in south carolina there is a rally where many people are expected to show up. they are rallying to remove the confederate flag from state grounds. governor nikki haley has called on the senate to enter the flag issue on the agenda today. it's not clear how long it will take and if enough lawmakers will bring the vote down to the critical number. so one conservative lawmaker posing the idea his name is state senator lee wright. he's quoted in the "new york times" as saying there are those of us who have ancestors who fought and spilled blood on the side of the south when they were fighting for state's rights. and we don't want our ancestors relegated to the ash heaps of history. nbc's craig melvin joins me now from the capitol grounds in columbia. right now, craig, the "new york times" is reporting that south carolina is set to address the

governor's call to remove the confederate, and it appears to be moving forward. what are you hearing there? >> 1:00 the lower chamber here in the state will reconvene. that's the house. they're expected to take up the budget first and shortly thereafter, they're expected to take up a piece of legislation that would essentially start the ball rolling. i was told yesterday by a number of democratic leaders and republican leaders that the governor of south carolina would not have trotted out the number of folks she trotted out yesterday for that announcement to senators other cabinet members, some political heavyweights here, she would not have done that had they not been confident that they had the votes to get this thing done. again, here in south carolina it requires not just a majority but a supermajority, two-thirds of the house, two-thirds of the senate about both have to sign off on this. right now behind me you can see what is shaping up to be the rally that you mentioned,

tamron, that rally set to start at 11:00. they're running a bit behind. but that rally, the folks who are coming are going to be calling for the legislature to act swiftly. the comments that you just heard from lee bryant long-time representative in south carolina, i can tell you those are comments from the minority. the majority of folks we've talked to here want to see the confederate flag come down. take a listen. >> for me the confederate flag is a symbol of institutional racism. it's a powerful memoir of a dark time in american history when our citizens were enslaved and an overarching belief that some people were less than others and could be owned and treated as servants prevailed. >> i think a lot of it is being

done, like too quickly because of what has happened. you know sometimes you make a quick decision and then later on you kind of think, well should i have done that? you know should we have done that as a country? should we have taken that flag down? because it's still a flag. it's still a flag you know that is part of history. even though you take it down it's not going to erase that flag away out of hurour minds, what it meant. are they going to take it out of the schoolbooks, out of our lessons, what we teach our children every day? >> so this conversation that essentially started with the church massacre in charleston continues here and it is spread beyond south carolina. as you know now, late monday walmart, this country's largest retailer announced that it would stop selling confederate flag products in its stores and on line saying that it did not want its products to offend anyone. we heard from the house speaker in mississippi calling the

lawmakers there to remove the emblem from the state flag. so, again, it appears as if this is a conversation that's going to continue for some time tamron. >> all right. thank you very much, craig. i'm joined now by robert chase. he's a professor of u.s. history in stony brook university and currently at the avery university in virginia. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. i was at research centers in charleston. >> thank you for that correction. speak forging for the sat oftate of south carolina, a writer who penned the column that said i was wrong about the confederate flag. i was wrong. that flag was always about race. whatever political or historical points the flag's defenders make, there will never be a time and never has been a time in which millions of americans have looked at the symbol and not seen hatred. again, this is in "the daily beast." you heard the woman say, well

is this an attempt to erase history? will they take it out of the schoolbooks? obviously that's not what is being proposed here. but it seems that some still believe this is a part of southern culture. how do you explain what this flag represents and its timeline, 1962 i believe, when it was positioned in front of that capitol? >> right precisely, and that's what the public needs to understand. first of all, the flag of the confederacy needs to be placed in its proper historical context. it was not the flag of the confederacy. in fact, there were three other flags that ran as the flag of the confederacy. it was the flag of robert -- general robert e. lee's army of northern virginia. so it was not, in fact the flag of the confederacy. when it was resurrected as a symbol of the south was during the era that we call the lost cause of the confederacy, which

was an eyeidealogical way to reinstate the south. it was a privilege of honor and at the same time putting african-americans in the position of racial oppression through jim crow through lynching and the murder of african-americans and through disenfranchisement. in 1962 when that flag was resurrected and placed on the state grounds of south carolina, this was for the centennial of the 100th anniversary of the civil war. here we sit at the 150th anniversary of the civil war, but it was also a response to the civil rights movement as a gesture of state defiance to be part of what we call massive resistance against the decision of brown v. board of education and a mounting civil rights movement that was spreading across the nation. so we have to understand it in that context. and, as a matter of fact it

also was used politically as the symbol in 1948 for the dixie party headed by south carolina senator strom thurman. so it's been resurrected as a symbol of white resistance to civil rights skpin deedand indeed, by the ku klux klan as a symbol of violence and hatred. that's why, as a state symbol it is extremely problematic and belongs in our history books rather than at our state capitols. >> professor, i'm curious in your research as well when did the flag for some of the, i guess, modern southern people become this symbol of just being a rebel as opposed to what many see that flag the battle flag in particular that you've noted as a symbol of treason? >> well most of the other flags in the american south do not fly the confederate flag -- well they do fly the confederate flag, but not what we call stars and bars the flag that is over the south carolina memorial to

the civil war movement. mississippi is the only state that continues to fly the stars and bars as part of its state flag, and indeed we heard yesterday one politician suggest that they ought to reconsider that. and, indeed at the university of mississippi, they made waving of that flag -- they outlawed it in the early 2000s, i believe, 2003 and changed their mascot as well which was the old rebel. so this is a contentious issue in the south, but one associated as a response to the civil rights movement. and i want to point out that dylann roof understood this history. indeed, in an op-ed i wrote for cnn, he was fascinated with this history even though he did not understand it. so he drew on that cause of the lost cause and applied it against the black lives matter movement. so these things are contiguous and tied together. >> professor, thank you so much for your time and your historical perspective on this.

thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. developing now the husband of the prison employee accused of helping two convicted killers escape from an upstate new york prison is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with nbc's matt lauer. we'll bring you that interview in a moment. but first, the first solid lead in the search for those inmates who escaped two weeks ago. the search which is now focused around a cabin some 20 miles from the prison where authorities say dna from both escaped prisoners was found. nbc's stephanie goff joins us live now from the town where that cabin is located, owls head new york. what's the latest there as far as the perimeter and what they're doing to secure the area around there, stephanie? >> reporter: tamron we've noticed in the last 24 hours or so since we've been on the ground here that our ability to move has been considerably restricted. we were able to drive around town, drive off roads on some of these dirt trails that lead up into the mountains, and now we're being stopped at almost all of the major access points.

our car is being searched and we're told we can't go any further. so whether they're just more organized today or they have decided to really clamp this down kind of remains to be seen. you know incredibly good news for law enforcement in this area that they finally got this dna match. they had something like 2,000 tips over the last two -- more than two weeks that they've had to go through, and they say that each one of those, they have to pursue to its end, because each one could potentially be a link to these two convicts. now they actually have something in their hand a place and possibly even a time where these convicts were in this cabin, and they're pursuing it as you can tell, pretty forcefully right now. >> which is a tremendous break in the case stephanie. you've been covering it and there were theories they could have made it all the way to canada, to mexico and certainly further away from the prison and it's clear they were not able to do that at this point. >> yeah we're about 20 miles or

so from dannemora, from clinton correctional. there are a lot of theories how they got to where they got to. one of the theories is there is an old railroad track that runs from the prison out here to owls head, and it's a pretty easy path all the way through here up to these hunting cabins. and there are a lot of hunting cabins cabins. they're off all of these roads. dozens, possibly more than that, and they're locked up nine months out of the year. the hunting season is in the fall. some of them are stocked with food. breaking into one of them stumbling across one of them in this area is pretty easy to do. tamron? >> all right stephanie, thank you. now to matt lauer's exclusive interview with the husband of the prison employee accused of helping the two convicted killers escape. authorities say joyce mitchell planned to run off with the inmates after picking them up but she never showed up after having a panic attack and was hospitalized that night. lyle mitchell talked about confronting his wife on the way home the next night with what police had told him about her

involvement. >> how could it happen she said. i was over my head and i was scared. she said i have something else to tell you. i said what's that? she said their plan was they wanted to kill you. i said what? she told me matt wanted her to pick them up. he said, i'll give you some pills to knock him out and come pick us up. she said i am not doing that. i love my husband. i am not hurting him. then i went over it in my head. she said i can't do this. then she threatened me and said somebody outside the jail would do something to harm me or kill me if she didn't do this. >> there were reports that your wife fell in love with one of these inmates, richard matt. >> she said they gave her a little attention and it went too far. he tried to kiss her a couple times, she said no.

she said they started to threat en threaten her a little bit on things. >> lyle said she is almost 100% certain the escapees would have killed whoever had showed up in that getaway car. lyle mitchell has cooperated with authorities and has not been accused of any crime. i want to talk to you about lyle mitchell's interview as well as the break in the case. are you surprised these convicts are still so close to that prison? >> not at all. we've been saying since the beginning whatever their plan was of having someone pick them up fell apart, we don't think they had a plan b. fugitives are not the smartest people in the world. that's how they get to be fugitives in the first place. it sounds like they've just been walking west since day one. they did apparently slip through that first perimeter that the

police set up. now we have a perimeter set up again. hopefully they won't slip out again a second time. >> given their background, what we know about the crimes they committed, one, of course dismembering his employer an awful crime when you read the details of it. your experience you followed and covered some of the worst of the worst who have eventually been brought to justice. looking at their background are these the kind of guys who will try to shoot it out with authorities the more desperate they become here? >> there is no question that these are desperate guys. they did not make the best life choices every step of the way. matt, the first time he broke out or the second time he broke out of prison went down to mexico. he wound up killing a guy outside of a bar fight and that's how he was recap tourtured then, from that escape. you have to pray for the police up there that whoever is going to confront these guys let's hope in one of those hundreds of

cabins nobody left a gun behind. that's the biggest fear right now. >> let's get into the background of miss mitchell as described by her husband lyle in that interview that things got a little too out of control, she was in over her head. how often do you see people willing to help these individuals, maybe not to this extent of these allegations, but once they're on the run hiding them out if needed? >> there are three ways fugitives are able to stay on the run. one of them is disengagement, staying disengaged from anyone who had been in their life before. these guys appear to not have contacted anyone else who had been in their life. people who know these guys have a choice. i can help them or i can risk five to ten years in jail myself or i cannot help them and if they contact me there is a $150,000 reward behind that. they don't have a lot of hope i don't think, these two guys of getting assistance out there. let's also remember they're in a

place now where we think we know where they are. we think they're in that cordoned area that police have isolated out by owls head. hopefully that's what's going to wind up catching these guys and we're not going to have to deal with that he could issue. that said, if they do get through, and remember they did get through before, then it becomes a question for the public. if these guys are out there in the woods, that's a matter for the cops and the dogs and the hateseekers. if they're out in the public that's where it becomes a matter for all you viewers to be very vigilant and try to watch for the clues that might catch these guys if they do slip into an urban area. >> former producer of "america's most wanted." thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. developing now, it is tom brady's moment. tom brady is set to meet face to face with nfl commissioner roger goodell fighting that four-game suspension. we'll have the latest on the confrontation of two of the most powerful people in the nfl. also developing homes

destroyed and toppled in a dangerous storm system moving east. we'll get a live report from this bad weather on the ground. and music mogul. sean diddy combs is out on bail this morning and facing several charges with a coaching staff member at ucla where his son plays football. join our conversation on line. you can find the t on instagram and twitter and on facebook. we'll be right back. take a whiff. head & shoulders with old spice. you are looking at two airplane fuel gauges. can you spot the difference? no? you can't see that? alright, let's take a look. the one on the right just used 1% less fuel than the one on the left. now, to an airline a 1% difference could save enough fuel to power hundreds of flights around the world. hey, look at that. pyramids.

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developing now, you're looking at nfl patriots quarterback tom brady arriving at the nfl headquarters in new york this morning. he's finally getting his chance to tell his side in the so-called deflategate scandal as he appeals his four-game

suspension. commissioner roger goodell is hearing the appeal despite calls from the association to step aside. a decision was handed down last month, as you know, after a release of the report compiled by attorney ted well. they found the quarterback was generally aware footballs were deflate bid team staffers. brady says it is grossly inconsistent with prior punishment handed down by the league. they say there is also inconsistent evidence that brady is guilty of anything. people just want a shutdown between brady and goodell. >> maybe they could wrestle in court. that would be the best way to settle this. >> "fantasy island," you have that reality. these are both powerful individuals. obviously this is a commissioner, but you're looking at the champion of the nfl, and tom brady seems to be ready to battle this out and not turn

over the key component here which is text messages and e-mails or whatever. >> that's what was said by roger goodell back in may at an owner's meeting. he hinted in a very sort of godfather-ish kind of way that if tom brady were to see to his wishes and give over his cell phone, text messages and private information, maybe roger goodell might be willing to make all of this go away. now, what that points to i think, is that this has never been about whether a football is slightly fluffier or not. it's about whether tom brady is willing to do what roger goodell says. >> so this seems to me that this would be a rather fast hearing here. tom brady walks in he's asked, are you now prepared to turn over your private information? he says yes or no. >> he's going to say no. >> then where do we go? >> i think tom brady is going to present the reams of scientific data we've gotten to pore through. >> are you serious? >> yes.

there was something by the scientific institute where they gave us the science of how this could happen without any skullduggery, but he is going to present as much evidence as he can. >> but the testimony from the ball boys is the balls were deliberately deflated. so the science of this doesn't matter when we know it was done. this is about protecting tom brady's reputation or how far he's willing to do that right? because we know the balls were deflated by a human. >> yes. i think we can say with a certain degree of certainty. >> unless we think he'sthey're lying, which we don't. >> it's probably not a good idea to take the nfl's investigative powers at face value. >> it's ted well, so he's not affiliated with the nfl and his reputation is stellar compared

to the nfl. >> yes, it is. but -- >> you're not buying it. >> i'm not buying it at all. i think we should have a giant mound of salt around whatever the nfl issues an official report. >> so for you there is still a debate over whether or not these balls were deflated? >> no i don't think there is. i think what it is is that what we should take from this is that roger goodell is very happy to have this debate. this may seem like a silly non-issue, and it is a silly non-issue. but as long as we're talking about roger goodell adjudicateing a trial to determine if roger goodell made a right decision we're not talking about head trauma, we're not talking about the nfl's ongoing ability to deal with domestic violence complaints. we're not talking about the amount of money that is spent by municipalities on stadiums or that they threaten the city with moving the team to los angeles any time someone decides, well maybe we don't want to raise the tax coffers to pay for it.

that's a fight the nfl is very happy to have. >> to quickly get your opinion on pete rose espn is outside the lines claiming they obtained documents saying pete rose as a player took drugs, something he's long denied. >> yes. >> are we done now with the conversation whether or not he took drugs? >> even up to a month ago, pete rose clung to this line i did it as a manager, but i never did it as a player. and he did. and i think it's worth mentioning, in the last -- you wonder, well who did pete rose harm by this except himself? well, there is a pitcher named marrow s orksch mario soto. pete rose burned him out. it turned an all-star pitcher into a guy with severe arm problems who retired three years

later. granted, it's circumstantial but there is an actual blowback to all of this and if nothing else, right now pete rose exists as a cautionary tale to everyone else who might consider betting on baseball who plays the game. >> always nice to talk about sports with you and your expertise. developing now, at the south carolina state house, a rally is under way calling for the confederate flag to be removed from the state house grounds. 150 people expected at this rally. we'll bring you the very latest from the ground. also the latest into the investigation of the murder/suicide involving former professional baseball player darrell hamilton. what police say happened in his home with his 13-month-old child inside. it is one of the stories we're updating around "news nation." hillary clinton will discuss race today near ferguson missouri. a live report on this big speech coming up from presidential candidate, next.

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developing now, assessing the damage today in four separate states after tornadoes tore through the midwest late yesterday. at least ten people were reported injured, and more than 47 million others are under the threat of severe storms now. the town of coal city illinois took a direct hit. look at this video. it's about 60 miles from chicago. video from the scene this morning shows many homes severely damaged, debris scattered throughout neighborhoods. now, the deputy fire chief says several people were rescued overnight in some pretty treacherous conditions. >> there were some survivors pulled from the basement of some of those residences in those areas. they worked throughout the night in difficult conditions with gas leaks, propane leaks, live electrical issues going on and it's a difficult task to do during the nighttime hours. >> tibbles is in

coal city with the evidence for us. kevin? >> reporter: you can see this roof pretty much ripped off. the good news in this story is there were some seven casualties reported overnight with these storms but no fatalities. i think the story here as we come up to a tree knocked down, one of the real stories is that the warning system put out seemed to work. yes, people were trapped in their basements, but tamron the important part of this is they were in the right place. sirens went off, there was a lot of warning, they had been tracking the storms coming in this direction since early evening, and it appears most people heeded those warnings and got into the basement. obviously, a small city like coal city here has a lot of cleanup to do, but i think a lot of these residents, as they're saying to us today, at least their families remain intact in spite of the fact they may have had damage to their homes.

>> pretty scary situation there. thank you, kevin. let me bring in nbc analyst monica -- meteorologist annika davis. what are you tracking now? >> from philadelphia new york all the way to boston even down to washington that is the threat today. those storms have started to move in so here's a look at the severe weather threat. 45 million people are affected by this. mainly we're looking at widespread wind damage and we will see some significant airport delays and cancellations. just keep this in mind the tornado threat is down to a 5% and a 2% up through boston and down through philadelphia, but we could see a 5% chance. now, that was the same threat that we had yesterday in illinois. that's from hartford bridgeport and down through new york. so the timing of this is going to be crucial because it's actually over the next couple hours. after watching this cold front

advance, though storms are already firing up to the west from new york philadelphia and washington. they're going to continue to push east so by about 2:00 3:00 and into the early part of the evening commute, that is going to be go time for these storms. so that's when we'll need to be on stand-by. by 8:00 this front passes through and everything will quiet down. but tamron for the next couple of hours, we will have to be on stand-by for some strong storms. >> all right domenica thank you very much. coming up james moore, the oscar-winning composer behind some famous movies died in a plane crash. plus the new buzz behind south carolina governor nikki nikki haley. now many are saying she could be on the short list of vp options. the impact that the flag debate is having on her political career. it's part of today's first read.

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developing now, we've got two big developments out of south carolina. first you're looking at images of a huge rally. people are assembling there and expecting about 1500 folks to come and call on lawmakers in that state to remove the confederate battle flag. and within the last hour or so we're hearing that yes, the lawmakers in south carolina are back for a session, and later today, around 1:00 they are expected to at least start to take up this issue of the confederate flag at the state house that you see just there on your screen. it appears this process is moving forward. fewer than 24 hours from when the governor of the state, nikki haley, called on state lawmakers there to take action to remove the confederate battle flag from the capitol. so we'll continue to follow the developments there and hear both sides of the debate but it's clear, according to craig melvin our reporter on the ground there, most people truly support the governor bipartisan

group saying it is time to remove that flag. and in a few hours, hillary clinton will be visiting a church in missouri not far from the scene of the michael brown shooting in ferguson last summer. clinton will participate in a community meeting and a statement from her campaign says quote, the conversation will address the massacre in charleston and broader issues around strengthening communities. rick sizewall is traveling with the clinton campaign and joins us from ferguson missouri. alex, i've heard a couple different descriptions as to what this speech will entail. some have referred to it as hillary clinton's race speech. what can you tell us? >> that's right, tamron. well hillary clinton is leaning very far in on race. this will be the third time she's addressed the issue just since charleston. she did it from las vegas on thursday and again from san francisco. this will be the keystone of her remarks. she'll meet privately first with

local leaders and officials and then give a wider speech at the church behind me. she sits on the ferguson commission which is look to go repair police and race relations. this is a big issue for hillary clinton, both a key demographic in the democratic party of black voters and also the key vote she'll need in the general election. she's made criminal justice reform a top issue of her campaign, her first policy speech since she announced her campaign already spoke in houston to a black audience there. so i think she's trying to repair damage from 2008 and make sure she solidifies this key voting block. >> and also repair some of the damage by what many saw as delayed reaction from her regarding ferguson. granted, at the time she was not a presidential candidate. nevertheless, though one of our leading political figures in this country, and it was noted that rand paul for example, wrote that op-ed that many discussed right after the mike brown shooting. and hillary clinton was not one of the first to jump in to that

debate of what was happening. >> yeah that's absolutely right, tamron. so last year very different from hillary clinton today when she was running up to be a presidential candidate. she waited i believe, 19 days from when the ferguson unrest started to publicly address it. she did make strong remarks when she finally did, but she turned down several opportunities to speak about ferguson from reporters. at one point she waved off a cnn reporter who asked her about it so this is definitely an attempt to repair that and put it front and center. >> alex thank you so much for your time. greatly appreciate it. right now on our first read policies this morning, opening the debate of the confederate flag in south carolina and its impact on the 2016 race. and south carolina governor nikki haley is making buzz about her party. what will be the short list of potential vp candidates.

joining me now, mark murray. mark let's talk about what's happening with this debate and how fast it's moved in south carolina potentially leading up to the removal of this confederate battle flag. but it's been interesting to see some of the reaction from republican candidates or lack thereof. rand paul is the one people have been talking about all morning. >> tamron the entire timeline here has been fascinating. on saturday we saw mitt romney the republican party's 2012 presidential nominee ended up saying it's time to take the confederate flag down. then you ended up hearing jeb bush pretty much echoing those remarks, although not as directly. all of a sudden there was a stall in momentum. markco rubio saying it was up to the state to decide. and nikki haley changed the conversation yesterday. her and the entire state delegation, including senators lindsey graham and republican

tim scott coming out against the confederate flag. then we saw kind of an avalanche of other republicans, scott walker saying nikki haley is right, mitt romney on board. then it kind of tipped over when nikki haley announced her support. >> so the question is for those who seem to be on the wrong side of the debate if it proceeds here or those who chose to play on the sidelines, marco rubio, rand paul. >> you noticed rand paul has been noticeably quiet on this issue when he's taken so many actions to try to win over the african-american community in the last couple years, tamron. you're right, politics sometimes, you end up rewarding the people who stick their necks out who lead and try to change the conversation, and sometimes the johnny-come-latelies to the conversation don't get treated fair.

but the politics here are very very treacherous for republicans just because of the electorate you're trying to court in the south carolina presidential honor. >> wouldn't that be true when you have a lindsey graham a son of south carolina what we're talking about today isn't that dicey. >> you saw a lot of change yesterday, tamron but i don't think this story is over just yet. i know we're going to talk about nikki haley and her vice presidential possibilities but this isn't done yet. you still need state legislature to approve it and i know craig melvin said in his reporting it looks like it can happen but this can get approved taking down the confederate flag but it has to happen quickly. if there are delays of even a couple weeks or a month, that's the way in which opponents can kill it. >> back though to the potential benefit, if you will of people who are on the right side of this. nikki haley not 24 hours after

taking that podium her name is now floated as a possible vp candidate. there seems to be a major upside if this is right. >> yeah and she ended up getting a tremendous amount of notice. she would bring a lot to the table for anyone in the republican veep states but tamron, you and i have had these conversations in the past. we have a long ways to go until we're even talking about who the potential vice presidential running mates are. i think this republican race could go all the way into april, may, even longer. if that's the case the vice presidential sweepstakes are going to be very back burner type issues. >> very right. thank you very much. coming up, music mogul sean p. diddy combs is out on bail after being arrested for a threat of a ucla staffer. his son played football on the campus. what happened? something we thought you should know. just moments ago, the senate passed a procedural vote on the

fast track promotion authority bill better known as tpa. the tpa bill would give the president power to submit trade to congress with up or down votes without approval. it is expected to pass. in an op-ed yesterday, president obama urged lawmakers to pass the measure writing, quote, this is a chance to expand workers' rights protect the environment, promote a free and open internet and crack down on countries that break the rules. that's just something we thought you should know. we'll be right back.

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music mogul sean diddy combs is out on bail this morning after an incident on the ucla campus where his son is a student. police arrested him on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. here's nbc's joe fryer. >> reporter: sean diddy combs emerged from the back of a squad car wearing handcuffs the officers brought to the jail. the hip-hop artist was arrested at the training complex at ucla where his son plays football. the university says combs is accused of assault with a deadly weapon. that weapon? a piece of weight-lifting equipment known as a cattle bell. >> technically taking a swing at someone with a cattle bell is assault with a deadly weapon. but prosecutors are always going to take into account whether someone is hurt or not, and if no one is hurt they will probably dispose of this pretty early on. >> reporter: ucla says no one was seriously hurt but declined to give any more details about what happened. a source familiar with the case

tells nbc news the alleged victim was an assistant football coach. in a statement, ucla's head coach jim mora says i'm showed the level of professional that it did in handling this situation. this is an unfortunate incident for all parties involved. so far no comment from combs. his son justin seen here leaving ucla after his dad's arrest is a junior defensive back for the bruins. combs posted this youtube video from his son's first game at ucla in 2012. >> just so crazy to see him actually down there. this is what he dreamt went far for. >> reporter: this morning combs is free after paying his $50,000 bail. joe fryer, nbc news. up next "newsnation" gut check, do you think south carolina lawmakers will vote to remove the confederate flag from the state house grounds? going to tell you how to weigh in on that and be sure to like "newsnation" on face boot. we'll be right back.

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we're following breaking news. virginia's governor announced just a short time ago the state will begin the process of removing the confederate flag from liecense plates. the governor said the flag is divisive and he's asked the attorney jep's office to take steps to reverse a court ruling that requires the confederate flag be placed on state license plates. the confederate flag of course is now the subject of the gut check here. and we've been reporting huge rally is under way at the capitol building in columbia south carolina. hundreds of people expected. in fact, they're expecting around 1500 to show up calling for the removal of the confederate flag on capitol gronds. the state legislature is meeting two hours from now as part of a special session. and they're expected to add the flag debate to the agenda as early as today. this of course after the governor nikki haley called on them to act swiftly.

while there's bipartisan support it is not clear if they will still have the votes necessary. they need two-thirds of the house and senate to support it. what does your gut tell you? do you think the south carolina legislature will actually vote to remove the confederate flag? go to newsnation.msnbc.com to cast your vote. daryl hamilton in an apparent murder/suicide tops our stories this morning. hamilton was discomped dead sunday in his home in muse on the. xwart the investigators say he was shot several times and a woman in the home died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. the 14-month-old child was found uninjured. hamilton went to the world series with the mets back in 2000. oscar winning james horner died in a single engine plane crash in southern california. the 61-year-old composer scored more than 100 films in his perhaps best known for the hit

"my heart will go on" from the movie" titanic" horner. was piloting a small aircraft near santa barbara. the great white shark was spotted at cape kotd yesterday. first sighting of the summer season. researchers posted these pictures of the 15-foot long shark on twitter. the population of great whites in massachusetts has been growing in recent years because of a huge increase. their favorite food source seals. that does it for this edition of "newsnation." i'm tamron hall. back tomorrow 11:00 a.m. eastern time. up next, "andrea mitchell reports."

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symbol that divides us we can move forward as a state in harmony and we can honor the nine blessed souls who are now in heaven. closing in. 189 days after their escape police in new york get their best lead yet in the search for richard matt and david sweat. and the husband of the woman accused of helping them escape speaks publicly for the first time exclusively to matt lauer. >> you say, did you help these two prisoners escape? >> i said how can it happen? she said that this -- i was scared. i got something else to tell you. i say, what's that? and under threat. more than 47 million americans are in the path of severe weather today as it moves east after spawning more than a dozen tornadoes overnight. >> look at the damage out here. many of these trailer homes, some of these mobile homes, some of these winnebago type vehicles have been smashed. real mess out here. it's going to be a long clean-up process.