Classroom . And grande crowd. A massive turnout for pop princess Ariana Grande i got one last problem without you i got one last problem without you as she gets ready to put on our biggest concert today. August 29th, 2014. 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 friday morning. Im matt lauer along with tamron hall and willie geist. Savannah on maternity leave. And al roker so excited for our 8 30 concert that hes sedding outside. The dancers have been rehearsing. Ariana has been out warming the crowd up. This is a huge biggest crowd for a Single Person we have had this year. It goes from 48th street all the way to our second plaza past the big rocking horse. This is crazy. Theyre all waiting for Ariana Grande as we all are as we continue to bang bang, baby. Back inside to you guys. Absolutely, al. Fun friday. And we have a lot of people there and the folks watching at home. That comes up in the 8 30 half hour. Lets start on this friday morning with president obama facing criticism for his administrations handling of two critical situations. Isis militants and the growing unrest in ukraine. Keir simmons has the latest on both here. Good morning to you. Reporter matt, good morning. With tensions rising in europe and the middle east, president obama urged calm, but there is no sign of that this morning. President putin accusing ukraine of an assault on Eastern Ukraine reminiscent of the nazi siege of leningrad in world war ii. And in the midst isis had its own violent message. Isis ruthlessness undiminished. Soldiers are stripped and executed. And within 24 hours of the president speaking, another propaganda video of kurdish soldiers. One is killed in the same gruesome manner as james foley. The kurds are supported by the u. S. The image is titled a second message to america as this comment from president obama echoed around the world. We dont have a strategy yet. Reporter but its clear isis has america in its sights. It claims james foley was tortured using water boarding. The group apparently growing in number. From prison nadidal hasan reportedly wrote to isis asking to joan. In ukraine its estimated 293 people have been killed in the fighting. Nato is set to hold a crisis meeting after releasing satellite images set to show Russian Artillery inside ukraine last week. The president promised more sanctions, but ruled out military intervention. We are not taking military action to solve the ukrainian problem. What were doing is to mobilize the International Economy to apply pressure on russia. Reporter this morning ukraines Prime Minister is pushing to join nato. If that happened it would anger russia and oblige america and european to defend ukraine. Chuck todd is nbcs political director and moderator of meet the press. Chuck, good morning to you. The president says no military action by the u. S. Against russia over ukraine, but the sanctions we put in place cle clearly havent forced putin to back down. Does the administration think with more time theyll have a greater impact . Theyve always believed in time. Thats what theyve been preach ppg patience, patience, patience. But that said, there are still more sanctions that can be done. Im told theyve already got some put together. They had already planned a new round of sanctions even before this latest event of putin putting troops over the border. Next week the president goes to europe, that big nato conference in wales. Expect all of the european allies at that conference to be standing together with a new round of sanctions. But i can tell you none of them have an appetite for any military confrontation. Lets look at the other crisis right now. You asked the president yesterday about the handling of isis militants in syria. Heres what he had to say. I dont want to put the cart before the horse. We dont have a strategy yet. I think what ive seen in some of the news reports suggests that folks are getting a little further ahead of where were at than we currently. Critics pounced, chuck. They did. Did they take his words too literally or did the president admit theres no plan, no vision for dealing with isis . The answer to both question is yes. The white house certainly is trying to spin back the president s words saying hey, yes, they were a little blunt. They wish he would have worded it differently. But they remind us they was responding to a question specifically having to do with the role of congress. Did he need to go to congress to get Legal Authority for this. Hes saying we dont have a strategy. Theyre saying we dont have a plan yet of the targets we want to do in syria to then determine which legal course of action was necessary with congress. But big picture here, the reason the president went out there, he had three audiences. One was the media and us saying youre hearing people in the administration saying were close to going after syria. Were not close. Number two, the audience the second audience was sunni governments in the middle east. He basically said were not going to go into syria unless youre with us. Were not going it alone. And of course the third audience was his own National Security team. Many on his team are pushing him to do something faster in syria and he is not comfortable doing that just yet. Chuck todd at the white house. Chuck, thank you very much. We are learning more about the health scare that landed joan rivers in a new york hospital. The comedian stopped breathing thursday during a routine procedure. Her daughter releasing a statement overnight after rushing to her mothers side. Katy tur is at mt. Sinai hospital. Good morning. Reporter good morning. Melissa and her son got here last night but she does remain in Critical Condition. Joan rivers was reportedly having a minor procedure on the Upper East Side when she suddenly stopped breathing. Paramedics rushed an 81yearold woman to mt. Sinai in cardiac arrest. Inside the hospital confirmed rivers was under their care but would not divulge details of what went wrong. In los angeles rivers daughter melissa and grandson cooper rushed to make a crosscountry flight to be at her side. Upon her arrival in new york, she issued this statement. I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming love and support for my mother. She is resting comfortably and is with our family. We ask that you continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Famous for her edgy humor can we talk . She was a tramp. Reporter rivers has been a tv mainstay since the 1960s. A frequent guest and guest host of the tonight show with johnny carson. She became the first woman to have her own late night comedy show. Whats under the kilt . Reporter in recent years rivers has been best known for hosting and critiquing fashion. From the red carpet in the 90s. When you married him, did you go through his things and throw away things other women had given him . Never. Reporter to her own show Fashion Police on e. Im not going to say anything nasty. She came in an egg. Some people will do anything to not have to speak to ryan seacrest. Reporter she was promoting her latest book here in new york on wednesday. Scheduled to perform in new jersey today. But obviously, tamron, that has been at least postponed. All right. Katy, thank you very much. Dr. Nancy snyderman is nbcs chief medical editor. Good morning. Hey, tamron. Theres a lot we dont know. Lets go with what we do know. She was rushed to the hospital with respiratory arrest. What does that mean . Well, if she were having a procedure or diagnostic look with a scope going down to her vocal cords, she was likely sedated. The oxygen saturation, your breathing, those things are all being monitored. Sometimes the medicine used to sedate someone, the age of someone receiving the medication. Elderly people can be more sensitive to the medications. And sometimes just putting the scope down can trigger where a person stops breathing. This isnt necessarily a major cardio puarrest. But the really important thing here is every time you think youre going to have a procedure no matter how minor, you have to constantly remind yourself that although things are rare, they can happen. All right. Thank you very much. And one more thing i should say, make sure your doctor has admitting privileges to the local hospital. Because in this case it may have saved joan rivers life. Our thoughts are with joan rivers. 81, a legend. Her daughter, her grandson with her now. Part of our family here. Ive had a chance to get to know her the last couple years. Controversial, brash, outrageous yes, but a kind lady with a big heart. No question about it. We wish her well. Lets move onto other news with willie. The nfl making big changes in the wake of a lot of criticism. This has been coming for a few weeks now since the ray rice decision. The nfl is now taking a stronger stance against Domestic Violence. Announced thursday a tough new penalty for those who break the rules. Peter alexander is in washington with more. Peter, good morning. Reporter good morning to you. The nfl as you know it has been facing heavy criticism for what many viewed as an inadequate disciplinary action to ray rice over Domestic Violence. And now the league has said it got its decision wrong. Its changed its policy. And that Domestic Violence will not be tolerated. For weeks the nfls been playing defense after Baltimore Ravens running back ray rice was suspended last month for two games. 1 8 of the regular season for a violent fight in february. This video obtained by tmz sports shows rice dragging his thenfiance off an elevator after knocking her unconscious. They married a month later and rice apologized his wife by his side. I am working every day to be a better father, a better husband, and just a better role model. Reporter in this letter to nfl owners, commissioner Roger Goodell admitted getting rices punishment wrong. I didnt get it right, he wrote. Simply put we have to do better and we will. There was an explosion of public sentiment especially from female fans that without a doubt pressed the nfl to do something about this. And they have. Reporter the new policy calls for tougher penalties for any player charged with Domestic Violence or sexual assault. For firsttime offenders, a sixgame suspension without pay. Do it again, and face banishment from the league. Missing either six weeks or an entire season is going to take a major bite out of these players paychecks which should act as a deterrent. Reporter the Players Union responded saying it will defend nfl players rights if they feel they are being treated unfairly. As for ray rice, his suspension stands at two games. A lot of people praising this decision from the commissioner. Thanks so much. Military officials confirmed thursday that the pilot of an f15 jet that crashed in western virginia was killed. Searchers used helicopters around the crash site. And humvees and horses searched the rugged terrain. The jet was on a routine mission to new orleans when it crashed. The pilot reported an inflight emergency before losing rae ini contact. The family of the instructor shot and killed by a 9yearold girl at a shooting range is speaking out. They say eventually theyd like to reach out to the young girl and to her family. I want to make sure they didnt spend a big portion of their life surrounding this one incident. In the future i personally hope to probably write a letter to personally communicate with them. He was a good person, but we know they are as well. We just want to make sure that they understand that we know it was a tragic accident. And that its something that were all going to have to live with. Remarkable grace there. The 9yearold girl was learning how to shoot an uzi when it recoiled and it shot vacca in the head. A volcanic eruption on papua new guinea. The government has evacuated communities near it as it erupted last week. Those who were allowed to stay were told to stay indoors and avoid the falling ash. The ash clouds from the volcano had prompted alterations to flight paths between sydney and tokyo and sydney and shanghai. Its now 7 15. Back to you guys. Very nice, willie. Mr. Roker, check of the weather. Storms on the coast. Amazing video weve got for you. This is looking at some of the waves by a drone. You can see those surfers out there. Wow. Look at that. That is just amazing stuff to watch. But these scenes will be coming to an end as these storms finally move away. So the good news is we are going to start to see a dropping of the risk and all the problems there. In fact, for Santa Barbara on into san diego, we see that finally starting to die down a little bit. Wave height 3 to 8 feet locally. 10 feet in some spots. Dangerous rip currents will start to subside during the day. In time for the weekend, pretty good. Then along the east coast we had cristobal making its way and that there you can see just taking off. So the good news is we still have those dangerous surf advisories, wave height 3 to 7 feet. The high threat for the rip currents and rough surf will continue for another 24 hours and then die out during the hurricane. Excuse me. Im all right now. Just give me the heimlich. Were going to have your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. Good morning. Im meteorologist bill henley. A cool start this morning but well see bright sunshine and a comfortable afternoon. Highs in the upper 70s to near 80 degrees. Warmer tomorrow. 83 and more humid with partly sunny skies. A chance well see showers heat and humidity later sunday. High of 92 degrees. And storms are likely for labor day monday and again on tuesday with temperatures in the 90s through wednesday. Have a great day. And thats your latest weather. You all right . Im fine. All right. Well, we were talking about the president earlier. Did you notice something about his wardrobe . Dylan dreyer is covering the orange room for carson with the suit gate . Yes, pretty much. On thursday president obama had a very Important Press conference. He was talking about all sorts of world issues. So of course social media was focused on those world issues, right . Of course not. They were focused on his tan suit. Tansuit started trending all across twitter. We were seeing some really hilarious tweets coming in. Brian says obama says something something tan suit something tan tan tan something suit. And also annie says obama attends beach wedding. Andrew from buzzfeed posted obama is doing his next press conference in pharrells hat. So were seeing a whole bunch of stuff. We also had parodies. Saying yes we tan but you guys are a fan of the tan suit, right . No problem with this. What was the problem with the president s suit . Willie said oh no. Under the bus. We all think it was maybe it didnt fit the way some of his other suits fit. Youre going to like the way you look. I guarantee it. I dont think the tan was the problem. The tailoring on the top. This is supposed to be at the top of your shoulder. Well use willie. This is supposed to be here. And the president s was there. Right . But hes got other issues that are bigger than a suit. And the pants were pleated. Dylan, thank you very much for taking us back down that road. Coming up, how about this one . A teacher uses twitter to voice her hatred for some of her own students, even her desire to hurt some of them. Why was she allowed to return to the classroom . And the muchanticipated wedding of brad pitt and Angelina Jolie. How did they pull off this topsecret affair . What did she wear . Al and willie want to know. But first this is today on nbc. Coming up on trending, this is exasperating. This is our new favorite kid. This boys reaction to his moms pregnancy. And getting introducing the iconic black dress collection. Only at white house black market. yawn ding toaster strudel more fruit in the filling, ya . Mmm ya warm, flaky, gooey, toaster strudel now, with more fruit [ dog barks ] [ male announcer ] imagine the cars we drive. Being able to see so clearly. To respond so intelligently and so quickly, they can help protect us from a world of unseen danger. Its the stuff of science fiction. Minus the fiction. And it is mercedesbenz. Today. 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Not very much like august. 74 currently for noontime and 80 degrees this afternoon. On the shore, a risk of rip currents. Katy zachry in with a look at traffic. How are things looking out there now after the big mess we had earlier . After a busy morning, things are look