good wednesday morning. coming up today, senseless murder of a baseball player and the teens charged in the horrific killing. what could have been a shooting massacre. an incredible scene in michigan caught op tape, and the driver is expected to recover. plus, beau biden at one of the major cancer hospitals. and a massive fire in the motor city. "early today" starts right now. >> announcer: this is "early today" for wednesday, august 21st. good morning to you. a harrowing day in an atlanta suburb after a run-in with a gunman there.

a man with an ak-47 walking into an elementary school and ordering an employee to call a local tv station. he then opened fire. no one was injured, students were evacuated as a precaution there. david gregory has more. >> reporter: reports of gunfire near atlanta. the children were escorted to the back of the school grounds for safety. as dozens of law enforcement agents scoured the campus. >> i never thought something like this would happen in my neighborhood, period. >> reporter: police say a 20-year-old carrying an ak-47 and other weapons slipped past the buzzer security system and into the school by following behind someone authorized to enter. >> at the front office he barricaded himself with a couple of office employees. >> reporter: as police arrived, the gunman left the office,

firing at least a half dozen rounds at responding officers. >> officers were able to return fire when they saw him alone. >> reporter: when police fired back, the suspect dropped to the ground and surrendered. >> my husband called, is the baby at the school, what? >> reporter: hundreds scrambled to a nearby walmart parking lot waiting for hours to be reunited with their children. >> we are so blessed and pleased that all of our children are safe, all of our employees are safe. >> reporter: safe and back in the arms of loved ones. kurt gregory, nbc news. vice president joe biden's son remains at an anderson cancer center after undergoing medical tests on tuesday. bo biden set off a string of doctors visits. it's not clear what he's being tested for. this is not his first health

scare. in 2010 he intent a week in the hospital after a mild stroke. touched by all your well wishes. will share update when we have it. vice president biden and other family members remain by his side in texas. three hours from now army private bradley manning will learn his fate. the man behind the largest leak of classified documents in u.s. history could spend the rest of his life in prison. good morning to you and what can we expect at this morning's hearing? >> reporter: we know the hearing starts just three hours from now, 10:00 eastern time. we know bradley manning will find out how much of his life he'll spend in a military prison. what we're expecting is for the judge to come out and make a determination what she believes is the most fair. of course, the maximum is 90 years in prison is what he could get. he was convicted of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the

secret sharing website, wikileaks. the intelligence analyst convicted in july, guilty of 20 criminal charges. now facing up to 90 years behind bars. he's already served three and a half of that. they are asking for a sentence of 60 years in jail, his attorney asking for leniency, 25 years. manning says he's sorry for his actions, also sorry, he says, for hurting the united states. >> thank you so much for us. developing news from syria. at least ten villages were attacked today with chemical gas. those towns are east and north of the capital damascus. the death toll is staggering here. rebels telling nbc as many as 1,200 men, women, and children were killed. the government denies the use of any chemical weapons. more than 100,000 syrians have been killed in the country's two and a half year civil war.

oklahoma shooting, prosecutors saying three teenagers targeted, shot, and killed a 22 year old because they were bored. christopher lane was randomly shot while jogging. 15-year-old james edwards jr. and 16-year-old luna are charged with first-degree murder, michael jones is charged as an accessory. police say he was driving the car the teens were in. lane was visiting his girlfriend and her family in the town of duncan, oklahoma. the australian college baseball player was out for a run when he was shot once in the back. his father in australia says the murder was pointless. firefighters still burning in 11 states. it's 12 days old and already burned 158 square miles, forced thousands of evacuations. the cost to put out the flames now tops $1 billion.

near yosemite in california, crews are fighting four big fires. wind and lightning strikes added to the problem. the city of detroit can't catch a break, firefighters trying to fight a business yard blaze. the fire destroyed everything in the yard. it still has not been contained as of last night. now for a look at the weather, bill karins, good morning to you. how's it look in the west? >> enough fires. nothing much has changed. the weather pattern pretty much status quo. it's a good time to see where we are this year climatewise. this is all for the lower 48. normally we should be around 1,200 tornados. we've only had 716. it's actually a pretty significant near record low pace. we've only had $1 billion weather disaster so far, the

moore, oklahoma, tornado. still the rest of the hurricane season to go through, but a much slower pace than the last two years. also hurricane season off to a slow start in the atlantic basin. first storm is typically august 10th and we haven't had one yetd. phoenix 111, hot, 96 there in boise. still cooler there in northern idaho, but it's still overall, as i said, status quo weather pattern, not a lot has changed. a few storms today in nevada, utah, arizona, but as we've seen with those lightning strikes, those can cause new fires. warm day, beautiful day in the northwest. some areas like medford are per my book.

bakersfield and fresno, try to stay in the shade. no appreciable rains for the west either. this fire season seems to be getting worse by the day. >> interesting snapshot, slow start mean a slow year, generally speaking? >> in general. >> we will take that. we will take that. see what happens in the remaining months of the year. does the nsa really know how much of our information has been compromised? and a skin cancer warning for men. and an incredible rescue by a firefighter. all coming up in two minutes.

stories making news this morning. more than two months after edward snowden leaked top secret documents to the media, the national security agency still does not know the full extent of what he took. the agency is, quote, overwhelmed by the amount of damage snowden has done. a truck crashing through a

guardrail and down a ravine it goes in central michigan. you can see the truck and its trailer launch off the road before disappearing below. the driver is expected to recover from the injuries that he has. a new york taxi jumping the curb and hitting a 23-year-old woman, severing one of her legs below the knee. that happened yesterday. tv's dr. oz happened to be at the scene. he said a good samaritan saved the woman's life with a tourniquet. >> there was a dog leash and a belt, amazingly two mundane things, but they saved her life. with the two of them, we were able to stop the bleeding. water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from japan's crippled fukushima nuclear plant. the water is so contaminated, it's enough to give somebody a five-year dose of radiation in one hour. that plant was damaged in japan's 2011 earthquake and tsunami. a daring rescue. right before a woman was ready to jump from a window sill, a

firefighter reacted and was able to drag the woman to safety. in health news, skin cancer is 70% more deadly for men than women. it adds men and women are equally susceptible to getting the disease. men are more prone to melanoma on their back and chest. arms and legs are the trouble spots for women. the white house could be closer to a decision on whether to suspend u.s. aid to egypt. this is as the military crackdown continues with more arrests of people linked to the muslim brotherhood. the white house denied reports it has suspended aid to the area. while president obama met with his national security team tuesday, officials do not expect any immediate decision on the aid. let's turn to business right now for you. courtney reagan joins us. good morning, courtney. >> good morning, richard. bank of america is closing

drive-through teller lanes in several branches. customers will still be able to use drive-up atm machines. analysts say this is -- the ps4 costs $399. it's $100 less than microsoft's new xbox 1. sony says it already has 1 million preorders worldwide. twitter has more than 40 million registered users, just seven months after its launch. vine let's you loop together six-second video clips. richard, back to you. >> you can fit a lot in six seconds. thank you so much. straight ahead, all your sports highlights. you're watching "early today."

all right. now let's get the latest in sports for you. remember that alex rodriguez pitch that hit the ribs? well boston red sox pitcher ryan dempster gets suspended for that for five games and a $2,500 fine to boot. yankees' manager joe girardi also gets his due, too. $5,000 for the argument. no arguing about this one, though. the yankees top toronto in a

double header 8-4, 3-2, and along the way, robinson cano got his 300th home run. suzuki is one run away from his 4,000th hit. and a new report on the fate of a-rod. a source telling usa today he has an outstanding offer from the mlb to shorten his suspension to 150 games instead of 211 if he foregoes his appeal and the mlb originally offered a 100-game suspension, but the president denied this. there's no arguing about perfection. president obama honoring the 1972 miami dolphins, the only team ever to have a perfect nfl season. >> some of them are a little harder to recognize these days. they don't have the afros or the

mutton chops, the fumanchus. >> little bit of a laugh. leaping attempt to stop a homer. nope, doesn't get it. he loses the ball. hey, hey, where's my glove? there it is. hate when that happens. number one collegiate skeet shooter in america and he's not even in college yet. he got the first perfect score in the history of the collegiate world championship and also broke two world records. are you ready? august 31st, right around the corner, start of the college football season. here's one alabama fan's t-shirt pride. read it. tebow cried, cam lied, tree died, lsu tried, tooe owe's fake girlfriend died, roll tide. a throw-in launches a series of great passes here. it ends with a perfect half volley goal and a win. yeah, 2-0.

before we go, wind surfing in tasmania is not for the weak of the stomach. some say it's the world's most challenging. the wind gusts were around 50 miles an hour. look at those waves. just ahead, the hottest stories in entertainment, plus the passing of a legend. you're watching "early today."

well, welcome back. another hot day, another hot summer day throughout all of the

inner mountain west. afternoon storms, hit and miss pop-up storms. medford, same to you. po portland today, 90 and sunny. the deserts have been in a hot stretch, easily the hottest stretch of the summer around phoenix, continuing tomorrow at 109. throughout the week, does look like things change a bit, especially over the weekend, could even get clouds in the area, maybe a shower or two. temperatures should be dropping a little bit, hopefully not triple digits, maybe 100. >> phoenix liking sunday, thank you, bill. entertainment news, elmore leonard has died from stroke complications. the 82-year-old was hailed for turning crime fiction into an art form. taylor swift continues to have fun with her infamous mtv awards show encounter with west. the singer mocked the singer's comments with a label she attached to homemade jam she gave to a friend. yo, ed, i'm really happy for

you, and i'm going to let you finish, but this is the best jam of all time. major buzz with comments he made to "rolling stone" magazine referring to his success and the song "thrift shop." he says, even though i'm cussing my bleep off, because i'm a white guy, parents feel safe. from the time you start the inside your mother's womb, thomas jefferson called it right. you have the right to live for crying out loud. >> new video of duck dynasty star delivering a firing antiabortion speech that's gone viral. the reality star has previously said his family purposely played down their faith on the show. connecticut store clerk is fighting for his life after stopping a thief from steeling a david hasselhoff cardboard sign. officials saying, this is the interesting part here, more than

500 of the hasselhoff signs have been stolen from stores in several states for recent months. crazy fans. why not? finally, lilly tomlin is beginning to think 42 years is long enough to be somebody's girlfriend. at the age of 74 she's thinking of tying the not with her 78-year-old partner. 42 years they've been dating. who would wait that long, some would say. >> i wonder if it will feel different after getting married after 42 years. >> probably not. >> you wouldn't think so. i'm richard lui, this is "early today." we hope it's your first stop of the day on nbc.

leading the news in the new york times, how exercise can help us sleep better. a must read for anyone who's seeking a better night's sleep. in usa today, small business jobs rising as economy strengthens. payrolls are growing at small businesses, which is a good sign for the economy. no doubt. top of our news today, the nsa still does not know the extent of the intel edward snowden took. nsa is, quote, overwhelmed trying to assess the damage. three oklahoma teenagers shot and killed 22-year-old christopher lane randomly simply because they were bored. the college baseball player was out for a run when he was shot once in the back. firefighters still fighting the massive beaver creek fire. 10% contained. cost to put out the flames now

top $1 billion. a truck crashes through a guardrail. the driver is expected to be okay. i still can't believe that video. proof that kids have a completely different definition of breaking news. this right here, an anchor in morocco was doing her show. mom, mom, i got a call here. being a true pro, the mom there continued the broadcast. looks over for a second. get out of here is what she's saying, right? >> kind of stealthy, you know? breaking news, always great someone walks up to you and hands you a piece of paper. she could have played it out. >> here, you have a call, take this. that's what you normally do, right? >> sure. time for a look back, richard nixon's white house tapes, the last 340 hours of x nixons audio. ichiro suzuki on the verge of history.

with his next hit he'll join pete rose and ty cobb with the 4,000 hit club. happy birthday to hayden, she's 24, also olympic sprinter usain bolt turns 27 and actress kim cattrall of sex in the city, she's 57. coming up, a "today" exclusive as willie geist talks to dolly parton. and an 85-year-old personal shopper. doing good, wouldn't you say? keep it right here for more news, weather, and sports. i'm richard lui along with bill karins. thanks for watching "early today." have a very good wednesday.

a normally quiet neighborhood in the south bay startled by the sound of gunfire. bob redell is talking to police. he'll have a live update, next. fire crews from the bay area called in to help as a while fire continues to rage near yosemite. thousands told to pack up and leave, including some bay area students. plus, new video just in. dozen of protesters pulled from san francisco's city hall early this morning. speaking of san francisco, here's one of its famous bridges. a live look outside at the bay bridge on this wednesday, august 21st. this is "today in the bay."