Hallie Jackson NOW - April 21 | NBC News NOW

vicki nguyen in for halle tonight millions more in u.s aid is now on its way to ukraine even as it is unclear who exactly controls the key ukrainian port city of mariopol we've been telling you about it for days now russians laying siege there with buses of refugees just getting out now vladimir putin is claiming victory in the city and volodymir zielinski says russians do have control over a major part of mariopol but president biden says not so fast it's questionable whether he does control mario paul there is no evidence yet that mary paul is completely fallen and here's what the president is doing to help russian ships now banned at american ports 800 million dollars in new military aid plus 500 million dollars in economic aid and a new program to streamline the refugee process alia roosie is in la vie tonight ali the ukrainians were given a deadline to surrender days ago they basically said no we won't we've heard a lot about the steel factory that has now become a last stand with intense fighting there now about 2 000 ukrainian troops still holding out give us the latest on the situation there right now allie hi vicky that's right look the russians have been closing in and in on that city they've you know bombed and destroyed it to oblivion basically and the last stand is at the azvatal steel plant where a handful of ukrainian fighters are holed up in there and from everything we understand the russians have encircled that plant they're not letting anything in or anything out and just to show you how desperate the situation was there some of those fighters were making a plea through a third party saying look if you can get the civilians and the fighters out of here we're willing to go because this may be their last days if not hours according to them so right now maybe the russians don't control the entire city but a pretty much large swathe of it is in their hands uh and they've encircled that plant as vladimir putin said not even a fly can get in there so they're probably trying to make those siege and starvation tactics around that plant yeah if a fly can't get in people can't get out to ali in the donbass region the governor of luhansk is saying there is no there no food warehouse is left and 80 percent of the region has been captured by russia what's happening for the ukrainian citizens there who have no food and do they have a way to get out again it's a very desperate situation in the east i actually spoke to the governor of luhansk a couple of days ago and he was saying that you know the russians are targeting civilians they're making it very hard for them to get out you you'll of course remember the kramatorsk railway station that got bombed a couple of weeks ago the russians are now attacking that city and that is a vital way out of the east for those besieged residents to get out so then that again is becoming a very difficult situation for citizens trying to get out of the east of the country many of them having to get into their own cars and drive out on their own steam ali let's turn to this refugee program that president bayern has announced he's planning to streamline the process to welcome up to a hundred thousand people who are running from the violence do we have a sense of how many ukrainians are trying to come here to the us versus those who are staying closer in europe well um i was actually speaking to a couple of our ukrainian producers here to get a gauge of that and they said probably more than a hundred thousand would want to go to the us but that they wouldn't want to stay there permanently these are very proud people they want to come back to their homes they want to get back to their lives they want to see if their homes are standing so it would be a temporary respite for them from this war and of course you know europe is much easier for them they have connections they have circles of support in poland this just across the border the us is a long way away for them but it's still uh an opening that they would more than happily take in these very desperate times well it's good to see that they're they're being welcomed ali aruzi thank you so much for your reporting florida today voted to strip disney of its special tax status after house lawmakers passed the bill in a 68 to 38 vote governor ron desantis is expected to sign it as early as tomorrow the 55 year old deal allowed disney to build theme parks and hotels with little to no oversight it is a deal that's not been given to other theme parks like universal lego land or sea world republican lawmakers say this vote is well it seems like retribution uh for disney's feud with desantis over the parental rights and education bill that's also been dubbed the don't say gay bill by its critics the law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade and maura barrett has been following this all along she's in florida's capital in tallahassee where it wasn't just the weather that got heated today maura we heard a little bit about it there but this really did not go over well with some folks who think this is political that it's unfair and that basically it is retaliation against one of the area's biggest employers and sources of tax revenue so what are the people who actually live there saying about this new bill well this is something that impacts everybody in florida right and though the ultimate issue aside from the tourism that gets brought in because of disney world is the people that live in the surrounding areas employed by disney world tens of thousands of them but also the people that live there because the issue is is taxes and debt that could be transferred from disney world to the surrounding counties of osceola and orange counties as uh disney world gets dissolved will then just transfer themselves to those surrounding counties and those taxpayers disney has about a billion dollars in in debt in the form of a bond that could then be transferred i spoke though with representative randy feinstein who sponsored the bill and he actually says that they're planning that this is just the first step that they'll ultimately transfer uh the the tax revenue that would have come directly to disney to those taxpayers in those surrounding counties so he sees it actually as a positive but there's a lot of concern right now obviously when you talk about raising someone's taxes vicki yeah that's interesting that's the first i've heard because i had read that it'd be on average maybe two thousand dollars in taxes a higher tax bill for the citizens there but now maybe they're going to try to make it a bonus we'll see let's talk about disney's actual options now this legislation we talked about it it would dismantle disney's special district at the beginning of june next year so that's over a year away walk us through the things disney would lose and then like is there any more clarity on what this means for the residents in osceola and orange county right so disney right now basically has free free-for-all in terms of when it comes to managing its sewage systems fire department emergency services utilities and they get to pay for that all because of the revenue that they bring in and they essentially tax themselves they're going to lose all of that over the next year as this dissolves we do expect that this could be challenged disney has yet to comment specifically about it but the other thing that lawmakers noted to me today when speaking about it they said hey disney can come and work with us to compromise and put in a plan in place to do something similar to what universal does for example when they want to expand their theme park because that's the type of relationship they're looking for going forward they want to fix the relationship here but like you mentioned this is straight retaliation around disney pushing back against that don't say gay bill because that angered a lot of conservative lawmakers here and i've never seen lawmakers act so quickly this all obviously seems to point back to politics the governor already fundraising off of this he acknowledges it he's written in an email now is the time to put the power back in the hands of floridians and out of the pockets of woke executives we know that he has widely been seen as a candidate for president in 2024 but this move sort of alienates big business and the beloved mouse which has its own massive following could this end up backfiring that remains to be seen right it's still early to tell still early to figure out whether this is going to affect those taxes of those surrounding counties but what i will say is it follows a trend that we've seen in other states as companies make social political stances in georgia politicians pushed back after delta spoke out against the restrictive voting law last year the same thing in texas when citigroup said that they would allow and pay for their employees to travel out of state after texas banned abortions after six weeks and so it is a trend that we're seeing but we haven't seen how it impacts politicians when uh voters go to vote vicki will be interesting too to see how it impacts consumers and what they think about visiting the parks maura thank you so much court wrapped for the day in fairfax virginia after some contentious moments with johnny depp back on the stand for cross-examination the defense going through profanity-filled text messages depp exchanged with his friends highlighting his history of substance abuse and threats toward his ex-wife amber heard they're trying to paint him as an angry person you've trashed hotel rooms before simply because you've had a bad couple days and an unpleasant time correct i have assaulted a couch or two yes sir you'd agree that at times in your life you've expressed yourself through destructive behavior um yes depp's spokesperson saying in part today that depp is a victim himself of abuse and that quote colorful texts which johnny has already apologized for do not equate to physical actions depp is suing herd for 50 million dollars over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in the washington post where she said she was a survivor of domestic abuse depp claims the article ruined his reputation even though he was not mentioned specifically by name heard he's counter-suing him for a hundred million dollars joining me now is steve patterson steve the defense really went after depth substance abuse history they asked him about his special box with the letters jd and was it his container for cocaine now depp has already said he experimented with all sorts of drugs by the time he was 15 years old so what do you think the jury thought of this cross-examination today is it going to leave a mark vicki to be a fly on the wall in that jury room after what the jury heard today and what the jury saw today you know evidence of those text messages which went from you know drug abuse to violence to grotesquery pictures of johnny depp allegedly on drugs audio recordings of johnny depp in a rage video recordings of johnny depp uh allegedly taken by amber heard either at this point i believe it's binary right either at this point you're thinking that this is revealing and you're showing the grotesquery of a man that actually could strike a woman or you're you're thinking that this all of this is badgering to the point uh of an unnecessariness um and i think the jury you could go either way depending on what they believe about that story that was set up before we got to the cross-examination because talking and being honest about his history of drug use about abuse that he suffered as a child all part of the strategy to deal with this point in the testimony this cross-examination which has just been as you mentioned just hot and heavy since minute one today vicki yes steve that leads me to my next question talking about the strategy i watched a lot of the testimony today sometimes it was repetitive other times as you said graphic some of the texts obviously did not paint a flattering picture of depth and his substance abuse or how he spoke of heard in various text exchanges and at times he appeared to get really irritated with the defense attorney do you think that's part of their strategy to get under his skin to try to reveal a different side of johnny depp to the jury that that they may not have seen before i mean he is a public figure clearly i mean clearly a strategy from uh heard's attorneys especially considering the fact that as we saw earlier in the testimony before it got to the cross examination johnny depp is a guy that likes to tell stories he's very verbose he's very meandering in the way that he presented his information and the way he described his relationship with herd this attorney not allowing him to do that whatsoever and in doing so you can see the annoyance on his face you can see those flashes uh of of you know fight in his eyes essentially with that attorney and even jibbing with him going back and forth i want to play for you just one exchange listen to this mr deputy trying to respect the court's time and the jury's time that was not my question my question was you would agree you would agree you can hear the contention there uh also cracking jokes and feeling frustrated uh certainly you know i would think legal strategists or analysts would consider that not a good thing you want to remain stoic uh when you're in court on trial especially when you're the plaintiff vicki and keep the answer short is what every attorney always says this case i want to turn to the fact that it is shedding light on how domestic violence affects men the national coalition against domestic violence says one in ten men experience sexual physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner we don't often hear from men about being abused and depp has talked not only about himself but also about how his mother yelled at his father and at times was physical with him too steve yeah part of depth strategy and i think it's important to hear because we don't often hear about men being abused men certainly internalize that more than they verbalize that but again i think it's important to know it is part of the strategy absolutely his team knew that it would get to this stage in the cross-examination where you'd be hearing about johnny depp's drug use and seeing some of the results of that according to herd's attorneys and and so they wanted to establish that a history of violence as depth claims with his mother and his father uh being physically abused being mentally abused and that has led to his behavior although his attorneys say that behavior does not include physical violence on his own terms whether or not the jury believes that i mean we're going to find out in a few weeks vicki all right and they take a break for tomorrow on fridays all right steve patterson we appreciate it thanks so much thank you we turn now to some breaking news out of kentucky a federal judge is blocking a restrictive new anti-abortion law that completely shut down the procedure in the state the challenge is supported by the state's two abortion providers the law does not include an exemption for rape or incest it also puts restrictions on girls under 18 seeking abortions and it requires the state to monitor those who provide fda approved abortion medication through the mail kentucky's democratic governor andy beshear had voted had vetoed the bill but he was overruled by the republican-controlled house he says the law is unconstitutional so we're going to bring in cynthia oxney to help us break this all down cynthia thanks for joining us explain the law for us is it fair to say it is one of those trigger laws that is designed to work its way up to the supreme court as a challenge perhaps to roe v wade it's really um a law that's designed to mirror the case that's already in front of it's already in front of the supreme court out of mississippi and what's different about these cases this year is these are laws that are written on purpose to challenge uh planned parenthood v casey and roe v wade the people who write these laws know that they violate those court proceed precedents and what they're trying to do is get com get it completely overturned because they have a different supreme court and they think with kavanaugh and barrett that they can get roe v wade overturned and they very well likely will how long do you think this will take cynthia to work its way through the courts and in the meantime what does this mean for women in kentucky well it's all bad news i mean i think we need to face the fact as women that we're about not to have a right to control our own bodies after a bare minimum of 15 weeks and that's what's going to happen because i predict the supreme court will overturn roe v wade they will or they will alter it in such a way that it's unrecognizable and they will uphold the mississippi law which is the 15 weeks no abortions after 15 weeks which is the exact same as this law this law mirrors the mississippi law so that's what we're faced with in this particular case the judge is going to have a hearing within the next two weeks and so we'll see what she does then but the supreme court should be ruling in june or july and we'll have some finality about the demise of our rights by then well we see what's happened in oklahoma these laws affect the nearby states as well as women go to those states to seek abortion procedures cynthia oxney we appreciate it thank you news signs tonight that the justice department's investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election could be picking up momentum alex jones is considered a high-profile witness in the investigation you know him he's the guy who hosts infowars that is a conspiracy driven talk show through his lawyer jones tells nbc news that he maintains his innocence but he's willing to talk about his role in the january 6th attack on the capital if he gets immunity the new york times broke the story that jones is looking for a deal before he speaks out jones used his infowars program to repeatedly question the 2020 election results claims that are totally false he got people riled up on january 6 too he was there with a bullhorn he helped lead a crowd of trump supporters to the capitol ali vitali joins me now to break down what all is happening here hey ali what do you think the justice department is specifically looking for in questioning jones and do you think there's a world where the justice department would would agree to give him immunity in exchange for this testimony look that's really the open question here but i think that you lay out exactly why they want to talk to someone like alex jones and why it seems like this doj investigation is heating up when you see people who you often talk about in the same breath as alex jones people like ali alexander who played parts in fomenting that big lie but also planning the rallies that led to what happened here on january 6 in jones's case as you mentioned leading people here with a bullhorn that's exactly why he's a key target in this investigation it's unclear whether or not they'll give him immunity we do know that in the way that this doj investigation is separate but in some ways intersects and overlaps with the conversations that the house committee to investigate january 6th are having jones has similarly pled the fifth in those conversations when he's been in front of the committee so it is a moment to look at the ways that these two separate investigations actually overlap and in the case of jones again he's saying he didn't do anything wrong but he'd cooperate if he had immunity you do sort of have to wonder if you didn't do anything wrong why do you need immunity and that's one of the open questions here as well that's a good question and so much of what he said was public i'm curious what they would want to know that he said or did privately let me ask you about this his lawyer gave nbc news a statement he says mr jones does not trust the federal government especially in the wake of disclosures made in the whitmer trial about entrapment now he's referencing the trial of the four men who were accused of trying to kidnap michigan governor gretchen whitmer two or acquitted mistrials for the other two why why is even bringing that up yeah look it's also part of like trying to muddy the waters here a little bit bringing in this case which is frankly separate and apart and doesn't have anything to do with what's happening with alex jones the argument in the whitmer case of course was that the government basically spurred these men to commit the crime of planning to kidnap the governor of michigan it was a controversial ruling the way that it actually shook out with those four men here though i don't know how anyone could argue that the government got alex jones to lead people to the ellipse on january 6th that's just one of the ways that this team seems to be trying to muddy the waters here even though the two things really have nothing to do with each other it seems that way ali vitali thank you you got it former president obama today is calling for more regulation on tech companies and more transparency from them on how they operate in a speech he just finished at stanford university mr obama talked about how the internet was key to getting him elected but also says it came with a price over time we lose our capacity to distinguish between fact opinion and wholesale fiction people are dying because of misinformation today's speech quite different from the last time he was at stanford back in 2016 when he talked about diversity and entrepreneurship he was moderating a panel back then with facebook founder mark zuckerberg ben collins joins me now ben great reporter on disinformation you've been following this for years now mr obama started his speech today by talking about all the benefits of the internet and social media before taking a turn and talking about the danger of disinformation i mean you heard what he just said there what stands out to you from his comments today and he actually brought up former president trump as well yeah he said there's uh quote a grimness to social media right now which i don't think anybody can disagree with it's a different reality than uh the platforms that got him elected uh you know over a decade ago so it is a different space in a different world and what he's saying is there's a problem with the pipes here there's a problem uh with the very systems that make it so the sensational and the ugly and the angry and the hateful stuff gets to you before uh regular uh communal based stuff that could prop up and help democracies that's the larger point of his speech something should be done from a government level to try to rein in all of the hate speech and stuff but not just to ban accounts and not to do it piecemeal but to talk about this from an algorithmic algorithmic standpoint i love how you said that the problem is with the pipes what information is being out there what's being shared what's being pumped up in our feeds right the stuff that gets people upset the stuff that gets people mad that's divisive that may not be true but gets a lot of engagement is what rises to the top and then it comes out into our real life talk to me about the reaction in silicon valley from the big companies you've got twitter you have meta i mean they they're the ones that can make this information go viral what are they saying how are they responding yeah no response from either of them yet but uh i'm sure they're used to this conversation at this point uh you know they know they are that their platforms for several years uh really without any governor on it um it pushed lies and conspiracy theories and say sensationalism first uh they have since taken some steps to rein that in it's been become a political issue because um they one side believes that they are benefiting from that more than the other but i would say the most interesting part of the speech is that he said there's a supply problem as well as a demand problem here where you know you can uh you can talk about the social media networks all you want but at the end of the day there is a massive market for hate and conspiracy and that's what uh drives fear of the other in our brains and uh you know obama said basically in in in so many words uh it's a social media problem but it's a problem with our problem culturally and it's probably their media that pushes this stuff uh into the forefront ben we've seen washington hesitate when it comes to regulating these companies with mr obama now making the rounds expressing his opinions do you think that is going to have any impact on the debate does it move the needle at all in terms of legislation yeah it's really hard to know if anything is going to change fundamentally here but i will say that you know he has he has taken a more moderate position in general about this stuff he called himself as close to a free speech absolutist as possible in this speech i know a lot of people on the right won't believe that but you know he's much closer to the center than a lot of people on the left in in uh these conversations in the past so it's possible that uh his word might be taken more seriously than a standard democrat right now ben collins we appreciate the perspective thank you so much coming up a senate race showdown in pennsylvania how things are heating up for the candidates and their parties and spoiler alert rudy giuliani was revealed on the mass singer last night didn't go over too well with some people including one judge that's next in the five things [Music] the battle for the open pennsylvania senate seat is heating up with the primaries for both parties less than a month away tonight a democratic debate between lieutenant governor john fetterman and congressman conor lamb their primary race filled with attack ads and scrutiny surrounding a racial incident from 2013 that fetterman was involved in a recent poll has federmen leading with 41 percent lamb at 17 26 of voters still undecided and the republican primary is just as divided leading candidates include david mccormick who has tried to cast himself as the trump candidate he was recently endorsed by former secretary of state mike pompeo and then there's tv personality dr mamet oz who is actually the trump candidate he just picked up the former president's endorsement joining me now is mark murray mark let's start with the republicans how much is the trump factor going to play into voters decisions there in pennsylvania yeah it's certainly going to help amendment oz the question is whether it's going to be decisive or not before the trump endorsement or mostly before there was a franklin and marshall poll that came out showing it a really close race with oz at 16 among registered republican primary voters uh and mccormick at 15 and then noticeably as you end up seeing 43 percent undecided the expectation is that the trump endorsement is going to help mimic oz but david mccormick also has roots in the state uh he has tons of money that he's going to be airing uh and the race i think for a lot of analysts is still very competitive despite oz seeming to have just the slight edge due to the trump endorsement yeah a lot of voters still up for grabs how is the mccormick camp feeling they got the pompeo endorsement that former president trump went with dr oz and now there's talk that dr oz's campaign funds may be enough to keep up with mccormack and help him promote that trump endorsement yeah they're the mccormick side definitely is going to have enough money at their disposal and so will oz but it is notable that mccormick and his super pac have been outspending oz in his super pac and so money is still going to keep mccormick in the race another advantage that mccormick might be able to have to defeat oz is just geography where mccormick comes from the western part of pennsylvania oz has residency in the eastern part near philadelphia and its suburbs as do the other republicans who are vying for this senate seat and so if mccormick is somehow able to dominate the western part of the state maybe that gives him a shot now let's turn to the democrats this is the first time democratic candidates have been on stage together for a debate a lot of attacks on betterment with his focus on the racial incident back in 2013. what happened back then and do you think voters care because he's ahead by a lot right now 26 of voters are still undecided but he's got a sizable lead i expect this to be the fireworks and the serious part of tonight's debate and this all revolves around in 2013 when fetterman was mayor of tiny braddock pennsylvania which is right outside of pittsburgh according to fetterman he ended up hearing gunshots took out his gun and ended up pointing it in the direction of an an african-american man who was an unarmed uh jogger at the time and this happened in 2013 well before george the floyd incident and a lot of the nation and the democratic party's reckoning on race and there is the concern that if this gets litigated in the general election and not during the democratic primary season the republicans could use this in tv ads to really uh to keep down and to dissuade african americans for voting for uh fetterman uh but it'll be interesting to see how fetterman responds to this in the past just said he was defending his family and he did nothing wrong all right mark murray pennsylvania a very important state that senate seat thank you let's get you over to the five things our team thinks you should know about tonight number one 13 sexual assault victims of larry nassar want 10 million dollars each from the fbi the group claims the agency mishandled the investigation and that led to more abuse by the sports doctor the fbi's director has apologized for delays in nassar's prosecution number two cnn plus is shutting down the streaming service is being taken offline less than one month after launching the platform was bringing in less than ten thousand daily viewers during its first two weeks customers who signed up for the service will get refunds number three big tennis names are speaking out against wimbledon's decision to ban russian and bella russian players over the war in ukraine novak djokovic is calling it crazy while martina navratrova says the decision is short-sighted the all england club says it would reconsider if the situation in ukraine changes number four asap rocky is out on over half a million dollars bond after his arrest yesterday at lax the rapper was detained in connection to a november shooting while law enforcement searched his los angeles home he has a court date set for august and number five rudy giuliani was finally revealed on the masked singer after months of rumors and judge ken jong walked off stage in protest other judges seemed to laugh but zhang says he was done before leaving the set giuliani is the former mayor of new york city and former personal lawyer to donald trump he was wearing a jack-in-the-box costume on the fox singing show thousands of people are leaving their homes right now as the tunnel fire in arizona is nearly tripling in size flames have burned through more than 20 thousand acres other western states dealing with drought are facing fire threats like new mexico utah and colorado this comes as a new report from the american lung association out today says the quality of air we're breathing is getting worse and that wildfires are to blame for the increase in air pollution michelle grossman joins me now michelle let's start with the arizona wildfires we know there's a ton of dry brush out west and it doesn't take much for a spark to turn into a massive wildland fire wind makes it so much worse is there any relief in sight tonight hi there vicki yeah i know all the ingredients are there and typically we're talking about this in the summertime early fall but it's april and we're already talking about drought conditions low humidity really gusty winds we're going to see winds gusting to 80 miles per hour tomorrow that's almost impossible to kind of extinguish a fire so let's go ahead and look at the risk today tonight and then also tomorrow so we're looking at red flag warnings that's 15 million at risk and what this means is it's sort of the highest alert it's a warning to the residents that even a small spark could start a big wildfire so we're seeing this red flag warning stretching all the way to the central plains to the southern plains to the southwest including nevada arizona new mexico we're talking about that uh wildflower burning in arizona and that's not the only one so 15 million at risk strong winds 16 million 60 miles per hour possible but again some spots in northern new mexico new mexico could see 80 miles per hour winds and we're going to see rapid fire spread is likely so the forecast for tonight we have a critical risk that's where we're seeing the red that includes amarillo lubbock also raton and that's where we're looking at really low humidity and also those gusty winds that could spark those fla fires and then as we look towards tomorrow this is a dangerous situation i want to get stream read this from the severe prediction center an extremely critical fire weather for proportions of central and eastern new mexico into eastern colorado and the biggest concern there they're looking for an outbreak or concern about an outbreak of wildfires so that's where you're seeing the extreme risk that really hot pink lamar denver raton down to albuquerque we also have a critical risk once again including el paso silver lake and also denver so i'm going to end it here but 50 55 in a drought we have those grasses and trees that are really dry and tomorrow we're going to see those really gusty winds and also low humidity levels vicky michelle grossman good to see you thank you in tonight's back story we're going to introduce you to a team of women working together to crack cold cases in new york city that's coming up in just a bit you want to be here for that the first nbc news covers hundreds of stories each day and because you couldn't possibly read watch or listen to them all our bureau teams have done it for you this is what they tell us is going down in their regions in a segment we like to call the local from our west coast bureau the lapd is on the lookout for three armed men who robbed an airbnb the thieves apparently got away with an estimated 75 thousand dollars in cash jewelry and electronics it is the latest in a string of crimes that officials are now calling follow home robberies from our washington bureau capitol police defending their decision to evacuate lawmakers from the capitol last night after a pregame show at nationals park caused a brief panic the event was pre-planned but apparently the faa never told officials who thought it was a terror threat house speaker nancy pelosi says congress is going to review what happened and from our northeast bureau police in philadelphia are cracking down on stolen shopping carts one official says it's a quality of life issue because the cards are being left on streets they're rolling into traffic shopping cart theft actually cost the country get this 800 million dollars a year a cart once ran into our new car put a dent in it but that's neither here nor there while a lot of the country may be coming down from the high of 420 it looks like it's just getting started in new jersey legal cannabis sales starting there today new jersey is one of 18 states that has legalized the use of both medical and recreational marijuana voters there were more excited than any of those other states check this out a 2020 measure that passed there with more than two-thirds support that was the largest victory for any weed measure in the u.s it's so popular the agency overseeing sales worries the state might run out of supply that is because just 13 locations are open today and you see the lines already there stretching down the block there are questions though about whether the state will live up to its promise that the industry will be diverse fair and equitable antonia hilton is in maplewood new jersey tonight at one of the dispensaries hey antonia let's start there a big to-do was made about diversity in communities of color being unfairly punished over the years for non-violent drug possession crimes but the 13 businesses that opened today not one none he's minority owned so if it was such a priority why hasn't it happened and what is now being done to address it you're exactly right vicky and look this is a tough business to get into and there are a number of reasons for that i mean this is a state that is heavily regulated in terms of business but then this is a complicated industry and because they're shut out of the federal banking system because it's not legalized yet on a federal level that means a business creating all of this has to do it with cash and customers who come in have to do all of their work with either a debit card or with cash and that presents a lot of problems for any entrepreneur who doesn't have a lot of cash on hand and that tends to disproportionately impact minorities trying to get into this game and so money is a huge factor lack of access to the financing financing systems here is a huge factor but then as you mentioned there's this history right that they're trying to address black and brown communities in new jersey over-criminalized for use of marijuana and now there's a desire among activists organizers businesses here to try to address that take a listen some of my conversation with john harmon he is the ceo of the african-american chamber of commerce and he wants to address these issues with the regulatory commission head on there was a big debt that we paid as a result and so if this is going to be an economic opportunity with the hope of transforming lives and in in standing up communities we shouldn't be able to participate at a level that's commencement with our existence in this state and that participation right now looks like about 37 out of 68 folks who've gotten conditional licenses awarded to them so if they can open shops like this one they are diversely owned so minority-led businesses so while right now the 13 shops that are open are not owned by any minorities they expect that soon in the next couple weeks and months the industry is going to reshape itself around what new jersey really looks like vicki antonia you're there it looks like it's buzzing i've seen a lot of these fancy dispensaries that one looks like a boutique can you kind of just take us around tell us what stood out to you what are you seeing and was were there any concerns about inventory running low today well in terms of inventory absolutely there were concerns because people got in line at 6 45 a.m even though this place didn't open until nine and you have to remember there are patients who depend on their medicinal cannabis in addition to now all these new because consumers who are coming in just to get it because now it's available and frankly a lot of them are here and they're just excited to be some of the first to buy products like this i mean they have pre-rolls there are gummies lozenges there's all kinds of like unbelievable strains that i haven't seen ever before in my life and people have been spending time here honestly just like window shopping and i think enjoying the immersive experience and an unstigmatized experience because that's sort of part of the story as well right that it's not that this is some folks first time ever smoking or interacting with this plant but that there's been a stigma and they see spaces like this one is not just an economic driver but a cultural shifter and so that's part of the excitement that i think has led so many new jerseyans to be at this spot and all the others that our team has seen footage of today and i think that it's also led to a lot of excitement around the community because other businesses nearby are expected to benefit from all that vicki learned a lot there antonia thank you for that immersive report we appreciate it now after the break a behind the scenes look at the team of women working to crack cold cases in new york city stephanie goss sat down with them and she has the back story next it's time to get to the back story our behind the scenes look at how a story comes together and how it fits into our bigger picture every year there are more than 600 000 people of all ages who go missing across this country a lot of those cases actually get solved pretty quickly thanks to law enforcement but more than 4 000 bodies a year go unidentified the officials who find them sometimes just finding remains and they're unable to say who these people are or where they came from so there's actually an all-women team in the new york city medical examiner's office and they are working to answer those questions for me it's just heartbreaking to know that somebody is still unidentified because somebody loved them somebody cared for them and we should too one tool they use called name us is key to what they do it's a database of missing people it's used by both law enforcement and families they have other strategies too like looking at people's teeth reconstructing faces from skulls using clay and even 3d printing stephanie goss joins me now stephanie this is so interesting because most of the cases this team investigates they're people with known identities but there's this whole other layer of unknown people how did you learn about this steph and why did you say we we have to tell this story that was really the thing that intrigued us the most and particularly me i i didn't realize i thought that with all the technology we have out there dna technology and fingerprints and all the rest of it that that these bodies would be identified but you know this actually this story the genesis of it goes back to a story that we did on 9 11 where we discovered there were a lot of unidentified remains from 9 11 we worked with the medical examiner's office here in new york city on that story and it was because of that relationship that we built with them that they came back to us and said you got to check this one out you need to talk to this team of women these are women who work in the medical examiner's office typically their work as i mentioned in the story is is for these cases where they know the identity and it's almost as if it's their free time where they look into these mysteries they have 1300 unidentified remains and that's where they kind of pull out all the stops with their good old-fashioned detective techniques and also some of this really fascinating high-tech stuff they told us about this one case this woman that they found in 2011 and they figured out from a denture that she was wearing that she was likely an immigrant from mexico or central america and then looking at her actual teeth they used an analysis of isotopes i don't know what they are so don't worry i'm just just throwing the word out there isotopes that actually showed that as a child she ate things at different elevations meaning she traveled from the coast up into the mountains frequently so then they looked at the map of latin america and central america and particularly said ah it looks like she was from honduras i mean that kind of stuff just sort of blows your mind but ultimately what they want to do is get families to react to some of this information and reach out to them vicki all from a tooth this is remarkable and it says a lot about you steph that they contacted you and said hey we want to entrust you with this story what stood out to you from your conversations with this all woman team like why are there no men in the team is it just coincidence it it kind of is just coincidence and you know they were like well we never really even thought about it that much but but it is kind of unique in this field there aren't a lot of women in this field what's interesting to me and what was so captivating about talking and this was one of those interviews vicki where not only did i want to do a story on them i kind of wanted to be them by the end of it they are so personally involved in all of these cases and they they all said that there are there are unidentified bodies that they take home with them they think about these people one of them talked about uh the body of a young man that was found years ago and he and he had a backpack on him and it was filled with things that you would have you would imagine you would find in a kid's backpack like art supplies and a notebook and an um a graphic novel um and and that's what drives them they want to be able to bring these bring names to these unidentified bodies vicky like one of those investigators said steph you know someone loved them and this is the work that they're doing on behalf of those folks stephanie goss thanks so much for joining us for the backstory you're welcome nice to see you good to see you too and that is a wrap for this hour we will have more for you here tomorrow same time same place coverage picks up right now [Music] thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app you

2022-04-25 10:18

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