Top Story with Tom Llamas - Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

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.

Tonight, top story live on the Gaza border. Parts of the strip leveled as Israel pounced Hamas targets with unrelenting air strikes. Gaza's deadliest day since the start of the war. Hamas claiming 700 killed in just 24 hours, half of those children. Our NBC news crew capturing the carnage, this building destroyed. A girl rescued from the rubble, dazed, covered in dust and dirt. This, as tense negotiations continue over the fate of more than 200 hostages still in Hamas' hands, will a larger group be released?

The hostage just freed, now telling her story, describing her capture, being hit by sticks, then led through the dark tunnels under Gaza, and finally getting out. Hospital horrors, doctors inside Gaza telling us that hospitals are running out of critical supplies and fuel. Scores of children crying out in pain were inside an operating room powered with a small generator as a child is in surgery. Medics treating burns unlike anything they've ever seen in war. The warning from inside of soaring fatalities and a system pushed past the brink. Instant dropout, the latest nominee for Speaker of the House getting out of the race just hours after being chosen as the nominee. GOP whipped Tom Emmer seeing no way he could get enough votes to.

break a hopeless stalemate. Will Republicans elect a speaker before next month's government shutdown or will they remain paralyzed in a crisis of their own making? Mom murder Manhunt. Massachusetts police searching for an Air Force veteran accused of killing his wife, their four children running to the neighbors for help, saying they heard their mom crying and couldn't find their dad, a hunter finding a major clue, his abandoned BMW deep in the woods. The police warning he is armed, and dangerous. Plus, a college student dying after drinking Panera's charged lemonade. The family suing, claiming there were not sufficient warnings about the beverage. The drink has more caffeine than two energy drinks combined, how Panera is responding tonight. An incredible journey,

a three-year-old girl and a lifetime's worth of adventures she's already been on. Now, the youngest person to visit all the national parks in the U.S., starting at just a few weeks old in Colorado and ending days ago in Alaska. Her name letting us know, she's just getting started. Top Story starts right now. Good evening. Welcome to this special edition of Top Story from the border of Israel and Gaza.

I'm Ellison Barber in for Tom Yamis. Just miles away in Gaza, the death toll sharply rising as parts of the city are a complete disaster zone. Israeli airstrikes bombarding Gaza City over the last 24 hours. The Hamasran Health Agency claiming the deadliest day in Gaza so far this war. One strike hitting a residential building caught on video. A girl pulled from the rubble alive.

Rescuers finding her hand first, then pulling her to safety. Some children rescued alongside her. Others brutally killed. Other children caught in the crossfire filling hospitals now well past capacity. medics working around the clock to treat hallways packed with the injured. Nurses treating patients lying on the floor. Doctors there performing emergency surgeries with the few resources they have left. Global pressure increasing to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza,

President Biden saying it is not getting there fast enough. The White House also looking to get more hostages out after Hamas released two more women last night, one, sharing her ordeal and what it was like being taken through the sprawling tunnel system under Gaza. It has been yet another day of unspeakable violence in a war that has had too many. NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engle leads us off. Gaza looks like it was hit by an earthquake. The Hamas-run health ministry claims more than 700 Palestinians were killed in just the last 24 hours.

Nearly half of them children in the deadliest day in Gaza so far. Our camera crew captured one moment. A snapshot of Gaza today. Multiple witnesses say this three-story building was hit by an Israeli airstrike. First, you can see a hand. The girl is alive. And not alone. We counted five children pulled from this building.

Three living, two appear to be dead. Residents tell us they're from the same family. The Israeli government says Hamas brought this upon Gaza when it launched its brutal terror attack, murdering 1,400 Israelis, including young children and babies. Israel says it's targeting Hamas, and today stopped a cell of Hamas divers, attempting to infiltrate Israeli territory by sea. The test for the West and for civilization is Hamas. If Hamas emerges victorious, we will all lose. At least 220 hostages are still in Gaza.

Today, we heard from one of the hostages released last night, 85-year-old Joheved Lifchitz. A swarm of people came through the fence. Her daughter helped her describe what she called two weeks of hell. She was taken on the back of a motorbike. Recounting how she was hit by sticks by her kidnappers, kept inside underground tunnels with five others. Lifchit's husband remains a hostage.

While today at the U.N., families of Hamas captives pleaded for their return. Why is no one crying out for these people to be allowed access to the Red Cross? Why is no one demanding just proof of life? Eli David's brother is being held too, kidnapped from the music festival where Hamas gunmen executed hundreds of Israelis. He shared with us the videos Hamas posted online. handcuffed with his hands behind his back, and a terrorist holding a gun in one hand and in the other hand, headlocking, my brother.

Eli, like many Israelis, wants the world to see these images to understand what Israel is up against. We know that he's alive. So far, Hamas has only released four hostages, all women. My brother is a young man. He's not an old man. He's not a baby. And it may be a disadvantage for him in that situation.

So no hope this time. There is so much pain and anger on both sides of this conflict and not a glimmer of a resolution in sight. And I want the people of America to remember his name, to not forget till he comes home. His name, Eviatar David, and not forget his face. And that's it. the opportunity. Richard joins us now from Jerusalem. Richard, everyone is watching trying to figure out where this is headed next, including a potential Israeli ground invasion into Gaza. There were

some signals from the Israeli military today about what might lie ahead. What have you been hearing? And for viewers who are hearing a lot of different statements from Israeli military leadership, what should they be paying most attention to right now? Well, I wouldn't be paying attention to the statements. I think a lot of the statements are deliberately ambiguous. The Israelis don't want to signal for obvious reasons if or when they're going to go in with their troops. But we are not seeing any of those last-minute preparations that would suggest that an invasion is imminent, but Israeli officials are signaling that they are talking about, at least in their interpretation, of a war that could last months. Richard Engel in Jerusalem. Thank you.

We want to turn now to the ongoing talks to free the rest of those hostages held by Hamas. Qatar, a small Arab country along the Persian Gulf Coast, now emerging as a key player for those hostage negotiations. The U.S. considers Qatar a key regional ally. The country hosts Hamas's political office, and now they are becoming a critical intermediary as the war between Israel and Hamas intensifies. Joining us now from Doha, Qatar, is NBC News, chief international correspondent, Keir Simmons. Kier, I know you have some new reporting

about how the latest hostage release came together. Hamas says Egypt acted as the primary mediator in this last release. What else are you learning? That's right, Alison, let's just say at the beginning that what I'm told is that there are talks ongoing right now tonight for a larger release of hostages, that the talks are positive. There is not a breakdown in those talks. There is no breakthrough either. And some of the conversations that I've been

able to have over the past few days about what happened over the past few days with a diplomat who's got knowledge of the talks gives a picture of just how difficult those conversations, those talks are, because the two Israelis who were released yesterday, it does appear that there were setbacks, a number of setbacks over a number of days. So I'm told by that diplomat with knowledge of the talks that the talks were ongoing, but Hamas was attaching conditions that slowed them down a little and complicated them. Then on Saturday night, I'm told, surprising everybody, Hamas announced the names of the hostages, their ID numbers, and said, well, we're prepared to release them. In fact, in the background, they had other demands, and the Israelis were not prepared

to acquies to acquies to those demands. Just within an announcement, Hamas then said, OK, we'll release them on the same terms as we released the Israeli-Americans just a day earlier. And then finally, as we know, they were released. But as you mentioned, it does appear that they were taken into Egypt, across the Rafa crossing. So again, that gives you an insight into the fraud and fragile nature of these talks, Ellison. And that's the kind of thing that will be happening now. Because remember, that was two. And then we had another two.

Now we're talking about maybe 50, 60, maybe 70, maybe 70, maybe all of the... civilian hostages that are being held by Hamas, it's a much bigger challenge. Yeah, Keir, and the first two that were released, which was a surprise to everyone here, Qatar was acting as the primary mediator when those two American Israeli citizens were released. I'm curious, what are you hearing now from those sources you're speaking to? What do they say is the biggest hurdle in getting a larger hostage release? And if it were to happen, is this something that is going to be done with Qatar? or could Egypt also play a role?

I think Qatar, where we are now, it is the central mediator. Egypt is playing an important role, too. Why is Qatar playing such a role? Because Hamas is based here. Why are they based here? Well, they are based here because the Israelis and the Americans knew about it and accepted that that would be the case. And what the Qataris are effectively trying to demonstrate now is the value of that.

that actually when the fact that Hamas, I hear, enables them to talk to them, enables them to try to walk through this very diplomatic, very difficult diplomatic challenge. You know, Edison, you ask about what the challenges are. Well, Hamas, at some stage in these negotiations, I understand, were asking for an exchange of prisoners. They also have been asking for a ceasefire, a complete ceasefire. They've been asking for aid, including fuel, to be brought into Gaza. Slowly, but surely they've been persuaded that that can't happen. Israel has refused to negotiate, to do any kind of a deal. But I will say this. I do think that

once civilian hostages are taken from Gaza, if that happens, there are still many hostages who are military hostages. And I think the expectation within Hamas is that they will be able to do some kind of a deal with them, maybe in exchange of prisoners. That's what's happened in the past. Although the past is the past, things changed so much on October 7th. Here's Simmons in Doha. Thank you. We appreciate it. The families of more than 200 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza are desperately seeking answers. As some worry, Israel's looming ground offensive could put their loved ones in greater danger.

Joining us now is Abby Ong. Three of her family members are missing, believed to be abducted by Hamas inside of Gaza right now. two of her relatives were killed in the attack on Kibbutz near Oz. Abby, thank you for joining us tonight. First, let me just have you talk to us a little bit about your relatives. I understand the youngest of the three currently held hostage by Hamas is just 11 years old. Can you tell us a little bit about your family here? And how did you first find out that they had been taken into Gaza?

Sure. We have a really large family. My family came originally from the U.S. almost 90 years ago, and Carmela, the matriarch of the family, built her life with her husband, Ori, Ana, New Oz, and that's where she raised all of her children. She turned 80 last Tuesday. We believed at that point that she was alive, but we learned the next day that she and her granddaughter, Noia, who was 12, had been brutally murdered. They were kidnapped and then murdered, and their bodies were found somewhere near Gaza. We initially, we knew right away that something

was wrong, you know, sirens ring out across the country. And we have a family WhatsApp group and they started sending messages that something was abnormal, that they could hear the terrorists, they could hear al-Au Akbar, they could hear people being killed and that they were afraid for their lives. And the next day on Sunday, October 8th, was when we saw the video of Eras, who today is 11, but will turn 12 just in two days. We saw him in the hands of Hamas and we knew that there was a chance that they had been kidnapped. So right now, as you wait for more information on Erez and the other two that you know are in Hamas's custody, and there's all this talk about Israel launching a ground invasion into

Gaza, what do you think of that? Do you think that should happen, or are you hoping that they'll hold off to maybe get your family members out before this war heads into the next stage? I mean, I think war is bad for all sides, and I would certainly hope that the hostages remain a top priority, both for Israel and for all nations. There are people there from 33 countries. There are people from more than 41 states in the United States, and we believe in the power of partnership that the United States government and the French and other governments are helping to put pressure on Hamas, and slowly we're seeing the release. so we would love that to happen before any sort of ground and vision. When you do see these releases, four people have been released so far, but it's been a slow trickle, two and then two more. Does it give you hope that your relatives could soon be released,

or is it difficult to see that knowing that your family is still in captivity? Yes and yes. I think we celebrate every release, truly. seeing these four women come out has been the only slice of sunlight that has come in the last 18 days and to see them physically whole and okay is absolutely reassuring but of course the longer that our family is there the longer that are our larger family there our nation citizens of our nation are there you know each day is a horrible nightmare for them and for us Abby, you know, for people who have followed this story so closely, and I think by hearing

people like you so bravely talk about your experience, they hopefully remember that we're not just talking about numbers here, but real people, real lives that are important, what is the thing you want people to remember, especially people who might be watching this and thinking, okay, we've heard this story for two, three weeks. What would you say to people who might be getting a little tired of hearing about this? What do you want them to remember tonight? We live in a different universe now. We live in a universe of terror and pain and unknowable horror.

And I want people to try for one second to stand in these shoes and think, what if it was their mother or their son or their sister or their grandparent? What would they do? What would they feel? And I want every person and every government and every leader and maybe. the outlet until they're home to take an unequivocal stance against terror. This is not political. This is evil. What happened here on October 7th was catastrophic for the state of Israel and for Jews, but it doesn't stop with us. And if we don't stand now against terror, it won't stop. So I want them just to try for a moment to stand in our shoes and think about

what they would do and to raise their voices. Abbey, On, thank you. We are thinking about you and your family, and we hope we can talk to you again very soon when your relatives who are inside of Gaza are finally back home. Abby, thank you. Me too. Thank you. The other crisis unfolding at this hour, the health system in Gaza continues to crumble. The World Health Organization saying nearly two-thirds of the enclave's health facilities will soon stop functioning and that it is unable to deliver necessary fuel and essential life-saving supplies to hospitals throughout the strip. Doctors sounding the alarm as hope dwindles. Some of what you are about to see and here is graphic. If the walls of Gaza's Al-Shefa hospital could talk,

they tell a story of a perpetual hell of children crying out in agony, fighting for their lives after Israeli airstrikes. Forty percent of all of the wounded are children. This is a nine-year-old boy with a huge blast defect in his back. They would tell you how the hospital has no room, how medical teams have been forced to treat patients in the hallway. The walls of Al-Shifa Hospital cannot speak, but the dedicated doctors working here. My name is Dr. Gassana Boussita.

Over the last 24 hours, we have received 600 dead and three times the number of wounded. This is putting even more pressure on the system that's falling apart. We're running out of everything from simple dressings to complex burns dressings. We have over 150 patients ventilated in intensive care areas. And fuel is becoming an issue. We're having more and more cuts. We know that one of the major hospitals in northern Gaza, the fuel there has run out, and they're now running a much smaller generator just for the operating room.

And any minute now, this is going to happen to Shifa Hospital as the fuel runs out here. Israel has increased its aerial bombardments on the Gaza Strip. The IDF says they've struck more than 300 Hamas targets in the last 24 hours. But what these doctors' witnesses, every day is the massive impact those strikes are having on Palestinian civilians. This war is different in terms of the type of ordinance that's used has a much bigger incendiary component to it. The walls of Al-Shefa Hospital cannot speak.

But they carry the echoes of the most brutal, often unspeakable moments of war. if the world listens. And we thank Dr. Abbasita for sharing his story and our NBC team on the ground in Gaza. We thank them for that footage. You can follow live updates on the Israel Hamas War on NBCNews.com. But now for the other major headlines we are following tonight, my colleague Valerie Castro is at the Top Story Studio in New York. Good evening, Valerie.

And Ellison, thank you for that important reporting there on the border. Turning now to the breaking news we've been following here tonight out of Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives still without a speaker after their latest nominee, Representative Tom Emmer dropped his bid just hours after being nominated. For more on the chaos at the Capitol, I want to bring in NBC's Garrett Haake. Garrett, so the battle for speaker. Each nomination seems to be getting shorter. The next one may be down to just 20 minutes. Where will the Republicans go from here? Yeah, Valerie, when you and I spoke last night, I think we thought today would be Tom members day and for a few hours it was, but only for a few hours, the whip dropping out of this

race about four hours after he became the Republican nominee. As we speak right now, Republicans are back in the Ways and Means Committee room where they've spent hours today. Hearing pitches from some of the candidates who had already presented them this morning or last night, once again presenting themselves. They're trying to see if there is somebody in that group, which mostly includes folks who are already running this morning, who might be a better fit to get to 217 votes on the floor because that was ultimately the problem for Tom Emmer. He was able to get that majority behind closed doors, but it very quickly became clear. He had an intractable group of about 25 to 30, and that's not going to work.

They're going to have to find somebody who's not just broadly popular, but doesn't have dug-in enemies if anybody in the Republican Party is going to be the next Speaker of the House. Garrett, is there any sense that they could reach any consensus or is a government shut down inevitable? Look, I think it's going to be really difficult right now. I mean, you've got Mike Johnson, who was the runner up today to Emmer, who's probably the favorite to be the next man up in this moment. He might fit the bill as somebody who's been around long enough to have friends, but not so long that he's got dug in enemies. He doesn't have Donald Trump poised against him like Tom Emmer did.

But a shutdown is a real possibility in just a couple of weeks because whomever they pick is probably going to have to swallow another continuing resolution, another short-term extent. of government funding. There's just not going to be time to do anything else. And that's exactly what got Kevin McCarthy in trouble with the far right in the first place. So a very difficult position for the majority party and whomever they pick to be their leader if they're ever able to pick anyone at all. All right. Garrett Haig, we'll see what happens tomorrow. Thank you so much. We're also following new developments in the legal battles of Donald Trump. Another lawyer for the former president pleading guilty today in the Georgia election interference case. And here in New York, Trump facing off against his one-time fixer Michael Cohen, now testifying against him in his New York

civil fraud trial. NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett has the latest. For weeks, Attorney Jenna Ellis, fiercely defended then-President Trump, as he falsely claimed the 2020 election was rigged. Today, she sobbed as she told the judge she was wrong. If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. Ellis in a Georgia courtroom pleading guilty to a felony for helping fuel lies about thousands of dead people casting votes in 2020. I failed to do my due diligence. Smiling for her mugshot just two months ago, now the fourth co-defendant to flip in Fulton County's sprawling election interference case against the former president and more than a dozen others. Mr. Trump has

pleaded not guilty, arguing he's being targeted by Democratic prosecutors because he's the Republican frontrunner. He was back in a Manhattan courtroom today, facing the state's star witness. His former fixer turned foe, Michael Cohen. This is about accountability, plain and simple. Raise the right hand. It was Cohen's congressional testimony that jumped started the New York case, where his former boss now stands to lose his namesake company, accused of exaggerating the value of his assets to receive better loan terms in a $250 million civil fraud suit. It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes.

Today, Cohen said he was tasked by the former president with boosting Mr. Trump's total assets to achieve a number he arbitrarily elected. While Mr. Trump's legal team has argued, real estate values are subjective. Outside of court, Mr. Trump took aim at Cohen's credibility, pointing to Cohen's guilty plea for tax fraud and lying to Congress. He's a liar, as you know, a felon. He's a liar trying to get a better deal for himself, but it's not going to work. He did nothing more than that has to prove it.

Cohen is expected back in court Wednesday morning for further cross-examination by Mr. Trump's attorneys as they try to hurt his credibility, showing the judge why he shouldn't be trusted. Valerie, back to you. All right, Laura Jarrett. For more on the legal peril facing the former president, I'm joined now by NBC News Legal Analyst, Danny Savalos. Danny, before we get to those developments in the Trump cases in New York and Georgia, we do have some breaking news in another case against the former president. The special counsel, Jack Smith, this is according to reporting by ABC News,

has given former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows immunity in that case, the investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. ABC News reporting that Meadows told the special counsel he repeatedly warned Trump that his claims of election fraud were baseless. Meadows is not charged in the special counsel. investigation. But how big of a development is this? He was one of the people that was in his innermost circle. It is a huge development. And immunity is very rarely granted by the federal government. They don't like to give it out. I know this firsthand. But if true, that information

is devastating because it is a close trusted aide telling the president that these election fraud claims are baseless. Now, at some point, a jury, the defense is going to have to convince a jury that, hey, it's not reasonable for, in other words, the defense is going to have to convince the jury that no matter who tells me that there are no election fraud claims, I can still believe that there is election fraud. And at some point, that just becomes unreasonable in principle. All right, so let's turn to the civil fraud case trial that's here in New York, some key testimony today from key witness Michael Cohen, testifying Trump gave him an arbitrary net worth that Trump wanted to have and that Cohen would adjust the value of Trump's assets on paper.

He says he was doing this with former Trump organization, CFO, Ellen Weisselberg, to get to that specific number. How damaging is that testimony? Damaging because we already know that the valuations were in the stratosphere. But the defense's argument might be that, look, they may have been in the stratosphere, but hey, this is New York real estate. And you add the Trump brand. And that number could be virtually anything. So now of a witness coming in and testifying that, no, there was no calculus involved. It was arbitrary. It was something that was just made up off the top of our heads. That takes away from the argument that the defense at least used a formula to get there. If the formula was no formula, it's whatever

number you wanted to be, then it is truly arbitrary. And that goes a long way towards proving that Trump may have inflated the value of his properties when it suited him and deflated the value when he needed to have it deflated. For example, when the taxman cometh. this is some pretty devastating testimony, but certainly not a bombshell because Michael Cohen's been writing books, talking to the media, podcasting, talking to Congress. Everybody knows what Michael Cohen was going to say. That was no surprise. Not been shy about any of this. Not at all. Okay. So let's turn to the other new development today. Jenna Ellis, another attorney who helped the former president contest the results of the 2020 election pleading guilty today in a Georgia

courtroom. We heard some of her statement from the courtroom in Loris P. Let's take a listen to what she had to say. I relied on others, including lawyers, with many more years of experience than I, to provide me with true and reliable information, especially since my role involved speaking to the media and to legislators in various states. What I did not do, what should have done, Your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true. All right, so based on what she said there, it sounds like she's going to try to pin blame on other members of the legal team. She sure is. And it should be no surprise that of the four that have pleaded guilty in Georgia so far, three of them have been lawyers. That's no accident. The strategy here was clearly the DA wanted to charge a lot of people and people with a lot to lose. And lawyers have a lot to lose. Virtually any conviction could threaten our license. And that affects our ability to make a living. So you charge lawyers. And in my view, they're more likely to think about a guilty plea early, especially if under Georgia's first offender act, They can plead guilty, get probation, stay out of jail, and possibly under that Georgia law, get that felony or whatever they plead to, erased after a certain period of time.

It's like that one free bite of the apple, almost like a diversionary program, but they do have to plead guilty. Then they might even have a shot at keeping their license. That's a deal that is too sweet to pass up. Georgia DA, the Fulton County DA, had to know this was going to be an appealing offer, an appealing opportunity. and now they got exactly what they want, which is four people already. We're only a month or so into this who are going to turn around and offer evidence against the other co-defendants, including most likely the co-defendant, and that's Donald Trump. All right. Potentially more in that case to come.

Danny Savalos, thank you, as always. We appreciate it. Still ahead tonight, the urgent manhunt in Massachusetts, the Air Force veteran on the run after allegedly killing his wife while their four children were home. The piece of evidence found deep in the war. woods. Plus, the family suing Panera bread after they say their daughter died after drinking the chain's charged lemonade. The warning tonight for people who are supposed to stay away from caffeine. And cruises driverless taxis off the streets of San Francisco for now. The latest move by the city's DMV as concerns mount over those vehicles. Stay with us.

accused of killing his wife at their Massachusetts home. There are four children running to a neighbor for help after their dad fled the scene. Police now scouring hundreds of miles of forest in Massachusetts looking for the Air Force veteran. NBC News correspondent Rahima Ellis has the details. The desperate manhunt intensifying for this Massachusetts father suspected of killing his wife. Freedom as he's armed and dangerous. Aaron Pennington, a 33-year-old Air Force veteran with four young children on the run tonight. Police believe he fatally shot his 30-year-old wife, Brianne, in the face early Sunday morning.

Just started 911 call from a neighbor seat, and the kids just came over, Satan they can't find their dad, and they believe their mom is locked in the bedroom crying. According to a criminal complaint, the kids ages 2, 5, 7, and 9 running to a neighbor's home for help just after 9 a.m. Police, shortly after finding Breanne dead in her upstairs bedroom, recovering three shell casings, but no firearm. Investigators say Pennington was spotted pulling out of the driveway in his white BMW at approximately 8.50 a.m. A bow hunter spotting that car abandoned deep in the forest. Thank God that hunter. You know, I don't know when or where we might have found the car. Now authorities remain on the hunt, combing through Camp Collier, a more than 400,8,000.

forest in northern Massachusetts. They're treating it like they have a man who's armed in the woods, and they're going out to take an abundance of caution. Neighbors told investigators that Breanne had plans of moving to Texas with the kids, and Aaron suffered from mental health issues and threatened suicide. Breanne's sister Brooke speaking to NBC Boston about their marriage. I know he has some mental health issues that she tried to get him to get help for, but he just wouldn't. Local officials urging the public to stay alert and to avoid holding vigils for

Brienne until her husband is found. Horrified. It's never had anything like this. It's such a gentle town. Brianne's sister pleading for Aaron to turn himself in. He just robbed my nieces and nephews of a fantastic mom and robbed me of a sister and everybody else. Authorities say there's already a warrant out for the arrest of Aaron Pennington for illegal possession of a firearm. In addition, the fact that he has a military background authorities say they are concerned about whether or not that could impact his ability to survive in the woods and their ability to find him if indeed that's where he is. Valerie? Rahima Ellis, thank you. Moving now to a new lawsuit against Panera Bread, the parents of a

21-year-old Ivy League student with a heart condition suing the fast casual chain, alleging their daughter died after drinking their highly caffeinated charged lemonade, arguing the beverage is dangerous and lacks transparency in its advertising. Here's more on that story. Tonight, the popular fast casual chain Panera at the center of a wrongful death lawsuit over a caffeinated drink. We took our lemonade to the next level. The family of a 21-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania claiming she died after drinking a Panera charged lemonade.

According to the civil lawsuit, Sarah Katz had a lifelong heart condition called Long QT syndrome and avoided highly caffeinated drinks and energy drinks knowing they could be dangerous for her. But in September of last year, her family says after drinking a large Panera charged lemonade, cats went into cardiac arrest twice and died. Katz was quote reasonably confident it was a traditional lemonade and or electrolyte sports drink containing a reasonable amount of caffeine safe for her to drink, according to the lawsuit. telling NBC News in part, we strongly believe in transparency around our ingredients. We will work quickly to thoroughly investigate this matter. But the beverage labeled on Panera's website as naturally flavored, plant-based and clean, and containing about as much caffeine as a dark-roast coffee has caught the attention of social media. Don't drink this drink if you want to go to sleep. 5 o'clock p.m. I'm about to act up. What should I get into? If I clean the whole apartment?

What do you all think? I don't have enough self-control to handle this amount of access to caffeine. According to the family attorney, Katz ordered a large 30-ounce drink, which has nearly 400 milligrams of caffeine, according to Panera's website. If you opt for the 30-ounce version, it has more caffeine than a 12-ounce Red Bull and a 16-ounce Monster Energy drink combined. Do you think you would drink that if you knew that? No, absolutely not. I wouldn't even drink an entire monster drink by itself. I would drink like just a little bit of it. That's crazy. Both Red Bull and Monster Energy do have labels stating the products are not recommended for certain groups, including people. with sensitivities to caffeine.

So that's where a jury comes in in any negligence or product liability case in deciding if they were in a reasonable consumer shoes, would this warning be enough? Panera does not have a similar label, but does post the caffeine content above its drink dispensers. If I had this much caffeine, I would definitely be like sprinting all over the city. That wouldn't be good. So I know my limit. Still, Katz's parents believe the chain didn't do it. enough to warn consumers.

It's not an FDA requirement, so it's not a legal obligation, but it would be in their interest to protect against lawsuits like this, the more they did warn the consumer. The Katz family says they hope this lawsuit will help raise awareness about the potential dangers of this drink so that what happened to their daughter won't happen to anyone else. When we come back tonight, two other major lawsuits were following these targeting Facebook's parent company, Meta, 41 states. in Washington, D.C., now suing the social media giant, the allegations the company is knowingly setting up addictive features that could be harmful to teens. The details next.

statement the decision was based on an investigation by Ohio law enforcement and a grand jury's decision not to indict them. The officers fired more than 90 rounds at Walker during a chase back in June of 2022. A full report of the investigation is set to be released in November. Another update tonight, the California DMV is suspending cruises permits for testing driverless taxis in San Francisco. DMV officials citing concern for public safety as the main reason for the suspension, it is effective immediately and no word on how long it'll last. Prue's released a statement saying it is pausing operations and cooperating with the DMV while it reviews a robotaxy pedestrian crash from earlier this month.

And 41 states plus Washington, D.C. are suing Facebook's parent company meta over mental health concerns. Two separate lawsuits allege the social media company intentionally designs features to hook young people and claims other app elements, including likes and filters, ultimately lower their self-esteem. Meta released a statement saying it is committed to providing teens with safe experiences online. Next tonight, the off-duty pilot accused of trying to crash a regional jet now facing state and federal charges, allegedly telling investigators he was having a nervous breakdown and admitted to using psychedelic mushrooms days before the flight. NBC's Tom Costello has the story.

in an Oregon courtroom this afternoon Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson facing 167 counts of attempted murder reckless endangerment and endangering an aircraft plus interfering with a flight crew there is probable cause to believe that defendant has committed one of the offenses today an FBI affidavit claims while off duty riding in the cockpit jump seat Emerson told the pilot and co-pilot I'm not okay then reached up and grabbed the red fire suppression handles to shut down the plane's engines. For nearly 30 seconds, he struggled with the crew before they kicked him out of the cockpit, declaring an emergency. Just give you a heads up. We've got the guy that tried to shut the engines down out of the cockpit. Emerson walked to the rear of the plane where he allegedly told a flight attendant, you need to cuff me right now or it's going to be bad. Then with handcuffs on his wrist, he allegedly tried to open the emergency exit, though that's impossible, saying I messed everything up and tried to kill everybody. And said he thought he was having a nervous breakdown

and hadn't slept in 40 hours. The affidavits say Emerson denied taking any medication but told police he'd been depressed for six years and had taken psychedelic mushrooms 48 hours prior to the flight. Married with the family, neighbors say it was all out of character for the veteran pilot. How he treats the kids, the family, no indications of anything wrong. But the required pilot medical exams do not include in-depth mental health evaluations. The FAA requires pilots to self-report any kind of issues regarding depression or mental illness. But there really is no other intensive psychological screening. Obviously, a background check is performed by the airline and medical records are reviewed, but there's not too much

deep diving into the mental health of a pilot. Emerson pleaded not guilty in court. today, though he did tell investigators he pulled the engine shot off handles because he thought he was having a dream and wanted to wake up and told them, quote, I'm admitting to what I did. He said, I'm not fighting any charges that you want to bring against me. Valerie? All right, Tom Costello, thank you. Now to Top Story's Global Watch, and we begin with the drone attacks on American bases overseas that injured two dozen U.S. military personnel. The U.S. Central Command telling NBC News at least two attack drones targeted, the Al-Tomf military base in southern Syria on October 18th, and on the same day, there were two

separate drone attacks at Al-Assad base in western Iraq. Twenty-four American personnel suffered minor injuries, but they have returned to duty. However, an American contractor died from cardiac arrest while sheltering in place. And an investigation tonight into a deadly train collision in Bangladesh. Authorities say a cargo train slammed into the back of a passenger train outside the capital city of Dhaka. At least 17 people were killed and more than 100 hurt. Officials believe one of the trains may have run a red light. Turning now to Mexico, where the country is bracing for Hurricane Otis,

it's now likely to be a major hurricane when it makes landfall near the city of Acapulco. That has a population of 1 million people. But Otis was just a tropical storm as of yesterday. So let's get right to meteorologist Bill Karens, who has been tracking all of this forest. Bill, what is the latest on Otis, and what are the warnings for residents and tourists there? Valerie, it's hard for me to even accept what I've been seeing today, and I've seen a lot. This is one of the fastest intensifying hurricanes and one of the worst situations that has developed so quickly. It's a worst-case scenario, nightmare scenario for people in the residents, the emergency planners, the government of Mexico.

I mean, you have a million people now in the way it looks like in going towards the eye of a category four, maybe even an outside shot at a Category 5 hurricane. Rarely in our world history have we had something like that with this strong of a storm heading towards a major metropolitan area. So the hurricane center forecast at 5 p.m. had the storm roughly about 30 to 40 miles just towards the west of Acapulco. The eye itself is only about 10, 20 miles wild. That's what you have to avoid.

So that's that red center line. Let me go back to this. This is that red center line. Notice the eye is to the east of that. And if we continue that trend up here, we take this almost. dead center into Acapulco. So we are talking about people right now that are scrambling to get water, to get food, to get to a safe place because tomorrow morning on sunrise, it looks like a major category four, possibly five hurricane. It's going to be right over a major metropolitan

city and tourist resort area of Alcapulco. No one had time to evacuate. All right, Bill, we know you'll be watching that track very closely for us. Thank you. Coming up, pricing out. Mortgage rates now topping a whopping 8%. And experts say Americans will still need six-figure salaries in order to afford the average home. Is this upward trend expected to last and what you should know if you're in the market for a new house? We're back now with the historic mortgage rates pricing Americans out-of-home ownership, a 30-year fixed mortgage surging to 8 percent, the highest in 23 years. So what does this all mean for people looking to buy a home?

Let's bring in Rick Newman, Yahoo Finance columnist. Rick, thanks for being here with us. If those skyrocketing rates weren't troubling enough, Redfin, the real estate company, says Americans now need a salary of over $114,000 a year to afford a typical home. And you can see here that's compared to a little over $50,000 11 years ago. Should people even be considering, contemplating, buying a home right now? Maybe think about it in a few years, if you have the choice, honestly. I mean, it is terrible right now.

And, you know, when you talk about affordability, 114,000 median salary, that's a function of the two things you also mentioned. Prices are high and interest rates now at 8%. Now, you did say interest rates are at a 23-year high. They're not the highest ever. People are hearing record high interest rates. It's the highest in a while. But, you know, for comparison, interest rates were around 8%, 7.5 in the 1990s, a very prosperous

decade. So this is not doom and gloom, but the housing market just takes a long time to react and to change when financial markets change as they have with interest rates. So probably housing values and housing prices are going to come down. But I have to caution. Economists said the same thing around this time last year when they saw interest rates and mortgage rates getting up there, and they haven't really come down. So the housing market will adjust, but it's probably going to take two or three years. Speaking of looking at the future, the National Association of Realtors says there is hope that rates could go down to 6% by the end of next year. Should people wait for

those predictions to come true? So here's what's out of whack. The housing market is out of whack. It's not that unusual to have mortgage rates and interest rates that are 6, 7, 8%. We've seen that historically. It is unusual that prices have shot up the way they did at the beginning of COVID and more or less stayed there and that housing prices have not corrected to some extent because it's so much more expensive to get the loan. So the part that's missing that is going to happen is that housing prices are going to, I mean, we're not going to have a fire sale like we did, we're not going to wipe out in the housing market, but prices are going to have to come down because of this affordability problem.

Another thing that will happen is we have a supply problem. There's not enough. There aren't enough homes. Builders will build more. They are building more. All of this stuff just takes time. And we've had a really fast, a really rapid increase in interest rates. That is unusual.

And the housing market has just not reacted yet. If you can wait, I think it makes a lot of sense. to wait. I know how much people hate this. I mean, you're living in a tiny little space. Right. You think you're never going to be able to afford a home. But the housing market does turn. And just to give people a little bit of hope, I mean, people who were trying to buy a home in the early 2000s during that huge boom thought, there's no way I can afford. These prices are going up 10% every month. And they peaked at around 2006. Nobody knew that was the peak. But then they came down and the bottom occurred around 2012. So it took six years.

Let's say the peak was last year if you use that as a model four or five years from now. So, bottom line, wait. You have to wait. I'm sorry. I know people don't want to hear that, but you will be rewarded if you can afford to wait. Sounds good. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

Thank you. Coming up on Top Story, her name is Journey, and she set a record doing just that. The three-year-old's been to every national park and we'll show you the life we all wish we were living. That's coming up next. And finally, tonight, the incredible national park milestone, visiting all 16, 63 national parks can take years, but one toddler from Texas completing this bucketless journey in record time. From Acadia to Zion, Bryce Canyon to Yellowstone. This three-year-old from Texas has seen it all, one tiny step at a time.

Hey everyone, it's Journey Castillo. Meet Journey Castillo, the youngest person to visit all 63 national parks, her achievement making headlines and getting laughs. A three-year-old girl from Texas has become the youngest person ever to visit all 63 U.S. National Parks, unfortunately in the talons of an eagle. Behind this remarkable journey, mom and dad, Valerie and Eric. At first we weren't doing it as a goal when we first went to Yosemite. She was six months old. We have a video. We were in front of this amazing waterfall, and the waterfall was blowing our hair. and it was just so majestic, and she laughed and giggled. It was so fun.

By the time Journey was 10 months old, the family had visited 20 parks. So cute. Some of her first steps happening on a hike. You know, I think she's got an age now. She's gotten older from two to three. She really stoked in a lot of these parks that we went to the energy from them. I mean, you can feel it. The family sharing that energy with followers on social media. Hey, you inspired us to take our children out. We want to go see the National Park. Journey's passion for the parks, inspiring those young and old.

We get older people that are like, if Journey can do it, I can do it. Thanks so much for watching Top Story. For Tom Yamas and Valerie Castro here in New York, stay right there. More News Now is on the way.