NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Friday, November 22, 2024

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

Blast of winter weather hits East Coast; Judge delays sentencing in Trump's New York hush money case; Study suggests more lives could be saved with expanded lung cancer tests; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Tonight, the first winter storm of the season slamming the northeast while an atmospheric river hammers the west coast. Millions feeling the impact as snow blankets the northeast, some parts seeing up to 20 inches. The dangerous road conditions, at least one kill. In Cleveland, the NFL showdown in the snow. In the west, relentless rain and life-threatening flash flooding. 150 people stranded inside a medical center, all coming as Thanksgiving travel gets off to an early start. And just breaking tonight, Donald Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary, expected to be longtime hedge fund manager

Scott Besson. What we're learning. Also tonight, Matt Gaetz making an announcement about his political future after he withdrew as President-elect Trump's Attorney General pick amid sexual misconduct allegations. And Mr. Trump's new pick for AG, will she have a smoother path? Plus the major move in Mr. Trump's hush money case, the judge postponing his sentencing set for next week indefinitely. Will his conviction be tossed out? The new E. coli alert involving ground beef.

The NBA joining the NFL to warn players after several burglaries at the homes of star athletes. Are they connected? And space tourists taking a ride of a lifetime on a Blue Origin flight to the edge of space and back again. This is NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. Good evening and welcome. Winter-like weather is creating major impacts across a wide swath of the nation tonight, from early season snow totals in the Midwest on into the drought-stricken Northeast. Heavy snow leaving parts of Pennsylvania without power. New Jersey with close to two feet in at least one spot, experiencing one of its largest November snowstorms in history.

Certainly welcome along the region's stubborn wildfire lines. While on the opposite side of the country, the winds and torrential rains these last few days have taken a heavy toll. Hundreds of thousands still without power in the Pacific Northwest. And in Northern California, almost a foot of rain brought Santa Rosa three months worth of rain in three days. But let's start in the east with Sam Brock in snow-covered Pennsylvania. In parts of the storm-battered northeast, where one person has already died in a car crash, the sheer volume of snow came as a bit of a shock. I didn't think it was going to be like this serious. Drivers clearing off cars with everything from coffee cups to hotel brooms.

Yeah, you don't see this in Arizona. Nearly non-stop precipitation piled more than six inches of snow here in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It don't take me long to do my driveway. Well, with snow like this, it does. Regional high of 20 inches in High Point, New Jersey. Part of a system that notched Chicago's snowiest November day in five years and turned the Brown Steelers Thursday night football game into a snow globe. While the storm has dampened wide-ranging fire threats, dumping seven inches on New York's Jennings Creek fire, it's also led to mass power outages, more than 125,000 in Pennsylvania alone.

I'm trying to at least shovel a little bit because I have my limitations. Maria Rosado lives with several disabilities and saw her electricity cut out briefly today. Does the idea of not having power in your situation? It's scary. Absolutely, it's scary. With efforts to clear roadblocks like these ongoing, the West Coast is still reeling from that atmospheric river. Right now, still about 200,000 people without power between Washington State

and Northern California, where the area is still getting hammered with rain. Some areas could see up to 17 inches before the end of the week. All of this elevating the risk of serious flooding. At an outpatient clinic and hotel in Santa Rosa, California, around 150 people were stranded for hours. With the holidays approaching, nationwide weather disruptions have many anxious about what's next. I'm hoping that my car can take me where I need to go and, you know, just pick up a few items just in case. And Sam Brock joining us now from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Sam, you mentioned those power outages. Where do you think stand? Yeah, about 100,000 of them, Lester, here in Pennsylvania. The power company says most people will have their service by Saturday. Worst case scenario, Sunday, 48 hours from now. And Lester, over my shoulder, a tree buckled on the street, power lines behind that crushed under the weight of the snow. That's what they're up against. Lester? All right, Sam Brock starting us off. Thanks. We're going to turn out of the Trump transition and breaking news just in on who the president-elect is expected to tap for treasury secretary. Gabe Gutierrez joins us. Gabe, what have you learned? Hi, Lester. Two sources familiar with this election tell NBC News that president-elect Trump has just offered the job of treasury

secretary to billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Besant. He's a Trump donor who has emerged as a key economic advisor to the president-elect. And all this comes after President-elect Trump just made his new pick for attorney general. Tonight, amid growing controversies over some of his cabinet picks, President-elect Trump's new choice for attorney general, Pam Bondi, is facing a much easier path to be confirmed than her predecessor. We've got to keep Florida red, especially for our great president. General Pam Bondi is facing a much easier path to be confirmed than her predecessor. We've got to keep Florida red, especially for our great president. A former prosecutor, Bondi was elected twice as Florida's attorney general,

the first woman to hold that job, and was on Trump's defense team during his first impeachment trial. Pam Bondi is here, a fantastic friend and woman. She also helped amplify Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. We have won Pennsylvania and they're not going to take it away from us. Trump posting Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime. Her rise coming after the abrupt withdrawal of the president-elect's initial pick, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who said today he won't go back to Congress. I'm still going to be in the fight, but it's going to be from a new perch. Gaetz, again denying allegations he paid women for sex, including a 17-year-old,

which the House Ethics Committee was investigating. The Justice Department also investigated the allegations and did not charge Gaetz. If the things that the House Ethics Report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell. But of course, they're false. Today, Trump's incoming deputy chief of staff knocked down speculation the FBI director job would go to former Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers. Boy, does it need leadership and it needs to clean out the rot that's happening in the senior levels of the FBI. The rush is also on to staff lower level positions. Already, transition officials are taking suggestions for potential hires from the extensive personnel database created by Project 2025. A person familiar with the situation tells

NBC News that's despite Trump repeatedly denouncing the conservative policy blueprint during the campaign. I don't know what the hell it is. It's Project 25. And again, the breaking news, President-elect Trump picking one of his top supporters in the finance world, Scott Besson, for Treasury Secretary. Lester. All right, Gabe, thank you. Now to the Manhattan hush money case against President-elect Trump. Today, the judge delaying the sentencing in the case. Laura Jarrett is here. Laura, clearly a win for the Trump team. Yes, Lester. The defense team wanted one last shot to try to make their case that this

entire case should be thrown out now that he's the president-elect. The judge not doing that just yet, but is giving them an opportunity to present their case. If for whatever reason the judge doesn't do that and tries to delay the sentencing until Mr. Trump is out of office, it's going to prompt a further fight. We're likely to hear from the judge with the final ruling in early December. All right, Laura, thank you for that. Just days before families gather for Thanksgiving, yet another food recall to report tonight, this time ground beef sold to restaurants. Here's Christine Romans. 167,000 pounds of ground beef, potentially contaminated with E. coli, recalled after 15 illnesses were reported in Minnesota. Minnesota health officials linked the illnesses to ground beef from Wolverine Packing Company, a Detroit meat distributor.

According to the USDA, the meat was shipped to restaurants nationwide and may still be in some freezers. In a statement, Wolverine says, quote, it has notified all customers that received products encompassed by the recall. It's just a day after the FDA expanded a recall of organic baby carrots, saying 15 people were hospitalized, one dead from E. coli. The carrots sold under dozens of brands, now including Whole Foods Market organic carrot sticks and organic carrots and celery. Renewed attention on food safety in the weeks since an E. coli outbreak at McDonald's linked to slivered onions, sickened 104 people, killing one. Each year, there are an estimated 48 million foodborne illnesses. Food safety expert Ben Chapman.

It's a terrible reminder for us about how much foodborne illness exists within our food supply. He says potential causes include water and soil tainted with animal waste, dirty equipment, and poor worker hygiene. At home, consumers should be careful to cook meat thoroughly, 160 degrees for ground beef. But for contaminated produce, experts say washing alone isn't enough, adding, when in doubt, throw it out. And Christine Romans joining me here on the set. Christine, we're learning about another outbreak. Yeah, the CDC tonight warning of a multi-state listeria outbreak. 11 people sick and one infant

has died. The CDC says in its statement, quote, interviews with sick people and laboratory findings show that Yusheng food, ready toat meat and poultry products are making people sick. All right, Christine, thank you for that. After a series of burglaries at the homes of big-name pro athletes, an extraordinary caution from the FBI, telling the NBA and the NFL to warn its teams of the risk. Here's Erin McLaughlin. Tonight, professional athletes on high alert

after the NBA issued this warning to its basketball players nationwide, saying the FBI is now connecting home burglaries targeting athletes and other high net worth individuals to South American criminal gangs. Cautioning the gangs are well organized, sophisticated and focused on cash and items that can be resold on the black market, such as jewelry, watches, and luxury bags. By the time they go in, they know what they're looking for, and they're very quick. That advisory following a similar warning from the NFL, after the burglaries of at least four homes, two of them belonging to NBA players, including Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis Jr. While I was at my game yesterday, I had a home invasion,

and they took most of my prize possessions. Portis posted this footage of the break into Instagram. Two NFL superstars were also targeted. I might as well build the exact house I want. Including Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, whose eight-acre Missouri estate was featured on the Netflix series Quarterback, and tight-end Travis Kelsey's home in Leawood, Kansas. When somebody posts your house online, that everybody now has your address.

According to the NBA memo, per the FBI, burglarized homes were all unoccupied and equipped with alarm systems that were not activated. Also noting that in most cases, no dogs were present. They just know that this football team's schedule is going to be gone at this time. They get their teams out there to look at and see which ones are the most vulnerable. Tonight, the NBA issuing extraordinary guidance, even advising its players make sure they alarm their luxury homes and consider a guard dog for extra protection. Erin McLaughlin, NBC News. In 60 seconds, our look into life-saving

lung cancer screening, why some who should be screened are not. The new study suggesting more lives could be saved. Now to our report on screening for the deadliest form of cancer, lung cancer. Surviving it can all depend on early detection, but some say the guidelines leave out a major group of Americans, and Thompson with the push to change that. Bertie Gethers is a 70-year-old firecracker. We're having a great time. Good. Like many in her generation, started smoking in junior high. So we just thought it was cute, Virginia Slim cigarettes. Were you smoking a cigarette a day or a pack of cigarettes a day? Never a pack, never a pack. Just three cigarettes a day for 56 years. Not enough to have lung cancer screenings covered by insurance. Under the national guidelines, older Americans must smoke or have smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 20 years.

Mass General Brigham thoracic surgeon Dr. Chifu Jeffrey Yang says few of his black female patients qualify. They can smoke over 20 years, but they just don't smoke that many cigarettes a day. So is the key not how many cigarettes you smoke a day, but how long you smoke? Yes. I think smoking duration would be much more important of a factor. So Yang's leading the INSPIRE study, offering 50 to 80-year-old Black women in Boston and Chicago free lung scans. We have found that about 18 percent of those women have high-risk nodules, which could potentially develop into lung cancer. And that's a higher percentage than the national average. Of the 183 women screened, two had cancer, including Birdie.

Were you shocked by that? Hell yeah. Yeah? Yes, I was scared. Dr. Yang removed the cancer. Everything looks really nice. Yeah, exactly. Giving Bertie more time. And I had good people in my corner. If I never went for this test, I wouldn't know where I would be. What do you tell other black women? I tell them, listen here, y'all need to go get yourself checked out because this is not a game out here.

Anne is joining us here now. When will this research be concluded? Lester, the study is going to go on for at least two more years, and Dr. Yang hopes to expand it to include black men. He hopes to have all the data gathered for when the lung cancer screening guidelines are reconsidered later this decade. All right, Anne Thompson, thank you. Coming up, the doctor just sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing patients. Hundreds are demanding accountability from the leading hospitals where he worked. Our investigation is next. Back now with an NBC News investigation. Hospitals facing demands for accountability after a urologist was sentenced to life for sexually abusing patients, including children. We get more from Tom Yamas, and let me warn you, what you're about to hear is graphic.

I would flash back to that moment for years, just seeing myself in the mirror, just almost feeling like I was detached from the person that I was looking at. For years, 27-year-old Tucker Coburn has been haunted by his experiences with his urologist, Dr. Darius Paduk. Did you trust him? I don't know. I at least felt like he was an expert in that field, and I didn't have any reason to doubt that. Paduk was a renowned specialist at Weill Cornell Medical Center. There was an appointment where I had some abdominal pain, and then he came over and assaulted or abused me. He was trying to press himself against me and to, like, demonstrate sexual arousal. Nothing of that is what a doctor should be doing. Paduk was convicted for sexually abusing several patients

at Weill Cornell and Northwell Health in New York. The real Dr. Paduk is a very, very sick, sadistic individual who hurt a ton of people for his own gratification. Attorney Mallory Allen represents 140 men, including Coburn, in civil cases which allege that the hospitals enabled the abuse and failed to stop it. Did they know this abuse was happening? Yes, unquestionably, they knew this abuse was happening. How do you explain it? It feels inexplicable, right? I fear the answer is going to be that the hospital put profits over patients.

In 2018, a patient who asked us to identify him by his initials, BR, filed a complaint with New York's health department in which he reported that in 2006 at Weill Cornell, Paduk required that B.R. touch himself in front of him, showed B.R. photographs of other men's bodies, and asked about his taste in pornography. About nine months after B.R.'s complaint, there's an email from 2018 which an employee basically says

that there have been complaints about Paduk for 10 years. What do you have to say to that? Yeah, I mean, it's shocking. They recognize themselves. Hey, this is something that we've been dealing with for 10 years. I mean, it's inexcusable. Paduk continued working at Weill Cornell until 2020. But after Paduk left that hospital, he got a job at Northwell Health.

I know that we're not alone. Where he continued seeing patients, even after Coburn sent a handwritten letter to Northwell Health urging the hospital to investigate its recent hire. The investigation found both you and Dr. Paduk to be credible. The claims were not substantiated. And that a male nurse practitioner would be present during sensitive physical examinations whenever possible moving forward. Is it a slap in the face to you? Yeah, I mean, it's odd to say that. They believe you, but they're going to let them keep practicing. Yeah, yeah, it's infuriating. Northwell Health said in a statement that they were deeply disturbed

by what was revealed during Darius Paduk's criminal trial. Dr. Paduk abused his position of trust as a medical provider, betraying his patients and their families and misleading the Northwell community. While Cornell says that it has made changes, including launching expanded chaperone policies in 2023 and adding prominent signage and additional documentation procedures in order to minimize the risk of such abhorrent conduct occurring in the future. I sincerely hope that Dr. Paduk no longer assaults his patients, but hope isn't enough. Now that Paduk is behind bars, Coburn hopes he can finally achieve justice and healing. I think that for me, the shame was more just that it happened in general.

It took me a long time to realize that I hadn't done anything wrong. Several of the men who filed lawsuits told us they are still waiting for accountability from the hospitals that employed Dr. Paduk for about two decades, despite complaints they received. In court filings, the hospitals have denied allegations of negligence or misconduct. Lester? All right. Tom, thanks. We'll take a break right here when we return. Over the moon, the sheer wonder the planet's newest astronauts felt going into space,

inspiring us all to see our planet with fresh eyes. Finally, it was just a 10-minute trip high above the Earth, but tonight, six new astronauts say it's given them a whole new outlook on life. Marissa Parra has our good news. One ignition. Tonight, a spectacular journey bringing us closer to the stars. A bit of heaven for the six passengers on board Blue Origin. When they go up, they take all of us with them, seeing our sometimes troubled planet in a whole new light. Before stepping back on Earth and into the arms of loved ones, the world's newest astronauts, heads still in the clouds, gushing about the journey of a lifetime. I see so much space, and I kept saying, like, that's our planet. That's our planet. It was the same feeling I got when my kids were born. And I was like, that's my baby. It was beautiful. Blue Origin's ninth crewed flight carried history on board. A married couple,

now the first to make it to space together twice. And Emily Calandrelli of Netflix and YouTube fame is space gal. Now the 100th woman in space. Their 10-minute journey, a lifetime reminder. But a new perspective can make even the biggest problems seem so small. Seeing the world from up that high where you don't see the borders, you don't see the divisions, you don't see all of the lines that divide us. We're all one people. We're on this very fragile, small planet. Proving wonders still happen. You just need to look around to see them.

Marissa Parra, NBC News. And that's nightly news for this Friday. Thank you for watching. I'm Lester Holt. Please take care of yourself and each other. Good night. And there are those big hugs. Oh my gosh, what a special moment.