Top Story with Tom Llamas - Feb. 22 | NBC News NOW

tonight breaking news as we come on the air the first private company has landed on the moon NASA saying the odyss lunar lander has just touched down on the moon's surface making it the first us-made spacecraft a successfully touchdown on the moon in five decades it launched just 7 days ago on a SpaceX rocket from the Kennedy Space Center we're breaking down everything you need to know about this historic moment also tonight the investig ation into what caused a wireless service outage that affe

cted customers Nationwide connection cut off to tens of thousands of cell phone users this morning many saying their phone had been turned to SOS mode and they were only able to dial 911 First Responders flooded with calls could this have been the result of a Cyber attack President Biden's slamming in Alabama Supreme Court ruling on Frozen embryos calling it a direct result of the overturning of Row versus Wade more fertility clinics in the state now pausing IVF treatments over fear of legal rep

ercussions some women left stranded after already spending thousands of dollars to start the treatment do they have any other options deadly police shooting newly released body camera video shows the moment police in Los Angeles fatally shot a 36-year-old man who was holding a plastic fork what officers say they believed he was armed with when he reached for one of their bean bag guns controversial display a North Carolina teacher labeling classroom doors as a quote white entrance and a quote co

lored entrance as part of a Black History Month lesson the school removing it and calling the and the district calling it inappropriate but many coming to the teachers defense saying it Sparks an important conversation about the history of segregation plus the president of Mexico publicly naming New York Times journalists during a press conference and releasing their contact information the move coming just hours before the newspaper published an article about alleged ties to the president's cam

paign and drug cartels and reaching New Heights tonight we visit the booming Aviation program at Texas Southern University how the school along with some major Airline carriers are helping more students land their dream pilot jobs and bringing some much needed diversity to the cockpit top story starts right [Music] now good evening I'm Ellison Barber we're coming on the air with breaking news from space just moments ago the United States making its first landing on the moon in more than 50 years

cheers erupting inside mission control as intuitive machines unmanned Odysseus Lander touched down on the moons hard to reach South Pole at 6:23 p.m. eastern time the mission also marks the first time a private company has landed on the moon the 14ft Lander launched just 7 days ago on a space X rocket from the Kennedy Space Center experts say this Mission will help prepare us for future human exploration of the moon's Uncharted Territory NBC News correspondent Marissa par joins us now from Atla

nta with more Marissa you have covered a lot of SP space movements of late take us through this moment tonight talk about that moment when it finally touched down and some of the drama that unfolded along the way hey Allison well if you C or if you watch space coverage you will know that it very very seldom happens exactly how it's supposed to or at least anticipated too I would say the only thing you can predict is that it is unpredictable and so it's very common for the exact Landing times lau

nch times to slide and that is exactly what we saw today the time that it was supposed to land changed quite a few times um but then we saw that there was a lot of drama that happened before it was supposed to land and even after and so um leading up to it there were some issues that it was about an hour beforehand uh these issues that NASA administrator Bill Nelson called White Knuckle time they were in critical moments and unsure if they were going to be able to make that slated time of 6:24 e

astern time that was the time that they were aiming for um and then they were able to do some Patchwork if you will and so then even as we approached those crucial moments and we were talking about in the minutes and and even seconds before and after that aimed Landing time um everybody was waiting with their breath you know holding their breath we saw collectively U the mission control uh people online were waiting to find out if it was successful so Ellison it was over 20 minutes roughly 20 mi

nutes of waiting until we heard that confirmation that history was made and although of course there's going to be questions on what is the state of this lunar Landing what does it look like um those are things that will be answered once we get those images it takes a lot longer for the actual images of the Landing to come through and of course all of the data with that but we do know there was a successful landing on the moon in some way shape or for yeah and this obviously a very historic mome

nt for the United States NASA administrator Bill Nelson spoke a moments after touchdown let's listen to some of what he had to say today for the first time in more than a half century the US has return to the Moon today for the first time in the history of humanity a commercial company an American company launched and led the voyage up there and today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA's commercial Partnerships Marissa talk to us about where exactly this landed what makes the loca

tion the South Pole of the moon so special here exactly and and that is actually part of the reason why we were probably seeing a lot of the challenges that that we were so uh the conditions on the South Pole the South part of the Moon um that was where they were aiming for and where they were successfully able to make their Landing tonight um is quite different than on the equator and so you have a lot of craters around this area and I'll get to the reasons why this is so important for them to

explore this side of the moon um but it was the laser that was an issue uh leading up to the scheduled arrival time and the laser helps them measure the distance from the Moon and it's so important of course for any type of vehicle to be able to have a precise estimation of how far they are from the moon's surface when they're trying to make a landing here Ellison so um they were able to get that solved in the the nick of time but the reason why they're looking at this part of the Moon specifica

lly and this is until recently been an unexplored part of the Moon it wasn't until August of last year India became the first country to make a soft Landing in this part of the moon so we now are seeing the first PR private Mission from um a vehicle landing on this part of the moon this is you know the United States can claim that Fame here um but the reason why they're looking and and everyone has been trying to get to this part is there's icy waters in those craters Ellison and so the hope is

that they can tap into those icy waters to provide a sort of rocket fuel station people are calling it sort of a gas station of sorts if you will that would make it not only more easy but also more affordable for Missions elsewhere in our solar system including Mars so a lot of elements to this even beyond the moon even beyond the race back to bring humans back to the Moon um this means a lot and is a significant step forward for just the race to space in general Allison Marissa para fantastic r

eporting thank you so much we appreciate it also tonight AT&T says old service has been restored after widespread outages this morning clogged up emergency response services and prompted Federal investigations here's what we know according to the tracking site down detector at about 4:00 a.m. eastern time outages started to appear affecting about 32,000 customers Nationwide mainly with AT&T that number spiked to about 74,000 by 8 a.m. and 72,000 customers appeared to still be affected by 10:00 a

.m. customers with Cricut wireless Verizon T-Mobile and boost were also impacted many users reported their phones had been turned to SOS mode and app feature that only allows calls to 911 the FBI FCC and Homeland Security are all investigating the cause NBC News correspondent Liz CZ has the latest tonight still no explanation for the massive Nationwide cell phone outage AT&T one of the largest Wireless carriers in the country going down early this morning for some customers unable to send or rec

eive any calls or texts as soon as I woke up this morning it was gone the outage lasting for hours didn't have any service I need to make some phone calls the company saying wireless service is now fully restored but the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are investigating the bureau saying should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly I think a lot of people right now are asking how does something like this happen unfortunately the technologies that we use are becom

ing increasingly complicated this highlights the dependencies we have on very complex systems some emergency departments urging people not to call 911 unnecessarily Massachusetts State Police saying they were flooded with calls that clogged their system as people tried to test their phones Lexington 911 where's your emergency this Kentucky 911 dispatch Center had normal call volume this morning but says today's outage is a good reminder to have alternate modes of communication it's not a bad ide

a to have a landline a landline available the outage impacting people from coast to coast my messages weren't sending like I wasn't getting anything says my birthday so I want to call my mom and stuff in Los Angeles Uber driver time Johnson feeling a difference during the morning commute what have you noticed it's just been really really slow so I'm thinking it may be the outages cuz people can't order their Ubers Security Experts saying the situation reveals potential vulnerabilities I think it

does show though that we need to really be thoughtful about as we adopt these Technologies as we become dependent upon them that there are fail saves that there are rollovers a stark reminder as our Reliance on technology only grows Liz CS joins us now from Los Angeles so Liz what has AT&T said about what happened here yeah well Ellison AT&T says they're still investigating they have not given an official cause for this outage there is no indication though that this was a Cyber attack we know s

everal federal agencies including the FCC now are working with AT&T to try to figure out what happened but you talked about s so earlier and that's just another reminder to people that a lot of cell phones now do have this SOS feature where you're able to call 911 and emergency services using Wi-Fi even without cell signal Allison Liz CZ thank you now to the latest on that controversial Court ruling in Alabama that embryos are considered children even more fertility clinics across the state choo

sing to stop IVF treatments patients there now desperately searching for answers some even flying out of state for treatment NBC's Laura Jared spoke to several of them and has this report IVF patients in Alabama tonight devastated Furious and scrambling as more fertility clinics abruptly stop IVF procedures Gabby goyel has spent $20,000 on fertility treatments three miscarriages later she's hoping to create embryos with her husband Spencer as soon as possible I'll take my six rounds of shots ton

ight but her Clinic Alabama for fertility informed her this morning it was putting all new IVF treatments on hold I just broke down into tears I really was inconsolable we just started calling every Clinic that we could think of I'm not stopping this cycle I've already been through two many shots already invested too much time and energy so she's packed her bags jumping on a plane to Texas tonight now scheduled to complete her fertility treatment at a different Clinic there while Megan Cole and

her husband Walker received word late last night that the embryo transfer scheduled for her surrogate this Friday couldn't move forward it was just completely crushing so now she says the clinic won't release their seven Frozen embryos for use elsewhere we are not allowed to um transport them out of Alabama right now basically everything is shut down so even though these are apparently my children um I don't have access to them how much money do you think you spent it's close to 200 50,000 IVF n

ow accounts for roughly 2% of births in the US but the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling creating legal liability for destroying embryos in the state has left the medical community in limbo one of the worst things is how many questions it leaves unanswered leaving clinics with a difficult decision tonight Mobile Infirmary says it has no choice but to pause all IVF while fertility Institute of North Alabama says we're still going to perform IVF as we always have please do not panic and Laura Jarrett

joins us now in studio Laura I was so struck by what Megan had to say about saying basically I am not able to move what is being considered my children I'm not allowed to take them out out of the state even though they say they're my children yep what option does she have now uh she's basically uh in complete uh no man's land she has she has no real recourse she's certainly weighing her legal options right now because she's spent so much money you heard in the piece $ 250,000 on this whole proc

ess of fertility getting a surrogate is not easy her surrogate's been on hormones so I think all told this has been such an a financial and emotional and physical burden I think she's consider she's considering all of her legal options as we do keep hearing kind of this trickle of clinics saying hey we're going to put a pause on this first with University of Alabama at Birmingham then hearing it with other smaller ones and then other ones not that's the confusion right that's where do people go

when you're being getting those mixed messages that's the part that I think so many um patients have been so baffled by is that some clinics seem to say we're not willing to take the risk and other clinics saying we're going to just proceed as if nothing has changed as if that decision hadn't come down and remember the decision is only about giving parents the legal right to sue for destruction of embryos not just anybody the legal right to sue not you can only have standing to if you're the par

ents of those embryos and so the parents are saying we're the parents and we want those embryos so give them to us allow us to go forward with IVF but again the clinics are just weighing their legal options and they don't want to get sued senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett thank you the Alabama decision causing aftershocks across the political world as well as the two remaining Republican primary candidates former president Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are forced to reckon with the ruling

President Biden this afternoon blasting the decision in a fiery statement saying in part quote the disregard for women's ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable make no mistake this is a direct result of the overturning of Row versus Wade for more on the political Fallout I want to bring an NBC News correspondent Ali Vitali who is covering the Nikki Haley campaign for us she joins us now from the campaign Trail in Myrtle Beach South Caroli

na so Ally uh we know this decision is certainly going to loom over the 2024 campaign you had an interview with Nikki Haley yesterday one of the very first ones I believe it was the first and you asked her about this Alabama decision I want to listen to that exchange now I want to ask you about some news of day specifically something that's come up in Alabama the Supreme Court there said that embryos created through IVF are considered children and are offered those same protections do you agree

I mean I think I mean embryos to me are babies so I even those created through IVF I mean I had artificial insemination that's how I had my son so when you look at you know one thing is to have um to save sperm or to save eggs but when you talk about an embryo you are talking about to me um that's a life and then last night Haley seemed to backtrack a little bit on those comments during an interview with CNN here's that I didn't say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling what the question that I

was was asked is do I believe an embryo is a baby I do think that if you look in the definition an embryo is considered an unborn baby and so yes I believe from my stance that that is our goal is to always do what the parents want with their embryo it is theirs so any physician that is in control of those embryos they owe it to those people to make sure they protect that embryo and that they do what that embryo what those parents want done with that embryo I mean Ally to be clear I listened to a

couple of times your interview rereading it again now you did ask that question you asked her specifically about Alabama you said do you agree I mean I'm rereading all the words that was the question you asked why is she trying to draw this distinction at all yeah Ellison you and I did the same thing because of course when you hear the candidate say that they were answering a different question my first instinct is to go check what I actually asked and so she was responding to the Alabama rulin

g that I specifically asked her about and then went into greater detail when I asked her more questions about the potential chilling effect that rulings like this one could have on families trying to use IVF to have their children but for Haley it makes sense now why she's waffling on this issue it seemed she took a clear stance in that interview with me now her campaign is saying that she was simply espousing her personal view not her political or legislative View and that she believed that it

should be up to doctors and patients to have these sensitive and nuanced conversations between them yes but that's where the Reproductive Rights conversation and policy debate actually comes into direct conflict with What patients and doctors want to talk about in terms of their own care we're seeing it in this IVF conversation but it's the conversation that states across the country have been having for the last several years and certainly in the post-dbs era as conversations about care that pa

tients want to have with their doctors come come into immediate intersection and collision with the policy of the day as more restrictions are put in place it's confusing for doctors it's confusing for patients and it leads to people not being able to access the care that in some cases they actually need whether you're talking about abortion or IVF treatment you and Laura talked about the legal confusion and the confusion of people trying to access this now but there are actual people going thro

ugh these IVF treatments right now in Alabama voters out here on the campaign Trail just being introd uced to the idea of if IVF is now a political football that they should expect to be talking about I think a lot of this really just developing in real time as we figure out what it looks like for America to be post row Ali Vitali in Myrtle Beach South Carolina thank you we appreciate you and your reporting thank you now to an update on the legal battle between a Texas high school student and hi

s school district over the length of his hair 18-year-old Daryl George has been punished for months including an in school suspension because school of officials say his hair is longer than their grooming rules allow today a judge ruling the school district's policies do not violate the state's Crown act which prohibits race-based hair discrimination for more on this let's bring in NBC's Morgan chesky who joins us live tonight from Dallas Texas Morgan walk us through the ruling here why did the

judge decide this policy does not violate Texas's Crown act yeah Ellison he did not go into much elaboration when he made this ruling earlier today in this County courtroom not far from Houston but he made it very clear that the district was not in the wrong at least in his estimation and suspending this 18-year-old student for a hairstyle that the district believes violates their student code of conduct and it's specific wording here looking at this code of conduct that Drew a lot of attention

today Ellison because in that policy they say that a male student's hair Cannot drop below uh their eyebrows or their earlobes the George family says that whenever he has his locks in place it's always up however the district says should he were to let that hair down it would then violate their policy and in turn that's why they've chosen to suspend him having him essentially learn in a alternative school in school suspension for the last several months uh which has left the George family very f

rustrated admitting that his grades have dropped uh during that time now you mentioned the the crown act that was this law that went into effect back in September 2023 supposed to uh stop race-based discrimination however the family says in this case they don't believe it did Alison so Morgan what is next in this case and have you been able to speak to Daryl or his family since this ruling came down yeah the family to emotionally distraught following this judge's ruling but they did have a suppo

rter nearby who had this to say regarding the judge's decision take a listen I think think we've got to remember that this is about Daryl and to see that young man crying he didn't understand we couldn't explain it to him we tried to explain it to him he just wants to learn and he just wants to be normal his mom was so physically shaken like I was worried about her are you okay do I need to get you some water please pray for this family and the George family through their attorney says that they

do plan to appeal this decision will be keep a close eye on the next court date here Ellison Morgan chesy thank you turning overseas now to the latest on the war in the Middle East three Palestinian gunmen opening fire at an Israeli checkpoint killing one person and injuring 11 others the attack coming as Israel pummels Gaza with some of the worst strikes since the War Began killing nearly 100 people in just 24 hours NBC News foreign correspondent Josh Letterman has the latest on the region vio

lence erupting during rush hour traffic in Israel after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire near a checkpoint in between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank killing one person and injuring 11 others Hamas praising the attack Israeli police calling it terrorism the attack coming as Israel continues its Relentless bombardment of Gaza reducing a mosque to rubble and decimating countless homes in some of the worst strikes since the War Began killing at least 97 people and injuring hundreds more in

just 24 hours according to the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry families left to mourn the loss of loved ones amid the destruction this woman who lost multiple family members says in 2014 they took three of my siblings and in the 2024 War they took the people I love they took a piece of my heart she says tonight world leaders desperately sounding the alarm Gaza has become aone can as the situation in Gaza becomes more dire by the minute more than 29,000 Palestinians killed in this war so far and

those who have survived forced to live under brutal conditions in makeshift tent encampments this displac resident saying whatever I say will not describe the reality there is no food drink or life only a handful of hospitals are functioning in the region and the spread of infectious diseases threatens to wipe out thousands of injured and displaced residents and Josh Letterman joins us now from our London Bureau Josh you have some new reporting on the US's involvement in hostage talks that's rig

ht Ellison the president's mid East coordinator Brett mcgurk has been on the ground trying to get these hostage negotiations unstuck he was in Egypt yesterday today in Israel he met with prime minister Netanyahu and defense minister Gallant he also had a chance to meet with families of the American citizens who are still in hostages in the Gaza Strip and those families after that meeting released a statement where they expressed cautious opt ISM about those talks now in recent days these talks h

ave really stalled over disagreements between Israel and Hamas over whether Israel should pull out all troops from the Gaza Strip as part of a deal as well as the number of Palestinian prisoners that Hamas wanted back but in the last couple of days there have been some hints that these negotiations might get back on track uh with the member of the war cabinet Benny Gans saying that there is a possibility of moving forward and to that end Israeli media are now repor reporting that Israeli officia

ls will be in Paris tomorrow to continue that talk uh those negotiations with the various parties including with the US Ellison Josh Letterman thank you still ahead tonight A Deadly police shooting in Los Angeles new video showing the moments police fatally shot a man who lunged at them with a plastic fork what that body camera video shows happened the moments just before the deadly shot plus a Black History Month lesson sparking controversy at a North Carolina House High School why the district

made the teacher take down this door display and why others are coming to her defense and caretakers for former TV host Wendy Williams revealing she has been diagnosed with a form of dementia what more we're learning about her health battle tonight stay with [Music] us back now with a disturbing story out of Los Angeles police there fatally shooting a man who they thought was armed with a screwdriver after he lunged at at officers but officers discovering after firing their weapons he only had

a plastic fork in his hand new body camera footage showing the decisions officers made leading up to that use of deadly force NBC News correspondent Ellen Lopez has this story tonight newly released video shows the moment police opened fire fatally shooting a 36-year-old man who was holding a plastic fork officers responding earlier this month to a 911 caller claiming an armed homeless man was getting aggressive with an employee near La skid rad very dangerous kind of like caking out he's like g

etting aggressive he's getting does he have any weapons uh yes he yes yes what does he have like a big like a PO he can't okay second we're going to get someone over there the suspect identified as Jason mccon seen here initially complying with police raising his hands and turning around to your left hold on right there MCC then suddenly stops turns around and advances toward the police holding tightly onto an object that authorities say one officer believed to be a screw driver at least two off

icers fired several non-lethal rounds but mccan continued to charge at them at one point he even grabbed onto one of the officers a bean bag shotgun another officer opened fire striking the suspect and taking him to the ground okay we got the arm police say officers immediately called for an ambulance and performed CPR on mccan before he was taken to a local hospital he did not survive mccc's family telling the LA Times he was experiencing a bipolar episode at the time of the incident police lat

er discovered that the object mccan was holding was a white plastic fork I remain concerned about the officer's decision to use deadly force Ed Obayashi a use of force expert who investigates police shootings for law enforcement agencies in California says he believes believes the officer who fatally shot mccan was not at fault this is such a fast evolving incident especially when you have an officer that you see in front of your very eyes being pinned against the wall she's basically defenseles

s at this point so this officer appears to me acted reasonably under this situation arm to the S threat emplo questions also mounting over whether the 911 caller intentionally exaggerated the threat mccan posed it appears at this point that the person who called us uh purposely misrepresented the information uh in an effort to uh cause the department to respond there more quickly and tonight more than two weeks after the shooting LAPD says the officer who opened fire is still on duty as the inve

stigation into the shooting continues and Owen Lopez joins us now from Los Angeles you mentioned there at the end that the investigation by the LAPD into this is still ongoing do we know when that might wrap up or where it is in the course of this investigation yeah alisen that's right that fatal shooting is now being reviewed by the police chief and others to see whether that use of deadly force was in compliance with the Department's policies we also just got word a few moments ago that mcc's

family will be holding a press conference tomorrow we know that that investigation overall could take up to a year Allison elwin Lopez in La thank you next tonight to a controversy at a North Carolina high school and one teacher Black History Month lesson classroom doors depicting white and quote colored entrances from the segregation era taken down after causing an uproar but some experts arguing displays like that are vital to teaching black history NBC News correspondent Antonia Hilton report

s tonight these classroom doors labeled colored entrance and white entrance sparking new debate over how to handle the nation's painful racial history in schools the display depicting a segregation era Sear's department store entrance from the 1930s part of a Black History Month lesson at West charlet High her only thing was like making sure that the kids knew um or could see a visual of how things were back in the day the school ordering the teacher to take down the signs but her daughter says

they're missing the point the purpose of the door um was to show that Sears which is a apartment store was one of the first stores that allowed um blacks to shop with white other doors representing historic black entities like mtown records and another displaying the message from chains to change however the school district deems the segregation era entrance inappropriate in a statement provided to NBC News the district saying that the school district is required to provide social studies and hi

story lessons to all our students in an a appropriate Manner and that the activity is not aligned with State Standards or with the CMS curriculum and approved lesson plans as a society we have what I would call oppression fatigue historian larrett King sees pressure coming from the political environment but also value in the conversations the display generates you can't teach integration without teaching segregation right and those doors right there you know just seem like it was you know anothe

r aspect to start conversation some members of the community agree Sharice Terry runs a local coffee shop that sells black memorabilia what I see is somebody has done a a very good job at recreating um and illustrating what the times has been like for for black people online the reception is mixed some users calling it a great idea and the lesson is loud and clear imagine what our grandparents and ancestors felt While others are calling it disgraceful and not the best learning objective but for

legar King disagreement and discomfort are all a part of facing our history Joy is important exceptionality is important the heroes and heroin are important right um but uh if you want to teach a holistic kind of understanding of black history unfortunately oppression anti-blackness and power um are kind of intertwin within that history and Antonia Hilton joins us now on set so Antonia what are academics telling you about the response to all of this well Ellison the historian that we spoke to th

inks that the district may be trying to get ahead of the kind of backlash that we've seen coming from parents and politicians in recent years whenever these controversies have come to schools and you know there is a serious risk in some cases schools have passed new policies there are new laws in place and so they have to take action and and try to protect themselves when these kinds of difficulties come up Antonia Hilton thank you when we come back the Urgent search for a missing 3-year-old an

Amber Alert issued two days ago after the child vanished while staying with a caregiver the details just in about that child's [Music] mother back now with top stories news feed and we begin with the search for a Wisconsin 3-year-old who went missing two days ago authorities say Elijah Vu disappeared from his home in the city of two rivers on Tuesday morning according to police he'd been staying with a caregiver at the time of his disappearance according to a prisoner listing from the local sher

iff vu's mother has been taken into custody but right now no other details have been released an update on former talk show host Wendy Williams ongoing Health battles Williams team announcing today that she's been diagnosed with dementia and Aphasia conditions associated with changes in communication behavior and personality actor Bruce Willis received an almost identical diagnosis back in 2022 the announcement just days before a lifetime documentary about Williams physical and mental health is

set to premere and police in Denver searching for who is responsible for vandalizing a Martin Luther King Jr statue several pieces of the monument were stolen including a panel depicting black military veterans as well as a bronze torch and Angel the Denver Police Department's bias motivated crime unit is investigating the theft artist Ed Dwight created the city park Memorial in 2002 tonight we have an NBC News and Sky News exclusive investigation in interpole the world's largest International p

olice organization manages databases with information on crimes and criminals from all over the world including red notices those are used to alert other countries of criminals that have fled from one country to another The Joint investigation uncovers the story of one woman Jessica Barona Martinez who fled El Salvador in 2016 after she said she was persecuted for being openly lesbian one year later she was arrested by Ice officials because her name appeared in the interpole red notice system sh

e would be detained for six years and an illegal battle that is still ongoing and let me give you an idea of who usually gets flagged under these red notices it's people like Osama Bin Laden after the 9911 Terror attacks Joseph Cony the alleged commander of the Lord's resistance Army who's been charged with three dozen counts of war crimes and crimes against human by the international criminal court and Mexican drug lord Wen El Chapo Guzman so how did Jessica end up with a notice associated with

the world's most dangerous murderers and terrorists and why in some cases countries around the world were wrongfully targeting individuals to answer those questions I'm joined Now by Nicole ACO from NBC News digital and Sahar xan investigative journalist and reporter who is also the host of Dirty Work a podcast series on Sky News about the misuse of Interpol red notices thank you both so much for being here Nicole let me start with you because it was so striking to read your reporting and hear

some of Jessica's story she's a mother her children were between the ages of 12 and 15 when she first was detained and went into ice custody and now they're in their 20s they're adults now tell us a little bit about her yeah Jessica basically lost the time where she was seeing her children grow up being detained in an in an immigration Detention Center based on this red notice that according to her lawyer it's basically based not even on a serious crime like you would think it's based on on some

thing else um for not showing up to court in elabor so the reason why she even left El salal in the first place was because her life was in danger she was facing torture death threats she tells me that there was a police officer there that had a grunch against her because she's an openly lesbian woman and she had refused his sexual advances and in after even in the middle of those accusations she is exposed to all this danger in her life the case that came between those allegations she was acqui

tted for it so there was no even there was no evidence according to the judge in Salvador that those things were true so she flees here seeking for safety and instead what she finds is 6 years in detention and soar based on the reporting that you have done this is not not an isolated incident right I think so many of us hear the name interpole and we think okay they know what they're doing it has this Grand authoritative name where you think yeah I've heard of people ending up inadvertedly and u

nfairly on a no-fly list but for a red notice surely the standard is higher and mistakes are rare are mistakes like this rare um sadly they're not um during the course of our investigation of come across so many different cases some very very horrendous cases I've seen people ending up um with a red notice on them for being journalists for being political activists for being from a certain ethnic background the worst part for many of these people is that they nobody there is nobody that can be h

eld accountable how do you get accountability if you are someone Sahar who was inadvertently or intentionally but unfairly put on this list when it's a global organization is there any sort of Watchdog group that's responsible for correcting the wrongs here the short answer is no no there isn't Nicole I do want to play some of a clip we have from your interview with Jessica this is some of what she had to say when I think you asked her what her message is to the United States government let's li

sten and then we'll talk I mean it's been a lot of years since this ordeal started for her but you can still hear the very current real pain in her voice voice what is her life like now is this trauma She carries with her forever I mean I think so I mean what the time that was taken away from her can never be fully replaced as as hard as you try um but right now she is still fighting her case fighting her Asylum case which she she was fighting while she was detained in in the immigration Detenti

on Center so har what do you hope people take away from this reporting the investigations both of you have done and in terms of reforms here what should happen what can possibly happen to make this less of a problem um I mean to answer your initial question what do I wish for people to take away is that this isn't an issue that only targets you know if it targets you if you are a journalist or if you are a very successful businessman literally anyone as we can see in Jessica's case can be impact

ed and to answer your question about reforms there are many theories that the people of experts have spoken to um some of them think that Interpol has become a huge bureaucratic mistake that it should just be abolished and a whole new system need to um be created but a lot of people say that Interpol is already serving um a lot of good functions around the world it is helping arrest some very dangerous criminals and terrorists so um those people basically have certain advises a lot of people say

interpool needs to become more transparent and the second thing is that there needs to be an incentive for countries and powerful people to stop abusing the system all right well thank you both so much for your amazing reporting and for being here today people can read more of your work at nbcnews.com Nicole oo NBC News digital Sahar xand uh host of Dirty Work podcast series on Sky News thank you both so much we appreciate it thank you coming up journalists doxed by a head of state Mexico's pre

sident publicly revealing the cont information and names of New York Times journalists just hours before they published a report about allegations against him the scathing response from the newspaper tonight now to the Americas where tonight the president of Mexico is under Fire for a case of doxing today the country's leader publicly disclosing the phone number of a New York Times journalist during a televised press conference the incident coming amid recent reports suggesting drug cartels funn

el millions of dollars to support the president's campaign NBC News correspondent guad Venegas has more tonight Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez orador going to Extreme Measures in refuting recent reports by American journalists looking into alleged ties between the president and drug cartels at a press conference Thursday morning president Lopez obrador questioned the Integrity of some Us Media outlets and then publicly revealing the contact information for the New York Times Bureau in Mex

ico cityor showing a request for comment his team received this week from Natalie K the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico Central America and the Caribbean the doxing came on the day K tr's team published an explosive report regarding alleged efforts from us officials looking into recent ties between orador allies and drug traffickers that report also saying quote the United States never opened a formal investigation into Mr Lopez orador and the officials involved ultimately sheld the inqui

ry National Security Communications advisor John Kirby making it clear today there is no investigation into president Lopez orador orador responding to that report at the [Music] presser a spokesperson from The New York Times responding to the Mexican president doxing telling NBC News in part quote this is a troubling and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are on the rise and stand by our reporting and the journalists who pursue the facts where the

y lead according to reporters with Without Borders Mexico is ranked 128 out of 180 nations in press Freedom with nearly 150 journalists murdered and 28 missing since 2000 this all comes just weeks after bomb show reports rais questions on whether oor's first presidential campaign received millions in funding from drug cartels no the reports published by Insight crime and propublica each cited more than a dozen interviews with us and Mexican officials as well as reviewal of government documents a

t the time obor claimed us officials were behind the reporting but offered no proof no according to propublica that investigation did not establish whether Lopez orador sanctioned or even knew of the traffickers reported donations guad Venegas joins us now guad what do we know about the new information and what the New York Times says us officials were looking into Ellison the New York Times says that much of the information they obtained was collected by us officials when they spoke with inform

ants as they were investigating drug cartels the president spent a lot of time today pushing back on these claims especially the one that said that drug cartels made payments right around the time when he went to the state of Sinaloa and met with the mother of El Chapo wman that was a very brief meeting the president explained that the meeting was for the mother to give the president a letter through which she was asking him for help so that El Chapo's sister could come visit him in prison in th

e United States where he is serving a life sentence Ellison gu Venegas thank you now to top stories Global watch and the stabbing at a high school in Western Germany according to local reports a 17-year-old student attacked classmates with a knife and a pair of scissors at a school near dorf at least five people were hurt the suspect has been arrested no word right now on the reason behind the attack Brazilian soccer star Danny Alves has been convicted of sexual assault the former Barcelona play

er was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at a Barcelona nightclub in 2022 he was sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison and will have to pay more than $160,000 to the victim in damages his lawyer says they will appeal the decision when we come back the program helping college students soar to New Heights Texas Southern University a historically black college looking to change the face of the aviation industry we will introduce you to the students already ushering in a new era in the

skies finally tonight the Texas HBCU offering up a plan to reverse the Nationwide pilot shortage in an industry that is 95% white and male they say the solution is not just younger Pilots but those who come from diverse backgrounds NBC News correspondent Priscilla Thompson traveled to Texas Southern University to see those students in action oio pressure is in the green electrical systems for sophomore juel coun her life plan has always been a flight plan since second grade it's always been a d

ream of mine what happened in second grade so we actually took a field trip to L Guardia Airport I have this just this vivid memory of just sitting there and just being like this is what I want to do for rest of my life okay elevators go up and down testing my RS Joel has been determined to study Aviation ever since but the first two colleges she tried felt like the wrong approach I just felt unseen a lot of people in that program grew up in aviation their fathers or moms were pilots so this is

making that's when juel chartered her course to Texas Southern University a historically black college in Houston Texas where the aviation program is taking off okay Center L slowly Advanced the power and we had our largest enrollment this past fall wow so we're 134 students now in our program beautiful beautiful Terence Fontaine runs the program at TSU why do you think you're seeing that increase in the number of students who want to be Pilots there's a huge need for Pilots I can tell you the l

ife of an airline pil pilot is a very good life thing is it's not an easy job to achieve though there are numerous steps to becoming an airline pilot and it takes a lot of money to do that in this program about 80% of students are on scholarship breaking down Financial barriers to build up a whole new class of Pilots there's a huge cry and a huge need for diversity in the cockpit I think what we're doing here at Texas Southern is providing an opportunity and an UND serve Community just 3.6% of P

ilots are black per the Bureau of Labor Statistics 8.3% are women in recent years we've seen efforts across so many Industries to increase diversity and Equity why do you think that hasn't translated to the pilot field it's been a good old boy field for a long time when I was on the Triple 7 going to school in Denver Colorado uh I was paired with a captain who literally told me don't do anything don't touch anything and don't say anything until I ask you but Texas Southern is flipping that scrip

t with the help of major carriers like United and Southwest Airlines offering students scholarships and a direct path to employment tsu's Fleet includes nine airplanes this digital flight lab and two flight simulators whole 2000 but the most important part of bringing more diversity to the cockpit the people here at TSU it is a unique place in that a lot of the instructors a lot of your colleagues look like you what is that Community meant along this journey I means a lot because you know I've b

een in places especially within the aviation industry and nothing bad about it just like the statistics that don't look like me and so you know it's kind of cool when you can you know kind of be relaxed kind of be more of yourself I'm I'm excited you know not just for flying but to be able to give back one day and to bring the younger generation into and show them and you know increase our numbers this is the new CNA that you guys just got yes 2023 some alumni are already giving back to the prog

ram flight instructor Katherine Cabrera graduated last year and knows firsthand the hardships her students can face Cabrera had to put her flying dreams on hold as a student as the cost piled up I was very upset you know flying is my passion it it's something that made me very emotional to do like that was not an easy decision for me and that was your dream yeah exactly but a scholarship from TSU and United Airlines changed her life I can't even express how grateful I am for it and just hearing

you talk about your journey and all that it took to get here what does it mean to you to be training the next generation of Pilots I take it very serious just because you know if if you're teaching the wrong thing they are going to be learning the wrong thing so it's not it's not something that can be taken lightly just keep making your pitch and power adjustments as needed with former students returning as flight instructors the University's Aviation program is now self- sustaining so proud of

us that we're you know going to be diversifying Aviation and diversifying the the cockpits what has that Community meant for you they know my struggle that makes sense anytime I complain I feel like I can do it they they're able to you know step back and go back in the shoes that they were in at my age and starting from the beginning let me know how they made it through that was a good Landing perfect after mastering the plane's Landing all that's left is landing their dream jobs in doing so exp

anding the runway for the Next Generation my dream job is um I want to be a Triple 7 captain at United my dream is to work for Southwest Airlines I love Southwest Airlines so much I'm so proud of that Landing Priscilla Thompson NBC News Houston our thanks to Priscilla for that and we cannot wait to see those pilots in the skies thank you at home for watching top story for Tom yamas I'm Ellison barber in New York stay right there more news now is on the way thanks for watching stay updated about

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