News Wrap: Ahmaud Arbery’s killers sentenced to life in prison, plan to appeal

Judy Woodruff:

Defense attorneys have said they plan to appeal the convictions.

In Michigan, a judge refused today to lower the bond penalty for the parents of a teenager who allegedly killed four students at his high school. James and Jennifer Crumbley are charged with involuntary manslaughter for giving their son a gun, and failing to intervene after seeing his violent drawings. They’re now each being held on a $500,000 bond.

A winter storm has dropped more than a foot of snow across the Northeast. Plows in Boston labored to keep up today, and New Jersey declared an emergency. Skiers slided — or glided, rather, through New York’s Central Park, but public schools stayed open. Hundreds of other school districts did close. The storm broke snowfall records in the South on Thursday.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, heavy rain caused severe flooding today near Chehalis, Washington. The water closed a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

And President Biden got a firsthand look today at wildfire damage near Denver and Boulder, Colorado. He met with people affected by last week’s fire that destroyed nearly 1,100 buildings, most of them homes. Some 35,000 people were forced to flee.

On Wall Street today, stocks drifted lower again. The Dow Jones industrial average lost four points to close at 36231. The Nasdaq fell 145 points and was down 4.5 percent for the week, the most since February. The S&P 500 slipped 19 points today.

And two passings of note tonight.

Groundbreaking actor Sidney Poitier has died in Los Angeles at the age of 94. We will look at his life and work later in the program.

And Harvard law professor Lani Guinier passed away in Boston. In 1993, President Clinton chose her to lead civil rights enforcement at the Justice Department. He withdrew the nomination after Republicans attacked her views. Lani Guinier was 71 years old.