still be missing in washington state and the weather is turning once again. there's a new warning this afternoon for those in mother nature's path. and where's george clooney? because the perfect storm is bearing down on new england? can you believe it? some areas will pick up a foot of snow tonight, from a system the strength of a category 3 hurricane. weather is the news and the news is in "the cycle." for safety concerns today, we had to pull the assets off the search and put success to the south. we're not searching for a needle in a haystack, we're still trying to find where the haystack is. >> a needle in an undefined haystack. in the past 24 hours, malaysia airline flight 370 has gone from an active search and rescue to a stalled search and recovery. search teams will be back at work as soon as the weather clears, but that might not be

for another day. it's storm season there, and we are talking gale-force winds, up to 50 miles an hour, driving rains, a low cloud ceiling, and massive ocean swells. 12 feet high. as many as a dozen aircraft are expected to be in the air as soon as possible. that includes seven military aircraft. the only plus is that the search zone has shifted east. it is now about 1,500 miles off the australian coast, meaning less travel time and more search time. the zone's narrowed from nearly 3 million square miles at its largest to just more than 600,000 square miles today. once the weather does clear, an australian naval vessel will sweep the waters where several pieces of possible debris were seen from the air on monday. six countries are on stand by to assist in that search and india has assets on route. the u.s. navy's black box detector, underwater microphones, and a mini subare also in perth. they will likely be deployed next week along with an australian vessel. here's what those crews will be up against in these deep waters

that's the size of an in tact boeing 777 on the right. and if crews are looking for pieces, it's even smaller. on the area of the ocean where possible wreckage was found floating is an underwater mountain range. not the easiest terrain for a deep sea search, to say the least. once again, we start with nbc's tom costello. tom, malaysian air is saying it's making arrangements to fly family members to australia, but the families are protesting in beijing. what's happened? >> yeah, this is what happened today at the embassy in beijing. malaysia -- many chinese people, issued say, at the malaysian embassy in beijing protesting because they don't feel like they've gotten adequate answers from the malaysian government about exactly what happened to this plane and why didn't malaysian authorities in their view, jump to conclusions and already declare everybody on board dead? this has been a very difficult process, but let's answer part of the reason why the malaysian authorities made the decision they made. take a look at the track of this plane.

and this is important. and i'm going to explain why it's important. because, according to the investigators with the british accident investigation board, let me go back to this page, they have come up with this scenario, here, where according to the data, the plane came all the way down like this, and this is based on the satellite pings, you'll recall. those faint pings, coming off the immarset satellite. that would give them some source of direction, but there's kind of a branch here. if you consider the speed of the aircraft. if the aircraft was traveling at 460 miles per hour, you might see a scenario where the plane would end up here. but if the plane was traveling at about 500 miles per hour or more, it might end up way over here. that's the problem. that's why the search zone right now is so massive. hundreds of miles separate those two tracks, because they're not sure exactly how fast the plane was moving. they have a feeling for it, but they're not positive. they're pretty sure about the heading, pretty sure, if you

will, about the altitude, but it's that last variable that really has them trying to figure out this location. you mentioned a mountain range is down underneath here, 2 to 3 miles deep. the trouble is, they have rarely or not very extensively, i should say, mapped the bottom of the ocean there. why? because there really hasn't been any need to. another interesting factoid here, i happen to talk yesterday to an oceanographer at the university of new south wales in sydney, saying, you're talking about some of the roughest waters in the world. and here's what he's talking about in particular. that right here, in the southern indian ocean, this is very close right in here to the southern ocean. and the southern ocean has this constant, this constant current, a very fast-moving current that moves, really hugs the bottom of the world. and he says the trouble is, you may have debris that quickly gets caught up in that current, and then you may not see it again, because it's going to literally circle the globe. he points out, you could have debris, and he's done modeling,

showing it can end up in the indian ocean, in the pacific ocean. he says, it could end up off the coast of peru. it's very, very difficult to calculate. and this is the time of year where you've got fast-moving eddies, you've got big, big waves. 60-foot waves. we're in a cyclone right now. and oh, by the way, winter starts in about six weeks. and already, he says, they're starting to see shorter days, less daylight, more night, and then the weather and the winter kicks up. so this is a very, very bad time to be looking for anything in one of the most remote corners government globe. and there aren't any assets on scene to begin to even search the bottom of the ocean, because they don't yet know where in the ocean storato search. you can't search an area as big as 100,000 square miles or that condensed zone of 20,000 square miles they now say they're kind of looking at. that's still too big. that's the size of west virginia. so they have to get it down to a much smaller grid, ideally, maybe ten miles, maybe twenty

miles, and then begin rolling the bottom of the ocean floor. and until they get that done, they cannot drop, they cannot drop those mini subs and towing the sonar listening device is really going to be fruitless when the ship's traveling too quickly. guys, back to you. >> tom costello, thank you so much once again. let's bring in retired navy captain, vann girly, who had 26 years in service and led the naval oceanography operations command. he's now senior manager at met ron scientific lusolutions, and tom blank, executive vp of gephardt government affairs. captain, i want to start with you and today's stall searched, what is the risk assessment to postpone a search like this entail? and could we actually see ships returning to the search before airplanes? >> good to be with you this afternoon. that's a great question, and it really goes to the heart of the challenges that the australians are facing, as they coordinate this effort down there with multiple assets, trying to help

identify where the wreckage may be. the issue then becomes, you know, how do you do that safely? and given the kinds of weather conditions that have been reported down in the search area for over the last 24 hours, they made the call that it just wasn't prudent, nor would it be worthwhile to send assets in. again, they're still in the phase of trying to look with their eyeballs, what we'd call the mod one search detector, and see something on the ocean's surface. and when you're talking about gale force winds and 12-foot-plus seas with white caps and low visibility, even an aircraft operating there is not going to see much at all. >> and tom, sn, since 9/11, it's common practice, now that the cockpit doors are fortified, from the inside, so that passengers on the plane can't come hijack the plane, but that becomes a negative when one of the pilots has the problem. then it becomes a pilot versus a pilot and no one can get in there to help the situation.

is that possibly something that happened here? >> well, i think we have to begin by saying that security is a filter and not a guarantee. and i think the main lesson from 9/11 is that we want to protect that cockpit at all costs, protect its integrity, because we have faith and trust in the pilots in there. now, if we do have a situation, where a pilot decides to enter into a conspiracy, whether that's for terrorism, suicide, or something else, well, there are many safeguards against that, that's a very low probability, but what we know is, is that we do not want passengers, stowaways or other crew to be able to penetrate that cockpit door with a screwdriver, even with a gun, a knife, something like that. so that's the foundation where we are after 9/11. >> and help us understand the psychological tests that these pilots have to go through before flying a plane. how much do we know about their

state of mind? and how often are they checked? >> a pilot is checked when he gets his license originally. the faa does reassessments, but not necessarily a psychological reassessment. who we have to rely on are that pilot's colleagues. the observations of who else is in the right or the left seat, depending on which pilot we're talking about. the professional observations of flight attendants and flight crews who know what someone knows about demeanors, pilots, and behaviors, and that sort of thing. you have a who will context of trained people that are going to observe and say, hey, something's wrong, maybe we should question this person's fitness. >> and van, we've got the navy sending in more materials, including listening devices and unmanned submarine. how does that stuff help, if at all, at this point? >> well, those are the assets that will be brought in on the next phase of the search. the company i'm with now, metron, assisted the french in

air france 447. and that was like this, a layered search. the first thing you need to do is find debris on the surface and use some of the mathematical techniques that we've developed with others to take all that information and figure out how to search the ocean bottom. so as soon as you get an idea of where to start looking and you can find the search area a little bit more, then you start using these assets that are being brought in to start going to the ocean bottom. two things you're looking for there. first, the listening devices to try to pick up the pingers before the batteries fade. their batteries are rated at 30 days. the manufacturer says maybe up to 40 days at reduced power. and then after that, you're trying to hopefully find that and then get other vehicles in on top of it, so that you can get a camera or a sonar to actually see the debris. the thing in air france 447 is we never heard the pingers. then it took over two years and the search area was only 5,000 square miles. much smaller than what they're dealing with right now. >> that's amazing. van, the people, the men and women who are doing the search are heros to all of us at this point. they are the ones who are out

there fighting and trying to find something. but i imagine, after so many fruitless days, there's got to be a moral thing that starts to set in, right? the searcher moral remains difficult to keep up. can you speak to that a little bit? >> this is very grueling work. imagine, you've got a lot of folks either on ships or in an aircraft looking very diligently at the seas around them, trying to find something floating. and these, you know, the objects that are probably there don't stick up out of the water. we're talking about seat cushions, parts of aircraft, luggage, things out of the overhead bin. that was found in air france 447. and if you look away just a minute, you might miss something. it takes a lot of attention. and the flights are ten-hour flights, four hours back, two hours on station, four hours back. doing that day after day after day, it does really wear you down. >> yeah, and tom, we've learned now that the final ping was about eight minutes later than originally thought. walk us through any of that

process. can that be improved, because folks who are learning about this say, gee, it's weird we learned how late we're actually tracking this stuff. >> well, with one of the things we have to point to is the fact that the malaysian government and malaysian airlines have not done a very good job. they really look pretty incompetent. a lot of the technical data we have to trace comes from what would appear to be some inadequate systems and an inadequate capability to read and understand the systems. whether that's the civilian radar, the military radar, they don't have any satellite capability of their own. they're relying on international partners to provide all of that to them. but what you're referring to is, i believe, is the fact that one of those final pings indicated where the aircraft had made the turn back toward malaysia, and that that's one of the key

elements that immarsat was able to use to confirm the turn and do the calculation for the location. >> captain and tom, thank you both. up next, the toll of the tragedy. a look at the faces of flight 370 with "people" magazine. "the cycle" rolls on for tuesday, march 5th. (music) defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d.

highly soluble, easily absorbed. your hepatitis c.forget it's slow moving, you tell yourself. i have time. after all there may be no symptoms for years. no wonder you try to push it to the back of your mind and forget it. but here's something you shouldn't forget. hepatitis c is a serious disease. if left untreated, it could lead to liver damage and potentially even liver cancer. if you are one of the millions of people with hepatitis c, you haven't been forgotten. there's never been a better time to rethink your hep c. because people like you may benefit from scientific advances. advances that could help you move on from hep c. now is the time to rethink hep c and talk to your doctor. visit hepchope.com to find out about treatment options. and register for a personalized guide to help you prepare for a conversation with your doctor.

add vanishing deductible from nationwide insurance and get $100 off for every year of safe driving. we put members first. join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side

. the shock and anguish of yesterday's news the now giving way to a heartbreaking reality for some. others refusing to believe that their loved one perished on flight 370. now, we know the numbers, 239 on board, 227 passengers, 12 crew

members, and 3 americans. but we continue to learn about their stories. and among those believed lost, teens in love, grandparents on the trip of a lifetime, a father who just landed his dream job. the only catch, it was a plane ride away from his two young sons. "people" magazine reminds us of the human side of this tragedy with its cover story, "faces of flight 370" is on newsstands now. and news editor liz mcneil joins us to tell us about their stories. it's so heartbreaking to read these stories. one of them, you highlight, is paul weeks, who just took on this new job and he e-mailed his wife before taking off saying, give the boys an extra hug and kiss from their dad, those monkeys are my world, as are you. obviously, i'm emotional, everyone reading it is emotional. it's hard to get a better sense of who they are. >> yeah, we did our best to portray who these people were on the flight. that story was incredibly moving, before paul got on the plane, he had given his wife his wedding ring and his watch, just in case something happens. but, of course, she never

thought it would be something like this. >> you see that this is a truly global tragedy. when you see the diversity of folks who are on this flight. two french citizens, a 17-year-old and his french girlfriend, she's 18 years old. he was on the plane with his mother and his sister and now his father has just one boy left. three members of his family, gone in a moment. >> it's a heartbreaking story. they were such a young, sweet couple. they had posted pictures of themselves on facebook, saying -- >> i love you. >> they had gone to the french school together in beijing, now his father's grappling with just the unimaginable. >> and it's a global story. it's also an american story. and you profile in this issue the american phillip wood. >> right. phillip wood's family is so strong and their bond is so -- they are really trying to help each other through this time. phillip had been home with his family in texas recently. they had eaten mexican food,

enjoyed the big texas scenery, and he had spent time with his two sons. and one thing his two sons said to us was, no matter what, always tell your loved ones how much you love them. >> you know, liz, when you look at a situation like this, that's captivated the world, really. and so much attention, one of the negative parts of that has been in discussing the theories here, one of the theories has been, well, what if these pilots who are missing or dead, and we don't know what happened to them, one of the theorys is, what if they were suicidal. what if they were murderers? and that is, any lawyer can tell you, very difficult for their families and anyone connected to them, because it's very hard to just say, well, that's a theory that investigators are looking into, which we may report on, without people starting to come to believe negative things about them. talk to us about the pilots and their families. >> well, absolutely. it's been very hard for these families, because, of course, they don't believe that their family members had anything to do with the plane going missing.

but, of course, there's been a lot of speculation about them. but, still, at this point, truly, nobody knows. >> i mean, up to this point, it's been all about the mystery, it's been all about the search, it's about what happens next. and you guys were really the first to highlight these stories and help us better understand who these people were. what were the biggest takeaways that you took from actually getting to know the families and from talking to them? >> well, i think, one thing we noticed was how much focus there was on the plane and what had happened. but, of course, what we wanted to focus on were the stories of the families. i think how strong they were. sarah back really believed and spoke so strongly about her belief that phillip woods was still alive. this is the girlfriend of phillip woods. and they're really strong, really holding hope against hope. >> some are still holding that hope. >> it's true. until there's really firm answers about what exactly happened, they really are holding on to hope, even if it's for the impossible. >> "people" magazine always comes through with this sort of look at the folks that are the

victims in these sort of situations. what does it do for readers? >> i think when something like this happens of this magnitude, you know, you can only imagine what it would be like on that flight. although it's really something that's almost unimaginable for us. and then, of course, how many times have we all gone to the airport to pick up our loved ones and, of course, you're always assuming that they're going to be there. and then there are all these families that are now grappling with something that's really, completely unimaginable. >> well, liz mcneil, thank you for writing these stories. it shines a whole new light on the story that has captivated all of us. thank you so much for being here. and we will, of course, get back to the plane in a little bit. but up next, if corporations are people, does that mean they have religious beliefs too? the hotly contested issue argued before the supreme court just today. passions spilling on to the sidewalks. our own pete williams will tell us how that went down, next. we , how much money do you think you'll need when you retire?

then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪

 if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. how was prugh.ce? that bad? i dropped 2 balls, mom. eye on the ball! that's all it is. eye on the ball. that's a good tip. i'll try it. by the way, bill... this is delicious! so many grilled tastes and textures. and all the nutrition i need. go on. no really. top notch. (laughing) there it is - there ya go. new american grill from kibbles 'n bits... go together like... food 'n family.

we are back and we are in the storm cycle. and there is plenty to discuss from coast to coast and around the globe. luckily, we have one of the greatest weather guys around, our friend, wnbc's raphael miranda. raphael, let's start with the weather around the plane search site. it's some of the most dangerous weather in the world. >> that's right, the roaring 40s, we've heard. we've heard this expression, around 40 degrees south latitude, typically, we see a very stormy pattern there. it's a band of westerly winds, very windy over there, and stormy from time to time. right now we've been seeing windows of clearer weather, where they can continue to search, but those are becoming less and less frequent as we head into winter. we're seeing swells of 14 feet, conditions impossible donate the search. >> and those are huge. >> those are huge. it makes it dangerous to continue the search. and you can see in the satellite, a little break in the action, but there comes the next storm. this will be the pattern over the next few weeks, winter, the worst wintry weather happens there around may. we have another month, but we'll

see the storminess continue to pick up in intensity. it's going to be harder and harder to find these windows of clearer weather. and even if there's not a storm, the waves will be kicked up so much between storms that that will be a challenge for weeks to come. >> and then, raphael, we also wanted to talk to you about the mud slide in seattle, that's northeast of seattle. it's one of the most searched items we've had on msnbc.com today. people also very interested. the death toll, of course, terribly now at 14. and more than 100 others still possibly missing. we understand the weather has taken a turn even for the worse, further still today. >> yeah, it's really the worst of case scenario forecast right now for seattle. you know, what caused the mud slide was a lot of rain. it was one of the wettest marches on record for that portion of the country. and the forecast over the next seven days has rain in every day, in fact. we could see another half a foot of rain in the seattle area. this is the last thing they need there, but, unfortunately, we're going to see a parade of storms march on in to the northwest. so it's just going to add on to the misery there. and of course, the danger for

more mud slides, perhaps, as well. the ground is already saturated. it's going to most likely be the wettest march on record for that part of the country. >> back here closer to home, there's a big early spring storm right off the east coast starting tonight. what's up with that? >> it's a monster. it's just getting started, not yet a monster, but it's going to become a monster. >> great. >> we measure the strength of a storm by its lowest central pressure -- >> or by its monster ratio. >> this would be in the godzilla category. we'll talking about a category 3 hurricane would have the same type of pressure. we won't see the same types of winds, but that's how strong it will be. we've been hearing about bombagenesis, meaning the storm will bomb out, rapidly decreasing pressure over the next 24 hours. >> is that really a word? >> bombagenesis, yes, it is. it may catch on too. but it's not going to affect us here in the big cities. >> so no snow? >> very little. 1 to 3 through d.c. up to

boston. cape cod, blizzard watch in effect there. they could see up to a foot of snow and winds over 15 miles per hour. but maybe this will be the last big storm that we track until next year. >> wouldn't that be nice? >> but we do have all sunny skies at your home, wnbc today, a true local news legend, chuck scarborough, celebrating 40 years on the air. that's almost as many years as toure has been alive. >> really, really? >> all right, brian. i see how you're -- >> any thoughts on that? >> i grew up in new york watching chuck, working with him, you get that starstruck feeling, working with a legend. he is new york news. you know, besides the baritone that goes on for days, he's just, no matter what he's talking about, and i think why so many new yorkers love him, he's reported on some of the most horrific stories in new york city's history, yet owe always feel like it's going to be okay. when papa chuck is talking about it, he has that reassuring quality and presence. >> so true. >> and you just can't manufacture that. >> you can't.

>> a steady hand and one a lot of new yorkers have trusted for a long time. >> a long time. >> thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. we are going to turn now to cycling at the supreme court in washington where protesters are on both sides of a hotly debated issue and they were demonstrating outside even in the snow. now, the court heard oral arguments in one of the most controversial challenges to the affordable care act. some for-profit businesses are offering that their employers' religious freedom is violated by requirement in the law that they provide form of contraception that they oppose. now, today, that claim drew assertive questioning from several justices, including, interestingly, all three women on the court. justice elena kagan, for example, asked how female employees are, with quote, tangibly harmed when an employer restricts their access to contraception coverage. but on the conservative side, justice alito asked, hey, why should religious companies not get an exception here when so many other exceptions and delays already operate under the aca? to breakdown the case, we have amy howe, who's argued before

the supreme court, and taught at harvard law school. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for inviting me. >> let's start here with this line. a lot of people are looking at this case and they feel skeptical about the idea that what seemed like corporation's rights should trump individual rights. on the other hand, there is an idea percolating that this could be resolved somewhat narrowly if you said, well, here's an exception, not for all corporations, but just for small ones that basically want to be focused on religious values. can you talk to us about that? >> sure. this was a suggestion that was made by chief justice john roberts. and so, both sides really brought out the parade of horribles. when paul clement was arguing representing the challengers to what we call the birth control mandate, some of the justices, particularly justices kagan, sotomayor, and ginsburg said, well, there are two different things here. if we decide here that hobby lobby and conestoga, the companies here, don't have to comply with the birth control mandate because they have

religious objections, can other employers object because, you know, to provisions that might require blood transfusion coverage or coverage for vaccines? and more broadly, could there be exceptions, based on religion, to this federal law, called the religious freedom restoration act, that would allow employers, large corporations, to object and say, we don't want to for religious reasons, the minimum wage law or child labor laws, family leave laws. so on the other side, when don brilly was arguing for the government, the justices were concerned it would go in the other direction, and you could make for-profit corporations cover, for example, abortions as part of their health insurance. so one of the suggestions that came up came from the chief justice who said, let's just rule that we could maybe just rule in this case, that when you've got a corporation that's owned entirely by one family, then that corporation can exercise religious beliefs and we can leave for later on

whether or not a large public company like exxon can exercise religious beliefs. >> and amy, is there a precedent for ruling narrowly that a closely held corporation could have exemptions that a larger corporation than exxon or a walmart wouldn't be allowed to have? >> well, certainly they could, because this is the question before the court. the parties in these cases are, yeah, there's two families that own three companies between them. and the immediate families control the entire corporation. and so they're saying the corporation is really like an extension of us, and therefore, our religious beliefs. and so, it certainly is a way that the court could rule narrowly. and chief justice john roberts, when he was confirmed, expressed a preference for these sort of minimalist rulings. so it wouldn't be that surprising to see him try to sort of broker something along those lines. >> amy, stay with us. let's bring in brian boitler, senior staff write for salon.com, who's been writing about the unintended

consequences of this case for corporations. brian, some say this case risks destroying the corporate veil, which treats corporations as distinct from its owners and shareholders. and thus a lot of corporations are not hoping for a hobby lobby win. kate mcdonough writes in salon, a ruling for the corporate right to the free exercise of religion would cause complete chaos both in terms of corporate governance and market stability, by treating corporations as the same thing as their owners. a ruling in support of hobby lobby wouldn't just pierce the corporate veil, it would effectively shred it and light it on fire. what do you think would be the impact, as she's referring to, of destroying the corporate veil? >> well, this is one of those unintended consequences, right? the slippery slope isn't just about future employees of companies that might claim exemptions to laws and regulations in the future. it's also about this question of how will companies react to a ruling, whether it's a fairly circumscribed one like you guys were discussing, or a bigger one

where corporations in general can claim a religious identity. but you could imagine corporations sort of using the notion of a religious identity in business strategizing. it doesn't make sense for us to assume a religious identity in order to avoid this regulation or this law. it could, in theory, create sort of pyrotechnic within companies, when there's disagreement about whether to do that or if there are actually genuinely held religious beliefs that some of the shareholders have, that others don't. it would be uncharted territory. and so, i think that that's the issue. is that we don't really know how severe the fallout would be, but the potential for pretty dramatic churn would really be there. >> and not much has changed politically on this since 2012. you have republicans who side with these companies. you have democrats who obviously back the administration on this. and this is how politico put it. they said, the outcome of this won't topple the health care law, but it could become a political thorn in the side of

both parties before the midterm elections. and brian, regardless of how this ends up, and you have republicans that are organizing real support around the idea that this violates religious liberty. does this put even more pressure on democrats who are trying to defend obamacare? >> i don't know. you know, i think the politics of this are a little bit more complicated, i would say, on the conservative side of things. where if you had a ruling, in favor of the plaintiffs, that created all of this, you know, it would sort of create a division that, i think, normally would be there if it weren't for the afford,abable care act thro the corporate party's corporate side and religious side. i think the politics are pretty straightforward for the democrats in that contraception is very popular and that when conservatives defend hobby lobby and other employers on religious grounds like this, it tempts to draw out the kind of conservative critique of women's

health care that can be a huge political liability to them. so i don't think that democrats are too worried about the politics. >> unless they're running in a competitive red state. >> maybe, i don't know. i think that the numbers are just pretty strong in favor of contraception across the board, in favor of this particular requirement in the law. so i'm not really even sure that somebody like a mark pryor or mary landrieu feels like they have a whole lot at stake with this particular case. >> let me jump back to amy. it's always said that hard cases can make bad law, because the court is jammed between two really good competing values. it seems, though, that also, really narrow cases can make confusing law. the chamber of commerce and a lot of other business groups have not been hungry for this. so this roberts court is one that often sides with big business, and yet big business doesn't necessarily want to go down this rabbit hole. >> yes, i think that's right. and you know, if they rule narrowly, that will certainly resolve this particular issue. but it will bring back, then, the question of larger companies

and how do you decide whether or not a corporation can exercise religious beliefs or what its religious beliefs are and open up a whole host of other unintended consequences or something that the justices are certainly about are laws governing discrimination against gay people and whether or not this is something that people would be looking to rely on the religious freedom restoration act for as well. so it's a pandora's box and they're probably going to try very hard not to open it. >> it is. and technically, the justices only look at what's before them. in reality, we've had arizona and a whole lot of other hangovers here they may be mindful of. amy howe at the supreme court and brian butler from salon, thank you both. up next, we have more on the flight 370 mystery. did the malaysians botch this search? some family members, as we know, think so. we are going to ask the former u.s. ambassador to malaysia, james keith. he's with us next. when folks in the lower 48 think about what they get from alaska,

they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy. but that's just the start. to produce more from existing wells, we need advanced technology. that means hi-tech jobs in california and colorado. the oil moves through one of the world's largest pipelines. maintaining it means manufacturing jobs in the midwest. then we transport it with 4 state-of-the-art, double-hull tankers. some of the safest, most advanced ships in the world: built in san diego with a $1 billion investment.

across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. and no energy company invests more in the u.s. than bp. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america.

candice... (door-hey) you said in a focus group you'd "like to have a product that eliminates odors and doesn't just mask them." could you give us access to maybe the smelliest room in your house? -sure come on in. the trash is bad... oh yeah. ...and we just took it out. febreze doesn't mask odors, it actually eliminates them. it smells really nice. like fresher. another success story. (laughs) don't just mask odors; eliminate them with febreze air effects. and to continuously eliminate odors in small spaces, try febreze set and refresh. breathe happy.

we are back now with more on the stalled search for downed malaysia flight 370. and we are now 18 days into this multi-national effort. james keith was u.s. ambassador to malaysia. he is now senior director at mccarty associates. ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. >> i'm glad to be here. sorry it's such a sad occasion. >> of course. what i wanted to start with is, china has been demanding to see the immarsat satellite images that malaysia used to concretely determine where this plane was downed in the indian ocean. why is malaysia unwilling to give these satellite images to china? >> well, it's clear that they had trouble with communications throughout this crisis. and i think they're listening to the experts and receiving the information, but i'm not so certain they are capable of evaluating it themselves. they are listening to what the experts tell them and digesting that. so that's part of the problem.

and the larger problem is they just don't have a lot of experience dealing with these kinds of crises. >> and ambassador, it seems like the dynamic between malaysia and china has been fair tense throughout the understandably difficult and tense situation, but what was their relationship like before this particular flight? >> it's basically a solid relationship. the current prime minister's father opened diplomatic relations with the chinese, and the current prime minister went out of his way to cultivate a good relationship with beijing. so i don't think it's a question of frictions in the relationship, but clearly, the families of the passengers are upset and one can certainly understand that. it's important to remember, the malaysians lost people too. so i think it's not a matter of some deliberate effort on their part or some political conspiracy, it's simply a matter

of lack of experience and poor performance, i'm afraid. >> right, you mentioned political conspiracy. you have families gathering outside the embassy there in beijing and what you have microbloggers or dissidents in china saying this definitely must have been some kind of conspiracy. and of course, one can understand that without giving weight to some of those accusations, by which i mean, there is tremendous skepticism in several of these countries about how the government operates. and obviously, how it operates in secret. can you shed any light on that dynamic amidst this tragedy? >> of course. you know, one has to take with a grain of salt the chinese complaining to the malaysians about lack of transparency, of course, because they're not the most transparent government themselves. that said, and of course, they're conveying heartfelt emotions about their own citizens. but it's clear that the chinese -- the malaysian government, since 1957, has mainly operated as a one-party government. so it hasn't had the to and fro

of very robust civil society, where the government hasn't been in the position where it needed to answer in international scrutiny in realtime these kind of tough questions. they've been able to duck them. but it's quite clear they are sincere. they're trying their best. i'm sure there are times when they wish they could go back and redo things and not have to learn on the fly as this is happening. >> and having served as ambassador over there, you know these people. you understand how the malaysian government operates. when you look at how they've handled this whole situation, shutting the families out for two weeks, giving barely any information, and then declaring that this plane did, in fact, go down in the sea and that there were no survivors, which felt, for many people, premature, and somewhat insensitive, what is your personal reaction to the way they've handled it? do you feel like they've totally screwed this thing up? >> well, i'm very sad for them. because i think their intentions were, of course, to do better than that. again, it's the lack of

experience. and to some extent, they're are blessed in the sense that they're not in the ring of fire. so they don't have earthquakes and volcanos, they're not subject to tsunami and major typhoons or what we would call hurricanes. so both the political inexperience in the hurly-burly of a real vibrant democracy as well as the lack of need to create an interagency process, manage it, have discipline, as far as the message goes, all that sort of thing, has created this image of a government that's much less capable than they actually are. and much less caring than they are. i'm sure one of the things they feel most badly about is the fact that they've come across as lacking compassion for the victims, including, again, malaysian citizens. >> so do you think it's fair to say that malaysia has damaged its imaging on the international stage, or do you think that's been too much? >> no, i think it's fair to say, if malaysia were a brand, they've done some damage to it. and, you know, one doesn't want

to lose sight of the human dimension here, of course. but, clearly, they've undertaken an effort to attract tourism, to attract investment, and it's a place where one can be very comfortable. so it's a bad image they've put forth, and one that doesn't correspond to reality. so that's the shame of it. they'll have to do a lessons learned activity after this and really work hard at overcoming some of this. and take the lesson that in a globalized economy, they do need to look at the imperative of moving toward a more transparent and accountable system. >> all right. ambassador james keith, thank you for your insights. so where do we go from here? next steps in the mystery that has captivated the world, straight ahead.

let's say you pay your guy around 2 percent to manage your money. that's not much, you think except it's 2 percent every year. go to e*trade and find out how much our advice and guidance costs. spoiler alert. it's low. it's guidance on your terms not ours. e*trade. less for us, more for you. i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest. [ male announcer ] nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. they don't? alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a decongestant. [ inhales deeply ] oh. what a relief it is.

don't worry! the united states postal service will get it there on time with priority mail flat rate shipping. ♪ whoo-hoo! ♪

[ male announcer ] our priority has always been saving the day. because our priority... amazing! [ male announcer ] ...is you! the amazing spider-man 2 delivered by the united states postal service. severe weather has put the search for malaysia flight 370 on hold. more planes are expected to join the effort when waves couple in the next few days and those underwater microphones to help locate the flight's beacon have yet to be deployed, but even with better effort and sernl technology, the effort to find the plane remains daunting. here with us is msnbc aviation expert and retired airline captain, john cox. the pinger locater, something i think a lot of us are hoping will arrive as soon as possible

to help with this whole search, but given the breath of the search area and the depth of the indian ocean, can it really make a big difference? >> well, i think we need first to find the floating debris and use that as a starting point to take into account the winds, the currents and the wave action that has been on that debris so that we can further narrow the area on the ocean floor that we need to search to find the main body of the debris. this oncoming storm and the storm that's there today are going to significantly complicate matters, but first and foremost, we need that, the floating debris because the pingers that are on the voice recorder and the flight data recorder are of limited range and so, you need to have a much closer idea of where the main body of the wreckage is before those acoustic pingers are going to be really useful. >> yeah and it's such a massive

search. with it beginning to narrow down and being so time sensitive, is it your sense that we will see more nations jump on board providing their resources or do you sense that maybe nations will start to pull back? that maybe we don't need all the hands on deck. >> i think right now, it's important that we've seen 26 nations work in a very cooperative way maintaining a central focus on finding this airplane. and nobody has backed away. no one has said, well, i'm going to leave that up to somebody else. they've all continued to focus and from all over the globe, we've seen people willing to put up satellite data to use engineering expertise to provide marine assets, air assets. people. so, the focus has remained very, very, very strong. i hope that that continues and i think based on past history, it will for some time to come. >> john, typically, when we see a tragedy of this sort, there's

a rethinking of perhaps security features, the technology on board. what sort of changes do you expect to be considered in light of these events? >> one of the things is we need to understand what happened and right now, that is a question that is very much unanswered. so, until we understand it, what changes need to be made, it's speculative at best if it's answerable at all. the boeing 777 has had almost 20 years in service. it's a remarkably safe airplane. it has flown tens of millions of passengers hundreds of millions of miles, so the likelihood that a major design issue has suddenly come up with the 777 is very low. was it an operational procedure? a problem in the operation? that really hasn't shown itself either, so as an investigator and an air safety person, the

concerns are we don't want a reoccurrence of this, but this is such an unusual case that and it's an outlier. we've never seen one like this in aviation's history, so preventing a reoccurrence means we've got to understand what happened in this unprecedented occasion. >> you talk about how unusual it is. the safety record. what do you say though to someone who's watching at home and says, after learning about this and watching all the coverage, they are more nervous about flying? >> well, i think this is, you must realize there is a disproportionate report iing of aviation events. there's an interest in the public at large, but no matter where an airplane has a problem in the world, it can quickly become front page news when you realize that you're more at risk in your living room or your bathtub or walking down the street during a summer thunderstorm to be struck by

lightning. when you look at it statistically, aviation is the safest form of public transportation ever designed by mankind. but when you say, when someone at home is looking at the media and seeing those very rare occasions where things go wrong, it can develop a disproportionate level of concern. >> that's a really important point to make right there, sir. how much better does the weather need to get down there for them to be able to go back to searching the way they were before? >> well, we've got some of the best search crews in the world currently involved in this. and they very much want to find this airplane. they recognize the ongoing torment that the victims' families are going through. they want to provide some answers. and as soon as they believe it to be safe enough, when they are not endangering the crew and there is a reasonable expectation of a good possibility to cover some of the square miles that need to be

covered, they'll be out there, but they on site need to be the ones that make that decision predicated on their experience and their equipment available. >> captain john cox talking about the safest form of public transportation ever designed. be right back after this. can you start tomorrow? yes sir. alright. let's share the news tomorrow. today we failrly busy. tomorrow we're booked solid. we close on the house tomorrow. i want one of these opened up. because tomorow we go live... it's a day full of promise. and often, that day arrives by train. big day today? even bigger one tomorrow. when csx trains move forward, so does the rest of the economy. csx. how tomorrow moves.

humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why, at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda. ♪

the search for malaysian airlines flight 370 is on hold for now as searchers wait out some violent weather, but there

is so much more to this story as we've learned to hour. it's about the people. before we even find a single piece of the wreckage. as this plays out, count on us to bring it all to you. msnbc coverage continues right now on now with alex wagner. obamacare goes to court aga again. it is tuesday, march 24th and this is "now." >> a make or break moment in health care. womens rights and religious liberty. >> key argument before the supreme court. a question it has never faced before. can a business claim it has freedom of religion? >> the company line. arguing that insurance policies should not have to cover certain types of birth control. >> the first challenge to the health care law in nearly two years. >> birth