The room why the former olympian shot and killed his girlfriend, reeva steenkamp. With the verdict in the case now less than 24 hours away. Brutal night for bieber, Justin Bieber appears at a fundraiser and is booed before, during, and after. Today wednesday, september 10th, 2014. From nbc news, this is today. With matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie, live from studio 1 a in rockefeller plaza. Welcome to today, wednesday morning, im matt lauer. Have you ever had this situation, someone comes with an idea and you say youre kidding, right . Well, actually were not kidding. This is going to be a lot of fun. We have never, as this group nope. Ever started together at the 7 00 hour of this show. Get used to it. What did you really think . I loved it. You did . Wed be his angels. Thats right. After i very bad feeling about this. I want to be on the record. Maternity week we begin with kathy lee and hoda. We kept it totally clean in the cuts. Yeah. Were sorry that Barbara Walters couldnt make it. Well talk to you in just a second. We have a lot of news. The latest speech from president obama later tonight to outline the threat post by isis and how he plans to deal with it. Nbcs National CorrespondentPeter Alexander is at the white house with more, peter, good morning. Reporter good morning, long day ahead here at the white house. President obama is prepared to authorize air strikes in syria, but tonight he is unlikely to announce hes already done so. The president s plan in the words of aids is to lay out the strategy for degrading and ultimately destroying isis. What is obviously a complex challenge in an unpredictable region. With isis overrunning iraq and finding a safe haven in syria, tonight the president makes his case for going on offense. A strategy he previewed behind closed doors tuesday. While president obama has ruled out u. S. Ground groups, the Senior Administration official tells nbc news the president asked lawmakers for the authority to train the Syrian Opposition which would require a vote in congress. White house aids say must happen before Congress Goes on recess next week. In a statement, House Speaker john boehner later expressed support for some of the president s proposals, including training and equipping the Syrian Opposition. Still aids say the president believes he does not need authority to take expanded military action against isis. Press secretary josh ernest. If the president believes this is a High National security priority. Reporter overnight, secretary of state john kerry made an unannounced stop in iraqi, part of his tour to build a coalition of allies that according to one aid has not required a lot of arm twisting. The white house says tonight the president wont give operational details and estimated cost or any precise timetable for the fight against isis. This is not a short term proposition. This prime time address comes one year to the day since president obamas last serious speech. My fellow americans reporter then americans were largely skeptical of action in syria, but not anymore. Especially after two barbaric beheadings. I think it emboldens us, stiffens our spine, its enraged americans. Reporter then was the assad regime in syria. This time it is isis militants and the nature of the speech underscores its stakes, but also a significant shift for this president who wanted to lee the white house as a peacetime present, now its likely to commit a potentially costly military campaign. All right, Peter Alexander at the white house, thank you very much. Chuck todd is nbcs political director and moderator of meet the press, good morning. He wanted to leave as a peacetime president , isis makes this decision. Thats what hes confronting tonight. Hes been reluctant. Over a ten day period, he seemed to be the last one to acknowledging that there needed to be a military campaign. There wasnt a political solution, and thats what hes going to outline tonight. He makes this speech on the eve of the anniversary of the 9 11 attacks and as a new journal poll shows that half of americans feel less safe now than they did just before those 9 11 attacks. And our polling shows that twothirds of americans say its in our best interest to confront. This is an odd situation. Usually they go to prime time and tries to rally the nation behind him. In this case, the nations there, theyre trying to find out if the president is with them. You know these beheadings, it was the most followed news story that weve tracked in five years. Thats where the fear comes from. We dont expect to the hear the ma knew that of the plan tonight, one of the things is the training and the support of the Syrian Opposition. Socalled moderate opposition. Hes asked congress the authority to do that. I want to read you something he said to the New York Times three weeks ago, he said there is not as much capacity as you would hope when it comes to finding, training, and arming a sufficient number of those opposition members. So is he about to contradict himself tonight. I feel like he has. This is not the solution. The solution when you talk to him frankly what he was saying to me in the interview and what his aids say, the solution is saudi troops, uae troops, its turkish troops, this moderate opposition, the reason the president has been reluctant to arm them before, they barely exist, the fear is that the arms end up in isis. And the speech will raise questions. How long will this take, how much will it cost, can it be accomplished . Can you defeat them without u. S. Troops on the ground. Congress wants to hear the answers. They do. And those are why the president was so reluctant in the first place, he hasnt got an good answer what happened after the bombing. Chuck todd, thank you very much. Nbc news will have live coverage of the president s address to the nation, thats tonight at 9 00 eastern, 6 00 pacific time. Hoda. All right matt, thank you so much. There is more fallout this morning tied to the ray rice scandal and that video of rice knocking out his then fiancee. They are now speaking out while the nfl and the Baltimore Ravens do damage control. Nbcs josh elliott has been following this closely and has details. Good morning. In the hours after the video surfaced, ray rice was fired by the Baltimore Ravens, suspended indefinitely from the league. And this morning, the collective outcry intensifies as sponsors cut ties with rice and the pblg furrys grows even as the league and the former team release that they didnt know and when they know. Reporter steven ba shrks hadi pub accomplished saying Team Officials had not seen the new footage before monday. But he claims, police, prosecutors, and the presiding judge had all seen it and still allowed rice, a first time offender to enter a pretrial Probationary Program that could clear him of an assault charge. He does say the Team Deserves some blame, writing quote, seeing that video changed everything. We should have seen it earlier. We should have pursued our own investigation more vigorously. We didnt. And we were wrong. Meanwhile, nfl commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the question so many ask still, how is it possible the league hadnt seen the footage made public by tmz sports before monday . Goodell spoke with cbs news. We had not seen any videotape of who occurred in the elevator. We assumed that there was a video, we asked for video, we asked for anything that was pertine pertinent, but we were never granted that opportunity. Reporter many find that hard to believe. This is the nfl. They can do pretty much anything they want, but to claim that oh no, we asked and we were rebuffed and had no way of getting ahold of it, that begs reality. Reporter reality thats bleak today. Sponsors such as nike terminated deals with them. Ray rice reporter while ea sports is getting rid of his image in a football video game. Programs where fans can exchange their unwanted rice jerseys. Some had no interest in the trade. On a day when flowers were delivered to his home, rice thanked his supporters telling espn, quote, i have to be strong for my wife. Shes so strong. Were in good spirits, end quote. Meanwhile, his wife janay lashed out at the media on instagram writing quote, to make us relive a moment that we regret every day is a horrible thing. Now with regard to the claim made by the ravens that authorities investigating the incident had seen that tape, we have sought comment and have have not received comment. Rice is hiring a pr firm, he will not speak publicly about this matter. New mexico he does. There is a lot more to discuss and youre going to come back and chat with us more, right . Thank you so much, back to you. Thanks hoda. Al warned us about the severe storms yesterday, it happened overnight. We have some amazing video. You have to see this, it could have turned out a lot worse. This is north of las vegas. Watch the car on the left, guy just steps out of it, and the car, minivan pulled into a wash. And vanishes. There was a family of three in there, they all got out safely, thankfully. This has been going on in las vegas. Now, weve also got in the midwest, this is chillicothe, illinois. In omaha, nebraska, more flooding, cars getting stuck in the rain. Were going to have more today. Over a wider area. Stretching from detroit, indianapolis, on into st. Louis, chicago will be involved as well. Were looking for heavy rain thatll be moving in over the next 24 hours. You can see the wide area of heavy rain pushing through chicago, airport delays are going to be a big problem, st. Louis going to see airport delays as well. Whole system is pushing on in here. As it does, we have flash flood watches and warnings because were looking at rainfall amounts of two to three inches of hour. Some parts of missouri, ten inches of rain in the last five hours. And so were looking at another one to three inches, the bullseye is central indiana. Were going to be watching these. Flash flooding is going to be a big problem over the next 24 hours. All right, al, thank you very much. Natalie has got new trouble tied to the Police Shooting in missouri that sparked protests all across the nation. Thats right, emotions boiling over once again in ferguson, missouri, tuesday night at the First City Council meeting since the Michael Brown shooting. So many people showed up there, it had to be moved to a nearby church. The meeting was intended to promote community healing, instead, koibl members were greeted with anger and voter retribution. One said the city council lost its authority to govern the communi community. We have the hosk story out of alabama. Bodies of five Young Children were found. The father is to blame. They were reported missing from their South Carolina home nearly a week ago. On saturday, jones was stopped in mississippi after a dui check point and tuesday, jones allegedly confessed to police and showed them where he dumped the childrens bodies in alabama. Jones is awaiting extradition to South Carolina where it is expected hell be charged in their deaths. Broadway pays special tribute to joan rivers tuesday night before curtain time. Theaters dimmed their lights in honor of the comedian. Rivers appeared on broadway in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The Broadway League initially decided that rivers did not meet the criteria for dimming the lights, thank goodness they changed their mind after theaters owners decided to do it on their own. And in southern california, orange was the new blacktop. Thousands of oranges covered a roadway in pala, east of san diego, after a trucks trailer overturned. No one was hurt, but the mess took a few hours to clean up. And they say, you see there, a lot of clean up to do. They say you should never fall asleep on the job even if your job is a burglar. Look at this photo, police say this is of 29yearold deon davis, they say he actually broke into a sarasota, florida, home, started to steal, then just laid down and decided to take a little nap. Passed out on the bed. Maid showed up, finds him there sleeping in bed. Well the officers did wake him up, he was still there when they came, had a bag of jewelry beside him. He is now facing burglar charges, still no word on why he was so sleepy. Im going to go out on a limb and say there was alcohol involved. Something that caused that. I needed to test out the bed. So sleepy. Got to get it when you can. Mr. Roker. Yes. Lets show you what we have for today as we mentioned, we have in a risk of strong storms in the midsection of the country, high surf advisories along the northeastern Atlantic Coast because a big area of high pressure, storm system out into the atlantic as well. Look for sunshine along the western twothirds of the country, gorgeous day there. Were going to get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. To start your car search. Great for frank, whos quite particular. Russian jazz funk . Next to swedish hip hop. When he knows what he wants. Thank you. Do you have himalayan toad lilies . Spotted, or speckled . Speckled. Yes. He has to have it. A cubist still life of rye bread. Sold. Its perfect. Which is why well ship a Canary Yellow jeep with Leather Seats from dallas to burbank if its the one frank wants. Carmax. Start here. Temperatures staying below average for us today, ranging between 77 and 80 degrees. Mostly cloudy skies, as you can see on our camera here. And as we head into tomorrow, we are going to see a bigtime warmup. Take a look at our temperatures. 89 degrees. Its going to feel like the middle of summer. Warm with storms as we head into your thursday evening, so be careful with your evening commute. We drop right back down with the cold front thats going to cool us into the 70s, and well stay there for the weekend. And thats your latest weather. Thank you very much. President faced criticism recently over the time he spends playing golf. And willies here with more problems tied to his favorite hobby, good morning. Reporter good morning, the president was just outside new york city to attend the wedding of his former chef sam cass he hoped to sneak in a round of golf. When there was request to play seven elite courses, it turned him away. According to several sources who spoke to jonathan deats of our new york station, some of the new york areas top country clubs including the Trump National golf club, wing foot, and willow ridge turned down requests for president obama to play a round over labor day weekend. Club managers didnt want to inconvenience their dues paying member by shutting down the courses by shutting down the courses. Its probably the most important weekend of the year for golf, and 240 members are not going to say hey, let the president come out, im not going to play this weekend. Theres no way that would ever happen. Reporter denied at tea time, the president headed back to the white house before returning to new york to attend a wedding. The white house explaining the itinerary change by saying sleep in his own bed. Do a little work tomorrow, spend time with his family and travel back to new york tomorrow evening. Reporter the country club snub comes shortly after the president took heavy criticism for golfing last month during his vacation. Just minutes after denouncing the militants who executed american journalist james foley. In an interview on meet the press, the president acknowledged timing could have been better. I should have anticipated the optics. Reporter but this is not the first time a president has been turned away. One of the courses denied bill clinton membership when he first moved to the area, denying any preferential treatment, even for a president ial tee time. Some Club Officials said president obamas not the first theyve turned down over the years, and he wasnt by the way the only head of state rejected over the weekend. The king of morocco tried and failed to secure a tee time at some of the same courses. Not so good to be the king. No. By the way, could we put in a call to lester and erykah and get everybody. Yeah. This has got to be the most people around the table at once. Debora and ask why im here. Callout for the president. There you go. Did apples much anticipated live event live up to all the hype . They unveiled two new iphones, a smart watch and new album. We have the reaction online. Reporter lets go into my office, its a little crowded here. Big announcement yesterday as you can see, ceo tim cook up in cupertino, now he knew about the iphone 6, and for him in a post steve jobs world announcing that wearable watch was big for mr. Cook. Lets get to the details. The 6 plus and 6, faster processer, better battery life, better camera, the whole thing, the wall is a thing of yesteryear now. 4. 7, bigger than the iphone 5 you have now. The now the watch is cool. Touch screen, works in pairing with your iphone. Vibrates and tells you where to walk, obviously track your heart rate. When can you get it . Later this month the presales go watch early next year. Coming up, why this photo of them there. The internet had fun with that. And this guy really stole the show right here, scarf guy. Well have all the deal with him coming up in the next half hour. Guys, back to you. Little did he know. Scarf guy. Carson, thank you very much. Coming up, the verdict in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial expected tomorrow. Coming up an nbc news exclus ef, right now im standing inside of Oscar Pistoriuss bedroom. The first time american tv cameras have been allowed inside. Were going to walk you through the shooting step by step, what pistorius says happened when he walked down the hallway and why he shot her. How close were they when it all happened . Full access coming up. Also we are going to sit down with a group of nfl wives for an open and honest discussion on the ray rice scandal. Why they say it is time for the league to make some changes. First, this is today on nbc. Stripping down, Justin