>> pete williams after a busy final day this term at the supreme court. pete, thanks. >>> as thousands of undocumented immigrants cross the border into this country, many of them children, the president said today he'll no longer wait for congress to act on broad immigration reform. he announced his intention to move on his own starting with an action to make it easier to deport people who cross the border. >> i take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue and congress chooses to do nothing. and in this situation, the failure of house republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it's bad for our economy, and it's bad for our future. >> and along our southern border today, the humanitarian crisis was only getting worse at what one congressman is now calling refugee camps. we have more on that tonight from nbc's miguel almaguer. >> reporter: this is what an immigration crisis looks like -- waves of children risking their lives. today along the texas border, the influx continues. since october, 52,000 children, many t

pete williams, nbc news, washington. >>> we'll take a break here. still ahead on our broadcast tonight, how much sleep should you be getting to feel your very best? what experts now say is the magic number and what happens if you don't get it. then later, "50 shades of grey," the steamy book now a steamy film and the phenomenon is heating up all over again effective today. >>> we are back as promised with some intriguing new research into something most americans seem to struggle with just about every night, and that's the amount of sleep that constitutes a good night's sleep. it calls into question the conventional wisdom namely that we need a full eight hours ideally. our report from our chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman. >> reporter: from sunset to sunrise and everything in between, we're a busy nation short on sleep. >> i stay up late getting things done and then i'm up early to get the kids up and going also. >> i just don't sleep as good as i used to. >> reporter: for some, many of us sleep simply isn't a priority. >> we are a society t

was plotting other attacks on american people and facilities in libya, chris. >> that's nbc's pete williams. thank you, pete. >>> let's turn now from washington to more breaking news overseas. the death of both palestinian and israeli teenagers is beginning to spill out into the streets. >> journalists, journalists! journalists! [ speaking in foreign language ] >> press! press! >> journalists! >> nbc's foreign correspondent is joining us live in jerusalem. harrowing moments that we just saw. walk us through what happened there. >> reporter: chris, we'll get to that in a second. i want to give you a sense of what is happening because it's a tense situation. you can see the israeli soldiers engaging in clashes in this neighborhood. it's a scene that we got caught up in earlier today. >> ayman, stay safe there. we're going to stay with these pictures, but you stay safe. >> reporter: chris, we're still with you if you can hear me. it's very similar stuff that we've been seeing throughout the course of the morning. now, israeli police are here in this neighborhood. several streets around this ma

pete williams, nbc news, washington. >>> we'll take a break here. still ahead on our broadcast tonight, how much sleep should you be getting to feel your very best? what experts now say is the magic number and what happens if you don't get it. then later, "50 shades of grey," the steamy book now a steamy film and the phenomenon is heating up all over again effective today. heating up all over again effective today. are you dealing with hot flashes during menopause? why suffer more than you have to? you can do something different. because the landscape of options has changed. brisdelle is the only fda approved, non-hormonal option proven to reduce moderate to severe hot flashes during menopause. and the bedtime dose provides 24-hour relief. brisdelle is not for everyone. call your doctor if you have changes in mood or behavior, thoughts of suicide, or a high fever, stiff muscles or confusion, signs of a possible life-threatening condition. abnormal bleeding, bone fractures, restlessness, vision problems, and impaired judgment and motor skills may occ

nbc's pete williams joins us now live from washington, d.c. so pete, thanks for being here.e explain these two rulings and what they mean for the people in those 36 states. >> it's not often we get contradictory rulings from federal appeals courts. it is unusual to get them within a few hours of each other on such a big issue. so here's the question. it's clear that if you buy your health insurance in one of the 14 states that has a state exchange, you qualify for a federal subsidy to help you afford the insurance. it comes in the form of a tax credit. that's run by the irs. in the other 36 states, you have to buy your insurance through the federal exchange, better known as healthcare.gov. the question is, does the affordable care act, the obamacare law, allow that subsidy for the federal exchanges? now, both the courts today agree on one thing. the law isn't at all clear on this. the law is crystal clear, the court said, that you qualify for it in the state exchange. it's ambiguous in the federal exchanges. president d.c. court of appeals here in washington said unless it's

, not to be confused with nbc's pete williams presumably. they'd been contacted by a tipster who tried to shop them this story about bob menendez and prostitutes and wanted "crew" to be an ethics expose. they called the abc investigative unit to look into the story to verify the claims from the tipster. abc news like all these other networks looked into it and found the story was not credible enough to report or broadcast or publish in any way. but tucker carlson was very happy to do it. and so because he did it, then fox news did it, and then the "drudge report" did it and even as the fbi left the dominican republic empty handed apparently like all of those real news organizations did on this story, when nobody was able to corroborate it, the right wing media stuck with it. they never walked it back. and that is where it would have ended. just circling the drain of jeff gannon, white house briefing room hooker, and armstrong williams paid to write favorable stories about the administration, the new black panther party, and michelle obama sa

let's get to pete williams. good morning. tell us >>well, it sounds like a technical issue, but it's one that has very practical implications. this was a lawsuit over the part of the law. an irs rule involving the different exchanges. here is the issue. states were allowed to set up their own exchanges to get health insurance for those who didn't have it through their employer. but roughly 34 states decided not to do that. so instead you can buy insurance on the federal exchange better known as healthcare.gov. the issue is this, the irs gives a tax break for state exchanges. meaning if you can't afford the insurance, the federal government basically subsidizes it through tax credits. and the irs said that same rule should apply to the federal exchanges, but the court ruled today that you can't read the law that way. that the irs benefits, the tax credit, the subsidize cannot apply in the federal exchanges. that's a big blow to potentially big blow to people who pie their insurance on the federal exchanges. the court said in t

nbc news correspondent pete williams has been track being the story all afternoon for us. pete, are there any new clues? there was talk earlier in the day this may have been an accident because there hadn't been much activity over that airspace. but what do we know right now? >> the number one theory -- emphasize the word "theory" of the u.s. at this point is that it was in fact shut down, but there is no hard evidence to confirm that. statements by the ukrainians, the coincidence of where it happened as it was about to cross the border between this disputed area in ukraine and russia. and the timing. all those things put together, witnesses on the ground saying they thought they say a missile streaking into the sky. all that together. but in terms of actual hard evidence, here's what the u.s. is trying to gather. number one, they're going back and looking at satellites that monitor the kind of heat signatures that could be given off by the launch of a missile. so they'll look at that data. secondly, a former intelligence official says that these missiles, if in fact it was

. >> joining me now is nbc correspondent pete williams. does the end to this lie at the supreme court? >> maybe, maybe not, when you go into a federal court, when you want to make an appeal, you go to a three-judge panel of the full appeals court, and that's what we got today, two panel decisionses that went in opposite directions, if the same pattern holds when you get to the main federal, the full federal courts if that's what happens here for both sides, then you still have a split and the supreme court might take the case. but if the federal appeals court end up agreeing, it wouldn't seem like the supreme court would take the case. so i don't think we can say this is going to be resolved by the supreme court. >> do you think that the d.c. circuit court decision opens the door to a raft of other lawsuits around the country? >> there's already several lawsuits around the country and this legal lawsuit has been around for a while. whether there will be other lawsuits i don't know, i don't know what that would accomplish. what you have her

pete williams joins us live. what can we expect from the morning's detention hearings, sir? >> well, this hearing for ak mad abu khattala. what will interest us is what more the government has to say about the case against him. now in some court documents filed just ahead of the hearing, the government does reveal some depth to the charges they filed against him. so far, they haven't said much. they say that in the days before the attack, khattala expressed opposition to the presence of u.s. consulate in benghazi. they say several members was terror group he commanded were seen by witnesses involved in the attack. they say after the attack c khattala supervised the removement. they were planning to attack the other facility. he was trying to get weapons to defend himself from an expected u.s. capture. he continued to plot further attacks on u.s. people and property in libya. that gives a little more details into the allegation the government has. it doesn't tell us anything about the evidence the government has against him. the government has been reluctant to give any kind

we go live to pete williams. what can you tell us what happened there? >> no surprise. judge ordered his continued detention until the trial. there's no trial date set yet. but we did learn a couple of things. one thing that the government says is that the evidence against him consistents not only of witnesses -- statements by witnesses to the attack, but this is the first time we've heard the government say that some of the evidence against him includes voluntary statements made by khattala himself. we've been told by senior government officials that he was cooperative during the roughly two weeks during which he was interrogated after he was captured in libya, and all the time he was coming to the u.s. aboard u.s. navy amphibious ship from the mediterranean to just outside washington. his lawyers conceded he should be held. partly because he's a foreign national. he has no ties to the u.s. they said basically the government has not presented any evidence that he himself took part in the attack. they say that the government has shown that people he knew were involved i

>> pete williams for us in washington. hank you. >>> a colorado carjacking tops the look at stories around the news nation on this thursday. a carjacking suspect who broke into a house in golden, colorado, check this out, crashes through the garage in a stolen suv. police have been looking for this guy in connection to a string of alleged crimes there. the armed suspect makes his way toward a busy interstate where he gets at one point he's stuck in a ditch. then he tries to steal another vehicle. the police caught up with him and with the help of some bystanders, they were finally able to take him into custody. >> hundreds of friends, family and community leaders gathered last night for the funeral of 43-year-old eric garner. he's the new york man who died last week after an nypd officer put him in an apparent choke-hold. mourners say they turned out to pay their respects and to make a statement. >> this will be the last killing in new york city, even if it has to take my life. i will guarantee you they'll pay for this one.

joining me now is chris cillizza, bloolberg news reporter jean cummings and justice correspondent pete williamstally clear. pete? >> okay. well, here's the issue, andrea. most of the states did not set up their own exchanges under the obamacare law, so most people that are getting their insurance through the exchanges are getting them through the federal exchanges and the question is, does the irs, does the law that congress passed give the irs the authority to give subsidies to people who buy on the federal exchanges? it's obviously clear they can get them on the state exchanges and the answer so that depends on which court you asked. today the d.c. court of appeals ruled 2-1, no, the federal government can't give them. it would affect the people under the federal exchanges and qualify because -- of their low income but the exact opposite conclusion has been reached just a few moments ago by the 4th circuit court of appeals in virginia in a companion parallel case through the courts. now, both appeals court said this is not the greatest job congress ever did in passing a clear law, the 4th cir

nbc news justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. so what's the latest, pete? >> well, the officials say it happened in mid-march, this intrusion into the computers of the government's office of personnel management. what they were apparently looking for is financial information, job history, and perhaps of most interest to the hackers any foreign contacts that were in these personnel files. they're used to conduct background information for people seeking security clearances. they say the intrusion appeared to come from china, but they can't be certain that it's there. as you know, secretary of state kerry was there and said that he did not raise this thing specifically but did raise the general subject about chinese hacking intrusions, and the u.s. has been increasingly e lly con about this over the past few years. >> and, pete, given that, will there be a look into how to prevent this from happening in the future i would anticipate? >> well, you know, it's impossible to prevent these things. what the government says is that they found this intrusion almost i

. >> let's bring in now nbc news justice correspondent pete williams for what happens next. pete, what is the next step here? >> well, the next step is to go to the -- let the appeals process play out. the obama administration has already said it will ask the full d.c. court of appeals. today's ruling came from a three-judge panel. it will ask the full court to take another look at this. we might get the same line in the fourth circuit court of appeals. both the appeals courts did agree on this. the law is very hard to read. it's ambiguous. it's clear that the state exchanges can offer these critical subsidies without which many of the people who get their care from obamacare could not afford it. but the law is ambiguous about whether the federal government also has the power to give those subsidies for the federal exchanges, better known as healthcare.gov. what the d.c. circuit said here is, you know, we've read the law, it doesn't give the federal government the authority, it ain't in there, and so it doesn't have the authority. what the fourth circuit said down in virginia

it includes a fake tip steer named pete williams who provided false information. >>> in the middle east israel is on high alert after palestinian militants fired doesn't of rockets into the jewish state. israel is retaliating with the latest round of air strikes overnight. video from the israeli defense force showing the destruction of hamas tarts in the gaza strip. president obama is weighing in with a just published in one of israel's leading paper. the only path for piece is a jewish state existing side by side with an independent palestinian state. president obama expressed his condolences to the families of stlooelly teens and a palestinian boy whose murders sparked the new round of clashes. >>> three suspects have reportedly confessed to being involved in the palestinian's teen murder. they reenacted it for police. ayman mojadidi joins us live. good morning, ayman. >> good morning, thomas. the really military is calling it operation protective edge. they say it's going to be a long haul struggle. when it's going to build up over the course of time. we've seen in the past 24 hours

. >> pete williams is here to help us find answers to all of this. the debris field is spread over miles and miles. that has to make it difficult for the people to figure out exactly what happened, wouldn't you think? >> of course, it is night there now and will resume the investigation in the morning to the extent that they can do. it will be critical to find the black box. the fact that the debris is spread out over such a large area according to the aviation experts suggests it did blow up in the air instead of remaining intact until it hit the ground. that is another factor that is leading the u.s. to say they believe it was shot down. i should point out while there are some u.s. officials saying they are confident it was shot down officially the government isn't saying. the vice president said apparently shot down. so that seems to be the emerging consensus. you look at where it happened at the critical border and look at the debris and the height in which it was flying and then suddenly comes down. so all of the things put together i think ther

. >> pete williams joins us now with more. we know this will be appealed. talk about that and whether people can get married in the meantime. >> it probably will be appealed. one of the odd things about this is the state of virginia declined to defend the law so the fight has been carried on by two county clerks including the clerk of court of prince william county. they said they likely will appeal to the fourth circuit. until they make that decision as a legal matter same-sex marriage is not legal in virginia. however, we could see the same thing happen that happened in colorado where the appeals court said this is the law and county clerks decide to issue marriage licenses anyway. the state probably wouldn't stop them but as a matter of what the law is right now the courts ruling doesn't go into effect until we know whether there is going to be an appeal or not. if they decide not to appeal it starts a clock. the earliest people can get married legally in virginia is in another three weeks. if county clerks want to try i don't know who would stop them. t

the best we have on the record is pete williams on nbc news, a former spokesperson for the pentagon,exited a solid report on this and it is a minor note in the story, but he said it could be males of a certain age from a certain area of yemen. is as ryan said, there nothing democratic about this process at all. courts are not revolve -- involved. there is no review of your status. it is internal oversight. >> how do you get off of this list if you're constantly stopped, if you understand you're on the list? >> the government would say they have this thing called the dhs trip to graham, and if you think you're on the list, you will be able to submit it, and if it is appropriate, you will not be stopped anymore. in reality, it is almost impossible. i do not want to talk about future reporting that we are doing, but we are staying on this week, and we have learned information that even if you think you are removed from the list, you might end up on another part of the list. once you are sucked up into the vortex, it is almost impossible to come up for air. ryan devereaux and jeremy scah

i laughed out loud when i first heard pete williams explain the court's suggested fix on this which is that the government should just pay directly for these objectionable methods of contraception which some people in certain religious traditions believe are abortion. that's the fix to this. the government pays directly and takes it essentially out of the employer health insurance system. not like there's any controversy around the government paying for things that people consider to be abortion, right? i mean, how feasible is the court's suggested fix here? >> given we have the hite amendment and plus, plus, plus, we had to promise a thousand times that the government, you know, is going to promise and promise and promise not to get involved in the abortion business. it's amazing to think they're simply going to say, but we will pay for everything that hobby lobby refuses to pay for. the other thing that's interesting in the ginsburg dissent, she says really, this is a fix, any time an employer doesn't want to pay for something, the taxpayer subsidizes it? what if an employer doesn't

pete williams has been following this. what are the details here? >> here is the issue. the obamacare law says that if you can't get insurance through your employer, you can buy it on state exchanges. but only 14 states have actually set up those exchanges. the majority of people who get their insurance, healthcare.gov are getting it through the federal exchange. when congress passed the obama administration, the affordable care act it said if you buy your insurance under the state exchange, you can basically get a federal subsidize to make it more affordable. it had two effects. one, it made insurance more affordable for more people, and secondly, it required more people to buy insurance because they could afford it. what the court said today is that although the irs said the sub i dids are available in the state and federal exchanges, the law doesn't allow the irs to do that. the court said the sub i did is not available in the federal exchanges. if the ruling survives appeal. it would mean that fewer people could afford to buy insurance, the kind of insurance the law

joining me with all the latest, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. what more do we know right now? >> guilty for the 20-year-old friend of dzhokhar tsarnaev. they were friends at dartmouth. fbi officials say after the bombing, tazhayakov and two others went to his apartment and took a backpack back to their apartment and then threw it away. they also said the two, the three when they were arrested by the fbi and questioned were not fully forthcoming. two of the other friends will be tried separately. tazhayakov has yet to be sentenced. his father a former member of the kazakhstan parliament had been defending his son. his mother was in the courtroom. when the verdict was announced, burst into tears. >> thank you for the latest on that. we'll stay with that story. >>> coming up first, though, we'll take another look at a mideast country that you might not expect to hear about today. libya. yes, we are back to benghazi and the news is not good. we'll explain why there is such chaos in this country. and look at who is really in charge with an in-depth o

our justice correspondent pete williams notes that federal judges have now ruled against bans in a total13 states. but those rulings are on hold while the cases work their way through the appeals process. >> thanks for that report, abby. >>> at the white house right now, the president and the first lady are honoring some top contributors in arts and humanities among this year's 22 medal of honorees, singer linda rondstat. the medal program was established to honor the brightest minds in literature and history. >>> now to more front-page politics. this is a huge week on capitol hill regarding the border crisis. sources tell our political unit that house republicans could reveal their plan as early as today. if congress can't reach a deal before thursday night, they'll head back to their districts for august recess with a huge political problem hanging over their heads. the president could make good on his promise to movie ya executive action. if he does that, top republicans are doubling down on their promise to impeach him. >> this might be the first white house in history that's trying

. >> general alexander, last summer here in aspen you told my colleague pete williams from nbc that you wished that you could bring every american into your huddle to show them your playbook. so in answer to snowden's question, what is the playbook? what can you tell us, what can you tell americans about where is the harm that edward snowden did? >> so the issue with trying to come up with a specific example is the fact that look at what happened after 1998, and it was revealed we were collecting on bin laden with a sat com phone. after those east africa embassy bombings, the next day we never saw bin laden in communications again giving him the opportunity to plan 9/11 without any collection by nsa or others. here is what some of our allies have said. the information that nsa and others would have provided on folks like shabaz in somalia would have been key to helping understand westgate and the recent attacks against somalia. they had no intelligence to do it. now, the issue is how do you point to the lack of intelligence, what you have lost? and the answer is we do see, we have seen

nbc's pete williams. thank you so much. appreciate it. >> you bet. >> all right. dr. cory is the chief medical editor at wdsu. and ari melbor is on "the cycle" and also an attorney. so we have this ruling in the d.c. circuit. this three-judge panel that ruled that the 36 federally run exchanges are not clearly permissible in the law. is this a question of the way the law was written or is this, because there's a piece of this ruling that talks about legislative supremacy and saying -- he says that's a higher guide and that is what is really at stake. so explain that a little bit. >> the d.c. ruling, which is against the aca, against what the obama administration wanted, is about both what was written in the law and what was not written. 900-page law, what the court found and what obamacare critics have seized on is some technicalities that make it seem like maybe in one place the irs wasn't actually going to give out these benefits to places that didn't have their own state-created exchange. so the question is, do you zero in on that and say, i found this little error

back in washington, justice correspondent pete williams is with us.lways a pleasure to have you here. there's some serious breaking news you have exclusive new information on. tell us about that. >> i'll be quick because i know we're waiting for the president. this involves the shooting last october of a woman at the u.s. capitol here in washington, d.c. after she tried to drive her car on to the white house grounds, got into a shooting incident with the police at the foot of capitol hill and then she was finally shot near a senate office building and they later discovered she had no gun and that her child was in he car. now we understand that a federal investigation by the u.s. attorney's office here in washington, d.c., has concluded that there's insufficient evidence to pursue either civil rights charges as the surviving members of her family wanted the government to do, or criminal charges. now this report doesn't say whether the shooting was justified or not. that wasn't its mission. but this is as close as you can get, i guess, to an official co

let's get to nbc justice correspondent pete williams. he has the latest on this. od morning, pete, what is this all about? >> good morning. american officials say this happened in mid-march. an intruths into the federal government's office of personnel management. they say they were going after data of federal employees with high level security clearances, it contains financial information, job history and perhaps most interest any foreign contact itself. the files are used to conduct background investigations. government officials stay intrusion appeared to come from china. word of the hack attack first report bid the new york times comes as secretary of state john kerry is in beijing for an annual meeting with chinese on security and economic issues. the u.s. so far does not appear the hackers were successful in actually stealing any personal identifiable information on federal employees, savannah. >> what are you hearing about whether or not it was china behind these attacks? >> reporter: unsense, i'd say. they say while the intrusion seems to have come from chi

i want to add that our pete williams is saying that the tsa is saying we simply don't know enough informationt about if u.s. airline oerpperations could be affected. this seems to be strictly a foreign case of military action. >> we're relying a lot of foreign news organizations right now. there is a reporter for reuters who says he is there. because of the conflict in this region, this is a closely watched area by u.s. officials. >> that is absolutely right. for several months now the u.s. has had surveillance assets on this area. they watch the rebuild of of russian resources on the border. one could assume that the u.s. would be able to determine if there was a missile fired and if, in fact, that brought it down and where it came from. at this point, they don't know. >> how long might that take? >> it could be, you know the analysis sometimes takes a long time, it is impossible to say precisely. but it shouldn't be very long. if, in fact they can narrow down the time frame, which they have when this plane went down, and go to their surveillance data they have, which may or may not be able