country, ignoring this disaster and that pristine ecological system on the santa barbara coast is not going to make it go away. that does it for us tonight. plus awesome images. a snow and ice pile still melting in boston and new york city called manhattan hinge. "first look" starts right now. >> good morning, everybody. happy friday to you. a man who was once one of the most powerful politicians in the country has been indicted on federal chargest.

dennis hastert has been paid for hush money and then lying to the fbi about the money. pete williams has the latest. >> reporter: the charges are a bolt from the blue involving a public official for more than 25 years and house speaker from 1999 to 2007. since 2008 he's been a lobbyist in washington but for the past four years he has paid $1.7 million in hush money that went to someone identified as individual a from workville, illinois. she he agreed to pay them to compensate and conceal his prior misconduct against individual a. that occurred earlier. it does not say what the misconduct was. prosecutors say he started

making withdrawals of $50,000 at a time and then cut them to 10,000 when questioned by the bank. prosecutors say when asked about whether he was trying to evade something or cover something up he denied having any improper purpose and suggested he didn't feel safe with the banking system. he told the fbi, i kept the cash that's what i'm doing. >> that was pete williams reporting. dennis hastert faces charges for lying to the fbi. we are getting a brand new look at the extreme weather in the country. let's start in maine. a sign from above. a huge lightning bolt struck a church. over in ohio check this out. it's from a surveillance camera. winds bring down tree branches just like they're twigging and an industrial ac unit yanked from the roof, hit a few cars

below. the big story still the flooding in texas. they've gotten so much rain that it would be enough to flood all of rhode island under 10 feet of water. here's an example of the force. an unstoppable wall of water bursting into a living room. then outside a run away basketball hoop carried away by the rain. in oklahoma the state had to close roads and highways to protect drivers but it wasn't just the water. it was the wind. look at this shed getting picked up and tossed over a fence. with all of that a nice gesture to tell you about from anheuser-busch. it stopped beer production in georgia to make 50,000 cans of drinking water for those affected by the storm. we are sure some people might prefer a cold beer at this point. here's a quick blast from the past. remember boston getting hit with winter weather? some of that snow is still

there. covered in dirt and trash. all of this extreme weather, all of it we explain that is being called weather whiplash. >> reporter: they call it weather whiplash. a year of history floods fires, tornados, snow and ice now whipping from one child extreme to another. in wichita falls, texas, it felt like the drought ended overnight. in just three weeks much of the state has gone from extreme drought to crippling flood. in the last 30 days 2.6 trillion gallons of water has filled texas reservoirs. enough to fill california for at least a year and a half but still only a quarter of what california needs to end its drought. the golden state parched like

never before. take the reservoir, the water level has dipped so low this hill and many others just like it are no longer submerged and the bridge we hind me used to be suspended just over the line. now it's 200 feet above it. >> we are in a more severe drought. we can expect it more severe. >> reporter: with a powerful el niño expected experts say it could soon do the same to california now bracing for fire and mud slides later this year. the weather whiplash promising to bring more and dangerous extremes. >> defindant and unapologetic fifa's long time president is not backing down. >> we or i cannot monitor

everyone all of the time. if people want to do wrong, they will also try to hide it. >> he has not been indicted. he is favored to win a fifth term extending his 17-year reign but he can't count on a vote from the president of the u.s. soccer time who said he would side with the chief r50i68. and vladimir putin is accusing u.s. authorities of metaltling. the state department dismissed those allegations. for the second year in a row the skrips national spelling bee has crowned a winner. they will each get a trophy a reference library, money, and much more. tracie potts is live in washington.

there's no way we could spell some of those words. >> reporter: i can't even say some of those words. once again, these really smart kids from proven they can keep spelling until there are no words left. it started with 285 of the nation's best spellers. some quite young. >> definition, please? >>. >> reporter: many of them anxious and a few kind of funny. >> may i have an easy word please? >> that's not right. >> reporter: emotions run high if you get it wrong or right. it's a lot of pressure for a kid. number 132 had to let off some steam. >> thank you. >> reporter: it came down to ten then just go gokul venkatachalam an eighth grader from missouri. nunatak. and vanya shivashankar an

eighth grader from kansas. this is her fifth bee. her sister won six years ago. scherenschnitte. >> both so good the bee ran out of words and declared a tie for the second year in a row. >> so we saw it last year but before that there hadn't been a tie in more than half a century and there was some discussion about whether they need to switch up the rules or the procedures a bit to try to avoid that. everybody thought last year maybe was a bit of a fluke, and then it happened again. >> i am in awe -- did you hear how long that word was she was spelling? >> i don't know what it means. tracy, thank you.

in japan a vkolcano erupted earlier this morning. they issued an emergency evacuation. roughly 140 people live on that island. no reports of injuries. the volcano erupted last summer in japan. nine minutes past the hour. time to get down to business. >> good morning. jpmorgan is reportedly cutting about 5,000 jobs over the next year. "the wall street journal" says it's mostly from consumer banking. it's going to focus on internet and mobile banking. and grocery storesamazon is offering groceries. jay.

beyonce is asking jay see's new advances for rights to stream the songs. they say they have 9,000 users but analyst thinks most of them are trial memberships. >> that's a huge blow if they pull beyonce's music. >> one of the most successful coaches in the nba has been fired. he was fired after amassing his record and playoff appearances. the reason? friction with management. his replacement? well the rumor mill is running that iowa state's head coach is high on that list. now to the french open serena williams was down a set before she advanced to the next round and then an upset. was knee yak left early.

check out world wrestling onsee in a. he weighs 250 pounds but he just loaded a video of him bench pressing 240 pounds. and a destroit piston's center made a high school person's dream come true. he said 12,000 retweets would get him to prom. she came close and he honored his word. he was a complete gentleman all night long. coming up it is back. a spectacular new york city phenomenon. plus, what are those? the mysterious bits of something washing up in some of the most popular surf cities in america. >> this morning strong storms from dallas to austin. those storms and the renewed threat of flooding will continue today. we'll have a look at that and get a look at your weekend forecast.

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good morning. welcome back to "first look." we're once again talking about storms through the southern plains. right now we have active storms moving through the dallas area in austin and pushing to houston. this is going to add what could be up to another inch. this is something we're going to continue to see through the afternoon. colder air coming in from the north and that is going to keep things unstable. flood watches and warnings continue through sunday. here's what we're looking at over the next few days. we could see an additional 1 to 2 or 3 inches. it depends on how slow moving the thunderstorms are. the weekend forecast starts off rainy through the midwest. it will get better through the end of the weekend. by sunday's forecast it is dry but it starts to get west to the east coast for sunday. that's a look at your weekend forecast. back to you. >> we'll take it. thank you very much. we want to show you pictures of

a gorgeous phenomenon. it is happening tonight and tomorrow here in new york city. it's called manhattan hinge. it happens twice a year. the sunsets in such a way that its path follows directly between the buildings. it happens quick but it's stunning and you'll know it's happening when car horns start sounding. also expect a show down in the senate over nsa sur vie lance and the patriot about. democrats with l continue pushing for reforms and others want to extend the current laws with no changes. the attorney general has also weighed in on this. she is urging the senate to extend it before the monday deadline. president obama visited the national hurricane center in miami yesterday to talk about climate change. he took to twitter to answer some of people's questions about the subject but as you can imagine, the twitter chat soon switched and it switched to

basketball. the president even answered a tweet regarding the firing of tom thibodeau. he said love him and think he did a great job. sorry to see him go. expect he will be snatched up soon by another team. now to southern california where mysterious balls of tar are washing ashore. some are the size of footballs and feel like putty. six miles of shoreline have been cloegzed south of los angeles. >> we spend a huge amount of time out here. it's heart breaking. >> officials don't know where the tar balls are coming from. some wonder if they're part of an offshore platform leak. coming up the one gop candidate that left jon stewart speechless. scrambled politics is up next. ♪ ♪

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of scrambled politics. former president, bill clinton says he wants to continue working in west africa regardless of whether his wife is elected president. he says this is my work. i've been doing it for 15 years and i love it and i think it's important. >> from esquire magazine, someone says the president did not live up to his expectations. the artist says president obama has had a really tough time but there have been a lot of things that he's compromised on that i

never would have expected. drones and domestic spying are the last things i would have thought he'd support. and a new poll finds there are five leaders in the republican white house lead. leading are jeb bush ben carson mike huckabee marco rubio and scott walker. rubio might be a fan of the history channel's pawn stars. yesterday he was in a picture with a star of the show. george pataki announced he's running for president. he is now the eighth republican to officially enter the race. according to "the washington post," real estate mogul donald trump will be making a major announcement on june 15th. that left jon stewart speechless last night. >> donald trump says he's considering running for the republican nomination for

president. [ laughter ] >> and be sure to stick with msnbc later this afternoon. nancy pelosi will join us at 2:00 p.m. eastern. that is your morning dish of scrambled politics. 22 past the hour. i am joined by kevin cirilli. >> happy friday. thank you for having me. >> absolute lay. we have to talk about this because everybody is. the former exspeaker's indictment is sending shock waves. the big question is who is this person he was paying hush money to and why? >> individual a. is what this person is called in the indictment. it really has sent shock waves all over the inside the beltway and outside the beltway. a lot of unanswered questions this morning such as who was this person getting the money?

when were they getting the money? it mentioned him as a head coach and teacher decades ago before he got into politics. a lot of unanswered questions. the whole indictment is a very strange piece of legal documents because just because of how many questions it's left unanswered. >> yeah. he was a republican speaker for a very long time. he must really want to hide something extremely damaging if these allegations in the indictment are true. >> absolutely. he had already paid $1.7 million according to indictment he wanted to pay upwards of more than $2 million. this is a guy who was the longest serving republican house speaker in history. and he had then transitioned into becoming a lobbyist. he has since stepped down from his lobbying firm. he is expected to be arranged at a later date in the coming weeks but he has not been formally

arrested. the questions tooz why, where was it going to is the central question driving this story at this point. but still this morning no new developments on where exactly that money was going. >> if the allegations about the payments are true and they date back to 2010 are you surprised no one caught an to this until now? >> he had actually tried to tell authorities once the bank alerted the irs officials about the money and the investigation was kick started into high gear he had told authorities that he didn't trust the bank. obviously the feds saying that's not the case but this was an incident that happened decades ago when he was just starting to make the payments. this story is going to continue for quite some sometime. >> this is just the beginning of this story. >> yes. >> thanks to much. have a good weekend. >> you too. >> much more ahead. lindsay lohan turns the page on a dark page of her life.

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huffing ton post french bar tendser convicted of manslaughter after a man drinks 56 shots and dies. the man was trying to break a record. for the first time in nearly eight years lindsay lohan is not on probation. a judge determined she had completed her public service. have you ever seen a man flying on water? it's one of the highlights of a boat show in china.

one flies around doing tricks summer salts and jumps and flips. it is pretty fascinating. all right. i'm betty nguyen. thanks for watching. "way too early" starts right now. >> i've spoken to several top republicans and close friends of former speaker hasert and they're stunned. he wasn't a colorful figure even when he was inside the house. >> dennis hos tert accused of paying off an unnamed individual to conceal his prior misconduct and lying it about it to the fbi. fifa is set to elect a new leader today and down to the wire, the national spelling bee ends in epic fashion.

>> good morning. it's friday may 29th. welcome to "way too early," the show that gives you everything you need to know plus sports weather and fun stories that you may have missed. we're coming to you live from washington d.c. we begin this morning with a political story that has this town buzzing. it has nothing to do with 2016. it is on the cover of newspapers across the country today. dennis hastert the longest serving republican speaker in the history of the house is now facing years behind bars after being indicted. he's accused of violating banking laws by trying to hide more than $900,000 in withdrawals but it seems this is more than just some financial irregularities. they were take ton hide pas