death in pennsylvania for over two decades. it s not used very often. we do not know if the state made this request to the federal government or not. but we do know the federal government is in charge of this investigation and charging and whatever other legal process is used to deal withholding this person, bowers, accountable. that s correct. this is one of those instances where federal and state law overlap. this is overlapping jurisdiction between the federal government, fbi and other investigators and state and local authorities. this happens a lot in criminal law, this is one of those instances, the federal law is a hate crimes law, and then also in pennsylvania, of course. pennsylvania would handle local murder cases, but it also has an ethnic intimidation law, which is pennsylvania s version of a hate crimes legislation. all right, thank you, danny. joining me now is nbc s jeff
teen trayvon martin. he says his concern is for the boy s grieving parents. my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. you know, if i had a son he d look like trayvon. meanwhile, more protests are planned in cities across the nation today. last night thousands rallied in sanford. that s the central florida town where martin was killed. protesters are calling for the arrest of the shooter, neighborhood watch captain george zimmerman. zimmerman says he acted in self-defense. 17 counts of murder, those are the main charges expected today for army staff sergeant robert bales. he is the m.a.s.american soldie accused in the killing of afghan civilians, most of them women and children. bales remains locked up at ft. leavenworth. the rutgers university student convicted of spying on his gay roommate says he wasn t trying to intimidate him. a jury convicted dharun ravi of bias intimidation and invasion of praf si ivacy in the case of clementi. ravi says he doesn t th
whether you agree with the verdict or not, justice was served in a new jersey courtroom where a jury convicted dharun ravi in the cyber bullying case we ve been following more than a year now. ravi a former rutgers student use a webcam to spy on his roommate tyler clementi while way man. he tweeted about what he saw. days later which meantie killed himself. he was just 18 years old. ravi faces up to five years in prison. at time of the arrest, no law on the books making cyber bullying a crime. months after tyler clementi s suicide new jersey passed a cyber bullying law. they were able to convict him under a biased intimidation law instead. only 11 states currently have laws on the books criminalizing cyber bullying. only 11 states nap despite the fact bullying remain as huge problem. according to government statistics kids between 8 and 15 say bullying is a bigger problem for them than racism or pressure to have sex. the toll bullying takes on gay teens and kids is especially
escalating wharf words between iran and israel and why one word president obama used today may make all the difference. let s go out front. i m erin burnett. out front tonight we have breaking news. there are powerful tornadoes now ripping apart the midwest and southern states at this hour, and it s a very rapidly changing situation as the storms are touching down. five are dead at this hour in indiana. more than two dozen tornadoes have been reported in six states. we ve got tornado warnings right now in effect for 50 counties through this evening. all right. this is pretty frightening thing. some of these storms have been incredibly powerful. we ve been talking about storms with winds up to 170, 180-mile-per-hour. they could be hitting heavily populated areas. we start with gary tuchman who is in nashville, tennessee, tonight. gary, what have you seen and heard? reporter: earin, this is one of those heavily populated areas. music city, tennessee. 1.7 million people are