27th, 2013. >> from nbc news, this is "today" with matt lauer and savannah guthrie. live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. >> good morning on this memorial day. i'm natalie morales. >> i'm willie guys. matt and savannah have the morning off. breaking news. a fire aboard the royal caribbean cruise ship. katie johnson of affiliate wptv is there with the breaking details. >> reporter: we are just learning from the u.s. coast guard that the royal caribbean grandeur of the seas is docked in freeport, bahamas. that happened 8:30 to 9:00 eastern time. a fire broke out just before 3:00 this morning. the ship left baltimore on friday. it was headed to cococay bahamas. the fire started on deck three. crew members were able to get the fire contained and it was put oust just before 5:00 this morning. we are learning there were a couple of injuries on board. this is a stressful situation. those injuries involving two people who fainted and one case of high bloochl these people are just getting to the bahamas now. we are looking forward to talking to them about their experience that was handled quickly on board. they were able to put up fire walls which is something most cruises have to keep something like this from spreading throughout the ship. it was contained to one deck. there was a carnival cruise ship put on satandby mode in case an evacuation was need but in this case there was no evacuation needed. now to the memorial day holiday and severe weather threatening to disrupt plans as millions of americans hit the roads. mark potter is in key biscayne, florida. good morning. >> reporter: it is nice weather here. we expect a lot of people to come to this beach on key biscayne to celebrate the hole day. later today they will be heading home, joining millions of other americans doing the same thing nationwide. whether you are just heading out for the memorial day celebrations this morning, or are already heading home you'll have plenty of company. nearly 35 million people are traveling this hole day. almost all of them by car. according to the aaa, there are fewer travelers this weekend than last year, but most blame the economy, not gas prices. >> when we interviewed travelers, 62% of them said the price of gas was not a factor. >> reporter: nationally the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded is 3.55. slightly lower than a year ago. and analysts predict prices will fall heading in to the summer. aaa says an 8% drop in the number of people traveling by air this holiday can be blamed on three factors. >> fares, fees and frustrations overall, baggage fees, parking fees, wi-fi fees, virtually no end to the list of fees you may be asked to pay. >> reporter: in some places weather is disrupting travel. crews had to scramble to rescue people from cars and rooftops in san antonio over the weekend. and in vermont they have temperatures ten to 30 degrees below average for this time of the year and as holiday vacationers head to this beaches in florida the winds are increasing the rip current chances. in northern washington plans are underway to construct a pair of temporary steel bridges across the river where a truck crashed in to a bridge causing it to collapse. cleanup continues at the site of a collapsed highway overpass in missouri. the bridge fell after two freight trains crashed taking out a support pillar. the national safety council is urging drivers today to be careful, buckle up, stay off cell phones and give themselves plenty of time to get home safely. >> mark, thank you so much. in washington today, politics likely will be set aside as the nation and the president pause to mark memorial day. some controversies will continue to royal in the obama administration in the coming days. kristin has the latest. >> reporter: good morning to you. president obama has tried to divert the conversation away from those thorny issues. memorial day will do that temporarily as the president prepares to honor those who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice. it comes on the heels of an emotional visit to oklahoma on sunday. with a trifecta of controversies hovering over his administration, president obama visited tornado-ravaged moore, oklahoma, on sunday comforting those who lost everything and delivering a message of hope. >> we know moore will come back stronger from this tragedy. >> reporter: back in washington, fresh criticism of the president on the sunday talk shows over benghazi, the irs and justice department. >> i think he's really losing the moral authority to lead this nation. >> reporter: with the doj under fire for seizing journalists phone records as part of a leak investigation, the president has ordered attorney general eric holder to review his own policies. not good enough said republicans. >> this would be a good time to have a special council come forward or an independent group to look at it. >> reporter: chuck schumer says he plans to introduce a bipartisan backed bill that will require the government to get approval from a judge before getting records. >> you need set rules an independent arbiter. we have neither now. >> reporter: the president called for a limited use of drones and closing guantanamo bay, arguing the war on terror is winding down. >> at a time we need resolve the most we are sounding retreat. >> reporter: in defense mode, democrats insisted the president wouldn't let up his fight against al qaeda and said it is time to change course. >> if we are constantly thinking of this in the context of war we stand a real risk of doing things that compromise our values and freedoms. >> reporter: now the president will start the day by hosting a breakfast here at the white house for families who lost loved ones in combat and lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknowns and deliver a memorial day address. congress is on recess but vowed to keep up its investigation in to the irs and doj controversy. >> kristin, thank you so much. mark halprin is a senior analyst for "time" magazine. good to see you. >> good morning, willie. >> oklahoma took a lot of the country's attention but three controversies that could involve the white house, certainly has white house potential, irs, justice department and benghazi. a quick update on all three. >> they are all going to go below the radar. the congress as kristin said, the congress will investigate these. in two of the three, the president agrees there needs to be more investigation, looking through wiretapping reporters, looking at phone mails and e-mails. even the president said they need to be investigated. bnz be benghazi, most republicans are saying the smart strategy and right thing to do, don't call for impeachment but investigate the facts that is good for the country because we need to know what happened at this point that any are connected to the white house? >> there is no indication right now that the president himself did anything that i think people would say that is inappropriate. but there is a lot of question about other people around the president, what they did, as well as the question of responsibility. if the president didn't know in these cases, do we need to change the system so that the president himself has more oversight over some of these areas. and as i say, these are going to be investigated. there's still questions. >> do any of these, mark, begin to derail president obama's second-term agenda? he'd love to get a budget deal, he'd love to go on immigration, perhaps go back to the issue on guns. what do all these ongoing controversies mean to what he wants to do? >> it makes it a lot harder. it's challenging for a president when one party is investigating him in the morning and then in the afternoon, try to figure out a way to make deals. making deals with republicans was hard before. it's harder now. the president is going to have to say in the next few weeks if he's going to salvage this term, get some things done on the big issues you talk about, immigration and maybe guns, and certainly on the budget, can he work with republicans even though a lot of them are spending a lot of their time investigating him and raising questions about his administration? >> the president made a big speech on thursday which may trump all of this in the long term when history looks back on it where he said he wanted to take america off its perpetual war footing. that was his line. what does that mean practically? what's his vision for the country? >> good. >> look. on memorial day, we all want to pay tribute to and thank the families of those and those who gave their lives. it's a big issue, national security is something a president has first and foremost, you're right. that speech probably one of the biggest speeches he'll give as president to change the way the united states thinks about our security at home and abroad. tons of issues raised in the speech i think we're going to debate that speech and the issues the president raised not just during his term but into the next presidency. >> there are some people who were confused by the speech, given this is a president who added troops in afghanistan, a president who has used drones more liberally than the previous president, that he is the one saying let's step back from all this. is this a return to candidate barack obama in 2008? >> in a lot of ways it is. i think part of what the president wanted to do was say, in effect, i inherited a lot of policies from george bush. i inherited wars and a situation which i couldn't change right away. now he's thinking about his legacy, about how he turns as he thinks about leaving office, handing things off to his successor, how does he want to leave those policies? again, i think more than settling a lot of these big issues, afghanistan, war on terror, drone policy, it's opening up a debate that he'll engage in and we'll have the next presidential campaign a lot of these issues will be engaged for the post-obama era. >> mark halperin joining us on memorial day. mark, good to see you. >> good to see you, willie. now to andrea canning joining us with a check of the other headlines, including the latest on that brutal murder of the british soldier. >> yes, we have new information on that. good morning to all of you. we begin with the new arrests in the brutal murder of a soldier in the middle of a london street. another man was arrested sunday and two on saturday, making it a total of nine suspects in what has become a massive anti-terrorism investigation. we have also learned that one of the original two suspects in last wednesday's killing was arrested three years ago in kenya, suspected of trying to join an islamic militant group. rescuers resume their search this morning for a brain cancer patient who was being transported for treatment aboard a volunteer medical flight that crashed. the plane went down friday in a wooded area of central new york state. the bodies of his wife and the pilot have been recovered. a big vote of confidence for troubled boeing 787 dreamliners. japan's ana which owns the largest dreamliner fleet put them back into service sunday. planes were grounded worldwide four months ago because of battery problems. new controversy is hanging over the rutgers university sports program. and it centers around the woman hired to give the school a fresh start. "the star ledger" reports that julie hermann quit as women's volleyball coach in tennessee 16 years ago after players complained that she subjected them to fear, humiliation, and emotional abuse. history was made last night when robbie rogers became the first openly gay male athlete to play in a u.s. professional league. rogers made his debut with the los angeles galaxy soccer team and received loud cheers from the home crowd. los angeles won, 4-0. a dramatic finish at sunday's indianapolis 500 after defending champion dario franchitti crashed with just two laps to go, tony kanaan was able to win his first indy in 12 tries. he celebrated with not champagne but the usual bottle of 2% milk. and there was a different kind of drama at the coca-cola 600 race in charlotte, north carolina. ten fans suffered mostly minor injuries when the cable and ropes fell from an overhead tv camera. the cable also hit the lead car and damaged another, causing a half-hour delay in the race. and fast cars certainly are popular, even at the movies this weekend. "fast & furious 6" debuted in first place at the holiday box office. already taking in more than $98 million, according to studio estimates. "the hangover part iii" opened well back in second place. "star trek: into darkness" fell to third. we wanted to go to the movies but we couldn't get a baby-sitter this weekend. >> it was a good weekend for the movies around here. >> it was, so we stayed home with the kids. >> well, you still had a good weekend with the kids. >> we did. >> thank you. let's turn it over to chris warren with a check of the forecast and he is in for al this morning. >> you know, it's going to be a strong finish to the weekend weatherwise in the northeast after gloomy days. the middle part of the country, the southern plains, the high plains, parts of the midwest, we have to watch out for some strong storms. we're looking at the potential for maybe some isolated tornadoes, some damaging winds, large hail, also some very heavy rain. and this has already started. we're already seeing that lightning and we are already seeing the storms. very heavy rain which could lead to localized flooding. so you have to watch out for that if you're traveling through the midwest today. watch for these storms to pop up. and this is where that risk does go from texas all the way up to the dakotas. a chance for some of those strong storms. also around the great lakes. you'll have a chance for some showers. possible a few storms as well. but the northeast, after a chilly start, you'll see those temperature readings back into the upper 60s, in some cases closer to 70. that's a look at your forecast across the country. your local forecast is coming up after this. let's put it to the test. all right! hot dog eating contest? [ laughs ] look at that price! nice! that's the thing! walmart checks thousands of competitors' prices every week. i like that! onward! charcoal. if someone else advertises a lower price, walmart will match it at the register. i didn't know that. i'm full of good ideas! okay. not so much muscle! all right, you ready? mm-hmm. that's incredible! that's the walmart low price guarantee! bring your last grocery receipt to walmart and see for yourself. good morning to you. it's a breezy start to this memorial day. we have showers headed our way but not just yet unless you live in the north. we're seeing pre frontal participation. all of this north of marin county. in fact the bulk of the moisture doesn't arrive until later on this afternoon. good memorial day morning to you. 68 bayside. 61 at coast. temperatures will stay cool. there's a shower chance by tomorrow afternoon then we heat you up bigtime getting into this upcoming weekend. now here's natalie and willie. >> chris, thanks very much. angelina jolie stunned the world with the recent announcement that she underwent a double mastectomy. >> this morning, cancer has touched the star's life again. nbc's kristen dahlgren joins us now with details. kristen, good morning. >> yeah, tough story. jolie cited a family history of cancer as a reason to undergo that preventative procedure. sadly this morning, that history has claimed another family member. >> reporter: angelina jolie's aunt, debbie martin, passed away early sunday morning after a battle with breast cancer. >> she was my best friend. the most beautiful woman i knew. >> she was a beautiful person. we're going to miss her dearly. >> reporter: the 61-year-old was the sister of jolie's mother, marcheline bertrand who passed away in 2007, after her decade long struggle with ovarian cancer. earlier this morning in a "new york times" op-ed, jolie revealed she, quote, had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% be risk of ovarian cancer due to her family's likelihood of carrying the high-risk brca1 gene. with the preventative double mastectomy, that risk is now about 5%. >> because angelina jolie has the brca gene mutation, she's at increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer. so it is a very smart decision on her part to have her breasts removed. >> angelina has decided that it's far more important for her to be there for her children, to live a long and healthy life, and to enjoy that life with her children. >> reporter: jolie's aunt debbie elected to have her ovaries removed shortly after her sister's death in 2007 and was, quote, very proud of her niece's recent decision. >> it gave her a lot of gratitude that she could have -- that angelina now saved her own life. >> and while jolie hasn't talked publicly about her surgery since that op-ed, other women are talking more. this week's "time" magazine even highlights the effect jolie going public might have on other women choosing to get the test and to have that preventative surgery. >> certainly sad as well for her family. thank you, kristen. >> underlines the reason angelina had to have it done hearses. >> why she had it done. >> kristen, thanks so much. coming up, millions of americans planning to visit our national parks this summer, but they might be surprised what they find when they get there. plus, a battle is being waged between wild elephants and villagers in india. now conservationists are trying to keep the peace. but first, this is "today" on nbc. 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