News. We dont even have a border. People are flowing through like water. Hillary will be a disaster as president. Jeb bush will never take us to the promise land. This morning, what else trump has to say. And pop star problem. Ariana grande under investigation for licking doughnuts and under fire for saying she hates her country. Shes apologizing today, thursday, july 9th, 2015. And good morning. Welcome to today on a thursday morning. Hoda is in for savannah once again. Good to see you here. File it under things you never want to say aloud. Hard to tell whether she was talking about the doughnuts and how big they were. But you dont know. She was supposed to be part of the allstar celebration for Major League Baseball. Thats been canceled, pull out of that now. Looks like demi luvotto will take her spot. Our top story on this thursday morning, the governor of South Carolina calls it a new day in her state after a historic bill to remove the Confederate Flag from the grounds of the state house passed its final hurdle overnight. Nbcs ron allen is there. Good morning. Good morning, matt. Just an amazing night in the state legislature and this morning, we expect governor nikki haley to sign the bill and order the removal of the Confederate Flag that hangs there, ending essentially what has been a 50year fight here. The flag a symbol of heritage and pride to so many southerners and a symbol of hatred and oppression to so many others, especially since the massacre of nine worshiper in charleston, and then images of the alleged gunman posing with the Confederate Flag. Now, this one here on the state house grounds appears headed to a museum. I cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body to do something meaningful such as take a symbol of hate off these grounds. That scolding by a lawmaker from charleston, demanding respect for the nine massacred at mother emanuel church. Were telling the people of charleston we dont care about you. Intense passion surrounding the flag as the house considered a bill already overwhelmingly approved by the senate to remove it. Take it down many invoking the memory of the slain pastor and senator Clementa Pinckney whose body passed under the flag as it came to lie in a place of honor in the capitol. Does it have to take another representative or senator getting killed in the state for you to realize the pain and the hatred that is behind this flag . Some 16 grueling hours of debate. The outcome uncertain. At least 70 amendments put forth to keep the flag there or kill the process entirely. Are you concerned youre on the wrong side of history now . No, i am not. I would like the heritage that i represent also respected in the process. Its that simple. In the end, the vote, 94 to put the flag in a relics museum. 20 opposed. It is a great day in South Carolina. Its so sad that it took senator pinckney and his death to bring this norward, but again, we out of tragedy have created some degree of triumph and we hope we have made the families happy. The governor released a statement praising the legislature but she did not say exactly when the flag would come down. In the past she said she would order it to happen immediately, so perhaps later today. What an historic event. Ron allen in charleston this morning, thank you very much. Now to the computer glitches that brought both the New York Stock Exchange and United Airlines to a halt. The unrelated problems have been fixed, but the fallout is just beginning. We have it all covered including the security concerns raised, beginning with gabe gutierrez. Hes at the New York Stock Exchange. Good morning. Hoda, good morning. The opening bell was less than an hour ago. Trading going smoothly so far, this after this epicenter of american capitalism was shut down for nearly four hours. Today, questions lingering about what went wrong. This morning, the New York Stock Exchange is trying to bounce back after wall street hit a wall. Welcome back. While we were in commercial break, traders here at the nyse just said whoa. Without warning, at 11 32 wednesday, all trading was shut down. Essentially the floor has been frozen. The floor was stunned, frustrated traders with no access to stock prices had to manually cancel about 700,000 orders already in the system. At 12 09, the exchange twieted, were experiencing a technical issue. This was an inconvenience here at the New York Stock Exchange, but because of quick thinking, as far as i know, no clients were hurt and nobody suffered a big loss. It came just hours after the Computer System for United Airlines also froze. Fueling fears of cyberattacks. It appears from what we know at this stage that the malfunctions at united and the Stock Exchange were not the result of any nefarious actor. So while terrorism is ruled out, the cause is still unclear. And overnight Software Update may have played a role. Up. And are we up . It wasnt until 3 10 p. M. The exchange was back up and running. Shutdowns like this are rare but not unheard of. 2013, another Technical Glitch paralyzed the nasdaq for three hours. Going forward, do we need to change our protocol . Absolutely. This cant happen again. We cant put ourselves in this position again. The dow closed down 261 points, not just because of the glitch, but also because the financial troubles in greece and in china. Now, the day before, the Hacker Group Anonymous posted a cryptic tweet suggesting there might be some sort of problem here, but again, Homeland Security officials stress they found no evidence to suggest this was a cyberattack, hoda. That tweet is interesting. Gabe, thanks so much. Meanwhile, as for the United Airlines glitch, the airline said its flights are operating as scheduled this morning after the entire fleet was grounded worldwide for nearly two hours. Tom costello was on it all day. Wednesday. Hes at Reagan International airport this morning. Hows it going . A good day to fly today. We checked with flight aware. Minimal delays and cancellations affecting the entire system. Yesterday, a different story. This started at around 9 00 a. M. Eastern time when United Airlines says it lost a router, the critical component in the Computer System. When they went down, so did the system that handles passenger checkin, scheduling, as a result, the faa ordered a United Airlines ground stop. Nothing moving. Major rubhubs affected, newark, ohare, l. A. X. , houston, and the Ripple Effect across the system. For 90 minutes to two hours, united kept their planes on the ground, and then playing catchup throughout the day to try to assure the people eventually got to their destination. In all, according to united, about 1200 delays, about 60 cancellations affecting united and united express. United stressing it is unrelated to the nyse and in no way a hacking issue. However, this is now the second time in about six weeks united has had a major computer program, and this has been happening for about two to four years since the merger with continental airlines. It has work to do in the i. T. Department. Thank you very much. Shawn henry is the former assistant director of the fbi overseeing cybersecurity and crime. Good morning to you. Good morning, matt. It took about a nano second after these two stories coming out for people to say are they connected and are these are the result of some cyber attack . How do these entities, the Stock Exchange and United Airlines going about answering those questions . I think there are three points here. First of all, were incredibly reliant on the internet for our daytoday lives in the United States. When we turn on a faucet, we expect water to come out. When we hit a switch, we expect the lights to come on. Thats what we expect with the internet. Its the same with the internet it impacts our entire life. Secondly that infrastructure is incredibly fragile. There are a lot of moving parts and there are going to be technical issues that are going to occur. I have talked to people in a position to know this was clearly a technical issue. The third piece that is critically important here is that while this was technical, there are absolutely adversaryies who are targeting our infrastructure and have the capacity to harm us and this is the type of thing that gets everyones attention. If an adversary had done this this would have been a huge problem. Let me ask you about this tweet that came out from anonymous, the night before the wall Street Computers went down and it says this quote, wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for wall street. We can only hope. Now, i mean you look at that and is that just pure coincidence . Yeah i mean, certainly that would be suspect and the fbi and others would look at that absolutely. I think it was coincidence in this particular case. I have talked to people who are in a position to know and multiple sources who say this was absolutely technical. These issues that occurred in multiple companies were not related. They were different types of technical issues so its appears that coincidence. However, again, this is an issue there are adversary groups that are looking to target or infrastructure. Let me ask you about that. When the adversary groups see how vulnerable we are and when the airline shuts down does it embolden them and if it can happen with the airline and the Stock Exchange can it happen with the power grid and the computer that handles National Security . No, matt its happening every day. There are terrorist groups there are organized crime groups hacktivist groups like anonymous, foreign nation states that are targeting the infrastructure. Theyre stealing data. They have the ability to disrupt and potentially to destroy. We saw that recently with sony and north korea. To destroy infrastructure. Yes, imagine what happened yesterday multiplied five times, ten times, a hundred times, what that impact would be. This is a wakeup call. The government needs to take some more actions, there needs to be a lot more coordination. I can tell you im working with a lot of organizations in the fortune 500, theyre aware and working diligently but this is an issue. We are suspect here. Shawn henry, always good to get your perspective. We use our phones and when theres a glitch we get we panic. Freak out. I cant get my emails. Imagine the scale of what were talking about. What we saw yesterday. Just the timing of that tweet is really suspect. All right. Now on to the president ial race and Donald Trumps controversial comments on immigration. The head of the Republican National committee is telling the president ial candidate to tone it down. But that was after trumps very candid interview with nbcs katy tur. Reporter donald trump talked to me about his opponents, immigration, telling me he has no apologies for his words on undocumented immigrants. More political fallout for donald trump after rnc chairman Reince Priebus asked him to tone down his controversial rhetoric on immigration. It was a candid conversation. Were not sure he listened. His advisers say hell continue to fight on. Reporter more financial fallout as celebrity Chef Jose Andres backed out of a deal to open up a restaurant in trumps d. C. Hotel. It comes after he doubled down on his comments on immigration. I will win the latino vote because i want to put them to work. Ill take jobs back from china. Ill take jobs back from japan. Reporter in a wide ranging no holds barred interview where trump once again is making news and getting a reaction. On twitter donald trump has changed the conversation. This is a very good thing. It was a waste of viewers time. All day with trumps tripe, enough already. From mexico to immigration they send them to our stupid politicians and we have sanctuary cities and all of this nonsense. I have been saying this for a long time and its a disgrace. Frankly if i didnt bring it up you wouldnt be talking about immigration right now. Reporter to his opponents what do you think of Hillary Clinton as a president . If she wins the nomination. She was the worst secretary of state in the history of our nation. Why would she be a good president . I think shed be a terrible president. Jeb bush will never take us to the promised land. He doesnt have it. Hillary will never take us to the promised land. Hillary will be a disaster as a president. Jeb will be very poor as a president. No energy. Reporter comments forcing his opponents to react for better i like donald trump. You know there are a lot of folks in washington right now that seem to be crawling all over themselves to smack donald trump. Im not one of them. Or worse my party is in a hole with hispanics. The first rule of politics when youre in a hole is stop digging. Somebody needs to take the shovel out of Donald Trumps hands. Reporter so whats next . Trump says hell file his financials on time which will be in a few days and then the debates. Guys hes still number two in the polls. Number one in one poll in fact. He says that people just love his straightforward, blunt style and his business savvy. Thats why hes doing so well in the numbers. You dont get any sense that donald trump is going to be listening to the leaders of his party and toning it down . I wonder what that conversation was last night with priebus and trump and whether or not he actually understood the damage he is doing. But he has no plans of backing down from what i can tell. Hes stay in this race. It doesnt sound like it will be a quick flameout for him. When you talk about his popularity no wonder hed keep going if he chooses to. Thanks. All right. We have really a scary moment for some passengers on board the Southwest Airlines flight out of chicago. The pilot aborted the takeoff at midway International Airport after one of the engines caught fire. Witnesses reported seeing sparks and smoke. This was coming from the side of the plane. Fortunately no one was injured. 143 passengers though were taken back to the terminal by a bus. They switched planes for their flight to boston. Baltimores Police Commissioner is out of a job this morning. The citys mayor announced on wednesday that Anthony Batts is being replaced after nearly three years as the top cop. The firing comes 2 1 2 months after freddie gray died of injuries he sustained while in police custody. That was followed by a surge in violent crime. The move also comes one day after a police Union Reports that they criticized the batts leadership. The mayor denies it was influenced by that report. This morning some veterans are criticizing george w. Bush for charging a Veterans Charity a sixfigure fee to speak at a fundraising dinner. The charity is called helping a hero. They build houses for vets seriously wounded in iraq and afghanistan. And nbc news has confirmed the former president received 100,000 from them back in 2012. The event raised 2. 5 million. Helping a heroes chairman said they are proud president bush attended the gala and his presence was appreciated by the veterans and supporters of the organization. A bush spokesman did not respond to our request for comment. A u. P. S. Driver is in some trouble this morning for kicking a mans dog during a delivery. It was all caught on camera. And you can see two dogs here approaching the driver. He kicks one of them knocks the dog off of its feet. Then the dogs owner approaches and the driver shoves him backwards. The man said his ribs were injured. A u. P. S. Spokesman said the company does not condone the drivers behavior and took disciplinary action but did not say what action was taken. U. P. S. Also says it contacted the dogs owner and apologized. And a photo bomb like you had never seen before from the sharkfilled waters off the coast of south africa. Here you can see a great white shark with giant teeth clamped down on some bait. Whoa. Did you see that . Another great white shot out of the water and does that flip. What . Belly flops, stealing the spotlight. The other one steals the bait. So acrobatic. That is like out a once in a lifetime right. Unbelievable. Amazing. How about the u. P. S. Guy by the way . So horrific. Horrible. And the dog was so sweet, wagging her tail after it. So little. The dog is okay. Scary. Natalie, thanks very much. Al continues on vacation. We have dylan with a check of the weather. Its very humid in the northeast, as im sure you have noticed. That could lead to heavier downpours with the cold front. Heavy rain over lake erie right now. Moving through detroit and extends back through paducah, kentucky. It will trigger some stronger storms this afternoon. Eastern pennsylvania and western new jersey, extends down to washington, d. C. An isolated brief tornado is possible. The lightning and also damaging wind gusts especially later on this afternoon after 7 00 p. M. Your local forecast is coming up in 30 seconds. Good morning. Im meteorologist kari hall. Were looking at low clouds this morning all across the bay and temperatures in the 60s. There may even be some spots with some drizzle and mist. As we go into the rest of the day there will be a slight chance of rain especially for the north bay and the possibility of some thunderstorms in San Francisco reaching 65 degrees, 70 degrees in the east bay and the south bay today topping out at 74 degrees. And thats your latest forecast. Thank you. Coming up the video that has pop star