Transcripts For WBAL 20100106 : vimarsana.com

this morning on early today, party problem. in a surprise blow to democrats, two senior senators decide not to run for reelection. to the wood shed. president obama blasts his security team for intelligence failures following last month s airline bombing attempt. and fruit of the sea. scientists discover a bizarre new crab species off the coast scientists discover a bizarre new crab species off the coast of taiwan. captions paid for by nbc-universal television hello and good morning. i m christina brown. today we begin with the potomac two-step. for a party already struggle to go maintain a voting majority in the senate, today democrats face the realization that several high-profile law makers now plan to walk away from their jobs. nbc news conforms connecticut senator chris dodd will announce he won t seek reelection this year for a sixth term in the u.s. senate. the 65-year-old s decision comes amid slipping poll numbers thanks to his role in the unpopular bailout of wall street firms. that news broke on the same day north dakota democrat, senator bayh ron door began announced he will end his 18-year run in the senate. meanwhile, colorado governor bill, ritter, who has been credited with energizing the party said he won t be running for a second term this fall. a potential enter party feud is brewing. former democratic tennessee congressman harold ford jr. is weighing a new york senate bid against incumbent democrat kir ten gillibrand. well, president obama is vowing to fix what he calls systematic problems with the way spy agencies gather and especially the way they share intelligence. as nbc s steve handelsman reports, it follows a private white house meeting where the heads of those departments faced an upset president looking for answers. reporter: 11 days after the christmas bomb attack, president obama said his team is committed to preventing a recurrence. this was not a failure to collect intelligence. it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. reporter: he called his national security team to the white house and demanded the unvarnished truth about how the system failed to stop umar farouk abdulmutallab. reporter: the nsa intercepted conversations about a nigerian bomber. the cia was warned. and the state department warned by abdulmutallab s own father. they got all three reports but did not connect the dots. a suspected al qaeda agent allowed to fly to the u.s. carrying a bomb. president obama is ordering two kinds of changes, one dedirection, profiling of passengers based on nationality. their carry-ons hand searched. two, toughening up four wraatch lists. we have to do better, and we will do better. and we have to do it quickly. american lives are on the line. reporter: but advance scanners and updated lists are not yet deployed. i m steve handelsman, nbc news, washington. the obama administration, meanwhile, says it has suspended transfers of guantanamo bay detainees to yemen. that decision, however, does not alter its plan to close the facility. the obama administration enjoyed a court victory yesterday, one that also somewhat vind indicated the bush administration as well. a sweeping decision by a federal appeals court backed the wartime powers of the president to detain terror suspects, even over the limitation office international law. unless it is reversed by the supreme court, the ruling gives the white house a stronger hand in challenging court orders, calling for the release of detainees. the three-judge panel rejected a panel by cook who claimed he was neither part of a military or country at war. giving them the rights of criminal defendants would impact the entire way the military approaches war. now here s a look at some other stories making news early today in america. san diego police are looking for two mench accused of beating a man with a skateboard at a train station. they pushed the man onto the tracks and began pummeling him. one suspect struck the man repeatedly with a skateboard. police are still looking for the attackers but also a motive. a 600-pound leather backed turtle came ashore. the large turtles are normally in south america this time of year. wildlife experts suspected something may be wrong. they estimated him to be 40 years old and he was found to have a lacerated fin and taken in for rehabilitation. if you want to know just how cold it is in miami. just take a look at the animals. workers at miami metro zoo found chimpanzees fashioning blankets out of burlap sacks. they had a reason to bundle up. temperatures in the 70s last year. this year they ve been as low as the 40s. can t blame them. now for a look at your national and regional weather here s nbc meteorologist bill karins with the weather channel forecast. we have all been bundling up for quite some time. were they start enough to do that on their own. i m going to give it to them. if they can do it, why not? let s talk about the cold outbreak. right now we re watching temperatures in florida that we don t typically deal with, freezing temperatures. cold air still up here in the northern plains. it s chilly in new england. but actually 25, 26 isn t too bad. it s the cold air in florida that s really the exception. and the windchill is still pretty nasty in atlanta, too. right now, temperatures 21. nashville, 15. it s colder in atlanta this morning than it is from d.c. to boston. the heart of the cold air is missing new england and sliding through the southeast. the windchill is 25 in orlando. 12 in tallahassee. 9 in atlanta. and the freeze line at this hour is slicing through tampa and just south of orlando. the airport is 34. other areas are colder than that. this cold blast, freeze warnings are out. tomorrow morning will be just as cold. a little warmer on friday before the next arctic air arrives there on saturday. once the sun is up, everything will be fine. i know there s a lot of nervous farmers in central florida trying to save their crops. that s a look at your national forecast. now here s a look at the weather outside your window. sunshine will make it feel a little better this afternoon. 53 in tampa. 42 in columbia. areas in new england today, partly cloudy. not bad. temperatures in the mid-30s. christina, there s another arctic blast on the way after this one. so no rest for the weary as they say. all right. thanks for that, bill. fords move fast, nestle discovered pizza, and sushi in japan. leading lady sandra bullock makes movie history. redskins sign their man, and a holiday inn st. louis. you re watching early today. good morning and welcome back to early today. i m christina brown. and mere are some of your top headlines. in the latest string of embarrassing airport incidents, an airport outside los angeles was shut down for several hours yesterday after a bag with an amber liquid inside tested positive for tnt. it turns out the amber liquid is just what the bag aels owner told tsa officers it was, honey. red-faced officials knit there was a problem identifying who was behind sunday night s security breach at newark issue international airport because a camera system weren t working right. they were streaming live images but not recording them. the tsa had to request assistance from continental airlines to see what their cameras turned up. a marine biologist discovered a new crab species that looks like a strawberry. they were found during an oil spill. sadly, they didn t survive. in northern china, there was a fiery display for a bone-chilling event. the annual international ice and snow festival kicked off. visitors get a chance to go for a slide, walk through a maze and check out some spectacular replicas. now here s an early look how wall street will kick off the day. the dow opens at 10,572 after dipping 11 points on wednesday. the s&p nudged up 3. the nasdaq was up a fraction. taking a look at overseas trading this morning, in tokyo, the nikkei rose 49 points, while in hong kong, the hang seng jumped 137 points. mixed economic data made for a cautious day on wall street as investors hedged their bets ahead of a jobs report coming out later this week. helping stoshgs the expected number of factory orders more than doubled last month, but offsetting those gains a disappointing drop in pending home sales. december s 16% slide was the real estate industry s first decline after nine months of gains with the important jobs report coming up friday, stocks could come to meander this week. ford sales are moving into the new year in high gear thanks in part to an 83% leap in sales of its mid-sized fusion. sales were up 33% in december. that drove ford shares 6% higher. meanwhile, apple is looking to take a bite out of rival s google s advertising revenue, announcing the quatro wireless. in corporate deal making, nestle is betting bigbie announcing it will pay $3.7 billion in cash for kraft s frozen pizza unit, including tombstone and digiorno. kraft s biggest shareholder, warren buffett, issued a press release voting against the move. finally, this one is no fish tale. a giant bluefin tuna sold for $177,000 at a tokyo auction tuesday. it s the country s biggest catch in nearly a decade. quarter ton tuna was so big three sushi restaurants pitched in to pay for it. iowa and georgia tech square off in the orange bowl. and a big signing and a big retirement in major league baseball. plus, 30 years later, on the brink of defeat, the americans pull off another miracle on the ice. your early morning sports headlines are straight ahead. winter is in full swing. antarctic blast, now a snow event, then another arctic blast. your regional forecast is coming up. you re watching early today. good morning. if you re just waking up, this is early today. in sports, it may have been the coldest orange bowl ever, but this morning iowa state is basking in the warm glow of victory. here s nbc s fred roggin with an early look at all your sports headlines. good morning. it wasn t the most intriguing bcs game, but don t tell that to the iowa hawk eyes. a chilly orange bowl, perfect weather for the hawk eyes. risky stanzy threw two first quarter touchdowns. put iowa up 14-0. to the fourth, where the hawk eyes put it away. iowa won its first major bowl game in 51 years, beating georgia tech, 24-14. washington redskins wasted no time in hiring a new coach. the team decided mike shanahan to a five-year, $35 million deal to become head coach and vp operations in washington. st. louis cardinals resigned matt halladay to a seven-year deal worth $120 million. three-time all-star hit 109 rbi last season. and the big unit is called a quits. johnson announced his retirement. five-five cy young winner has a staggering 303 victories. next stop for johnson, cooperstown. gold medal game of the world junior championships. usa and canada needing overtime. scored the goal of his life. four minutes into sudden death o.t., usa wins the gold medal ending canada s streak of five straight championships. that s your early look at sports on early today . i m fred roggin. comedian kaethd griffin s mouth and low ratings get her in hot water once again. your early morning entertainment headlines are straight ahead. plus, this particular version of send rell la took place on a basketball court in missouri. you re watching early today. welcome back. good wednesday morning. temperatures, they re cold, especially in florida. and it will stay that way during the day today. 54 the high. only 58 in miami. there will be some snow showers this morning in areas of pennsylvania. some of those could make their way into d.c. not a big deal. a weak system will slide out of the midwest with light snow on thursday. chicago could end up with enough to shovel. may be minor shoveling in the ohio valley. light and fluffy snow. maybe two to three inches. that dries up. doesn t quite make it to the east coast for thursday. really just the ohio valley tomorrow. if you re watching whdh 7 news in boston, have your little ones twist and shout to their favorite songs at the music and movement exhibit at the boston children s museum. that s your eastern event of the day, christina. a little chubby checker. why not. thanks so much, bill. now here s a look at this morning s headlines in entertainment. talk about a turnaround. just months after some skeptics considered her career toast, sandra bullock has made screen history. variety reports bullock s the blind side is the first film in history driven by a female star to earn $200 million at the box office. congratulations. redman o neill, son of ryan o neal and the late farrah fawcett is caught with drugs after a 24-hour pass out of rehab. katy perry and russell brand are engaged. while five months pregnant with her and charlie sheen s boys, she went to rehab and she blames her drinking for one of their boy s heart problem. cnn has had enough of kathy griffin s off-color antics. she s been dropped. the boston herald reports since he no longer needs to fix his marriage, sean penn is back as larry in the upcoming three stooges movie. congratulations go out to sandra bullock. i love the fact you can be forgotten one day and hotter than a hot tomale the next. this comes to us from ksdk news channel 5 in st. louis, where for one night the special needs student who normally passes out water to the basketball team became the star of the basketball team. since this is his senior year the coach let him dress for one game. he drained a three-pointer from the corner. with just seconds remaining, he had another three. he was carried off by teammates and fans, the newly crowned big man on campus. good for him. i m christina brown, and this is early today, just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. they could wednesday morning to you. we are turning a corner somewhat today. we will be a couple of degrees milder. there are some clouds around. since no activity in central pennsylvania. it is trying to infiltrate frederick s town. nothing in central maryland. 18 at the airport. the actual temperatures are in the 20 s. we could see sunshine this afternoon. we have a system that is coming in. we will talk about snow tomorrow night into friday. we will see you in a bit. here is a look ahead to 11 news today. five jurors in the mayor sheila dixon trial have some explaining to do. why they will be in court today. the white house believes is the very words president obama used in his top security team in the christmas day bomb plot. the christmas day bomb plot. we w crafted to be exceptionally smooth. decadently rich. delightful. chocolate. bliss. hershey s bliss chocolate. crafted for bliss. wow, that s a low price! i think i ll get him a cart. wow! 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