More. And hot superstars maroon 5 gets ready to play the packed plaza with their big hits. Today, september 1st, 2014. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And a good morning. Welcome to today on this rocking monday labor day monday. Im natalie alongside willie geist. Matt is off, savannah is on maternity leave. Look at that crowd outside. You thought Ariana Grande was a huge crowd, this is as big im told. Weve been hearing adam levine echoing through midtown. This crowd is huge. And dylan dreyer is giving her official guarantee the skies will hold and it looks good. There might be one drop. Dont let that fool you. Were going to be just fine. Great showing coming up later. First lets get to todays top stories. Severe storms continue to threaten large parts of the country. Dylan does have more on that. The last unofficial weekend of summertime and we saw crazy storms through the midwest. The rain came down so hard it fell at about two inches per hour. When it comes down that fast, it caught a lot of people off guard. Happened between 4 00 and 5 00 yesterday across new jersey and up into new york. We saw a lot of flooding on the roadways too. Back in the midwest we had a big issue with hail and damaging wind gusts. Look at these ominous clouds. We saw hail as big as tennis balls. Speaking of tennis balls, the u. S. Open also had to be called early because the courts couldnt handle the water. Crowds had to leave. They were strieing to squeegee the water off there. But it was too much in a short period of time. We will see things resume today but we do still have some storms through missouri right now. Look at this heavy rainfall thats falling across missouri. Weve got this line of storms producing the cloud to ground lightning. Our most Severe Weather today is expected from michigan back in the eastern parts of kansas. Thats where we could see today large hail and damaging wind gusts. Its going to be just as active as it was yesterday. More storms in the northeast too. Well keep our eyes on it. Thank you, dylan. President obama is under growing pressure to take the fight to isis in syria even from senior members of his own party. This comes amidst the word more americans are joining the ranks of the extremist group. Chris jansing has more. Good morning to you. Reporter good morning to you, willie. There is increasing concern about westerners including americans who have passports that would allow them to travel to syria for training and come back to the uk or u. S. To launch strikes. In fact, today the British Parliament is considering ways to make it easier for them to seize the passports of people who are believed to be isis sympathizers as president obama weighs his options for targeting isis in syria. As the u. S. Military ramps up air strikes against isis in iraq, president obama is facing growing bipartisan pressure this morning to take the fight to isis in syria. On meet the press, it was said the president hasnt done enough to confront the isis front. I think i learned one thing about this president. And that is hes very cautious. Maybe in this instance too cautious. Reporter a view echoed by Top Republicans including senators john mccain and Lindsay Graham writing in the new york times, continuing to confront isis in iraq but not in syria would be fighting with one hand tied behind our back. Still some democrats say the president is right to proceed carefully. It is extremely urgent that you dont just rush in because the media is talking about it. Reporter its not just the media. King abdullah warned over the weekend if isis is ignored im sure theyll reach europe in a month and america in another month. The white house says the president takes this seriously. The sense of urgency is growing as isis expands its reach aided by an influx of thousands of fighters holding western passports. Then the announce of an arrest of a 16yearold girl suspected of trying to reach syria to fight. Officials estimate 70 to 100 americans have joined isis and other extremist groups fearing they could return to the u. S. To launch attacks. Im very concerned. Because we dont know every Single Person that has an american passport that has gone and trained and learned how to fight. Reporter the threat of isis as well as the situation in ukraine will be the focus of meetings as the president travels to estonia and wales later this week. Today, though, hell be in milwaukee and make remarks at the annual labor fest celebration. Thank you. Michael leiter served in the obama administration. Hes now an Nbc News National Security analyst. Good morning. Good morning. The one thing from king ab l abdullah raising the Terror Threat to severe. There are westerners who have gone to syria and gotten training and can come back. As the house chairman said, its hard for western countries to identify these people. So we dont see a specific front right now but we know there are westerners that have trained with these groups. Identifying them and stopping them is very hard. No specific threat, but we have eric holder saying theyre more frightening than anything ive seen. And chuck hagel said this is an imminent threat to every interest we have. Doesnt that mean theres something out there approaching the United States . In my view there very much is. I believe the president is going to have to move towards an offensive step in syria. That doesnt mean theres a plot that we see right now but there are all the signs. Theres the safe haven, training, funding, and an intent to strike the west. We can wait awhile, but if we dont get on the offense, theres no way all of our defensive measures could catch all of the people that might come. And striking inside syria gets tricky. Thank you very much. Thanks, willie. This morning nascar superstar tony stewart is trying to move on after a disappointing return to racing. It was his first time competing since he struck and killed a fellow driver three weeks ago. But the race did not go as planned. And nbcs Gabe Gutierrez is at the motor speedway in hampton, georgia. Good morning. Reporter good morning. Stewart ended up slamming into the wall on this track twice. He ended up finishing 41st out of 43 drivers and barely making it through half the race. Whoa, into the wall. Stewart looked like contact from kyle busch. Reporter overnight sparks flew as tony stewart was knocked off track. The nascar legend tells his team sorry, guys. You deserve better than this. Reporter we were there as he left his garage in a heavy damaged car beyond repair. Disappointed to not finish the race but in the context of everything thats gone on, it was a race that he wasnt able to finish. Reporter it was stewarts first race since he struck and killed a fellow driver kevin ward jr. At a dirt track in upstate new york three weeks ago. Ward had climbed out and stepped onto the track. A fan posted it on youtube. This has been one of the toughest tragedies ive had to deal with. Reporter stewart spoke publicly about it for the first time friday. The sheriff says the crash investigation will take at least two more weeks. Online some critics bashed stewart for returning so soon. One saying cant believe hes allowed to drive. But many fans here are handing by him even as his return ended with a torn up tire and a 41st place finish. We were sad. We were hoping hed get a good race in. Sorry he wasnt able to make a comeback. A lot of his fans want him back. Thats a tough one. Reporter stewart is now looking to next week. He would have to win next saturdays race in richmond, virginia, to even have a shot at this years championship. All right. Gabe gutierrez at the atlanta motor speedway. By the way, beautiful shot there, that sunrise. Now to another story getting attention this morning. Dozens of photos of Jennifer Lawrence in the nude and more than 100 other celebs in compromising positions hit the internet sunday in a massive hacking scandal. Betty nguyen has more on this story. Reporter good morning. Racy pictures sent social media into a frenzy. A master list according to be a list of all the stars had dozens of rains like rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence, and mary kate olsen. Nbc news will not show any of the leaked images. Late sunday a representative for Jennifer Lawrence appears to confirm the photos were of the star saying, this is a flagrant violation of privacy. The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence is just one of about 100 celebrities targeted in the unprecedented attack. The pictures first posted on the online message board where a hacker also claimed to have nude and seminude photos of rihanna, supermodel kate upton, hope solo, and kirsten dunst, lea michelle, and Mary Elizabeth winston. According to several reports, the hacker allegedly obtained the pictures through a cloud leak. These are federal crimes and state crimes. We have wire fraud, computer fraud, and those crimes attach a lot of years in jail. Reporter winston responded to the hack on twitter. Saying, to those of you looking at photos i took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel good about yourselves. I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked. While Victoria Justice denied that any of the photos are of her tweet, these socalled nudes of me are fake, people. Let me nip this in the bud. Back in 2012 a man was sentenced to ten years in prison for hacking into the private accounts of Scarlett Johansson and mila kunis and posting their photos online. Thanks very much. You were saying about the cloud, its hard to know whats up there in the cloud. Its just floating around in space. They can hack that security system. Its got to be nearly impossible. Ive got a picture of me and my dog. Nothing interesting. Kate snow is here now with a check of the rest of the news stories. A militia has entered a embassy. Bill neeley is in london this morning. Good morning. Reporter good morning. American diplomats left tripoli weeks ago but their homes are now in the hands of militia men. The main Embassy Remains secure for now. But this is the first time that a u. S. Facility has been overrun. In a country free falling into chaos, militia fighters celebrate their takeover of an american diplomatic compound. Nbc news cant authenticate this video but the u. S. Ambassador to libya says it shows an annex. The main homes abandoned quickly last month. All u. S. Staff evacuated as fighting intensified. The government who controls are militias. Thick takeover, an uncomfortable we minder of the killing of Chris Stevens and three other americans almost two years ago. Tripoli is now a deadly battle ground. For weeks militias have vied for control. Enflamed further by air strikes on libya from gulf states and egypt. Libya is in tur moil, an american compound once again overrun, rival governments, hundreds of militias, and another Foreign Policy headache. And its just one headache among so many for the obama administration. Syria, iraq, not to mention ukraine. The president s Foreign Policy under fire. His handling of libya always contentious and now still an issue. Bill neeley in london this morning. Thanks. It was a chaotic day at an airport on monday. It started sunday afternoon when an Alaskan Airlines flight from seattle to atlanta made an unscheduled stop in kansas city because of an unruly passenger. The man was us courted off the plane. And then sunday night a terminal inside the airport was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Nothing was found. Two teenagers were rushed to a texas hospital sunday night after falling from a carnival right. It happened in el paso. One of the teens suffered serious injuries. They used a ladder to reach others stranded in the air. The cause of the accident is under investigation. And Lesson Learned for a drone pilot. You can see it going up high above a lake, but at one point the drone loses Battery Power and starts coming back to the earth. The guy on shore is starting to panic. First he goes for the boat. Then he just empties his pockets and runs into the water just in time to make the catch. Thats a really shallow lake. Good thing the got to it. We had one of those with family photos recently. A photographer took photos of us. Have you seen these things . Theyre amazing. Weve done a lot of stories. Theyre not that expensive. But theyre really loud though. Thanks very much. On wheel, by the way. Doing the news on one leg. Hobbling around with a stress fracture, right . Yeah. Lets get a check of the weather from dylan. On this labor day, we have to keep an eye out on stronger storms stretching into missouri and eastern kansas. We could see large hail like we saw yesterday. Damaging wind gusts also possible. Your local forecast is coming up in just 30 seconds. What they ge, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. Happy labor day, im clst in a loren. This is all we have in terms of low cloud cover. And as a result of all of that sunshine coming in. It is going to be hot day, warm temperatures, even at the immediate coast for today, 73 degrees in San Francisco. And 73 degrees in San Francisco. 15 degrees warmer than average tomorrow, right back that average. Now to the condition of beloved comedienne joan rivers. She remains in a hospital this morning with reports the situation may be dire. Kristen dahlgren is outside mt. Sinai hospital. Good morning. Reporter good morning. This where joan rivers family has been keeping vigil over this Holiday Weekend. Theres no new update on her condition, but there are new worries. Melissa, how is your mother . Reporter after rushing to her mothers bedside last week, Melissa Rivers has stayed mostly quiet releasing another short statement sunday saying only thank you for your continued love and support. We are keeping our fingers crossed. Joan rivers was rushed to mt. Sinai hospital after going into cardiac and respiratory arrest thursday. It is unclear how long rivers may have gone without oxygen but tmz is reporting the 81yearold is on life support. Am i the only one that thinks this is [ bleep ] . Reporter rivers is beloved by many. From celebrities like seth rogan who tweeted, i really need joan rivers to be okay. To Fashion Police cohost kelly osborn. For the first time i got down on my knees and prayed tonight. I encourage you to do the same even workers at a restaurant she frequented who say she was just here wednesday night. She walked by. Very sweet. Reporter but hours later rivers ended up here. The start of a now fourday vigil. Her family by her side as fans and media wait for any word. Rivers is described as resting comfortably. Her former writing partner told reporters outside the hospital here over the weekend that he was with her at that dinner on wednesday night and in true joan rivers form, she joked about going in for that surgery. All right. Kristen dahlgren, thanks so much. A lot of people rooting this morning for joan rivers. We include ourselves in that. Sending our best to her and her family. Meanwhile, carson daly is back in the orange room. Good morning. Welcome back. Hows she doing . Shes great. Turns out and sleeps a lot. Turns out these babies get very hungry. I think you know that by now. Thank you for all the well wishes. Thanks to everybody. You have something about the sports world. Thats right. Michael sam, first openly gay player drafted in the nfl. He did not survive the cut from 75 to 53 which is a tough cut to make. So everybody hopefully waiting now for michael sam if youre a fan. Hopefully he can get on a practice squad. But it was big news over the weekend. Social media going nuts. Heres michael sam writing on twitter, the most worthwhile things in life rarely come easy. The journey continues. Gil brandt says michael sam will play in this league just a matter of time. Hopefully hell get a gig, guys. Back to you. We hope so. Thanks so much. Coming up, now the latest bizarre twist in the story of the usc Football Player and why police could be looking to make an arrest. And paper or plastic may become a thing of the past in one state. But first this is today on nbc. Coming up in trending, do restaurants have the right to refuse ketchup . And maroon 5 getting ready to rock the plaza. All that after your local news and weather. When folks think about what they get from alaska, what shall we do for dinner . Pizza with a little help, its easy to whip up a great meal on a week night. Pepperoni on your side. More pepperoni. Cheers pillsbury pizza crust. Make dinner pop and discover an exciting combination of tastes. Rich, dark chocolate covering soft centers. 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