how the social network is responding. it comes a day after the worst outage for facebook in 13 yrs what the company now says caused it also tonight the state of emergency in california over the oil spill disaster what divers discovered a 4,000-foot section of pipeline knocked out of place with a gash over a foot long spewing oil. and growing questions, why did it take nearly 12 hours after the first report to launch a response johnson & johnson officially seeking fda booster shot authorization. how soon could it come the scare outside the supreme court. police pulling a man out of a suspicious suv. the charges he faces the sexual misconduct scandal rocking the national women's soccer league. the players speaking out to nbc news after a coach is fired what they're demanding now. record shipping backlogs and the impact on holiday shopping and nascar star

bubba wallace talking to us about his history-making triumph at talladega >> announcer: this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt good evening the day after that worldwide outage reminded us just how powerful facebook has become, a company whistle-blower described to a senate committee just how dangerous she believes the social network has become the company's former product manager warning that facebook's products harm children, stoke division, weaken our democracy, and much more frances haugen's testimony and the company's own studies form the backbone of the latest effort to rein in the social network. a moment some senators compared to big tobacco's reckoning over the dangers of smoking. facebook, however, pushing back against accusations it places profits above safety hallie jackson has details. >> reporter: facebook under fire tonight >> the company's leadership knows how to make facebook and

instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. >> reporter: whistle-blower frances haugen insisting congress must act against a company she says is misleading the public, promoting hateful and harmful content, holding its ceo to account >> in the end the buck stops with mark. >> reporter: haugen left facebook in may, armed with tens of thousands of internal documents including some she says showing the company knows its instagram app can contribute to eating disorders in teen girls. a characterization facebook has disputed. >> it's just like cigarettes teenagers don't have good self-regulation they say explicitly, i feel bad when i use instagram and yet i can't stop we need to protect the kids >> reporter: and to do that, haugen says, facebook must share more about its algorithms which determine what content pops up on your feed incentivized, she says, toward problematic posts. >> this inability to see into facebook's actual systems and confirm they work as communicated is like

the department of transportation regulating cars by only watching them drive down the highway. >> reporter: from facebook an aggressive defense. >> what you have here today is a former employee who didn't work on these issues and was just at the company a couple of years mischaracterizing some documents that she stole. >> it seems to me an attempt by facebook to undermine her credibility. is your strategy to go after the messenger and not the message? >> hallie, my strategy is and our strategy is to make sure that we're giving people accurate information about what we're doing. facebook actually has been calling for regulation for more than 2 1/2 years now >> reporter: on regulating big tech rare bipartisan agreement. after years of hearings congress calling yet again for changes. those could include internal research released to outside parties, stronger federal oversight that demands transparency from big tech, or a requirement platforms share their proprietary algorithms with regulators. >> if facebook is serious and honest, there will be

legislation for them to support on privacy, on oversight, on protecting children. we'll see whether they're serious. i hope they are because big tech is facing its big tobacco moment it is a moment of reckoning. >> and hallie, as i mentioned at the top of the broadcast, facebook is still dealing with the aftermath of that big outage yesterday what more have we learned about that >> reporter: well, lester, facebook now says there was no malicious activity behind it. they're blaming a change to its system that basically knocked out communications to its data centers, which led to a ripple effect lester >> hallie jackson in washington, thank you. a state of emergency tonight in southern california where the impact of that huge oil spill is expanding. the damage to wildlife growing as divers report new evidence of a potential cause. miguel almaguer is there for us >> reporter: coated in crude. tonight the waters and beaches of southern california show the stains of a slow motion disaster.

state records now indicate the first reports of the massive oil spill came in the day before officials confirmed it the size also larger than initially reported up to 144,000 gallons of crude and now potential evidence of an anchor strike contracted divers discovering a 4,000-foot section of the nearly 18-mile pipeline was displaced by over 100 feet a 13-inch split cracking open the pipe, spewing oil. >> the pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bowstring. >> reporter: from just over the spill site we saw how difficult the cleanup has become evidence from the spill stretches from the beaches of orange county all the way to mexico but crews are having a difficult time tracking the ribbons of oil because they've been dispersed after a thunderstorm here. today a flotilla of boats are corralling the oil they can but

so far just 3% of the spill has been recovered. patties of tar are still washing ashore the true ecological damage and the deadly impact to wildlife and the food chain may not be known for months. >> a lot of people think, well, some fish and some birds but it's far more extensive than that. this is very serious it's catastrophic. >> reporter: with the lawsuit just filed and likely facing millions of dollars in fines, the oil platform operator has still not confirmed if its leak detection system went off. with just over 20 offshore rigs dotting the coastline, many say a disaster of this scale was inevitable now there's renewed calls to shut down offshore drilling. >> we've had the entire orange county coastline potentially fouled by oil. if that is not a call to action for us to stop this practice, i don't know what would be >> reporter: tonight a push for change and the race to slow this seemingly unstoppable disaster >> looks like tedious work there, miguel

and i know a lot of discussion today on when this oil leak was first reported it's really about the response >> reporter: that's right, lester. we know the initial report happened on friday, but the coast guard couldn't find the leak until saturday so for 18 hours tens of thousands of gallons of fuel poured right into the pacific ocean. lester >> all right miguel almaguer, thank you. tonight johnson & johnson is asking the fda to authorize a booster shot for those who have gotten its single-dose covid vaccine. the company said it wants to give people the boosters two to six months after their first dose an fda advisory panel will meet next week to consider j&j and moderna's requests while covid infections have leveled off in much of the country they're exploding in alaska where jammed hospitals are being forced to make agonizing decisions about care nbc's ellison barber is there tonight >> reporter: across the country covid cases and hospitalizations are dropping

but in alaska a very different story. >> these are people's moms, dads, sisters, brothers >> reporter: for much of the pandemic health officials say the state's geography was an advantage sparsely populated villages and strict travel restrictions kept cases relatively low. but now delta is surging. alaska's biggest hospitals are overwhelmed. and the state's unique geography is working against it >> we travel on average about 150 miles one way to access care. our hospitals are hundreds of miles apart. to get them supplies and resources, anything from testing to oxygen, can be a huge logistical barrier. >> reporter: over the last two weeks alaska has seen the highest rise of covid cases in the country. covid deaths spiked 414% >> almost exclusively the patients that we are getting with covid are unvaccinated >> reporter: the state's crisis standards of care has been activated at 20 hospitals including alaska native medical center where some patients have been forced to wait days for beds at this hospital they

can't let any visitors inside right now except for very few exceptions so we're going to go inside the covid ward outside of the hospital they're going to take us in through this video system the same system that families use when they are talking to covid patients who they are unable to visit. mildred wells lost her best friend to covid last year. last week her cousin also died. he wasn't vaccinated >> i'm just so sick of people dying we've lost five family members. >> reporter: so she's urging others to roll up their sleeves, trying to curb the spread of covid, now tightening its grip on alaska ellison barber, nbc news, anchorage. want to tell you now about a security scare at the u.s. supreme court today. police say a man illegally parked his car in front of the court, refused to get out, and told police the time for talking is done. after more than an hour police set off a controlled detonation, removed the man from the car, and arrested him. president biden

was on the road today to try to sell his ambitious spending plans that are still dividing democrats in congress but tonight there is a glimmer of progress. peter alexander is at the white house. >> reporter: tonight the reset president biden at a union training center in michigan trying to recharge his sales pitch for his multi trillion-dollar spending plans >> these bills are not about left versus right or moderate versus progressive these bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. >> reporter: but the reality check, so far the president's been struggling to unite those competing wings of his party though tonight their differences appear to be narrowing progressives have blocked the trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill until they get agreement on a much larger climate and social policy package. today key moderate joe manchin, who called that plan's initial $3.5 trillion price tag fiscal insanity, is now suggesting he could support a figure as high as roughly $2 trillion that mr. biden has floated.

>> i'm not ruling anything out but the bottom line is i want to make sure we're strategic and do the right job. >> reporter: but republicans argue the president's plans will send inflation soaring. >> everybody is paying higher prices today for everything compared to when joe biden came into office we're not going to rubber stamp their reckless spending. >> reporter: president biden tonight bashing his critics. >> to oppose these investments is to be complicit in america's decline. >> reporter: as for the looming fiscal crisis over raising the government's ability to borrow money to pay for past spending, late tonight president biden said he'll be speaking to top republican mitch mcconnell who is still demanding the democrats increase the debt ceiling on their own. lester >> peter alexander at the white house, thank you. in just 60 seconds, our reporter in south america where tens of thousands of migrants are gathering, perhaps soon heading for the u.s. border. and the stunning backlog at america's ports. how it's impacting "the price you pay."

all right. we are back now with

what could become the next major surge at the southern border. u.s. officials are concerned that tens of thousands of migrants amassing in colombia are set to make the dangerous journey to america. our gabe gutierrez is in colombia tonight. >> reporter: tonight, what was once a sleepy beach town has exploded into the latest choke point in a worsening immigration crisis here in necocli, colombia, there are now some 20,000 migrants, mostly haitian though there are some cubans and venezuelans. the only thing more striking than the tents lining the beaches are the mothers lining up with their children this woman who named her daughter hope is hoping to make it to the u.s. each day they cram together, passports in hand, in a desperate attempt to cross the bay. this is the moment when a few of these migrants are led onto this boat. many of them have been waiting for this for weeks. panama is only taking 500 migrants a day and more than 1,000 are arriving in this colombian town each day, leading to a huge bottleneck from here the boats

will take them west to colombia's border with panama then the migrants will cross what's known as the notorious darien gap, a 60-mile roadless, lawless stretch of jungle run by smugglers the danger does not deter them so why are they coming now? several reasons. that recent earthquake in haiti, worsening economic conditions in chile where many haitians settled after the massive earthquake more than a decade ago, and a belief among some that the biden administration might let them stay. after a stunning surge of migrants into del rio, texas, last month the biden administration deported some to haiti but released the majority, around 13,000, into the u.s. to wait for asylum cases. fritz nore hopes to make to the u.s., too, with his wife and six-month-old son. he left haiti years ago and settled in brazil now he and so many others here believe the time is right to risk everything. in necocli, shelter is hard to find hope is not.

migrants here tell us they've already spent thousands of dollars, their family's entire life savings, to get here so they can't turn back now across central and south america for smugglers business is booming. lester >> all right gabe gutierrez tonight, thank you now to our series "the price you pay." the cost of everyday items is soaring while massive container ships sit outside america's biggest ports unable to off-load tom costello explains why and what it means for holiday shopping >> reporter: on the water with los angeles port police as the backup affecting the busiest port in the u.s. comes into view from the air a stunning 76 ships headed for the ports of l.a. or long beach now sit idle, extending 40 miles out into the ocean everywhere you look there's a ship just sitting out here on the water. just one clog in a supply chain that extends across the ocean to asia, leaving some u.s. store shelves empty of key

products, from toys to clothing, electronics to furniture, to car parts. a typical ship like this carries as many as 14,000 containers and in each container about $100,000 worth of merchandise but right now these ships are sitting, going nowhere, stuck for ten days it's not just california new york's ports are also backed up shipping costs are soaring, and there aren't enough truck drivers to move products off the docks. the problem, asian manufacturing slowed to a trickle during covid. now it's struggling to keep up with america's exploding consumer demand gene seroka runs the port of los angeles. >> we're buying more products than ever before, whether they be online, pickup at stores or at our big box retailers, and the american importer is struggling to keep up with that demand >> reporter: 95% of the national tree company's artificial christmas trees come from china now they're scrambling to stock up. >> buy your christmas trees now before thanksgiving because otherwise the shelves

will be bare and there will be lots of out of stocks >> reporter: retailers who ordered back in june may be ready for the holidays, but many won't. with the supply chain expected to remain bottlenecked well into 2022 tom costello, nbc news, los angeles. >> there is more to tell you about tonight. up next, women's soccer stars speaking out about allegations of sexual harassment what they are demanding.

wanna help kids get their homework done? well, an internet connection's a good start. but kids also need computers. and sometimes the hardest thing about homework is finding a place to do it. so why not hook community centers up with wifi? for kids like us, and all the amazing things we're gonna learn. over the next 10 years, comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything. i hope you're ready. 'cause we are. there is new fallout from the scandal rocking the national women's soccer league.

one of the players who's accused a now fired coach of sexual misconduct is speaking out to our morgan radford. >> reporter: the stories are gut-wrenching. >> i want people to know that i was sexually harassed, that i was psychologically manipulated and abused >> reporter: the women of u.s. soccer speaking out against paul riley, saying the former coach victimized them. two of his former players, mana shim and sinead farrelly, breaking their silence, supported by their friend and former u.s. women's national captain, alex morgan >> mana, what made you speak out now? >> when sinead told me her story, i immediately knew we had to do something. i called alex right away and said we have to push this story because it'll save people. >> were you at all scared when you were told what had happened >> in the moment i was full of rage but i immediately asked do you want to

file a complaint she said yeah. i said let's do this >> reporter: riley denies the accusations but has not responded to nbc news for comment. former commissioner lisa baird, who was alerted to the accusations in april and just resigned last week, now saying in part that she thought fought to enact initiatives that protected the women in our league. >> the commissioner has stepped down riley has been fired is that enough >> no. that's not enough. there are open investigations there are more investigations that need to be had >> reporter: the league now says it has investigations opened into riley's past and the league to undertake a significant systemic and cultural transformation how does what happened to you still affect you and your life today? >> i carry it with me every day. it took away my career i was never the same player >> what do you say to all the little girls who are watching this unfold >> i hope you're safe.

we want young people and current players, future players to be safe in the game of soccer >> reporter: in the game of soccer and beyond morgan radford, nbc news, new york and up next tonight, he raced into history on the nascar track. our conversation with bubba wallace.

finally, the race of a lifetime for bubba wallace. he spoke with kristen dahlgren about his historic moment that's "inspiring america." >> reporter: like any big nascar win, bubba wallace's victory was a celebration. but it was also historic the first black driver to win a nascar cup race in more than 50 years. >> do you want to just be known as like a great driver who won >> it's not about chasing records or, you know, chasing checkered flags. to me it's just a win. but i know that it's much more than just a win for myself, my sponsors, my team. it's a win for the african-american community. >> reporter: wendell scott was the last to win in 1963, but wasn't credited with the victory until two years later. over the past few years wallace was instrumental in pushing the predominantly white

sport to get rid of confederate symbols and tonight has a message to young children who finally see someone who looks like them on victory lane >> the sky is the limit. always dream of doing great things and you'll accomplish that >> reporter: for wallace the win was extra special, coming on his home state track, talladega, one of the most storied spots in nascar. >> bubba wallace fighting it out for the lead >> reporter: now in the record books for breaking barriers. and while wallace doesn't see himself as a trailblazer -- >> i never have. i'm not going to start. >> reporter: -- he does say he plans to lead the way by chasing that checkered flag to his next victory. kristen dahlgren, nbc news that's "nightly news" for this tuesday. thank you for watching, everyone i'm lester holt. please take care of yourself and each other. good night

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the greenest big city in america. let's keep making a differene together. i'm raj mathai, next on nbc bay area news tonight, facebook under fire. a whistle-blower says that facebook knows its sites, including instagram are harmful to kids and our democracy. >> facebook has repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals. >> a former lawmaker wants congress to step in. but what could congress really change? also, oil slicks found more than 100 miles away. birds coated in oil and tar balls on the beach. >> every day it seems the magnitude of this oil spill is getting a little worse. >> we're in huntington beach to show you firsthand the impact