police were to ending it back in 2004ment we'll have a live report coming up. good morning, everyone, i'm brian shactman. thanks for being with us. congressman sanford or should i say congress-elect sanford, we'll hear from the newly elected representative from south carolina as he writes the next chapter of his comeback story. speaking of comeback, the memphis gridslys trying to find a way to stop kevin durant. not exactly a household name. first, back to our top story on this wednesday. we are learning new details about the kidnaping of the three young women held captive in a cleveland home. police were literally on the doorstep of making the discovery in 2004. they showed up at the scene after suspect ariel castro a school bus driver left behind a passenger. no one answered the door, the

cops left. neverrail realizing behind the door were two of the women who would remain captive for ten years. for more on this story, let's go live to nbc news correspondent ron allen. now, i guess moving this story forward a little bit. what kind of charges are these suspects facing? >>. >> reporter: well, we expect them to be charged later today. there is a 44 window. the charges likely include kidnapping and rain. we hope to -- and rape. also a lot of unanswered questions. it will take a long time to unravel how all this could have happened. as you know from looking at pictures of the neighborhood, it's a dense neighborhood, an urban neighborhood. the find where the women were allegedly held sits next door to other houses. a lot of neighbors are amazet this could have happened. there are also unfortunately a lot of neighbor was say they heard unusual things at the

find. they say police came on a number of other occasion, knocked on the door, trying to investigate what was going on. went away when no one responded him police say they came on two occasion, one prior to the time that the women were missing. so some big indiscrepancys there. and, of course, we are still waiting to hear from the three women who were held and rescued. a pier rack lus story. there are individuals at their homes. their homes arefestering with ribbon, balloons, family and friends waiting to come. we don't know when that might happen. they are in safe houses somewhere, perhaps nearby, being questioned by authorities and being treated and helped by counsellors and therapists and others because you can only imagine the kind of ordeal they have been through. meanwhile the investigation continues at the find. the police and carol were there late into the night, collecting ten years of evidence they have to go through and process as they build tear case against the castro brothers.

>> thank you for being out this early. we appreciate the reporting on "way too early" this morning. moving on to a political story, by an calculus, the story of mark sanford is simply amazing. for a long time, his name could not be read without the word disgraced in a sentence. now he returns to office beating elizabeth colbert busch by 9 points last night in a special election for congress. in the end, it wasn't that close. sanford racked up conservative wins in outlying county, some by 40%. this provided a huge cash advantage for colbert busch. she took a million of outside spending. sanford a fifth of that amount. throughout the campaign, he addressed the scandal that sidetracked his former career. now with his former mistress and fiancee in the audience, he touched on the theme, second chances. >> i am a man with conviction

about spending if washington, d.c. and it's my pledge to every one of you here from this day going forward that i am going to be trying to be the best congressman that i could have ever been and working towards. incredible result. we turn our attention over seas now, particularly in syria, where the situation seems to be worsening by the day. president obama said tuesday the united states had a moral obligation at national security interest in bringing the civil war to an end. do we have a sound byte there? okay. moving on, we don't have that sound byte for you. meanwhile, it has been a rocky trip to russia, which sw a key allie by state secretary of state kerry. by some accounts, kerry was forced to wait three hours to meet with vladmir putten. the us president made no mention of syria in their public remarks. still they announce plans by the conference to try to bring pa es

to that war torn country. later this morning, the find committee is set to hold a hearing on last september's deadly attack in benghazi and how the administration handled the aftermath. according to some lawmakers, it's a scandal rivaling some of the biggest in american history. senator lindsey graham said the dam is about to break. congressman steve king's words were if you link watergate and iran towing and multiply it by ten or so, you will get into the zone where benghazi is, end quote. greg hicks was the second under ambassador stevens, he reportedly told investigators he believed it was a fraek the beginning. he also -- a terrorist attack from the beginning. he says a raid was forbidden by u.s. special operations and his ongoing scrutiny by the role played by then secretary of state hillary clinton, although,

a report in december found no wrong-doing in her handling of the incident. the leader of the independent review admits he never actually interviewed mrs. clinton, telling nbc news he believed he had information from other staffers in meetings with her. meanwhile, lawmakers in washington are admitting alarming statistics on the reign of assaults on the u.s. military. yesterday the pentagon showed reports rose 35% since 2010, estimating 26,000. these are real numbers in this study. 26,000 active duty troops experienced unwanted sexual contact. secretary of defense chuck hagel called it, quote, one of the most serious challenges facing them. president obama says he has zero tolerance for this type of assault in the armed forces. >> sexual assault is an outrage. it is a crime. that's true for society at large and if it's happening inside our

military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they're wearing and for those who are in uniform, who have experienced sexual assault, i want them to hear directly from their commader-in-chief that i've got their backs, i will support them and we're not going to tolerate this stuff and there will be accountability. >> the president also called on secretary hagel to step up efforts to identify and identify attackers. of the more than 3,300 reported cases o'assault, just 238 assailants were convicted. of course, the political world has been watching chris christie's weight for sometime. he secretly had lap-band surgery in february. it restricts the amount of food a person can take in. he has lost 40 pounds since he 81 went the procedure. he addressed his health and his career aspirerations and he took

them head-on. >> it's not a career issue for me. it is a long-term health issue for me and that's the basis upon which i made the decision. >> everybody is going to have opinion, as is obvious from this skrum of people here today. with all due respect, everybody here, your opinions on this issue really don't matter a whole held hoff a lot to me. >> i made jokes arpt about you -- >> christie led to the moment that led to the change. it was here on david letterman back in february. >> the donut with david letterman was kind of my good-bye. >> the curtain call. >> it was. dave didn't foe that, nor did anybody else. i needed to do something. i did not want to take the risk of becoming unhealthy and the economics it would have for mary pat and my four kids. as you know, i have kids still in elementary school. i have a long road here as a

father. i don't want to miss any of it. >> same-sex marriage will become legal in the state of delaware. they signed it into law yesterday after a divided state senate approved the proposal. delaware will become the 11th straight i state to allow gay marriage t. law will go into effect august 1st. out of state same sex unions will be treated the same under this new delaware law. now to business, where the dow jones industrial average off to its best start, that happened to be the dot-com bull mark. the dow closed above the 15 tough. mark for the first time as investors seemingly continue to put tear faith in the stockmarket. we want to talk more with my colleague live at cnbc in london, this is global? >> it's amazing, isn't it, brian. you see the fundamental data is not all that ro bust. the markets don't seem to care at this point and you'd have

made a very strong 14.6% if you had been in the dow from the start of this yearment it wasn't only the dow in the states, of course the s&p another new high. certainly the nasdaq is really struggling to keep up with these games at this point. so the markets are if strong form and with all the central bank liquidity, the analysts are looking at this saying, well, at this point, there is no reason to believe the markets should have a significant pullback. but that's a few that, not everybody shares, but at the moment it does seem as tow we are poised for further gains in these equity markets. >> it's unbelievable where we are since the fall of 2007. you have to pearce it out for me, americans are borrowing at levels six years, we know where we were six years ago, is it good for american growth? is it good for consumers? give us details on that. >> it's exactly what the federal

reserve wanted to achieve, putting the money back into the market through qes and low interest rates. it's clear from the fed's lending surveys, 28% of banks sayingitative cut the cost of money to corporate's 11% jump in lending to corporates and nonfinancial companies over the first quarter. so people are taking the money. modest, though, when it comes to residential property. only a 1.4% increase. it does appear people are using the lower rates to refund, which i guess las got to be good news when it comes to everybody's pocketbook. >> it's cheap money. borrow it now t. rates will go up at some point. as always, we want to know why you are awake. shoot us an e-mail or tweet me at bshactman. shill i still a lot of show to come. another nail-biter in the nba. did kevin durant come through in the clutch or did an unsuj sung peb come through for the fem

miss grizzlies. he's being called a hero, could he be in store for an endorsement, remember what he was eating. we'll be right back . david berk wits pleaded gltd to all six of the murders that frightened new york city for a year. also he set 2,000 fires in the city over the last four years. berkowitz

here's a live look at our nation's xool at 5:45 a.m. eastern time. it looks like it's not raining here, but it's raining here in new york city. my commute was actually brutal. i thought i was hydroplaining on i-80. >> we need a little water.

give the flowers a little water, too. that's the case today, we end our streak of good weather, rain already has spread heavy over manhattan. now it covers much of long island an greater new york city. that's where all three major airplanes are located. you can expect some travel delays in this region. thunderstorms will move up in a peak of rush hour. that's by far where the worst travel will be found. later this afternoon, after some sunshine, we will spark off more additional showers in new england and possibly philadelphia and d.c. temperatures aren't too bad. it's a mild air mass. it will be conducive of showers and storms. in the middle of the country, additional storms for you, kansas city, omaha, later today, we will see a few strong thunderstorms around oklahoma city, wichita, maybe an isolated torpedo or two. overall, finally it looks like late spring, heading towards early summer. it's warmed up.

>> consistent 70s makes me happy. yesterday was beautiful. thank you, bill. to sports, a little nba action. thunder at home looking to go 2-zip on the memphis grizzlies last night. not so fast, the grids and mike -- the grizz, memphis had a late game surge to win 99-93 on the evening. 1 apiece in that series. to the gardens, the pacers are celebrating the 18th anniversary, sorry, in expand of reggie miller's 8 points in 9 seconds. some of that magic was still in the building last night. this could be the radio guy. so this is the play of the year for the n nicks. into is athleticism. carmello anthony led the nicks. they actually crushed the pacers 105-79, evening up that series.

now to baseball, a really scary moment in the toronto-tampa bay game last night. >> it's hit down low. hits the plate to 1st. he is down on the mound. two runs have scored. jennings goes to 3rd. >> a brutal comeback a. toronto pitcher j.a.happ hit in the head with a line drive off the bat of desmond jennings. unfortunately, we can tell you he was awake and alert and taken off the field in a stretcher to the hospital. we hope he is okay. a lot of twitter support out there for mr. happ. talk about a lot of perfect, he struck out 12. had no walks, allowed only one hit through nine innings of work, but he didn't get the when because the mets couldn't score a single run. once he left, though, the offense just blew up, right the

walkoff single. they mixed it with 1-zip on that game. the braves are looking for a save. they have to win another day. cincinnati's devin mezerocco ties the game. the next batter sin chu su, back-to-back. this goes over the left centerfield wall, back toback homers for a walk-on win. pretty dramatic. prime time tele56, you know what it is? well, it's getting a new place. [ music playing ] >> that, of course, was faith hill who ended her run as the voice of sunday night football last season t. 16-time grammy award winner carrie underwood will sing the theme song beginning the fall. coming up this morning, an update on that incredible story out of cleveland.

three women escaped after being held prisoner for years. just how close were they to figuring it out in 2004 when we come back here. louis the water cooler, you see the signature on every dollar bill. treasury secretary jack lew has been practicing his situation. it's a little loopy, more on higs his signature coming up next. why are twice as many people choosing verizon over any other carrier? many choose us because we have the largest 4glte network. others, because of our reputation for reliability. or maybe it's because we've received jd power and associates' customer service award 4x in a row. in the end, there are countless reasons. but one choice. the wright brothers became the first in flight. [ goodall ] i think the most amazing thing

is how like us these chimpanzees are. [ laughing ] [ woman ] can you hear me? and you hear your voice? oh, it's exciting! [ man ] touchdown confirmed. we're safe on mars. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ hi. [ baby fussing ] ♪

all rightment let's hit the water cooler. louis, it's good to see you. >> it's good to see you always. >> are you a markets guy. >> i am. >> i have to play catch up. i was reading the oversight annual report. >> you were? >> of course. very light reading. i'm here to report my finings. you foe, i got to page 1, i found some news. it only took one page to read it. treasurying is jack lew has a new signature. you may remember even obama mocked lieuptie pen papship, aa persontally, it's been compared to the hostess cupcake. the treasury's signature is an important win since it's printed

on every dollar bill. i don't know if that's actually his signature. >> if it is or it isn't, if you will be on the money, you can have your situation like a hostess cupcake. >> i can't agree with you more. rumors are flying around why governor chris christie 81 went lap ban surgery. >> christie announceing after struggling with obesity for years he revealed he secretly had lap-band stomach surgery. >> some say it is a clear sign he will run for president if 2016. >> of course, some say that. some say that he's running for president. it's a sure sign, because why else would a 50-year-old man with young children an a loving family take steps to address obesity in his life? why else? >> i mean, listen, even it is to run for president. >> it's for his life. >> yeah, it's all good. get off his back. now, if you have been following the kid faping case if cleveland, you may recall seeing

the guy charles ramsay. he dropped the name of a huge corporation. take a look. >> i heard screaming. i'm eating my mcdonald's. i come outside, i see this girl going nuts trying to get out of her find. >> this guy, that guy is the quarter pounder guy? >> he's a big mack guy. he apparently went to the house eat tag big mack. mcdonald's says it looks like an endorsement deal could be in the deal. they tweeted, way to go, ramsay, we'll be in touch. >> you think money or free burgers for life? >> listen, they have a few egg white mcmuffin. i'm extremely excited about that. >> i'm not an egg white kind of guy. he obviously deserves something for what he did. louis, we appreciate it. you can take it away. the financial oversight.

>> i know. >> that do you mean. but you had trouble reading the actual fame. >> yes, that's true. that was a tough read. still ahead on with the way too early" why you are awake, "morning joe" is moments away. look what mommy is having. mommy's having a french fry. yes she is, yes she is.

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. while you are awake, our producer has some answers. >> hey, we have megan on twitter. she had senioritis, means me and my room nates are up. back in the day, it was bottles of.tain dewment they have these little things of five-hour energy. johnny sanchez, my daughters kept me up all fit. there is nothing on tv at this time nothing other than good infomercials. so we're ahead of infomercials, awesome. thank you, john. "the morning joe" starts right now.

>> new jersey governor chris christie, did you hear about this? did you hear what is going on? he had the stomach surgery so he won't be so big. did you hear about that? >> yeah. >> what year is this? but his family gave him the choice. they said, look, you either have that surgery or get your own zip code but with every surgery, there is always some after the fact. it's like a punch list like a contractor goes through the house. okay, okay. same thing happens with major surgery and it's happening to chris christie after he had this lap belt or whatever they call it surgery. >> yeah. >> you know? here is what i'm talking about. >> our handling of the budget is one example to change. so it has arrived. >> all right. good morning. >> what in the world? >> the jokes are going to stop,