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it's good to be back with you on this second hour of "chris jansing reports." at this hour, breaking news overseas. more than 15 people killed, dozens injured after a shooting at a university in prague. video shows a scene all too familiar here in the u.s. but exceedingly rare in central europe. so what happened? plus, rudy giuliani trying to fend off a mountain of legal bills from lawsuits and legal fees by filing for bankruptcy. and wait until you hear just how deep his debts go. the growing humanitarian crisis at the southern border. for the third day in a row, more than 12,000 migrants have crossed into the u.s. we are live in texas.

plus, governor greg abbott escalating his war against president biden's immigration policies. first, he was bussing migrants, now he's flying them out of state. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments, and we start with that deadly shooting in prague. nbc's molly hunter is following that story for us. just moments ago, molly, i understand the white house addressed the shooting. give us the latest as you know it. >> reporter: the white house did just address the shooting in a press conference. actually, let's go straight to that sound bite and i'll talk to you on the back end because it just came in. >> the president and the first lady are praying for the families who lost loved ones and everyone else who has been affected by this senseless act of violence. on behalf of the united states, we send our condolences and wish the survivors of this tragic event a speedy recovery. federal authorities are in touch with czech authorities as they

investigate this incident, and we stand ready to provide additional support as needed. >> a mass shooting of this scale is very very rare in europe, very rare in central europe and unprecedented in the czech republic. it happened at charles university in the old town in central progress. very popular. there would have been a lot of tourists. one of the oldest, largest universities. the exact tictoc of the presser the 20-year-old university suspect had a class. police were tipped off at 2:59, police learned of the attack. though it is rare in this city, police were ready. officers were on scene in minutes. a s.w.a.t team was there in 12 minutes, and at 3:20 this afternoon, local time, police found the shooter dead. they are not releasing details of how he died. they do say there was a gunfight. they are not releasing specifics

about a motive. the interior minister was at the press conference. they say there is no information that the incident is considered or connected to international terrorism. they are very clear that this was a premeditated violent attack. this 24-year-old student was a university student. he was from a small town west of prague. as you say, the death toll stands at more than 15 people. police are not releasing the victims' names. the bodies have not been identified. the injured number right now stands at 24. police are very clear that these numbers could change. >> not surprising, given that it just happened six hours ago. molly hunter, thank you for that. even more breaking news now, a bankruptcy filing from rudy giuliani. nbc's ken dilanian is following that story for us. ken, i know you have been going through the documents, what do they reveal? >> a giuliani spokesperson said this filing was precipitated by the judge's decision to enforce the $148 million defamation judgment won by ruby freeman and

shaye moss. the filing lists assets as being between 1 and $10 million and his debts at 1 and $500 million. the specific lay out adds up to that 152 million. a million he owes in state and federal taxes. the documents say he owes more than $3 million to various lawyers, and of course the $148 million judgment to the two former georgia election officials. he also lists unknown debts to people currently suing him including hunter biden and two voting machine companies. what's important to note is that this defamation judgment is not dischargeable in the bankruptcy. it's on pause now because he's filing for bankruptcy but eventually when his finances are reorganized, that judgment will stay with him for the rest of his life. ruby freeman and shaye moss put liens on his wages, the reality is they're going to get pennies on the dollar, if anything,

chris. >> ken dilanian, thank you for that. let's go now to the growing humanitarian crisis at the southern border. guad venegas is reporting from eagle pass, texas, once again. guad, it looks so bad yesterday, during the short time you were on the air, they took two folks away with medical personnel. what's the situation like there today? >> reporter: chris, yesterday we counted five people in total being taken off on stretchers, and this morning, we have already seen others that are walked to the medical facility. they have a makeshift medical tent here, which is where a lot of these migrants are getting that type of attention. the crowds here that will be bigger for some parts of the day, smaller and bigger, that's because we see a lot of migrants crossing from mexico. large groups that are coming in, large groups are being processed and taken on the buses to the processing centers. we know this morning here in the del rio sector where eagle pass is locad, those processing

centers are at three times capacity. we also have the latest numbers with apprehensions at the southern border for three days in a row, immigration or border patrol has seen more than 12,000 migrants, crossing the border at the u.s. mexico border. these are record numbers. you can see the crowd, again, i'll move out of the way to show you as i have been doing because, i mean, it is just overwhelming to see the number of people that keep arriving. you can see families. you can see children. they have them separated by the ones that arrived here earlier. you can look at this area, the ones closest to us are sleeping. most likely many of these just arrived. we saw them coming in earlier. we see them arrive, and then it looks like they just want the rest. the ones at the far end are migrants. many slept here, and now they stood up. those lines are the lines that are taken over to the other side, over by the bridge where they're loaded on to buses, and within these large groups of thousands, we have medical

necessities. we have people that, as you mentioned, were carried out on stretchers, and others that have to go to medical facilities. tony gonzalez was here yesterday, the u.s. congressman that represents the area. the local hospital has been overwhelmed because a lot of migrants that have medical emergencies have to go to the local hospital, and that's where some of the resources locally are then thinned because they have to provide those services. just minutes ago, we also walked over to one of the shelters where migrants go after they have been processed. i had a quick conversation with some of them. what is the processing center like. what was it like in there, and the migrant said one thing, you know what, it was collapsed. there are so many people in there. we can tell they're doing their best to process people. we got to the shelter. they're doing their best to give us food. there just isn't enough. that's what it's like here in eagle pass. we have to keep in mind that there's a search also happening in other places like arizona and also in california and hakumba

where i have spoken to colleagues saying they're facing similar situations there. >> guad venegas, thank you for your ongoing reporting. as migrants pour into texas, governor greg abbott is chartering flights and sending some of them to chicago. nbc's natasha korecki is following that part of the story. and an escalation by the governor. >> it is an escalation. what we know is tuesday evening a flight landed at o'hare airport. it was a private flight commissioned out of el paso, texas. it landed at the airport without notice, without coordination, and about 100 migrants were on the flight. two of the people flying with the migrants fled in an uber, and then greg abbott, governor greg abbott in texas claimed responsibility for that flight. and what he's saying is that his bussing, he's had an ongoing bussing operation where he's been bussing tens of thousands of migrants to chicago and other cities that it wasn't working. because what chicago started

doing was impounding these buses and saying that unless you have a permit, unless you've coordinated at specific landing areas, you could not just drop off these migrants. they started creating barriers to the buses that abbot was sending. abbott said i'm going to start flying the migrants. that's what he has been doing. it is an escalation. abbott has sent over 75,000 migrants to six different cities in the united states, and he says he's doing it to alleviate his border towns that are bursting at the seams. and he says he's going to keep doing it. now, todayd get a statement from the white house responding specifically to this ight in chicago. what a spokesperson sd is yet again, governor abbottis showing how little regard or respect he has for human beings. this latest political stunt adds

to tally of extreme policies. he's not interested in solutions. he seeks to use people as political pawns. governor abbott says he's not going to stop until president biden does something to curb the crisis at the border, chris. >> and so it goes on, natasha korecki, thank you. coming up, the major move colorado republicans are considering if donald trump is kept off the state's primary ballot. we'll discuss in 60 seconds. as you can tell. thanks to golo and release, i've got my life and my health back. ♪ students... students of any age, from anywhere. students in a new kind of classroom. ♪ using our technology to power different ways of learning. ♪ harnessing ai to plant new beginnings.

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ineligible under the constitution's insurrectionist ban. a supreme court correspondent for usa today, nbc's vaughn hillyard is back with me here on set. vaughn, how easy or not easy is it to say, no more primaries, let's do a caucus instead. >> a political party can do whatever they want to pick their nominee. they can switch to a caucus if they desire. they did hold one in colorado, the gop did in 2012. it's not like they haven't done it before. all of that said, is donald trump's i'm told, the legal team plans to file the appeal sometime next week after christmas, at least before january 4th. if they file that appeal before january 4th, his name will appear on the ballot, unless the supreme court steps in and says we affirm the decision of the supreme court. it's hard to believe that donald trump would not appear on the ballot. that said here, the stakes of this are high. obviously if the supreme court were to jump in, and rule one way or the other on this. >> critics of the colorado

decision have warned it's a slippery slope, right. they say, well then you're just opening the door to all kinds of challenges. what are you hearing about that? what's the buzz in republican circles? >> everybody is looking beyond. and republicans, kellyanne conway was having a conversation with kristi noem about this and asked whether kristi noem if she could take president biden's name of the ballot. she said she doesn't think she has that power. and in texas they should take joe biden's name off the ballot. take a look. >> seeing what happened in colorado tonight, laura, except we believe in democracy in texas, maybe we should take joe biden off the ballot in texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he's been president. >> and in california, their lieutenant governor is urging secretary of state to remove donald trump's name from the ballot in california. you can see the letter that she wrote citing the colorado decision and saying that on march 5th, which is super

tuesday for republicans and the day that california will vote that donald trump engaged in insurrection per the colorado supreme court and his name should be taken off the ballot. there has not been a democratic secretary of state from colorado to michigan to arizona that has taken the initiative upon themselves to say whether or not donald trump is qualified for the ballot or not, instead leaving that to the decision to the courts, but what in california, the lieutenant governor is urging their secretary of state to do is outright say with her own powers as the secretary of state that donald trump is not qualified. >> let's talk about the likelihood that the u.s. supreme court is going to step into this fray. >> yeah, i mean, i think what vaughn said is absolutely right. it's also worth noting there's 16 states where there are these similar challenges in place. states like wisconsin, michigan, arizona, states that are not unimportant to the 2024 campaign. i think that's a case or an argument for why the supreme court probably would step in here, right? it's important to note that the

court would probably like to do nothing more than avoid donald trump right now. it's not a very popular place at the moment. but even avoidance in this case is action. if the court does nothing, that's a huge decision that a good portion of the country is going to be unhappy with. i think no matter what they do, a lot of people are going to be unhappy, and i think there's a lot of argument for them probably to step in and resolve this now in january rather than waiting until october or weeks before the election. >> there is, of course, as you know and particularly on the left, john, this idea that this court is based in politics as much as it is law, maybe more so. how much might that perception impact the way they decide on getting involved in some of these cases, and i'm thinking particularly about chief judge roberts because there's opinion a lot of talk about his concern about the legacy of this court. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, i think a good portion of the country is still very upset at the supreme court for overturning roe v. wade on the

left in particular, of course. the court has had this drip, drip of ethics problems. that plays into as well. certainly a lot of people view the 6-3 court as siding with conservatives in major cases, dealing with guns or abortion or religion. i think the court is sensitive to that, my guess is, and i think that whatever they do hear because of that, they are probably likely to rule on very narrow grounds in a way that doesn't leave a huge footprint on the particulars of donald trump. >> one of the things i read, vaughn, and we're just about out of time here is that trump is trying to amp up his staff with lawyers who actually are experts in the supreme court. >> this is the question mark. you're looking at potentially three major cases here the to supreme court, and his legal team, they've got a lot on their plate, you know, you're talking about the federal election interference case, the

classified documents case here, in this colorado case, they had a colorado lawyer who was the one that was arguing this in front of the colorado supreme court. that individual could be a part of the team, but without a history of going before the supreme court, i doubt that the trump legal team is going to send the colorado lawyer to be the one to go represent them on a defining issue that could disqualify donald trump in the ballot across the country. >> would you want your first case to be the most high profile and consequential we have seen. thank you both for being here, appreciate it. overseas, we're learning stunning details about the final days of three hostages killed by the idf. the men had actually escaped from hamas five days earlier. nbc's jay gray continues to report for us from tel aviv. they found this out, apparently, from a video that was recorded by an idf dog. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah, and chris, that idf dog had video and sound

from these hostages before they were killed, and it was only discovered after the dog was killed in combat. they took the camera from the dog's collar, and that's when they found this out. let's walk through all of this. three men, hostages, escaped hamas. they were on their own and on the run for five days before they were gunned down by a sharp shooter, an idf sharp shooter. they were said to be waving a white flag. we have heard from the idf now who is speaking more about this, an army chief of staff staying that it's against protocol for any soldier to shoot anyone who is waiving a white flag. and taking responsibility for the men's deaths. that's not enough information, though, for at least the father of one of these hostages who says he wants to see that video. listen. >> and i asked the idf investigators to see the movie, if there is any movie, i know

it's supposed to be somehow filmed. >> yeah, this is something that the father says he wants to hear if his son's last words maybe on that video, and he wants to see this obviously for closure. it's just a difficult situation, chris. >> unimaginable. jay gray, who is in jerusalem for us. thank you, jay, appreciate it. up next, amid all the holiday travel chaos, our exclusive look inside the tsa, including the stunning number of guns they're finding at airport check points. (man) mm, hey, honey.

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today is expected to be the busiest day of travel before christmas. but here's the good news, at least so far. we're not seeing anything resembling last year's holiday melt down at the airports. nbc's tom costello takes us exclusively inside the tsa as it staffs up for the rush. >> reporter: with the east coast still recovering from the flooding and heavy wind that disrupted travel earlier in the week, california that's feeling mother nature's fury flooding, heavy winds, rain soaked highways and runways on wednesday, the flight aware misery map showed delays in red extending from lax up to sfo and locked in with heavy fog. >> coming down like buckets. >> but for most of the country, long lines, but relatively clear skies.

>> we are going to boston logan. and it's been fine so far. >> reporter: no repeat of last year's christmas meltdown when southwest cancelled 17,000 flights. though there was a disruption for travellers in new orleans yesterday, flights delayed after one southwest plane turned around midair after a bird strike. >> you guys have smoke coming out of one of your engines. >> reporter: the aircraft returned safety. for most passengers, things are running smoothly. >> walk through one at a time, you're good. >> reporter: today, tsa check points across the country expect to screen another 2.5 million people, and the 311 rule applies, 3 ounces or less in one quart-sized bag per passenger. anything you can spray, spread, pump or power must be 3.4 ounces or less, more than that, got to check it. >> keep it under that 3.4 ounces, it's going to be great. once it exceeds that, now we run

into issue. >> reporter: again this year, tsa on track to detect a record number of guns. 6,300 already. 93% of them load ed. >> nbc's tom costello, thank you very much for that report. stocks are up today after yesterday's major losses for both the dow and the s&p. and now consumer confidence is finally beginning to pop. with americans heading into 2024, more optimistic about the health of the economy than they have been in months. nbc's christine romans has the latest on the consumer confidence survey for us. so i understand that this could be the beginning of what's known as vibe session. what is that? >> for so long this year, people have been saying they felt lousy about the economy, but then they would go out and keep spending. they were calling it not a recession but a vibe session. people had bad vibes about the economy. maybe this survey shows this might be turning around a bit.

they think their wages are rising faster than inflation, and they feel good about available jobs. they feel better about inflation heading into next year. they think it's going to continue into next year. they think things are fine and going to hold in there. this is the first optimism among consumers i have heard for a long time. mostly it's been like a middle class malaise. i will say, you know, jobs are growing, inflation is coming down, and people give me a funny look. maybe this is a beginning of a turn around. >> one of the things we hear about is the push and pull in the housing market, right. if you have a house you were thinking about selling, why would you go into another house where you're going to pay double the interest rate, and if you're buying, you're thinking, well, my friend's got a 3% interest rate. now i'm at 7, 7 1/2, i don't know what it is right now. what does this mean potentially for interest rating overall going forward? >> look, the housing thing is a real riddle because most people

have a mortgage below 5%. unless you actually absolutely have to move, those are golden handcuffs. people don't want to move. if you're a first time home buyer, you're looking at getting less house for more money, and you can't find a house that's for sale. hopefully next year that's going to work itself out. the federal reserve is expected to switch from raising interest rates and lowering interest rates. mortgage rates dipping a little bit more today. they're well below the 8% that they were just a few weeks ago. so there's progress on that front, so for those of you in the real estate market, pulling your hair out, hopefully 2024 is going to be better. so good to have you here. >> thank you so much. >>. the longest wrongful imprisonment in u.s. history is now over. we have those details. in new york, protesters outside governor hochul's office pushing a bill that would make the process of challenging a wrongful conviction easier. all of that next. all of that net

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we have brand new nbc news reporting taking us inside the biden campaign as polls show the president tied or trailing donald trump in a general election match up. nbc news spoke with a dozen white house campaign and democratic officials who say they're wrestling with how biden can criticize trump without turning off key voters. clearly they decided not to hold back when it comes to trump's recent anti-immigrant rhetoric because they posted this graphic

with pictures of trump and hitler and comparing their words. joining us now, former republican congressman, carlos curbelo of florida and msnbc political analyst. this is where we are, carlos, comparing a political opponent to hitler was not something we would have seen before this cycle. do you think this helps or hurts biden with his pitch, especially the swing voters? >> well, chris, what the biden campaign is trying to do is remind swing voters all over the country why they have rejected donald trump and his movement in three consecutive elections, 2018, 2020, and '22, and it's because of this. because donald trump has been too divisive, too incendiary in the way he has tried to lead the country. he's been too obvious in the fact that he tries to divide the country for his personal gain, and that has cost him with swing voters. the biden campaign is hoping that reminding voters of who donald trump is, types of things

he says, that that strategy will allow them to make a comeback here. because certainly president biden has been trailing in a lot of polls. the trouble for biden is that on the issue of immigration, he does poll very low, and most americans are deeply concerned with the situation at the southwest border. >> let me tell you what one biden adviser told nbc when it comes to the trump, people generally have opinions about them, but what is it that's going to lead people to be tuned in to taking action, as opposed to being tuned out because they don't want to deal with them. that is the key, right, how do you get people to not throw up their hands and say i'm done with this stuff in politics. forget it. >> it's the same strategy that's worked in the past. think about those states that president biden won by very slim margins, but they of course did deliver him the presidency, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, minnesota, that so called blue wall that democrats

depend on. the hope is that in those states, the swing voters a lot of those suburban women in particular, who just, you know, might consider supporting donald trump, and then eventually get turned off by his rhetoric, by his style, by the way he talks about certain people in our country, that is the bet here that the biden campaign is making, that that same coalition that defeated trump and the maga movement in the three past general elections that that same coalition will show up for president biden, again, despite the fact that president biden doesn't have high approval ratings. he's actually relatively weak incumbent going into this reelection fight. but they're counting on donald trump once again being his own worst enemy. they're trying to elevate his more incendiary comments to remind americans why they have voted against him in the past. >> i want to ask you about a new

des moines register poll, and i should remind folks that iowa is trump country. he won there in 2020 over joe biden, 53-44%. but that poll found after trump's remarks about immigrants poisoning the blood of this country, 42% of likely iowa republican caucus voters said they were more likely to support him. what do you make of that? >> well, chris, that's the problem. unfortunately a lot of trump's nativist rhetoric does resonate with more conservative voters in the country, the voters that dominate primary elections in the republican party. this is the coalition that trump is relying on to make sure he gets the nomination for the republican party. the problem is that it sets up a trap for the general election, because that same nativist rhetoric, that divisive rhetoric turns off a lot of swing state voters, a lot of independents, even some moderate republican voters who have abandoned trump in the past.

while this might help donald trump in some states as he tries to win this republican nomination, all of these comments will come back to hurt him if he does become the nominee and faces off against joe biden or whoever democrats put forward next year. >> former congressman, carlos curbelo, thank you. good to have you on the show. an oklahoma man is exonerated after spending 48 years in prison. glen simmons never wavered in saying he was innocent of a murder during a liquor store robbery. now a judge has agreed. he's far from alone. in new york, michael ryan served 37 years in prison for the shooting deaths of two people in the 1980s. he also had his conviction overturned and was released from prison on tuesday after two key witnesses recanted their testimony. his daughter michelle, born three months after his arrest tells the adirondack daily enterprise, this will be my

first birthday, my first christmas, my first new year's with my father on the outside. i think today is the first day i've experienced joy, i mean, ever. meanwhile today, new yorkers are calling on governor kathy hochul to sign a bill making it easier to get back into court and challenge convictions even if a person pled guilty. this was the executive director of the families and friends of the wrongfully convicted at a rally outside of the governor's office. >> i spent 27 years in prison for a crime i did not commit. i stand here today to urge the governor to sign the wrongful conviction act. innocent people spend decades in prison fighting for their freedom. >> joining me now is former brooklyn prosecutor, and msnbc legal analyst, charles coleman. can i get your general reaction?

when i read that daughter's words it strikes how this is obviously an enormous tragedy for an individual who spent most of their life in prison. but the domino effect of what that means is extraordinary. >> sure, chris, i think that often times the way we have conversations about criminal justice in america neglects to consider the many myriad of factors you were just talking about in terms of the lives that are broken, the communities that are shattered and the families that are fractured when these things take place. the other things people take for granted are the different ways the criminal justice system is broken. we talk about it. we don't understand if you haven't been connected to it, the different ways someone can find themselves wrongfully convicted. we have the conversation about abuses by law enforcement. we have the conversation about

pressure from prosecutors. but we don't understand often times what it is to be in our courtroom and to take a plea to something lower just to avoid longer jail sentence, even though it's a crime you didn't commit because you're fearful of what the overall system will do to you or can do to you. first and foremost, we understand that many people find themselves in situations because of circumstances we may not necessarily consider, and even as we acknowledge the brokenness of the criminal justice system, there are so many different effects that never come into discussion. >> i want to talk about this law that kathy hochul is deciding whether or not to sign. advocates argue that the pressure of a jury trial and the weight of a potentially lengthy sentence make it nor likely that someone who's innocent pleads guilty. i'm sure as a civil rights attorney, that is something you have seen over and over again. critics say the court system just can't handle the volume of requests they expect to come in that, in fact, it will make it too easy to get back into court.

how do you view this? >> when you're talking about someone's freedom, life, and liberty, i don't think you can talk about how easy it will be on the court system. at the end of the day, if this is a call that results in additional resources being allocated to our core systems in order to handle this, that should be considered. if this is a call that results in a revisiting of how we are policing people or incarcerating people to begin with, that needs to be revisited. it's interesting to me, chris, the people who are talking about this law in a critical way to say basically, well, it's going to embolden criminals or keep people from staying and doing their proper sentences are usually people who have never had to answer or deal with the question or challenge of whether they take a plea to a crime that they didn't commit or how they have been railroaded by the system. they have never been in that situation. they don't understand the complexities of how that conversation can go. what i say when you're talking

about someone's life and their liberty, two of the most fundamental rights we enjoy as american people, you cannot afford to sort of write things off, if it is a possibility that the system could have gotten it wrg. >> we only have a minute left. but i wt to point out that last year, a university of michigan study for 2022 said 233 people were exonerated. they lost an average of ten years for wrongful imprisonment, 2,245 total years. do you think this law could help minimize wrongful convictions or at least serve as a model for other states to consider. >> it's a step, chris, and a step in the right direction. i think that there's a lot to be done with respect to how we can repair the criminal justice system in america. and none of it is going to happen overnight, but if you're talking about providing people who have been wrongfully imprisoned with their freedom again, even though it's not going to make them whole, anything that can be done in that vein is something we need to explore and pursue and needs

to be considered on a broader level. >> no one can give you 9.6 years of your life back. charles coleman, thank you. if 2023 taught us anything, it's that climate change is no joke. a look back at the wild year that saw record heat, deadly tornadoes, flooding and so much more. nbc's al roker has that report. next. xt rizon. (husband) they'd take this mess? (caroler) ♪ very much so. just trade in that old phone. ♪ ♪ for a free 5g phone, plus netflix and max ♪ (wife) you really just should have done that. (caroler) ♪ this didn't land, she didn't like that. ♪ (husband) honey! i immediately get it! (avo) this holiday turn any samsung phone, in any condition, into a galaxy s23+ on us. and now add netflix and max to your plan for just $10 a month. save big this holiday. only on verizon.

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right now, dangerous storms

are pommelling california heading into the holidays. capping off a year of extreme weather events that is set to shatter all time records. nbc's al roker with a look back at 2023. >> 2023, the hottest year ever on earth. >> oh, my god. >> a year of climate and weather extremes. in the u.s., the number of billion dollar disaster tallied 25, more than any other year. new year's rang in with thousands of records, shattering across europe. at least eight countries had their warmest january day ever. back home, things were no better. a siege of atmospheric rivers lashed the west coast through march. destructive flash floods swept through parts of california, burying the sierra under 60 feet of snow, and brought a historically dry lake back from the dead. when spring arrived, so did the tornadoes. the strongest and most devastating twister of the year

was a ferocious ef 4, trailing through rolling fork, mississippi, carving a 59 mile path across the state and packing winds as high as 195 miles per hour. just days later, a two-day tornado outbreak spawned the third largest outbreak in u.s. history. a shift to the east in what's known as the traditional tornado alley is making higher density, and more vulnerable populations a target for these types of disaster. in june, wildfires smoke was choking the big apple, making it seem like a mars landscape, shrouding iconic landmarks like the statue of liberty and empire state building. both chicago and new york had the dubious distinction of worst air quality in the world during that hazy week. climate change, making wildfire smoke outbreaks more frequent. as northern cities suffocated, southern cities broiled under relentless days of dangerous heat. at the end of july, phoenix

hitting a record 31 straight days of 100 degrees or hotter. the previous record just 18 days. miami's extreme heat and tropical humidity resulted in 46 days registering a heat index over 100 degrees. more than a dozen u.s. cities recorded their hottest summer on record. the tropics lit up in late radly intensified over the a gulf of mexico. striking north florida as a high end category 3 with winds of 125 miles per hour. fueled by record warm sea surface temperatures, the fourth most active in history. by november, the brutal heat plaguing the u.s. was now broiling the southern hemisphere, the heat index in rio de janeiro hitting an astonishing 138 degrees, the highest ever recorded there. and for the third year in a row, deadly tornadoes ripped through the south, just days before

christmas. >> 2023 experiencing so many extreme weather events, we couldn't include them all here. climate change driven weather leaving its mark all around the globe. i'm al roker, msnbc. >> and still to come, a harsh reality in america this holiday season. the growing need for food banks and pantries to avoid going hungry. next. my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc.

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finally this hour, many americans will go hungry over the holidays. 17 million u.s. households report being food insecure in 2022, the most recent year for which we have data up 26% from the year before that, and this year, despite positive economic signs, inflation and high rents continue to make it hard for families to put food on the table. nbc's shannon pettypiece joins us from food and friends, a d.c. based organization helping feed families struggling with life changing illnesses. i wonder what you're finding there, and the level of need right now? >> reporter: yeah, chris, organizers here say the need is going up and up and up, despite what you mentioned, positive signs in the economy, like low unemployment or rising wages or high consumer spending. they say they only see the demand going up. this year they will give 2

million meals, double what they were giving out before the pandemic. around the holidays, it's a busy time for charities. they're seeing record demand. you can see hundreds of bags that are going to go out days before christmas to some of the people in need in this community. and i talked to the executive director here about what she's seeing and here's what she had to say. >> we know inflation is real, the cost of food has increased. a lot of other food assistance programs that were present during covid have sun setted. for example, we survey our clients every year, and we know that 16% of our clients said we were their only source of food. this year, 44% of our clients said we were their only source of food. we're the only option for people who are sick. >> reporter: and along with food banks, s.n.a.p., the food stamp program, they're also seeing an increase, an additional 1 million people are now receiving food stamp benefits who weren't a year ago, and a number of

other covid era programs are gone, like rental assistance or child care tax credits and support, so people have fewer resources yet prices continue to go up, and organizations say that's leading to more and more demand. >> shannon pettypiece, thank you, important reporting. >> that's going to do it this hour. make sure to join us for "chris jansing reports" every weekday, 3:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. alex witt hosts katy tur reports right now. >> good to be with you all, i'm alex witt in for katy tur, a new twist in the defamation case against rudy giuliani. just hours ago, the former trump attorney filed for bankruptcy. this is a move that comes one day after he was ordered to immediately pay damages totaling $148 million. so in a typical case, those ordered to pay damages have 30 days before it's enforced, b