kitten, and what may be just the cutest video ever to go viral. this is saturday, may 28, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television you can hear the ahs across the newsroom. welcome to "today" on a saturday morning. i'm lester holt. >> good morning, i'm amy rom batch. good morning on this holiday weekend. look at that. >> it's a very tender moment between a mother cat and her sleeping kitten and as you might imagine it's drawing millions of views on youtube. just too cute. >> more on that just ahead. following serious news this morning including the latest from joplin, missouri. president obama will tour the area tomorrow and his visit comes as the city continues to pick up the pieces and continue to rebuild. we'll have a look at those missing in the tornado. >> we're at work today. most americans are spending a few days off enjoying the unofficial start of summer and 35 million people will be hitting the road this weekend. what will gas prices mean for you and your holiday travel and the summer months ahead? we'll tell you coming up. take a look at this. this is a lost relic from a true pirate of the caribbean. a huge anchor from blackbeard's ship was hauled out of the sea off of the coast of carolina. the anchor and the ship have been under the water for 300 years. it's a pretty incredible discovery. more on that in a few moments. >> a lot to get to. let's start with the extreme weather this holiday weekend. dangerous new storm threats in kansas and missouri to tell you about. chris warren is here to tell you about the latest. guo m. >> good morning to you, lester. the threat of severe weather will be with us as we head through the holiday weekend. what we're looking at here, the overall weather pattern we're expecting today through monday. we're going to have more summerlike weather in part of the south and the '. in the west, it will be more like winter. right in the middle, we'll have the chance for the strong storms developing. right now, north of joplin, south of kansas city, we are seeing some of the strong storms developing. it looks like the biggest threat here will be through about mid morning. and with that, we could see some large hail, damaging winds, and possibility some isolated tornadoes with this. but light severe storms, possibly severe storms will be with us during the day today from eastern colorado all the way over to indiana. it won't be as bad as we head to sunday, however, monday, once again, we could see another round for the plains starting to fire up. so, lester, looks like this severe weather threat is not over. >> it's a wicked spring in that part of the country. thanks. >> now to the search for the missing in joplin, missouri a week after the tornado left the city in ruins, a list of unaccounted people stands at 1060 wi10 160 with the death toll rising to 132. good morning. >> good morning to you. the good news is that the number of missing is falling. a lot of that is because some survivors is coming forward and it continues to be something of a confusing situation. but at the same time, the number of dead is increasing. more bodies are being found. and they expect that to continue as well. we're seeing the first funeral taking place here, the first of so many that this town will have. and at the same time, we're beginning to learn more about some of the people that this town lost. they celebrated the life of adam dwayne, a joplin electrician who would have turned 28 this week. also services for ray tripp miller, 49, a sports enthusiast and long-time participant in the special olympics. not far away, residents scoured the six-mile zone of destruction going over some places for a fifth time. >> as the days go on, it gets a little tougher. but we're holding strong and we're still hopeful. >> finding and identifying the dead has been slow, only 19 identified so far. worried families are not allowed to view the remains. one woman mistakenly identified one victim as her son. so the painstaking forensics are under way at the makeshift morgue outside of joplin. >> go through a very specific process to identify the bodies using medical records, using fingerprinting. >> i think there's some frustration and certainly we understand that. >> the mayor sees daunting problems everywhere. thousands still without power. phone service spotty, only bottled water is safe to drink. and some 4,000 jobs lost. >> as we continue to search and find more fatalities, we may be going through a second phase of shock realizing the number of folks that we lost. >> despite all of the pain, something is happening here that's hard not to notice, american flags, all across joplin. they seem to be rising everywhere in the rubble. along with the resolve of the people. >> we will survive. we're americans, after all. we're missourians, we're joplinites. we will survive. >> state officials say they're bringing on extra staff and working around the clock trying to speed up the process of identifying the victims and notifying the families to give them some measure of peace. they identified 31 sets of remains. it's an emotional weekend around here. a memorial service plan and president obama will be here to attend that service, to pay his respects, and look at all of the devastation for himself. lester? ron allen this morning. thank you. now here's amy. >> thank you. now the politics and all eyes are on sarah palin this weekend starting a bus tour that many believe will lead to her making aed by for the race for the white house. david brody is the political correspondent for the christian broadcasting network, good morning. >> hey, amy. >> no politician goes on a bus tour that ends in new hampshire who doesn't have her eye on the presidency. what is sarah palin hoping to get out of this? >> i think et's all about testing the waters, amy. i think that's a big part of it. she's going to go down and go to the early primary states and take a look. this is the unofficial testing the waters campaign, if you will. sarah palin is unpredictable. we never know what she's going to do. it's par for the course. we have a bus tour starting tomorrow. let me check the details for a moment. oh, wait, there aren't many. we have no idea exactly. this is part of her mchl o. she enjoys the fact that the media has to play catchup a little bit. but that's part of it. but, amy, if she wants to be considered a serious candidate, she has to do a reboot here, a 2.0 if you will. it's important you have to have substance on the trail. >> she startles off the tour with a bit of a hiccup. she's going to start off with rolling thunder. that group is saying they want to avoid the public politics. they don't want her to speak. could it be a possible presidenti run? >> she's polarizing. the problem is she has to deal with independents. part of the tour is it's going to be a bunch of, as we hear, sound full rallies across the country where folks are enjoying themselves and the liberty bell is behind them in a good photo-op. that's great and all. but she needs to add some sub stanls. how is she going to change the narrative? if this is going to be 2008 all over again, i don't think many people are interested in that. and, of course, her base is interested in that. but if she's going to move the ball forward, march it down the field, she needs to change the narrative. >> i want to take a look at the new cnn opinion research poll, it's difficult asking voters who they would support as a nominee. rudy giuliani isn't in the race right now takes the lead. mitt romney, sarah palin, ron paul. no one candidate had an overwhelming support. there's not much enthusiasm, correct, for this group? >> it's a wait and see enthusiasm. at some point someone is going to come to the forefront. but, look, i think what that poll shows is that mitt romney is a flawed front-runner here. he's not a slam dunk by any stretch of the imagination. rudy giuliani comes along, he's been under the radar, but he's got major name recognition. that's important also. don't forget social issues not going to be as important in 2012 or 2008 or 2012 as they were in 2008. that's part of it as well. >> david brody, thanks so much. >> thanks, amy. time to get a check of some of the top news stories of the day. richard lui at the newsdesk. good morning, we begin in poland where president obama is wrapping up the five-nation european tour. the commander in chief met with poland's president and oh leaders today. he's asking them to use the other lessons they learned to help with the fall of communism to help with the democratic movements in the middle east and north africa. the results of an uprising in egypt as they promise to improve relations with the palestinians. they took a big step in that opening reopening for the first time in four years it gaza strip, gateway to the outside world. palestinians lined up across the border to reopen permanently. israel is concerned that hamas militants will be able to move more freely. history made in space twice in one day on friday. two astronauts made the final space walk of nasa's 30-year shuttle program. they installed a 50-foot boom to stay in the international space station. friday marked the completion of the $100 billion ism. future space walks will be deployed by space astronauts. the actor jeff conoway has died best known for "grease" and "taxi." it was a serial substance abuser and it cost him his life at the age of 60. after 300 years, an anchor of one of blackbeard's pirate ships was discovered friday off of the coast. it comes from queen anne's revenge. blackbeard's ship sank in 1718, five months after he was killed in a battle. the anchor will be on display in the marathon museum. for cat lovers and haters, little ginger slumbers. the twitches, single paw, double. dreaming along, fir jetting. mouth wide open. mom stretches and pulls baby ginger with a hug. now snuggled up to mom, the kitten sleeps calmly. 4 million views in three days. that's 20 seconds of ah shucks for you. >> no cat haters. >> no, can't be. look at that. >> we're pretty much done. we can't top that. chris warren is back with a check of the national forecast. >> we could have weather haters in some spots as we head to the day today. still a chance for storms. possibly some severe storms today as we look in the middle part of the country. also in the northeast, a chance of storms. we have a way from the coast, cool and unsettled good morning, partly sunny skies this morning. it's in the 60's to near 70 now. they are on the warm and humid . readings in to the 50s. that's your local forecast. now here's amy. chris, thank you. the mystery surrounding the crash of air france flight 447 may have finally been solved this week with the release of the detailed report on the tragedy. the findings reveal the terrifying last 3 1/2 minutes for that jet. nbc's tom costello joins us with more now. amy, good morning. what emerges from the black box of flight 447 is a portrait of chaos inside the cockpit. trouble struck four hours in to the flight from rio to paris. the two co-pilots at the controls a the time were 32 and 37 while the veteran captain was on a rest break. it was a cockpit voice and flight data recorders discovered amid the wreckage in 13,000 feet of water that have now given the investigators the best clues over what caused the disaster. the air bus a-330 was flying in turbulence over the atlantic when the air speed sensors iced over and failed. without those sensors, the autopilot and autothrust systems disengaged. amid the chaos with the captain on a routine rest break, they reacted by pitching the nose up, beginning a dramatic climb from 35,000 feet to 38,000 feet. soon, the plane lost lift and went into an aerodynamic stall. >> it's a lot of confusion. the airplane wasn't doing what it was doing seconds ago. it's not doing what you expect it to do, why not. >> the plane rolling from side to side, both co-pilots called out they had no valid indications or speed readings. fighting the stall, the pilots may have been spatially disoriented, not knowing up from down, right from left. the captain raced back, but apparently never took control of the plane. >> you have the airplane pitching up and down dramatically but left and right dramatically. it became a high level of confusion for them. >> in the next 3 1/2 minutes, the plane plunged from 38,000 feet to the water below, slamming into the ocean's surface, belly first. it's possible the passengers never knew how serious the trouble was. even before the crash, air france knew those particular air speed sensors were defective. it has since replaced the sensors on a all of the planes. this is not the final report. that may not come out for another year or so. but the investigators report the plane's engines were working until the moment of the crash, indicating that had the plane not gone into a stall, it was most likely flyable. amy? tom costello, thank you. still to come, sky high gas prices or not, find out if this summer will bring relief at the pump. but first, this is "today" on nbc. we have good news at the gas pump this week. don't adjust the volume. we had good news for gas. prices fell. one in new jersey changed the sign with a new lower price per gallon. with 31 million americans traveling by car this weekend, will the relief last through summer. the finance correspondent joins us with more. good morning. >> good morning, lester. >> irregardless of what happens over the spring, normally this is when prices start to go up. >> it's unusual to see prices fall going to the memorial day weekend and fall further the days after memorial day weekend. but that's what we're likely to see here. we're seeing prices that spiked in the beginning of the month. we had refinery issues that were really a concern for a lot of refiners. that helped to drive up prices. now we're seeing relief there. >> it's still expensive. gas is $3.80 a gallon. it's not cheap. could there be more relief or are we going to the typical summer pattern where it stays high? >> we're more $1 an average a year ago. this is not what i want to be paying. we're likely to see more weeks coming because demand is starting to taper off. the high prices we had under $4 a gallon for the national average, that did start to hit people. and they did cut back on their driving. if they continue to see demand fall, we can likely see prices continue to drop as well. >> the volatility, you mentioned the flooding in the mississippi river. hurricane season is about on us. a lot of variables here, right? >> a lot of variables. people need to realize. not so much the price of oil as much as it is as the wholesale gasoline that determines what you pay at the pump. that has to do with the refineries. if we have a hurricane that hits refineries along the gulf coast, that could cause gas prices to spike. because we see these flood fears abate a bit, that causes the prices to come down. >> demand dropping. are we beginning to see long-term impacts of high gas prices? are we changing fundamentally of how we live? >> we've seen demand fall 2% versus what we saw the same time a year ago. this is a trend going on for the last two months. so it does seem that $3.80 a gallon or so might say, hey, this is too much for me to handle right now and they start to taper back some of the driving habits and demand starts to come down. if we continue to see that happen, we continue to see prices fall. >> thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> back in a moment. but first these message ms. took some wild risks when i was young. but i was still taking a risk with my cholesterol. anyone with high cholesterol may be at increased risk of heart attack. diet and exercise weren't enough for me. i stopped kidding myself. i've been eating healthier, exercising more, and now i'm also taking lipitor. if you've been kidding yourself about high 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