in the u.s. and around the world. it is thursday, august 4th and i m brianna keilar with john avalon in for john berman. good morning. good morning. we begin with a surreal intersection of the defamation case against conspiracy theorist alex jones and the investigation into the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol. jones is on trial in texas for the lies that he spread about the sandy hook massacre and in a jaw-dropping moment in court a lawyer for the sandy hook parents revealed this did you know that 12 days ago 12 days ago your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone with every text message you ve sent for the past two years and when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way, and as of two days ago it fell free and clear into my possession and that is how i know you lied to me? cellphone records appear to show jones had, in fact, texted about the sandy hook shooting even thou
hook parents for calling the massacre a hoax. also tonight, four current and former officers now facing federal civil rights charges for the raid that killed breonna taylor. what the justice department alleges they did. the biden administration declaring monkeypox a public health emergency. what it means for the federal response. the record-shattering heat. nearly 80 million on alert. al roker is standing by. the new twist in a nearly 40-year-old cold case. he spent decades in prison for a murder he didn t commit. who authorities have now charged. and the nfl preseason kicking off on nbc. why tonight s game head coaches. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening, everyone, from las vegas, where i m attending a gathering of black and hispanic journalists. we start tonight in moscow, where american pro basketball star brittney griner was sentenced today to nine years in a russian prison. the sentence coming right after the court pronounc
boy killed in the sandy hook massacre. officers charged the justice department accuses four current and former police officers for their role in the death of breonna taylor. tonight, her mother reacts. i have waited 874 days for today. brennan: china s show of force beijing pfizer multiple rocket into the coast of the sea of taiwan in retall weighs of speaker nancy pelosi s trip. record heat across the country, the lateecast.fla, america ne bal ayers hit a roam run whilehg dreams. this is the cbs evening news with norah o donnell, reporting from the nation s capital. brennan: good evening and thank you for joining us. i m margaret brennan, in for norah. tonight, pressure builds on president biden to broker a prisoner swap with russia to free basketball star brittney griner. today, a russian judge gave her a nine-year sentence after finding her guilty of drug possession and smuggling. the two-time olympic gold medalist pleaded with the russian judge to not e
problematic because of where we get the components for them. they have a chance to vote to make that situation better. so let s give them a chance to put their money where their mouth is or put their vote where their mouth is and in the meantime that will reduce the deficit. it is earned praise from economists, people who aren t always supportive of the administrative policy coming together to say yes, this is good legislation and border line no-brainer territory and in washington that means at best we re hoping for it to pass with 50 votes which is exactly what we think it is on track to do. we are live at the top of our fourth here on morning joe. just after 9:00 on the east coast, 6:00 a.m. out west. we re talking to transportation secretary pete buttigieg. mr. secretary. speaking of major legislation, it was just nine months ago that the united states senate passed and president biden signed that $1 trillion infrastructure package that you pushed so hard to get throug
reporting. this is our lead story. it matters for justice, for lives in politics. here s the lawyer for those families just moments ago. the jury just returned a verdict for compensatory damages exceeding $4 million. that s a darn good start. we now have the punishment phase. i think it s perfectly expectable we re going to see an over nine-figure judgment against mr. jones. that is a lot of figures. and you can see in this long quest with so much ugly, terrible, reprehensible conduct by mr. jones, and conduct which the court has found lies and defamatory, you can see a note of encouragement there for the people harmed by him. a little bit of what you saw there, a triumph in what is just phase one. let s explain the second phase, because boy is mr. jones worried about that. punitive damages. the punishment. tomorrow, the jury looks at mr. jones, his conduct, which has already been of course judged, and what he has, what he s profited of, and how this all works. again, as