we're going to have a new exclusive report on something further, something else going on in michigan, surprisingly radical and occasionally bizarre state government. that special report is ahead a this week. "first look" is up next. >> good thursday morning. right now on "first look" breaking news. a car crashed into a crowd at the south by southwest music festival, killing two. wlikting reports. first this satellite image may show missing flight 370, and did the plane reply past its last confirmed location. a number of people still missing as firefighters continue to search the rubble for buildings that exploded on wednesday. sfwlirjs plus, a carjacker steals three cars, including a 4-year-old passenger, and it's all on tape. two companies are looking for someone willing to spend a we're traveling around the globe on $1 million.

at least two people were hit as a car crashed through barricades at the south by southwest festival. at least 23 have been taken to area hospitals with injuries. five of them in critical condition. we're looking at some of the first amateur video from the scene. it happened just after midnight local time outside the popular bar at the corner of 10th and red river. authorities say the driver ran -- killed, in fact, a man and woman riding on a moped and plowed into the 200 pedestrians leaving a concert at that festival. that driver is in police custody at this hour after officers shocked him with a stun gun, though an identity has not been made public. austin's police chief says the man faces two counts of capital murder. more details as they become available. now, to the mystery of that missing passenger plane. did malaysia flight 370 fly five

hours after its last sighting. it's the newest in the baffling vanishing act. 239 souls are still missing. the "wall street journal" reports flight 370 stayed in the air for about four hours after it reached its last confirmed location. the chinese government posted these satellite photos taken sunday from the south china sea. one of the search areas. the photos might show debris from the missing jet. nbc news cannot confirm what the photos show and if they are connected to that missing jet. u.s. officials say they can't confirm the accuracy either but the federal aviation chief says a search of that area found nothing. the general search spans more than 35,000 square miles and now involves 42 ships and 29 aircraft from 12 nations. now, the pain of the families visibly boiling over in this video. it shows some throwing water bottles in malaysia airlines

employees in a briefing. they are still demanding answers on how a plane simply vanished with their loved ones on board. also some breaking news overnight in new york city. officials just confirmed at least six people dead after a fiery gas explosion flattened two apartment buildings. nbc's chris malone has the latest developments. >> reporter: as night fell on new york, firefighters' efforts intensified to find at least nine people missing since a deadly blast occurred. they're picking through what's left of five stories of wood, metal, and glass as loved ones hold out hope that a miracle might happen. >> we just want to know if he is all right. that's all we want to know. >> reporter: focus is also now turning to several important questions. exactly what happened and why. the ntsb which investigates pipe lien accidents has sent a team to new york. >> we will be looking at all reports. we'll be looking at con-ed's call logs to see when the first calls started coming in. >> we have a collapsed structure

with fire. get tower -- >> the massive explosion rocked the area around 9:30 in the morning leveling two five-story buildings. it blew out wind wroez in nearby buildings, knocked groceries off of store shelves and stunned people who felt it as much as a mile away. sfwoo we heard a huge explosion. >> never seen anything or felt anything like that before. >> intense fire sent thick, black smoke bill lowing over the wrar. ash and debris for blocks. even on elevated train tracks next to the collapsed buildings. >> i'm happy for that. those are the two things i can't replace, my mother and sister. everything else in that house i can replace. >> reporter: city leaders say a neighbor reported a strong gas odor in the area, but the buildings exploded before investigators could check it out. now many are left expecting the worst, but hoping for a miracle. chris malone, nbc news, new york. we want to take you to colorado now where a man kidnapped a 4-year-old boy, carjacked three different vehicles, and seriously injuries

a police officer. the chase lasted an hour before finally coming to an end. nbc's miguel almiguire reports. >> a high speed chase. apparently somebody took a car in longmont. >> he has gone left shoulder and right shoulder. >> police gave the suspect room. >> this guy is going like a rocket ship. >> fearing for the safety of a 4-year-old boy inside the stolen car. >> he is getting into another vehicle. >> reporter: the chase lasted over an hour. >> another vehicle. he has carjacked a silver van. >> reporter: the suspect stole three vehicles. >> it is very dangerous, and we're overhead kind of following this guy. he was not going to stop for anybody. >> tremendously high rate of speed. >> reporter: veteran koa news reporter john morrissey has never seen anything like it. >> approaching a stop sign now and not even thinking about stopping. >> reporter: it could have been as bad as you imaged. he passed loaded school buses. he was in traffic. he was going the wrong way on the interstate for, like, 15

miles. >> reporter: more than half a dozen cars were rammed. >> he is doing over 100 miles an hour. >> wow. >> easily. >> reporter: state trooper bella was hit and seriously injured. >> now he is carjacking the other vehicle throwing a young lady to the ground. she's fighting him. >> reporter: the car chase ended with this collision. >> there's two police officers coming right straight at him. right straight at him. right there. >> reporter: police have their man. >> it is suspect is on his stomach. this is over. >> reporter: 28-year-old ryan stone is in custody, and that 4-year-old boy clutching a teddy bear is safe back with his family. a wild pursuit that played out on live tv few will forget. miguel almiguire, msnbc news, los angeles. an update on the crisis in ukraine. some u.s. lawmakers will get a firsthand look today at the revolution on the ground. senator john mccain issing leading a bipart sfwlan delegation of eight senators to kiev. this trip comes as the senate foreign relations committee

approves strict sanctions. it's aimed at putting economic pressure on russians involved in russia's intervention in ukraine. ukraine's new prime minister met with president obama at the white house. the president expressed his unequivocal support for the new government. the crimea peninsula actually voted sound a refer endem to secede from ukraine and join russia. the g-7 leaders say they will take further action if russia tries to annex crimea. >> look who is on deck. ryan schachtman with us this morning. >> hey, betty, topt start in the national hockey league. an incredible story here. a brush with death now forcing regular pefrly to end his hock where i season early. the forward will undergo surgery to fix the heart ailment halves identified as the cause of his collapse on the team bench monday night. peverley's life was saved after team medical staff acted quickly. they used a defibrillator to revive him. peverley had been previously

diagnosed as an irregular heart beat, and doctors aren't sure if he will ever play again. he is alive, and that is a good thing. >> absolutely. >> phil jackson has won many an nba title. with air jordan back in the day. he might be in new york. car medicalo anthony saying the zen master will come on board to manage, and not to coach, ironically. they beat my celtics with their fifth straight win. they're only three games out of of a playoff spot. new york city's other nba franchise also making headlines beating the reigning champs on the road in miami. the brooklyn nets secured a 96-95 win with a steal. you might have interesting play jofrz in the eastern conference. indiana is good too. playing a tight game. nothing new for lebron. he did have an unusual encounter when he posed for a photo with a fan showing off his lebron james back tat. >> that's impressive. >> i wonder how much a tattoo

like that would cost. >> i wonder how long it took too, how much pain -- >> it looks painful. >> let's go to american university putting the pain on boston university. they're in the ncaa men's tournament now leading 65-36. they win the patriot league, and they storm the court in boston. how about this from hockey? two quebec minor leaguers, they are duking it out. now, usably don't like to show the violence in the game, betty, but there's a reason for it. all is fair in love and war. what do they do after they beat the tar out of each other? they high-five. >> i guess it's only everyone that would do that after a fight i don't know what to say about that. >> me either. >> look tend of a dramatic fwam in the state of michigan. it's a high school game. [ buzzer ] >> that's amazing. >> tricky camera work, right? >> i was trying to keep my eye on the ball. >> a little dizzy.

you know, high school sports, that's what it's all about. there's no money there. just pride and fun. sacred heart 49-47 over fulton, and everyone is happy. >> those guys are kings on campus. all right. thank you. a late winter storm just tore through the midwest and northeast wednesday night. the heavy snow caused a deadly pile-up on the ohio turnpike. at least 50 vehicles involved. three fatalities there. the traffic and snowy roads, emergency workers struggled to meet motorist who's had to sit and wait in their cars for hours. nbc meteorologist bill karens -- >> uncle. >> yeah. >> we're calling quits, please. we give up. >> i was searching for pictures of snow yesterday, and the language people were using to describe the snow was not very nice. >> no, because we've been bombarded. >> people do not like march snow. when it hits march, they get very upset. we had a big snowstorm from the ohio valley through the northeast. up to a foot of snow western new york and burlington, vermont, up

to 15. the snowstorm is pretty much gone. maine only getting the significant snows. how about these wind gusts? 43-mile-per-hour gusts the last hour in philadelphia with a wind chill of 3. what is this january? minus 8 wind chill in buffalo. as far as the forecast goes today, the sun will come out. it will get nicer, but this morning when you walk outside, it was like 60 to 70 just two days ago. >> not today. >> no. not even close. >> thank you. well, shorter prison terms for federal drug offenders. the obama administration's new push. plus, anti-government protesters get more aggressive in venezuela. that new jersey high school girl suing her parents, well, she's made a deal.

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gm vehicle. help wanted. luxury travel, intelligence and very first to know.com are searching for a candidate willing to take a $1 million trip around the world for free. the applicant would spend one year eating at the finest restaurants, staying at five star hotels, going to elite nightclubs and the world's most fantastic resorts. one requirement, though, is the travel must provide in depth written reports on their experiences. renegade jeopardy champ arthur chu whose unusual style of jumping around the board has been defeated. he won almost $300,000 in his 12-day run. clashes between police and anti-government protesters killed three people in venezuela on wednesday. protesters threw stones and molotov cocktails. the death toll has risen to 25. later today attorney general eric holder is expected to call for reduced prison sentences from nonviolent drug crimes. holder argues that the proposal

has bipartisan support and would include tough penalty forces criminals while reducing federal prison spending. that new jersey honor student who left home and sued her parents for college tuition seems to have reunited with her family. according to the parents' attorney rachel returned home without conditions. maybe a scolding. a controversial comment from paul ryan has fellow representative barbara lee very upset. scrambled politics is neglects. ...so you say men are superior drivers? yeah? then how'd i get this... [ voice of dennis ] ...safe driving bonus check? every six months without an accident,

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scrambled politics. it looks like congressman darryl issa blew it. house democrats backed by two veteran congressional legal experts say the oversight chairman botched his shot at holding -- democrats say in his haste to end the hearing by cutting the mike of elijah cummings, issa failed to give the former irs official a clear cut choice between answering questions and being in contempt. republicans say the move is partisan and deeply flawed. adios arizona. january brewer won't run for re-election later this year. she considered challenging the state's term limit rule by arguing her first term wasn't an elected term since she assumed office from janet napolitano. paul ryan appearing on conservative bill bennett's radio show, and he said one of the economy's real problems is an inner city culture of not working.

>> we have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there's a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with. >> democratic congresswoman barbara lee called ryan's comments a thinly vailed racial attack that cannot be tolerated. those comments were made just as democrats were trying to force a vote on extending long-term unemployment benefits. if a majority of the house signs that discharge, the chamber must vote on the bill. in florida the estranged wife of congressman alan grayson has dropped a restraining order fwens him. she had accused her husband of shoving her earlier this month. former president bill clinton is hitting the trail for a member of the family. no, not hillary. daughter chelsea's mother-in-law. marjorie manager leez is running for congress in pennsylvania. she searched one house term in the early 1990s.

a vote in favor of clinton's economic plan is widely believed to have prevented her re-election. the muppets took over the white house wednesday. the characters entertain military families with an advanced screening of the new manufacture. kermit even got a special coin awarded to him from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. that's your morning dish of scrambled politics. i'm joined now, as always on thursday, by syndicated columnist bob franken. always good to see you. zim just looking at that video, and i thought the caption should read kermit the frog shown here m center. >> stop it. let me move to something very serious. intelligence committee chairman dianne feinstein dropped a bombshell on the senate floor this week accusing the cia of spying on staffers investigating the agency's bush era torture program. as for the cia it is asking the justice department to investigate whether senate staffers broke the law by accessing classified information. which version do you believe

here? >> well, it's entirely possible that both versions are to believe and be disbelieved. it really comes down, first of all, he-said-she-said. you have a situation where senate staffers perhaps were conducting their own investigation, and they went beyond the perimeters of the cia had decided to set, and then the cia decided it would look into what senate investigators were doing. the only problem with the cia position is that the members of congress are the ones that are supposed to be doing the oversight of the cia and the intelligence community. not the other way around. sometimes you fwet the impression that our spies don't realize that. >> not only do, but does it seem remotely plausible or comical to suggest senate staffers are expert hackers that can break into secret cia files? >> well, it wouldn't surprise me if there are a few people there who are able to do that kind of thing, but it's really sort of beside the point. what is really at issue here is this harshly critical report

that's going to be coming out about the cia and its conduct after the 9/11 attack and what many people have characterized as torture and have claimed by the intelligence community that was least effective in getting information from the terrorists who were in prison. apparently the report that's going to be coming up by senate intelligence is going to just really rip that apart, and there's been this big effort to try and stop that, and the cia is accused with some just fiction over the years of trying to block public accountability for its conduct. >> we'll see how this shakes out. thank you, bob. we appreciate your insight. >> well, thank you. >> have a fwood one. coming up, bill and brian will be here for first buzz to talk about the five second rule. is it real, or just an urban myth? that's next. it's a growing trend in business: do more with less with less energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance,

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all right. time for first buzz. this first story, boy, brian schachtman is bringing to today because i think we all like this. >> that great food that you wanted, it just drops on the floor. no one is looking. well, it turns out british researchers say the five second rule is okay. you can't transfer bacteria quick enough, although -- sometimes i use the ten second rule. they say -- you can't transfer the bacteria that quick, so they say go ahead. >> what i do is i pick up a bite and blow it off. it's okay now. >> drop and go. >> hope you're want tasting a chunk of something that wasn't supposed to be if there. back to something that may have you wishing you hadn't seen it.

>> yes. >> we all know our fwood friend jim cantore from the weather channel. the last big storm he was in charleston. this happened when he was out on the live shot. he has kind of changed his wardrobe. maybe trying to blend into the elements. yesterday he was in vermont for the big snowstorm wearing -- >> oh mishgs goodness. >> wearing these snow pants. >> from the norwegian curlers or what. >> no one is quite sure where he got these or -- >> you will definitely see him. >> month one approached him. maybe they actually work. >> hey, if an avalanche happens, you definitely know where to find him with those pants, right? >> i could try it, but i don't know if they would work well for me. >> back to something you definitely want to see. these cutis, these sumatran tigers are actually some of the very few in the world. they were born recently. this is at a zoo, and three of these sumatran tigers, many of the, talking about how rare they

are, there are only 300 left in the world, and the mom is guarding them very closely. no names just yet, but one of them has trouble as a mick name, so if that gives you any indication. >> whoa. >> thanks for watching, everybody. way too early starts now. folks, today russia today is spewing their toxic anti-american news borisch. >> it's directly to terror attacks against the population where that are, in fact, organized by the cia and white house. >> al qaeda was created by the cia. they use al qaeda to attack the u.s. they can take our -- >> you are saying that the cia tested out drugs on foreigners? >> the cia funded an experiment there involving aerosol lsd. >> the united states went down to nicaragua and rounded up a bunch of street people and

infected them with syphilis. >> that is a lie. infecting nicaraguans with syphilis was not a government problem. it was motley crew's world tour. united front. president obama and ukraine's prime minister meet at the white house insisting all of ukraine, including crimea, will join the western world. ministry of the missing. malaysian airliner deepens after new video shows just how long the aircraft's engines were kept running. mother nature strikes again after a deadly pile-up in ohio. harsh weather continues to come in like a lion. this is "way too early."