Top Story with Tom Llamas - Monday, June 8, 2026

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tonight, the massive security operation in New York City for the NBA finals as President Trump is set to watch from the stands. The sprawling operation in and around Madison Square Garden, Secret Service, drones, tactical teams putting the area on lockdown. Tensions heightened after a mass stabbing just beneath the famed arena will tell you about it as the Knicks are set to face off against the Spurs in game three. Also tonight, flash flood emergency. Dozens rescued from their homes as. waters quickly rose. People trapped on top of cars. Twenty-eight million at risk tonight. Los Angeles' mayoral race and the reality star Spencer Pratt slipping to third place. President Trump spreading new baseless claims of election fraud, why he walked out of his interview with our Kristen Welker. The new strikes between Israel and Iran, President Trump working to hold both sides back.

The defense resting in the deadly high school track meet trial. What witnesses said on the stand today. Fireworks on the freeway, the dramatic blast after a truck carrying fireworks caught fire. And unexpected landing, the hot air balloon thrown off course and workers jumping into help. Plus, the rare earthquake striking off of Cuba sending shockwaves across Florida. Top story starts right now. And good evening right now a massive security operation is underway in the heart of New York City. Midtown on lockdown as President Trump makes his way to Madison Square Garden. for game three of the NBA finals. Hundreds of officers and secret service agents fanned out across Manhattan

deploying bomb-sniffing canines, drones, and crowd-control barriers. Attendees facing TSA-level screening and a strict no-bag policy at the arena. All in anticipation of the lifelong NICS fan, President Trump, joining the festivities tonight, he'll be the first sitting president to attend an NBA finals game in history. But the arena on edge tonight, after multiple attempts on President Trump's life in recent years. And just hours after a violent stabbing in Penn Station, which is just underneath

MSG, first responders rushing to the scene as victims were wheeled off on stretchers. But the security threats stretched beyond those that could be aimed at. The president, the NYPD will be working to prevent chaos in the streets as the city hosted's first NBA finals game in nearly 30 years. These were some of the scenes of Knicks Mania after games one and two. Our Sam Brock is tracking it all from Madison Square Garden, and he leads us off tonight. Tonight, mere hours from the next first NBA finals home game this century. And following an alarming stabbing attack inside Penn Station, the security footprint is sprawling around MSG,

a massive presence at the mecca of basketball. If you are not going to the game, we are asking you to avoid the area around Madison Square Garden tonight. Hundreds of officers, bomb-sniffing dogs, drones, and counter-drone technology all deployed. As long-time Knicks fan, President Trump is attending, cranking up already tight conditions, even higher. Well, I'll be going to game three. I think the Knicks have an amazing team the way they played. President Trump, the target of several assassination attempts.

And among the heightened security tonight, fans will not be able to bring any bags inside. All coinciding with a brutal stabbing overnight at Penn Station, which sits right underneath MSG. Police say a man struggling with mental illness stabbed six people, including Henry Obadiah, who was slashed in the face. He just had this crazy look in his eyes and like he wanted to kill me. Now the city trying to balance safety with unbridled celebration. The Knicks haven't won a championship since 1973. I'm standing where these mega watch parties have hosted hundreds of thousands of people, except now it's just about seven plus feet of fencing.

We've got to get out of here hours before the game starts. Can't be here. Nobody can. For those trying to soak in some history, it's both sweet and. and also historically expensive. The get-in ticket price for game three now sitting around $7,000. There's no chance I would sell them these tickets. It's contagious. Like the energy is insane. Court side seats for the games at MSG are among the most expensive in sports history. But if you had 80 or 90 or $100,000 to burn, it might look something like this. It's a frenzy, including for the Knicks players. What are you into spending?

The guard I'm going to be rocking. But Spurr star, Victor Wembeenbighamah was seen drawing just a day ago. a little Gramercy Park calm before the hardwood storm. Sam Brock joins us now live from Madison Square Garden. He's in the middle of it all. Sam, we can see those long lines of crowds behind you. People kind of mulling about too. So what's happening right now? Sure, it is a little taste of chaos at the moment, Tom.

Over my shoulder, one of the main entrances is near the Penn Station corner right there. You see huge waves of crowds rolling in. There's a magnetometer all the way on the other end of the block. They've got to get through that. than a second layer of security in order to actually get into MSG. Things just started picking up. People just cheered, presumably, because they're finally moving forward. At the same time, check out where I'm standing right now.

We're on 8th Avenue. This whole thing is supposed to be closed off. Lots of folks in orange and blue jerseys, Nixon 4, people standing on stones. Later tonight, this could be something that defies your imagination. We've already seen hundreds of thousands of people congregate right here. The only difference is the fact that the watch party that used to be on the other side of the street outside of MSG is not happening tonight. But I promise you, Tom, that at the next win, this corner where I'm standing, will still be flooded with humans hanging from all places and screaming. I guess we'll have to find out.

Back to you. Sam, Brock, before we go, you know, here at NBC News, we're about straightforward reporting, objective reporting right down the middle, no bias. I notice a certain pocket square and a certain color of that pocket square. What kind of signals are you trying to send there, Sam? I think I'm trying to say that I just want to be transparent, that I am 100 percent. biased and there is a clear conflict of interest, so I own it. Does that work? Is that all right? Sam Brock, a super Nix fan. Yes, you're definitely owning it. Sam, thanks for being here. We appreciate as always. Stay safe out there. For more on the security operation, I want to bring in our good friend tonight who's here, former and retired NYPD captain, John Monaghan. He joins us now.

John, thanks for being here. So, John, we see there's a fortress built about around Madison Square Garden. It was dangerous before the president getting here. What added layer of sort of danger does the president bring? I know it's more security because he'll bring Secret Service and all that, but there's got to be a lot more stress now that President Trump is here. There is. The biggest difference is that out of perimeter that our guy just spoke of. To have magnetometers out at the outer perimeter, that's fairly unique. It makes it very difficult for people who live and work within the perimeter to come and go.

And then once you get to the arena of Secret Service, have another round of magnetometers at the door. They'll take over from there. inside the Guard, you got to remember that the Madison Square Guard and security, they're very well-trained and highly experienced. So they can handle that. They're working closely with the Secret Service, too. So I want to ask you about that, right, because it's the NYPD, right? It's, I think, the fifth largest army in the world, if you think about the manpower.

But then you've got the Secret Service coming in. Is there sort of turf battles at all, or is it pretty affable and people work well together? It is. They work very well together. It is. Especially, this is a large event. There was no specific occurrence yet. There's been no shooting. There's been no arrest. You know, things. But we're coming off several attempts on the president.

Right. There's a war in Iran right now. The security level's got to be through the roof. Right, right. No, I mean, as far as the agency is working together, if something like that was required, would have to work out a little more stringently. But right now, you get to the door to the garden,

Secret Service, Madison Square Garden. They're going to run that show. We'll be there in support. Remember, in the basement, the MTA, we talked about the standing. They have their own police department down there, too. So there's a lot of coordination, a lot of agencies involved. You hope all the frequencies are being tapped into and everyone's talking with each other.

I do want to ask you, I was surprised that New York City allowed these watch parties outside Madison Square Garden early on just because of what's happening around the world. And you just never know. There could be a sleeper cell. Were you surprised about this? I was surprised. Game one, it was not as much attention. They were not the favorites.

Just remember, game two, the NYPD denied the permit. They were overruled by the mayor. So game one, there were about nine arrests. Game two at the watch party, there were 30 arrests. The MIPD tried to squash that, but weren't able to. You know, 33rd and 7th, what they call Plaza 33, it holds about 1,500 people. There were 6,500 people there for game, too, for that watch party.

Let's make a distinction between a watch party and a mob of people who come to the garden to celebrate. We don't need a big jumbotron for people to watch a game for a huge crowd to gather. It is a magnet. So you have a watch party at Brian Park. If the Knicks win tonight, Brian Park is going to empty out,

and we're all going to come flying down to the garden. There's no place for them. Usually you'd have the one side of 7th Avenue open for the people, and then you keep the west side of 720th of you close so that the people coming out of it. You've got 20,000 people coming out of the garden. You can't have them mashe with a watch party. So there's no watch party, but that doesn't mean it's not going to be tens of thousands of people descending on the garden. What does the NYPD do, right?

Because if they win tonight, right, game four here in New York is going to be wild. And if they win that game, it's going to go bonkers. As you know, there are only so much NYPD officers. How do they keep sort of expanding? And I know they do Times Square every year. They're used to this. They have the plans in place. But how do they kind of figure out the manpower

on how many people they need? Yeah, well, you're right to mention Times Square because they're practicing, and this is New Year's Eve, on 34th Street. That's really what this is. And the outer perimeter is a big part of it. People are going to come down to the garden, they're going to be very disappointed.

They won't be able to get near it. The streets are closed at 6th Avenue. Normally they could congregate on 7th Avenue. They're not going to allow that tonight. Listen, the celebration is going to take place outside the bars and a different place. There's a watch party in Brooklyn. Brooklyn. It's going to be very lively out there. It's just not going to be on 7th Avenue tonight.

Yeah. John Monaghan, so great to have you here. We appreciate, as always. Right now, millions are at risk for flash floods and severe storms. It's the other big story we're following tonight. It comes as torrential rains left people trapped in their homes and cars, prompting high water rescues in the evacuations out west as fast as a fast-moving wildfire gains ground in San Diego. Aaron Gilcrest is tracking it all. Ferocious storms ripping across Missouri. Several communities awakened by pounding rain and flash flooding early this morning. A man and woman stuck with their dog on top of a car. First responders pushing through waist-deep water and rescuing people by boat.

Firefighters saving a woman and the child from their front porch after rising water turned their home into an island. In Joplin, a young couple losing everything to floodwaters. You pretty much just went up to our whole house completely. Full of water. Tonight, flash flood watches remain in effect for 28 million people across a huge swath of the country. In Alabama, rising water, sweeping trucks off roads and trapping a dozen hikers in a cave on Sunday. They were trapped about chest deep water, moving water. It was cold. It was dark. There is no light. Officer Jeremy Little and another rescuer using rope to help guide all of the hikers through the water and out to safety.

And how much danger were these people in? The possibility of the danger that they were in was extremely high. If anybody fell over into the high rushing water, would absolutely could have been drowned. Meanwhile, in California, firefighters urgently racing to put out a growing new wildfire in San Diego. Battling the blaze from above and on the ground as flames potentially threaten hundreds of homes. Aaron Gilchrist, NBC News. Let's get right to meteorologist Bill Caron, who joins us here live in the Top Story Studios. So, Bill, you have millions under a serious flood watch.

I look at the map behind you. There's rain everywhere, it seems, in the Midwest. Yeah, we went from Alabama with the worst flash flooding over the weekend to watching areas of Missouri today. Missouri's starting to get a little bit better. The river's still up to crash in the days ahead, but the flash flooding thread is ending. And you can see some of the pictures. I mean, just there's water everywhere that it's not supposed to be. And this was just the result of endless days of just torrential rain and thunderstorm.

Just look at the current in that. You wouldn't want to be anywhere near that. And, yeah, that poor person's property. So let's get into the maps and show you where the worst is as we go throughout this evening. So as we mentioned, we've got about 28 million people that are still under flash flood watches. Kansas City, St. Louis, is included in this, Paducah to Nashville. I want to take your attention to Knoxville, because Knoxville on Interstate 40, beautiful country to drive through. But the hills and the mountains make it very susceptible to flash flooding.

We've had thunderstorms sitting right over the top of Knoxville. We are under a flash flood warning. As far as severe storms go, we have tornado warnings now in areas of Colorado. These watches will extend this evening until 10 o'clock into Kansas. But these tornado warnings are now pushing out of the Denver area. And by the way, Denver didn't get hit by some hail. We had a ground stop at the airport. But these tornado warnings are now here to the south.

And you can see we got two of them. And this one's showing a little sign of a hook here. These are going to be heading out here towards Limon and also on Interstate 70. These are radar indicated. So they're not on the ground currently. but we'll keep a close eye on that. Tomorrow, our severe weather threat goes to the north, up into the Dakotas, and then heads up from our friends, Chicago especially, areas of Wisconsin to Minneapolis.

You have a big severe thunderstorm risk Wednesday, and then on Thursday, we have a tornado risk that's going to be pretty strong here for the Chicago area. So this is going to be a really dangerous week. Tom, we've had a pretty calm spring without a lot of tornadoes and flash flooding. This week is the exception. We're going to be covering this all week long. Okay, Bill Karens for us, Bill. We thank you.

We're going to head overseas to the new wave of attacks in the Middle East. Iran and Israel trading strikes for the first time since their April ceasefire. The response from President Trump as the region threatens to tilt towards an all-out war once again are Richard Engel is tracking it all in Jerusalem. President Trump today tried to pull the Middle East back from the brink of a renewed Middle East war. After Iran fired about 30 ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the IDF, amid the barrage that caused no Israeli. casualties, President Trump called on Prime Minister Netanyahu not to respond and risked destroying the ceasefire. Hours later, the Israeli Air Force attacked at least seven military sites across Iran.

Iran's Red Crescent said 12 targets were hit, with no reports of casualties. Today Iran's military command said its operation. In response, Iran says to Israel's offensive in Lebanon is over. But with a big caveat, Iran says there can be no final deal with Washington until there is a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli troops are fighting the Iranian-back group, Hezbollah. Prime Minister Netanyahu said he too considers this round with Iran to be finished, but not the war. Saying Iran and Hezbollah are weaker than ever, and we are stronger than ever, but our struggle against them is not yet over. On Friday, President Trump telling Kristen Welker, he and Netanyahu are on the same page. We've been great comrades.

We've did a very, very big number on a certain country. There was nothing but trouble for 47 years. This weekend, Trump telling the Financial Times Netanyahu will have to accept any deal the U.S. negotiates with Iran. Quote, he won't have any choice. I call all the shots. He doesn't call the shots. Richard joins us now live from Jerusalem. Richard, the big question tonight, has anyone actually pulled back yet, meaning Israel in Iran?

Not really. Israel says it's still ready to fight. You heard that from Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Iranians say they are willing to negotiate and fight. So this round, it seems to be over for the moment, but both saying it could start up again. And it started up because of Lebanon. And the fighting in Lebanon is ongoing. There are still Israeli troops in Lebanon. The Israeli military was. carrying out new strikes in southern Lebanon on at least two cities today, killing at least six, seven people, according to local medical officials. The Lebanese president now calling on the Israeli government to try and work out some sort of agreement, calm things down, pull back yet again from the brink.

But no, at this stage, no one is really, really stepping back. They're just hopefully getting over this hump, but the war is not over. All right, Richard Engel for us. Richard, we thank you. now, though, to our exclusive reporting about an increased risk of espionage from one of the U.S.'s closest allies. Two U.S. officials and one former U.S. officials say Israel's ramping up its spine on the U.S., prompting the Pentagon to raise its counterintelligence threat to the highest level. For more, I want to bring in our national security correspondent, Courtney Kubi. Courtney, walk us through

your exclusive reporting. Yeah, so this is about the Pentagon's concerns that Israel, candidly, could be spying on U.S. government officials. Now, this seems to be a high level of concern since the ceasefire began. In fact, their officials tell us that the U.S. was concerned and saw evidence that Israel may be trying to figure out what the U.S. is thinking during the ceasefire period while the U.S. is continuing to talk to Iran. So this led to the Defense Intelligence Agency to raise their assessment about the counterintelligence threat level from Israel against the United States to its highest level known as critical.

The Pentagon now saying that, in fact, they do see that as a critical threat from Israel. And then have Israeli officials responded to this reporting? They have. We got a statement from the Israeli embassy here in the United States here in D.C. saying that Israeli intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated? The Pentagon did not respond to our request for comment. in the White House also denied this, calling the story fake, Tom.

We just heard Richard there mention that those tensions between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, what could the increased risk for spy mean for the U.S. and Israel's relationship going forward if right now it's a bit tense? So it's absolutely tense, especially according to a number of officials who have detailed some of the what happened in these numerous phone calls now between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump. From a military perspective, officials tell us. us that in fact there has no real practical change on the military-to-military exchange of information. So that means if, in fact, the two have to work together towards some sort of a common end,

which is very important, given what we've seen unfold over the last 48 hours or so, with Israel and Iran trading the fire of ballistic missiles back and forth, and the U.S. potentially having to step in at some point to help defend Israel against incoming Iranian missiles and potentially other projectiles. Also, officials tell us that there hasn't been any real difference in the sharing of intelligence. Instead, officials telling us that this is more about concerns when they are interacting with Israeli officials. So think about it when they're potentially having meetings with one another. That is where the real potential for some sort of a threat really emanates from.

And again, it seems as if this has really been heightened or there have been an increase in some concerning activities by Israeli officials, according to these officials we spoke with. during the ceasefire as they tell us that Israel may be trying to get a better sense of exactly where the United States head is when it comes to these ongoing negotiations with Iran for some sort of a potential peace agreement. Okay. Courtney Keeb first. Courtney, we thank you for that. We're going to be back in a moment with the powerful earthquake in the Philippines. Buildings destroyed, crowd sense scrambling, that dramatic video and more after the break, plus the plane crash caught on camera, a jet bursting into flames in the DR. Look at that. It was on its way to pick up a baseball star. So what happened?

And an update into the investigation into an American woman, a wife, missing for months in the Bahamas, the new images of the search and why the Coast Guard says it's ending the mission. That's the head on top story. We're back now with the deadly earthquake in the Philippines, the powerful 7.8 magnitude quake killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more. And hours later, a rare earthquake striking off of Cuba, sending shockwaves across Florida, even Mexico. Janice MacGefarre reports. Tonight, massive devastation in the Philippines, a powerful earthquake flattening buildings, sending people scrambling. The destruction seen from multiple angles.

With the most powerful earthquake in over 50 years hitting Mindanao, measuring magnitude 7.8, and triggering landslides and tsunami warnings along the coast. multiple buildings collapsing. It was the first time that I experienced something so strong, says this man. It struck early morning on the first day back at school after summer break. One video showing the ground shaking so violently the roof was brought down. At a nearby high school, students and teachers were ducking for cover. One of the area's hardest hit, the southern port city of General Santos.

The airport, there, sustaining damage, had to be a city of general. be closed and only partially reopened. Rescue teams now fanning out to find people trapped or missing. While in Cuba tonight, people evacuating after a magnitude 6.1 earthquake just off the coast and evacuations at this Mexico resort where tremors were also felt. Janice McAfriar, NBC News, Beijing. All right now to the terrifying plane crash, a private jet making an emergency landing and exploding into a massive fireball in the DR.

And we're learning that plane was on its way to pick up a baseball star. NBC's George's release is following this one. First, George, walk us through what happened right after takeoff. Yeah, Tom, it was a dramatic scene there on the runway in the DR. Elat Ramana International. Aviation officials there are saying this plane attempted to land. It crashed and then exploded into that fiery ball, killing both of those pilots on board.

Multiple angles actually captured the explosion there and the reaction. from spectators, also as first responders tried to douse the flame. Now, aviation officials there saying that this jet was actually in the air for about four to maybe six minutes before the pilots on board declared an in-flight emergency. Unfortunately, what went wrong is still unclear at this point. And unfortunately, again, those two pilots were cared. They were identified as U.S. nationals. And a number of condolences, of course, have gone out for them as still so many questions about what happened wrong there are still lingering tonight, Tom. Yeah, and then, George, do we know about the baseball player? You know, we know that they were on their way to pick him up. Is that what the story was?

Yeah, that's exactly right, Tom. So this is former MLB star Yadryl Molina, Yari for short, spent his entire career with the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-time All-Star two World Series rings. He posted on social media after this happened on Sunday, saying that this private jet was on its way to Texas to pick him and his family up to fly them to Puerto Rico when this unthinkable tragedy occurred. He posted his condolences to these two pilots saying it's all just devastating. Now, we reached out to his reps. Unfortunately, we have not heard back. He actually just posted a little bit ago on social media, again, sharing some Bible verses presumably related to this crash. And again, just, again, still so many questions about what went wrong. And again,

miracle that more people were not on board. But again, this investigation is just starting here and a lot more to look into in this horrific, horrific crash. Yeah, and terrible for those American pilots who died in their families. Okay, still to come tonight here on top story. Votes are still being counted in the L.A. mayor's race as Spencer Pratt loses ground. So where do things stand? Are Liz Kroits, Steve Kornacki, they're both going to be here standing by? And new video of a highway fireworks explosion, halting traffic, and sending colorful sparks into the air. What happened here? That's next. We're back now with new developments in those California elections we've been monitoring closely.

Spencer Pratt sleeping to third place in the race for mayor as those mail-in ballots are counted. It's leading Pratt and President Trump to push unsubstantiated claims over voter fraud. NBC's Liz Krois explains. Tonight in California, they're still counting votes nearly a week after election day. In the L.A. mayor's race, former reality TV star, Spencer Pratt now overtaken for second place by progressive city councilwoman Nithia Raman, who appears poised to face Democratic mayor Karen Bass in the fall runoff. We spoke to Bass tonight. Is this now a two-way race between you and the city councilwoman? Well, I don't know. I mean,

we will wait to see. It certainly looks that way. Pratt, the Republican political outsider who ran after losing his home in the Palisades fire and surged late with viral ads railing against the city's leadership. This is where I live. They let my home burn down. Tonight, saying there's still hundreds of thousands of votes outstanding. But GOP gubernatorial candidate, Steve Hilton, blasting the process. This election shambles, this fiasco where they're saying it's going to be like another month before we know the result fully. It's just an example of how these people can't run anything properly.

The LA County Registrar pushing back. Our job is to make sure that we process those ballots correctly, securely, accurately, and that does take time. He says California's universal vote-by-mail system causes delays. Mail and ballots are counted so long as they're postmarked by election day and arrive a full seven days after the election. Well, President Trump now raising unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud with NBC's Kristen Welker. You think it's appropriate that they have an election and five days later they're nowhere close to picking the winner. State local officials acknowledge they are slow. They're urging.

No, they're crooked. After nearly an hour, including delays for rain, the president ending the interview during a back and forth about election integrity. on and off in the rain, and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest place. Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview. All right, Liz joins us tonight from L.A.'s Ballet Processing Center. Liz, we see them there behind you, and they're processing those ballots, and it shows why it takes so long in California.

Listen, you may think it's a terrible process that it takes way too long in this era in 2026, but this is the reason why it takes so long. You can see it behind you. Yeah, absolutely, Tom. That is a very good way of putting it. And we want to show you. So here it is. It's a very open process. They allow members of the public even to come here and take tours. You can see all of these workers. They are by hand opening up each individual mail and ballot. That's where they make sure that there's no tears, no coffee stains, and that is all good to go before it makes its way in here. This is the highly secure tally room. There's no internet allowed in there, no unauthorized personnel. It's where those ballots are processed. And Tom, officially part of the of why it's taking so long is this. More than 80% of all of the ballots that have been returned and processed so far in this race have been these vote-by-mail ballots that take so long to process. We did ask the mayor as well tonight about those claims of fraud. And she said that if you're going to make that claim, she said, quote, it's a familiar accusation that is made when someone is losing. Tom. Okay, Liz Kreutz for us. I want to get right

over to Steve Kornacki. He is at the big board. Steve, last time we checked in with you. I think Pratt was still in second place. This was obviously on Friday. Get us up to speed. It looks like it got 83% of the vote in. And it looks like there's a shakeup. Yeah, Tom, we were talking about this last week as the votes were coming in. And it was that late arriving vote by mail, late processed vote by mail that you were just talking about there, that it's been overwhelmingly Democratic. That's been true, certainly, in Los Angeles in this mayor's race. And so each update has been good for Karen Bass. It's been particularly good for Nithia Rahman, another Democrat in this race. And it is not. not been good for Spencer Pratt. So Pratt had some distance between himself. Pratt had been in second on election night, had some distance, a bit of a pad between himself and Rahman. But again, it's been so overwhelmingly democratic and favorable to Rahman in particular that late-counted, late-arriving vote by mail, that she has taken the lead over Pratt. And every update's sort of been the same way since election night. So you still see vote to come here. There's no reason to think

that the next update, which we're expecting probably sometime this hour from Los Angeles, County isn't going to be more of the same with Rahman continuing to move away from Pratt to open up more of a gap there. And again, potentially setting up a Bass versus Rahman runoff here, or general election here, in the L.A. Mayor's race. And then NBC News has projected, if we move over to the governor's race, a first place winner there. But the big question is, who's going to be the number two? Yeah. And again, that same trend I'm talking about has applied statewide, where, again, the late county, late processed, late arriving vote by mail, has been more favorable to the Democrats. For instance, Javier Becerra, had trailed Steve Hilton, the leading Republican in this race on election night.

But in the days that have followed, Bacera moved into first place, enough that we, as you say, projected him several days ago to make it into the general election here. So the suspense has been Ken Hilton, who fell to second. Can he hold off the other main Democrat, Tom Steyer, who has improved his position as this count has played. out, although he has not improved it. Steyer has not been improving his position relative to Hilton at the rate that he needs to if he's going to overtake him. So you can see we've now just surpassed three quarters of the vote, the expected vote statewide here. There is still a gap there. You can see now it's full. It's 250,000 votes, three and a half points. Steyer so far has not been doing this at the rate he would need to do to overtake Hilton. So much more of a prospect,

I think, statewide in California. The Illinois, the ill. have a Democrat versus a Republican in the general election there, then of a Prattner runoff from mayor in L.A. Steve, I'm curious, just because I see under Tom Steyer, there's another red, another Republican, and maybe fourth place there, I'm just wondering, once this does go to a runoff here, Chad Bianco, okay, not a whole lot of votes, but once it, and is it a light, is it a pink? Is it not a red?

Yeah, we've assigned a slightly different shade to every candidate here, but Bianco is a Republican. You know, he's the sheriff in Riverside County, which is a giant one there in the Inland Empire. These were the two main Republican candidates, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco. And in fact, that was sort of the dynamic in the closing days of this campaign

where Hilton was saying publicly, he was saying, look, if you support Chad Bianco, I got nothing against him personally, but you got to go to me. You got to vote for me, Republicans, to make sure I can get one of those top two spots. And if you vote for Bianco, you're going to dilute that Republican vote

and maybe both Democrats advance. So Hilton was saying that publicly, And you can see here, there is some distance there, 15 points of distance between himself and Bianco. And again, potentially just enough potentially here to hold on to that second spot and get into the runoff. But my larger point was going to be that even if you combine those two, and it's going to be a long race, anything can happen in a campaign, it's going to be still a tough race in California for the Republicans and the general. Yeah, I mean, that's just the reality of California. It's an overwhelmingly Democratic state here. So again, I think a Bacera Steyer had it come to that, if it were to come to that general election, two Democrats, Democratic State. Theoretically, either one of them could win.

A Republican winning statewide in California is not something we've seen in a long time here. And certainly in the midterm here, where the climate being potentially unfavorable, the Republicans, you wouldn't expect this would be the year that would break that. All right. Steve Kornack, you guess what? Stay right there. We're going to get our money's worth, right? Because we have another segment we want you to be a part of. There's been a lot of election conspiracy theories, right, swirling around online, some pushed by President Trump himself. So we wanted to set the record straight on a couple of them.

Joining us now is Kim Alexander. She's the president of the California Voter Foundation, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization working to improve the election process in California. Kim, we thank you for joining top story tonight. Let's start with a claim President Trump made just this morning. Here it is. He posted in part on Truth Social, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. We just heard from Steve how Rahman gained ground. Can you explain for our viewers again how the mail-in ballots are counted in California

and how that can change who is out in front? Yeah, we have 80% of our voters in the state casting vote-by-mail ballots and only 20% voting in person. And those vote-by-mail ballots do take a long time to process. We check all the signatures. We make sure nobody's voting twice. And there's a lot of work involved simply in opening the envelopes and extracting the ballots, as your reporter showed in LA. So they take a long time.

And, you know, what we find is the trends are that Republican voters tend to vote early by mail and show up in person. And Democratic voters tend to cast their vote by mail ballots closer to Election Day or even on Election Day, especially this election because we had such a crowded gubernatorial primary and so many Democratic candidates running that many voters were urged to wait to cast their ballot

until the very last minute. So when you have millions of voters turning in their ballots on election day, two drop boxes, two voting sites, it creates what we call a pig-in-the-python effect, where the counties cannot process those ballots until after election day, and that's what's going on right now. And as they get processed, they do trend to favor Democratic candidates because that's the demographics of how our voters are voting. The pig in the python, a bottleneck essentially, just think about the visual there. So the fact check on that one is mail-in-votes, are acceptable. up to a week post-election, and they skewed Democratic. Okay, claim number two, this one is for Steve. There have been a lot of posts like this one that say Spencer Pratt got zero out of 24,000

votes in a late-night ballot dump. Explain what happened here and how we get NBC News get the vote count from states like California. Yeah, so this was a moment. I, in fact, remember the moment that this happened. We put this up on the screen for you here. I'm sorry, this was, I thought I could put up this from here. This was the moment, though, and I do remember a time where what happened here was within the span of a minute, we get our votes into our system through the Associated Press, through the AP.

They report them out a number of media organizations get those results from them. And essentially, there was an update that came in from Los Angeles, and the Associated Press didn't report it all out in one batch that was sent out to places like NBC. They reported it in two batches. Again, there was seconds apart, you know, probably less than a minute. apart. And the first one did not include the votes that Pratt got in that update. The second one did include the votes that Pratt got in that update. When you combine those two updates in less than a minute, you had a new update for each one of the candidates in the race. They just were split in two at that. Sometimes there are quirks in the way that AP vote comes in there. But folks who were watching

this very closely, because I know you can watch these results online, sort of update by update, you know, in the span of that minute, did see part of that update where Pratt initially didn't get any votes. And I think that's what caused this year. But again, it was just seconds later, the rest of the update came in. And you had one complete update. So the fact check there, the AP dropped the particular batch of votes in two parts, just one minute apart. And Pratt's votes were in that second part. All right, great. And see, part of what is fueling conspiracy theories is how long the vote count has taken, right? We just laid out, this is always the case in California, but it's not the case in other large states, right? That's right. I mean, take a look at the three biggies right here. California, Texas, and Florida, most recent statewide election here. You know, time to get to 75. We just saw in the last few minutes, California get to three quarters of its vote counted. That was five days, 20 hours, and six minutes after polls closed last week to get to three quarters of the vote. In Texas, in March, in their statewide primary, it took them three hours and 42 minutes to get to 75 percent reported. In Florida, in the 2020, in the 2020. presidential election in Florida, it took 40 minutes to get three quarters of the vote out there.

So these are all giant states here. And you can see vastly different between Florida and Texas and then California in the efficiency of reporting out the vote. And again, the reason for this is California being so heavily reliant on specifically vote by mail. Vote by mail is not really something you see in Texas. It is something you see in Florida. Florida's got a mix of vote by mail, in-person early voting, and election day voting. A fair number of people use each one of those three methods in Florida. But in California, it's overwhelmingly on vote-by-mail. There are a number of other provisions, too, if you wanted to get more into the weeds on it.

But a vast, vast difference in what that means. And they're understaffed in California, right? They're also understaffed, right? Steve, like it's, they say they close up shop. They don't have the staffing, they can't pay them. It just takes a longer time. It's just too long. Yeah, and it's decentralized.

Each county is going to have different staffing. each county is going to have different prioritization. And again, there are different sort of procedures to, different rules that kind of, you know, how the system works there in California that may also slow it down further. But I think overwhelmingly it's what you showed. It's just that avalanche of vote by mail that they need to work their way through verifying and getting through. And they open themselves up to criticism. And election officials have acknowledged that. Kim, do you think taking a week to count votes is eroding trust in the process? and do you think something should be done to change that?

It is 2026. This is California. It could be its own country. It's so big. I mean, come on. Yeah, we do think we can do better, and we should do better, because it is eroding voter confidence, with or without the mis and disinformation that's being circulated. We do see voter confidence declining,

and I do think the long vote count. I know the long vote count has a lot to do with that, and funding has a lot to do with that. Our state is not providing money to the counties to facilitate a fast-eastern state. count, and we're hoping they will do that in the next budget. I think it's also important to note that while you compare our count to other large states, we still have 5 million more voters than Texas. So we are a supersized state. It does take a long time to get through those ballots,

but we do need more resources, and we need to denormalize this. I mean, I know this is the way that it's been for a number of elections, but I don't think it has to be this way, and I think we could do better for our voters. Denormalize. Okay, I like that term. Can we thank you so much, Steve Kornacki, as always, we thank you. Now at Top Stories News Feed, we're going to stick in LA with the federal arson trial for man accused of sparking last year's deadly Palisades fire. Jonathan Rinder-Kennish appearing in court today. This is him for jury selection. He's pleaded not guilty to starting what became one of the most destructive wildfires in California's history.

It killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Defense attorneys say he's being used as a scapegoat. If convicted, he could face at least five years in prison. And the Coast Guard announcing it's now concluded its mission in the Bahamas, to help find Lynette Hooker. She's the American woman who went missing in April after her husband said she fell overboard on a boat. The agency also releasing new images of the search effort, including divers underwater,

drones and a cadaver dog. Coast Guard officials say they're still investigating her disappearance. And wild video out of Tennessee of a massive explosion on a highway. Look at this. A truck carrying fireworks sending sparks and smoke into the air. It shut down traffic near Chattanooga. As first responders rushed to the scene, luckily, nobody was hurt. Right now it's still unclear.

caused the eruption. In Oregon, workers had a lumberyard got a surprise visitor from the sky. Look at this. A hot air balloon with people still on board, making an unexpected landing after it apparently lost control. Here you can see employees jumping into action trying to guide the balloon down to the parking lot. It happened just south of Portland. The company says everyone made it back on the ground safely. And the closely watched track meat stabbing trial nearing an end in Texas, the defense resting after calling just three witnesses today. They argue their client, Carmelo, Anthony acted in self-defense when he stabbed and killed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf. NBC's Ryan Chandler details the cases they made.

Tonight, Carmelo Anthony's defense suddenly resting their case. Anthony, now 19, has pled not guilty to the murder of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, claiming self-defense after fatally stabbing him in the chest at a high school track meet last April. The defense calling Anthony's former football teammate to the stand, who described Anthony as distraught immediately after the stabbing, telling the jury he saw Anthony crying, a coach comforting him. A contrast to the exchange captured on the arresting officer's body camera, where Anthony says, I'm not alleged, I did it, and he put his hands on me, I told him not to.

The defense argues Anthony was responding to a physical threat from Metcalf, but prosecutors call his actions unjustified provoked murder, alleging he goaded Metcalf into pushing him, then killed him. Also in dispute, whether Anthony should have been in a visiting team's tent in the first place. His former teammate today testifying that was not unusual, but witnesses for the prosecution said Metcalf's team had a strictly enforced no uninvited guest's policy. One witness testifying that Anthony refused to leave when asked, calling the students a bunch of expletives who were not going to do nothing about it in the moments before the stabbing. The trial that has ignited racially charged rhetoric across North Texas now barreling toward a close.

Anthony's supporters raising concerns for fairness after the prosecution struck all black jurors, urging their supporters today to avoid disruptions. That only serves the interest who wants you to turn this trial into a circus. All right, Ryan Chandler joins us live. Ryan, deliberations will begin after closing arguments tomorrow, and the jury has already been notified. will be sequestered? Yeah, they have, Tom.

The judge telling them to pack a bag. They'll be sequestered in a hotel room, no news, no social media, no contact with the outside world, which is typical until they return that verdict. They'll start deliberations tomorrow after the prosecution and the defense. Get one last chance to make their closing arguments, and we'll be there for it, Tom. For more on the trial, I want to bring in NBC News legal analyst, Danny Savalos. Danny, we thank you for being here. Anthony pleaded not guilty on the grounds of self-defense.

Did his lawyer make an effective self-defense case here? And why do you think they stopped after three witnesses? The defense did the best they could under these facts, but that doesn't mean they've established self-defense. Even though in Texas, it is the prosecution that has to disprove self-defense. You ask about three witnesses. It is very common for defense attorneys to call very few witnesses, less witnesses than the prosecution. I often rest my case without calling any witnesses at all. And that's because the prosecution always has the burden.

And in Texas, prosecution also has the burden to disprove self-defense. All right. So what you were just getting at it there, though, did they, you don't think the events put up, they put up the best case they have, but they had a tough hand, if you will? Yes. I think it's going to be a very difficult case. I think the prosecution can disprove self-defense for a couple different reasons. They are going to be able to, I believe, prove that the defendant provoked the incident.

And provocation is one of many. factors that if present gets rid of that whole self-defense argument. What do you think their strongest evidence is for the prosecution? His own words on the body cam. We just heard about that in the package. Him saying things like basically it's me, I did it. All of that is compelling. Bringing the knife to the football game.

It's in the book bag. Exactly right. And that's really the central theme. Who brings a knife to a shove fight? Or track. Track me, I should say. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, was a knife a reasonable response to a shovel? That's what this all comes down to. As you mentioned, it is Texas. They're going to sequester the jurors. Explain why exactly they're doing that. Because it's so hot, the temperature is so hot there? Exactly right. And the judge has to balance two interests, which are often competing.

On the one hand, the judge has to ensure a fair trial. On the other hand, a lot of what a judge does at a trial is take care of jurors. These are strangers that have come together and have to live at this courthouse in a strange place, and the judge has to protect them. in that situation, even though they may not like being sequestered. It may be what's best to secure a fair trial, and in a way it may be best for the jurors, even though they certainly don't feel that way right now. Danny Savalas, I'm sure we're going to be talking about this in the days ahead.

We thank you for being here. Coming up, Steaky Pass Security, how a man allegedly got on a flight without a boarding pass. We'll explain, plus another bear on the loose causing serious concerns in Japan, why the latest siting forced dozens of schools to shut down. That's next. We're back now with a story raising new questions about airport security. A man from Texas is facing charges after authorities say he snuck onto a United Airlines flight with a fake boarding pass, how he allegedly slipped past gate agents, and he hid from flight attendants in the bathroom.

Here's Tom Costello. In court today, a 25-year-old Houston man whose attorney says purchased a cheap airline ticket online that turned out to be fake. Charging documents say Abdul Rahman Oriami showed up a. a TSA checkpoint on May 18th, constantly staring at his phone, telling TSA officers he had difficulty with his boarding pass. The TSA says he presented a valid boarding pass, did go through standard security screening, and did not possess any prohibited items. After getting through security, the suspect then wandered through these concourses here at Houston, C, then E, then D, before waiting for a moment when gate agents appeared distracted so he could slip down the jet bridge.

He was discovered hiding in a laboratory as his plane taxied for a flight to L.A. Christina Kisvajian was on board. He was sweaty, jittery, pacing, and looked uncomfortable. The flight delayed for three hours. The latest airport security lapse, including Svetlana Dali, convicted multiple times for slipping through security and stowing away on flights to Europe. I think the procedure should be if you don't have a boarding pass that's working, go back to the ticket counter and get a boarding pass that works.

United is referring all questions to police. The question tonight, why does this continue to be a problem? People getting through security without a boarding pass and then waiting until gate agents are distracted to get onto a plane. Tom? All right, Tom Costel for us. Tom, we thank you. We have a bit of breaking news coming in now.

We've been tracking that mayoral race out of Los Angeles. We've just gotten a new amount of votes that have just come in. I want to get over to Steve Kornacki. He's at the big board right now. And Steve, some big news. first and second place in the mayor's race. Yeah, there it is. NBC's decision desk is now projecting that Nithia Rahman will finish second place here in this Los Angeles mayor or primary. That will advance her to the general election where she will face incumbent mayor Karen Bass in a one-on-one

contest. That means that Spencer Pratt will be eliminated here, will not make it to the runoff here. And again, this continues, Tom, what we were talking about just a few minutes ago, about this vote reporting pattern that we've seen in California and specifically in Los Angeles, how the late-counted, late-ariving vote by mail has been so overwhelmingly democratic and particularly strong for Rahman in this mayoral race. So if you noticed a few minutes ago, when we first, when we showed you these numbers before this update, there were about 3,000 votes that were separating Pratt from Rahman. He was about 3,000 votes behind Rahman. Now you can see 207, 229. That margin is about 22,000 votes. votes. That last update that just came in, approximately 33,000 new votes for Nithia Rahman

and about 14,000 new votes for Spencer Pratt. So she beat him by nearly 20,000 votes in that new update. She had a small advantage over Pratt in the vote count before that. It's now expanded, really kind of exploded. She leads him by almost three points here. And again, every update we've been getting from Los Angeles since election night has been like this. It's been overwhelming a pro-Raman. Pratt has sort of been left in the dust. He did have a bit of a pad there because he had done well in that election day vote. But over the last week, that patty eroded. She passed him in the last couple of days. And now she is surging well ahead, far enough ahead again that our decision desk is now projecting. It will be ramen. It will be bass. That will be the runoff.

No Pratt. And then Steve, as we get these new votes and coming in from Los Angeles, do they have any effect on the governor's race at all? Or is this strictly mayoral? Yeah, right now this is strictly mayoral. We can zoom out and we can show you again. here. What that update did. We've been tracking. Again, the drama here is can Steyer a Democrat catch Steve Hilton, a Republican, for that number two spot. If he were to do that, it would set up a Democrat versus Democrat general election, and the Republicans would be locked out. You can see with that update, just given it's from Los Angeles, it's so heavily Democratic. This is progress for Steyer. He moves. He's just a little bit more than two. It's about 209,000 votes. That's the

difference here. Hilton leading Steyer. problem for Steyer as well. Those updates are good for him to move him a little bit closer. Elsewhere in the state, he has just not been getting the kinds of numbers he needs from these updates here. He's been closing the gap, but he needs to be closing it at a quicker pace here if he were to have a chance at catching Hilton. So again, what we saw in the city of Los Angeles in that mayoral race, you know, you just saw the pace that Rahman was winning these late updates by over Pratt. You could see this coming. You could see this moment coming. You could see this moment coming from several days ago. Here in the governor's race, Steyer just hasn't reached that

kind of level here statewide to where you could really see him vaulting past Hilton in this thing. So again, it'll be Democrat versus Democrat in that L.A. mayor's race in the governor's race here, the possibility much clearer that there'll be a Democrat versus a Republican, though it's not something that NBC is called at this point. Yeah, we haven't projected this one and see that was going to be my next question. Any idea when this governor's race will be called? Will it be several more days, a couple more days by tomorrow? Well, I mean, I could say this is not going to be the last update. What we just showed you was an update from Los Angeles County.

That's the biggest in the state, but obviously it's not the only county in the state. And there are other counties that are going to be reporting out or expecting are going to be reporting out throughout the evening tonight. So I think there could be from additional counties that come tonight. There could be more clarity in terms of this situation. If there isn't tonight, again, the way this has been working in California is, you know, really starting kind of a late afternoon East Coast time into the evening

hours East Coast time each day. These counties do report out new numbers. So if it doesn't come tonight, then there's probably a lag where not much is happening, and then tomorrow late day. Then let's put the breaking news up one more time. Go to that mayor's race. Before we say goodbye, we have about 45 seconds here.

We're just going to close it out with the mayor's race and the big news. Nithia Rahman, you see it right there, moving into second place, surpassing Spencer Pratt, NBC News now projecting Nithia Rahman. and Karen Bass will move on to the general election in November and California for the mayor's race in Los Angeles. Both of them, Democrats, this race obviously tightened up and Spencer Pratt. Moving down to third place and not going to advance as we go forward, we're going to be covering all these races,

both the governor's race and the mayoral race as they head into November. And again, there's still a question mark. Who is the second place finisher in the governor's race? Will the Republican there be able to keep that vote ahead of Tom Steyer and move into second place and stay in second place? we're going to have to wait and see. But we'll stay on top of this story. We know we'll stay on top of this throughout NBC News Now. We thank you for watching Top Story tonight. I'm Tom Yamas reporting live from New York. I want you to stay right there. We have more breaking election coverage coming up right now.