Seen through the eyes of those who saved her life. And triumph. The return of emotional Serena Williams she avoided for more than a decade. What brought her there. Today, saturday march 14th 2015. Announcer from nbc news this is today, with lester holt and erica hill. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning. Welcome to today on this saturday morning. Im erica hill. Im craig melvin alongside Sheinelle Jones and dylan dreyer. Lester holt is enjoying a day off. A lot of people talking about the reign of the pope. It has people scratching their heads. We want to get to the top story which is the powerful cyclone that roared onshore in the south pacific. Reports of damage are still coming in. We know dozens of people are feared dead. Dylan has the latest. Good morning. The communications have been nearly cut off. That is a major issue when it comes to finding out what is going on there. Significant damage being reported as perhaps one of the worst weather disasters this area has seen ever. It is vanuatu. An island chain. It is small. There are at least eight people dead. We are hearing about widespread devastation. Homes completely destroyed. Folks wandering around with no place to go. Aid is being sent to the area. People are trying to get by. We have seen flooding and landslides will be an issue. The rough surf and storm surge is possible. The storm packed winds of 175 miles an hour. It is called cyclone in this part of the world. Here is vanuatu. You see winds at 155 miles per hour. It is going to continually move away from new zealand. We will see Tropical Storm force winds hit that island and we see the storm surge and rough surf. This storm will continue to weaken over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours. It will be an issue for new zealand because of the outer effects of the storm. Thank you, dylan. Now to ferguson missouri where the manhunt continues this morning for the gunman who shot two officers as they stood guard outside the police station. Nbcs ron allen remains in ferguson. Reporter good morning, craig. A lot of tension here outside of the Ferguson Police headquarters where the ambush happened. Police say it is too soon to tell if the gunman was involved with the protest or an outsider as some claim. For one night, ferguson did get a break. Maybe it was the cold steady rain. Police outside the headquarters were were there to stand with the officers. We know there are things to improve. We want to Work Together. We cannot work until there is peace. Reporter what fergusons mayor wanted to hear. I know the guys here in blue appreciate it. Reporter today, the search continues for the gunman who wounded two officers this week. Both recovering at home. One with a bullet still lodged behind his ear. Detectives are working around the clock following up leads. I cannot tell you if an arrest is eminent. Reporter the streets were quiet overnight. Six of the employees, police chief and city manager have left since the Justice Department exposed bias policing. Some want the entire Police Department dismantled. Mayor knowles told lester holt that is not necessary. We think there are bad apples out there. I dont think that is indicative of the entire Police Department. Reporter also later today, in madison, wisconsin, another Police Department facing criticism in a racially charged case 19yearold Tony Robinson shot and killed by a Madison Police officer, the investigation is in the hands of the state police to determine if the officers survival. The attorney is not ruling out a lawsuit. The local Fraternity Chapter kicked off campus for the racist chant has lawyered up. I think there was a premature rush to judgment. Reporter Stephen Jones is the high profile attorney hired by Sigma Alpha Epsilon at ou. He represented Timothy Mcveigh during the Oklahoma City bombing trial. We are interested where needed to act and protect the Due Process Rights and First Amendment rights and the 14th amendment rights of the members. Reporter he says members of the fraternity have gotten Death Threats and not all of them were involved in the chant which took place on a charter bus to a social event a week ago today. We are talking about one incident with nine seconds of video on one of five buses. Reporter in the wake of the ou incident sae has drawn scrutiny across the country. The National Chapter investigating Louisiana Tech university. The university of washington looking into racial slurs yelled from the sae house last month. They were screaming you apes. Reporter the sae chapter says it wasnt them. I dont doubt that hurtful things were said. Reporter the fraternitys image may be damaged but stressed there are good chapters out there. Mckell is the chapter president for t to do for any the easy thing to do for any person is to judge a Large Population by the actions of a few. Reporter here the universitys investigation continues. It will not comment on any pending litigation. The National Head quarters says it had nothing to do with the hiring of the attorney and it supports what the university did in shutting down the fraternity. Nice to have you with us in the studio. Thanks for having me. There was talk after president obama was elected about this being a post racial america. Youve written about the term post racial. Post blackness. In 2011 you wrote about it saying this term is the enemy of communication, understanding and progress. If you look at recent events the country can feel more divided than ever. How did we get here . Sniem not sure a lot a folks thought that the election of barack obama heralded the end of races in america. Some of the divides came more to the surface. And folks who were upset about that and feeling that say, White Supremacy was slipping away felt even more we must express ourselves. The casual racism we see at ou we see all the time. The institutional racism in ferguson is harder to talk about, harder to identify. Im glad to see that coming up. But weve seen the d. O. J. Step into over 20 Police Departments noting patterns and practices of institutional racism over the years. This sort of police brutalizing a Community Happens all the time. I want to go back to what you said about president obama and this era of postracialness that doesnt really exist in this country. Talking about race has always been hard in america. What do you think having a black president has meant for that conversation . You know its hard. Its a difficult question craig. I appreciate you asking it. I mean the president in his first term had a harder time entering that conversation. And when you saw what happened with skip gates that he tried to enter it it was awkward and he ended up at a beer summit which many people thought was awkward and something of a fail. This second term he has been more aggressive and more open not only the things that he has trade with treyon and other things but sending the attorney general out. The fbi director doing certain things and coming out. Ultimately the conversation is difficult because a lot of times black people do the talking and white people dont want to talk because they dont want to Say Something racist and seem they want to say im an ally. Its difficult to have an honest conversation. You dont want to offend anybody. Am i supposed to call you black or africanamerican . I dont always know and dont want to offend somebody. Where do you start that conversation so its honest and open and in a form where people say i just need to talk about this so i can understand it . Part of the problem is black people are often seen as other and different and not fully one of us. When we live together and we Work Together and we pray together and Party Together then its like okay we are one, we are together we are a single community. And we can see each others humanity. It becomes easier to see the people youre close to but can you see the humanity of strangers. When we can start to that were starting to see each other as one community. Starts with one conversation though right . Yes. Thanks for coming in. To politics now. A major faceoff this weekend between the top contenders for the republican president ial nomination. Among them jeb bush returning for the first time in aening lo long time where president ial dreams come true or can be dashed. The state of New Hampshire. Were live at the white house. Kristen, good morning. Reporter the 2016 president ial campaign has not officially begun but it sure feels like it has in New Hampshire where a crush of reporters and president ial contenders have flooded the Granite State this weekend. Nice to meet you too. Reporter establishment favorite making his First Political trip in 15 years to the key primary state of New Hampshire, pressing the flesh in a fund raiser friday night. This is my inaugural voyage in a house party that looks like this at least. Reporter questions about his email use followed him here. Bush pushed back against democrats who have tried to link his use of personal email while serving as floridas governor to revelations that Hillary Clinton used her email when she was secretary of state. We complied with the law and have now made all of my emails public for you to see long before mrs. Clintons issues came up. Reporter the poll shows bush with fierce competition here. He is leading in New Hampshire with you Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is just a few points behind. Walker also in the Granite State this weekend lacks name recognition. He took a swipe at bush the son and brother of former president s. Telling the Tampa Bay Times this on friday. They arent the only potential gop hopefuls trying to court New Hampshires famously independent voters. Rick perry made stops on thursday and friday and ted cruz arrives sunday. New hampshire like iowa is all about the touch. Its all about meeting the voters. And this is their introduction to those voters who are so important. Reporter now, the democrats are also eyeing New Hampshire. Hillary clinton is reportedly building up her team in that state and other candidates like Martin Omalley have been visiting as well. Back to you. Kristen welker at the white house for us. Thank you. Dramatic moments during a police chase in california. Yes, it was all caught on camera. Reporter a wild shootout on the streets of los angeles between sheriffs deputies and an armed kidnapping suspect. The suspect stops his suv and gets out waving a gun. Police say he shot first and they returned fire hitting him at least once. The suspect takes off on foot before eventually falling down bloody and giving up. He is wanted for allegedly forcing his wife into a car at gunpoint last sunday. A sallagevage operation is under way in florida. The marines released the names of seven veterans killed in tuesdays training accident. They include andrew syke who received the silver star only days before the crash. To kansas where 11 people are dead and two more being treated for listeria products. Blue bell says this is the first time theyve ever recalling any products. They traced a problem to one of their machines. Were told all products produced by this machine were discarded. A Police Officer in china is recovering from a wild ride on a car hood that looked like a movie stunt. This video shows a traffic cop hanging on as the car runs through the streets. They finally rescued the officer who is being treated for leg injuries. An emotional moment for Serena Williams left cheers and tears on the tennis court. 14 years after being booed at indian wells, california she returned to sustained cheers friday. She was clearly choked up and her sister cried. Remembering how serena and her family were booed there in 2011. The crowd was on her side. She scored a victory. She said she felt like she won just being there. She wanted to bury the hatchet and it was a good moment. Good way to come back. Rain here in the northeast and in lots of places apparently right now. Its better than snow right . I heard the drops when i woke up. Im like i can handle this. We have a lot of rain from the southeast. Up into the northeast. A little bit of icing in western and central michigan. We have flood watches in effect. Southern indiana, through kentucky and up into western new york. The ice jams and the flooding potential because of the snow thats still on the ground. We also have freezing rain advisory from albany in boston. Up north a winter storm warning. We could see several inches near bangor maine. We are seeing the low pressure area from the midatlantic into certain new england. Snow isolated to maine tonight and into tomorrow morning. On the back side we should see snow wrapping around into boston. I dont think were going to break the record, though. We need 2 inches. Up near bangor we could end up with 9 to 12 inches of snow good saturday morning to you. Meteorologist anthony slaughter. Starting off with clear skies. A very warm day. Talking about temperatures later on this afternoon well above average, into the 80s. Right now, mile close to 60 in San Francisco. Mid50s elsewhere. Daytime highs very very warm. 76 for San Francisco. 82 for the nor bay. Same for the peninsula. Warm spots east bay, trivalley and south bay with low to mid80s. Remember spf today. And thats your thats your latest forecast. Turning now. With your hectic schedules its hard to Pay Attention to everything out there. Thats why we feel its important to take a few minutes to bring you the biggest headlines of the past week. We call it the down load. I would have to make an assumption that these shots were directed exactly at my Police Officers. Racial tensions also running high on one university campus. Fraternity at the university of oklahoma is being closed. A freshman member of signa alpha epsilon, parker rice, writing i am deeply sorry for what i did saturday night. As the scandal widens hundreds of students marched across campus. A deadly military training accident in florida. On board the chopper seven marines and former National Army guard. They had several thousand hours in the cockpit. The weather played a major factor. Dramatic moments in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. The u. S. Government is killing our innocent civilians he said. Dramatic video of the man who was car jacked. Thats him run to go a nearby mobile station. Tamer len leaps out of the car to tell his brother what just happened. They are the suspects of the bombing. Under intense pressure. Hillary clinton speaks out. I opted for convenience to use my personal email account. Clinton says her work emails went to colleagues on government accounts so were automatically archived. State Department Just wasnt saving its emails. Clinton considering moving up the rollout of her 2016 campaign to early april. A landmark decision in music. A federal jury says one of the decades biggest hits blurred lines infringed on the copy rights of marvins gayes live it up. 13foot alligator showed up in florida last week. Lots of people think its photo shopped and no. A 7yearold boy getting a buy by onic frrm from robert downy jr. Half the time i design one of these it breaks on me. I keep working on it. He keeps working and working until he gets it right. Look at that its a marriage of robotic technologies. Bang nailed it. One of the biggest stories of the week the chopper crash. You have got a special connection to the story. One of my very best friends, her cousin was on a black hawk helicopter that went down. I want to give my condolences to his entire family. Its a good reminder that our military. They are heroes. Theyre always working for us even when you think theyre safe in our own country. Its an awful time. Because we conduct those missions and training exercises so often, people have perhaps forgotten just how dangerous it is. Yes. So true. Robert downy jr. We all loved that story this week. It was a beautiful moment with this little boy. And i loved the moment when someone says do you know who that is . And the little boy says, ironman ironman. I loved listening to them having a conversation just talking about it. Really sweet. He should do more movies with children. Hes got a way with them. The expression on this little guys face really got me. We were talking about this. That verdict oh yes. That is going to have quite the Ripple Effect throughout the music industry. Its big. You know what im thinking . I love pharrell obviously but it goes to show there has to be a line even though your intentions are pure. There has to be a line to protect your music 50 years from now. Somebody said to me how many notes are there really . Somebody from the who was talking about, to your point, where do you draw the line. And at the same time were a all kind of influenced by things. There was a mood a feeling when he created it. Now at least officially there is a line. I dont know what the blurred line is. No pun intended. It was crossed. It was crossed. That pun was intended. Still to come are you ready . Were