new wrinkles into the flight 370 investigation. what exactly did officials take from the pilot's home that could hold important clues? a live report next. the vote in crimea. in just a matter of hours, it will be over. what happens then when russian troops mass on the border. i'll ask a member of the house intel committee. tapped out, a new report about the ongoing saga in west virginia. why are people in one town still afraid to use water? you're going to see how a chemical spill has changed their lives. hey there, everyone. it's high noon in the east. actually, i'm out west where it's 9:00 a.m. out in los

angeles. the malaysian transport minister says the investigation into the missing jetliner has entered a new phase, refocusing on the passengers and pilots onboard flight 370. even the ground clue who handled the plane is now in question. malaysian police searched the homes of both the pilot and the co-pilot this weekend and authorities are now examining data from a flight simulator found at the pilot's home. meanwhile, the new search area has expanded over large stretches of land and the nearly of nations involved has nearly doubled. malaysian authorities are asking countries with surveillance and satellite assets for help in scouring this zone. >> we are now looking in several countries as well as deep oceans. the number of countries involved in the search and rescue operation has increased from 14 to 25, which brings new challenges of coordination and

diplomacy. >> according to the airline, the pilots did not request to fly together the plane vanished, and the boeing 777 was not carrying any additional fuel. nbc's kerry sanders is joining me now with the very latest on the investigation, and with a good day to you, kerry, what more do we know about the plane and the pilots? >> alex, as we enter day nine, malaysian officials today are saying that the search area is no longer concentrated just over waters. we take a look at the map here, they announced at a press conference this morning, they are now looking over land, up here. that's mostly in the central asia area. 11 countries that comprise that area. and for investigators who suspect the pilot and co-pilot may have hatched a deadly plan, new information may shoot that theory down, as the airline has revealed, the cockpit crew did not request to fly together. today the u.s. navy has its p-3s and p-8s off the coast of myanmar, also called burma.

but the search will slow down. why? the u.s. navy is flying its planes from kuala lumpur. if it takes three hours to get to the new target grid, then it takes three hours to get back to refuel. with about nine hours of total flight time, that leaves only three hours for searching. the best case scenario would be finding the so called black boxes. usually the flight data recorders provide answers. but in this case, if the voice recorder is ever found, it may end up frustrating investigators. >> it only records information for two hours and then overwrites itself. if this is a six or seven-hour event, then we've lost all of the good stuff. >> can you tell us what you were doing inside the house? >> reporter: in kuala lumpur, the flight is now a criminal investigation. police there search the homes of the pilot and co-pilot. the pilot's home flight simulator was removed by police to see if perhaps the erratic route flight 370 took was first

rehearsed in cyber space. >> i think law enforcement officials are looking at those pilots' homes to understand their broader relationships, their e-mails, their computer files. >> reporter: what remains unanswered is what route the plane followed as it went west. to track the path, officials are now relying heavily on a technology that was never designed to locate an aircraft. the 777 has an antenna that automatically sends bursts of data. routinely that data is by design mechanical, like how much fuel the jet is burning, engine temperature, and engine performance. but a team of clever technicians realized the pings also reveal how far the plane was from the orbiting satellite. so if this balloon were the satellite and this string here was the signal bouncing to and from the plane, you can draw an arc here and see where it might have actually gone. it's not precise. and that's why the search area now includes 11 countries like

kazakhstan. now, the onboard communications system on the plane, it's passive. it just happens to be going on in the background. but investigators now believe someone tried to shut it all down within the first hour of flight, which adds to the theory that the disappearance of flight 370 was a deliberate act. alex? >> kerry, those are great graphics and it puts it in perspective. i'm very impressed with that. but when you said that the focus is now more on land, is that because there is a strong consensus that that plane may have landed somewhere, or is it because the vastness of the ocean, which yesterday you described on this broadcast as being about the size of the continental u.s. is it just something that's more specific for them to focus on now than the ocean? >> i think it's just added territory to search. and that's really what makes this so complicated. remember, as we talked about the ocean, it's a three-dimensional picture in the ocean, because

it's surface of the water and then, for instance in the indian ocean, it goes two and a half miles down. they're looking for something floating on the top that would eventually hopefully lead them to something down below like those black boxes. up on the actual land to the north in central asia where they're going to -- well, actually, they've already started looking. they have the ability to not only work in two dimensions because it's flat, but also satellites passing over take pictures, and by taking those pictures, it doesn't just rely on somebody with a magnifying glass looking at pictures. there are actually computer programs that can look through those pictures to determine whether there's evidence of an airplane somewhere where it just shouldn't be. >> okay. kerry sanders in washington. we'll talk again next hour. thanks, kerry. let's get a bit more now on the hunt for the missing plane. to do that, i bring in captain john cox. john spent 25 years as head pilot for u.s. airways. he is also an expert on flight safety. welcome to you. let's talk about the investigators who are analyzing the data from the pilot's flight simulator. what could they potentially learn from this information? >> well, i think they want to see first what sort of

information might be in there. on a long shot chance, was this diversion from the normal flight track prerehearsed. the police are taking this to a new level of investigation above standard accident investigations. they're looking for a criminal act. typically aircraft accident investigators, we're more focused on what happened. so there's a parallel investigation going on here. >> so, john, then a flight simulator, it will have a certain memory much like a cell phone? people will look at a cell phone and see a history of calls. you can see that as well on a flight simulator? >> it could be. it depends on how it's based. this is an evolving technology. and at this point, i have not read anything that told us how advanced the simulator was. apparently this captain was very involved in simulation. it was a hobby for him. so the police will be able to take it apart bit by bit and learn whatever's in there.

whether it's useful or not. we'll have to wait and see. >> okay. a malaysian official said this morning that it is possible the last contact that that boeing 777 made with the satellite could have been made from the ground. that it is, again, technically possible. does that suggest anything to you? >> no. i think the fact that it is technically possible, it's still to me a very remote, very remote possibility. i don't believe you could hide a boeing 777 with 270-plus people onboard and not have word of it leak out after this length of time. >> the malaysian authorities confirming that the plane's change of course was most likely done deliberately. so that means the person or the persons who did this as well as dismantle the communications system onboard must have extensive prior knowledge of that aircraft and/or flying it, correct? >> well, let's take that apart a little bit at the time. first, the lack of communication, voice communication could mean a

number of things. the radios are electrically powered. did the box itself fail or was it just not utilized? those same questions are true for the transponder. but the most telling piece of evidence is what they call the acar system. it's an automatic data system. the data system was disabled, but the acar, what they call ping, was still enabled because it can't be switched off. the knowledge of how to shut that data stream off, that tells the investigators that there is someone with knowledge and it's a deliberate act because the electrical power and the acar system continued to work, but the data was shut off. so that's the most revealing single piece of evidence that we have so far. >> okay. john, what about the chance that the pilots might have been forced to change course? is there a way to get evidence for investigators to determine that they were forced to do it?

>> well, i remain confidence that we're going to find the airplane. i believe that we will locate a debris field that will lead us to a wreckage and that we will have the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. >> so john, you're telling me that your sense is that that plane landed somewhere either in the ocean or elsewhere and that it crashed? you don't believe that it is sitting on the ground intact and that passengers may have been let off that plane? >> unfortunately, i am of the opinion that it's probably in the water. >> okay. all right, captain john cox, thank you very much for your expertise. i appreciate that. >> my pleasure. terrorism has not yet been ruled out in this case, but how likely is it? we're going to hear from one analyst who answers terror chatter. let's go now to our other big developing story. crimeans are voting whether to potentially join russia. russia insists that the vote complies with international law and the u.n. charter. meanwhile, ukraine says that russia has increased troops in the region to 22,000.

and nbc's jim maceda is joining me from moscow. is there any hope to resolve this diplomatically? >> reporter: hi, alex. well, secretary of state john kerry and his russian counterpart sergei lavrov are still trying, and yet another phone call today, literally as crimeans were voting, those two diplomats agree that the ukraine crisis must be resolved through "constitutional reforms." now, that's pretty vague and it's about all they have agreed on. but then there was this latest twist. even as russia is building up its forces in crimea and along, of course, the border with ukraine, you've made reference to it several times, moscow has reportedly now agreed to a truce with kiev. a government that it doesn't even recognize. saying that there will be no military action taken against any ukrainian facility before march 21st. so where does that leave us? analysts that we've been talking to now for days say that putin has two choices.

he either reacts to crimea's vote to join russia by annexing it forthright or he acknowledges that the will of the crimean people, but he doesn't actually annex the region. something the west obviously is hoping that he does. but i've got to say, alex, that the vast majority of public opinion here in russia expects putin to annex crimea, even if that triggers a wave of u.s. and eu sanctions. we're now talking about economic and financial sanctions, not just those visa bans that are supposed to kick off on monday. so experts we're talking to say that putin does seem to have made up his mind, alex, to take back crimea regardless of the risk, at least at this point. the fear is whether putin uses crimea as a launching pad to take other parts of ukraine, like the east, for instance. but interestingly, so far, many

kr crimean watchers think that putin will probably stop the land grab with crimea. that's really his main prize. >> okay, jim. we have an hour and 45 minutes until the polls close in crimea, so we'll be watching with your help. thank you. let's go to the weather now and some rather startling pictures from texas. hail pounded comanche, texas, this weekend. some other parts of the country may be seeing white instead of green tomorrow for st. patrick's day. dylan dreyer once again with the forecast and the explanation for this. come on, dylan, look at the calendar. >> alex, i think it might be white with green because i think the green will always still be there for st. patrick's day. d.c., delaware, baltimore, those are the areas where we might see some extra white stuff tomorrow. hard to believe. but temperatures right now in washington, d.c. 46 degrees, so the colder air sitting to the north of that, that's actually going to push in and change any rain over to snow. you can see it's real cold right now in minneapolis and it's 20 in chicago. so the snow right now is falling across parts of missouri. to the southeast of missouri, that's where we have some rain.

we also had the threat of some severe storms today, back across parts of the panhandle, florida, into georgia too where we could see some hail, some isolated wind damage, some heavy downpours and also perhaps an isolated tornado. but what we're going to see with this storm system as it moves to the east, we are going to see colder air get wrapped into it. so watch what happens, about 6:00 this evening, it's still mostly rain. it's just the northern edge that's going to see some snow and some ice. especially back through the higher elevations of virginia, west virginia will also see some snow. areas like atlantic city could see an inch or so. then you go into delaware and a little further south in washington, d.c. that's where we could end up with perhaps about three to six inches of snow. the six to 12, that pink area, those would be mostly elevation type snowfall totals that we're going to see. so it's just enough. i mean, three inches on a monday morning commute is just enough to make things very slippery. as we go into monday afternoon, we will start to see things clear out. the plains states, they know

spring is right around the corner. temperatures should get to 60s and 70s. >> you see the smile on my face? it's going to be mid 80s where i am today. are there any new clues of the disappearance of flight 370 is an act of terror? i will talk with a member of the house intelligence committee about that next. plus, how the malaysian government is handling the investigation. at least one lawmaker says the u.s. should take a bigger role. . anything we purchase . for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can. when my son was born, i remember, you know, picking him up and holding him against me.

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to politics now, republican rand paul has done it again. the kentucky senator won his second presidential straw poll in new hampshire this weekend at the northeast republican leadership conference. he edged out chris christie this time who came in second place many inn the poll among piers. the palestinian president is set to meet with president obama at the white house tomorrow for

what sources say will be a crucial meeting. the two leaders will talk about options for a two-state solution with a possible palestinian -- or rather state capital in east jerusalem. as the mystery surrounding flight 370 deepens overseas, officials in washington are puzzled and they're just as puzzled as those in malaysia. >> what we're doing is we have the fbi supporting the criminal investigation. we have naval assets helping look for the plane. and the national transportation and safety board is on the ground trying to figure out what happened. so we're going to do everything we can to help them. but we need to get the answers so we can help them soon. >> creating a big matrix from the plausible to the probable. nothing has gotten to the probable quite yet. meaning there's still investigation to be had. you're going to have to do a thorough investigation on everyone on the airplane now to make some determination. >> joining me now with more is jim himes. nice to see you. thanks for joining me. >> good to see you, alex.

>> so are there any leads on who may be responsible? >> well, one of the weird things about this whole experience is that our own intelligence community doesn't have a whole lot more than what you read about in the media. this thing has simply disappeared. and, of course, the challenge of figuring out what happened has been complicated immensely by the fact that we now because the malaysian military failed to notice the radar traces that turned out to be this plane, we really have no idea where this plane is, within a grid of tens of thousands of miles. so a lot of missed opportunities. but one of the staggering things here is just the fact that we just don't know. >> do you find it somewhat comforting, if you will, in a very bizarre way that it's not al qaeda, or aqap, or some of these groups that we're so familiar with, because would they not have already taken credit for this and said we are responsible? >> well, i'm not sure i find it comforting. at this point, you don't need to be an aviation expert to know the probability that 230-some

people are with us is pretty low. so who knows, maybe a miracle will occur. but yes, one of the odd things here is that we have had no claims of responsibility. there's no indications that there were networks activated. or that people colluded or worked together to make this happen. i think we need to stand by. but unfortunately, i fear that the outcome when we finally do learn what happened is not going to be good for the families of those involved. >> yeah, it's been a tough week-plus, that's for sure. there have been some pretty serious concerns about how the malaysia officials have handled this investigation. for one thing, they waited a whole week before searching the crews' houses. shouldn't the use try to take a more active role? >> well, the real tragedy, of course, and the problem was that the malaysian air force, or the malaysian military whose job it is to protect their air space, actually their radar picked up this plane. and that would have opened all sorts of opportunities. you could have scrambled jets to guide it in if it was a problem with the plane being lost, it certainly would have protected people if the intention had been

to fly that plane into a building. had there been follow up on those radar tracks, we would now not be searching through several ocean. we would know more or less where the plane was and have some sense of what happened and obviously bring, you know, families into it there. so, you know, the convention, as you know, alex, is that the country in which an incident happens is by law the country that has the lead in the country. if there is no country, if it's international waters, it goes to whatever country's plane it was. now, one thing you can be sure is that our intelligence community, our law enforcement people, though not in the lead, are doing an awful lot of work behind the scenes doing everything they can to check with networks, to listen to our sources, to help the malaysians and frankly the global community here. >> okay, let's go to some drama that's happening there on capitol hill as your intelligence community colleagues on the other side of the aisle there are pitted in a fight with the cia over accusations that the agency spied on senate computers while the committee has been investigating its interrogation program. all this came after the cia

accused the senate of criminally mishandling some documents. did the cia illegally spy on the senate? >> well, the doj is involved, the department of justice is involved right now. they are going to get to the bottom of whether the cia violated the terms of their agreement with the senate intelligence committee to look at these very sensitive documents about rendition and detention. the facts will out there. one thick i know for sure is that senator dianne feinstein has traditionally been a very strong ally and protector of the intention community. as you saw, she went to the senate floor and raised a lot of hell. the facts will out once an investigation is done. that will suggest that the cia probably went over the line here. it points to a larger issue, though, alex. we shouldn't have these arguments. it shouldn't be a close call that requires department of justice investigation. the attitude of the cia or any other intelligence community member with respect to their oversight, the guys like me who sit on the committees, can never be, you know, careful about

we're going to give them this but not that. we're not going to answer this question. we cannot do oversight. if there's any question that the intelligence community does anything other than fully open the kimono to the people making sure that the people outside the executive branch comply with the law. >> okay. quickly for overseas in the final hours right now for that referendum vote for crimea to break away from ukraine and join russia. we have the white house and european leaders saying sanctions would freeze assets for travel as well. do you agree with sanction and when should they start? >> absolutely. they should start yesterday. putin -- we need to remember here that this guy is acting from a position of weakness, not strength. he effectively lost to ukraine, which was a major strategic priority for him. he's not getting it back, based on his activity to date. he may wind up with crimea, but look, he's acting in clear contra vengs of international law, so now is time for the international community to make it clear that there will be huge losers.

this is the point where the international community needs to make it clear that this kind of activity, which sort of flew back in the 19th century, is not tolerable in the 21st century. >> okay, jim himes, great to see you. thanks so much. >> thanks, alex. from the passengers to the pilots, how investigators are taking a closer look at the 239 people onboard flight 370. this is mike. his long race day starts with back pain... ...and a choice. take 4 advil in a day which is 2 aleve... ...for all day relief. "start your engines"

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for top paying women. fresno is second at 91%. mcallen, texas, is third at 90%. the biggest pay gap is in provo, utah, where women earn just 63% of men's pay. it's 65% in baton rouge, louisiana. and 70% in scranton, pennsylvania. chicago held its st. patrick's day parade yesterday amid sunny skies. the nosh new york is getting the second biggest turnout with nearly two million spectators. boston is third. tomorrow in hot springs, arkansas, you're going to find the world's shortest parade. that route stretches only 98 feet. kids are loving "mr. peabody and sherman" so much it's on pace to win the weekend box office in its second week. those are your number ones. [ wh] where do you hear that beat?

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welcome back to weekend. breaking developments on that vanished plane. 215 hours since malaysia airlines flight 370 took off. it remains missing somewhere in an area encompassing 11 names in some of the most remote waters on earth. early this morning, the malaysian transport minister held a press conference and what we know today is this. 25 countries are now involved in this search. the pilot and co-pilot did not request to fly together. investigators remove the pilot's flight simulator from his house. and some foreign intelligence agencies have cleared all of the passengers. the transport minister went on to put the search in perspective. >> this is an unprecedented case. what we are going through here, it is being monitored across the world and it may change aviation history. >> and while the malaysian authorities are now focusing their investigation on the crew and passengers, terrific horism

not yet been ruled out, but just how likely is it? joining me now, evan coleman. good day. i'm glad to have you here. i always talk to you about chatter, because you monitor that so closely. have you seen or heard anything relevant? >> absolutely not. the answer is zero. there has been more chatter on terrorist web forms or communication notes about the gas explosion that took place this week in harlem than there has been about this missing airlin airliner. there has been no claims of responsibility there. has been no discussion of this. nobody is talking about this in the world of terrorism. and to be perfectly honest with you, it's not really that great of a shock because there really are no organizations that are really actively targeting malaysian airliners filled with chinese people. that's not generally speaking a target that terrorist groups are going after. >> okay, so it's not surprising. but what do you then glean from this? do you rule out any of these known terror organizations as being responsible? >> well, look, first of all, anyone that's ruling out anything here needs to be very

careful, because we really don't know what happened here. that being said, the chance that this was terrorism or terrorist-related is exceptionally low. it is like a 99% chance that it's not terrorism-related. ie it's not a political cause. if this was a political cause, if this was a terrorist attack, who did this? why did they do it? terrorism is political theatre. the whole idea here is to send a message. if we don't know what the message is or who did it -- >> and take credit for it. >> exactly. on 9/11, we didn't necessarily know exactly who was responsible, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that was deliberate terrorist acts. this is very confusing. and if it is terrorism, it is the strangest and most odd example of terrorism i've ever seen or even heard of. i think chances are that it could be a hijacking, it could be a pilot diversion, it could be something else. was this the act of an organized terrorist group? very, very, very unlikely.

>> what about malaysia itself. does it have a strong history of terrorism? i mean, are there groups that you follow there? >> the answer is that there have been isolated individuals in malaysia that have joined groups like al qaeda. we all know that 9/11 hijackers held a meeting in malaysia prior to their attack but they weren't trying to target malaysia. they viewed malaysia as safe harbor. and i think for most terrorist organizations the idea of striking at malaysia, which is a muslim country on an airliner that's very likely to be carrying malaysian muslims, it sounds very odd to me. it does not sound likely at all. again, none of the facts here would in any way suggest that a terrorist group was responsible. things can change. maybe there's a claim of responsibility that hasn't come out yet. but the question is what happened to this plane? if it's a terrorist attack, where did it go? and i think the answer is that it's more likely that this is something else. >> okay. here's a story that slipped --

was i'm sure on your radar, but slipped through cracks amid all the news this week, that john brendan and other intelligence agencies have confirmed that al qaeda has a new number two leader. what can you tell us about him? >> he is the leader of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. he's the leader of al qaeda in yemen. he's a former personal aid to osama bin laden. he's experienced in afghanistan. i think one of the reasons he was selected s number one, he comes from the arabian peninsula and the heart of al qaeda. number two, because of the fact that aqap, al qaeda in yemen, is responsible for all these more sophisticated terrorist plots that we've seen in the last few years. the underwear bomb plot. the ups package bomb plot. and as such, because they've gained so much prominence, particularly in the area of targeting a united states homeland, that certainly is a good reason why he would receive that kind of a promotion.

>> okay. thanks so much for weighing in. >> thank you very much. >> so here's what we've been asking all of you today. what question would you have for investigators about the missing plane? here are some of your tweets. jeff brouwer asks, why were there no text messages or phone calls from any of the passengers on the plane? as a matter of fact, that's such a good question, i'm going to ask that of an expert coming up. also, from curmudgeon, who tweets why is it possible to turn off a commercial airliner's monitoring system during flight or at all for that matter? ray eakin posts, anybody talk to the five passengers who checked in, but didn't board? they know something? interesting. how can this happen in this modern age? that's from djk. scary. keep talking to me. in today's office politics, co-anchor of nbc's weekend today show erica hill, she confesses to one healthy obsession that affects her family. but first, i asked erica about her experience covering the aftermath of hurricane katrina.

>> i was in mississippi and i wasn't there when the storm hit, so i went down after. i was just blown away by the resolve and the strength of the people of mississippi. i kept in touch with some of the people for a couple years and i would check in with them. but just people i met walking around neighborhoods of biloxi, where there was literally nothing and there were casinos that had been picked up and moved into the middle of the neighborhood and people were trying to find a picture. and the way they were helping one another out. and they said you know what? it could be so much worse. we're alive. our family is safe. it's hard sometimes, whether it's covering katrina or any of these things you drop into a disaster, and you have to move because there's another story to cover. but i always worry about what happens. >> i know your twitter page says you're a produce aisle addict. >> yeah. >> i get what that means. but explain what that's like when you go to the grocery store. >> i really love the produce section. and i wish i had a green thumb. in my mind, i have this very romantic vision of a lovely

organic composted garden, which is never going to happen because i don't have the time. b, it would never work in our yard. which is kind of like a mud pit. and c, i have a black thumb. but i love vegetables. i love eating a lot of vegetables. i like the way that it makes me feel. i got really spoiled in northern california by the produce there. >> how about the boys, will they eat it? >> they're pretty good. believe it or not -- and i don't know what it is. it's something in the kale itself. my kids love kale. i don't know why. >> kale chips? >> they do like kale chips. we make kale chips. we make them. but they actually like kale salad. >> go figure. >> yeah. >> right? do you tweet a lot? or are you not so inclined? >> i go in spurts. because i don't ever want to be like -- you remember when everybody was on a video camera in the '80s and the '90s and you would see families at disney world, and they were capturing every moment but they were never part of the moment. so i feel like there's a fine line between putting something out there and sharing your moment and missing out on the

moment. so i kind of go in fits and spurts. >> but you did tweet out a story about someone whose father was dying. and you personalized that. >> yeah. i mean, those are things that -- my dad had a really long, tough final eight years. he died about four years ago. and when those stories speak to me, i feel like i want to share them because i know there's so many other people who have been through similar circumstances. and it's so hard to lose someone and you never really know what to say about it. you don't really know what to say to someone. it's a loss that never goes away. it just sort of changes. so that void is always there. but the way it's felt and when you feel it, i think sort of changes over time. and that was just something that i thought was really beautiful and it spoke to me. >> yeah. erica hill. loved getting to know her. back to the missing jet. what can they learn as they analyze the pilot's flight simulator.

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white house senior adviser dan pfeiffer on "meet the press" this morning answering questions about democrats' chances in the midterms after democrats lost in florida's special election on tuesday. republican david jolly posted a come from behind win. now a former massachusetts senator scott brown is exploring a run in new hampshire against incumbent democrat jean shaheen. joining me now, rachel bay, and jonathan alter. welcome to you both. good to see you. we'll go ladies first, rachel, and begin with you. this is a district the president had won. and former adviser from the white house david plouffe calls it a screaming siren and says

it's a sign of a turnout problem. do you agree? >> i do agree. and actually, not every democrat would say that. some of them are sort of i think ignoring this loss and brushing it off. so if democrats were smart, they would see this as a sort of come to jesus moment when it comes to obamacare. sink was supposed to sort of -- not have this in the bag, but she had a real shot at this. if you look at how this district has been voting, it's true that it has voted for republican members of congress, but when it came to her, they voted for her to be the governor, to be a democratic governor in florida. they also voted for obama in 2008. and in 2012. on top of that, this is a woman who is known around the state. she was popular. and her contender jolly, nobody knew who he was. he sort of came out of nowhere. he didn't have a name for himself. and he had some optics problems. recently divorced and was sort of on the campaign trail with his new girlfriend 14 years his

junior. so she lost to this republican when she had a solid shot. so i think that something went awry here for democrats. >> jonathan, let's take a look at what maureen dowd wrote this morning. so now democratic panic has set in with the health care sign-up period coming to an end this month, democrats in congress are looking over at the white house and realizing that the president is not only incapable of saving them, but he looks like a big anchor tied around their necks. so this latest bloomberg poll is showing 65% now support obamacare outright or back the small changes there. if that's the case, why can't the white house sell it? >> well, they had trouble selling it since before it became law. but i think the important thing to keep in mind here, alex, is that the midterms are more than seven months away, and the one thing we know about politics is nothing stays static for long. there will be changes here. the president will probably go up and down and up and down again a few times in the polls between now and the elections.

but the big issue is money and turnout. and what has democrats really alarmed about the 13th district special election in florida is that the coke brothers weren't even involved. but they are spreading huge amounts of money in other races. and, you know, the last time, in 2012, and just a couple of other big hitters, like sheldon aidleson were providing hundreds of millions of dollars. >> right. >> so the democrats have to figure out thousand use their small donor base to try to compete with the republicans, because the big democratic donors like tom stier, they're wealthy but not nearly as wealthy as the coke brothers. >> rachel, do you think that republicans risk overinterpreting these results in florida? >> of course. and, you know, absolutely, a lot can change in the next few months. but, i mean, some democrats have tried to sort of latch on to

this and look at the funding and say, you know, outside groups were overspending, republicans were supporting jolly and that's why he won. it was all the outside money, had nothing to do with this district. but that doesn't necessarily look to be true. if you take a closer look at the numbers, it looks like the two candidates actually had pretty even financial footing. jolly received a lot of money from big republican donors, sink had her own money in the bag, too. you know, she raised a lot. she spent a lot. and then going into the election, she had a lot more money on hand than jolly did. and so when you look at how much money they both have raised and spent, whether it be in the district, outside the district and how much they had going into the election, they were pretty much on the same financial footing. so it's not necessarily about the money, at least in this case. >> so the money -- i was just going to say the money is critical to the extent that it helps drive turnout. the midterms -- this is very important to remember. they are not about obamacare. they're about who shows up at

the polls. because in 2010, 50 million fewer americans voted than in 2008. and a lot of them, 45 million of them came back in 2012. but if we have another turnout like 2010, the democrats are going to get creamed. it's not a persuasion election. this is a mobilization election. they have to get those missing tens of millions of democrats back to the polls to have any chance this time. >> sure, but jonathan, isn't that an uphill battle? it is a midterm election year. typically, is there any time in history that a midterm election has matched a regular general election, a presidential election? >> no, and it won't match and the democrats don't need it to match. but there's a big difference between 125 million who voted in in 2012 and 80 million who voted in 2010. so there's just tremendous numbers of voters, the vast

majority of them democrats, who stay home. and in states like north carolina, georgia, colorado, new hampshire, if these folks don't come out, the democrats won't hold the senate. >> okay, money to mobilize. thank you very much to you both. rachel bay and jonathan alter. they are spending hundreds of bottled water to use in baths. why after two months do so many feel it is not safe to drink the water in a west virginia town? with all of the theories, what are the facts as the search expands for flight 370? what does an apron have to do with car insurance? an apron is hard work. an apron is pride in what you do. an apron is not quitting until you've made something a little better. what does an apron have to do with car insurance? for us, everything.

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a new report out this week highlights the ongoing water problems in west virginia. a full two months after a chemical spill into the elk river was reported january 9th. on january 18th, the 300,000 people were given the all clear to use their tap water. heather rogers profiles the people two months later and their struggle since january.

thanks so much for joining me. >> thanks so much for having me, alex. >> i was heartbroken looking at the uphill battle these people have just to get through their days. now two months later. talk about the most shocking thing you found. >> governor tomlin told the people of the area, 300,000 people, that they didn't really have any answers about the toxicity of the water and that it was really just up to the people to decide. he said it's your decision, whether you want to drink the water or not. and so a lot of people -- >> a decision. how are they supposed to make this decision? do they sense something? do they smell something? do they taste something? >> so, at the beginning of the spill, there was a sort of licorice odor. and sometimes people can still smell that. most of the time they can't. but there have been no tests on this chemical. and there's been no human

toxicological tests and the damage that low level exposure could do and damage to children. none of this is known. so what the governor is asking these people to do is to make a decision as though you would say, well, you can buy this product or that product, you decide. but they don't have the information that they would need to make that kind of decision, and neither do the country's top chemical water experts. nobody has this information. >> i understand this was a chemical used to sort of clean off all the coal to make it easier to process. so when you talk to these people, are they still afraid? or are they just saying we can't deal with this anymore, we're going to go forward and use the tap water? >> they're very afraid. they're afraid. they're sad. they're tired. they're disappointed in the leadership. and what's happening is that people are just going back to using the tap, for the most onerous activities. i mean, can you imagine living

in a society that assumes you will have access to clean drinking water. these people are virtually living without running water. so that just wears on you. you get tired. you get worn down by it. so the people that i've met who nobody drinks the water. i didn't meet a single person who drinks the water or knows anybody who drinks the water. what people are doing is they're starting the shower with it. because that's the most labor intensive. >> the thing that really broke my heart, you profiled that grandmother who has to cook with water and she cooks with bottled water, so she's got dinner going on the table and then her grandchild comes in and says oh, i want this for dinner. she's like okay, and it's just starting over from scratch. little things like that have got to be exhausting. >> exactly. it's all these little things. you want to make a cup of tea and you realize you can't. you want to wash your hands, you realize you can't. you want to bathe your children, it takes 30 minutes to give your children a five-minute birdbath.

this is the type of thing that really does wear you out on a day-to-day level. on top of that, you have this deeper level of strain and stress. and this feeling of what's going to happen over the long-term. so one of the people i met was a woman who's four months pregnant and she has a 2-year-old daughter. she, of course, as are many other people, she's worried about what's happening to the fetus. >> of course. >> what's happening to her 2-year-old. >> and there's no science to offer an explanation as to where that's going to go. heather rogers, it is an article, it's a great one. for anyone interested, it's on rollingstone.com. thank you, heather, appreciate it. how investigators are now focusing on the pilots and the passengers of the missing malaysia air flight 370. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] with five perfectly sweetened whole grains... you can't help but see the good.

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