerves inside this coffee shop schools normally watches the earthquake disrupts a un meeting is that an earthquake yeah Earth cam even capturing the Statue of Liberty shaking so you th
ink this crack is from the earthquake I do janal Jensen lives by the epicenter in New Jersey which sits near a major fault line the entire house was just shaking so in my head I just just thought that there was going to be an explosion Crews and First Responders now sprayed across the region evaluating buildings several homes in Newark had to be evacuated and runway inspections prompted ground stops at JFK and Newark airports remarkably no serious damage or injuries have been reported we are goi
ng to be reviewing all potentially vulnerable infrastructure State sites throughout the state of New York it's the most significant earthquake to rock the East Coast since 2011 and the strong one in New Jersey in nearly 250 years this is a rare event the Earth was releasing some stress that had built up uh between the two plates and it it's it'll now settle down for uh for a long time as shaken northeasterners try to do the same I'm a little Jitter is yeah cuz I you you don't experience things l
ike this in New York and Emily as we said you're near the earthquakes epicenter in New Jersey we felt uh here in the studio at least some of us here felt a Aftershock a while ago do they still pose a threat well Lester there have been at least seven aftershocks in the region including a magnitude for Quake that rattled the ground here just minutes ago experts say these could linger for another several days and people should drop take cover and hold on when experiencing one Lester Emily aeta toni
ght in New Jersey thank you facing intensifying pressure from the US Israel announced new steps to get humanitarian Aid into Gaza and it released results of its preliminary investigation into that air strike that killed seven Aid workers here's Gabe Gutierrez tonight the US is cautiously welcoming Israel's commitment to open more Aid routes into Gaza after a tense phone call between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the president declining today to answer whether he'd
threaten Netanyahu with stopping military aid I asked them to do what they're doing what Israel is doing is opening a Crossing to allow Aid into Northern Gaza using a port in southern Israel as a Supply Hub and allowing trucks from nearby Jordan to bring Aid through Israel into Gaza today the president was also asked if his tougher tone with Netanyahu meant he was abandoning Israel the Israeli military has removed two officers from their post and reprimanded three others after this week's deadl
y strike that killed seven Aid workers from Chef Jose Andre's World Central Kitchen it's very important that Israel is taking full responsibility for this incident according to Israel's newly released report forces wrongly identified what they thought was a gunman on one of the a trucks and mistakenly assumed there were Hamas terrorists inside the forces did not identify the vehicles in question as being associated with World Central Kitchen calling it a serious failure it was a terrible chain o
f errors and it should never have happened World Central Kitchen says the admissions are important steps forward but the charity is calling for an independent investigation because it says Israel's mil military cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza hostage talks are set for this weekend a senior Administration official says the president is urging the leaders of Egypt and Qatar to press Hamas for a deal Lester all right Gabe thank you now almost 6 months since the October 7th Hamas
attack on Israel the families of five Americans held hostage in Gaza still wait for proof of life and the safe return of their loved ones I sat down with them yesterday to talk about their pain frust ations and hopes we all know that they have seen the power of Hope Abigail was released on the 51st day of being a hostage they have seen Nightmares come true my sister Judy Weinstein kagi my amazing sister and her beloved husband Gadi kagi were um out for their early morning walk on October 7th an
d were the first victims of this Terror um when they were murdered um um by Kamas Isis terrorists on motorcycles they were shot murdered we learned that news uh about 76 days after that event well for five months my American Born and Raised cousin Ruby and his lovely wife hagit believed that their son 19-year-old itai was alive they got the bad news the unimaginable news about 3 weeks ago that he was actually amongst those who were murdered on October 7th for some of these American families the
fates of their kidnapped loved ones are still unknown and they're desperate for them to come home it's hard for anyone to step into your shoes and to imagine what it's been like how do you put one foot in front of the other like I live my life in in agony in sadness like I'm worried sick for my boy like every minute of the day every second of the day I don't have nights I don't have I don't have anything like but I need to continue with what we are doing like to put it out there out there exactl
y freed hostages have told horrific stories of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of Hamas I want to ask you about some of the reports we've heard from hostages who have been freed about their treatment in cap ity for those of you who still have missing loved ones is that something you need to hear or something you'd rather not hear about it's very difficult I don't like to hear about it my aunt Aviva and uncle Keith uh seagull were both taken together and aiva was released on day 51 the sam
e day that Abigail was released and she's home and we're just I don't even know how to express the amazing feeling yet at the same time Keith is there she knows exactly what Keith and all of the hostages are going through every single day and I just want to underline the urgency the opportunity for a deal is not going to get any better than it is today and I just I think that's why we're all here today the urgency and hearing of Eva stories it's you know it's horrific all the testimonies my hear
t just breaks these are living breathing human beings prime minister Netanyahu he needs to be that brave leader he needs to be that powerful strong leader and he needs to make it clear he's been talking for many months about how important hostage releas is we've we don't have any more time for talking I asked about four-year-old Abigail how is her emotional healing progressing what can you share with us she's a beautiful child who before the terrorist attack on October 7th was around Barefoot an
d playing and dancing to Beyonce videos and just this beautiful life she is able to do those things again so on a day-to-day level she is loved by family and she is doing wonderfully but we all know that there is effects of seeing your parents murdered earlier in the crisis the group met with President Biden at the White House do you feel the bid Administration still puts you and your loved ones as a priority we feel that uh we get attention and support from the Biden Administration but at the e
nd of the day we need our loved one back they need to pull every lever and it hasn't been done or else we would have had our dear ones back home are you still talking to the administration are you hearing yeah absolutely I mean we have an extraordinary amount of access and they're incredibly transparent and available are the Israeli Army actions in Gaza right now complicating any effort to get your loved ones best of the pressure on Israel to stop the fighting and provide ceasefire and and human
itarian support to Gaza is obviously increasing yet Hamas Isis can stop everything by releasing the hostages and putting down the weapon there's a surplus of suffering going around and horrible mistakes are happening the tragic horrifying mistake of those seven Aid workers getting killed it's a straw that's breaking the camels back what happens when you begin to lose sympathy do any of you feel that that is occurring it's a struggle Lester but we need to recognize that that chain reaction that b
rings us unfortunately back to you after many months was Unleashed on October 7th by Hamas in an unprovoked Savage Massacre of Civilian communities look at Gaza how can you not look at that and um and not feel unbelievable sympathy right for the suffering that's going on there and here we are with our love our innocent loved ones hostages for 181 days hidden in tunnels they kind of disappear in this horror that's going on and there's no question that it feels like the world is moving on if you l
ook at the Gaza border which is where my son was abducted from it's he's 2 three miles away they're so close and yet so far and yet Hamas is still holding on to them what keeps them going that's one line that we say every single day in our house and someone gave it to us in a sticker cuz we say it so much hope is mandatory part of my conversation with families of American hostages held in Gaza in Baltimore today President Biden got a firsthand look at the efforts to clear away the collapsed Fran
cis Scott Key bridge touring the site by air and then meeting with First Responders and families of the men who died in the disaster Mr Biden pledging to reopen the channel quickly and to provide financial support to the region Mr President and a strong new jobs report out today in March the us adding more than 300,000 jobs blowing past economists Expectations by about a 100,000 the unemployment rate declining slightly to 3.8% wage growth was up 4.1% year-over-year outpacing the rate of inflatio
n and police in Burlington Vermont are investigating a fire suspecting arson at the office of Senator Bernie Sanders they're looking for a suspect who they say sprayed an accelerant on the door and set it on fire fire the building sprinkler system put the fire out people were working in the office at the time but there were no injuries in 60 seconds anticipation of Monday's total eclipse has become a total Bonanza for so many towns and cities in its past we'll take you to one of them right after
this just three days to go now until the event of the spring solar eclipse excitement is taking hold Across the Nation and along the path of totality it's causing a big business boom in some unlikely places Morgan chesy has more now from his hometown in Texas tonight the countdown's on for a Celestial date with Destiny we've been talking eclipse for the last year and a half come Monday a solar eclipse passing over 31 million Americans living in the prized path of totality so we are directly on
the center line inis Texas the blue bonnet Capital now capitalizing on its 4 minutes and 23 seconds seconds of total darkness all of our hotel years told us that they opened up bookings last April 8th for April 8th and they were sold out within two to three days and it has been sold out for a year yes wow Nationwide Airbnb says nine out of 10 listings are booked along the eclipses path from Maine to Texas an hotm and her family arriving just in time from Germany it's something special it's not t
hat easy to come over here from Europe to be honest other towns are planning too like ville Texas where I was born and raised at Gibson's cowboy hats now sit next to all things eclipse eclipse business not bad business here no no very good business as a matter of fact the town prepping to swell by nearly 10 times have you ever had to plan for an event of this magnitude of the scale no no not in cville no this is just out and this is above and beyond anything all of our safety people have been pl
anning for so long and they've they've got our backs they've got this down but come Monday all lies will be looking up Morgan chesky NBC News kville Texas and up next for us tonight machine therapy some think there's a role for artificial intelligence in mental health back now with our series AI Revolution and a question tonight can artificial intelligence be used to provide effective therapy here's Aon mcglaughlin how have things been going since we last connected it could be the beginning of a
ny standard therapy session it's okay to not be okay but neuroscientist Daniel toker is talking to a machine obviously I know it's not sentient it's not a person but it feels that way he's been using chat GPT for about a year in addition to his actual therapist it honestly surprised me how well it worked and how useful a tool it's been open AI the company behind Chi PT says it's not a replacement for mental health treatment and we encourage users to seek support from professionals and while mult
iple studies show Chan GPT can provide valuable support the American Psychological Association is concerned with generative AI powered chat Bots being used for mental health I think it's really important for individuals to understand that not only is this not a replacement for a human provider the chances that they could provide inaccurate information is just too high there is one FDA approved chatbot that offers rted therapeutic responses but none with generative AI where the bot learns about y
ou and offers individualized replies I am feeling like I want to get back together with him at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire Nicholas Jacobson hopes to change that most people don't receive any type of mental health care and a lot of that is I think a scale problem Mental Health America estimates more than 28 million us adults with a mental illness are are not getting treatment Jacobson wants theot now in clinical trial to become the first FDA approved generative AI chatbot for mental healt
h how does it compare with an actual therapist so generally right now the content's pretty similar it's how available it is thots available 247 for now it's text based the user types for onscreen responses with more than 200 test participants Now using the data train bot for therapy each conversation is scrutinized we want it to say certain things and we've trained it to act in certain ways but there's there's ways that this could um certainly go off the rails and potentially dangerous it absolu
tely the demand is overwhelming yes is this the solution I think this is a solution one that if it works could go a long way to help America's Mental Health crisis Aaron mcglaughlin NBC News Handover New Hampshire that is Nightly News for this Friday thank you for watching everyone I'm Lester Holt please take care of yourself and each other good night thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media
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