conditions. we re tracking it. donald trump s 2024 campaign getting its first major gop challenger, former south carolina governor nikki haley, who served as u.n. ambassador under mr. trump, announcing she is running. how the former president is responding. the remarkable rescues in turkey. a 65-year-old found alive after more than 200 hours beneath the rubble as the earthquake toll nears 40,000. dramatic testimony in the alex murdaugh trial. what his slain wife s sister revealed about her conversation with murdaugh after the murders. and the perfect gift for your valentine. how to get a love song personalized. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening. there has been another sadly we can all finish the sentence. there has been another mass shooting. another place struggling to comprehend the kind of horror that happened elsewhere until it happened there last night. michigan state university in east lansing. three students are dead, fi
type of significant intelligence collecting capability or what they might have been intended for. at this white house briefing, what you did hear from national security spokesman john kirby is there is clearly a shift into a robust, all-of-government approach to get more answers, not just to the three objects shot down over the course after a three-day period but what they re seeing in the skies. the widening of the apertures, it s at least one element of why we ve seen this more over the course of the past couple days. as you noted, victor, this is unprecedented in terms of u.s. fighters taking out things from over u.s. skies. this is john kirby s response. where we go from here, i think we just don t know right now in terms of whether they needs to be threshold changes as you put it. i think it s important to take a step back here. what the president did was ordered these actions with the safety and security of the american people foremost in his mind. there were very goo
claimed his top priority was then to clear paul s name in the boat crash case. thought his priority should have been focusing on finding out who killed maggie and paul. reporter: she recalls murdaugh s devastation, but says they never discussed a search for the killer, despite concern from the family that one was on the loose. i think everybody was afraid. and alex didn t seem to be afraid. reporter: the defense questions focused on family dynamics, especially in the time just before the murders. do you believe alex relationship with maggie was? it was good. it wasn t perfect, but maggie was happy. and i think she was happy. reporter: we expect to hear more testimony tomorrow about what the defense calls alex murdaugh s botched roadside suicide attempt. the man they say murdaugh hired to shoot him, a potential witness on the list. lester? catie, thank you.
p.m., that they say has alex murdaugh s voice on it, putting him at the murder scene around the time of the murders, and about a handful of other witnesses have testified to that, as well. you also saw they were talking about a firearm, he said that was a shotgun, he was concerned for his own safety, so, he went up to the house after finding his wife and son and got that shotgun, which he told the deputy there. and one other note, he says very quickly to the deputies, and this was discussed in court, right away, he talks about this boat crash case, where his son paul was being sued for allegedly driving drunk and causing the death of a young woman named mallory beach. he seems to suggest that that boat crash had something to do with why his family was killed. randi kaye, thank you. well, the mysteries in the sky deepen, as the white house can t definitely assess what the latest unidentified flying objects were. the former commander of u.s. central command will react ahead. pick plu