we begin there tonight with nbc's john yang. john, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this was the scene of that shooting about 24 hours ago. you can see kids are playing here again. it has been a very violent 24 hours. even though in chicago the number of shootings is down about 500 from last year, and the number of murders this year is on pace to be the lowest in nearly 50 years. the neighborhood park basketball court looked more like a battle ground littered with wounded. 13 in all. >> i think it was like an ak, man. a lot of shots like boom boom boom boom boom. >> reporter: all are expected to survive. the youngest deonte howard. shot in the jaw. >> y'all out here killing these innocent people, kids, parents, grandparents, mothers, fathers. it got to stop. >> reporter: police say the shooting was gang related. the weapon, an assault style rifle with a high capacity magazine. >> military-type weapons like the one we believed to have been used in this shooting belong on a battlefield. >> reporter: elsewhere in the city thursday night, at least nine other shootings th

as part of our reporting series on poverty that we call "in plain sight" we get our report from john yang. >> reporter: ben and sue in naperville, illinois, have taken an abrupt turn in the last year. they both lost their jobs. >> i came home and said remember how things couldn't get worse when you got laid off? she said yeah, i said well, things just got worse, i got laid off. >> reporter: the solidly middle class two-income household became a no-income household. once volunteers at the local food bank, they became clients. >> i didn't tell people. i told only my closest friends. >> reporter: ben is working again, packing ties, but they have gone to an income of $150,000 to $30,000. >> we just have to live a different lifestyle for right now at least. >> reporter: their situation highlights the recovery haves and have nots. in 2012 the top 5% of households, those making more than $191,000 took in about as much as they did before the recession. but the other 95% made less. that is reflected at the local food bank. has the recovery meant you've gone back to where you were before the recess

our story tonight from nbc's john yang. >> reporter: at first glance mark kirk and jackson cunningham may seem unlikely buddies. an 11-year-old down state illinois 6th grader and a 54-year-old senate freshman but take a closer look and you can see what draws them together. both suffered serious strokes that initially paralyzed their left sides. jackson's was triggered by a blood clot when he was 8 years old. last year, when he heard about kirk's stroke -- >> dear senator kirk, my name is jackson cunningham. >> reporter: -- he wrote him about his own recovery. >> all the therapy paid off. >> reporter: and tried to boost his spirits. >> please do not give up on yourself. all the hard work is worth it. >> reporter: a small gesture that meant so much. >> it was, by far, the best letter that i got. >> reporter: what did it mean to you to have that encouragement? >> it meant a lot to me. i felt that i had to meet jackson. >> reporter: it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. it stretched from the rehabilitation institute of chicago to the u.s. capitol. kirk found out jackson likes vi

john yang, nbc news, chicago. >>> still ahead for us tonight, desperation while on vacation. tens of thousands of people trapped with no way to get home. powerless as a resort city takes a big hit. >>> and later, caroline kennedy's public words today about her father and carrying on that torch that's now been passed to her. >>> an increasingly desperate situation in acapulco, mexico. hard hit by a big storm that flooded the resorts and the airport. knocked out power, trapped tens of thousands of tourists. the u.s. embassy in mexico city has no hard numbers on how many americans are in acapulco, but there are reports hundreds of u.s. tourists are stranded. we get our report tonight from nbc's stephanie gosk. >> reporter: mexico is drowning after a double blow. two tropical storms slammed into opposite coasts. torrential rain for days caused the worst flooding in years. facing danger residents used every means necessary to get to safety -- from jet skis to zip lines, parents carrying their children. at least 80 have died and hundreds are missing. acapulco was hit the worst. whe

john yang, nbc news, michigan. >>> and still ahead for us on a friday night -- the interrogation tapes and the phone call ariel castro claims he made to the mother of one of the women he held captive in cleveland. >>> we have a report here tonight that revisits that awful kidnapping case in cleveland, those three women held captive by ariel castro, held for years inside that house in cleveland. nbc news has obtained video of castro's interrogation, recorded just hours after his arrest. that was back in may. out of respect for the survivors in this case, we're just airing portions and not the worst of these descriptions. the story tonight from our national correspondent kate snow. >> reporter: during four hours of questioning, a handcuffed ariel castro calmly described how he abducted and abused the women, michelle knight, amanda berry, and gina de jesus. castro rarely showed remorse, at times seemed surprised by what he had gotten away with, describing a number of close calls over the years that easily could have led to his arrest. >> i kept michelle upstairs secretly. >> reporter: whe

>> john yang starting us off from chicago tonight. thanks. >>> now to one of the other front lines in the battle. doctors struggling to save the lives of innocent victims. we started this week with a mass t shooting in washington. one of the enduring moments from the tragic massacre came from a veteran d.c. trauma center doctor who spoke out against violence because she had simply seen enough of it. it turns out that doctor, janice orlowski of the med star washington hospital center spent two days prior to this in chicago. when her comments struck a chord we wanted to hear more. nbc's peter alexander has our report. >> fourth floor. a man with a shotgun. multiple shots fired. multiple people down. >> an officer was struck twice in the leg. they are en route to medstar. >> it was not a nice day. it was a rainy, overcast day. >> reporter: dr. janice orlowski from medstar was treating a patient when she heard the news. >> one of the nurses came in and said there is a shooting at the navy yard. >> reporter: hours later the frustration she

let's go to john yang now. delivery is expected to continue, but are there other things that will happen inside the post office? >> reporter: that's right, chris. neither rain nor sleet or government shutdown will stop the u.s. mail. the postal service gets its money from another source other than annual appropriations from congress. but if you go there and you want your social security benefits, they will still be flowing. they get money from permanent law rather than annual acts of congress. federal prisons will remain operating. they're seen as essential services. believe it or not, congress is seen as an essential service. they'll still get their pay. but if you come to the post office and apply for a new passport or want to renew a passport, that application may be delayed a bit. federal courts will be open. they are seen as essential. for the first ten days, ten business days or so, they have enough money to pay jurors. after that, though, jury trials will continue to go on. if you get a jury summons, you

now to john yang, he's in illinois. >> reporter: thanks, alex.ional parks will be closed but the post office will be open. mail will still be moving. they get their money from someplace else and social security checks will be moving too. they get funded by permanent law, not the annual appropriations that congress is fighting over. federal courts will still be open. they're considered essential services. jury trials will go on. but after the first ten days or so, jurors may get their jury payments delayed. and passports, applying for a new passport or renewing a passport, that may be delayed as workers get furloughed. now with a look at what's happening on military bases, here's my colleague, craig melvin at ft. dix, new jersey. >> reporter: john, thank you here at the joint base, southern new jersey, commanders are preparing for what they are calling an orderly shutdown. unfortunately they have gotten a bit used to it here. that's because the 6700 or so civilian workers who stream through the gates behind me every day, they just a few months ago

. >> nbc's john yang in north riverside, illinois. s talk about who is affected, who is not. you're outside a post office. postal services will continue but not all services. explain. >> that's exactly right, andrea. the main will keep moving. if you go to a post office to apply for a passport or renew a passport, that application may be delayed. same thing with social security benefits. the money will keep coming, benefits will keep coming but applications for new benefits may be delayed. requests for things like a social security card to get a job, that may be delayed as well. federal courts will be operating. they are considered essential services. they say they have got enough money to operate as normal for the first 15 days or so. that includes juror fees. after that juror fees may be delayed. andrea. >> john yang in illinois. the military is a moving target in this scenario. msnbc's craig melvin live mcguire, dix. ft. dix. where are you? >> you're right, andrea. it's called joint base mcguire-dix-lakehurst in new jersey. this gov

>> nbc's john yang in chicago. thank you so much, john. >>> i also want to take you back to the house floor. again reporting for you this hour as we look at the post-vote discussion as well as what they are going through at the moment, we saw just around 11:17 a.m. local time that the vote began. it passed right about four minutes after that. 230 votes at least in the yea column, at least one democrat when we were last looking at the numbers. so again, they have voted with a continuing resolution to move forward as well as the defunding of obama care, to move forward. that bill will go forward to the senate, which will now consider and most likely vote that down and send it back to the house. we'll continue to follow that. stay with us right here on msnbc, the place for politics. ♪ turn around ♪ every now and then i get a little bit hungry ♪ ♪ and there's nothing good around ♪ ♪ turn around barry ♪ i finally found the right snack ♪ ♪ a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in mot

. >> john yang is live in cleveland. what do we know about how this could have happened?reporter: chris, that is exactly what the lawyer wants to try to find out. the coroner tells us that the injuries castro had were consistent with hanging by a bed sheet. he was in what is called protective custody. he was held by himself. he was checked every 30 minutes on a staggered schedule so he did know exactly when guards were going to come by. but he was not on suicide watch and the attorney wants to know why not? when he was held before trial in the jail, they wouldn't give him his reading glasses because they were concerned that he might harm himself. castro's attorney wants to know more about the psychological evaluation that was going on or that when he went into prison in the near columbus and why he wasn't under suicide watch, why, if they were concerned about him harming himself in the county jail didn't exist in the state prison. >> john yang, thank you. >>> i want to bring in missing and sploied children marc klaas. his daughter polly was kidnapped and murdered in '93.

nbc's i can't thi nbc's john yang tells us how a pair of unlikely friends is taking life one step ate, mark curt and jackson cunningham may seem unlikely buddies. an 11-year-old downstate illinois sixth-grader and a 54-year-old senate freshman. but take a closer look and you can see what draws them together. both suffered serious strokes that initially paralyzed their left sides. jackson's was triggered by a blood clot when he was 8 years old. last year when he heard about curt's stroke -- >> dear senator kirk, my name is jackson cunningham. >> reporter: -- rehe wrote about his own recovery. >> all the therapy paid off. >> reporter: and tried to boost his spirits. >> do not give up on yourself. all the hard work is woth it. >> reporter: a small gesture that meant so much. >> it was by far the best letter that i got. >> what did it mean to you to have that encouragement? >> it meant a lot to me. i felt that i had to meet jackson. >> reporter: it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. it stretched from the rehabilitation institute of chicago to the u.s. capitol. kirk found out th

john yang is live in cleveland. o they know about the prison and the prison conditions where something like this could happen? >> reporter: well, alex, he was in a prison intake center. he was still being processed in. he was not at the prison where he was going to serve his term. he was in what's called protective custody. he was kept in a cell by himself. guards were checking on him every 30 minutes on a staggered schedule so that he didn't know when exactly they'd come by. officials have promised a thorough investigation to how this happened. his lawyer also wants to know why he wasn't on a suicide watch when he was held at the cuyahoga county jail here in cleveland before trial, they wouldn't even give him his reading glasses because they feared he might harm himself, but according to his attorney, there was no -- there were no such protections at the prison intake center where he was and where he committed suicide. the lawyer also wants to know what sort of psychological evaluations were being conducted, but so

john yang joins me in chicago. i know i heard you saying statistically the fbi is reporting a net decline in the numbers of people killed. at the same time it just feels awful in chicago. >> that's exactly right. it's a great frustration on the part of the police commissioner that the numbers are dropping. but the perception is still there that this is a very violent community. it doesn't help when you have violent nights like last night. the number of incidents across the city. thirteen people shot in one incident alone in this park around 10:15 around the south side of chicago. as the police commissioner said, it was a normal night in this park. people playing basketball. we've had a little warmer than seasonal weather in the last couple of days so it was natural people would be out. then a car pulls up. at least one, maybe as many as three shooters come out. as he said, they are using assault rifle, assault-style rifle with high-capacity clip. this really is a big thing that this police commissioner has been tal

john yang reporting for us, thank you. john, thg going to lead us to the big question today based on your story. for all of you out there, do you think that ariel castro's suicide has deprived his victims of justice? we are getting the statement in there calling this an act of cowardness he wasn't able to maintain longer than a month what he inflicted on his victims for years. weigh in on twitter and ourbook page. >>> we continue to follow developing news in arkansas this hour. we are awaiting live remarks from former president bill clinton, the unofficial secretary of explaining stuff, set to give obama care the type of backing only he can give it. with another part of that to kick in october 4th is when open enrollment begins, we will bring you that speech as it happens. i dbefore i dosearch any projects on my home. i love my contractor, and i am so thankful to angie's list for bringing us together. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. ♪ [ male announcer

as part of the series reports on poverty called in plain sight we goat get the story from john yang in chicago. >> reporter: every thursday audrey goes to a church food pantry on chicago's south side to restock her pantry at home. >> how long will this last? >> about a week. >> reporter: a single mom, she sometimes skips meals so her 4-year-old son has enough to eat. she earn s $10 an hour as a part-time home health care worker and gets $151 a month in food stamps. >> i'm making it. i'm fine. >> reporter: with a little help. >> with a little help. >> reporter: she's part of a troubling trend. working families who rely on food stamps. since 2000, the number of households with earnings getting food stamps has more than tripled. in 2011 reaching nearly 6.4 million. critics say the program, known as snap has gotten too big and too expensive. they want to restrict the program's eligility, cutting about 4 million people from the roles. when unemployment declines the number of food stamp recipients still increase s. >> reporter: defenders say it's big because the need is big. >> the program h

john yang has one couple's story. >> has are you guys? good morning. >> reporter: an age many are looking to kick back and relax, barbara and her husband get up early and go to work. barbara heads to her job as a computer software company. bob, 69 and an engineer commutes down the hall to a home office. it's not the life they imagined. >> it isn't, i think, the way we pictured it when we were young. i'm sure when we were young we never thought we would be looking past 65. >> joo they contributed to 401(k)s and put money away but took a hit in the stock market. >> we had this nest egg and we always thought that was going to carry us through and we lost a lot. >> reporter: a far cry from their parents' retirement more than three decades ago. >> he didn't have a lot of money when he first retired but the cds were paying 17% which is not bad. what do we have now? 0.25? it's like nothing. >> reporter: the 2012 survey found fewer than half of americans age 50 to 70 were confident they would be able to retire. the biggest worries? low interest r

for "today," john yang, nbc news, chicago. >>> let's get a check with the forecast with dylan who isd morning, lester. we are keeping an eye out for some rain in this area, especially on sunday, as that could just enhance the fears of flooding that we are already seeing in this area. but another region that is going to possibly deal with some flooding is in southern texas, down near brownsville, texas, where tropical storm ingrid could bring several inches of rain the next 48 hours. the tropical storm developed friday in the gulf of mexico and it is moving to the northeast at about 3 miles per hour with maximum winds right now up to around 60 miles per hour. i want to point out that as we go into next tuesday and wednesday, some of the remnants of ingrid could perhaps bring more rainfall into the southern rockies so we will have to keep the eye out for a possibility of that happening as we go into the middle of next week. today, though, we will see off and on showers across the rockies, but heavier >>> morning. i'm anthony slaughter. we have lots of fog and cloud cover. drizzle at th

nbc's john yang is in cleveland. he joins us now.pposed to be regular rotations, someone checking on ariel castro every half hour or so. what are investigators saying happened? >> reporter: well, investigators aren't saying much, tamron. they're going to look into all of this. they are trying to figure out what happened. he was under protective custody, meaning he was in a cell by himself. as you say, guards were supposed to be checking on him every 30 minutes in a staggered rotation, so he didn't know exactly when somebody was going to come by to look in. the prison officials say this is all going to be investigated. he was found hanging in his cell about 9:52 last night, taken to a hospital in nearby columbus. the facility where he was held was southwest of columbus. taken to a hospital in columbus where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. his attorney also wants to know why he wasn't under suicide watch when he was being held here in anticipation of his trial. jail officials wouldn't even give him his reading glasses becau

here's john yang. >> reporter: the protests have been swift and loud. teacher stacy ramble to 15 years in prison for the 2007 rape of a 14-year-old and then suspended all by 31 days and gave him one day credit for time served. morales committed suicide before the case went to trial in 2010. at sentencing, he said morales was older than her chronological age at the time of the rape and was probably as much in control of the situation as he was. that angered the victim's mother. >> i was horrified. i n't believe in justice anymore. it was a joke. >> reporter: two days ler he apologized for his comments. >> i'm not sure what i was attempting to say at that point but it didn't come out correct. what i said was demeaning to all women and not what i believe in and irrelevant to the sentcing. >> reporter: but he didn't change the sentence. now the prosecutor is trying to change that. >> certainly i'm disappointed in this sentence but i have a job to do and my job right now is to figure out if this case can be appealed because of some legal error. >> reporter:

willie, savannah. >> all right, john yang, thank you so much.ow to a massive protest planned against the nation's largest private employer walmart. kerry sanders is at a super center in miami gardens, florida. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning. the planned demonstrations are part of a string of protests nationwide by employees as they feel they are treated unfairly. the protests here today, as you noted, at the nation's largest private employer, walmart. today's rallies are being billed by organizers as the largest since black friday back in november when several thousand people turned out at walmart stores to demand higher wages and better working conditions. today's protests also include demands that workers allegedly fired or disciplined for participating in demonstrations be reinstated. the protests by walmart workers and groups backed by labor unions are planned for 15 cities across the country. the protest group, our walmart, is demanding the company pay a minimum wage of $13 an hour. walmart says its full time workers already

john yang introduces us to one man who has three jobs and still trying to stay afloat. >> i would like to talk to you about the legal issues you are having. >> reporter: he bills lots of hours, not all of them at a law firm. he's a ymca building supervisor and takes the odd tree trimming job when he can. all together, he hopes to make $15,000 this year. >> need one more plate. >> he still lives with his parents. when you went to law school is this what you invisioned? >> no. not at all. >> reporter: he says his job hunt after law school was bleak. >> if you got an interview, it was really good. usually that didn't pan out. it was nice to at least get an interview. >> reporter: he highlights how soft the recovery is. of the 848,000 jobs created, nearly two-thirds are part time. >> that tells us there's tentativeness among employers hiring people full time. >> reporter: he seeings growth opportunity at the "y." how would that make you feel to give up the law? >> it would make me feel kind of sad that i spent three years in law school and the economy wasn't good enough for me to make it a

john yang is in chicago. john, good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, matt. very violent night overnight in chicago on the south side. 13 people were shot. the most seriously shot was a 3-year-old boy, shot in the head. he's in critical condition in the hospital right now. incidentally, that little boy's uncle was one of the victims of a state of violence over labor day here in chicago. the other victims in that shooting, in that park shooting on the south side, their injuries do not appear to be life threatening. many have already been treated and released from the hospital. police very tight lipped. they do say it appears to be gang related and believe it or not, it was only one of a number of incidents overnight. in all, overnight in chicago there were 23 people wounded. two of them fatally. so this is a very violent night in chicago. ironically it comes at a time when police officials have been touting the murder rate and shooting rate is actually coming down. murder down 32% and shooting down 22% and murders on track to be the lowest since the 1960s but