and sunday the temperatures continue to climb with high pressure moving in. >> all right. and we are still tracking the sig alert on the san mateo bridge. avoid it. >> that's what's happening "today in the bay." join us for nbc bay area news at 11:00. good wednesday morning. president biden and vladimir putin in the spotlight. >> a dramatic war of words over the war in ukraine. it's september 21st and this is "today." fighting words. russia's president in a rare address overnight announcing he will mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional troops to ukraine and warning the west of nuclear retaliation, saying he is not bluffing. this morning president biden in new york before world leaders at the u.n. general assembly. how will he respond? we're live with complete coverage.

breaking overnight, hurricane fiona strengthens ter category 4. what's next in a destructive path that left puerto rico reeling and al's got his eye on a new storm thut the new recommendation that almost all adults should be ty straight ahead a closer look at one of the biggest steps yet to address the nation's mental health crisis. call waiting. what a school district did to combat cellphone distractions in the classroom. lock them up. >> we are trying to develop lifelong habits. >> how it works and the safety concerns being voiced by some parents. all that, plus roger and out. our exclusive one-on-one with tennis icon roger federer. >> absolutely magnificent! >> ahead of the final match of his legendary career. >> being able to share the locker rooms with my heroes and idols and it was like a kid in a

candy shop. >> an inspiring and emotional look back before the great call of game set, match. and all rise! >> to left field! there it goes! number 60! >> yankee's star, aaron judge, blasts his 60th home run of the season to take his place in baseball's most exclusive club. today wednesday, september 21st, 2022. ♪♪ >> announcer: from nbc news this is "today" with savannah guthrie and hoda kotb live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. and hi, everybody. good morning. welcome to "today." nice to to have you with us on a busy wednesday morning. >> we got a lot of sports stories, happening.

we got aaron judge that tied babe ruth's record. >> he is knocking on roger maris' doorstep. >> and then we've got -- >> speaking of icons, roger federer sat down with us while we were in london on the eve of his final match in his competitive career. we hope an inspiring look back ahead. we want to begin with that breaking news out of russia. overnight vladimir putin doubling down in his war against ukraine. in a national address ordering up more troops after a series of setbacks and you have -- vows the country will use all means at its disposal, and then he added, i'm not bluffing. this comes as president biden prepares to focus on the war during a key speech at the united nations before world leaders today. we start with nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engle in ukraine for us. richard, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, savannah.

president putin is making nuclear threats and he says russia's main enemy is the west which is supplying weapons to rainy and, therefore, he has no choice but to escalate the war here in ukraine. backed in a corner, president vladimir putin put russia further on war footing to try to reverse stunning losses in ukraine. i deem it necessary to support the proposal of the ministry of defense and the general command for partial mobilization in the russian federation, he said. that includes a call-up of reserves new american and european weapons and increased intelligence cooperation, ukraine's military has liberated thousands of square miles from russia over the last two weeks perhaps in response in a seemingly coordinated move four parts of ukraine that are partially or completely controlled by russian troops are now holding votes to become part of russia. the u.s. has called the vote a sham, but it could give russia a

pretext to annex ukrainian territory, then threatened to defend it with nuclear weapons putin already this morning threatening russia would use all the means at its disposal, adding, this is not a bluff. ukrainians are still exhuming bodies from mass graves outside towns that recaptured from russia a civil defense worker says many of the bodies had their hands bound and showed signs of torture. maxime told us how he was tortured by russian interrogators with electric shocks they expected he was passing on intelligence to ukrainian forces this was your cell >> yes, four people. four men. >> reporter: maxime took me to the basement this was the torture room. maxime says he was seated and handcuffed and showed me a picture of the machine they used to give him electric shocks. what were they asking? what do they want to know? they said, you talk. you know what we want.

tell us. maxime says he was rescued when ukrainian forces drove the russians out senior ukrainian officials this morning dismissed russia's move to call up reserves, saying it is a sign of weakness and shows inadequacies in the standing russian army. savannah >> richard engle leading us off from ukraine, thank you. and the war will be a major focus of president biden's address to the u.n. general assembly this morning. nbc's chief white house correspondent kristen welker with this. now president biden is supposed to give a speech to the general assembly any idea what he might say given this breaking news >> i think you can expect to hear him reiterate that if vladimir putin were to use nuclear or chemical weapons, the u.s. will respond with severe consequences but here is the question what do those severe consequences look like because, of course, president biden has taken the possibility

of sending u.s. troops into ukraine to fight this war, so he is keeping that piece of it very close to the vest. but i am told this will be a forceful speech. the goal is going to rally support around ukraine this is a war that is now stretching into its seventh month. the u.s. has committed more than $15 billion. so keeping up that support for ukraine is going to be critical, and remember europe is facing the possibility of a potential economic downturn. so that's the real challenge for the president and, frankly, for the international community. so there is just going to be so much scrutiny on the president's speech, and it is worth noting that president zelenskyy will also speak virtually today to the u.n. >> putin is clearly trying to break the will of the west, trying to wait it out, see how long, especially with the economic stressors that in particular europe is under putin is not going to be there

so it's probably no accident that he decided to release this speech overnight. >> that's such an important point, savannah. putin is not there it's not a surprise he is not there, but there are also no scheduled meetings between u.s. and russian officials. and i spoke with a senior administration official overnight who said the fact that there are no talks planned really underscores the fact that there is just no hope for diplomacy now. you are dealing with such an unpredictable leader who, as richard reported, suffered setbacks the question is, what will he do it really adds urgency to the president's remarks today. >> at least with the rhetoric he is doubling down big time. thank you. another major story, hurricane fiona gaining even more strength overnight, now a massive category 4 storm as it moves away from turks and caicos it left a trail of destruction across the caribbean al will have the latest on fiona's path and a new storm forming in the atlantic this morning. first let's get to nbc national

correspondent, gabe gutierrez, in puerto rico with a firsthand look the that devastating damage left behind. gabe, good morning >> reporter: savannah, good morning. a massive cleanup effort is underway here in puerto rico this is an island that had not yet fully recovered from the last major hurricane, maria, five years ago when fiona roared ashore now that storm is intensifying as it moves away from the caribbean. this morning hurricane fiona is strengthening, heading towards bermuda after barreling through turks and caicos with winds up to 125 miles per hour triggering a shelter-in-place order in the dominican republic more than 1 million people are without power. a deadly path carved through the caribbean. at least five people dead either directly because of the storm or the aftermath. from above just a small glimpse at the destruction homes and even entire crops of bananas now gone in puerto rico another agonizing

night. days after fiona made landfall, just 20% of the island has power. 50% has running water. >> my microwave, my tv. >> reporter: she is in the dark. her flooded belongings on the street corner. her patience running out. >> i don't know how to swim. >> reporter: she and many others here think local officials did not learn lessons after hurricane maria decimated the island's power grid five years ago. do you think that the government of puerto rico was adequately prepared for this hurricane? >> no. >> reporter: why not >> because they did nothing. >> reporter: fiona now also devastating her town in northern puerto rico, as we saw during an aerial tour. the water just kept rising, choking off these communities for the better part of two days. >> reporter: thankfully, the

water is receding, but the pain is not we met another family in southern puerto rico reaching their flooded home for the first time today more long fuel lines are expected as puerto ricans scramble to feed their portable generators the governor is asking for expedited federal help fema says its warehouses are stocked and it's promising to send more disaster teams to help meanwhile, some areas in the mountain areas of puerto rico are still inaccessible because roads have been washed away. savannah. >> all right gabe gutierrez in puerto rico for us gabe, thank you. >> let's bring in al now he is tracking a little bit more of fiona and also a new threat behind her >> we are starting to see it looks like the second half of the hurricane season going to backloaded we have a lot going it on in the atlantic one system coming off africa, 50% chance of formation. 20% another part we have tropical storm gaston,

not going to be anyplace we are worried about. hurricane fiona right now in our sights look at the well defined eyewall. 720 miles southwest of bermuda, category 4 storm, 130-mile-per-hour winds, moving north at 8 miles per hour. the good news is the track has moved further to the east. bermuda, while it may get some rain, 2 to 4 inches, and tropical-force winds, the good news is they won't get the brunt of it. as it makes its way up saturday morning we will be looking on the east coast at a lot of rough surf, rip currents, strong waves. could be 12-foot waves off of the carolina coastline we will watch that then it's going to continue on up into canada and they may see their strongest ever hurricane make landfall up there next system, this is 98-l, a 90% chance of storm. if it becomes a storm, hermine, this is the development zone we will watch it we put the spaghetti plot models and you can see into next week

there is a wide swath, but some parts, some of these models bring it up into the gulf of mexico so we are going to continue to track this meantime, right now we watch fiona make its way away, but still the folks in bermuda have to worry about it and on the east coast we have to worry about the rough surf. >> all right, al, thank you. now to some new developments this morning in the battle over the border a group of migrants taken to martha's vineyard now suing florida governor ron desantis and other state officials alleging they were misled into boarding flights through false promises emilie ikeda is now in d.c. with new details. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. governor desantis is facing that new lawsuit and a separate criminal investigation by a texas sheriff as speculation mounts about whether he will try to fly more migrants out of the south which is experiencing a record influx in border crossings. nearly 8,000 migrants arriving daily. >> nobody can deny that there is a crisis. >> reporter: this morning florida's republican governor ron desantis facing backlash for his decision to fly 48

venezuelan migrants to martha's vineyard last week attorneys representing some of those migrants filing a lawsuit late tuesday against desantis and other florida owe officials, accusing them of a premeditate the, fraudulent scheme the suit seeking class action status in massachusetts says the migrant were lured with mcdonald's gift certificates and free hotel stays and promised jobs, housing be and educational opportunities if they boarded planes to other states desantis maintains the flights were voluntary and that migrants signed a consent form shared overnight by his office who responded to the lawsuit writing florida's program gave them a fresh start in a sanctuary state and these individuals opted to take advantage of chartered flights to massachusetts >> if 50 was a burden on one of the richest places in the country, what about other communities overrun with hundreds or thousands? >> reporter: the lawsuit comes

two days after a texas sheriff announced criminal investigation into the flights which originated in his state. sheriff javon says the migrants were lured with false promises of work and assistance massachusetts republican governor charlie baker says he supports the sheriff's investigation and is urging the biden administration and congress enact sweeping immigration and border security reform. >> like to see the feds create an immigration policy that people can understand and people can enforce and people can abide by we don't have that. >> reporter: homeland security reports illegal border crossings hit a record high, totaling more than 2 million in the last 11 months and on tuesday there were unconfirmed rumors a plane carrying migrants was heading to president biden's home state of delaware the white house said it was coordinating with state officials to prepare volunteer groups stood by to help reporters and camera crews staked out airports but they never arrived, landing at new jersey's teterboro airport,

appearing not to have any passengers onboard. >> thank you we got a good one. craig joins us two of baseball's greats chasing history. >> this is fun welcome back, by the way