NOW Tonight with Joshua Johnson - May 6 | NBC News NOW

[Music] hello there i'm joshua johnson it's great to be with you on this friday may 6th and here is some of what we're talking about tonight russia's invasion is heating up in eastern ukraine will the ukrainians keep control there or will russian attacks grind them down we're live with the latest what a time to be debating abortion rights this sunday is mother's day an anti-abortion advocate joins us live and we will share more of your stories about making this pivotal choice also an update on congresswoman marjorie taylor-green's re-election bid a judge ruled on whether her alleged ties to january 6 should disqualify her and congressman madison cawthorne is denouncing an explicit video of him released ahead of his primary but technology's putting more people at risk of this kind of exposure how can we avoid letting an upload be our downfall [Music] [Music] so far russia has failed to take keeve so it's making a big push to control eastern ukraine the ukrainian military has its hands full trying to prevent that today russia ramped up its assault on the azo style steel plant in mario poll that's in southeastern ukraine ukraine's deputy prime minister says that about 50 people were able to evacuate today they've been stuck there for weeks russian forces have reportedly breached part of the plant it remains the last stronghold for ukrainian troops in the east president vladimir zelinski said he is doing what he can to get them out today there was one sign that the two sides could successfully negotiate it was a prisoner swap ukraine sent 41 people back to russia the russians returned 41 people 28 troops plus 13 civilians meanwhile the u.n security council backed peace efforts in ukraine russia is on that council but it supported those efforts too the council released its first joint statement since the war began expressing strong support for a peaceful resolution and the white house today made another show of support for ukraine first lady jill biden met with nato troops in romania it was the first stop on her four-day tour of the ukrainian border nbc's cal perry joins us now from kiev and cal what more if anything do we know about what's happening in mario paul so i think you pretty much covered it i mean i i hate to say it's kind of desperate and on the edge of of sort of completion with russian troops moving into that area that's what we continue to hear from commanders but then we have um these small breaks of daylight where for example today 50 people were able to make it out the deputy prime minister talking about how that aid convoy got stalled at that steel plant came under fire she said they were trying to reach more people in the city they couldn't and so they just kind of quickly got out of there there are to our understanding at least 20 children still in that basement there are a number at least 100 or so civilians women and children we don't know if their spouses family or fighters but you know that's quite likely this is the last remaining stronghold um and there's a lot of fear that russia is going to try to wrap this up before victory day may the 9th um to try to make some example um you know a propaganda example of some of some massive victory that they would sort of frame um to moscow i was just going to ask you about that i mean this is a celebration in russia of the victory over the nazis this is what a lot of people know as ve day victory in europe day often marked on may 8th it'll be marked on may 9th in russia and there's some concern that in the lead-up to this that russian troops are going to be bombarding the ukrainians very heavily yeah and there's fear across the country we're going to start to see these sort of rolling curfews and and the president tonight asking people to pay attention uh to those air raid sirens the mayor talking about the need for people to stay inside to not have any of these sort of mass events um outside there certainly it seems to be sort of a country on high alert um a lot of people are sort of taking these warnings seriously um it's unclear though you know moscow has said that that this is ukrainian propaganda that they will not as they put declare um war on ukraine that was a rumor that president vladimir putin would declare war on ukraine thus mobilizing some massive amount of troops um it is clear certainly that they have picked up the pace of these operations that fighting in the east is more fierce that we've seen an uptick in the cruise missile fire as it comes into the center of the country and to the western part of the country and again targeting infrastructure seemingly in it for the long haul which i think does have a lot of people here uh concerned joshua let's talk more about the u.s government's response the pentagon has been trying to respond to these stories about u.s intelligence sharing there was a new york times report stating that u.s intelligence allowed the ukrainians to take out certain russian generals the pentagon pushed back on that we have reported about u.s intelligence helping

sink a key russian warship what's the latest we're hearing from the defense department and we at nbc news are now quoting the president in a closed door meeting with intelligence officials calling these reports unhelpful i think it's the disclosure obviously of the information that is unhelpful look russia has been saying that this is a proxy war that the u.s is funding uh eastern ukraine not just with money in financing but with weapons providing training and then providing intelligence and this will only sort of lend more weight uh to what they say on on the ground in russia the there's a tap dance routine happening in washington both at the white house uh press events daily and now the pentagon press events daily because the media is for all the obvious reasons hitting hard on u.s officials here's a little bit of what john kirby today said about that intelligence as it relates to that ship the moskva take a listen we do provide them information about russian units both at sea and ashore what i can tell you is we didn't provide them specific targeting information for that ship and we were not involved in their decision uh to strike that ship [Music] that was on morning joe this morning interesting choice of words there we did not provide them with targeting information the original reporting uh was that we helped the us uh intelligence i should say um helped with locating that ship and that ukrainian forces um sort of downrange then then took it out but again possibly a distinction without a difference right for russian officials if you're talking about the sinking of this ship which the us intelligence believes costs the lives of hundreds of russian sailors or the targeting of of russian generals if the intelligence originated in the united states i think it's quite possible that russia could use that as an excuse to to widen the conflict joshua meanwhile the first lady is visiting over mother's day weekend tell us a little bit more about her trip so far and and so many mothers and daughters she's going to see in in slovakia on mother's day of course men of a fighting age um required to stay behind and fight um here in ukraine she kicked off her visit by visiting u.s troops um in romania there there is a bolstering of the forces there in romania as there is in poland as there is um in nato countries um across europe she started by reading stories to uh the children of service members who are deployed overseas thanking them as she said for their service as well here's here's a little bit of a clip from that event [Music] the end and nathan thank you for your service because when your mom serves the family serves too so thank you for your service nathan i love you i'll see you soon happy mother's day [Music] splitting her time between showing support for u.s service members and of course the humanitarian effort on behalf of the millions of refugees 5 million refugees have left this country there are still 7.7 million internally displaced persons and sort of big picture here which is where we started this uh this live shot it'll be interesting to see if there is a slowdown of people returning to their homes because of victory day on may the 9th and of course if we do see violence sort of spread throughout the country joshua yeah and if that happens then some of the corridors that were established to try to get people out might have to be reestablished and we could be starting this whole process all over again thank you cal that's nbc's cal perry starting us off tonight from kiev now before russia invaded ukraine many military analysts expected keefe to fall within weeks the ukrainian people made sure that did not happen with civilians joining the fight some folks trained one another in using a weapon that is crude but simple and highly effective i hope i don't have to say this out loud but please do not try what you are about to see at home leave it to the ukrainians who spoke to nbc foreign correspondent matt bradley you could call it ukraine's new national pastime and we have a two choices to throw the bottle we call this bowling style like that and baseball style like that ivan used to be a builder now he teaches the art of the molotov cocktail you know the u.s

just gave 33 billion dollars in aid high-tech weapons is this still useful in that kind of fight yes for normal people who didn't took in the war everybody can do this everybody can throw this uh women mens old man's children even me so the us is pledging tons of high-tech weapons but for ukrainian civilians this is still a big part of the arsenal and ukrainians have used them here in zappos not far from the front lines billboards even advertised the best places to toss them at russian tanks yet even ivan admits that the molotov's medicine is mostly placebo uh it's more than a psychological thing yeah they're just more than weapons they feel like they can actually hold the power in their hands yes literally yes they can do this at home in a in the kitchen can make this and protect your family but ukraine has already shown tremendous success in the face of superior weapons and overwhelming force showing their strength comes from solidarity and a sense of purpose the civilians who come to this old warehouse aren't just getting an education in a spree decor they're weaving camouflage nets that will be used by real soldiers and sewing vests for body armor how many hours a day is this whole thing running we work three shifts to run 24 hours a day in wartime every rosie can become a riveter were you doing like haute couture type stuff like like runway model stuff i was a designer of accessories clothes and shoes this is for sniper rifles and you designed this and made this and everything great much of this civilian made material will go to civilian soldiers the militias who still rank among ukraine's most effective fighting units here in zapposia old cars are stripped and smelted into body armor and russian weapons are used to test them have you ever been shot while wearing one of these plates the escort as a shooter no but i know guys who have now the whole world is rallying around ukraine the country is brimming with the finest new weapons but they're mass-produced store-bought you guys are getting a lot of high-tech equipment from america but do you feel like the stuff that you're building here is just as good as the world the war is pushing our technology to develop faster as the war continues we're catching up and for these ukrainian volunteers even with all the help they still prefer it homemade that was nbc's matt bradley reporting as for the civilians who left ukraine the orders from the beginning were to let women and children leave motherhood does not stop for war so spara thought on this mother's day weekend for two ukrainian moms juggling an incredible amount of responsibility right now nbc news now anchor aaron gilchrist has their story two mothers juggling the hardships of war with the challenges of raising children when we went to go get water from the river we saw dead bodies everywhere i promised my husband to save the children that's why i decided to leave marina and her family are from mariopo she fled with her sons west to nepro when the shelling became unbearable her husband stayed back to fight ukraine ukraine is brave i believe in our forces i don't want to go abroad i want to live here and i believe in ukraine you should maria mother of two-year-old veronica didn't want to risk staying in her war-torn country she's deep into her third trimester and expecting another baby any day now after seeing the footage for mariopol where the russians bombed the maternity hospital i knew we had to leave maria her daughter and her husband escaped ukraine to tijuana mexico there they were admitted into the u.s on humanitarian parole through a facebook group new york communities for ukrainian refugees maria was connected with anastasia schron a russian native anastasia welcomed maria and her family into her home in the suburbs of new york city the family is grateful but little veronica misses home mom she says i want to go home i want to go home she's a very social girl she loves to talk to other children but here she has no company so she's always asking me to play back in ukraine maria comforts her eight-year-old son max who is on the autism spectrum her eldest son mark is 18 years old i mean that's fighting age isn't it do you worry about having to go off the fight i want to protect my country i want to go to war but my mother doesn't let me yes it's a lot of stress to have to worry about your son and her husband at the same time and in the u.s marina is stressed too but she finds happiness in the wonders of motherhood what does motherhood mean to me it's not just about yourself it's about teaching someone else it's about making a little person happy teaching them life and principles it's about continuation of family it's just a lot of pleasant emotions that's aaron gilchrist reporting be sure to catch him alongside morgan radford weekdays from 11 to 1 eastern here on nbc news now still to come we will get into more of your personal stories about abortion plus we will hear from advocates on opposing sides of this issue and check out a new poll taken before that draft opinion was linked we're glad you're with us for now tonight from nbc news [Music] we've spent a lot of time discussing roe v wade after that draft supreme court opinion was published this draft is not necessarily mean roe will definitely be overturned though it is certainly possible many democrats in washington are pushing to codify roe some republican-led state legislatures are moving forward with more restrictive abortion laws in oklahoma a texas-style abortion ban is now in effect oklahoma's governor kevin stitt signed the law on tuesday it prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy that law took effect immediately in louisiana lawmakers advanced a bill yesterday to abolish abortions it would grant constitutional rights to quote all unborn children from the moment of fertilization the bill would classify abortion as a form of homicide many of you have shared your stories of how an abortion shaped your life others shared stories of considering an abortion but not having one here is what tanya left in our inbox i'm calling about my situation with um possible abortion i was a new mom i had a six month old i was married we were using birth control and condoms and i still got pregnant and for a week there we were considering what we were going to do because i had had a very difficult pregnancy with my son and both of us almost did not survive and i'm proud to say that i have a daughter but it was touch and go and i had a difficult pregnancy with her as well and i would not have been ashamed if i had had an abortion to give my son the best life that he could have as it turned out i gave both of my children the best life i could but that was my situation thank you a very difficult situation tanya thank you so much for sharing your story we will get to more stories in just a moment but joining us now is amy o'donnell director of communications for texas alliance for life the group advocates against abortion except to save the mother's life ms o'donnell welcome good to have you with us thanks so much for having me what's your organization focusing on these days now that this draft opinion has been published granted it is a draft and we do not know for sure that that's what the supreme court ruling will be like but how has that affected your organization's activity lately absolutely yes there's been no shift in the work that we do at texas alliance for life we remain laser focused on our goal of protecting innocent human life from conception to natural death through peaceful legal means there was a pew research study that was released today that was pretty fascinating had a lot of wide ranging information about americans views on abortion and it was it was conducted in march before this leak happened in the study among other things that showed that 73 percent of u.s adults said that abortion should indeed be legal if it threatens the woman's life or health 69 said that it should be legal if the pregnancy is the result of rape it sounds like there's a lot of nuance in the way that americans view abortion rights and the decision to have an abortion or not and i know your group has some of that nuance but how do you view those results there are so many polls out there and each poll reflects different answers different statistics and so we just continue to focus on saving lives in texas putting forward legislation that does protect life from conception on to birth such as our human life protection act which was one of our top priorities in texas but within that we feel it's critical to have the exception for the life of the mother uh with that it's rare for modern science to still provide opportunities where there are situations that the life of the mother would necessitate those medical exceptions but we do have firm language written into the laws that we support that offer those protections what does your organization make and i grant that you are a texas based organization but there are a number of laws that are coming up as we mentioned in oklahoma in louisiana some of which have very strict restrictions how do you view some of the other state bills and state laws that are coming up there are a slew of laws being passed right now to protect life across the country and there are some differences between them one difference that we've seen in some of the laws that are seeking passage such as the one in louisiana is that they believe that women should be prosecuted for seeking an abortion our organization is firmly against the prosecution of women for seeking an abortion that's not something that we've ever supported and it's not something that we will ever support in the future we believe that women need compassion when they're walking through an unplanned pregnancy they need support they need advocacy they need to know the compassionate alternatives to abortion that are available to them and we do our best to educate women across texas about those compassionate alternatives let me get to a few stories from our audience christine writes i'm a conservative christian woman who happens to be pro-life and pro-choice my question is how can people against government vaccine mandates before interfering in a woman's right to her medical decisions i believe that a woman's choices are between her and god kristen thank you very much for sharing i think i'll call you christine sorry typo there kristen thank you very much for sharing that i wonder uh what would you say to kristin i would say to chris kristin that i too i'm a christian woman and i value life from conception on and when it comes to our medical decisions i recognize that each of my four children when conceived including my first one who was unplanned conceived while we were on contraceptives trying not to get pregnant each of them were distinct beings within my body i always say that abortion is not healthcare and the body within a woman's body is not that woman's body it is a baby with distinct fingerprints unique dna and as such that child deserves the right to be born and to live life to the fullest could we dig into that a little bit because i've heard that argument a few times that abortion is not health care and of course pro-abortion rights advocates say that it is i i think i understand your argument in terms of why you do not view abortion as health care but pregnancy definitely requires health care and pregnancy can be deadly to mothers especially women of color black women for whom you know pregnancy can be significantly more dangerous than for white women because of an array of different factors if not that particular procedure what about as an adjunct of overall pregnancy care shouldn't it be considered with with regard to that pregnancy is about the mother and about the child a pregnancy from the very beginning when you go to the doctor it involves the ultrasounds where you see the heartbeat you see the developing baby you see it grow over time you see that that is a distinct being in the womb that has a heartbeat as early as six weeks you've seen our heartbeat act in texas save lives at an astonishing rate and it's because heartbeats start at an early early time during pregnancy and and then the baby continues to develop from there moving and and just having such unique movements in the womb that we can see and so pregnancy involves a mom it involves the baby and at birth you see the two distinctly in the open it just so happens that one is in the womb until that time but it doesn't make it any less human and that child does deserve life [Music] i have to say that in your response she focused almost entirely on the baby and not on the mother i'm asking about pregnancy care for mothers who may die because they have a pregnancy that poses a risk to them so in texas we have a vast amount of resources to help women especially low-income women when it comes to childbirth the medicaid program in texas covers births for women up to 200 percent of the poverty level so twice the poverty level in our state and that helps to provide good medical care to be aware of any risks that might be factors in the woman's pregnancy so that doctors can walk with that woman through the pregnancy should there be any conditions there that need monitoring above the norm and and so we do in our state have some amazing programs like that that do help women of low income and of course every woman deserves good health care when they're pregnant and when they're not and not only does texas provide health care through the medicaid program six months after birth for the woman and up 12 months after birth for the child the healthy texas women program also has allotted 352 million dollars to provide care for low-income women in our state and so we very much value as texans and i very much value personally the health care of women we say here at texas alliance for life that we are pro-women and we are pro-child and we recognize that abortion hurts it doesn't help women and it hurts families and it harms the baby and so what we do here is do our best to remove obstacles for women and educate women to know not only the compassionate alternatives to abortion that are available to them through pregnancy help centers pregnancy resource centers that can also apply them to the various parent programs that they need but also the other options that we have available in our state i want to get to one more comment from a viewer in the brief time we have left and this viewer asked to remain anonymous they write i got pregnant at 16 in 1991 the father was 21 and i was in love i was terrified to tell my mom when i did she took me for a very long drive i was told my options in full abortion adoption her raising the child keeping the baby with her help dad could be involved or not i chose to keep my baby he is now 30 and my pride and joy someone close to me got pregnant soon after my baby was born and chose abortion i saw the difference in our lives we were both okay but my journey was significantly more difficult we are both at peace with our choices but that is the point we made our choices i cannot believe what i am seeing today in our country thank you for sharing your story with us we very much appreciate it before i have to let you go is there no room for coexistence on this can you contemplate a future in which americans can find a way to allow all of these options to coexist or do you see this being kind of an all or nothing ending honestly it's hard to comprehend a future where babies lives are so devalued that women think their only way to be successful in life is to take the life of their unborn child the biggest thing that i would love to leave with everybody watching today is to not believe the lies out there that you hear like that you can be successful by having your child planned or unplanned and you can do great things i know that because i had an unplanned pregnancy did it change the the trajectory of my life absolutely was it difficult absolutely did i walk it out absolutely but i don't i'm very sorry to interrupt you before the end of our segment but i think it is unfair to presume that a woman who aborts a baby devalues that child i don't think that's fair i 100 think that's fair there is no reason that i can think of that warrants a woman taking the life of her unborn child not even if the woman's life is in danger well again we do have exceptions for that and those medical and you do contemplate a way that that could be necessary but we've talked about that already and we've said i've advocated we advocate for that strongly but outside of the exceptions that we put in our laws no i cannot comprehend why a woman would think it would be okay to take the life of her unborn child amy o'donnell from texas alliance for life i really appreciate you making time to talk this through with us thank you very much thank you for having me we will get to some of today's other top stories in just a moment including a deadly explosion in havana cuba marjory taylor green's future in the united states house and the newest members of the video game hall of fame including one game you play with your feet [Music] our headlines tonight begin in havana cuba with a deadly explosion at a five-star hotel it happened today at the hotel saratoga in downtown havana no one was staying there it was being renovated at the time but the latest word from the cuban government is that the blast killed at least 22 people and injured dozens more cuba's president miguel di escanel dismissed the possibility of a bomb his office has called it an accident possibly due to a gas leak a rescue team is still searching for survivors the hotel saratoga has been a centerpiece of old havana for more than 140 years beyonce and jay-z have even stayed there it was scheduled to reopen on tuesday after two years of renovations i live in havana and as chance would have it i lived just two blocks away from the hotel saratoga that exploded in dramatic fashion at 11 o'clock local time today i saw plumes of smoke rising from the hotel i went downstairs onto the street minutes after thousands of people that quickly became tens of thousands of people were there many to many who were just onlookers many there to take photos but also people dragging people's survivors out of the rubble the emergency services arrived quickly fire fire people the fire brigade police and also medical workers then started to evacuate people as we stand currently 18 people have died confirmed to have died one of them unfortunately a child and 74 people are wounded that's according to official official numbers earlier on in the day there was talks that the explosion might have been caused by a bomb an attack here in cuba back in the 1990s there was a spate of terrorist bombings by anti-castro us-based terrorists that wanted to damage the cuban economy and make sure that tourism would never work that thought seems to have been etched into people's minds however the cuban president says that no it wasn't an attack it was an accident and he says that all the indications are that this was a gas leak that liquid gas was being pumped into the hotel and that's what caused this huge explosion this is also terrible news for the cuban economy the economy's main export is tourism and since the pandemic that has been throttled it was starting to recover earlier this year but then came the war um in ukraine 40 of of cuban tourists this year had been russian that disappeared and now this terrible explosion it's one thing after another for tourism and the cuban economy back to you that's nbc's ed augustin reporting from havana here in the u.s it's been a really intense week on wall street reacting to all kinds of economic news this morning the monthly jobs report offered some promising news the economy added 428 000 jobs in april that was more than analysts expected unemployment has held at 3.6 percent and that means the job market is almost back to its levels before coving however hourly wages are only up 5.5

percent from last year and that is not enough to keep up with inflation nbc business and tech correspondent jolene kent has more what a week the dow closed in the red today putting all three major indices in the negative for the week now the good news came from the jobs report 428 000 jobs were added back to the economy in april slightly more than expected at the 12th straight month above 400 000 so good news there but none of that really moved the market the unemployment rate stayed the same at 3.6 and the not so great news out of this jobs report average hourly pay went up in april by five and a half percent but the fact is inflation is still so much higher at eight and a half percent now this comes after the worst day for investors in two years the dow plunging over a thousand points on thursday the nasdaq also tanked wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars in gains from wednesday when investors were celebrating the fed's decision to raise the benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point now this roller coaster ride is all about soaring inflation what else the fed is raising rates again to make borrowing money more expensive the idea is to cool off all the buying from the pandemic and tame this inflation but the fed rate hikes have some of wall street stressing out about a possible recession on the horizon a lot of investors worried that these rate hikes could derail economic growth but for everyone worried about portfolios or your 401k the wisdom from financial advisors has not changed do not make any sudden moves think long term and just hold on by the way if you're thinking of driving one more thing about gas prices they're up 12 cents a gallon from a week ago the national average is now 428 a gallon per aaa that's just six cents shy of their record from earlier this year pain at the pump is real pain on the markets too that's nbc biz tech correspondent joe ling kent reporting the investigation into the january sixth riots is proceeding but without the testimony of a key witness at least not so far rudy giuliani was supposed to appear today before the house select committee investigating the attack he pulled out after the committee refused to let him record the interview nbc capitol hill correspondent garrett hake has more on what happened and what's next hey garrett joshua this was an interview months in the making with rudy giuliani and the january 6 committee they've been talking since giuliani was subpoenaed earlier this year they had to work out privilege issues around giuliani having been the attorney for the then president what issues they could talk to him about what they couldn't then late on thursday giuliani's attorney asked that giuliani be allowed to record this interview presumably so that he could then release those audio recordings uh he was worried about leaks he was worried about the idea that he might be selectively quoted from the interview while the committee says that's not how we do business and the talks fell apart now the committee is saying they will pursue any available enforcement options to get giuliani to testify but the unfortunate reality for them is they don't really have any enforcement options on their own all they can do is what they've done with several other witnesses and try to get the house to hold them in contempt of congress and see if doj will file charges they did that with steve bannon but they haven't done it with mark meadows for whom they recommended charges all the way back in january or for any of these other witnesses that have come through and so the committee has a challenge in front of them they want to start their hearings as scheduled june 9th they've interviewed 970 or so witnesses closing in on a thousand how far will they go how much will they fight to get the testimony of a few more key witnesses like rudy giuliani it's best i'm able to report those decisions haven't been made yet but time is of the essence for this committee joshua it is indeed thank you garrett that's nbc capitol hill correspondent garrett hake meanwhile congresswoman marjorie taylor green's alleged connections to january 6th will not stop her re-election bid today a judge ruled that she should not be disqualified from running georgia's secretary of state brad raffensberger who oversees elections said he agrees a group of georgia voters challenged her eligibility they argue that congresswoman greene violated a rarely invoked part of the 14th amendment it says that no one can serve in congress if they have engaged in an insurrection the voters group argued that she should be disqualified from running again marjorie taylor green is a major supporter of former president trump she has often repeated lies and hoaxes about the 2020 election being stolen four classic video games are taking their place in a unique hall of fame that includes one you play with your feet today the world video game hall of fame announced this year's inductees and i love all of them among them ms pac-man the original pac-man was inducted years ago also the legend of zelda ocarina of time it pioneered many features of today's top games including freedom of movement in a three-dimensional open world the strategy game sid meier civilization lets players build empires spanning six millennia think sim city but like way bigger and the hall of fame also inducted my personal favorite dance dance revolution i spent many quarters in college on this one where players press pads with their feet in time to music the world video game hall of fame has been around since 2015. it is located in the strong national museum of play in rochester new york it's a rainy night here in new york but we're tracking some severe weather this weekend including in the south the forecast is next plus congressman madison cawthorne is facing backlash for elite nude video what does the law say about these kinds of online embarrassments that's all just ahead stay close this could be a very wet mother's day weekend with severe thunderstorms lingering in the southeastern u.s the storms cut a path of destruction through the south and the midwest knocking down power lines and damaging buildings now some areas are dealing with golf ball sized hail high winds and a chance of tornadoes nbc meteorologist bill karins has our weekend forecast hey bill oh good evening to you joshua and what a week it has been from severe weather tracking all the way from monday we had an outbreak wednesday was a very dangerous night and we've done it again this evening we know i've had a couple tornadoes that have touched down one of them in north carolina some minor damage have no reports of any injuries which is great but we still have that threat ongoing we have tornado watches that are going to be extended out until about 10 or 11 o'clock depending on where you're located here on the east coast and also in the central portion of the time zone we're watching these thunderstorms traveling from south carolina into north carolina and we've had a bunch of very strong storms in between raleigh and in between the richmond areas as far as our severe weather threat through the rest of this evening we're going to take that from knoxville to charlotte through raleigh through richmond that's the area of greatest concern and we still have a chance of some isolated strong storms too down on the florida panhandle as we head through the overnight hours we're also going to keep an eye on the flash flooding threat we had a lot of heavy rain and the ground is saturated the soil is saturated and now we're still getting thunderstorms on top of that from state college pennsylvania to pittsburgh the d.c area hagerstown all the way back to west virginia we're going to have a chance for some flash flooding during the overnight hours and how much additional rain are we going to get and my apologies in advance for all the moms out there for this weekend forecast in the mid-atlantic this is ugly one to three inches of rainfall between now and sunday morning and hopefully things will improve a little bit during the afternoon on mother's day for new york and philadelphia not much hoped over d.c to richmond to norfolk

and again isolated flash flooding along with it so here's the future cast as we go throughout your saturday that east wind will make it feel more like late march or early april from new york to philly to d.c it looks like a chance of isolated stronger thunderstorms saturday afternoon right around cape hatteras up through the outer banks that's about it though not too concerned with severe weather and then finally as we head into mother's day still dealing with showers right along the coastal locations with that cool breeze blowing inland and then we're going to turn the page in the middle of the country how about taking mom into the air conditioning we're going to have record highs for this time of year 103 already in areas of texas and then that record heat for mother's day begins to spread towards dallas where we could be 97 degrees san antonio to austin upper 90s del rio 101 degrees so here's how that forecast is going to play out with dozens of records into next week in the weekend forecast saturday there's the chilly rain in the northeast in the mid-atlantic with the possibilities of flash flooding record heat in the middle of the country and then for mother's day still very hot joshua in the middle of the country so a little bit of everything depending on where you are and hopefully we'll get through the rest of this evening safety with severe storms hopefully thank you bill that's nbc meteorologist bill karins with the weekend forecast unflattering moments can live forever online a freshman member of congress is learning that the hard way madison coughlin's controversy might be a warning to protect our online reputations but how do you do that we'll get into that before we go [Music] we're learning more about supreme court justices reacting to that leaked draft opinion about abortion rights that was published in politico according to reuters justice clarence thomas spoke today at a conference of the 11th judicial circuit that's the federal appeals circuit that's based in atlanta reuters says that he didn't refer directly very particularly to this draft document being leaked but he did say in according to reuters quote we can't be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want the events from earlier this week are a symptom of that unquote he also said that we as a society are becoming in his words addicted to wanting particular outcomes not living with the outcomes we don't like unquote he is reputed as one of the more conservative justices if not the most conservative justice on the supreme court justice samuel alito who drafted that opinion canceled from one conference but sent a video message saying it would be impractical to attend and we also heard from chief justice john roberts at that conference in atlanta telling attendees that the leak was in his words absolutely appalling but it would not stop the court's work again we're hearing from some supreme court justices in response to that leaked draft opinion that was published by politico justice clarence thomas saying they would not be bullied into giving people the outcomes that they want it is going to be one of the most explosive rulings of the term when it comes out we believe sometime next month republican congressman madison cawthorne says blackmail won't win that was his response to a video released online that shows him naked a tweet from the 26 year old lawmaker confirmed the video's authenticity he says it was made years ago and that quote i was being crass with a friend unquote voters in mr cawthorne's north carolina district will vote in the republican primary in less than two weeks the video was released by american muckrakers a political action committee its stated goal is to in its words fire madison cawthorne politics aside did that group have the right to post that video a legal right so many 20-somethings have done dumb things on video especially now in an era of iphones and only fans what does the law say about all this let's discuss this with ryan baker he's the managing partner of the l.a based law firm waymaker and he has represented clients in defamation cases mr baker welcome good to have you with us thank you good evening joshua i know we have just a partial view into this situation but what are your top-line thoughts about all of this surrounding congressman cawthorn right now well a lot obviously will depend on the facts so american muckrakers claims that they got this video it was given to them by a former supporter and big donor of madison cothorns and if in fact they did get it from somebody who had a bonafide right who may have owned the video or before we know recorded the video then there certainly wouldn't be a problem with american muckrakers using the video under certain circumstances so the questions really then turn to what if any claims could arise out of the use of the video uh as you've noted madison already acknowledged seemingly pretty definitively that he that is him in the video uh and it was a a real video so it's not false so you're not talking about a false statement but i think then you can look at whether or not that's an accurate portrayal of of madison cawthorne and is is this attempt to put this video out there now an attempt to put him in a false like false light does not require that the information be false but then rather the information is put in putting him into a light that makes it appear that he appears to be something that he's not so i think that's maybe the the wrinkle uh that could arise here but because he's kind of embraced it and leaned in just said hey we all make mistakes i frankly don't know if there will be any uh legal uh follow through here i saw the video um wow it's a lot but it also looks like the kind of thing that like a dumb 20 year old is going to do and on occasion and that in an era of iphones that your friend might film it either just to to be stupid like young guys are stupid i was a stupid young guy once i don't know what kind of young guy you were like but it seems like the kind of thing that could affect a lot of young people especially now with technology and social media but now we're also having some savvier conversations about the impact of these videos including things like revenge porn how sophisticated is the law right now in terms of situations like what congressman cawthorne is dealing with is the law caught up to today well in a nutshell i would say the law is not cut up and it's something that we encounter time and time again we have statutes that were enacted decades ago often before any of the modern technology existed or anyone even thought about the modern technology and we end up having to argue how to fit current circumstances into an antiquated set of statutory law so i think the law is developing certainly with revenge porn you've seen some some pretty definitive cases and and actually state state legislators acting quickly uh to enact statutes to address those situations but where you have everybody today documenting so much of their lives on social media you know i think it's right i won't make any admissions here joshua but uh we all have things i'm sure that we did in our teens and twenties that we wouldn't necessarily want broadcast to the world or forever memorialized so the law does have some catching up to do uh and a lot of these cases are cases of first impression as technology continues to evolve it's it but it's you know this will be an interesting case we'll see if madison actually wants to do anything with this because he may just do what he's already done which is to say hey i'm a real person we all have things that we've done in our past and and frankly that that could end up working in his favor i i do want to know that there was a match.com survey that found that 38

percent of gen zers and 37 percent of millennials say they have shared nude photos with someone that's a significant proportion but that's also still not a majority by any stretch and obviously gen x and baby boomers are far less inclined to participate i think it's easy to say well if you don't want people to find things like that then don't do dumb stuff and don't let your friends tape it and i think that only goes as far as how much you trust your friends not to tape you doing something dumb what would you say is the is the bottom line takeaway for people looking at this and worrying about the dumb stuff they did in their 20s or 30s or last week well one thing to note is when when you have a video that is recorded in a private setting even if it's on someone else's phone or someone else's device that doesn't necessarily give that other person the right to do whatever they want with the video uh you still may have some right to privacy in that video and so again it sort of begs the question of what are the circumstances under which american muckrakers got a hold of this video uh there's an open question and that really could change the dynamic and the legal claims that may arise as a result of what's happened here but in general once you put something on a social media website on the internet yourself or or allow someone else to do that you start to wave rights that that you may want to reclaim at one at some point in the future so i would say be careful with what you're posting yourself and what you're allowing other people to post ryan baker managing partner of the los angeles-based law firm waymaker ryan thank you very much thank you joshua and with that your weekend can begin please keep your stories and questions coming about roe v wade the war in ukraine or anything in the news that's affecting you we're at nbc now tonight on social media if you're sharing a story about abortion we'd prefer you send it directly by voicemail 888-5752 nbc or email now tonight at nbcnews.com so until we meet again i'm joshua johnson enjoy your weekend and we'll see you monday good night mom [Music] thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app you

2022-05-12 03:43

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