they're referring to the straits of hormuz. this is a big threat from iran, the closure of it and the u.s. is bearing down on that as well as the accusations we killed their scientist. you'll those words. there are new efforts to take away parole power from the governor in one state. and this is reaction to that fiasco that happened in mississippi where the outgoing governor decided to give full pardons so there are four convicted murders on the loose right now, the attorney general is saying there will be a nationwide manhunt for those guys that took off running. >> i still don't understand that how can you work for a guy that is technically innocent? weird. we'll get to the bottom of it. also, here's one for the funny books. stephen -- force. >> or is it. >> i love this man. but would he be a good president? could he be a good president? could he even be president? he made a big late night announcement. it ain't the first time stephen colbert has suggested throwing his hat in the ring for president. we'll tell you what the polls show. we have some amazing video here. look at this. these are iphone riots in china. i love my iphone but -- i didn't know i'd be going there. >> they egged the store. we'll go there live too find out how security handled the chaos there. first to something else that's explosive and potentially dangerous. that is our relationship should i say euphemistically with iran. quite a chess game going on between the obama administration and, of course, the administration in iran. "the new york times" is reporting this morning that we are warning iran's supreme leader that closing the strait of hormuz is a red line. >> that is the most vital oil shipping lane in the world and would bottle up a fifth of the world's daily oil trade. the strike group led by the k"us carl vinson" is riving and they're denying it's related. >> i know you feel like you've heard it before, the threat of closing the strait of hormuz. we've been cat and mousing on this a little bit but it's ramping up because iran is now threatening it again because one of its nuclear scientists was killed and there's been a response to the nuclear program there and now the supreme leader, the ayatollah khomeini is blaming the usa as well as the mossad for that killing of that nuclear scientist. now, our government is saying it had absolutely nothing to do wit. you can listen closely to our defense secretary leon panetta. >> on the nuclear scientist, you know, let me state what the secretary of state made clear and i will state it as firmly. we were not involved in any way in any way with regards to the assassination that took place there. i'm not sure of would was involved. we have some ideas as to who might be involved but we don't know exactly who was involved but i can tell you one thing, the united states was not involved. >> well, it sounds pretty clear, right? but then there's there, a source tells cnn 's barbara starr, you cannot infer anything from what the secretary says. >> i feel it's pretty clear. >> the iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad is also defending it saying the united states is using this as an excuse that iran is not looking to make any atomic bombs and that it goes against humor rat to do so. they have said all along they maintain this is for medical reasons and have to do with cancer research, et cetera, and energy. so that's their story and then we've got ours. >> yep. we're going to talk to a reporter about that, as well. but now we want to talk about the fallout from the mississippi pardon mess. oklahoma senate is making a move to prevent a similar thing from happening there. cnn affiliate koco reports tate senator harry coates filed a resolution that would take parole power away from the governorer it says this "the current controversy in mississippi highlights the potential drawbacks associated with having a governor in this position. this is a common sense effort to mitigate any such risks by allowing the qualified and experienced member of the pardon and parole board the opportunity to determine the best course of action in each case." they're still looking for those four released killers. after getting out with full pardons before haley barbour's additional pardons and alina cho is here with more. >> so many are outraged about this and at this point it's a case they're trying to undo what's already been done. >> i don't know. >> well, and that's the big question. you know, first off we should mention a chuj has issued an order preventing at least for now the release -- is my microphone working, the release of any more prisoners -- maybe we should work on this. it doesn't change the fact four convicted murders are on the loose and cannot be found. now, legally the four of them are supposed to report to authorities on a daily basis. not required to do so until they receive an official copy of the court record but they've disappeared because they were pardoned. once these four vicks were pardoned it's as if, remember, it's as if they never committed the murders so they were free men and they had no obligation to tell authorities where they were going and not much they can do to find them. technically because they haven't broken any laws authorities cannot issue an arrest warrant. mississippi's attorney general told our martin savidge that tracking them down is priority number one. >> there is going to be a national search for some of them. we will catch them. just a matter of time. -- >> do you know where they are? >> no. >> no? >> we know where their family. we're in contact with their family. there is a search going on for them and we'll lay hands on them at some point. >> hail lley barbour pardoned t. they worked at the governor's mansion in the kitchen even washed the governor's cars according to abc news. the victims' families want haley barbour to give them some answers. >> the whole nation is wanting to know why. i think that he needs to at least be accountable to the citizens -- to the people of mississippi. he needs to stand up and take a stand and at least explain his decision to do this. he's abuse the his authority as a governor to pardon all these criminals and let them go back out on the street. >> now, the only explanation we have gotten from barbour is a brief statement he released and said 90% of the people pardoned were no longer in custody and that a majority of them had been out for years. , that doesn't change the fact that four convicted murders are on the loose. they cannot be found and it doesn't change the fact that those four convicted murders were not not in custody anymore. they weren't among that 90%, so as you have said, you know, the whole nation is rivet the by this wondering how could this have happened. >> don't you think it's weird that the a.g. in that state is saber rattling saying we're going to go after them. how is there a man hunt? it's like a man hunt for me and you. we have done nothing wrong. >> don't they have to -- >> can you do a man hunt -- >> they can search for them. they technically can't issue an arrest warrant. yes, they want them to check in every day. they can't do so until they're served with a court recoorder. they can't do that because nobody can find them. >> it's like asking me to check in every day. why? i didn't do anything wrong. >> it's rare to have these pardons overturned as jeffrey toobin has reported. >> very scary. >> thank you. every morning we like to get you an early start we like to call it by getting you up to speed on news developing now and will become big by tonight. a judge in peru will held joran van der sloot how many years he can expect to spend behind bars and spleeded guilty to killing stephanie flores. van der sloot was a suss independent in natalee holloway's killing. flores found something related to the case on joran's computer it is expected. a federal court will hear perry's challenge to get his name on virginia's primary ball ballot. right now, only mitt romney and ron paul are on the ballot. and this is great video. iphone riots in china. apple saying this morning it's going to stop selling the iphone 4s in china because it's just gotten way too dangerous. the company had to close the beijing store after they egged the place. scalpers reportedly got more than a thousand people standing in line for them so that they could then sell the phones on the black market. they did that here in new york, as well. a whole bunch of people paid $100 to buy those phones and get them on the black market. >> not going there. >> you can sell your own broken iphone on ebay and get more money here than they paid in china. >> u.s. markets closed higher but not by much. the dow and nasdaq had gains of less than 1%. >> that's not much. that really isn't much. earnings season so that's going to be directing things. i'm expecting things to be choppy in the near term. all about the earnings seasons and we'll get those today. >> they release them all at different times. >> different times so we'll get an idea of just how healthy the u.s. banks are. that's important. >> you threw this here. i was reading it. 2011 graduate salaries are up. they're up. specifically for certain areas. >> so, look, if you are in high school trying to pick your college major, listen, if you are in college right now wondering what is going to happen, listen, average salary for 2011 graduates is up to almost 42,000 up about 959 from last year, the top earners, guess? engineers, engineers, computer science, computer engineering, those blow away everything else. the lowest are criminal justice, english, psychology and then just a little built better than those is education, about 37,000, $38,000 a year. special ed major you get a little more and communication majors only got a little bit more. >> did you know what that was for engineers. >> 61,000 and good demand. how many times have i told you that. five years of school usually. more of an investment on the front end. that's what's important. i always tell you and the big, you know, college planning experts say you don't want to borrow more for college than you expect to earn in your first year out. that's why this report is important. i'll tweet it. give it to the young person in your life. >> the young person in your life is probably asleep. >> and borrowing money. you shouldn't borrow more money than you expect to earn in the first your out. you have kids in marketing, in engineering, especially in engineering but marketing and business who are getting -- would are still in college getting for jobs in the summer. i haven't seen that in about three years. that means young people are getting jobs again. >> not your passion though. >> you have to find the thing you love, the thing you're good at and someone will pay for you. struggling with student debt you'll ultimately be unhappy. i'm saying, just go for something for the money and i probably couldn't be an engineer although my parents pushed me for. >> my first salary out of college. >> 7,000. >> i thought it was so much money. >> 24 years ago. i don't think 24 years ago -- it doesn't mitigate at all. >> highest paid english majors write technical work for engineering technology. translate it to the growing fields but i'll tweet it out if anybody wants to look at it for 9 young person in your life. >> what's happening weatherwise. jacqui jeras is filling this for rob marciano today. >> good morning, guys. travel is going to be a huge problem today especially across the great lakes. and the northeastern corridor dealing with 9 winter storm so the snow is an issue but in addition the wind is going to make things even worse. check out these pictures we have for you from cookeville, tennessee, they've got about a half of an inch to an inch of snow from yesterday. not a whole lot but enough to close the schools down and there's a lot of black ice all across the area too. i-40 reporting a lot of accidents across tennessee overnight so be aware of that. take a look at some of the other totals more impressive. the state of illinois, check out rockford, about six inches there, chicago, o'hare, 4.6 inches is what you got and this is the 11th latest you've ever had two inches of snow or more. about three inches in milwaukee but you had a little more at the airport. more like 6, the cold air is pushing in. it is going to hit the entire eastern seaboard. the last day of those warmer temperatures in the northeast as those temperatures fall, winds will be gust up to 50 miles per hour so that could cause spotty power outages not to mention the mess at the airports. back to you guys. >> 15 minutes past the hour. still ahead, natalee holloway. remember that teenager at the center of that misery in aruba. legally now she is considered dead. she was declared such by a judge in this country. we'll tell you what her parents have to say about that. i want healthy skin for life. 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[ major nutrition ] ensure. nutrition in charge! ♪ [ female announcer ] if whole grain isn't the first ingredient in your breakfast cereal, what is? now, in every box of general mills big g cereal, there's more whole grain than any other ingredient. that's why it's listed first on the side. from honey nut cheerios to cinnamon toast crunch to lucky charms, get more whole grain than any other ingredient... without question. just look for the white check. good morning to you, charlotte. it is, what, 36 degrees now. they are -- >> what? >> not going to be sunny and 45 later. there's a cold front everywhere. jacqui said, get ready. >> you know what is hot in charlotte, the ads on tv. >> oh, yeah, lord i am so sorry if you're having to watch the barrage the ads in your state. i know it's ugly. >> give folks a lot to talk about. >> 19 minutes past the hour. just getting ready, don't do it yet until you have your local news making headlines. we like to call it our "early read." we have papers from atlanta and from phoenix. why don't we start in atlanta. "the atlanta journal-constitution" is reporting if you're a flier and go airline to airline, you may not have to do that so often because if delta gets its way it wants to take over american airlines. pretty amazing. american's parent company, amr, they're bankrupt, delta and some private equity firmer is reportedly putting together a bid in bankruptcy court but at this point nobody is commenting. those airlines don't want to talk publicly about this and as far as frequent flier points, wait. you're going to have to get the comment from them. we have no idea -- >> that would be quite a monopoly. >> huge. we'll go to arizona. the democrats in arizona plan to introduce a bill to repeal the state's controversial anti-immigration law known as sb-1070. why are they trying to recall the law? because the senate president, russell pearce was recalled using the architect of that law and hoping it gives them an opportunity to do that. listen -- do you know the details. it orders immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times. failure to carry them would be considered a crime and broad question to question them, by police. they stop you and you don't have that information and they think you are not a legal resident then that's the one -- >> that's the one this of's been pressuring about and the governor of the state got tongue-tied about that. that's not been none too friendly. >> it'll end up in court. >> that would have been me two years ago if i lived in arizona. i would have proved i was an immigrant. >> i'm too white. nobody would ask me to show the card. we're also waiting on a story developing right now, a judge in peru is going to hand down the sentence that joran van der sloot deserves, two days ago he pleaded guilty to a violent and vicious murder of a woman in lima hotel room back in 2010. the court proceedings are getting under way at 10:00 eastern. just under five hours from now. but you might remember also that van der sloot is a prime suspect in natalee holloway's disappearance in aruba. almost seven years ago. he was arrested a couple times and held behind bars and the suspicion was just enormous but never charged in that crime and natalee body was never found so no one ever knew what happened. yesterday a judge in this country in alabama finally declared that young girl dead and it was a sad day for natalee parents. >> well, it's been tough. you know, we learned about natalee situation ten days into the investigation. the fbi told us that they were investigating this from a homicide investigation and, you know, we've been dealing with her death for the last 6 1/2 years and hopefully this meeting today will kind of put some closure on it. >> natalee father wanted to see this through and, of course, it makes me very sad. >> very sad, indeed. the attorney for natalee father whose name is dave holloway joins us from birmingham. mark white, thank you for getting up to talk to us about it. such a sad topic. i'm glad i'm talking to you because i don't know where i'd begin to ask your client about this. so i'll ask you. how is he doing? is he okay after that ruling? >> well, i think this was a painful but necessary process. dave is doing i would say as well as one could anticipate because this has been a long, painful journey for these parents, for this entire family. but it did -- it did -- we did accomplish, i guess yesterday, the legal requisite that we set out to do. >> and i though that there were some technicalities. there is a college fund in natalie's fame that couldn't be released unless she was required dead and medical insurance payments also at issue, as well but my curiousty at this point and i'm a mom so i could not go through what these two parents have gone through, does it have any effect on the investigation into what happened to this young woman? does it have any effect on the arubans and will they continue to try to solve it? does this declaration of her death make a difference ask. >> well, those are all questions that this family ask every day, and they continue to cooperate constantly with all law enforcement authorities, both in this country and the other country, as well. there is a pending case here in the northern district of alabama involving the attempted extortion of beth holloway, and ultimately there will have to be legal adjudication on that case. >> how would that happen because he's being -- joran van der sloot is being sentenced in peru today that could be a sentence of upwards of 30 years, but if he does end up getting the maximum and let's just say he serves a portion, 10 or 20, might the americans might want to extradite him before, during or after that sentence and actually try to prosecute him here for that extortion? >> i think the u.s. attorney here is committed absolutely to prosecuting that case as to whether it will be after he is sentenced or after he serves that sentence, that remains to be seen. >> mark, i appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. if you would pass on our condolences to beth and dave, as well. this has got to be a terrible time for them. thank you for your time. >> thank you. it is 25 minutes past the hour, switching gears here still to come o