Good for your credibility. Today, monday, april 14th, 2014. From nbc news, this is today. With matt lauer and savannah guthrie. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today on a monday morning. Im savannah guthrie. Im carson daly alongside Natalie Morales and dylan dreyer. Both matt and al are both off today. I think we have a band here. Carson and the ladies. Trust me, i win in that scenario. Good to have you here. Weve got a lot of news to get to this morning. Including todays top story. The deadly shootings at two Jewish Centers near kansas city. Officials are telling nbc news this morning the 73yearold suspect is a former ku klux klan leader with a history of antisemitism. Lets get to nbcs ron allen. Hes got the latest this morning. Ron, good morning to you. Reporter good morning to you, savannah. Police are investigating these murders as possible hate crimes because the gunman attacked right in the heart of this areas Jewish Community. Three people are dead and everyone is wondering here why and how such heinous violence could erupt here. Last night as mourningers gathered, a dramatic moment when one stepped forward just hours after losing two people she dearly loved. I am the daughter of a gentleman who was killed and a mother of a son who was kill ed. He was her father, and another her son. Reporter earlier in the day frantic calls alerted police. Reports of a man opening fire in two locations in this quiet suburb of of kansas city. The parking lot of the Jewish Community center. We were walking to the parking lot, and then we just rushed in the theater. We thought it was weather at first. There were people ducking down under tables and yelling at us to get inside. Reporter dozens stayed locked down inside for more than an hour. Outside, dr. William lewis corporan, a wellknown physician, was shot d killed. His 14yearold grandson reat griffin underwood, High School Freshman and eagle scout, was rushed to a hospital. He died there. Minutes later, a few blocks away, more gunfire. This time outside the village shalom retirement community. A woman not identified by authorities was killed there. Theres no other words to describe it, just panic. Reporter the alleged gunman arrested in a local schoolyard is 73yearold Frazier Glenn cross jr. From southwestern missouri. A former ku klux klan leader, a history of antisemitic and racist activities, including radio ads during a failed bid for the u. S. Senate in 2010 deemed so offensive, broadcasters fought to keep them off the air. Theres no indication cross, allegedly armed with a shotgun, knew any of the victims. He reportedly smiled and yelled heil hitler once in custody. The alleged gunman is expected to face charges later in court today. The event was described as cowardly, unspeakly and president obama expressed his condolences. Its just awful. Thank you. Another big story this morning, dangerous spring storms. A powerful system that produced tornados, hail and heavy rain across the nations midsection is moving east. Nbcs joe fryer is in lovelady, texas, north of houston. Joe, good morning. Reporter the Sheriffs Department believes a tornado did touch down in lovelady, texas. The worst of the damage here. Giant trees were uprooted. Some landing on a mobile home. A woman was inside there at the time. She was pulled out and taken to the hospital with only cuts and bruises and should be okay. This is just a taste of the damage caused by wild weather throughout the southern and central u. S. As a twister moved closer to lovelady, texas, those nervously watching couldnt help but notice its size. It got bigger. Reporter before long, it destroyed three mobile homes, sending one woman to the hospital. The weather caused problems across the south, from downpours in arkansas, to twisters in oklahoma, a state that had gone nearly 250 days without a tornado, almost breaking a record. You can see some heavy rain in the air. Youre seeing some hail mixed in there. Reporter cameras also caught what appears to be a gustnado, a lowrotating vortex weaker than a tornado, but still capable of causing damage. Pounding hail also left its mark across the countrys midsection as severe storms hit the midwest, ripping up the landscape, especially in michigan. Before i knew it, about 60 seconds, man, it was it came through and blew my fence down, messed my garage door up. Reporter wind gusts reaching as high as 80 miles an hour, Strong Enough to peel the roof off this High School Gym and flip small airplanes. Two men survived after a tree fell on their golf cart and a family narrowly escaped their home, now buried in a massive pile of fallen branches. This morning, as the spring storms move east, forecasters say the risk of tornado should drop, but extreme weather still remains a threat. Back here in lovelady, texas, in addition to the damage to mobile homes, a school here also suffered some minor damage. Now that the worst of the weather has moved out of this area, many in the central part of the country are bracing for a drastic drop in temperature. Carson . All right, joe fryer, thank you for that. So where is the biggest Weather Threat today . Dylan dreyer is in for al. Good morning. Good morning. Today the threat is along the gulf coast. We have this tornado watch area that is shrinking right just to the northwest of jackson, mississippi. You can see we do have some really heavy downpours here. But from eastern texas all the way over into the panhandle of florida, including alabama, this is the area today where we could see especially large hail, damaging wind gusts and an isolated tornado. The tornado threat is not really as large today, but we do still have your flash flood watches and even right around jackson, mississippi, a flash flood warning. Those torrential downpours can cause flooding in an instant, so thats something we have to watch because the potential is there for one to two inches of rain. And then as we go into tuesday, it works its way up the east coast and even up into the northeast. This is a powerful cold front that will produce about one to two inches of rain in the northeast as well. The Severe Threat diminishes as we go into tomorrow, but this afternoon we certainly have to keep an eye out for some of those very strong storms, especially early afternoon today. Savannah . All right, dylan, thank you weve got some new developments in the search for malaysia air flight 370. Officials say they have not heard any new pings from what might be the planes data recorders in at least six days. So now for the first time, an underwater vehicle is being deployed to search. Nbcs katy tur has the latest from perth, australia, this morning. Katy, good morning. Hey there, savannah. I wouldnt call this a lastditch effort, but theyre definitely nearing the end of their options here. Entering a new phase today, scaling back on the visual efforts above the water as well as the audio efforts below the water, instead trying to focus on seeing beneath the waves. Six days with no new acoustic signals, and ocean shield is swapping out ears for eyes, pulling up its pinger locator and deploying bluefin21, the unmanned submarine to scan the ocean floor in smaller, more manageable sections. This will be a slow and painstaking process. Reporter after a weekend of listening and hoping for more pings, a more somber Angus Houston announced the decision to move forward. I would caution you against raising hopes that the deployment of the autonomous underwater vehicle will result in the detection of the aircraft wreckage. It may not. Reporter it will take two hours for bluefin21 to get to the bottom of the ocean. Nearly three miles down. Once there, it will work for 16 hours, moving like a lawn mower, up one stretch and down another as it creates a 3d map of the sea floor. These are some good indications that we have, and were going to pursue those indications. But, you know, people need to realize that these searches typically unfold over months and years, certainly not hours and days. Reporter more than a month in and still no sign of wreckage. Though today planes focus on an area just down sea of the search zone where ocean shield discovered an oil slick. Back on land in beijing, families of passengers are still waiting, refusing to consider flying to perth until there is evidence. They might be alive, they might be dead. There are all kinds of possibilities. Reporter bluefin21 is quite a big process. Two hours to get down, 16 hours to scan, two hours back up, and four hours to analyze all that data. Thats a full 24 hours, full day before they can find out what bluefin21 saw. Now, as for the oil slick, it is getting analyzed as well, but experts say its unlikely it will have anything to do with the plane. All right, katy tur with the latest from perth this morning. Thank you. Lets go to ellen prager. Shes a marine scientist and president of earth to ocean, which educates the public. Good morning to you. Good morning. So we now have these four solid pings. Theyve narrowed the search area to i think a size of about los angeles, about 500 square miles. I know its not ideal. Theyd like a smaller area. But is this doable for that mini sub, the bluefin21 . Well, for this autonomous underwater vehicle, its certainly doable. The only issue is going to be time. It takes time to map the seabed. So they can definitely do it. Its a little bit on the edge of the depth capabilities. But it can do it. Lets look at a couple things. First of all, what is this technology . How exactly does it map the ocean floor . Right. Well, they will essentially send the auv down and it will guide or be powered over the sea floor and send pulses of sound down and then it will record the echoes. The echoes that are strong will give you something thats sort of light or sticking up from the sea floor, and the echoes that are weak or shadows or low spots, and then in a computer they will process all that information and you essentially get a map of the sea floor. And then what you do is you look for something that doesnt look natural. Youre looking for something that doesnt look like a rock or the sea floor, and then theyre going to go investigate that further. And that leads me right to my question, because how can you distinguish the terrain down there, the topography in the ocean in that area is kind of rugged. Could you mistake rugged terrain for something sharpangled that you might suspect to be plane wreckage . Well, thats a great question. And thats one of the problems. Theyre going to have to go down and see what the bottom topography looks like, and hopefully there will be enough silt and things that it wont have covered any wreckage if its there and youll get things that have angles that just dont look natural. But its not an easy task. Very quickly, you mentioned this. This bluefin21 mini sub is at the limits of what it can do in terms of depth, almost three miles down. So what problems might that raise . Well, the problems with depth i mean, once you get down that deep in the ocean, the pressures are crushing. So they have to worry about problems mechanically with the bluefin21. Can it withstand those sort of pressures . So if its on the edge, it should be okay. But you have to worry about starting to get technical problems when you get too deep. Thank you, always good to get your perspective. Appreciate it. Natalies here with frightening moments for passengers on a Southwest Airlines flight. Thats right. Good morning, guys. The Southwest Airlines flight on its way from chicago to sacramento sunday had to make an Emergency Landing in omaha, nebraska, because of an unruly passenger. Other passengers captured the incident on their cell phones and our affiliate kcra got a hold of it. Reporter its what so many travelers fear, a fellow passenger getting out of control midair. All of a sudden we heard a woman scream way in the back. Reporter witnesses say their heard frantic yelling on southwest flight 722 from chicago to sacramento, with 139 passengers and crew onboard. We saw the stewardess rush to the back, and there was all sorts of commotion. Reporter that commotion was a man trying to open the rear door of the plane. I mean, you just kind of got that bad feeling that something wasnt going right, especially when a bunch of big guys got up and jumped into the aisle immediately and ran towards the back of the plane. Reporter one of those men, dr. Scott porter, first thought it was a medical emergency, but soon realized it was a threat. We basically tackled the guy who was back there and pinned him down. Reporter air marshals restrained the man for the rest of the flight, then escorted him off the plane. As they drove him away, those onboard started clapping. This is one time where i might sound a little sexist, but im glad there were some burly men on the plane, because they really did what was great. Ukraines acting president is threatening military action this morning after prorussian militias took over government buildings there. Nbcs Ayman Mohyeldin has the latest. Reporter prorussian separatist militias have again taken over a police station, this time in a city in donetsk. Its seven days in a row where these prorussian militias, wellarmed with military precision in very crisp uniforms that many believe say are backed by russia, that theyve been able to take over these buildings and that has pushed the country into a very difficult position. The Ukrainian Government has given an ultimatum for them to lay down their weapons and leave these buildings, or risk having the armed forces come in and use force to clear them out. The problem in doing so, it could possibly provoke russia, which has 40,000 soldiers on the border. Natalie . Thank you, Ayman Mohyeldin. Firefighters in chile are struggling to contain a massive fire that has killed 12 people there and destroyed 2,000 homes. Officials thought the fires were contained sunday morning, but strong winds fanned the flames in the afternoon. Some 10,000 people have been forced to evacuate the area. More than 500 people were treated at hospitals, mostly from smoke inhalation. And golfer bubba watson finding room in his closet for a second green jacket this morning after winning the masters on sunday for the second time in three years. Watson shot a final round 69 at Augusta National to win the tournament by three shots. In addition to the famed green jacket, watson also pockets more than 1. 6 million for the win. And its always a perfect fit, notice that . Its like the tailors are right there. Yeah, exactly. Masters casual. Natalie, thank you. Miss dylan, busy day in the middle of the country. Yeah, just like yesterday. Were going to see another round of very strong storms. This cold front has a history of producing golf ball sized hail. We saw that in texas and oklahoma yesterday. Also up into kansas. We are going to see that threat spread a little further to the east today. You see in red from eastern texas, right over into the panhandle of florida. Were not going to see the threat of tornados, those would be very isolated, but its again for the hail and the damaging wind gusts. On the backside of it, were looking at snow. Chicago could see a wintery mix today. Thats a look at the weather across the country. Your local forecast is coming up in just 30 seconds. E sure your s fit your goals and what youre really investing for. Tap into the full power of your fidelity green line. Call today and well make it easy to move that old 401 k to a fidelity rollover ira. Hey, happy monday to you. Im meteorologist christina loren. Nice, clear start in san jose and, meanwhile, were foggy this morning and this is going to clear out pretty rapidly. About 9 30, 10 00 a. M. Mostly Clear Conditions and temperatures will be warm. 69 degrees in San Francisco for today and 83 in the east bay and south bay at 81 degrees and much cooler weather as we head into tomorrow and then bounce your numbers right back up thursday into friday. Thank you. Tamron is in for carson in the orange room. Has a little more on masters champ bubba watson. I am glad we mentioned he won. But where is the shot of the baby and the tears . Let me just spoiler alert. I will show you the shot of there it is. I mean, come on at the 18th hole. That is 2yearold caleb. Look at those cheeks. Look at that its just the cutest thing ever. Okay, so that was the big finish. But you know what, sometimes youve got to start big or go home. Anyway, so guys, the tweet that was trending majorly on sunday was the masterssunday. 1. 3 million mentions, by the way, on twitter. As i also mentioned, it was this adorable face, 2yearold caleb who stole the show. Lets show the video one more time of caleb rolling out there to the 18th hole to greet his papa. By the way, this is bubbas second masters. Carson is crying. This is my dream to win the masters and have my child. Not to have your kids meet you, but for you to win. Nevertheless, you bet, a lot of people sending out love to bubba, including Jordan Spieth, who is the phenom, 20 years old in the masters for the first time. He said, dream come true competing at augusta. Deserving champion in bubba watson. Stinging badly, but just the fuel to go forward. Justin timberlake, also an avid golfer says welldone, bubba. Congrats on your second green jacket. Heres my favorite tweet. Its bubba watson celebrating at my favorite restaurant, the waffle house. That is keeping it classy. Go to orangeroom and let us know what you think about caleb. Bubba, we love you, too, but we really love caleb. Tamron, where should we have the waffle delivery come . Youve mentioned its your favorite restaurant. My mom lives about two minutes from a waffle house. Well get her here from texas. We cant wait that long. I know. All right, tamron, thank you. Coming up, well go to south africa. Heated exchanges this morning between Oscar Pistorius and the prosecution. This is day six of him on the stand. How much longer will he be there . Plus, a terrifying ordeal, a florida woman attacked by a bear in her own driveway. Well hear from her exclusively. But first, this is today on nbc. A few weeks ago on trending, we showed you one of the greatest wheel of fortune players ever. This morning, that mans polar opposite. How do you blow a milliondollar prize with a puzzle spelled out for you . This is the most cringeworthy moment i think youll see all day. Felt so bad for him. It happened. But were going to play it anyway. Then, switching gears, could it be the end of days . The stunning sight in