thanks for joining us. >> see you at 6:00. good night. on our broadcast tonight, one year later a chance for boston to look back at the day that changed everything and a chance to look forward to race day and a proper finish this year. on the brink. ukraine's military entered the fight against that pro russian uprising. it's not over. you may think the seasons have changed and spring is here. you may have even planted a garden. temperatures are about to plunge and snow is coming in some spots. and what is it about google glasses that make people want to attack those wearing them? is that anyway to behave? "nightly news" begins now. from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with brian williams. good evening. on this night exactly one year ago there were only theories along with the crushing news of

the staggering number of wounded and dead after an american institution had been attacked that day. today in boston they observed a moment of silence at 2:49 p.m. at the same moment the president bowed his head in the oval office. the numbers are still staggering a year later. three dead. 260 wounded. 16 people lost limbs. it led to the eventual shutdown of boston for a time, the death of one suspect, the capture of another. today there was time to look back. tonight, however, boston looking forward to patriot's day on monday, the marathon and a proper finish to what was started last year. we begin here tonight with nbc's anne thompson in boston. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this was a day for gratitude. not recriminations. for giving thanks. for the super human efforts that saved some lives and remembering the three that were lost here. ♪

in boston today you could not escape the rain or the sadness. but even through its tears boston showed resilience is the best revenge. ♪ at an invitation only tribute survivors of the bombing stood to praise the city. patrick downs and his wife jessica, newlyweds a year ago each lost a leg. >> we chose to love and that has made all the difference. >> reporter: adrian davis, a dancer, lost her foot. >> no milestone is too small to celebrate, even walking into a celebrate, even walking into a nonhandicapped bathroom stall for the first time doing a happy dance. >> reporter: teenager david still has hearing loss. >> you have touched our hearts in a way that many times our gratitude could only be expressed through our tears of joy. >> reporter: the crowd applauded the first responders, doctors and nurses, and rose for the former mayor who made this promise.

>> know thy support and love for you'll never waiver. >> reporter: vice president joe biden brought them to their feet again with a rallying cry. >> we're boston, we're america we are he's respond, we endure, we overcome and we own the finish line. >> reporter: the day began near that finish line where the families of those who died laid wreaths, including 8-year-old jane richard, walking on a new leg. here, crystal campbell, lingsey lu and martin richard lost their lives. this the afternoon families came back again. joined by thousands for a moment of silence at 2:49 when the first bomb went off. ♪ >> reporter: the day's events happened under extraordinary and visible security, one of the many things that is different now. yet the marathon endures, stepping off next monday the

final 26.2 miles in a difficult year. now today many people tried to define what's become the city's motto boston strong. the massachusetts governor d patrick said in the end, it's a triumph of community, of people who turned to each other when they easily could have turned on each other. brian? >> ann thompson starting us off from boston. as for the man accused for carrying out these attacks along with his deceased brother his lawyers and the government are preparing for his trial this fall and the prosecution indicated it will seek the death sentence if convicted. we get more tonight from our justice correspondent, pete williams. >> reporter: the lawyers brought in to defend tsarnaev faced two big decisions. the first a change of venue. moving the trial out of the boston courthouse which is under two miles from last year's marathon finish line would get away from city traumatized by the attack. but one poll showed a majority

of boston residents oppose the death penalty so the change of venue might not be to shis advantage. his lawyers must also decide whether to urge him to plead guilty if the government would agree not to seek the death penalty. he's now 20 held without bail at a federal medical prison and in recent court filings his lawyers have signaled they will make his age an issue. at the time of the bombing they say his older brother, tamerlan was 26 and he was 19. tamerlan tsarnaev had a longer and deeper engagement than his younger brother, they say. >> they are trying preview some sort of a defense for him that limits his culpability for what occurred. >> reporter: that legal strategy saved lee boyd malvo from the death penalty. he was 17 when he and another man carried out the washington, d.c. sniper shootings 12 years ago. the government insists it has strong evidence in the boston case. photographs of the brothers carrying backpacks and video of

the younger tsarnaev appearing to set his backpack down and walk away at the spot where the second bomb went off. retired fbi agent richard delauria said finding that video was the key. >> i knew when they saw the video shortly after i did we knew we had the video image of at least one of the bombers. >> reporter: prosecutors filed 18 separate counts for the four murders committed. tsarnaev's lawyer said that's unfair duplication. they will be in court tomorrow asking the judge to throw some of those charges out. >> pete williams, our thanks to you for your cautious and accurate reporting going all the way back to a year ago on the story. thanks for being here in new york with us tonight. near kansas city, kansas the first court appearance for the man held in the killing of three people outside of that jewish community center and retirement home on the eve of passover.

flasher glenn krog frasier glin cross, a white supremacist who yelled "heil hitler" was charged with one charge of capital murder and a first degree murder charge. >> now to news from overseas. over the past few weeks russia and ukraine have been engaged in a kind of slow motion conflict. the russians are suspected of being behind this building by building, town by town struggle for hearts and minds and real estate of ukrainians who live in the eastern part of the country where many speak russian and identify themselves as russian. ukraine has been vowing and warning to take a stand and now it appears that they have. nbc's jim maceda is there for us tonight. >> reporter: today very carefully ukraine's military fought back. it mobilized helicopters, tanks, armored personnel carriers and ukrainian special forces and retook a small airfield in

eastern ukraine which had been seized last week by pro russian militants. it was a risk, russian president vladimir putin had warned ukraine's new government not to use force against the protesters. raising fears russia will invade if violence does break out. with protesters seizing one government building after another in as many as a dodd towns in eastern ukraine, some say with plenty of russian help, some say ukraine a's president felt he had to act. responsibly and cautiously he said to protect citizens, stop terror and stop attempts to tear the country apart. ukrainian forces have been mobilized but so far they have not retaken any of those occupied buildings. and angry protesters make it clear they aren't leaving. here in donetsk, the barricades grow larger, the protesters more defiant. sergei, a teacher said he fears civil war was about to begin. >> we do not want to die like

every normal people. but what more can we do in this situation? >> reporter: this is really where it all began about ten days ago, this building was one of the first to be occupied by pro russian protesters. tonight the barricades have been reinforced. people are singing songs, bracing themselves because they fear that tonight is when there could be an attack by the ukrainian police. the battle lines are drawn and this could be the calm before a very dangerous storm. jim maceda, nbc news. donetsk. >> for a second day today a small robotic submarine was launched deep in the indian ocean to search for any sign of that missing malaysian jetliner on the sea floor off the australian coast. we get the latest tonight from katie in perth. >> reporter: not a promising start to what could be their last best effort. bluefin-21 is back in the water

today but its first mission was aborted after only six hours, six hours into what should have been a 16 hour scan as it reached a depth that was beyond its operating capabilities. now it's back on ocean shield. once back on they downloaded the data and unfortunately it had not seen anything. so it is rescanning again. 15 square mile segments. it will continue to do that for the coming weeks. if it sees something, if it finds something and that's a very big "if," they are going to talk about extraction efforts. it's 2,000 miles deeper than air france was so it's unclear what will be feasible, if anything to bring back up to the surface. brian? >> katie, thanks. in south africa today oscar pistorius finished his testimony after five days of very tough, at times brutal, questioning by the prosecutor in his murder trial. as the defense now begins its case the question here is how much damage has been done to the former olympic star's story that

he shot and killed his girlfriend by accident. nbc's mike taibbi has been watching it all from inside the courtroom in pretoria. >> reporter: oscar pistorius ended his thayer thon tumaratho stand. he repeated his main defense to his own lawyer. >> did you consciously pull the trigger or not? >> i didn't think about pulling the trigger. >> reporter: he stumbled after five days of cross-examination by the prosecutor. the prosecutor seemed conwith us of pistorius' claim that it was self-defense. >> say it then. say yes. i killed, i shot and killed reeva steenkamp. >> i did. >> reporter: he was relentless driving pistorius to emotional meltdowns that stopped the proceedings. >> i did not fire at reeva. >> reporter: the prosecutor nicknamed the pit bull tore holes in his story getting him to admit some key elements had changed. all but calling him a liar.

>> i say you've got a concocted version. >> that's because you never said it. >> i think you're trying to cover up for lies. >> reporter: at one point he shocked the court by showing a graphic photo of reeva steenkamp's body. >> it's time you have to look at it. >> i don't have to look at a picture. i was there. >> reporter: the prosecutor has had a couple of missteps in tone language, hammering at pistorius at the witness box just six feet away. >> he called him out with various dishonesties and lies. >> reporter: he did get pistorius to admit he aimed his gun at the locked bathroom door and in the absence of an imminent threat pulled the trigger four times, an action in his version the judge may decide was murder. today pistorius had the last word during questioning by his own lawyer the former track star read a valentine's day card that reeva had given him just hours before he shot her to death.

>> she wrote i think today is a good day to tell you that, and it says i love you. >> reporter: the trial is expected to go another month. mike taibbi, nbc news, pretoria, south africa. back here in this country the weather is making news again tonight. so many people especially east of the mississippi just planting seeds preparing for the garden perhaps for the season to come. now in come temperatures in the 20s as far south as nashville and snow further north. three inches in detroit this morning was enough to set a final record for this season left three inches of snow. let's bring in meteorologist janice huff who is in the weather studio. janice, good evening. >> even in new york city there will be a bit of light snow in the next few hours. temperatures will be dropping fast across the northeast and a lot of people already put away their winter weather gear. you have to dig it back out once again even though the snow will be light. the freeze warning stretch from new york city down to alabama and mississippi. montgomery, natchez, jackson,

your temperatures will drop to 32 or below. within this entire region. if you already put your plants out then you got to protect them. 32 degrees in nashville by 11:00 tonight. tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. in the 20s. louisville, indianapolis, washington, d.c. and 32 degrees in new york city. winter makes an appearance once again this spring, brian. >> unbelievable just when you thought it was over. and still ahead for us tonight, google glass goes on sale. break-through, wearable technology for the looker. but it turns out, not everyone loves being looked at. later honoring the youngest victims of the boston bombing by carrying out his big idea.

for the first time today google glass -- and let's go ahead and establish some people are going to call them google glasses -- went on sale to the general public. and while some could not wait for this day to arrive, there is something about the wearable technology for the looker that makes being looked at

uncomfortable. perhaps people feel like they are being constantly googled. the company says it's no more distracting or invasive than a regular camera. our report tonight from cnbc john fortn forten forte forten . >> reporter: it's one of the most hyped tech products that most people couldn't buy. a wearable computer that takes photos and video, searches the web and responds to voice commands. for one day only google is letting anyone buy a pair for a mere $1,500. first thing that jay did this morning was place his order. >> i'm excited to have the gps on my eye. i'm excited to pull up the image if i can google something. >> reporter: an estimated 10,000 people in a pilot program are already users. some rave about the gadget. alex says it helps her live a fuller life. >> i can't build a camp fire but

if we need to figure out how to do it, i can certainly look it up now. >> reporter: wearing google glass allows you to record every second of your life something that those around you might not appreciate. critics worry a device worn for your own amusement might be an invasion of other people's privacy. >> if you terrify people. that anything that happens outside of their bedroom could be part of the human record, you will really change how a lot of us live. a san francisco woman posted this video on youtube claiming she was attacked at a bar for wearing it. in san diego a woman was cited for wearing them while driving but the ticket was dismissed. and then there's this. it's been mocked by "saturday night live." >> it's that easy. >> reporter: clearly a gadget for those who have to have the coolest new tech even if it means taking some heat.

jon fortt, nbc news, new york. when we come back here tonight, something we said here last night that got a lot of people all revved up in a good way. april 15th, this date means

tax day every year. sadly for the people of boston it will always signify a tragedy as it always will in the uk. it was 25 years ago today at a semifinal soccer match between liverpool and nottingham forest because of gross overcrowding and a standing room only area a barrier gave way, people were crushed. 96 people were killed. chaos ensued. a subsequent report found systemic failure by emergency services among others at the match. hopefully where you live you didn't have the cloudy skies we did here last night and you got to see the blood moon. the strong orange hue that overtook the moon during last night's eclipse. it was best described this way. if you're standing on the moon last night the earth would have blotted out the sun leaving only

a glowing orange ring from every sunset and sunrise on earth simultaneously. that reflected glow reflected back on the moon was what was visible last night. we might have started something here last evening by asking for all the fellow mustang owners last night to submit their photos as we count down the mustang's big 50th anniversary later this week. we heard from a lot of people who loved their 'stangs. we posted more of your owner photos on our website tonight. nbcnews.com. when we come back, special meaning for one team of runners getting ready for the next boston marathon.

finally here tonight when they run this year's boston marathon next monday it will be, of course, a deeply personal experience for some in boston and beyond. among them the family members of the youngest victim, the little boy whose photo continues to move so many parents. nbc's rehema ellis on how they are carrying on their son's legacy.

>> reporter: martin richard was an adorable 8-year-old boy and nolan's best friend. >> he was fun. he did everything you wanted to. >> reporter: martin was a boy with a big idea. days after his drawing he and two others were killed in the marathon tragedy. martin's message became an international rallying cry. >> wanted to be able to do something to give back. >> reporter: bob cleary, father of four and nolan's dad is part of a charity martin's family founded to honor their son's message. it's called team mr8. his initials, 8 for his age and favorite number. cleary is one of 100 team members running in this year's marathon to raise money for charity that will invest in education, athletics and community. being close to the family, give me a sense of how they are doing a year later? >> they appear to be doing as well as they can. >> reporter: martin's sister lost her left leg. she has a new prosthetic.

his mother lost sight in one eye. his father bill was burned and is still suffering from hearing loss. henry the oldest wasn't physically harmed. >> it hurts still. >> absolutely. i think about them every single day. >> reporter: larry, a close family friend, helped launch the foundation. >> they have a great idea. a powerful way to go about making a difference in this little boy's name. >> reporter: from those who know the richards and many others outside of boston who don't, like chicago mothers molly and samantha, the motivation to run is the same. >> giving people this opportunity to step back in the racecourse in the wake of their own tragedy. you know, they are changing people's momentum and people's lives. >> everybody has such a goal to get to the finish line. and martin is with us. >> reporter: teamr 8 running with a special purpose that would make a little boy proud.

rehema ellis, nbc news, boston. that's the broadcast for tuesday night. thank you for being here. i'm brian williams, hope to see you back here tomorrow evening. good night. ens about . nbc bay area news starts now. students went to school with tee shirts emblazoned with the american flag and what happened to them is still stirring up debate. >> new at 6:00, it's a renewed fight over free speech in morgan hill. it made national headlines a few years ago. it centers around students and

the upcoming cinco de mayo celebration. >> reporter: well, the district is concerned because there could be as many as three different groups voicing their opinions in front of life oak high school in regard to cinco de mayo. that is why the district is already talking with morgan hill police about how to keep students safe. student protests at live oak high school drew national attention in 2010 following an incident where four students were asked to remove or turn inside-out the american flag tee shirts they wore on cinco de mayo. last month, the ninth circuit court of appeals upheld a circuit judge's ruling that school officials acted appropriately. a decision the president of the patriot's