How did this happen . And going gaga, one of the most creative and controversial women in music. And lady gaga is live in studio. And shes got something you will only see right here on today, friday, march 21st, 2014. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, welcome to today on a friday morning. Nice to have you along. Matts got the morning off. Were waking up. Its nightfall off the coast of australia. And how frustrating, another day turning up nothing. Especially for 239 families waiting for something. And its once again our top story. This ongoing search for possible debris from flight 370. It has been 14 days since that plane disappeared. Still, no solid answers, just questions. Nbcs tom costello has this mornings newest developments. Tom, good morning. Good morning, savannah. Search teams have been looking in this area, and so far, nothing. Even as they go deep into the indian ocean, theyve spotted nothing. Theyre looking, of course, for the two objects spotted on satellite right here, about 1,500 miles or so off the coast of australia. The concern is that those issues, those items may have shifted dramatically with the ocean currents. And so now the australians say in this area right here, where theyre focusing, theyre going to be looking more at human spotting rather than using radar looking for any debris on the ocean surface. Reporter the question this morning, are the remains of flight 370 somewhere out there in one of the most remote corners of the earth . Did the plane simply fly until it ran out of fuel then crash into the ocean . One day after australia released these Satellite Photos of what could be floating debris, the search zone was today targeted by aircraft from australia, u. S. , and new zealand, dropping buoy markers that transmit ocean current data. The australian Prime Minister this morning. Thats the most inaccessible spot you can imagine on the face of the earth. But if there is anything down there, we will find it. We owe it to the families of those people to do no less. Reporter while the two pieces are thought to be 79 and 16 feet long, the ocean is a very big place with rolling waves. On the water itself, the Australian Naval ship success should be on site by sunday. But a norwegian cargo ship traveling through the region has already diverted with crew members ordered to keep watch. The ships captain talked by phone to a norwegian newspaper late thursday. The visibility is poor at times in every mile or two. There are fog patches. Speed is of the essence since theres now only 16 days of battery life left in those underwater locator pingers attached to the black boxes. Itll be up to ships or submarines working the area to listen carefully with underwater microphones. They would set up a search grid and they would travel through that grid listening for this frequency to locate and localize the wreckage. Reporter while the pingers may die, the black boxes should survive. Designed to withstand both the crash impact and the pressure of 20,000 feet of water. The data recorder will give us the objective parameters to look and see how the airplane was being flown, what data entry was made into the computers, when it was made. It wont tell us by who, but it will tell us when. And that may very well in all likelihood will explain this mystery. The black boxes from flight air france 447 were found in a similar depth of water two years after it crashed into the atlantic ocean. It was up to submersible vehicles to find the Critical Evidence that helped solve that mystery. There was also this from the News Conference in malaysia today. The plane was carrying a load of lithium ion batteries. Small batteries for laptops in the cargo hold. These have been known to catch fire. But the ceo of Malaysian Airlines said today they were in approved packaging. Still that announcement will likely fuel the theory that a fire couldve occurred mid flight perhaps that is why it ended up down here at the bottom of the earth. Guys, back to you. Tom costello with us on the story for us for the 14th day. Thank you very much. Lets take a turn now to nbcs bill neely in perth, australia where more ships have left this morning to join that search. Bill, good morning. Reporter yes, good morning, carson. From perth in western australia, the air base for a number of u. S. And australia yan scouring the ocean 1,400 miles off this coast in the most intensive search ever mounted for a missing plane. Weve had one Australian Air force plane return, another is due here any second. The crew of the first plane could see for six miles. They could not stay over the search area as long as they warrant wanted. They came back. Also returning now is a more sophisticated u. S. Poseiden surveillance plane. Hoping to do what they did yesterday which is to spend about three hours searching in the area at 5,000 feet. If they see anything, theyll dip down to 1,000 feet. Yesterday, visibility was very bad. They saw dolphins and tankers, but no debris. So hightech planes, lowtech as youve heard with crew men with binoculars on the deck of a cargo ship. But this is incredibly difficult search. One australian aviation expert said you could hardly pick a more difficult area. The search will resume tomorrow. Back to you guys in new york. Bill neely, thank you. With more, lets go over to savannah. Carson, thanks. Bob hager covered aviation for nbc news for 25 years, and greg feith is a former ntsb investigator. Good morning to both of you. Good morning, savannah. Greg, let me start with you. Its hard to overstate how difficult this search is. If this satellite indeed captured images of wreckage, would you expect there to be other satellite images that perhaps captured more debris . This late date, 14 days in, would you still expect there to be a large debris field somewhere in that vicinity . I would, savannah because wreckage tends to cluster. And if its moving in the same sea state, it shouldnt spread out too much. As far as the resolution on the satellite photo, you have to remember as we talked about over the past week or so, that area of the world isnt covered by the highest tech satellite. So this image while it looks better than the chinese image may not be of the best quality because the satellite that took that picture wasnt necessary to have the highest definition, if you will. The chinese have said theyre going to train a number of satellites that they have plus others are going to try to find some wreckage using some of the higher resolution satellites. We may end up Getting Better pictures from various sources over the next few days. We know, of course, that airline debris, a lot of it does, in fact, float. But one of the australians this morning raised the possibility that these pieces or some of these pieces couldve sunk in the meantime. Is that a real concern . Absolutely, savannah. Everything, i mean, when you look at clothing and suitcases, seat cushions and Everything Else as they get water logged, they get heavy. And, of course, they will submerge. Now, there is debris that will float below the surface, but not necessarily sink to the bottom of the ocean. And, of course, because of the rough sea state, you can churn it back up, have it, you know, appear on the surface occasionally and sink again. And on that point, i want to turn to bob hager. The oceanographer in the wall street journal said it well. Said you couldnt have picked a worse place in the world for the plane to have gone down if it had gone down there. The conditions are terrible. Yeah, i cant remember a place where its so remote, so difficult to get out. I think its important to tamp down public expectations here. Even the news about these pieces and whether they came from this aircraft, thats going to take some days or even more. And that doesnt lead you very far even if you find the pieces were from the plane. I was wondering about that. Lets say you find a piece of wreckage, what could it conceivably tell you about what led to this event if anything . Well, i was trying to think, tom mentioned in his piece the lithium batteries were in the cargo, could there have been fire. If this is a piece of the wing, and it might be, thats about the right size. The wing would be charred if thered been a big fire. That might tell you that. And could also say if its in the location that it ran out of fuel. But that still doesnt get it. You need those black boxes. And real quickly on that. The black boxes will ping for 30 days. That assumes their position correctly on the sea floor where you would actually hear that ping. Oh, yeah. Because wherever those boxes went down, they are heavy, itd be a long way from where the wreckage on the surface is floating. Its going to be hard to find. Bob hager and greg feith, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Youre welcome. Carson, back to you. Lets go over to al now and get more information on the weather in the search area, al. Well, carson, the good news is, were actually seeing Better Weather, High Pressure is right on top of this. This big area of blue. And again, down in the southern hemisphere, the circulation around high is in a counterclockwise direction. And these arrows are winds. There arent many winds around that area. And as we look at the satellite imagery, youll actually see that were going to have Better Weather moving into that area and its going to stay that way for at least the next 24 hours and well continue to watch that. Again, you can see there, clear skies, lower winds and hopefully the seas are dying down during that time. Because, obviously, thats very important as this its nighttime now, but tomorrow morning when daylight happens, theyll have pretty good weather conditions. All right, al, thank you. Such a challenging search for them. Meantime, natalies here with a big tax scam to tell us about. With tax season upon us, the government is warning taxpayers about a big tax scam. People claiming from the irs calling americans demanding money and a lot of folks have been falling for it. Nbcs Pete Williams is in washington with more on this. Pete, good morning. Good morning. In fact, the Treasury DepartmentInspector General says this is the largest telephone scam of its kind hes ever seen. And so far the government has received 20,000 complaints about it from people who have paid more than 1 million to whoevers behind it. People claiming to be irs agents call taxpayers and say they owe taxes. And saying unless they pay immediately, and saying it could mean losing a drivers license, a business, or being deported. In some cases, a reallooking irs phone number shows up on the caller i. D. And the caller recites part of the taxpayers actual Social Security number. Here are some of the warning signs. The irs says it makes First Contact with taxpayers by mail not by phone. Thats a tipoff. And says it never asks for payments using a Prepaid Debit Card or a wire transfer. Now, this scam actually started showing up last fall, but now it has escalated with complaints from nearly every state. Natalie . It is a very scary thing, indeed. Pete williams. Thank you. More fallout from russias annexing ukraines Crimean Peninsula. European leaders are expanding the sanctions and russia is answering with some of its own. Nbcs chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell has more. Andrea, good morning. Good morning, natalie. The u. S. Hopes to stop russia from going beyond crimea with these new sanctions. Vladimir putin says he wont advance farther into ukraine, his actions speak otherwise. Prorussian masked men with guns stormed this ukrainian ship in crimeas largest port. Threw the crew to the deck and raised the russian flag. Shots were fired, but no one was hurt. Not quiet either on the western front. The russian army continued live fire exercises just over ukraines eastern border. Defended with sandbags and ditches, no match for putins might. The russian president was lectured by the u. N. Chief for grabbing crimea and president obama upped the ante with more sanctions. This time against Vladimir Putins closest friends, russias socalled cronies, the oligarchs. Russia must know further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community. Reporter putin quickly retaliated banning Nine American officials from travel to russia. Including john boehner, harry reid and john mccain who tweeted, i guess this means my spring break in siberia is off. Gas pump stock is lost and secret bank account in moscow is frozen. And putin knows the u. S. Is not prepared to use force to back him down. Its in the greatest interests of the United States and europe and russia, as well, to find a way to step down this ladder. The fear is that one side or the other will miscalculate setting off a confrontation that quickly spins out of control. Natalie . Andrea mitchell in washington, thank you, andrea. You bet. You can expect tough questions when the new General Motors ceo testifies before Congress Next month. House Panel Investigating the delayed recall of 1. 6 million small gm cars because of ignition switch problems that led to at least 12 deaths. Gm says the Ceo Mary Barra welcomes the opportunity to testify on april 1st. One day into the ncaa tournament and lots of busted brackets this morning. Thursday saw a record four overtime games and a day full of upsets. Dayton knocked out ohio state, harvard beat cincinnati, north dakota state upset oklahoma. And this is only the beginning, folks. And with more on our bracketology, i guess well turn to the orange room right now. I think we like to root for the underdog, tamron, but we all want to be winners. In fact, these are the teams our viewers have picked. Well take it all, but you mentioned that game between dayton and ohio state, a huge upset. Look at this, thankyoudayton tweeted 68,000 times following that game. Pretty incredible there. And if youre wondering about the 1 billion bracket thing backed by Warren Buffett. 83 of the folks who entered that challenge have been eliminated following the game of dayton versus ohio state. And a full day of march madness, 95 of the people in the challenge eliminated. Heres a picture to share with you. This is the aftermath. This is what happens when texas beat Arizona State. Feel the pain, guys . Oh, my goodness. Dont get too excited, it is called march madness. And we have our own bracket going on. Are you curious where you stand . Yes. Im out. I knew it. It is called march madness. Dont tamp it down too much. Here we go. Boom, carson youre in last place. Savannah, natalie tied. Al roker at 11. Carson, you and matt are tied for last place. I am the second seed, just saying. And big willie because of his sports background winning this so far. But i have to be selfish and note, i just circled randomly. Willie put in great thought. Ill contrast with him when he gets back from spring break. Please work on your march madness. Work on the madness. That just demonstrates, theres not that much difference between really studying the team and taking the mascot you like. Right. The cuteness of the uniforms, youre still in it. Mascot. Mascot. Mascot. I was retweeted. A lot of love. The whoo shot. Youre big. Mr. Roker, whats shaking . Take a look. Weve got really cool video for you to look at. This is the river raisin in monroe, michigan. And it has backed up, and it is causing flooding all throughout that area. Theyre bringing in coast guard ice breaker to break up the ice before it causes any more problems. And were going to be seeing this a lot more around the country as temperatures start to warm up. Weve got a little precipitation making its way into minneapolis as a clipper comes across. Look for rain and snow showers. Cloudy skies, temperatures about 43 degrees. This clipper moves through pretty quickly. Secondary one develops around chicago. That will bring rain and snow. Then colder air comes in behind that. And that will bring a shortlived amount of spring. Look at the snowfall. Talking 1 to 3 inches across northern minnesota, into michigan, some areas picking up as much as 3 to 6 inches. Were going to get to your local forecast coming up in the next 30 seconds. When you retire . Then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. I was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. Im going to have to rethink this thing. Its hard to imagine how much well need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. So maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. Were seeing the return of low clouds around the east bay to San Francisco this morning with some mist out along the coast. Some of the low clouds, 40s and 50s right now. As you jump through the afternoon well see not only the low clouds on the coast but high clouds passing by moving to the afternoon, and our temperatures today running cooler thanks to the sea breeze. Low 70s san jose. Low 60s San Francisco. Low 70s inland toward the trivalley with partly cloudy skies. Thank you so much. And now to Michelle Obamas week long tour of china. Focusing a lot of time on education there. She visited a high school in beijing just this morning. But is there a bigger diplomatic message behind her trip . Nbcs White House CorrespondentPeter Alexander has more on that part of the story. Good morning. Savannah, good morning. President obama and chinas president are going to meet in europe early next week. The first lady is going to leave the heavy lifting on divisive issues to them. This trip is focused on building good will. White house aides are confident that the first ladys personal story will also resinate with the chinese people. Reporter they make an impressive pair. First Lady Michelle