And got to hand it to him. A brave base jumper pulls off the most spectacular high five youve seen. Today, monday, december 15, 2014. Announcer 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. Got the gang all here willie in for matt boy, breaking news out of australia this morning. Well get to it. Its a tense situation at a cafe in sydney and its playing out on live television. Chilling images of hostages inside and the few who have made a daring dash to safety. Lets go to sarah james, she has the latest. Good morning to you. Reporter nbc news can confirm this morning that the identity of the gunman who is holding those hostages is sheikh man haron. This selfstyled cleric is an iranian immigrant to australia, the man who is believed to be behind this terror attack that struck at the heart of sydney here in the financial, political and media center of the city, taking some 15 or more hostages, five of them escaped but the others are still being held. This is a man who is well known to authorities and he is currently, we are told, out on bail as an accessory to murder. So, this is a man with very serious charges facing him. And this drama began to unfold here in sydney 16 hours ago. A dramatic dash to freedom. Overnight five hostages escaped the siege at a cafe at the heart of sydney but an unknown number remain captive. It was shortly before 10 00 monday morning local time that at least one gunman took over the Lindt Chocolate cafe, force pad trons to hold up hands and this islamic banner. He made demands including a phone call with the australian Prime Minister and official isis flag. Nbc affiliate channel 7 released this image. For those that may be in that building rest assured we are doing all we can to set you free. Reporter police cordoned off the city center, a massive response including snipers and special operations teams, the Sydney Opera House was evacuated as was the u. S. Consulate just a block away. The air space over the center of the city a nofly zone. The Prime Minister addressed the nation. I can think of almost nothing more distressing, more terrifying than to be caught up in such a situation. Reporter many buildings were locked down including the reserve bank of australia and some law offices, workers allowed to leave mid afternoon. The girl holding the flag in the window and you know, ive seen her a lot mixing coffee. Reporter some workers instructed to walk single file head down. Authorities are tightlipped about any possible link to terrorist organizations. Australia has been an ally of the u. S. In the war against islamic state. As the hours tick by and hostages remain in peril. Meantime t white house is being kept abreast of the situation by homeland security. Savannah. Sarah live at the scene, thank you so much. Former senior fbi official don ba rely is a Counter Terrorism analyst, the chief operating officer of the sufon group. Its early but you look at the situation does this seem like one of these lone wolf attacks . It seems to kind of have that type of a personality to it. Again, as you say its early, but it appears that this is a lone wolf style attack. At least inspired by isis, based on you know, his demand for wanting an isis flag and apparently speaking to a radio personality in australia saying that everybody is wrong about isis and this and that. It seems he is supporting the isis ideology, whether hes had direct contact with them or if he is just inspired by them, too early to tell. Seeming to want some kind of attention, not only of course taking hostages but then having some of the hostages call newsrooms, call Media Outlets trying to relay messages. He wants his story out there. This seems to have a different personality than we saw in canada where the lone wolf person basically started shooting as the first course of action. This person seems to have a political motivation, wants to speak to the Prime Minister, wants the media attention, even the location seems to be somewhat strategic knowing he would get a lot of attention from media. What that story is, what he exactly wants to tell i guess well find out. Possibly in hours. Right now it seems like we dont know what his motivation is. You mentioned he wants to speak to the Prime Minister. If you are a hostage negotiator, whats your approach in this situation . Well, the approach is to try to string this along a little bit and buy some time. You want to first and foremost make sure that the hostages are being well taken cared for. So youre going to start maybe with some smaller demands and the course of action probably would be to get him to release more hostages, but i wouldnt want to speculate more than that. And certainly wouldnt want to talk too much about tactics, give at any fact this is a live ongoing scenario. Three months ago an isis spokesman urged followers in western countries including australia to conduct attacks. Right. Whats the possibility in your mind that this is someone who believes they are answering that call . It could very well be. Weve seen the effectiveness of social media and how it drives these people to take action. This could be part of that. We just dont know. I guess as the investigation unfolds well see. At this point its likely. All right. Always good to get your perspective. Over to willie. Thank you. A manhunt for three escaped inmates from a jail in rural alabama ended. The final fugitive taken into custody at a friends apartment in tuscaloosa. Janet is in butler, alabama with more. Good morning. Reporter willie, good morning. The third suspect called extremely dangerous was recaptured about midnight. 100 miles from here in tuscaloosa. He is back here in the jail this morning. The trio broke out over the weekend, in a process sheriffs call like out of a movie. They overcame the jailer convincing him one of them was sick. They took his cell phone and keys and with those they were able to break out of the jail. Two of the men recaptured over the weekend, within 30 miles away, the other in a parking lot, again about 100 miles from here. These men are wanted for crimes ranking from burglary to capital murder, and this was a widespread search. 19 agencies, not just in alabama but from mississippi, too, participated in the search. Willie, back to you. Janet, thank you. Now to the ongoing fallout over the Senate Report on enhanced interrogation techniques used on terror suspects post 911. Should people involved Face Criminal Charges . Nbcs Andrea Mitchell is following the story. Good morning to you. Reporter good morning to you, savannah. Early on president obama ruled out prosecutions even though the cia director acknowledged some wrong doing. Now dick cheney who helped create the program after 9 11 went on meet the press to meet a vigorous defense of the agency. Id do it again in a minute. A com pattive dick cheney denounced the report as unfair to the cia and damaging to americas standing in the world. The report is seriously flawed. They didnt talk to anybody, who knew anything about the program. Any seed of zmout. No. No doubt at all. Absolutely not. All of this information, no seed of doubt whether this worked. It worked. It absolutely did work. Disagreeing strongly, senator john mccain himself tortured as a p. O. W. I urge everyone to read the report. These are the communications within the cia as to what happened. You cant claim that tying someone to the floor and have them freeze to death is not torture. Reporter cheney did not back down when chuck todd cited where interrogators went beyond the rules. Then suspected, subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and hydration. That does not neat definition what if was used in the program. I understand. Does that neat definition of torture . In my mind i told you. Its what 19 guys armed with Airline Tickets and box cutters did to 3,000 americans on 9 11. Let me go to ramand, chained, doused with water, froze to death in cia custody. A case of mistaken identity. Right. But the problem i have is with all of the folks that we did release, that end up back on the battlefield. This debate is not going away soon but unlike previous investigations of the Intelligence Agency its for the most part divided on partisan lines which will not make it easy to agree on reforms that might be needed. Back to you, savannah and willie. Thank you very much. More hollywood stars now getting caught up in that massive computer hack at Sony Pictures, the studio is fighting back. Nbcs joe fryer is in los angeles. Good morning. Good morning. Employees say sony is planning a town hall meeting today t the hackers are still releasing files from the cyber attack, and promising even more as sony tries to control the damage. For the eighth time hackers have released a batch of files stolen from Sony Pictures. Its a mind boggling amount of data. The expectation is they will continue to release data all the way up until Christmas Day. Reporter the hackers told Media Outlets to expect a christmas gift, saying it will be larger quantities of data and more interesting putting Sony Pictures into the worst state. Throughout the weekend some websites including the daily beast published new revelations, unkind emails from executives about will smiths family and gushing messages about ryan gosling. The Production Company behind the next james bond film. Daniel crane. Reporter says an early version of the screen play was taken by hackers, in a statement producers concerned that third party who is received the stolen screen play may seek to publish it or its contents. Attorneys now in damage control sent letters to media organizations saying the company does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use of stolen information. But an editor with variety says its the hackers who have made the information public. If journalists werent reporting bloggers are or people on line talking about it and reading it so i think its going to be hard to control the information now that its out there. Reporter in a scathing open ed aaron skorken the subject of a few emails blasted the media for publishing from the hack saying every news outlet that did the bidding is morally trae sonnous and spectacularly dishonorable. This hack doesnt just impact executives and stars, hackers publish Social Security numbers and other private data from sony employees in a strange twist the site which partners says the haerks are offering not to release stolen data from employee the employees write in and ask. Wow so this is not going away. Turn natalie now. The investigation of the promising young athlete. Police have made an arrest in the shooting death of a football player. The 18yearold was shot at an auburn apartment complex sunday morning. Officers responding to a call of gun shots found mitchell and rushed him to the hospital, where he later died. Police later arrested 22yearold marcal hart and charged him with murder. The shooting stemmed from an argument. A School District in pennsylvania is on lockdown this morning as police hunt for a gunman in a string of deadly shootings, this is happening in montgomery county, a suburban area northwest of philadelphia with reports of up to five people killed. The gunman is suspected to abmilitary veteran. A 17 Story Building came crashing to the ground in a matter of seconds near detroit on sunday. The vacant building owned by oaklllege t 42yearold building needed to come down so the College Posted an option on ebay with the right to push the ignition button. The winning bid of 8,000 will go to a student scholarship program. The most recognizable face in hockey the latest player in the nhl to come down with the mumps. The Pittsburgh Penguins announced that Sidney Crosby has been officially diagnosed with the disease. He will sit out his Third Straight game tonight. He joins at least ten other nhl players to have been diagnosed with the disease this season. According to the cdc the mumps are rare in the u. S. And vaccines prevent most but not all cases. And we have breathtaking video, this death defying stunt we showed you earlier, australian base jumper nathan jones attempting what many call the first airtoground high five. Jones you see him flying above bolders and smashes through that giant hand held up by a Team Member Part of an effort to raise awareness for a well Water Project in africa. Another good cause. Incredible video. Thats amazing. Download. Remember that. Natalie, thank you so much. A check of the weather. Yes, we do. Were really warm air out there. About 150 million americans are experiencing above normal temperatures, ahead of this we have showers and thunderstorms, st. Louis looking at wet weather. It will clear up later on this afternoon. Getting up to 58 in st. Louis, about 20 degrees above normal. Behind the system we have colder air. A colder side to this storm and well look at snow but generally, about a half inch to an inch of rain but as you get your way north of minneapolis, about 1 to 3 inches back through parts of southern south dakota and northern nebraska. Could see upwards of 6 to 9 inches of snow. Well get to your local forecast in the next 30 seconds. Next 30 seconds. Good morning, im meteorologist Christina Loren. We have some really heavy rain showers coming down now. We have another wave of moisture, all of these bands of rain are going to move onshore as we head throughout the second half of the day. Youll want to keep your umbrella handy. Getting into this afternoon, heavy rain at times, by tonight, starting to clear you out. More rain by tomorrow afternoon. Tamron is in for car son this morning. This story is crazy. Uber is busy. There are a lot of people disappointed in uber, thats the Car Service Company so. Heres the conversation online. Highly focused on the hostage situation in sydney. Sydney siege, the number one trend for much of the night. But as the events unfolded the Car Service Company uber has become a hot topic as well. The situation is when theres an increased demand in transportation in an area uber increases its rate. The sydney Business District at the heart of this hostage situation, there was an increase in calls for people looking for transportation. Uber uses an Automated System to determine the pricing. If there is high demand as i mentioned uber increases the price so to bring in more drivers to the area. As a result in sydney uber cars jumped four times higher than the normal fare for the area. Social media went crazy on this. This is from ben white. He writes, he tweeted out how can there not be a human being at uber who can turn off the algorithm that leads to pr disasters like this. Uber has been active responding to hundreds of people individually in some cases, and say pricing is automated and they took action and now they made trips free for riders in the area. That continues now. And uber is offering refunds to any one who has was charged a higher amount. The theme that were hearing from people on social media really is where are the humans . Where is the humanity in Something Like this happens. The latest uber backlash. Thank you very much. Coming up, why the Rolling Stone reporter who wrote the story about an alleged Sexual Assault at the university of virginia is now apologizing to students mentioned in the article. And keep a neutral mind. Bill cosby speaking out about those Sexual Assault allegations and how media is handling them. Well have that. First this is today on nbc. H his comments. Well have that. 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