NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - Friday, August 8, 2025

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

Suspect in Montana bar shooting in custody after week-long manhunt; New wildfire prompts evacuations in Los Angeles as dozens rage out west; Police release first images inside home where University of Idaho students were killed; and more on tonight’s broadcast.

Breaking tonight, the man accused of murdering four people in Montana now in custody. Michael Paul Brown captured after a week on the run, team searching the remote mountains for the Iraq war vet after he allegedly stepped into the owl bar and killed four people. The late breaking details tonight. Also, the shooting of a police officer at Emory's Atlanta campus, putting the university and CDC on lockdown with an active shooter warning. The breaking details on the Trump Putin summit, with President Trump posting it will be in Alaska next Friday, Andrea Mitchell with what we know. The race to get out alive as the canyon fire triples in size, firefighters racing to get an edge on the raging wildfire, thousands leaving their homes behind as fast as they can.

We're in the fire zone. The first image is inside the home from Brian Coburger's brutal slain of those four college students. Plus the mission to save the glaciers. we sent our Molly Hunter to see the most rapidly melting glaciers on our planet. This is NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas, reporting tonight from Miami. And good evening. Tonight we begin with breaking news out of Montana. After a week on the run, authorities have caught the alleged suspect involved in that mass shooting inside an Anaconda Montana bar, killing four people.

Officials say the suspect Michael Brown fled to the mountains after the brutal shooting. Brown lived near the bar and was a former member of the U.S. Army and Montana National Guard. Morgan Chesky now with more on this stunning apprehension. Tonight, after a frightening week-long manhunt, authorities confirming 45-year-old Michael Paul Brown is in police custody. The town's mayor telling NBC news, authorities found Brown alive in hiding barely five miles from the Al Bar in Anaconda, where authorities say Brown fatally shot four people last Friday. I think we're all just taking kind of a collective sigh of relief. Lacey Groswold, who lives with her daughter, near the very woods authorities were searching,

is now finally feeling safe. I was also glad to hear that he was taken alive just because that means that some of the families of the victims might get some answers or some understanding. Officials releasing this photo over the weekend, showing Brown without a shirt or pants. They believe after the shooting, he stole the pickup truck. truck and found new clothing. So far, authorities have yet to share what may have led the army veteran to allegedly open fire and then flee, launching a massive manhunt and a heavily forested mountain area. This is an unstable individual who walked in and murdered four people

in cold blood for no reason whatsoever. Authorities say the four victims, all local were not strangers to Brown, who friends say struggled with mental health over the past year. Tonight as families mourn those lost, others thankful a terrifying chapter. is over. Morgan joins us now live, and Morgan, you've learned more about where they found this suspect? Yeah, Tom, authorities say despite launching hundreds of law enforcement personnel to search nearby mountains, they ended up tracking Brown down outside of another bar in the neighboring community of Stumpdown. Still unknown if he went with or without a fight, but tonight, we do know that he is in custody awaiting formal charges. Tom. All right, Morgan, thanks to you.

Now to more breaking news this time near Atlanta, where reports of an active shooter put the Emory campus on lockdown with a warning to run, hide, and fight. Tom, Winter joins us down. Tom, at least one person, a police officer, has been hurt, but a shelter in place has been lifted? That's right, Tom. A late update from the Atlanta Police Department saying that they believe there's no longer a threat to the community after the person they believe is the suspect has been found deceased.

And so they've lifted that shelter in place after warning an Emory University warning its students to run, hide, fight, the familiar call whenever there's an active shooter incident. the FBI sending special agents to the scene to help local law enforcement agencies in the course of their investigation. Right now, though, Tom, it appears tonight that this is not a mass casualty incident and that the event is contained to that local area. Okay, Tom Winter for us, Tom, we thank you. More breaking news tonight. The president announcing the location of his upcoming high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, posting moments ago that it will be here in the United States. I want to bring in Andrea Mitchell now.

And Andrea, what do we know at this hour? Tom, the president late tonight, announcing on truth social, he will meet with Vladimir Putin next Friday in Alaska. It's going to be the first time Putin will be on American soil since a U.N. speech in 2015, and it's notable today that after several weeks of criticizing Putin, saying he was frustrated with the lack of progress in Putin's accepting a ceasefire with Ukraine, Trump said today, Putin, I believe, wants to see peace. And this is a big change of tone heading into this crucial meeting in Alaska. Next Friday, Tom. All right, Andrew Mitchell, major development there. We'll be watching. Out west tonight, dozens of wildfires continue to rage out of control,

fueled by hot and dry conditions, including in Los Angeles, where a dangerous new fire has just erupted. Dana Griffin and her team on the scene in California. Tonight, escalating fire danger out west. In Southern California, the canyon fire exploding to more than 5,000 acres. The blaze jumping from Ventura County to Los Angeles, forcing thousands to evacuate and others to lose sleep. I'll probably stay up most of the night and just come out every hour or so

just to see where it's at. Flames quickly spreading through the mountainous terrain as smoke blankets the region with unhealthy air quality. Carlos Rodriguez's ranch was being used to film a movie when flames broke out. Smoke, all he breathed, ashes everywhere. flames everywhere, and you just look at it and you feel so helpless. Several dangerous fires are burning in the West. In Utah, this helicopter helping evacuate campers. We initially were a bit hesitant on what we should do,

and then another update came that said that we had about two hours until it reached our area, and so we just urgently packed up and left. Meanwhile, more than 50 million are under heat alerts from California to Wisconsin. And wild weather hitting the Great Plains. striking the ground near Sturgis, South Dakota. Back in California. So this is not over yet? Not over yet.

As the Los Angeles area recovers from those devastating wildfires earlier this year, firefighters race to contain its newest blaze. We're expecting high temperatures. We still have very dry brush. This is still extreme rugged territory. So the potential still exists for rapid and extreme fire behavior. A region still under threat from intense heat. Dana Griffin, NBC News, Kaste,

California. Now to the University of Idaho murders and new crime scene images just released by police showing inside the home where those killings happened. A warning to our viewers, some of the images you're about to see are graphic. Here's Liz Kreutz. For the first time, a chilling look inside the off-campus home where the four University of Idaho students were killed in 2022. The house frozen in time, signs of a party, dishes still in the sink. These newly released crime scene photos, some blurred by police reveal both a typical college life and the horrifying signs of struggle from when Brian Coburger killed Madison Mogan, Kaley Gonzalez, Santa Cronotel, and Ethan Chapin. Here, blood on the floor, on a door, and on bed sheets.

This image showing two handprints on the window. In this one, the open glass door believed to be where Coburger entered the home. Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty? Yes. The photos, part of a trove of evidence. investigators can now make public after Coburger pled guilty to the murders last month. Police also releasing this security footage from a neighbor's home where at 4.20 a.m. You can hear a dog barking, followed by a car, believed to be Coburgers, speeding away.

NBC News is not airing all the images released by police in part out of respect for the families, like Ethan Chapin's parents, who told us they don't want every gruesome detail released. You don't think the public needs to know. I know. There's pieces of it they don't need to know. It's not for public consumption. And why would you need to know it? I mean, what's the gain on that? There's zero gain. Liz Croix, NBC News. All right, we want to head back to Washington and new reporting that President Trump has quietly authorized the use of military force against Latin American drug cartels. I want to bring in Courtney Q. Courtney, what will the military be doing here?

Well, Tom, stopping illegal drugs from coming across the border has been largely a law enforcement. mission. But according to two U.S. officials, President Trump issued a directive to begin using military force in some cases, targeting the Latin American drug cartels like Trende Aragua that he's already designated as terrorist organizations. Now, it's not clear what those missions may look like or if they would involve ground troops entering other countries. As for President Trump, he says he'll have more to say on the matter soon. Tom. Okay, Courtney Cudy for us. Courtney, we thank you. Now to an issue being felt acutely here in South Florida, it's the unexpected fees. condo owners are being hit with now, part of the aftermath of that deadly 2021 collapse of a building

in surfside. Marissa Parra has our story. It was the Florida catastrophe that struck suddenly and seemingly without warning. The investigation is underway into how this happened. 98 people were killed when a 12-story condominium collapsed in surfside. The situation here is still so dire. June of 2021 marks one of the deadliest structural failures in U.S. history. Four years later, that ripple effect felt in the form of massive fees for condo owners throughout the state. The increase in assessments have impacted large percentages of our population here. Eugene Bold is vice president of the Southern Florida Community Advocacy Group. Who hurts the most from these special assessments?

The vulnerable populations. So mostly seniors, fixed income seniors in particular, younger families trying to establish themselves. Soon after the surfside collapse, a new law called for any condo building. building at least three stories high and older than 30 years to undergo inspections for structural integrity recertification. I pay more in assessments than I do from my mortgage. For many buildings, that has led to multi-million dollar construction projects. The cost spread among condo owners like Teresa Tejera, who says since she bought her one-bedroom condo

north of Miami 16 years ago, a lot has changed. How did the aftermath of Surfside change how you live your day to day? Completely, because everybody has great intentions with changing laws. They just don't think how they're going to implement their new rules. For condo owners like Tejeda, the costs have meant thousands of dollars a year in assessments set to continue for years, the fees leaving them feeling trapped, unable to sell in a state where condo prices are down nearly 8% compared to a year ago. This summer, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation aimed at bringing relief to condo

owners struggling with the fees, but Tejeda says she feels. like she's stuck in a bad marriage. It's too expensive to divorce. That's exactly what it is. And you know, Tom, there was a loan program here in Miami-Dade, but it was paused just days ago until next year to give them time to sift through the massive number of applications, just a sign of the overwhelming need for help. All right, Marissa, thank you for that.

We'll take a break, and in 60 seconds, our climate report. We sent Molly Hunter to the most spectacular and most threatened glaciers on the planet. inside the race to save them and what's at stake if we don't. Back now with Molly Hunter's journey into the Alps and a firsthand look at Europe's shrinking glaciers melting faster than ever before

and the lives being threatened by climate change. As we hike towards the mighty mortaratch glacier high in the Swiss Alps. So we can see the glacier now. There it is. Yeah. Even in its relatively diminished state, It is extraordinary.

As we near 7,000 feet, the air gets thinner. We're on the heels of scientist Leo Hossely doing his Ph.D. work at Mortarach as we make the final scramble up. Wow. The sound of that. Yeah. We hear it before we see it. This is amazing. Made it. That's cold. That's very cold.

Yeah. It's a really apparent. parent sign of climate change. The glacier retreat is going to affect the water availability. And in the end, it all flows into the seas, right, into the oceans. And there it's going to affect sea level rise, and that affects a huge amount of people. European glaciers are melting faster than anywhere else on the planet. New research published in Nature Science Journal finds they've lost about 40% of their volume in the last 25 years, equivalent to about three Olympic swimming pools every second.

here have been measuring the dramatic retreat for more than a century. We've just walked the path of where the glacier used to be to get up here. This situation is dire, and we can see that. But there's also a lot of ice up above me, and there's a lot of beauty that's worth saving. Across the border in Austria, glaciologist Andrea Fisher says it's too late to save Austria's glaciers in their current state. We will lose one-third of Austrian glaciers entirely during the next day. five years. Fischer brought an NBC news team here to Stubai Glacier back in 2005.

There is no possibility to save glaciers without saving climate. Protective blankets covered the slopes then, but today she calls them glacier band-aids. And as we're talking... There's lots of debris coming down off this rock face. You can hear it right now, actually. And now villages across the Alps facing a riskier uncertain future. Back in May, a glacial slide obliterating the Swiss village of Platon. Now the events are more often and stronger.

And back on Mortarach, Hostley is remarkably still optimistic. Yes, they're melting, yes, they're retreating, but they're still incredibly beautiful. They're still large, they're still big, there's still huge amounts of ice here. And so it's not like it's a completely lost cost. There's still something to save here, right? Molly Hunter, NBC News on Mortaratch Glacier in Switzerland. And we are back in a moment with a scary scene on a cruise ship after the glass broke on a water slide. Back now with the alarming video from the icon of the seas, the biggest cruise ship in the world.

One person was heard after the acrylic glass on the water slide. You see it here shattered while he was going down. You can see all the water falling out at part of the slide that broke. Royal Caribbean says the water slide is closed for the rest of the cruise's journey. Okay, moving on in the sports world, Tom Brady just became the first New England Patriot to be honored with a statue in the team's history. That's a 12-foot bronze statue is made by a local sculptor. It comes after Patriots owner Robert Kraft retired Brady's number 12. He says the statue was commissioned to cement Brady's legacy.

A quick programming note on Meet the Press this Sunday, Kristen Welker's exclusive with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Make sure to tune in. That's nightly news for this Friday. I'm Tom Yamas reporting from Miami. Thanks so much for watching. Tonight and always, we're here for you. Good night.