NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Saturday, August 24, 2024

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

Severe weather impacting millions coast to coast; NASA calls on SpaceX to return Starliner astronauts home in 2024; Final sprint to the 2024 presidential election; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

This is NBC Nightly News with Jose Diaz-Balart. Good evening. As we come on the air, we are tracking extreme weather that's unusual at best and potentially deadly at worst. This was a scene in the Grand Canyon where more than 100 hikers were airlifted after flash floods left them stranded for nearly two days. But there's still a massive search underway for an Arizona woman swept away by those waters. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, Hawaii is bracing for a tropical storm named Hone, churning toward the Big Island. And take a look at this, something you don't often see in California in the summer. Yes, that's fresh snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains in August. And millions of people in the middle of the country are battling dangerous high temperatures this weekend.

Dana Griffin is covering it all. Harrowing rescues. More than 100 stranded hikers airlifted from the bottom of the Grand Canyon since Friday. After flash flooding leaked this week pushed mud and debris across hiking trails and campsites. Shanoa Nickerson and her husband were swept away. Tonight, she's still missing. This is some crazy s***. Latricia Mims was down there too. One of the stranded campers desperate to get out. A day and a half after this calm blue river turned raging brown.

It rose about 25 feet in a matter of minutes, so it was a wall of water. Latricia survived, today telling me she wasn't sure they'd make it. Is this a life and death situation for you guys? This was absolutely a life and death situation. Putting your feet in water that is slippery and moving so fast, it was really terrifying. But they worked together, creating a human chain to cross those dangerous waters. Almost everybody got out alive and I think that had a lot to do with everybody working together. It's been a hazardous few days across the west. Utah under alert for flash flooding too. More than 30 million are baking under heat alerts from New Mexico to Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, look at this. There's already snow in the Sierra. And tonight, high alert in Hawaii as Tropical Storm Hone churns close. Storm preps underway as high winds pose a big risk for fire. Kicking off a weekend of exhausting extreme weather. Dana Griffin, NBC News. Developing tonight, NASA announcing a new plan to bring home two astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station since June. Marisa Parra has the latest. Tonight, a stunning announcement from NASA. NASA has decided that Butch and Sonny will return

with Crew-9 next February. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams were aboard Boeing's Starliner's historic launch in June, the first with a crew, but they were only supposed to be in space for a week. NASA now says they'll return from the International Space Station eight months past schedule on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, Boeing's biggest competitor. This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one.

The troubled Boeing Starliner spacecraft has been plagued by helium leaks and thruster issues. NASA testing to find out whether Starliner could fly home with Butch and Sonny on board, but the risk ultimately too high. We have had mistakes done in the past. We lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward. Boeing released this statement, saying they continue to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. Here we are in the front of the International Space Station. NASA insisting Butch and Sonny have plenty of supplies to get them through and confident despite the major setback in Starliner's future. Senator Nelson, how certain are you that Boeing will ever launch Starliner with a crew on board again? 100%. Marisa Parra joins me now. Marisa, so what happens next?

Yeah, good question. That SpaceX Dragon capsule will save two seats for Butch and Sunny when it launches to the International Space Station. But before that, the Starliner spaceship will undock and head back to Earth with no one on board. Jose? Marisa Parra, thank you. And now to politics and with Donald Trump and Vice President Harris now both officially their party's nominees, the race for president enters its final phase. Aaron Gilchrist has the latest on the sprint to election day. Tonight, the nominees for president begin the final sprint to the election,

the timeline shrinking with early voting starting next month in at least six states, including the crucial battleground of Pennsylvania. The Harris campaign announcing plans to take a bus tour through the battleground state of Georgia next week, targeting black, working class, rural and suburban voters. Both campaigns already looking beyond the election to January, setting up presidential transition teams as required by law. NBC News has learned the federal government is set to offer them office space and resources to start transition planning on Tuesday. Thank you, President Trump. Meanwhile, President Trump rallying in Arizona.

Who gave that right to me? Appearing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just hours after he suspended his independent run for president. Here's a lot of votes that he could have gotten. I think he's going to have a huge influence. We're leading now, but I think he's going to have a huge influence on this campaign. Kennedy's exit from the race, a potential game changer this election, with thousands of his supporters now looking for a place to go. What's the potential impact on the Harris campaign? Yeah, we're just looking at a sliver of the electorate, four to five percent who were backing RFK Jr. in the polls. But just a slight difference could make all the difference. In a race with only 10 weeks to go, every day and every vote matters.

Aaron Gilchrist joins us. Erin, the vice president is still calling herself the underdog. What else is the campaign doing to change that? Well, Jose, beyond the Georgia tour, Harris and her running mate, Governor Walz, are expected to do their first joint interview next week. They're also planning some major fundraisers and more swing state barnstorming around Labor Day. Jose? Erin Gilchrist, thank you so much.

And now to an NBC News exclusive. Ten states will have abortion ballot measures on Election Day. And today, four women impacted by the ban in Texas are taking their fight to the ballot box and speaking out to our Priscilla Thompson. As the race for the White House heats up, so does the battle over abortion access. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator. Simply put, they are out of their minds. J.D. Vance telling our Kristen Welker one measure is off the table. So he would veto a federal abortion ban? I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would.

But abortion rights are on the ballot in 10 states this November. Average Americans now sharing their stories of heartbreaking loss. When I got pregnant, doctors told us our baby would never survive. For three days, we waited until Amanda was sick enough to receive standard abortion care. These four women are among the more than a dozen suing Texas over its six-week abortion ban after they had to wait until their lives were in danger to receive care for non-viable pregnancies. Do you feel like the energy has shifted with Kamala Harris now at the top of the Democratic ticket? And if so, yes. She speaks so eloquently about reproductive freedom. It makes me want to work harder because she is. These women now stumping

for Texas Democratic Representative Colin Allred as he looks to unseat Republican Senator Ted Cruz. The women before us fought for Roe. And, you know, I look at my daughter and my son, and we owe it to you to make that change. Priscilla Thompson, NBC News, Dallas. And you can watch Kristen Welker's full interview with Senator J.D. Vance on Meet the Press tomorrow right here on NBC. German officials say they have arrested a suspect in a deadly knife attack that killed three people and injured eight more. It happened at a festival in western Germany. Officials are calling the attack an act of terror.

ISIS has claimed responsibility. And to Ukraine now, where the country is marking its Independence Day today with a prisoner exchange with Russia. But as Aaron McLaughlin reports, the country is still fighting for its survival. Tonight on Ukraine's Independence Day, a nation mourning lives lost and vowing revenge as Ukrainians lose ground in the country's east, forcing civilians to flee. Earlier today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released this video message. It shows him standing just miles away from the Russian border, breached earlier this month by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainians always pay back their debts,

he says, and whoever wished misery upon our land shall find it in their own home with interest. Today in Kyiv, Zelensky announced a new Ukrainian battlefield drone, hours after his phone call with President Biden, who pledged an additional $125 million defense package. But still no green light to use long range weapons on Russian territory. Sevalod Kozhemyako founded a battalion famous for fighting Russia's Wagner forces. He argues it's essential the war reaches Russian soil. Our people are suffering and they also should suffer together with us. Do you think Russians understand that?

I think that when you experience something, you for sure understand. Tonight, while there's defiance, there's also the painful reminder. In Ukraine, freedom comes at a high price. Aaron McLaughlin, NBC News, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Still ahead tonight, the urgent push to develop technology like this to stop space junk from crashing down to Earth. We're back with a big problem in space. It's the growing danger of space junk crashing down to Earth. Josh Letterman has a closer look. Space. Vast, infinite, but not as empty as you might think. The Earth's orbit now flooded with

man-made trash, threatening space missions, critical satellites, and even life on Earth. One solution, futuristic robots designed to go into space and take out the trash. We got a rare look in Switzerland at the mission named Clear Space 1, including this dark room designed to mimic space. Engineers are training the robot's camera to see the debris it's supposed to catch,

even when it's in shadow. One of the hardest parts of the mission is lining up the robot precisely with debris that is flying through space at more than four miles per second. The next challenge, building giant robot claws to trap the trash. I'm putting on a special clean suit to make sure we don't contaminate the clean room behind me. This black contraption represents part of an old satellite or piece of space junk. Four massive arms like this white one will form the claw, closing around it in outer space. If you ever played that claw game where you have to grab the stuffed animal, imagine that but doing it in outer space.

The robot designed to drag the trash back toward Earth, where smaller objects will burn up in the atmosphere, larger ones dropped safely in the ocean. Is it better to have this trash fall into the ocean than it is to just stay in outer space? So yes, it is better because those objects in outer space are essentially projectile that orbit at 28,000 kilometers per hour. They go multiple times the speed of a bullet. A global race for solutions is on. In addition to the space clot, one design uses a net, another a harpoon. There are thousands of old satellites drifting through space and more than a million smaller objects, threatening satellites and even spacecraft, which could have catastrophic consequences.

Like in the 2013 movie Gravity. This year, a piece of American space debris smashed into a Florida home. Local TV station WANK spoke to the shocked homeowner. It almost hit my son. I was shaken. I was completely in disbelief. At the European Space Agency's operations center in Germany, technicians work 24-7 tracking space debris that could threaten Earth. We think we have to act. However, if we don't do it, then we make it impossible in the future to use space as a resource. For Clear Space One, the first mission is set for 2027. It's a moonshot, to be sure, to clean up a mess of galactic proportions. Josh Letterman, NBC News, Switzerland.

There's good news tonight. You know, so often the good news doesn't get as much attention as the bad. So every Saturday we highlight the many people who spread joy and love. These are just some of those stories this week. There he is. Oh, there he is. This is the moment Jim and Lisa Oates met their hero. That's Denver Advent Health Porter ICU nurse Nick Johnson. The couple was alone riding bikes on a Colorado trail

when Jim went into cardiac arrest. It's finally nice to meet you. By luck, Nick was also on the trail and jumped into action doing CPR that helped save Jim's life. Okay, ready? For the grandparents of five, Nick's life-saving aid has given Ann and Jim a precious future with family. Your efforts have led to me being in a situation where I can enjoy the family. I can enjoy my experiences.

Thank you, Nick. I don't know what to say. I just want to keep saying thank you. And here's a dad going the distance. Mark Lee traveled across the country to surprise his L.A. Chargers son Shane in practice. Mark bouncing back from a massive heart attack he had earlier this year, showing Shane and the whole team what grit looks like so what i say to you guys is never quit anything it's possible anything and how's this for a celebration in the sky? That's United Express Flight First Officer Zailene Dicoto surprising her dad. She tricked me. She told me she was going to New Mexico.

She did trick you. A hardworking immigrant who sacrificed so much for the family. Daddy, I wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering support throughout my flight career. Your belief in me has been the wind beneath my wings. And near Los Angeles. We were so moved to see these first responders showing up to support the family of a beloved colleague. Some 75 members from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department bringing the two children of Deputy Gonzalo Galvez

to their first day of school. Gonzo, as they called him, died of cancer earlier this month. For these guys, it was a chance to let Gonzo's little ones know they will never be alone. What did Gonzo mean to you? He was a great mentor. We obviously can't replace him as dad, but we can offer the support that they need throughout the rest of their lives. What's the bigger message here? We're a family. We're all going to back each other up. Even when you're gone, we're still going to be there for your family.

That's NBC Nightly News for this Saturday. I'm Jose Diaz-Balart. Thank you for the privilege of your time and good night.