Stepped up for the Independence Day weekend. How will that, the weather and the crowds impact your plans . Party on the plaza. Were kicking off the Holiday Weekend in a big way with a live concert from Rachel Platten. Today friday, july 1st, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today. With matt lauer and savannah guthrie. Live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning. Welcome to today on this friday morning. Huge crowd out on the plaza for a summer concert im matt lauer, tamron is in for savanna while she wraps up vacation. Rachel platten is here. Shes the queen the anthem. This is a good day. Before the holiday, rachel, huge crowd. Weather cooperating for the time being. We will get to that later. First our stop story. This is a new twist in the governments investigation of Hillary Clintons emails and the role of attorney general Loretta Lynch. After a controversial meeting with bill clinton raised some eyebrows. Andrea mitchell has this covered. Good morning to you. Good morning, matt. Because of the political up roar over that meeting between lynch and former president bill clinton in a highly unusual step in the middle of an investigation lynch will announce today that she will accept the recommendation of career prosecutors and the fbi on the Hillary Clinton email case. And not overrule not overrule t. This stems from what she described as a chance encounter. The former president in phoenix campaigning for his wife. The attorney general visiting local police. But it was a 30minute meeting on her government plane when they crossed paths at the airport thats causing controversy. I actually thought they were joking. I thought the people that told me i said no way. Theres no way thats going to happen. And it happened. And im just flabbergasted by it. I think its amazing. Judicial watch demanding an investigation. Lynch calling it a social chat about golf and grandchildren. There was no discussion of any matter pending before the department. There was no discussion of benghazi. No discussion of the state Department Emails by way of example. Reporter even some democrats expressing uneasiness about the meeting. Axelrod saying i take them at their word but foolish to create such optics. Senator cory booker and Chuck Schumer defending lynch. The president not commenting when asked. Thank you very much, everybody. Reporter donald trump also courting controversy with a crack about mexico while blasting free trade deals. Hearing a plane overhead during his remarks he quipped that could be a mexican plane there planning to attack. Chris christie and Newt Gingrich are being vetted as possible trump running mates. As trump moves toward his Vice President ial choice, the Clinton Campaign is dealing with selfinflicted wound of the blowup over the email investigation. A controversy not likely to be diminished by the attorney generals speech today. Andrea, thank you very much. Lets bring in mark halperin. You think Loretta Lynch is doing the right thing here but in some ways has this jeopardized the investigation . It hurts it. People suspicious of this will become more suspicious. She probably would have done this anyway and deferred to career prosecutors and fbi both because its the right thing to do and because the appearance would be horrible. This is the president s appointee as attorney general. It makes the decision now even more high profile. To optics of this, the clintons know better than anyone else what the appearance in this decisive world we live in. Why this error . Why this unnecessary meeting . The most obvious explanation and probably the right one is bill clinton is a really social guy, right. Weve all seen situations where famous people on the tarmac, the two planes, its fun. Lets go over and visit. Someone, bill clinton, Loretta Lynch, or someone who worked for them standing there should have said this is the wrong time for a social meeting. The fact it was 30 minutes is arousing a lot of suspicion talking aboutolf and grandkids for 30 minutes, thats a long time without commercial breaks. Thats a solid 30 minutes. The president knew this was a critical time. Im sure he regrets it. The suspicion the former president. Yes. Suspicion will never go away. This plays right into the narrative that a lot of republicans and Many Democrats as well have about or have been using with the clintons. They play by their own set of rules and theyre above everything. This doesnt help her. It doesnt help. Its totally selfinflicted. It puts the attorney general in a horrible position. She has to take this extraordinary step today. Yesterday she defended saying there was nothing to it. Ill be curious to hear if she said she made a mistake. President clinton made a mistake. People critical of him said he did it to try to influence the investigation. Theres no way for him to without a transcript of the conversation, theres no way for him to prove to people thats not what this was about. Mark halperin. Appreciate it. Holiday travel rush is on. Security stepped up as nation gears up for the fourth of july weekend. We have it covered from many angles this morning starting with nbc National Correspondent peter alex errander in a helico over n york city. Jeh johnson saying americans should expect to see more security across this country ahead of this fourth of july Holiday Weekend. Cities beefing up security from San Francisco to miami. You can see live pictures right now. Were traveling over the Staten Island expressway en route to the George Washington bridge. These bridges and tunnels in new york city alone going to have more than 2 Million People traveling in and through them over the course of this weekend. Hesitant Law Enforcement officers are to give specifics about security this weekend but be clear they will be highly visible. Their priority to be seen and to keep you safe. In new york city this morning, an effort ahead of july 4th. The unit on alert armed with military grade assault rifles. The department telling nbc news the Counterterrorism Team will have a presence. A striking show of force after recent terror attacks in orlando and istanbul. Major cities across the country taking no chances. I dont think people should be afraid today but people should be more aware. Reporter like in houston. Reporter theyre already getting ready for the fourth of July Celebration in houston. Part of that is large security presence to protect the 100,000 people coming downtown for the concert and the fireworks. Reporter nbcs ron mott in chicago. Reporter security fencing ready to go up here at chicagos navy pier. They expect more than 400,000 over the Holiday Weekend. Every visitor will have bags checked to pull off two firework displays. Reporter and Miguel Almaguer in los angeles. Reporter at this command center staffed by lapd 24 7, they are on heightened awareness though they know of no specific threat. They are watching millions in this city coming and going all weekend. Reporter training for worst case scenarios. The big concern is soft targets like airports, trains, restaurants and malls. All with huge crowds and nearly impossible to fully protect. Again right now live picture above the bridge that connects brooklyn and Staten Island. At this hour you can see Traffic Building up ahead of the holiday. Police in major cities insist they are prepared. Authorities nationally right now, federal authorities telling us theres no intelligence that suggests any attack of any kind right now is imminent. Tamron, matt, back to you. Thank you very much. Lets go to dylan in the orange room. We turned it into a command center for travel this morning. Dylan, what are you seeing . It sounds cooler when you put it that way. There will be a lot of people traveling this Holiday Weekend no doubt. In fact, aaa is predicting that more than 40 Million People will be traveling from home and 3 million of those alone at the airport. Lets take a look at some of the airports. Heres chicagos ohare where the current wait time is about 30 minutes. How do we know . You can logon to tsa. Gov and check the wait times at different airports. Plug it in if youre going to the airport and check the current wait time. At Laguardia Airport right now, things are slow going and part of the reason is because flight costs are 9 cheaper than this time last year and hotels of cheaper as well. That has a lot of people traveling. Lets look at some of the flights that were seeing in the northeast. All of this white you see on flightaware. Com indicates where most of the activity is and its busy in the northeast. Talking about the roads, you can see in washington, d. C. , things are starting to get slow going and i95 corridor thats going to be one of the toughest roads to travel from washington, d. C. Up to massachusetts. Mainly because of the nice weather and clear skies, beach weather, that will have people traveling and of course there will be 32 Million People on the roads making it slow as well. Looking at atlanta, things are looking okay right now. One of the things they want to point out is part of the reason things get slow on the road is because theyll have to have emergency rescues for 300 vehicles, roadside assistance, because of dead batteries, flat tires and lockouts. Make sure your car is up to speed before you hit the road and maybe that will help on the roads. Either way, it will be slow going. Thank you very much. Will weather be well done for our cookouts . Keep an extra set of keys. Someone else should hold onto them. Lets show you what happened in las vegas and we may see this again in parts of the midwest and plains. Heavy rain all of a sudden dry washes turned into rivers causing big problems. Dylan talked about the airports and the roads, here in the northeast weve got a potential problem later this afternoon when a lot of flights will take off from burlington to richmond. Strong winds, gusts, hail, tornadoes possible. Well be watching this. As this system pushes in, were going to look for those thunderstorms firing up by late in the afternoon into the evening hours and then drier conditions behind the front. The other danger spot were watching, the potential for serious flooding this weekend. Abundant moisture coming out of the gulf right along this front. Systems are going to form. Were talking flash flooding. Rainfall amounts over the next five days especially from Central Kansas into Central Indiana could reach 7 to 10 inches of rain by monday morning. Flooding could be a very big problem that were talking about by monday. Well see you in a couple minutes. Thank you very much. Now to what appears to be a tragic accident on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Sheinelle jones is here with that. A boy nearly drown in a pool this morning. This morning hes fighting for his life. This morning more trouble for Royal Caribbeans anthem of the seas. The cruise ship forced to head back to port in new jersey after an unidentified 8yearold boy fell into one of the ships pools. The child was under water for eight to ten minutes before he was pulled out. The cruise ship left new jersey thursday afternoon bound for bermuda. Medical emergency on the ship while out at sea. Medical staff on the ship performed cpr on the boy and an nypd helicopter landed on the ship to take the boy to the hospital. Early this morning Royal Caribbean tweeting, we are assisting family of 8yearold boy sailing on anthem of the seas who had an accident and our care team is providing support to his family. Please join us in keeping them in our thoughts and prayers. The ship sailed into a storm with high winds and 30foot waves frightening passengers and damaging the ship. Later that same month, another cruise was cut short due to an outbreak of the norovirus. Royal caribbean confirming the child is from maryland and traveling with a large group around 50 people taken back to maryland by bus last night. Guys . Sheinelle, thank you. To the latest on the istanbul airport attack. Today Turkish Police detained 11 more people in connection with the raids. Officials have not identified the attackers that killed more than 40 people at the airport on tuesday. However, Police Sources told nbc news there has been no official claim of responsibility, officials have said it bears the hallmark of isis. All right. Now to a deadly first of its kind crash involving selfdriving cars. It has tesla facing some new scrutiny this morning. We go to a Tesla Dealership in palo alto, california, where the company has headquarters. Good morning. Reporter some customers and investors may secondguess tesla this morning after they revealed a car crash related to the autopilot mode and now u. S. Investigators are launching an investigation. In april, josh brown posted this video in selfdriving mode. Watch as it narrowly avoids a truck that tries to enter his lane on a highway. A month later, the 40yearold brown was dead. According to police a tractortrailer turned left in front of him at an intersection in florida, the tesla engaged in autopilot mode didnt stop. Tesla declined our request for an interview about the incident but in a statement said in part, neither autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractortrailer against a brightly lit sky to the brake was not applied. Tesla immediately reported the accident to the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration adding this is the first known fatality in over 130 million miles where autopilot was activated. Among all vehicles in the u. S. , theres a fatality every 94 million miles. El elon tweeted. Other Companies LikeGeneral Motors and google are racing to make it happen. Automakers will be watching this investigation closely. What investigators are looking for is the data leading up to the accident. Did the autopilot system tell the driver theres a truck up ahead or did it not see the truck . Reporter federal regulators say theyre launching a preliminary investigation of 25,000 teslas across the country and certainly investors taking note this morning. The stock is down more than 3 in premarket trading. Thank you very much. Lets get the rest of the forecast now from al. All right. Thanks so much. Lets show you what we have going on right now. We have that risk of strong storms in the northeast. Probably going to be more toward the latter part of the day. If youre flying out early this morning, early this afternoon, you should be all right. We have showers and thunderstorms stretching all of the way down into florida today. Weve also got a slight risk of strong storms back through the central plains. Big dome of High Pressure will be dominating. A spectacular day in chicago. Sunshine, 73. 77 in minneapolis. Look for kansas city with a high of st. Louis with a high of 86 degrees. Out west, beautiful weather. Plenty of sunshine in seattle and 77 degrees. And in los angeles, sunny skies and 82 degrees. Well get to y good morning. Im meteorologist kari hall. In the east bay it is 51 degrees. Its 54 in the north bay with highs today reaching the upper 80s in the north bay as well as the south bay. The peninsula will be up to 80 degrees in mid 70s for the east bay. Trivalley will be one of the hot spots though make it into the 90s. And we will have more of this weather as we head into the weekend with a wide range in temperatures. And thats yourweather. Guys. Thank you very much, al. Just ahead a new trial ordered for a man whose conviction was the subject of that popular podcast serial. A special rossen report to keep your family safe on the fourth of july. First on today this is today on nbc. Coming up, john mick en row . Wait until you see this guys epic tantrum at wimbledon. We have a concert from Rachel Platten, fight song, and be inspired. It took her 15 years to order a hit, but once she did she has never looked back and we have an enormous crowd on the pre holiday friday to get to her concert in our 8 30 half hour. First a look at your local news and weather. Ba da ba ba ba. Ad, and my sweethearts handsome,gone sayonara. Rance. This scarf, all thats left to remember. What she washed this like a month ago hows a guy supposed to move on the long lasting scent of gain flings. We invited women to a spa to dish soap. Body wash. You may not feel it, but some body washes can contain cleansers found in dish soap. Dove body wash is different. 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