policy during his time as mayor of new york. >> i don't think those words reflect how i led the most diverse city in the nation. >> plus, the billionaire's new media blitz overnight. his message to critics accusing him of trying to buy the nomination. all that, plus, in the hot seat. attorney general william barr called to testify before congress as democrats demand an investigation into his role in the roger stone sentencing scandal. on the mend. the hockey star recovering after he collapsed and was revived during an nhl game. this morning, his teammates tell us how he is doing. and out of this world. the american astronaut who spent more time in space than any other woman, back on earth and talking about her trip. >> two minutes of being back on earth, i saw more people's faces than i had seen in a year. >> today, thursday, february 13th, 2020. >> announcer: from nbc news, this is "today" with savannah guthrie and hoda kotb, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. hey, everybody. welcome to "today." thank you for joining us on this thursday morning. how happy is christina koch to be back on earth? >> you know when you're back from a long trip and you're like, i'm happy to be in your own bed? she's happy to be in her own gravity. she's thrilled. something different to eat. talking about the 328 days in space. >> incredible journey. she has a lot to say, and we'll talk to her in a little bit. first, our top story, wicked weather. overnight the south was hit by a new round of severe storms. this morning, tens of millions are in the path of a powerful winter system and a blast of brutally cold temperatures. al has details in a second. first, nbc's sam brock is standing by in atlanta. hey, sam. >> reporter: hoda, good morning. large sections of the country waking up under severe weather threat this morning. at least 10 million people sa saturated. rivers are swollen. the big concerns, flooding and damaging winds. this as folks in the northeast and midwest better will bundling up. temperatures are about to drop dramatically. overnight, a possible tornado tearing across tennessee, southwest of nashville. power polls toppled with at least one home destroyed. across southwest virginia, heavy rain causing multiple landslides, residents forced to evacuate their homes. a mudslide pushing this home off its foundation. >> i've lived here for almost 14 years, never seen it this bad. >> reporter: in northern alabama, strong winds collapsed this garage. parts of the water-logged south can't seem to catch a break. it's been the wettest start to the year on record for some cities in alabama and mississippi. birmingham drenched by nearly 17 inches of rain since january 1st. that's 10 inches above normal. in many places the soil is saturated and can't absorb any more rain, but it's still coming down. >> we see heavy rainfall rates. 2 1/2 inches per hour. >> reporter: in mississippi. >> we're approaching 10 to 12 inches on doppler radar. >> reporter: forcing some residents out of their homes. near vicksburg, heavy rains washed out highway 80, shutting it in both directions. further north, near tupelo, this county road collapsed from all the water. meanwhile, starting today, folks in the midwest and the northeast are bracing for a very big chill. an icy blast of winter that could bring some of the lowest temperatures of the season. here in atlanta, as you look at the levels of the chattahoochee river behind me. that's one of the big concerns as we move forward. there are about 250 creeks and rivers throughout the region expected to either reach or exceed flood stage at some point today. keeping a close eye on that as the day progresses. savannah and hoda, back to you. >> sam brock in atlanta. thank you. >> let's see where it's headed. al has the latest on the brutal cold that's coming, too. good morning. >> good morning, guys. the good news is we're on the downward slope of the heavy rain. 11 million people under flash flood watches, 39 million under winter weather advisories. you can see very heavy rain stretching from new orleans all the way up into new england, especially as you make your way into the mid-atlantic. looking at 0.5 inch to 0.25 inch as far as rain. basically 3 inches of snow across the great lakes and northern new england. here comes the next big problem for a lot of folks. we have windchill alerts right now, windchills as low as 45 below in the northern plains. this arctic express pushes to the south for this morning. look at these windchills, feels like minus 30 in minneapolis, minus 34 in des moines. by friday, minus 5. 5 above in pittsburgh. by saturday morning, here into the northeast, a windchill of seven in morning. minus 5 in buffalo. 18 in washington, d.c. hold on through the weekend. the good news is we start to see temperatures on the upward swing. by monday in kansas city, here it'll be 53. new york, 48. richmond by monday, 57 degrees. hoda. >> al, thank you. there's a lot of news overnight in the coronavirus outbreak. a 14th person here in the u.s. has been diagnosed. thousands of new cases in a single region of china have been reported. meantime the crisis on that quarantined ship in japan appears to be worsening. nbc's molly hunt is in yokohama, japan, for us. molly, good morning. >> reporter: hoda, good morning. at the epicenter in china, so many people with symptoms and no easy way to test everyone. it appears authorities are changing the way they classify those cases. all of these numbers, some days up, some days down, only goes to illustrate how tough it is for scientists to get a real grasp of the severity and the extent of the outbreak. overnight, the chinese government reporting more than 14,000 new coronavirus cases in hubei province. ground zero for the outbreak that, earlier this week, has been reporting a drop in new infections. across china, more than 1,300 deaths, total deaths 60,000 and the government puts in place so-called wartime control, which includes mass confinement, food rationing, and temperature checks for millions. on the "diamond princess" in yokohama, japan, the number of confirmed cases also rising. this morning, 44 new cases, bringing the total to 219 on board. including at least 32 americans. this 75-year-old from florida is growing increasingly nervous. >> all of a sudden you felt like maybe it had peaked and then bam. >> when you have hope and you lose it for a minute, that's a really bad place to be. >> reporter: on day nine of the quarantine, jerry and mark jorgensen from utah remarkably upbeat. >> starting their exercise plan. >> reporter: getting into routines, exercising, taking their temperatures, and eating lunch out of boxes. 771 people out of 3,700 on board have been tested, including mark and jerry. >> you've had one test now? >> i've had one test. they said if you don't hear from us, it's good news. i have not heard anything. >> i'm telling you we're healthy. >> reporter: on friday some passengers will disembark to quarantined facilities on land. the u.s. embassy sending american passengers this letter explaining the most medically vulnerable passengers will be first, including older adults with preexisting health conditions. >> molly, what's the expectation? do they think there will be more cases on the cruise ship as they're testing passengers? >> reporter: there are 3,700 people on board. they haven't even tested a quarter of them. so, of course, we don't know. thus far, that's certainly been the case. think about it. these guys have been on this cruise ship for more than three weeks. they are tired. they want to go home. the 75-year-old, who we've been talking to, is hoping she gets asked to disembark tomorrow so she can quarantine here on the land. >> molly hunter, thank you very much. craig joins the table. another big story. >> good morning. we're talking about the firestorm over the roger stone case that is engulfing department of justice and the white house now. attorney general william barr will now testify before congress to answer questions about why his department suddenly got involved in the sentencing of the president's long-time ally. nbc white house correspondent peter alexander has more on that for us this morning. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning to you. house democrats want to question the attorney general about their concerns over his leadership and what they call the president's improper influence over the justice department. this all comes as president trump, post impeachment, appears to be testing the limits of the rule of law, thanking ag barr for softening the suggested sentence against a political ally while eyeing revenge against his perceived enemies. president trump praising attorney general william barr fofor intervening to reduce the recommended sentence for mr. trump's former campaign add si adviser roger stone. adviser roger stone. adviser roger stone. adviser roger stone. >> i want to thanks the justice department for seeing this horrible thing -- i didn't speak to him, by the way, just so you understand. >> reporter: stone was facing a stiff prison sentence, prosecutors recommending seven to nine years for his role in the russia investigation. before the president complained on twitter that the recommended sentence was horrible and very unfair. >> isn't your tweet political interference? >> no, not at all. you have murderers and drug addicts that don't get nine years. nine years for doing something that nobody can even define what he did. >> reporter: what he did is undisputed. the jury found stone guilty of witness tampering and lying to congress, prosecutors say to protect the president, who on wednesday would not rule out pardoning stone. >> i don't want to say that yet. >> reporter: after all four prosecutors abruptly resigned from the stone case, the president is blasting their unprecedented protest. >> they ought to go back to school and learn. i tell you, with the way they treated people, nobody should be treated like that. >> reporter: democrats are demanding an investigation and while republicans are brushing that off, some of the president's allies are uneasy about his comments. >> i think this is a situation where the tweet was problematic. >> reporter: while several senate republicans have said they hoped the president would be more cautious and steer clear of controversy after impeachment -- >> i hope he's listened to the many voices in the senate who have pointed out that the call was very problematic. >> reporter: in the oval office, no sign of self-reflection. >> what lessons did you learn from impeachment? >> that the democrats are crooked, they've got a lot of crooked things going, that they're vicious, that they shouldn't have brought impeachment. >> meanwhile, peter, days after the president forced the key witness in the impeachment trial off his national security team, the president's former chief of staff, talking about john kelly here, he's speaking out against it. what's he saying? >> reporter: you're right. the white house is insisting the decision to remove lieutenant colonel alexander vindman from his post was restructuring, not retaliation. the president suggested vindman could face disciplinary action from the military. former white house chief of staff general john kelly last night sounding off about it, defending vindman, saying, quote, he did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle-to-grave. adding, we teach them, don't follow an illegal order. and if you are ever given one, you'll raise it to whoever gives it to you, then tell your boss. the words of john kelly last night. craig, back to you. >> peter alexander from the white house, thank you. intensing intensifying race for the white house. a lot of attention is on the democratic side and michael bloomberg, as the billionaire former mayor makes a big push towards super tuesday and rockets up the polls. this morning, his campaign is being hit with new controversies. nbc senior washington correspondent andrea mitchell has the details. good morning. >> good morning. after a devastating defeat in new hampshire for joe biden and his loss in iowa, the former vice president has two weeks to prove himself in nevada and south carolina. >> reporter: mike bloomberg hitting the super tuesday states that run next month. >> i am running to defeat donald trump. >> it comes as joe biden's aides are slamming bloomberg over stop and frisk, the program later ruled unconstitutional, and an audio tape. >> i don't think those words reflect how i led the most diverse city in the nation. i apologized for the practice and the pain that it caused. >> reporter: still critics like a top sanders surrogate, new york congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, says it is not good enough. >> we all know stop and frisk. that was my family. that was my community. that was my neighborhood. and we know that it was a policy that decimated a lot of families. >> bloomberg picking up support from three prominent african-american congressmembers. from greg meeks, lucy mcbath and stacey plaskett, both camps competing for african-american support. a lifeline for biden in the south carolina primary. where veteran congressman james clyburn is a king maker and talked to craig about biden's poor showing in the first two contests. >> i think that what has happened with joe's campaign is he has not projected out into the future the way people would like for him to do. >> reporter: bloomberg rising to third place in a national poll on a wave of tv and internet ads. >> i know mike is not afraid of the gun lobbies. they're scared of him and they should be. >> reporter: spending $38 a second in the first five weeks of his campaign, totaling almost $300 million so far. their newest tactic going viral, the campaign saying they're working with social creators to flood instagram with posts asking internet influencers to help make him look cool. >> what do you say to democrats who argue you're trying to buy the election? >> i'm not trying to buy the election. we've been at this for ten weeks and the best ways to communicate in ten weeks is through something like mass media. >> with his rise in the polls, andrea, michael bloomberg is getting more scrutiny. there's new comments that resurfaced about the financial crisis. what do you know about that? >> this video just surfaced from 2008 in the midst of a housing crisis. bloomberg said the financial collapse was partly because banks weren't allowed to red line anymore. a controversial practice when banks refused to lend to whole neighborhoods, on the assumption they weren't credit worthy. bloomberg appeared to be arguing the end of red lining put pressure on banks to give mortgages to those who couldn't afford them. today, he's pointing to his tight against predatory lending, and his plan to counteract the effects of red lining. >> andrea, thank you very much. we have more to get to this morning. including the american astronaut who spent more time in space than any other woman. she's talking for the first time about her experience. christina koch returned last week after 328 days aboard the international space station. she described her first reaction to being home again. >> you know, within the first two minutes being back on earth, i saw more people's faces than i had seen in a year. that was really exciting. it's just fun to interact with people again. >> she needs people. koch's advice for others, do what scares you and go after things that seem like they are out of reach. >> she's done that. what would your first meal be when you came back from 328 days in space? >> steak and my mom's mac and cheese. >> i'd do fried chicken and mashed potatoes. >> pizza. >> big bowl of ice cream. >> oh, yeah. >> come on, al. >> good pound cake. tasty. maybe a nice grilled cheese. anyway, enough. we've got a ground stop right now in atlanta. strong storms pushing through. looking at airport delays in the northeast. for today, the strong storms will start to come to an end as the system pushes through. an arctic blast behind us. snowy conditions. airport delays in chicago as well. looking at sunshine out west. wet weather making its way into the pacific northwest. we'll get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. ♪ ♪ we only come out at night ♪ good thursday morning. i'm meteorologist kari hall. take a look at this beautiful shot over san jose as the sun comes up and it's just below the clouds. we will see the clouds clearing out as we go into today and just slightly cooler as we see our high temperatures reaching into the mid-60s, up to 66 in napa and 67 in antioch. and we are going to continue on with some mild weather and valentine's day is looking pretty sweet, too, up to 70 on saturday, a few more clouds sunday. highs in the upper 60s next week. >> that's your latest weather. >> al, thank you just ahead, an update on an nhl star who suffered a cardiac episode and was revived during the game we'll hear from the blues captain who just spoke to jay bouwmeester in the hospital. the high stakes race to protect every ballot coming up. >> ten years and almost $300 million later, mission accomplished >> i think so. >> cynthia mcfadden's exclusive look at the state-of-the-art system in the nation's largest voting district, los angeles the concern some are already raising about it huge tax breaks for the rich, while the middle-class continues to struggle. that's what happens when billionaires are able to control the political system. our campaign is funded by the working people of this country, and those are the people that i will represent. no more tax breaks for billionaires. we are going to guarantee health care to all people and create up to 20 million good paying jobs to save this planet. i'm bernie sanders and i approve this message because we need an economy that works for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors. coming up on thursday morning, more of our special series honoring black history month. a rare and exclusive conversation with baseball legend hank aaron, reflecting on his time in the negro leagues. >> my first year that i left mobile, alabama, with one little coat, $2.50 in my pocket >> hank shares his memories. legendary film maker ken burns joins us to share his own. first your local news and weather. some of the things you'll encounter on the road. with more available second row leg room than a chevy suburban. this is the completely reimagined, street smart 2020 ford escape. get to kohls this is the completely reimagined, street smart for amazing gifts plus sweet savings with an extra 20 or 15% off! plus - take an extra 20% off fine and silver jewelry you'll find great last minute valentine's day gifts for everyone! plus - get kohl's cash! plus - buy online, free store pickup! shop kohl's and kohl's dot com. ♪ ♪ there are rising reports of a zombie outbreak across the area. the national guard- sometimes you just want to stay in. enjoy the great taste of dunkin' at home. sometimes you just want to stay in. a lot will happen in your life. wrinkles just won't. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair's fastest retinol formula works so fast. it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. neutrogena® for me, i would do anything for teddy bear. and even dogs are what they eat. and so i know that when i'm giving him the best food that it helps him to look his best physically and just be his best. teddy bear's family so i feed him blue. (sensei) beautiful. but support the leg! when i started cobra kai, the lack of control over my business made me a little intense. but now i practice a different philosophy. quickbooks helps me get paid, manage cash flow, and run payroll. and now i'm back on top... with koala kai. hey! more mercy. (vo) save over 40 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. the easy way to a happier business. you've been hearing a lot about 5g. bu