good morning. coming up on early today, breaking details coming into nbc news on the black box from the downed germanwings plane crash that claimed 150 lives. then passengers aboard a bus who narrowly escaped as the motor coach is swallowed up and then washed away in rushing water. a 10-year-old world record holder with a drive to win unlike any other. "early today" starts right now. good morning. i'm dara brown. right now in southern france investigators are putting together the pieces in a grim search for answers. why did the plane crash in the french alps. nbc's bill neely breaks down what we know right now.

>> reporter: on a rugged french mountain side in thousands of scattered pieces the remains of a crashed plane. here and there, rescuers. but there was no one left alive to rescue. the airbus with 150 on board had simply disintegrated on impact. flight 9525 took off from barcelona at 10 climbing normally to a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet at 10:27. for eight minutes the pilots sent no distress signal. flight radar 24 says it lost contact with the plane which had dropped more than 30,000 feet at 10:40. on board were 144 passengers two pilots and four flight crew. among them at least 67 passengers from germany and 45 from spain. >> crews renewed their search just a short time ago. nbc's keir simmons is at the

command center near the crash site this morning. keir, what is the latest? >> reporter: dara good morning. you can see behind me helicopters ferrying air accident investigators up to the crash site which is so difficult to reach. it takes hours to get there by foot a treacherous trek. the only way to get there other than that is in those helicopters. this weather has hampered the search but now it is back under way. i'm afraid the search is for evidence for debris and for bodies. they have found one black box. there are reports it has been damaged, but there does not appear to be preventing them from at least finding some clues from that black box. meanwhile, we've spoken to one person who lives in the last village before the crash site. he describes hearing a low rumble very unusual sound of a plane and then hearing nothing, no crash, no explosion, and he doesn't understand why because he didn't realize the plane had

crashed until he learned some time later and it happened just over the mountain from here. dara? >> keir simmons reporting from france. now to brazil a scary scene caught on camera. a massive crater suddenly opens up in the road. a bus just inches from it starts to sink. the people on board jump off. now watch this. within minutes the bus tips back and disappears. but as the camera pans left the bus reappears. it's quickly swept away down the river. the road was closed immediately so it could be repaired. congress is demanding answers from the secret service after two agents were accused of drinking and driving into a barrier during a bomb investigation earlier this month. director joseph clancy was called to testify about the incident before a house committee yesterday. house oversight committee members want to hear from the agents, but that hasn't happened. clancy testified he didn't know anything about the incident until he was alerted by an anonymous e-mail. congressman elijah cummings became infuriated during the hearing.

>> i kept reading this e-mail this morning over and over and over. you know what i concluded? it appears that we have an agency at war against itself. the idea that in an organization like this that somebody would create this kind of document to bring this kind of disruption when they are supposed to be guarding the president of the united states of america -- we're better than that. >> last week clancy acknowledged that some of the video of the incident had been recorded over, committee chairman jason chaffetz expressed his disapproval. >> these agents placed themselves, their colleagues, the president and his family in potential danger by driving their government vehicle through a barrier within feet of a potential bomb. under secret service policy, video footage of the incident should have been retained. however, most of the footage, evidently, according to the secret service has mysteriously gone missing. i find this highly suspicious.

>> during the hearing, director clancy said he, quote, doesn't have a magic wand to fix the problems inside the agency, but he does plan on holding people accountable. president obama has promised an end to america's longest war, but it may come slower than expected. after meeting with the president of afghanistan yesterday, president obama confirmed that about 10,000 u.s. forces will stay in afghanistan for the rest of the year. the president said afghanistan remains a dangerous place and he doesn't want to go back to battle terrorists in the future. i want to go now to tracie potts who joins us now from washington. tracie, good morning to you. how does this change the president's plan of downsizing the number of troops in afghanistan? >> the white house says it doesn't change the final deadline of getting everyone out by the end of next year but it means thousands of troops half of them who planned to come home as part of that movement this year, turns out they won't. >> reporter: afghanistan's new

president ashraf ghani will tell congress today why he wants u.s. troops to stay. >> we are going to have a tough year. we probably will have several tough years. >> reporter: there's already trouble. new today, word that a u.s. drone strike killed 11 taliban militants near the border with pakistan. more extremists are expected to rise up this spring. president obama has agreed to leave nearly 10,000 troops there this year but stick to the full pullout by the end of 2016. >> we want to make sure we're doing everything we can to help afghan security forces succeed so we don't have to go back. >> reporter: there's also concern isis could move into afghanistan. >> groups like isis fill the nooks and crannies and black spaces people don't think about in times of high anxiety. >> reporter: today's speech is similar to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's visit three weeks ago. now netanyahu is denying allegations his country spied on nuclear talks between the u.s. and iran and fed that information to republicans in congress.

but those republicans are applauding president obama for extending the troop stay for this year. the white house is emphasizing the 2016 deadline is still their deadline. >> tracie potts, thank you so much. near boston a frightening discovery. a house for sale was rigged to explode. >> it was a device secreted in the house, inside a gallon container. it had wires that were wired into the home. if someone flipped the light switch on where it ended, the device would have exploded. >> the homeowner and an electrician made the discovery. it took a bomb squad hours to disable the device. police are trying to find the renters. this is the second incident involving the house. cops were called last week after someone plugged all the drains with cement. now it's time for a look at your national weather. with that here is nbc meteorologist bill karins. >> be careful who you rent to

right? >> exactly. >> severe weather will be the story. it was a little yesterday. we could get our first tornadoes of march. area of greatest concern, where you would expect it to be oklahoma arkansas and southern missouri. from oklahoma city this evening into tulsa and branson. shouldn't be a widespread outbreak, but there will be severe weather, maybe all the way down to dallas, too. maybe some flooding problems in southern missouri later today, too. as far as the rest of the country goes one storm system heads up to the great lakes. a new storm system came in overnight in the pacific northwest. we are looking at rainy weather through the morning commute. a lot of the heavy stuff is already out of the portland area. but it will be a soaker of a day. a lot of locations getting to a half inch and an inch. the big story will be the heat. today's high temperatures are starting to soar, up to 86 in l.a. 17 degrees above average.

fresno, up to 87 19 degrees above average. it continues into friday. we should be about 20 to 25 degrees above normal. areas like palm springs could be near what little snowpack we have is melting away. currently the snowpack in the west is 9% of average. >> wow. >> that's it in the mountains. >> with the temperatures we've gone right from winter to summer. where is spring? >> it's cruel. >> thank you bill. bipartisan breakthrough stopped cold in its tracks. plus a hero cop puts his life on the line to save a toddler. you're watching "early today."

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for you. two huge brands are merging. kraft foods and h.j. heinz are coming together. the new giant will be the third largest food and beverage company in north america and the fifth largest in the world. not so fast for a potentially historic bipartisan agreement in congress. house speaker john boehner and minority leader nancy pelosi have reportedly brokered a long-term deal that would end the annual threat of medicare cuts to physicians. according to "the new york times" there's a possible wrench in the system senate minority leader harry reid who objects to abortion restrictions in the bill. the district attorney says officer lisa merkel was not justified in using deadly force when she shot and killed a man during a pure suit following a traffic stop. merkel says she fired because the man would not show his hands and she thought he was reaching for a gun in his jacket. in georgia, a house fire rescue caught on tape. a police sergeant with a body

cam arrived before firefighters and ran in to help. >> and my grandbaby. >> where is your grandbaby. >> first bedroom. >> dispatch tell fire that we're looking for a baby. >> he went room to room and found the 3-year-old. the officer grabbed the boy and got out of the house safe and sound. near philadelphia, a while wreck, a school bus slammed into a house yesterday. the family inside said it felt like an explosion. the bus was carrying nine students, everyone was okay. police are trying to determine if the driver suffered a medical issue before the crash. in louisiana, elephants to the rescue. the 18-wheeler they were in got stuck in the mud. the driver got really clever. he had two elephants lean against the side of the truck so it wouldn't tip. a wrecker was called in and eventually pulled the rig out. now it's time to get down to business with cnbc's landon dowdy. good morning. >> good morning to you. facebook is holding the annual

developers conference today. facebook could introduce new features for its messenger app turning it into an entertainment platform to better compete with snap chat. they want more mobile advertising tools and more features for instagram. toys "r" us is not renewing the lease on the flagship store in new york's times square where it's been since 2001. the lease expires in january. toys "r" us is considering whether to move fao schwartz store elsewhere. women may dominate the nursing field but men are still being paid more. a new study finds male nurses make $6100 more on average that female nurses. research says women may have a harder time getting promoted and a lingering bias that men are more of an expert because they're men. back over to you. >> thanks landon. just ahead, it stunned drivers. the video that will have you rubbing your eyes plus -- >> thank jesus.

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years later, day two of matt lauer's exclusive interview with the cast of "pretty woman."

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nbc bay area news begins with breaking news. >> a standoff in san jose all coming to an end less than an hour ago. we just heard a flash bang grenade used by officers during an eight-hour-long standoff. the man who shot and killed a san jose police officer is dead. >> overnight, we learned the name of the officer killed, michael johnson, was a 14-year veteran of the san jose police force. >> "today in the bay's" bob