>> remember when the president warned against using our courageous veterans as a political football. a whole mess of politicians don't seem to. secretary shinseki is trying to stay positive sending out new letters to veterans, i take any allegations about employee misconductor patient safety very safely. as we observe memorial day and the special significance to our nation, va is doubling its efforts with integrity and compassion to earn your trust. but nevertheless, the drum beat for shinseki to lose his post is growing louder an louder on both sides of the aisle. democratic senate candidate allison grimes trying to unseat mitch mcconnell joined in. she was followed yesterday by house majority whip kevin mccarthy who has become the highest ranking republican to push shinseki out. she said quote, the current

state of the va is wholly unacceptable and become a national embarrassment. i believe new leadership at the department of veteran affairs is imperative. >> jerry moran explained his stance this morning. take a listen. >> do you think maybe that we're all being too quick to say let's pin it all on one guy? >> well, chuck, i was the first senator to call for the secretary's resignation. i didn't do that lightly. i've never called for a cabinet secretary's resignation before. the problem of that is there have been inspector general reports, office of medical inspector properties, gao reports, congressional investigations, many of the allegations that are being investigated currently are things that have already been told to the secretary by independent agencies that they are true and real and nothing happened. there is no plan that's the problem. show me the plan. >> show me the plan.

perhaps the biggest blow now comes from one of our country's most revered veterans, bob dole, the man who introduced shinseki at his confirmation hearing. he backed him this week and now admits he's conflicted. >> i have mixed feelings because i know general shinseki, i've said i think he should stay and i think particularly he should stay until the white house gets this investigative report they are doing, until we get the facts and see what you can lay at his feet. >> the scandal is real but how much of the outrage and bandwagoning will produce results? thank you both for being here. sam, we're here on this friday afternoon, the holiday weekend coming up. is there any chance shinseki is fired or leaves office today? >> i don't think so. the white house seems committed

to letting the investigation go through and see what transpired and making a judgment after that. i think that's basically what former senator dole was saying, you have to figure out what the facts are before moving forward with the judgment. that being said, his standing is very perilous, obviously, there's a growing appetite for him to be fired on capitol hill among senate democrats running for office, it's not like he's in a solid position right now. >> and robert, speaker boehner and others have correctly said firing shinseki wouldn't be a cure all. amidst the bandwagoning and name calling, do you see an effort to coherently fix this problem? >> i think they are still making the competency argument against the white house and shinseki right now. they are not focused so much on -- >> it's interesting to see democrats come out in a strong way, especially people like grimes. do you think that's a way of distancing herself from the

president and do you think other democrats will follow suit? >> not to be too cynical about it but it's a slightly convenient way to distance oneself from the president. but there are obvious issues that demand some sort of outrage. you know the president came in in 2008 a is aing he was going to modernize the va and put more money in there. now the question is what good was that money for? there's legitimate questions to be asked. people want to wait and see what the internal review comes in but there have been reviews in the past too. there is a case to be made whether it's grimes or nunn, that maybe heads should roll and there needs to be actability. the white house seems committed to see that review come back but i wouldn't be surprised if there were firings down the line. >> right and i think clearly more important than who falls and when, what are the underlying changes? >> of course. >> i wanteded to ask robert in particular about a story you've been reporting on pretty unbelievable in mississippi.

holding its primary on june 3rd. clayton kelly, a conservative tea partyier who supports mcdaniel was arrested for photographing the incumbent senator thad cochran's wife in hospice care being treated for dementia. he posted that video online and it parked a lot of outrage. three more mcdanl yell supporters have been accused of being in on the plot. what's going on down there, robert? >> ronan, four men have been arrested and charged with conspiracy. mississippi tea party activists and supporters of chris mcdaniel, running against thad cochran in mississippi. the problem for mcdaniel, the primary is in early june. i spoke with the madison county mississippi district attorney last night. he said the investigation is ongoing. no one has been cleared. that's not to say mcdaniel is a suspect nor is his campaign, but this issue is a mess. it's festering and now four men

supporters of mcdaniel are in custody. >> it really does sort of make the skin crawl. this went into this hospice facility and sam, let's talk about the political fallout for this. mcdaniel gave an interview about this where he denied having known about it and there are questions about the timeline of how much he knew and when. take a listen to that. >> i can't imagine your camping manager not telling you -- >> it's the nature. i was asleep. she called me -- >> she called you and told you that there was a problem and -- >> she did. >> what did she say? >> she said, chris, we have an issue involving miss cochran. i said let me get up and take a shower and you can fully brief me when i get to hernando. and that's where it went down. we did not get further in the initial conversation. >> went all the way to hernando and she never called you and never called her back? >> paul, no, we're busy. >> we're busy. sam, does this sink mcdaniel? >> you know, bob would know

better than i what this means in the pry mafr, but i think you summarized it best when it makes your skin crawl. it is such an awkward issue to be a factor in a senate primary. and it's impossible to figure out who knew what when why the hell they were videotaping this person? it's very bizarre and weird thing to discuss even on cable news even with presidential helicopters right behind me. >> we're all really uncomfortable right now. up next, days away from the election in ukraine, the polls are ready to open but should they considering a new and surprising state of violence? stay with us. these don't look clean.

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we just made it through primary super tuesday and this weekend ukraine heads to its polls. their elections could be an international flash point in tensions between america and russia and china. and right on the ground in ukraine growing violence is looming over polling stations. 13 ukrainian troops died at the military checkpoint in the donetsk region of eastern ukraine yesterday. checkpoint was attacked by pro-russian insurgents, how did he respond to the mounting instability? he continued to render the violence not as destableation from russian forces but as a dangerous civil war. who can say who's to blame for that, right? he also said that russia would respect the will of the ukrainian people in sunday's vote, except, not really because that immediately pointed out that ousted pro-moscow

yanukovych remains the legitimate president. putin quickly pivoted to his favorite pastime against president obama. >> let's have an adult conversation. president obama has accused you, of untruths when it comes to supporting the separatists groups -- >> translator: who is he to judge? who is he to judge, seriously? if he wants to judge people, why accident he g doesn't he get a job in court somewhere. >> snap. this comes after an ethical gas deal with china. joining me now former ambassador to the u.n. and former energy secretary, bill richardson, always a pleasure to have you on the show. will the violence detail the election? >> well, there will be some

violence, but i think russia and putin want to have it both ways. they want to show they are not interfering, letting the election take place, saying they are going to withdraw their troops, which they haven't. but basically not restraining those russian separatists that have already killed ukrainian troops that are already deeply involved in trying to disrupt the elections, but it's in putin's interest to show that he allowed a presidential election to happen. on the good side there's a lot of international observers there. the election is very spirited. a good result on sunday will show that ukraine is on the verge of becoming a nation, all know a very troubled nation economically, concerned about russia's expansion moves. >> it seems putin is dancing a very delicate careful dance in terms of conveying how much and how little he cares about western pressure. he said in interview today that

sanctions are having quote a real impact then immediately said they are absolutely illegal is the exact quote. that a victory for the white house or a put-down? >> well, no, i think putin again, he's making a lot of moves. what's interesting is the gas deal with china, he's basically saying, okay, western countries, europe, we export 30% of our russian gas to europe. you're going to put sanctions on that. i'm going to find another supplier and it's going to be china. and it's going to be more than you. $400 billion over 30 years. 30 trillion cubic feet of gas. he's playing an alliance with china against the united states. what is also interesting in the united nations security council, both russia and china vetoed an effort by western countries, france and the u.s., to send to the international war crimes

tribunals the crimes against humanity by syria. so putin is making some geopolitical moves, ganging up on the united states on europe, with china. so he's all over the place. but again, he has that option with that endless supply of gas that russia has. >> and do you think that will be an effective strategy? can strong enough ties to china insulate russia from this kind of external pressure? >> well, only if ronan, the united states and europe say okay, we're going to change our policy. we're going to use our energy abundance in the united states to our advantage. we're going to start exporting our natural gas and petroleum which we haven't been able to do. we're going to have some lick qui fied natural gas terminals with our allies in eastern europe that feel abandoned and feel squeezed by russia, like

poland, other surrounding countries. but we have to be smart about using our shale gas with environmental protections as an export tool to counter against russia's moves with china. otherwise, if we do nothing and if we don't impose stronger sanctions in this particular germany, on gas, on commerce, because russia has been hit hard by some of these sanctions -- >> right the ruble has been in a free fall here. >> the ruble has gone down and investment has gone down. trade, $300 million with germany has gone down. so russia is feeling a bite but they are making these other counter moves so we should counter with a more aggressive energy policy in that part of the world. >> we'll actually be talking about american energy independence later in the context of what exploration is going on with our borders. i wanted your take with something going viral online right now. there's a candidate named darth

vader running for mayor in kiev, running on a platform of promoting democracy. he's really full regalia there. how do you think he'll fare in this election? >> not too good. i think klitschko, the heavy weight champion of the world is run s against him. and klitschko is very popular. he deferred running for president. and i think instead is running for mayor. >> yeah, yeah. >> you know, he knows politics, he's an impressive guy. he's a ph.d. but he's also a heavyweight champ. he's beat all of the americans he's ever fought. i wouldn't rule this klitschko guy out. i don't know darth vader will do. he might do better than we think. >> colorful cast of characters, always a pleasure to have you on. just ahead, in 2014 it's hard to believe i'm even using this phrase, but we're going to talk

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to get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today. welcome back, it's time now for your underreported story of the week. this week's winner, 37% of you voted for an alarming new rise in the deportation of gays. united nations says at least 77 countries have laws making homosexuality illegal. sometimes with brutal consequences. in nigeria and uganda there are night time raids rounding up suspected homosexuals and kenya gays have been stoned to death, frightened civilians are fleeing these countries to seek asylum. when they escape, sometimes they risk getting cents back into the line of fire. this week we're saying that with the u.s. and britain grappling on whether to deport gay u began

dans back to their home country. in the u.k. one mother could be sent back as early as tomorrow. joining me again, bill richardson. governor, tell me, the u.s. has pretty robust asylum laws bought do you think in cases like this, involving a global human rights fight, flz a elevated burden to keep individuals safe? >> absolutely. this should be the main civil rights human rights issue in the next ten years. and this is where the united nations needs to take a lead. they need to have a very clear convention, a summit with binding sanctions on countries that not just mistreat gays and gender based discrimination, lgbt, but also deal with issues like asylum and deportation, like torture, like all kinds of

violations, 77 countries, that's about 40% of the countries of the world registered at the u.n., practice discrimination. this is wrong. perhaps the u.s. should take the lead but i think ronan, we too, the united states the congress and president, should have clear laws that say if a country like uganda or cameroon or iran discriminate or deport or mistreat, we cut off their assistance, their loans. we put sanctions on them. we have to take the lead. >> and secretary of state hillary clinton during her tenure did give a speech saying lgbt rights are human rights and tried to push this in the international community but in some cases we stopped short of sanctioning. we set up funds and positive actions but haven't ugsed the sticks we should. here's the latest case we mentioned, a gay rights leader in uganda now lives in boston requested asylum earlier this

week. there's a legitimate fear for his life if he dogoes back. what should the white house do? >> they should give him asylum and protect them but they should also, uganda is a country -- we have a good relationship with uganda. we have a wildlife conservation agenda with them, they help us on regional peace issues, on peace keeping and human rights, not related to gays. they just have this archaic system there led by the president on this. we should protect this individual but really pass a law in the congress or the president should have an executive order that grants this asylum almost automatically to someone victimized and put sanctions -- in other words, if you cut visas and cut all kinds of assistance loans and world bank and international development funds to countries that do that, they

are going to start stopping doing that, also the european union, but i think this is an area where the united nations needs to take a lead and the u.n. has generally a good record on these issues. >> a rare message of hope on the international community and the ability to change this. tens and thousands petitions on this in england. we'll see if the same mobilization app is in the states and we may bring you back. thank you. >> thank you, ronan. >> up next, dear graduates of the class of 2014, you've had thousands of commencement speakers address you, we are going to look back at the best, worst and most controversial speeches of the year. stay tuned. you probably know xerox as the company that's all about printing. but did you know we also support hospitals using electronic health records for more than 30 million patients? or that our software helps over 20 million smartphone users

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>> you're graduating as the most diverse class in yale's long history or as they call it in the nba, donald sterling's worst nightmare. >> i know what it took to get here today. i dressed like a medieval pastry chef. >> what's next for me? i don't know, i'm in exactly the same boat as many of you. >> when we hear someone whining about getting their feelings hurt about something, we rely on that old saying up there in alaska, buck up or stay in the truck. ♪ all of you are so over me ♪ you're tired of hearing that i went to penn ♪ ♪ why they bring him back again ♪ >> that is not just problem, that is their problem. >> no dream is too big or vision too bold. there is nothing that we cannot achieve. >> i can't wait to live in a

world that y' all are about to create. >> oh, the commencement speech, vehicles for momentous pieces of history, secretary of state george marshall unveiled the marshall plan, president john f. kennedy called for a nuke cheer test ban treaty and i cracked a joke this one time, also very important stuff. this year mostly notable for absences, a spad of speakers forced to step down because of student outrye. cry, branded bonfire of humanities. among those burned, condoleezza rice supposed to speak at rutgers, imf christine lagarde at smith and robert berg nou at haverford. this year folks are particularly bent out of shape. what did they think of the speakers that did make it to the podium? for ab expert take, i turn to jonathan alter and five time

commencement speaker douglas brinkley, presidential historian at rice university. jonathan, we asked what your favorite speech this year was and you said jill abramson's speech, she did nim bl adapting to circumstance. take a look. >> sure, losing a job you love hurts, but the work i revered, journalism that holds powerful institutions and people accountable is what makes our democracy so resilient. this is the work i will remain very much a part of. >> what letter grade do you give her? >> i give her an a. she was humble. she identified with audience and parents, always the most important thing -- >> that's the constituency. >> a lot of the students are -- they are hangovers or whatever and not crazy about listening to

your speech, waiting to graduate. what jill abramson was able to do, in the midst of her own drama and a lot of reporters covering the speech, she was self-ee facing and conveyed the importance of the work she did and said when asked whether she would have tattoo of the new york times removed from her, she said hell no, she's still proud of the great work she did there. >> she had good jokes about it. >> and by talking candidly about having been fired, she was sending a message to these students, many of whom will have 15 or 20 jobs during the course of their careers, almost all of them will probably be fired somewhere or another from a job that you have to be resilient and hang in there. >> that's a recurring theme, almost a cliche, the merits of failure, j.k. rowling hit on it, a lot of great speeches. you had a cool choice, winton

march sal less. >> a dream must at some point become a plan. that plan is a directive, a resolution requiring resolve to execute. the dream is free. let me tell you something, the plan costs time, dedication and imagination and then almost always involves funding in some way. >> it's a really cool speech. why did that resonate with you? >> wynton is an icon and talks about gratitude. he was a student himself, he's just a class act. but you didn't show he would pull out the trumpet and play music in between as he was talking. it was the farewell to tulane president who rebuilt after hurricane katrina, really lch from scratch, the combo of him and marsalis was a winner.

it's worth watching online the whole thing. >> npr came out with his f its list of the greatest speeches of all time. which brings me to the question to both of you of what your all time favorites are, jonathan, we asked what the favorite speech ever was of a journalist. what's your answer? >> i guess maybe one i heard years ago, the late david hall ver stam gave which did a supererb job of summing up our business. george saunders of syracuse. >> recent speech, right? >> they just turned it into a good. the theme of that speech is kindness -- >> we've got sound from that speech. take a listen to george saunders in 2013. >> most of my life of failures of kindness, those moments when another human being was right there in front of me suffering and i responded sensibly.

reservedly. >> what's stands out from the pack with that speech? >> he tells the story, it's a little hard to hear of his regrets and says -- goes through a series of things people would normally regret, i don't regret any of those things but regrets when he was in elementary school a girl came into the school, middle of the year, the other kids were mean to her. george him self was not mean to her but did not come to her assistance. and she left shortly there after and that stayed with him all of these years. he could have been a nicer person and life is short, you might as well be nice. >> it's a strong message and one you don't hear in all messages. >> you're a presidential historian. what's your favorite presidential commencement ever? >> the big one, john f. kennedy in 1963 when he spoke at american university and did something concrete, nuclear test

ban treaty on trying to make the world a safer place. i would say barack obama speaking to west point this year is going to be a seminole one because our current policy seems to be all over the place and you need a coraling commencement and any time you can hear jfk speak, you're in a winning -- you have a winning ticket. >> you also highlight a historical difference. there was a period there was more policy announcements, we'll see if he brings that back. it's no surprise that mill enials probably won't turn out to vote in midterms this year but it may surprise you why. check it out after the break. if i can impart one lesson to a

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while i take a selfie and apparently apathetic about politics. one in four is planning on casting a ballot this summer. now we're too busy tweeting cat pictures to exercise it? back in 2002, 1 in 3 would vote in mid terms. why are young people staying away from the polls and what can change that? i'm joined by jake who wits and editor and chief of policy wrote an excellent article about why people don't vote in mid terms and ashley, president of rock the vote that does good work getting people out on all sides of the political spectrum. jake, let's distinguish between old and young and general audience. voter turnout -- a new poll found 46% of americans in general don't care whether democrats or republicans control congress.

but you seem to report in your article that the numbers show young people are particularly receipt sent, why is that? >> the poll shows that 70 plus% of old people are excited to vote and less than a quarter of young people we can say the same thing for. congress is incredibly ineffect you'll and young people have had enough. we're fed up and we're not excited to come out to vote because congress doesn't represent us and issues we care about. what about republicans versus democrats in this. one stat that interested me from a recent survey, 44% of young people who voted for mitt romney in 2012 will vote, compared to 35% who voted for obama. what do you think is behind that difference? >> i think that young people are tied to issues they care about and not political parties, which i think the rest of the poll has born out. this year what we need is for all of the candidates to be talking about issues that matter

to young people most. >> it is interesting, it does seem as people age in the political system you get more entrenched in the labels and that's born out in several surveys. we did our own of millennial voting practices and why they are or aren't voting and the we got, i don't live in a state where i'm registered to vote. the second is i'm not familiar with the candidates and don't know where the voting stations are and too lazy to find out. is that consistent with what you heard in your body of reporting? >> i think that's true. i'll point to the second reason as the most important factor on the list. the truth of the matter is, politicians haven't figured out how to use digital media well to engage our generation, just having facebook and twitter alone doesn't mean young people are going to support you. the politicians who have done a good job doing google plus hangouts and enganling on issues have energized the younger

generation. >> what makes a difference? is it about the engagement techniques or about the underlying stances. >> it's about being authentic and using the platforms where we consume information to talk about issues, college affordability is one of the big ones and very few people talk about it and the environment. we've seen too many times we get disappointed when people in congress ignore what we care about. >> ashley, how do you get people in general of all ages excited about mid terms? >> it's definitely a big problem. all people are less excited about mid terms. i think when you engage in issues that matter and you have candidates who are reaching out and providing information -- i mean mid-term elections see a lower investment in doing that and it's really important that this year like jake was saying, that the issues that young people care about, college affordability, jobs, environment, immigration, women's health, are being --

>> so many at stake. >> things that will affect all of our lives. your organization is helping people get out and register and that's the subject of this week's call to action. we wanted to make sure as many people in as many parts of the political spectrum as possible register and get out to the polls. go to our website on the u.s. map and click on your state and boom it takes you to the rock the vote registration page. timothy miller tweeted, whether you're a democrat or republican, register to vote together as americans. we can stop hashtag voter expre suppression. we're going to keep this tool up going into the midterms, get out there and register. all right, up next, our young fabulous panel will stick around as we look at controversial question, what is it about drilling a hole into the earth and injecting it with chemicals that some people can't seem to get behind? we're heading to america's fracking heartland up next. dad!! i missed you.

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welcome back, we witnessed a watershed event, vladimir putin and xi raised their glasses to a new deal that will save billions of gas to china. one of the motivations, the united states heading for energy independence. the energy industry in this country, especially when it comes to fracking has one of the few areas of rerobust growth in a repressed economy. even its biggest opponents concede it is extremely lucrative for lucky folks out there. but at what price?

our colleagues traveled to western pennsylvania to see how one community is experiencing the promise and some of the perils of fracking. they started out actually listening in on an industry event in houston. >> i just happen to have a glass of halliburton's clean stem green frack fluid. i would like to mix a little cocktail here before you all tonight. >> there have been some very notable escapades in public where people from the oil and gas industry and even governor of colorado has in public consumed fracking fluid with no effects. >> let's toast to one of the greatest technology advancements of all times. so please join me in a toast to the freedom that all of you in hydraulic fracking bring to america. >> would you drink fracking fluid? >> sure. >> if you went item by item in terms of what the components

are, then i would take a drink. >> the point of seeing executives and politicians drinking fracking fluid was deception. it was it was an attempt to convince the public that there is no harm from a the process of hydraulically fracturing a shale gas or shale oil. it's deceptive in the sense that it's the least of the problems. what goes down the well is not nearly as important as what comes up the well. so the principle constituents of flowback from shale gas consist of salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials that have been stored safely underground for hundreds of millions of years and now they're being brought to the surface.

>> we didn't experience the recession that everybody else did in the influx of the gas workers and the lease money and the production money. really propped up our local economy. our local businesses. our hotels, our restaurants. >> right over the hill is a nice guy who taught his whole life, hard-working guy, has 200 acres. his kids are probably not going to have to worry about money. >> i don't think that the american dream -- i don't regret that some families in pennsylvania have gotten rich because of shale development. >> we've been told it's bad. we don't know too much about it.

>> fracking that went on here, and they are keeping a close eye on it. probably 15 plus wells lining the tops of these hills. i know here this stream has been tested and tested a class a native trout stream. this is flowback water. it comes out of the well head after hydraulic fracturing process. in some cases they put 15 million gallons into a well, and can you expect 40% of that to come back out. every time this machine flashes a, we are measuring radon gas. we're now 15 minutes into this test for radon. we can say that the radium in this vial is thousands of times over the legal drinking water standards based on the epa limits. >> i would dare them in public

to drink flowback. it would be public vomiting. >> it's naturally occurring radioactive materials. it's just one of the things that must be clearly addressed with regulation. >> we're stake holders. it's in our interest to be as environmentally responsible as possible for no other reason to not get sued. >> sometimes we get some gas industry guys come in and get large to go orders, and sometimes they leave us nice tips, which we really appreciate. >> thanks to our partners at vocativ for that report. we're back with our panel. ashley of "rock the body both" and jake policymakers. do you see fracking and environmental issues in general

as a big wedge issue in the elections coming up? >> you know, i think that the environment is going to be a huge issue. young people care about protecting the environment right now, and rock the vote is really focused on making sure that we are out there making sure people are registered so they can have a voice on the issue, and that politicians are talking about it in what their positions are. >> jake, what have you seen in your research on this? is it something people care about? >> the two young women in the tape are millenials and they epit miz what we see. this is an issue that there's an incredible amount of controversy about where people don't know how to shake out. there's obviously environmental issues on stake and economic issues at stake, and that's another reason why politicians should be using social media to engage young people and stake out a position and tell us where we should fall in the line. >> ultimately no amount of engagement on social media or otherwise is going to obscure the realities, as more and more research comes out about whether this is safe or not. we have to balance the pros and cons. those young women saw some of the economic benefits. the big tips, love that line.

there's some real costs for people as people start getting sick because of this potential. >> that's absolutely right. >> all right. well, thank you both of you. it's been fabulous having on you. we'll have you back on this, and we are about done with today's ronan farrow daily. it's been a pleasure of a week. it's 1:00 p.m. eastern time here on msnbc, and now it's about time to turnover to the reid report with my colleague joy reid. joy, what do you have coming up? did you just race into place? >> absolutely not. i've been standing here the whole time. >> weighing in on our fracking report. >> i've been standing here the whole time. i swear. >> have a good weekend. >> you too, sir. have a wonderful, wonderful weekend, ronan. appreciate it, man. coming up on the reid report, we have the latest donald sterling stunner as he hands over the raines to his wife. also, congressman elijah cummings is here to talk about his role in the gop-led select committee on benghazi. and an msnbc.com report on inconsistent and questionable

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start building your confident retirement today. tgif, everyone. this is "the reid report." i'm joy reid, and today donald sferlg finally blinks. the man who said he was digging in to fight the nba is now handing control of the l.a. clippers over to his wife, but if you thought this wild story was coming to an end, think again. also, as we head into a long memorial day weekend, the focus is on veterans, and the crisis of care at hospitals around the country. >> what are you doing about the veterans? >> i know that they can schedule people in faster than what they do. >> members on both sides of the aisle are extremely frustrated. >> totally uncalled for to be

basically blind for a year. >> we can't just let them down. we've let them die. this is awful stuff. >> veterans complain they can't get service from the v.a. and i'll talk to a concludeman who says even he is getting the runaround from veterans affairs. chaos and confusion. voters in arkansas say poll workers went beyond the law and wound up blocking the vote. we start with the saga of donald sterling and what for now are his l.a. clippers. sources are now telling nbc news that donald sterling has given control of the team to his wife shelly and that she has agreed to voluntarily sell the team. those same unnamed sources also tell nbc news that there's no truth to the rumor that shelly sterling's camp is suing the nba. the news comes less than two weeks before the league's owners are set to vote on whether to force a sale of the team, following sterling's outrageous comments to a young "friend" that were caught on tape. the nba just issued this statement. "we continue to follow the process set forth