hi, everyone. it s 4:00 in new york, an extraordinary and historic moment unfolding today in a manhattan courthouse where a jury of six men and three women ruled that the disgraced, impeached, indicted ex-president and now also liable for sexually abusing writer e. jean carroll inside a luxury manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. trump was also found liable for defamatory statements he made toward carroll including calling her claims a hoax and a con job. in total this jury awarded the former journalist nearly $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. the jury did not find trump liable for raping e. jean carroll. it s the only claim on the ten count verdict that went in his favor. while the jury s unanimous verdict was decided in less than three hours it carries no criminal implications for donald trump, it is nonetheless a historic moment of accountability for the ex-president and current republican front-runner. donald trump with his long record of lying and
the epa chief in ohio again today as officials battle over where to send the waste from that toxic train derailment. why the epa s plan to transport contaminated water to texas is back on after local leaders objected. the new drone strike deep inside russia, and our rare look inside crimea. will it become the new flash point in the conflict? the white house giving a deadline to remove tiktok from all government devices. could the popular app be banned altogether in the u.s.? and the american skier who just made history on the world stage. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening and welcome, everyone, in a pair of cases that will impact tens of millions of student loan borrowers, the supreme court heard arguments today on whether the biden administration had the authority to forgive some of those loans. the president s loan debt relief plan calls for erasing up to $20,000 in student loans for certain borrowers at an estimated cost of $400
and millions more worldwide. now new revelations about the mysterious origin of covid. mark esper is here live. f-16s are not the key capability of that offensive. sean penn pleads with president biden to send fighter jets to ukraine or the actor says there will be, quote, blood on our hands. sean penn joins me and president xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion. and china, russia and the united states reach a critical point in the ukraine war, the cia says beijing is having second thoughts about potentially invading taiwan and a significant admission from the head of fox news, acknowledging the host on his network promoted election lies. what this means for the billion dollar lawsuit against fox news. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer, and this is a special edition of t the situation room. tonight, new questions around the center of the co
doubts today. about whether they could accomplish that invasion. as china, russia, united states reached a critical point in the ukraine war. the cia says beijing s having second thoughts about potentially invading taiwan. and a significant from the head of fox move. rupert murdoch acknowledging the hosts on his network promoted election lies. what this means for the billion dollar lawsuit against fox news. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the. world i m wolf blitzer and this is a special edition of the situation room. tonight, major new questions right at the center of a deadly coronavirus pandemic. that may change so many lives. where did covid-19 come from? the white house weighing in the same thing on the u.s. energy departments assessment. that the lethal virus most likely came from a lab leak in china. emphasis on the caveat here. cnn sources tell us that the assessment comes with quote, low confidence. tonight they say withi
lethal aid in its war against ukraine. it comes the secretary of state anthony blinken met with china s top diplomat this weekend. exchanging strong words two weeks after the u.s. shut down a chinese spy balloon off the carolina coast. earlier today, and i see spokesperson john kirby stress the importance of repairing the u.s. china relationship. the president said he billing to dock to president xi in the future. and he will. we still have lansing on occasion open with china as you saw yesterday in munich. that s important. particularly when there s times of tension like this. you want to avoid the risks of misunderstanding and miscalculation. secretary blinken issued a warning to china about its spy craft to. key house republicans today amplifying their concerns over the blue and being able to fly across the u.s.. the reality is that the administration admitted that after it had shut down the balloon that it should ve been more proactive. in the three subsequent shutd