the attorney shot in the head now accused of plotting the attack himself. and the countdown to tonight s historic spacex launch. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening. we know them from another arena, celebrated gymnasts, olympians. but today they sat tearfully in front of a different audience in a senate hearing room simone biles surrounded by fellow gymnasts, telling senators we have been failed, the young women accusing the fbi of turning a blind eye to their complaints of sexual abuse at the hands of team dr. larry nassar in 2017 nassar pleaded guilty to abusing 10 of the more than 265 women and girls who have come forward to say they were molested he is serving up to 175 years in prison. tonight the emotional call for accountability for those the women accuse of protecting a serial child molester rather than them. anne thompson was in the hearing room and has our report to be clear, i blame larry nassar, and i also blame an entire sy
a new era in space travel. the question is, are we witnessing a new start of an era in space travel? it s way too early for this. good morning and welcome to way too early, the show that some days would like to buy a one-way ticket to mars. i m jonathan lemire on this thursday, september 16th. we ll start with the news. the u.s. has reached another grim milestone in its fight against coronavirus. new data shows that more than one in 500 americans has died from covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, one in 500 americans. according to an nbc news tally, there have been more than 41,689,000 cases. so far 55% are vaccinated. 63% have received one dose. the fda will meet to discuss whether booster shots will be necessary for the majority of adults who are vaccinated. nbc news correspondent miguel almaguer explained. reporter: the battle over boosters as vaccine boosters make their case ahead of friday s fda review of pfizer s booster shot for the general public.
correspondent and cnn international diplomatic editor. alex, you first. these documents are heavily redacted. but they do tell us something. what? they do. we should note this was released late saturday night after the events commemorating the anniversary of 9/11. and as you mentioned, this is the first part of what we expect to be a series of documents to be declassified following the president s order. this was a 16-page heavily redacted report from the fbi, and what it is is a summary of an interview that the fbi did with a saudi citizen in 2015. this report coming out in 2016, and classified until now. what it does is summarizes this interview with a saudi who worked at the saudi consulate in los angeles. he is not named in this report. he was applying for u.s. citizenship, and he had contact, the fbi says, with people who they themselves had contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers. you can see on your screen the name. he was ostensibly a student in los angeles. he was b
mile-per-hour winds ripping a catastrophic gash across southern louisiana. at least one person is confirmed dead at this point in time. ida is now a tropical storm but there is still extreme danger with up to 8 inches of rain yet to fall in some cities. the mayor of one louisiana town calling this total devastation. the storm overtopping levies and trapping people on roofs, with no way to rescue them. more than 1 million people are currently without power. this includes the entire city of new orleans, exactly 16 years after hurricane katrina hit. and while ida has weakened some, there is still this big threat that we re tracking of flash flooding and dangerous storm surge and tornadoes. also breaking this morning, rocket fire overnight. targeting afghanistan s international airport. video obtained by cnn shows the burnt out car this was apparently used as an improvised launch pad to fire five rocket. five hours earlier the u.s. carried out a preemptive drone strike on a pot
one uk minister describing it as imminent and lethal. in just minutes president biden will meet with his national security team about this rapidly escalating situation. so far the u.s. has evacuated more than 101,000 people including 13,000 over just the last 24 hours. as for american citizens, the state department says 1500 are still in the country, including a third who have been in contact with our government. the white house says they are on track to wrap this up by the president s august 31 deadline. and the taliban is speeding things up, keeping crowds away from the airport. their spokesman telling nbc news that they will stay out of the way for now. translator: we don t want our countrymen to go to america. whatever they have done in the past, we have given them amnesty. we need young educated professionals for our nation. but if they want to leave, it is their choice. keep in mind an isis affiliate still poses an immediate threat to people in and around the airpor