citizen if they could claim that a person committed a crime. it was made the law of the state in 1863, it's no coincidence that that law was put into place that year. 1863 was, just after president lincoln signed thesident lincoln signed the law was codified just afte president lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation and enslaved people in georgia started fleeing their captors. and it remained the state's law during jim crow when it was used to justify the lynchings of four black people in january of 1912. it was used again to justify the killing of two black couples in july of 1946. black couples who were dragged from their cars and shot dozens of times by white men.ir the naacp has documented more than 530 acts of lynching in georgia alone between 1882 and 1968.

the violence was second only to that of mississippi. the citizen's arrest law helped eskew some of that violence. what a terrible old law. the problem is, that law was still on the books in 2021. this spring, the state of m georgia repealed that law and it only happened because of a tragedy that took place in february of 2020. it was then that three white georgia men chased down a 25-year-old ahmaud arbery while he was jogging through their neighborhood. when he didn't stop, when they n ordered him to, they trapped him with their trucks and shot him dead. they claimed they were attempting a citizen's arrest. they say they assumed arbery was responsible for local thefts they had been hearing about for weeks before seeing arbery jog by. they just assumed it was him. they did not investigate. they did not have evidence. they assumed it was him and assumed they had the right to capture this black man to make a citizen's arrest. when georgia governor kemp finally repealed that civil war era slave catching law this past may, ahmaud arbery's mother,

wanda cooper-jones, made the significance of that repeal crystal clear. she said, quote, unfortunately, we had to lose my son in this matter. had this bill been in place, i think it would protect young men jogging down the street. her son was not protected in february of 2020. those three men gunned him down in brunswick, georgia, and killed him in cold blood. those three men have been on trial for more than two weeks on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment. they claimed they had the right to chase and detain ahmaud arbery because of that citizen's arrest law, and they claimed that mr. arbery was shot in an act of self-defense. the prosecutors argued their actions didn't meet the standards of that law, and the defendants attacked ahmaud arbery because he was "a black man running down the street." today, after ten hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict. they found all three men guilty of felony murder and false imprisonment.ou

they found travis mcmichael, the man accused of pugging the trigger, guilty of all nine counts in the indictment. this was the scene outside the courtroom after the judge read the verdict. cheers and chants of "whose streets? our streets." the people unite willed never be defeated. and say his name, ahmaud arbery. ahmaud arbery's parents walked e out, hands raised with their attorneys and the rev right hand al sharpton, who's been supporting them in the courtroom during the trial. he's been there, despite the repeated and bizarre objections of one of the defense attorneys. both parents and one of their attorneys, ben crump, spoke b after the verdict and expressed relief and gratitude that this time, in this case, these white men would not be allowed to murder a black person with impunity. >> i never saw this day back in 2020. i never thought this day would come. but god is good. >> yes, he is. >> i just want to tell everybody thank you, thank you for those

who marched, those who pray, most of all, the ones who prayed. >> yes, lord. >> thank you, god. thank you. >> i don't want to see no daddy watch their kid get shot down like that. so it's all our problem. so hey, let's keep fighting and making this a better place for all human beings. >> i tell you all, we -- we -- we, together, did this. we all together, black, white, activists, faith members, lawyers, prosecutors, we did this together! we said, america, we will make us better than what we saw in that video.me >> we did this together. the naacp released a statement today noting the generations of black people in this country, dating back to its founding, back to emancipation, back to the first citizen's arrest law,

generations of black people who haveti endured losses like the arbery family has without ever seeing anyone held accountable. the generations of loss that have fueled protest after protest after protest. quote, the verdict in the trial over theer killing of ahmaud arbery is long overdue. ahmaud's death was unnecessary and fueled by racist ideologies deeply ingrained into the fabric of this nation. generations have seen this time and time againve with the murde of emmett till, trayvon martin, and many others. it went on to say there's a growing and deepening rift in america. we must fix what is genuinely harming our nation. white supremacy. the white house also weighed in, quote, while the guilty verdict was a result of us doing our job, it needs just a phrase em

blazened in stone above the supreme court, but a reality for all americans. and to be clear, the biden justice department has been forceful on this issue. in april, the doj charged the three men who killed arbery with federal hate crimes. they will be tried in federal court in february. that decision to federally indict those men was part of a string of doj actions to investigate the killings of black citizens like breonna taylor, like george floyd. in may, the doj decided to indict the officers involved in george floyd's murder, as well. they were arraigned in september. they pled not guilty. derek chauvin's trial for murdering george floyd was one of the fewer times in recent history that a white police officer was found guilty of killing a black person. he was the first-ever police officer to be convicted of killing a black person in minnesota.a but to many it felt like a surprise.ot an exception. despite the wealth of video evidence of that crime. earlier today, just after the georgia jury asked the court if

it could review video of ahmauda arbery's murder, ben crump reflected on the killing of breonna taylor and george floyd. >> thank god that there's video. we think about george floyd and how consequential that video was. we pray that the video here will help them arrive at a just verdict. but, reverend al,ky only think about all of the people, the marginalized people of color who did not have video. i can only think of them never, ever having a chance at court. and i don't want us to have this precedence where if minorities are killed by white people, that we have this high standard

where we have to have a video to get justice. i'm thinking about breonna taylor, i'm thinking about so many others where there was no video. >> ben crump, trying to figure out if a precedent is set, where you have to have video to hold someone accountable for killing a black person, just like george floyd.on the video of arbery's murder was pivotal. no one was arrested until the video of arbery's murder was released and circulated widely, which took more than two months after the killing. that video sparked nationwide protests and activism. it was a key piece of evidence in this trial. like george floyd, the video of ahmaud arbery's murder sparked a national outrage. people protested throughout the summer of 2020 in the name of george floyd and ahmaud arbery.r and the countless other black people who have been killed by white police and vigilantes. an attorney representing one of the defendants in the arbery murder trial seemed acutely aware of some of the similarities between this case and the murder of george floyd. when protestors showed up outside the courtroom and black

pastors sat with the arbery family inside the courtroom, the defense attorney tried several times for a mistrial, solely based on the presence of black people supporting the arbery family. he tried over and over and over again. he failed every time. during one of his hail mary attempts, he referenced the george floyd murder trial, implying that the influence of black protestors had an affect on the verdict.y bl he seemed increasingly worried that george floyd's murder really had reignited a civil right's movement and his case might become part of that movement too. now seven months after a guilty verdict following george floyd'd murder, we have another guilty verdict, for these three men in georgia who claimed to be o arresting a fellow citizen. what does it mean? is this a turning point? joining us now is gwenn keys flemming, a district attorney in

decab county, georgia. thank you for being with us. i want to ask you how you think about this verdict. were the facts in the case so blatant that reasonable people would have expected to -- the defendant to be found guilty, or was this the case of a prosecution making a strong case and overcoming systemic bias in the system? >> i think it's a combination of both. fn and i'm glad to be here. thank you for having me this evening. this is a case where, as you set it up in the beginning, this is. a reckoning. justice was served today. and i think it is telling that we are at the point in this country that we have to recognize that, through video, we're able to see various things that heretofore have just been presented by various witnesses or just having that video was so powerful. and you'll notice the jury today asked to see it several times again before coming back to their verdict. but i do think we have to be careful that it doesn't set a

standard going forward, and we have to deal with the root causes of racism. and in this case in particular, there were overtones from jury selection all the way through closing argument, and it was really reprehensible.in so it's good to know that the jurors were not persuaded by all of that rhetoric and stayed trud to the law and the facts as the prosecutor laid them out. a >> but ben crump is right, for all of those people who didn't have video, there are virtually -- there is virtually never a conviction, whether it's police or whether it's people who take the law into their own hands or claim to do so. there has been a line that's been repeated over and over in this country for decades, that police and other people don't get --er people don't get shot killed for doing nothing wrong. >> i think you're right. and that is the problem. we need to be able to get to the point where, when we say these k

crimes, racial crimes are happening are of the belief that it is not required to actually be on video. but in a courtroom, as a former prosecutor, having video, or having audiotapes or having things that captured all of the emotion of the moment, those are priceless in helping any prosecutor really convey what happened, and probably more importantly, refuting what a defense team may try to come in later and try to retool the facts or restate the facts in a way that's beneficial to them. >> throughout the trial, the defense counsel in particular for roddie bryan, the third mand charged, repeatedly raised the issue of black pastors in the classroom. one of them he was referring to was our colleague reverend al sharpton. he called them and other advocates for the family a literal mob. i was surprised that he used the term. he said his client was being

lynched. i thought that was some choice language. this happened outside the presence of the jury. they may be hearing those words for the first time after rendering their verdict. what do you think of that strategy, and do you think the social justice movements of the last year and a half triggered,t in part, by ahmaud arbery's death, do you think that they have actually changed the justice system, that they've brought ath new consciousness t juries? >> i don't know that it's gone that far. f i think it has raised the awareness of the issues. but, again, those are just examples of how the racial undertones and possibly the thoughts of the defendants were then carried on by their defense counsel.f to be able to label and try to exclude only black pastors when so many pastors were absolutely disgusted by these facts. that, again, is the racial undertones. to strike so many qualified african americans from the jury. again, the prosecutor started the trial. the judge even said he thought there might have been intentional discentimeter

nation, but let the case proceed. all of these things are still evidence that there is systemic racism that the system does not always work for african americans.t and we need to get to the heart of it in order to be able to of have a justice system that really works for everyone. >> gwen keyes fleming, thank you for your time.ke thank you for joining us tonight. joining us now is derrick johnson, the president and ceo of the naacp. a thank you for joining us. when ahmaud arbery was killed, the mcmichaels and roddie bryan gave their story to police. greg mcmichael called the local prosecutor, who allegedly advised him on what to do. police took their statements. they admitted they hadn't seen ahmaud arbery commit any crime and allowed them to go home. the video had to be leaked.cadlt the video of the killing had to be leaked for there to become a system that looked like it ended in justice today. >> you know, it speaks to the

need to take a deep look at reforming the system of elected or selected d.a.s. any time you have one who is elected who then works with individuals who committed a crime, to cover up the crime, we have a problem. and across the country, d.a.s have so much discretion. you know, it leads one to wonder whether or notne they are too cy with law enforcement or a certain perspective in the communities that they represent and not cozy enough with representing the law and justice. i commend the prosecutors in this case. they did an excellent job with helping the jury understand the facts.as and the facts is what the jury really took into consideration in this case and not the surrounding political environment and racial intolerance. but we have a problem with our prosecution system. we have a problem with the lack

of representation for indigent defendants. and we need to look at our justice system in a way that we can remove structural barriers based on race and create a system that's just for all citizens. >> and in many cases, the support for these families of these people who are killed comes from attorneys, pastors, leaders in the black community. a group that was called out particularly by one of the defense attorneys, what do you make of that? the idea that he called them a lynch mob, he said his client was being lynched in a case man, americans who have an intimate understanding and knowledge and fear of lynching believed it was an extrajudicial killing of ahmaud arbery who saw no trial and got no due process. >> well, it has been an effective tool, in the political environment it has been effective, and he was trying to use the tool of race to incite an outcome because his clients,

they were guilty of murder. there was no -- he had no defense. so in absence of having a defense, he was trying to use the tool of race. unfortunately in this country, until we address race, it will be continuously used as a tool. think about the law on the books. there was a slave law. you know, until states, particularly southern states, do an audit of their laws to purge the white supremacy laws from their books, we will always have these scenarios. i live in the state of mississippi. i understand the tool of race and how it's used in the south. what he was doing in that -- in that community was trying to use the tool of race. i wish there was a way that he could be sanctioned for doing that, but unfortunately there's probably nothing to sanction undero georgia's laws.

it is unfortunate that he would do that. but for african americans, we r are relieved that we have a decision in this case, that was just, and the families of ahmaud arbery can rest that their child, their child's murder did not go unaccounted for. those three individuals are nowe being held accountable. they will have years to consider what they done. >> the question we have -- and you and i have had this discussion after the convex of derek chauvin -- that in addition to their deaths being accounted for, do these verdicts have an impact on the way others may act? did derek chauvin's verdict have an impact on how other police will act?ch will this change -- will the change of the citizen's arrest law and this verdict cause people to think again before o they take the life of a black person in this country? >> it's a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. we need to reform our justice system.em we need police reform. we need more accountable d.a.s.

there's much more work to do. for many individuals across the country, if the verdict would ny have been different, it would f have created -- or given license for vigilante, justice, and mob violence. fortunately this judge, this jury, this community halted that floodgate of individuals thinking they have the right to commit violence and harm individuals who havenc committe no crimes, and they are now -- they wouldn't be held accountable. so i'm glad this decision is there, but it's a baby step. we have to do more to reform our laws, state by state, and federal. >> and, federally, these men have been charged with federal fences as the police officers in minnesota have. both sets of men will be facing new federal trials that hold completely different sanctions with them. is that the role that you want e the federal government to have? we have seen an increased role under this attorney general wit these things that look to the r

outside like they might be racially motivated crimes. >> the naacp before my father, 112 years ago, it was the backdrop of a lynching happening once a day. we recognized that local communities and law enforcement were participating in these lynchings and were not being held accountable. so we were advocating for the federal government to go into local jurisdictions to investigate, prosecute, and convict those causing harm to citizens. so, yes, this is the proper role for the federal government to play. it is the role that naacp advocated for from our founding, and it's important that when mob violence, when vigilante justice is held illegally, we must, we must have a system to hold people accountable and not be persuaded by local politics or state partisanship. >> derek, good to see you again. thank you for spending time wito us.fo

derek johnson is the president and ceo of the naacp. we've got a lot more ahead here tonight, including some william news for democrats this thanksgiving eve. we've got a big show. stay with us. eve we've got a big show stay with us

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this was the front page of the kansas city star this morning. kevin strickland, a man wrongfully imprisoned by the state of missouri for 42 years and 4 months, finally freed. but the subhead to the story is what is concerning. exonerated man won't get a dime from the state. the story goes on to stay that unlike guilty prisoners, a parole officer will not help strickland find counseling, housing, or work, and unlike exhonorees in other states, he will not be eligible for social services, such as participating

the state's health care program. and maybe most importantly, missouri almost never compensates wrongfully imprisoned people for time served. on the federal level, they are given $50,000 for every year they were wrongfully imprisoned. missouri's neighbor, kansas, just passed a law in 2018, making the wrongfully convicted eligible for $65,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration. if mr. string labd had been imprisoned mere miles away on the kansas side, he would be eligible for $2.7 million. but he's 62 years old, locked up since he was 18 years old. so what is he supposed to do? back in june, mr. strickland sat down with abc for an interview and tried to answer that very question. >> so what do you do? how do you start over your life at 62? >> you know, i kind of jokingly talked about that recently with a friend of mine. i guess i'll get me a cardboard box and get up under the bridge somewhere.

>> is that really -- is that how you're going to start, you feel? >> what do i have? i mean, if they told me to roll out now, they would take this chair. i would have to crawl out the front door. i would have nothing. >> the midwest innocence project, which worked to help free him, has resorted to setting up a go fund me page. so far it's raised more than $450,000, which is fantastic. but mr. strickland shouldn't have to rely on a gofundme page for this. in the words of "the kansas city star" editorial, they say he should have gotten a check.

she not only took the step of reinvestigating the case of mr. strickland but publicly apologizing for the failures once she discovered he was innocent. she then advocated for rehearing his case, eventually winning him freedom in court. this is the prosecutor. that doesn't normally happen. joining me now is prosecutor jean peters-baker. prosecutor, thank you for joining me tonight. congratulations on an effort that you have undertaken along with others for some time. tell me what you're thinking tonight. >> a variety of things. i am grateful. it's that time of the year to be grateful, and i am so grateful that we proved through a behemoth battle but proved mr. string land's innocence so that he is on the other side of prison walls tonight, so i'm grateful for that, but also some dismay in so many failures in

our system. >> well, let's talk about that. you actually worked to fix one of them. this wasn't just a case of the prosecutor looking at something their office had done decades earlier and trying to reverse it, but you actually argued for a law that allows judges to directly toss out a sentence. tell me how that compares to other places and why that law, the change in missouri law was so important to getting mr. strickland released. >> before this law passed -- and it just passed in missouri august 28th of this year. before that passed, a local prosecutor, lie myself, who had been in office for a while, i have a good idea of how to evaluate a homicide case. that's what i do for a living. but i had no ability to correct an old homicide case out of my own office. a county of conviction.

so i was powerless before august 28th of this year. so now we have this law that allowed me to bring the claim and then prove it before a judge. >> you did that. the governor did not -- has not pardoned mr. strickland. in fact, the attorney general challenged you in court. it seems weird. why is that happening? what's behind that? >> i don't know how to explain that. i'll probably have to have years behind me to better understand why someone with the same duty that i have, the same oath that i have, the same prosecutorial obligations that i have, governed by the aba like both of us are as lawyers, but state lawyers. we have all of those same qualities, but only one of us went forward to free mr. strickland as the evidence

directed us to. so i can't answer that. >> we're talking -- yeah, i mean -- it was a rhetorical question because i don't know how you would answer why someone else would come up against you in court to fight this, given that you had established kevin string land's -- the lack of evidence to convict him. we talked about this gofundme page that's been set up. it's up to $550,000 right now. which is great. it's fantastic that people are chipping in and they have heard his story and they believe that. but what do you think should happen in cases like this where someone is wrongfully convicted? >> it may be surprising to some that this statute that gave me power on august 28th of this year, but there are no funds to go along with it. mr. strickland's 43 years of being falsely held for a crime he didn't commit, he doesn't receive a single red cent from. now, that could be rectified,

also by that same legislation that passed this law. they could follow up with changing this, so not just that small portion of those people through dna could receive a small amount of money. but folks like mr. strickland should also be paid for this wrong that happened to him. >> there's -- the university of michigan law school has a list of the longest known exonerated incarcerations in the united states. i believe this is missouri's longest. he hasn't been added yet. but when his name is added to this scroll, he will be in the top ten. it's something. we know about wrongful imprisonment. we continue to learn of people who are wrongfully imprisoned. we have people who fight on their behalf. but this is something. when you think about 42 years,

i'm always taken when i hear his voice, when i hear him talking. i wouldn't have that patience around me if i were wrongfully imprisoned for 42 days, let alone 42 years. >> i have been fighting this case in quite a protracted battle since really the spring of this year, and i'm fatigued. i'm tired, i'm fatigued, and i'm pretty angry about it. and that's -- that's been my part of mr. strickland's existence. so i can't even fathom how he must feel and how he's managed to keep his spirit and his heart the way he has presented himself to me, as a really gracious man. >> yeah, he had a bit of a smile in one of the pictures i saw today when he walked out, and i was thinking, that's something

after 42 years. thank you for the work you did on behalf of him and the work you did and the work others did with you to see him a free man now. jackson county prosecutor jean peters baker. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. up here next tonight, contrary to what the beltway media may tell you, democrats may have a few things to be thankful for this thanksgiving. i'll explain when we come back. i'll explain when we come back

if you are a democrat or someone who votes for democrats or just someone who would like today's pro-trump conspiracy-filled republican party not to take over congress next year, you may be having a hard time finding things to be thankful for this thanksgiving, at least as far as politics go. but it's worth taking a moment to consider some things may not be as dire for democrats as they seem. for instance, this summer the country got a string of dispiriting jobs reports from the labor department suggesting

that the economic recovery was slowing down and hiring was not as robust. headlines used words like "lackluster," "disappointing," and "giant step back." but just a few days ago we learned things were not quite what they seemed. it turns out the government underestimated job growth this summer. and once they got ahold of all the data and revised their estimate, they had missed over 600,000 jobs that were added this summer. by the way, revisions to job numbers are a normal feature. now, unfortunately for the white house, it can't get back those months of bad press, but we know there was no summer hiring slump. we just measured it wrong. and speaking of measurement mistakes, there were howls of outrage after the congressional committee ran the numbers on the social spending plan and found the legislation would give a big tax cut to millionaires. folks on the left were horrified. republicans were giddy at hammering the democrats with a populist cudgel.

so democrats started fighting with each other about the tax cut. it seemed like another thing that might torpedo the whole bill, but guess what? it turns out that the congressional committee made a mistake and they had to issue a correction. the new corrected analysis shows the build back better package would raise taxes on millionaires by about three percentage points. and you may or may not think that's good policy. but polls show that it's very popular policy. and for democrats, this corrected analysis removes what briefly looked like a looming political disaster. now obviously not every hurdle the white house and democrats and congress are facing can be chalked up to an erroneous report. inflation issues and high gas prices are real problems that americans are feeling in their pocketbooks right now, but in an address to the nation this week, president biden stressed that there is light at the end of the

tunnel on those issues too. the gas price spike is likely temporary. the biden administration is trying to hasten its end by releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, and they're working on the snags with shipping. meanwhile, democrats in congress have never sounded more confident that they will pass some version of the president's build back better legislation, which they believe will add to the economic boost they already expect from the big infrastructure bill the president signed last week. and just today, we got a big helping of good thanksgiving eve economic news. this week's jobless claims by people who are newly unemployed are the lowest that they have been, not just since the pandemic started. they are the lowest they have been in the last 50 years, all of which means that as we head toward the end of the year, democrats potentially have the ingredients to make an effective

case for themselves as the party that americans should want in charge of the government. but first, all of those things that joe biden says are going to happen, have to actually happen. congress has to pass the social spending bill. the supply chain has to get back in working order. gas prices and inflation have to come down. and second, democrats have to do the one thing that seems to bedevil them more than anything else, sell their accomplishments. joe biden was vice president the last time a new democratic administration came in, passed historic legislation, and then lost the messaging war. is history going to repeat itself? watch this space. is history going to repeat itself watch this space

about once a year, we get a visit from a car-sized astroid. not impressive enough for a movie plot, but it makes a cool fireball as it enters the earth's atmosphere and burns up before it reaches the surface of the earth. about every few thousand years we get hit by asteroids the size

of a football field, and they can cause major damage. so a group of scientists at nasa's defense coordinating office keeps track of many of those near-earth objects, and today they start a mission that could help us avoid a cataclysmic scenario. earlier this morning, they launched a spacecraft that is going to be on a 10-month journey to a binary astroid 6 million miles away from earth, where luckily they pose no danger to us. if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will crash into the smallest of the two astroids at 15,000 miles per hour, giving it enough of a nudge to kick it off course and to change its speed. now, right before impact, the spacecraft will release a tiny satellite -- there you go -- that's going to take pictures of

the collision and send them back to earth. they will use telescopes to observe how much the impact changed the astroid's trajectory in space. the point is to add this diversion method to keep astroids out of earth's orbit. to quote nasa's defense planetary officer linda johnson, the right time to deflect an asteroid is as far away from the earth as we can. who better to talk than bill nye, ceo of the planetary society, also known as the science guy. great to see you tonight in an area of deep expertise for you. let's talk about this. what is this -- what is the aim here that we're going to deflect asteroids headed for earth so that they miss us? >> yeah, so, everybody -- just when i was a kid, nobody had a good hypothesis as to what happened to the ancient dinosaurs, but now we do. the last 30 years or so, people realize it was almost certainly an asteroid impact that finished them off. and there have been several other enormous asteroid impacts here on earth that would be

catastrophic. so some day in nonscience fiction fashion, we're going to have to deflect one. so this didymos binary asteroid, didymos and dimorphos, if you're into happy naming, is an asteroid where you have an asteroid that has a wide center like this double strawberry and then you have another asteroid going around it like the blueberry. so if you can hit the blueberry with a spacecraft, like these strawberry leaves, then you can slow this smaller asteroid down ever so slightly, ever so slightly, and then when an object is closer to the -- when a smaller object is closer to the larger object, it will go around faster. that's why, for example, mercury goes around the sun much faster than our earth does.

and so we'll be able to detect this tiny change in the period of the smaller asteroid. and this will prove or disprove the hypothesis that this so-called kinetic impact, energy impact, could deflect an asteroid in the future and, dare i say it, save the world. >> well, you and i are of an era where we had some great science fiction shows and books. and in those they would have just blasted any asteroid that threatened earth to smithereens. we apparently don't have that technology? >> no. plus there's a few problems with that. you'd have to get a large, let's say, nuclear weapon on top of a rocket and shoot it into space. all your allies and adversaries would have to trust you doing that. and then it would have to work. the idea would be to get near enough to an asteroid, set off

an explosion. the heat would volatize, vaporize, oblate, burn off some of the asteroid, and that momentum of the pushed-off stuff would push the asteroid. that may work. but even simpler and more straightforward is just hitting the asteroid with something very small but going very, very fast. d.a.r.t., double asteroid redirection test, is going about four miles a second, four miles a second. >> wow. >> so it has a lot of momentum. so when we hit this smaller asteroid, we are very hopeful that it will give it a nudge. now, the composition of the asteroids is not exactly known. so they're so-called xk asteroids. so we're hoping, or we're confident that when we hit it with this d.a.r.t. spacecraft it will hit it and give it a push

rather than just kind of go right through it like a sieve full of gravel or something. so, everybody, this is a very inexpensive test of what may one day be a planet-saving technology. >> yes. it'll seem like a great value when it actually saves us from something. i don't know if it's a first, bill. p it's always good to see you, but this might be the first time on "the rachel maddow show" that we've had a live strawberry and a live blueberry. i'll check if that's true. always good to see you, my friend. bill nye is the ceo of the planetary society. we appreciate your time tonight. there is a lot to be thankful for this year but there's one group of people that deserve extra attention this thanksgiving eve. i'll talk about them on the other side. other side inflammation? thank the gods. don't thank them too soon. kick pain in the aspercreme. ♪ ♪ 'tis the season to break tradition in a cadillac. don't just put on a light show—be the light show.

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over the past few years journalists have increasingly been forced to question official police accounts. in june of 2020, three months after breonna taylor was killed, police in louisville, kentucky, released a nearly blank report omitting that she was shot eight times by police.

the month before, when george floyd was killed, minneapolis police failed to initially report that derek chauvin knelt on floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. and when ahmaud arbery was killed near brunswick, georgia, last year, seasonal local journalist larry hobbs of "the brunswick news" knew that he needed to push for information because the police weren't sharing enough. so instead of relying on official statements hobbs filed a public records request. as hobbs told this show today, the less answers you give us, the more questions we ask. accordingly, he started to ask police, "why a young man was shot dead in the middle of a sleepy neighborhood on a sunday afternoon. why an unarmed burglary suspect is shot dead in the middle of a public street and not, say, inside a burgled home?" also, was there a conflict of interest since one of the suspects previously worked for the district attorney? well, his curiosity paid off. the public record request that hobbs filed allowed him to obtain a police report containing the first preliminary answers as to how and why arbery was killed. he published his findings on april 2nd, 2020. it was the first time america and perhaps arbery's family got

a better picture of what happened. today, almost two years since arbery's killing, the three men implicated were found guilty of his murder. hobbs' lead story tonight at the "brunswick news," "guilty. guilty. guilty." hobbs told us he usually doesn't post his stories on facebook, but today, reacting to the verdict, he made an exception. he wrote, "on so many occasions the strange and exotic and beautiful place called the south that i love so much has come up wanting in times of reckoning. today, november 24th, 2021, in a town called brunswick on the georgia coast was not such an occasion. tomorrow i think i'll go fishing." while today's verdict might feel like a measure of accountability, it's also one that began with a local reporter's work. so our message to you tonight is this. support your local paper. as the home page of the "brunswick news" notes tonight, "the world needs trustworthy reporting. but good journalism isn't free." amen.

well, good evening, once again. the three men accused in the killing of ahmaud arbery are all going away. the claim was they were protecting their community and acting in self-defense. on the second day of deliberations, this jury in brunswick, georgia, found them guilty in the shooting death of arbery as he jogged through their neighborhood. >> count i, malice murder, we the jury find travis mcmichael guilty. [ chanting: ahmaud arbery ] >> it would have become the larger reckoning with race and justice.

the case came under national scrutiny only because a cellphone video of the shooting emerged. arrest followed, but the path to prosecution was marked by delays and allegations of misconduct. for months arbery's family pressed for a convex. >> i never thought this day would come, but god is good. >> yes, he is. >> i want to tell everybody, thank you, thank you to those who marked, those who pray -- most of all, those who prayed. thank you, lord. >> yes, lord. >> let's keep making this a better place for all human beings. >> amen. >> today is a good day. >> the jury system works in this country, and when you present the truth to people and they can see it, they will do the right thing, and that's what this jury did today in getting justice for ahmaud