♪ stronger than ever, ever ♪ right now on "america this morning," the travel madness already under way this hour as americans rush to their july 4th destinations. the city where traffic could be 300% worse than usual and the locations where gas prices are rising the fastest. we're saving you time and money. plus, a message from police releasing this video as an important reminder to all drivers this weekend. int, la stlexabuse the y scts what's next for the trump organization one day after the indictment charging the former

former president's company and his financial chief with running a 15-year tax scheme. we speak to trump's former lawyer. caught on camera, the small plane falling out of the sky. a student pilot on board. breaking overnight, the american sprinter and olympic hopeful testing positive for marijuana. will she miss the tokyo games as a result? and if you got paid to ride your bike to work, would you do it? the new offer this morning. ♪ i want to ride my bicycle, bicycle ♪ good friday morning, everyone. i'm andrea fujii. mona is off. >> i'm andrew dymburt, and we begin with the big travel rush. for the holiday weekend, traffic on the roads and at the airports is expected to exceed prepandemic levels. >> one expert warns today could look more like the day before thanksgiving than early july. this morning, millions across the country are preparing to celebrate america's independence

and america's re-opening. the travel rush already off to a rocky start as airlines cancel flights due to bad weather and a post-pandemic worker shortage. american airlines canceled 13 flights in and out of charlotte this week reportedly because they had no crew to fly the planes frustrating this travel who missed her connecting flight. >> i'm tired. i'm cranky. i'm hungry. >> reporter: southwest canceled or delayed thousands of flights across the country last weekend partially blaming bad weather and also a pilot shortage. pilots blamed the airlines for not being prepared after laying of thousands of employees during the pandemic, even while getting billions of dollars in covid relief funds from the government. >> 12 to 15 months once you lay a pilot off before you get the operation running again. a year ago we were canceling because we didn't have enough flying and now we're canceling because we don't have enough pilots. how did that happen? it's unacceptable. >> reporter: most are expected to travel by car as gas prices

hit a seven-year high now averaging $3.12 a gallon nationwide. these states are seeing the steepest prices, utah, indiana, oregon and washington. and when it comes to traffic, aaa says drivers on highway 17 near san francisco can expect congestion to be 340% worse than usual. about the same on i-95 near boston. 330% worse than usual. >> people should be expecting that the e. tri roads of the past year are kind of over. >> reporter: and this morning this video is a reminder to everyone to slow down. that suv going airborne careening over a median on this highway in las vegas somehow landing on its wheels. everybody is okay. police say slippery conditions were to blame. experts predict the worst traffic between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. today, and for the drive home monday, try to get a head start before 1:00 p.m. violent weather has left a trail of destruction across the washington, d.c. area. a storm is blamed for causing this five-story building under construction to collapse. five wor

st wdslstoppled a fence along the national mall ahead of the july 4th celebration and large trees fell on homes and power lines in the maryland suburbs. we'll check today's forecast in just a few minutes. breaking overnight, lawyers for the boy scouts of america say the organization has agreed to pay $850 million to survivors of child sex abuse. the boy scouts say the deal is a significant step toward the organization's recovery from bankruptcy due to the overwhelming cost of fighting abuse claims. if approved, the settlement will be one of the largest of its kind in u.s. history. now to the legal problems for former president trump's company and his top financial adviser. prosecutors have outlined charges in connection with a 15-year tax scheme. this morning we're hearing from trump's former attorney who says this may just be the tip of the iceberg. others claim it's all politics. this morning the man once called a fixer for former president trump is now predicting more charges are coming after the

indictment of the trump organization and the company's most senior executive not named trump. >> i do ultimately believe that the trump family and donald himself will be held accountable. >> reporter: on thursday prosecutors in new york revealed the allegations against the trump organization and cfo allen weisselberg accusing the company of avoiding taxes by paying executives off the books during a 15-year-long scheme. congressional testimony from michael cohen, trump's former attorney, was the initial basis for the investigation. >> there are more than a dozen different areas that are being investigated at the present moment by both the district attorney, as well as the attorney general's office. >> reporter: prosecutors say weisselberg collected more than $1.7 million from the company under the table and evaded more than $900,000 in personal taxes by receiving part of his compensation in perks including a rent-free apartment, two mercedes and private school tuition for his kids.

according to the indictment, the tuition was paid by personal checks signed by donald trump. weisselberg's former daughter-in-law says she gave documents to prosecutors after she says her family lived rent-free in a new york apartment for years. she believes weisselberg will cooperate with investigators to save his family. >> seeing him walk in handcuffs, i don't think he can watch his kids do that. i just don't think he can. that was painful. >> reporter: trump calls the charges a disgrace insisting the investigation is politically motivated. and a lawyer for trump says after years of investigation and the collection of millions of documents and devoting the resources of dozens of prosecutors and outside consultants, this is all they have? weisselberg has pleaded not could face up to 15 years i chgegrd rcy. > reon to parts of the surging.

missouri is one of the hot spots. daily cases there are up 121% in recent weeks. the delta variant of the virus is spreading rapidly. doctors are seeing more young unvaccinated patients in the hospital. >> we thought we were out of this, but now we're back to having to get staffing to increase. i'm concerned about people gathering and us having even more significant uptick in the 10 to 14 days after the fourth of july weekend, and we're planning for that. >> hospitals in utah are also filling up with covid patients again. the governor is urging everyone to get vaccinated saying, quote, 95% of you don't have to die. we turn now to surfside, florida, where 145 people are still missing. plans are being made to demolish what's left of the building that collapsed. president biden spent three hours with victims' families yesterday, and now miami beach has announced a candlelit vigil on july 4th. abc's faith abubey has the latest. faith, good morning. >> reporter: hey, good morning,

andrew. president biden says the federal government will cover the search and rescue efforts' cost at 100% for the first 30 days, which is a huge help for local officials as this massive search and rescue effort continues. this morning, florida officials making plans to likely level the rest of the partially collapsed champlain towers south. large columns of the remaining structure shifting 6 to 12 inches overnight thursday causing a safety scare for rescue workers. >> given our ongoing safety concerns about the integrity of the building, we're continuing to restrict access to the collapse zone. >> reporter: the job has been physically grueling and mentally daunting. the workers pressing on. some rescue workers also coming down with covid-19. president biden thanking the crews for their sacrifice. >> these folks are always showing up no matter what. they're risking their lives. >> reporter: the president and first lady also spending three hours behind closed doors with grieving families and survivors

of the collapse before making their way to a makeshift memorial honoring the victims. >> the whole nation is mourning with these families. they're going through hell. >> reporter: david velasquez still holding out hope that in the debris. will find his fa >> i'm not ready to eulogize my family yet. there's still hope. there's still hope for a lot of people. >> reporter: this morning, questions still lingering about what caused the collapse and why major structural issues for the condo were not addressed earlier. "the washington post" reporting five of seven of the board members resigned in 2017 partly in frustration. among them the board president who told "the post," there were contentious debate about residents forking up the $15 million in repairs. abc news learning individual condo owners were on the hook for anywhere between $80,000 to $336,000 each. and as we head into the holiday weekend, neighboring city miami

beach has canceled its july 4th celebrations out of respect. instead asking people to step outside holding their flashlights, their phones and candles to shine a light for the victims. andrew. >> faith, thank you for that report. >> well, a stunning scene from canada. authorities say a wildfire has destroyed 90% of this village in british columbia. lytton is the same village that recorded the highest temperature during this week's heat wave at 121 degrees. more than 300 deaths are being blamed on the heat in western canada. meanwhile, across the border in the u.s. at least 108 deaths in washington and oregon are now blamed on this week's heat. let's take a look now at your friday forecast. travelers in the northeast will be facing rain all day today. flash flooding is possible from new york to d.c. rain is also expected from the carolinas all the way to the southwest. checking today's high temperatures, only in the 60s

and 70s in northeast and around the great lakes today but still scorching for interior parts of the northwest, and we're tracking tropical storm elsa churning in the atlantic at around 30 miles per hour. it's projected to move into the gulf of mexico early next week. coming up, new protection from sky high medical bills. also ahead, what bill cosby is planning now that he's out of prison. and the plane crash caught on camera with a student pilot at the controls. ♪ thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer 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. ibrance may cause low white blood cell counts

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keep working on a documentary. americans frustrated with surprise medica bills are getting some relief. the biden administration says beginning next year, patients will be protected from high medical bills due to out of network care. a new regulation will ban health care providers from charging full price for procedures done by doctors outside a patient's insurance plan unless a patient gives consent. house speaker nancy pelosi has chosen republican liz cheney to join a committee investigating the january attack on the capitol. cheney says she is honored to serve. house republican leader kevin mccarthy was apparently annoyed by cheney's decision to accept the job. >> let me be very clear. i'm not threatening anybody with committee assignments. what i'm saying is it was shocking to me that if a person is a republican, they get their committee assignments from the republican conference.

for somebody to accept committee assignments from speaker pelosi, that's unprecedented. >> republican leaders have not committee's work. britney spears could be heading to capitol hill. she has been invited to testify before congress about her battle to end her conservatorship. congressman matt gaetz says spears has been mistreated by the legal system. the faa is investigating this small plane's emergency parachute landing near ft. myers, florida. a flight instructor and student reported engine trouble, so they deployed the chute as they slowly began their descent to the ground. they ended up landing safely in a river and no one was hurt. the american sprinter testing positive for marijuana. will she miss the olympics? also, the nfl team being punished for sexual harassment. but does the punishment fit the crime? people everywhere living with type 2 diabetes are waking up to what's possible with rybelsus®. ♪ you are my sunshine ♪

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against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. now as you're thinking about >> w northn melting in the summ. all the vaccines your teen might need make sure you ask yourti. they hope covering the glacier with long strips of cloth will reflect the sun's rays and prevent the snow beneath from melting. in a first from social media, pinterest says it's banning all weight loss ads. the idea is to reduce pressure on people facing body image challenges. it will still have ads for healthy lifestyle products if they don't focus on weight loss. the nfl is punishing one of its most storied franchises.

after investigating claims of sexual harassment and a toxic workplace. abc's reports orter:his fes0 million fine. the fnchi aften investigation into workplace culture, including widespread sexual misconduct and harassment allegations. many involving cheerleaders and female employees. commissioner roger goodell saying bullying and intimidation frequently took place, and many describe the culture as one of fear. the investigation looked at claims dating back to 2004. team owner dan snyder has now agreed to step back from day-to-day operations of the team, saying he has great remorse and promising nobody who works here will ever have that kind of experience again. >> not only was i being hit on, but i also w being just berated and spoken down to, wld lit cry in the

bathroom. >> reporter: emily applegate, a former washington employee and the only woman to speak on the record calls her time with the team the most miserable experience of her life. attorney lisa banks, who represents 40 former washington employees says her clients are outraged, saying the fine isn't enough, and accusing the nfl of protecting dan snyder by not making the investigation's findings public. >> i'm getting call after call, text after text telling me that they're physically ill hearing this news and just feeling so disappointed and dispirited. >> reporter: critics compare the $10 millionine to pocket change for a team recently valued at $3.5 billion. dan snyder's wife tanya, who recently was named co-ceo will now take over day-to-day operations of the team. n, tyoiche games coulde

sprinter. according to multiple reports, sha'carri richardson tested positive for marijuana at the olympic trials where she won a gold medal. richardson has not commented on the reports, and marijuana is banned by the anti-doping agency. coming up, not so ducky. one town faces an invasion of ducks. also ahead, the billionaire's race into space billionaire's race into space heats up. (“lovely day” instrumental) my heart failure diagnosis changed my priorities. i want time for the people i love. my heart doesn't pump enough blood so my doctor gave me farxiga. it helps my heart do its job better. farxiga helps keep me living life and out of the hospital for heart failure. do not take if allergic to farxiga. symptoms of a serious allergic reaction include rash, swelling, difficulty breathing or swallowing. stop taking and seek medical help right away. tell your doctor right away if you have red color in urine or pain while you urinate, or a genital area infection since a rare but serious genital infection may be life-threatening. do not take farxiga if you have severe kidney problems or are on dialysis.

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billionaire in space, nine days ahead of bezos. bezos will be joined on his trip by aviation pioneer wallie funk. she was part of the first women astronauts put through training but never went to space. funk is 82. she will be the oldest person ever in space on this flight, and that is on the 52nd anniversary of the apollo moon landing. next, what would it take you the bike to work? >> how about cold hard cash? amazon is offering up to $350 a month to its office employees if they bike to work. greener way to commute. next, dozens of ducks that invaded a neighborhood in baton rouge, louisiana now have a new place to call home. >> neighbors complained after things got out of hand with the ducks swarming them for food each time they stepped outside. the ducks have now been relocated to a private pond. >> the duck dynasty may not be over. a mama duck stayed behind. >> and there are some of her ducklings as well. finally, it was really hot

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and now, it's cleanest formula with hydration that beats the $400 cream. tried. tested. never bested. shop at olay.com checking the top stories. a new study finds the johnson & johnson covid vaccination does protect against the delta variant of the virus, which is linked to 25% of new cases in the u.s. a sharp increase in cases has the white house sending special response teams to hot spots. a rabbi is in stable condition after he was brutally stabbed outside a jewish school in boston. police arrested thectnd recovered a knife and gun. at this crime. general motors has been dethroned. toyota is now the number one automaker when it comes to sales in the u.s. analysts say the shortage of semiconductor chips has hurt gm production more than toyota. today's weather, heavy rain in the northeast and also from the carolinas to the southwest.

clear skies across the midwest and more extreme heat for interior parts of the west. and finally, the american who just became the youngest ever grand master in chess. >> will ganss has his story. >> reporter: the world is avi's chessboard, and the rest of us are just pawns. >> you can completely demolish them, but there is no physical element. >> reporter: the 12-year-old from new jersey completely demolishing his opponents until this week when he became the youngest grand master in chess history. >> it's massive. so he broke a record that's 19 years old. >> reporter: at 12 years, four months and 25 day, he is taking over the title of youngest grand master ever, a ror held b rsi feat. this kid probably put in thousands of hours of work over the course of the pandemic. >> reporter: he and his father have beenlodo. >> because he is an american and

wasn't able to compete for a long time, it was kind of like well, he is probably not going to make it. but he proved everybody wrong. >> reporter: like a scene from "the queen's gambit" defeating the grand mast mere the heart-stopping ninth round of the gm mixed tournament in budapest. >> it was very unreal. it was such a big relief. since we've been here the last two and a half months. >> reporter: tweeting finally checkmated the biggest opponent, ongoing pandemic, which stopped me for 14 months. thanks, everybody, for all your love and support. it's a journey nine years in the making. he has been playing chess since he was 3. now he is a grand master, a title awarded to less than 2,000 people ever, he moves from the board to the spotlight. >> any tournament he plays, if he is mentioned, if a video is made about him, myself included in that category, people are going to watch. you'll have hundreds of thousands of views of whatever tournament success he has in the future. >> now he is on his way to the

chess world cup, a knockout tournament in sochi beginning on july 10th. andrew, andrea? >> amazing. he started at 3 years old. i think it's a little too late rng,trel mne alder way is hr as americans rushheiryth destinations. the city where traffic could be 300% worse than usual and the locations where gas prices are rising the fastest. we're saving you time and money. plus, a message from police releasing this video as an important reminder to all drivers this weekend. breaking overnight, a landmark settlement with survivors of sexual abuse the agreement announced by the boy scouts. what's next for the trump organization one day after the indictment charging the former

former president's company and his financial chief with running a 15ea