Dollars. On alert. Strong rip currents keeping life guards and our beaches busy. Where there is a rush to save swimmers. Melania trump responded to questions about her immigration status. Thanks for sticking with us. Im stephon holt. Those questions date back 20 years to the time when Melania Trump came to the u. S. For years she said she arrived in the United States in 1996. Some recently taken in 1995 have some wondering about her story. News 4s andrew siff tells us how she responded. Reporter Melania Trump has spoken proudly about coming to new york as a young immigrant from slovenia in 1996. She said she got a proper work visa and followed legal channels to become a citizen ten years later. There are new questions about her version of events after some who worked with mrs. Trump saw whether she did some modeling work here in 1995 before gaining proper paperwork. In recent days, theres been a lot of inaccurate reporting and misinformation concerning my immigration status in 1996. I have at all times been in full compliance with the immigration laws of this country. Period. Any allegation to the contrary is simply untrue. In july 2006 i proudly became a u. S. Citizen. Been fortunate to live, work and raise a family in this great nation, and i share my husbands love for our country. Donald trump who spoke in maine this afternoon did not address this new controversy but Legal Immigration has been at the centerpiece of his entire campaign. Andrew siff, news 4 new york. New at 4 00, muchneeded repairs on the way for a hoboken water main system. 5. 2 million worth of upgrades. The money will help fix 1 3 of the pipes that need the most repairs. More than six miles of the water main needs work done. Police in queens are searching for these people allegedly behind a spree of credit card thefts. Investigators say from may 25 to july 18 some 58 victims were notified by their banks their credit card numbers had been used at various retailers they were used to purchase 30,000 worth of merchandise. The attorney for the new Jersey Police chief accused of racial profiling is fighting back. They say Wyckoff Police chief sent an email saying profiling is okay if done properly. His Attorney Says the punishment is inappropriate and the town is pandering to the ultraliberal. Fired. Two state senators want to put legislation in safe while keeping children safe playing pokemon go. The characters were found outside sex offender homes 93100 times in westchester and rockland counties. They want to keep offenders from playing the augmented reality games. They want the game company to be more careful about where they are placing the games characters. I dont think its too much to ask these sites where these characters are, they make sure that its not near a sexual predators home. While most characters are placed randomly, one feature lets someone lure the characters nearby which could lure children playing the game. A big drug bust in connecticut where Police Arrested three men suspected of running a heroin trafficking operation in bridgeport and the third later. Officers searched one home and found 400 bags of heroin, two pounds of marijuana, scales, drug packaging material and a weapon. A bundle of heroin you would sell anywhere from 500, 600 to someone from darien. Thats just one bundle. I should have said weapons plural. Three men facing a long list of drug and weapons charges. Still ahead, 40 years on the run. Where the fbi says a fugitive was hiding in plain sight. Chaos in a courthouse when an elevator plunged unexpectedly. What investigators believe happened. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Thats the trend as we head into tomorrow morning. Ive been a customer for a year, and it seems my bill has doubled. Yeah, you signed a twoyear contract. That first year was just a promotional price. Whos on the line . Another call about a bill. Shes not happy with our price increase. Oh please hold. Hello . Hello . I can hear you your call is being monitored for quality assurance. [hold music] its time to move on from satellite. No contracts with builtin price increases. Just reliable tv. A woman stunned to find private images of herself all over the web. The iteam exposes the loophole in the law that could allow this Border Control agents in california arrested a woman for allegedly having 400,000 worth of cocaine with two children in the car. During the stop, a k9 dog alerted agents to a staff hidden in the front passenger seat. You see the back ripped off there the kids an elevator plunged through a concrete floor at a philadelphia courthouse seriously injuring a worker. The worker was inside and suffered head and chest injuries. It happened around 10 00 at the criminal justice center. Authorities evacuated the building. Debris did hit a second elevator car with a woman inside. She appears to be okay. A loud boom. Went to the scene and found out there was a lady inside the help. The building is closed for the rest of the day but will reopen tomorrow. Its not clear what caused that elevator to fall. A fugitive in a deadly attack in florida was found nearly 40 years later in a sleeper North Carolina town. Neighbors knew James Mannion as a quiet man, but he is really william assassination attempt that killed a local government official. He is being sent to florida to face murder and aggravated battery charges. Police hunting a serial killer in phoenix on high alert because they linked a ninth shooting to the pattern that started back in mid march. They said last month the gunman ambushed a father and son while they sat in a car. Thankfully, they werent hurt. Investigators thought they stopped the killing spree until Police Believe he has access to several cars and may work as a mechanic or on a used car lot. It seems impossible. Which state claims their dmv wait times are plummeting. In the nick of time, our cameras were rolling as life guards rushed into prevent people from being swept away. It is intensely real. Taking a choseup look at the hightech tool training local we are staying on top of that breaking news out of new jersey. A tractor trailer caught fire on the Mahwah Oakland border. The target truck up in flames. Right now its blocking the southbound lanes. There is a fivemile backup. More breaking news, the now. Good day from our temporary headquarters of the Olympic Games in rio die jan air ron allen is in the briefing room. The president is going to make opening marks. I expanding operations in the war against isis into libya. A lot of americans want to know why is that necessary . Is this a sign that the war is being won or lost. We expect the president to emphasize successes the United States have had against isis seizing territory from syria and iraq. There is this troubling concern isis is operating in 18 countries around the world compared to seven when this americans want to know is everything being done to win this war now . Let me go to chuck todd. Theres been a lot of attention to this cash payment made to iran simultaneous with the release of american prisoners. Will the president try to pour water on that . I think hell try to explain it wasnt connected. It looked like there was some connection. This is going to be a legacy of the president when it comes he is leaving the next president military operations that will be active now in libya, syria, iraq, afghanistan, and its a debate the president ial candidates havent engaged in. Perhaps after today, they will. We know he stepped into this campaign in a large way starting with the convention in philadelphia and remarks a few days ago. This could be another opportunity at a time donald trump is vulnerable. Calling him unfit to be commander in chief. I wouldnt be surprised if begin the opportunity, he says that again. This is the president s birthday. This News Conference being held in advance of his annual Family Vacation to Marthas Vineyard. The president is speaking to us from the pentagon today because hes been meeting with the National Security team. Isis zika. Certainly the zika issue has become lashlger now that weve seen home grown mosquito transmission in florida. Exactly. The Administration Position is this is Something Congress should be addressing. They requested 1. 9 billion many months ago to fight the zika problem. Congress has not moved on it. Theres been a lot of back and doing enough. The question is what will the president say about that . Im sure hell weigh in on 2016. This could be a wideranging press conference. We expect this to go on for some time. Its the last time we may hear from the president before he heads to Marthas Vineyard saturday. Question about iran and that 400 million shipped to the iranians around the same time the Iranian Nuclear deal which the president says striking coincidence, his critics say. An indication the administration was paying ransom for the release of american prisoners. There is that, zika, isis, 2016. Im sure there will be questions about donald trump. We expect to see a wideranging press conference. We expect the president any moment now. As we watch this, we watched both political conventions the point for a presidency coming to its end . It is. Its been a little bit unusual for this president. I think hes coming now. He is riding a wave of popularity. Here is the president. I just met again with National Security council on the campaign to destroy isil. I want to thank secretary carter and Sherman Dunford who just current from our meeng east for hosting us. Our last update was in june after the horrifying attack in orlando. In weeks since, we continued to be relentless in our fight against isil. On the ground in syria and iraq, isil continues to lose territory. Tragically, however, we have seen isil has the ability to weve seen terrible bombings in iraq, jordan, lebanon, saudi arabia, yemen and afghanistan. Attacks on istanbul airport, a restaurant in bangladesh, bastille Day Celebrations at a church in france and a Music Festival in germany. In fact, the decline of isil in syria and iraq appears to be causing it to shift to tactics weve seen before. An even greater encouraging highprofile terrorist attacks, including in the United States. As always, our military diplomatic intelligence, Homeland Security and Law Enforcement professionals are working around the clock with other countries and with communities here at home to share information and prevent such attacks. Over the years, they prevented many, but as weve seen, it is still very difficult to detect and prevent lone actors or small cells of terrorists who are determined to kill the innocent today, we are going to keep going after isil aggressively across every front of this campaign. Our air Campaign Continues to hammer isil targets. More than 14,000 strikes so far, 100,000 sorties including those hitting the isil core in rocca and mosul. In stark contrast to isil, which uses civilians as human shields, our armed forces will continue to do everything in avoid civilian casualties. With our extraordinary technology, we are conducting the most precise air campaign in history. It is the innocent civilians of syria and iraq who are suffering the most and who need to be saved from isils terror. When there are allegations of casualties, we take them we continue to take on senior isil leaders and commanders, the minister of war, Top Commander in mosul and yet another significant loss for isil, its minister of war. None of isils leaders are safe and well keep going after them. On the ground in iraq, local forces keep with Coalition Support finally liberated fallujah. Now they are clearing isil fighters for more areas up the euphrates valley and iraqi forces took the Strategic Air base just 40 miles from mosul. The last major isil strong hold in iraq. Given the success, the additional 560 u. S. Support into a logistical hub and launchpad for iraqi forces as they push into mosul. In syria, a coalition of local forces backed by our special Operation Forces and air strikes continues to take the fight to isil as well. The coalition is fighting its way into the town of mondich, a gateway for fighters coming in and terrorists heading out to attaur gaining vast amounts of intelligence. Thousands of documents which we will use to stop foreign fighters. We continue to intensify our efforts against al qaeda in syria, which no matter what name it calls itself cannot be allowed to maintain a safe haven to train and plot attacks against us. I do want to note the broader progress made in this campaign the outskirts of baghdad itself. To many observers, isil looked invincible. Since then isil lost at tikrit, sinjar, rhumadi and isil lost territory across vast stretches of the border with turkey and almost all major transit roots into rocca. In iraq and syria, isil has not been able to reclaim any significant territory that they have lost. I want to repeat, isil has not had a major successful offensive operation in either syria or iraq in a full year. Even isils leaders know they are going to keep losing. Acknowledging they may lose mosul and rocca. They will lose them. Well keep hitting them and pushing them back and driving them out until they do. In other words, isil turns out not to be invincible. They are going to be defeated. We do recognize at the same time that the situation is complex and this cannot be solved by military force alone. Thats why last month the United States and countries around the world pledged mor iraqis stabilize and rebuild their communities. Thats why we are working with iraq so the military campaign to Liberate Mosul is matched with humanitarian and political efforts to protect civilians and promote Inclusive Governance and development so isil cannot return by exploiting divisions or new grievances. In syria, as i repeatedly said, defeated isil and al qaeda against the Syrian People which pushes people into the arms of extremists. The regime and its allies violate the cessation of hostilities including vicious attacks against civilians. Blocking food from reaching families that are starving. It is deplorable and the russias active involvement raidses serious questions about their commitment to pulling the situation back from the brink. The u. S. Remains prepared to work with russia to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against isil, al qaeda and syria. So far russia failed to take the necessary steps. Given the deteriorating situation, it is time for russia to show it is serious about isil whenever it tries to spread. At the request of libyas government of national court, we are conducting strikes in support as they try to retake sert and well take efforts to secure their country. In afghanistan, one of the reasons i decided to largely maintain our current posture was to keep eliminating isils presence there we delivered another blow last month when we took out afghanistan. Finally, it should be clear by now and no one knows this better than our military leaders, even as we need to crush isil on the battlefield, their military defeat will not be enough. So long as their twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence, groups like isil will keep emerging. The International Community will continue to be at risk in global whackamole where we are always reacting to the latest threat or lone actor. Thats why we are working to counter violent extremism more broadly, including the social, economic and political factors that help fuel groups like isil and al qaeda in the first place. Nothing will do more to discredit isil and its phony claims to being a caliphate than when it loses its base in rocca and mosul. Well keep working with partners including muslim countries a communities, especially online to expose isil for what they are, murderers who kill innocent people, including muslim families and children as they break their ramadan fast and set off bombs near medina in one of the holest sites in islam. We refuse to let terrorists and voices of division undermine the unity and values of diversity and pluralism that keep our nation strong. One of the reasons american because we draw on the skills and talents of all our citizens, including patriotic Muslim Americans who risk and give their lives for our freedom. The entire world was inspired when muslims across france joined their catholic neighbors in mass and parade together. The grieving they extend to each other has to be the message we echo in all our countries and our communities, peace be with you ando before i take questions, i want to say a few words on another topic. As our Public Health experts have been warning for some time, we are now seeing the first locally transmitted cases of the zika virus by mosquitos in the continental United States. This was predicted and predictable. So far weve seen 15 cases in the miami area. We are taking this extremely seriously. Our cdc experts are on the shoulder with Florida Health authorities. There is a very aggressive effort under way to control mosquitos there. Pregnant women have been urged to stay away from the particular neighborhood we are focused on. Well keep working as one team, federal, state and local to slow and limit the spread of the virus. I want to be clear though. Our Public Health expert does not expect to see the widespread outbreaks of zika here that weve seen in brazil or puerto rico. The kind of mit likely to carry zika are limited to certain regions of our country. We cannot be complacent. We expect to see more zika cases. Even though the symptoms for most people are mild, many may never know they have it, weve seen that the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe. I want to encourage every american to learn what they can do to help stop zika going to