NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Friday, July 12, 2024

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Judge dismisses involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin; Smoke fills American Airlines flight in San Francisco; Biden campaigns in battleground Michigan, trying to turn tide; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Breaking news tonight, the bombshell twist in Alec Baldwin's shooting trial as the judge throws out the case. Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter charge for the fatal 2021 shooting on the set of Rust, dismissed with prejudice by the judge. The co-prosecutor resigning after the defense alleged bullet evidence had been withheld. Also breaking the scary moments aboard an American Airlines plane. Fire breaking out during boarding. The emergency slides deployed. All passengers evacuating. Multiple injuries reported. The smoke believed to be coming from a laptop in a passenger's bag, what officials are now saying. President Biden back on the campaign trail in Battleground, Michigan after his news conference defending his ability to lead. But today, a new wave of Democrats calling on him to step aside.

All of it ahead of our one-on-one interview with the president on Monday. Desperation in Texas, nearly one million still without power, five days after Hurricane Beryl struck. Frustration mounting with the utility company. Was it unprepared? The massive data breach. The call and text records of nearly all of AT&T's cell customers stolen by hackers. And the moment he's waited a lifetime for. The Holocaust survivor meeting the family he never knew he had until now. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening. We begin with breaking news from New Mexico, where just a short time ago, the criminal case against Alec Baldwin was

dismissed. Baldwin's trial on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the deadly shooting on the Rust movie set coming to an abrupt and dramatic end after the defense claimed the prosecution withheld evidence about ammunition on the Rust set. The judge dismissing the case with prejudice after holding a hearing on a motion by the defense for dismissal. NBC's Chloe Malas is here. Chloe, a stunning end to this trial. Lester, Alec Baldwin breaking news. He's breaking down in tears. The judge dismissed this case and the decision came after the judge determined that prosecutors, they withheld evidence. This is critical evidence in the case. That was never disclosed to us. This is not the first time. It's not the second time. It's not even the third time.

It's time for this case to be dismissed, Your Honor. The pivotal moment in Alec Baldwin's criminal trial seen here when the actor's legal team claimed New Mexico prosecutors did not disclose new evidence pertaining to the live rounds found on the Russ film set in 2021. This is a wild goose chase. This has no evidentiary value whatsoever. I'm going to recess you for the day. I'm sorry. The judge sending the jury home on Friday as she decided whether to dismiss the case against Baldwin. The prosecution getting the case dismissed only three days into testimony is worse than even a not guilty verdict. The state's willful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate.

Your motion to dismiss with prejudice is granted. During the afternoon, things got contentious between the judge and special prosecutor. Russ cinematographer Helena Hutchins was killed on the New Mexico film set after a gun Baldwin was holding fired a live round of ammunition. We find the defendant, Hannah Gutierrez, guilty. In March, the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence. Her attorney telling NBC News this new information is grounds to overturn her conviction.

NBC News has reached out to New Mexico special prosecutors for comment. A plot twist no one saw coming. Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter charges dismissed. So, Chloe, what happens next? So, Lester, Alec Baldwin left the court without saying anything to reporters, but just moments ago, Special Prosecutor Carrie Morrissey did make her first comments following the judge's ruling. She said she respects the judge's decision. All right, Chloe Malas, thank you. We'll turn now to the breaking news at the San Francisco airport,

a fire breaking out aboard an American Airlines plane as it was boarding, forcing all the passengers to evacuate. Liz Kreutz now with late details for us. Tonight, chaos on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport. Evacuate, evacuate. Don't get your things. Let's go. You can see and hear the panic as passengers aboard an American Airlines flight bound for Miami were forced to evacuate after a fire broke out in the cabin while they were boarding. It's American 2045. We got a mayday, mayday, mayday. There's a fire in the back of the aircraft. Passenger Carlos Leza was on the flight when he says he heard someone in the back of the plane scream out about a fire. He looked back and saw smoke. I didn't see any flames, but I saw some smoke. I could smell something electrical burning. People just start panicking, pushing people towards the front of the plane. It sounds pretty scary. It was. Emergency slides were deployed as passengers escaped

from both the emergency exits and the jet bridge. Videos from inside showing those tense moments. Leave your carry-on bags. Jump aside. Keep everything. Jump aside. Keep everything. Back, back. Airport officials say three passengers had minor injuries.

According to American Airlines, the smoke came from a laptop in a passenger's bag, writing, the bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. Look here and you can see first responders investigating a laptop on the tarmac. I'm just glad it happened when we were on ground. A terrifying close call that could have been much worse. And Liz, this is not the first time a laptop battery has caught fire on a plane. So what happens now? Yeah, Lester, that's right.

Just last year, a cross-country flight to Newark was forced to make an emergency landing after a laptop battery caught fire midair. As for tonight's incident, the FAA is now investigating. Lester. All right, Liz Kreutz, thank you. To politics now. Nielsen reports some 25 million Americans tuned in to watch President Biden's high-stakes press conference last night. Tonight, the president is back on the campaign trail in Michigan. Gabe Gutierrez is there. Tonight, President Biden in Battleground, Michigan, trying to turn the page after defending his fitness for office. Hopefully, with a little bit of age comes a little bit of wisdom.

I promise you, I am, I'm okay. The swing state crucial for his re-election. A new poll out today, conducted before last night's press conference, suggests the race is unchanged since the debate. Cut the crap. Get behind this man like people are getting behind Trump. Okay? And bottom line. Still, the debate performance has some Democrats here rattled. Would you consider yourself a Biden supporter?

I was a Biden supporter right up until the debate. Now I really would like to see an open convention. Deborah Lewis Langston said she'd now prefer to vote for Vice President Harris. Biden being 81 years old, no fault of his own. Things just don't work like they used to work. And I'm 71. I can tell you they just don't. Please. At that high stakes press conference last night, the president drew praise for his command of foreign policy,

but also criticism for this gap. Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president because I think she's not qualified to be president. So let's start there. After former President Trump quickly mocked his opponent, swapping Vice President Harris's name for his, President Biden shot back. By the way, yes, I know the difference. One's a prosecutor and the other's a felon. Today, two weeks after the New York Times editorial board urged President Biden to leave the race, it published another essay, this one calling former President Trump unfit to lead, writing, Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibility of the

presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the American people. The former president meeting yesterday at Mar-a-Lago with Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, just days after Orban met with Vladimir Putin, a contrast with President Biden, who at the same time was meeting with other world leaders at the NATO summit. For President Biden, Michigan is essentially must-win. His campaign now acknowledges that winning the Blue Wall, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is the clearest path to victory in November. We can't afford to lose much support here. Dave Gutierrez in the campaign trail tonight. Thanks.

Today, Democrats on Capitol Hill sought reassurance from the president. But as Ryan Nobles reports, the mood in Congress remains very much unsettled. New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, today informing his colleagues that he met with President Biden following last night's press conference and, quote, directly express the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward. Jeffries did not say his caucus is all in on Biden as the party's nominee. Should we read into that? Well, I think it's self-evident right now with almost 20 members have come out saying, I think we need a different nominee, that the caucus is

not united. Even more Democratic members have now called on Biden to end his campaign, despite his well-received press conference last night, including the ranking member on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes. I'm asking us to step away from the love and the loyalty and just say that the numbers suggest that we're going to lose. Defections from Biden growing, but as of yet, no mass exodus. Joe Biden is focused on the future of this country. And I always say the best predictor of future performance is past behavior. Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina telling the Today Show's Craig Melvin that he still believes in Biden, but said if need be, Vice President Kamala Harris is up to the job. Absolutely. No question about that. She has acquitted herself well in the job as vice

president. The current situation, a sort of purgatory for Democrats on the Hill. One member's worry cannot fester for much longer. I don't want to be biting my nails every time President Biden gets on the stage. That's the dynamic at work. We need to be shifting the attention to the other guy. And Ryan, we have new reporting tonight that at least one House Democrat today told the president directly it was time to leave the race. That's right, Lester. Sources tell us that in a call with House Democrats, Congressman Mike Levin of California confronted the president and said that the party needed new leadership. The president responded by promising to get out on the road and answer more tough questions as the campaign continues. Lesser. All right, Ryan Nobles,

thank you. And join us Monday when I interview President Biden exclusively. The Complete Conversation airs starting at 9 p.m. Eastern, as Savannah Guthrie and I lead our coverage for the start of the Republican convention. A deadly power struggle goes on tonight in Houston with more than 800,000 still without electricity after Hurricane Beryl. Priscilla Thompson is there for us. Tonight, frustration. How have the past couple of days been? Horrible. And desperation. You got to hop on long lines like this just to get ice and food. As more than 800,000 people swelter through a fifth day without power. Guy and Ruth say they've tossed $600 in spoiled food. I don't know what I'm going to do.

And I don't have much money left. The couple says they pawned their wedding rings to buy gas so they can drive between long lines at food distribution sites and cooling centers with their three grandchildren in tow. We got to do what we got to do to keep the kids, you know, fed and cool. At least four people in Houston have died from heat due to power loss this week. Jonathan Sturgis believes it may have been a factor in his 93-year-old mother's death. Her assisted living facility was running on a backup generator for four days.

By Thursday morning, I immediately noticed right away that the building was significantly hotter. As CenterPoint's efforts to restore power are hampered by more rain, questions abound about the company's readiness. Whisker Labs, which tracks power outages through plug-in devices in hundreds of thousands of homes, found before the storm, CenterPoint outages were happening at a rate two and a half times the national average. CenterPoint says it was prepared. The remaining customers are going to be the hardest hit customers that have trees down. It's not a quick fix. And we just ask for their continued patience.

What is your message to CenterPoint right now? What in the world are you going to do for us? How are you going to reimburse everything that we're losing? Priscilla Thompson, NBC News, Houston. When we return now, hackers stole phone and text records of almost all of AT&T's wireless customers. What you need to know next. The FBI is investigating a major hack impacting nearly all of AT&T's wireless customers. While no personal data was compromised, experts say

hackers could use what they stole to find out who was calling and texting whom. Here's Tom Costello. The breach was massive, affecting nearly 110 million wireless devices. AT&T says it learned in April that hackers had accessed logs of phone calls and texts between May and October of 2022 and January 2, 2023. But the FBI advised against making the hack public due to potential risks to national security and or public safety. While the content of the texts and personal information were not released, cybersecurity pros say the phone numbers

alone could compromise personal relationships, police informants, national security contacts, journalists, and whistleblowers used by criminals or foreign governments. Connecting that phone number to an email address, to a username, to a home address is not particularly difficult, given all the breaches that we've seen over the last decade. AT&T says the hack occurred on a third party's cloud platform but through an AT&T vulnerability. One suspect has already been apprehended, the latest in a steady stream of hacks and ransom attacks. Last month, auto dealers nationwide were locked out of the CDK business software they use. We can't cut checks. We can't service cars. Everything has to be done by hand.

The U.S. cybersecurity chief says we all must do our part. Implement multi-factor authentication, complex unique passwords and a password manager, updating your software and being able to recognize and report those phishing emails. AT&T says it does not believe the hacked information is publicly available yet, and it's taken additional cybersecurity measures to shore up its defenses. Lester. All right, Tom Costello, thanks. When we return, our reporting on the front lines from the American effort to get aid

into Gaza, what the Pentagon is now saying about the future of a troubled American program. The Pentagon says it will shut down the troubled floating pier that helped bring some aid into Gaza. But as the war there drags on, the aid flow is still far too little too late. Here's Courtney Kuby. This is nine-year-old Azam Ahmed Alshar rushed to the hospital in Gaza suffering from severe malnutrition and lack of medicine. But it was too late. Doctors couldn't save him. In an exclusive interview with our NBC News crew in Gaza, his doctor said there are many cases like Azam. This week, the United Nations said nearly a half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger. And now the Pentagon soon shutting down aid

deliveries through the military peer system known as J-LOTS after it's been repeatedly sidelined by weather. Last night, President Biden showed his frustration. I've been disappointed that some of the things that I've put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port we attached from Cyprus. I was hopeful that would be more successful. The Pentagon acknowledging the peers' limitations but saying to do nothing would have been a failure. We created a solution. We believe it was a success. J-LOTS delivered nearly 20 million pounds of aid, but in eight weeks, it's only been operational for 20 days at a cost of $230 million. Aid deliveries could continue from Cyprus. This is the MV Cape Trinity. Now, it's being loaded with aid right now. Gaza needs 600 trucks every day to stave off widespread hunger, according to USAID.

But it's the delivery that's still a challenge, with trucks being looted and Israeli military action nearby, leaving thousands of civilians still not getting the aid they so desperately need. The Pentagon hopes to anchor the pier in Gaza one more time before ending the mission, but high sea states may prevent that. Lester? All right, Courtney, thank you. We'll take a break here and coming up, the remarkable meeting decades in the making. Next. Finally tonight, one man's story of survival and the remarkable journey that brought him to the family he never knew he had. Here's Sam Brock. At a crowded Charleston airport,

Anne Mendenhallman braces herself for the moment she's anticipated for months. How are you feeling right now? I'm trying to breathe. On the other side of a jet bridge, Shalom Karai, fresh off a flight from Israel, is preparing for something he's waited for his entire life, finding family. When I see you, Shalom, I want to give you the biggest hug. A MyHeritage DNA test in the summer of 2023, initiated by researchers studying the roughly 100 children saved by Lena Kukler-Zilberman during World War II, including Shalom, matched the Holocaust survivor with his second cousin from South Carolina, leading to this moment. Don't cry.

Happy tears. Happy tears. For 25 years, Anne has been trying to complete her family tree, thinking all her relatives on her father's side who remained in Europe during the Holocaust were killed. Until last year, when the DNA test revealed a connection to a name she didn't recognize. It was quite a shock. And we kept on looking and I got a picture of him that came up. And it was seeing my brother. Shalom was saved from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941,

smuggled away in a potato sack at just two years old. His name changed to conceal his Jewish identity. He was hidden in multiple orphanages in Poland and moved to France after the war with the woman who rescued him before ultimately finding refuge in Israel in 1949. Now embraced by dozens of family members he never knew existed. How are you doing, Shalom? This is Bradley. We came all the way from Montana so that they could experience this. Shalom says he never even knew the concept of family.

This is something that I grew up with all my life. But as he accepts this kiddush cup passed from generation to generation, it's so real. It's clear he can certainly see now the love that was waiting for him all along. I feel like I've given the children in Shalom a gift that was never expected to happen. It's something that hopefully that they will remember forever forever that family is everything. Sam Brock, NBC News, Charleston, South Carolina. And that is nightly news for this Friday.

Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night.