A flight. And horrible mistake. A driver in houston with two kids in the car goes around a Railroad Crossing gate to try and beat a train unsuccessfully. No one was seriously hurt, but that driver is facing a lot of questions today, thursday, april 3rd, 2014. Announcer from nbc news, this is today. With matt lauer and savannah guthrie. Live from studio 1a if rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Nice to have you along on a thursday morning. Unfortunately, though, we do begin with sad news. Our top story is another tragic shooting at fort hood in texas. Youll remember thats the site of a similar deadly attack back in 2009. This time four people are dead including the gunman, and were learning a lot more about him this morning. Nbcs Gabe Gutierrez has the latest for us. Good morning. Reporter good morning. U. S. Military officials identified the gunman as 34yearold ivan lopez, an iraq war veteran. He was being evaluated for posttraumatic stress disorder, but he had not been diagnosed. This morning fort hood is reeling seek shelter immediately. Reporter after a routine afternoon was abruptly shattered again. We have an active shooter on fort hood. We have multiple gunshot victims. We also have some people jumping through windows. Reporter amid terrifying reports of an active gunman. First responders raced across the sprawling military base on lockdown. Frantic relatives couldnt reach loved ones. I feel hopeless because i cant do nothing. Reporter this morning investigators are piecing together what led to the shooting spree which they are not linking to terrorism. It is believed that he walked into one of the unit buildings, opened fire, got into a vehicle, fired from a vehicle, got out of the vehicle, walked into another building and opened fire again and then was engaged by local law enforcement. Reporter thats when, police say, the shooter turned his gun on himself. We do not know a motive. We do know that this soldier had Behavior Health and Mental Health issues. Reporter wednesdays violence brought back vivid memories of 2009 when major nidal hasan opened fire at fort hood, killing 13 and wounding 32. More recently, other shootings have shaken military installations. In september a gunman killed 12 and wounded 4 at the Washington Navy yard. And last month a civilian shot dead a sailor at the naval station in norfolk. Today the nation is wondering how it could happen again. This reopens the pain of what happened at fort hood five years ago. We know these families, we know their Incredible Service to our country and the sacrifices that they make. Reporter 16 people were wounded in the attack, 3 of them remain in Critical Condition. Military officials tell nbc news that the gunman has served four months in iraq, that he was married with a family and that he had only arrived here at fort hood in february. Matt and savannah, back to you. Gabe gutierrez, thank you. Dr. Matthew david is the trauma director at scott white Memorial Hospital in temple, texas. Dr. David, good morning to you. Good morning, matt. Weve heard there are 16 people who were wounded in the shooting, i think 9 of them were brought to your hospital. Can you give me the latest on their conditions . Those numbers are correct. We have nine here. We had three that are Critical Condition still this morning. They were that way last night. We have kept them in that condition right now. We still have the other six that are listed in serious condition. I anticipate that this morning as we make our multidisciplinary rounds, well be able to upgrade them to fair condition. Theyre all doing fairly well. The weapon used in the shooting, dr. David, was a. 45 caliber semiautomatic handgun. Can you describe, without going into too much detail, the types of wounds youre dealing with . Sure. So this is obviously a fairly highvelocity weapon. And can inflict a fairly large amount of damage on patients. We saw that evident last night. The wounds some patients were fairly lucky in that they were superficial involving extremities or maybe just a graze injury. Others happened to be shrapnel injuries from bullet impacts on structures that were naerby the patients. And then we did have some very serious injuries to the neck, chest and abdomen as well. This isnt the first time this has happened at fort hood. I believe you even treated some of the victims of the shooting back in 2009. Again, the shooter is a member of the military. As a doctor, how do you even begin to get your arms around this situation . You know, its difficult for us to understand why Something Like this would happen. Obviously our heart breaks for our friends over at fort hood. We have close ties with them. We work with them closely in the community as well in a health care setting. Its really difficult to understand why these acts of madness occur. Clearly we think highly of fort hood. Theres tens of thousands of soldiers that rotate through there and there are tens of thousands who call that home, so i dont think this is an indictment of fort hood itself based on acts of two individuals, but it certainly is concerning especially those of us close to the military and their families. We wish you luck in what you have to do over the coming days. Dr. David, thank you for your time this morning. Thank you. We move on to now frightening moments for passengers on a delta flight from atlanta to new york. Nbcs tom yaum llamas has that story. Reporter good morning. That flight was bound for Laguardia Airport last night but a mechanical problem led to an Emergency Landing. You can imagine how scary it was when passengers landed, then started to see the runway turn into grass. Right now the federal investigation is under way. Delta flight 886 took off from atlanta last night and was scheduled to land at Laguardia Airport. The plane, carrying 123 passengers and crew had to divert to nearby Kennedy Airport when the plane experienced low hydraulic pressure. The twinengine jet landed but came to an abrupt stop on a grassy area just off the taxiway. It was a little rough. When they started to slow down, it was kind of a grating sound which made me very nervous. Reporter a spokesperson for delta said the plane needed to land at kennedy because it had a longer runway which would bet tr ensure a safe landing. It was a little scary. Its a scary thought to think something might happen on your way down. Reporter there were no injuries to any passengers or the flight crew. The passengers were eventually bussed to laguardia, their original destination. Again, the faa is investigating. Matt and savannah, im sure they were very happy to be on a bus. Tom, thank you very much. Meantime, more breaking news to talk about. An investigation revealing a program funded secretly by the u. S. To cause unrest in cuba. Andrea mitchell is nb, krss chief Foreign Affairs correspondent. Andrea . This is an incredible story unearthed by the associated press, matt. According to the a. P. , the u. S. Was running a covert twitterlike text messaging operation in cuba, designed to build support against the castro government. The problem, it was under cover of a humanitarian agency, usaid, supposedly dedicated to helping the worlds poorest people in some of the most dangerous parts of the globe. Reporter the cuban government now run by castros brother, raul, has been a thorn in the side dating back to kennedy. At one point the cia tried to kill castro with an exploding cigar. Now according to documents obtained by the a. P. , under the obama administration, usaid, not a spy agency, ran a secret program for two years from late 2009 to 2012. The idea was to engage unsuspecting cubans in a primitive form of social media like twitter on their cell phones in a country where Internet Access is severely limited and controlled. The apparent goal, to help organized dissent against the government. The program was called zunzuneo, cuban slang for hummingbird, run by Fake Companies in the Cayman Islands in spain. 40,000 participants had no idea it was run by the u. S. Government which was also collecting their personal data. A lot of them were really happy about the service. And if the cuban government caught on that this is a u. S. Backed program, you know, i think the question remains is were they put at risk by using the service . Reporter usaid is known around the world for its good work and has always denied that it spies. But in this 2011 speech during the arab spring, thensecretary of state Hillary Clinton acknowledged helping people use the internet to rise up against regimes. The United States continues to help people in oppressive internet environments get around filters, stay one step ahead of the censors, the hackers and the thugs who beat them up or imprison them for what they say online. And this program was started when Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy says he is troubled by the secret program, that it creates a risk to young cuban cell phone users who had no idea it was u. S. Funded. Leahy also questioned whether it was even legal and what the potential impact could be on the fate of the u. S. Aids contractor in a cuban jail, allen gross. Matt and savannah . Andrea mitchell on this unusual story for us out of washington this morning. Andrea, thanks. Meantime, natalie is following the story in chile. Major aftershock overnight. Major aftershocks rattling a lot of peoples nerves understandably. Following tuesdays massive earthquake, there was a 7. 6 quake that struck that same area late wednesday, and it triggered tsunami alerts and evacuations. This video shows hotel guests running out of the shaking building. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries as a result of the aftershocks. Tuesdays 8. 2 quake killed six people. Malaysias Prime Minister has vowed to not give up the search for flight 370 nearly a month after that plane disappeared. Nbcs katy tur is in kuala lumpur with the very latest. Katy, good morning. Reporter hey there, natalie. We are on day 27 and still the basic questions have not been answered, the who, the where, the when, the how and the whys still unanswered. The Prime Minister of malaysia traveled to australia. He toured the search effort down there, thanked everybody involved and once again expressed confidence that the plane would be found. Despite that, there are signs that things are scaling back. There hasnt been a news briefing out of kuala lumpur since monday. They say they are closing the media center out here next monday. They havent had any spottings or significant leads in days. But the criminal investigation is still ongoing. Unclear what theyre going to find from that. The fbi says its concluded its investigation into the pilots Flight Simulator but didnt find anything untoward. Another day, another day of nothing, and its looking more and more hopeless as time goes by. Natalie, remember, the black boxes, the batteries on those beacons in those black boxes are set to run out over the weekend. All right, katie occur in kuala lumpur on the story for us, thank you. A big shakeup in the nations capitol on wednesday after the u. S. Supreme court struck down restrictions on the total amount of cash that a person can give to all federal candidates for office. Nbcs White House CorrespondentPeter Alexander has the story. Peter, good morning. Reporter hi, natalie, good important morning to you. Consider this. In just 12 years from the 2000 election to those in 2012, total Campaign Spending in this country doubled from 3 billion to 6. 3 billion. And the Supreme Court ruling now opens the door even wider for Unlimited Money in politics that has obviously already skyrocketed. Well, its the old mediocre. Part of the reason why i decided to run for congress. The government should either help or get out of the way. Reporter and you thought there was already too much money in politics, fasten your seat eliminate belts. From now on theres going to be a whole lot more. The Supreme Court struck down a decadesold campaign law that capped the total amount of political contributions any one person can give during any one single campaign. Money in politics is speech whether youre giving 1 or 1,000 to candidates, it is speech. Its speech through your own resources as to who you want to support. Reporter what does it mean . Before the courts ruling, a wealthy donor could only give the maximum contribution, 2,600, to 18 different candidates for a total donation of nearly 50,000. But now the donor can give that same contribution to an unlimited number of candidates with no cap on the total cost. Better yet, think of it like youre at a casino where each table has a maximum bet. Now donors are allowed to bet the max on every table in the room, every table in vegas. Mega donors have just bought themselves a lot more clout and influence in washington. Theyll have an open door, phone calls will be answered, and the question is what might they get in exchange for their donations . Reporter so the bottom line here is, experts say, that this sweeten the pot for candidates and for political parties, enticing them to devote even more time, natalie, to finding and locking in the countrys most rich and powerful as donors. Its going to open up those floodgates. Peter, thanks so much. President obama has declared a major disaster for damage caused by that deadly landslide in washington state. The declaration makes programs available to help individuals and businesses affected by the march 22nd slide. It also provides help for debris removal. The death toll was bumped up to 29 people on wednesday. Another 20 people are still listed as missing. A valuable lesson in what not to do this morning when approaching crossing gates near train tracks. Take a look at this horrible Surveillance Video out of houston. The gate closes just as a light rail chain approaches the intersection. The driver with an adult passenger and two kids inside decided to try to beat the train. And you see there what happens. The train slams into the jeep. The four people inside were taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The driver was cited for running a red light and bypassing the crossing gates. Just unbelievable there. And horrifying to see that video. Wow. You dont like to judge because you dont know what was happening inside the car, but it just appears to be one of the dumbest things you could ever do. Well go ahead and judge. It appears. Im going to qualify that a little bit. Natalie, thanks. Dylans in for al. We mentioned yesterday al had some shoulder surgery. Talked to him last night, hes doing okay. So al, if youre watching, were thinking about you, bud. And you know, were also tracking some severe storms. We saw a line of severe storms break out yesterday. And we are going to see the same thing again today. But take a look at what we saw in southern kansas. We had the hail coming down later in the evening towards nighttime where we did see Severe Damage to some of these Severe Damage to some of these cars. Golf ballsized hail, imagine that just coming down. And thats what these storms can e. Oduce. And were going to see the same type of setup today. Only today were going to add the fact that we could end up with some isolated tornadoes as well. So weve got this stationary front right in through here, right across the midwest. And its along this line where we are looking at the chance of some strong storms to set up. We have moisture coming in from the gulf. We have this impulse coming in from the west. That is going to set the stage for a possible Severe Weather outbreak later on today. The thunderstorms are coming down right now in st. Louis, heavy downpours, lots of cloudtoground lightning all across illinois into indiana. And we do have a moderate risk right in here in red where we could see some of our strongest storms today and tornadoes are possible. Thats a look at the weather across the country. Your local forecast is coming up in just 30 seconds. Country. Your local forecast in just 40 seconds. thunderclap bellowing fire steaming and chugging thunderclap cheering rollercoaster rumbling the world youve been waiting for is here. The Wizarding World of harry potter, featuring the all new diagon alley and the hogwarts express. thunderclap come and live it. Universal orlando resort. 7 17. Im meteorologist Christina Loren. Taking a live look, cloudy sky over San Francisco, same cloudy sky over the south bay. Well see the clouds increase. A few intervals of sunshine but mostly cloudy by the time the day is done because we have some active weather on the way. The storm system getting its act together. Its going to arrive by about 6 00 a. M. Tomorrow. Keep that in mind. Mid60s today. Then we warm you up. All right, dylan, thank you. Tamrons in the orange room. You have a doozie this morning. Yeah, this is going to be a good one. Not many things stun us these days, but i think this falls into stunning. Heres the score. It is about sports, by the way. New york mets second baseman Daniel Murphy, his wife went labor this monday. That also happened to be the teams opening day. So what do you think daniel did, guys . Went to not the game but went to the delivery room. If he knows whats good for him. He went to be with his wife. Under Major League Baseballs collective bargaining deal, players can take up to three games to be by the side of their spouse for paternity leave. He did the right thing. But wait until you see what Boomer