Impeachment investigation. Onslaught, new air strikes and heavy Ground Fighting as turkeys military offensive against a key u. S. Ally enters day three. The death toll grows, tens of thousands forced to flee. Just ahead, Richard Engel live from the front lines. All of that, plus faa under fire, the damning new findings on how those 737 max jets were certified to fly. Reckless driving, new details on what caused kevin harts car crash and what he is saying about it this morning. And girl power, were going big for International Day of the girl, featuring inspiring young women, a special announcement from Michelle Obama, and a live concert from our plaza, today is friday, october 11, 2019. From nbc news, this is today with Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, everybody. Welcome to a very special edition of today, whns t world on our plaza . Girls do. Its International Day of the girl, and we have so many inspiring young ladies here, and theyre ready to celebrate. I got to tell you something, standing in the middle of this Awesome Group of girls gives me hope for the future. Are you all ready to have some fun . Yes, they are. We have so many exciting stories to share. Yes. So much inspiration, so much love. We cannot wait to get to it. Weve got to start with the news this morning, and its this wild weather across the country. Gusty winds fueling wildfires in california, snowstms have walloped the rockies. Gadi schwartz is in southern los angeles on the front lines there. Good morning. Reporter the winds have been gusting all night long. This is the scene right now. Were starting to see where the hot spots are flaring up, that is a home up on the hill that is burning. You see the black smoke. Let me show you what firefighters have been doing throughout the night. This is porter ranch, ron of many areas that is under evacuation. 100,000 people at this moment have been asked to leave their homes. You have houses like this that have been completely gutted would i fire. Fortunately is firefighters in this neighborhood managed to save most of the homes. But this house right here and this house right here appear to be a loss. It just takes one ember to get up into the attic for the fire to consume the entire house. And the fire stretches all the way to the foothills. Southern california with no stopping the flames that tore through neighborhoods, forcing hundreds near los angeles to evacuate, including animals, pets and livestock. Where the wind is blowing so bad that the smoke is right over my house, and i dont know if its standing or not. Reporter these are the kinds of wind gusts California PowerCompanies Say they feared. You can see how hard the wind is blowing out here. The fire is coming off, about to overtake a semi truck. And from the Northern Wind country in Southern Californias mountains and coasts, fire crews are on high alert. In the hills above los angeles it is an all out fight. In an unprecedented move, power has been shut off to 2 million customers, they are trying to prevent the raging infernos that burned 13,000 homes last year and killed 85 people. Pacific gas and electric defending the move. With winds like we saw over the last 24 hours or so and the condition of the vegetation, we simply could not continue to run parts of this system given the risk to public safety. Reporter californias governor had some harsh words. This is not from my perspective a Climate Change story as much as a story about greed and mismanagement. Reporter for those living without power, frustration. I cant help but think its an overreaction or pay back for pe criticig e r every fire that starts. Worried about their bottom line. We were looking at 20,000 upwards in loss for anything perishable. This is not an inconvenience for us, its life and death. Reporter even with those drastic shutoffs, the threat of wildfire is unrelenting. Just the slightest sliver of good ghu news, were expecting winds to die down a little bit later today. So they will try to get power restored by today or tomorrow. So some may have gone without power for four day, but those winds are still gusting. In fact you can see up here on the original i ridge, this is a new section that were seeing burn and over there you have a home that has been consumed. It will be a very, very long day here for firefighters. Back to you. Incredible to see those images, gadi, and right there as you see the firefighters work so valiantly. Our hearts are with them. And al is following with more on the fire danger, and also theres snow and brutal cold coming into the northern u. S. This morning. You can see the fire danger we have a critical risk over a wide area, potential rapid fire spread weve got red flag warnings, dry winds, gusting up to 70 Miles Per Hour explosive fire heres why this is happening we have lower pressure over the ocean, higher over the desert. Wind gusts possible, anywhere from 50 to 60 Miles Per Hour as those winds come up and over the ridges, they then come down and start to dry out they speed up, dry out and heat up with the air getting compressing coming down those ridges we have those problems its not going to die out until sometime later this evening. Thats a problem you move further east, weve got a snowstorm. Blizzard warnings, since october 2010 wind gusts, 60 Miles Per Hour. Life threatening and impossible travel is being predicted. As this system pushes to the east, blizzard conditions in the dakotas, rain and severe storms ahead of this from chicago to minneapolis and memphis, i should say, snow showers will taper off in the Northern Plains cold winds around the great lakes. In fact, take a look at temperatures crashing now. Windchills at 5, and rapid city, 33, 17 in amarillo, feels like minus 4 in denver. Snowfall amounts, some areas could pick up 4 feet of snow but we are talking this being historic, one of the biggest october snowstorms in record for this area. Savannah. All right thank you. New developments tied to the impeachment investigation, this morning, were learning more about the arrest of two potential witnesses. Theyre associates of the president s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and they were taken into custody at dulles co. Nbcs Peter Alexander has airport in washington trying to leave the country. Nbcs Peter Alexander has the latest on it peter good morning. Reporter savannah, good morning. These are the first criminal charges emerging from the trump administrations controversial relationship with ukraine, those two men both Giuliani Associates who House Democrats have now subpoenaed in the impeachment inquiry are accused of trying to influence u. S. Politics with Illegal Campaign contributions those two men, lev parnas and igor fruman, the men helped set up a meeting with ukrainians, who was lobbying to investigate joe biden and his son hunter parnas and fruman, allegedly trying to funnel forgn money to american politicians to buy potential influence with the candidates campaigns and the candidates governments. This investigation is about corrupt behavior, deliberate law breaking. Reporter the fbi arresting the men at Dulles Airport outside washington on wednesday. Both had booked one way tickets out of the country the indictment does not allege any wrongdoing by the Trump Campaign or the president , and President Trump is distancing himself from the pair. I dont know about them i dont know what they do, but i dont know, maybe they were clients of rudy. You would have to ask rudy i just dont know. Giuliani telling nbc news he cant comment yet. The president appearing to distance himself from Rudy Giuliani as well the two men did not enter a plea, and their lawyer did not respond to nbcs news for comment. The first rally since the impeachment began, taking an aim at joe biden with his profanity laced swipe. He was only a good Vice President because he understood how to kiss Barack Obamas ass that was the president last night. Biden, who alongside many of his democratic colleagues participated in an lgbtq town hall last evening pushed back in a tweet. He writes, i spent my night at the Human Rights Forum talking about the fundamental respect every human being deserves, you spent yours showing how little respect for anyone else you have america is so much stronger than your weakness, donald trump. Savannah. Peter alexander, thank you. Craig joins the table, breaking news overnight overseas. Overseas, the Turkish Military escalating air and ground attacks on a u. S. Ally in syria and it comes after President Trumps withdrawal of u. S. Troops there. Tens of thousands of civilians are now fleeing the region nbcs chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel joins us from inside syria this morning. Richard, good morning to you reporter good morning, craig. We have made our way to a front line area here in Northern Syria. And i must say, it is largely abandoned. We just saw some incoming fire which is why people are escaping this turkish advance, taking whatever they can carry. Fleeing for their lives this morning, tens of thousands of syrian kurds, at least 70,000 have already left border towns, now taking the full brunt of turkeys military assault. The death toll, unclear, the kurds say dozens, turkey says a few hundred. Either way, its rising. At a protest, we found Kurdish Forces who until only recently were helping u. S. Troops battle isis, urging people to stand their ground shes saying that this invasion that has just begun by turkey is only going to help isis. The kurds are convinced this is the opening stage of a Long Campaign by turkey to destroy the autonomous zone, and repopulate with refugees the kurds blame President Trump for giving the green light by pulling back u. S. Forces right before the invasion began. The conflict is being widely condemned including by senior republicans. Some in the house are calling for sanctions against turkey overnight at a political rally, President Trump offering to mediate. We could hit turkey very hard financially or we could mediate a deal between turkey and the kurds, i like that turkish Officials SayPresident Trump was fully aware of its intentions from the start saying they will continue their mission until the kurds, who they call terrorists, have been, quote, neutralized but what happened to the detention camps holding tens of thousands of isis fighters and family members, the kurds say they cant guard them and some isis fighters have likely already escaped. U. S. Troops in syria say they dont have the manpower to guard the camps themselves and the situation at those camps is only getting more dangerous one of the camps Holding Hundreds of isis family members has been hit already in this conflict, and now camp administrators are considering moving the camp and all of its inhabitants. Craig. Richard engel for us in Northern Syria richard, thank you. Meantime, its been seven months since boeing 737 max was grounded following two fatal crashes overseas an independent Investigative Panel is expected to call for big changes when it comes to how the faa approves plans for flight nbcs tom costello has been on this story from the very beginning. What are you hearing. Nbc news has reviewed an advanced copy of the report. It says boeing failed to fully disclose to the faa details about that Software System that is blamed or contributed to those two crashes overseas and that the faa didnt fully understand the system, and wasnt able to fully analyze the system this is expected to be a big wakeup call at the faa at boeing field outside of seattle, brand new 737 maxes sit wing tip to wing tip the worldwide fleet grounded since march as an International Investigative group focused on how the faa certified the max before two fatal crashes its expected to conclude that the faa relied too heavily on boeing to selfcertify its own planes Congress Long ago ordered the faa to work with boeing on certification to save money and time the new faa chief, steve dickson. Is it possible too much authority was delegated to boeing. Its possible well have to see. I havent made a decision on that i want to make sure i dont have my thumb on the scale. Reporter with the max grounded the Southwest Airlines pilots union sued boeing for 115 million in lost wages saying boeings claim that the max was just like previous 737st southwest pilots models wasnt true boeings misrepresentations cost southwest pilots to believe that the 737 max aircraft was safe. Those representations proved to be false boeing says the suit is without merit. The ntsb has already found that the pilots of the doomed max flights were likely overwhelmed with alerts and alarms, unable to prioritize which to handle first. Crash investigators call it alert overload boeing used veteran test pilots to determine how they would respond in an emergency. But the ntsb wants everyday air line pilots from all over the world in simulated testing boeing is reviewing that process. We want the pilots to make sure theyre focusing on those things that will keep the airplane safe and not those things that will distract you and kill you you do anticipate making changes at the fa as certification process. I think thats likely but again, well have to see reporter so sources tell nbc news that the faa is likely to approve the max for flight until december airlines unlikely to fly until january. Boeing tells us it looks forward to reviewing this report coming out today but also stands by that selfcertification system thats kind of a misnomer, but thats how people are describing it the process the faa and boeing work together, boeing says the system has worked in the past. Tom, thank you. The Houston Astros are headed back to the American League championship series for the third year in a row. Astros yankees, saturday night game one the astros scored four runs in the first inning and never looked back. They ended up beating the Tampa Bay Rays 61 as you heard there. Houston will face the yankees in the alcs, its a rematch from 2017 you might remember the astros won that year, and went on to win the World Series Game one, saturday night the nationals and cardinals, game one of the nlcs tonight and youre going to game two or three on tuesday. Maybe game three on tuesday if my wife has her way. What would be her reaction when she hears you can go with her. Since you just broke it on national television. Oh, i did now im locked in youre going. What kind of voice will she use. Thats exactly what i was getting at. My wife has the most lovely angelic voice. Were going to get them to rerack that. How about a forecast, mr. Roker. Rerack that tape from yesterday so we can hear your lindsay. This coastal storm, the noreaster, moving away. Thankfully, our friends in coastal part of new england are still going to feel those problems thunderstorms stretching from texas all the way into the upper midwest, blizzard conditions as we said in the plains, and that high fire danger continues out west thats whats going on around the country. Were going to see your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds o . If these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon liktrees we could help lower emissions. Carbon capture is Important Technology and experts agree. Thats why were working on ways to improve it. So plants. Can be a little more. Like plants. Good friday morning. Im meteorologist kari hall. As we get ready for neat week and the air show it will be warm in San Francisco, reaching the upper 70s and not as windy as yesterday. Our winds calm down, temperatures in the inland areas head up to the lower 80s. Well see a high of 84 in concord today and as we go throughout the weekend, it will cool down gradually with upper 70s by sunday and well stay in the upper 70s throughout next week. And thats your latest weather, savannah. Im sorry, craig, ruining your anniversary surprise. I feel so bad. Al, thank you so much. Still ahead, weve got new details on what caused that crash that seriously injured kevin hart, plus what hes saying to us overnight. Youve heard of breathalyzers for alcohol. We have one for weed, an exclusive look at the devices aimed at keeping all of us safe on the road. But first, this is today on nbc. Hey. Hey. You must be stevens phone. Now you can take control of your home wifi and get a notification the instant someone new joins your network. Only with xfinity xfi. Download the xfi app today. Coming up, we are going big for International Day of the girl. A special message from Michelle Obama in about 5 minutes and earn five times the national average. 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