Controversial release. Outrage as brock turner is set to be freed from jail in a matter of hours just three months after being convicted of Sexual Assault as we get an exclusive first look at photos taken of turner the night of his arrest. And star spangled controversy. Nfl quarterback Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the National Anthem again this time during a tribute to the military. The crowd reacting instantly. But kaepernick isnt backing down and you might be surprised by whos standing by him, today, friday, september 2nd, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today on this friday. The start of labor day ek a lot of people. Were going out in style with great concert out on the plaza. If you have to say goodbye to summer, this is the way to do it. Alicia keys will be on our plaza. Well get music in before the weather turns bad. Thats our top story. Hermine slamming into the florida coast making landfall overnight. Watches and warnings extend from the south all of the way up to the east coast this morning. Weve got you covered from all angles and well get to als forecast in just a moment. But lets begin with nbcs Gabe Gutierrez in the storm zone. Gabe, good morning to you. Reporter matt, good morning. The water here much calmer than it was a few hours ago as hermine roared through making landfall to our east. Many parts of floridas gulf coast are flooded this morning and almost 200,000 people are without power states. Overnight hurricane hermine slammed into floridas panhandle packing winds of up to 80 miles an hour. This morning storm surge and the possibility of isolated tornadoes even as hermine is downgraded to a Tropical Storm. This is life threatening. Were going to lose a power line here. The system knocking out power to tens of thousands. And flooding neighborhoods along floridas gulf coast. Hes got it. Reporter near appalachicola its hard to pack up and leave. This is home. Reporter the last hurricane to strike florida was in 2005. A powerful category 3 storm that killed five people. Today the threat from hermine parts of georgia and North Carolina under a state of emergency. Dangerous rip currents expected through the holiday weekend. Were always worried, sure. Yeah. You do what you can do. Hope for the best. Reporter hermine is weakening as its downgraded to a Tropical Storm. Authorities in florida are assessing the damage as other states brace for impact. Matt and savannah . Gabe gutierrez, thanks a lot. Lets find out where the storm is headed from here and how bad its going to be. Al is at the weather wall tracking the latest path. Good morning. Good morning, guys. Lets look live. St. Simons island, georgia. The storm moved into southern georgia. The core of it. You can see the effects right now. The winds are howling. Waves have come up and the rain is getting stronger and stronger there as well. Look at the scope of this system right now. You can see the rain bands. We have tornado watches stretching from western florida all of the waynt right now. Heres the latest on where the system is. Hermine is 50 miles northeast of tallahassee. Its 70mileperhour winds moving northnortheast at 14 miles per hour. The path of the system right now looks like this. We will see it continue inland through saturday afternoon. It comes off somewhere along the cape right along saturday afternoon. 45 miles per hour. Heres the rest of the track. Were going to be talking about this system into the middle of next week. It comes out and runs parallel to the new Jersey New York shoreline. 60mileperhour winds. Its just below a tropical strength system. Well look at winds, rain, coastal beach erosion into next week. In the meantime, storm surges today, six to nine feet in the big bend area of florida. Two to four feet around tampa and along the southeastern Atlantic Coast one to threefoot surges. We have a risk of tornadoes stretching from the carolinas down smaller in scale. We also have the risk of a lot of Power Outages. 12 Million People at risk to lose power from florida into the carolinas and of course the rainfall is going to be a big issue. Were talking about some areas picking up five to ten inches of rain from georgia into southeastern virginia but the Eastern Carolinas, guys, could see rainfall 10 to 15 inches. Rip currents are going to be a big problem up and down the eastern seaboard right until monday and tuesday and as i said, beach erosion is going to be a big problem because the system will sit offshore into wednesday. Well catch up with you more in a bit. Doesnt it come at just the wrong time. People going on vacation. Beaches closed up and down the east coast. Lets go to morgan ratford. Good morning to you. Reporter things are looking pretty calm here ride now alo long. Were expecting a double whammy to hit this weekend. You can see the red flags here behind me. This is here at Point Pleasant beach and along the coast where authorities are asking swimmers not to get in the water. Theyre also creating sand barriers along the coastline and here in Point Pleasant theyre actually draining the lake just to keep the streets from flooding. I want to show you this map here. You can see these red arrows along the east coast from savannah, georgia, in the south all of the way up to nantucket. This is where you have to be extra careful this is where you have to be extra careful if you are planning to get into the water, because frankly, those waters are dangerous. 36 people have already been rescued this week alone in this region, and this is the same region demonstrated by super storm sandy back in 2012, and thats why people are saying they are taking no chances this holiday weekend. Now another big story. Nasa has turned to this for cargo and future manned missions, but this particular rocket was on a facebook mission. Tom costello covers all things space for us. Good morning. Good morning, savannah. This is a significant setback, not just for spacex but for facebook. Unmanned falcon 9 rocket that would beam Internet Access to africa. Both companies are now trying to regroup. A jaw dropping sight. A spacex rocket exploding on the launch pad on thursday being swallowed hole in a matter of seconds. A series of explosions and massive plumes of thick, billowing smoke. The blast could be heard and felt for miles. Even caught on weather radar. Urgency on Police Dispatch radio. Its a rocket segment that blew theres a pretty noxious smoke plume heading toward the beach. Amazingly nobody was injured during this routine test going bad. The rocket was destroyed along with a special satellite. The mission was to bring the internet to parts of africa. Mark zuckerberg said hes deeply disappointed. The launch was scheduled for saturday morning. The cause is still unknown. Wow. As spacex investigates what went wrong. The blast caused major damage. Major damage to the spacex launch pad at cape canaveral. That could serious impact the companys upcoming satellite launch schedule. This is also a concern. This is the same type of rocket that will be used on futured manned missions. Finding out what went wrong will be a very high priority. Back to you. Tom costello, thank you. Let us turn to politics now as donald trump heads from ohio to new york for a classified briefing from u. S. Intelligence officials today. Replacing him in that battleground state is Vice President joe biden who is there stomping for Hillary Clinton and taking trump to task on a wide range of issues. Hallie jackson has the latest. Good morning. Reporter after the Second Intelligence briefing in a windy manhattan here, donald trump will focus on delivering his message to minority communities reportedly reaching out to africanamerican voters in philadelphia before that trip to detroit to a black church over the weekend. That trip is raising eyebrows with word it is scripted. All of it. As trump seems to shift on immigration yet again just a couple days after his tough talk, a softer tone. His new overtures now underfire as donald trump promises he can help africanamerican voters. Give it to me. Im going t ever trip to a black church in detroit this weekend, a new report paints a picture of a nervous campaign. A leaked script for trumps q and a session with an africanamerican pastor published by the new york times. Trumps answers apparently prepared in advance by advisers to keep him in check. Hillary clintons camp calling the trip a gimmick. Trump working to win over more minority communities like hispanics and after dismissing speculation he would soften up on immigration, seeming to do just that, on whether to deport undocumented immigrants living here who havent committed other crimes. Were going to get rid of all of the bad players that are here. After that takes place well sit back and assess the situation. Were going to see where we are. Reporter earlier this week at his big immigration speech you cant just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalized. Reporter trumps stance turned off some of his founder of latinos for trump who raised eyebrows with this on msnbc. My culture is a very dominant culture. Its causing problems. If you dont do something about it, youll have taco trucks on every corner. Reporter trumps 12th public event since mid august. Six times as many as Hillary Clinton holding just two Public Events in the last two weeks. Vice President Joe Biden on the trail instead pitching clinton but passing up the chance to vigorously defend her Family Foundation with nbcs kasie hunt. Has the Clinton Foundation always been 100 ethical in your view . I think the Clinton Foundation like all foundations have found themselves in a position where changes are changing. I think shes going to change and adjust to the realities of how complicated its all become. Reporter trumps quickly taking aim at that response from Vice President biden arguing that it speaks volumes about what they call Hillary Clintons terrible judgment. Matt, savannah . All right. Thanks very much. By the way, a look ahead next wednesday ill sit down with Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Its part of our special commander in chief forum. It will be the first joint candidate event of the general election season on september 7th, 8 00 in the evening right here on nbc. Simulcast by the way on nmsnbc. Samsung is recalling its galaxy note 7 after reports of the device catching fire while charging. The company says the batteries are to blame. That comes just a couple weeks after that phones launch. Samsung has told 2. 5 million to date. It will take about two weeks to get replacements ready. Now to growing outrage in Northern California where protests are p morning as former Stanford University athlete brock turner is released from jail today having served just half of a sixmonth sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus. Nbcs Gadi Schwartz has more on that. Gadi, good morning. Reporter brock turner was eligible for release after midnight but its most likely that hell be released at daylight, first daylight here on the west coast just like everybody else. And now that his case is closed, were getting our first look at photographs of brock turner that were used as evidence in this case. Exclusive pictures of brock turner obtained by nbc news show the former university swimmer disshelfled. His shirt torn after being tackled by two College Students who saw him on top of his unconscious victim. These pictures taken four hours after turner was arrested for Sexual Assaulting an campus. If you saw her again, would you recognize her . Turner responds, probably not. Later in the tape turner says my intentions were not to try to rape a girl without her consent. I was just trying to hook up with a girl. After being asked if he knew where he and the victim were at the time of the incident turner simply says we were so drunk we didnt even know what we were on or where we were by. Turner faced up to 14 years in prison for felony Sexual Assault but the judge sentenced turner to six months, which in california means three months for good behavior. The sentence caused a national firesto firestorm. Over 2 Million People coming out in support of the victim signing petitions to remove the judge from the bench. Since then the judge has recused himself from criminal cases but has launched his own campaign to keep his position with a website asking for donations for his defense. Some in the legal he should stay. We need judges that are not making decisions based on fear or based on public opinion. Turner is expected to return to a small town in ohio where even there some are concerned about his release equally outraged about the sentencing. Quite frankly i think its ridiculous that he didnt get a longer sentence. Its insulting to women that our judicial system doesnt take rape seriously. Now 21, turner will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Turner will also be on probation for three years. Most likely in ohio. Were also told hes been banned from swimming competitively as well as stanfords campus for the rest of his life. Protests are scheduled here a little bit later today. Matt and savannah . Gadi schwartz, thank you. San francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is Standing Firm this morning in his highly controversial refusal to anthem. Kaepernicks knelt during the anthem prompting both criticism and support from fans including veterans. Reporter good morning, savannah. The 49ers have just returned here to levi stadium after pulling off a win against the San Diego Chargers in a preseason game that was very tense because it was an annual salute to the military. That did not change Colin Kaepernicks mind. He took a knee during the National Anthem. And the rockets red glare reporter a chorus of loud boos inside a packed stadium thursday night all directed at Colin Kaepernick as the National Anthem began. Kaepernick continuing his protest against Racial Injustice and Police Brutality by once again not standing during the we have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that arent treated equally. Arent given equal opportunities. Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed. For the land of the free reporter his statement in a stadium filled with military personnel and their families. For the troops that are serving and those that have died for to protect this nation, i think its disrespectful. Reporter kaepernick says his critics dont understand his message. I realize that men and women of the military go out and sacrifice their lives and put themselves in harms way for my freedom of speech and my freedoms in this country. Reporter kaepernick drawing criticism from the head of a Police Organization after photos surfaced of him wearing socks depicting the police as cartoon kaepernick responded to the controversy on instagram saying he wore socks during practice last month because the rogue cops that are allowed to hold positions in Police Departments not only put the community in danger but also put the cops that have the right intentions in danger. And the quarterback says he plans to highlight the issue of Racial Injustice off the field as well. Im currently working with organizations to be involved and making sure that im actively in these communities as well as donating the first Million Dollars i make this year to different organizations to help these communities and help these people. Reporter kaepernick did stand during God Bless America before the Fourth Quarter but he insists hell continue not to participate in the National Anthem until he sees what he calls substantial change and there may be a Ripple Effect happening here. Another player on the Seattle Seahawks sitting out the National Anthem l jo ling kent, thank you. Well have more coming up in the orange room. Busiest guy on the set is this guy right here. Good news is, theres a lot of parts of the country that are looking at pretty decent weather. Sunny and cool throughout the great lakes and into the mid mississippi and ohio river valleys, but wet into texas and the southwest and looking at showers in the Pacific Northwest as well. We will get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. Good morning. I am chuck bell, and sky cleared out overnight and, wow, does it feel nice this morning. Nicelooking day coming, and temperatures will be near 70 by 10 00 this morning, and upper 70s to around 80 degrees in most neighborhoods with plenty of sunshine early today, and clou