little brother. best new thing in the world today. that does it for us tonight. see you again tomorrow night. . . good friday morning, everyone. right now on "first look." new direction, the search for the missing malaysian jet shifts to the north after a credible lead. blade runner defense. a startling development in the oscar pistorius case. showdown. president obama prepares for a contentious meeting with the king of saudi arabia. important new research on autism. free coffee at mcdonald's. >> the bracing-busting upsets keep coming happy friday. thanks for joining us z. >> we begin with a big change in the hunt for the missing malaysian airliner. the search area has shifted 680 miles to the northeast after new analysis of radar data. ian williams is following the latest from perth, australia.

will this shift make the search any easier? >> australian officials say that this area is closer to main land australia by about 400 miles. so that means less flying time, which means aircraft can spend more time there looking for debris. they also point out that the weather conditions in this new area are a little better than what they have experienced down further south. that said, the ocean is still very deep, between 6,000-13,000 feet. it is still a very tough task ahead of them. also, the overall area they are looking at is 123,000 square miles. think new mexico or poland now. they had appeared to be honing in on a narrower earlier area down south 700 miles away from the new area aided by multiple satellite images it. it does seem like they were false lead and that those satellite images had nothing to

do with the aircraft. here we are, a fresh search. we have ten flights, ten aircraft heading no that area today. ships also on the way but unlikely to be there before the end of saturday. in many ways, we are really back at square one, betty. >> it does sound like they starting over. ian, joining us from perth, australia, thank you. now, some breaking news in the oscar pistorius murder trial. it was supposed to be the first day of the defense's case and possibly testimony from pistorius himself. but, there is now a hang-up and a delay in the trial. mike taibbi joins us live in pistorius, south africa. mike, what happened? >> this has to do with the differences, some would say the peck you'll yarities. this is a first-degree murder trial in the high skort. a judge, not a jury, trial. the jury is assisted by two assessors called other lawyers. the judge announced as soon as court started that one of the assessors had taken ill and thus

the court was not properly constituted and there would have to be a postponement. pistorius is the only person that knows what happened at 3:00 in the morning on valentine's. this is going to include his own testimony. he claimed he thought he was shooting an intruder and not his girlfriend, reeva steenkamp. there were many witnesses that said they heard a wild and heated argument prior to the shots that he admits he fired that resulted in her death. the postponement until april 7th. betty. thank you, mike. back here at home, search efforts continue in washington state. we have new images. this morning, the death toll has risen to 17. the latest confirmed victim, a four-month-old baby girl. they will resume their work at sun rise with the fear of

finding month are bodies. we have the latest. >> in here is where the neighborhood deposited. >> reporter: the destruction happened within seconds, an unimaginable force turning a small community into a massive mud, broken trees and homes, twisted metal. lana langton was host ag slumber party. seven kids saw a wall of mud rushing towards them, stopping short of their home. >> all of the sudden, i saw this huge mud wave do a whole title wave and crush it. >> urban search and rescue specialist are using forensic digging techniques, slow-going, tedious. >> the machine picks up small bites of material and set off to the side. people go through the material and look where the machine pulled out material. if it is okay, they go back and pull out more. >> when remains are found, a pause. >> it gets really quiet for a few minutes. you can almost hear a pin drop.

you cece son veterans start to tear up. >> the owner of the stump bar and grill says everyone can't get out and search but everybody can do something. they are collecting noimoney. >> a lot are regulars. one was a really close family to us. we just want to help. >> the boy scouts are helping. small comforts in the face of enormous tragedy. jennifer biorkland, washington. time is winding down sign up for health insurance. under the law known as obama care, the white house is touting a major milestone. more than 6 million americans have signed up for plans under the affordable care ablth. that is a far cry from october's 106,000. it meets a key goal set by the administration. now, last year, the cbo estimated 7 million consumers would have enroll ld by now.

for most users, the open enrollment ends on monday. president obama is continuing his trip overseas where he hopes to mend fences with king abdullah. peter alexander joins us live from rome where the president met with pope francis. hi, peter. >> reporter: good morning. it was a historic visit between pop francis and president obama, together for nearly an hour. the president expressed his great admiration for the pope. they shared their interest in eliminating income equality but didn't spend much time on abortion and contraception. president obama will go to saudi arabia, the largest arab ally. among the most significant topics, they will focus on iran and syria. saudi arabia's largest rival is

around and the u.s. has new contacts with iran as it deals with its efforts to crack down on the nuclear weapons capabilities. on syria, they are hopeful that the u.s. will provide larger military insistence to the syrian rebels as they try to fight the regime of bashar al assad. >> thank you. we are going to shift gears. we want to get the latest in sports. for that, look who is here. good morning, craig melvin. >> hey, there, betty. good morning to you. the elite eight halfway there as the brackets keep on busting. number one, arizona, late rally edged them over a feisty san diego state. san diego state leading 32-8 at halftime. in the second, t.j. mcconnell laying it up putting the wildcats on top. san diego kept fighting as ex af

yor thanks nails a three to keep it tight with less than a minute left. arizona prevailed, 70-64. ucla did not make it easy for overall number one, florida. the bruins, norman powell, sprinted, sprinting down the court to keep the game close. later, scotty wobican, you can see him there hustling in the paint for two. the gators take it from there. florida reaches the elite eight for their fourth straight year. dayton continues to be the surprise in this tournament with an upset win over stanford, 82-72. they advance to the elite 8 for the first time since the reagan administration. for the first time since 1984. they celebrated like it has been 30 years since they made it to the elite. that right there, a street celebration in dayton, ohio, betty.

to wisconsin, wisconsin celebrating their victory against the taylor bears. they do it with a dance. he is a better ball player than dance. >> i don't know. those are good moves. >> it is subjective, i suppose. who better to show love for the packers than aaron roger. he joined the post-game dancing and the huddle. wisconsin won 69-52. tonight, virginia against michigan state, iowa state, yukon. ten see state versus michigan. kentucky taking on last year's national champs, louisville. should be the game of the night there. to pro ball we go, the 76ers had a record-setting game against houston. they did what they have done a lot. they lost 120-98. with that loss, they tied the all-time losing streak record. 26 straight now they dropped. >> yikes. >> johnny man zil starring in

his nfl pro day, texas a&m. >> the 20-12 heisman winner, impressed. he threw 65 passes to six different receivers. 75 officials from 30 teams are in attendance. former president, george h.w. bush and his wife, barbara. also there watching johnny football. >> exactly. >> they look good. >> thank you, craig. now, to weather and meteorologist, bill karins. you warned us about a severe weather threat. >> we went from straight to talking about winter storms to severe weather. it is springtime in the plains. this was missouri yesterday. one tornado did format. it did touch down. it did destroy a couple of mobile homes. there were no injuries or fatalities. that was a sign to come. yesterday, missouri. that's where we had the tornadoes and the hail. as far as the storms torksd it looks like they are going to be more down in the deep south.

let me show you what we're looking at as far as the area of concern. if you are going to deal with tornadoes or really bad weather, we are going to watch areas from east texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama and the southern half of arkansas, wind damage, large hail and a few tornadoes. that does include houston and dallas. we are still getting drenched. this is not the severe weather threat. that's going to be later on, about 12 hours from now. we deserve a nice, sunny, warm weekend up the east coast. maybe next weekend. this weekend is going to be rainy and on the cool side. it is going to pour. 2-4 inches from the mid-atlantic to the northeast. wintry type in new england. it will get warmer this afternoon. a soaker, specially d.c. all the way to nord city, boston, saturday, through sunday. it looks like saturday night into sunday is just a stay indoors and get the laundry done, the movie. >> rent a movie. >> clean that closet out.

>> spring cleaning. we are waiting for spring still. >> thank you. an alert for anyone looking forward to happy hour tonight. we're going to tell you why, plus, russians and americans getting along great in space as the soy yuz docks with the internation international space station. i'm tony siragusa and i'm training guys who leak a little,

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mars has opened a state of the art 5,000 square foot chocolate plant in topeka, kansas. it has created 200 new jobs and will bring and m&m world to topeka. >> happy hour. beware, a major lime shortage causing prices to skyrocket. this austin restaurant usually pays $35 for a case of 100 mimemime limes. that same case now costs $100. right now, supply is down. the federal reserve has

given citigroup a failing mark on its latest stress test. the fed will spell out the reasons for failing citi over the next few weeks. mcdonald's is giving away free coffee during breakfast hour starting on monday through april 13th. get your cup of joe. it is all part of mccafe's promotional event. here are some stories making news this morning. a new report from the cdc says the number of children dyi diagnosed with autism is on the rise. 1 in 68 suffer from the disorder. that is a 30% increase from 2012. cdc officials believe the rise in numbers could be because doctors are getting better at identifying autism. after a slight delay due to a technical bug, a russian soyuz spacecraft docked. one american astronaut and two russian cosmonauts, join three others in the orbiting lab.

nice big hug for them. that's a greeting. an internal investigation into the lane closures that snarled traffic on the george washington bridge has unsurprisingly cleared governor chris christie of any wrongdoing. diane sawyer spoke to christie about the scandal. >> when things are first reported, i said, this can't possibly be true, because who would do something like that? sometimes people do inexplicably stupid things. so that's what makes it so hard as the guy in charge. none of it made any sense to you. to some extent, still does not. the austin police department confirmed a fourth victim in the south by southwest car crash died thursday from his injuries. the driver of the vehicle that drove through the crowd has been charged with capital murder. and the man doug francis, spiderman, wowed onlookers when he climbed a 500-foot tower in

paris. after successfully scaling that building, he was arrested by police but later released while being charged. straight ahead, the white house hits their mark on obama care and the president readies for a rough meeting with saw de's king abdullah. here is a live look at rome where the president is about to board air force one for that trip to saudi arabia. ♪ ♪ ♪

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let's take a "first look" at politics. joining me, politico's kevin really. i bet the white house is happy. how big of a win is it for the administration considering several republicans publicly mocked the plan saying 6 million was nearly impossible. >> i'm not sure that this is that big of a win for the white house. a few days ago, they pushed back the march 31st deadline. house speaker, john boehner said, what is this a joke? for the 6 million, this is a lowered expectation that the white house had down played and lowered from the 7 million that they had originally hoped for. so i'm not sure how big of a victory this is. >> you are talking about the congressional budget office originally saying 7 million

enro enrollees. how does that factor in? >> when you look at the most recent extension, this is the tenth major extension of obamacare since it has been rolled out. in a mid-term election year, to some extent, a victory but not a major one. i want to shift gears. we have been looking at live pictures of air force one in rome as the president is boarding and heading to saudi arabia today. here is the live picture. how tough of an audience will this be given the ties between the two countries? >> this is going to be a tough talk for president obama. it is the latest tough meeting in his overseas tour. the bottom line here is that when he goes to saudi arabia, he is facing a government that is extremely skeptical of the

administration's foreign policy. because when you look at sort of how troops have been wound down in the area, saudi arabia is particularly concerned with things like iran, as you mentioned, as well as syria and just really the entire u.s. influence in the area. he is going to have to sell his foreign policy and he also will be with secretary of state, john kerry. so he will have a team to do that. >> it can be quite the conversation. kev kevin cerilli, thank you. thanks for having me. >> bill karins and craig melvin on stephen colbert's alarmingly offensive tweet and one of the best commercials we have seen in a while. that is next. ♪

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first buzz, i have big and craig with me. >> new daddy! >> congratulations on your son. >> he is not watching. >> hopefully, no. >> he is probably still awake crying. poor thing. bill, you have the commercial of all commercials, i hear. >> this is a different spin. snickers, the whole theme, if you are not feeling like yourself, have a snickers. how about these construction workers in australia? >> you want to hear a filthy word -- >> i would like to show you the respect you deserve. >> well said. >> a woman's place is wherever she chooses. i appreciate your appearance. it is just one aspect of who you are. >> i love it. >> those were real people on the street thinking they were going to have something offensively said to them. >> instead, they were shouted

compliments. >> that's what you should do. stephen colbert making news this morning. >> i don't know if many people are smiling. >> for those of you that have not been following. his twitter account, it is important to make the distinction. the show's twitter account tweets out a tweet that we are not going to repeat. some have said it is very offensive. >> racist, asian. >> he sends out a tweet after his show sends out this offensive tweet. i think we have that tweet from stephen colbert. cancel colbert was a hashtag that was trending. i agree! just saw@colbertreport tweet. i share your rage. who is that, though? i'm@stephenathome. >> the person that hosts it is going to take the heat for it.

i guess that was his way of making good, i guess. >> we'll see. >> someone is in trouble. thanks for joining us on this friday. "way too early" with thomas roberts starts right now. i'm certainly disappointed in myself that i wasn't able to pick up these traits in these people. i'm disappointed in myself that i didn't look closer, that i trusted too much. >> you don't think there is a single possibility that they thought that in your rough and tumble style in jersey politics style, that they thought this would please you? >> no z that this was for snu. >> no. i don't believe it was for me. >> ultimately, governor chris christie agrees with the lawyers that cleared him of wrongdoing. the tax-payer funded internal

investigation exposed the root of the problem? no. it does expose a soured office romance the search for answers in the indian ocean moves to a new debris field. are investigators finally on the right track? trade talks between taco bell and canada. they won't waffle and take a certain troubled pot star back or no new breakfast menu for you. that's the way the taco crumbles for canucks. this is "way too early." that is the way the taco crumbles. good morning. i'm thomas roberts. welcome to "way too early." the show that lived on taco bell's pinto and cheese in college. i didn't know until taco bell until college. i was very sheltered as a child. we start off with some very serious news