Nightly News Full Broadcast - Jan. 18

tonight two wireless giants delaying the launch of 5g near some airports after a dire warning at t and verizon agreeing to temporarily limit 5g near some airports when they turn the service on at midnight it comes after airlines warned 5g could interfere with flight equipment and cause catastrophic disruptions the faa under fire what the cell phone carrier say the agency failed to do also tonight the white house's free test website going live a day early how to get your test kits at no cost it comes amid dire new omicron projections as many as 300 000 more deaths by mid-march just in new subpoenas for trump allies from the january 6 committee including rudy giuliani the showdown on capitol hill the senate debating voting rights bills but is there a path forward new questions in the texas synagogue standoff what did british authorities know about the gunman and news on his two sons questioned in the uk the white house warning russia could now invade ukraine at any point richard engel inside ukraine tonight are exclusive after our reporting on young people dying after obtaining deadly pills through snapchat the platform's head of safety on how snapchat is cracking down this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening it appears tonight the cell phone companies have blinked in their showdown with the airlines verizon and at t now say they will voluntarily delay rolling out their new faster 5g cell service around runways at some airports tomorrow amid a debate over whether 5g signals could interfere with critical cockpit technology that pilots rely on to land planes and low clouds and fog 5g service will however still roll out elsewhere overnight the cell giants insisting 5g is not a threat to aviation but the faa and the nation's airlines aren't convinced they have warned of massive flight disruptions if pilots were unable to fly certain landing approaches because of 5g interference today some overseas airlines proactively suspending flights to the u.s over all this tom costello now with late details with the clock ticking down to the nationwide 5g rollout at midnight today a last-minute deal to avoid an airline crisis a t and verizon both say they will temporarily limit or delay turning on 5g cell towers that are close to certain airports the announcement comes after 10 airline ceos urged the white house to intervene warning of catastrophic disruptions affecting hundreds of thousands of airline passengers if a two-mile buffer zone isn't created around airport 5g sites president biden today applauded the agreement coming after years of political infighting involving the fcc faa the airlines the trump and biden administrations and competing agendas the concern the new fifth generation of cell service called 5g operates on a radio spectrum that could bleed over and interfere with a plane's radar altimeter those altimeters bounce a signal off the ground to give pilots their precise distance to the ground critical for landing and poor visibility warning of potential interference the faa had told pilots they would not be able to use altimeters at more than 80 airports near 5g sites including large airport hubs in houston dallas la new york chicago and seattle the airlines warned that would lead to massive delays diversions and cancellations as soon as wednesday the fa has to go airport by airport runway by runway and do an analysis to clear these runways at airports so that we can safely fly but the cell phone industry which already delayed the rollout twice and says 5g is safe att today took aim at the faa saying we are frustrated by the faa's inability to do what nearly 40 countries have done which is to safely deploy 5g technology without disrupting aviation services the bottom line is we've got to get this done safely and right now every indication is it's not been tested and it is not safe for a full rollout tom you have been reporting in the story now for weeks this has a real kicking the can down the road feel how does this get resolved well we don't really know it could take weeks could take months the bottom line the faa has to look at every single plane and determine whether its altimeter could be vulnerable to 5g it's already cleared 45 percent of the fleet and the us 55 not cleared this could take some time lester all right tom costello for us tonight thank you we want to turn out of the pandemic and the mixed signals tonight as infections drop off in parts of the northeast but explode in the west cases of just 23 in new york and new jersey over the last two weeks and actually decreasing by 43 percent in washington d.c but in california they're 316 percent higher up 247 percent in oregon and almost as much in arizona cases among children spiking dramatically as well almost a million infections reported in the last week and as the u.s averages 2 000 deaths a day a new model is forecasting 58 to 305 000 new deaths by mid-march all this comes as americans can now order those rapid at-home test kits from the government here's joe linked one day earlier than expected the federal government's website for free coveted tests has gone live in a soft launch the white house began taking orders for up to four tests per household we're very pleased with the website so far the website officially launches tomorrow after a year of long waits and rapid tests often nowhere to be found despite president biden's promise last year bottom line this winter you'll be able to test for free in the comfort of your home and have some peace of mind still today many pharmacies and major retailers are out of stock leaving families like the pretty heferins frustrated look you're negative like so many khan pretty says finding rapid tests to get her kids back in school has been nearly impossible i felt desperate so i posted it on instagram and that was the only way that we had to actually get a couple more tests we had friends shipping us tests from vermont overnight the biden administration says tests will ship within 7 to 12 days landing at your door at the end of this month best case scenario what would be the grade you would give the biden administration on tests right now the grade i would give is a c epidemiologist abigail echo hawk is the executive vice president of the seattle indian health board when you they're focused simply on using the internet we're going to see that those in rural america those on native reservations are not going to get the same access to information and that will continue to drive the inequity of the impact of covet 19. the white house has promised 500 million free tests via the website and says it'll add a phone number to order soon we're just really trying to catch up in seattle rapid test manufacturer in bios wants to produce 5 to 10 million tests per week to help meet demand biggest challenge in terms of the home test in particular is labor shortage as well as paper products so we have the test but we can't ship it if we don't have the product insert the instructions for use as well as the box to put it in for parents like pretty only a negative test can get the kids back in the classroom what's your message to families who feel so frustrated they haven't been able to get tests sooner yeah we we see that there's been enormous demand and we are trying to keep up with that demand as families hope the white house will deliver jolene kent nbc news facing a coveted surge soaring inflation and a plummeting approval rating president biden is trying for a reboot tonight as he enters his second year in office all as he braces for defeat on democrats voting legislation here's kelly o'donnell on the cusp of year two after failing to convince his own party to pass key parts of his agenda with poll numbers down president biden is ready for his own white house reset there's a lot of talk about disappointments and things we haven't gotten done nbc news has learned one shift in strategy will tone down the legislator in chief persona built on president biden's 36 years in the senate that means less public focus on his role in deal making negotiations i'm just not going to get into private discussions or conversations with any members of the senate from here i know that's maybe a change instead the goal is to find ways for the president to engage more personally with the american people so let me speak to you directly advisors would like to highlight strengths they see like empathy but have not decided how best to achieve that tonight the president is braced for another setback as the senate debates democrats voting rights legislation no one denies the path ahead is an uphill struggle democrats argue they are defending democracy against restrictive state election measures they say would suppress the vote but there is no path as two democrats refused to back rules changes that would allow democrats to act alone republicans call it a power grab senate democrats want to mar their own legacies with a reckless reckless procedural vote they know will fail meantime kelly we're also learning about four new subpoenas issued by the january 6th committee what can you tell us that's right the committee issued those subpoenas tonight for records and testimony from four more trump insiders including attorneys rudy giuliani sydney powell jenna ellis and aide boris epstein the committee wants to know about strategy memos they wrote and conversations they had with president trump about efforts to delay certification of the election results lester kelly o'donnell thank you now to the investigation into that hostage situation at the synagogue outside dallas tonight we're learning more about the gunman and what he was doing in the days leading up to the incident morgan chesky now with late details tonight a new image appears to show malik faisal akram arriving at our calling a dallas outreach center at 10 01 p.m on january 2nd he fit into the regular crowd just like any one of us would pastor wayne walker ceo of the center says akram was dropped off by a man he appeared to know wasn't a just a high five it was an embrace this looked like they had a long time connection tonight nbc news has learned akram paid for his own flight from the uk to new york he stayed in queens for two days before asking his family for money to get to texas where he told them he was hoping to find a bride according to law enforcement sources it was in texas the sources believe akron purchased the gun on the streets in the dallas area it was a stolen weapon in akram's native uk a security source confirms he was the subject of a low-level investigation in 2020 by the british intelligence agency mi5 looking into possible ties to islamic terrorism the case was closed because it didn't meet the threshold for further investigation today one of the hostages shared more of saturday's terrifying ordeal he said frequently he didn't want to hurt us and that allowed us to concentrate on what was important like getting out so when the rabbi threw a chair everyone was ready to run exactly as they had been trained to do when courses for active shooters after several recent deadly incidents at synagogues michael masters says his group trained 17 thousand people just last year we teach them to commit to action how to recognize danger how to respond to it and be proactive and that's exactly what we saw these hostages do and tonight british authorities say ocram's two teenage sons that were detained for questioning have now been released and they won't face charges lester all right morgan chesky thank you for that in 60 seconds the white house warning that russia could invade ukraine at any moment richard engel is there just in dramatic body cam from a deadly explosion and apartment fire in new york today an officer running up to the inferno after the building partially collapsed officers pulling debris off a woman and carrying her to safety at least one person died eight others were injured now to the stark warning from the white house today that russia could invade ukraine at any moment richard engel is inside ukraine while russia denies it wants war it does want the world to know it has its sights set on ukraine new videos show russian troops preparing for battle near the ukrainian border as fresh columns of russian tanks arrive in neighboring belarus which has said it will follow russia's lead whatever happens russia has positioned about a hundred thousand troops that could invade ukraine from the north east and south a bipartisan delegation of american senators visited kiev yesterday with a message for vladimir putin who insists it's russia that's threatened by decades of nato expansion our message is there will be consequences if he chooses to violate the the sanctity of this democracy diplomacy is in high gear before secretary of state anthony blinken arrives in kiev tomorrow the head of nato warning war is a real possibility the risk of a conflict is real nato allies call on russia to de-escalate and any further aggression will come with a high cost for moscow secretary blinken is due to meet ukraine's president tomorrow and russia's foreign minister on friday russia denies reports it has already begun to thin out its embassy here which could be an ominous sign or just more messaging from president putin lester richard angle in ukraine tonight richard thanks up next a drug dealer drug dealers in fact selling deadly pills on social media are exclusive we ask if snapchat is doing enough to fight it [Music] now to our exclusive we have reported on the alarming number of counterfeit pills young people are getting on social media now for the first time a snapchat executive faces questions from kate snow on their crackdown snapchat knows it has a problem last year the dea seized over 20 million counterfeit pills four in 10 had potentially lethal doses of fentanyl young people have died after connecting with a dealer on snapchat what is snapchat doing to prevent those counterfeit pills from being sold on its platform kate we are determined to make snapchat a hostile environment for drug dealers to operate jacqueline beaucher joined snapchat as global head of platform safety in september our interview followed months of back and forth after the company offered to talk to us beaucher says snapchat is partnering with outside monitoring services and using new tools to detect and take down drug related accounts is that different than what you were doing a year ago the company made a big push and has been leaning in heavily to this issue for the last year snapchat says its law enforcement operations team grew nearly tenfold in 2021. in some instances we're making proactive referrals to law enforcement in the hopes of prompting an investigation why not in all cases well i think we could all agree that that's probably not practical uh and not realistic on either end we're packaging up those that show promise in terms of a potential investigation how do you sleep at night knowing that children are losing their lives because they're using your app jaime puerta's son daniel was a high school junior when he died in april 2020 i was holding his hand when he took his last breath horrible puerta believes daniel thought he was buying a legitimate painkiller through snapchat but the half pill he took was a counterfeit containing fentanyl puerta says law enforcement told him it took months to get answers out of snapchat do you still know families who are waiting for answers oh yeah snapchat says it's responding more quickly now to legal requests from law enforcement reducing the wait time from months to a matter of weeks when a user tries to search for drugs on snapchat they're shown content about the dangers some of the families have said to us that they wish that snapchat would apologize will you apologize for the families were heartbroken their pain is unimaginable they're devastation incomprehensible and our hearts go out to them it's those stories that drive us drive us to continuously improve the steps that we've taken as a company can't reverse the tragedies that they've experienced but again we all have the same goal and that's to keep young people and indeed all people safe on our platform does that sound like an apology they're never going to apologize an apology would be admitting that they are culpable snapchat says it has previously apologized to families in person and in writing after our interview they sent a statement which reads in part we are deeply sorry for your loss and no we can't imagine the immense grief you have experienced our goal of ridding snapchat of drug dealers and drug content isn't going to be achieved overnight meaningful progress takes time in that time people have died and again the best way to prevent more tragic deaths is to aggressively raise public awareness about these lethal poisonings awareness that is growing kate snow nbc news and that's nightly news thank you for watching everyone i'm lester holt please take care of yourself and each other good night thanks for watching our youtube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the nbc news app you

Channel: NBC News

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Keywords: Health, International News, Lester Holt, Making A Difference, NBC Nightly News, National News, News, Nightly News, U.S. News, breaking news, evening news, politics, world news, russia5g, covid, covid tests, omicron, ukraine, 5g, snapchat, vaccines, biden

Id: 5ESni_IgtPM

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022