Out. I feel we have a chance to get kayla out. The familys heart wrenching story and the way they are honoring her legacy and the way she wrote from captivity. Another storm takes aim at millions in the south. Another arctic blast. Announcer from nbc news this is a special edition of today with todays oscar after party. Live from los angeles and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the split edition of today on a monday morning. Matt lauer in los angeles and savannah, tamron and natalie back in new york. The award for least sleep. Tamron wins it. She watched the whole thing. I cant imagine you have been asleep. I got two hours, you got awe how much did you get . I got about 45 minutes. He took a nap anyway. Im awake now. Hold on. This is our top story. We are talking about the stars at the oscar. A lot just getting home after celebrating and while the Academy Awards expected several expected winners, there were plenty of surprises as well. Bird man took the nights top honors, winning best picture, best original screen play and best director. Michael keaton spoke after the best picture win. Its great to be here. Who am i kidding . The legendary actor came up empty in the first ever oscar nomination. The top awards went to two performances about crippling diseases. The theory of everything grabbed best actor. I am fully aware i am a lucky lucky man. Steven hawking during the struggle with als while Julianne Moore portrayed a woman fighting early on set alzheimers. Its still alice. The performances of my fellow nominees. Patricia arquette received a big achievement for accepting the oscar for best supporting actress. Equal rights for women in the United States of america. Jk simmons takes best supporting actor for his portrayal in whiplash but had a far softer tone in his speech. Call your mom or dad if you are lucky enough to have a parent or two alive. Dont text or email. Call them on the phone. Lady gaga teamed up with Julie Andrews. And a moving performance of glory in selma was brought to tears and rookie oscar Neal Patrick Harris stripped down to make his first gig a memorable one. First of all, Neal Patrick Harris is ripped and has the guts of ten men and i thought that performance was just amazing amazing. The tears in the audience watching was so powerful. What are stood out to you . Definitely the sixpack on Neal Patrick Harris. He did great with the opening act as well. Strong in celebrating hollywood and movies. Lady gaga to the point about glory. Shutting down the house. You can feel it watching it at home. You will have much more on the oscars including the social messages that seem to dominate the evening and of course a lot of fashions were on display as well. A lot of news to get to. There is heightened security at the nations busiest mall the mall of america after threats of violence at Major Shopping Centers behind a deadly attack in africa. Kristin welker is in Bloomington Minnesota with the latest. Good morning. Reporter good morning to you. The mall of america is one of the biggest shoppings centers in the entire country. Officials are working to make sure that the public is safe. Law enforcement says people should still go shopping and calling for extra vigilance as this new threat put this community and this nation on alert. Heightened security at the iconic mall of america in the wake of a video by the somali terrorist groups calling for attacks against shopping malls, specifically this one. They claimed responsibility in the mall in nairobi, kenya. Terrorists look for soft targets like this mall. They know they can penetrate and cause a lot of death and get a lot of attention. The department of Homeland Security is not aware of a specific credible plot against the mall of america or any other Shopping Center. Johnson is calling for public vigilance. Im not telling people not to go to the mall. There needs to be an awareness and vigilance. A senior official said so far they have not shown an ability to launch major operations outside of africa. The group had lone wolf operatives. They had a Great International capability to launch and direct it themselves. They are hoping for them it do their bidding for them. Al shabaab has been recruiting westerners in cities that have large somali populations and the clock is ticking in a battle over how they can evolve by friday. The agencies have security operations. Kristin welker at the mall of america this morning. Thanks so much. Millions of dealing with an icy commute as yet another storm rolls through and after a brief warm up over the weekend, temperatures are plunging once again. The weather channels mike slidell is in dallas. Good morning to you. Reporter good morning, matt. We had a mixture of freezing rain and sleet. Not a great way to start up the week. More than a foot of snow in colorado. The deep south later on this morning. This is an area that is not used to this kind of weather. Across north texas including here in dallas hazardous roads are making it tough for commuters this morning. Overnight crews were pretreating roads and cautioning travelers. Parts of tennessee were glades over boy a rare southern ice storm followed by high winds. They were blowing so hard. Snapping tree limbs and leaving tens of thousands without power. It was popping noises and you hear it just hit the ground. At least 22 were killed in tennessee, half due to hypothermia while heavy snow was caving across new england. Like most of the northeast, philadelphias roads are covered. Streets are dangerous. Very slippery. Homes dressed in ice. I want to build a snowman. She wants to see the frozen house. Reporter most is digging out or bracing for a storm looking for light at end of the tunnel. In boston right now, official 99. 9 inches of snow that has fallen in the past four weeks. Eight inches shy of the all time record by dfw international. Airlines have canceled over 1,000 flights. The average high in dallas is 62. We will not get above freezing. It is a bad situation. It will just get worse. As we look the icing starting to move into the dallas ft. Worth area. A real mess coming in. In fact we expect to see significant icing later on today. The winder storm warnings for dallas and thunderstorms as well. As the morning wears on into the afternoon. On into mississippi and alabama. Look at the ice amounts. Significant ice. The cold air and polar jet stream taking off and pushing to the south. Temperatures start to drop. These are current temperatures. Minneapolis 11 below. 9 below in columbus and buffalo feels like 20 below. Temperatures are as high as they are going to get. Look at what happens during the afternoon as we see. Temperatures start to plummet and they keep dropping right on into tomorrow morning when the bottom drops out. We are looking at Single Digits and record to near record lows. Savannah, tamron and natalie. Cold air and a reinforcing shot coming in on wednesday. We needed that shot. Natalie is here with the news and Kristen Welker mentioned the funding for dhs. Before the department of Homeland Security they laid out the implications on sunday. 30000 would be furloughed. The rest will be required to show up without pay. The budget standoff around the president s executive action on immigration. And 11 students at the university was hospitalized sunday after apparently overdosing on a drug known as mali. Two students are in serious condition and two in critical. They took the drug called mdma on saturday night. A happy ending for girl scouts in california. Someone ripped the cashbox out of their hands and took off with it. It happened in san jose outside of a Grocery Store where they were selling cookies. A man walked up and snatched the box that had about 600 in it and ran away. Ten minutes later they saw him get into a car and she wrote down the license plate and they caught the man and the girl scouts got their money back. Police ended up buying the rest of the cookies. A good happy ending to the story. Thank you. Lets send it back out to al in los angeles. Lets take a look at what else is going on around the country. The ice storm as a big swath of problems. Wet weather making its way through Southern California. A Beautiful Day in the pacific northwest. Chilly continues here and good morning, im meteorologist bill henley. Temperatures plunging during the day. A blast of cold will clear the sky, but temperatures will be in the low to mid20s this afternoon. The wind will be blowing tonight. And here comes the record cold for tomorrow morning. Close to the record in philadelphia. Some cities will break records tomorrow morning. The 24 on tuesday afternoon. Warmer on wednesday, but another round of cold on thursday and friday. Back to the 40s this sunday with a chance of late day rain. Have a great day. Our exclusive interview with the family of Kayla Mueller. The american hostage who died while in the hands of isis. The family had to keep quiet during her captivity, hoping it would keep kayla alive. Her parents marcia and karl and brother eric are speaking out. Im still in denial. I expect her to come through the door. I hope i never forget that everything happens for a reason. Kayla mueller was passionate and fearless and tomorrowed to go to turkeys border to help. Were you afraid . I you saw such a joy in her with helping. It was something she was called to do. A long time ago i accepted they cant control my kids. I have to put her in gods hands and let him take care of her. It was her passion. It was us her friends and close friends. Didnt matter. You knew what a dangerous place this was . Oh, yes. She worked for support to life, helping refugee families. Did you know she was planning to go to syria . No. What do you think you would have thought . As her mother i wouldnt have let her go. I would have talked with her. Unbenounced to them when her syrian boyfriend was called to help a Doctors Without Borders hospital, she insisted on coming along and days later her parents got the call they feared most. It was 5 00 on august 5th. They said she had been detained because of support to life and they were sure it would be okay. Thats basically what they said. She was detained, but not to worry. Parquet kayla was in the custody of isis, then hardly known. When did you realize how serious this was . That day really. After that first call. They not only took our daughter but a year and a half 18 months of her life. There came a time where i understand you heard from her captors. What can you tell me about what they said . They gave us her full name and said she was with them and she was their prisoner and told us what we needed to do to get her home. I feel we had a chance to get kayla out. We were in communications with them unlike the other families. How do you raise 6. 2 million . It pretty much made it impossible. We feel they did want to release kayla. Unable to raise the money and barred them from paying a ransom in any event, they can only watch as the other hostages were brutally executed one by one. How did you handle such a thing . I thought and prayed that she would be freed. Do you feel the government did enough to help her . I think they wanted to but i think again the policy and i dont think anyone had any idea this group would be as powerful as they were. They just thought of them as a gang or thugs. But again, it goes back to we are so isolated in america. We are so in our own little area that we dont see whats going on over there during this time. The u. S. Traded five taliban for bo berg dal. The whole situation, the demands got greater and larger and they realized they had something and if they are going to lead five people go for one person, why wont they do this or that . Did you feel why that trade is okay and something similar is not okay for kayla . Actually we asked the president that question when we were in the white house. That was pretty hard to take. Earlier this month, the muellerss worst fears were realized. Isis claimed kayla had been killed in a Jordanian Air strike. Did you hope against hope that somehow it wasnt true . Yes. Thats all that group does is lie. They lie and its a propaganda thing. They try to push their agenda. We had faith. Ultimately you were given some kind of proof so that you knew. Uhhuh. Publicly we asked for them. They should have told us rather than tell the world. They should have told us. We asked that they knew how to message us. To message us. And they did. You are always learning about yourself through other people. She was loving. She was joyful she was peaceful. Kayla taught us so much. And i think thats what i will remember about kayla being our little girl. Now the muellers are devoted to continuing kaylas work. We want the world to help us let kayla still use her hands to give to the world and to help the people that are suffering. Especially the Syrian People right now. They have been through so much. Thats what kaylas heart is right now. They are an extraordinary family who dealt with something with extraordinary grace. Why she was such a special young woman as well. Incredible. We have so much more to talk about. Next hour we will tell you about how kayla is honoring her. What they believe about how she was treated in isis custody and they shirt with us Something Special and dear the last letter kayla wrote from captivity. A lot of people asked was it naive of her to travel to that region . We will have the familys response and more of the interview including the response to disturbing reports that kayla may have been forced to marry an isis fighter in captivity. We will talk about that with the u. S. Special forces. So much to talk about. Coming up we will shift gears. The crisis facing the nations 911 system and why Emergency Responders may not be able to find you when you need the most. And matt . Savannah messages from the winners and the trend sparked by something Reece Witherspoon had to say. But first on a monday morning, this is today on nbc. Which dresses and tuxedos shine brightest at the oscars. An ohhh. I remember this day. He got so many compliments on this costume. Today is stanleys big day. Happy birthday, stanley. Hes five. I was able to determine that stanley is an aquarius. Ohh, aquarius. Thats so fitting. Throughout the whole journey petsmart has been there for us. Well get you looking great for your birthday party. Morgan here is a pisces. Such an intellect. Really . Yes, yes. Big thinker. Huh . Pethoods better with a partner. Thats why petsmart has all you need to take care of your kids. All your life youre told to tame your curls. When you try to tame my curls, it feels like you want to tame me. Dove wants you to unleash the beauty of your curls. Thats why we created new dove quench absolute. This system deeply nourishes curls to quench dryness for 4 times more defined natural curls. New dove quench absolute. Good morning im vai sikahema. Well get the first alert forecast with bill henley. It will get colder as the day wears on. We are at 33 degrees and falling in philadelphia. The culprit is the wind. A steady northwesterly wind is not only bringing colder air but producing a few snow showers. Take a look at i dont see any in that live picture, but there could be some north and west where the radar is showing snow falling in lancaster, chester, into delaware counties and into philadelphia. A quickmoving snow blowing through. Winds are gusting to 28 miles an hour in northeast philadelphia. So there you can see the snowflakes on this Vantage Point with a live look at the adventure aquarium. Temperatures plummeting this afternoon, 24 degrees at 3 00. Well get a check on the traffic now and that accident in magnolia new jersey. Jillian mele is here with more jillian . Cleanup is beginning at the scene here at white horse pike at evesham avenue. The big story this morning is this Police Standoff in tullytown with without 13 closed at levittown parkway. With we have lot of closures on levittown parkway and the neighborhood streets surrounding the area. Take millville road to get around that. And police have been out at mikes gun shop on levittown parkway for almost four hours now. Authorities have been looking for a man who they believe to be on the roof of that place. Well continue to monitor this throughout the morning. I think about the shape. I think about color. I also think about sound. I take it into my brain and i think about. What would it look like to me . My tin man has a big toe the size of a house. The lion is small like a toy poodle. It has webbed, duck feet. And he is very scared of everything. My scarecrow has wooden teeth. His fingernails are really long. And his clothes have tubes on them. Somewhere over the rainbow somewhere over the rainbow and thats dorothy. She looks like me. Everyone has a favorite movie. Now people with visual disabilities can find theirs. Comcast is proud to introduce the First Talking guide. From xfinity. The coveted golden hanger. Some people won an oscar and others strive for the golden hanger. Natalie morales and tamron hall. Al and matt are soaking up the oscar glow. Never heard of it . Are. It comes with the angelic music. Remember the movie swingers where they are on the road going vegas baby. And then its vegas. We were at the oscars. A little tired. We will have more in a second. Lets take a look at whats making headlines this morning. The bitter cold is returning to much of the country as the mercury dips up to 30 degrees below normal in some places and freezing rain expected to cause travel problems from texas to georgia. Security is being stepped up at the nations largest malls including the mall of america. It comes in the wake of a new video from an Al Qaedalinked terror group urging attacks in the u. S. Canada and europe. Closing arguments could begin as early as today in the american sniper trial. Prosecutors have more rebuttal witnesses to call. He is facing life in prison without parole in the killings of chris kyle and chad littlefield. We will begin with more on the 87th act awards. This is known as an event that is filled with glitz and gl