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they their windows. the hail makes it look like a strin spring snowstorm. hello everybody. severe weather pummelling portions of the country yesterday and today. in the carolinas and mexico and western parts of texas we could be looking at more large hail and strong winds and tornadoes in these areas. thunderstorms are firing up this afternoon and evening hours. as we head into the afternoon the first half of the weekend we have a holiday weekend and across texas and mexico we could be seeing strong to severe thunderstorms. heads up if you live in san angelo and lubbock, texas. you could be looking at severe weather on saturday and sunday. it could be a very slow moving weather pattern out here across the plains states. we are expecting areas of heavy rain. locally more than 4-6 inches of rain is possible in texas, oklahoma, also parts of missouri. flash flooding could be an issue into the weekend and anna and ainsley take a look at the temperatures for today heating up acr ....
minutes. so when that statement comes, we ll, of course bring it to you. and of course all of this ongoing in sydney as it comes up on 6:00 local time. this siege going on now for more than eight hours. i m john vause at the cnn center in atlanta. and i m natalie allen. we have been with you for several hours, and we will push on as this situation in australia continues. it is breaking news of a siege there in a coffee shop that has been ongoing. a gunman holding people hostage at the lindt coffee shop in downtown sydney. sky news has just informed us that the gunman is calling himself the brother , and has contacted a radio station and two tv stations via hostages with demands, a conversation with the prime minister and an isil flag. we do know five people have managed to get out. three men were seen running out two hours ago. two of them were customers. the man in the blue jacket, the man in the white zirs and a few moments later there was a man wearing an apron who ....
otherwise, what his motivations are. now, in terms of the new reports coming through that there are explosives in the cafe and two more around the cbd, well, we did hear these reports very early on, early in the morning, just a couple of hours into that siege. now of course police can t confirm these to us at the moment. but you have to take into account that they ve set up quite a 200-meter exclusion zone around this lindt cafe. now in the vicinity of this cafe is not only channel 7 news, which is a major tv broadcaster here in australia, but we re atalking about the u.s. consulate, the reserve bank, major branches of the common woelt bank and also i have close by is the new south wales parliament. so this has had maximum impact. the media of the world, the eyes of the world are now concentrated their focus on the cbd. and, look, it is somewhat a confused situation. i think i heard you discussing before that police aren t forthcoming with information. this is certainly a movi ....
so there s no training behind this. there s no standard attack in any of this. so, actually, we can see it going any way. but i think the i think the longer it goes on without violence the more likely there won t be any. welcome back, everybody. i m john vause at the cnn center. i m natalie allen. thank you for joining us. we ve been here several hours with this breaking news out of australia. and we will continue to bring you the latest now. and we d like to welcome our viewers in the united states and all around the world. we d like to give you the update now. a gunman is still holding an unknown number of people at a lindt coffee shop in sydney s main business district. sky news australia reports that the hostage taker, seen here, is calling himself the brother. he has forced hostages to speak with three media outlets over the phone. he apparently has two demands. he wants an isis flag. he also wants a conversation with australia s prime minister. we also have video ....
israeli consulate, was an 18-year-old young woman who was here celebrating the new year with a couple of her friends. they survived but she did not. dozens were injured as well. we re not yet sure whether or not americans are among the wounded. we cannot definitively rule that out as of yet. many are still in the hospital, at least three people are in critical condition. so still trying to confirm whether or not any americans are among the wounded here. this is an awful start to the new year. thank you. on the heels of the turkey terror, a new report on isis and its aspirations to launch mass casualty chemical attacks. it comes from the british security minister in a newspaper interview published today. i want to bring in chris dicky and also an msnbc contributor. thanks for being with me once again. while we have no claim of responsibility for the attack in turkey at this point, i want to ask you about the new interview with the british security minister on chemical weapo ....