Interview with Julia Roberts. Im just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her. Her most memorable roles, her decision to work less, and where she keeps that oscar today. Friday, august 1st, 2014. From nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, all. Welcome to today on a friday morning. And were going to have more of the Julia Roberts interview later in the show. Always great to hear from her. Especially when shes reciting our favorite lines from movies. Meantime, this ebola crisis, i think were getting bits and pieces of information this morning, but still a lot of questions. We dont know whether one or two patients are now heading to the United States to be treated in the special isolation center. We dont even know if the patient or patients are the americans that weve been talking so much about. All Emory University in georgia is saying is theyre willing to accept one patient. This is our top story this morning. This new wave of concerns being generated by that possible evacuation of americans affected with ebola. We want to go right to nbcs Stephanie Gosk. She has the latest this morning. Stephanie, good morning to you. Reporter good morning, savannah. Well Emory University hospital is uniquely qualified to handle ebola patients. Their Infectious Disease unit hs an isolation ward developed with the assistance of the cdc which is just about a mile down the road from here. Its one of only four of its kind in the country. Hospital Officials Say they are expecting this arrival in coming days and they are ready. The medevac plane is specially equipped like this one designed to carry patients who must remain isolated. And here at atlantas Emory University hospital, staffers are preparing the Isolation Unit for the patients arrival. Emory officials emphasize the unit is physically separate from other patient areas with equipment providing an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. Experts say the staff is well prepared. This team has been trained in how to use the personal protective equipment and to take special precaution to avoid any potential exposures. Reporter while the incoming patients identity is unknown, were learning more about the conditions of the two americans infected with ebola. The Relief Agency samaritans purse reported both Nancy Writebol and dr. Kent brantly are in stable by grave condition. The agencys head Franklin Graham said brantly refused an experimental serum after learning there was only one dose insisting it should be given to writebol. Im just as proud of him as i could possibly be. Reporter brantlys wife issued a statement saying i remain hopeful and believing that kent will be healed from this dreadful disease. Also on the way back to the u. S. , hundreds of peace corps. Volunteers evacuated from west africa. Shreyan sen just finished his peace corps. Mission in guinea on july 20th. He says hes concerned for his local friends in guinea who have no way out of the country. Im on edge knowing that someone i know could contract ebola and die. Reporter the cdc has issued a level three travel advisory, the highest they have for travel to the countries of guinea, sierra leone and liberia. At the same time they announced a surge in their own efforts. Theyre sending a 50person team over to the region. This effort to contain ebola is turning into a wide Scale International operation. Savannah. Actually, ill take it, stephanie. Thank you very much. Dr. Nancy snyderman is nbcs chief medical editor. Nancy, good morning to you. Good morning, matt. Shortly after the news broke that one or both of these americans we presume are coming to this country to get treatment as they battle the ebola virus. Questions started. Arted. A lot of them on social media. L. Is this a safe policy . Policy . Does it put the u. S. Population at risk . At risk . How do you answer the question . . It is safe, it is smart, it is prudent. Prudent. It does not put people at risk. It does not put pe right now theres an evaluation of two patients, the two the t americans weve talked about. Ed. They have fluctuated in how well theyre doing. Theyre do grave but serious. Inserious. The Health Care System in stem liberia is rudimentary at best. If you can safely transport ans someone to a hightech fabulous someone to a hightech fabulous Medical Center where theyre Medical Center where theyre isolated from the general gener population in a really contained room and save their lives, sav thats what doctors are talking about. About. Thats why emory and the cdc has decided to make this move. Is mo. Is one of the pieces to the puzzle, nancy, is this transfer to person to person by contact. T not in the air. The air. A lot of people think you bring someone to this country, theyre breathing and others are hers a catching the virus. He virus. Thats not how this spreads. Spr. The flu is more infectious. E. If you really want to think o t about it. About it. A sneeze and something omething aerosolized. D. Aerosolized. This is in human contact and ta with bodily fluids. Y fluids. Urine, feces, vomit, blood. T, b. People really have to be sick. B. And unless you are symptomatic, youre not transmitting the ing virus. Virus. So the transportation of these patients is really a dicy a di situation. Tuation. They have to fly them and m and evaluate and make sure one or e two are stable enough to move. T. And then the people who will be doing the transportation, tatio theyre in hazmat suits and they fly in special planes where the patients are almost cocooned. Co. Im curious here as to why i there is so much secrecy ecrecy surrounding this. Ing this. Why arent they just coming out and saying heres who were he bringing back, one or two. Or t. Why are they hedging that a th little bit . Little bit . Its called hippa. Ed hippa. These patients have the same th right to privacy as you would if you checked into a hospital. Osp. Until emory and the patients pa decide to issue a statement ate saying this is the patients saying this is the patients identity, we protect a patients identity and their medical status even if theyre abroad d status even if theyre abroad because they have the rights of the american citizene american n makes sense. Makes sense. Nancy, thank you very much. Ery. Appreciate it. Eciate it. And we want you to join the to conversation. Conversation. Are you concerned about bringing ebola patients here to the United States . The youve heard what nancy has to say. Youve heard what nancy has to share your comments with orangeroom. With carsons going to share some of those coming up. Now lets go over to tamron. Shes got breaking news on the situation in the middle east. Good morning, everyone. Breaking developments this morning in the middle east. A threeday ceasefire in gaza that lasted not even three hours before falling apart. Nbcs chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel is in gaza city. Richard, good morning. Reporter good morning, tamron. There was supposed to be a threeday ceasefire. It lasted two hours. Fighting has resumed. It began this morning as the ceasefire was supposed to be taking effect when israel said Palestinian Militants attacked a group of Israeli Soldiers in the Southern Gaza strip. Two Israeli Soldiers were killed and one israeli soldier is missing. Israel believes he was probably abducted or captured. Hamas has confirmed that. Israeli government has informed the parents of the missing soldier. A 32yearold a 23yearold second lieutenant. Now a massive search operation is underway in Southern Gaza. This is destructive campai campaign. Israel is trying to lay down fire from preventing militants from taking him out of the gaza strip and bring him to gaza city where it is more difficult to find him. This could lead to an escalation. Earlier today, it looked like there was a breakthrough. We were talking about a ceasefire. Now with the soldier missing, we will see more fighting in gaza. Tamron. An explosion in taiwan that left gaping holes in the streets. The four firefighters were among the dead who were investigating the fire. Figures show the nations Unemployment Rate rose to 6. 2 . Obviously this caught the attention of wall street given the drop on the dow that we witnessed thursday. Th witnessed thursday. Previously unreleased audio has surfaced of former president bill clinton in 2001. He talked about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden in australia. I nearly got him. I could have gotten him. I could have killed him, but i would have had to destroy a little town called kandahar in afghanistan and i would have had to kill 300 women and children. So i didnt do it. About ten hours after the words were spoken, the attacks of 9 11 happened. Now to a story in denton, texas where a jailor has been fired after the suspect was body slammed into the floor. The suspect was being booked into jail for public intoxication. The man was not following directions so they took him down. Police released the video because they wanted to be transparent with the insurancii. A sudanese woman is in the United States this morning. Miriam was met in New Hampshire where her husband has family. They will move to their new home there. The sudan highest court overturned her death sentence in june and she was allowed to leave. Imagine opening your front door and seeing this. Take a look there. That is a ninefoot long alligator in coral gables, florida. The couple heard a knock on the door and they opened the door and found this. The trapper was able to take the unwelcome guest. The knock on the door was the gators tail hitting the house. For a neighbor with a really perverse sense of humor. Most people leave a flaming bag. Not that guy. Tamron, thank you. They said candy gram. Mr. Roker, whats happening in the weather . All right. We had a lot of flooding in houston. Tamrons home state taking it on the chin. Heavy, heavy rain and it continues this morning. In fact, some areas, this rainfall was really coming down overnight. They, in fact, got homes right now with water coming inside. 6 inches of rain just outside of cleveland, texas. Outside of spring with 6 inches as well. And weve also got now Tropical Storm bertha. Were calling her baby bertha right now. We dont think she will get much of a Tropical Storm. 45 mileperhour winds. Moving west northwest at 20 miles per hour. Comes across the caribbean and puerto rico early saturday afternoon. Sunday its near the dominican republic. They need the rain down there, thats the good news. Then it skirts the coast early tuesday. As we look at other computer models, they are all pretty consistent coming across and bringing all that wet weather keeping it offshore. Well continue to watch this as we go along. Were going to get to your local forecast in the next 30 seconds. Keep the change. At Famous Footwear were not just selling back to school shoes, were selling straight up confidence. Weve done our homework to find the hottest shoes to send your kids back in style. Like our exclusive shimmer print converse hightops. Anybody sitting here . Only at Famous Footwear. Famous footwear. Victory is yours. Happy friday im meteorologist christina loren. Oakland hims, beautiful sky overhead. We are going to see a hiblt of high cloud cover, but this is all thats left of the low clouds. And right here, you have the golden gate bridge. I want to the show you what it looks like. This is really the only spot with that thick fog at this point. It is burning off quickly and its going to be hot as a result. 90 degrees for the south bay. The peninsulas at 83 degrees. 81 on the east shore. Hot spot in the trivalley. 101 degrees there and 68 for San Francisco. Thank you so much. The investigation into the downing of malaysia air flight 17 is slowly moving forward this morning more than two weeks after the plane was shot down over ukraine. A team of International Investigators now at the crash site and beginning the recovery work after being kept out for days. Katy tur is in london with the latest on this. Katy, good morning. Reporter good morning. As weve been reporting fighting in and around the crash site has kept International Teams from getting there to both recover bodies and begin inspecting the wreckage. We just learned a group of 60 dutch and australian investigators have reached the site this morning. This just the second time in two days as the area remains, quote, very unstable. Two weeks later and the crash site is still littered with wreckage, belongings and bodies. As many as 80 victims left out in the open according to australian officials. On thursday after a week of constant negotiation, International Investigators finally reached the crash site. Just four of them. Two dutch and two australian. We also succeeded today in submitting dna samples from 25 victims. We also now have the personal belongings of 27 victims in our possession. Reporter in total the specialists spent just over an hour inspecting as fighting between the russian separatists and Ukrainian Forces intensified. Just this morning reports that rebels ambushed a ukrainian convoy killing at least ten soldiers. A grim reminder that this is still very much a war zone. In the netherlands where some 200 victims were flown last week, the pain staking task of identification continues. We cant make mistakes. We have to ensure the families get the right human remains back. Reporter so far at least one has been returned to family. But like hans de borst, most still wait. He lost his only daughter and now hes asking once again for world powers to take action. Help help help. Wake up, he pleads. Could you at least have the decency to give us back the bodies that are still missing . On sunday in australia, the maslin parents will hold a memorial for their three kids. They describe their life now as a hell beyond hell. The only thing keeping them alive, they say, is love. Love from Family Friends and even strangers. But mostly the love they have for mo, evie, and otis. Matt and savannah . Thank you for the update. Calling it the biggest mistake of his life, ray rice has spoken publicly for the First Time Since being suspended for two games for an altercation with his nowwife. Willie geist has more on that story. Willie, good morning. Matt, good morning. Last weeks suspension has been criticized as being too lenient in a league that suspends some for an entire season for drug violations. Rice is now vowing to do what he can against domestic abuse. Im here to tell you that i made the biggest mistake of my life. Reporter running back ray rice speaking out thursday. My actions that night were totally inexcusable. That night i just replay over and over in my head. You know, thats not me. Reporter that night is the Early Morning after valentines day when rice can be seen dragging an unconscious woman, his fiance janay palmer out of an elevator. According to si. Com, Surveillance Video shows rice knocked her out in an elevator. Violence of any kind especially man on woman is just not right. Its not right. Shouldnt be tolerated. Reporter rice has entered a program to avoid prosecution. The pair married in march and in may appeared at a press conference together at which rice apologized to almost everyone, except his wife. Last time i didnt publicly apologize to my wife. I realize that hit home with a lot of people. Theres many nights my wife and i sleep together and she still has to deal with this. Her pain is my pain. My pain is her pain. One thing i wanted to do today was, you know, apologize to my wife who ive known since high school. Reporter rice vowed to become a public advocate against domestic violence. He said all the right things and i think he has all the right thoughts. My biggest concern is him following through on this. If he does follow through, it can do great things. Reporter as for criticism that his twogame suspension is too lenient i dont have any control over what the punishment was. Im being punished on a daytoday basis. So that punishment that i received by the nfl, it hurts because i cant go out and play football. But it hurts more im a father and have to explain what happened to my daughter. Reporter Roger Goodell is expected to speak at the profootball hall of fame induction ceremony. It remains to be seen if theyll address the suspension. Its interesting as we see the apology from ray rice to his wife, some of the reporting from Sports Illustrated is that part of the reason the suspension is so low was that she, in fact, appealed to the commissioner not to go hard on her husband. Very interesting. A lot of criticism. Willie, thank you very much. Carson is in the orange room. We put out the call. People sending in the concerns about the ebola crisis. What are you hearing . Emory hospital in atlanta preparing to receive a patient or patients with ebola. One of only four facilities in the country that have that ilation Isolation Unit. This writer puts im so scared were treating ebola patients in the u. S. But it has to be done. Maybe well find a vaccine sooner. Jason writes its the humanitarian thing to do, but what happened to selfpreservation . And heres lin