another level. >> nbcnews.com. watch the pieces. mark, what did you learn? >> new hampshire republicans are hungry for new leadership. >> you stop it. >> scott brown. >> no scott brown. if it's way too early, it's time for "morning joe" but now we're going to "the daily rundown" with kristin welker. have a great day. ten days of searching and still no sign of that missing malaysian airlines plane. dozens of countries are working together to search across thousands of miles. we'll have the very latest on what is now a criminal investigation. secession russian style. crimea votes overwhelming to join putin's russia. we may see the first on-camera reaction from president obama this morning. and as the chicago river shines green on the eve of a big red primary in illinois, we head to the land of lincoln to see what's pushed it from red to blue.

a very good monday morning and happy st. patrick's day, everyone. it is monday, march 17, 2014. this is "the daily rundown," i'm kristin welker in for chuck todd. we want to start with the massive search for flight 370 that's turned into a major criminal investigation. 26 countries, including the u.s. are now involved in the unprecedented search for the passenger jet that left kuala lumpur and then vanished a few hours later with 239 passengers and crew on board. search planes and ships are now looking for any signs of the plane across more than 3200 miles away from the plane's last point of contact with air traffic control. malaysian investigators now say the plane's disappearance was no accident and this weekend police went back to the homes of the pilot and co-pilot for a second look. >> reporter: now the focus is increasingly on the pilots.

>> zaharie ahmad shah and fariq ab hamid. their friends say they should not be the focus of an investigation. investigators say they are not just looking into the two pilots. they are looking into the passengers and the crew, but the news through the weekend that flight 370 was being determinably controlled by someone has reset the focus of this investigation and opened up a whole new set of questions about what exactly happened. back to you. >> keir simple mondamons, thank that report. tom costello with the latest. we learned the co-pilot was the last person to say good night to air traffic controllers. what's the significance there and what's the very lateest? >> that's hard to discern. typically it is the nonflying

pilot who's on the radio. so, if it was the co-pilot on the radio, then typically it would be the pilot or the captain in this case who would have been flying the plane. we believe that "good night" to air traffic controllers, a standard part of the conversation from one -- as you hand off from one air traffic controller and go to another air traffic controller, we believe that comment "good night" came after the acars, automated data transmitting system, came after it sent its last message off the satellite and then it was disabled but before the transponders were turned off. at some point somebody had turned off the acars system, the co-pilot said to controllers, good night" and then the transponders went out. we don't know if necessarily the co-pilot was aware that the acars system was turned off or not. let's show you what they're working on in terms of the search zone. it's a matter of trying to ping exactly where this plane may have been. they're looking at the search grid in this direction but more

than likely in this direction because all of the consistents up here in the north have said so far they have not seen any evidence of this plane on their radar, as they have gone back and looked at radar tapes from that early saturday morning. and u.s. sources all believe the plane most likely headed deep into the southern indiana ocean. what does that mean? if i had a wider map, i would show you. australia is adding resources into the southern hemisphere. helicopters and planes looking for any sign of wreckage in the southern indian ocean. it is a vast expanse of water out there, and it's now been, as you know, more than nine days, nearly ten days since this plane went missing. the australians are deploying p-3 and p-8 aircraft. the u.s. navy has done the same thing up in the northern part of the indian ocean. but as they look for any sign of the wreckage of this plane, most experts believe this plane probably disappeared in the southern hemisphere.

it looks like they may have grotgrot gotten all the data they can off the satellite, the six pings we're aware of. >> tom, you have been working around the clock. we appreciate your support. malaysian investigators say this was a deliberate act and not foul play. so, what could have happened to that plane? i'm joined by former ntsb investigator greg feith to go over all the possibilities. thank you for joining me. what is your leading theory at this point, based on what we know? >> what we know is that the malaysians have now determined that there was some sort of intentional act. it was a deliberate act by one or both of the pilots. tom talked about the fact that the radio call was made by the co-pilot. if you figure if it was one of the pilots and that one pilot had to disable or do something to the other pilot to render them incapacitated, it now could be that the co-pilot would be the focus since he was the last one on the radio.

now investigators have to focus in on him, his background, his capabilities, his systems knowledge of the airplane because whoever was flying this airplane and disabled at least the acars system had to have a high level of knowledge, not just your normal pilot systems knowledge. >> greg i want to be sure that i understand exactly what you're saying because investigators are still looking at passengers on board and the crew, but you seem to be really honing in on the pilots and suggesting it really might be one of the two of them. is that what you're saying? >> i am. because if you start looking at the timeline, it will be a very compressed timeline. if somebody were to try to access the cockpit, they would have had to do it in a sufficient period of time, well before that last radio call. we know that the acars system sent out a last signal and then didn't send anything else out. that was 12 to 14 minutes before

supposedly the last radio call. so, in that period of time, something had to have transpired. if somebody stormed the cockpit, got in there, did something to one or two crew members, held them in a stressed position and required them to disable the transresponders, make the last radio call, make the turn, that's a very compressed timeline for all of that activity to occur. so, i mean, i'm leaning that it would be very difficult for somebody from the outside to get in there, do all of those things in that very short period of time. whoever made the last radio call, apparently the malaysians believe it's the co-pilot to make a calm, "all right, good night." at that point if that was a stressed situation? there, i would have expected that pilot to make more comment. >> greg feith, thank you for your insight this is morning. we appreciate it. and we will, of course,

bring you any new developments on the search as they happen. later, nbc's long-time aviation correspondent bob hager will join us on why he thinks we may never solve this mystery. and developing now, as you can see behind me, it seems no one told mother nature that we're just three days away from the start of spring. the federal government is closed again today. and so are d.c. public schools. we will have much more on this mid-atlantic march madness ahead. and up next, we are going live to crimea where they just voted to split with ukraine and join russia. and on this snowy st. patrick's day, president obama will meet with palestinian president abbas. much more on the diplomatic deadline looming over that country. are you watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. here's a look at the "daily planner." we'll be right back. [announcer] who could resist the call... ...of america's number-one puppy food brand...

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without a single shot fired and with barely a slap on the wrist from the rest of the world, the kremlin is a step closer to successfully redrawing the map of eastern europe following crimea's overwhelming vote to join russia. the vote was never in doubt. nearly 96% voted to splis from ukraine. russian president putin will discuss the vote in a address to parliament tomorrow. despite the fact russia seems poised to annex crimea, the u.s. still insists it's illegal. >> everything the russians have done thus far is in violation of international law and bad for peace and stability in the region and bad for the russians. and president putin has a choice about what he's going to do here. is he going to further isolate

himself, further hurt his economy, further diminish russian influence in the world or do the right thing? >> the u.s. and european union are expected to announce new sanctions against russia shortly, including asset freezes and travel bans. on sunday president obama spoke with vladimir putin by phone and warned him russia will pay for their actions. but the white house is still playing catch-up, listen. >> the united states of america has to have a fundamental reassessment of our relationship with vladimir putin. no reset buttons. treat him for what he is. >> the fear now is crimea may be put putin's first step. crimea's assistant deputy says east ukraine may be the next to break off. secretary of state john kerry expressed concern moscow is provoking unrest on the border. today ukraine's parliament endorsed a partial mobilization of 40,000 reservists as they

prepare for a possible war. nbc's ian williams is inside crimea and joins me live. ian, what's the latest? what's the mood there? >> reporter: well, the mood is pretty celebratory in simferopol where we saw flags waving, a concert going on. they feel they got what they wanted. parliament this morning behind me following up that vote by declaring themselves an independent auto ton mouse state, saying they were applying to moscow to join the russian federation. also this morning, fresh characters out on the street. riot police, almost certainly russian policemen n brand new kit, brand new sparkling riot kit, patrolling the streets here. the russians effectively have been in control of crimea for the last two weeks with military

presence. this vote, 97% almost was a huge achievement for the government here. it's, of course, very much a soviet-style statistic. and only three points shy of what kim appealed in north korea. i think the vote is overwhelming but there's a significant minority here, tatars, who did boycott the vote. russian foreign ministry is calling for the creation of an international suspect group to mediate the crisis in ukraine, including the adoption of of a new constitution. nbc's jim massceda is in moscow. is this just the tip of the iceberg? >> reporter: yes, there's a sense this is just the tip of the iceberg amongst some russian population. there's a reliable poll that came out today suggesting that

79% of russians believe crimea should become russian and that other parts of ukraine should become russian. but russian media is focusing now on that strong support for russian crimea and other parts of ukraine. suggesting other areas now want their own referendums and that could snowball. meanwhile, both russian houses of parliament are trying to streamline annexation for crimea. putin says he'll address a joint session of parliament tomorrow on crimea. so the sense here is putin will formally approve the annexation of that peninsula despite worldwide condemnation. it's a process that will take a couple of weeks and will likely trigger further sanctionses beyond those being announced today. analysts do tell us putin is likely to keep his forces, tens of thousands of them, built up along that border with ukraine,

keep ethnic tensions volatile in eastern ukraine and remind everyone that if pushed, he can come back and strike again and take even more of ukraine if he so chooses. back to you. >> jim, thank you for that report. joining me now, wyoming republican senator john barosso, one of eight senators who troovld key ye over the weekend. thank you for joining me. i want to get your reaction to the referendum that took place yesterday, that overwhelming vote and where does the u.s. go at this point? >> they could have had the press release written on that before the voting even started to the point that the russians seized a ukrainian gas facility before the voting started. so, this is no surprise. this was not a real election. the question is, where do we go from here? we know vladimir putin only respects strength. we know he already has troops lined up along the border of

eastern ukraine and is ready to pounce there as well. >> you were just in ukraine. what did you hear from the leaders in your conversations? what were your main takeaways and what were they asking for? >> this was a bipartisan, united group of senators that went to listen to the president, the prime minister. they need help. they need assistance. they need sanctions. they need freezing of assets. their military is quite hollowed out because the former leader was really a puppet for putin. what they have in their military, nothing flies, nothing shoots, nothing works. they need assistance all around and a world community to show strength against putin, who only recognizes strength. and i believe he doesn't know what he is going to do yet. i believe he is calculating the credibility of his opponents on a daily basis. >> senator barrasso, i want to

pick up on the point you mentioned about sanctions. it's believed european partners will be announcing sanctions as early as today and potentially against individuals. is that enough or do the sanctions need to have a bigger bite? do they need to be targeted at banks, for example? do they need to be targeted at putin himself? >> all of the above. it needs to be targeted at the russian economy. we know over half the money they have comes from selling energy by holding ukraine hostage, by holding europe hostage. the best weapon we have in all of this is energy from the united states, that we could be exporting to undermine the prices that putin can charge those who he continues to hold hostage. >> senator, i know that you and other republicans are calling for that, but the reality is, even if you were to pass legislation tomorrow that sped up the process of approving natural gas exports, we wouldn't actually see those exports start to take place for several years.

so, is that anything more than a symbolic action? isn't is there more the u.s. can be doing to send a strong mess alittle to putin? >> the sanctions you mentioned are very important. we know the russian stock market lost about 10% of value. their currency has been undermined as well. those are important things. the economic sanctions, the freezing of assets. long term, though, we have to undercut russia's ability to charge exorbitant prices, over four times as much for natural gas, as we pay in the united states because the market is so limited. remember, the first thing the russians seized before the election started on saturday night was the natural gas facility in the ukraine. >> senator barrasso, thank you for your time this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. we want to turn now to politics here at home. the first number in today's data bank, 16. that's the percentage of

republicans and independents that favor rand paul as the republican nominee in 2016, according to a new cnn poll. the only other potential candidates to break double digits were congressman paul ryan with 16%. texas governor rick perry at 11% and former arkansas governor mike huckabee with 10%. and a special tdr 50 st. paddy's day combo trivia question. who was the mayor of chicago when the city started dying the river green for st. patrick's day? you have to be the first person to tweet @dailyrundown. the answer and more coming up on "the daily rundown." if i can impart one lesson to a

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republican outside money and new opportunities for the gop on the battleground map. after flirting for months with the possibility of a new hampshire senate bid, former massachusetts senator scott brown all but jumped into the race against democrat senator jeanne shaheen on friday announcing the formation of aectian exploratory committee and spent the day traveling the state. >> i've traveled so much of new hampshire i'm focusing on a new milestone. the truck now has about 300,000 miles on it. and it's sure a good -- looking good right now, notwithstanding all the dents with the live free or die license plates on it. so much of my life played out in massachusetts and i'm very proud and thankful for those opportunities but a big part of it was always right here in new hampshire. >> democrats are making it clear they plan to challenge brown as a car bet bagger. state democrats already released

this video. >> nobody does it better in massachusetts, folks. >> i'm going to do what i think is right for massachusetts first. >> i'm a republican for massachusetts. >> i'm a massachusetts republican. >> i'm proud to be from massachusetts. >> meanwhile, brown is seizing on an issue which helped him win a surprise senate victory in 2010, the health care law. >> a big political wave is about to break in america. and the obamacare democrats are on the wrong side of that wave. >> with democrats publicly grumbling the president's political network is not providing air coverage on the health care issue, dan tried to reassure those on sunday the president will be an asset. >> the president wrote the book on running and winning campaigns. >> the president has to get a lot more involved in raising money for the party committees and for the natural party if democrats have any hope of keeping the senate. if you lose the senate, turn out

the lights because the party is over. >> is the senate in danger? >> definitely. absolutely. >> nbc news senior political editor mark murray is here. thanks for being here. let's start right there, robert gibbs speaking the truth, according to him. how significant is it that the former white house press secretary is saying, yeah, democrats could lose the senate. >> it is significant. david plouffe gave an interview friday in which he sounded the alarm. one reason they're doing this is fear can be a very big motivating issue. right now democrats don't have an issue galvanizing everyone to get out to the polls. yes, they want to raise the minimum wage. yes, they want to implement and fix the health care law but those aren't necessarily to get everyone to rally to the polls, as we saw in the florida special congressional election last week. fear might well do it. of course, democrats have a big problem in all the red states you go in, states president obama wasn't able to win, but maybe some of these blue and purple states they could help by

just scaring democrats and telling them, go to the polls. >> let's talk about the big news. scott brown giving jeanne shaheen a run for her money. karl rove coming out saying he's giving $600,000 to ads coming out. what are the biggest challenges for scott brown and can he beat back the criticism he's a carpet bagger. >> it increases the odds of them winning the senate. they have another piece on the chess board to play with. scott brown's challenge goes beyond being a carpet baggers. we've seen tons of carpet baggers, hillary clinton ran for new york senate. his biggest problem is pulling off this historical feat against someone in a senate in one state and moves and runs in another state. he would be playing a little on history. i think scott brown's biggest challenge is being someone who's new to the process. we saw him talk about health

care. we saw him talk about his truck. those are all things we heard about in 2010, in 2012 after he lost. in this current environment with everyone so angry at congress, at washington right now, we almost have -- if the general election is scott brown versus jeanne shaheen, you almost have two incouple bants running. brown wouldn't have that outsider feather in his cap. >> one of the things that we're seeing, republicans starting to talk about the fact that they are going to come up with their own health care plan. scott brown has made it very clear he's going to use health care as an issue. if republicans roll out this new plan, to some extent it's an acknowledgment there are calls for repeals, not politically effective. they need to have their own talking points, their own plan in 2014. >> we've heard so many times republicans say they have their own plan, they have their own principles and more reporting in the washington post they'll be talking about their principles and what they stand for. here's the biggest part, they don't have actually their

legislation. that's one of the reasons they don't actually have the legislation by the congressional budget office is to be able to have -- to provide health insurance for folks, to cut the budget deficit to cut long-term health care costs. that all involves a lot of trade-offs. the trade-offs are often unpopular. republicans used the trade-offs in the health care act to these advantages. they're hesitant to put it to actual legislation scored by the cbo because then you'll see democrats say, this tradeoff, you'll be taxing people and republicans aren't going to do that. they haven't done that yet. >> that's the strategy moving forward. mark murray, appreciate it. we have a little breaking news we want to update you on. there is an earthquake strongly felt across los angeles. burbank producer out there saying there is a large rolling quake. it lasted for about ten seconds. the electricity did not go off. we're going to be in touch, of

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try meetings, do it online, or both. hurry. offer ends march 22nd. weight watchers. because it works. we want to check back in on the search for the missing passenger jet carrying some 239 people on board. the search itself is expanding and the criminal investigation on the ground is intensifying. nbc's long-time aviation correspondent bob hager joins us with more insight. thank you for joining us. >> i appreciate it. hi, how are you? >> i'm doing well, thanks. you made some comments earlier today on "morning joe." you said they might not ever find flight 370. why do you think that? >> yeah, that's true. you know, all the years that i was an aviation reporter, other people would say, we might never know. i would think, no, no, we'll find out eventually. sometimes it was a long time

after. the investigation of the twa crash off long island took four years before they came to an ultimate conclusion. but in this case, ten days since this plane went missing and not a sign of wreckage so far. i'm telling you f they don't -- if they don't uncover some clues on the ground by digging into those pilots' backgrounds and so forth, if they don't get any pieces of wreckage or black boxes, this may be a case of where we never really know what actually happened on that flight. it is mysterious, i'll tell you. >> it certainly is. we did get some new information over the weekend. we are just learning it was the co-pilot who said "good night" to air traffic controllers and that came in after one of the transponders had been turned off. what do you make of that? what is your best theory as to what might have happened? >> that's pretty interesting. that means that the co-pilot was still alive after a key system, we think, after that key system

had been disabled. but you still don't know. i mean, he's alive, we know, because he's saying good night as the radio -- as controllers are signing off with him. but he might have been saying it under duress. somebody may already be in the cockpit forcing him to say that, a passenger, for instance, or the captain, if the captain turned out to be the bad guy. my best guess of what's going on, i'm telling you, it's really hard to guess. surely this is a human being, either the co-pilot or the pilot or a passenger who has knowledge, empty malt knowledge of how to fly this plane, coming forward and taking forward. i think it's a human problem, not mechanical. but after that, i'm telling you, it's a guessing game really. >> bob, just quickly. paint a picture for us of what the search teams have to do right now. they are covering such a huge area. >> oh, yeah. that's a huge thing. it's nice to know the australians are in on this now and supervising the search in the south indian sea because

they ought to be pretty good at it. i think what they have to do shoe is use satellite information and maybe there's more of it than we know about. military controlled, a lot of spy satellites we may not know about. anyhow, the idea would be to narrow down the area where you've got to search. right now it's so huge that chances of finding anything are such a longshot. >> bob hager, thank you so much. we really appreciate it. >> nice to talk to you. >> and now another data bank number. 68, that's the number of teams unveiled last night that make up this year's ncaa march madness bracket. the number one seeds include the number one overall florida gators, the arizona wildcats in the west, the undefeated wichita state shockers, and in the east it's virginia who defeated duke this weekend to win their first acc title in nearly 40 years. congratulations to all of those teams. and we have some really exciting news here in our nbc family. former tdr co-anchor savannah

guthrie got married over the weekend. the good news keeps on coming. savannah and her new husband mike feldman are expecting a baby. huge congratulations to our pal, one of my dear friends and mentors and best wishes for many happy years to come. we couldn't report better news. we'll be right back to kick off our "tdr" in illinois. they're serving up beef barley a lou malniti's pizza. we'll be right back. ♪ geico motorcycle. see how much you could save.

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♪ ♪ no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. we want to update you now on the situation in ukraine. we have some developing news. the white house is naming names when it comes to sanctions this morning. a new executive order released just this morning names 11 russian officials who will face sanctionses from the treasury department for undermining ukraine's sovereignty. the white house says the sanctions send a strong message

that there are consequences for moscow's actions. of course, this move not unexpected. again, the white house announcing specific people who will be sanctioned. well, we want to shift gears now and bring you our tdr 50. we move on to illinois today. the political jewel of the midwest, and a state home to the kind of urban/rural divide that's polarizing politics all over the country. over the weekend city officials turned the chicago river green. take a look at this. a tradition that dates all the way back to the 1960s. over the years the state of illinois has seen its own transformation of the more political kind. the state, where abraham lincoln has made his name as a legislator, voted republican almost exclusively from the civil war through the 1920s. but it's flip-flopped since then. typically backing the winning presidential candidate. democrats in the '30s and '40s, republicans through much of the '70s and '80s and backing the

democrat the last six elections in a row. it's lost electoral influence with 20 votes. it had 29 during world war ii. one of the big reasons for the state turning blue, the influence of chicagoan cook county. in 2012 president obama won the state with more than 3 million votes. nearly half of them from cook county. voters downstate tend to be more conservative and more shrilly republic solidly republican. the surrounding counties around chicago have undergone a change. president obama won all five of them in 2012. chicago's political influence also has a historical context. because of its geographic location near the center of the country, it's been a popular choice for political conventions. over the last 160 years chicago has hosted a national convention 25 times. twice as much as any other city. that includes the 1860

convention that nominated lincoln and the 1968 convention marred by massive anti-war protests. if it's not the events making headlines it's the lawmakers themselves often for wading to deep into chicago politics, synonymous with bare knuckled patronage and corruption. six illinois governors have been arrested or indicted for everything from racketeering, bribery and fraud. in 2009 rod blagojevich was indicted for trying to sell barack obama's old senate seat. in addition to being convicted, he was the first illinois governor to be impeached. >> while they're busy trying to throw me out of office, they may want to stop families from being thrown out of their homes. i'm confident at the end of the day i will be properly exonerated. >> along with corruption, illinois is known for breeding political dynasties. three generations of adele

stevens' played influential roles from the 1870s to 1970s. the daleys ruled starting in the mid-'50s and speaker of the senate has had family in chicago for 30 years. and the most famous politician from chicago is the one currently in the white house. >> y'all have a seat. relax. it's just me. y'all know me. it is good to be back home. >> joining me now, two experts on illinois politics, politico columnist roger simon. roger grew up in chicago and wrote in his bio he wants to be buried there so he can keep voting there. and lynn sweet, editor for chicago "sun-times." thank you for being here.

roger, let's start with you. politics in chicago is known as a contact sport. is that still a fair definition and characterization of politics in chicago? >> yeah. it's very rough and tumble. you don't get to be mayor of chicago or an alderman on the city council by playing, necessarily, by the rules. you get there by being tough, by putting together coalitions, by offering people what they want or what they need. and, you know, the old expression, chicago politics, a bean bag works very much in chicago. but people are also getting a little bit tired of exactly what you were talking about, that reputation for corruption. they used to be proud of it. the most famous line came in 1955 from alderman patty baller, also a saloon cooper who said of richard j. daley's election,

this town ain't ready for reform yet. and chicagoans love that line. but now things aren't going so well, economically and in other way, they're wondering what kind of price they've paid for that. >> lynn, let me ask you about the urban/rural divide that we're seeing. talk a little about that and how that has shifted the political winds in chicago. >> well, the urban/rural divide is more of a regional thing. just to buttress, by the way, what roger said, in my years of covering chicago politics, i say i cover people from announcement to indictment. sad to say that's not a joke here. but in the urban/rural divide, what has happened is the chicago democratic voters have migrated to the suburbs. you call the outer counties. those counties extends the depth of local officials being elected, which has an impact on state politics, which is why right now in the illinois general assembly, you have a

super majority state senate, a super majority state house as well as holding the gov kno governorship. >> i wonder if i could get your thoughts on the political dynasty. you talk about the fact that folks in chicago are getting sick of the corruption. roger, let me start with you. political dynasties r they still as big of a factor in chicago? i mean, you still have the daleys, who have quite a big influence there. >> they have influence. certainly, they have people who still owe them favors and they still care, richard m. daley, of course, the former mayor, is still alive. but it's not like it used to be. no one expects rahm emanuel's children to run for mayor when he leaves office. there is a love of dynasties in national politics, too. >> sure. >> how many clintons and bushs can we go through before we're done? things have shifted.

and now mayors are being evaluated for all kinds of reasons beyond their last names. one of the biggest is can they get jobs for this city? >> i want to pick up on that point. lynn just weigh in on the issue of dynasties but also the issue of jobs, unemployment rate far above the national average. is that giving republicans a potential opening in this fight for taking over the governor's seat? >> absolutely. i'll wiped those two topics together. when you talk about daleys, bill daley, barack obama's former chief of staff, was in the democratic primary. he was going to run against the current governor quinn. it was on st. patrick's day, quinn is one of the luckiest men in illinois politics because at one point bill daley of the daley dynasty was going to run against him and there was thought attorney general, lisa

matigan, was going to run, they stood down. two of the great political dynasties in the state stepped down, so quinn has only nominal opposition. so, one of his big issues is that he issues is that he is already being hit by the republicans for illinois' unemployment rate. it's higher than the national average. expect after the primary tomorrow and you have a general election starting, that that will be a prime issue used against him. >> okay. roger simon, lynn sweet, thanks to both of you. great conversation. >> thank you. we want to bring you more details on that breaking news out of california. the u.s. geological survey now saying the quake may be closer to a 4.4 quake. it was centered five miles northwest of westwood in the los angeles area. strong shaking was reported throughout the region. no reports yet of damage but we will continue to bring you the very latest. we're also learning that there is no danger of a potential tsunami. shifting gears.

trivia time now. richard j. daley was mayor of chicago when the city started the tradition of dyeing the river green for st. paddy's day. and big congratulations to today's winner neil drazen who is getting a middle initial was critical to that win. send your trivia suggestions to daily rundown@msnbc.com. ...failure to disappear. a backyard invasion. homeowner takes matters into his own hands. ♪ ortho weed b gon max. with the one-touch, continuous spray wand... kills weeds without harming innocent lawns. guaranteed. weeds killed. lawn restored. justice served. weed b gon max with the one-touch wand. get order. get ortho®. salegets up to 795 highwayeal's the passamiles per tank.seld. salesperson #2: actually, we're throwing in a $1,000 fuel reward card. we've never done that.

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with the diplomatic deadline approaching, the president will meet with palestinian president mahmoud abbas in the oval office just about an hour from now. u.s. officials once hoped for an israeli-palestinian peace deal by the end of april but have scaled back their ambitions and are now urging the two sides to sign on to a framework for a final round of negotiations by the end of next month. joining me now, david sanger, chief washington correspondent for "the new york times." thanks for being here.

so what are we expecting will come out of this meeting if anything? there's still a lot of major sticking points. >> there are, and, of course, the president, you just saw prime minister netanyahu visit two weeks ago. i think he wants to show he is directly engaged in trying to move both sides on this. now this is a risky strategy that they are trying, which is to have the u.s. put a framework out and, of course, the initial reaction from both the israelis and palestinians will say there's too much to give in here. but if they don't put a framework out, then you're stuck where we've been for the past five years. >> so looking for a framework. i want to move to the president's broader foreign policy. you have a great article in today's "new york times." you talk about the president's light footprint coming under increasing scrutiny, perhaps because of the situation in ukraine. is this a moment when the obama administration starts to recalibrate and potentially change their strategy? >> i think recalibrate is the right phrase for that question.

in the first term, what i called the light footprint in this story, worked pretty well. you had drone strikes against terrorists in pakistan. sixfold increase over the first term of the bush administration. and economic sanctions which brought the iranians to the table. what he's discovered is that these techniques don't work terribly well when you've got a case like sir wra where we've just completed three years of an increasing humanitarian horror. doesn't work terribly well in a very old cold war style move right across the borders. and even the economic sanctions elements of this has sort of failed them in these cases. >> david sanger, unfortunately, we don't have more time. really appreciate your insights, though. and that is it for this edition of "the daily rundown." chuck is back tomorrow. chris jansing sxd co. is back

with more on the airline search. have a great monday, everyone and happy st. patrick's day. the nid atlantic and southeast will be the trouble spots for those of you traveling today. heavy snow will exit the area across d.c. and delaware into baltimore. but later on this afternoon, we will see some storms fire up. they could be severe across parts of florida. boston about 27 degrees but dry. new york city, just a flurry or two. washington, d.c., gets the heavy snow. those little things still get you.

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with wholesome ingredients and irresistible taste, no wonder it's the only one cats ask for by name. what to do about vladimir putin. that question just got a lot more pressing now that crimea voted to side with russia. the white house has justa released its new sanctions. will it be enough? los angeles wakes up to a jolt. a 4.4 magnitude earthquake in the middle of a massive population center. and st. paddy's day snow. the beer may be green but the white is green across the mid-atlantic this morning. where, oh, where is the pot of gold at the end of this winter? in good morning. i'm chris jansing. we begin with day ten and an intense new focus on the pilot and co-pilot of the missing malaysia airlines flight although, in fact, everyone on boards