"today," wednesday, april 21st, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. welcome to "today" on a wednesday morning. i'm matt lauer. >> i'm meredith vieira. here is a welcome sight for thousands of stranded airline passengers, planes moving on the tarmac this morning at london's heathrow airport. >> the first time we've seen an image like that in nearly a week since that volcanic ash cloud brought air travel to a screeching halt. it's not all good news though with more than 95,000 canceled flights to deal with in total, it could take days, some say even weeks, to get everyone to their final destinations. we'll have the latest, plus our first look inside the volcano's crater coming up in just a couple of minutes. also ahead, did the son of mi of michael douglas get off easy? cameron douglas was sentenced to five years in prison on tuesday for selling drugs, less than half of what he was facing. did the letters written by his famous family influence the judge? also a 13-year-old from california has set out to become the youngest person ever to reach the summit of mount everest. he is at base camp this morning getting ready for his ascent. we'll check in with him in just a couple of minutes. let's begin with the skies reopening in europe nearly a week after a volcano brought air traffic to a halt. we have two reports this morning, beginning with nbc's chris jansing in iceland. good morning to you, chris. >> reporter: good morning, meredith. the signs here this morning are all good. the volcano is definitely a lot quieter but scientists do warn it is still an active volcano and could remain active for a year or more. and with dozens of volcanos on this island, the president of iceland is now telling the u.s. and the world they need to get their act together before the next paralyzing eruption. for the sixth straight day, a team of scientists flew over eyjafjallajoekul on tuesday and got an amazing view, circling around the still-explosive plume 8,000 to 10,000 feet high and for the first time glimpsing with an infrared camera into the south side of the crater to see how explosive it still is. the key finding -- eruptions are less intense and producing much less ash than in the first few days when the plume reached an ominous 30,000 feet and the mountain was belching out tons of molten rock in a devastating display of power. all the data has been coming back here, to the mission control of volcano eruptions in reykjavik. experts monitor everything and the information is now pointing to what travelers around the world have wanted to hear. >> the fate that troubled aviation is mostly over. for now. >> it is not major. it is -- the eruption film is not very strong and there is not up ice being produced. >> reporter: but even before there was a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, a lava-hot controversy stirred up by the president of iceland. >> unfortunately, the scientific evidence points towards larger eruptions in the coming years, even in the near future. >> reporter: he issued a warning about another volcano, the enormous katma just eight miles from eyjafjallajoekul. critics and tourism officials were up in arms, but he thinks we better be prepared for the chaos future eruptions will cause. >> look at reorganization, technological changes. maybe using different planes as well. on the basis of these kinds of things are going to happen again. >> reporter: and when they do, he argues, the world should have a contingency plan for dealing with the unpredictable aweme forces of nature. there are no scientific signs right now katma is about to blow. but given the number of planes in the air every day, the number of geological threats and what we've seen over the last week, a lot of people this morning agree with the president of iceland that a contingency plan might not be a bad idea. >> chris jansing in iceland this morning, thanks very much. london's heathrow airport, london's busiest, is finally open this morning but it will take days to get through the backlog of 95,000 canceled flights all across europe. nbc's dawna friesen is at heathrow. good morning. >> reporter: yes, there is a huge mess to clear up. the good news is that 75% of europe's airspace is now open. that means airports are gradually reopening to heathrow. all of london's airports open in fact for the first time in a week. but there is a mess to clean up. about 95,000 flights were canceled. imagine having to re-arrange all of those. so there is still hundreds of thousands of people stuck in far-flung places where they're so anxious to get home. and it's not just people who are in the wrong places. it's planes. a lot of planes that flew in, and then the band came in place. they weren't able to make their return flights. now we're seeing the strange phenomenon of planes taking off without any passengers to try to get them repositioned. we're told 29% of global aviation was disrupted by this volcano and that it impacted about 7 million people in one way or another. so massive operation to get all this back in place. and i think the watch word for the day today is patience. the airlines are warning that it could take weeks, perhaps longer, to get this all sorted out. and, matt, i think perhaps the worst job to have right now might be working in an airline call center. >> that's going to be a little bit troubling this morning. dawna, thank you very much. we appreciate it. six minutes after the hour. here at home there is heated debate in washington over how to prevent another financial collapse. a new plan to clamp down on wall street banks. nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill with more for us. kelly, good morning. >> reporter: morning, meredith. that is the issue dominating things here. how to fix a system that fell off a cliff a couple of years ago with catastrophic failures still being felt right now. there is an intense debate underway and new examples of the public's anger over wall street excess. his failed company is a catalyst behind financial reform. lehman brothers was the biggest bankruptcy in u.s. history in 2008. >> a lot of people got hurt by that. and i have to left with that. >> the former chairman told congress had he no personal knowledge of lehman using a specific type of investment to hide some of its financial trouble. >> i have absolutely no recollection whatsoever. >> reporter: but an official testified there is evidence he knew. >> i wasn't involved in the transactions with the restructuring. >> you're the ceo, aren't you, sir? sgli was very much the ceo, sir. >> reporter: to avoid another collapse, treasury secretary tim geithner wants expanded government authority. >> we need a system in which regulators can act reemtively to protect, not left to simply come in after the fact to clean up the mess. >> reporter: the term wall street has esolved frvolved fro industry to a political flash point. people are asked about the need if you nfor regulation of banks three points separate those in favor of opposed. but use the term "wall street" and the spread widens to 14 points. democrats have grabbed wall street as their buzzword to describe an adversary. >> on one side there are those who want to make sure there is never a situation like we had before. on the other side we have wall street bankers. >> reporter: a theme repeated in this democratic party ad. republicans insist they support reform but want changes to the democrats' bill. and all 41 senate republicans took a stand to slow things down and say that effort re-opened negotiations between the parties. >> i'm convinced now that there's a new element of seriousness attached to this rather than just trying to score political points. >> reporter: democratic majority leader harry reid declined to answer reporters' questions when they asked him about his attendance at a new york fund-raiser hosted by a top executive of the wall street giant goldman sachs. reid's office says he was there. it was a private event. and that he does plan to keep and use the campaign funds that were raised at that event. meredith? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you very much. let us get a check of the rest of the morning's top stories. ann is at the news desk. good morning, everybody. in a dramatic turnaround today for the first time, pope benedict spoke publicly about the priest sex abuse scandal. nbc's anne thompson is in washington with this story. this is significant. >> reporter: it certainly is, ann. as you know, the vatican has been under tremendous pressure in the past month as that sex abuse crisis swept through europe. but today, pope benedict xvi for the first time promised the church would take action to stop abusive priests. he did not detail what that action would be, but what he did say is that he met with abuse victims in malta over the weekend. it was a very emotional meeting, and he promised them that the church would address this issue. now many critics and many victims have urged the broader church to adopt the zero tolerance policy that the u.s. bishops put in place in this country in 2002 when it comes to abusive priests. we don't know what the vatican will do, but it does appear that the pope is taking the first steps to live up to the promise he made to those men over the weekend. ann? >> anne thompson this morning, thanks for your reporting on this story that's still developing. today is a national day of mourning in china to remember the more than 2,000 people who died in the earthquake there a week ago. an explosion rocked an oil drilling platform off louisiana during the night. workers were evacuated but some are still unaccounted for. violent weather tuesday in texas where two tornadoes were reported, including this one. windows were blown out of homes but there were no reports of any serious injuries and there is a risk, however, of more severe weather there today. and when a virginia woman made a $425 deposit to her bank account this week she was shocked to learn that the bank teller entered her 10-digit account number as the amount she was depositing. the bank has since fixed the $40 million mistake. just for a few moments she was a millionaire. 7:11. back to matt, meredith and al. >> ann, thank you very much. mr. >> that's your latest weather. matt? >> al, thank you very much. if airline passengers like it or not, we've grown accustomed to it but passengers now pay $3 to $9 for a mid-flight treat. $15 on air tran for a checked bag. $25 for a second checked bag on alaska air. if you want to snuggle up with a pillow on american, that will cost $8. but when spirit airlines announced its plan to charge up to $45 for carry-on bags, a lot of travelers were outraged and are now saying enough is enough. ben baldanza is spirit's president and ceo, he joins us exclusively with new york senator chuck schumer who is leading the charge against the fee. gentlemen, good morning to both of you. i googled you last night. you are a good businessman. you know the aviation industry. you're a smart guy. you had to know this was going to go over like a fart in church, pardon the expression, when you announced this. why do you think this is a good idea? >> well, certainly when you look at just the fee, matt, on its own it can cause some outrage. but when you think about the fact that planes are really overcrowded today and people are bringing a lot on-board, we decided to take a unique approach, to lower our fares significantly and a fee that's less than the amount we lower our fares, allow people with carry-on bags to board the plane first so they find space for their bags. so it is a great combination. >> you're telling me it is good for passengers, that passengers are going to save money despite this fee? >> absolutely. in fact, we don't see who loses. because if you pay for a bag now on spirit, your total ticket price is going to be the same or a little less than before. if you don't carry a bag and help us get our planes out faster by not clogging up the airplane, you'll save $40 or more on your ticket. >> senator schumer, is this guy crazy, or is he crazy like a fox? >> well, he's a very nice guy and he's from rome, new york, upstate as well which counts certainly in his favor. here's the problem. mr. boldanza's trying to do a good thing here, but in the real world it is just not going to work, and here's why. if we allow carry-on bags to be charged for, it will spread to every airline. they won't lower their fees like spirit, they'll just increase them. and a passenger who doesn't really get competition because you only have a few flights to choose from when you fly from one place to the other is just stuck. this isn't just idle speculation. it was spirit that first decided to charge for checked luggage. they did it first, they may have lowered their price. he may have made the same arguments then. either way -- but then, matt, it spreads to every airline. >> on this one so far -- so far, spirit's out on a limb on this one. there hasn't been a lot of other airlines -- matter of fact, there have been some airlines coming out saying they're not going to do this. you really think this is going to happen? >> well, if there weren't an outcry, it probably would have happened quietly over a period of time. but because myself and a bunch of my colleagues may now cry and threaten legislation, i also called immediately before anything could happen the heads of the six big airlines and asked them to commit to not doing this, and five did. but you know, we're still going to try to pass our legislation because six months from now, who knows what would happen. >> this threat of legislation, mr. boldanza, if air travelers don't like this idea, think it is stupid, they can punish you by going to another airline. what do you think about the government perhaps getting involved in levying a tax against an airline that charges for carry-on bags? >> you know, taxes raise consumer prices and that's not a good thing especially in the economy where we're trying to get things moving. but our view of this is that we've taken a business risk of course, but a risk we think, on balance, our customers will understand is going to be good for them. our sales are doing exceedingly well. >> since the announcement? better sales than prior? >> specifically post-august 1 which is when the fee becomes effective. so customers buying tickets on spirit are seeing the exceedingly low fare, comparing it with the fact that they can pay for the options they want but not pay for what they don't want, and they're seeing it as a really good thing. our view is let's let customers decide this. i don't see why the government should be involved. >> we tawant to mention, senato you two got together and met about this last night. were any compromises struck or have you agreed to disagree? >> well, so far we've agreed to disagree. but if we could find a way to allow a small little airline to do this but not have it spread to all the majors where there is very little competition, you'd pay more for the bag but the ticket price wouldn't go down, i told him i would be welcome to hear a proposal in that regard. >> real quickly, we have a piece of video of the announcement in a rather unusual location. look at you. you were actually in the overhead compartment doing this. i just think i speak for the room -- i don't want to see the video where you decide to charge people for going to the bathroom. >> that will never happen, matt. >> it is already happening on one airline in europe, matt. >> but it won't happen at spirit. >> senator, thank you. mr. baldanza, thank you very much as well. the family of the murdered wife of a reality television producer has now traveled to mexico to speak with investigators about that case. nbc's miguel almaguer is in cancun with the very latest. miguel, good morning to you. >> reporter: meredith, good morning. monica's family had spoken to investigators before but only from afar. now face to face, they were able to press those same investigators for a quick response. they walked into the state attorney general's office in cancun hoping to leave with answers about a murder now more than two weeks old. >> we of love my sister and we want justice so we want to make sure that this is going to be accomplished. >> reporter: monica beresford-redman's mother and sister sat with investigators for four hours, offering their own information to aid detectives, including documents and e-mails sent between monica and her husband, bruce. there were allegations of his affair, the family offering insight into what it says was a troubled marriage between a wife and the only suspect in her murder. a former producer for cbs's hit show "survivor," bruce beresford-redman has been questioned by detectives just once. but as officials wait for forensic results from monica's body and the couple's hotel room, they're confident they have an ironclad case. >> translator: we believe that when we get the results we will have a very solid case. >> reporter: but with each passing day and no sign of an arrest, monica's family's frustration has grown as her husband remains free in mexico. still, the victim's family has faith in the legal system here. are you confident you'll get justice here in mexico? >> yes, i am. >> reporter: the question now is when. police say the forensic results they need could come back at any time and they insist it will be no longer than ten days. meredith? >> miguel ago ma gar, thalmague very much. a look at the emotional letter written by phoebe prince shortly before she committed suicide after being bullied michael douglas' son, sentenced to five years in prison. did he get off light? spl we'll talk about that story after your local news and weather. ♪ >we'll talk about that story after your local news and weather. >we'll talk about that after your local news and weather. ♪ oh, do it ♪ ♪ express yourself ♪ hey [ 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