Sealed with a kiss. Married u. S. Figure skaters alex and Chris Knierim spend their valentines day competing on the biggest stage. Such a blessing to be here and skate and show the world how much we love to skate and skate with each other. Well take you inside their epic love story as they get set to skate again tonight. Those stories, plus one soldiers dramatic run for freedom. Our exclusive moment by moment account as we visit the dmz. The u. S. Hockey team crushes its russian counterparts and prepares to face off against rival canada later today. And the next generation of gold . The baby announcement from Michael Phelps that has the swimming icon making a big splash during these Winter Olympics today wednesday, february 14th, 2018. Announcer from nbc news, this is a special edition of today at the Olympic Games with Savannah Guthrie and hoda kotb live from pyeongchang, south korea. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to today. Its evening in pyeongchang, and what an evening it is. Five fireworks over medal plaza. Athletes who competed today having their moments. This is our plaza, our little spot and some team usa athletes are right here with us. You are so right. We have a humongous crowd on our plaza along with those great athletes. 9 00 here in pyeongchang. And part of the reason theres such a huge crowd, theyve had such terrible, windy conditions here, they had to shut down this park. They reopened it recently and all the crowds kind of have just filed in and theyre all right behind us, and its awesome. Its incredible. Wind has been the story today. Its not just a bad hair day. Its impacted several events up in the mountains. And overnight, they arrived here on the coastal complex. Officials briefly cleared this place out as a precaution. Were going to have more on those winds in a moment. Lets begin with snowboarder shaun white, golden once again, cementing his place as one of team usas greatest olympians purchase but there is some controversy to tell you about. Craig has all the action from today. Reporter good morning to you. You said it. It is all about shaun white after finishing one spot off the podium four years ago and suffering that brutal injury last fall. The snowboarding icon clawed his way back to the top, winning gold in a spectacular display of skill. Shaun white takes the gold reporter snowboarder shaun white grabbing gold in the mens halfpi halfpipe, shredding the competition and flying high into the history books. Its his record third medal in the event and quince dentally, the 100th overall olympic winter gold for team usa. After a strong first run for white wow. Giant front side 1440. Reporter a surprising stumble during his second try. And goes down on the double 12. Reporter dropped him into second place heading into his final run. Shaun white has it. Just need to see him put it away. Reporter thats when white who finished fourth in sochi showed what champions are made of. Front side 12. Perfect. Thats the run he needed, and he put it down reporter throwing down backtoback double cork 1440s to narrowly pull out a gold medal victory. And the score is in. Its the return of the king in the mens halfpipe. Man, what can i say. Its my fourth olympics. Three golds. Reporter the moment not without controversy with headlines resurfacing accusing him of sexual harassment. The former drummer said white sexually harassed her, sent her explicit texts and refused to pay her. White and the drummer reached an undisclosed settlement in spring 2017. After his big win, he was asked if that incident would tarnish his legacy. Honestly, im here to talk about the olympics not gossip. And im proud of who i am and my friends, you know, love me and vouch for me. And i think that stands on its own. Reporter from the slopes to the ice where it was a great day for the u. S. Womens hockey team clobbering their russian competitors, 50. And fired. And they score the champ gets it home. Reporter team usa looking for revenge today when they play canada after the heartbreaking gold medal loss to their rivals in sochi. In figure skating, a valentines love story for chris and Alexa Knierim. They are living out the moment theyve been working their entire lives for. Reporter after helping the u. S. Take the bronze medal in the team skate monday, the couple competing in the Pairs Short Program ending their routine with a kiss. They head into the long program in 14th place but still consider themselves winners. This is a gift for uand, you know, mistakes today, they are totally irrelevant. If you look at the big picture, this is amazing. She said shes going to be my valentine so things are working out great today. Yeah. Reporter how about that . As for the medal count, it is a tight race right now. The top between the netherlands, norway, germany and canada. Team usa still in fifth there. Meanwhile, on the olympic schedule later today, pairs figure skating wraps up with the free skate. Weather permitting the womens giant slalom and mens downhill is set to be held today. And the mens skeleton competition will also get under way. Well send it back over to you. Lots to look forward to. Thank you. Shaun white will be here live in just a few minutes. Hes making his way down the mountain. Now to the high winds impacting things here in olympic park and in the mountains. Well get to al in a minute with his forecast. First nbcs keir simmons has the latest. Good morning. This is what they call the calm after the storm as you can see. The spectators are back but a little earlier, the olympic park here was evacuated as high winds caused real dangers. Volunteers urging people to seek shelter. Winds blowing over tents causing damage and danger and knocking down barriers. Some right outside our set. Officials closing down all the stores here in the olympic park. The park was just reopened but the high winds have been constant issue at this games. Four events canceled and delayed today. I was at the highly anticipated womens slalom race. Everyone was waiting to watch Mikaela Shiffrin. It was delayed four times and finally rescheduled to friday. More pressure for mikaela. Drama for us. All day messages on our cell phones warning of these high winds. My friend al roker can tell us whether well have more to this to come. As a matter of fact, we talked about this yesterday, this was going to be a problem. Were talking about this big, strong, High Pressure system generating the difference in Pressure Gradient between the high and low pressure making its way across. The strongest wind gust, 40 to 50mileperhour wind gusts late tonight on into tomorrow. The winds will start to die down but then thursday morning, were going to see those winds increase again and finally decrease late in the day thursday but may pick up on friday when there are more mountain events scheduled. Well be watching this. This will be a situation we have over the next 48 to 72 hours. Winds die down and pick back up again and going to cause havoc with this schedule. Al, thanks. Well talk about Something Else that is getting a lot of attention here at the olympics. The frightening crashes like the one we saw on tuesday involving american luger Emily Sweeney. Nbcs Stephanie Gosk is up at the sliding center with that story. Hey, steph. Reporter good morning. One undeniable truth about olympic sport and thats that the winter events are, by far, the fastest. And the athletes fly the highest. Today we had multiple reminders, and not the kind you ever want to see of just how dangerous those events can be. 16yearold tatsuga was lighting up his second run on the halfpipe when he did something every snowboarder fears. Oh, my goodness. Reporter coming off a trick, his board caught the lip of the course and came crashing down. For a few scary moments the teenager lay on the snow not moving. Just really got hammered right there. Reporter then tatsuka sat up wfr being pulled away on a stretcher. The latest report said he was not seriously injured. He is just the latest to take a spill. Snowboarders and skiers have been battling elements over the last couple of days, and in some cases, losing. For lugers, the challenge may be the track itself. Last night a collective inhale from the crowd when Emily Sweeney lost control and slammed into the track. That is a hard hit. That was a scary moment. Horrific. We were standing next to emilys parents and they stopped breathing for five minutes. Reporter fellow luger tucker west and his dad were in the stands relieved when sweeney got up n seemed okay. Feel a little shaky right now but i know i caught a good amount of air. Reporter sweeney thankfully walked away with no broken bones. This is always our biggest fear. Fortunately it rarely happens like it did last night. Reporter sweeneys run started going wrong on curve nine, a deseptsively dangerous part of the course thats tripped up slider after slider. Big skid out of there. Reporter german felix loch was supposed to lock up gold. One part of the track youre not allowed to do a mistake. Reporter the curve forces sleds to the right when they need to go to the left. Instead of the track, lugers find a wall which is what happened to tucker. It makes for a terrifying run. Youre sitting up at the top. Your heart is beating because you have no idea whats going to happen. Reporter that is, after all, what makes his sport and many others in these Winter Olympics so much fun to watch. The other thing that makes the luge tough is this cold weather. The rails on the sled have a hard time digging into the hard ice. I asked tucker if he thought the track itself was dangerous. He said, no, he doesnt think that its dangerous adding that this is the olympics. Its supposed to be a challenge. Guys, back to you. That it is. Steph, thank you. A lot more to get to including a developing story out of washington. A longtime attorney for President Trump has told nbc news he paid a woman who claimed to have an affair with mr. Trump. Nbc national securicorrespondenr alexander has more. Reporter that attorney is President Trumps personal lawyer saying he paid more than 100,000 of his own money to porn star stormy daniels. Why did he do it for President Trump . Cohen telling nbc news just because something isnt true doesnt mean it cant cause you harm or damage saying, i will always protect mr. Trump. This morning, the latest bombshell to hit the white house. President trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen now admitting in 2016, he paid 130,000 out of his own pocket to adult film star stormy daniels. Daniels, whose real name is stephanie clifford, has reportedly claimed she had a sexual encounter with mr. Trump more than a decade ago. In a statement, cohen writing, neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump Campaign was a party to it and neither re imbursed me for the payment. The payment was lawful and was not a cam. A contribution or a Campaign Expenditure by anyone. Cohens admission first reported by the new york times. Last month the wall street journal reported cohen are made the payment prior to the 2016 election in exchange for cliffords silence about the alleged sexual encounter. Cohen and the white house have previously denied any sexual encounter between clifford and trump. Clifford has refused to answer questions about whether she had a sexual encounter with mr. Trump. Do you have a nondisclosure agreement . Do i . Reporter President Trump again ignoring persistent questions about the issue still engulfing his white house. Thank you very much. Reporter it comes as fbi director Christopher Wray stunned washington contradicting the timeline of events that led to rob porters abrupt resignation. Wray testified the white house was warned about allegations concerning porters background months earlier than acknowledging. The fbi submitting a partial report last march and a completed Background Investigation in late july. Before receiving requests for a followup. We did the followup and provided that information in november and we administratively closed the file in january. Reporter that testimony appearing at odds with what the white house has said for days that the vetting process for porter, who denies the allegations of domestic abuse, wasnt finished. His Background Investigation was ongoing. He was operating on an interim security clearance. It was ongoing. Hant been completed. Reporter aides on tuesday offering another new explanation. Insisting the White House Personnel Security Office hadnt completed its review. They had not made a final recommendation for adjudication to the white house because the process was still ongoing when porter resigned. A day earlier Sarah Sanders said the fbi is responsible for the background check. Its handled by our Law Enforcement and intelligence community. Reporter this morning here at the white house, a lot of rumblings about chief of staff john kellys status. The white house says President Trump still has confidence in kelly but in yet another contradiction when asked about the porter situation, kelly told the wall street journal everything was done right but, remember remember, just days ago, they told us the white house could have handled it better. One climber died on tuesday after falling at least 700 feet on oregons mt. Hood. Six other climbers stranded after conditions turned treach use near the mountains peek. The Oregon National guard scrambled a blackhawk helicopter for a complex rescue mission more than 10,000 feet up. By nights end, the six climbers were escorted safely off the mountain. One is recovering from a nonlifethreatening injury. 7 16. Lets turn to mr. Roker. Weather is a big story here. And back home, looking at some weather, too. Wet weather making its way through the southeast and into the midatlantic states. And the northeast as well. In fact, potential flood corridor over the next several days. Were just watching storm after storm after storm into next week. Five, six, seven storms move through. By the time its all over, we could be looking at a widespread area of seven inches of rain from Central Texas into the ohio and Mississippi River valleys. And lesser amounts of one to two inches as you get into the northeast. Well be watching that extremely good morning. Im meteorologist bill henley. Clouds overhead will break for sunshine. Philadelphia partly sunny and up to 53 degrees this afternoon. Youll see some sunshine breaking through the clouds this mrn morning. Just a little bit cooler at the shores. Skies will turn partly sunny during the day today. Afternoon temperatures climb into the low 50s for the Lehigh Valley. Any rain showers hold off until late this evening. Thats your latest weather. Coming up, were going to be talking about a possible big snowstorm along the east coast. Why do you look happy . The east coast of the u. S. . Yes. Not here. All right, al roker, thanks. Coming up, much more on shaun whites road to an historic third gold medal. Hell be here live to tell us all about that. And well take you to the dmz where we were given an exclusive momentbymoment account of one north korean soldiers headlinemaking bid for freedom. You probably remember those videos. We retrace his steps. First, this is today on nbc. I was in my third tour in iraq when my vehicle was hit by an ied. I looked down and i knew i was out of the fight. But playing for team usa has been a Second Chance to represent my country. I get to show my children and the world that, yeah, i might have been knocked down, but im up, and im honored to be able to represent the flag. Comcast is grateful to all who have served our country, and were proud to bring the 2018 olympic and Paralympic Winter Games home to everyone. Coming up, is matchmaking an olympic sport . The superstar olympian hoping to find a valentine here in pyeongchang. 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