res everywhere without a prescription. cross examination gets crossed. donald trump's defense team takes on his former fixer, michael cohen, criticizing his credibility and accusing him of being fueled by revenge as the former president's hush money trial heats up.

president biden hits china in the wallet. the stiff enough tariffs. how it could impact the economy here at home. and the first report on the deadly baltimore bridge collapse shedding more light on what happened to the ship before impact. and restoring power to the players. a single social media post and gamestop and amc shares soaring like 2021 all over again. and the fur flies in a fight for top dog. the very good pup that took home best in show at westminster. it's wednesday, may 15th. "early today" starts right now. good morning, i'm frances rivera. we start with that dramatic showdown in a manhattan courtroom. donald trump's defense team getting the chance to question michael cohen. the friend turned foe of the f former president. in trump'

here's alice barr. >> reporter: the prosecution's star witness, michael cohen, put to the test. under blistering cross examination, sticking to his guns. cohen's testimony ties together past witness accounts and documents, outlining payments right before the 2016 election. to keep ex-porn star, stormy daniels quiet about an alleged one-nightstand, all of which mr. trump denies. during the questioning he said he paid daniels $130,000 to ensure the story would not come out, would not affect mr. trump's chances of becoming president of the united states. asked at whose direction he paid daniels, he replied trump's. he testified mr. trump repaid

him with monthly checks that were falsely reported as legal expenses. cohen expressed regret and said he ultimately, quote, made a decision, based on conversation with my family i would not lie for president trump any longer. the former president complaining that he can't publicly respond because of a judge's order protecting witnesses. >> the gag order has to come off. >> reporter: allies can speak on mr. trump's behalf. >> they have him tied up here in this ridiculous prosecution that is not about justice. it's all about politics. >> reporter: house speaker mike johnson joining the stream of republican lawmakers coming to court to back their party's presidential candidate. in washington, alice barr, nbc news. new this morning, another headache for boeing. the justice department says the company violated a deal shielding it from criminal prosecution. it's over two deadly accidents involving 737 max planes.

the doj stated in a court filing that boeing had failed to design, implement a program to prevent and detective violations of fraud laws. the doj made the finding while investigating that emergency door blowout on an alaska airlines flight in january. and, in two separate crashes in indonesia and ethiopia six years ago, 346 people were killed. the finding opens up boeing to potential criminal prosecution over those incidents. for its part, boeing said it believes it has honored the terms of the agreement with the doj. a florida driver is in custody this morning and facing dui manslaughter charges for a crash that killed eight people and injured dozens more. investigators say he was driving the pickup truck that crashed into a bus carrying migrant farm workers. sam brock has the latest. >> reporter: in florida, a deadly crash on a country road.

>> obviously, we're here because of a tragedy. we got eight dead people. >> reporter: just after 6:30 in the morning, a retired school bus, carrying more than 50 migrant workers to a marion county watermelon farm sideswiped by a pickup truck. >> the school bus traveled off the roadway, onto the grass shoulder, where it went through a fence, struck a tree and overturned. >> reporter: first responders dispatched in force. more than 30 ambulances, rushing 38 people to hospitals. at least eight of them died at the scene. several more in life-threatening condition. >> there's high probability this may be beyond eight fatalities. >> reporter: florida highway patrol identifying the driver of the pickup truck as 41-year-old brian mclean howard with a lengthy criminal history now charged with eight counts of dui manslaughter. locals in this largely-agricultural area say these back roads can be dangerous. >> this road seems to have a hot of traffic incidence. over the past several years,

it's been even worse. >> reporter: authorities say weather might have been a factor and promised a full investigation into exactly what caused the fatal crash but say the review could last six months. >> i'm confident we will have answers for the family, to be able to give them closure of why we have this crash. >> reporter: for now, this wreckage offers only sorrowful questions and inconsolable heartbreak. sam brock, ocala, florida. antony blinken is still in ukraine on day two of his unannounced visit. president zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the support. blinken assuring the president that assistance is on the way. he found time to rock with the locals covering neil young's "keep on rockin' in the free world." ♪ keep on rockin' in the free

world ♪ >> later today, blinken will hold a meeting with ukrainian foreign minister. president biden is accusing china of cheating when it comes to trade. the president announcing major new tariffs on about $18 billion worth of products from china, including electric cars. gabe gutierrez has the latest from the white house. >> reporter: with china revving up to sell government-subsidized electric vehicles for as low as $10,000, the biden administration is slapping higher tariffs on evs and other chinese goods to fight what it calls unfair trade practices. >> it's not competition. it's cheating. >> reporter: the price to imfor the electric vehicles from china will now quadruple from a 25% tax to 100%. the president is also announcing hikes on a shlough of other chinese products, such as syringes and needles and personal protective equipment. >> china heavily subsidized

these products, pushing china to produce far more than the rest of the world can absorb and then dumping the excess products on the market at unfairly low prices. >> reporter: even though as a candidate he promised to reverse what he called trump's senseless policies on china's tariffs, president biden has kept most of them. the biden administration denies the new moves will lead to more inflation because they're more targeted. but the former president says they don't go far enough. >> china's eating our lunch right now. >> reporter: the president fired back. >> he said china is eating our lunch. >> he's been feeding them a long time. >> reporter: in battleground wisconsin, this car dealer thinks the administration is pushing evs too hard. >> leveling the playing field across the board is important, especially when we have the chinese government subsidizing their ev production. >> reporter: in response, china's commerce minister says

the u.s. is weaponizing trade issues, calling it political manipulation. back to you. >> gabe, thank you. eight tiktok creators are suing the u.s. government, saying a new law forcing a sale or ban of the app is unconstitutional. among the creators are a baker, activist and rapper, all with big followings. a ban could deprive them of this distinctive means of communication and expression. tiktok itself also sued the government citing first amendment issues. the doj defended the sl legislation. the national transportation safety board is reporting what went wrong on the dali. the report revealing the ship lost power while docked about ten hours before setting off. and then twice again that night. the second coming when the ship was just 350 yards from the bridge. the crew alerted authorities

immediately but didn't have time to anchor the vessel or get tugboats to steer it to safety. demolition crews used explosives to remove a large piece of the bridge offer the boat on monday. it could be removed as soon as today. millions across the east are in for a soggy commute this morning. let's turn to nbc meteorologist angie lassman, who's keeping a close eye on those storms. >> you can see all of that rain that's settled across parts of the mid atlantic, stretching into the northeast. a little rain for the ohio valley and a bit of thunderstorm activity happening across the plains right now. let's start with the unsettled conditions for the east. we do have a couple of fronts that are kind of leaving us in this pattern, bringing us a bit of rain here across that region. we're going to watch for strong storms possibly across parts of florida today. we'll show you that in a moment. and notice the rain sticks around from d.c. to boston. we'll see showers lingering. we've got another day of severe threat across the carolinas, florida and the plain as well.

21 million people included in this. we could see large hail and strong wind gusts. not to mention, we're going to gear up for more rain. this is how much rain we've had across this area since sunday. 6 inches in mobile. more than 2 inches for tallahassee, alexandria coming up at 4 inches. here's the system that's going to bring it to us. notice the heavy rain. we're talking torrential rain on already-saturated soil. this is problem atticatic. and this leaves us wet across the east, from the southeast all the way to the northeast here as we get into your saturday ans anpld to new york and

n philadelphia and washington, d.c. cleveland will hit 70 degrees. and that's a look at y a look a request your forecast. unleashing the best in show. the adorable top dog at this year's westminster. '6 this year's westminster. '6 oh no. bye, bye cough. later chest congestion. hello 12 hours of relief. 12 hours!! not coughing at the movies!? hashtag still not coughing?! ahh! mucinex dm 12 hour doesn't just quiet coughs, it treats coughs caused by excess mucus at the source and controls them for 12 hours. it's comeback season. stubborn chest congestion? try mucinex 12 hour. when anyone in this house wears white, it doesn't stay white for long. white? to soccer? i'm not gonna slide tackle. but now with tide oxi white, we can clean our white clothes without using bleach. it even works on colors. i slide tackled. i see that. tide oxi white.

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wall street a few years ago and are surging again. amc rocketing more than 30% and gamestop was up 60%, all because of one cryptic post on social media. kristine romans has the story. >> reporter: this picture on social media posted by a guy named roaring kitty did this on wall street. >> gamestop, which is soaring another 57% this morning. over 7 million shares of volume. >> reporter: amc and blackberry joining gamestop in an eye-watering surge. >> there's no fundamental reason for these stocks to move 50, 60, 70%. >> absolutely. >> reporter: an echo of 2021 when unloved stocks like gamestop soared as much as 1,000%. >> the first stock i'm going to talk about is gamestop. >> reporter: that's keith gill, aka roaring kitty featured in

the movie "dumb money", which told the story of those amateur investors sticking it to the wall street pros. >> how much did we make today? >> $5 million. >> how much did we lose today? >> $1 billion. >> reporter: amateur investors online championed what they saw as a revolt against wall street. but experts say the real way to beat wall street is to get rich slowly. >> what they actually hate is people buying and holding index funds, being very passive. doing the financially smart things that work over decades. >> reporter: for most investors, boring is better. kristine romans, nbc news. now to a story that rocked mlb. the former interpreter of shohei otani pleading not guilty in los angeles federal court. but it's mostly a formality,

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for "the house of dragon" on tuesday. it shows them gearing up for war with the help of fire-breathing monsters. it picks back up on hbo on june 16 for those who have that void in their lives. there you go. that's for you. >> i hope this is just as good. these shows on hbo always have good acting. and do you have a lot of random facts about rea about re housewives? aim so amazon might have a way for you and a few pals to make a few bucks. the new "pop culture jeopardy somejeopardy" will feature teams of three. a host and premiere date have yet to be announced. this is right up our alley. i think we could crush at this. >> i think so, too.

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dolly parton is teaming up with krispy kreme for a limited edition doughnut collection. it features the dolly dazzler doughnut. and of course her signature butterfly. that's made out of chocolate. how cute is that packaging, too, and decorations? we'll be right back. ♪ crispy, krispy kreme ♪ ♪ spy, krispy kreme ♪ ♪ bye, bye cough. later chest congestion. hello 12 hours of relief. 12 hours!! not coughing at the movies!? hashtag still not coughing?! ahh! mucinex dm 12 hour doesn't just quiet coughs, it treats coughs caused by excess mucus at the source and controls them for 12 hours. it's comeback season. stubborn chest congestion? try mucinex 12 hour. alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads.

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classes with five to ten students, teachers who are called coaches, and blended grade levels. you can find all of this in one of the micro schools in phoenix. janel wood founded the black mother mother's micro school in 2021 with the mission of meeting the needs of black families. many who have transferred to the schools have experienced bullying that was unaddressed by teachers and administrators. >> they've been called the n-word repeatedly. you know, the girls have been called names that definitely try to hurt their image. when they go to the teachers, teachers oftentimes have said stuff hikelike you're being oversensitive, you're exaggerating. stop fussing with that and go back to work. >> reporter: this leads to many children to retaliate and thtal

school-to-prison pipeline. she strongly believes in the mission to creating a school to purpose pipeline. >> we're showing them that there are people wholove them and want to see them succeed. we have policies and guidelines for discipline that are different than the public school system. we have grace. we have grace for our kids. >> reporter: johnson says due to the small class size, coaches can create individual development plans with parents and students to ensure personalized success. and they meet both state and national education standards. on a typical school day, they will learn english together, spend time independently reading their book of choice, work on their individualized math lessons and create science and art projects as a group.

tiffany dudley and her son za xavier have been involved. >> i don't get into trouble as much at all. >> makes my heart happy to know that he's in a place where he fe feels comfortable to be himself. and ask questions. >> what a difference those kids and teachers will make. for more on the story, head to nbcu academy.com. thanks for waking up wit

attorney and her opponents trying to remove her. we are live this morning with all the recall vote now in place and the new push to halt the recall before it ever happens. one race to stages a key debate takes shape in the bay area's most