making news in america this morning, gordon sondland in the hot seat. the single most important witness in the impeachment investigation. the crucial testimony this morning and what we learned after tuesday's marathon 11 hours of questioning. where things stand right now. developing this morning, a 16-year-old girl is charged with planning to attack this church in a racially motivated plot to kill black parishioners. how police say she was caught. the major development in the jeffrey epstein scandal. what we're learning about the two jail guards on duty the night the accused sex trafficker died in his cell. what those guards are now saying. plus, the newly revealed security flaw allowing hackers to spy on you through your

phone's camera. a consumer alert ahead of the holiday shopping season. how scammers are draining the money from gift cards without you noticing. plus, megastars hitting the court at halftime. ♪ all you have to do is wait a second ♪ >> for a wild dance party. ♪ the clock is ticking good wednesday morning, everyone. thank you for joining us. we begin with the most anticipated witness of the impeachment investigation taking the hot seat this morning. >> the u.s. ambassador to the european union who appeared to have instant access to president trump is set to testify today. ambassador gordon sondland was a key player at the center of the president's dealings with ukraine, which involved withholding military aid. >> his testimony will follow four other officials who made it clear that the president's phone call to ukraine was far less than perfect. abc's megan tevrizian begins our coverage from capitol hill. megan, good morning.

>> reporter: good morning, kenneth and janai. republican megadonor turned ambassador gordon sondland has emerged as a critical witness in this impeachment inquiry. in recent weeks he changed his testimony and now recalls delivering a quid pro quo to the ukrainians. this morning, the stakes are rising in the impeachment inquiry against president trump. >> gordon sondland will be the single most important witness to testify. >> reporter: not only was sondland on that july 25th call between president trump and ukraine, he also has a close relationship with the president. on tuesday national security official tim morrison testified former national security adviser fiona hill might have coined it a gordon problem. >> i decided to keep track of what ambassador sondland was doing. i didn't necessarily always act on things gordon suggested. >> reporter: tuesday's testimony began with lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, a decorated veteran and top ukraine official

on the national security council and jennifer williams, an aide to vice president mike pence. both were on the president's phone call with ukraine and both testified it was concerning. >> it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter. >> it is improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and a political opponent. >> reporter: republicans on the panel questioned vindman's loyalty accusing him of trying to protect the whistle-blower. >> mr. vindman, you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistle-blower. >> ranking member, it's lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, please. >> reporter: later former special envoy to ukraine kurt volker told congress he wasn't awared investigations being demanded targeted the bidens and the 2016 elections which he casted as conspiracy theories. >> they're not things that we should be pursuing as part of our national security strategy with ukraine. >> reporter: and while this testimony was going on yesterday, president trump at

the white house attacked lieutenant colonel alexander vindman in realtime seeming to undermine his military service and said he'd never seen him before. kenneth, janai. >> all right, megan, thank you. abc news' live coverage of the impeachment hearings will resume at 9:00 a.m. eastern on air and online. and we're following two breakings story at this hour. the first overseas where two american service members have been killed in a helicopter crash in afghanistan. the taliban claims it shot down a chinook helicopter, but u.s. officials say there's no indication that enemy fire caused the crash. we will keep you posted on that with any details. and back here at home also breaking overnight, a chicago police officer has been shot in the head. authorities say the bullet went through the officer's skull leaving him in serious condition. it happened during a police chase after a bank robbery. the suspect opened fire before being killed. a 15-year-old bystander was also wounded. now to the disturbing case of a 16-year-old girl in georgia accused of planning a church

massacre. she allegedly plotted to kill black parishioners until a classmate spoke up preventing the possible attack. this morning members of this historically black church in gainesville, georgia, are stunned after police say a 16-year-old girl planned a racially motivated attack at the house of worship. >> it's just very disturbing. >> i just think it was like of the devil. >> reporter: investigators say the teenage who is white plotted to kill black parishioners with knives or other sharp objects and she allegedly kept a notebook detailing her plans, collected kitchen knives to carry out the attack and researched white supremacy online. abc news has learned the girl recently went to the church but services had been moved to another venue that night so the building was empty. >> by the grace of god and by divine intervention at the time she went to the church, there was nobody there. >> this is one time i'm glad nobody showed up for church. >> reporter: authorities say they were tipped off after students warned school counselors at gainesville high school about the girl's plans.

she's charged with criminal attempt to commit murder, but she will likely not face a hate crime charge because georgia is one of four states that does not have official hate crime laws on the books. church leaders suspect therdere parishioners at a church in charleston in 2015. >> no longer in the united states of america can you go to church and feel safe and secure. >> in 2017 and 2018 the fbi recorded more than 14,000 hate crimes. 60% were motivated by race. authorities are working to find out who is behind a racist manifesto at syracuse university posted in a forum online. they say someone tried to send the white supremacist whitings to students' phones. police are boosting security after a string of racial incidents. new york's governor says an independent monitor should be hired to investigate.

new charges have been filed after the death of a fraternity pledge. collin wiant died last november and nine men, most fraternity members, are now facing charges from hazing to reckless homicide. >> when we heard the initial feeling was, you know, just that there are no winners here and, you know, there are no winners when hazing is involved whatsoever. >> they have filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming their son was hazed and forced to inhale nitrous oxide. a coroner ruled that's what killed him. time for a look at your weather for this wednesday morning. good morning. we're tracking a deep trough across the southwest u.s. bringing some much needed rain but some of it will be heavy especially across arizona and that could lead to a flooding

threat. on the northern edge of the storm we've got some colder air working on in that will lead to some snow from the sierra mountains into the rockies. highest elevations could see more than a foot of snowfall. it is going to be dry and breezy, though, from the bay area northward toward redding and that is going to lead to a high fire threat. i'm accuweather meteorologist adam del rosso. coming up, the toy that smells like ice cream now being called one of the most dangerous toys on the market. also ahead, a consumer alert. how to stop scammers from draining the money off your gift cards. but first the changes being made after a woman was nearly sucked out the window of a southwest airl

we're back with video of a close call in the boston area. wow, look at that. a ladder crashed through the windshield of this car on interstate 95 passing all the way into the backseat. amazingly the driver suffered only a few cuts. >> wow. federal safety officials want boeing to redesign engine covers on some of its 737 jets after a texas mother died from injuries suffered on a southwest flight. jennifer riordan was nearly sucked out of the plane last year when a broken fan blade sent shrapnel through the window at 30,000 feet. the ntsb is now recommending boeing redesign engine covers on all 6,800 of its ng planes in service. boeing says it's working on design enhancements to satisfy the recommendation. as the holiday shopping season gets under way, scammers are coming up with new ways to cash in, and gift cards are at the top of their list. experts say they are using

hacking techniques to get around security measures like hidden p.i.n. numbers and wipe out your gift card before you have a chance to use it leaving your balance at zero. >> these bots are going ahead and requesting balances on millions of different gift card accounts. and they're checking to see if those gift card account numbers are legitimate. if they have funds available or balances, and if they do, those cybercriminals can go ahead and scrape those funds from those gift cards. >> get this, hacking software can make up to 2 million attempts per hour to guess p.i.n. combinations for gift cards. experts recommend you treat gift cards like cash, keeping them protected and out of sight. >> good to know. your android phone may be sharing your photos without permission. the security firm checkmarks has revealed a flaw that allows an app to bypass the restrictions and access your phone's camera and feick phones all without your knowledge. a hacker may also be able to tell where the video was recorded. checkmarks says samsung and

google have now addressed the security flaw but other phones may still be vulnerable. the new list is out of the worst toys for this holiday season when it comes to keeping kids safe. the nerf dart gun is high on the list because the projectiles can cause eye injuries and another gun looks just like the real thing. parents are also being warned about nickelodeon's new slime that smells like ice cream. experts say it could easily be mistaken for food. well, coming up, what is so unusual about this year's flu season. but first what we're now learning about the jail guards on duty the night sex offender jeffrey epstein died in his cell. and later with just days to go before thanksgiving, the story of the turkey who won't stop following the mailman.

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animal from a brush fire with her own shirt then doused it with water. the koala is recovering at a hospital. this morning the woman and the koala were reunited. they're calling that bear lewis. >> i love that. we turn now to the major development in the jeffrey epstein case. the jail guards who were supposed to be watching him the night he died have now been charged. >> authorities say rather than checking on epstein, the guards were asleep and shopping online. the jail guards in charge of watching sex offender jeffrey epstein when he died from an apparent suicide said nothing when they left a new york courthouse tuesday. >> we believe that when all the evidence is presented about how the system was ran and how there was -- they were severely shortstaffed at all times, maybe you'll have a different appreciation for what was going on. >> tova noel and michael thomas are accused of repeatedly failing to conduct 30-minute inmate checks and falsifying jail records to make it look like they had. thomas allegedly told a

supervisor, we messed up. we didn't do any rounds. prosecutors say video surveillance shows the guards sat at their desk and appeared to have been asleep at times browsing the internet for furnitore and s allege epstein had been removed from suicide watch less than three weeks earlier was left alone in his cell for eight hours before he was found just after 6:30 in the morning with a noose around his neck. epstein's death ended the possibility of his sex trafficking trial, which could have featured several prominent figures. on capitol hill tuesday, a senate committee grilled the new director of the bureau of prisons about epstein's death. she testified that she's limited in what she can say because of ongoing investigations. >> with all due respect, you still have an obligation to speak to the girls who were raped by this guy today. it isn't just about the individual inmate who might kill themselves it's about the fact that that about bastard wasn't able to testify against other

co-conspirators. >> if i don't have information i can't share anything with you. >> reporter: the pathologist hired by epstein to investigate his death said the evidence points to homicide. but prosecutors say security footage shows no one entered the area where epstein was housed that night. >> do you concur with the opinion that it was a suicide? >> that was the finding of the coroner, sir. >> okay. do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise? >> i do not. >> and the jail guards are charged with falsifying prison records which could carry a five-year sentence if convicted. both pleaded not guilty. a miami professor who literally wrote the book on organized crime and money laundering has now been charged with money laundering. professor bruce bagley had even testified before congress as an expert. but he's now accused of using private bank accounts to launder millions in dirty money for criminals in venezuela. if convicted he could face 20 years in prison. in some health news, it's shaping up to be a worse year for the flu than usual. the cdc is reporting flu

activity in 30 states. that is the most in a decade for this early in the season. california, louisiana and maryland, you see there in red, are seeing widespread flu activity. doctors urge everyone six months and older to get a flu shot. in sports the nba is a melo place again. carmelo anthony returned last night as a portland trail blazer after sitting out the past year and hit his first shot and finished with ten point, the blazers, however, lost to the pelicans. check out this kid who put on a basketball shooting clinic at the lakers game. max is just 10 years old and during this 30-second shooting contest, he knocked down a pair of three-pointers from nba distance. you see him there. the crowd went crazy. he only missed one shot. good job, max. >> also incredible the laker girls showed off their new recruits during the halftime show. venus williams showed off her moves. rob gronkowski was out there as

well, only a few hours saying he'll stay retired for at least this year. those short, we wear short-shorts. james corden also got a few steps in. >> gronk could also have a second career as a dancer. up next a new way to avoid politics on thanksgiving. but first "game of thrones" star emilia clarke opens up on being pressured to do nude scenes. one man's strategy to get his wife to stop shopping. thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs

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completely naked with all of these people and i don't know what i'm meant to do and i don't know what was expected of me and i would have spent that first season thinking i'm not worthy of requiring anything. i'm not worthy of needing anything at all. i'm gonna go cry in the bathroom and then i'm gonna come back and we're going to do the scene and it'll be completely fine. >> she eventually renegotiated her contract so she didn't perform in the nude and changed those terms as long as nudity was essential to the story. >> with thanksgiving coming you may be looking for an after dinner activity that won't spark a political argument. >> that sounds like a good idea. and for that mattel has come up with a nonpartisan version of the card game uno, so instead of the usual red and blue carts they're orange and purple. >> and if someone does start talking politics, another player can grab the new veto card and play it forcing the political pundit to lose a turn. >> does that work? so any time you're talking and i don't want to hear it, just veto. >> just veto.

no politics. so with thanksgiving coming up next week, a wisconsin mail carrier is talking turkey. >> let's gobble this in because a turkey has been stalking him. jeff burns says the bird chases him every day on his route and started over the summer and the turkey only follows him through one neighborhood. he says he's used to it but the turkey does catch him off guard sometimes. >> he did startle me one time last week when i was coming back to the truck. is, gotcle to my orr face. >> okay, so in his 20 years on the job, he says this is the first time a turkey stalker has been -- the first time he's had a turkey stalk and i say that turkey has, what, seven days to get his act together. for help has gone viral. a husband's hilarious appeal for help has gone viral. >> after spending hours waiting for his wife to finish shopping jeremy took matters into his own

hand. he wrote a sign that said, not homeless, wife in target two plus hours. >> his wife said what do you expect in someone who even had a target baby shower. and my lack of impulse control,, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof! so get allstate where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. sorry!

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an attempt to help turns into a dead le confrontation on bart. and in just hours, thousands of pg&e customers could lose power. one lawmaker is demanding action. good morning on this wednesday, november 20th. >> people are anxious about that power shutoff and also anxious about the weather. >> we had some rain during the overnight hours. we talked about it last week and i down played it this week, that there would be a chance. san jose overnight, rain started

at 11:00 and lasted off and on for about an hour. up in north bay, a couple hundredths of an inch. live doppler 7 shows we had an area of low pressure spin up over the north bay and watch it back its way from northeast to southwest across our neighborhoods. everything is still bone dry and we are in the red flag warning. 41 at tamalpais. 42 at mount winds are getting faster. let's get over to jobina. >> we have a good start to our commute. this is a live look at the golden gate bridge. our camera there, not foggy at

all. now let's hop over to the bay bridge, which is much busier this morning. as i look at the toll plaza now, the cash lanes are stacking up, everything else is moving smoothly. once we get through that, we'll be okay. things are in the green at the moment for the drive times. walnut creek to dublin, 13-minute drive. santa rosa to san francisco, 47 minutes. highway 1 to los gatos, 22 minutes. we're hoping to learn new information today including the names of the people involved in a deadly stabs on b.a.r.t. yesterday. >> we know the victim was trying to stop the suspect from stealing when the victim got stabbed. amy hollyfield is live at the south hayward bart station with those details. good morning. good morning. the good samaritan was killed in this case. the police say the suspect ran from here to south hayward b.a.r.t. station to a car dealership where he was looking

for a getaway car. that's where he was caught. it all started at the b.a.r.t. station. that's where the killing happened at the south hayward b.a.r.t. station. b.a.r.t. police say a good samaritan tried to stop a man from stealing from a passenger. the two got into a lloo arnd 1:00bofighs and approached a salesman. >> as soon as i opened it up, somebody grabbed my arm. i thought it was a customer. i looked to the side it was a weird guy with no shirt on. i was like what the hell? >> they got into a fight. the salesman let him go and says the man sat and waited for police. b.a.r.t. police arrested him and charged him with murder and carjacking. they have not released his identity