early votes cast could break turnout records. also tonight the state of emergency in florida. hurricane and tropical storm watches up as subtropical storm nicole takes aim. we ve got the new track. the new numbers on child rsv cases. 77% of pediatric hospital beds filled nationwide. what parents need to know. the chaos at twitter under new owner elon musk. after laying off nearly half its workforce the company reportedly scrambling to hire some key workers back. and is facebook next in line for mass layoffs? and the world record powerball jackpot. nearly $2 billion up for grabs tonight. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt. good evening, everyone, from our nbc news election headquarters. with 40 million early votes already cast, millions of election day voters will soon add their votes as the first poll openings here in the east are now just hours away. control of congress and the direction of the country to be decided. democrats defending their slim
recession is, and why we re not quite there yet. plus, how much longer will prices rise as supermarkets and how much more interest you pay and credit cards, cards, homes? all of that and more coming up. we are gonna begin this afternoon though with this devastating floods in eastern kentucky. governor abbott shear confirming on twitter, and at a press conference a short time ago that at least 25 people have died so far. and is warning that that number will only go up. we shear also confirmed that four children have died as a result of these floods. down from the original total of six. the federal government is pledged its support, but beshear is warning that certain rescue efforts could take weeks. nbc s maggie baskin joins us now from jackson kentucky. maggie, it has been called the worst flooding the state have ever seen. how are people dealing with this? lindsey, the short answer is, anyway they can frankly. they are in survival mode from what we have seen at this point.
now, the department, they want to take the muzzle off, of course. and keep in mind, when two former pence aides testified to the federal grand jury, there had been a deal that had already been negotiated in advance to try to steer clear of any of their direct interactions with trump. that happens through the same approach we ve seen used by the house select committee. the fact that the doj is dotting their is and crossing their ts and preparing for a court privilege signals that if information is what you want, negotiation approach, let alone the muzzle, suspect going to cut it. remember, concerns about privilege are believed to be wide. they chose not to pursue any contempt of charges against mark meadows or dani scavino, as opposed to steve bannon and navarro. the department has green lit all of the access to the house select committee s transcripts. that s more than about 1,000 witnesses, i might add. in the word of chairman bennie thompson, no one the committee has talked
(grandmother) excuse me! (young woman vo) some relationships get better with time. that s why i got a crosstrek. (avo) ninety-six percent of subaru vehicles sold in the last ten years are still on the road. (grandmother) i m so glad you got a subaru. (young woman) i wonder who gave me the idea? (avo) love. it s what makes subaru, subaru. before we go tonight, i just want to take one more look at the devastating flooding in kentucky tonight. at least eight people are known to be dead, the governor saying that he s never seen anything like this in the state. and he fears that the death toll will rise. there is more rain in the forecast. obviously continue to follow the story and the people in that state are in our thoughts, in our first tonight. and in the days ahead. the news continues, i want to hand it over to laura coast and cnn tonight. laura? thank you anderson, those images are devastating. i m so glad we re continue to cover and i hope everyone will be safe. i am le c
requested a colonel convicted of murder and added along this infamous arms dealer for wnba star brittney griner and paul whelan. we have a team of correspondents covering these breaking developments. frederik pleitgen is in moscow for us. let s start with natasha bertrand, who is breaking this exclusive. what have you learned. reporter: what we ve learned is that in response to the russian proposal to trade that arms dealer, viktor bout for the two americans detained in russia, paul whelan and brittney griner, the russians put forward their own request and they said we don t want just viktor bout, we want this guy name vadim krz krosokov, convicted in december of 2021 for murdering in broad daylight a chech an fighter and the germans sentenced him to life in prison. the russians in response to this proposal submitted this kind of back channel request to the americans. it was done through an fsb back channel, the fsb of course is the main security service for the russians.