Top Story with Tom Llamas - Tuesday, June 16, 2026

Episode Date: June 17, 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.

Breaking news right now, the shooting at a major hospital, at least two people shot inside the entire campus on lockdown. Dozens walking out with their hands up, officers in tactical gear rushing in. Law enforcement surrounding the building are reporter live at the scene. Also tonight the chilling new details into an alleged plot to attack the White House UFC event. Plans for explosive drones and snipers to target top officials and billionaires. Five suspects arrested the urgent manhunt for others. Dangerous floods ravaging the Gulf passengers rescued, holding onto a rope, floods nearly topping car roofs. This woman saved just before her car was submerged.

Plus, tropical storm warnings just issued, could we see the first-name storm of the hurricane season? Bombshell new reporting on Jeffrey Epstein's death, what two of his cellmates reveal about his final days. The dramatic video of the U.S. Coast Guard leaping onto a runaway boat? What happened next? detecting Alzheimer's, the growing demand for blood tests that help diagnose the disease, but how accurate are they, and who should get one? We speak with an expert. And our reporter getting an early look at the robotic hand that could revolutionize robotics as we know it.

Plus, big changes to the Grammy Awards, the new categories just announced. Top story starts right now. Hey, good evening. We are coming on the air tracking two breaking stories tonight, a shooting at a hospital in Wilmington, leaving multiple people injured. The details are still coming in. Here's the aerial footage showing people evacuating their hands up in the air. We know two people have been shot at this hour. We're going to take you to that scene live in just a moment,

but we do want to begin, first, with the ongoing manhunt for suspects involved in that foiled terror plot, targeting the massive UFC event at the White House. Authorities arresting five people, seizing high-powered rifles, body armor, nearly a dozen rifles. You see it all here, and thousands of rounds of ammo. The FBI says dozens more were involved in our state. still at large tonight. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell has the late-breaking details. This White House celebration, a UFC fight to mark the nation's 250th birthday, the alleged target for a disturbing, potentially deadly conspiracy. Foyled by federal agents who say they

arrested five suspects in Ohio, Missouri, California, and Nebraska, but more remain at large. It was an active plot, and it's ongoing. Officials say, the suspects coordinated on TikTok and various encrypted chats. Their twisted plan, officials say, would fly drones with explosives over the event to force the crowd to evacuate, and then snipers would fire as the high-value targets fled, including the president, billionaire guests, and a list of Republican lawmakers whom one suspect said took contributions from APEC, the American lobbying group that advocates for Israel. It's a terrorist plot.

That's not a few guys doing crazy stuff. That is a coordinated planned terrorist plot. 19-year-old Tyson Proper of Ohio is among those arrested and charged with federal conspiracy and attempted murder. According to a criminal complaint, Propper's mother alerted police concerned that her son quit his job and spent $3,000 of his graduation money to buy weapons and gear, including this rifle painted with an American flag, while posting anti-Semitic comments on Facebook. Another suspect, 32-year-old married, father of five, Daniel Eskridge of Missouri, posted a photo of his tactical gear and wrote,

When it's go time, I'll have to leave them behind in hopes I can return with a brighter future for them. The motivation? Tyson Proper told authorities, this attack was designed to jumpstart a revolution in the United States. All right, Kelly O'Donnell joins us tonight from Washington. And Kelly, you have some new reporting on the search for those suspects. Tom, what we know is that a dozen FBI field offices around the country have been involved. So has the U.S. Secret Service. They've been working this case, and they're in pursuit of nine other potential suspects who've been identified as being a part of this group in those chats, a part of that planning,

while a dozen others are known only by usernames. And their identities, their true identities have not been figured out yet. That means the case is active and open. And what we've learned from one of the suspect's parents is that part of the motivation was a range of grievances against the federal government on a range of topics. That brought the group together. And authorities are trying to figure out who was actively involved and who was just about talk. Tom? Okay, Kelly O'Donnell.

Kelly, thank you. For more on this, I want to bring in Keith Wudgesic. He's a former Secret Service agent and now serves as the senior managing director of F. ITI consulting with extensive background in cybersecurity. Keith, thanks for joining Top Story. Dozens of suspects are still at large. They know the FBI is looking for them. Was this a mistake by the FBI to make these arrests so public before all the suspects had been rounded up?

Thank you, Tom. Appreciate being out again. No, I think this is exactly what needed to be happening. You know, with what you have here, with any time you have an alleged plot involving high-profile event, especially at the White House, attended by the president, government officials and thousands of spectators, You have to take it extremely seriously. Based on what's been released so far, this wasn't somebody making just threats online. According to the DOJ, there was planning, coordination, an intent to cause mass casualties.

That itself is a very different level of a threat. The encouraging part is that the FBI, as you state, the Secret Service and partners all around the country, have identified the threat early and disrupted it and notified everyone, hey, this is what we did. I think it's a fantastic job by all of them. A big part of this plot, what was the drones? I just got back from the first World Cup game here in the United States. That was in Los Angeles. I spoke with the director of the FBI there in charge of the field office of L.A.

Their biggest fear was drones as well. They had drone hunters all around SoFi Stadium. How hard is it to protect an event like the White House with so many people have these commercial and sometimes professional drones? You know, it's not easy. I'll tell you that for sure. That's a fantastic question. But with what they have here, there's a layered security element that's there.

So you have the intern or outturner, inside, outside, external, outside the White House layered protectees, and you have different types of anti-drone, you have emergency response teams. Everyone on the grounds of the White House there are all coordinated. Now, with something like the UFC fight that happened, it's more than that. It's months and months in planning ahead of time.

And by doing that, the coordination and the communication that had been effective through that has been what has been successful and throw it off this threat. How serious of a threat was this? I mean, you talk about a 19-year-old, he had $3,000. He starts to buy weapons. His mom essentially busts him and calls the police. That being said, we saw what happened with a lone gunman and Charlie Kirk.

I mean, you never know how dangerous these threats are, or that gunman who tried to take out President Trump and Butler. You know, again, that's spot on. This has to take extremely serious because not only is there something that happened at the grounds, they wanted to happen on the grounds of the White House, but everyone in attendance. You know, like you said, Butler, you have two other incidents, one shooting by the Washington Monument, all these different events. You'd think, okay, why is this one different? This is, I think, Vice President J.D. Van said it perfectly when he said, this is not just a threat. This is an act of terrorism that they plan and coordinated.

So understanding that it's extremely beneficial for us to realize that what they did, effective, was extremely important. And the communication investigation, now that it's ongoing, we're going to find out more. And it's going to be really nice to see kind of how and what the FBI did. You've had all these assassination attempts on the president. We saw what happened with Charlie Kirk. This is a very dangerous, very volatile time. The president should be able to do what he wants, but again, these are different times. He hosted this major event outside at the White House.

We're going to have all these July 4th events. What is the pressure like on the Secret Service right now? It's got to be immense. Not only do have the past history and President Trump and all the threats we have against him, but understanding that these large events that are current, the UFC, everything in the 250, the secret service is in amounts of huge amounts of pressure right now, but they got it right and they've been getting it right time and time again. So I believe they're up for it.

And when you have these events, like I said earlier, you're going to have planning upon planning. And everyone thinks it's, oh, it's a secret service on the ground. It's not. And you can see it in this investigation specifically. It's really geared towards the steps prior, the proactive approach, the online review, the understanding who the threats are. That's what's key. And that's what's going to make the Secret Service.

successful in the future. Keith Wagesick, we thank you for joining the broadcast tonight. Thank you. We do want to get to that breaking news now. The hospital on lockdown in Delaware, two people shot. I witness video shows police with long guns arriving to the scene. It's all happening in the heart of Wilmington at one of the biggest hospitals in the state. Johnny Archer from our Philadelphia station, NBC 10 is live at the scene for us. Johnny, we spoke earlier on nightly news. Have we learned anything new? Well, actually, Tom, we're expecting an update from Wilmington police and other officials in less than 30 minutes. or so at police headquarters, but at last check, two people, according to Wilmington Police,

were shot inside Christiana Cares, Wilmington Hospital. You see here behind me. Now, about an hour ago, this entire road here was filled with police cars. And as you can see, there's not as many police cars here, but there's still police on scene. Many of them have left over the past hour, which is a good indication and somewhat indicates that they have this situation under control. But official word from police, they have not told us that. They also have not told us the status of the shooter in this situation.

But we did receive a text alert from an employee who sent a screenshot of a text alert that they received around 3.30 this afternoon when this shooting happened that said that two people had been shot and there was a shooter in the basement of the hospital. I also talked to another gentleman who was in the ER. He's an employee here at the hospital. he says he heard two shots, but he didn't hear anything else prior to that. No altercation, no fighting, and he told me he just ran from the hospital. Now, Christiana Care says the hospital was put on lockdown for several hours. People were not allowed inside or outside. But as we got to the scene, we started to notice droves of people that were coming out.

And I think you showed some video of people with their hands up leaving the hospital. So that is an indication that things were under control as well. But the scene here is starting to calm down. Again, we're expecting that press conferences and learn a little bit more about the victims, their condition, also the status of the shooter, and the why this shooting happened. Tom?

Okay, Johnny Archer, we thank you for your reporting on that. We're going to turn out of the deadly flooding down south, parts of the Gulf Coast completely underwater. And at this hour, new tropical storm warnings just issued for what could be the first-name storm of the hurricane season. Ryan Chandler in the storm zone tonight outside of Houston. Deadly flash floods slamming the south. In Texas, dangerous rescues to save passengers trapped in rushing water. He's taken up. He's taken up.

This tow truck near the Louisiana border trying to pull a car stuck in high waters. These cars stranded in the Houston area amid heavy rainfall, roads completely submerged. Houston officials issuing this warning. People need to realize that water can come up very, very fast, and we may not be able to get you to you as quickly as you think. One woman in southern Texas was found dead, county officials say, after her vehicle was swept away even while she was on the phone with 911. In Louisiana, torrential downpours creating chaos on the roads.

This man rescuing one woman fleeing one woman, fleeing. her car through waste-deep water. And feet of flooding blocking neighborhood roads in Mississippi, this truck pushing through water, reaching its doors. And in Florida, not floods, but two wildfires already burning through more than 800 acres with firefighters racing to contain the flames. Large plumes of smoke rising above the suburbs west of Miami. While back in Texas and in the Gulf, millions remain at risk from a system still expected to grow more severe. All right, Ryan Chandler joins us now from Houston. Ryan, it looks pretty beautiful, clear skies where you are, but officials are preparing for another night of torrential rain. A welcome and a brief reprieve right now, Tom. This area we're in right now, outside the Woodlands, Texas, north of Houston, got battered earlier today. But as the term flash flooding indicates, those roads fill up quickly and they recede just as quickly. But we are expecting more severe impacts with rain projected through the night.

officials say they are taking this very seriously. The worst threat to life is going to be on those roads. They are pre-positioning barricades over areas that they know will flood. They are even retrofitting dump trucks to act as high water rescue vehicles and positioning boats for inevitable water rescue stop. Okay, Ryan Chandler preparing for a long few days there on the Gulf Coast. I want to get right to meteorologist Bill Kerrins, who's tracking all this for us, billions, millions on alert right now. We're getting ready to name that storm maybe in just a few hours. Arthur, likely tomorrow morning, maybe 11 a.m. advisory. So we're going to be tracking that.

And also we're going to be dealing with the potential for life-threatening flash flooding with it. Now, it's not going to be widespread, and that's going to be the key. This is a small system. It's just sitting here spinning just south of Corpus Christi right now. The winds are not very strong. It's never going to be a wind problem. This is a rainfall problem. So this is the forecast from the hurricane center.

They think it should become a tropical depression overnight, and then a tropical storm somewhere just off the coast of Galveston. The left side of the track is the dry side. That's where Houston is. The forecast for Houston's getting better and better. It does not look like we're going to see any crazy amounts of rain in the Houston area. But the forecast is getting worse in areas of Louisiana, including New Orleans, and eventually into areas of Mississippi possible, even in Alabama. So we have flood watches that are up now. There's all there from Corpus Christi to Biloxi and now even Mobile and a little portion of Florida is now into the forecast, too. We've had some very heavy rain in New Orleans. You're under a flash flood warning, but that'll be improving. And that's not from the tropical system. That's just from tropical moisture that's been sitting over the region. So notice the rainfall forecast. Houston, an inch additional, but New Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi. Look at Montgomery, Alabama. So this has definitely shifted, Tom, more towards our friends in the deep south. And before you go, Bill, I know we're also tracking some severe weather for the Midwest. Yeah, tomorrow at this time, it's going to be a very dangerous situation.

This has the potential to produce some of the strongest tornadoes we've seen this year. And once again, we're targeting the areas from Illinois into Indiana. These areas have been hard hit. We've had more tornadoes in Illinois this spring than we have in any other state. And tomorrow we're going to add to that. And this is the predictions for the intensity. EF zeros are the weaker tornadoes. EF5 is extremely rare. Like towns are gone.

We have the chance for up to EF3s, very powerful tornadoes south of Chicago. So St. Louis to Chicago, this area from Pura, it's Kankakee. That's the area that we're very concerned with. Okay, we'll keep an eye on both those systems. Bill, we thank you for that. we're going to turn now to that deadly military crash in California because we have a major update. The B-52 bomber crashing after takeoff, killing eight people. Now one of the widows is telling our Liz Kreutz about something she observed about the plane that it should have never taken off.

Here's Liz. Tonight, the wife of one of the victims in that tragic military crash outside Los Angeles making a serious accusation about the deadly flight. The last text I sent him was, I love you. Lauren Smith tells us her husband, Jeremy Smith, a Department of Defense Engineer who had worked at the base for a decade, was regularly part of a team that flew on B-52 test missions. But the flight that crashed, she says, was supposed to happen last week. I know specifically on Friday,

they were going to fly on Friday, and they just get pushing it back and pushing it back. And I don't think that plane was ready to take off. And I'm so sad it did. NBC News has reached out to the Air Force, which says they will not comment on an active investigation. On Monday night, authorities on the base said what caused the Boeing B-52 bomber to crash remains unclear. At this point, we don't have any indication as to what the cause was of this. Officials say the eight people on board the flight, which burst into flames shortly after takeoff Monday morning,

were a mix of military civilians and government contractors. The Air Force has not publicly identified the victims. Boeing says two of their employees were among the deceased. Lauren says her husband had only returned to work last week after paternity leave, leaving behind their toddler and four-month-old son. He was the best dad, and I'm so sad he doesn't get to watch them grow up and the midst of Father's Day on Sunday as well. It just hurts my heart so much.

You feel for that family there. Liz Croix joins us now from Los Angeles. Liz, do we know when the military will publicly identify the rest of those victims? Yeah, Tom, the military says they expect the base will do that by tomorrow morning, which means they've now notified all of the next of kin. I asked Lauren if she knew why that flight may have been delayed. She said she didn't. She said she wanted to speak out to let people know how much her husband loved this country

and how hard he worked for this country. As for the investigation, it could be up to six months before officials are able to determine a cause and even then it could be that that information is classified. So it's unclear if the public or even the family how much they're ever going to really know about what happened, Tom. Okay, Liz, Croyd's for us. Liz, we thank you for that report. We're going to head overseas now.

President Trump tonight at the G7. Touting his deal with Iran. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez is on the ground in Geneva with the president. So Gabe, the president is now facing pressure to release the full text of that deal. And he says he's going to do this. In fact, he's going to read it word for word. Yes, well, Tom, the president did. say today that he would probably have a press conference and read that word by word, even as top

Republicans in Congress say they haven't even seen the agreement. Now, the president, meanwhile, is trying to sell the deal to European allies here at the G7. But complicating all of this, Tom, a U.S. official tells NBC News that Iran has fired multiple drones towards commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz since Sunday's agreement and that the U.S. military has been shooting them down. Now, this all comes as average U.S. gas prices drop below $4 a gallon with predictions that it will fall below $3.75 by July 4th. Oil, meanwhile, plummeting below $80 a barrel, and it's approaching what it was before the war. Now, earlier today, the focus at the G7 seemed to shift just a little bit towards the war in Ukraine. Another conflict that is raging, this one out of control.

Russia bombing Ukraine. overnight in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Zelensky was not scheduled to meet officially with President Trump, but was urged to do so by French President Emmanuel Macron. He met with the President. President Trump urging Vladimir Putin, by the way, to strike a peace deal. Now, the G7 wraps up tomorrow. President Trump heading tomorrow night for a dinner hosted by French President Macron at the Palace of Versailles before heading back to Washington. Tom. Okay, Gabe, we thank you for that just ahead tonight still here on top story the boat spinning out of control and the coast guard jumping into action will show you that heart-stopping video plus the sprawling new

york times investigation to the death of geoffrey epstein what it reveals about his final days behind bars we're back now with the bombshell investigation into geoffrey epstein's death the new york times digging into his final days revealing new details including interviews with two of his cellmates mbc stephanie gosk has this one at the heart of the epstein saga one of the the key questions. Did Jeffrey Epstein actually take his own life? The New York Times releasing a month's long investigation today attempting to answer it. That it would have entailed a massive conspiracy that would have been nearly impossible to pull off to murder him. So everything points towards the fact that he killed himself. Relying on millions of publicly released documents and

dozens of interviews with inmates, prison guards, law enforcement, and others. The report revealing notes it says Epstein hand wrote in the days before his death, including this one. Only pain to me and others in the future, it says, not very much fun. Epstein's cellmate Nick Tartaglione, since convicted of multiple murders, tells the times that Epstein came back from court after being denied bail and asked, how do you make a news? Tartaglione says he caught Epstein preparing for suicide twice, including trying to tie a sheet to the grate over the cell window. Tertaglione says he told the guards, but nothing was done. Days later, Epstein was discovered motionless, but still alive. What the DOJ Inspector General concluded was a possible suicide attempt. Two weeks later,

Epstein was found dead in his cell. The Times investigation focuses on Epstein's last cellmate of Frane Reyes, who said he told Epstein, don't try to kill yourself in this cell, according to a document in the Epstein files. Reyes was later moved out of the prison, saying he warned guards, get him a good bunkey. He's not going to. good to be alone. Epstein did not get another cellmate. Inmates are very unlikely to hurt themselves if they have somebody near them. So that was a huge mistake. Both of Jeffrey Epstein's cellmates and the federal prison in Manhattan say they told prison guards that they were hearing suicidal thoughts from their cellmate. But instead of Epstein getting more monitoring, he was ultimately

left alone in his cell. And within 24 hours, he was dead. Back to you. All right, Stephanie, Thank you. Joining us now live on Top Story, one of the New York Times reporters behind that investigation. Charles Holmes. Charles, thanks so much for joining the broadcast. I'm going to start with a simple question. Now, does this put to bed the conspiracy that Jeffrey Epstein was killed? I think important questions still remain around his final days, but we believe that the overwhelming bulk of the circumstantial evidence that we've found in our reporting points to a clear pattern of him considering and attempting suicide in the days leading up to his death that makes us fairly confident that this is what happened. And talk to me about some of that evidence, if you will,

or at least the observations of these other inmates that were close with Jeffrey Epstein in the sense of close in proximity to him. We found a couple things. We spoke to one of his former cellmates. We consulted documents relating to one of his other former cellmates who's passed away and talked to other people who were on the same corridor as him that night in the federal jail. And what his former cellmate told us was that there had actually been multiple other sort of occasions when he seemed to be preparing to attempt to kill himself in their cell together. He later did attempt suicide in their cell, and he left behind a note that we believe was a suicide note in that cell. We also obtained some other documents, some

writings that Epstein wrote himself while he was in jail, which clearly show a pattern of openly alluding to suicide and kind of contemplating his fate in those terms. When this story first broke, I went and was covering the whole Epstein investigation and the arrest. We went to Epstein's Island, and I saw the way he lived. I spoke to someone who worked on the island who told me how Jeffrey Epstein lived. And then I went to federal court, and I saw when he walked in, and he was this sort of shell of the man you see in these photos. He was shackled. He was disheveled.

And I thought to myself, this guy was living like a king. He's now living like a prisoner. In this cement box, he's going to kill himself. And I think it's even more dramatic than we knew. I mean, we found evidence, you know, from talking to people that he had been actually kind of extorted in his first hours in prison, in jail. This was just an incredible come down from somebody, as you say, who was living in this incredible... Private jets, private islands, living that lifestyle. A lot is talked about and written about...

Because there are so many conspiracies around this about the video, right, that they had released about the final days inside the jail cell. Was any of that part of your reporting? Did you guys find anything suspicious in the videos? We look very closely at the video evidence. As you know, the video evidence is sort of spotty because of failures in the system that night. So, you know, there are clear gaps in the video evidence, and there are some unexplained, there's one unexplained enigma that people have talked about a lot, the sort of orange shape that we see in one of the videos. You know, we were not able, and I think nobody will be able to definitively put that to rest.

But, you know, what we did come away, you know, believing after, you know, looking very closely at, at, you know, schematics of the jail and at this video footage, is it would have been an incredibly elaborate plot if somebody had managed to get into the jail at that night. And we see no evidence of that happened. I commend your reporting team at the New York Times for this story and also for the story of how Epstein made his money. I'm curious, as a journalist, is the New York Times still digging into Jeffrey Epstein? And what else is there to tell? I think there's still a lot.

I mean, there's so much in the files. With this story, we were working from the files, and we saw it as really a blueprint to do reporting that we couldn't have done before and pushing beyond what's in the files. And we do feel like there is more there to tell. Charles Holmes is so great to have you here on Top Story. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right.

coming up the Washington reflecting pool now bright green, just days after the president's multi-million dollar project to turn it flag blue. Can that algae be removed in time for July 4th? And if it's Tuesday, that means it's primary night. Steve Kornacki firing up the big board, stretching out and get ready as polls begin to close. Stay with us. We are back now and polls have just closed in a critical runoff election in Georgia. Two Republicans battling it out for their party's nomination to try to flip a Senate seat red in November. And if it's election night, Steve Kornacki is at the big board. So Steve, Congressman Mike Collins has the endorsement of President Trump.

He's up against a former football coach, Derek Dooley. One of them will go head to head with Democrat John Ossoff in the general election. What are we seen so far? Yeah, look, it's close so far here between Collins and Dooley. You see about 20% of the vote is counted. The key right now, Tom, is what you're looking at generally in these results. It is early vote. Vote that was cast days ahead of time before election day.

what's going to start to fill in in all these places where you see different colors right now, what's going to start to fill in is the vote that was cast today in person. And that's going to be the test of this Trump endorsement because what we've seen in these Republican primaries is that election day vote in Republican primaries, that tends to be the most pro-Trump, the most pro-Maga vote. So right now, this is an extremely competitive race in what we're seeing with the early vote. If that election day vote, which tends to be more pro-Trump, responds to Trump's call to Republicans to get behind Collins. He should be able to pull away here. But that's an open question

right now, because we're not really seeing any of that election day vote yet. Right now, what we're looking at is a very competitive race. All right. And then before you go, there's a heated Senate battle for the GOP in Alabama. What are you going to be watching for there? Yeah, well, in Alabama, the polls will be closing in less than an hour. Another test of the Trump endorsement, Trump endorsing Congressman Barry Moore. Barry Moore finished first in the preliminary. This is a runoff. Jared Hudson had finished second. He's sort of a conservative grassroots sort of insurgent figure here. He finished a distant second to Moore in the preliminary. There's some pretty clear geographical contours here. Moore's congressional district is based in the sort of Mobile, South Alabama area.

Expect him to run up the score here. Hudson did really well around Birmingham, population center in the middle part of the state. I think the area that's going to decide this is North Alabama and Huntsville, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the country. And, has become the biggest city in Alabama. I think that might be the region that decides this thing tonight. And a place where NBC is number one. We love Huntsville. All right, Steve Kornacki, we thank you for that.

We know you'll be at the Kornacki camp all night long. As results come in, you can watch him on NBCNews.com, and of course, on YouTube. Okay, we're going to head to Washington now. We're despite a multi-million dollar effort to make the reflecting pool, American flag blue. Tonight it is very much green. NBC's Ryan Nobles went down to the National Mall to take a closer look. President Trump has made the overhaul of the iconic reflecting pool on the national mall a top priority. We used a dark blue.

It's called American flag blue. Trump promising a new blue base designed to be seen through crystal clear water. Even driving the presidential beast over the empty pool to tease the changes. But now, visitors are surprised by what they find. The first thing we noticed was that it was green. Were you expecting green? No, not at all. Is this, would you want to swim in that water?

No. The goal was to have this pool a shimmering blue in time for the 250th anniversary of the country. It's obviously green, but crews are furiously working to make that a reality. Dumping hydrogen peroxide into the water, vacuuming up new algae blooms. The Department of Interior promising new technology will eventually clear things up. Experts warn completely killing off algae in such a large, stagnant body of water at the height of summer, no easy task. When the conditions are favorable, again, high temperature, high light, high nutrient availability,

they just grow. The $14.6 million pool project, one example of the Trump administration's effort to update several D.C. landmarks. And while tourists are hopeful the renovations will work, some are skeptical the price tag and the intense effort into the reflecting pool will ultimately deliver. It doesn't really look like anything's changed. Got to work on the algae control. It's kind of hard to prevent. Ryan Noble's NBC News, Washington.

Okay, now at Top Stories News Feed, to check up what else is happening around the country. We start with some stunning video showing the Coast Guard coming to the rescue. You got to see this. You can see a boat spinning out of control, circling the Severn River without anyone on board. That's right.

There was no captain. Officials say the person who was driving the runaway boat ejected after a high-speed turn. The local Coast Guard eventually caught up to the boat. That's when a guard's been made, or a coastee made a heroic leap onto the runaway boat, bringing it to a stop. The person driving the boat we're told is now okay.

And big news out of the sports world today, Venus and Serena Williams. Guess what? They're set to reunite as doubles partners at Wimbledon next month. The sisters last played together in, can you remember? It was 2022. Serena and Venus have won 14 grand slam titles as a duo.

Six of those at Wimbledon. We cannot wait to watch them in action. And changes are coming to the Grammys, with five new categories announced today, and some may surprise you. Here are some of them. Best Asian pop music performance, best R&B collaboration, or duo group performance,

best traditional pop vocal performance, okay? Best traditional folk album and best Latin song. All right, a lot going on there. The 27 Grammy Awards will take place in February. Now to Top Stories Health Check and the surging demand for blood tests that detect Alzheimer's. Just a year after the FDA approved the crucial screening tool. A survey published earlier this month of the journal, Alzheimer's and dementia,

found that 85% of patients said they would take an Alzheimer's blood test if it was recommended by their doctors. And it comes in an era where elective disease scans and tests are now booming. This headline caught her eye in the Wall Street Journal, quote, blood tests can now detect Alzheimer's, should you get one? To help answer that question, I want to bring in Dr. Leo Kroll, who specializes in neurology. Dr. Kroll, so good to see you again here on Top Story. So should everyone get a and if you're someone who's not healthy, or if you're someone who's healthy, I should say, not showing symptoms, is this for you? Tom, simply put, this test is right now not for everyone.

So it's really designed for people who are being evaluated for dementia. This means people who already have symptoms of cognitive impairment. The tests are really not designed to predict the risk for Alzheimer's disease in healthy people. And I know there's a lot of demand for these tests, a lot of people who maybe have family history of dementia that are really interested in this. But by and large, we don't know what to do with the results if someone is healthy and gets a positive test because we don't have any treatment for that in someone who's not symptomatic with dementia. So how accurate are these tests? Do we know that? We do, you know, and I think the best way to put it is this. If the test is negative, that gives you a

pretty good sense that you do not have Alzheimer's disease. But if the test is positive, you're in more of a gray area. Right now, the guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology, the American Academy of Family Physicians are really suggesting that if you get a positive test, you really need your doctor to interpret that within the context of your entire medical picture, because these tests can be a little bit finicky. The results can vary from lab to lab in testing center to testing center. They can also vary based on whether or not you were sick at the time the test was taken, when your last meal was. And so you may require further testing to go ahead and confirm the diagnosis. They're pretty good tests. They're certainly a breakthrough because until now,

the only tests we had for Alzheimer's were time-consuming physical and neurologic exams, plus expensive or invasive tests like spinal taps or advanced brain imaging. So to have this as a tool in the arsenal is a huge breakthrough, but it's not quite ready to be a standalone diagnostic test by and large. So I want to make sure I pronounce this right because I may not be. I know there's a new treatment that was just approved by the FDA for people who may have Alzheimer's. It's called anti-amloid treatments. What exactly is that? And if you do take one of these tests and the results are not what you were thinking, they're not positive, or I should say positive but not positive for your well-being, should you get one of these treatments early on? This is a really good question.

So yes, in recent years, we've had this kind of revolution in Alzheimer's treatment with these anti-amloid drugs. We have lichanamab and danaab. And they're really great for people who have early stage Alzheimer's disease, which is part of what makes these blood tests so exciting. They make it easier to diagnose. They cut down the time it takes to get the diagnosis. They get you to the treatment faster. Right now we have research going on as to whether people who are not symptomatic but have risk

for dementia would benefit from these drugs. So I don't have an answer for you today regarding whether someone who's healthy who doesn't have cognitive symptoms would benefit from using these drugs. But I can tell you it's an active area of research. Clinical trials are going on right now, and it'll be really interesting in the months and years to come to see what we can learn about that. Before we go, do you think these blood tests looking for Alzheimer's are going to be very routine, just like they look for your cholesterol or anything else in your blood? They're not ready to be routine yet, but I do think this is the way of the future. You know, I think there's been a lot of interest in what we call preventative

neurology, which is an emerging field, the science of preventing dementia for so many reasons. People are really invested in that. And I think being able to use these biomarkers as a means of helping us guide the healthy lifestyle modifications we're suggesting to people and potentially prescription medications we may use for certain candidates, these tests could be really useful. We're not there yet. We have to be thoughtful in how we implement them. We have a lot more to learn about these tests before we can start using them on what I call the worried well. who are just trying to take good care of themselves, because to get a positive now, if you're healthy,

could be a huge stress with not a lot of upside. Dr. Kroll, always great to have you. We thank you for coming on Top Story tonight. Thank you. We have an update on a story we first brought you last week. Chicago police now say they have a person of interest in custody after a cross was set on fire in a popular park in the heart of the city. Before that announcement, Chuck Gowdy from our NBC Chicago station,

sat down with a 21-year-old man who's said, says he set the fire as an act of protest. Here's that interview. It came up to my head one day. I wanted to find something that I could do by myself. Like no organization, no friends, no. I did know about this historical relevance beforehand, but I didn't know the severity,

how racially motivated it may seem from what I did. Because my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender. Should you have done it some other way? Yeah, probably. Merlin Liu is a 21-year-old Naperville native. And Lou rips this forehand shot.

That's him playing tennis at Nequa Valley High School, where he was graduated in 2022. Last week, Lou sent this scripted video to NBC claiming responsibility for the cross-burning, but saying he had no affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, apologizing to those who were. offended. In the video, he also criticized President Trump. I don't want to wait until his term ends. I don't want to wait until he may or may not get impeached.

I want him gone right now. I'm at video. Are you threatening him? No. I think that you think that he should be brought to an end. I think, no, I said, I said he deserves to stand trial to the American people, some paraphrase, I guess. But I think you use the word end. That's what I mean by end. I mean, by end, I don't mean that. I don't mean, like a civil war if that's the if that is the imagery that you're trying to imagine Lou says he built this cross after carrying wooden slats from his near west side apartment to Grand Park last Tuesday afternoon he showed the red ball cap that he put on the top beam and used lighter fluid and toilet paper to get it all going I put a red

hat to signify the maga the mega hat the make America great again hat so that that was yeah that's what I tied on top That's not visible in the one video that was taken by a motorist. Lou says he was protesting what he calls MAGA Christian nationalist supporters and the Trump administration ruling class. You're just scamming people. We're just scamming out of money, right? And I think that's a great reflection of how this country works right now, where money controls everything. Money has power over health care. Money has power over transportation. Chicago police and the FBI have been trying to identify him ever since, putting out this flyer with pictures of him running away, CPD labeling it an arson.

Are you surprised nobody's identified you to this point and called them? A little bit, but to me that's not that important. I don't really, like to me, this issue is bigger than just myself. Did you make it all the way through almost four years at UIC without somebody teaching you that a Burning Cross is one of the most divisive? symbols in America? No, I didn't, I don't really have any, like, I never grew up with religion, never really surrounded myself with people with it. My childhood friends, they, I remember them going to, like, confirmation and stuff like that, but, um, but it's the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, that really is where it started. Nobody ever taught you that? You never read it in a history

book? Nobody. I just, I just saw the Wikipedia page with the, um, the movie with the, I think it's called like Under One Nation or something like that. The birth of a nation is a famous 1915 silent film that romanticized the KKK and showed a cross-burning. Was it a hate crime? No, for sure not. In no way possibly possible was that a hate crime. I do understand why it was interpreted that way and I apologize for that, but no, the intent was not there. We want to thank Chuck for that interview and that report. And we should know police have not confirmed if Lou is the person of interest they have in custody and charges have not yet been filed. When we come back tonight here in Top Story, you've heard about price surging, right?

But what about price surveillance? Our Vicki Wynn investigates whether Uber and Lyft are charging riders, different rates for the exact same rides, what she and her team found, and a massive inflatable soccer ball going rogue during the storm in El Salvador, that wild video. Next. We're back now with Top Story's Global Watch and a check of what else. is happening around the world. We're going to start with a Ukrainian drone attack caught on camera inside of Moscow. Dramatic video shows a Ukrainian drone flying towards a building, then erupting into a fiery explosion. The strike was part of a massive bombardment targeting this oil refinery, which is the

largest in the region. Ukraine has stepped up its strikes on Russian refineries in recent months. So far, no deaths have been reported. And tourism in Cuba has seen a dramatic drop as U.S. sanctions cripple the island nation. Fewer than 300. 160,000 people visited the country in the first five months of 2026, marking a 58% drop from the same time last year. That according to the National Office of Stats and Information for the Republic of Cuba. The Trump administration has ramped up its pressure campaign on Cuba, leading to fuel shortages and widespread blackouts. And a giant inflatable World Cup ball going rogue in El Salvador. Take a look at this. The massive soccer ball sent flying, just narrowly missing this car.

A violent storm went through the streets of San Salvador at the time. No word on if the runaway ball could be retrieved. Okay, back here at home to an investigation into the wild price differences on ride share apps like Uber and Lyft. Consumer reports found riders were given different fares even when booking the exact same rides at the exact same time. NBC News chief consumer investigative correspondent, Vicki Wynn, put those findings to the test. on Uber and Lyft, it's simple. Choose a destination and get your fare, but some customers are frustrated by price swings. How is price surging on Uber legal? Uber prices these days are like being in a toxic relationship with your ex. Now a new Consumer Reports investigation found many riders saw sharply different prices for the same trips requested at the same time.

The median difference between the lowest and the highest price groups was 50%. So in some cases, you might, be charged $100, I'd be charged $50. That's right. Reporter Deerick Kravitz says 174 volunteers across 18 states checked fares on hundreds of rides. In Austin, Texas, prices range from $25 to $65 for the same route ordered at the same time, a 160% difference. Uber and Lyft have long used surge pricing, changing fares based on demand, driver availability,

and traffic. But these findings raise questions about whether these apps are using personalized or surveillance pricing, setting unique prices for each customer based on their personal data. We found that they have the capabilities to look at a lot of different things, namely how you interact with the app, how accurately or fast you type an address and whether or not you're going to a daycare to pick up a child and you're a little bit late and it's a hot summer day. Data, he says, could help companies estimate how much a customer is willing to pay. A spokesperson for Uber called the investigation flawed, saying prices can change second by second

based on factors including routing and even slight GPS differences telling NBC news, Uber does not personalize prices, period. A statement echoed by Lyft, who also added, what riders see is driven by trip characteristics, real-time supply and demand, and any promotions. Consumer report says some routes were ordered by volunteers in the same location, but others were not. So my 12 NBC colleagues and I requested a trip to the Museum of Natural History with the same pickup address at the same time. Three, two, one, tap.

On Uber, the highest price was 3596, the lowest 2835, a 27% difference. On Lyft, it was a 37% difference. Intern, Sebastian Sotom got the highest price. Now I'm a college student, so I use Uber and Lyft pretty much every day. To have the highest price was shocking. In March, the House Oversight Committee announced an investigation into whether Uber, Lyft, and other companies use surveillance pricing algorithms. Both companies say they use customer data to offer discounts, which Kravitz calls a form of pricing personalization. Regularly take the same trip, you may be less likely to get a coupon.

But consumers have no way to know what's driving each fare. So we asked Uber about our demonstration, and a company spokesperson said, even though they're not. the app showed the same address. The phones registered slightly different GPS locations based on where each person was sitting in the room, even calculating that we were a block apart, even though we were all in that same space. They say that's what accounted for the 27% pricing difference. Back to you. Our Vicki Wynn tonight, Vicki, great to see you. Thank you for that one. Coming up next, our firsthand look at the future of robotics, how the technology helping some amputees could revolutionize factory floors. Steve Patterson tries it out next. Finally tonight, the new tech that could

revolutionize robotics. One of the biggest problems for humanoid developers is actually the smallest one, the robotic hand. Now a prosthetics company says it has the technology that could change the game training factory robots to handle delicate objects. Our Steve Patterson takes a closer look. At Cyanx San Diego facility, this human robotic hand is everywhere, on display, in use, even on the back of this robot dog. I can go ahead and change between different grips. Most importantly, it's used by Dale DeMassi, who was born without a hand and had pretty much given up on prosthetics before he discovered, well, this. The state of prosthetics just never really kept up with what my needs were. Now, he's the creative marketing director of a company dedicated to helping

amputees. The ultimate goal here is to have People who've lost their limbs be able to control the bionic hand the same exact way that they do their natural hand and be able to have that same level of dexterity. How close are we to that goal? We're very close. Hi, nice to meet you. CEO Adele Akhtar founded Cyanac in 2015. The company is currently working on their 10th model, able to move each finger individually down to the smallest detail. So if you put your hands up in the camera just like this, my right hand controls the right side.

And my left hand controls a left side. Oh, what's happening? And try it. Shut up, dude. Oh, my God. Now, the company is bringing its experience with prosthetics to the world of robotics. We've optimized our hands for humans to do human tasks. So it makes sense that the robots use the same thing.

Right. For robots to be useful in homes or factories, they need to be able to interact with spaces designed for people, including using faucets, tools, and more. What we built for humans benefits for robots, and then the volume. on the robot side subsidize the cost for the humans so more humans can get access to bionic limbs. We were there as they announced a big partnership with ABB robotics to attach those bionic hands to the mechanical arms typically seen on assembly lines.

Check this out. The manipulation is so good it was able to drill a hole through this wooden board using the trigger finger. There you have it. Past bionic arms were a little bit brittle. They were made of materials that would often break even from everyday tasks. Now they're so durable and they can pretty much do anything. A deal says the plan is to reinvest the money they make from partnering with the robotics industry

and put it back into helping people like Dale. I grew up watching Star Wars and, you know, seeing Luke Skywalker get that bionic hand to like actually be wearing something that's so close to that is pretty amazing. Life changing tech, helping robots adapt in a human world and more than ever, vice versa. Steve Patterson joins us now from inside that facility. Steve, what we saw there in the report was incredible. So what else can these bionic hands do? As I'm learning today, Tom, pretty much anything.

In fact, I wonder if I could introduce you to a friend. This is Abel. Say hi there, Abel. There he is. He's got those bionic hands you can see right there, the silicone hands. And I could actually shake his hand if I wanted to. Abel, nice to meet you. Hello, sir.

Yep, it's got a good grip there. There we go. It's pretty solid. And he can even, like, you know, it gets so fine the detail. He can probably take my car keys there. You want to take those, bud? And then I don't know how comfortable we are with him driving. I wouldn't necessarily let him go off and do that yet,

but maybe he's just going to go off and do it on his own. There he goes. He's taking off. He's heading out to the park. Or maybe to the office, to the parking lot. I don't know where he's going. But you can see the technology here pretty incredible. That's a rental car, though, Tom.

so we're not going to let him trust it with something personal. But pretty remarkable stuff here, Tom. Pretty incredible what these robots can do. I know we're still a few years away from them being fully autonomous, but it is incredible. Steve Patterson, we thank you so much for that story. It was really fun. And we thank you for watching Top Story tonight.

I'm Tom Yamison, New York. Stay right there. More news on the way.