breaking overnight, after a tense standoff, houston police have arrested a suspect in shooting of three officers who are recovering at this hour. the politically polarized senate is already gearing up for a supreme court battle over who president biden chooses to replace justice steven breyer on the high court the live report on the latest on the military escalation of russian troops on ukraine's bord >> and a rocket will soon be crashing into the moon and how nasa is watching it ever so

closely. plus we'll take you inside the courtroom where former porn star stormy daniels and her ex-attorney squares off while under oath "early today" starts right now good morning and happy friday i'm vinita meyer >> good to be with you i'm frances rivera a warning the video you're about to see may be disturbing authorities say the ordeal when the suspect who two senior law enforcement officials identify as 31-year-old roman cabalerro led them on a car chase and crashed. >> striking three officers the officers returned fire >> police say after the shooting and the suspect allegedly car jacked a woman and barricaded himself inside a home and

continued to fire shots. he surendered to authorities after an hours like standoff the three officers suffering nonlife threatening injuries, one was shot in the foot, one in the leg and one in the arm >> the search for the next member of the supreme court has officially begun justice steven breyer hand-delivered his retirement letter to president biden. and in making his announcement at the white house breyer reflected on the changes still facing our democracy, what he called the great american experiment >> it's our next generation, the one after that, my grandchildren and their children, they'll determine whether the experiment still works. and of course i'm an optimist and i'm pretty sure it will. >> meanwhile on capitol hill the senate is preparing for the confirmation battle. let's turn now to nbc's garret haake for an update on that process. >> reporter: senate democrats eager to begin the confirmation process. >> that means we're not going to

sit around we're not going to sit on our hands and have been very expeditious to all the judicial nominees to the point where president biden nominees has had more confirmed judges at this point in his tenure than any other presidents >> reporter: so far each of president biden's 42 judicial nominees have received the unanimous support of senate democrats including kyrsten sinema and joe manchin who told a west virginia radio show he's okay with the president selecting someone more liberal than he is >> whoever he puts up will have experience and we'll be able to judge him aoff of that but that will not prohibit me from supporting somebody >> reporter: this nominee will be first to make her way through the bench through an evenly divided senate if democrats remain united the republicans could slow but not stop confirmation. the senate's top republican holding his fire >> i'm going to give the

president's candidate whoever that may be a fair look and not predict on today when we don't even know who the nominee is how i might vote a possible preview of what may to come in confirmation hearings likely to begin in march. now to the growing crisis in ukraine. president biden spoke with ukraine's president to reassure him that the u.s. embassy in kyiv is staying open and more help is on the way but russia continues to beef up its military presence along its border with ukraine. ali, what can we expect this weekend? >> reporter: as we've learned fum the russian leadership they can be predictably unpredictable leaving kyiv and everyone guessing what may or may not come next. currently the shadow of war still looms over ukraine there are 100,000 russian troops

straddling ukraine's border. they continue to move around while conducting training exercises, breathing life and fear of invasion russia has said it's willing to continue talks with the u.s. over european security and is open but not optimistic about their prospects after washington and nato again rejected a key part of the kremlin's proposal ukraine's president zelenskiy spoke to joe biden by telephone yesterday and thanked his u.s. counterpart for his ongoing assistance, and that's an important message to convey because every bit of moral, military support ukraine gets from u.s. and allies makes an invasion unlikely. the u.s. is also threatening to with hold the opening of nordstream 2, a key pipeline that would send gas from russia

if they invade we don't know what his next move is and he's probably doing that on purpose to keep everyone on edge >> staying silent and making up for it with action thank you. disgraced attorney michael avenatti cross examined his former client, stormy daniels, in court things got a little bizarre when she said she could speak to dead people nbc's tom winter has the details. >> reporter: michael avenatti and film actress stormy daniels going head to head in court. >> as i learned a long time again, to thy own self be true >> reporter: representing himself cross examining his former client. the attorney trying to undermine daniels, getting her to admit that in the past she said she could speak to the dead and chat she has conversations with a haunted doll named susan who has her own instagram account.

the two had famously teamed up in 2018 to take on then president donald trump they immediately made headlines. >> ultimately the american people and others far more educated than us will decide whether the president is fit to remain in office >> reporter: preventing her from talking about an affair she says she had with trump, an affair trump denies >> do you think you've got the president of the united states running scared >> he's not smart enough to run scared >> what is he? >> an egotistical lunatic at this point >> it's about the deception. it's about the lies and deceit that have been told relating to this agreement and what mr. trump knew and when he knew it and what they've done to cover it up. >> reporter: it was after daniels wrote her auto biography, full disclosure when the relationship soured. daniels telling jurors, quote, he stole from me and lied to me.

telling jurors not only did he take her final payment but he spent it the attorney asking if she had any e-mail, texts or recording stating he wouldn't take any money from the book deal daniels replied, no. an unconventional case that may have another twist when avenatti begins his defense >> have you decided to take the stand in your own defense? >> i have not decided that it's a decision i'll make probably over the weekend culminating in monday after consultation with a lot of people that i trust and respect. >> tom, thank you. let's turn now to that nor'easter threatening over 40 million americans. a warning stretched from north carolina to maine and new england facing potential blizzard conditions. here's nbc's emily acada. >> reporter: tens of millions under a winter alert as the storm closes in along the i-95

corridor, but are we talking a blockbuster event? depends who you ask as the european and u.s. forecasting models continue to wrestle over what's in store. >> so even though they're disagreeing to some degree on the amounts of snow, the general idea is still the same >> reporter: saturday will pack the most powerful punch dumping snow on major cities like philadelphia and new york while bringing fierce winds to coastal regions up to 60 miles an hour new england is expected to sustain the biggest blow preparations there already under way. >> i live alone and if there's a storm i don't want to be without anything to eat. >> reporter: in the town of franklin, massachusetts, there's a call out for all snowplow drivers offering as much as $200 an hour. >> we don't have trucks. we hire outside contractors. >> reporter: residents bracing for up to 2 feet of snow running into the supply chain crunch at

hardware stores. >> i usually have a lot more than this in stock, and this year with the supply chain issue, that didn't happen. >> reporter: communities from north carolina to maine revving up their severe weather response teams for a nor'easter packing snow, wind and unpredictabilities >> our thanks to emily for that report >> nbc meteorologist janessa webb can you predict the unpredictable for us, janessa? >> actually, i can the last couple of days have been really tough with our models not coming into agreement. good news they have come into agreement now, so we have better guidance if you're a snow fan here it comes because just in the last 30 minutes our models have shifted more to the west, and this will allow for more significant snow across the coastal areas. now, this has been a trickle effect just in the last 15 to 30

minutes. blizzard warnings now stretching from boston all the way down to maryland jersey shore forecast, national weather service 8 to 15 inches boston the highest totals. we're talking about 18 to 24 inches with hurricane force winds up to 70 miles per hour. so this forecast could change just a little bit, but this will be a significant event along with this storm system bombing out. what does that mean? we are going to be dealing with reduced visibility from new york city, boston, all the way into maine. lighter accumulation across the carolinas, but as you can see this storm system is going to produce heavy snowfall, and the wind gusts up to 70 miles pef

accumulation, in that area very cool temperatures across florida, record breaking this weekend. so this will be about a 24 to 30-hour event on top of that you have the close conditions going into late weekend. >> good thing it is happening on a weekend so not disrupting school or work for most of us. >> after a week on wall street will we see any stability on this stormy friday >> and our kerry sanders on the unplanned and carefully watched rocket collision with the moon ne odors... simply shake and spray to unlock the breakthrough power of touch-activated scent technology. that lasts, even hours later! that's because febreze touch stores scent in your fabrics so you get bursts of freshness with every touch. your whole world will come alive. welcome home to fresh with febreze touch. la, la, la, la, la for your most brilliant smile, crest has you covered.

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just weeks away. >> and liftoff >> reporter: a piece of this spaceex rocket launched in 2015 is now on a crash course with the moon four tons of metal traveling at 5,000 miles per hour, the moon's gravitational pull sucking it in, impact calculated for march 4th. amateur astronomer bill gray first discovered its crash course it'll be the first accidental crash ever of a man made object. >> this is the first time that something has unintentionally hit the moon >> reporter: the expected crash will make a new crater but won't damage the moon. astronomers say this leftover rocket is part of a growing man made problem of space junk images showpieces of junk in the tens of thousands orbiting the earth. >> you think space is infinite and then we have all this garbage. >> the same mistake we made with the ocean, right oh, it's huge, there won't be a

issue. well, yes and no >> reporter: last year the international space station was put in harms way after russia blew up one of its sasatellites. hundreds of thousands of pieces of shrapnel like bullets that could potentially pierce the iss. >> it was dangerous. it was reckless. it was irresponsible >> reporter: as for the moon astronomers expect the impact to produce a massive flash of light and dirt cloud similar to this nasa animation but don't expect to see it from earth. the impact predicted to strike on the dark side of the moon >> fascinating our thanks to kerry sanders for that report. that's a whole lot of cheese after that collision to make a nice char shar cutery board. after the break pizza hut dials up the heat. and still ahead why even use words anymore? the new emojis coming to your phone for more emoji speak yeah.

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in today's quick hits, get ready for some of your favorite snack foods to get more expensive. the maker of oreo cookies says it plans to raise prices by as much as 7% in the u.s. starting from this month. lowes is teaming up with pop up petco shops customers will be able to buy things like dog food and cat litter and even visit the vet by shopping for paint and other supplies and pizza hut is spicing up their menu with what they say is their hottest menu yet, free new spicy lover's pizzas the spicy hawaiian, chicken and vej ae are available for a limited time let's turn to wall street where tech visionaries are leading the way forward in more ways than one, we're talking about tim cooke and elon musk. good morning, steve. good to see you.

>> really good to see you. good morning, frances, good morning vinita apple numbers were absolutely fantastic, $124 billion in the fourth quarter china sales were fantastic up 21% revenues services which includes things like apple music, 21%. tim cook telling cnbc everybody is seeing inflationary pressures, so potential pressures on the margin but apple seems to be riding the storm very well. tesla fell after hours to the lowest level since october now, very interesting. elon musk he's trying to say don't worry about the number and such, the most important thing we can give you this year is a tesl optimist. well, they couldn't call it bumble be, could they?

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power through your day, medicine. new from vicks. in today's top stories the tribute to a fallen nypd officer. a police procession carried the casket of 22-year-old jason rivera to saint patrick's cathedral where funeral services will be held today rivera and hiv partner 27-year-old wilberbert mora was fair ate shot last week. a hiker trying to take a selfie on a mountaintop in arizona slipped and fell to his death. 21-year-old richard jacobson fell 700 feet from the flat iron

trail summit he and a friend had been taking selfies when he went to the edge to take a picture. he slipped police say there are no signs of foul play. starbucks the committee penned a letter to the company's ceo citing workplace issues. they included the need for better compensation, instability, retaliation and being silenced or ignored. earlier this month a second starbucks in buffalo, new york, became unionized after the city became home to the first union shop in the country in december. the trend is growing at the coffee chain across the nation the nba tipped off the road to all-star weekend by revealing the game's starters. it'll be team lebron versus team durant for the second straight year with lebron james and kevin durant each captaining a team. both men will draft their rosters on february 10th, and these are the starters they'll get to choose from

from the hardwood to the grid iron the taj is being set for the super bowl crews are preparing sofi stadium in los angeles for the big game. eevery fan attending will be given a kn95 mask and be asked to wear the mask at all-times. the super bowl airs on sunday, february 13th, right here on nbc. and iphone's new ios 15.4 update will include a whole new round of emojis. there will be 37 in total including icons like a melting face, a saluting gesture, coffee beans and a heart made of two hands to name just a few emojipedia put together a first look of apple's renditions and they will vary from platform to platform the unicorn counnsortium made t emojis >> we are all very, very fluent

i think in emoji speak, so anything we have to just express ourselves sometimes it's so much easier the tough part, though, is you kind of memorize where they are. >> i know until they just move to the front part. >> exactly that's the way to do it >> all right, well, thanyou fok

really very large surge of cases. >> right now at 4:30, loosening covid rules as cases decline. one bay area city already planning to reign in its guidelines. when other counties will follow suit. >> plus, new allegations against the san francisco da's office. why one former worker is accusing them of withholding evidence. >> and our meteorologist vianey arana is looking at how our weather is shaping up. mike has a look at the drive