Top Story with Tom Llamas - Friday, February 10, 2023

Episode Date: February 11, 2023

U.S. shoots down 'high-altitude object' over Alaskan airspace, another classified document was found at Mike Pence’s Indiana home during FBI search, the death toll in Turkey and Syria after earthquakes passes 23,000 people, Brett Favre files multiple defamation lawsuits over Mississippi welfare scandal and the alleged murder plot centered on a poisoned cheesecake.

Tonight breaking news, a second flying object shot down by the U.S. military, this time in the skies over Alaska. President Biden ordering the takedown after the object. Roughly the size of a car was spotted flying at 40,000 feet, the same height used by commercial airliners. This coming less than a week after that Chinese spy balloon was shot down. But tonight it remains unclear who this latest object belongs to. We'll have the late details coming in from the Pentagon and what one of Alaska's senators just told NBC News. Also breaking tonight, the FBI searching the home of former Vice President Pence, agents fighting additional classified document after several were discovered by Pence's lawyer last month.

The search launched just hours after he was issued a subpoena related to former President Trump, but will he comply? The situation growing more dire by the hour in Turkey and Syria. 23,000 people now confirmed, Dan. rain, frigid temperatures, and even snow worsening the crisis on the ground and hindering relief efforts, Gabe Gutierrez, in Turkey again tonight for us. Back here at home, the doppelganger murder plot, a woman found guilty of trying to kill her lookalike with a poisoned cheesecake, white prosecutors say she did it in how much time she could

be facing. Plus, the wild video out of Japan, a bore charging down a mountain, knocking down a snowboarder before taking aim at a second one. what the ski resort is saying about the animal attack. And the dramatic video out of New York, a sailboat exploding while it was tied to a dock. A man pulled from the wreckage. What we're hearing about the cause of the blast. Top story starts right now.

And good evening. We begin top story on this Friday night with yet another shootdown in U.S. airspace. This one perhaps even more mysterious than the first. White House spokesperson, John Kirby, announcing the military detected and unidentified object flying 40,000 feet above Alaska late last night. The vessel, which was unmanned in the size of a small car, potentially posing a risk to commercial aircrafts which fly around that area and in that height. It's not yet clear who the object belonged to. President Biden giving the go-ahead to shoot it down early this morning, the wreckage likely crashing onto the ice-covered waters off Alaska's coast.

As soon as teams are able to recover the remnants, it will be analyzed, just as the Chinese spy balloon is being analyzed right now. That balloon, of course, shot down over the Atlantic less than a week ago after traveling all the way across the continental U.S. President Biden in the case, pulling the trigger much faster with this case. Kelly O'Donnell is at the White House tonight. It leads us off. Today, under President Biden's order, a U.S. fighter pilot shot down an unidentified, unmaned object, the size of a small car. We're calling this an object

because that's the best description we have right now. This time above the Arctic waters off Alaska, near the Canadian border. At this point U.S. officials are not saying this is another Chinese spy balloon. In fact, they say they don't know what it was or

what it could do. We do not know who owns it, whether it's state owned or corporate owned or privately owned. We just don't. know. Spotted and tracked for about 24 hours, moving northeasterly at 40,000 feet. At that altitude, officials say they did fear this unknown object posed a risk to civilian flights, because commercial planes typically fly between 30 to 42,000 feet. There was a reasonable

concern that this could present a threat to or a potential hazard to civilian air traffic. Officials say two pilots in F-22s were able to determine the object had no pilot. And they did not see the kind of surveillance equipment attached to the Chinese spy balloon that is being recovered and studied. Was its appearance like the Chinese aircraft? No, it was much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday. Another big difference, duration. The Chinese spy balloon was shot down eight days after the U.S. government first detected it while this time spotting to shoot down was about 24 hours in the wake of republican criticism that the president should have moved sooner to stop the china incursion complaints he rejects saying the military acted when it was safest all right kelly o'donnell joins us tonight from

the white house kelly have a lot of questions here i want to start with alaska senator lisa murkowski she spoke with our colleague lester holt a little while ago let's hear some of what she had to say understand that we're perhaps dealing with different entities here between the high-altitude balloon and what was taken down. But again, what you have is a threat to our sovereignty. So yeah, we need to move first. And quite honestly, the first line of defense, again, is Alaska. If it comes into Alaska airspace, if it comes over Alaska waters, we need to act.

We need to send the message. We need to be clear and unequivocable that we don't tolerate this, period. So it sounds like Senator Murkowski was a little happier with the way this situation was handled because she was incredibly critical of the Biden administration earlier this week for the delay in the shooting down of the Chinese spy balloon. She was among many Republicans who said they were concerned that the Chinese spy balloon was allowed to traverse the United States, and the president has countered that by saying that he wanted to shoot it down quickly, but that the recommendations from the Pentagon told him that he needed to be able to have time to get it to a point where it was over water and at a safer location and that they were able to collect data during that time. But that didn't satisfy a lot of the critics. In this instance, we see how the duration was much, much shorter from the time they first identified it to taking this still to be identified some kind of object in the air.

just over a day. Tom? Yeah, Kelly, also, I think this is important. We were on the air when this news broke, and I saw you there in the news conference. If you can kind of explain to our viewers how this news trickled out, because it was somewhat unusual. It was. There was a question about a rumor that one of my other colleagues was asking about, that there was a rumor coming out of Alaska, of some military activity. And John Kirby, who is a former Navy Admiral, who is a spokesperson for the National Security Council, gave a description of this, and I began shifting in my seat very, very quickly because this struck me as significant breaking news, and the briefing kind of continued on. And so when I could get his attention, I said, let's go through the basics

here. How was the president involved? What did this look like? What did it mean? And it struck me as very significant. And obviously, there are many more questions to be answered. And ultimately, when we have some of those answers, we'll have a better picture of what this means. But to have two of these kind of flying unknowns shot down within the span of one week by the U.S. military is a big question to see how the president's response was different in terms of time. And was there a real threat to civilian aircraft or a threat of any kind of surveillance? Those kinds of questions are certainly pressing, and there is much more to be learned. Now, they do believe they can do some recovery of this late.

latest object that was shot down over frozen water in Alaska. So they're hopeful that will give them answers. And there was an update to today, Tom, from the other instance with the Chinese spy balloon. They've been recovering pieces of it. Well, today they tell us they recovered a significant amount of the wreckage, identifying it on the bottom of the ocean floor. So they're going to have to go down and get it. But they know where it is. And they believe that will be very beneficial as well. And that's a huge development. Our Andrew Mitchell was reporting all week about the payload being on the ocean bottom, so that's great. They've spotted it.

Kelly, we thank you for all that reporting tonight. While U.S. military officials work to recover the wreckage and learn more about that object, many are calling into question the timing of this incident and the security of U.S. airspace. I want to bring in our panel tonight, NBC News Military Analyst and retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey and Gary Locke, a former U.S. ambassador to China. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining Top Story tonight. General, I want to start with you. I don't want to sound cynical.

I'd rather be skeptical here. What changed with the BODID administration that they decided to shoot down this one balloon, which it's still unclear if it was a spy balloon in the first place, and let the other one sort of travel over the continental United States? Well, I think what happens is every day there are tens of thousands of flights detected by NORAD and thousands of sea targets identified, and thousands of balloons floating around the United States, some of them with people suspended near them. And so NORAD has to sort out which ones do we consider a threat.

They're not postured really to find balloons, but they're up there, commercial, Google, you name it. So I think the first gigantic 60,000-foot Chinese reconnaissance surveillance, surveillance balloon. When they finally sorted out what it was, it was overland, and they decided primarily, I think, for the safety of people on the ground to not down it. Right. And there's some back and forth, even about that, general, to be fair, there's some back and forth on whether they could actually have taken it down earlier. Some people said they could have because it was in over an area where there was a lot of population. But getting back to my question, which I guess my question to you was, do you think they shot this down because it was a national security threat,

or do you think politics was at play here? Well, I think politics is always in the background for the White House. There's no question about that. But in this case, I think it was a simple answer. This one was down at 40,000 feet, and it represented a potential threat to commercial aviation. I think that's why in this case, they decided to knock it down before it was overland. General McAfee, we appreciate that. Ambassador Locke, I want to ask you, there's not a lot we know about this second object so far.

We're not even sure if it's, if it only the Chinese owned this one, any sense of what it is and what you think. And did you ever deal with these types of problems when you were an ambassador? No, certainly when I was ambassador, U.S. ambassador in China, we didn't have any issues about balloons. We know that the Chinese use balloons, but they also use very sophisticated, very high altitude satellites. And quite frankly, you know, going back to the balloon of last week, it's rather ironic that they're even still using balloons when they have concoct. collect the same information using the high-altitude satellites. I have to say, as a former governor of Washington State, that I'm glad that they did not try to shoot down last week's balloon over our territories, because, you know, when they did

finally shoot it down over water, it created a debris field of over seven miles, and if it had landed on land, if they tried to shoot it down on land, it could have fallen on schools, on homes, injured or killed people. And in fact, they were able to neutralize the intelligence gathering capability of last week's balloon, they shot it down over shallow water so that they could actually retrieve it. Had they shot it down over land, it would have been destroyed into smithereens into millions of pieces and made it harder to figure out exactly how they used it. Well, Ambassador, I mean, just to sort of play devil's advocate here, they're also searching the bottom of the ocean floor for the entire payload, which is the most important part.

So, I mean, we can kind of go back and forth on where it landed was best. I don't know if that's important. I do want to ask you, though, since you know China so well, what do you think the symbolism of a U.S. warplane firing a missile and blowing this thing out of the sky? What kind of sort of symbolism did that send to China, do you think? Well, obviously, they're going to try to say that last week's balloon, because we really don't know who owned this balloon that was shot down today. Was it Russian? Was it Korean? Was it commercial enterprise? I mean, they sent up fighter jets to at 40,000 and feet to determine that it was not collecting intelligence, and that it was a much smaller balloon, carrying much smaller things about the size of a small car. And so shooting it down

did not pose as much danger to people on the ground. But we're going to have to find out what's going to happen. But remember, you know, the United States had a spy plane over Russia back in 1960, and it was shot down. And we said at the time it was only collecting weather information, but they, Russians retrieve the hardware, the materials, captured the pilot, and we had to admit that it was a spy plane. So all countries engaged in espionage. What's ironic is that the Chinese are still using balloons, where they also have these high altitude satellites high up in the sky where no one could ever see it. We have the same thing. The Russians have the same thing. The French, the Germans. Everybody has high altitude satellites spying on

each other. General, talk to me about the temperature. right now between China and the United States. We have the issue of Taiwan that's still out there. We had an Air Force official on the record telling his troops to get ready for 2025, I think, was the date. What is the shooting down of the Chinese spy balloon? And that's sort of the question I was getting at to the ambassador. What kind of signals is that send to Beijing?

And do you think this just makes matters worse as far as tensions are concerned? Well, look, China and the United States have an enormous need to continue to have diplomatic dialogue, economic cooperation, and to mitigate the risk of military confrontation, I think that's going to happen. That Air Force, four-star general, was completely out of line in stipulating that he thought war was coming imminently. It's not going to happen. Wise policy, unless there is a terrible misjudgment by the PLA, will prevent a war between the U.S. and China. We're trying to deter one, not fight one. So I think possibly we'll get beyond this.

We'll get the visit of the Secretary of State back online. The danger in my mind is that President Z isn't in control of his own security forces, an intelligence operation. That last week's balloon at 60,000 feet, a giant object being reported by tourists on the ground with such a brazen provocation we had to take. action. So I'd like to see the dialogue open up. I assume that will happen in a month or so. Yeah, because it sounds like they're stalling at this point. Ambassador General, thank you so much for joining Top Story tonight. We appreciate all your analysis. We want to turn to another major

headline we're following tonight, the FBI, searching the home of former Vice President Pence, weeks after his team turned over a small number of classified documents discovered at his residence. This amid reports he's also facing a subpoena from the special counsel investigating President Trump's role in the January 6th insurrection. NBC new senior congressional correspondent Garrett Haake has this. FBI agents today searching the Indiana home of former vice president Mike Pence. His spokesman saying they removed one document with classified markings and six additional pages. Agents conducting the search after the former VP's attorneys turned over a quote small number of classified documents discovered by his attorneys last month. A search Mr. Pence authorized after classified material

was found at President Biden's former private office and Delaware home. Mistakes were made, and I take full responsibility. Today's FBI search, like the two recent searches of President Biden's Delaware homes, happening after negotiations with the Department of Justice and did not require a warrant, according to a DOJ official. The search coming just hours after Mr. Pence received a subpoena demanding testimony from the special counsel investigating former President Trump's handling of classified. material and January 6th, according to a source familiar with the matter. Mr. Pence has called the

former president's conduct on that day reckless, but has stopped short of saying whether he thinks Mr. Trump broke the law. I don't know if it is criminal to listen to bad advice from lawyers. Truth is what the president was repeating is what he was hearing from that gaggle of attorneys around him. Garrett Hake joins us now. Garrett, do we know why the former vice president had to be subpoenaed? I ask because it seems like he's been forthcoming with the document search and he detailed the events around January 6th in his book.

It feels like if he would be open to talking and open to working with the DOJ, why wouldn't they just do that? I'm just wondering if the subpoena was a sign that he was stonewalling. Well, forthcoming to a point. Remember, he refused to testify in front of the January 6th committee and has never talked about the events of that day under oath. I think there's a big difference between what you say in a book where you control the narrative and how you respond to questions from federal prosecutors. This is the kind of thing that could ensure his compliance under oath.

And from the Pence perspective, maybe even provide a little bit of political cover down the line that he was compelled to testify rather than volunteering to testify against a figure who's still so popular, at least in one corner of the Republican Party. Garrett, that's a great point. And it brings me to my next question. He hasn't announced yet, but former Vice President Pence is expected to make a run for the White House. How could this complicate his campaign? It could make it significantly more difficult. Pence has to run on the Trump record, but as not being Trump.

Either Heen or Nikki Haley or perhaps Mike Pompeo, all former Trump administration officials who are considering running for president have figured out exactly how to square that circle to be Trump-like, embrace the Trump record, but not be Trump and also not be his enemy. It's a very complicated political dance. They're all going to have to go through, starting in these next couple of months, Tom. All right, Garrett, Hake, for us. We appreciate it, Garrett. We want to head overseas now, and tonight authorities in Turkey and Syria say the staggering death toll from this week's earthquake has grown to more than 23,000.

Can you believe that? But still, after four days, rescuers are still finding life. Gabe Gutierrez with some stunning stories of survival. Tonight, against all odds, some five days after. those massive earthquakes. There are still survivors being pulled from the rubble, including a 10-day-old baby trapped for 90 hours under concrete. And a little boy pulled out alive. Rescuers reaching his sister next. This 17-year-old hoisted from the wreckage to applause and hugs from his mother and brother. Across Turkey and Syria, moments of joy and relief despite so much pain.

This woman embracing her sister's rescuer, who said, now I believe in miracles. This girl and her father also somehow alive. In another city, NBC's Matt Bradley saw Turkish rescue teams achieve the impossible. This is extraordinary, more than 72 hours after the initial quake. They're just now pulling out someone who they believe is life. Another man praying as he's lifted out of the rubble. He'd been trapped for 104 hours. In that same city, Kahaman Mirash Turkey, we saw new frantic search efforts today at the quake's epicenter.

While Fethy de Turo tried to make sense of it all, her homes destroyed. grateful are you to be alive? Endless gratitude, she says. We were crying, screaming, she says. Everyone was crying for help. The destruction here is immense. This is what's left of the historic city center, building after building in ruins. And it's just one of ten major cities across southern Turkey in the earthquake zone.

More international aid is pouring in from around the world, but it's struggling to reach some of the hardest hit areas, including northwestern Syria, where the U.N. estimates more than 5 million people are now homeless. Back in Turkey, Ersan Nabantalou walked this street every day. She tells me countless friends and family members are still missing throughout the city. How hopeful are you that some of them may still be found? I have lost hope, she says. We're in shock right now. As night fell and the fires to keep warm started burning, more of her words would resonate. I don't think we realize the magnitude of this disaster, she says. It's unbelievable. The whole city is gone now.

Gabe Gutierrez joins us tonight from Gaziantep, Turkey. Gabe, you were just telling me about all the compelling scenes you've been witnessing. And I know you're now at the site of where a 17-year-old was pulled out alive today. Yeah, that's right, Tom. It is an incredible story. You saw some of that video in the piece, but this is the site where that 17-year-old was taken from the rubble. He survived underneath a table in the basement,

and he even heard the excavator coming for him and had to move around the basement to try and avoid it. Well, he was taken out of here to the hospital. His family had waited at the site here for days waiting for word. Yeah, and we're now talking about 100,000. plus hours and these people are still being pulled out alive. It is truly incredible. The quake affected not only Turkey, but Syria as well. I know you have a breaking update from Syria. Yeah, some sad news out of Syria, Tom. The civil defense there says that rescue operations in Syria

have ended. It is now a recovery mission in Syria. But again, still active rescues going on here on the Turkish side of the border. Tom. That is terrible news out of Syria. Okay, Gabe, we thank you. Still ahead tonight, the doppelganger murder plot. The woman convicted of trying to poison her look-alike with a cheesecake. My prosecutors say she did it. Plus, the boat explosion caught on camera right there at a dock in New York, what authorities discovered at the scene amid all that debris. And the new video showing the moment gunshots rang out in Times Square,

sending tourists ducking for cover, the manhunt now underway. Stay with us. Top Story, just getting started on this Friday. We're back down with a bizarre murder plot involving a cheesecake. A woman in New York convicted of trying to kill her doppelganger by serving her the dessert laced with sedatives. So why did you want to kill her? Prosecutors say it was an attempt to steal the woman's identity. Valerie Castro has a story.

A poison cheesecake at the center of an attempted murder trial. A New York jury finding the woman who served it guilty. Victoria Naserova convicted of trying to kill Olga 6. who at the time in 2016 looked a lot like Nassarova. Nassarova stole from her victim, including a gold ring, according to the Queen's District Attorney. But prosecutors say her real motive was to steal, quote, her most valuable possession, her identity, and took her passport.

But the pastry plot failed when six survived. Investigators tested the dessert, finding it laced with the powerful sedative Phanasopam. Nazarova was arrested, pleading not guilty in court to no avail. The conviction coming on the heels of another side, similar high-profile case in Germany, where a woman is accused of killing an Instagram look-alike to fake her own death. Back in 2017, the NYPD telling NBC, New York, that Nassarova was an international fugitive, wanted for allegedly murdering a woman in her native Russia before fleeing to Brooklyn. Couldn't be determined how she was murdered, because her body was set

ablaze. She denied the allegation to 48 hours on CBS in 2017. I'm not a killer. I'm woman. Only woman. The alleged murder victim's daughter enlisting the help of a private investigator who captured this video of Naserova in New York and then worked with the NYPD who made the arrest. Kind of tugged in my heartstrings and when I heard this long, horrible, tragic story that just wouldn't end for this young lady because there was no end in sight. Police at the time say she was also suspected of drugging men she met on a Russian dating app to steal from them. She's a con artist who meets people online to a dating site and then drugs them at some point and then takes their property from their men and flees. One of those men testifying in the trial as well as the daughter of the alleged murder victim in Russia, all pushing the jury to deliver that not-so-sweet guilty verdict. Okay, Valerie, Valerie, joins us now live here on Top Story. So Valerie, what other charges are we talking about here?

So she was actually convicted of five different crimes, including assault, attempted assault, unlawful imprisonment, and Hetty larceny, she'll be sentenced in March and is facing up to 25 years in prison. Her attorney did issue a statement saying, while they are disappointed in the verdict, they respect it, and, quote, are exploring our options going forward. Okay, strange story there. Valerie, thank you for that. Now to the latest in the welfare scandal involving Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. The former NFL star now filing separate defamation lawsuits against Mississippi's state auditor and two sports talk show hosts.

NBC's Justice and Intelligence correspondent, Ken Delanyan, has more on this one. NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre going on offense after months of criticism over his involvement in a welfare spending scandal. In multiple new lawsuits, Farrv is accusing Mississippi's state auditor and two sports media personalities of defaming him by saying his alleged efforts to secure millions of dollars from Mississippi's anti-poverty agency equated to stealing money from the poor. Every time his name gets brought up, we have to mention hands are tied. He tied the hands of the poor people and took money right out of their pocket. That's right. Farve's lawsuit calling that comment and others by former NFL kicker and podcaster Pat McAfee, malicious lies. McAfee today standing by his remarks.

The quotes that were in that lawsuit were certainly accurate. But there's one word, I believe, that was said often on this particular program if you were to watch it all. And that would be allegedly. That's right. Our job is report the news. A separate lawsuit targets former NFL tight end and Super Bowl 32 opponent Shannon Sharp, who blasted Favre on his popular Fox sports show.

One example. He stole money from people that really needed that money. Yep. NBC News reached out to Sharp's representatives for comment but have not heard back. And a third suit accuses Mississippi's auditor of a defamatory media campaign that injured Fav's reputation

and caused Favv financial harm by diminishing his ability to generate income. Shad White, pushing back in a video statement. Everything I've said about this case is true and is backed up by years of audit work by my team here at the office of the state auditor. Farv has not been accused of theft or any other crime in connection with what officials say is one of the biggest frauds in Mississippi's history. Six people have been charged, including the former head of the state welfare agency, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with an ongoing FBI investigation. As NBC News has previously

reported, a civil lawsuit filed by the state says a total of $8 million in state funds went to two FARV-related projects, a volleyball facility at his alma mater, where his daughter played the sport, and a drug startup he co-owned that was touting a speculative concussion treatment. I think it will greatly help long-term health. The lawsuit says FARV and other defendants knew or should have known it was federal welfare money intended for the poorest Mississippi residents. Farv, who earned nearly $140 million in his NFL career, notes that he repaid about $1.1 million of state money that was given to him directly.

He has long said he didn't know the money was supposed to be for welfare. But text messages released in court documents in the state's civil suit seemed to show Farv knew the money came from the Department of Human Services, Mississippi's welfare agency. In August of 2017, Farv texting the head of a nonprofit that was handing out the money. If you were to pay me, is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much? She replied, no, but I understand you being uneasy about that. A jury may have to decide whether Farv's critics took their comments too far.

Generally, if you're going to call someone a thief or a criminal, you should wait until after they're convicted. Okay, Ken Delaney joins us tonight from Los Angeles. Ken, I got to ask you, defamation suits sometimes are tough to prove. We just heard Danny there at the end of your piece. I mean, does he have a case here? Danny thinks he does, and so do other legal experts, Tom, because there's a special category of defamation where you accuse someone of a crime. It's presumed to be defamatory if that person hasn't been. convicted of a crime. So it will be hard for those defendants to argue that, for example,

they were engaging in hyperbole or commentary, which, of course, they no doubt will try to do. But look, Farva is exposing himself to some risk here, too, with this lawsuit. He's going to be subject to discovery, which means the people he's suing will have access to all his communications about this matter. And we've already seen that some of his text messages aren't exactly flattering. So it remains to be seen here whether this lawsuit will help or hurt what's been the reputational damage to Favre as a result of this scandal. It's a great point. All right, Ken Delanyan for us tonight, Ken, we appreciate it.

When we come back, an urgent warning for parents of young children. A stroller sold at major retailers, now linked to the death of a 14-month-old. We'll explain what happened. What you need to know next. Time now for Top Stories News Feed, and we begin with the manhunt in New York City. After a deadly shooting in Times Square, new surveillance. video shows people running from the gunshots on a packed sidewalk. Police say a 22-year-old man was shot in the chest outside of a shake shack and later died. This all happened during the day.

The NYPD now searching for at least two people. A boat explosion caught on camera on New York's Long Island. Surveillance video. Take a look at this. Shows a sailboat was blown to pieces while it was docked. Look at that. A 44-year-old man had to be airlifted to the hospital, but he is expected to survive, thankfully. Officials say a leaking propane tank. was found on the scene. And a warning tonight about a popular baby stroller following the death of a child. The Consumer Product Safety Commission

issuing the warning over baby trends, sit-and-stand, double, and ultra-strollers. The agency says children can get trapped in an opening if they are not properly strapped in. A 14-month-old died, and another child was seriously hurt. The strollers are sold at major retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, and Buy-Buy Baby. There's more information on our website, NBCNews.com.

Okay, we want to turn out of the devastating earthquake and how some of the survivors are coping. Many have lost loved ones, as you know, or they're still holding out hope to find them alive as we saw in Gabe's piece. This while finding themselves homeless and fearful of aftershocks, Kelly Kobayi visited a mosque with worshippers, taking refuge amid the unspeakable tragedy. A call to prayer for a country in mourning. At this mosque in Gazianta, people are in shock and despair. Some lost loved ones, some lost their homes, and all lost their sense of safety. The Imam saying, we offer prayers to those who died, those who were missing, and for God to give strength to the rescue workers trying to find them. As the prayers ended, out came the blankets and pillows.

This mosque now doubling as a shelter for more than a thousand earthquake victims, nearly all of them, Syrian refugees. Do you like living here? Yes. Why? I like it. She told me she and her family, all ten of them, are sleeping on the floor in the mosque. They fled Aleppo in 2012 when bombs were falling on their city. But now they've lost everything again.

How is your house? It's broken. Their home, the sisters all told me, completely destroyed. More than a million Syrian refugees live in the area devastated by Sunday's quake. They're among the country's poorest. jobs are almost impossible to find pay is low and now a new crisis what we do now Doa's home is still standing but she like so many here worries it's unstable Khalid says his family is staying in a nearby wedding hall we are not pretty sure if it's

like safe or not due to seeing numerous amount of videos of people and living the shock firsthand. These are the scenes they're terrified of. Just a few miles away, building after building destroyed. Rescue crews sifting through thousands of tons of collapsed concrete and twisted metal. As we arrived, a call for silence, searchers listening for any sounds of hope. But after a long wait, nothing. They keep digging while relatives watch from behind a barricade.

Then a family called forward. Someone's been found, but it's not good. They didn't survive. The bodies brought down to an ambulance. Forty-five-year-old Ugar Budak's brother-in-law and his brother-in-law's family are among the three dozen still missing under all this concrete. It's been 120 hours, he tells me, saying we get our hopes up every time someone is rescued, but time is passing.

He praised the search crews and pleaded for more help, convinced. if only they had more specialist equipment to hear signs of life in these mountains of rubble, more people would be found alive. He's still waiting. The last time Cruz here pulled out anyone alive was yesterday morning. And tonight we heard an entire family screaming out in agony when they learned their loved ones didn't make it. Tom? Scream is probably heard all throughout southern Turkey and northern Syria since this horrible natural disaster occurred.

Kelly Kobiega for us. We turn out of Top Story's Global Watch and staying with those devastating earthquakes. Soccer star, Christian Atsu, is still missing despite earlier reports that he had been found alive. The Ghanaian winger played for several Premier League teams, including Chelsea, before joining a Turkish professional club. He was last heard from on Sunday,

hours before the disaster struck. Authorities in Israel say a bus stop attack in East Jerusalem was terror-related. Police say a man drove his car into a group of people waiting for the bus in an Israeli settlement. Two people were killed, including a child, and several more hurt. Authorities say the driver was shot and killed at the scene by an off-duty police officer. And a wild boar attack was caught on camera at a ski resort in Japan.

This one's truly strange. New video shows the boar coming down the slope into gata and charging at a snowboarder knocking him over. The animal also charging at another snowboarder who tried to use his board to defend himself. Staff at the resort says this is the first time wild boars have appeared on the slopes. Luckily, no one was hurt. Coming up, the tech giants in the newest battle in the race to win the AI war will explain. Stay with us. 2020, already feels like it's going to be the year.

AI truly started making its mark in a way we could all see and feel. At the same time, this exciting technology is expanding. fears over the dangers. Here's our man who knows the tech world inside and out. Jake Ward. A multi-billion dollar duel is underway to be the front door of the internet. A race starts today. Microsoft announced this week that artificial intelligence will soon allow conversations with its software and search engine Bing. Google raced to announce similar plans. Both tech giants trying to change the internet from a world in which we navigate between web pages to one where interactive discussions with chatbots gives us information.

We only scratch the surface of what's possible with AI. For a generation, Google has been the verb for finding things online. And it commands more than 90% of the search engine market. But Microsoft, thanks to its partnership with chat GPT maker OpenAI, is on the attack. The most profitable, large software business is search. So I look at this and say, I just have to earn one user at a time. I've never, ever felt this liberated in terms of opportunity in the days ahead. It definitely is an arms race. Bing is rocketing up the App Store charts.

So much of the world is organized around serving Google and understanding what people are searching for in Google. Chinese tech giants Baidu and Alibaba also planned to debut new AI technology. But while chatbots look authoritative, AI can make mistakes. Google's own demo for its new chatbot called Bard included a. basic factual error. And research has shown that AI trained to mimic human language picks up our biases. Just having for-profit companies pushing this technology out is a recipe for a multitude of problems. Critics worry the race to make money from AI technology is moving too fast. I would love to hear a CEO saying, look, we've got

the research, we're capable of making it, but we're pausing, and we urge others to do so as well. instead of just saying, oh, we're going to outrace the other. But with billions at stake, the race is already on. Jake Ward, NBC News, San Francisco. We thank Jake for that when we come back and look at what you can binge this weekend. The hit series, you back for its fourth and final season, plus a new rom-com with Witherspoon and Ashton Coucher ahead of Valentine's Day and new music from Jason DeRullo and David Geddes.

Stay with us. Hey, welcome back. It is Friday, which means it's time for bingeworthy. Our look at the best things to watch and listen to this weekend. And we're joined now by television host and entertainment news expert, yes expert, Andrew Freund. And I just learned that Freund is German for friend. And guess what? What? You're my friend.

Oh, we're good friends. We're good frewns. We're good friends. Donka Shane. Anyways, enough, enough German. Thanks for coming on Top Story. We appreciate you and your analysis and your expertise. I want to start with a show that I've never watched,

but I know people love this. Fourth season, Netflix, it's called you. I'll look at the right camera at some point. Let's take a look. Did you break my heart, Marion? Heartbreak is always a catalyst for a new path. You're a murderer, Joe. You're wrong about me.

I won't prove it to you. Laying low is imperative. Remember, he was in gossip, real? Yeah. We were just talking about Penn Badgley there. Love that shot. Let me ask you about you. Obviously, psychological thriller.

Why do people love this show so much? I think they like it because they like to see naughty things. They like to see murder. They like to see mystery. And in this new season, he's now living in London, and he befriends a group of elites. And within that group, murders start to happen. And chaos and hijinks ensue.

Also, he's got very good hair. I'm just going to say it. He does. Okay. So, it was amazing. People like this, again, in its fourth season, so clearly very popular. I want to move on now to the docu series. I'll hit this at some point, ladies and gentlemen, but probably not tonight.

It's called, it's on Hulu. It's called Stolen Youth Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. And it's about these horrifying events that happened at that school. Some of you may remember this. Let's take a look. Telly, it's like, my dad is going to be staying here. We were going to be accommodating. He would crash on our couch.

He did exude a sudden. of authority. You have a problem. Larry probably has a solution. He unveils to us his philosophy called Quest for Potential. Everyone was transfixed. You shine, kid. Thanks, Larry. I started to believe what he told me about me. So this one's on Hulu. Super creepy, but I'm hearing it's pretty good. I heard it's really good, and the man was actually just sentenced in January to 60 years in prison. And he basically was a cult leader, and he was the father of a student at Sarah Lawrence

who moved into the dorms and kind of corralled these students, and they became, he was this crazy cult leader. It's shocking, but it also makes you think, like, could that have been me? And this happened recently. I mean, this happened in the recent years. I mean, I'm definitely going to watch that one because I remember the news story. I remember what happened there. It's not too far from this area.

Yeah. We like to be ahead of the curve here at Top Story. I know you're an avid watcher. Yes. You record it every night. So we're going to jump ahead to a show that's not out yet, but it's going to be huge. It's a Showtime series. It sheds new light on the 1950s murder spree, and the couple behind the killings.

This happened in Nebraska. It's called the 12th victim. Take a look. Starkweather and Carol Fugate. They were boyfriend and girlfriend. They killed 11 people. They were on the run. It's the new Bonnie and Clyde.

This was the first time somebody who was accused of murder was broadcast on television. It was just a circus. Charles Starkweather. He was a celebrity. So walk our audience through this one because they're probably not going to remember this, but it is definitely a high-profile murder case. Yeah, so these murders took place in the late 50s when Charles and Carol were, Carol was 14, he was 19. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Boyfriend and girlfriend. He murdered 11 people, including Carol's entire family.

In Nebraska. In Nebraska. And also, the interesting part is it was an inspiration for movies like true romance, natural-born killers, the Billy Joel song, We Can't Start a Fire House. People say it was the first big sort of murder case in the television era. 100%. This is four-part mini-series. I read fantastic things about it. I can't wait to watch it.

I think it premieres, though, later in about two weeks. Yes. And fun fact is, she is still alive. She's 80 years old now. This happened when she was 14. She's still alive. She suffered a major stroke, but she's still alive right now. Enough about murder.

Let's switch gear, something fun, something funny. Not everyone loves Jeremy Clarkson. Amazon Prime, season two, Clarkson's Farm. It is a major hit on Amazon Prime. Here's a preview. The restaurant says a huge amount of work. This whole menu is basically a beef menu. Everything's ready to go.

I just need West Oxford District Council to say, Good idea. The applicant's conduct is shameful. It indicates, give me an inch and I'll take a mile attitude. All right, tell us about this one. All right, so Jeremy Clarkson has a farm, so this is the second season. People may remember from Top Gear. People may remember from Top Gear.

One of the things that I was, you know, they really go there in this show. They show everything about a working farm, including a cowbirth. Okay, uh-oh. Which isn't the nicest thing to watch, Tom. But in this new season, he's also opening a restaurant. So we get to see how that plays out. And he has to go to the city council to get approvals. He's not really into doing that so much.

He's a bit of a curmudgeon. Huge hit. And it's off the charts as far as ratings, right? Huge. I was being told that this is like huge following. People love it. Okay. Yeah.

Andrew, do you smell that by any chance? Smell what? Love is in the air. Oh, I see what you did there, Tom. Oh, he's getting clever. today on a Friday. It's Valentine's Day. It's coming up, man. Did you get the wife? Did you get the wife something?

Yeah, yeah, well, not yet, but I'm working on it. There's a lot of nice things out there. Maybe we'll start with this romantic comedy, right? Let's do it. Maybe I'll download this one for her. Amazon Prime, somebody I used to know, starring Allison Brie. And let's take a look because, yep, we do have a clip. All right.

You haven't felt that free in... I don't even know how long. Sean, honey. Mom, hey. I can't... Ellie. Jojo! Hey, hey!

What a wonderful thing for us all to be here. So thank you to the bride and groom for giving us a reason to celebrate. To Sean and Cassidy. Cheers! Okay, fill us in here. All right, so the movie was written by Alison Brie and her husband, Dave Franco. Okay. Dave Franco directs the film, and it is about a woman that goes home and reconnects

with an old boyfriend played by Jay Ellis, who was in Top Gun. Okay. And she reconnects. They have a spark. Then she realizes he's engaged to a woman who reminds her of her younger self, Tom. Okay. Hence the title. You feeling this one?

I'm feeling it. I saw it. And it's actually very sweet, has a good heart. Also good, perfect for Valentine's Day, perfect for a weekend watch. Okay. On this next one, I know you're going to unleash your power. Yes, I am. You know this one very well.

I know it very well. Two big names, Ashton Coucher, Reese Witherspoon. before we give it away. Let's take a look. Debbie, you need to take a break. I just need to be practical, which is what you have to be when you're a single mom. Right, right, tragic.

I got an idea. I'm coming to L.A. for a week. I'm going to look after Jack, and you can stay here. I don't know. You need help. Let me help. Taking care of Jack is a lot of work. I think I got this.

You had the chance to speak with Reese and Ash. That's so cool. So tell me about the movie. I did. Basically, what Reese told me is it's a love letter to single moms out there. Reese plays a single mom. Her best friend is Ashton Coucher. He lives in New York.

She lives in L.A. They do a house swap. But then they come to realize, like, hmm, maybe, like, there's something there. They've been friends for a long time. They met at a one-night stand. But they are a blast to sit down and chat with. They gave me dating advice, Tom. Oh, okay.

I feel like a better man now because of Ashton Coucher. I feel like Ashton's popping up again, right? He's like cover of magazines. He doesn't really have to work. He's got all that Uber money. Yeah. He's talking to you. Talking to me.

That's all that matters. Bingeworthy. Okay, guys having a great year so far. Sticking with love and the Valentine's theme and just everything that's awesome with the world, right? Romance here, tonight. Romance. Okay. We got a new song from Luke Combs.

It's called Love You Anyway. Here's a listen. Like a compass need, don't need. It's true no. We met you to be The reason this heart breaks Oh, I'd love you anyway All right, very sweet song

Yeah Good for Valentine's Day Yeah And what do we know about it? Well, he wrote it for his wife Oh, that's great When was the last time you wrote a song for your wife, Tom? Last night, actually

It was a freestyle though But it's like not a big deal Just something I'd do on the side Do you want to? Yeah, no, no That's great, so it's about his wife? It's about his wife, but But it's actually interesting because when I was reading about it, it could also be a breakup song.

Because his idea was it could be a song about someone that broke up with you, but you still love them. But the way that this song came to be was he was playing a show and he was like, Nicole, if you're out there, I love you anyways. So if she's there, she's not. So it's a love note to his wife. That sort of sparked my interest. I'm going to listen to that. It's good. Yeah.

Finally, we got a week of jam. Oh, here we go. We're going to go. There we go. Okay, Jason Derulo, David Gedda, love them both. It's called Saturday, Sunday. Let's listen. Baby, I've been tripping up, I've been tripping up by you daily.

I've been out of my mind looking all kind of crazy. Oh, hope you know I, hope you know I'm not greeted. I don't need all of your time. I only need. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I get the joke there. David, get-up, I'm always into it. It's a pretty good jam for the weekend.

Are we going to go out to Hell's Kitchen after this? Explain why and just... We're going to dance? Yeah, like, go to a club. Hell's Kitchen. I haven't partied there in a while, but... Right around the corner, Tom. I'm a little old, though.

And you were telling me Jason Drewill was going to play the Super Bowl? At least... Yeah, so the NFL is going to have a concert on their TikTok channel right before the Super Bowl on Sunday. Fun fact, I also see Jason drool at the gym all the time. What? He's there. Is he lifting? Yes.

And he's... Yes, he could, his arms are humongous. Yeah? Yeah, and he makes me feel inferior sometimes. I like to arm wrestle him. Okay. He'd well. Andrew.

No, you haven't seen what's under this. Andrew, thank you so much for coming here. We appreciate it. Thank you, Tom. Visiting from L.A. and we thank you for watching Top Story each and every night. I'm Tom Yamison, New York. Stay right there. More news on the way.