he asked for a blessing for himself to pray for him. so it was very humbling i thought in a nice way to begin his papacy. apparently that s not a show, that s the essence of the man. we all know how he lived so simply. he is actually living testimony to what the gospel really is. the gospel means good news. and it s good news to the poor. and he is a beautiful testimony of service. do you know that in buenos aires he would clean, wash and clean and kiss the feet of aids patients. yes. this is what s been missing in not just the catholic church, but in many churches around the world, is service in the name of a loving god. and it s really, really thrilling to see. i am not catholic, but i cried. i just loved his tender heart. i loved that he didn t wear all the robes and stuff. if he says he s a follower of jesus, jesus was the poorest of the poor. didn t have a stone was his pillow. you know. and if you re going to represent him as the vicar, you know, then identify with him. and i think this is a brilliant start. he s 76 years old and a lot of people first looked at it and said, wait, 76? you know that s they thought maybe they would go a little younger. we re here to tell you and we re going to list some people who are older and really rocking it. okay? here we go. besides frank? besides frank gifford. who should be first on the list. queen elizabeth, 86 years old. she s ten years older. she s doing great. warren buffett, 82. uh-huh. the king of saudi arabia, 88. the prime minister of india, 80. rupert murdoch, 82. the formula one ceo, bernie ecclestone, 82. senator frank lautenberg of new jersey, 89. and ralph hall from texas, who will be 90 in a couple months. it makes me feel a little bit better about my milestone coming this summer. how do you feel about that milestone? you know what? it s just starting to dawn on me and it s like, i m just surprised by it all the time. that i m going to be 60 years old. how the heck in honor of the pope, did that happen? would i love to be 40 again? in some ways, but i had cass when i was 40 and i ve got a beautiful almost 20-year-old and cody is going to be 23. and i think when you start thinking about ha you ve lost in life, you lose the moment right now you lose the joy and the gift of right now. that s why it s called a present. i like that. it s right now. and you just, if you just concentrate, hoda on what you do have, still have a lot. you know a lot to be grateful for. and we talk about the james taylor song the secret of life is to be enjoy where you are at the time. so here s bad news, if you re on a carnival cruise ship. this is not great. another issue with carnival, you guys. the carnival cruise ship dream is docked, in port at phillipsberg in st. maarten. they re having according to some people on the boat, power outages and overflowing toilets. 5,000 passengers could be on board. apparently carnival cruise put out a statement that said there s a technical issue, but at no time did the ship lose power there were some periodic interruptions of elevators and toilets. i obviously have a soft spot for carnival, i worked with them for 20 years as their spokesperson. they got very big after that i m not sure what the situation is here. but i know they take everything very seriously. i hope they solve the problem very quickly. you can t have all of these kinds of things happening before it starts affecting things. i wish them all the best. but you can t blame this one on me, you know what i m saying? blame it on george bush, okay? the best speeches in the united states, by trip adviser. here are a couple of suggestions. a bunch of people on the website weighed in. on their favorite beaches and here they are the third best beach is the gulf island s national seashore in pensacola, florida. i agree, you can camp on the beach, 150-mile stretch of it, it runs from cat island, mississippi, to santa rosa island in florida, it s like sugar. i ve never seen such white sand in my life, it s glorious. number two, siesta key, a public beach in sarasota. clean, hard-packed sand there. the number one and i have to agree with this one as well, top beach in the whole country is kanapali beach in hawaii. great for long walks, swimming, snorkeling, sunsets, and views. let s go. hoda needs to take her thong. this is so exciting, i have such a great i heart hoda. just when i was in a good mood. this is about people shopping in a thrift shop. people shopping in a thrift shop. we got the clean version, so no one freak out. it s by macklemore. so first you have to feel a little of the beat. are you feeling little bit of it? no. come on. okay, here it comes. i get it, i get it. is there much more? it gets better. okay. i get it, i get it. and i hate it. how can you hate it? i love it. how can you from singing cinderella yesterday, where there s actual music by rogers and hammerstein. we went to see we had to leave early because of the pope announcement. but your reaction was different from mine. yes, cinderella we just have a couple of seconds, because we have to talk to sara. i loved it for my niece. i think she will totally go crazy over cinderella, the costume change, the beautiful scenery. they were all very excited. for people like me who grew up on the leslie ann warren one and whatever year it was, i missed that story and missed hearing all of those songs in their entirety. so that just shows you it s a generational thing. but everybody is good in it. very good. hey, miss sara haynes. today to announce johnson s baby of the week. celebrating new moms and their bundles of joy. first up is kiley james macarthur. next up, surprise, surprise, is elliott joseph holland dodson, who made his debut on january 11th, in california. mom and dad, are so happy 2-year-old ava is a big sister. and finally our third today s johnson baby of the week is kennedy claire fagan, born to kelly and gregory of los gatos, california. a big congratulations to all of our babies. if you d like your baby to be considered for johnson s baby of the week, go to our website, at klgandhoda.com. you re our baby, sara. our hair and makeup team have worked their magic. two lucky ladies reveal their ambush makeovers. and justin timberlake s new gig. and i believe our friend jason is here in our weekend chat is here, we ll be right back. given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep, and lunesta eszopiclone can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. do not take lunesta if you are allergic to anything in it. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving or engaging in other activities while asleep without remembering it the next day have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as $15 at lunesta.com there s a land of restful sleep, we can help you go there, on the wings of lunesta. i m up next, but now i m singing the heartburn blues. hold on, prilosec isn t for fast relief. cue up alka-seltzer. it stops heartburn fast. oh what a relief it is! [ telephone rings ] hello. [ man ] jen, there are a lot of beauty brands that want you to represent them. really, who? no. they add too much fragrance. no, they make you wear pink. are you kidding? no. nah. [ telephone rings ] no. not my style. no. [ cellphone rings ] [ man ] you might like this one. aveeno®. aveeno®. let me think about it. [ male announcer ] the beautiful jennifer aniston now for aveeno®. time to reveal our ambush makeovers for two very happy ladies who were plucked off our plaza just today. today contributor and stylist to the stars louis liccari la la la la la and people contributor editor and new author very soon jill martin. how was the crowd? today was a great one. today show always has a great crowd. the kids were on break, today was big. wow, julie, what we started with our doggie outfits. 44 years old from fond du lac, wisconsin, so busy being a single mom to her two boys she had no time to focus on herself. she jumped at the chance to get pampered, let s listen to her story. well it s clear why were you picked out of the crowd. but sheryl, what do you think about this for julie? she works hard, she deserves it. she needs something new. you could barely see your mouth as you re taking. you have to take your udders off. i ve never said that line before. i know you told me you ve been through a lot and really want this. yes. i do. what do you think your boyfriend is going to think? a new me when i get home. julie is joined by her friend, sheryl, who also got made over. and she s here with a couple of friends and colleagues, janet and doc. let s take one last look at julie before. julie, come out and show us the new you. all right. doc, all right janet, take off your blindfolds. wow! we got a whoa and a wow. jill, you ready? step here and turn around. oh, my gosh! wow. spin right around and look at that camera. tell us about the hair. julie is a pretty girl, and i simply took it was an effort to make her look prettier. i lightened and brightened her hair. and then maiuki gave her her this simple bob hair cut. bobs are so flirty. this is a new length for longer hair. it s very attractive, very flattering and very practical. janet, what do you guys think? excellent. unbelievable. jodie foster there. oh. tell us about the dress. it s perfect. i didn t snow what she looked like. this is from maggie london. you re wearing one of the biggest trends right now, the exposed zipper on the side. and then just layering with gold and silver, metallics are really in. adorable. julie, why don t you stand with your pals and please face the wall. we ll bring our second lady, sheryl hershey, from elkhart lake, wisconsin. she told us her daily beauty routine, is taking a shower. and she s here with the crowd, let s take one last look at her there. and let s bring out besides taking off the udders, what else do you think about this? well sheryl works hard herself and she really deserves to have something new. are you excited for this? you bet. what is your husband going to think? i m not sure he ll notice. we ve heard that before. take off your hat quickly so everybody can see. are you ready for all of this? oh yes, you bet! they both have great faces and great senses of humor. you know the crowd, let s take a last look at sheryl and bring out the new sheryl. wow! sheryl. everybody, you ready? turn around, let s go, let s take a look. i can t see. you turn around, please, sheryl and look right in the mirror. oh, my gosh. yeah! you like? it s different. give you a few moments to fall in love with yourself. lewis, big change? big change. this is we softened the hair color. when you have dark hair, once the dark hair starts to go, do go a little softer. you don t have to be a blonde, but you should be a softer brown, a big tip here and keep the makeup very natural. lighter, thin makeup keeps you younger, less is more. and miyuki s great haircut. ready for spring on this freezing day. this is from london times, this is paired with a skinny belt, she has a little waist, so we put on a bigger belt to emphasize it more. feel free to mix and match belts. look at you ladies. louis. a couple of students put the irish saying to the test. billion and a half bottles. people have chosen it again and again for over eight years. its key ingredients are also found in every day food like avocados, broccoli and bananas. it contains about as much caffeine as a cup of the leading premium coffee. zero sugar. four calories. 5-hour energy is like. coffee with vitamins and nutrients. simple. put them together and it s a great combination. try a sip. then decide. are proven to be effective pain relievers. tylenol works by blocking pain signals to your brain. bayer back & body s dual action formula includes aspirin, which blocks pain at the site. try the power of bayer back & body. try the power for over 75 years people .with geico. ohhh.sorry!. director s voice: here we go. from the top. and action for over 75 years people have saved money with gecko so.. director s voice: cut it! .what.what did i say? gecko? i said gecko? aw. for over 75 year.(laughs. but still trying to keep it contained) director s voice: keep it together. i m good. i m good. for over 75.(uncontrollable lahtuger). what are you doing there? stop making me laugh. vo: geico. saving people money for over seventy-five years. gecko: don t look at me. don t look at me. we re back with another installment of webtastic, when sara digs up cute videos to put you in a good mood. two college students decided to put the phrase kiss me, i m irish to the test. check it out. just because i m irish? all right. thanks. is this real? this is real. is this the real deal? i m the real deal. right now, are you ready? yup? have a lucky day. real quick, real quick. i m dating someone. are you irish? i am. it was shot at brigham young, university. the lucky girl is oh, my god, there was tongue. okay, i m not sure well, and whoa! she s still going with please say that s her boyfriend. well? it might be. aw. thank you. you want a lot of luck? i have a test coming up. wow. i m a little speechless right now. i feel like there s a point where he s held on too long. that only matters to the two people involved, doesn t it, sara in. she got 82% of people to kiss her. justin got only 32%. he only got 32. i think the girls are a little more tentative when a guy comes up. it can be a bit creepy from a guy. from the small screen to the big screen. jason kennedy has the scoop on what not to miss this weekend in his chatter. plus the five spring break destinations with great deals, you re going to want to know about. and irish cooking with a little irish whiskey on the side, nothing wrong with that. we re back with more of today on this thirst-day thursday, hoda is going crazy over this song. time for the weekend chatter, everything you ll need to know in the world of entertainment. here with the scoop is our dear friend and e-news correspondent. our baby brother, jason kennedy. let s get started with the movies for the weekend. what shall we see? how about the call ? with halle berry. she plays, pretty scary, she s a 911 operator, she gets a call from a teenaged girl, abigail breslin. that s one, she spends the hour trying to save her from her abductor. we re leaving out wonderstone. if you want to lighten the mood and go to the box office, they pay competing magicians. is it funny? it looks cheesy, but that s my concern. it looks a little cheesy. if you re going to stay home and pop the popcorn, what should we watch? a lot of this stuff coming out, have been nominated nor oscars. visually stunning, it didn t win an oscar. by i thought it should. ang lee directed this. and hitchcock his relationship with his wife while they were shooting psycho. was it psycho ? i think so. if it was, i want to see it. and life of the guardians an animated movie, an all-star cast. they team up and take down an evil man who is trying to steal kids dreams. can i tell you what i m addicted to on netflix? house of cards. i watched 13 episodes. i m done. it s so good. that s how you do it. i m learning, i m learning. you know hoda when she falls in love. celebrity news, adam sandler and drew barrymore are teaming up again. it s the wedding singer 1998 the first time they got together, and then they did 50 first dates. the third romantic comedy for them doesn t have a title, but they play a couple at a family resort. they get trapped there with their kids from a previous marriage. i think it will be fun. shakira has a beautiful picture with that baby. i love that she s doing this. because many times when celebs don t do photos like this the paparazzi go to crazy measures to get the shots. there s gerard pique, her man. he s a soccer player. and the little guy is rocking daddy s jersey. the voice is getting ready to start. your favorite show. and shakira is gearing up to be a judge. blake shelton. it will be a good season with the two new judges, right? yes, and usher as well. no cee lo, no christine aguilera, she s great. but it s going to be, it s going to be good. i think this is going to be the best season. that s what they say every year. but i heard it s going to be pretty phenomenal. all right, jason, thank you. if you want to hit the beach, the best spring getaways. it s happening now. people are switching to finish. . and it s spreading all across america. quantum with new power gel delivers amazing clean and shine, even in the hardest water, which cascade just can t do. so take the finish shine challenge and get up to 30% off! [ female announcer ] come alive with the refreshing taste of lipton iced tea. feel the taste. [ nyquil bottle ] just reading your label. wait.you relieve nasal congestion? sure don t you? [ nyquil bottle ] dude! [ female announcer ] tylenol® cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion. nyquil® cold and flu doesn t. relieves nasal congestion. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues. with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips lady ] live the regular life. phillips . on today s travel, if you haven t planned a spring getaway just yet, there s still time. whether you re dreaming of lounging on a beach in florida, or pulling up to a pool bar in st. kitt s, we have travel and leisure s digital project editor. there s time to get a good deal? all of these deals are less than $300 a night. so let s get to them. let s go to st. kitt s. st. kitt s, it s the island that the caribbean tourism forgot. it s the undiscovered beaches, the st. kidt s marriott resort. beautiful blue umbrellas and lounge chairs on a white sand beach, there is your spot. there s pools and a swim-up beach bar. and a spa and a gym and a pineapple papaya body scrub. it sounds so good i want to eat it. and it starts at $199 a night. it s starting to be the off-season a little bit. exactly. how about jacksonville. it s lively crowds, popular, crowded, if you want some of that but want to stay a little away. one ocean resort rates their start at $179 a night. it s quiet and beautiful. you re just five minutes from the bars and everything, so there s lots to do. i was talking about affordability. i was searching for flights later this month. round trip from new york. $350. it doesn t get any better than that. a great affordable escape. what about the west coast, california? here we come. california, we know we love it, the destination close to my heart. carmel valley, just 120 miles south of san francisco. this is quail lodge. what i love about it is that it s been recently renovated to the tune of $28 million. not even open yet, it opens on march 26th. so talk about a new car smell, this is a brand new resort. and they actually even have a great land cruiser experience. so if you want to turn around and do some adrenaline-pumping driving, this is your place and there s golf. and how far is that from carmel by the sea? just inland. a quick drive. that by itself has to be visited. it s so beautiful. quiet, if you re looking for something bucolic, that s your spot. washington, d.c., the cherry blossoms? the festival starts on march 20th. they re expecting the peak day to be march 26th. this is a great spot, the liaison capital hotel, located, the closest hotel to the capitol, within walking distance of the national mall and the smithsonian. they ll do a great deal for you. $175, they throw in all sorts of picnic stuff and cherry and chocolate cookies and it s a really great and fun deal. you can go to the gym, too. and jackson hole, wyoming. if you re looking to get one last-ditch effort down the slopes, this is your place, they had 28 feet of snow this year. it s really beautiful. this is spring creek lodge, so if you re looking to go skiing and to explore the wilderness, they have an on-site naturalist who can point out the fox and bald eagles. $87 per person, per night. they throw in a free ski pass. it s a really affordable way to get down the slopes this spring. she did it again. thanks. coming up, two women battling colon cancer and the information that could save your life, right after this. good morning. we ll walk you through the weather here over the next week. we have some changes. for some, it still feels like winter. for others, it s heating up. almost summer like in the southwest. before we get there, we have a clipper we re tracking across the great lakes into the high plains. we ll see winter weather here once again today. doesn t look like any significant accumulation. more of a nuisance for most areas. and the interior northeast will be dealing with that also by the afternoon. but dry and hot for the south and the southwest. temperatures possibly record setting. once again, we already had that in phoenix just yesterday. 94 will be the forecast later today. 82 in dallas. 80 for albuquerque. there s the cold air. 34 in minneapolis. only in the 40s in through the northeast. so it stays chilly here from new england all the way back into the high plains. that s where the coldest air will be. as that clipper moves through the ohio valley by tomorrow, we ll still have some winter weather to deal with and a little bit of snow coming in to the inner mountain west. 76 in albuquerque. 54 in denver. by sunday, your forecast changes quite a bit here across the midsection of the country and getting into the nation s heartland. temperatures are going to be coming down. we cool they thinks off quite a bit by sunday. this is monday. we ve been hinting at what could be a bigger storm coming into the great lakes and the ohio valley. keep it here as we monitor that and bring you more details as far as snow totals. on tuesday, we ll start to see things quiet down. wednesday, yet another system comes in from the northwest. that s going to bring more rain into seattle, northern california looking at some showers. on thursday, that will start to push its way to the east, impacting salt lake city. 57 there trsday in denver. remember, you can wake up with al and stephanie weekday mornings 5:30 on the weather channel. people have chosen it again and again for over eight years. its key ingredients are also found in every day food like avocados, broccoli and bananas. it contains about as much caffeine as a cup of the leading premium coffee. zero sugar. four calories. 5-hour energy is like. coffee with vitamins and nutrients. simple. put them together and it s a great combination. try a sip. then decide. with hotwire s low prices, i can afford to visit chicago for my first big race and l.a. for my best friend s wedding. because when hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. so i got my hotels for half-price! men: h-o-t-w-i-r-e hotwire.com time for today s health. information that could save your life. if you haven t heard, march is colorectal cancer awareness months. the cancer that s preventible and treatable when it s caught early. that s the message from two amazing women who are living with the disease. we ll speak to them in a moment, but first, their stories. in 2009, 48-year-old terry agreeing was the picture of health, accomplishing things women half her age could not, but a colon os copy revealed the mother of two had stage 4 colorectal cancer. i can t think of anything more difficult to do than to tell your children that you ve been diagnosed with cancer. after surgery and while receiving chemotherapy, she continued to pursue her dream and in 2011, finished the ironman world championship. attorney gloria borgess was 28 and ready to conquer the world when she was diagnosed. i thought i had a bad case of food poisoning, i had stage 4 colon cancer. by all accounts i wouldn t live to see my 30th birthday. she s done that and more launching her foundation, wonder glow, with the goal of funding cutting-edge cancer research. every day i am defying the odds, every day i am beating cancer. how inspiring are these two? terry greeg is a volunteer with the colon cancer awareness and the chairman of the wonder glow foundation. and dr. is the director of gastroenterology. i ve been very fortunate, i feel for the most part wonderful. i have some weeks when i m going still through treatment that are a little rough. but i continue to train and run marathons and do half ironmans and hopefully another ironman in the fall. that s unbelievable, if you don t mind my saying. it s incredible. thank you. and you were just 28, how are you doing? doing well. i just finished my 46th round of chemo on monday and flew here on tuesday. but i m doing well, running the foundation and working out. lifting weights, playing basketball. and the doctor, we have to ask this. we know that the guideline is the age of 50 to start getting your colonoscopies. and a lot of people are terrified of them. but the truth is, the thought of them is much worse than the actual treatment. the preparation is the bad part and that s nothing. but if it s caught early, it s so easy to cure. yes. and these ladies, they were caught quite late. and they re doing so well it seems, are we making huge strides now? tremendous hope with this disease. the first point is as you say, don t wait until you get symptoms, when you re well is the time to talk to your doctor about screening and prevention. colon cancer is one of the most preventible and curable of all cancers that we know of. the earlier we catch it, the greater the chance of curing it. when you got diagnosed and learned about it you spoke to some of your family members and we have your sister is over there. and tell us what happened when you talked to your sisters when they got checked. i was 48 at the time and screening is at 50 and my sisters were over 50 and had never been screened. immediately after i was diagnosed. they went and had colonoscopies, my one sister had precancerous polyps and my other sister was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. this was all within two weeks of my diagnosis. so it s familial then in this sense, it s genetic? exactly. there s about a 20% to 30% chance of it being spread from a family member. so you have a family history of colon cancer, young people in the family with colon cancer, sometimes uterine or ovarian cancer can be related. polyps or colon cancer is a family issue. you are so young. did you have, what symptoms if any did you have? i had plenty of symptoms, because i was so young. i think people sort of wrote them off, including myself. so i went to the bathroom frequently and they weren t impressive performances. you had a lot of diarrhea. i felt myself bloated at night, things like that it didn t stop me, i was working 14-hour days and working out. and when things got to really severe point i thought i had food poisoning, i couldn t keep anything down. even in the hospital, it took six days for me to get a colonoscopy and that s when they found the massive tumor in my colon. did you have bleeding? no. so it s not always bleeding. no. actually the symptoms can be very, someone could just feel tired and have anemia as a presenting form. and 50 is a magic number. just like with breast cancer screenings, they say wait until you re a certain age there are people who are exceptions to this? absolutely. if there s a family history. the key is not to make the decision yourself. but talk to your doctor about it. any bowel disease, my sister had acute colitis, the more you talk about it and get it out in the open. it s nothing to be ashamed of. but bowel issues are called the silent diseases. nobody wants to talk about them. if you don t talk about them, you can t fix them. you guys are amazing. thank you for coming in. and thank you, doctor. we ll take you to today s kitchen for some down-home irish cooking. but first, this is today on nbc. [ female announcer ] going to sleep may be easy, but when you wake up in the middle of the night it can be frustrating. it s hard to turn off and go back to sleep. intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you can t get back to sleep. it s an effective sleep medicine you don t take before bedtime. take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. do not take intermezzo if you have had an allergic reaction to drugs containing zolpidem, such as ambien. allergic reactions such as shortness of breath or swelling of your tongue or throat may occur and may be fatal. intermezzo should not be taken if you have taken another sleep medicine at bedtime or in the middle of the night or drank alcohol that day. do not drive or operate machinery until at least 4 hours after taking intermezzo and you re fully awake. driving, eating, or engaging in other activities while not fully awake without remembering the event the next day have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. alcohol or taking other medicines that make you sleepy may increase these risks. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. intermezzo, like most sleep medicines, has some risk of dependency. common side effects are headache, nausea, and fatigue. so if you suffer from middle-of-the-night insomnia, ask your doctor about intermezzo and return to sleep again. so it can feel like you re using nothing at all. but neosporin® eczema essentials™ is different. its multi-action formula restores visibly healthier skin in 3 days. neosporin® eczema essentials™. laura s being healthy and chewing her multivitamin. with one a day vitacraves for women. it s a great-tasting gummy multivitamin designed for women with more calcium and vitamin d. it s gummies for grown-ups. one-a-day vitacraves for women. we re back with what s cooking on st. patrick s day. and this weekend, everybody is irish, so we re making traditional irish comfort food. apparently this dish needs a little coddling. chef rachel allen has a brand-new cookbook. rachel s new irish cookbook. aren t you like you re beautiful. like an irish spring commercial. we re going to make some coddle. dublin coddle. which is like a big cuddle in a bowl. but it comes from a term to simmer slowly. it s one of those economical dishes, that s always made on a thursday before the no meat day on friday. to use up all the bacon and bacon we ve got, ham as you call it and potatoes. really simple. you have to have potatoes. so basically the first thing you do, i ve got finely chopped onion. and throw those in. and i ve got some breakfast sausages chopped up. like this. and then peeled, chopped potatoes. i m using your russets, actually they are work quite well. and some stock. or you could use your ham cooking water. if you cook your ham. all do you is put this on. allow it to simmer for about ten, 12 minutes, until you come to this. a little boil. a little boil and you can see here, that the potatoes are just soft, i think. and then i m going to add in ham and i love it when it kind of shreds, this cooked ham. this is traditional irish food, really simple as you can see. hearty, nutritious. you know, if you re feeling poorly, if you re feeling cold, this is the thing. this is the thing to eat, comfort food and some chopped parsley. there we go. and a little salt. i m going to give it a little taste. because the ham and the sausages. we might not need any salt. this is, this is great as it is. actually i ll put a bit of salt in at the beginning, but oh! and then, you just that is about as easy as it gets. hey, hey. you know, something, it s quite, this kind of food is quite cool again in northern ireland. but it s traditional and lovely. what about the dessert you have on the table? porter, porter being stout, it s got stout in it. and actually sometimes people even used to pour some begin he is into the coddle. but i don t like that. don t guinness your coddle. it looks delicious. and you two kind of like having a little we like having a little bit earlier in the morning. while you re making us your drink, we re going to go over a little okay or not okay. so this we rant out of time. is it okay or not okay to kiss your tv guests on the lips? here s what we had to say about that. absolutely. i still haven t gotten over my kiss from tom sellick in 2,000. yes, it s okay, but only if it s george clooney. or tom sellick. oh yes. thank you so much for this. delicious. all right. tomorrow we have a great performance by the group, the celtic thunder and we also want to warn you we want to warn you now. hide the children tomorrow. you will discover things about hoda and you. never dreamed possible. jeff: he can t see. i don t let them determine what my limits are. jeff: but it doesn t stop him. you went to the bottom of the grand canyon. me and my magic stick. jeff: how viewing the world just clicks. that s part of how you find your way around. by bouncing sound in every way possible. we re going to send you to the same space i skydive. [captioning made possible by cbs television distribution] [applause] jeff: hello, hello! all right. a little about me. i m recently married. i work with my wife on this show and i m learning how to be a dad to two amazing kids in a blended family. i m hosting a talk show because there is a lot to talk about. this is the adventure. [applause] welcome to the show. the jeff probst show. thank you. thank you. have a seat. thank you for the nice welcome for a show that will not be renewed. we are slowly on the countdown. i like to remind people you re watching history. you re watching some of the last shows of the jeff probst show. [applause] all right. today, it is truly incredible. this is why we wanted to do this talk show in the first place. to introduce you to amazing people. we have a guy on the show today. he is blind. he skis, he mountain bikes, he rides horses. he even won a world record. she is going to show you how he does it and how he uses echolocation. it is crazy. we shot something before the show. i think you re going to be inspired by this guy. but first, the inspiring yvette nicole brown is back! [applause]
good morning. we re ready. it s tuesday. it s march 12. let s go. let s get to weather and traffic with rosemary orozco who is in for steve. another gorgeous day. sunny skies, temperatures will be warmer than what we saw yesterday, away from the coastline. at the coastline this morning, the fog is back. it s not only at the coast, i m seeing it in the inland valley locations as well. we ve got fog to talk about this morning. temperatures are cool but not as cold as they have been. i m going to show you the temperatures and your afternoon highs coming up. good morning, sal. we re looking at westbound 237, it s light but it s only 5:00 in the morning, not likely to stay this light. looking at the san mateo bridge, a little bit of mist as you drive to foster city, it should be okay. police in pleasanton launching a criminal investigation after a 2-year- old girl was allegedly tied up at a preschool. how was this discovered and is the preschool saying, alex? reporter: good morning. this school will be holding a meeting tonight for parents to talk with them about what may have taken place here. pleasanton police opened a criminal investigation into nter point christian preschool after a complaint against a former teacher, accused of tieing up a 2-year- old girl who apparently refused to take a nap. a complaint filed with the department of social services says that former teacher bound the child s wrists and ankles with masking tape and took a photo of the girl. the incident first came to light months later, when the teacher showed off the picture at a social gathering to several staff members of the school and one of them happened to be the mother of the child in the photo. the allegation was first reported to police on march 5, although it is unclear exactly when the incident took place. of course administrators are appalled by the accusations and in light of the investigation center point will be suspending its preschool classes for five days so staff with undergo training. police plan on holding a news conference, they plan to talk more about the case and offer more details about what may have taken place. we re live in pleasanton, alex savage, ktvu news. happening now in rome the process of selecting a pope starts today, the college of cardinals is gathering in a hotel preparing for the start of the conclave a short time from now. the cardinals will head to paulene chapel for a prayer. mass was held to pray for the election of the pope. at 8:30 they will walk into the sistine chapel, the doors will be locked and the conclave will begin. once the pope is selected, he will be dressed in papal garment. after a solo prayer, the pope will appear on a balcony, the first vote could happen as early as 9:00 this morning. two americans are being mentioned as candidates, one of them is new york cardinal timothy dolan, the other is boston cardinal sean o malley, he has been credited with taking a hard approach to priests accused of abusing children. stay with ktvu for continuing coverage. and check out the papal conclave tab on our home page. 5:03. a house fire in novato led to the discovery of a marijuana growing operation. you see firefighters used a chainsaw to cut through the walls on marion avenue to put the fire out. it started about 11:30 last night. officials say no one was living there. it was just being used to grow marijuana. the cause of the fire is still under investigation. a 15-year-old boy in vallejo was shot and wounded trying to help his sister last night on alabama street. police say a group of men started shooting at a person who was standing near the boy and his sister. a stray bullet hit the boy in the leg as he was trying to rush his sister inside their apartment. the boy was taken to the hospital, we re told he s recovering. no arrests have been made. 5:04. san jose city council will debate a homeless proposal days after clearing out a large encampment. we are live with a look at what the leaders will be considering. some people cleared out of the encampment near the airport have moved down to the creek beds, like this one here, near the guadelupe river. city officials are going to take this issue head-on after last week s cleanup of the encampment near coleman and heading, members of the city council have been coming up with ways to stop encampments else there. only a small portion of those there accepted help from outreach agencies. a plan has been described as a tough love approach when it comes to enforcing a no trespassing policy, the city is hiring a security company to patrol the encampment. we looked to see if anyone had come back but the land was clear. you re looking at a live picture in downtown san jose, very close to the hp pavilion with homeless people sleeping on the bench. some moved to the creek beds, they have scattered, but at 6:00 we ll talk about the cost of the cleanups and the way the city wants to help fund directing this issue. 5:06. san francisco s laws about walking dogs will be enforced, walking more than four at a time will need a permit. dog walkers must have $1 million insurance and leashes cannot be longer than 8 feet. san francisco passed the laws more than a year ago but they have not been enforced. that will change on july 1. 5:06. sonoma county supervisors will debate an ordinance to make it easier for bicyclists and pedestrians to file lawsuits against people they say harass them. bicyclists say the ordinance will allow them to take action against aggressive drivers who threaten their safety. berkeley and sunnyvale passed similar legislation. if this is approved sonoma would become the first county in the nation with such an ordinance. looking at cars on the roads, we ll see if traffic is picking up as we toss to sal. good morning. there s a report of an accident on oakland city streets on 27th street, martin luther king way. that is right outside the hospital there, so we ll see what s going on, but that s just the first report on their way to check it out. let s take a look at the commute on 80 westbound, it looks good as you drive through. no major problems getting out to the macarthur maze into the toll plaza. it s light. no problems starting the morning. traffic continues to look good. this morning s drive in san jose off to a good start, northbound 280 traffic is moving nicely. now here is rosemary. good morning. be prepared for perhaps a slow drive through santa rosa, sonoma, petaluma, visibility is down to 1/4 of a mile this morning. seeing it along the coastline as well. what do you notice? no 30s this morning! 41 in napa, 5 to 7 degrees warmer than yesterday. santa rosa 41, 50 in oakland. 50 half moon bay. half moon bay overcast skies, fog, visibility about 5 miles outside your door. if i back this up, i m going to show you the ridge of high pressure that continues over the state moving closer to us, that will drive our temperatures up for your afternoon, going to keep that rain away, unfortunately. we could use it, right? we re not going to see any. we ll be mostly sunny, patchy fog along the coast for the first half of the day, some patchy fog is actually again making it tough at times for us to see out and about. winds are calm, but again i m watching a bit of an onshore breeze at sfo, the weak breeze allowing some fog to spread inland, even seeing it inside the bay. it s going to grow worse as we move into the 7:00 hour, i ll be tracking that between now and then. here is a look at your extended forecast. for today we will be slightly warmer, tomorrow still on track to be the warmest day, perhaps of the year. a few 80s around the bay area, temperatures will begin to cool, remaining above average and on the mild side all the way into the weekend. back to you. 5:09. dueling budget plans on capitol hill, one part of the republican plan that democrats say will go nowhere. why one lawmaker said the tragic shooting of two santa cruz police officers could have been prevented. good morning, traffic on 280 looks good up to highway 17. we ll tell you more about the morning commute and bay area weather. welcome back. the defense secretary chuck hagel said a case of sexual assault in the air force will be reviewed at the top levels of the pentagon. hagel back from visiting afghanistan sent a letter to california senator barbara boxer, who had asked hagel to look into a case where an air force general dismissed charges against a lieutenant colonel convicted of sexual assault. but in his letter, hagel said he doesn t have the authority to reverse the general s ruling. last week at the memorial service for the two santa cruz police officers killed by a former soldier, former defense secretary panetta acknowledgeeled military sex offenders are not always prosecuted. he said in the case of jeremy goulet, the military looked the other way. the army court martial in 2006 accused of two rapes ended with a plea bargain. had he been convicted, he likely would have landed in a military prison for life. councilwoman jackie spears wants a capitol hill hearing on why the military dropped rape charges against jeremy peter goulet and said goulet faced the possibility of a life sentence if he was court- martialed. the charges whether dropped after he accepted a less than honorable discharge. in two hours, house republicans in washington, d.c. will lay out their plan for a new budget the republicans released some details. what did they say? reporter: paul ryan is leading house republicans on this spending plan, but democrats are expected to put up a fight. that s because in part republicans are taking aim at obama care, they believe billions would be saved by repealing the law. ryan says reforming aid programs would save billions more. the g.o.p. plan promises to balance the budget in ten years without raising taxes. but they say they are on board with tax reform, closing loopholes and consolidating rates. senate democrats will unveil their budget this week. they plan on raising taxes. the automatic cuts that became law on march 1 are now hitting the military. the demand issued by top marines, when i see you next. 5:14. president obama s nominee to be chairwoman of the securities and exchange commission is expected to face some tough confirmation questions from senators. in two hours mary jo white goes before the senate banking the economy. she will probably be asked about her legal work representing the nation s biggest banks. more bad signatures may have been uncovered in the probe investigating forged signatures just found on campaign forms from 2001. shir irkkawa plans to plead gety to several felonies. potential candidates can begin the process tomorrow. 5:15. top celebrities in hollywood and washington have been hacked and their financial information shared online. the website published private financial information, social security numbers and credit records of ashton kutcher, jay- z and others. lapd and fbi are reportedly investigating. michael vick s book signing tour was cancelled after credible death threats. he was scheduled to sign copies in atlanta, new jersey and pennsylvania. the publisher said the threats were against vick and the book stores. he spent 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to dog fighting charges in 2007. 5:16. morgan hill mother was sentenced to 60 days in jail for using her 10-year-old daughter to help steal groceries. the 38-year-old will be allowed to serve time in public works detail because of her life criminal record and must take parenting class. she left her daughter with stolen groceries last september after getting caught by a security guard. she was later arrested in nevada. 5:16. a fight to renew a lease in point reyes could have implications for national parks. a court could issue a ruling that expands, contracts or gets rid of commercial activity on federal land. that could affect ranches, timber and mining operations at national parks like yosemite, yellowstone and grand canyon. the 9th circuit court of appeals agreed to hear the drake s bay case in may. some bright young scientific minds from the bay area with in washington, d.c. we ll tell you why at 5:25. sal, you re looking into an injury crash in oakland maybe? 27th street at martin luther king way on the corner there, i want to let you know to avoid the area near highway 24. on the freeways, 880 oakland, that traffic looks good. 580, 980, the oakland drive on the freeways looks good but 27th street at martin luther king way, very close to children s hospital, there is an injury crash. watch out for some traffic here, or actually it s not even showing up at the toll plaza, traffic is light coming up to the pay gates. we had a stall on the bridge but that was cleared rather quickly. on the peninsula we re off to a decent start. some fog has begun to move in. i was looking at my san francisco camera, which i didn t show you this time because it s going in and out of fog, and for the fog update let s bring in rosemary orozco. good morning. a little bit more widespread, along the coast, and inland once again, from sonoma county into marin county, and i m seeing it kind of bleed into the bay area. this is going to continue for the next couple hours, between sal and me, well, i think we ll have you covered. we ll continue to watch that for you and track it. tracking this ridge of high pressure, continuing to move east, and that means shifting closer to us, it is going to continue to drive our afternoon highs up. it s also responsible for that patchy dense fog we re beginning to see out there because the warm sinking air associated with that high pressure helping to pin that moisture and right down to the ground, visibility down to 1/4 of a mile petaluma. santa rosa. and novato. temperatures are up this morning. 49 heyward, 50 antioch, 44 livermore. so feeling good out there. still a bit of a cool start, fairfield, napa, santa rose in the low 40s but not as cold as we have been. this is the first morning since i can remember that i don t see 30s out there. 76 in napa for your afternoon today. 70 in berkeley. 70 heyward. mid-70s for antioch. the warmest spot on that map looks to be napa for the afternoon. 76. 73 santa jose, 74 los gatos. who has the day off? go to santa cruz, 73 with mostly sunny extended forecast, warmest day is wednesday. the weekend we cool back but remain on the up and up with temperatures above the seasonal norm, upper 60s to low 70s in the forecast, overnight lows in the low 40s. back to you. thanks, rosemary. 5:20. european markets are mixed and trading in a narrow range this morning. nearly all the asian markets closed lower, hong kong fell almost 1%. taiwan, south korea and japan fell in reaction to weaker markets in europe. here are the numbers from yesterday, another winning day, dow up 50, nasdaq up 8, s&p up 5. the price of crude oil has fallen below $92 a barrel this morning, traders reacting to disappointing french industrial protection along the weaker indicators on chinese retail sales. analysts say the large supply of u.s. oil is keeping a lid on global crude oil prices. right now in rome, catholic cardinals are starting the final rituals for the conclave to elect a pope, and the tradition is going high tech. a close call after a car burst into flames, the heroic actions taken to save the driver s life. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. [ buzz ] delicious, right? yeah. it s the honey, it makes it taste so. well, would you look at the time. what s the rush? bee happy. bee healthy. with clusters of flakes and o s. oh, ho ho. it s the honey sweetness. i.i mean, you.love. take a look at this rescue from a burning car in iowa. officers were able to pull an 18-year-old out just in time. police say the man had been doing doughnuts in an icy church parking lot and when the car crashed into an air conditioning unit it caught fire. the driver is expected to survive but he will face charges when he s released from the hospital. 5:24. two women who were mistaken by shot by los angeles police in the hunt for christopher dorner are waiting for lapd to get them a new truck. officers opened fire on the newspaper delivery women last month theirsing the truck with 100 bullet holes. the police chief said the officers thought the truck was being driven by dorner and promised the women would get a new truck. an attorney for the women say they were offered a used truck that they would have to pay a sales tax on so they turned it down. this morning in washington, d.c. six bay area high school students who are very smart are there for a major competition in the intel science contest. the top prize, a $100,000 scholarship. one is working on technology that would allow surgeons to spot cancer cells during an operation. before surgery, you often get mris or ct scans, but they only get the main shape of the tumor. you can t see individual cells. that s a big challenge for the surgeon because they don t know what exactly to take out. boy, she s smart! other bay area students are kevin chen of fremont. i may have messed up the names because i m not as smart as them. but i m proud of each one of them, and i congratulate them in advance. i ve been at some ceremonies honoring them, it s need to get the whole school to support smart children. let s get to another smart man. sal, you do a great job keeping an eye on the roads. good morning. right now traffic is doing pretty well, we re early in the commute. i want to show you san jose northbound 280, you should have a decent drive for your drive to cupertino or sunnyvale with no main problems on 680 from pleasantton. we check 580 from tracy to livermore and dublin. let s go to rosemary. take it slow. we re seeing that patchy fog develop, becoming more thick, it s patchy and dense for inland north bay at times along the sonoma valley floor, bleeding into marin, so that s to be aware of. temperatures not bad at all. 40 to 50 degrees right now, we re looking at a mild noontime and then for the afternoon slightly warmer than yesterday. i ll have a look around coming up. 5:37. the long-time tradition of picking a pope is getting a digital enhancement. logos bible software developed an app that links users to the latest news connecting you to videos from rome and best catholic news sites. users will get access to twitter feed that details the selection process. 5:27. in a couple hours, the college of cardinals in rome will be headed to the sistine chapel for the process of selecting a new pope. we ll have more from rome on this historic day taking place this morning. plus, a family s search for a missing oakland woman takes a new turn. new information from police has them shifting their focus. also why police say a bay area pre-school teacher reportedly tied up a toddler. if loving you is wrong i don t wanna be right [ record scratch ] what?! it s not bad for you. it just tastes that way. [ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal heart-healthy, whole grain oats. you can t go wrong loving it. bee happy. bee healthy. with clusters of flakes and o s. oh, ho ho. it s the honey sweetness. i.i mean, you.love. good morning. welcome back. we re already on tuesday. march 12, i m dave clark. i m maureen naylor. if you like the warm dry weather, good news. another delightful day. this morning we ve got fog area the bay area, i m seeing it patchy and dense, and i expect it will become more widespread, nap a down to 1/4 mile. it s a cool start, a tad warmer for the afternoon. the extended forecast, dry. i ll show you the extended forecast and the temperatures and that fog coming up. good morning, sal. good morning. we re looking at a picture of highway 4, you can see traffic is moving well, some slowing in antioch as you head west, also this morning we re looking at a picture of san francisco, kind of misty and foggy. the fog is going to be spreading into some areas. right now the traffic does look good. let s go back to the desk. 2-year-old girl was tied up at a preschool, police say, and parents want to know why. we re live with what is being said about the criminal investigation. reporter: i touched base with pleasanton police and investigators will be talking more about this case later this morning. center point preschool is the focus of a criminal investigation after a complaint against a former teacher accused of tieing up a 2-year- old girl who refused to take a nap. the complaint filed with the department of social services says the former teacher bound the child s wrists and ankles with masking tape and took a photo of the girl. the incident didn t come to light until much later when the teacher apparently showed off the picture at a social gathering to several staff members of the school, one of them happened to be the mother of the child in the photo. the allegation was reported to police on march 5, although at this point it s unclear exactly when the incident actually took place. administrators said they are appalled and shocked by what may have happened. and in light of the investigation, centerpointe will be suspending preschool classes for five days so staff members can undergo additional training. school gets underway this morning, and this evening we re told centerpointe preschool parents will have a meeting, parents home, held by the school so any parents who have any questions about what may have taken place or this criminal investigation can have questions answered. again, police expected to offer up new details in the investigation at some point later on this morning. live in pleasanton, alex savidge. a bay area family s search for a relative is expanding this morning after the police released new information. the 31-year-old erica maskaleras has not been seen or heard from since thursday. surveillance video from a bakery at 34th and telegraph, you can see her on a daily walk that morning. yesterday oakland police said she was seen in west oakland after being reported missing. her family and friends will now change their focus and expand their search. we ve given out probably 1500 flyers to people, and we re hoping that somebody s memory will be jogged. the family is offering a $1000 reward to find erica. this afternoon a man accused of killing a daly city family will be in court. saturday the 23-year-old was girling his girlfriend, mother and brother to the movies, all were killed except the girlfriend who was seriously injured. dennis maceda was fleeing a hit and run and is now facing hit and run and homicide charges. the san francisco symphony is scheduled to meet with a federal mediator to continue contract negotiations. if no agreement is reached, the symphony is threatening to strike and cancel upcoming east coast tour. the knew musicians had asking for an increase, they say management s proposal could cut benefits and freeze wages. a hearing today about california s high poverty rate. according to the u.s. census bureau, california s poverty rate is the worst in the country, almost 25% of california lives in poverty. today s hearing, research experts will be testifying about the factors that contribute to that high poverty rate. caltrans plans to install special fencing to keep the homeless out from under a freeway on-ramp in san francisco. an area was cleared on king street in mission bay. workers offered to take them to a church for housing help and screenings, the new fencing is expected to cost $300,000. 5:35. in a few hours, nasa will say what it s discovered about a rock on mars. last month the mars rover curiosity drilled a hole into a flat rock on the surface of the planet. that revealed an unexpected gray interior to the rock which was in sharp contrast to the red-orange surface of mars. curiosity took samples of the rock powder and scientists have been analyzing it. at 10:00 they will be telling us what they found. 5:36. happening now in rome, the college of cardinals is preparing for a final prayer before the conclave to elect a new pope officially begins. erin mclaughlin is in rome, where white smoke could signal a new pope as early as this afternoon. reporter: good morning, dave. this morning the cardinals celebrated the final public mass before the conclave, they are currently resting at the hotel within the vatican, where they will stay for the duration of the conclave. the world is watching what happens here today, some 5600 journalists are in town. whoever is selected pope will likely be one of the most influential people on earth, and the process used to select him is steeped in tradition, prayer and mystery. cardinals preparing to embark on what could be the most important day of their spiritual lives. they will enter the papal conclave, elect their next leader and set the tone for the future of the catholic church. the group began the day with a traditional votive mass. preparations have been undersay since benedict announced he was retiring. once the cardinals are in the chapel all eyes will be on the chimney. black smoke signals an unsuccessful vote. white smoke means there s a new pope. it s unlikely that there would be white smoke on the first ballot. reporter: a contender must get 2/3 of the vote. a new thing added this year is when the cardinals and holy father leave the sistine chapel, their first stop is in the paulene chapel with the wholly father will enter and pray before the blessed sacrament. reporter: red curtains are hanging where the new pope will be announced to the world for the first time. it can take between 30 minutes and an hour between the white smoke and the appearance on the balcony. the installation mass will likely take place within five days of the actual conclave. dave, back to you. thank you. the historical events in rome are marked by a mass in san francisco. it starts at 8:00 this morning, at st. mary s, officiated by the archbishop. he says it s important to pray for the successful election of a new pope. stay with ktvu for continuing coverage. you can also get the latest information at ktvu.com sent straight to your mobile device. check out the papal conclave tab on our home page. we turn to sal for the latest on the roads. it looks good so far. the traffic is off to a light start. let s look at the bay bridge toll plaza. it does start getting more crowded as we get closer to 6:00, right now we don t see a huge crowd and the delays are minimal so far. no problems if you re in san francisco, the fog has been going in and out of the area, a few moments ago i couldn t see 101 but the fog has moved on. also the morning commute looks good on the peninsula, southbound 101 between 380 out to palo alto, it s a nice drive. 5:40. let s go to rosemary. all right. we ve got fog out there to contend with. i m going to show you a shot of the ridge of high pressure that remains over the state shifting east a little bit, moving farther inland and warming us up for the afternoon. we re dry here, oregon is going to be dry. the only place getting rain, a little bit in washington for today. let s get in a little bit closer. we re dealing with patchy dense fog. low clouds seeping into the bay area. oakland mostly cloudy at this time. san jose partly to mostly cloudy, and we ve got patchy dense fog in areas like santa rosa, petaluma, napa, novato reporting visibility 1/4 of a mile. get out early. coastal fog will continue through the morning, half moon bay 2 to 4 miles at this time. the ridge of high pressure in place, sinking air pushing that fog closer to the ground and creating the patchy dense fog. the sinking air will help warm us up, we ll remain dry through the extended period, through your weekend at the very least. here we are this morning, as we get closer to sunrise, it becomes a little bit more widespread, takes until 9:00, 10:00 before it pulls out of the inland areas, by 11:00 out of the bay and lingers along the coastline for the afternoon hours, mostly sunny in most places. temperatures up this morning. 49 heyward, 51 oakland, low 40s in fairfield, napa and santa rosa. the extended forecast still on track for the hottest day to be wednesday, even hitting 80 degrees in some areas. as we get into the weekend temperatures will cool, thursday, friday, saturday into sunday, fair skies, upper 60s to low 70s. back to the desk. 5:41. large sugary drinks will be served in new york, a measure has been called off. and the new opinions on sugary drinks right here in the bay area. he spent 14 years labeled a sex offender, which is anyone s worst nightmare. a new beginning for a wrongly accused man from oakland, the break that set him free. good morning, westbound 237, the traffic looks good. we ll tell you more about the morning commute and the bay weather. [ mom ] dear chex cereal, i just had to write. you can t imagine how long i ve been searching for something like this for my family. i m amazed you make so many great flavors that are gluten free. my guys are crazy for chocolate chex and honey nut chex. for me, it s cinnamon. it means a lot to be able to give them something that s good for them, that also puts smiles on their faces. cause i really love those smiles. we re the harris family. and we love chex. [ male announcer ] love chex? connect with us on facebook. welcome back. good morning to you. here is a quick look at the top stories we re following right now at 5:44. in rome, the college of cardinals is getting ready for a final prayer for the official start of the conclave to elect a new pope. in a couple hours, they will be walking to the sistine chapel, then the doors will be sealed. the first vote on a new pope could come this afternoon. back here at home a pleasantton preschool will hold a meeting for parents after a 2- year-old girl was allegedly tied up for refusing to take a nap. officials at centerpointe say a former teacher tied her hands and feet with masking tape and took a to photo. san jose will deal with homeless camps, they want a joint strategy focusing on long- term affordable housing. 5:45. new this morning, five u.s. troops have been killed in a helicopter crash in southern afghanistan. the helicopter went down last night outside kandahar city. nato says it crashed in an area where there was no enemy activity. the cause is under investigation. earlier in the day two other u.s. troops were shot and killed in afghanistan, making yesterday the deadliest day for u.s. forces so far this year. north korean leader kim jung un is telling front line troops to be on alert for a war with south korea after sanctions were voted on after a nuclear test. north korea threatened to cancel the 1953 cease fire that ended the civil war with the south, south korea says the north called it a ploy to influence policy in seoul. an oakland man was exonerated after 14 years in prison and will speak out about his new life. the a judge released 37-year- old johnny williams friday. the northern california innocence project helped overturn his wrongful conviction for sex crimes. attorneys exposed a problem with the original forensic testing. the analyst who physically examined the evidence in the case didn t find biological material that would have supported testing. the innocence project investigated the case after the california dna project was formed with a federal grant. the new dna test proved williams was innocent. the dna project is now in danger due to potential federal budget cuts. in colorado the man accused in the shooting rampage in a movie theater may enter a plea today. james holmes is expected to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. if he does do that, a judge has ruled he can be medicated during a polygraph exam with psychiatrists, holmes is accused of killing 12 people in a shooting rampage at a movie theater in aurora, colorado. 70 others were injured. this morning in washington, d.c. a senate committee again takes up several gun control measures. the senate judiciary committee will debate a bill calling for universal background checks for gun buyers. two weeks ago the committee heard testimony in support of tougher gun laws from a man whose 6-year-old son died in the connecticut school shooting rampage. the committee is also considering senator dianne feinstein s assault weapons bans. hours before it was set to take effect a new york supreme court judge struck down new york city s ban on large sugary drinks. the ruling means super-sized sodas, tweetened teas and other beverages can still be sold. new york city mayor bloomberg plans to appeal the judge s decision. new york s battle is noticed in richmond where voters rejected a soda tax in november. just like new york, the author of richmond s fail measure n continues to fight for it. 67% of voters said no to the citywide tax which would tack on 1 cent per ounce on sugar drinking. but a field poll she s people may be sweetening on the sugar tax, 68% said they would favor enwhen told money to go to childhood nutrition and exercise. is everything behaving on the bridges and roads? we re off to a decent start. it s still early but you ll like what you see. let s take a look at the commute on highway 4. it s already getting slow in antioch, now into pittsburg, but nice at bay point, no problems on interstate 680. we ve been looking at the toll plaza. we don t have a big commute yet but after 6:00 you start seeing the traffic and sometimes they turn on the metering lights at about 6:15. sometimes earlier, depending on how busy it gets. this morning s commute, livermore freeways, westbound 580, slow traffic from the castro valley area, and 880 south no major problems. also the commute on the south bay freeways off to a good start. let s go to rosemary. a warmer afternoon in store by a few degrees. fairfield 41, 43 napa, 41 santa rosa. around the bay 40s, even 50 in oakland, 50 half moon bay, i m also seeing the fog out there. the clouds have moved across the bay, oakland reporting partly to mostly cloudy skies, alameda, heyward, down into san jose. storm tracker 2 showing you the ridge of high pressure in place. i put air to show you the motion. the clockwise most, sinking air, pushing some of that moisture to the ground creating the patchy dense fog. winds are light but we ve got an onshore breeze i m seeing through napa. napa, you got away without the fog yesterday morning but i m seeing it in your neighborhood this morning. visibility down to 1/4 mile. we get that moist pacific air in the ridge of high pressure and sinking air associated with it, pushing it down to the ground and there you have it. visibility down to 1/4 mile in areas like petaluma, santa rosa, novato, napa as well. here is a look at afternoon highs under mostly sunny skies, 75 santa rosa, 76 napa, 60s in sausalito, 68 alameda, 75 walnut creek, in the south way warming a few degrees. along the coast the fog will continue for the first half of the day, mostly sunny for the second half, low 60s for half moon bay, low 70s for santa cruz. we begin a cooling trend into the weekend, partly cloudy skies, dry conditions, overnight lows not bad, afternoon highs looking good. upper 60s to low 70s. back to the desk. thanks. your time is 5:51. blackberry s newest money will make its u.s. debut next week. at&t will start taking pre- orders today for the new z-10, delivery starts a week from friday, it is the first device to run the blackberry operating system, selling for $200 with a two-year considerate. american international shareholders won class action status for a suit that focuses on the bail out of aig and claims the government violated the fifth amendment when it took an 80% stake and decided to conduct a reverse stock split saying it caused tens of thousands of shareholders to lose value in the investment. opening night in san francisco, singing the praises of a judge. [music] why the producers and cast of jersey boys will ride the wave of a legal victory when they hit the bay area tonight. plus, the man caught in a fast-moving avalanche captured the death defying situation in this video. welcome back. low clouds and fog joining us this morning, it will burn away to mostly sunny skies and mild to warm afternoon temperatures. watch this. ot only filmed it, he lived to talk about it. this happened in boseman, montana. the avalanche carried him a thousand feet down this mountain, he could feel the snow building up, then he slammed into a tree. luckily some friends saw it all and were able to dig him out. he suffered a dislocated shoulder. back here at home marin county deputies found a marijuana growing operation in inverness park. deputy ies went to investigate a woman hit her roommate with a baseball bat. she is now wanted for attempted murder. she was last seen driving this distinctive orange van with the words biohazard battle cruiser painted on the side. if you have any information call the marin county sheriff s department. 5:57. the producers of the hit musical jersey boys are getting ready for opening tonight tonight but they are celebrating a legal victory. [music]
stock of the day today men s warehouse. retailer getting a boost after they are considering alternatives for its k and g stores. this is one of the company s weaker performers. jay juror done, you don t wear anything from men s warehouse. don t think so. you ve been doing business in china for about 20 years. we just saw the big 60 minutes piece about what may and bubble or not. what s your view? nobody knows. first place, you can t really trust numbers that you receive. china has to convert an outdated economic model, basically driven by investment and exports to a domestic consumption model. their export markets are not going to disappear but substantially appreciate. the r an d is going to appreciate and they won t have the same competitive advantage. they have to grow their domestic consumption. now what we saw on cbs was a building after building, real estate, empty. thanks for joining us today. mike, thank you. that does it for us. right now it is time for squawk on the street. good morning. welcome to squawk on the street. live from the new york stock exchange. futures are toying with another addition to the dow s winning streak. now nine days running. jobless claims were a nice beat, got mild core wholesale inflation as well. europe nice morning there especially in italy and a relatively mixed session in asia. our road map begins with a dow streak that might be tepid but it sure is stubborn. cramer who says he used to actually own a bull is here to explain the bulls s behavior. norman the bull. apple gets a long awaited upgrade this morning to a buy as samsung gets ready for its moment in the spotlight when it reveals the new galaxy in new york city tonight. jpmorgan cuts amazon to neutral. is it time to re-evaluate? cramer added to his gatsby index. we ll run down who s been added. the dow posted an all-time closing high for a seventh consecutive session riding a nine-day winning streak. the longest since 96. the s&p, 11 points away from its own record high with futures moving higher. the watch is on to see if more market history will be made. two points, jim, on the dow. i guess you count it but they re certainly cutting it close. they always say the most exciting, maria it s the most exciting three minutes. have you seen that discussion we have to wait to see it settle? i will say that it is once again transport driven and that makes a lot of people who are old what a tie. i m sorry. he s a great dresser. i m trying but i m not in your league. i didn t mean to be that s okay. it s men s warehouse that made me think of it. transports always make an old fuddy-duddy like me feel better. they ve been the leader. that makes a good impression on the rest of us. transports and the small caps, russell, closing at record highs as well. confirmation for dow theorists in this move in the dow jones industrial average. we should note materials lagged in yesterday s session. that has been the laggard so far in this bull advance. last night jim you say bulls rest, bulls can be lazy, bulls can even go down to the turn shed when it rains. because you know this. when i ran into star norman, he cost a fortune to do what he had to do. farm out in jersey. every time it rained the guy ran into the shed. cows won t even be out there. didn t kind of perform the way it was supposed to. maybe the situation wasn t ideal. but bulls do rest. we have the image of bulls always climbing, in a ring, or pamplona. no. i like the analogy only from the point of view that resting is working here. you mention the materials haven t perform that well. when you go back to the 10007-2008 advance, what led us? peabody put on 50 points between january 2007 and june of 2008. cliff national went from 124 to 120. freeport was a huge bull, 33 to 61. i think last one before i stop boring people. pot ash had a miracle move. 30 to 113. i don t want those stocks doing well and they re not. boy, are they ever a nightmare. when you get u.s. steel putting on 100 points, when you get ak steel being a leader, that s what happened last time. i love this leadership had it is not those companies. but you want those groups to participate. maybe not lead but you want them to participate. you want technology to be trading at a lower pe than the rest of the market. there s room for tech to go. i just don t want us to be led by a company like an ak like chesapeake. 27 to 69. apache doubled during that period. those are inflation stocks. i love this piece in the journal talked about natural gas being low and the energy boom is keeping a lid on inflation which make the dollar stronger for good reasons, not bad. i guess i m saying i still like the backdrop of the economy more than most and was gratified proctor cooled yesterday, k kimberley cooled. there is the sentiment, some anxiety things have been quiet, almost tranquil in a way. it s a western? the man who shot liberty prokt sfer. invariably something always comes. i don t know whether it will be. geopolitical as we worry or wonder or watch things in iran or north korea. i know. i m just 1996. it was pretty darn good for a while. wasn t until the asian contagion, nine months later. then we got long term capital, then the fed lowered rates by 50 basis rates. off to the races like never before, ever. that being said, this is 20 13. not 1996. we re doing stress testing on banks like we weren t doing back then. we ll get more results tonight. we don t have the internet just beginning to blossom. no, but we do have situations where i m reading about the elephant in the room which is the galaxy. suddenly they ve got a keyboard i ve been trying to get that keyboard. it does not get me wrong every single time. it remembers what i ve got, what i want. you see the keyboard, israeli keyboard that deemphasizes some keys because you don t use them often? let s gatalk about samsung. debuting the galaxy at an event tonight. apple is down playing competition from samsung s new smartphone and slamming the product. he tells the wall street journal fragmentation in the android world is plain and simple. android is given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn t as good as an iphone. the timing of this the day before the launch of the galaxy and him coming out saying, that is a lousy experience when the numbers don t necessarily bear that out. money talks, something else walks. buy that stock, raise the dividend, come up with a better machine and buy netflix. okay? there. all right? is that so hard? this upgrade we got today is very good. let s give them $5 billion worth of product that we never heard of. that s old days. they re working on something and you don t believe it. you don t feel that anymore about apple. think maybe they re working on hiring a great money manager and creating the largest hedge fund that we ve ever seen. you can manage $150 billion. you ve got money coming in all the time. you can generate a 10%, 12% annual rate of return on that money. at some point amen. you re saying that if bernanke lets rates go up you re raising your price target on apple. i say maybe go the asset management route. generate all the cash on the side isn t that how it is already? compound tax free offshore, then eventually return. you want to see how much they own in real estate, in goal, in forex? right. we re going to talk about exactly. bridge water oh, how is apple doing? the analyst out of btig is on the 11:00 hour this morning with us. to his credit he cut the stock when it was $634 last april. missed some of the up side but missed a lot of the downside. he does point out they re probably going to miss. guidance is probably going to miss. management doesn t know what to do with this money. there s products we don t know if they re in the pipeline or if management will even pursue them but he s giving them a huge benefit of the doubt. i thought this was one of the most brilliant upgrade i ve ever seen. it starts off by basically saying this company is going to blow it. that s why i like it. the reason why i say it is important, this stock has become very psychological. he s basically saying he s been at the top before. we know in another bull market he was in there at the top. yes, he has the advantage of experience. he s saying i m not going to doom to repeat history here. when everyone was getting really enthusiastic i didn t. now when everybody hates it i m on-board. you know what? i think this particularly ironic upgrade is going to work. really. yeah, i do. i think this man has learned. it feels like sentiment is changing on the stock, for sure. we have the galaxy coming out. that s got to be the point of worst liket comes out. unless galaxy sells 42,337,000 new galaxy s44 ss, people are going to be disappointed. it is time for people to start being disappointed about samsung before we see the numbers. the expectations are 10 million units sold in the first month on sale. with the s3 they had some supply issues. they lost $2 million in sales. they say they ve remedied that this time around. but there are hiccups that could be seen with samsung. is the s4 anything revolutionary? no. that was the discussion yesterday with the analyst on at 11:00. there s no form function that s going to be revolutionary at all in hard way. until they figure out how to make a benable screen or something. bells and whistles are getting harder to come by. don t you think we should create a whisper number of 10 million? we can create our own disappointment right here right now by fomenting a number that s impossible for them to reach then literally say that s disappointing. boom. we ve created a bottom right on the show. what do you think of that analysis? i think that could work, though i don t think samsung s stock prices moved quite as much as apple s might have been. to the up side it has. it has. as a composition of their overa all profitability smartphones have become an enormous part of that. what would happen if apple cape out tomorrow and said i just talk to intel, they got a new ceo, we re switching away from samsung chips because we ve had it for them. at the same time we heard the whisper number is 12 million on squawk on the street. they did 11 million. you know you got a bottom. it can be that facetious. we shall just do it here. why do we have to wait for wall street to create a consensus? how wrong have they been? it s a consensus of four we could create right now. i haven t come to my number yet. i went to europe also and was shocked by how many galaxy notes they had there. he does say that in his note. channel checks. let s wrap up with amazon. moving lower in the premarket. jpmorgan cuts to neutral from overweight. target goes from $333 to $300. they point out 45% gain last year, 10% year to date. is sentiment changing here the other way? i read this. i said i keep thinking about bob oldstein saying amazon in the end will just implode. i come back and say amazon is household enough among younger people it is not going to implode. the stock itself has defied this is the one when you people at home say what s expensive, this is the one that s defied the parameters that we know in terms of trying to gauge the worth and value. it s one of those stocks where you could have made the valuation argument against the stock for the past 100 points at least. exactly. therefore it is suspect when you try to call a top in this. at the same time it s had a big move. i don t think it s wrong to think if you ve been right about it now to pull back a little. when we come back, a lot more. cramer s gatsby index, the sequel. find out which companies he s added to his own index of companies that sort of pivot around the behavior of the wealthy in this country. also ahead, a bear takes a swipe at the record run in the markets. why he thinks stocks are, in his words, way overextended. futures though look moderately positive here as we kick off a thursday morning. a lot more squawk on the street from the nyse when we return. rn. unveiled his gatsby index to give you a snapshot of the high-end consumer. he s added some companies to the list and he outlined them last night on mad money. take a listen. so far our original gatsby index of michael kors, panera. lewis: lululemon has lagged. we need something broader, more representative. i m adding the tol, the bc, the sax, and estee lauder to the list. call it the great gatsby index from now on. in addition to kors, ralph, lulu, nordstrom. with tiffany and coach you got some names in there people are concerned about. took a lot of heat immediately on this by even saying coach belongs. kors a different price point. that was immediately that was like a heat seeking missile. people hate it. i say your image of coach now. maybe it s lost a little luster. lauder is incredibly overpriced and gets it. that s a sign of a luxury purveyor. toll, $575,000 house. brunswick is boats. last time i looked, how many do you immediate? sax is a high price point and they made a darn good suit. the great ones are all european. burberry making a comeback. prada is doing well. america is not the at the locust of high fashion. but if people go to whole foods over kroger, if they buy lululemon versus athletic gap. gap s doing some good things but this is a good judgment of people who spend too much and a lot of times my nephew, said we got to call it the great gatsby. he pointed out correctly, this is just truly everything you do not need in life. do you need any of these things in life? guess it depends on who you ask. you need a place to live. why can t you go to a polte home? you don t have to live in the terrain. i lived in a ford fairmont. you save a lot on a homeowners insurance. other than that, i d rather be in a toll. david novak lived in his car. as did you. with norman. norman was the most he was completely asexual. he wasn t exactly what you paid for. okay? no norman juniors. you turn on the barry white or nothing? nothing worked? norman had the least drive of anyone i had ever seen. this is like the luxury index. he was the lowest cost rental. it s true, david, you get what you pay for. i mean this guy could not have been less interested in fine touch or ambush, the two i thought maybe he would have a good time with. fine touch. and ambush. here comes the mad dash. find out if things are worth your money. another look at futures as we attempt to extend our winning streak. right now the dow is up 27. more squawk on the street straight ahead. with fidelity s new options platform, we ve completely integrated every step of the process, making it easier to try filters and strategies. to get a list of equity options. evaluate them with our p&l calculator. and execute faster with our more intuitive trade ticket. i m greg stevens and i helped create fidelity s options platform. it s one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. 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[ howls ] btig is going gaga over a couple of names. upgrade of apple, the initiation of penny with a buy. going against the grain on two different calls. jcpenney they re saying buy. there s more than meets the eye. talking about how there is a legacy business that s not that bad. market s undervaluing some of their locations. i like a contrary call but it s got to be backed up by the fact. right now we don t have any momentum to sales that makes me feel comfortable saying that this is a good upgrade. tomorrow is a big day. joe fresh day bus. huge priority for ron johnson. some analysts say at this stage of the game him leaving is not a clear positive. i went on the joe fresh site. this stuff looks good. one of the problems is that apparel is so good these days. if you look at j. crew s site it looks good. what i m saying is that it is more whom mhomogenized. joe fresh is not enough of a standout to turn this company around. a lot of people are saying mastercard gave a nasty present aation, saying ebay s fees have to be raised a little bit. a lot of talk about how paypal will not feature as promising as a new galaxy samsung. jpmorgan says buy, there s also concerns about the core business of ebay away from paypal and whether it is strong. i don t want to touch it. i think the money s been made in ebay. i like the company, i like the management. but the stock s been an incredible perform person let s find things that haven t been. the dow aiming for a perfect 10. the blue chips looking to keep their winning streaks going, set record highs in the process. account s&p tag along. opening bell in just a few minutes. recognize me. but i am your market data. i know what you re looking for. i m not chained to your desk anymore. i m faster and smarter now. and so much less expensive. i am your market data. and if i do say so myself, i have never looked better. superderivatives introduces dgx. data done differently. lyric by phonak is the world s only 24/7, 100% invisible hearing device. it s tiny. but that might be the least revolutionary thing about lyric. lyric can be worn 24/7 for up to four months, without battery changes. call 1-800-411-5534 for a risk-free trial. cookie: there s absolutely no way anyone can see it even if they get right up to my ear. michael: wake up, go to sleep .showering, running, all your activities. lyric can also give you exceptionally clear, natural sound in quiet and noisy environments because of how it works with your ear s own anatomy. can your hearing aid do all this? lyric can. to learn more about lyric s advanced technology, call 1-800-411-5534 or visit trylyric.com for a risk-free 30-day trial offer and free dvd and brochure. get the hearing aid that can. lyric from phonak. lyric can. [ male announcer ] this is karen and jeremiah. they don t know it yet, but they re gonna fall in love, get married, have a couple of kids, [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never fight about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they ll find some retirement people who are paid on salary, not commission. they ll get straightforward guidance and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn t rocket science. it s just common sense. from td ameritrade. after going up nine straight sessions the dow shooting for ten today. again the first streak like that since november of 96. still working on when the last 11-day streak was. but people are starting to talk about the quarter, guys. when the first quarter for the dow is up 8%-plus the past 12i7b stances since 1950, the dow ended the year higher 100% of the time. isn t that some stat? hard to argue with that as being anything other than a black and white stat. they can t find an instance. in most cases double-digit gains for the year. some of the numerology people still hate it, people still want to fight it. but those are the facts. blackhawks, miami heat, dow jones industrial average these are very hard to go against right now. they are. teams that have won 20 it s almost seems like when you read the dow it is a sports story. it s just got that momentum that defies this kind of like four walls of valuation. it just doesn t let s just say one day the heat will lose. opening bell s here. top of your screen. the apollo tactical income fund. if lebron is to the heat what is to the dow? what is leading this dow? coke with an upgrade again today? no. it s been lagging. i think one of the great things about this team is it s much more like the fab five in michigan. like some of the great celtics teams. it is like each day someone steps up. isn t that what s so great about this? it is not a dream team necessarily. like the sixth man, the seventh man. find me a team that s this well versed. 83 sixers? the lakers? kareem? i don t know. this is every day it is a new guy that leads, the transition guard, then it is the post. can you help me here? will you just help me? where would you like me to go? what sports analogy would you like me to come up with? an nba team where the sixth or seventh guy played a role there. you mentioned a number of them. you have the celtics teams with havlicek coming off the bench he wrecked my life. i was 6. larry bird also did that with dennis johnson. coke is the best performing dow component today as it is upped to outperform from underperform. this stock has been lagging in 2013. has not participated in the bull market. if you re thinking the dow will go higher, eventually you would think you d have a catch-up performance by some of the laggards, including a coca-cola. that s part and parcel of what i m talking about. you want this market if this market were being led every day by the same stocks, we d feel very i think 2007-2008. it wouldn t surprise me tomorrow if someone find some way to recommend intel and microsoft because they re lag. is coke a rigorous upgrade? i don t think so. a lot of it is bloomberg failed, multiple expansion. but each day someone combs to the fore and surprises you. like the movie hoosiers, remember the movie, basketball, where the guy 00 comes up and he everyone played a role. there s many people playing roles. i m tearing up right now as we speak. blackberry shares trading higher today. we actually haven t mentioned this yet. yesterday up 8% on a press release saying that one partner of theirs placed an order for a million units. we had a nice time yesterday s session. it s backing off at this point. it had been up 1% right after the gate. that s something to watch especially as verizon tries to take pre-orders for the berry. see if that holds up. the day of samsung s big release of the galaxy. goldman sachs up about 1% as we await the aforementioned. after the close we should get the actual permission or lack of permission or how much the banks will be returning in terms of excess capital after last week s stress tests to shareholders. but important, very important for those who are invested in the banks or might consider doing so. if you re going to see you talk about this notion of a broadening market. bank of america was a leader, bank of america has paused. it would be time for bank of america to come to the fore. maybe something good happens there. interesting journal story this morning, something we were also aware of, which was there is not a great deal of discussion between the fed and the banks in terms of the metrics that are being used, how intricacies of the test. perhaps because they don t want them to then prepare for the test so to speak but a number of the financial institutions were a bit off in what they thought versus where they came in on the stress tests. even goldman sachs off quite a bit. goldman sachs does not act well here. no. doesn t act well. even though it is up no. morgan stanley, goldman, they seemed to take it on the chin from last week. i think it has not acted well since that and wells fargo which was regarded as not being that good has acted well. what do you make of that? morgan and goldman have had nice moves since the beginning of the year. but it could be very nice. fair enough. we re six points away from the record closing level of the s&p 500. of course as we are eking out this streak of gains on the dow we re still on s&p record watch and we are inching ever so close to that 1,565 and change level here. what would which group could power the s&p? technology. that would be the easiest. that would be the lay-up here. i got to come out tomorrow and recommend microsoft. imagine if you re a microsoft analyst right now, do you have anything? does your kid like xbox? i mean have you paid for skype even though you re not supposed to? there s got to be microsoft analysts all over country right now saying, please, please, windows 9! make us windows 9! how about just a 10% free cash flow yield? isn t that enough to say why not? thank you, steve ballmer. sure. want plea to do a little monkey dance for you? yes! you can do like a btig on the apple and say, i know kind of like what senator mccarthy used to say about the communists. i have a list in my hand of $5 billion worth of revenues that steve ballmer s going to have that you don t even know about. then i m going to upgrade it. that s not going to happen. why? because the takfacts yes. you demand facts. sometimes i do. you re rigorous. a lot of people don t want the fookt get in the way of a good story. how about upgrade on he s about to be fired. that s probably a rumor ballmer s going to be fired. that would be hard to do. 7.5% up? yes. we re joking, by the way! it amazes me without tech you you can t get to the s&p breakout. you need bank of america or intel. you know what i mean. we were talking to someone yesterday, bullish on the s&p. sees 1,600 but make the point utilities are trading at a higher multiple than technology. do you pay growth valuations for utilities over technology? that s what s happening right now. the cisco kid used to be a friend of everyone. it s 11 times earnings, for heaven s sake. cisco has to break out. okay? it has to break out. cisco kid was war. wasn t it? yes. what was war good for? absolutely nothing boom! guy comes to play. say it again. we could have had that cue. you just got to give us some warning. some people call me maurice. what do you make of all the q1 gdp raises we got in mesereau, credit suisse, deutsche is at 3 for q1. they wait for retail sales to come out, then they erase. well, thanks for nothing. why don t you do a little ground-up and realize the sales were it s so funny. when i come out, i said something positive about macy s the other guy. i said how about target? it s all jcpenney. walmart. jcpenney. jcpenney must have had $400 billion in sales and lost it to everybody. i had a guy on last night from spirit air. he was talking about them being the dollar general or the dollar tree. of airlines? i thought talk about other companies that have clearly benefited from jcpenney spirit airways. right? is there any company that has not benefited from the downfall of penny s? name me a company that hasn t won because of jcpenney. caterpillar. cisco. guys, you got me. i can t figure out how s caterpillar sales increased because of jcpenney s failures? i have to think about that. one company has not benefited from penney s demise. herb aal life. the departments of justice. fascinating. let s get to bob pisani here on the floor this morning. penney s up 1% on that btig upgrade. we re up 45. notice we re up 45 every day. the rally goes on and on and on and on! every day. look at numbers for the dow this month. 35 up. 38. 43. 67. 50. two and five. those are the numbers we ve been up every single day. sounds like a football huddle. put january and february in you got a 10% rally. there are no hedge funds that are up 10% so far this year. they re all getting dragged in. what s characteristic of this month, almost every day we get a little piece of economic data that s a little bit better than expected. that s forcing the market to the up side. better economic news every day but hedge fund are all pulling their hair back. pullbacks, stop asking me about pullbacks. i got an e-mail full of when is the pullback going to come. we had it. 3%, end of february, it s over. it s already happened so stop writing about it. the big story is divergences. nobody s talking risk on and risk off. there were splits out. the divergence is out of emerging markets and into the united states. emerging markets led by china have been underperforming the markets for six weeks now and the u.s. has been the beneficiary of that. there is a big guerrilla that s in the room. that s the strength of the dollar. it is playing havoc with people who are trying to invest u.s. money in the overseas markets particularly through etfs. have you seen the nikkei rally? it is through the roof. it is up 19% this year. try to buy into this rally. you cannot. go buy an etf. the big one, the ewj, that s the japan index. it s up 7% this year. huh? how can this be? that s because the yen is weakening. you re buying it in dollars. hedging, there is a huge rush to try to find hedging vehicles. fortunately in japan wisdom tree s had a huge success with their japan hedge equity fund, hedges out the currency. that s up 19% just like the nikkei. but there aren t many of these hedge products that are out there. i ll talk about some of them in the next few hours but there is going to be a need for that, believe me. there is a big etf thing that s coming in the very near future. whatever happened to quadruple witching? we don t get volatility anymore. the reason is it is not a big event anymore. low volatility reduces the need to get a lot of hedging. two, people have found other ways to hedge. there s etfs. you can go long transports, short financials. you don t need to buy options. s&p options. there are vix options out there. many other option products you can use besides the quarterly explanations, expirations we are seeing out there. i m not expecting a particularly large quadruple witching. remember when you d get big volume wednesday, thursday and into friday? that s not happening. i remember 2:35 we used to get a look 2:35 wednesday we d get a look of how friday would be. now we have many options. let s get to the bonds and rick santelli from the cme in chicago. it s always important not to draw conclusions. i like to watch the market not only on dailies and weekly charts but literally second to second, minute to minute. this morning of course we had a 332,000 initial jobless claims number. we had a 330,000 number in mid-january. prior to that you had to go to january of 08 to find a lower number. but the point is, it s been a gradual decline and if you look at the charts, it wasn t a higher headline inflation, wasn t claims. we were already up to fairly similar levels, 204, 205 yield. open this chart up. this is fascinating. see the pattern here? look at the pattern with the 10-year bund over the same short period. reason this is important, that spread continues to widen. we ve been talking about it. journal had a good article on it today. let s look at the euro in terms of yesterday. we talked about how any violation that 1.2965 close to be big. it is a key level. watch this pattern. if we look at the dollar/yen, opened up to a one-year chart. that s what a bull run looks like. we are at the best levels on the dollar/yen in 43 months. jim, back to you. you keep track of this stuff. currencies have been just incredible here. can t talk enough about them because they re so crazy. the late easy news in energy and metals, sharon epperson at the nymex. the dollar is having impact on many commodities. brent crude is higher on the session. that has probably more to do with the oversold condition that s been in for the last several days. we are looking at the end of the four-day slide here in brent for now as it had fallen below its 200-day moving average. also looking at the may contract, that s most active as april expires today. we ve also seen the spread between brent and wti oil futures widen a bit after dropping dramatically over the last several sessions. that s happening as we look at the flat price of wti, basically flat on the session today above the $92 mark. keep your eye on the gold price as well. we continue to see the rotation out of gold and into equities. gold is still unable to get above that $1,600 level. that s going to be key for momentum in the gold price and really a settlement price above $1 $1,625 is what momentum traders are looking for. i ll bring the natural gas number to you live. coming up, is apple about to regain its shine? we ll talk with the analyst behind that call and why he says to buy apple right now. this afternoon on the closing bell, watch steve leisman s interview with new treasury secretary jack lew. look at this morning s early movers on wall street. war what is it good for absolutely nothing war yeah what is it good for whole foods looking to expand its healthy food offerings into a lifestyle. to include an upscale health resort within the next three years. fill in the plank if whole foods want to be successful with its health resort it needs to include blank. tweet us at squawk street. we ve got your responses throughout the morning. what do you think? include trader joe s wine. trader joe s wine. take some of groupon s brazilian business. full-service resort. fly down to rio, man. right? brazil? amen. brazil. of course they do have the whole foods in denver, the colorado whole foods have spas already. doing quite well. oh, really. yes. the stock s making a comeback here, part of the greater gatsby index, tortured by fresh market and the last quarter. i m going to denver next week, spring break with the kids. my mom lives there. i ll report live from the whole foods spa. could you also report live from the denver broncos? hello, wes welker. we are pretty psyched. he s got some miles on him but he is tough. we know that from having gone to new england several times and lost. have a great time in denver. not going yet. the s&p about .3% from a record closing high on the s&p. 1,565.15 is the number you want to watch. 1,560.85. are stocks way overextended? veteran market watcher tom mcclellan will join us later on in the show to explain. but up next coming up, cramer has stocks to critique and he has just seconds to do it. in 60 and he knows it find out if he can when squawk on the street returns. let s get six stocks in 60 seconds. vm wear. stock was up, people are still jumping on the bandwagon. emc is the majority owner. stern doesn t like nike ahead of the quarter. they say western europe is not that good and they re worried about china. be careful. morgan stanley cuts air gas. air gas has been one of the great performers. no need to leave it yet. it is still well run. men s wearhouse up again. kng, if they get rid of it, it goes higher. you got a battery company, also an seeding company and car too much. break it up. goes to $40, i want to buy jci. radian coming on the show. can you believe it? technology has to move to keep this move up. overall at night you ve been advising home gamers to wait for the stepback, i said, you can still pick technology and finance. i don t think you re missing if you re coming in proctor right now, i think you re wrong. if you re coming in these 19 times earnings stocks, you should be in the 11 times earnings stock. they have more up. i feel like i m missing something, yes. you said you don t have a problem with that. no. i can t come in at 18, 19 times earnings and tell people that clorox is going to 100. i can t do that. i think clorox is a great company. i can t come in right now and tell you i think this is the level to buy kellogg because it is going to go to $70. or general mills going to $50. that would be the highest valuations i ve seen since the 87 crash. i can t do that. see you tonight. 6:00 and 11:00 eastern time. simon, what s coming up at 10:00? we have an upgrade on apple. btig will be here to talk about their $540 price forth. we ll also talk about which banks will be able to return what cash to shareholders. and a major hotel owner will be on the program to tell us that the likes of marriott and hilton are failing to do what they re paid to do. that and more in the second hour of squawk on the street. rent , you can rent a car without a reservation. and without a line. now that s a fast car. it s just another way you ll be traveling at the speed of hertz. [ female announcer ] you re the boss of your life. in charge of long weekends and longer retirements. ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. a talking car. but i ll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it s carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. after all, what s the point of talking if you don t have something important to say? four points away from an s&p closing record. let s get the road map for the next hour. the rally won t stop. dow looking to clock in with its tenth straight session of gains. while the s&p is inching closer to that all-time high. are there still names worth buying into? btig daring to upgrade apple on the day of samsung s galaxy launch. the fed set to release their results on big banks today after the close. which names could surprise the street the most. as carl mentioned, we re on s&p watch. we want to tell you about the key levels we are watching today. the s&p all-time intraday high, 1,565. we ll keep an eye on those numbers throughout the day for you. want to talk about the dow looking to make its ten-day winning streak ten straight. s&p closing in on a record closing high of its own. is today the day market history will be made or will economic data hinder this rally? chief economist with moody s capital markets research group is with us, john, good morning. good morning. every time you want to get a little more skeptical you get claims or something else today that gives the bulls a little more field. what do you make of it? that was a big surprise. fewest jobless claims since early 1 ii how to 8. that s got to be good news for the equity market bulls and it tells us a labor market is improving. the question is whether or not we re going to get enough in terms of business sales growth and earnings growth so companies continue to add workers. what s the answer to that question, john? i think the answer is we re going to see an expansion of payrolls. we re going to see the unemployment rate drift lower. in general rates are going to climb. if that s true profits will grow by enough to sustain share prices at the current level and perhaps allow for a further gain of 5%. you look at some of numbers out of the business roundstable, for instance yesterday, hire plans are nowhere near expectations for sales growth, cap x growth. some still argue the year could be great from an equity standpoint and still and jobless recovery. that s what the ceos are saying. i looked as a release of cfos released yesterday and they had a relatively strong number for prospective increases in staff. we ll see how that plays out. i think what it boils down to is that we have to see an improvement by business sales. we ve gotten some good news on retail sales. that s got to continue. if sales grow by enough, we ll see companies continue to add the stat. not in dramatic fashion. we won t go back to the type of jobs growth we had in the 1990s but jobs growth ought to be great enough to sustain the consumer spending at a level that will demand that companies continue to add to staff. john, you mentioned retail sales numbers. yesterday on the basis of the big upside surprise we saw in that number a lot of firms out there upgraded their expectations for gdp for the first quarter. but did not do anything to future quarter expectations indicating that maybe they donned see the read through. are you still skeptical decide the upside surprises we ve been getting in some of this economic data that it may not translate into gains for second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter gdp? a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted in this environment. could be instead of growing by 2% expected gdp it grows by 2.5%. nevertheless as we move forward we ought to see real gdp growth of at least 2%. that keeps us safely distanced from a downturn that otherwise would be very damaging to hiring activity. as i stated earlier, going forward the news will not be spectacular. but it may be good enough to justify further modest advances by equities as well as a further narrowing of corporate credit spreads. let s bring in david spica, good to have you with us this morning as well. your main point is that investors know everything john is talking about but they forgot some of the risks. i think that s a great point, carl. when you look at where we ve come in the last six to nine months, a lot of risks we worried about six to nine months ago clearly aren t being priced in today. what s being priced in is all the good news. there is legitimately good news but when you see this kind of advance in the market that s when risk increases. you have to be much more focused on managing risk. we ve seen correlations come down. it s much more about selecting securities today. but given where we are today there is a lot more risk priced into the market now than there was six to nine months ago. david, what is the biggest risk there? the newspapers today are full of two things. one is the debate over the deficit and the ceiling that we re approaching. the other thing, major thing, that people are talking about is a stronger dollar. which of those is the bigger risk for the market, do you think? well, honestly i would say neither one. what concerns me is europe. i think we ve really put europe on the back burner. we saw in italy with the election that there really is no appetite for austerity and there has really been nothing changed there outside of the pledge by the ecb to do whatever it takes. so my concern is that we have another sort of event in europe like we had had a year ago that would impact confidence here in the u.s. the fundamentals here in the u.s. are good and i think it justifies and upward movement in the market though we do need to some additional earnings growth, expectations raised. but if somebody happens in europe that creates a loss of confidence here in the u.s., you re going to see money come out of the market. you ll see a correction. david, when you look at the headline number, the move in the dow or s&p 500, for instance, you might be able to make the point that the market has not priced in risk. but if you look at specific sectors you can make the argument that we are in fact pricing in risk because the areas where we see highest valuations relatively to the s&p 500 are the defensive areas of the market. dividend growers, utilities, we have underperformance by the more cyclical areas like technology and materials. do you really think when you dig beneath the headline number we are paying a premium for defense for a reason? yeah. that s a really good point. i think that s a very good point what we could see again, we aren t bearish. i m not trying to make a case for being bearish. i m trying to make a case to be much more focused on the risks inherent today given what the market has done. you re seeing sim cyclical sectors, whether industrials or technology, trading at very fair evaluatiovaluation valuations. in addition of the strong inflow into equities that could keep this market at a level without seeing a significant correction. we want to know what the risks are at westwood and we want to manage those appropriately so we ve got to be aware of that. it is a risk. john, let me come back on the main point that david makes which is about europe. i spend an hour, two hours reading into what s happening in europe every day. i don t see at this stage a lot of people put a heavy concern on europe, even within europe. it seems very well contained, that tail risk. would you agree? yeah. the european equity market is moving higher. i think the bigger risk might be something going wrong in china that has become very important as one of the primary drivers of world economic growth. the other risk we re overlooking is interest rate risk. to a considerable degree, this equity market reality is the byproduct of expectations of a zero interest rate policy well into 2015. who knows if that s necessarily going to remain the case? well, you listen to some of the fed officials at least those on the fomc, john, you got to get down to 6.5, some say 5.5 before policy changes in a meaningful way. you think they will wait that long? they ll wait that long provided that inflation in the financial markets allow them to show such patience. if we run into a situation where inflation is moving higher and the dollar is sinking, which is not the case today, the dollar is strengthening, then perhaps the fed is going to have to pull forward it s bas abandonment of zero interest policy. for now investors seem to have it right. why not go into equities in get that higher dividend yield of roughly 2% as opposed to keeping the money in a bank money market fund and earn just 0%. interesting to see opinions diverge here as we reach some of these critical levels. great seeing you guys. it is a big day for technology. samsung will unveil its latest galaxy s4 smartphone tonight right here in new york at radio city. archrival apple is striking back ahead of tonight s launch. in a rare interview, apple s marketing chief, phil schiller, attacks samsung and google s android software calling it frag manied. analysts say the comments highlight the extent of the pressure on apple right now. it is a bizarre interview in many senses. it is very defensive in its nature. it is very defensive. he criticizes the operators of android and says twice as many operators switch to ios. that s not translating into games for ios. it still results in gains for android. can you cite all the figures you want but the market bears out a different story. is there couple that with some of the management changes google made yesterday where the android chief basically took on chrome. they re clearly not worried at least in the long term about android. they don t seem to be. android is a very important system for google and the relationship between google and samsung is an interesting one and one to watch closely given the power that samsung may have as a result of so many of its smartphones being in consumer s hands. yeah, that was a very important personnel change. they are linking chrome and android on the phones themselves. as far as the you new samsung galaxy is concerned, do we know if it has this eye scrolling technology where it looks into your eyes purported to have it but we don t have confirmation. wow. big launch tonight. we should note we have analysts at btig who upgraded shares of apple this morning to a buy and a $540 price target on the day of samsung s big launch. we ll have him on at half past. in about 20 minutes. after the close will we get any surprises? it is all about who can return what cash to which set of shareholders. we ll talk about that. plus, clash of the titans. samsung unveiling its galaxy s4 tonight. it will be the catalyst to steal more market share away from the top competitor, apple? welcome back to squawk on the street. e-trade is down hard this morning. the news citadel, its largest investor, is selling its stake to citigroup. some investors might feel like in citadel is selling, does the hedge fund know something they don t? still analysts who are bullish on e-trade tell me this wasn t a huge surprise. the relationship had been rocky. they say they still like the discount brokerage. a ton of leverage to an improved environment. e-trade up some 23% this year but down just about 6% this morning. melissa, back to you. after the bell today, new results of the bank stress tests are set to roll out. with the fed okay the capital plans for the big banks and which companies could up their dividend and share buybacks. guys, good to see you. david, you say based on preliminary results citi came out looking the best. what are you expecting from citi? citi s already disclosed that they re merely asking for $1.2 billion stock buyback to offset employee dilution. they got denied a couple of years ago, but this year they came out looking good and they probably could have asked for more. you also say goldman sachs and morgan stanley look the worst. are expectations lower for them at this point? the fed s methodology was skewed against securities firms. they take a huge hit first, then build back capital very quickly. there s some other technical factors that i won t get into. i think morgan stanley merely wanted to get approval to buy the full ownership of smith barney which i think they will get approved for that. it was a fairly maul thi lly sm ask. goldman will probably get approved as well. jeff, regarding stress tests, you say qualitatively it is always a wild card. what do you mean? there s only really two things they need to see. a, the banks individually creating capital. b, that the feds allowing them to return a reasonable amount of it to shareholders. the rest of it is almost kind of just timing and semantics, whether citi can buy back $1 billion of stock this year or $2 billion. as long as the capital is building and the fed s letting for pretty big returns, i think that should be good news for all the stocks. where the quantitative things come in is you don t quite nou know how to interpret how they re going to interpret the nonstress test numbers. for instance, a bank of america or citigroup that s had much more volatile earnings over the last couple of years relative to a jpmorgan is probably going to be allowed to return less capital. so the numbers i think were pretty comfortable with and should be good. it is kind of how the fed interprets some of those nuances that i think could lead to any surprises today. but that being said i don t think we ll get a lot of surprises at the close today. we tend to lump morgan stanley and goldman sachs together even though they seem to be diverging in terms of their strategy. i wonder if you agree with that. morgan s focus on wealth management. morgan s still striving to talk about it as though it is aspirational. big differences between the two are, retail brokers and a private client is a big business for morgan stanley. within the investment bank at morgan stanley it is very similar to goldman sachs. but certainly goldman came through the crisis similar to jpmorgan in much better shape than its peers. that s put them in a position to be better capitalized and to actually take advantage of a tough environment, weakness in some of their peers. they ve been generating returns. morgan stanley hopefully will generate their returns. the question going forward for goldman, when account 10% roe become a 14% roe and can morgan stanley get there. regardless of whether these banks will be able to return a lot of the capital to shareholders, do you agree with that sentiment? well, we just had a meeting with the cfo of goldman this week and it s tough. they themselves don t really know where and when returns will ultimately go. there s a big mystery as to whether you can get to 15 or above. i think the risk weighted assets are going to be take some time, take about two years before we really have the answers. it is a bit of a leap of faith. the fundamentals right now if you look at current conditions, m and a is doing great but it is not a big business for those guys. trading is kind of sluggish and everything else is just okay. we ll leave it there. thanks for your time. want to note that treasury secretary jack lew will make his first official trip today, heading to atlanta to visit a se siemen s facility. catch that conversation at 4:15 p.m. eastern on cnbc. will the s&p cross the all-time closing high level in who better to ask than art cashin. he s after the break. if you think equities are the only things moving higher these days, wait until you hear about the wealth gaps between the millionaires and the merely rich. stick around. the dow is up for a tenth straight session as we stand at the moment. our next guest says we may all be losing perspective amidst the happy hype. ash carbon joins us. why so pessimistic? i m not pessimistic. this is moving toward those new highs without excitement. it is almost a sense of inevitability. they re plodding along in baby steps and that s my my concern. my concern is the level of profit margins. they re an all-time record. american manage the has cleverly found a way to do more with less which is the reap why wall street s a little happier than main street. and the history of profit margins are that they can get to these levels but don t usually stay at the levels. but isn t it different this time around because the crash was so be careful of those words. different this time around. but it was so painful. they were able to cut to the bone. can you cut american workers and not appear to be unpatriotic. it was that sort of environment. this is if you get growth back into the economy, surely the profit margins can grow from here. isn t that what we re learning? well, that doesn t really look like what history has told us in the past. number two, we re going to take a pretty lock look here. we ve seen payroll data came out, the work week is getting extended. that means they re taking those workers and saying i need more out of you, i need you to work a bit longer and once you start paying people time and a half, and if you have to do that on a sustained basis, then you say, well, maybish hire that kid simon that s been looking for a job around here. i ll leave that hanging. you raise a great point. you say we re all excited about a double-digit gain year to date. we ve done that in recent years. last year at this stage of the game. actually, i plagiarized dan greenhouse from his terrific note last night. and he pointed out we were almost exactly here last year at this time with almost exactly the same kind of performance. in terms of percentage gain for the year. right. right. and everybody s, wow, we re up 10% already? been there, done that. okay? on the date you reversed, importantly, which is the point we made last week, the payroll data was not sustained. right. because of the pull through on the warmer winter which may be the case this time. well, that, again, may be the problem. we ve seen that happen in the past. are we going to repeat the same thing? and again, one of my old themes there is not a geopolitical risk in this thing at all. if there s a surprise offshore, then the market may have to take a look. i think we want to sit back and enjoy it and everybody believes it s inevitable. we ll wait and see. everybody s also hoping for a pullback that bob pisani happened at the end of february. it came and it went. absolutely. if you re waiting on the sidelines on the premise that the rally will continue, you re waiting for that pullback, it s not going to come, in your view? if everybody s waiting for the same thing, it is highly unlikely. as i said on this program a couple of weeks ago, what we re seeing is the dip that disappeared forcing people who were waiting and waiting to see, nuts, i ve got to get some performance in here, and that s what s brought us to these highs to some degree, that postpone buying suddenly became unpostponed because the dip suddenly disappeared. isn t that something that is a little different from 2012 where portfolio managers they are getting screamed at for being in too heavy a cash. right? that dynamic wasn t as pronounced 12 months ago. there s no question. and it is not to say that the market doesn t have attractions. the yield on the s&p is very competitive with the yield on the 10-year. you are looking and saying, the fed has forced us all to scramble to find some rate of return. so those portfolio managers are somewhat desperate. they re doing it grudgingly. it s not quite hold your nose and buy them but nobody s rushing in. that s why we don t see the big volume, that s why we don t see the surges. we are moving to new highs in baby steps. that s because they are intellectually reluctant. the voice of reason. nice to see you, art. art cashin from ubs. as the dow is on track for its tenth straight session of gains, we are watching shares of ibm. in today s session hitting at least a 52-week high, $214.89 was the new high up by 1.3%. after the break, the analyst who dared to go against the grain, btig upgrading and the to a buy on the day of samsung s galaxy launch. next. is trouble brewing for america s big lodging names and could it affect the hotel business model as a whole in stay tuned. [ kitt ] you know what s impressive? a talking car. but i ll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it s carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. after all, what s the point of talking if you don t have something important to say? welcome back to squawk on the street. i m sharon epperson. a rally under way in the natural gas market, up more than 10 cents rallying on today s storage report from the energy department showing a decline of 154 billion cubic feet. that s much greater than what analysts had anticipated. analysts were looking for a decline between 133 and 137 billion cubic feet. meanwhile it is about three times as much as we normally see for this time of year. we are seeing colder weather that s in the central part of the country. we re seeing colder weather in the new york area as well but we re about to get into the shoulder season for natural gas. traders are a bit skeptical about whether this rally will last. right now looks like we re looking towards $4 for natural gas. rally on the storage number. on a day that samsung s launching its most anticipated smartphone, one analyst is making a bet on apple. btig says the time to buy is right now. walter piecyk is the analyst behind that big call and joins us right now. thanks for having me. it almost seems like a contrary sort of upgrade because you do say that they could miss on revenues, they could give disappointing guidance but you re willing to step in a little bit early. is that fair? yeah. you ve seen a ton of cuts really. $10, the fiscal 2013 estimate has come down from the peak earning estimates. more recently you ve seen downgrades and more increment cal cuts. where is the sell side relative to the buy side. a lot of people see this opportunity for earnings growth in 2014. they re clearly fearful of the june guide which could be kind of ugly. but if you re going to buy on the june guide, then maybe the downside is limited as a result. in terms of the june guide, is that impacted your view of it and how it may disappoint the street, clouded by what samsung is doing tonight? i don t really understand why consensus is still so high for june. we talked about this in january that the revenue estimate was over $40 billion. it s been pretty clear that the compressed product cycle is leading to seasonal declines unless they come out with a new product. unless analysts are expecting a new product in the june quarter, the revenue estimate just shouldn t be north of 40 billion as far as revenue is concerned. i think the buy side gets it. i think as the sell side brings their numbers down more maybe the stock feels a little bit more pain, maybe when apple does provide their june guidance the stock can sell off a little bit. but i think the buy side wants to get that out of the way and looks towards 2014 when there could be earnings growth. but for viewers watching now you are predicting they are likely to disappoint and therefore the stock will go lower. although you have the buy recommendation in practice this may not be the entry point for the evidence that you re bringing to the table. depends on how you want to do the entry point. can you risk it and say i don t want to own anything today or you can buy a little bit today. the risk there is that apple comes out with a large announcement on what they re going to do with their cash in the next couple of weeks. then maybe the samsung announcement today is not as great as all the hype leading up to it, that maybe they do announce a new product for are that june quarter. by not owning the stock you re taking the risk that even though they ve got this difficult june or difficult even march quarter to report, that the stock is still not going to rally on other items that could take it higher. but into that you re also assuming product launches and that they will capitalize on them. you re actually putting figures on that. yeah. beyond june, i think at this point the street went from basically thinking tim cook has to provide some revolutionary product to now assuming that he won t even do the obvious things to generate revenue. right? there s clearly a revenue opportunity with a low priced phone. i have no idea whether they re going to do one or not. they should be doing one. they re talking more about payments right now. they will broaden the market. i think it is logical that they will or fine some other revenue opportunities to grow 2014. if they don t, we re probably looking at a different management team for 2014. once other companies get into these smaller phones, why is the argument stronger to buy apple if we see a future in the next three quarters where the biggest products will be introduced are actually products that will further commoditize the space? i don t think samsung s s4 is going to be priced at $300. i m guessing they re also going to price their phone very expensive like apple does and the profits samsung generates is from those high-end phones. what the market opportunity for apple is that they don t address right now is the 7 0% of the global subscriber base that s prepaid that doesn t get subsidized phones. they want an iphone. we just talked with gazelle that buys used phones. in their words, there is an insatiable demand for people buying a cheaper version of the iphone in china, africa, india and thailand. if apple can address that market by bringing a lower priced phone to the market, that is incremental revenue and profit opportunity. so we re basically saying that the apple story is a buy story on volume because the margins are going to get lower and more compressed. the margins on the new product will get lower. assume the low priced phone is a $10 billion product. i assume that s 1,500 basis points lower in gross margin. that s not going to impact the overall corporate margin more than two to three basis points. you ll still have the high-end product just like samsung generates a lot of profit from their high-end profit. but you ll have a lot of revenue opportunity apartment the low end. what i think schiller has talked about, at least yesterday in that interview, you have all these customers on the latest version of ios. this presents a service revenue opportunity, whether it is in payments, maybe they go out and buy twitter. there s other things that apple can benefit from by the fact that you ve got so many people staring at their products with their most up to date software. good point there. walter, great to speak to you. thanks for coming to squawk on the street. walter maybe early on this call. he was early on a downgrade back in april before predicting a blowout quarter. yes. and the stock has been down 32% since then. yeah. i think the stock was $634 when walt took it to neutral from buy. the market rally translates directly to wealth. gap between millionaires and the merely well off appears to be widening. joining us here on set, our resident wealth editor, robert frank. the stock market is the largest producer of millionaires in america and it added a lot of them last year. america added 300,000 new millionaires last year. it s now almost 9 million millionaire households in the u.s., just shy of the 2006 record. we define millionaires as people are investable assets of $1 million or more not including their primary residence. we are seeing a wealth gap emerge even between the wealthy. there are now about 14 million households worth a half million dollars or more. that s actually down $1.4 million from the 2007 high. we re seeing millionaires rise. let s call them half-millionaires decrease. what accounts for this difference? well, it s stocks and investment strategy. over the past four years, millionaire households have actually increased their stock holdings over the past few years. stocks account for three-quarters of their investment portfolio. for the affluent it is down one-third from more than 50% in 2005. the wealthy have increased stocks, the affluent have lowered them. in short the rising tide of these markets are lifting all boats but the bigger boats are getting a bigger lift. is that because the ultra wealthy had the wealth to invest? it could be just about the money. the wealthy have more money to afford to keep it in the market. they ve been the biggest beneficiaries of this. but also if you look at just risk profile, the wealthy had a more aggressive risk profile. they were more bearish early on in this recession than the non-wealthy. again, some of that could have been just money and discretionary investment money. but there was also just a big difference in who was bearish and who was bullish. maybe better advice? more sophisticated wealth management? did they make that decision on their own no. clearly the wealthier you are, the more likely have you advice and the wealthier you are the better advice you tend to get. that s a big part of it. the more likely you ve driven down the cost of your mortgage early through refinancing so you have additional disposable income every month that you can put into the stock market. that could have been part of it. for the wealthy houses and housing wealth doesn t matter that much. it is real lit investment portfolio that accounts for a half of their total wealth whereas for the rest of their population houses are their source of wealth. just within the wealthiest, is it also dividing even more where the wealthiest amongst the wealthiest are getting even wealthier? that s a great point, david. if you look at where the biggest inoquality is in our quality right now it is between the billionaires and the mere millionaires or the people worth $100 million versus the people worth $50 billion. really this is all driven by stocks. you ve seen the fortunes of some of these not just new fortunes like mark zuckerberg, but people who lost a lot of money, coming back through this crisis. we are really seeing inequality even within between the rich and super rich increase a lot as well. sounds like we need another wealth reporter, robert. one is not enough. the super wealth reporter. and the half billionaires. robert, thank you. we have a mover in the retail space. let s get back to hq for a market flash. they may like the handbags but investors, no fans of the stock at least this morning. vera bradley is down hard. the problem the forecast. first quarter results below what the street was looking for. distributors say they have too much product, reorders have slowed significantly and timing of summer orders pushed back. the street reacts, key bank and stern ag both cut their ratings on the stock. carl, back to you. straight ahead why the hotel business model as we know it may be in dire need of a major overhaul. plus we ll keep an eye on those markets. the dow on a record breaking run. are stocks overextended and is the bull run giving way to some exhaustion? a wall street veteran with a name you know, tom mcclellan, thinks so. he ll join us later on. come on, nowadays lots of people go by themselves. no they don t. hey son. have fun tonight. back against the wall ain t nothin to me ain t nothin to me [ crowd murmurs ] hey! 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one of the most vocal critics is anders nissen, ceo of 160 hotels. thank you for joining us. what essentially is the problem from your perspective? well, you know, one of the big trend in the hotel industry the last years is that hotel company has changed their business model from being operator to brand companies. which means that they had focus of creating revenue but not profit. so why are they not driving i mean a lot of your 160 hotels are branded. why are they not driving profits at the hotels that you own to the degree that you want them to? well, they you can say that their brand had became when they now had changed the model to be more brand company, they are good at creating revenue but they lose what they gain on profit side because the performance as operator had been worse and worse. today they had loss no skill meaning the problem for them is not revenue, it is gaining profit. they don t have the skill to to run the properties is what you re saying. yeah. well, that s for sure. the hotel company, specifically the big hotel company who just changed their motel to just tiny management contract and franchise agreement, they had focus on brand standard, they are focused on pipelines and they had lost their old very strong dna of being operator. that s for sure. you see, i put the you actually ignited a conference in berlin last week with the comments that you were making and i had the opportunity on this show to interview the ceo of starwood earlier in the week. this is what he said to the criticisms that you re making. when we take a hotel into our system that was previously independent because of our reservation systems and our loyalty program, because of our revenue management systems, we see increases of 10%, 20%, 30% for those hotels. we re a great bargain for hotel owners. in summary, then how do you think the hotel industry is likely to change? what s your criticism now coming from stockholm mean for investors in the big lodging brands here at the new york stock exchange? well, go back to what the ceo of starward said. their focus is on revenue. like a football team who scores seven times but the other team they score ten, they lose. because can you not have only focus on revenue. you need to be have both. you need to be good at revenue and you have to be good at profit. meaning that you have to run the business with high productivity. and that sort of skills which was what we remember the big hotel company had before, they have lost because they have changed their business models. got it. anders, thank you for joining us then. we ll leave it there, sir. thank you. speaking of travel companies facing difficulty, carnival cruise lines is back in the news today after the captain of the carnival dream notified the company of a problem with the propulsion system. it is currently moored off the caribbean island of st. martin so things aren t as bad as they might be. there were brief interruptions to elevators and toy leiletoile yesterday night but the ship has full power and they re working on a technical issue. in february an engine fire crippled the carnival s triumph leaving 4,200 passengers without power and the ship had to be towed to a port. carnival shares down more than 5% since then and down slightly this morning. big problem with the carnival cruise line companies have is o line that company has on pricing and it s focused more on europe than the united states. they have already said they went to a heavier promotional load since the last event. and this is noticeably quite different. if you drop the price, people will come flooding. absolutely. auction buybacks and the federal reserve, oh my. when to expect the 30-year bond auction. that s next tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and the streetsmart edge trading platform from charles schwab. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can even access it from the cloud and trade on any computer. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and with schwab mobile, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 i can focus on trading anyplace, anytime. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 until i choose to focus on something else. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 all this with no trade minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and only $8.95 a trade. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account with a $50,000 deposit, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and get 6 months commission-free trades. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 call 1-866-294-5373. investor. yeah, ibut i m a busy guy.or it used to be easier but now there are more choices than ever. i want to know exactly what i am investing in. i want to know exactly how much i m paying. i want to use the same stuff the big guys use. find out why nine out of ten large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. ishares by blackrock. call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. . welcome back to squawk on the street, thursday s edition of the santelli exchange. last month we saw the u.k. downgrade. the u.s. was downgraded. and it always sparks good discussion, especially on the frading floor, but in a lot of circles. one of the main discussions, of course is, who cares? whether the u.s. or the u.k. the real question is, not who cares, the market doesn t seem to care. there s a big difference between a market caring and all the rest of us and leaders of various countries that have been downgraded or could be downgladdownglade downgraded in the future. just because the market doesn t care doesn t mean when it does care it s going to be digital. whether you talk about inflation or downgrades, just because you don t see something now is no reason to not discuss it. think about your kid s report card. if you know your child has ha a lot of homework, you never see him doing it, but you only get a report card once every three or four months. do you wait? the reason it s no good is because central banks are printing machines, and they should print. the world wants to give them money at low interest rates. what s the sin with the that? it s the samed a the downgrades. think about the people that have a lot of money, not a lot to do with it. central banks really don t like that. they are money machines. you have interest rates unbelievably low. borrow as much as you can. but bhen it changes there is going to be no memo. do you think they re going to be any more orless confused? should we have another crisis about this exact topic. like i haven t talked about it before, but i will tell you what really makes this hit home. maybe you ll think it s a phone number. 912812 9128 912812qz4. and we re auctioning to a reopening of 13 billion today. yesterday the fed wasn t buying them. auction them four weeks ago. having another auction today. now think about all that. does that sound crazy to you? lowhole foods is looking to change your lifestyle. he plans on expanding the company to include an upscale health resort. if it wants to be successful, it needs to include blank. tweet us your answers. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow, but at xerox we ve embraced a new role. working behind the scenes to provide companies with services. like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. reducing document costs by up to 30%. and processing $421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. how s that for an encore? with xerox, you re ready for real business. today is gonna be an himportant day for us.re? you ready? we wanna be our brother s keeper. what s number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let s go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world s cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america s biggest cities. siemens. answers. let s get to it. grocery giant whole foods is looking expand it to a lifestyle. he plans to include an upscale health resort in the next three years. if whole foods wants to be successful with a health resort, it needs to include, blank. one says a mcdonald s for when you need to cheat. another says yoga and a grazing cattle ranch. and dan says it needs a gym. with jim cramer s face watching everybody like big brother for motivation. 1994. and snow bird tweets, a personal shopper while you lounge in a mud bath. not sure if i want a personal shopper with a mud bath. with or without a mud bath, i want one. this is now the third hour of squawk on the street, and this is what you have missed so far. welcome to hour three of squawk on the street. here s what s happening so far. i think the key point is that the fed doesn t do anything quickly or dramatically, it s gradual and it s a process. if you take it incrementally, it is tougher. it gives everybody the opportunity to say, look, i like this, i don t like that. this is a compromise. that s what democracy is about. i think there s a technology revolution going on. that is maybe as compel iling a the founding of the internet when al gore plugged it in. opening bell is here at the top of your screen. little monkey dance. i said something positive about macy s. how about target? it s all jcpenney. you know what, jcpenney is supposed to have $400 billion in sales. jobs growth ought to be great enough to demand that companies continue to add to staff. as long as the capital is building and the fed is letting in returns, that should be good news for all the stocks. good morning, we are live here at the new york stock exchange. the dow making an effort to make it ten straight winning sessions. we are seeing the help of ibm contributing the bulk of the gains on the dow. let s take a look at the s&p 500. we are on record watch for the s&p. we are now just about six points away from that. ebay shares are trading higher than ever. the selloff is seen as overdone and mastercard fees are ammic the firm is now suggesting more material deceleration. and jc is lowering the price profit to amazon to $300 a share from $333. let s get to the road map for hour three. inching closer and closer to those record levels. we ll talk to one market expert who says this market is overextended and investors need to be cautious. does it mean they will lose more market share to appl or not? we ll find out if the apple investors should be afraid on the program. and as a former treasury secretary and the former ceo of board members. lending club wants to replace the u.s. banking system. they will join us live here to tell us how he plans to do that. let s get straight to the man who says that the market right now is way over extended. tom mcclel lan is warning that the bear signal for the mark is in. tom, always great to speak with you. good to be here, melissa. and many of the reasons that we love having you on is you always brick the charts along to show what you mean. it s more not that it s overextended but ge is so important. it s a bellwether. it will top before the dow will. and it s an unusual situation because ge is a component of the dow. and ge is not confirming that. and so this is like seeing a canary in the coal mine dying. the coal miners are looking okay. they are keeling over one at a time. it s a sign that you have the be looking for trouble. you have to be looking for a downturn. we had the balance sheet shrinkin shrinking. the other indicator is copper. what s a concern there? right. years ago copper was an economic commodity. but in 2007 it s an interesting twist. we ve already seen a top in copper. and we re not seeing that same effect in the dow. but copper says it s the same problem. tom, when a lot of people look at the dow, they are hardened by the fact that they see the transports skon firming. closing at a record with the dow jones industrial average. do you not put credence into the dow theory in that effect? i wouldn t say no credence. but when the dow theory was invented, we re talking true industrials versus true rails. it s now full of a loot of airlines going up in prices for reasons other than moving a bunch of stuff around. this was a much different indication that you were measuring. tom, can i pick up on the correlation that you had with copper. i can understand why copper led to the market in the past few years. are we in a different world now where china is clearly slowing down or crashing. and that would not be copper sensitive? copper is a commodity. in the olden days it was a very much sensitive to gdp. copper is a financial asset. it s used in china as collateral. so the demand in the world markets goes up and down with the command for financial engineering. it s still used in motors and telephones and cables. but it has another element to it that is making it behave much more like a financial asset. the markets are overextended, what is the next move? is it necessarily a correction? what happens next? well, as i said, we re seeing canaries peeling off one at a time in the coal mine. and the market is being kept up by the fed. the fed is a good choice for filling the role. but when there s only one thing. and that can get pulled away. that s perilous for the market. i m seeing a correction right now. probably should be higher in may and much more significant this summe summer. so then the latter half of the year we could be in trouble, right, tom? starting to get bumpier now. you will see it wobble and get more unstable. the spinning top will fall down in may. good to speak with you. thanks for your tom. tom mcclel lan. it is samsung s big day. there have been rumors of everything from swift keys to new colors. what we don t know is what samsung will unveil at 7:00 tonight here in new york. ahead of the galaxy is s-4 event, brian cooley is the editor at large of cnet. what do you think we ll find out tonight? what will be new? what will be fresh? the things that may be the best rumors are this idea of a hover technology where if you just hold your finger above the screen but without quite touching it, you can cause things that are like a mouse over that you do on a computer browser. it could pop up an image. another technology that sounds solid is i-tracking. it will pause a video when your eyes move off the screen. the video will wait for you. those are a couple of bells and whistles. bigger is the five-inch screen. a four core processer in the u.s. eight core for other markets. faster everything. longer battery life. maybe thinner and lighter. so when blackberry unveiled the latest models, you could guess what the headlines would say. they always find it very hard to impress the market. what do you think the headlines will say tomorrow? the key about this product launch is it s coming on the heels of the s3. they build samsung into a name brand household product. so the s4 builds on the preference page. this could be a strong launch for them. what does it mean for investors? samsung has to do a lot more to stay where it is. the expectations have fallen back. of course. there s been a lot of pullback and enthusiasm as this superior product and more now along the s3 or s4. i also expect to see both of them going forward certainly on tying their screens together. they all have to go from tablets and phones and television. it all has to connect the dots. s that the next super innovation from either of the countries. so i m wondering what your take is on android being fragment fragmented i will agree on the fragmentation of android. apple doesn t have the issue. there s one ios and one hero phone from apple at any given time. this is a different strategy than others who simply make a cheaper phone, which apple may do. fragmentation with android is frustrating for consumers, who see a phone, go to their carrier and it works differently. i find it chaotic. you can t argue that it has not held back android s growth, regardless of the retreat numbers. and i m not up to speed on that. brian, it s always an education having you on. thank you for joining us. we ll see what they launch tonight. thank you. coming up next, he met with president obama yesterday on cyber security. today he is talking to us here at squawk on the street. the president an ceo of seimens live joins us, eric spiegel. i really do. that s what we re going to talk about with our guests joe thompson. we re going to do a bit of change in audible. i really dread this. there s an exclusive report that says a chinese firm is on their way to the u.s. to do what? i ve heard enough now! we re going to talk habit that. take a look at this. it could be another record day for the markets. the all time day high, 1576. so we re seeing if we can close in on na today. energy, telecom are leading us higher. let s get a market flash with josh lipton. hey there, simon. check out mgm. this is already the biggest shareholder, owns 18.6%. now tracinda has filed to buy more. they will point to a rebound in the list. including big names. jaun paulson. up about 4% right now. our senior economic reporter steve liesman is at a manufacturing plant in georgia where jack lee will be visiting today. steve joins us now with a first time interview with the ceo. steve? melissa, thanks very much. i am in alpharetta, georgia, where jack lou will be. we have the president of siemens corporation in the u.s. thanks for having me. it s not a small part of the business, is it? no, we re about 25% of seimens. we have over 60,000 employees here in the u.s. and about 130 to 140 manufacturing plants like the one you see here today. tell me about siemens manufacturing in the u.s. and whether it s growing. well, it s been growing quite well. we have seen 9% growth in the u.s. we have also spent 25 billion dollars over the last decade. a lot of the that has been organic growth across the sector. we re big on wind, distribution, but also the industrial automake allowing things to make here are the drive lss. we also make motors and we have a big health care business. we re going to look at cool stuff in a second. i want to get an understanding of the business. are you growing employment as fast as the business is growing? well, there s a lot of uncertainty in the market. we know a lot of customers who have billions of dollars of capital prujts sitting on the side waiting to see what happens. so we re hopeful. what do you think it will take to unleash your fund? big industrial plants, hospitals, people are making those investments for the long term. so if they re making the big investments, they want to see that the economy is settled. i still have more macro questions i want to ask you. what is this device? this is a low voltage electric drive. this is going to the city of st. louis for their waste water treatment plant. and what does it do? it basically controls the speed and varmt of matters. this thing here is impressive. what does this do? this is really cool. this is auxiliary power system. this is used for the light rail train. we manufacture them in sacramento. but we make the auxiliary systems here. this has all the power in the trains. and there was some stuff here that you showed me before headed to china from the united states. so it s going the wrong way. yeah. we have a high voltage inverter that will be shipped over to go to a big mining truck in china. so, two things. what are the advantages the united states has in terms of why it s a place where things are built to exploit? we have low cost energy here. you know from the shale gas boom that we re seeing. we also have very productive workers. they are three times as productive as chinese workers. the labor rates are going up. transportation costs because of energy costs around the globe were high, making the u.s. a very viable place. we need to make sure we have the skilled workers and the infrastructure in place to handle the increase work. would you hold on? hi, steve. it s simon. can i ask you about your industrial control units, the first to be targeted by the m malware around the world? that was a well documented story. you were right at the start of the cyber issues that we ve had. what have you learned to do in response to that. you met the president yesterday. what are the recommendations that you re laying down for the rest of the american industry now? well, we have done a lot over last three years to improve the cyber protection that we have on our technology and also working very closely with our customers, with the governments, including working very closely with the u.s. government and working with various researchers to improve it. we have gone out with various customers and put patches in. so more recently that can t happen. and we re developing more and better products so those things don t happen in the future. to many people it seems that we re way behind the game on this. there hasn t been the investment in security to invest in the nation. do you think there s a problem with the business model? the defense industry is able to put everybody along and hundreds of billions of dollars are spent. there s a deficit on spending on cyber security. how do we as a nation deal with that? i think we talked about that with the u.s. government, with other customers. i don t know if the u.s. is behind, but in some areas we are going to need to spend to put the latest technology in place. probably need to put some legislation in place. everybody has to up their game in the u.s. if we want to reduce the threat from cyber attacks. and right now that baseline isn t very high right now. and then we re going to have to do more to avoid the bigger threats. from hacking, let s go to health care, another h word there. is the president s new health care plan, is that something that s an impediment to hiring, and are there other things that you think the united states government should do to make it easier to create manufacturing in the united states? we don t know where the health care reform will go. i think in terms of growing manufacturing, i think a couple of things. one is, we need to keep a continuous policy around r&d tax credits. a lot of manufacturing will be software driven. we merry it very closely with the tax credit here. so we can encourage more people to mar tri the innovation. and secondly, we need a long-term energy policy. people will make big bets that we know. we look forward to coming back here and seeing the progress. thank you, glad to have you. simon and melissa. back to you. we ll have the treasury secretary. and that s a cool factory, steve. i was there. it s fascinating. love factories. 4:15 p.m. eastern time on the closing bell. an exclusive with the new secretary. still ahead on the program, will the big banks be able to increase dividends or buy back their stock to a greater extent this year? the second half of the fed s stress test are released this afternoon. we ll have a preview for you right next on cnbc. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet. dragon is captured. is connecting today s leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. [ male announcer ] i ve seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i ve never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don t seem so.far away. this afternoon we ll get the second half of the stress test. these will determine whether the banks will be approved to increase dividends and their buy backs. we have more of what to expect this afternoon. hey, simon. last week all bank holding companies were approved as well capitalized under crisis conditions. but just how well capitalized as determined by the federal reserve will decide how much each bank can return to the shareholders. on this measure, goldman sachs had the least cushion to their capital. citigroup fared the best and disclosed its request for $1.2 billion in buybacks. other bank executives have spoken clearly about their plans for fear of overstepping the plans. he merely said the bank has asked for more than 88 cents in dif sends and $4 billion in buy backs it completed last year. they home to continue raising the bank s dividend. last year it shelled the $15 billion buy back in the face of the london well trading blunder. the f2 reports it asked for half of that or 7.5 billion. analysts kbpts them to ask the dividend to five cents for one cent. from morgan stanley, there s expected to be no change. they are estimating goldman sachs will announce a $4 billion buyback, though she lowered the estimate after last week s result. assuming none submitted too aggressive of an ask. that s the hope that the expectation has fueled the financial rally for the last few months. it s unclear what wound happen to stocks if the results are more dire. and just remind of us the timing on this. 4:30 hm, sharm. thank you. one of china s largest private companies is investing millions in fuelling stations here in the united states. is a this a real step to energy independence or a step backwards? rick santelli discussions that next. your money. joe doesn t know it yet, but he ll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he ll start investing early, he ll find some good people to help guide him, and he ll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn t rocket science. it s just common sense. from td ameritrade. sales event has begun. featuring the lexus gs and is performance lines. because control is the ultimate expression of power. get great values on your favorite lexus models, during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection. during the command performance sales event. we replaced people with a machine.r, what? customers didn t like it. so why do banks do it? hello? hello?! if your bank doesn t let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello? ally bank. yooney needs an ally. good morning, two and a half hours into trading, here are the stories that kwooer squawking about. 11:32 here on wall street. seven dow components are hitting new all time highs including ibm, disney and johnson & johnson. google is breaking up it s mapping and commerce unit. they are working on products including the self driving car technology and the google glass wearing computable device unit. jumping to 3.63%. that s the highest reading in almost seven months, according to freddie mac. however, my good friend and klieg melissa lee has already closed on her mortgage. 3.5, baby. that s all i have to say. let s look at the big board. ten days here. every day is a slow grind. 10 points, 20 points, and all the sudden you re up 3.5% for the month. that s why people like index funds. they work out very well. and a lot of the markets are up. these are oil and gas sectors. sum of the risk on is up. risk on, risk up. really not good. there s been divergences. let me show you china versus the u.s. you can go this in etf. this is the main story that s been happening for a couple of months. and it s made it much tougher. the united states has been on the assent. much of this because the economic news is better in the united states. here s the dollar index. a 5 pblgt move here. that s a huge move in six weeks. and that s making it tough for people who are investing and buying stocks and indexes overseas. take a look here and i ll show you what is happening. huge rally this year. wait a minute. suppose you want to get in on this. you buy an etf. try buying the etf. it s down 9% on the year. take a look at the yen versus the dollar. rick talks about this all the time. you see the move up here. the dollar has been up. so take a look here. this is what is important. there is the upside. there is the etf that you re buying into. there s a very successful etf. now look at that. this here. this green line. look how well that mirrors the way the nikkei is working. and here is the big problem. i want to show you. there s not many products out there. there s very few edge products. this is the most successful one. there s an emerging market out there that s attracted to very few assets here. the bottom line, the reason i m bringing this up, this is really impacting investors returns. and you ll see more of the hedge products going out if we continue to see this dollar route. when you get the dollar index blowing up, now you have problems when people are investing overseas. and we see folks talking ab the dollar, saying who cares? we do. the weakening yen is going to continue to be a story here. there we go. bob, thank you. thank you very much. let s check on the energy and the commodity space. bertha coombs is live. good morning. good morning. we have natural gas here today up at a three-month high after a stronger than expected draw down on natural gas supplies in the last week. $146 billion cubic feet withdrawl. that s really a testament to the strength of the cold this winter. we ve had a very normal, strong winter. that has put stockpiles down 20% from a year ago. this market is very much balanced when it comes to natural gas. we re seeing brent moving up after a four-day slide. there s much more action in the may overall. if you look at the oil complex. you are see how the strength of the dollar continues to be a head wind. and the the expectation that the economy is moving better. big headwind as well for gold. it had moved higher today. that s good news for those who buy commodities. back to you. thank you, bertha coombs. let s get to rick santelli in chicago. rick? melissa lee, this story rips my heart out. you know, we did a conversion of a truck about nine months ago. i personally think everything in life should be about risk-reward. and this is just a no brainer. to see the chinese being more capitalist than us. let s look at the lines. one of large egs companies in china is rolling out plans to establish a network of a natural gas fuelling stations for trucks along u.s. highways. he s with the clean tech area. welcome, joe. thank you. what s your thoughts on the story? i don t want to hit you with something. i hope my producer sent you a copy early. i doesn t take a lot of time to study where the chi need are heading. we were the world s largest car market and we continue to drive a lot of gallons. why not plan in our own fuels the way the chinese are planning to this? specifically to what you re working on. you re more into the auto gas, which is a propane. i like natural gas. propane is drier. maybe differences. tell us how good those were. how that product works. yeah, we took a hard look at this several years ago. we saw they were both more than capable of being the bridge fuel into the future so we can declare our independence, sending $800 billion overseas. and we re seeing a lot of velocity in the space. we make light and medium duty trucks and vans that are ford-based products. and we re seeing a lot of fleets in north america, like dhl, dish america, bluebird school buses. we re not doing a pilot study. we re not doing an experiment. they have these products on the road and we re getting results from them today. driving a lot of jobs here in detroit. and we re keeping the american dollars here state side. that was 21 years ago. it s really nothing very new in terms of technology. do you think our leaders by default will help this? is anybody in government going to figure this out? it doesn t the american economy, we like the heros to come out of obscurity. a fuel like propane has been considered a by-product that is mostly used in residential fuel. now it s being used as a transportation fuel. and the reasons you were picked up in a vehicle in europe that ran on auto gas is it s not uncommon in europe to pull up to the fuel station and pay $7 or $8 for gasoline. the europeans are way ahead of us on this he wanted $10 gas to make it more apparent. we don t need that. we already have the answer. we re out of time, joe. i m going to come and visit you. thanks for being our guest. thank you. melissa and carl, back to you. thank you very much, rick. the world will get the first look at the samsung galaxy s4. and later the startup that the former president calls the most important innovation of the last decade. find out while the lending club may be the answer to your investment or credit needs when the ceo joins us live here. we ll be right back. ack. i love making money. i try to be smart with my investments. i also try to keep my costs down. what s your plan? 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[ male announcer ] in a clinical study, over 80% of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. androgel 1.62%. coming up at the top of the hour, perfect ten, that s what the dow is going for as the rally wears on. what is the best way to play it from here. stressed out. a developing story on how much pressure jcpenney is under in the market. go long, america. he will tell you why and where. and carl, we ll see you in a little less than 15 minutes. thank you very much. 14 minutes and counting, scott. thank you. we are also counting down to the samsung launch of the s4 tonight here in new york city. what will it mean for investors in apple and others? charles, welcome to the program. are you putting figures on what we can expect here? no, we re not going a specific forecast on sales or volume on this device. is it, however, a game changer in your view, the s4? i don t think it s a game changer. it s an evolution. samsung is taking a page out of apple s playbook in terms of this launch event. it will demonstrate how much more leverage they have in setting their own brand foremost in people s minds as the leading innovator. when they last launched a phone, it was all about the london olympics. it was a european thing. today it s squarely new york. is that because that s where opinion in the market is led from? well, i think it really reflects that the u.s. market is the leading edge of innovation and demand in smart phones. that s where most people have smart phones, by our estimate, more than half of people in the u.s. have a smart phone today. we think that will be almost 90% in the next few years. here s where the app developers are. it s really the leading edge of innovation for smart phones. perhaps more importantly is the u.s. is really the center in terms of sales of the higher end and more profitable smart phones for samsung. what is your take on that area of the market? it seems like the entire industry in in trouble in terms of decelerating and growth. it reflects the change of smart phone users. we had the early iphone, the first models for the android, you know, side of the house was really about early adopters. people who had to have the latest and greatest. now with mass adoption, it s price that is a primary driver and factor in the newcomers to the smart phone market. so these high end sales are about more experienced users, people who can afford the really high-end device. and the volume is being driven at the low end. charles, we have run out of time. if there was one feature that would turn people on, what would it be? i m not sure. it s something maybe about the i-scrolling or touch interface or something different in the way you use the phone. let s just update you on the the carnival cruise line story we told you about in the last hour. carnival is going to fly home all passengers on the dream ship. it s stuck in port at st. martin with technical difficulties. they will give travelers a discount on a future cruise. let s check the shares. down in negative territory. hardly falling out of bed. yep. all right, coming up next, the pier toto pier lending club. find out whoo the lending club is so confident it can do that are you looking for an investment where you can earn returns averaging 10%? today s squawk breakthrough is trying to transform the financial system by creating a lending alternative to banks. the draw for investors, high yields. lending club is an online peer-to-peer network for personal loans. the company assesses a borrower s risk and allows investors to lend directly to individuals. lending club has made nearly $1.5 million in loans since the company was founded back in 2007. we have founder and ceo of lending club, joining us here. great to have you with us. good morning. you don t actually personally take the book the loans on to your books, correct? the risk is not with you at all. that s correct. we really operate as a marketplace. so we have borrowers coming to us and the banks loan, and investors coming on the other side looking for attractive investment opportunities. and we do the matchmaking and perform important risk management functions. we underwrite, price, and service the loans on behalf of investors. and how do you make your money then? we take an origination fee from borrowers and servicing fee from investors. okay. what are your underwriting standards like? i would what is your typical person who borrows money from you as opposed to a bank? are they riskier profiles? no. so we actually have stringent underwriting standards. we decline, unfortunately, nine out of ten borrowers coming to us in order to keep very high credit quality standards. and the borrowers who come are looking for a lower cost alternative. so credit cards, interest rates continue to be at a very high rate despite the low interest rate environments. and we can offer a lower cost alternative compared to a new street bank or credit card. if i want to lend money through the site, i know the identity of the individual on the other side? i m in contact with that individual? no, you don t. right. really as an investor, you would invest in a portfolio of loans. and if you come in with 10 or $10,000 or $20,000, you would invest with 400 or 800 loans what happens if somebody doesn t pay? yeah, so if somebody doesn t pay, your risk is sufficiently diversified so that if the default or charge-offs come in as expected you would preserve every high return. the average special but i would it would immediately show up on my return, not yours. you don t guarantee it, it s not insured. it s my loss even though i don t know who s on the other side? absolutely. investors take on the credit risk. and they capture the yield on the loans. you ve got pretty high-profile board members, larry somers, former u.s. treasury secretary, onmajohn ma, ex-ceo, and you plan to go forward in the future. it s interesting. many private companies are pushed by investors or the board. in our case, it s customers that are telling us they re passionate about the service. and they would love to be associated with the growth of the company. and own a fraction of the company. so we pass it on to our to be clear, is this just an extension of the microcredit that muhammad unos won the no bethesda the nobel peace prize for? is that an extension of the same family? there are some of the ideas of macro credit being applied in the u.s. domestically. i think it goes beyond that. it s really transforming the banking system and offering a low-cost alternative. as a marketplace, having a fraction of your costs at the banks are bearing. i have in my notes that you re planning to get ready for an ipo next year. is that correct? we think we will be ready by next year. we ll decide based on market conditions. okay. thanks for stopping by. appreciate it. the founder and ceo of lending club. the s&p hovering tantalizingly close to the all-time high. almost four and a bit points away. more market coverage next. 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determined from tuesday night a. key state wide office in virginia. the same office that gave rise to ken cuccinelli. the race is close. it seems there are thousands of ballots that went uncounted on election night. we will film you in on the latest on that. we are wondering if history will, indeed, repeat itself with chris christie playing that role. i have thoughts about that. it involves explaining to you what something called a he cume is. you might want to stick around for that. our friend mellissa harris-perry is taking her dedication will pay off. that is ahead. but first, president obama is waking up in miami, florida today on his tour of southern statesch red southern states encouraging republicans to do something he didn t expect he d have to be doing 17 months ago. it starts in june of 2012. that s when the supreme court issues its long awaited ruling on obama care. to the surprise of many and dismay of conservatives, it upheld the law. that ruling came with a catch. the law called for states to expand their ped cade programs, to expand low income people eligible for subsidized health care coverage and for the federal government to pick up the lion s share of the cost of that expansion. but the court also ruled states didn t have to take part in this expansion. they didn t have to take the free medicaid money. it would be their choice. someone said this might be a problem. here we were smack in the middle of the tea party era when opposing fighting and railing against obama care was a test of basic tribal loyaltive. wouldn t governors see a political advantage and imperative in rejecting the money, in rejecting the expansion of ped cade in undercutting a crucial component of the health care law. that court ruling came down a year-and-a-half ago, conventional wisdom was resounding. of course not. it is the most general federal match in the history of medicaid. a vast ma voter of states will come in. for those few to come in will have to answer why they re letting people down. the generous thing you can say is lou was partially right a. handful of republican states have slowly come into the fold. mostly recently, john casich of ohio. still that medicaid money is still being left on the table in half the states. it basically tracks what the red state, blue state dwiechltd there are currently 25 states that are not moving forward on the medicaid expansion. of those 25 states only six of them voted for obama last year. maine, new hampshire, wisconsin, pennsylvania, virginia and florida and not coincidentally not all of those states has a republican governor. in the sixth, new hampshire has a democratic dpof who must deal with a republican state senate. that map could be changing a little. new hampshire is right now holding a special session on this issue. the governor maggie hassand a democrat, she is trying to find some kind of compromise with state legislators. virginia on tuesday elected a newf go, a democratic governor, terry mcauliffe, who says he wants to expand ped cade rules in his state. rick scott, florida governor, actually came around on the law this spring only to be jammed up by his republican state legislature. we will see what happens with that. in other red states, there is no sign of any momentum. then there are the states that are embracing medicaid expansion, there are 25 of them. along with the district of columbia. five of those states voted for romney last year. three of them, arkansas, kentucky, west virginia, those three states have democratic governors. also, north dakota jack doulrichle came around, jane brewer waged a protracted fight with her colleagues. governor rick snyder is a democrat in a blue state. if you can make sense of all. that he had a similar standoff with his own party and he prevailed this summer. there is progress on the medicaid expansion front, but it is very slow. and the technical problems with the health care exchanges website have only given republicans another excuse to drag their heels and just say no. as long as fighting obama care remains a preparty test, it s hard to see most of america embracing medicare expansion. this is why the brent to the heart, to dallas texas, to make a pitch for rick merry s state to sign on for expansion. i think that all of you understand that no state that actually needs this more than texas. here in just the dallas area, 133,000 people who don t currently have health insurance would immediately get health insurance, without even having to go through the website if the state of texas decided to do it. but this is the tea party era. this is texas. so not surprising outside that event there were protesters tweaking president obama. democrats in general are fighting a long war here. it seems that for the foreseeable future, being poor in red state america and poor in blue state america will mean very different levels of service all because of our polarized politics. we will talk about all of this with a policy reporter for politico.com. a political correspondent for national journal, nbc correspondent. steve kornacki, last minute. jeremy peters, politics reporter from the new york times. thank you for joining us. i guess we start with that. we placed jack lew a week after the supreme court ruling came down in june of 2012. i think the conventional wis come he was expressing was, yeah, sure, technically the courts allowed the states could opt out. there will be an immense amount of pressure from the hospitals and their states to take this money. at the end of the day, this is one of those things we will all have to give in. here we are, as we say, a week and a half later, that just hasn t happened. is that a surprise to anyone here? what has happened that alleged the stalemate? i think it underestimated the challenge. right now, this is one of the affect. ed ways for republicans to protest this law. they ve done a number of symbolic things. they ve voted over 40 times in the house to repeal it. they ve shut down the government over obama care, which nobody knew it wasn t going to work and succeed into funding that law. so this is one of the ways to effectively throw a monkey wrench in the plan, it does interfere with the law of the land. it covers a large swath of people through the expansion of medicare, medicaid. when they decide to opt out. it interferes with the goals of the law and the mech names put in place. so, for example, the federal government is going to gradually phase out uncomplicated care because that money was supposed to be offset by medicaid and for states that opt out and aren t expanding medicaid, it s an effective way to protest and opt out setting up their own exchanges. that s a part of the problem with the website is there has been a lot of money alocated for states to set up their own exchanges, not for the federal government to put it together. so when they have to take on that work, it interferes with the whole process. or now, it s one of the effective ways the governor has to protest obama care. that really is driving all of this, basically the republican party decided in the run up to the enactment of obama care this is the no. 1 thing they are fighting, the test of being a republican today is fighting obama care tooth and name. it seems as long as that s the case, there is no incentive to expand it in his or her state. one is by allowing states to opt out of this, what you have is what should have been a policy debate turned into strictly a political debate. that s what s happening in these states right now, legislators rejecting the policy that has become their raise on detra. they will stop at nothing, it seems, to try to smash this law. but where it gets tricky, i think, is if you look at who exactly is suffering because medicaid is not being expanded to the states, these 2006 have not opted into it. that s half the population. it is also two-thirds of the poor. and poorer states. exactly. so these people are left behind. i want to play this first. this was president obama in new orleans yesterday. he is making his case in a red state yesterday in new orleans. one thing, though, i was talking to your mayor and your governor about, though, a separate issue is one thing the affordable care act does is expand medicaid to cover more of their citizens and, you know, here in louisiana, here in louisiana that, benefitted about 265,000 people. so there, he is making the case. of course, within like an hour of giving that speech, the republican governor of louisiana, bobby jindal puts out a statement, we will not allow president obama to bully louisiana into accepting expansion of obama care. we have rejected it in louisiana. because it would cost taxpayers $1.7 over the next ten years and move 250,000 louisianians from private cover to medicaid. a case in point, we don t need top down one size fits all mandates. it strikes me, i start to wonder, what is the point of this tour that president obama is on right now given the sort of polarized reality of american politics. he goes into a red state in louisiana. he makes good faith state for this law. there is nothing to do than attack the bullying of the democratic president. i think they are both posturing here. he wants to go there and say he s doing his best to do something, because what kells he do? he knows and they know they re not coming around. i think if i was bobby jindal, i would look at jan brewer in arizona, tea party rewho. she eats scorpions for breakfast, according to title of her book. she was on the fascial stage of immigration a few years ago and she decided to go ahead with the medicaid expansion and it s now become a person is that non-grataf. i was jindal looking at 2016, i would look at that example and say, woe, i better back off there. the key is, i don t think he s running for re-election again in arizona, so this is sort of the end of the line for her so what, could, is there anything the president the white house the supporters, what can they do to get the governor of lousiana the government of mississippi, states like this, what can they do to get get them to say, okay. we will sign won medicaid expansion. i think the time will be the main thing here. it s been more than a year. lolts of time has passed. a few republican governors have actually signed on. so if you think of them, there are about 30 republican governors, i d say almost a half signed on to expanding medicaid and tear state. if you look at john case kasich in ohio, he said, we need this for the state we need the money. we will do this on our own. that you notice will they can it to independent court. tennessee is looking at this. up in maine, paul le page has vetoed the expansion of the medicaid, but he s just recently come out and said, you know even though i vetoed it, there are ideas i would support. in arkansas, they came up with a deal to assuage republicans where instead of taking the medicaid money, they would change it so that the money would go to the private insurance. so individuals instead of being on medicaid would use funds for private insurance. now we are seeing a whole bunch of republicans sort of opened to that bobby jindal will not be one of them. i think we are seeing movement on this and over time as governors see this is a free pot of money if they want it, i think we re going to see more. arkansas issued an example, too, you have a state that voted overwhelmingly, on the other side of the break with ve a former governor in a state that may be, probably right now is the next battleground over the expansion of medicaid. that s virginia because of what happened tuesday night in virginia. we will talk to the former governor there right after this. vo: it s that time of year again. medicare open enrollment. time to compare plans and costs. you don t have to make changes. but it never hurts to see if you can find better coverage, save money, or both. and check out the preventive benefits you get after the health care law. open enrollment ends december 7th. so now s the time. visit medicare.gov or call 1-800-medicare [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. tum, tum tum tum tums! heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact save your coffee from the artificial stuff. switch to truvia. great tasting, zero-calorie sweetness. .from the stevia leaf. how old is the oldest person you ve known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who s lived well into their 90s. and that s a great thing. but even though we re living longer, one thing that hasn t changed much is the official retirement age. the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. it is $21 billion. it s our money. we should be bringing it back. 29 states have already agreed to do it. it s just that it s fiscally irresponsible not to take it to those virginians that get life saving care. it s morally and socially the right thing to do. that is the incoming lt. gov. terry mcauliffe, here to talk more about how health care played a role in the 2013 governor s race in virginia, i want to bring in a former virginia governor jim gilmore, a republican. he joins us live from richmond right now. governor, appreciate the time this morning. so this was a pretty big campaign issue in your state where terry mcauliffe, you know, clearly said throughout this campaign he wants to expand medicaid, his opponent ran ads saying, don t vote for terry mcauliffe, he will expand it. now he has one, i know he has to deal with a republican majority in one of the state legislative chambers. do you expect they will have medicaid as a result of this election? well that s not really clear. let me say, everybody wants americans to have access to good health care t. real question is, is this the best way to do it? is this obama care the common sense approach and most people really think that it is not the best approach. now, look, governor. i don t mean to interrupt, from a state standpoint, we had the federal argument the federal level is obama dare right way? at the federal level, obama care is the law. what is being asked is to expand their rules and have that paid for by the federal government and slowly phase it out to 90%. ultimately, 90% is coming from the federal government for your state. well, first of all, this is a chart. this is what is happening in virginia right now. when i was governor, we were paying about $3 billion for medicaid, now it s up to $7 billion in the last ten years revenues have not kept up with that. it s increasingly expanding health care that will go on forever. when the states have to kick in that 10%, ten it s going to be a giant hole in the budget. that s the problem that people are foreseeing that will be the problem. that s the reality. the question is not whether we want toem people to have health care, is this sustainable? what is going to happen as this continues to expand and expand at the state level and more and more costs are built in because nothing controls costs in obama care. that continues to go on, then it s going to crowd out other things. where is the money going to come from for transportation? where is it coming from for education? where is it coming from for public safety? the answer, of course, is these are the first dollars that must be spent. if you have to do all this other great stuff, you raise taxes. people foresee this. they understand this, the problem is that obama care is not a good approach and the difficulty you got now is that because everybody says, well it s the law, so we all got to do it? well, it stops us from thinking of other innovative ways of providing health care. the real problem we got right now is that this thing is going to be a continuous expansion that goes on forever. one more thing the fact is that they re saying right now and governor elect mcauliffe who i just met with yesterday is focusing on the fact as all the other governors are, including governor kasich, we re going to get this big slug of money in here well, the federal government is bribing in the long run it will be catastrophic to the states. people across the country are saying, wait a minute, let s take a deep breath and find more innovative approaches. i just want to follow up on something you said. you say that everybody wants better health care an everybody wants more individuals covered, but we need to find more innovative ways to do that. if obama care is not right way what is your alternative? there are other things to talk about. there are self insurance programs for lower income employees are often provided health care programs by their companies. there are no know rate issive ways that you can afford through insurance. obama care will squeeze that out. you see companies saying we can t afford to do this and we will let them go onto the exchanges. of course, we know that technically they haven t been able to implement that. the real underlying problem is not computers t. real underlying problem is you are eliminating the private sector from providing health care coverage in a reasonable way because of this one sides fits all obama care problem. the problem is that this government controlled problem of this approach is squeezing everything else out. if you remember, one more point want to make, the most important thing is we got to get people into the work force so they can get benefits from their employers. that meejs we got to build up this commitment reduce unemployment and get excitement going in this economy again. there is nothing going on in washington to build up this economy and to create jobs and stop worrying about whether or not we will socialize medicine all across the country, we need to be putting innovative things in here to restore the economy, get people back to work again. governor, hi, jeremy peters here. i want to talk about something that may seem obscure to most people, but is important in the way we select our candidates for office. that s the convention system the republican party has in virginia. as you know, the convention process selected ken cuccinelli, a candidate that did not win and many more moderate voters felt was out of step with their views. that happened because the republican party decided to forego the process and put the decision making into the hands of a small group of conservative republicans. do you think the process needs to be opened up? that s a great question. the whole political system is on life support. maybe obama care can provide that for us. the real issue is that with a convention, you are talking about party, rank and file to come in and make this selection. with a primary that is the entire general public. at that point rich people get to come in and finance their particular candidates. it s out of the hands of the party, into the hands of the financiers. on the other hand, everybody gets to vote across the state. if we had party registration in virginia where you had democrats and republicans register as democrats and republican, then a primary system probably might make more sense and i think it s a case by case basis. so that both have pros and cons as to what works best. the question, are you going to put the selection process into the hands of the party rank and file or are you going to put it in the hand of people we don t even know that write big checks. governor, a question for you back on the medicaid expansions. hi, rachel. you mentioned the concern is the costs and if you expand medicaid to say everyone above a certain threshold of the poverty lean. i believe it s for individuals making around $15,000 a year and for families of three or four making around 32, then eventually the costs would grow, grow, grow and the costs would exceed what the states are getting from the government. my question is more immediate, when obama care was created t. point of the medicaid expansion, it was paid for by phaseing out a totally different part of med case. so the federal government right now is taking billions of dollars away from the states on another part of medicare. so i guess my question is, is that a concern? because that s also being taken away right now? if you don t expand it to get money for, you know, certain programs, aren t states just going to lose more money? well, in the short run they might. but in the long run the real issue we are dealing with here is that under all these programs, there has been no thought put into how you control costs and a lot of the states are looking at that right now. virginia is looking at it right now on a competition. governor elect mcauliffe might decide he wants to expand medicaid because he wants to expand that bribe cash supposed to be coming into the federal government. to pick up on rachel s point, specifically, this involves the hospitals in your state. the result of what rachel is talking about is the hospitals who right now care for people who don t have insurance get reimbursed by the federal government. the federal government anticipating that states like yours would take the medicaid money from the federal government, phased out that reimbursement. so right now the hospitals in your state and across the country are lining up. that i are begging governors to sign up for this program because they are in for a huge hit if they don t. doesn t that register with you what the hospitals are saying? it does, that means the federal government made a bad decision. they made a dra conyan decision which injuries providers. in the long run, this whole system here is designed to squeeze providers and that mean, of course, you are going to reduce the provision of health care, the supply of health care. and yet at the same time, you are exploding the number of people who are going to be demanding health care. simple economics tells you that means the costs will go through the ceiling and ultimately, somebody has got to pay for that. it s going to be the taxpayer. now, look, i m not saying we don t want people to have access to health care. what i am saying is we got to find ways of getting the private enterprise system involved more people who are low wages working and getting health care is a benefit. at that point you are not throwing everything onto the government and the taxpayers. the federal government is using this major clout and say we will withdraw the money to pressure the states into a program. i want to say something to you. i was a governor and we always started with medicaid is unalterable. it s right here. this is a big thing. you can t change anything. that s your first dollars that have to be spentch within i was governor, it was about 12% of our budget. now it s closer to between 16 an 20% of our budget. when obama care kicks in, it will blow things out of the water. how are you going to educate children? deal with keeping the streets safe? these are questions, frankly, your panel today has to be willing to give answers to. i haven t heard them. jim gilmore. i appreciate the time this morning. we will be back after this. . you know, i waslyening to jim gilmore, who do you all have to say about the rising costs of medicaid? it reminds me of this rhetoric we haerd about food stanks you look at the number of people suddenly on food stamps, what could be causing that? could it be the fact that the economy melted down and the level of poverty and the level in this country that is in more demand than ever, maybe it has something to do with that. we will digest the conversations with dpof gilmore and where the battle for the expansion of medicare goes right after this. 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[ male announcer ] in stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and more, swanson makes holiday dishes delicious. . so i think we ve heard from governor gilmore, there is what you are hearing from republicans across the country with the are saying, force we will not expand. one thing i picked up in a lot of what he was saying there, alex, how the problems with the healthcare.gov right now and the problems with the creation of these exchanges are giving ammunition to republicans who want to resist expanding medicaid because they are able to frame it saying, why, look, why would we take part in this program failing at the federal level. it understands the importance of getting this thing up and running and getting it working. it is giving ammunition to the opposition. this is a massive law. from the beginning, republicans have tried to lump it altogether. because if you have one problem with one part of it like healthcare.gov, it translates to everything in the mind s eye of most voters. so i think it s critical. i think obama made a mistake. he was correct on the policy argument. politically, he did nothing to comfort his allies and gave more fodder to his critics who can say, loose, even obama is making a mistake here when he told chuck todd he was sorry. this is clearly a disaster on the website. but they should have seen this coming from the beginning. for the doubt about that. they have done a terrible job on the back end of hand himming the cleanup of the obama white house to overrespond too quickly without thinking through the political allocations. the critical way the website is working, from governors who are not running their own exchanges, that is a part of the reason, then the federal government has to take on the work of managing all of those state exchanges. there are a number of states where things are going quite well because the states are managing their own exchange. a white house official compared this to building a building in a war zone while people are throwing bombs at you, the work required to put this website together was tremendously difficult. then you add on the aspect of working in a tense political cloimt. so it s a little disingenuous to criticize the way the website is working when part of the reason it is having problems and granted the administration did not do a good job of setting this up to make shower they have the mechanisms in place to handle the single technological challenges the administration has to face. within that, they have the added challenge of taking on work they were going to do. kentucky the democratic governor of kentucky forced through the expansion of medicaid and the creation of these exchanges in his state. there are statistics from kentucky where this seems to be working, over 32,000 enrollees in medicaid, 5,000 enrolled in the qualified health care plan. so there is an example of a state that said, hey, we are going to be proactive. we will do this. we dpoot result here. in arkansas, you saw i believe 6,000 people in the first few weeks. i think what the problem that the republican party faces on litigating this issue too much a problem they ve had kind of all along, including back into the last presidential election, which is a problem of tone and what they ve wrestled with is striking that right tone. they need to realize the public does nots will like this law necessarily as much as they do. we saw this with the irs scandal an benghazi, some of the republican strategists are worried about reigning in members of congress and making, a real effort to make the party sound like it s not being to shrill on this, if they, are they will lose the strategic advantage they have with this very unpopular law. maybe the ship has sailed, too, i wonder. one of these lucky panelists is about to become a panelist on up against the clock two. of them are. it s a very special not to be missed edition of america s fastest growing abbreviated made for saturday politics and/or current events quiz show. that s coming up next. 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(coffee be ng poured into a cup.) save your coffee from the artificial stuff. switch to truvia. great tasting, zero-calorie sweetness from the stevia leaf. [ herbie ] no doubt about it brent, a real gate keeper. here s kevin in the nissan sentra. lamb to the slaughter. mom s baked cookies but he ll be lucky to make it inside. and here s the play. oh, dad did not see this coming. [ crowd cheering ] now if kevin can just seize the opportunity. he s seen it. it s all over. nothing but daylight. yes i d love a cookie. [ male announcer ] make a powerful first impression. the nissan sentra. now get one fifty nine per month lease on a two-thousand thirteen nissan sentra. every week on the show, we put three contestants up against the clock. a test of their current events accumen and buzzer pressingable. one of today s contestants, you may recognize her mellissa harris-per kwli has been documenting every arduous strength building test of her journey to contestant s row. way to go. i m ready to go, coach. [ music playing ] lbj in 1964. those up against the clock podium. ha. yes. there it is. i m ready. where is my coach? how much? downgrade a minus 3 plus. a tidbit. mitt romney. all right. you are ready. that is very impressive stuff. clearly, she is different getting herself in excellent quiz show shape. don t forget, she will be facing two fierce competitors, going through their own growling regimen. sit tight. we are mere minutes away from from what it takes to be crowned up against the clock champion. that s right after this. . live from studio 3a in rockefeller center usa, it s time for up against the clock. our first contestant, originally from brookline, massachusettes the birthplace of jfk, mike wallace and michael did yukakis from santa fe new mexico, home of the minor league juggernaut the santa bay fuego, say hello to alex. today s contestant from new orleans, louisiana, home of the new orleans pelicans, it s mellissa harris-perry. here s the host of up against the clock, steve kornacki. oh, thank you, studio audience, thank you everyone for tuneing in for another thrill packed edition of up against the clock. melissa today s celebrity guest contestant. you foe the rules by now and at hope, wrong answers will cost you. there are a few instant bonuses scattered throughout these questions. as always, studio audience, i implore you, please, no outbursts, our contestants demand absolute concentration with that, i will ask you, contestants, are you ready? . we will start with 100 second on the clock in the 100 point round. we will go, 25 years ago yesterday, george h.b. bush was elected president over what dukakis. michael dukakis the defeated candidate. the next question, 3 billion, $2.5 billion or doctor 2 billion the white house released a report showing the shutdown cost how much in employee back pay, alex? c, $2 billion. doctor 2 billion is correct in back pay, try again with alex and mellissa. it took multiple calls and wrong numbers before vice president joe biden. incorrect. it took multiple calls before joe bind replaced a call to newly elected mayor. boston. according to city officials in boston, this red sox slugger came in third place on write-in votes absolutely no idea. encorrect. david ortiz. 100 point question the grandson of which former american president announced this week. jimmy carter correct, his granddon now running for governor of go. . 100 point question, new jersey governor chris christy made his prime time acting debut. nbc michael j. fox i don t know, michael j. fox show? it is. 100 points for mellissa. we will finish the question, after being declared the winner tuesday night ken cuccinelli refused to report what custom mary. call the winner. he refused to call the winner, terry mcauliffe. we go to the end of the round. mellissa, the early lead with 300 points, alex with 200. moving up from negative territory with that correct answer, but now things start to get a littlewhile wild because we move to the 200 point round. again, you are penalized. you get big points, 100 second on the clock. first 200 point question is this, sporting a nifty pair of glasses, this former candidate returned to iowa on thursday and said, if i was making a plan for 2016, coming to iowa early an often would be. rand paul. encorrect. wrong. alex. rick perry is direct correct. big twin there, a reader revolt participated the departmenture of guns and ammo after they published an editorial in favor of what, alex? gun control. 200 more points for alex. politico reported this week that this nationally ambitious tea party senator recently had private meetings with news corps rupert murdock and fox news. rand paul. that is correct. 200 points for mellissa. back with this. nine years after his death, a group of swiss scientists reported this week. arafat. yes, yasser arafat. poison was found in his remains. 200 point question, many believe the political demise of ross perrot was triggered 20 years ago this week when he delivered an erratic performance in a prime time debate. larry king, al gore? correct. cnn. incorrect. we have to deduct 200 points. finish the question. an erratic performance in a prime time debate against whom? no calls, time. al gore. the sitting vice president on larry king live. that brings us to the end of the 200 point round. alex has stormed into the lead with 600 points, maura now with 200. mellissa with 100. can you see a very volatile gain, though, especially as you introduce the ph.d. round. these are 300 point questions. this is where champions are made. we will put 100 second on the clock t. crucial final round begins with this. illinois senator mark kirk teamed up on thursday with what conservative democratic senator to introduce legislation to delay the obama care mandate one 84. alex. joe manchin of west virginia is correct. 300 point question, plans to create america s 51st state are on hold after six conservative counties on tuesday rejected a non-binding plan to succeed? colorado. colorado is correct or 300 point. instant bonus. had the if you state been created, what would the state s name have been? there is no penalty for getting this wrong? i have no idea. the answer is colorado. when the employment non-discrimination act, which prohibits employment of lesbians, gays, transexuals was being debated on the state floor this woke, one senator spoke publicly against it, who was it? david individualer. encorrect. time, dan coax of any. 300 point question. john runon, a second term republican from south jersey announced this week, we will not seek re-election proposal played professional football for what monita franchise? the jets. the jets is incorrect. the eagles. correct. 300 point question, in a concession speech tuesday night, this defeated candidate said, quote the onslaught of betrayal from our own political party was at fault for her loss. barbara bueno 300 point, correct. it gives maura 800 short of the 1,200 alex racked up. that makes alex for today s up against the clock champion. bill wolf. tell him what he s won. as our champion, will you have your name printed in exquisite sharpee, you get to take the trophy home and show it off to family, friends and school children for one woke. you will receive an appearance this coming week on msnbc s in the the cycle. you get to play in our jackpot bonus round for the grand prize of a $50 gift certificate to little pony, the most authentic eating and drinking experience while you are there, get a tattoo or a piercing. back to you, steve. congratulation, we have unfinished business for that $50 gift certificate. here is a jackpot bonus question. fine years ago yesterday the republican revolution of 1994 vaulted the gop to the house of representatives for the first time in four years and made newt gingrich speaker. for your bonus, what democrat did gingrich succeed as speaker? jim wright. incorrect. it was tom foley, i m sorry. the $50 gift certificate is safe for another week, alex, you have one of our highest points of all time. it puts you in a tie for second place maura with 800 points, you may still be in contention, mellissa, it was a fast start. you had an aggressive buzzer style. yes. you knew about the cnn debate. unfortunately, we didn t finish the question first. you will not leave empty hand. we have the home edition. thank you for playing today. we will see you next week for another up against the clock after this, the real show begins again. my customers can shop around . there are a lot of good explanations how george w. bush became president. the fatigue over scandals, lousy campaigns over al gore. i have a different theory. i think it s all because of the he coumb. let me take you to the fall of 1994, two years after george h. bush was bounced from office after two terms. two sons were launching careers of their own. george w. was a few-years-older the word was jeb was the one to watch. sharp intellect. someone who could dazzle the crowd. george w. he never done much. goofy, awkward, empty. rumor had it the old man saw jeb as the future president. the son who would go on to reclaim the white house for the family. w. seemed to be acting out a revenge fantasy t. they lam pooned his father at the 1988 democratic convention, she said he had been put with a silver foot in his mouth. beyond that, no one seemed too sure why he was running. in the home stretch, it looked like the public saw it. in texas, the ratings stood at 60%. voters hit a soft spot for the plain spoken incumbent. w. was the underdog. but in florida, it was a different story t. state s business lobby released a poll taken in mid-october. jeb bush 48%, lawton chiles 43% other polls showed jeb bush ahead. lawton shotz, a folksy yarn spinner 64-years-old, he looked at least ten years older than that. time was catching up. when the poll came out, it looked like it was all over. jeb is columnist wrote is charging down the home stretch like wildfire, some closest to chiles say they expect him to be coasted and are looking for job opportunities. lawton chiles was nothing if not wiley, when he got the chance to stand face to face with jeb on the same stage days before the election. he knew better than to make it a contrast between a democrat and a republican, a liberal and a conservative. he made it about culture. the floridians never get their way of life. he made it about, here s that word again, he made it about the he coumb. my mama told me sticks and stones will break my bones, names will never hurt me. let me tell you. one other thing about the old liberal, the old he coon walks just before the light of day. . the he coon according to real florida lor is a tough ornery raccoon with his might and wit defends all the other ones that will do them hard, lawton chiles pitch perfectly claiming the he coon mant el and polished son of the yankee arising tocracy and privilege a riscracy. and he ran with it. he took to wearing a coon 16 cap as he barn stormed florida in the findal hours of the campaign. you could feel the bush lead melting away. 1994 was a devastating year for democrats everywhere, florida in particular. a massive mid-term backlash, a backlash of the so-called angry white males against bill clinton and the national democratic party. the angry florida voters granted one exemption for one democrat who showed them that he got them. that he knew them. that he was one of them they re-elected the he coon. what time is it? it s just before down at the same moment that lawton chiles was declaring victory, though, a few hundred miles west, that same national republican tide was hitting texas. this one came with no special dispensations for folksiness. anne richards put up her best fight, a wha wail of a fight t. tide was too strong t. state was aching to vote against bill clinton s party, that meant a voting for george w. bush, voting for the bush brother who was never supposed to when that year. what texans can dream texans can do. so there it was, election night 94. the bush brother who was supposed to when that night and take that havingtory and use it as a springboard to a bush white house restoration was derailed. instead of going national, he spent the next years mending fences in florida, winning over the locals, to make sure the next time he ran there would be no, he coon moment. it did work. jeb got elected governor. by that point, he had been lapped by his big brother, the bush brother who was never supposed to win in the first place. because of that weird twist of fate in 1994, it was w who got to lead one of america s biggest states, flirting with presidential politics. he ba imthe vehicle, the profoundly unlikely vehicle. on the night jeb won florida in 1998, w. was getting reelected in texas by a huge margin, 38 points. so it was his plan. this was carl reserve os plan, run up the score in 98. make eye browseing inrates with latinos, with voters who had been flocking to president clinton and flocking away from the republican party. 1998 was a generally miserable year for the republican party. you probably seen the recent polls after last month s government shutdown that show the gop favorable score at an all time low. the only other time they were in that same ballpark was the end of 1998. that s when a newt gingrich led gop house that had already shut down the government and was unpopular that, has defied public opinion and led an impeachment drive against president clinton. that produced a loss for republicans in 1998, the first time since james monroe s presidency, they failed to gain seats in the second term mid-term election. this was the context of george bush s victory. it was the biggest bright spot. maybe the only bright spot in a very dark hour for the republican party. by that point they had lost the necks election to him. lost the 98 mid-terms, it was losing the impeachment fight. they were sick of losing and it was hungry to when again. it was nothing particularly ideological about it. when george bush talking up what he had done in texas, started talking up what he called compassionate conservatism, in an active way than dogma prescribed, he found a receptive audience in the party. finally he can communicate empathy to americans the way bill clinton did. after all, look what he had done in texas. this was how bush was able to spend 1999 creating the most formidable machine in the history of modern prun politics. fundraising figures were reported for the second quarter of the year. his advantage was so staggering, so shocking that it set in motion the demise of not one, not two, not three, not four, not five but six of his interparty foes before a single ballot was cast. bush did end up facing the spirited fight from john mccain in 2000 t. outcome was never in much doubt. party elets were so over wellingly on bush s side, he was able to define himself as the candidate of purity and mccain s calling card was campaign finance reform, a plan loathed by interest groups to portray him as the apostate. this upped mcclain s popularity and that alienated him more from the republican base and that cemented bush s hold on the nomination t. race was over in the first week of march, 2000. in ten months, one supreme court ruling later, george w. bush was president. all of this is the backdrop for what happened with new jersey governor chris christie this week. after what christie hopes will happen in the next three years. because it s the bush model, the george w. bush model that christie wants to emulate on the surface, the setup is almost the same. this is a low moment t. destructive impact of the shutdown and the party s general reliance on tea party rhetoric and tactics as of late helped opinion shapers. blair bare in the blue state, the state that last elected a republican to the senate more than 40 years ago, there in that very blue state is a republican governor who racked up more than 60% of the vote, nearly a third of the black vote who outpolled his female democratic opponent by 12 moints points among women. christie can say the same thing bush did 15 years ago. our party is in a bad place, but i know how to win. the republican party is also much different now than it was yooen 15 years ago. it s a twins of how his presidency ended, the rise of barak obama and the agenda the right regard is an affront to freedom. to explain how this could happen, how americans could go to the polls and willfully elect a left of center government, the right decided it had to blame george w. bush. the basic idea, that bush s compassionate conservatism ended up amounting to reckless big government. it gave conservatism a bad name that then led a confused electorate to turn to obama. it is out of this conviction the tea party was formed. both to fight obama and the republicans who would enable bush and might enable a future bush. the attitude of the republican party 15 years ago was like the old al davis saying, just win, baby. but today purity is just as important. maybe more important to the tea party right. this is what maiblg makes christie s path to the gop nomination far trickier than bush is. he is going to have to satisfy a critical chunk of that tea party right that he s one of them or at least he s close enough to being one of them and check off his name anyway. there is a school of thought is an impossible tavenlth christie literally embraced the president at the most sensitive moment in last year s presidential campaign a. charge he single handedly expanded the white house by four years could make christie a total non-starter with too many tea party years. i tend to take a less fatalistic view. look closer, you will see he is not a moderate in the way we once thought of northeast republican moderates. he s pro-life. he is staunchly anti-tax. he is happy to war with public employee unions. he is happy to veto gun control bills and vital public transportation projects. there is also this trump card. personality. now i know many people loathe christie. plenty also appreciate his swagger, especially when you are talking about the republican universe. the reason christie is a national candidate is he will lose his temper at the wrong moment, an ugly explosion that becomes his identity that sinks his campaign. the flip side though is that he is good at this game. he is a rare politician who can talk to a room of people who disagree with them an win him over. they warm up to him. laugh at his jokes, then without realizing it, they find themselves working backwards in their minds to tell them, come to think of it, it wouldn t be crazy to support it. i have seen him do this in rooms of skeptical conservatives and i absolutely could see him doing this in rooms of skeptical iowa republicans two years from now after what happened this week, how much does chris christie have to worry about the tea party and how much of the republican party? we will dive into that 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[ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. . i ll tell you about chris christie s political future and how big a factor the tea party will play in his front runner status. we have policy reporter from politico.com reigning up against the clock alex and jeremy peters politics reporter for the new york times. so, you know, i m curious what you guys make sort of coming out of this week with chris christie the whole sort of debate is, yes, he is clearly electable in a blue state. he would be the worst nightmare if he were an opponent. did you see anything this week in these results? do you see things percolating right now that answers that question? could he get through a republican primary? i think in response to his victory, we got a lot of clues to that. you saw the right wing republicans in different ways being critical of him. going on the air and calling him a moderate, which is a very inside baseball way of slamming him for those looking for a candidate farther on the right. you see some clues in that. i think what they re suffering from is they are dealing with the fear of romney again, a conservative who is not conservative in his heart. he doesn t believe those things. he was for gun control before he was against it. he vetoed same-sex marriage and gave up the fight in the courts. i think that s their big concern. the same things that make him marketable in a general election could serve to be liabilities to him when it comes to getting a nomination. i try to differentiate in my head, i look back at the past year, clearly there are the hard line conservatives in the party you give the slightest hint you may be in 50 years be for gay marriage, that i will never vote for you and rick santorum will win 11 states, there are still enough states out there for romney to get through and there is still a big enough path for mitt romney. i m trying to figure out, has that path narrowed in the last year or is it sort of the same dynamic? i think it s narrowed. i think if there is anywhere the establish him and big donors can win, they can held sway in a presidential nomination race. will you have a crowded field on the right with maybe ted cruz and rand paul and others, so i think there is a big chance he can come up the middle. not to mention the fact that governors tend to do better than senators. mitt rom fiwas a moderate who attacked what i to the right. christie is a conservative at heart on unions, on climate change, on gay rights. sandy is sort of a mant el put on him. it doesn t accurately describe who he is. he can take that mant el. it might upset the base. the donor class aren t fooled by that, they re clamouring to enter 2012. i don t think this field will be that much stronger as a lot of people expected. would we call him in the term moderate is attached to chris christie reflectively. if it hadn t been for sandy and praiseing and embrace obama at the height of that, would we be calling him a moderate? his record otherwise, i remember he was the tea party hero with his first two years in office, with the ending if millionaire s tax, is it a function of saying nooigs nice things about president obama? i don t think it is. if you look at the other policy, social conservatives made a big fuss when he outlaws therapy, what they called procureing gay youngsters. the parity is there. the guns thing, mentioning not specifically legislation but saying guns should be controlled more in new jersey. obviously, he sort of backed off from that. that was what he sort of did at first. taxes, it s interesting you mentioned this, yes, the millionaire tax expired under him. he didn t knock that down. it expired. the legislature tried to extend it. he retoed it. there is an interesting undercurrent there. he ran in 2009 on a platform of tax relief, property tax relief. property taxes in new jersey are $8,000 on average, first in the country. highest in the country. they have a high income tax and competent tax. he came in, in 2009 and said, this is awful. i want to expand tax relief for the middle class. he specifically a few months after he was elected got rid of a whole bunch of tax deductions and credits targeted toward the middle class that effectively increase taxes on a whole bunch of people. i m talking hundreds of thousands of people. i talked to a few people in new jersey about this. you don t really hear much about it in the media right now. but this is something that anything that smells like a tax hike is going to be something that conservatives will attack him for in a gop primary. i could see this being something that could potentially hinder him. he promised to expand credits to scale back taxes and even the opposite, actually. this was the day after the election, a day after chris christie got reelected. he held a press conference, he s feeling good about himself, listen to what what he had to say that day. people that think that folks vote based on a checklist, only special interest groups do that. only special interest groups do that. when they put together a checklist, they see how many boxes they check. real voters don t do that. role voters get a feeling for somebody. it s emotional, visceral type of thing in my experience and they determine in their gut, can i trust this person? are they telling many ethe truth? not do they agree with me on every issue. so he s absolutely right. i want to make a very unpolitical science argument here and any political scientists out there will tell me it s ridiculous. i think personality does matter. i think the personality chris christie has is so different than a guy like mitt romney. i can see chris christie going into a group of party years. hey, he didn t fight gay marriage hard enough. i think he s that rare plichlths he s got the personality, where he can walk in that room. they can be like i don t like this guy. i want to get behind this guy. they rationalize backwards in their mind to get will. i can see voters in other states say other than new jersey responding very differently. so i would be careful about drawing too many conclusions about the electorate in new jersey and applying those to the greater primary elect terror rat. he may have won with hispanics and women overwhelmingly in new jersey. i don t know that that s going to extend to the rest of the country like it did, would that apply in ohio? i don t know that it would apply in ohio. up are talking about a state that elect rick santorum. you mean peoria? to your point, he got a third of democrats in the state, two-thirds of moderates. two-third of independents. let s look at democrats, you would presume they are against the policy ideas. they voted with him. there was a connection with him. when you talk about political skill, something that you mentioned, he is a very skillful politician. a lot comes down to people don t out reach too. he does that well? democrats in new jersey, they discovered this. they discovered it nationally. you can find all of these issues where he is out of step with where the majority of public opinion is. how much does that personality override it? democrats did not figure out new jersey and would have to figure out nationally. you know the basic debate over social security, one side says cut it. private advertise it. the other side says keep at this time way it is, but there is a growing group of democrats that want to blow off the tomorrows of that debate. we will tell you how, that is next. . 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[ tapping ] sounds good. campbell s healthy request. m m! m m! good.® . i will keep social security in a lock box and that pays down the national debt. i think it should say in a lock box. i ll tell you this, i will veto anything that takes money out of social security for privatization or anything else other than social security. that is one of more satirized moments. the response fit right into the egrowing narrative about hit stiff persona. but the lock box the vice president invoked seven times in that debate perfectly summed up the position on social security for the last half century, don t cut it, don t private advertise it. don t touch it. more and more democrats are saying they do want to touch it to change the basic terms of debhat of what s been called the third rail of american politics. we will talk to one of those democrats right after this. we still run into problems. that s why liberty mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness if you qualify, and new car replacement, standard with our auto policies. so call liberty mutual at. today. and if you switch, you could save up to $423. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what s your policy? 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[ engine revs ] . the debate over social security has been consistent for the last half century, on the right, they say cut it or private advertise it. this entitlement is the senior population explodes and life expectancies rise. while younger workers on a voluntary basis to take some of their own money and set it aside in the form of a personal savings account. i think it s very important that we reform our entitlement programs. my friends, we are not going to be able provide the same benefit for present day workers that present day retirees have today. it is a monstrous lie. it is a poenz scheme to tell our kids 25 or 30-years-old today, you are paying into a program that s going to be there. on the left, liberals tend to say, don t touch social security. preserve it. it s a vital part of the safety net. it will be solvent for years to come. we will protect social security. i will not private advertise it. i will not cut the benefits. i think for us to act like social security is in crisis is a republican trap. i don t believe it add aspeny to the deficit. it shouldn t be a victim of deficit reduction within it has nothing to do with the deficit. occasionally, they give voice to social security and there are plenty of democrats who express the more conservative view. a, the debate goes, that s the limit of it. those are the two polls cutting it or private advertising it on one endsh leaving it alone, preserving it on the other, which can be a problem for liberals, any compromise, any meeting point between those two polls will entail some reduction in benefits. i saw this when president obama offered chained cti, a recalculation of the social benefits formula that would have resulted in lower payouts during the grand bargain talks of 2011 and again in his budget this spring. so this is why there are now some progressive democrats in congress trying to expand the terms of debate. this week, sharod brown of ohio became the late toast put his name to increase social security benefits. that s right. in an era defined by belt tightening, liberals are trying to provide retirees with bigger monthly checks. as more democrats sign on, we are seeing the beginnings to change the social security from not wanting to preserve it but to expanding it. these are the kind of long-term efforts that can take years but redefine the agenda of a political party. at the table with us now is congressman jerry nather of new york. he is one of 39 co-sponsors of that legislation. thank you for joining us. we laid it out there. this is a debate we heard a hundred times, democrats saying, let s preserve it. make your case for why that debate is bogus and we node to be talking about expanding it? well the trust fund is 2.7 trillion. it dlb 2.4 trillion in 2025. there is no prospect of them running short in 2033 or any foreseeable future. number one, number two, we have always said retirement ought to be a three legged stool, based on pension, savings and social security. two of those legs are basically destroyed. in the private sector, there are almost no more push, a push we have to oppose, nonetheless, it s there and savings, two-third of retirees have had virtually no savings. it s like 30,000 in its 402k. with the average social security check being $40,000 a 84, if that s it, our sflrs going to be retiring to poverty. in fact, the latest statistics show that while the overall participation rate in the labor force is down, for people over 65, it is up. that moans people can t afford to retire. so we have to increase social security in order to make up for the collapse of the private sector pension system and the failure of the 401k savings. what you are up against first of all is a lot of knee jerk conventional wis do. first of all, you are up against knee jerk conventional wisdom that affects your own party. we have the example of president obama who three times has put the chained cti out there of reduceing social security benefits. where among your fellow democrats, where does that instinct come from when we are having fiscal talks, where does that come from to put social security on the table? it comes from the president, basically, there is almost a unanimous opposition to that. 100 some odd democrats have signed a letter saying, no way, know how. i don t know why the president puts this on the table. i think it s a bad mistake to do that. it s totally unnecessary, also. as i ve said, the social security, they re reported as quote gospel and come out and say we will have a shortfall of fund. that s the immediate forecast. which has always been wrong. the optimistic forecast, with i that put out every year, the optimistic forecast, which generally has been right over the last 30 years, which is never quoted by the press, says social security fluctuated for the future we can see. i wonder if you are talking about with president obama, as we all know, the communication ween the white house and members of congress is not always the greatest. so what do you see the president doing to reach out to congressional democrats to forge a solution on things? not much. that s actually what i was going to ask the president as the leader of the democratic party has proposed change cpi, which would obviously scale back the annual increases that seniors receive. i just don t see where this would go anyway, yes, people are talking about it right now. but harry reid, the senate majority loader would not put something on the senate floor for senate democrats to vote for if it goes against what the president wants. right now. we are in harry reid said he wouldn t put a changed cpi on the floor, even if the president wanted it. the bulk of the democratic caucus in the house wouldn t consider it. the fact is, it s entirely theoretical because the republicans getting increased revenues, in any deal, with i they will never do. down there is a political clax, it s the dirty word the word for clinton in the 90s, trianglation? do you think there is a trianglation as a part of we will go to the left by asking for more revenue. we will see we are to the middle on the entitlement? i don t know. i certainly hope that isn t the calculation. if that were the calculation, it would be foolish politically. every poll shows that overwhelmingly, the people do not want reductions in social security benefits or medicare benefits. overwhelmingly. if god forbid we would do this, it would be a terrible proceed to candidates if 2014 or 2016. it s politically just foolish. so why put it out there? i don t know. congressman, it seems to be politically as steve was talking about, this seems to be changing over the long term, moving the poll, expanding a bit t. white house has mostly demanded pretty much that democrats fall in loin on every piece of legislation. are they starting to understand the way the tea party opened up the right wing, liberal democrats should do the same? well, i don t know the white house has demanded democrats fall in line. are they understanding? maybe. i don t know. the fact is we are doing this. it is essential because we are seeing increaseingly that the other two retirement stools have collapsed and people cannot be expected to retire on 14 or 15 or $16,000 a year and then have a changed cpi, with i is framplgly a dishonest calculation. it understates inflation. frankly the current cpi also under states inflation. we got to increase it because the cpi, the consumer price index is fixed by saying what is a bread basket, what is a basket that people buy? how much do you spend on education, health care, et cetera? okay. how much does health care increase in costs, et cetera in the fact what the cpi says if stake gets too expensive, you switch to hamburger. that s, in other words, figuring in a reduction in your standard of living into the calculation, which i think is just wrong. now, instead, what we should lock at is a different measure him the borough of labor statistics is developing, that says, okay. for seniors, they spend more on health care than 30-year-olds. they spend less on education than 30-year-olds. we should have a senior cpi which state inflation is heavier than the current cpi does. even that wouldn t satisfy the problem. yes, that s one of the issues, the opposite of changed cpi, moving it in the opposite direction. i got to say, this is one of the reasons, you talk about 2016 sometimes, this is one of the reasons, if you are a democrat, this is an issue you care about. you hope there are lots of candidates out there. that could create the pressure for candidates to make this a priority if they get in office. it s one of the ways i m going to justify talking about 2016 sometimes. i want to thank congressman jerry nather. i appreciate it. we do not have a winner in one important race because of some incredible sleuthing by numbers experts on twitter. it s a wild story. we will tell it to you next. 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payment, so there s no late fee. really? yep! so is your husband off the hook? no. he went out for milk last week and came back with a puppy. hold it. hold it. hold it. at discover, we treat you like you d treat you. get the it card with late payment forgiveness. how old is the oldest person you ve known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who s lived well into their 90s. and that s a great thing. but even though we re living longer, one thing that hasn t changed much is the official retirement age. the question is how do you make sure you have the money you need to enjoy all of these years. . in waukesha county, wisconsin, the results for the race for state supreme court swung dramatically from the democratic candidate to the republican after the county clerk revealed she failed to count the votes from an entire city. mitt romney s squeaker of a victory by only 8 votes in the 2012 iowa caucuses was called into question two days later when they said a counting error gave him 20 more votes than he received and rick santorum had been the winner there. that was before officials admitted entire precincts were missing, which led to weeks later to a startling declaration from the iowa republican party. mitt romney hadn t one the caucuses after all. rick santorum had. mistakes happen all the time it s only within they are close we realize how flawed and imperfect and human our election system is. that s the back drop playing out in virginia. we know there is a new governor elect, terry mcauliffe and a governor elect and we have absolutely no idea who will win the other race for statewide office, the race for attorney general. current republican general ken cuccinelli lost tuesday s governor s election. in that job, attorney general is important in virginia for a lot of reasons, including the bake fact it s an established launching pad for governor officially the republican ag candidate is in the lead by about 1,200 votes. those results do not tell the full story. the full story involves my kind of people, numbers obsessed political sauvants. two in particular, dave wasserman an ben trivet goes by the twitter hand him not larry sabtow. they return fairfax county. it seemed to them like not enough ab tent see ballots were counted. after they noticed, a local congressman picked up the scent, too. here s what they say happened. you can usually expect a certain percentage of people to actually use them to turn them in, to vote. fairfax county, that return rate is 88%. of the 8,000 absentee billion lots in the 8th congressional district, they were requested if fairfax only half were counted. a lot less than 88%. election officials say they believe almost 2,000 votes when unaccounted. they aren t sure yet what the right number actually is the big question is whether those numbers will be enough to take the race for attorney general. if mark herring becomes the next attorney general, that would give them the non-segregation sweep of the top three offices in both u.s. seats for the commonwealth since ever. it s never happened before. so it s interesting to me because the attorney general in virginia, ted cuccinelli gave us a case study in why it is important from a policy whole o idea began with ken cuccinelli. ken cuccinelli used that to make himself a rising republican national star, to become the nominee for virginia, so obviously the outcome of this race is important. it makes a symbolic statement if democrats win it. it s shocking, we shouldn t be shocked, we ve seen this before, but we have no idea who s won this race. and the attorney general s race is really where a lot of the attention focused towards the end of the race as it became clear that ken cuccinelli was probably not going to be able to fill it out. republicans shifted a lot of money into the race, democrats did, too. one basically predicted exactly how it went down. mcauliffe underperform manager the polls. the attorney general s going to be the squeaker and that s going to be the important one because you can attribute the cuccinelli to attribute lieutenant governor to e.w. jackson, hardly a qualified candidate. but this is going to be a real test of the parties and a big signal of where the regime is headed. election officials have said clearly there s something wrong here. they were expects more than 7,000 of these ballots to come back and they only got like 5200. so i think now it s going to be quite a bit longer before we know the results because we re almost certainly looking at a recount, it could end up in the courts as both sides decide which votes they want in and which they want out. it could be a while before we know the outcome. we re talking about it coming down to fairfax county, northern virginia, and that s where the election of that story was. big early lead for ken cuccinelli, then that northern friendly blue part of the state comes in and changes everything. we ll find out if the absentees there are enough to give the democrats what would be a historic sweep. what do we know how that we didn t know last week? our panel will tell you after this. thrusters at 30%! i can t get her to warp. losing thrusters. i need more power. give me more power! [ mainframe ] located. ge deep-sea fuel technology. a 50,000-pound, ingeniously wired machine that optimizes raw data to help safely discover and maximize resources in extreme conditions. our current situation seems rather extreme. why can t we maximize our. ready. brilliant. let s get out of here. warp speed. the holidays can be wan especially difficult time. everything s different now. sometimes i feel all alone. christmas used to be my favorite. i just don t expect anything. what if santa can t find me? to help, sleep train is holding a secret santa toy drive. bring your gift to any sleep train, and help keep the spirit of the holidays alive. not everyone can be a foster parent, but anyone can help a foster child. what our guests know now that they didn t when the week we gan. raich snell. these. sweets. yes. food and drug administration this week announced that it s going to be banning transfats over the next few years. so things like this, things like your doughnuts, they re going to start tasting a little different because the food industry is going to have to adjust. basically, transfats, they found more and more research is, you know, awful for high blood pressure, and if it s disavowed in foods they think that this could potentially prevent 7,000 heart attacks a year. 7,000 deaths a year. 20,000 heart attacks. but it s so delicious. i know. i learned that female spies are better at spotting surveillance, people following them, based on their socks thanks to a great story in mother jones about women in the cia. interesting. yesterday a teenager in detroit was laid to rest, 19 years old, killed a week ago. she got to a car accident, went door to door seeking help and the person inside the homes came out with a shotgun and shot her in the face. no charges have been filed, no arrests made. police continue to investigate. police say that the person who shot her believed she was trying to break into the home. we ll wait and see what happens with that story. jeremy. when the senate took a historic step this weekend and passed a bill that would outlaw sexual discrimination, the pivotal votes, three of them were republicans. i think that s something nobody would have expected five years ago. interesting. i learned that melissa harris-perry is a great sport. she took time off from her show today to come down and play up against the clock. in the training interview, i hope you saw it. check it out online. it was hilarious. check it out. my thanks to rachel, alex, maura, and jeremy. thanks for getting up. tomorrow, it has been over a century and a half since the wind party took america by storm and gave andrew jackson fits, then vanished, until this week, when a man calling himself a wig won an election. who he is, how he won. is he still furious with andrew jackson? we ll introduce you to him and talk to america s only wig elected official tomorrow. next, melissa harris-perry. see you tomorrow at 8:00. thanks for getting up. reluctant to try new things. really? what s wrong with trying new things? look! mommy s new vacuum! 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catholic church and bring it into the 21st century. pope francis began his first full day as pontiff praying at the basilica in rome this morning. last night, white smoke pouring from the chimney atop the sistine chapel signaling the pope had been elected. and after two days of conclave meetings and five rounds of voting, cardinal jorge mario bergoglio, the former archbishop of argentina, became papa of 1.2 billion catholics around the world. i was delighted. in latin america, i was really hoping that one of these times we d come with a latin american and here we did. reporter: while his papacy became effective immediately, the newly elected head of the catholic church will be formally installed at a ceremonial mass here at the vatican early tuesday morning. from the balcony of st. peter s basilica, francis, the first pope from latin america wearing the traditional white robe, addressed the tens of thousands who gathered at the square below and millions watching worldwide. [ speaking foreign language ] reporter: the 76-year-old pope prayed for the church, the papacy and for retired pope benedict. and then asked the faithful to pray for him. [ speaking foreign language ] he s our papa, you know. we re behind him all the way. reporter: and pope francis will be celebrating mass about two hours from now at the sistine chapel with the cardinals who elected him. we should also note president obama one of the first leaders to send out his congratulations yesterday, saying as the first pope from the americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of hispanic americans, those of us in the united states share the joy of this historic day. matt? we ll be at the mass on tuesday. there was a tug of war between the old guard and the reformers. earlier this morning, we spoke with cardinal timothy dolan, the archbishop of new york, who was there, and i began by asking him which side won. i ve got to be honest, matt, within the sistine chapel, i didn t sense that tug of war. i sensed a rather remarkable resigned consensus we needed a man obviously who is holy, a man of theological precision like benedict was and john paul. we also needed a man, though, who had a good track record of sound effective pastoral governan governance. and we got one. as the cardinals began to look around and see the man we wanted. jorge berg golly i don t came to the fore. the old-timers, veteran cardinals remembered him from the last time. the more we got to listen to him, to know him, to hear our brother cardinals speak about him, it was pretty clear that s where the holy spirit was leading us. do you think some cardinals felt an obligation to choose a pope from the americas, the latin america given the growth in that part of the world. i don t think i would use the word obligation. in addition to the ones that i just mentioned to you, the fact that he knew a lot of languages, and the fact that he was from latin america, the fact that he had a particularly radiant slittude for the poor, that was almost gravy that made even more attractive the man who had sound qualities we already needed. that enhanced our eye traction. you ve always encouraged me to speak frankly, and i hope you understand the tone that s intended. i think when he spoke out yesterday, there was some stunned silence for a second. i think some had expected a younger man. he s 76. some had expected someone who at least visually seemed to epitomize a more modern church. when you looked at that image of the new pope standing with some members of the church high arky, visually, cardinal dolan, it didn t exactly scream a modern church. do you understand what i mean? i do, matt, and i appreciate your candor. by the way, i just enjoyed here with natalie watching the events of last night, because i hadn t seen them. we were behind the scenes literally so thanks for showing them again. i know what you mean, but we always say this. the long-term people who watch the church universal, and i would count you among them, you have the balcony moment, but then the real pontificate begins today. that s where we ll begin to watch. we cardinals noticed some things immediately that he was doing differently. i don t know if we have time to go into them. just give me one. very simple. the protocols calls for all the cardinals to come up. as soon as he s elected pope and changes, they put the white chair out up on an elevated platform. he s to sit there while we come up to express our love, gratitude and allegiance. when the he said, no em standing down here, so he greeted each of us as brothers, just literally on the same level we were. you heard the story. when we left to go over to st. martha, where we ve all been staying, they had his limo ready, he got back on the bus with us, like he had been doing for the whole conclave. those are little signs that send signals, matt. you mention an important signal last night on the balcony, you mentioned some of the pluses and minuses of that, but boy, let s watch close. i think we re going to see a lot of renewal. real quickly, personal disappointment at all? your mom was interviewed, by the way, and she said about you not being chosen as the next pope, i m feeling relieved. it s not that he wouldn t have been good for the church, i know he would have done a great job, but i want him here. spoken like a true mother. ah, i haven t talked to mom yet, but i send her my love, and she s got a new grandson. i have a new great nephew, charlie. no, i had relief, matt, only because we ve got a pope and a darn good one. you listen to the people last night in the square. all they want is the pope. the that we had the chair of st. pete you are was empty. now it s full again. that gives us hope, renewal. that s the real relief i sensed last night. i thank you for your time, your eminence. matt, good to be with us. nbc s lester hold is? st. peter s square with more on the path to the papacy. good morning to you. reporter: there was almost a sense of bewilderment. there was almost a sense of, who? boy, when he stepped out on that loggia, the crowd erupted in cheers. he s a quiet guy, a simple guy, even media shy, according to his biographer. he was born in buenos airs, born of five children born to italian immigrants, he studied to be a chemist, but in 1969 turnds to the priesthood. he joined the society of jesus. the formal name, and adopted an austere lifestyle. as archbishop, he could have lived in a palace, but instead lived in a modest apartment. he even rode the bus. this is a true man of god. this is a true man of god, a man of deep, deep spiritual life. a man who knows what the church needs in the 21st century. reporter: in his native argentina, bergoglio made it his mission to work among the people to fight on behalf of the poor. he was elevated to cardinal in 2001 by pope john paul ii. and in 2005, bergoglio was runner-up to cardinal ratzinger who would become pope benedict xvi, the man he succeeds. this is a man of dynamic orthodoxy, genuine missionary fervor. he could be very appealing to young people. this is a man who knows there s a lot that needs fixing in the central machinery of the church here in rome and i think he ll go about fixing it quickly. bergoglio told the cardinals he was taking the name francis in honor of the 13th century st. francis assisi, who gave up his family s wealth to live in poverty. that spartan outlook was evidence in his choice of simple white robes as he was announced to the faithful around the world. he s never actually worked inside the vatican but some have no doubt he s up to the task. this is a wonderful choice. we have a decent compassionate, strong, smart man. a man who now becomes the first cardinal from the americas to head the roman catholic church, again. he went through a lot as a young man. as a teenager he suffered from a serious infection. they had to take out one of his lungs. he has only one. i m notice that the souvenir shops here has new bits of souvenirs with the new pope francis. how is he being receiving in his home country? miguel almaguer is in argentina. reporter: good morning. born and raised in this country, the pope has deep roots here, as well as in the cathedral just behind me. he s the first non-european pope ever elected. he wall street celebrated around the world and all across laden america. reporter: on the streets, joy, excitement, sheer pride. translator: incredible sensation, feeling like bursting into tears. reporter: argentina has the first latin-american pope in the 2,000-year history of the papacy. catholicism in this region is a way of life. one of the greatest moments in the history of our country. reporter: 4 out of every 10 catholics live here. church insiders believe the election may build that base. we immediately knelt down and started to pray. reporter: known as a champion of the poor who lives a simple life. he first became archbishop of the largest church in 1998. regarded as conservative, church insiders say he s committed to the religious doctrine and social justice. he as all then cat in his poverty, prayers, commitment to study and to the poor. reporter: his appointment has led to pride spanning from sports to the spiritual. the saying right now is we have messe and now we have the pope. that means gourd is argentinian. reporter: the celebration crossed borders and seas. in the u.s., from denver to miami, catholics say they ve always had faith one day they would witness history. it s new for all of us. we are all happy and excited about that. reporter: hope, excitement and a pope that marks a new beginning. while the celebration ended just a short time ago, the controversy has already begun. many have criticized the pope for not doing enough during a bloody dictatorship that began in the 70s and ending with some 30,000 people disappearing. savannah? thank you, miguel. natalie is over at the vatican. tamron hall has some of the other stories making headlines this morning. passengers aboard another card van cruise ship facing disruption. it s docked in phillipsburg st. marten. passengers are not being left off the ship. the ship never lost power, though there were interruptions to elevators and toilets for a few hours last night. the situation comes to us one month after the carnival triumph was stranded in mexico for almost a week. police stormed an abandoned building this morning in herkimer, new york, and killed a gunman. curt myers had killed at least four people, police say. they say officers opened fire today after myers shot at a police dog. the president heads to capitol hill today for more meetings with both republicans and democratic lawmakers. this after senate democrats revealed a, quote, concrete plan to spur economic growth with some $1 trillion in new tax revenues over the coming decade. now for a check of the market, mary thompson has the latest from cnbc world headquarters. good morning. good morning. stocks are higher this morning following the seventh straight record close, coming after mixed economic news. first time unemployment claims unexpectedly dropping last week, but producer prices rose last month mostly because of the higher gasoline prices which right now are turning lower. samsung announcing its galaxy smartphone today. the first lady is next month s cover woman for vogue. in an interview she fires back at critics who say she and the president don t socialize enough in washington. instead, she said, quote, our number one priority is making sure our family is whole, and she said she and her husband relieve the pressures of their job by spending time with daughters sasha and malia. it s now 7:17 on the west coast. what i like about this, she picked out her own clothes. usually they give you a stylist. and she s wearing, and forgive me, because i m a hill billiy texas, reed krakof. it sounds great when you say it. don t look at me. i m a hill billy from new york. where s jed clampitt when you need it? second time for vogue. we ll see what it looks like. i know you have to meet jethro, but in the meantime, let s talk about our friends on the west coast. we are looking at more moisture in the pacific northwest. nothing like they ve had over the last few days. along the coast, we have dense fog advisories, dense marine fog advisories as well. the temperatures there along the southern california coast in the 60s but inland temperatures will be hitting the 90s. we ll gets to your local forecast in a moment, but first this message. 7:19. thursday morning. i m christina loren. taking a look high atop san bernardino mountain. gorgeous day, not as warm as yesterday. you will hit about 80 degrees. great-looking weekend shaping up as temperatures will level off on saturday. 75 inland. a great looking st. patrick s day. hope you have a beautiful day! all right. we are back. and let s just kind of wrap up that huge story of yesterday, the election of pope francis. we were all watching, i would imagine, live. you were on the air. yeah. most of us were in front of the tv set getting closer and closer as the moment appeared. i was afraid to sit down. at one point, i had to go to the bathroom and i was afraid to. i didn t want to miss it. i was afraid you were going to bring that up. what about the moment where, about 20 minutes before the pope emerged, that guy came to the window and pulled the curtain aside. i was like, that s not right. they re not supposed to be doing that. he s thinking, i wonder if there are people out there. yeah. a few hundred thousand. at one point on the handle and i m live on msnbc, and i m like, this door cannot be that difficult to open. come on out. there s so many moments of true suspension, any more, and this is one of them. we re all waiting, we re going to hang on the words, what is the name of the new pope? roll the tape. cardinal bergoglio. bergoglio. [ speaking foreign language ] francisco. francisco. your eminence? i know him very well. i like him very much. what s his name for those of us who missed it? thank you, brian. we were all wondering the same thing. what did he say? nobody wanted to mess that up. there was no question about it. but it was exciting and joyous moment. and the faces of the people in the crowd to be there for history. it was great. well, coming up, a lot more on the historic election of pope francis and what it means for the future of the catholic church. and new opposition to the decision to allow knives back on planes for the first time since 9/11. this morning the head of the tsa addresses the concern right here. in an exclusive live interview right here. but first, this is today on nbc. still ahead, a heated dispute involving spanx, why the same company is being asked to stop making some of its products. and why we love our morning coffee. [ female announcer ] nothing gets you going quite like 8 grams of whole grains in quaker chewy bars. today is going to be epic. quaker up. so this year, make the most of it. fly like you ve never been grounded. scream like you ve never been shushed. let go like you have nothing to lose. and hold on to what matters most. it s your vacation. don t just take it. mean it. universal orlando. vacation like you mean it. can you start the day the way you want? can orencia help? could your i want become i can ? talk to your doctor. orencia reduces many ra symptoms like pain, morning stiffness and progression of joint damage. it s helped new ra patients and those not helped enough by other treatments. do not take orencia with another biologic medicine for ra due to an increased risk of serious infection. serious side effects can occur including fatal infections. cases of lymphoma and lung cancer have been reported. tell your doctor if you are prone to or have any infection like an open sore or the flu or a history of copd, a chronic lung disease. orencia may worsen your copd. [ male announcer ] now learn about a program committed to you and copay assistance that can reduce monthly orencia out-of-pocket drug cost to $5. if you re not satisfied after 6 months, you get that money back. call 1-800-orencia. it is 7:26. good morning. i m jon kelly. a sex offender was, in fak, on board a busloaded with high school students on their way to a field trip. students from andrew hill high school and silver creek high school were traveling on a bus on february 13th when a sex offender was discovered. it is unclear how the individual got on board. the school superintendent tells us, per our discussions with the san jose police department, the preliminary investigative findings are that the individual in question did not have contact of any kind with any student on the bus that day. we ll, of course, have an update coming for you during our 11:00 a.m. newscast. right now, let s turn to a much brighter note an take things outside. christina loren says another good look and feel. good morning, jon. you can see the sky from san bruno. really pretty live shots. the sun coming up now. beautiful start to the day here over the bay bridge. you can see the high in the mid-level clouds in addition to the other clouds. fairfield, a half mile of visibility available to you. these numbers have been drifting in and out as we have been heading through the morning hours. we are expecting the fog to be at its worse between 9:00 a.m., 71 degrees in fremont, 72, san jose and 72 in los gatos. mike, you have had that issue on the rhodoads. it seems like it is still out there. a tow truck driver finishing cleaning up the parts after the early morning crash. north of 680. you see slowing at the scene, much improved. headed into the 50s as you are coming past the area. the slowdown back towards the 85 interchange. that will need to improve. your morning commute kicks in through the northbound routes through here. 880 where the traffic continues to build. the lou clouw clouds are drifti through. mike, thank you very much. we hope to see you back at 7:56 for another update. it is 7:30 now on a thursday morning, 14th day of march 2013. a live look at vatican city at . it is 7:30 on a thursday morning. 12:30 in the afternoon at the vatican where pope francis is spending his first day as the leader of the catholic church. we are going to go live to the pope s hometown of argentina. savannah gurthrie. are you enjoying your morning coffee right now? as we often do. americans drink 400 million cups a day. is it the caffeine or is it the culture that keeps us coming back for more? i m going to vote caffeine. do you know how much caffeine is in your favorite brands? we ll get into that and other surprising facts about coffee. okay. we know we are addicted to it. let s be honest. we re going to begin this half hour with the growing backlash against the tsa s decision to allow passengers to carry small knives on planes starting next month. the head of the tsa is hearing it from all sides now including the nation s flight attendants. but first, tom costello at reagan national airport this morning. good morning. hi, savannah, good morning to you, the tsa continues to insist it will allow small folding knives about 2.36 inches on the blade no bigger than that because the tsa says they pose little risk because looking for them clogs up check points like this one and because the tsa says it needs to be looking for explosives. but the agency is also now facing a tsunami of protests. first, it was the frequent fliers who found the new knife policy unsettling. i don t know why they would allow people to carry knives on the plane. it s ridiculous to me. reporter: now mounting opposition from all of the key players in aviation safety. the union representing the 45,000 tsa officers. we are opposed to it. we believe there is no place for knives on airplanes. reporter: the union representing air marshals also opposes the plan. and five unions representing the nation s flight attendants. wednesday, they took their concerns directly to the tsa chief. every single day, we experience passenger disturba e disturbances that we deescalate or ask passengers to help us contain the problem. you introduce a deadly weapon into that scenario, and it s not a good idea. reporter: at least three major airlines are joining their unions in objecting the tsa s decision. u.s. airways, american and delta. in a letter to the head of the tsa, delta airlines ceo writes, if the purpose is to increase security check point blow, there are much more effective steps to take together. but scissors and knitting needles, small knives are allowed on flights overseas. and the man who runs the tsa says terrorists remain focused on using explosives to bring down a plane, not knives. i understand the concern of some of the constituents out there. our focus has to be on we re best poised to detect and deter a possible terrorist at a check point. reporter: this morning, chief pistole will be on capitol hill defending this plan. some republicans support him. but there is also a bipartisan bill on capitol hill that would prevent the tsa from putting this plan into action. tom, thank you. and let s hear from the man himself, john pistole, the administrator of the tsa is with us this morning. good morning to you. good morning, savannah. we ve heard you re taking a lot of heat for this policy. and i guess the first question is why fix it if it ain t broke? flying public is used to these rules, why the change in policy? the policies have been under revision and review for a number of years. really since tsa was stood up after 9/11. and this was part of our ongoing initiative called risk-base security to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to help us focus on the highest threat items such as the nonmetallic improvised explosive devices. those liquid bombs that could bring down an aircraft. and as noted by tom costello, the fact is since 2005 we ve had a number of items that have been allowed on the aircraft and billions of passengers in the u.s. who have traveled and since august of 2010, billions of passengers internationally who have traveled with small knives and not a single incident involving a threat to an air crew and we recognize the concerns of the flight attendants and those others who have raised concerns. that s why we have been in a close partnership with them, for example, allowing them to go through an identity base screening so they don t even go through regular screening. 95% of those, the flight attendants go through an identity screen. let s take this piece by piece. the organization not capable of both watching for and confiscating knives and watching for these improvised explosive devices that admittedly pose more of a catastrophic threat. why can t the agency do both? well, we can and we have, the challenge becomes if we focus on something that will not cause catastrophic failure to an aircraft and miss something that could, we haven t done our job to the millions of people, 12 1/2 million people who travel every week, 630 million people every year just in the u.s. we want our focus to be on the highest threat items. fair enough. but now you have tsa screeners, the union itself saying, in fact this new policy is more disruptive because now rather than just a hard and fast no knives rule, you have set up a situation where they re going to be litigating potentially with passengers. how big the knife is. is it less than 2 1/3 inches long. isn t this more disruptive and counter to your goals here? well, if they were aware of the protocols we will be putting in place, i don t think they would have that opinion. i received input from the workforce prior to us having collective bargaining agreement with the union. it was recommendation from the workforce we modify this list. and as the protocols become apparent to all, i think people will see that we won t have that situation just as in 2005 with the change in list, there was a transition period and it s gone smoothly since then. another thing that people have been mentioning and that they re very scared about is while they acknowledge a small knife isn t going to cause a catastrophic event like the plane being brought down, can t you envision a scenario in which it is incredibly dangerous where you have a coordinated group of terrorists like 9/11 getting on with some of these knives and causing great havoc among passengers and flight attendants. isn t that a real threat and perhaps hijacking the plane on that basis? it is a possibility. part of what we do is base our decisions on the intelligence that s out there. there s intelligence about terrorists continuing their interest and attempts to blow up an aircraft whether passenger or cargo planes as we ve seen in three plots since christmas day. there s no intelligence about that scenario you described. the tsa is at one end of the continuum for the united states, with other agencies collecting intelligence overseas, others doing things here domestically and we are really that last line of defense with the federal air marshals, with the pilots and flight attendants and the passengers who, i think, will respond in a different way than what we people may be imagining. well, i know you ve been getting it from all sides and you re going on the hill to defend your policy. thank you for your time. we appreciate it. thank you, savannah. now let s get a check of the weather from al. savannah, thank you so much. a little bit on the brisk side here. we ve got another clipper coming across. take a look. starting tomorrow, this thing dives down out of canada, makes its way across the upper midwest. bringing rain to the south, snow to the north, and exits and drops a little snow into the northeast. snowfall amounts, nothing too horrible. we ve got about a 6 to 9 inch band from fargo right through detroit on into erie. make that 3 to 6 inches and generally around that, about 1 to 3. it s nothing all that horrible, but we ll bring some snow. we are looking at a lot of wet weather in the pacific northwest. rip currents down in florida. plenty of sunshine with heat from texas, into the southwest and southern california. l.a. today getting up to 80 degrees downtown. but they have fog and temperatures about 20 degrees cooler right at the beach. 7:38 on a thursday morning. you are so close to that weekend now. temperatures are actually going to hold up so you can get out and enjoy this. what a gorgeous sunrise we are getting this rng month. th that was the bay bridge. we have high clouds in addition to the fog. slated to hit some records today. 75 degrees on the way to the north bay as we head throughout santa rosa today touching on a temperature record but overall, a difference, 5-8 dropoff from yesterday. still ahead today s professionals weigh in on punishments that shame your children. up next, the man behind a major game changer in the presidential race. the video of mitt romney s 47% comment. he breaks his silence about why he taped those comments right after this. i ve been claritin clear for 12 days ! when your allergies start, doctors recommend taking one clinically-proven claritin every day during your allergy season for continuous relief. 18 days ! 17 days ! i m still claritin clear ! 22 days of continuous relief. live claritin clear. every day. take the claritin clear challenge: get continuous, non-drowsy allergy relief or your money back. go to claritinchallenge.com for details. with new lean cuisine salad additions. the perfect combination of grilled chicken plump edamame ripe pineapple crunchy broccoli colorful carrots all topped with a savory ginger vinaigrette and crispy noodles. for 300 delicious calories. all you have to do is bring your own lettuce. we ll dress it up. new lean cuisine salad additions. just byol. they re the hottest thing to hit the frozen aisle. nestle. good food, good life. to make peanut butter so deliciously creamy. it can even be a game changer. that s why choosy moms and dads choose jif. you have to let me know [ female announcer ] when sweet and salty come together, the taste is irresistible. sweet and salty nut bars by nature valley. nature at its most delicious. i ll tell you what we do. i want you to go out on the field and look for anything with an o . we will win this for mother russia! coach, eat a snickers®. why s that, chief? 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[ male announcer ] it s not complicated. faster is better. and at&t is the nation s fastest 4g lte network for your iphone 5. back now at 7:43. four months after the presidential election, a man who may have actually changed the course of the race. he s finally speaking out. that bartender who secretly recorded governor romney s now infamous 47% comments. nbc s white house correspondent peter alexander has that story. even today, political observers insist without that 47% tape, we might be talking about president mitt romney these days. instead, the infamous comments marked what was really a campaign game changer. months later, the man behind that tape has finally come forward. 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. there are 47% who are with him, who depend upon him, who believe they re victims. the man behind that secret romney recording is scott, a bartender at that private florida fund-raiser last may. i was behind this whole thing. speaking publicly for the first time wednesday, scott, who says he s a ringstered empty, he said arrived at the dinner that night with an open mind. i was interested to hear what he had to say. i didn t go there with a bruj against romney. he insisted he brought his camera, initially thinking he might pose for pictures. i had a secret service agent behind me. we were never told this was a secret meeting or private meeting or don t bring cameras. there were plenty of people in the room with cameras. i realized this was not your typical speech. for two weeks, he said he struggled with whether or not to go public with the tape before he decided he had no chose. i felt an obligation for all of the people who cant afford to be there, you shouldn t have to be able to afford $50,000 to hear what a candidate actually thinks. earlier this month, romney reiterated his commitment to all americans but conceded the 47% comments did real damage to his campaign. that was a very unfortunate statement i made. it s not what i meant. i didn t express myself as i wished i would have. you know, when you speak in private, you don t spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted and come out wrong, but i did, and it was very harmful. only after hearing that interview did proudy, who said he voted for obama, decided to come forward and reveal his role in a dramatic twist to an historic campaign. i had no idea it was going to be this huge thing it turned out to be. we reached out to the romneys last night for comment and were directed to the recent interview we showed you. one of his advisers said the release of the tape last summer stunned the staff. the governor, i m told, even apologized to them for the mess he called, and i still remember what another frustrated adviser told me at the time. he said when you re running for president, you have to know that the camera is always on. peter alexander in washington, thanks very much. still to come, the driving force behind america s love affair with coffee. but up next, on a mitch different note, the makers of spanx facing accusations that some of their products are actually knockoffs. that s after this. plaque psoriasis. i decided enough is enough. 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[ male announcer ] the magical, minty flavor you ll covet with all your heart. mccafé shamrock shake from mcdonald s. the simple joy of. mint. spanx is facing accusations this morning that some of the slimming products are knockoffs. mara is here with that story. good morning to you. well, yummy tummy, another shapewear company claims some of the control top camis infringe on the design patents and wants spanx to stop selling them. now a legal battle is taking shape and has some wondering if these claims are a stretch. call it is a battle over the bulge, fighting over who really controls the control top. we ve got to have it. we love to hate it. but yummy tummy has invented for you. reporter: yummy tummy founded by heather thompson makes a patented body shaping camisole. thompson says she realized spanx was selling several tops that she says looked strikingly similar. in january she sent spanx a cease and desist letter. they have copied my original idea which really was a game-changer for shapewear. reporter: but spanx, apparently couldn t stomach the accusations. last week, they filed a claim asking the court to rule that there was no design patent infringeme infringement. in a statement to nbc news, the company says, quote, spanx designed our original shaping camisole in 2005 long before yummy tummie, spanx has not infringed on any valid patent. it comes down to whether there s a valid patent and whether or not it has been infringed. i mean, those are the two issues that the court will be looking at. reporter: spanx has become the world s most popular shapewear brand adored by celebrities. nothing but flesh colored spanx. willie and i are wearing spanx right now. man spanx. manx. now it ll be up to a federal judge to decide which one shapes up the best. i am still shocked and appalled that this whole situation. now, according to forbes, the spanx company is valued at $1 billion, clearly the shapewear market is huge and definitely a lot at stake here. thanks. we won t take sides, we ll be unified against back fat. these two ladies had a serious discussion during that piece. we did. coming up gerard butler stops by. but first your local news. for the rest of your face? 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[ man ] mission accomplished. living with moderate to semeans living with pain.is it could also mean living with joint damage. humira, adalimumab, can help treat more than just the pain. for many adults, humira is clinically proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your rheumatologist about humira, to help relieve your pain and stop further joint damage. listen up. every year hundreds of promising cancer studies go unfunded. let s make sure that no research is silenced. let s make noise. and let s help the american cancer society finish the fight. everyone wants to be the cadbury bunny. cause only he brings delicious cadbury crème eggs, while others may keep trying. nobunny knows easter better than cadbury! new honey bunches of oats greek yohere we go.ole grain. honey cornflakes and chunks of greek yogurt. i m tasting both the yogurt and the honey at the same time. i m like digging this yogurt thing. i feel healthy. new honey bunches of oats greek. see lioutdoors, or in.ight. transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it s meant to be seen. maybe even a little better. visit your eyecare professional today to ask about our newest lenses, transitions vantage and transitions xtractive lenses. experience life well lit. ask which transitions adaptive lens is best for you. good morning. the time is 7:56. i m jon kelly. the man accused of shooting a rapper on the las vegas strip caused a fiery crash is scheduled to be in a lawns courtroom later today. lamar harris attending an identification hearing. he is now asking pros skew tors to prove he is, in fact, lamar harris, before they can extradite him to las vegas to fix charges. it is not clear who will testify at today s hearing. police say harris got into a fight with oakland rapper, kenny clutch cherry outside a casino. he chased him down a boulevard and fired shots into a maserati he was driving. he was hit, crashed into a taxi cab which exploded killing the driver and a passenger. right now, let s get a check on the weather and say good morning to christina loren. san bernardino overlooking the bay. plenty of low cloud cover. it will burn off. it will take a while before we enjoy the blue sky. over the bay, 77 degrees. 68, san francisco. getting into the weekend, temperatures will maintain in the 70s. looking good for the st. patrick s day plan. checking your drive. see if there is any improvement. the bay bridge toll plaza, not so bad. we do see movement. the clouds are low. they are not on the roadway. they are just above that. open patches of fog. 880 both directions between the bridges. southbound just past 92. with he do have a crash over on the shoulder. slowing down. a slowdown for the south bay. typical commute to the south bay. this crash has completely cleared from the roadway. 101 north of 680. we ll have another local update in one half hour from right now. we hope see you then. 8:00 now on this thursday 8:00 now this thursday morning, the 14th of march, 2013. we have come outside with everybody. we have a treat. music this morning. this is the sour secret society band from syracuse. a show band. okay. the orange this is not the orange marching band. they are with they re from syracuse university, called the sour citrus society band. we have a band from marquette they left. did they? the cheerleaders. they left. they didn t have coats. seriously? we ve got the band. they don t have any jackets. anyway, we re here. i m savannah guthrie. this is matt lauer. so glad you made it. meantime, we have natalie morales at the vatican with all the headlines this morning. big day for pope francis. she s at st. peter s square. we ll check in with her in a few minutes. in our studio here god, they are loud. in our studio here, we ve got our professionals standing by including suze orman. one of the topics they ll discuss. a woman in maryland got pulled over on the highway for going two miles below the speed limit. got a ticket because she was in the fast lane. and they ticketed her for failing to move to the right. what s up with that? is that right or wrong? we ll talk about it. yesterday, we thought, you know, we had a piano player, let s kick it up a notch. we ve done that. love it. that s right, nascar driver jeff gordon has a great time on line where he takes an unsuspecting car salesman for the ride of his life. is he in on it or not? we ll show you, and you can decide. and why we are attached to coffee. surprising facts about it. do you think darker roasts have more caffeine? interesting answer to the question. what does that mean right now silence? yes. one more time! [ cheers ] let s go inside. we have more from the newscast on the headlines. hey, guys. the new leader of the world s 1.2 billion roman catholics began his first full day as pope by praying for about a half-hour this morning at rome s main basilica dedicated to the virgin mary. pope francis was elected last night on the fifth round of voting by the cardinals at the papal conclave. it was cheered by tens of thousands in st. peter s square. the 76-year-old former archbishop of buenos aires, argentina, is the first pope chosen from the americas who will be formally installed at a ceremonial mass at the vatican on tuesday morning. [ cheers ] in an apparent show of defiance, the web site that allegedly posted the personal information of celebrities and politicians has now published what it says is the credit report of disgraced former penn state football coach jerry sandusky. the fbi, secret service, and los angeles police have teamed up to track the culprits who earlier published what appeared to be the credit reports of first lady michelle obama, donald trump, beyonce, and many others. president obama said wednesday that the case shows the government and private sector must continually improve their defenses against determined hackers. nearly two months after general elections, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has reached a deal to form a new more centrist coalition government. it will be the first israeli government in years that does not include ultra-orthodox religious parties. netanyahu s new administration is expected to take office next week just days before a visit by president obama. and now for a look at what s trending, our quick roundup of what has you talking on line more than five million views have made this day-old pepsi max commercial a viral sensation. nascar ace jeff gordon dons a disguise and supposedly takes an unsuspecting chevy dealer on the test drive of his life. a standard, of course. ahhhh! watch it! watch out! stop the car! stop the [ bleep ] car right now! oh, my god. ahhhh! whoo! okay. people are raising doubts about whether this is real or some kind of re-enactment, it was staged, what do you think? you ll have to decide. and the teen detective drama veronica mars, people have surpassed the $2 billion goal kick-starter to turn it into a movie. the first million in the first hour. that kick-started a record. kick-start lets creative types propose a project and raise funds through a grassroots effort. as soon as a new pope was introduced, digital detectives searched the internet for celebrity lookalikes. take a look. examples include david letterman s musical sidekick, paul schaefer, and then there s sopranos star uncle junior. others see the pope s likeness in comedy genius carl reiner. and this is interesting, woody allen? hmm. now let s head back outside to the guys. they can decide who they think my vote is uncle junior. let s go to natalie morales at the vatican. or me. which is closer. hey, so the syracuse the sour citrus society band, they re here for the big east. they re playing tonight, right, at the game. they re going do a little can t turn me loose. all right. hit it. one, two, one, two, three, four! yeah. a little blues brothers music. we ll show what s going on in your neck of the woods. first of all, we re looking at catalina island. dense morning fog. 66 degrees. and it is hot out west. look at that jet stream way up to the north. palm springs, 92. phoenix, 93. amarillo, 79 degrees. you come to the east, temperatures from five to 15 degrees below normal. big finish yeah! all right. thank you very much, sour citrus that was really good stuff. thank you, al. good morning to you. a great-looking day shaping up. a little bit of fog is going to linger over the san francisco bay almost all day long. otherwise, we re still headed towards near record warmth yet again. 77 for livermore. 80 in gilroy. 72 in los gatos. throughout the next couple of days, temperatures will stay mild. then we ll drop off sunday into monday. we bring in the rain wednesday of next week. hope you have a great day. all right. back to you, savannah. i can t take it. al has his own marching band. he s marching away. coming up next, today s professionals are here, does punishment of shame of your kids actually work? and why we re attached to our morning coffee. and later, gerard butler live in our studio. but first, these messages. how do we take an unpolished room and make it shine? we get doing. .with a store full of ways to get it done. we can all throw on our work clothes. .and throw out any doubt. because right now s the time to take those rooms from. . think i can do this? to. . let me show you what i just did. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. outsmart your budget with this pergo presto flooring, just $1.88 a square foot. if yyou ve got thegood whenwrong toilet paper.room, you want it to get you clean. gently. as long as i use quilted northern ultra plush® i m happy. and positive i m clean. quilted northern ultra plush with the innerlux layer. for a comfortable, confident clean, or your money back. 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[ male announcer ] volkswagen springtoberfest is here and there s no better time to get a passat. that s the power of german engineering. right now lease one of four volkswagen models for under $200 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. thto fight chronic. month. osteoarthritis pain. to fight chronic low back pain. to take action. to take the next step. today, you will know you did something for your pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a pain reliever fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. anti-depressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not for children under 18. people taking maois, linezolid or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes. tell your doctor about all your medicines, including those for migraine and while on cymbalta, call right away if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles or serious allergic skin reactions like blisters, peeling rash, hives, or mouth sores to address possible life-threatening conditions. talk about your alcohol use, liver disease and before you reduce or stop cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. take the next step. talk to your doctor. cymbalta can help. back now 8:11 with today s professionals. here to break down the stories that have you talking. star jones, dr. nancy snyderman, and suze orman, host of the suze orman show on cnbc. ladies, good morning to you. hello, mr. lauer. i have not had the pros together since the tsa rules have changed. before i get to some of the opposition to it, what do you think about it? i was on the united flight two days ago. two flight attendants came up to me and personally asked me if i could take this on. they said it s not about bringing down a plane, they re worried about their safety. i have to back them. i think it s nuts, number one. i think they listen, why don t they do something that makes sense? let us wear our shoes, let us keep our belts and jackets on and let them keep their knives off the plane. the real issue that tsa says is that they re looking for things that can, quote, take down a plane. and they don t think these knives can. not that i agree with them, but that s at least their argument. john pistole was on the show this morning and savannah asked the question and i asked it, as well, after billions of dollars being invested in security and safety post 9/11 at our airports, don t the american people deserve a system that can do both things? yeah. and we also deserve a system that would allow you to look through the luggage. we don t look through everybody s luggage. do you think he should stand firm on this? when you ve got the flight attendants, air marshals, airline executives, members of congress saying this is a bad idea, should they reconsider? they should listen to the people who are on the plane. they should stop thinking that they know and listen to the people who deal with the people every single day. that s exactly right. and when you fly as much as we do, you know there s not even continuity among the airports. so until you get that stuff done, listen to the people who are on the front line. give me my shoes, i say. let me move on. we ve done stories about shaming punishments on this segment before. this one is one with a twist, though. a mother in colorado, an 8-year-old daughter says she had the mother says the daughter has a problem with stealing from stores and everyone else. so she makes the daughter wear a t-shirt to school that on the front says i steal steal means taking property that belongs to someone else without permission. on the back it reads, i steal, please watch me. what do you think about it? just because she can t parent her child well, she is now turning it over to the school. she s putting the school in the middle of a parenting issue. well, you re getting to the twist here. so you think the idea of sending the kid to school with that t-shirt is a modern version of a stockade. yeah. it s a lot deeper. like mom, get real help for your kid. the principal at the school the girl goes to school with the t-shirt, the principal makes her cover it up. apparently the principal did not agree with this form of parenting. is it the school s place it is not no, yes, it is the school s place to say this is not appropriate attire. but if this child is a kleptomaniac and maybe problems for later times, she needs therapy, she didn t need a t-shirt. what do the other kids understand about somebody wearing this t-shirt? and i understand this little girl was teased. you end up setting the kid up for bullying. be a mother and stop trying to be a friend and getting your picture on youtube and we might be able to solve the problem with your kid. number three, this is the one that you three barraged me with this morning, okay. cheryl samberg, she s one of the top female executives in silicon valley, she s at facebook, written a new book called lean in, among many things in the book seems to be this idea about women in the workplace in corporate america not being held back by a glass ceiling, being held back by themselves. what do you think about it? my 24-year-old graduated, accomplished, brilliant young businesswoman called me the other day from d.c. crying because a man at work said you re too aggressive, you re too bossy. and she called me with self-doubt. and i told her to tell him to go screw himself. you didn t use that word. and to lean in. because the reality is, we learned later in life to lean in, and we ve harnessed our voices later. we want our 16-year-old and 17-year-old and 18-year-old girls to know we want more ceos. the backlash she s facing. there s a special place in hell for women who don t support other women as madeline albright said a long time ago. i m not sure it s that basic hateration or you have your own self-doubt and you don t want to hear the truth. she s laying it out. you have to understand her true message. you can t go, oh, it s because we don t want to. you have to understand the socialization process between men and women and how that affects us unconsciously in every move that we make. if you read the book, listened to her, as i have. you will find out that one of the best books, most intelligent women with one of the most provocative and intelligent messages i ve heard in a long time. it s not about being rich, not about having nannies. we got sidetracked. we re leaning in. everybody lean in. let me end on this one. draw that one to a close quickly. here s a subject that infuriates a lot of drivers, all right. a woman in maryland driving on the interstate in a 65-mile-an-hour zone gets pulled over and given a ticket for going 63 miles an hour. the reason for the ticket, she was in the far left lane and she failed to move to the right. we ve all been there. we ve been behind one of these people. does she deserve a ticket, though? yes. yeah. yes. yes? absolutely. would she have gotten a ticket if she was going two miles above the speed limit? no. you give this woman a ticket for that? yes, because she was in the wrong lane and going 62 in the right lane, she wouldn t have gotten a ticket. go in the middle. you have to go exactly 65 miles an hour or faster in that lane? in the middle! leave the flow of traffic. what s wrong with you? you could cause an accident. i m not sure i disagree with you but i m trying to add sanity to the segment. what if she d been in the hov lane? with a blow-up doll. isn t that amazing. you can only go as fast as the slowest driver. i m sorry. and with three people. all right. up next, america s obsession with coffee and some things you may not know about your morning cup of joe right after this. 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[ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. go talk to your doctor. you re not indestructible anymore. [ male announcer ] every time you say no to a cigarette you celebrate a little win. nicorette gum helps calm your cravings and makes you less irritable. quit one cigarette at a time. back now at 8:21 with the start of our special two-day series, caffeinated nation. whether you drink your coffee hot or cold, black or with milk, you are not alone if you love java. it is one of the most consumed drinks in the world and america is officially obsessed. sometimes with sugar with the brown sugar mostly. cream, no sugar. couple creams and two or three splendas. coffee, whether we take it black or with cream and sugar, it wakes many of us up, even on our today show set. i like a skimmed latte. a coffee with half and half. tiny bit of sugar, one cup a day at 6:30. i don t drink any. really? i m not allowed. about 1:one in the morning a one around 2:00 or 3:00 in the day. in a nation that consumes about 400 million cups a day. this was like, what, $3? $5 now. under $2. according to a recent zagat survey americans pay an average of $2.98 for their jolt of java at coffee shops. one cup a day adds up to $572 a year. our caffeine obsession a booming business, a $30 billion a year industry. and it s more than just a drink. coffee is now part of our culture, even used as an expression. let s do coffee. there s even a national coffee day on september 29th. coffee is not something we want to live without. i feel very grumpy if i don t get my morning coffee. i get jittery if i don t have coffee. people are obsessed with coffee because it s a vehicle that contains caffeine. caffeine has very real effects. it is a stimulant, and if someone is using caffeine on a daily basis, they become physically dependent. many are not willing to give up their cup of joe. i d rather give up some form of food as opposed to coffee. i d give up cake and cookies to keep my coffee. in fact, in a today.com poll, 85% of you said you cannot do without your morning cup. and here to answer some of your coffee questions is monica, a licensed nutritionist and author of the nutrition diva s secrets for healthy diet. good morning to you. morning, savannah. i think every day is coffee day, not just september 29th. i would have to agree with you. the first thing is, we actually test eed some of the major brands to determine which had the most caffeine content. what did we find? there was a pretty big range in the brands we tested. at the top with the most caffeine was starbucks with about 250 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce, the tall size and that was the medium roast. and then on the other end of the spectrum was seattle s best which is owned by starbucks and half as much caffeine, 125 milligrams per 12-ounce. and right in the middle were dunkin donuts and mcdonald s both about 165, but the serving size for dunkin is a little smaller. real quickly, how much is the recommended amount or safe amount per day? under 500 milligrams a day would be good. if you re drinking, you know, dunkin, maybe three cups, starbucks, maybe only two. we ve got questions from our viewers. heather tweeted a question, do darker roasts have higher caffeine content? actually the opposite. the darker roasts have less caffeine, but not as big of a difference as i thought. the differences are small. what makes a bigger difference is how much coffee you re using, how strong you re brewing it. that s a surprise to me. rebecca tweeting, does coffee really stunt your growth? our moms used to tell us, coffee would stunt our growth as kids, that s not true. but caffeine you take during pregnancy can affect the growth of a baby and lead to low birth weights. definitely pregnant women want to stay away from caffeine. and i would assume you want to keep it down for your child, for your kids. i think it s a good idea to limit the caffeine. we don t need to give them an unfair advantage. jodi tweeted i drink several cups a day, wondering if coffee hydrates or dehydrates me. i m glad we got this question. caffeine is a diuretic, that means it makes you pee more, but coffee contains a lot of water. and in the end you end up taking in more fluid than you lose, coffee is hydrating. that s a shocker. i feel better about my intake. and we ve got is coffee better than tea? well, two different plants. you re going to get different benefits. they both contain caffeine. the benefits due to the caffeine you get from both. three times as much tea, though, to get the same benefits. thank you so much. here s a good question. is it an appetite suppressant. some people think it is. maybe if it takes up a little room in your stomach. you get a tiny bump in metabolism, but not more than five or ten calories. well, good questions about our favorite drink. thank you so much, tweet us ab good morning to you. 8:26. i m laura garcia-cannon. investigators have linked a san francisco company to the hackers who published credit reports for michelle obama and other u.s. officials and celebrities. computers from the company cloud fair were used behind the scenes to redirect visitors to a russian website where the stolen credit reports were being published. the hackers apparently used personal details about their victims to access the reports through a free credit report website. cloud fair says it does not comment on its users. let s check the morning commute with mike. we re looking over here toward the south bay where we have the low clouds and the fog drifting around the bay area. that s one of the issues you see here but also the traffic going off to the left, that s northbound 880 off of 280. we had an earlier crash at 280 and the interchange that has cleared. but look at the slowing coming toward us. we ll flip the map around, you see that 17 up to 880 up toward the airport, very slow for that stretch through the middle of your screen. the rest of your northbound routes are okay. southbound 880, slowdown. here s the peninsula. low clouds but not a problem for visibility. another local news update for you in half an hour. hope to see you then. it s 8:30 now on a thursday morning. kind of a breezy and chilly thursday morning here in new york city. the 14th day of march 2014. looking down at some of the people who have been gathered here in our plaza for the better part of two or three hours now. nice of them to stop by. and huddled together as a group. i m matt lauer along with savannah gurthrie, al roker and tamron hall. tamron is here while natalie s over at the vatican. and coming up in this half hour, gerard butler is in our studio. he s starring and i mean this, in an action-packed new movie called olympus has fallen. star jones gave he her review of the movie and said it s a thrill ride. and so we re going to talk to gerard about that film in a couple of minutes. also ahead, news about a new treatment that may provide hope for children who have got severe food allergies. and we want to be the first to wish you happy pie day. it s 3/14, celebrating the mathematical number. however, this morning, we re going to do it with actual pies. and gerard butler is going to help us. let s face it, who doesn t like pie? gerard, do you like pie? yes, gerard butler likes pie. and it s also national world kidney day. so you could have kidney pie. okay. all right. that s right. we ll go there. plus, also, don t forget tomorrow on today we re highlighting some of the stars of tomorrow. we ve got a baker, designer, singer and painter all on the edge of 16, who will be here to show off their skills. and the designer has something i ll be wearing. let s hope you can keep it. all right. mr. roker, how about a check of the weather? a little brisk out here, but all in all, not too bad. and we are looking for a little bit of a clipper coming across. snow showers in the great lakes, mid mississippi and ohio river valley. the heat continues in the southwest, phoenix today, 93, more heat tomorrow in the southwest on into texas. another clip will bring some snow from the dakotas right across into western new york. nice and mild through the gulf coast. sunny and cool in the mid-atlantic states downright cold in northern new 8:32 on a thursday morning. good morning. i m meteorologist christina loren. this is san bruno looking down over the san francisco bay. and you can see we have plenty of low clouds. we ll have to wait for those clouds to burn off. once they do, lots of sunshine is going to bring our temperatures up toward record levels. 75 on the way to santa rosa, rivaling a new record. i think we ll break that record. down in the south bay, also warming. gilroy, 80 degrees. down from 87 yesterday. 72 for san jose. and 68 degrees in san francisco. staying steady this weekend. weather. all right, al. thank you very much. starting this weekend, nbc and nbc sports network begin coverage of more than 200 hours of the formula 1 and indy car racing season. we want to welcome in some nice gentlemen right now. a four-time izot indy car driver. guys, good morning to both of you. morning. what do you think people don t understand about your sport other than that the drivers do not wear coats in cold weather? i think it s a physical aspect of it. it s difficult just to drive the car with the physical exertion we go through. with the g-forces, it s one of the questions we get asked all the time. are you? yeah, five days a week in the gym, twice a day. i think that answers the question. you were actually diagnosed with type i diabetes in 2007. the first driver in indy cars to deal with that. how are you handling that diagnosis? and are you trying to send a message about it? well, it takes a whole team to manage diabetes, not just a race team, but a health care team and i ve got good teammates like dario and together we re promoting diabetes awareness within the campaign to prove to people that you can still live your dreams with diabetes and do what it is you want in life. how fast are you guys going? do you realize do you feel the speed when you re going that fast? you only feed the speed when something goes wrong. as soon as something starts to go wrong and you have a slight, all of a sudden you want to go slower quickly. how fast do you go in your regular cars? i m a car addict, yeah. how many cars do you own? too many. any minivans? no? not a chance. not usually, not for race car drivers. you know what i want to ask you about. have you seen this jeff gordon video where he s supposed to freak out the car dealer. do you think that s real or fake? the road seemed very quiet. quite fun, nonetheless. most people that ride with us react similarly. all right. we want to mention, again, first of all, we re happy that you can catch formula one s grand prix sunday 1:30 a.m. nbc sports network will have complete coverage of that race, as well. guys, go get warm. thank you very much. and have a safe ride this year. thank you. coming up next, new treatment to help kids with severe food allergies. but first, this is today on nbc. today s health is brought to you by nicorette. and we re back at 8:38 with today s health. and a radical new treatment for kids who suffer from multiple food allergies. here s kristin dahlgren. reporter: not long ago, a speck of her favorite whipped cream could ve cost tessa her life. what were you allergic to? wheat, eggs, nuts, and shellfish. that s a lot. yeah. tessa wasn t even 2 years old when spilled milk put her into shock. were there times you thought she was going to die? yeah. when you suppress the whole thing, you walk out and say, my god, if i were five minutes later, she would have been dead. and when you get that call. it s awful. when you get there and your daughter s in your wife s arms barely looking at you. it took years off me. reporter: despite extraordinary vigilance, she had more life threatening episodes taking a physical and emotional toll. she didn t want to leave the house. she stopped eating. did you always feel different than the other kids? definitely. some people actually teased me, which is really weird because like there isn t really something different, i just can t eat something. but i did feel different. that had to be hard, i m sure. yeah. kim and i had gotten to the point where we d said, we have to do this because we already know what can happen. this was a first. a treatment that would tackle most of tessa s food allergies at once. the first time my mom and i were walking in, i actually said to her if i die, this is your fault. because she was the one who told me i should do it. there you go. itching our tingling? the children s hospital heads the study. this is called oral immuno therapy. we give them the very thing they re allergic to. and that might see paradoxical, however we start with small doses and work up and increase the dose about every 25% every two weeks. new york times reporter wrote about this new multiple food treatment after watching her son almost die. this treatment is really amazing. she doesn t use the word cure because she s a scientist and she s very careful so they use the word desensitizing the child and having them tolerate the food. but the fact is, from a parent point of view, it is a cure. your child is eating the food and as long as your child eats the food every day, they re done with their allergies. on tessa s last day of treatment, she celebrated like most kids do. you are the first one in the country in the world to do this. wow. i m proud of you. what s the biggest change? the biggest change is that i don t have to be scared anymore. and i don t have as much anxiety. and i can just be a normal kid. for today, kristen dahlgren, mountain view, california. and you can learn more about the treatment and how to manage food allergies on our website today.com. coming up next, gerard butler on his new thriller set at the white house. first, this is today on nbc. we re back at 8:44 with gerard butler, star of the new movie olympus has fallen. plays a disgraced secret service agent who finds himself trapped in the white house after the president is taken hostage during a terror attack. take a look. yes. the president s in the bunker. being held hostage. what do they want? we ll try to find out. who s in charge? are there any survivors with you? negative, sir. they wiped us out. they re roaming the hallways with enough explosives to take out an army. gerard butler, welcome back, good to see you. good to see you. this movie is about without giving anything away the north koreans are the terrorists here. they take over the white house and capture the president and you have arranged just as you re promoting the movie to have the north koreans make all kinds of strange gestures toward the united states threatening nuclear war. how did you do that? well, it wasn t so much me. we have a very powerful publicity department. we just make some noise and say some ridiculous things and then we called dennis rodman. got him involved. you re pulling all the strings. you re a producer of this too, i should mention. are you asking the audience to suspend their belief system here and just have fun with the ride? or is this something that you p want us to consider? i mean, this is not usually where we think of the threat coming from when it comes to trouble here in our country. well, i think it s important to point out that the north koreans are more involved with the political fallout of the movie. and it s obviously very relevant because of the tensions, but this is a terrorist organization that go in and take the white house. so it s more like an osama bin laden than an actual government force. and i think it s a bit of both. it s entertainment and it s very, very very, very exciting somebody s screaming out there. no, that s you. that s you in the movie. oh, it s me. sounds like a maniac. you re hearing voices now. that s great. you know, but, no i think it s very provocative, as well. we live in this threat of terrorism. what would it look like? and we have totally pulled an audience in and that s what gets you, how real it feels. you re actually in there. and then you re in the crisis room involved in the nitty-gritty and what we wanted to do was get to the substance and meaning and humanize it. these are real people having to make decisions, you know, split second, they make mistakes. i m listening to you talk about this. and i m smiling only because i ve watched you in so many movies. and i ve heard you do these spot on american accents. and you ve got this gorgeous scottish accent. and as someone who could never do your accent, i don t know how you do this. and just switch that heavy accent off and sound like you re from the heartland of america. yeah. it didn t come easy, let me tell you. i did i ve probably done 1,000 dialect sessions in my life. and there came a point when i realized i have to just walk around speaking like an american and my friends would be like, you sound like an idiot. it doesn t matter, i have to learn to breathe, sigh, laugh, to keep it all like that. do you catch yourself slipping in and out? totally. they give me such a hard time in scotland. i go back and i always go to the starbucks and say cafe latte please. and they click me back into that scottish accent. you re on twitter now, right? how are you enjoying that experience? it s a daily thrill ride, isn t it? i was never a fan of it before, never really went on it. and now i thought this is something i should embrace. i went on it. i m kind of loving it. are you really? it s an exciting thing. you ve already been asked to dinner by someone. asked to take a bubble bath with a total stranger. so this is going well for you. someone asked what size is your bath? do you ever answer any of the negative comments? do you get negative comments? there was a point where we had a five minute break and i said i ll take some questions, we got 400 questions in five minutes. i m in the middle of a press tour. i did 80 interviews in one day. you can t answer all of them, but i thought the bubble bath question was definitely worth taking a shot at. what s up next for you? i m just doing this press tour then i m taking some time off. i made too many movies i m chilling. i really want to make the right choice for the next one. well, in a brave decision, you ve also agreed to take part in a segment we re going to do right after this. a little pie tasting where we re going to blindfold you and you re going to join the group. and it has really nothing to do with the pie tasting, it s just savannah wanted to see you in a blindfold. i don t understand the handcuffs. i m not sure about this. i don t understand the handcuff thing, but i didn t know about that. gerard butler. good to have you here. coming up next, he s going to help us celebrate national pi day. but first this is today on nbc. back at 8:50. we ll explain the pies in a moment. but it is justin timberweek on late night with jimmy fallon. a few of it will highlights from last night. life is but a dream row row row your boat gently down the stream merrily merrily merrily you need a suit and tie. my partner is a suit and tie expert. i ll call him in. can you sing about how quickly you work? oh, you want me to sing? i will make you a suit and tie let me measure your inseam seriously, let me measure your inseam. all right. well, time to explain these pies, it is march 14th, 3/14 also known as pi day to celebrate the mathematical constant pi. we re not as good at math as we are at eating. we have the food editor here to celebrate pi. happy pi day. gerard butler decided to stay with us. thank you. any chance to eat pie. exactly. you re going to have us try three rather unusual pies? yes, you re going to be blindfolded. okay. you ll have to guess what they are. okay. gerard, here s your blindfold. here, al, you have one. yeah, we all have them. will we be tasting that? maybe. maybe. okay. all right. they re going to walk these out. all right. is someone going to hand us the fork? he s admitted his sense of taste is not the sharpest. i m not going to say why. i m not going to say why. will the pie be handed to us in our hand? well, he s handing you a fork. i ll step back. let s start here. all right. hold on. matt, can you smell it? can i smell it? do we taste now? we need pie feeders. this is a weird fork. i can t miss my mouth. this is horrible. that is horrible. this is a bacon. take a leap of faith and try that. this is macaroni and cheese. yes! ding, ding, ding. what do you think about that, gerard? it s macaroni and cheese. al blurted it out. and then bacon lettuce crunch. can we look now or no? there s another next. okay. are you handing it? i m going to hand it. okay. are any of them good? i hope so. thank you. this smells better. give gerard another section of that. i think he wants it more than i do. okay. be careful with this part. peanut butter and chocolate. how do i know you re not giving us rat poison. there s another element. caramel. yes! poor gerard is only eating the stuff and not getting a chance to guess. we re all blindfolded, matt. this last one is kind of the hardest. i m really excited for you to try it. i ll take that. i m going to take these off. i ll take that. hey, guys, taste it and hold your answers for a second. okay. what do you have here? here s your pie. i m sorry. there you go. careful. ready? is everyone ready? gerard is eating his now. go ahead, gerard, he s still getting the macaroni and cheese are we supposed to see? he s eating the last sample. let gerard go first. what do you think that is? pineapple? no. strawberry. strawberry. but that s not the secret ingredient. okay. i m going to give you a hint. it s spring vegetable. turnips? no, it s green. lettuce? green. oh, my gosh. a letter of the alphabet. it s a beet? somebody should stop al before he gets to 49th street. where is he? what about the second one? can we take these off? i don t know. okay. thank you for being a good sport. good morning to you. 8:56. i m laura garcia-cannon. a documentary about palo alto native jeremy lin will kick off the cam fest tonight. it follows his burst to stardom with the knicks last year. let s check the forecast with meteorologist christina loren. how s it looking out there? still have some fog but it is clearing quickly. daytime highs will be on the warm side. in san bruno, the fog is starting to clear. it s going to linger over the san francisco bay for most of the day. good-looking st. patrick s day weekend. then the rain moves in tuesday into wednesday of next week. hope you have a fantastic thursday. it s not what you think. it s a phoenix with 4 wheels. it s a hawk with night vision goggles. it s marching to the beat of a different drum. and where beauty meets brains. it s big ideas with smaller footprints. and knowing there s always more in the world to see. it s the all-new lincoln mkz. welcome to today on this thursday morning, march 14th, 2013. inside studio 1a, i m willie geist along with al roker, tamron hall and e! s jason kennedy. serious kicks. that s a comfort shoe. that s a nike bottom deal. very comfortable. i haven t heard men talk about shoes this much since ever. i m with it. i m game. what was happening the pie-eating contest. i walked in from across the street, you re wearing blindfolds eating pie. well, today is national pi day. since we re math idiots, we thought let s do real pie. they blindfold us, it s amazing how different things feel and sensation when you re blindfolded. i didn t know where you were i could tell you didn t know where i was going with it. i didn t it was the way you looked at me. hey, natalie where the faithful are still celebrating the announcement of the new pope. francis. natalie, please save us. natalie, you know what i m experiencing. you know. reporter: i will try. but perhaps i need to say some prayers here for you guys. it seems appropriate. good morning to you all once again. and, yes, as you mentioned, everyone here still celebrating the fact that they have a new pope. pope francis i. of course, formally known as the archbishop of buenos aires jorge bergoglio. he is, of course, getting about the business of his papacy today being the first full day in action already. earlier today, we saw him praying at the santa maria church, and later on this afternoon, he s going to be holding mass with the cardinals who elected him as their new pope at the sistine chapel. now, he is very busy as you can imagine in the coming days preparing for the inaugural mass held here on tuesday in the morning. but we do expect tomorrow he will have a private meeting with his predecessor pope benedict xvi, and that is expected to be, again, in private tomorrow. the choice of the new pope francis, of course, being celebrated around the world by catholics. they see him as a compassionate man. yet still conservative in line with the thinking of the catholic values and the catholic church. but many hoping he will bring about the reform that the catholic church so needs right now. he s clearly the first pope. a lot of firsts. the first pope from south america significant, of course as 40% of the catholics in the world are from latin america and south america and seeing that he will perhaps be the person who can bridge the gap between the old world and the new world. and already, guys, as you can imagine, they re very busily starting to turn out the souvenirs including i got my hands on the first rosary beads here with pope francis right on. that s something to hold on to. but you know what will really be something that will be, i think, worth a lot of money some day is the vatican stamp, which if you ve been here, you know that you can only get the postmark here from vatican city. but this is the stamp. this is the only time they ve ever produced this letter or this card and the stamp. so this right here, my friends, is coming home with me and i think it s going to be worth something some day. beautiful. there you go. couple extras too, natalie. natalie morales in vatican city. yeah. yeah. please help us. because do say those prayers. these two are almost like they re married. he s talking, she s looking at him. no idea. no, i paused because willie was looking at me as if to say i agree. and i was trying to defer to you, it s your show, to let you say something and you jump all over me. did i jump on anyone? i didn t see any jumping going on. jason, stay out of this. let your parents argue, okay. tamron, we ll talk off the kids are in bed. okay. all right. let s go to our take two right now because we ve got a really good one. we re already talking about it. it s a sitcom smackdown. this comes from new york magazine s always entertaining vulture blog. they re holding a bracket in honor of march madness. 16 of the greatest sitcoms of the past 30 years, remind you. it s important to point out there s old ones missing here. laverne and shirley, happy days. what s happening. this is the bracket we have it down to here. each week a different writer is picking the winners. we have the final four now. let me rattle these off and you tell me what you think is missing here. this is from, cheers the office, southpark, malcolm in the middle, cosby show, sex and the city, 30 rock. no full house, no everybody loves raymond, 30 rock knocked out by sex and the city ? delegitimatizes the whole bracket because there s no curb your enthusiaiasenthusiasm. do you watch tv? i have a confession. willie, i know you re going to go in, i ve only seen two of these shows. really? sex and the city and 30 rock. never seen an episode of cheers or the office or arrested development. simpsons, it s been on for 20 years. mark s hyperventilating. south park. i ve never seen i m going to take my show on the road. seinfeld s going to win in my opinion. cheers. i know what seinfeld is, i have not seen. cheers or simpsons. based on what? 20 years and still as good as it is today as it was 20 years ago. one of these four is going to move on in the next couple of hours and you still have a week to go, it s my understanding. is it roseanne roseanne does not belong in this group. why? come on. the simpsons/seinfeld match-up is so great because they re so different and influential in their own way. it s hard to pick. but i bet you re right. cheers / simpsons. and when will we know? why would you care? because i might watch the series. it s too late now. your loss. mail in your votes. hey, but you re part of our take three. this is huge. this is amazing. take three, tamron s new tunes. tamron s got a show on msnbc. at 2:00 eastern. five days a week, i should say. it has a new theme song. wait for it. composed, performed by her biggest fan prince. unbelievable. roll it. by the way, this is the new at newsnation theme song composed for my team than none other than music icon prince. wait a minute. i ve heard that before. this is the theme from the cosby show. you are such a hater. no. that s one of the greatest theme songs of all time. and this this. now you re happy. i don t recognize that. the a-team. i haven t seen that either. tamron, back to the story here. how does this happen? the song s title originally was seventeen and then prince decided to change the name of the song, that prince, the only one, to the newsnation theme song. but why? how? what do you mean why? do you know prince? he doesn t do that for most shows. he s obviously a fan. prince is a news junkie, he s incredible, thoughtful person, engaged with what s going on in the world and so it evolved into this amazing opportunity for me to have this song. it blew me away when i got the e-mail. and he s just he s you are the coolest person in the world. no, he s the coolest person you get the coolest person to do a theme song for you, that makes you cool. here s the best part. i had the song for about three weeks, his people sent the song to me. and i was so nervous i didn t want to reveal the song. i was grooving to the song by myself at home. i ll show you my prince groove. okay. suddenly not the coolest person anymore. there s my other theme song. tamron, is he going to do one for take three. have you talked to him about that? would he do one for take three? jason, you re pushing it. i wanted to ask. this is the part i ve never revealed. guess how long i can use my own theme song for? what? six months. i m sure i can get an extension from prince, i thank him very, very much. he s one of the most amazing individuals. congrats. very cool. thank you. i m blushing. the show every day 2:00 on msnbc, five days a week, right? is it by the way, jason s theme song is from color me bad. fantastic in the 90s. i was 4. all right, tamron, pull yourself together. i ll try my friends. well, there s new research out today on the long-term risks of radiation treatment for breast cancer patients. a study, in fact, of 2,000 women in northern europe found those patients were more likely to develop heart problems years later. doctors say there s no reason to panic because of benefits for radiation patients are the top priority and women can cut their risk of a radiation induced heart attack by controlling your weight and cholesterol. the president heads to capitol hill today for more meetings with democrats and republican lawmakers. this after senate democrats revealed a quote concrete plan to spur economic growth with some $1 trillion in new tax revenues over the coming decade. the budget plan also increases spending, a move that house republicans are opposing with their own counterproposal slashing spending by some $4.6 trillion over the coming decade. and a shift in attitude from american moms. according to a new poll from the pew research center, there s been a major spike in the number of moms who want to work full-time. listen to this, 47% of moms now want to head back to the office. that s up from 21% five years ago. analysts attribute the change to the recession. that makes perfect sense. and mcdonald s is cutting some breakfast calories. the new egg white delight will be a yolk-free version of the egg mcmuffin served on whole grain version of the bread. the new sandwich will have 250 calories compared to 300 50 calories, oh. every amount counts, it s on sale nationally this spring. it is now 11 minutes a of the hour. yo uh don t think 50 calories is a big deal? just do it. go big or go home. that s like diet spam. doesn t work. come on. it s an extra 50 calories allows you to put some jam on it or. go big. if you re going fast food. go with the egg mcmuffin. forget it. egg white delight. prince could sing the theme song for the egg white delight. i don t think that s going to happen. he ll never talk to me again now. it s like the people go to mcdonald s and you order the biggie sized meal with a diet coke. it matters. whatever you say, tamron. how about a check of the weather? good idea. let s see what we ve got for you. for today, we ve got a clipper coming across the great lakes. that s going to bring light snow from minneapolis on into chicago. western new york, no big shakes there. we re looking for plenty of sunshine in l.a. today. although right along the coast, there ll be morning thaw, temperatures there only about 60, about 80 degrees as you make your way into downtown l.a. look for plenty of sunshine down through florida, but rip currents a problem on the east and west coast of florida later 9:12 on a foggy start to the day this thursday morning. taking a live look over san jose. we re going to check on that drive here with mike in just a moment. but i want to let you know that fog is going to clear quickly and temperatures are going to be warm today. also you ll probably notice a layer of haze. we re in the good to moderate air quality range across the bay area. 77 for santa teresa. 68 degrees in san francisco today. getting into the weekend, temperatures stay steady into the mid-70s. have a great day. and that s your latest weather. all right, al, thanks. prince. quit saying that. we can t get over the prince thing. you re making me blush. will you sign my notes. you re going to make me blush, jason. jason wants your autograph. i think it s because i look like prince a little bit. oh, no, i didn t say that. yeah, by the way, there s no mustache, okay. because i shave it. oh, make it stop. i set them up, she kicks them through. jason kennedy, i m sorry you had to sit through this today. thanks for raising the game with the shoes. how to look five years younger in an instant. shave your mustache. new honey bunches of oats greek yogurt and whole grain. here we go. honey cornflakes and chunks of greek yogurt. i m tasting both the yogurt and the honey at the same time. i m like digging this yogurt thing. i feel healthy. new honey bunches of oats greek. you ll really dig the savings at the petsmart spring savings sale. save up to 25% on thousands 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[ male announcer ] combat 8 signs of aging hair. nexxus youth renewal. raise your standard. this morning on today s beauty. what every woman wants to know. how to look five years younger in an instant. a celebrity make-up artist and president of mally beauty. good to see you. good morning, gorgeous. how are you? i m fantastic. is this easier said than done? absolutely. just these little secrets and tips. all you have to do is know how to do them, do them every single day and they will take five years off you. it won t cost us a fortune and we don t need surgery, right? no, honey, that s not how we play. all right. and you still look amazing. always beautiful and these are tips you actually apply to your make-up? absolutely. for myself every day i m 41, always trying to find these cute little ways to make you look fierce instantly. are. okay. let s get to our first proof in the pudding. the first model, let s look at her before picture. shayla 63 years old, here she is now. what did you do? here we go. ready? for me, the rule is this. it is all about the translucent powder being the enemy. oh, girlfriend. hello. there she is. thank you. but look again how beautiful her skin looks. that s what we want to keep. translucent powder is the enemy, will make you look older instantly. why? because it sits in the wrinkles and fine lines and makes every pore look ten times bigger and looks dry and ashy. this is a clear powder. so when you use a clear powder, what it does, it does everything translucent powder wants to do without the nasty side effects. going to make your skin look amazing. fast, quick and easy without all of that cakiness. she still has a glow. absolutely. and if you have any warmth to your skin like you do, the sh. you look beautiful. let s look at our next before picture jen. she is 43 years old. yes, ma am. you look beautiful now as well, jen. and here she is. let s look at the after. flash that beautiful smile. work it, girl. okay. so, again, as we age, we all know we tend to lose color in the face. the cheeks, the lips, the whole nine yards. a beautiful pop of pink blush on the apples of the cheeks. i call it the cinnamon bun method. little in the middle do we really smile when we apply? yes, always on the apples of the cheeks like a beautiful little child. there we go, she got it and that gorgeous pop of lip color, that gorgeous pink. that that s going to make us look younger. the three of us are quite arranged here. yes, in fact, we can all wear it. a soft blue pink if that makes any sense. it has a little bit of a lilacy tone to it. do you feel like you look five years younger? i love it. yes. i really do. i also noticed her eyebrows. we need to make sure they look a little more full? absolutely. it s an instant way to make yourself look younger. thicker eyebrows, lifted eyebro eyebrows, that s going to make you look younger, as well. you re so beautiful. thank you very much. and next up, let s look at the before picture of inga. apparently not disclosing her age because it s not on my paper. and there she is. yeah, there you go. isn t it great? and you focused on her eyes. absolutely. about lifting the eyes, opening up the eyes, curling the lashes. i ve never used an eyelash curler. should we all be using? hello! somebody get her an eyelash curler. there s a walgreen s nearby. exactly, take it, hold it right at the base of the lash and let the three-pump method. squeeze at the base to the tip. curl the lashes and hold them up and open. opening up the eyes instantly will make you look younger. did you see the difference? definitely. did you have one before? i did not. we ll get a two for one discount. ladies, you look amazing. mally, always a pleasure. coming up, go green for st. patrick s day with a do-it-yourself project. copd makes it hard to breathe, but with advair, i m breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won t replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. if you re still having difficulty breathing, ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. get your first full prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. you re always on, so we re always ready. tyson grilled & ready chicken. made with all white meat, 98% fat free, and fully cooked. we ll take care of dinner, you take care of everything else. get hydration that lasts! new hydra recharge from garnier fructis. hydration innovation! bead after bead, burst on impact. a superfruit blast of goji berry and passionfruit. hydra recharge actively replenishes hydration. so potent, you ll feel it 2 full days. nonstop silky. surprisingly weightless. new hydra recharge hydration.that lasts. garnier fructis. the strength to shine. [ male announcer ] pain not sitting too well? burning to feel better? itching for relief? preparation h offers the most maximum strength solutions for all hemorrhoid symptoms. from the brand doctors recommend most. preparation h. don t stand for hemorrhoids. i m amazed you make so many great flavors that are gluten free. my guys are crazy for chocolate chex and honey nut chex. for me, it s cinnamon. we re the harris family. and we love chex. he opened up jake s very private world. at first, jake s family thought they saved ziggy, but his connection with jake has been a lifesaver. for a love this strong, his family only feeds him iams. compared to other leading brands, it has 50% more animal protein. .to help keep ziggy s body as strong as a love that reaches further than anyone s words. iams. keep love strong. coming up, when is the right time for adult children to talk to their parents about money. and a delicious stew. after your local news and weather. sure does! wow. [ buzz ] delicious, right? yeah. it s the honey, it makes it taste so. well, would you look at the time. what s the rush? bee happy. bee healthy. with clusters of flakes and o s. oh, ho ho. it s the honey sweetness. i.i mean, you.love. so ditch the brown bag for something better. like our bacon ranch quesadillas or big mouth burger bites, served with soup or salad, and fries. starting at just 6 bucks, at chili s. good morning to you. it is 9:26. i m laura garcia-cannon. a man is under arrest this morning for allegedly stealing more than 10,000 prescription pills from palo alto medical foundation pharmacy. police say 34-year-old jerry sareria, a former employee of the clinic, was arrested earlier this month after detectives foundette done, oxycodone, morphine and other pscriptions inside his car. police say he stole st drugs from inside an expired medicine locker and locked cabinets in the pharmacy. a spokeswoman for the foundation says the suspect has been fired and that he had no direct contact with any patients. in san francisco, a court hearing is expected today for the 24-year-old woman accused of kicking a toddler for no parent reason in golden gate park. sabrina bell walked past a man and his daughter and kicked the little girl in the chest on tuesday. the little girl was not seriously hurt. we ll have a look at weather and traffic right after this. welcome back now. the time is 9:28. dealing with thick fog. most of the day over the san francisco bay we ll see these low clouds. elsewhere, we re forecasting near record lows. right at the sfas, your visibility is starting to improve. headed toward the upper 70s. a couple of low 80s today. 80 degrees in gilroy. 72 in san jose. 68 in san francisco. as we head throughout the upcoming weekend, yes, you are very close now, we re going to hold onto the 70s. things change getting into next week. showers arrive tuesday night, continue into wednesday. let s check the drive. looking over here, the visibility is improving, see the fog burning off. a little haze going on. south 880, look at the volume of traffic there. on the maps, the dumbarton bridge, the earlier crash there around thornton, a smooth drive down toward mission. a little slow there. the remnants of the morning commute. northbound kicking in, 17 and 880 up toward 101. and toward camden, an earlier crash but big slowing from 87. palo alto south and northbound moving nicely. the eastshore freeway, the clouds burning off. a clear drive through berkeley. thank you very much. thank you for joining us as well. another local news update coming up in half an hour. you need a suit and tie. my partner is a suit and tie expert. i ll just call him in. justin timberlake s week continues over at jimmy fallon. making a cameo there with steve carrell and jimmy in a suit and tie. i get it. i was thinking, you guys could do suit and tie. yeah. there you go. no. not for al? i would do that and then jay-z would find me and beat me. we don t want that. we don t want that to happen. i m willie geist along with al and tamron while natalie is in vatican city this morning. celebrating st. patrick s day. it is this sunday. we ve got ideas on what to wear, what to serve and how to decorate your party with some do-it-yourself green projects. very nice. and speaking of the irish, we are trying out delicious home cooking with hearty beef and stout stew. that s right. we had a misspelling a little earlier said beef and trout stew. probably not as good. not definitely not good. and as kids get older and their parents age, when is the right time to discuss your family s finances and long-term care? really important advice you need to know. we ll get into that in a little bit. but first al has a check of the weather. let s look ahead starting off with today. we ve got sunny skies along the eastern seaboards. lake effect snow showers, little clipper will bring snow from the dakotas into minnesota. plenty of fog along the california coastline, especially the southern california coastline. rip currents along the eastern and west coast of florida. beautiful day tomorrow around the gulf into the southwest, sunny and hot, nice and mild, interior sections in nevada into california, look for showers continuing in the pacific northwest with a clipper bringing more snow from the dakotas across minnesota on into western new york. 9:32 on a thursday morning. good morning, i m meteorologist christina loren. this is san francisco looking out from high atop san bruno mountain. we have quite a bit of low cloud cover lingering. a lot of this is going to stick to the san francisco bay throughout the day. if you want the sunshine, it will be out along the coastline today. you re going to get great beach weather. 97 in livermore. 91 in fremont. 72 in san jose. 68 degrees on the way to san francisco. we ll keep cooling you down just a touch for tomorrow. throughout the next couple of days, temperatures leveling off. nice st. patrick s day, 71 inland. all right, al. thanks, this morning on happy st. patrick s day today, diy green, this sunday going to need a little more than green beer and shamrock shakes for a good party. lifestyle expert. today s your lucky day. this is it. we re getting lucky today. we re going with green diy today, keep you pinch-free for the weekend. now we re starting off with some wearables. the key is to keep it subtle. you don t want to overdo it with the green. all right. so the first one is fabric button earrings and cuff links. i don t know if you ve ever seen this cover button kit. no. but it s an easy way to make your own fabric buttons. grab any sort of fabric, cut out a circle, you place the fabric on top of this button cover here, grab your button, press down. and all you have to do is actually tuck in the rest of the fabric into the button and add in the final back. press down pretty hard and once you remove it, look, you can see here. there you go. and it hooks into here? yeah, you add the fabric earrings to the back of them to create earrings and we make cuff links for the guys. you re liking the head bands this year? every woman has ribbon and hair elastics at their house. cut them in half, measure about a foot or so of decorative ribbon, and you can see all of these beautiful head bands here. again, it s a little pop of color. you don t need to go crazy with the green. okay. next up, color blocking, i don t know if you ve been paying attention to the runways. this is a big trend. very carefully. we re taking the color blocking to your shoes, green shoes to be exact. we ve got green flats here. you put a plastic bag on and spray paint them gold. you can do the tips, the heels. just hardware store spray paint? yeah, super easy. great way to class up your heels or flats. and keep that look after st. paddy s day? something you wear year round. cool. moving to the guys. what do we got here? these are last-minute if you re in a pinch. see what i did there? yeah. amazing. the tie bar. this is something i didn t know was popular. so we ve actually used paper clips and nothing but this cord ribbon and all you do is tie a knot around your paper clips and start wrapping. and you can see at the end that s a paper clip? this is a paper clip. very cool. isn t that amazing? may i? yes, of course. and you can use the same with these little piles really, really simple way to go green. and if you want to go next level, bow tie. if you don t have your own tie, you can create a bow tie. again, last minute, if you have ribbon left over or even a scarf, you tie it in a bow, wrap it around your neck and make for a fun little tie to wear on st. patrick s day. that might be alittle aggressive. i think we ll start with the tie clip and go from there. moving on food to wash down the beer, of course. this is a fun thing i found on pinterest. put your cupcake liners in the tin, use marbles, put in food coloring and creates these shamrock cup cakes. we decorated them with frosting and punch straws. this is wonderful. i introduced you to the concept of hombre. yeah, i didn t know it until you. now we do it with hair and now hair, fashion, and now pretzels. it s the lighter shade of a color to the dark shade of the color. like the gradient effect. we made it here. using white candy melts. melt them up, add food color to get a darker version of the green and we topped it off with yummy green circles. i like that. i want to get to the beers. tell me quickly about the bottles. yeah. quickly if you want to dye your white flowers green, put more food coloring in the water. and use painters tape and gold spray paint to put interesting patterns. water, beer, all you need there. let s talk business here. we ve got green beer here. how did you crease this? we create this? it s food coloring. we created a pretty chevron pattern. it is all about the beer this sunday. take a regular beer, couple of drops in. tastes the same, i promise. happy st. paddy s day. up next, getting parents and adults to see eye-to-eye about money right after this. 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[ male announcer ] sometimes being too transparent can be a bad thing. this looks good! [ male announcer ] but not with the oscar mayer deli fresh clear pack. it s what you see is what you get food. [ male announcer ] but not with the oscar mayer backflips and cartwheels.mile? love, warmth. here, try this. mmmm, ok! ching! i like the fact that there s lots of different tastes going on. mmmm! breakfast i m very impressed. this is a great cereal! honey bunches of oats. i hear you crunching. listen up. each year hundreds of promising research studies go unfunded. for breast cancer. for lung cancer. every cancer. the american cancer society has been behind nearly every breakthrough in resent history. but there is still more work to do. so let s make sure that no research is silenced. let s make noise. let s make noise. yeah! and let s finish the fight. in today s money, the right time to start talking about your family s finances. good morning to both of you. nice to see you. this is one of these things as boomers age and their parents are getting older. you need to maybe at some point take over your parents finances or work with them on it. you need to know how everything is going to shake out. and unfortunately, what we know from this new survey which came out from fidelity is those conversations are not happening. and gail, some of this is a certain amount of discomfort. i remember with my parents, i had a discomfort, all of a sudden i had to take on an adult role with them. discomfort starts early. money is that taboo topic, and young kids you re not supposed to talk with your parents about what they have. and so even as we grow up, it could be uncomfortable to switch from the child/adult relationship to the adult/adult relationship where you talk about what s going to happen in life and how you re going to prepare for crises and so on. and on average adult children underestimate the value of their parents estate by some $100,000 or more. and if you think about that, combine it with social security, that s four or five maybe more years of support for those parents, and if that money isn t there, perhaps the kids are going to have to step in and provide it. the kids may also be expecting it to help them with college tuition on the other end. so it s really crucial to sit down and say i know this is hard. but my friends are going through this with their parents. we need to get it out on the table. is it gail, is it more of a reluctance on the kids part do you find, or equally parents and kids? both, both. i think the adult kids are reluctant to put their parents on the burner there and say they feel like it s not respectful. and parents feel they shouldn t burden their kids. maybe both of them feel like it s none of each other s business, if you will. and there s a bit of denial going on because both adult children and parents are in a little denial about how much money they do have and don t want to think about planning for the future because it means illness or difficult things. speaking of illness, 97% disagree on whether the adult child will take care of their parents in the event of an adult illness. how come? they re not talking about it. if this happens in your family and you are the adult child and you ve got older parents, you will step in and you will do something. but it shouldn t be an emergency. we know our parents are living longer. we should have these conversations, and it helps to have them with an adviser in the room. that s what i felt was the most remarkable piece of this study. both parents and kids are more talking more comfortable talking with the financial adviser so bring one in. also helps to be analytic as opposed to emotional. if you wait for the crisis, it s emotionally charged and you don t resolve as much. but if you either bring someone in and/or sit down today, if you re watching a segment today, i say to people out there, no one s sick right now, no one s in crisis right now. today is the time to say, hey, i saw the segment on the today show and you know what, we really haven t done you don t fix the leaky roof when it s raining. thank you so much. and still ahead, we re going to show you how to make a great irish stew right after this. acne cleansers may be tough on breakouts, but how gd are they for the rest of your face? 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(sighs) this is too good to be true. hi. john stamos. enchanté this is too good to be true. dannon oikos non-fat yogurt. delicious yet healthy. sounds too good to be true. there are things that are too good to be true. such as dannon oikos. thick, creamy, with 0% fat and twice the protein. of regular low-fat yogurt mmm huh. i want an oikos! dannon oikos greek non-fat yogurt. too delicious to be so nutritious. dannon this morning on today s melting pot, we have a cookbook author and a third generation farmer at her family s bed and breakfast in ireland. we have a hearty irish meal for st. patrick s day. good morning. good morning, tamron. pleasure to be here. let s launch in. i can smell the flavors already. we have this lovely irish beef. you re going to cook it. irish beef, what does that mean? well, in ireland, our animals are grass fed. we have the most beautiful flavor coming into our ingredients, it s in our irish butter and cheeses and meats. how is st. patrick s day celebrated in ireland? well, it is a big national holiday because, of course, st. patrick brought christianity to ireland in the fifth century. we have a huge celebration. but this year is a year of celebrations. and you added butter. yes, a little butter in there. and we sizzled the meat away and get it lovely and brown. okay. what we want is color and sweetness. how long do we cook this on each side? we are coloring it. coloring it. very nice. it s not cooking through and through. we ve got that going. let s pretend we ve browned that. we ve browned our meat. and put our onions in and the onions have caramelized. irish onions? of course they have to be. pop in a little bit of sugar. this is irish stout. this is about what? 2 cups? a pint. makes sense then. that should do it. and i know normally we have our stout in a glass in ireland but we like to use it for cooking, as well. that s very nice. and we have some thyme and parsley. pop those in. what does the thyme add to this? lemony? just get the flavor. all kind of rustic flavor. we have some tomato puree here. okay. mustard. and the mustard gives it tang? mm-hmm. add to the broth. all that goes in. yep. and then what we re going to do is pour that in here with the mushroom. right now? we have our beef in here, mushroom. okay. i m a little weak. you ve got the hard job today. okay. so we got that in. yep. mushrooms, any kind of mushrooms, or what do you prefer? we use the button mushrooms. okay. and here we have our potato and sweet potato and layers of that. nice. you layer potato, white potato and sweet potato. the sweet potato wouldn t be traditional, but i like the color. very nice. then you have a little butter. we have some butter there. and this recipe is a heritage family recipe, i grew up in an 1850s farmhouse, a bed and breakfast, and being a farmhouse, you need hearty meals for your family. and something that warms up. absolutely, perfect sense. it is interesting when you look at the background of a food and usually from the practicality standpoint feeding an entire family on a bucket. come on in. how long do you put this in the oven? for two hours, you take it out and brown the top of it. beautiful. great family recipe. mushrooms in there? no, they re button mushrooms. it s a traditional irish mushroom. i don t know, i guessed the name of a mushroom. this is beautiful. and again, it s easy to serve, do it family style and you can warm it up a little bit later. gentlemen, would you like a little bit? yes, ma am. you have soda bread made with your beautiful hands. have, indeed. what we re doing with our cookers school, running heritage cookery programs. people can learn about the irish history of food and it s all part of the gathering of ireland. i love cookery, i love that. love that. yeah, please. okay. delicious. isn t it? oh, gosh, well, catherine. that s incredible. a big plate here. thank you, again. this is fantastic. fantastic. you got a little bread, guys? happy st. patrick s day. beautiful, thank you. thank you so much. happy st. patrick s day to everybody. and this is today on nbc. i m eating last. of. coming up tomorrow, how to have a fit pregnancy. but coming up next, we haka lee and hoda. deals after your local news and weather. nice. [ female announcer ] this is speeding. this is fast food. this is the express lane. and this is the fast track. this is the fastest in-home wifi. this is xfinity internet. xfinity. the future of awesome. it is 9:56 now. good morning. i m marla tellez. an urban village built on the grounds of an historic racetrack in san mateo is about to open its doors. the bay meadows development includes nearly 1,200 new homes as well as office and retail space and 12 acres of parks and gardens. it s built on the bay meadows horse racetrack which opened back in 1934 and closed in 2008. san mateo city officials will dedicate the bay meadows community park this morning. the development officially opens to the public on saturday. foggy start to your day but it s going to burn off. let s get a look at the forecast with meteorologist christina loren. we actually might get some near record warmth up in the north bay today. 75 degrees is what i m forecasting for santa rosa, the old record is 74 set back in 2000. probably going to break some more temperature records today. you will notice a drop-off by 5 to 10 degrees on average from where we were yesterday. 71 in fremont. 68 degrees on the way to san francisco. throughout the weekend, st. paddy s day, looking good lt holding onto the 70s. the 50s and rain on wednesday. in fremont, there s a little haze. the fog is burning off. most of your bay area spots. but the traffic is sticking around, south 880. both 880 and 680 slow down toward the fremont area. 880 both directions approaching montague has slowing. there is a crash at the montague off-ramp on the southbound side. the northbound also slow from the 17 to the interchange. over in half moon bay, 280 just off the freeway heading toward 92. that signal is having issues with back-up. there s the bay bridge with no issues. thanks so much. we re back with our next local news update at 10:26. announcer: from nbc news, this is today, with kathie lee gifford and hoda kotb. live, from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. hello, everybody, it is thirst-day, thursday, it s march 14th, we re delighted that you re with us, and we re delighted we have a new pope. and we re delighted with a lot of things. we re so dan happy. we should start off with ourselves, we want to thank you guys again, because who is better than you? after we dressed up like two bitches female dogs, yesterday, you guys responded! and you liked us on facebook. so we want to thank you guys, because now we re up to almost 520,000. and then we got another blast from everybody in texas. the texas people if you have any ideas how we can continue this roll, we d love to hear from you on facebook. [ dogs barking ] hoda hasn t barked, are you going to make us wait? you gave us a little woof and that was it. i need to have a lot more incentive than you saying we should do it. last night, jimmy fallon had some fun with us. there was a study that came out yesterday that talked about how taking a resveritrol i can t say it i have to drink it. if you took it in a pill form. it would be the equivalent of 100 glasses of wine and that could keep us alive well into our hundreds. jimmy had some fun with that. a new study found that a chemical in red wine could help humans live to be 150 years old. which explains why the fourth hour of the today show is renewed for 200 more seasons. we love those guys. no matter what he says, we never get mad at him. we love him. and justin timberlake has been killing it on that show. he s on a roll, boy. it s been such fun to watch. he and jimmy together. they re like little boys in a candy store, aren t they? yes. breaking news from yesterday, you guys know now there is a new pope and it was so interesting to watch this whole thing unfold on this particular day. from the smoke that came out of the chimney to the introduction of a person who a lot of us of course are seeing for the first time. and i got to say, my first impression just watching him on tv was there was such a warmth and a connection with him and the crowd. and the fact that he started off this moment, instead of blessing the crowd like i guess the way popes have done for so many years. he asked for a blessing for himself to pray for him. so it was very humbling i thought in a nice way to begin his papacy. apparently that s not a show, that s the essence of the man. we all know how he lived so simply. he is actually living testimony to what the gospel really is. the gospel means good news. and it s good news to the poor. and he is a beautiful testimony of service. do you know that in buenos aires he would clean, wash and clean and kiss the feet of aids patients. yes. this is what s been missing in not just the catholic church, but in many churches around the world, is service in the name of a loving god. and it s really, really thrilling to see. i am not catholic, but i cried. i just loved his tender heart. i loved that he didn t wear all the robes and stuff. if he says he s a follower of jesus, jesus was the poorest of the poor. didn t have a stone was his pillow. you know. and if you re going to represent him as the vicar, you know, then identify with him. and i think this is a brilliant start. he s 76 years old and a lot of people first looked at it and said, wait, 76? you know that s they thought maybe they would go a little younger. we re here to tell you and we re going to list some people who are older and really rocking it. okay? here we go. besides frank? besides frank gifford. who should be first on the list. queen elizabeth, 86 years old. she s ten years older. she s doing great. warren buffett, 82. uh-huh. the kink of saudi arabia, 88. the prime minister of india, 80. rupert murdoch, 82. the formula one ceo, bernie ecclestone. senator frank lawsuitenberg of new jersey, 89 lautenberg. and ralph hall from texas, will be 90 in a couple of months. it makes me feel a little bit better about my milestone coming this summer. how do you feel about that milestone? you know what? it s just starting to dawn on me and it s like, i m just surprised by it all the time. that i m going to be 60 years old. how the heck in honor of the pope, did that happen? would i love to be 40 again? in some ways, but i had cass when i was 40 and i ve got a beautiful almost 20-year-old and cody is going to be 23. and i think when you start thinking about ha you ve lost in life, you lose the moment right now you lose the joy and the gift of right now. that s why it s called a present. i like that. it s right now. and you just, if you just concentrate, hoda on what you do have, still have a lot. you know a lot to be grateful for. and we talk about the james taylor song kw the secret of l is to be enjoy where you are at the time. so here s bad news, if you re on a carnival cruise ship. this is not great. another issue with carnival, you guys. the carnival cruise ship dream is docked, in port at phillipsberg in st. maarten. they re having according to some people on the boat, power outages and overflowing toilets. 5,000 passengers could be on board. apparently carnival cruise put out a statement that said there s a technical issue, but at no time did the ship lose power there were some periodic interruptions of elevators and toilets. i obviously have a soft spot for carnival, i worked with them for 20 years as their spokesperson. they got very big after that i m not sure what the situation is here. but i know they take everything very seriously. i hope they solve the problem very quickly. you can t have all of these kinds of things happening before it starts affecting things. i wish them all the best. but you can t blame this one on me, you know what i m saying? blame it on george bush, okay? the best speeches in the united states, by trip adviser. here are a couple of suggestions. a bunch of people on the website weighed in. on their favorite beaches and here they are the third best beach is the gulf island s national seashore in pensacola, florida. i agree, you can camp on the beach, 150-mile stretch of it, it runs from cat island, mississippi, to santa rosa island in florida, it s like sugar. i ve never seen such white sand in my life, it s glorious. number two, siesta key, a public beach in sarasota. clean, hard-packed sand there. the number one and i have to agree with this one as well, top beach in the whole country is kanapali beach in hawaii. great for long walks, swimming, snorkeling, sunsets, and views. let s go. hoda needs to take her thong. this is so exciting, i have such a great i heart hoda. just when i was in a good mood. this is about people shopping in a thrift shop. people shopping in a thrift shop. we got the clean version, so no one freak out. it s by macklemore. so first you have to feel a little of the beat. are you feeling little bit of it? no. come on. okay, here it comes. i get it, i get it. and i hate it. how can you hate it? i love it. how can you from singing cinderella yesterday, where there s actual music by rogers and hammerstein. we went to see we had to leave early because of the pope announcement. but your reaction was different from mine. yes, cinderella we just have a couple of seconds, because we have to talk to sara. i loved it for my niece. i think she will totally go crazy over cinderella, the costume change, the beautiful scenery. they were all very excited. for people like me who grew up on the leslie ann warren one and whatever year it was, i missed that story and missed hearing all of those songs in their entirety. so that just shows you it s a generational thing. but everybody is good in it. very good. hey, miss sara haynes. today to announce johnson s baby of the week. celebrating new moms and their bundles of joy. first up is kiley james macarthur. next up, surprise, surprise, is elliott joseph holland dodson, who made his debut on january 11th, in california. mom and dad, are so happy 2-year-old ava is a big sister. and finally our third today s johnson baby of the week is kennedy claire fagan, born to kelly and gregory of los gatos, california. a big congratulations to all of our babies. if you d like your baby to be considered for johnson s baby of the week, go to our website, at klgandhoda.com. you re our baby, sara. our hair and makeup team have worked their magic. two lucky ladies reveal their ambush makeovers. and justin timberlake s new gig. and i believe our friend jason is here in our weekend chat is here, we ll be right back. you re doing okay, mom. i can call you mom, right? i know we haven t known each other very long, but you seem like a real keeper. you re not perfect. but you re trying. anyway, i want you to know how much i appreciate you. you know, right? how much i love you. you re doing okay, mom. yeah, he s a liquid gold digger. babe how about you make me some of that velveeta cheesy broccoli soup i love so much? oh and you re so pretty. [ cries ] [ male announcer ] liquid gold diggers love liquid gold. because all these whole grains aren t healthy unless you actually eat them multigrain cheerios. also available in delicious peanut butter. healthy never tasted so sweet. i know just where they are. also available in delicious peanut butter. youthcode dark spot correcting skincare from l oreal paris addresses key discoloration issues 86% of women saw less dark spots. treat dark spots youth code from l oréal paris a world of remarkable itastes comes together. rich, dark chocolate meets sweetened soft centers flavored with exotic fruit juices, like pomegranate, goji with raspberry, and acai with blueberry. it s chocolate like you ve never experienced it before. and it comes from a place called brookside. discover brookside. time to reveal our ambush makeovers for two very happy ladies who were plucked off our plaza just today. today contributor and stylist to the stars louis liccari la la la la la and people contributor editor and new author very soon jill martin. how was the crowd? today was a great one. today show always has a great crowd. the kids were on break, today was big. wow, julie, what we started with our doggie outfits. 44 years old from fond du lac, wisconsin, so busy being a single mom to her two boys she had no time to focus on herself. she jumped at the chance to get pampered, let s listen to her story. well it s clear why were you picked out of the crowd. but sheryl, what do you think about this for julie? she works hard, she deserves it. she needs something new. you could barely see your mouth as you re taking. you have to take your udders off. i ve never said that line before. i know you told me you ve been through a lot and really want this. yes. i do. ha do you think your boyfriend is going to think? a new me when i get home. julie is joined by her friend, sheryl, who also got made over. and she s here with a couple of friends and colleagues, janet and doc. let s take one last look at julie before. julie, come out and show us the new you. all right. doc, all right janet, take off your blindfolds. wow! we got a whoa and a wow. jill, you ready? step here and turn around. oh, my gosh! wow. spin right around and look at that camera. tell us about the hair. julie is a petty hair and i simply took, it was an effort to make her look prettier. i lightened and brightened her hair. and then maiuki gave her her this simple bob hair cut. bobs are so flirty. this is a new length for longer hair. it s very attractive, very flattering and very practical. janet, what do you guys think? excellent. unbelievable. jodie foster there. oh. tell us about the dress. it s perfect. i didn t snow what she looked like. this is from maggie london. you re wearing one of the biggest trends right now, the exposed zipper on the side. and then just layering with gold and silver, metallics are really in. adorable. julie, why don t you stand with your pals and please face the wall. we ll bring our second lady, sheryl hershey, from elkhart lake, wisconsin. she told us her daily beauty routine, is taking a shower. and she s here with the crowd, let s take one last look at her there. and let s bring out besides taking off the udders ha else do you think about this? well sheryl works hard herself and she really deserves to have something new. are you excited for this? you bet. what is your husband going to think? i m not sure he ll notice. we ve heard that before. take off your hat quickly so everybody can see. are you ready for all of this? oh yes, you bet! they both have great faces and great senses of humor. you know the crowd, let s take a last look at sheryl and bring out the new sheryl. wow! sheryl. everybody, you ready? turn around, let s go, let s take a look. i can t see. you turn around, please, sheryl and look right in the mirror. oh, my gosh. yeah! you like? it s different. give you a few moments to fall in love with yourself. lewis, big change? big change. this is we sovereigned the hair color, when you do have dark hair, once the dark hair starts to go, do go a little softer. you don t have to be a blonde, but you should be a softer brown, a big tip here and keep the makeup very natural. lighter, thin makeup keeps you younger, less is more. and miyuki s great haircut. ready for spring on this freezing day. this is from london times, this is paired with a skinny belt, she has a little waist, so we put on a bigger belt to emphasize it more. look at you ladies. louis. a couple of students put the irish saying to the test. like when i ran to catch the train to work and a draft blew my skirt up and everybody here saw my unmentionables. yeah, and they aren t even cute. hello, laundry day. no. 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[ female announcer ] made fresh, so light, buttery and flakey. that s half that s not half! guys, i have more! thanks mom [ female announcer ] pillsbury crescents. let the making begin [ female announcer ] pillsbury crescents. to help eli start potty training,! the pull-ups team surprised him with a first flush party. celebrate your first flush with pull-ups! d for more fun, check out our pull-ups big kid app at pull-ups.com i m a big kid now! and every flush after thath - with pull-ups training pants. press the button! our pull-ups big kid app is the new way to make potty training all kinds of fun! don t miss out download the app today! i m a big kid now! you know, what are you thinking? oh, i had a knot in my chest. i didn t really want her to go but.i knew she could do it. i felt like there were bigger and better things for me to do. [ mom ] she took what she was doing seriously. [ hosmer ] my self-confidence just went through the roof. [ dad ] it was awesome to see her transform from a girl, in a small town, to a soldier. [ male announcer ] you made them strong. we ll make them army strong. talk to your son or daughter about joining the army. find out how at goarmy.com/parents. add resolve deep clean powder before you vacuum. the powder is moist. lifting three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. don t just vacuum clean. resolve clean. [ female announcer ] nothing gets you going quite like 8 grams of whole grains in quaker chewy bars. today is going to be epic. quaker up. we re back with another installment of webtastic, when sara digs up cute videos to put you in a good mood. two college students decided to put the phrase kiss me, i m irish to the test. check it out. just because i m irish? all right. thanks. is this real? this is real. is this the real deal? i m the real deal. right now, are you ready? yup? have a lucky day. real quick, real quick. i m dating someone. are you irish? i am. it was shot at brigham young, university. the lucky girl is oh, my god, there was tongue. okay, i m not sure well, and whoa! she s still going with please say that s her boyfriend. well? it might be. aw. thank you. you want a lot of luck? i have a test coming up. wow. i m a little speechless right now. i feel like there s a point where he s held on too long. that only matters to the two people involved, doesn t it, sara in. she got 82% of people to kiss her. justin got only 32%. he only got 32. i think the girls are a little more tentative when a guy comes up. it can be a bit creepy from a guy. from the small screen to the big screen. jason kennedy has the scoop on what not to miss this weekend in his chatter. plus the five spring break destinations with great deals, you re going to want to know about. and irish cooking with a little irish whiskey on the side, nothing wrong with that. l oreal introduces a most exclusive haircolor. just in from paris. the preference paris couture collection. spectacular new shades, designed by christophe robin, l oreal s master colorist. each shade sparkles with brilliant tones.layers of shine. a blonde with rose gold lights. iced golden brown with amber tones. luscious rich merlot red. and preference defies fading. up to 8 weeks. the preference paris couture collection. the latest of 50 luxurious shades. find yours.from l oreal paris. because you re worth it. sometimes all you need is the wow. sometimes all you need is the smooth creamy taste of werther s original caramel to remind you that you re someone very special. now discover caramel apple filled werther s original. [ female announcer ] hey ladies, you love it, you gotta have it. cinnamon toast crunch. cause that cinnamon and sugar is so irresistible. [ slurps ] [ chuckles ] everybody craves those crazy squares. yeah, he s a liquid gold digger. babe how about you make me some of that velveeta cheesy broccoli soup i love so much? oh and you re so pretty. [ cries ] [ male announcer ] liquid gold diggers love liquid gold. good morning. it is 10:26. 9 i m marla tellez. plans to put new seats on b.a.r.t. trains are going to take longer than expected. so far, b.a.r.t. has outfitted 250 of its 669 cars with the new vinyl seats. it s scheduled to finish work on 50 more soon. the agency recently contracted with a company to replace the seats in 139 more cars. but the company hired to do the work suddenly backed out. b.a.r.t. now has to restart the bidding process which means it will take longer to outfit the entire fleet. coming up after the break, we ll check the forecast and mike will check the roads. welcome back. the time now, 10:28. taking a live look at the green hills, the rolling hills of sunol where we have high and midlevel clouds left over. but the low clouds are sticking to the san francisco bay. take a look at this, you can see the tippy top of the golden gate bridge above the cloud bank. it s going to take a while for the clouds to clear. inland cities will be just about as warm in near record territory. your full forecast today at 11:00. we re bringing the showers back as well. let s check the drive with mike. looking at interstate 80, this is the bay bridge toll plaza. there are low clouds but no big drama over here. still have the metering lights on as well. a smooth drive after the earlier incident cleared. still slow southbound 101 out of burling ame. there s a traffic signal over here, problems earlier but everything is starting to move a little better. maybe it s cleared up. thank you, mike. we ll have more of the day s top stories coming up in 30 minutes. jon kelley and i will see you again at 11:00. we re back with more of today on this thirst-day thursday, hoda is going crazy over this song. time for the weekend chatter, everything you ll need to know in the world of entertainment. here with the scoop is our dear friend and e-news correspondent. our baby brother, jason kennedy. let s get started with the movies for the weekend. what shall we see? how about the call ? with halle berry. she plays, pretty scary, she s a 911 operator, she gets a call from a teenaged girl, abigail breslin. that s one, she spends the hour trying to save her from her abductor. we re leaving out wonderstone. if you want to lighten the mood and go to the box office, they pay competing magicians. is it funny? it looks cheesy, but that s my concern. it looks a little cheesy. if you re going to stay home and pop the popcorn, what should we watch? a lot of this stuff coming out, have been nominated nor oscars. visually stunning, it didn t win an oscar. by i thought it should. ang lee directed this. and hitchcock his relationship with his wife while they were shooting psycho. was it psycho ? i think so. if it was, i want to see it. and life of the guardians an animated movie, an all-star cast. they team up and take down an evil man who is trying to steal kids dreams. can i tell you what i m addicted to on netflix? house of cards. i watched 13 episodes. i m done. it s so good. that s how you do it. i m learning, i m learning. you know hoda when she falls in love. celebrity news, adam sandler and drew barrymore are teaming up again. it s the wedding singer 1998 the first time they got together, and then they did 50 first dates. the third romantic comedy for them doesn t have a title, but they play a couple at a family resort. they get trapped there with their kids from a previous marriage. i think it will be fun. kyra has a beautiful picture with that baby. i love that she s doing this. because many times when celebs don t do photos like this the paparazzi go to crazy measures to get the shots. there s gerard pique, her man. he s a soccer player. and the little guy is rocking daddy s jersey. the voice is getting ready to start. your favorite show. and shakira is gearing up to be a judge. blake shelton. it will be a good season with the two new judges, right? yes, and usher as well. no cee lo, no christine aguilera, she s great. but it s going to be, it s going to be good. i think this is going to be the best season. that s what they say every year. but i heard it s going to be pretty phenomenal. all right, jason, thank you. if you want to hit the beach, the best spring getaways. i remember the day my doctor said i had diabetes. there s a lot i had to do. watch my diet. stay active. start insulin. today, i learned there s something i don t have to do anymore. my doctor said that with novolog® flexpen, i don t have to use a syringe and a vial or carry a cooler. flexpen® comes prefilled with fast-acting insulin used to help control high blood sugar when you eat. dial the exact dose. inject by pushing a button. no drawing from a vial. you should eat a meal within 5 to 10 minutes after injecting novolog® (insulin aspart [rdna origin] injection). do not use if your blood sugar is too low, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause symptoms such as sweating shakiness, confusion, and headache. severe low blood sugar can be serious and life-threatening. ask your health care provider about alcohol use, operating machinery, or driving. other possible side effects include injection site reactions and low potassium in your blood. tell your health care provider about all medicines you take and all of your medical conditions. get medical help right away if you experience serious allergic reactions such as body rash, trouble with breathing, fast heartbeat, or sweating. flexpen® is insulin delivery my way. covered by most insurance plans, including medicare. find your co-pay cost at myflexpen.com. ask your health care provider about novolog® flexpen today hers hey k your health care provider about novolog® flexpen today s is more than hers chocolate. it s an invitation. to stop and savor. when the chocolate is hershey s. life is delicious. backflips and cartwheels.mile? love, warmth. here, try this. mmmm, ok! ching! i like the fact that there s lots of different tastes going on. mmmm! breakfast i m very impressed. this is a great cereal! honey bunches of oats. i hear you crunching. honey, don t use your sleeve. for cold and flu season, there s clorox bleach. discover the power of l oreal s volumizing fibers. voluminous false fiber lashes mascara. dramatic volume from every angle. lashes are. volumized, lengthened. dimensionalized, curved! l oreal s voluminous false fiber lashes mascara. [ ding! ] losing your chex mix too easily? time to deploy the boring-popcorn decoy bucket. then no one will want to steal the deliciousness. with a variety of tastes and textures only chex mix is a bag of interesting. with a variety of tastes and textures are made with sweet cherries and the crisp, clean taste of our cranberries. i cannot tell a lie tis tasty. okay, george washington, did you take my truck out last night? tis tasty. on today s travel, if you haven t planned a spring getaway just yet, there s still time. whether you re dreaming of lounging on a beach in florida, or pulling up to a pool bar in st. kitt s, we have travel and leisure s digital project editor. there s time to get a good deal? all of these deals are less than $300 a night. so let s get to them. let s go to st. kitt s. st. kitt s, it s the island that the caribbean tourism forgot. it s the undiscovered beaches, the st. kidt s marriott resort. beautiful blue umbrellas and lounge chairs on a white sand beach, there is your spot. there s pools and a swim-up beach bar. and a spa and a gym and a pineapple papaya body scrub. it sounds so good i want to eat it. and it starts at $199 a night. it s starting to be the off-season a little bit. exactly. how about jacksonville. it s lively crowds, popular, crowded, if you want some of that but want to stay a little away. one ocean resort rates their start at $179 a night. it s quiet and beautiful. you re just five minutes from the bars and everything, so there s lots to do. i was talking about affordability. i was searching for flights later this month. round trip from new york. $350. it doesn t get any better than that. a great affordable escape. what about the west coast, california? here we come. california, we know we love it, the destination close to my heart. carmel valley, just 120 miles south of san francisco. this is quail lodge. what i love about it is that it s been recently renovated to the tune of $28 million. not even open yet, it opens on march 26th. so talk about a new car smell, this is a brand new resort. and they actually even have a great land cruiser experience. so if you want to turn around and do some adrenaline-pumping driving, this is your place and there s golf. and how far is that from carmel by the sea? just inland. a quick drive. that by itself has to be visited. it s so beautiful. quiet, if you re looking for something bucolic, that s your spot. washington, d.c., the cherry blossoms? the festival starts on march 20th. they re expecting the peak day to be march 26th. this is a great spot, the liaison capital hotel, located, the closest hotel to the capitol, within walking distance of the national mall and the smithsonian. they ll do a great deal for you. $175, they throw in all sorts of picnic stuff and cherry and chocolate cookies and it s a really great and fun deal. you can go to the gym, too. and jackson hole, wyoming. if you re looking to get one last-ditch effort down the slopes, this is your place, they had 28 feet of snow this year. it s really beautiful. this is spring creek lodge, so if you re looking to go skiing and to explore the wilderness, they have an on-site naturalist who can point out the fox and bald eagles. $87 per person, per night. they throw in a free ski pass. it s a really affordable way to get down the slopes this spring. she did it again. thanks. coming up, two women battling colon cancer and the information that could save your life, right after this. start with the best. use only natural ingredients. make something original. genuine. real. so peel it open. stir it up. and raise a cup to the real. bury yourself in the flavorfall of sweet icing and filling. 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[ whisper ] the snow day of breakfasts. add resolve deep clean powder before you vacuum. the powder is moist. lifting three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. don t just vacuum clean. resolve clean. it s not a candy bar. 130 calories 7 grams of protein the new fiber one caramel nut protein bar. time for today s health. information that could save your life. if you haven t heard, march is colorectal cancer awareness months. the cancer that s preventible and treatable when it s caught early. that s the message from two amazing women who are living with the disease. we ll speak to them in a moment, but first, their stories. in 2009, 48-year-old terry agreeing was the picture of health, accomplishing things women half her age could not, but a colon os copy revealed the mother of two had stage 4 colorectal cancer. i can t think of anything more difficult to do than to tell your children that you ve been diagnosed with cancer. after surgery and while receiving chemotherapy, she continued to pursue her dream and in 2011, finished the ironman world championship. attorney gloria borgess was 28 and ready to conquer the world when she was diagnosed. i thought i had a bad case of food poisoning, i had stage 4 colon cancer. by all accounts i wouldn t live to see my 30th birthday. she s done that and more launching her foundation, wonder glow, with the goal of funding cutting-edge cancer research. every day i am defying the odds, every day i am beating cancer. how inspiring are these two? terry greeg is a volunteer with the colon cancer awareness and the chairman of the wonder glow foundation. and dr. is the director of gast gastr gastroenterology. i ve been very fortunate, i feel for the most part wonderful. i have some weeks when i m going still through treatment that are a little rough. but i continue to train and run marathons and do half ironmans and hopefully another ironman in the fall. that s unbelievable, if you don t mind my saying. it s incredible. thank you. and you were just 28, how are you doing? doing well. i just finished my 46th round of chemo on monday and flew here on tuesday. but i m doing well, running the foundation and working out. lifting weights, playing basketball. and the doctor, we have to ask this. we know that the guideline is the age of 50 to start getting your colonoscopies. and a lot of people are terrified of them. but the truth is, the thought of them is much worse than the actual treatment. the preparation is the bad part and that s nothing. but if it s caught early, it s so easy to cure. yes. and these ladies, they were caught quite late. and they re doing so well it seems, are we making huge strides now? tremendous hope with this disease. the first point is as you say, don t wait until you get symptoms, when you re well is the time to talk to your doctor about screening and prevention. colon cancer is one of the most preventible and curable of all cancers that we know of. the earlier we catch it, the greater the chance of curing it. when you got diagnosed and learned about it you spoke to some of your family members and we have your sister is over there. and tell us what happened when you talked to your sisters when they got checked. i was 48 at the time and screening is at 50 and my sisters were over 50 and had never been screened. immediately after i was diagnosed. they went and had colonoscopies, my one sister had precancerous polyps and my other sister was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. this was all within two weeks of my diagnosis. so it s familial then in this sense, it s genetic? exactly. there s about a 20% to 30% chance of it being spread from a family member. so you have a family history of colon cancer, young people in the family with colon cancer, sometimes uterine or ovarian cancer can be related. polyps or colon cancer is a family issue. you are so young. did you have, what symptoms if any did you have? i had plenty of symptoms, because i was so young. i think people sort of wrote them off, including myself. so i went to the bathroom frequently and they weren t impressive performances. you had a lot of diarrhea. i felt myself bloated at night, things like that it didn t stop me, i was working 14-hour days and working out. and when things got to really severe point i thought i had food poisoning, i couldn t keep anything down. even in the hospital, it took six days for me to get a colonoscopy and that s when they found the massive tumor in my colon. did you have bleeding? no. so it s not always bleeding. no. actually the symptoms can be very, someone could just feel tired and have anemia as a presenting form. and 50 is a magic number. just like with breast cancer screenings, they say wait until you re a certain age there are people who are exceptions to this? absolutely. if there s a family history. the key is not to make the decision yourself. but talk to your doctor about it. any bowel disease, my sister had acute colitis, the more you talk about it and get it out in the open. it s nothing to be ashamed of. but bowel issues are called the silent diseases. nobody wants to talk about them. if you don t talk about them, you can t fix them. you guys are amazing. thank you for coming in. and thank you, doctor. we ll take you to today s kitchen for some down-home irish cooking. but first, this is today on nbc. we re back with what s cooking on st. patrick s day. and this weekend, everybody is irish, so we re making traditional irish comfort food. apparently this dish needs a little coddling. chef rachel allen has a brand-new cookbook. rachel s new irish cookbook. aren t you like you re beautiful. like an irish spring commercial. we re going to make some coddle. dublin coddle. which is like a big cuddle in a bowl. but it comes from a term to simmer slowly. it s one of those economical dishes, that s always made on a thursday before the no meat day on friday. to use up all the bacon and bacon we ve got, ham as you call it and potatoes. really simple. you have to have potatoes. so basically the first thing you do, i ve got finely chopped onion. and throw those in. and i ve got some breakfast sausages chopped up. like this. and then peeled, chopped potatoes. i m using your russets, actually they are work quite well. and some stock. or you could use your ham cooking water. if you cook your ham. all do you is put this on. allow it to simmer for about ten, 12 minutes, until you come to this. a little boil. a little boil and you can see here, that the potatoes are just soft, i think. and then i m going to add in ham and i love it when it kind of shreds, this cooked ham. this is traditional irish food, really simple as you can see. hearty, nutritious. you know, if you re feeling poorly, if you re feeling cold, this is the thing. this is the thing to eat, comfort food and some chopped parsley. there we go. and a little salt. i m going to give it a little taste. because the ham and the sausages. we might not need any salt. this is, this is great as it is. actually i ll put a bit of salt in at the beginning, but oh! and then, you just that is about as easy as it gets. hey, hey. you know, something, it s quite, this kind of food is quite cool again in northern ireland. but it s traditional and lovely. what about the dessert you have on the table? porter, porter being stout, it s got stout in it. and actually sometimes people even used to pour some begin he is into the coddle. but i don t like that. don t guesseinness your codd. it looks delicious. and you two kind of like having a little we like having a little bit earlier in the morning. while you re making us your drink, we re going to go over a little okay or not okay. so this we rant out of time. is it okay or not okay to kiss your tv guests on the lips? here s what we had to say about that. absolutely. i still haven t gotten over my kiss from tom sellick in 2,000. yes, it s okay, but only if it s george clooney. or tom sellick. oh yes. thank you so much for this. delicious. all right. tomorrow we have a great performance by the group, the celtic thunder and we also want to warn you we want to warn you now. hide the children tomorrow. you will discover things about hoda and you. never dreamed possible. if you like shrimp, then you re going to love sizzler s shrimp combos starting at just $9.99! four kinds of shrimp, seasoned just right and served in three new combinations. at sizzler! right now at 11:00, a mass celebrating newly elected pope francis is just wrapping up in rome. we ll show you how he spent his first day as head of the catholic church and the unusual thing he did right after being elected. we now know how a registered sex offender was allowed to join a high school field trip in the south bay. i m bob redell. that story coming up. we take you north to san francisco. how about a nice live look at the transamerica building. a beautiful day outside. we re expecting a very pleasant one but rain could soon be on the way. meteorologist christina loren will have your complete forecast coming up in a matter of minutes. good morning, everybody. thank you for joining us. i m jon kelley. i m marla tellez. it has been a very busy first day for pope francis. he began his morning with a private prayer service and less than 24 hours on the job, he s already turning heads for his unique style of leadership. nbc s tracie potts has more from rome. reporter: ducking in a side entrance, pope francis made his first public appearance this morning at santa maria, a handful of well-wishers among the first to greet the new pontiff. this afternoon, celebrating mass with the cardinals in the sistine chapel where he was elected, humble, yes, but the vatican says he also has a sense of humor. he said, may god forgive you for what you ve done. reporter: the simple jesuit from argentina riding the public bus, the pope s humble lifestyle now on display all over rome. i think they re going to all be in shock. this may not be a man who wants to wear silk and furs. reporter: last night after