right now on "ana cabrera reports" breaking news at a u.s. embassy overseas, a gunman attacking the u.s. embassy at lebanon overnight, injuring a security guard. what we know at this hour as israel says it's prepared for, quote, strong action. plus, day three of hunter biden's federal gun trial, witness testimony resuming this morning as we learn of new drama outside the com. also ahead, political retribution? what donald trump is saying now about potential payback against his opponents including prison. and later, the new space race, boeing preparing to launch its star liner into orbit this hour. can boeing prove third time's the charm. good morning, it's great to have you with us. it is 10:00 eastern. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. we begin with that breaking news at a u.s. embassy overseas, an attacker opening fire at the embassy in beirut early this morning injuring one lebanese guard. the gunman has been captured and is being treated for injuries. now, this incident happening after israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu signaled he may launch an offensive in lebanon targeting hezbollah. that move would fly in the face of president biden's top priority, keeping this war in gaza from spiraling into a wider regional conflict. president biden is in france right now aiming to keep the west unified in the face of increasing frustration among allies with netanyahu's handling of the war. we have raf sanchez on the ground in jerusalem along with our chief white house correspondent peter alexander tracking the president's movements in paris. raf, start us off. what more do we know about this incident at that embassy? >> reporter: so ana, this is a developing situation. here's what we know, around 8:30 a.m. local time, gunfire erupted at the entrance to the u.s. embassy in beirut. lebanese media is saying the shooting lasted around 30 minutes. jake sullivan telling nbc news all american staff are safe and accounted for, but he did say that a local lebanese security guard was wounded, being treated in hospital. we believe those injuries are nonlife-threatening. now, lebanese troops were stationed nearby. they shot and wounded a gunman taking him into custody. they are saying he is a syrian national. it is not clear at this point whether he acted alone, whether there are potentially more shooters still out there. the image you're seeing on your screen is of a gunman outside of the embassy, lebanese authorities have not confirmed that that is the man who was taken into custody by lebanese troops, but this comes at a moment when there is a widespread anger across the middle east directed at the united states because of americans' support for israel during the war in gaza. and, ana, it's worth remembering the u.s. embassy in beirut is outside the center of the city. it's in a mountainous area to the north, and that is because in 1983 it was targeted with a major car bomb killing dozens of people. >> peter, has president biden been briefed on this situation in beirut? >> ana, we've had a series of conversations with white house officials right now. we know that they are meeting with the president as they speak, preparing them for the remarks he will deliver a speech in commemoration of the d day landings tomorrow. we do know from jake sullivan the white house is well aware and monitoring the situation there. here is part of what he told our colleague savannah guthrie earlier this morning. >> we've been in realtime contact with nbc beirut. all american personnel are safe and accounted for. one local lebanese guard force member outside the compound was wounded. he's receiving care now, and we're working closely with authorities to ascertain what exactly happened here to ensure there's no continuing threat and we'll do all that we need to do to protect our people. >> reporter: those are the words of jake sullivan speaking to nbc just a matter of hours ago. again, the white house is monitoring that situation there, and we'll share any more details as we learn about them. >> raf sanchez, peter alexander, thank you both for the reporting. it is day three of hunter biden's federal gun trial. lawyers for the president's son are now cross examining the first witness, an fbi agent. this after some explosive testimony yesterday about a hot topic for years now, hunter biden's laptop, which allegedly contained evidence of his drug and gun purchases. nbc's ken dilanian is outside the courthouse in delaware for us, and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin also joining us. ken, talk to us about the defense team's approach to questioning this fbi agent and who else could take the stand today? >> reporter: good morning, ana, we're actually getting really fascinaing insight sboos how hunter biden's lawyers are trying to defend this case by watching the cross examination of this fbi investigator. hunter's lawyer abbey lowell is taking her through a series of text messages and transactions to underscore the fact that while there was a lot of drug purchases in 2018 around the time he bought this gun, but there is no evidence really of drug purchases, more evidence of alcohol purchases. so the question will come down to, again, the language of the form, which says are you a habitual user of drugs. not were you or have you been. that's the argument here that hunter biden's defense team is going to make, at the time he filled out the form, in his own mind he was trying to get clean. it remains to be seen whether the weight of the evidence will support that and whether the judge's instructions to the jury will support that. we expect to see kathleen buehle who will testify about hunter biden's drug use. the entire case of the prosecution is putting on a mountain, an avalanche of evidence that hunter biden was addicted to crack cocaine buying drugs in 2018 when he purchased this handgun. >> and ken, prosecutors have also entered into evidence some excerpts from hunter biden's memoir, beautiful things. so this is him on tape talking about how savvy he became with finding drugs. let's listen. >> by now, i possessed a new super power -- the ability to find crack in any town at any time, no matter how unfamiliar the terrain. >> they heard that and more. how was the jury reacting? do we know? >> reporter: the jury was rapt. some jurors were taking notes. the reading of that memoir also drew emotional reactions from first lady jill biden and hunter biden's sister ashley biden who were sitting in the courtroom. and people who -- our colleagues who were also sitting in there thought that hunter biden came off as a sympathetic figure as those excerpts were being read. after all, this is a memoir where he owned up to all of this, where he was explaining his demons and his pursuit of drugs, and many of these jurors have people this their family who have dealt with the same kinds of issues. and so it remains to be seen how that plays. >> lisa, hearing hunter biden's voice, that can be powerful. how do you see that playing with the jury and impacting this case? >> i think the defendant's own voice can be extremely powerful, so powerful, for example, that in the recent trump criminal trial that i attended, judge merchan actually excluded the access hollywood tape from entering evidence, the prosecutors could read the contents of the tape, but they couldn't play it because hearing it in the defendant's own voice can be so powerful and judge merchan thought prejudicial. on the other hand, given the subject matter of hunter biden's memoir, hearing his own voice describe him in the throes of addiction. as ken mentioned, there are four jurors here who cited having loved one who is struggled with addiction. that's a full third of this euro. they may be more sympathetic to hunter biden and what he was going through during the time period leading up to his purchase of the gun at issue here because they have heard in his voice how deeply he was struggling with his drug addiction at the time. >> speaking of loved ones, yesterday there was this tense exchange between hunter biden's wife, melissa and garrett ziegler who's a former trump white house aide who worked on trade policy at the time. he was also part of an effort to expose hunter biden's laptop. ken, what happened? >> reporter: melissa cohen biden angrily confronted garrett ziegler and called him a nazi and used an expletive. he is not just a former trump white house official, he's we did voted himself to exposing embarrassing information about hunter biden and the biden family, some of which was gained through that laptop that hunter biden left at the repair shop. really sensitive and embarrassing stuff that he's published, that he's spread around, and the biden family clearly does not like this man and melissa cohen biden made that very clear. >> what's your reaction, lisa? >> in addition to the personal angle on garrett ziegler and how much time and attention he's devoted to, in his view, exposing the biden family, there's another angle here. melissa cohen biden is jewish and garrett ziegler has repeatedly either reposted or posted things on his social media accounts that some may describe as anti-semitic, including saying in a telegram post at the time that kanye west was being ostracized for his own anti-semitic views, i support an honest conversation about the power of the adl, meaning the antidefamation league and organized jury. from that perspective, while i think she might have chosen different words, in that moment what was coming out from melissa cohen biden wasn't just a wife angry about how garrett ziegler has trolled her husband but also a proud jew who is very angry about the ways in which garrett ziegler has demonized and poked at those in america who identify as jewish and proudly so. >> lisa rubin and ken dilanian, thank you both so much. coming up, try, try, try again. after multiple delays and setback for boeing, we could witness space history in just a matter of minutes. plus, the extreme heat boiling millions with a massive heat dome settling over the west. also with immigration a top issue for voters, i'll talk with the mayor of san antonio about president biden's new executive action to crack down on the border. and would donald trump imprison his political enemy ifs he gains power. what he's saying in a new interview. we're back in 90 seconds. interview. we're back in 90 seconds help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley (♪♪) i'm getting vaccinated with pfizer's pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine. so am i. because i'm at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. come on. i already got a pneumonia vaccine, but i'm asking about the added protection of prevnar 20®. if you're 19 or older with certain chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, copd, or heart disease, or are 65 or older, you are at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. prevnar 20® is approved in adults to help prevent infections from 20 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. in just one dose. don't get prevnar 20® if you've had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients. adults with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects were pain and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, fatigue, headache, and joint pain. i want to be able to keep my plans. i don't want to risk ending up in the hospital with pneumococcal pneumonia. that's why i chose prevnar 20®. ask your doctor or pharmacist about the pfizer vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia. welcome back. i want to take you live right now to the launch pad in cape canaveral, florida, where later this hour boeing will make a third attempt to launch its star liner crew capsule into orbit. this will be the first test flight of the star liner with people on board heading for the international space station and two astronauts will be on board. nasa commander barry butch wilmore and co-pilot sunita williams. liftoff is scheduled for 10:52 this morning. we're keeping an eye on all systems go so far. stay with us, we'll bring it to you live. meantime, over the next three days, 29 million people from texas to california are facing dangerous heat warnings as the first major heat wave of the summer cooks communities across the southwest and the west coast, and the national oceanic atmospheric administration warning 2024 could be the warmest year in recorded history. nbc's priya sridhar joins us. hurricanes can be deadlier than floods, tornados. what do we need to know about this heat wave? >> reporter: here in san antonio they broke a 108-year record for high temperature on tuesday, and the heat index hit a whopping 117 degrees, and unfortunately there's no relief in sight just yet. those sweltering temperatures are expected to persist across texas and into the west, which has caused millions of americans in those heat advisory zones to try to come up with creative ways to beat the heat, like coming out to a splash pad like the one i'm at here in downtown san antonio at hemisphere park. we're expecting this place to be packed in the coming hours. >> oppressive heat, stifling much of the western part of the country today. temperatures soaring as much as 25 degrees above average. >> it was a record setting hot day. >> in texas, wilting triple digit temperatures searing multiple cities including 106 in abilene, 109 in del rio, and 111 in san angelo. and on thursday, phoenix is forecasted to break a 129-year record hitting 113 degrees. >> i'm not ready for 110 degree plus days. >> reporter: a heat dome scorching northern california with some residents blaming global warming. >> i definitely think it's warming up more and more every year. >> reporter: in reno, the fastest warming city in the u.s., they normally don't hit triple digits until july, but this week it's already flirting with 100. >> it's going to be sticking around for a bit. >> reporter: extreme heat has become increasingly more deadly in the u.s., now killing more americans than any other extreme weather events including wildfires, droughts, and floods. in 2022 in las vegas and surrounding clark county, the heat was a contributing factor in 169 deaths. that number rose to 307 in 2023. cities are doing all they can to combat rising it was and keep people safe. here in san antonio, they're testing cooling pavement. >> compared to a freshly paved asphalt street, we're talking about an 18-degree difference. >> in phoenix they're using iced body bags to save lives. >> we've had patients that were critical by the time we got to the hospital doors, 20 minutes later they were sitting here talking. >> back here in san antonio, the city has set up 30 cooling stations to help people get access to air-conditioning. city officials want to remind folks to stay indoors during peak heat hours, especially if you're over the age of 65 or you have little ones under the age of 4. always remember to stayunscreen strenuous exercise, and never ever leave your children or pets in the car in these temperatures, ana. >> some potentially life saving information there, thank you so much, priya is a ree that are for dealing with the heat for us and bringing us that report. up next, will president biden's new executive action to crack down on the border help or hurt him heading into november. i'll talk to the mayor of san antonio who was at the white house for the unveiling or the big announcement about how this could impact his city. plus, political retribution on his mind, donald trump's latest comments about potential payback for his political enemies. payback fohir s political enemies. e! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. tyk2 is part of the jak family. it's not known if sotyktu has the same risks as jak inhibitors. find what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. there's only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. so clearly you. sotyktu. did you know that if you shave, 1/3rd of what you remove is skin? 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processed. on a normal day you see between 10 or 100 migrants. yesterday we saw 70 at this point. today it's a much smaller group of eight people, all of them from ecuador who crossed this morning. i was talking to them this morning, and they told me that none of them were aware at all of this executive order. they became aware of it when they were asked questions about it by reporters this morning. so this is a smaller group than we saw yesterday, but it's really impossible to tell whether this is a direct result of the executive order or not. for all the talk of shutting town or even sealing the border, that's not actually really possible for the u.s. to do. migrants can still set foot on u.s. soil, and they still have to be detained and processed by border patrol. there's no new agreement, other countries in the hemisphere or around the world directly back into mexico. the immediate effect this is going to have is pretty attenuated. we're not going to know until we see the border wide numbers whether this has an effect on the number of crossings. if it does, if we see a sharp drop, it's likely not because of any change in policy caused by the executive order but because often when there are major changes, especially crackdowns in u.s. border policy, smugglers, migrant smugglers, which are directly controlled by or a part of drug cartels are -- they often take a wait and see approach with policy changes like this one. they kind of take a step back, don't send people across the border. get a sense of how things are working and then the numbers start to go back up. that's what a lot of experts are predicting, potentially a sharp drop temporarily before the numbers come back up again. there's a big gap in how this looks on paper and how it works politically. >> thank you for that reality check. we do know that border crossings have been trending downward from their peaks at the very end of 2023. thank you very much, david noriega. joining us now is the mayor of san antonio, ron nurenburg. you were there at the white house for this executive action. >> i appreciate the reporter's comments there because i think he's right. i mean, this is one step of a larger context that the biden administration has been working on a whole of government approach that includes diplomacy with mexico and with the state department working on solutions inside the interior of mexico and other south american communities. in addition to that, cracking down on smugglers and making it easier for us to apply penalties. it is a whole of administration approach with the exception of congress whose job it is to reform our immigration policies, and, frankly, you know, yesterday was a good day for communities who have been overwhelmed, ngos and local governments who have been dealing with the impacts of the migration influx in a way that upholds our priorities. our priorities are to maintain order, protect public safety and treat people with dignity and humanity. we've been able to do that through cooperation with the white house, with fema, with resources. those resources are stretched, and so the president is doing what needs to be done within his authority in the void of congressional action. last year at the u.s. conference of mayors, cities, bipartisan leaders of cities all across the country got together to support the actions that were being announced by a good faith group of senators on the bipartisan border deal that would have reformed some of the policies that were needed, but nothing has been done and inaction is not an option, and i appreciate the president stepping into the void with something that needs to be followed with more comprehensive action. >> you mentioned some of the bipartisan border policies that would have surged more resources to the border, more border officials, more immigration judges. more resources to track when fentanyl crossed the border, more deportation flights, and policies that would trigger those deportations more quickly in terms of how the processing usually depose. i wonder if this executive action could have consequences. david mentioned the cartels and the human smugglers and if there's a carveout for unaccompanied minors. could we see an influx of unaccompanied minors showing up at the border? >> look, this president has led with conviction and faith and family and making sure that families were treated with dignity and compassion and keeping families together, which is a far cry from the trump administration who was leading with in this case president trump with actual literal convictions. so you know, this is a far different approach, what i think what we need to do is make sure that it's followed with action that includes expediting work authorizations, which the president has been doing through the cdp 1 app. there have been a lot of actions taken through the department of homeland curt, doj with the state department to help speed up processing, but the bottom line is we need resources. the federal government needs resources both for border security, for speeding up of processing, for stopping the trafficking of fentanyl into our country, and congress has sat on the sidelines, and so i know that this is not a perfect solution. i know there is plenty to dislike, even in the bipartisan border bill on both sides of the aisle. that's the nature of governing. i would tell them the time for talk is over, get in the game. we can't continue to sacrifice good waiting for perfect because it's never going to happen. that's why we haven't seen congressional action on comprehensive immigration reform for over 30 years. so i'm grateful that the president is taking what action he can. it's not without a larger context, and i do understand that it's coming from a place of wanting to make sure the united states remains a concern built on immigration that treats people with dignity and compassion, but that we're also a nation of law. in order to have a safe and effective immigration system we have to have a secure border. >> thank you so much for offering your perspective on this. turning now to the 2024 race where immigration is just one flash point. another one is president trump's conviction on 34 felonies. he will be sentenced in july, and while he could land behind bars, there are plenty of possible outcomes. he's toying with this idea of imprisoning his political opponents should he return to the white house. here's what he told news max. >> wouldn't it be terrible to throw the president's wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president -- the president's wife into jail. wouldn't that be a terrible thing? but they want to do it. so you know, it's a terrible, terrible path that they're leading us to, and it's very possible that it's going to have to happen to them. >> we are joined now by former republican congressman david jolly of florida and former democratic congressman max rose of new york. guys, thanks so much for coming in, an extra treat to have you both in studio with us today. so in 2016, david, trump of course vowed to lock her up in reference to hillary clinton. he didn't follow through with that, but is there a sense that he in 2024 could put together an administration and that would ultimately follow through with doing what he just said? >> absolutely. and this is a very dangerous moment, and i think it's why we always have to talk about the stakes of november as much as we talk about the race itself. the stakes are a president who has said i will be a retribution, and now says to the media maybe i will throw in jail democratic officials. notice he didn't say why. he didn't say there had been a crime committed. he just said maybe i need to do thaks that is my retribution. we also know he will surround himself with people who will support those actions, not try to slow him from doing that if he had any checks in his first administration. it also was courts in the first administration that largely held, but we're now eight years into the denigration of the courts as well. this is a terrifying cycle, and it's okay to recognize it as such and recognize that the american people had a choice in november that matters. >> there has been largely nothing but backup for trump on the republican side. just recently republicans put out a letter that the white house had made a mockery of the rule of law. you had conservative supreme court justice samuel alito, suggesting prosecutors can't be trusted to act in good faith. so in 2020, you know, trump and his gop allies were attacking the electoral system. now they're doing the same with the legal system. how dangerous is this? >> well, it's interesting, if you see what trump and actually his family members have been speaking to in recent interviews, they've spoken to their own naivety in 2016. trump has recently said i came in and i was just a real estate guy. i actually didn't know what i was doing, but now i do, and the people around me won't be, quote, unquote deep state oriented. they will be loyal soldiers for my cause of retribution, vengeance, and to rip apart the very fabric that is our nation today. that's what they're openly promising, and it's so critical in terms of the messaging over the course of the next four or five months. the democrats not get sucked into any notions of back and forth or this or that, but speak to the utter craziness, that is what donald trump is promising to do openly as well as what he has already done in his first term. and i believe, as do i believe my colleague over here, that if that is the message over the course of the next four or five months, you'll see a marked shift in the polls and the biden team will win. >> the biden team is shifting on messaging. we heard president biden at a fundraiser this week talking about donald trump having snapped, the same fundraiser he said for the first time in american history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency. calling trump a felon, david, what effect could that rhetorical shift have? do you expect president biden to say it more often, use that word felon, and do you think it matters? >> i prefer the word criminal. donald trump is an adjudicated criminal. a felon is just the type of criminal he is. that's the class of the crime, but i think it's important that joe biden be presidential in this moment and that is not to put the brakes on him following this lead. he has to be presidential and not play trump's game in the trenches, but the president needs to talk to the american people about the seriousness of donald trump's threat to democracy and his lack of fitness. so to max's point, i think there are three elements in every biden message, it's what he's done for the country, his policies on health care, education, infrastructure, donald trump's lack of fitness and the state of our democracy. a president who wants to wake up working for you and a man unfit is clear. >> fueled in large part after the conviction, $141 million in small dollar donations they said. should those numbers scare democrats? >> no. money's not going to matter here. look, if this was an assembly race or a city council race, money matters. this is a current president running against a former president. their name i.d. is 99% or above, and they're both going to have more than enough money. >> sure, but doesn't money help to put people in place on the ground, to reach out to voters in a more personal way, maybe help to turn them out, that sort of impact? >> genuinely there are at a certain point when it comes to money in politics because we're not even talking about super pac money now, diminishing rates of impact. what are they going to start putting a billboard on the moon here? what will matter, though, is the message, and you know, what donald trump and his campaign have repeatedly tried to do is say before covid everything was great. that is a message that has to be tackled head on, the biden campaign i believe they are and will continue to, continue to remind the american people of the chaos and dysfunction and incompetency that was the trump pre-covid presidential years. guess what the american people in 2018 and in 2020 absolutely rejected that and they will do so again in this upcoming election. >> real quickly, trump's attorneys are not asking for his gag order to be removed related to the hush money case here in new york. after the conviction michael cohen's family was doxed on some of the right wing website. what would happen if the gag order is lifted? >> merchan has a difficult decision here. the case has been adjudicated but for sentencing and appeal. i think donald trump's attorneys are really worried about the former president facing jail time. look, if donald trump would just shut up he probably wouldn't go to jail, but not only is he questioning the justice system with his own rhetoric, he's going to the line of violating a gag order. if he violates the gag order before sentencing the case to put him in jail is real. i think his attorneys know. >> former congress members david rose and max jolly. coming up, she made headlines around the world after she was jailed and then cleared of killing her roommate. this morning a new headline for america's amanda knox out of an italian court. we are counting down to liftoff for boeing's historic space mission, launch set for 10:52 eastern. stay with us. t for 10:52 eastern. stay with us [ serene music playing ] welcome to the wayborhood. the wayfair vibe at our place is western. my thing, darling? shine. gardening. some of us go for the dramatic. how didn't i know wayfair had vanities in tile? [ gasps ] this. wow! do you have any ottomans without legs. sure. you'll flip for the poof cart. in the wayborhood, there's a place for all of us. ♪ wayfair. every style. every home. ♪ (vo) explore the world the viking way from the quiet comfort of elegant small ships with no children and no casinos. we actually have reinvented ocean voyages, designing all-inclusive experiences for the thinking person. viking - voted world's best by both travel + leisure and condé nast traveler. learn more at viking.com. we're back with a new twist in the amanda knox legal saga. an italian court upheld a slander conviction for falsely accusing an innocent man for the murder of her roommate meredith kirchner in 2007. she was cleared in kirchner's murder. knox crying in court as the verdict was delivered. her first time back in an italian courtroom in more than a decade. joining us from florence, italy, is nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. knox had said getting this verdict thrown out would be the final step in fully clearing her name, so where does this leave her? >> reporter: ana, yeah, that's right. she flew all the way from seattle to be here, to be in court believing that she could put this last hurdle behind her if you like. instead we watched as she we want as she had a long embrace from her husband. she sat down for a long time in the courtroom. her lawyer told me that she will go back to seattle and continue her life as a mom. clearly she had wanted to fully clear her name. she didn't manage to achieve that today. this morning a shocking verdict for amanda knox convicted for slander, an italian court upholding a 16-year-old ruling. knox had been trying to clear her name, back in that courtroom for the first time in almost 13 years. her lawyer speaking to us moments later saying she's too emotional to talk publicly for now. >> amanda is very upset. we're very surprised of the outcome of the decision. >> reporter: this was her then aged 20 hours after her roommate was murdered in the idyllic italian town of pa rue sha. today's case another retrial, knox accused of slander. the bar owner spending a few weeks in jail though his alibi was established. knox allegedly made the allegation during interrogation by italian police. meredith kir cher was found half naked with 40 stab wounds. police searched the student's bloodstained parent and arrested the american and rafael who she'd been dating for a week. they would spend four years behind bars, face three euro trial, and she would testify to being hit by police. her interrogation without a lawyer. one of the officers gave me a smack and said remember, remember, she told the court today. she was finally freed and exonerated by italy's highest court. the real killer has served a 13-year sentence. for amanda knox, no end for what she calls a nightmare. >> what's your next step? will you appeal? >> we have a right to appeal. this is a court of appeal decision, but before taking this decision, i'd like to read the motivation. >> reporter: and ana, she was sentenced to three years in prison in the court behind me there, but she has already served four years, so she will not be behind bars tonight. she has been told that she has to pay legal fees and compensation, but as you heard from her lawyer there, really with the potential that they will appeal this conviction now having overturned so many convictions really for amanda knox, the real challenge here is that this continues after all these years. >> just no closure, not yet at least. keir simmons, thank you. and we are just moments away now from liftoff, boeing set to launch its first ever crew of humans into space. how this mission could impact future space travel and our understanding of the universe. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. ♪ ♪ i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. adults lost up to 14 pounds. i lost some weight. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take ozempic® if you or your family ever had medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if allergic to it. stop ozempic® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, or an allergic reaction. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. gallbladder problems may occur. tell your provider about vision problems or changes. taking ozempic® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase low blood sugar risk. side effects like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea may lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. living with type 2 diabetes? 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(vo) close in a matter of days. when life's doors open, we'll handle the house. so rich. so indulgent. it's indulgent moisture body wash for soft, smooth skin. bye-bye dry. hello glow! in just 14 days. indulge with olay body wash. we are now just moments away from liftoff in cape canaveral, florida, and the third attempt to launch boeing's star liner spacecraft into orbit with a crew on board, if this launch happens it would mark the first piloted test flight for boeing in nasa. on board, two nasa astronauts both former navy test pilots, we're going to watch this. we're going to take it live joining us as we count it down. less than five minutes until liftoff. tom costello, charles bolden, former astronaut and nasa administrator and the franklin institute chief astronomer. tom, as we await the moment of liftoff, walk us through what we're about to see. >> well, this was a critical test flight for boeing as you mentioned, this will be the third attempt in just the last two and a half months, two months or so to put humans on this boeing star liner spaceship. nasa has always said they need more than one way to get a crew to the international space station. right now they're completely reliant on spacex. boeing is years behind schedule in getting station. right now, they're completely reliant on spacex. boeing is years behind schedule and getting starliner ready to go. now, they have successfully got an uncrewed mission to the space station. but now we have two astronauts on board and their lives are on the line to be candid, butch willmore and sunny williams, two navy test pilots, and they are about to ride this as we just heard butch say a moment ago, let's put some fire on this rocket, and push it into space. so, they're ready to go, all eyes are on this mission because not only is it high stakes, it is also critical for boeing, which as you know,s had had a troubled few years in all of its divisions, not only commercial airliners, but space program and now we are about a minute and a half away from a critical test. >> and so, we see they are ready to go, we heard, it is a go for launch. moments from now, we'll see this rocket lift off. general, the two astronauts, they're calling sunny and butch, on board, are former navy test pilots. what kind of prep goes into a launch like this and talk about the sense of anticipation these two are likely experiencing. >> there is a lot of prep that goes into. they have been training for more than two years on this particular vehicle, learning every procedure possible, every time they go into the simulator, it is like disaster training because they want to make sure if anything happens, the crew can react appropriately. equally the ground crew has been through lots of training, they go through malfunction training also, so that they can respond when anything happens as we had happen last week with the ground launch sequencer. >> now, last week they had to scrap, they called it off within minutes. let's just listen in now that we're less than a minute away from launch time. >> 30. 25. >> status check. go atlas. go centar. go starliner. godspeed, butch and sunny. >> 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition and liftoff of starliner and atlas 5, carrying two american heroes. >> calling down to mission control here in houston that the spacecraft has gone rolling into right attitude for its assent. >> point of maximum dynamic pressure where the friction is highest. >> got a good throttle up. >> starliner and atlas looking good with speeds and altitude increasing as expected, coming up in less than 20 seconds, the solid rocket boosters will run out of fuel and burn out. >> good srb. >> good srb. >> the fuel and the solid rocket boosters has been depleted. the atlas main booster will be continuing its burn for the next three minutes. >> good handle. >> good handle. >> that call good handle from capcom indicating the crew has the ability to initiate an abort manually if needed. all looking good so far. now two minutes into starliner's flight and coming up on the solid rocket booster jettison. >> we're going to keep watching this and we'll listen back in as they speak more, but there is a small -- sounds like so far, derrick, everything is going as planned. >> solid rocket boosters have been jettisoned. team on the ground here confirming it was good and the vehicle's trajectory continues to look good. now at three minutes into today's flight. >> derrick, your thoughts as we watch this moment and what appears to be everything going as planned right now. >> i'm sure everyone is excited and satisfied at what they have seen so far in this first two minutes of flight of the atlas centar rocket and the starliner capsule. i'm sure the astronauts on board are feeling good about this as they see everything is looking at its nominal flight and the excitement of this is -- should be palpable by everyone involved in this as the spacecraft makes its way up to international space station. this is a great day, so far, for boeing, and i'm sure everybody is happy about the progress so far. >> general, talk to us about how long this whole process takes, this -- what is considered launch process from lifting off until they are in orbit, i guess. >> well, the crew has been following along with everything. as you probably heard a little bit ago, they got to a point where they could actually execute a manual separation and manual abort if something became necessary. but right now, they're observing all the parameters on board, making sure everything is going well. a big difference between the boeing spacecraft that we're on today, and, say, the spacex dragon is this vehicle is built to be piloted. so, it has a lot of manual interaction that is possible. in fact, once they separate on the way to the station, tomorrow they'll do a number of manual maneuvers just to make sure that the vehicle can be controlled by the crew. and i'm not absolutely certain, but they'll probably do a manual docking the way we used to do in the shuttle. >> and what are the astronauts experiencing right now, general? we know that they were just discussing the g forces. >> you know, it is interesting. never having been on anything except the space shuttle, on the shuttle at liftoff, you felt about a g and a half. it is not a lot. it is like being with your teenage kid in a car at a stop light and the light changes green and they all of a sudden floor it and you get pushed back in your seat a little bit. and so that's about it. the maximum amount of g that they feel is around 3 or 4 gs and it is actually through your chest as you get to the point where all the boosters and in this particular case when the primary launch vehicle, the atlas 5, when it gets ready to separate, they're going to feel pressure across their chest. i used to describe it like having a gorilla sit on your chest. and once the operation from the atlas 5 occurs, everything will really settle down, they'll be on the centar until they get to the point where it finally finishes. and by the depiction there on the screen, it looks like they already separated from the primary launch vehicle the atlas 5 and now going on the two centar engines. >> what is your perspective on how important this mission is? >> this mission is important because nasa needs to have more than one spacecraft to shuttle astronauts from earth up to international space station and this builds their capability in moving forward for the artemis program, which will be taking astronauts out to the moon. so, all of these steps give us greater capability, give nasa greater capability, greater flexibility and the ability to have redundancy in spacecraft that carry astronauts from earth up to space station. so, this spacecraft, along with the spacex spacecraft gives nasa a lot of flexibility in that there are two different kinds of spacecraft, they operate differently. but they can do the same job very, very well. and that allows nasa to have some room to begin to build additional capability on as we build into the artemis program heading out to the moon. >> general, of course, spacex has been flying missions with astronauts for years. why is spacex so far ahead? >> well, the primarien that spacex is so far ahead is that boeing on their initial flight actually suffered some software problems and other issues that caused them to overuse the propellant and so they were unable to get into a safe orbit that would have taken them to the international space station. they have had a number of other maybe quality