right now on msnbc, al qaeda connection. president obama makes his first direct link between that group and the botched terror attack on christmas day. heart healthy. rush limbaugh is out of the hospital and talking about what might have caused his chest pains. the getaway. tiger woods' wife takes a trip far from the troubled golfer. she's been spotted at a resort. we'll tell you where. plus, how much was a trip to the top of the empire state building ten years ago? we'll compare a lot of price tags for you then and now. good morning, i'm chris jansing, in for alex witt. we'll have all of that and new laws in effect for this year. but we begin this hour with the latest on the potentially

huge winter storm. it's expected to hit northern new england states today. in portland, maine, a significant amount of snow is expected there and across the state. nbc meteorologist bill karins joins me now. bill, good morning. looks nasty out there. >> it depends where you're traveling. these are area that's get snow but this is a real busy time. a lot of people are trying to return from the holidays and the roads are horrendous. hearing about accidents on i-95 through connecticut, portions of rhode island and even up to massachusetts and maine. we had light snow overnight and it's kind of a fine, fluffy snow. so it's very slippery out there on the roads. that's probably the worst of it. this is going to be like this for the next two days. for that matter, feel it anywhere in the lower united states, lower 48 that is, the weather pattern stopped. what have you today is likely what you're going to experience the next four, five days in a row because the weather pattern literally has come to a halt. we're going to see snow on and off the next 48 hours. 6 to 12 inches from bangor, maine, through burlington, portland, maine up to six inches.

boston, we knocked you down a little bit. we are thinking three to sixt now it looks probably more or less two to four. the other big thing is the temperatures. i want to put this in perspective. this morning, fargfargo, north dakota h. a record low of 34 degrees. negative 34 is cold. to put it in perspective, if you put an icicle on your front porch, would you have to warm it up 66 degrees to melt that piece of ice. that's how cold it was in the morning plains. think of the movie "fargo" when you think about this. it hasn't improved with windchill warnings in duluth. you live in duluth, you're hardy. you're used to bad winters. you're seeing one today. even as far south as san antonio, texas, the windchill is 34, new orleans, 35. this cold is gripping the country. we have freeze warnings for florida. look at the morning temperatures. if you chose to take a vacation to warm up to florida this week, you're not happy. orlando will be 30 to 32 degrees

all week long. these are the morning lows. a lot of oranges are south of orlando now because of pass winters that have killed them. hopefully south florida should be just fine with the orange crops, but this is cold here. you go to disney for the week, and you're hoping for temperatures that are going to be warm, you're not doing the water rides this week. >> no. i was also thinking about the movie "fargo," remember that one scene where these two guys both are dressed like eskimos and one of them looks up and says something like, "i hear it's going to turn cold out here," and it's already brutal. >> coen brothers, you watch the movie. that's what they're experiencing today. >> it's a good day to stay inside and watch a movie. other our big story, for the first time president obama just hours ago directly blamed a branch of al qaeda for the botched bomb plot on a detroit-bound plane. nbc's mike viqueira is at the white house for us. thfs pa this was part of his weekly radio address that essentially came in overnight.

>> that's right, chris. vab available at 6:00 this morning. they called it aqap. while there have been many reports the past few days both from leaks from the intelligence community on capitol hill and background briefings from administration officials that yemen had something to do with that christmas day potential attack aboard that airliner over the skies of detroit, the president himself this morning confirmed it, talked about the role that yemen played eed and radicals within yemen played in staging that attack. >> we know that he travelled to yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. it appears he joined an affiliate of al qaeda and that this group, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for america. >> chris, it was just days before christmas when the yemeni government, which is allied with the united states government in a fight against terrorism, staged an attack against an al qaeda -- suspected al qaeda

hideout or training ground within yemen with the support of the united states. later in that address, chris, the president was very eager to point out the fact he has turned his attention -- or the government's attention, the military's attention, away from the war in iraq to places like afghanistan and yemen and somalia, where radical islam is alive and well. >> all right, thanks very much, mike. appreciate it. for some perspective now, i'm joined by msnbc terrorism analyst, steve emerson. steve, good morning. >> happy new year, chris. >> happy new year. it's been more than a week since this incidents. what have we learned or have we learned anything about the potential for terror tack atta the u.s. that maybe in the works? >> i don't know we learned about ongoing efforts. i think we learned more about the al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. we obviously learned more about the loopholes and vulnerabilities of the u.s. intelligence and security system. but in terms of ongoing efforts, that depends upon whether they have gone back, the intelligence

community has gone back to collect intercepts to see whether some of those might have been more relevant than they considered initially. number two, what exactly the nigerian bomber said in this interrogation. if he said that there were others trained in the same type of attack, then i think we can expect to be the subject of other attacks in the future. >> one of the things we heard in the days after -- and this isn't the first time we heard this argument -- is that even though they intercepted this piece of information that talked about a potential attack involving a nigerian, the national counterterrorism center is absolutely inundated with these messages and it's very difficult to separate which should be gishen mogish given more attention, which should not have been given more attention. at what level do you think things should rise to the point that they get that increased scrutiny? >> you raise a good point. there is an inundation of intelligence but to hear the

focus of the problem is that there already was intelligence, so you build upon intelligence like a jigsaw puzzle and then you look at the larger puzzle and see, hey, i got this answer. the answer obviously being that there would have been an attack on christmas day that they could have thwarted by subjecting the would-be bomber to either a secondary inspection, denying him a tick or denying him a visa. none of those solutions were proposed because they never looked at the larger picture and the question is why? i think there's a bureaucratic disincentive for an analyst to basically make a decision to put somebody on the no-fly list, the most restrictive of all lists, which is 3,400 people, as opposed to putting him on the tied list, which is 550,000 people which basically means nothing. i think they have to reorganize the bureaucracy to make sure there's an incentive to our analyst and investigators to take the data and then build the larger picture, so that they can see exactly what's going on on a realtime basis as opposed to

going back saning, ye in and sa, we missed this. >> one of the things we already have done to move things on the smaller list and have gone over all of the names, 50,000 50,000e one that's should be put on the smaller list, what about the human part of this? would you expect there would be changes either in terms of who's running some of these organizations or in the way they're structured? >> i think there definitely will be changes, chris. i have no doubt. in the same way we saw changes after 9/11. sort of the same problem, you know, failure to connect the dots. that's a you've neuphemism forv up in the democracy. number two, having intelligence failures for agencies failing to take to each other. if you don't talk to each other, you can't expect to put the pieces of the puzzle together. i think the counterintelligence center was designed to fix that problem but it didn't fix it. i think we're going to see

bureaucratic reorganization and i think ability, create incentives for bureaucratic officials, for bureaucrats in the official bureaucracy to put the data together to aggregate it and to make an informative decision on a realtime basis. otherwise, we will be always looking back and saying, we missed this, we missed that, we missed this. >> steam everybove emerson, tha much. this week on "meet the press," we will see john brennan and former cia director michael hayden. check your local listings for time. rush limbaugh is out of the hospital this morning, saying did he not have a heart attack and tests showed nothing wrong. the conservative talk radio host was released from a honolulu hospital yesterday. he been admitted wednesday after suffering chest pains. limbaugh said doctors don't know what caused the pain. >> i wish i knew what it was. there's -- all people can do is make wild guesses about it.

best guess was it might have been a spasm in an artery but this angiogram showed literally no heart disease or arterial disease whatsoever. >> rush limbaugh is expected to return to his radio hosting duties on wednesday. now to the latest in the tiger woods drama. a british tabloid is reporting this morning that the golf star's wife elin has turned up at an exclusive french ski resort. nbc's stephanie gosk is in london with more. supposedly she's in chamonix? >> yeah, that's what the son is saying today. then have pictures in their paper. you look at him, it looks a lot like her but she's reportedly there with her twin sister as wef, a well, and josephine is a good skier. paparazzi on the ground have told nbc news they heard the rumor they believe that she's there but they have been frustrated by efforts to try to get a picture of her. the rumor on the ground is she's

going to be leaving tomorrow. she's been there about a week, staying at an exclusive chalet that reportedly cost more than $8,000 a night. as i said, she looks to be going tomorrow, if she's actually there in the first place. >> she can afford the $8,000. >> she's been very elusive. >> i can no doubt she can afford the $8,000. tiger seems to be avoiding the press altogether. no sightings at all, right. >> not at all. he has completely slipped away. he issued that one statement admitting that he had, had some infidelities in the past and apologizing for them. but there are a lot of people clamoring for a public apology in front of cameras. that has not happened. not only has that not happened, no one knows where he is. there are rumors that he may be in the bahamas. other rumors but no one as seen him or at least not publicly seen him. certainly there's an infrastructure in place to scuttle him away. but it hasn't made a difference in the avalanche of bad news that just keeps tumbling out of this story, chris. over the holidays, at&t dropped

their sponsorship of tiger. >> yeah. the third of the companies to do that. thanks so much. good to see you, stephanie. >> good to see you, too. still ahead -- proof that police really had their hands full new year's eve. how one highway stop got out of control. also, more on the christmas miracle. the mother and baby feared dead during childbirth. you will hear from that another one morning. plus, what to expect at the box office this year. we'll have a preview for you here on msnbc. [ female announcer ] get the taste of a home-cooked meal at work with new marie callender's home-style creations. marie callender's home-style creations -- a little touch of home for lunch. [ male announcer ] becky loves marie callender's home-style creations. but where does she find them? not in the freezer section. that's why becky uses gps. not that kind. go to the pasta or soup aisle to find marie callender's home-style creations. keep up the good work, becky.

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and now to the christmas terror plot against the u.s. airliner, and an apparent shift in strategy from the white house. after a muted public reaction in the days immediately following the attack, the white house has scheduled a situation meeting --

room meeting with security agencies across the board, continue now warnes ts the prest will hold the government accountable for any intelligence failures. the shift didn't come close enough for "the washington post's" kathleen parker who writes -- "obama's open-collared vacation was deliver odd and katrina time, about two days too late, and fell a few links short of reassuring. calm in the face of potential zaft cere laudable but it's a fine line between executive tranquility and passive nonchalance. like a tone-deaf disk jock ji, obama plays elevator music when the crowd wants john philip souza. i'm joined by analyst pat buchanan and peter fenn. happy new year. >> happy new year, chris. >> is that fair, the criticism that the president was tone-deaf? >> no. the fact is you have to go out and make a statement if you're president of the united states

with the facts. i think the administration coming out on sunday and saying the system worked is a legitimate criticism. the system clearly didn't work and the president, you know, on tuesday said just that. but i think -- you know, i think that the monday morning quarterbacking by conservative columnists is really not called for. what the american people want, chris, is they want less finger-pointing and more problem fixing. and that's exactly where i think this president is going right now. >> pat, going back to the decision -- and have yyou have n the middle these decisions before, you feel damned if you do and damned if you don't. the decision they made was based on the fact they didn't want to give al qaeda a pr win and they wanted to show would-be terrorists they were goinot goi to disrupt life. do you think he made the right decision? >> no, i don't. look, this was christmas day. we came within a lucky break of having a lockerbie with 300 bodies all over the detroit area. and here's a character who has

been in yemen, who has -- who gets his ticket, paid in cash, who has no luggage, whose father said he had become a dangerous man, had been denied a visa to go in great britain and climes aboard an airliner to cross the atlantic without even being searched. let me tell you, the problem is it took 48 hours for homeland security to say the system worked, which caused an explosion. and then the president, i think the word ms. parker uses, n nonchalance is exactly right, it was a nice decision, relaxed, heads out to the golf course. people are upset by this and still are and rightly so because you hear there may be more coming. i think they have been behind the curve. what you saw today and what we're hearing now is they're playing catch-up. >> there's no doubt about the fact, peter, and you even admitted it, there's a consensus missteps were made in how this was handled. let's start from a pr point of view. the president did go very much

on the offensive, though, when he made his most recent statement. he's now made the direct link to al qaeda and there's this meeting on tuesday where he said everyone is going to be held accountable. what more does very to do to show he's on top of this situation, especially given the fact that he was elected in spite of the fact that a lot of people had concerns about his foreign policy experience? >> well, there are a lot aspects to your question there, chris. first of all, i think we have to put this in some context, too. look, when the shoe bomber came out, it took the bush administration six days, i guess, to come out on that one. the folks who trained him in yemen were people who were released by the bush/cheney administration from guantanamo. and put out there. so, you know, a lot of this political talk, finger-pointing, you know, you go both ways on that. but the key point, as your question implies, is what in the heck do we do now?

look, as steve emerson pointed out a few minutes ago on this show, we only have 3,400 people on this no-fly zone list. we have 500,000 people we have to watch. now, if our intelligence agencies and other international intelligence agencies aren't putting those together, if they -- they should be screening every one of those 500,000 people when they come to get on an airplane. they should be sharing things. it doesn't take any of us -- you put together a yellow pad as pat says and go, let's see, you know, a note from his father that he's a terrorist. one-way ticket. you know, cash. trained in yemen. i mean, good grief. it doesn't take a ph.d. from m.i.t. to figure out that this guy could be serious trouble if you put this stuff together. >> well, pat -- pat, forget ph.d. from m.i.t. i want to ask this question because i think it's critical, and that is we talk a lot about human intelligence. when you have these various pieces of information -- and i

don't mean to sound naive about this, but isn't there even some sort of information sharing in a computer program that would send off a little beeper? >> chris, you're exactly right. >> right. >> when these things come on, okay, the guy's flying the atlantic one way. he's buyi ining a ticket with c. he's got no luggage. he's a young guy. he's been in yemen for a while. can't get the visa in britain. put the information and give him a patdown before he gets on the plane. he may not be on the no-fly list but he certainly should be on some list. all of us, chris, i'm guessing you have -- i know i have -- i have been pulled out of line at times because you're anxious to get aboard and don't want to miss the plane and they checked everything out two, three times. why wasn't that done? the point here, the problem with the administration you're talking about tuesday, that's ten days after the event. the point is, there was nonchalance and dipidence and let's go snorkeling.

conservatives didn't make it up. it was here on that network, that's sunday and monday, all over all day long and the administration got behind it. >> i think, peter, your point is fair is the concern that was raised in this case as opposed to after the shoe bomber. setting that aside, i think it's also fair to say george w. bush took a lot of heat when he was on vacation and thing es happen and it was felt like he was sort of vacationing on the job. and you wonder, where do you draw the line there on where you seem to be taking action and being on top of things? >> look, i don't have any sense that this president was not on top of things. look, this happens often. they had that famous shot of george bush talking about getting the terrorists, and he says, now watch this golf shot. i mean, the trouble with this is that we can get kind of hysterical about it and we can go crazy on it but the basic point that you're making, chris, and that pat's making about, look, connecting the dots on this.

if you have all of this information, why can't we get to these folks? the other point is that i was going to make was this is an international problem. we have to deal with the airports in nairobi, in amsterdam. you know, it's just -- you have to have international cooperation on this or the system is going to fall apart. but, you know, we haven't done enough. the fact is that the coordination that fell apart in the 9/11 attacks, which people we had information, richard clarke pointed to it, and now what we have got to do is do a much better job of coordination here. >> and the question has been raised by more than a few analysts about how it even got to the point where he got to the airport, so, so much to talk about and the congressional hearings will take care of a lot of that. we will be talking to you guys about those as well. good to see you peter, pat. talk to you later. >> thanks, chris. and still to come -- celebrating a new year and a new

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tennessee police just released dash cam video showing a man who apparently couldn't quench his thirst. you see it, dragging a soda machine from the back of his truck. sparks supplying everywhere. police believe he stole the machine earlier in the day. officers did eventually catch up with him and arrested him before anyone was hurt. they say he was hoping to take the money out of that machine. and still ahead -- a new year, new laws. we'll tell you about some of the new bans in effect in parts of the country. word to the wise. first a little quiz. think back to 1999. how much do you think an ounce of gold was worth? get ready for some sticker shock. the answer ahead.

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today for the first time the president is pointing the finger publicly at al qaeda in yemen, saying they are behind the failed christmas day terror attack. the president connecting the dots between that terror organization and bombing suspect, nigerian native umar farouk abdulmutallab. >> we know that he traveled to yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. it appears he joined an affiliate of al qaeda, and this group, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for america. >> now, we know this isn't the first time al qaeda in yemen has targeted the u.s. in the last few years they bombed western hotels, restaurants and in 2008, a car bomb detonated at the u.s. embassy, killing one person. in 2000, 17 american soldiers were killed by a suicide attack on the "uss cole," docked in

yemen's aden harbor. for more i'm joined by retired u.s. general and msnbc athist barry mccaffrey. happy new year to you. >> same to you, chris. >> we haven't had a chance to talk about this. the confirmation by the president what we have been talking about this direct link to al qaeda. what goes through your mind? >> yemen been an unbelievably chaotic, cruel place. 1,500 years ago it was a center of business but it's been on decline since then. it has a bunch of shiite rebels in the north backed by iran, tribal warfare, a weak government and now al qaeda in yemen, which is obviously becoming a sanctuary for attacks against the west. so it's a huge problem. general petraeus just made an announcement in baghdad a couple days ago that there are 70 million in military aid to yemen

will double in the coming year. >> what do they have to do with that money? how are they going to attack this? given the two things you mentioned, one is the tremendous domestic instability and on the other hand one many of the analysts say is the most chapter of al qaeda outside of pakistan and afghanistan. >> chris, you're right on the money. most places al qaeda goes is where government control is weak. this is a very weak central government. president saleh's been in office for 28 years. it's not a very competent and it's sort of a corrupt -- >> well, we just lost our satellite signal with general mccaffrey. our thanks to him. maybe we can get him back in a little while. are you back, general? >> yeah, i guess. yeah. >> we just lost you after your first sentence talking about the difficulty given the fact of the internal turmoil and the strength of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. >> yeah. well, i think the key is that what we're going to see is the

saudis and u.s. government both backing president saleh, trying to give him enhanced military aid to try to operate against these very ferocious rebel groups as well as the al qaeda elements. a lot of the yemenis, we still have 195 prisoners at guantanamo. 90 are yemenis. just returning the yemenis home with their weak criminal justice system invites them promptly joining the al qaeda and yemen group. >> let me ask you to get involved in what will be a very hot political discussion when congress gets back. what then should happen, assuming that indeed guantanamo is going to close? >> i think guantanamo should close. we have to get those people into high security federal prisons here in the united states. it's been a tremendous diplomacy black eye for the united states for years. but i don't think it's viable to return the yemenis in particular to their own governments.

we have to come up with another solution and probably that means some form of military commissions holding them outside the federal criminal justice system. i do not believe moat of these people can be prosecuted successfully, particularly since many were maltreated while in u.s. custody, and we don't have adequate chain of custody of evidence. >> general mccaffrey, thanks so much. it's good to see you. >> good to be with you, chris. for more on the investigation into the christmas day plot, plus how some are questioning the worth of pat-down searches at the airport, head to our website, msnbc.com. other big stories we have been following for you this morning, serious snowfall expected in the midwest over the next couple of days. lake-effect snow could drop 10 to 14 inches of snow in areas east of cleveland. nbc meteorologist bill karins following the forecast for us today. bill, what do you got for us? >> take a look at some of the interstates. som people trying to drive home

from the holidays. this is quake view of interstate i-59 as it snakes up to massachusetts outside of boston. you notice we got could'vering of t covering of two inches of snow on the ground. most areas slushy. that light snow will continue down around rhode island from boston towards the cape through i-95, portsmouth, new hampshire and into the state of maine. we're doing okay from new york city up through the new york stay thruway up around albany. as far as snowfall goes, 6 to 12 inches the next 2 days. mostly northern new england that. will be the worst of it. this will be a prolonged event. the snow will be slushy and frozen at night especially. now the airports, so far, so good at logan. we're doing great. newark just reporting at about one-hour delays. winds will pick up tonight. if have you to fly tomorrow out of logan or providence or hartford, albany up through areas of maine , it will be wins gusting up to 50 miles per hour. i expect more significant airplane delays tomorrow than today. that's the storm in the east. the other big story, chris, this cold outbreak. this is the coldest it's been

this winter. i was looking at sioux falls, iowa. they had their temperature minus 32. coldest they have been since 1974. this is a significant cold outbreak. >> that's just not right. we were talking about fargo, so i found the line where the two guys are dressed up like eskimos and you know it's already 20 degrees below zero, and one of them say, "they say she's going to turn cold tomorrow." i wish i can do the accent. can you do the accent? >> they say it's going to turn cold tomorrow. >> i don't know what that is. >> i am going to youtube now. i'm going to watch it and then i'll get the accent down next time. >> thanks, bill. there will be a quiz. now, switching gears completely. we want to get you the latest on that missing utah mother susan powell. police continue to search for clues that could help them locate her. she's been missing for nearly a month now. her two children are being cared for by her husband, josh powell. police call him a person of interest. i talked to susan powell's father earlier this morning

about what he thinks about all of this. >> i talked briefly with him when he was able to see my grandchildren on christmas day, and the police have their reasons for naming him a person of interest. obviously, i would like him to cooperate with the police, him and his attorney, to talk with the police and tell them anything he knows so that we can get on with ruling him out. and finding my daughter. >> friends and family are planning a number of ways to widen the search for susan powell, including using social network sites like facebook and twitter. there's even a designated channel for susan on youtube. and friends are asking purple ribbons, susan's favorite color. officials in rural missouri are investigating the cause of a house fire that killed five people, including three children. the victims were all related and range in age from 24 years to 4 months. a plymouth county official said two people escaped from the home

and that an unattended fireplace may be to blame. two men in san francisco are facing charges after passing out in a car in the middle of a highway. i guess they partied just a little too hard on new year's eve because the passenger was so out of it, an officer had to carry him to the police cruiser. both men were then arrested. all across the u.s. today, lots of new laws to abide by. those laws taking effect at the stroke of midnight january 1st, right when the world was celebrating the new year. how will the new laws impact your life in 20 so a10 and beyo? nbc's jeff rossen joins me with the details. let's start with the smoking ban in maybe the least likely place. >> happy new year to you. a smoking ban in north carolina. as you know, north carolina is where tobacco is king and makes a lot of cash for that state. smoking is now banned there. in all indoor areas of almost all restaurants and bars in the state as well as in enclosed areas of hotels and inns if food or drinks are served there. those who refuse to comply,

well, they could face a fine of $50. how big a problem is smoking in the state? 21% of adults smoke compared to 18% nationwide. let's go to the west coast now in california, new tough law for the paparazzi, who stalk celebrities. paparazzi will pay more if they break the law to get celebrity photos and the victims, the celebrities, will be able to sue publishers of the material obtained when the laws are broken. they can file lawsuits. the new law was championed by actress jennifer aniston. also in california, now the first day to partially ban the use of cholesterol-boosting artificial trans fats in restaurants. a lot of states have this law but california the first state to have the law. to new hampshire law, that's now the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage. right after midnight, 15 same-sex couples tied the knot at the state capital in concord. the temperature, just 21 degrees but that didn't stop the marriages or the celebrations. also in new hampshire, there's now a ban on texting

while driving that. ban also now in effect in illinois and oregon. that makes 19 states to enact bans and the secretary of transportation says he wants that law where you can't text at all to go nationwide. police will now give out tickets to drivers caught texting. and there are also several new laws pertaining to our four-legged friends. in massachusetts, dog racing has been banned. in california, there's a new ordinance that stops dairy farmers, get this, chris, from clipping off cow's tails and i'm told that you clip off a cow's tail to keep the cow cleaner. and i think we all want our cows clean, don't we? >> do they want it, though? that's the other thing. >> good point. >> i go to a lot of farms in california, but no cows. you want to guess why? >> why? >> grapes being the main crop at the farms that i go to. >> you got the info, chris. >> also known as wineries. >> look at that. bring chris jansing up to new york. you can't take the came out of her. >> don't say that. thanks very much, jeff. >> thanks, chris.

new word this morning from a colorado woman who's being called a miracle mom. unbelievable story. chris eve, 33-year-old tracy hermanstorf, goes into labor with her third child. shortly after an epidural, things went horribly wrong. she stopped breathing. her heart stopped. technically, doctors say she was dead so they raced to deliver her baby by c-section only to find him limp and lifeless. then the miracle, both baby and mom brought back to life within just minutes of each other. mom tracy, her husband mike and new baby colton spoke with nbc's amy robach on the "today" show this morning. >> that was an extremely happy moment. you can't even describe that, to being going from one of the worst things you ever have to experience in your life to now it's one the best things ever in your life all within a matter of seconds. >> so colton came back to life. how long before you saw tracy come back as well? >> i wasn't actually able to see tracy for about another hour and

a half past that time. i did hear about 30 minutes after colton was brought to me that she did have a faint heartbeat at that point in time. but until i actually saw her and knew that she was stable and in icu, there's no feeling to describe what goes over you. >> the baby and mother were released from the hospital just four days after their ordeal. doctors are still trying to figure out what caused baby colton and his mom to stop breathing. still ahead -- why it's more important than ever for teenagers to get some shut eye. first, what a difference a decade makes. comparing the prices of ordinary items from years ago to today. this is msnbc. they need special attention and special care. nobody knows that better than children's tylenol. it works with little bodies... to reduce fevers while easing aches and pains.

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today president obama brought his family to a flavorered syrup store. the president has been grappling, of course, with a high-profile bomb plot as he's been on vacation. critics of the president say he should have ditched the moment the terror plot came to light. joining me now, michael shearer, white house reporter for "the washington post." hi, michael. how are you doing? >> hey, chris. >> let's sort of try to break this down. we have been hearing this criticism -- i can't remember a president who wasn't criticized when he was on vacation and people thought he should have come back and jimmy carter, we want to go back that far, he was criticized for staying at the white house and not getting out during the whole hostage crisis. realistically, is there something he could do in washington that he couldn't do from hawaii? >> you know, i think technically, no. they pretty much move the white house wherever the president goes. so from a technical standpoint,

he can order up whatever he wants to order up from hawaii or for wherever else he happens to be. politically, though, we're in 2010 officially now. it's a campaign year, and, you know, what this president has to balance as his predecessors have in the past is, you know, the symbolism versus the reality. the symbolism is what the republicans are seizing on. >> and "the washington post" note there's have been no pictures of the president in, quote, extreme states of tropical relaxation. is this kind of an acknowledgment that the white house is feeling the sensitivity here. >> yeah, i think so. we all remember the shots of president bush on the golf course or president bush's father on his speed boat up in kennebunkport. those images are actually helpful in certain moments when you're trying to convey a sense that the president is able to have a kind of balanced life. but at times like this, when the nation is focused on a terror threat and they want to see a president, you know, attending

to that reality, those can be real distractions. you saw the flap over whether or not he had worn even a tie at that first -- at that first press conference. >> reality's going to hit pretty hard. he's coming back to the white house, obviously. he's called this meeting in the situation room with the heads of his intelligence agencies for tuesday. in a public way, what do we expect to come out of this? >> well, there's two things that's going to accomplish. one is i think there's a substantive reality that when you come back to washington after a vacation like this, you want to send a clear message to your subordinate that's they got to get this thing moving. so there's a reality there that he needs to move the bureaucracy forward. but symbolically, it's going to send a different kind of message, which is i'm here, i'm on board, i'm not going to, you know, be distracted by other things. i will focus on this and that will be important with hearings on capitol hill coming early in january. >> some analysts have suggested this is just another way that the president is showing what his sort of governorern style

is. it's very similar to what his campaign style was, that he likes to be very thoughtful, he likes to take his time. one of our democratic analysts today said he didn't want to rush to judgment making any kinds of statements. do you think this is going to force a reevaluation at all of the way he handles these kind of situations? >> my sense talking to the folks in the white house is they're very confident with that basic style. you remember when during the campaign a year ago in september of '08, when both candidates, he and senator mccain, were responding to the economy, it was senator mccain who seemed very hyper and -- and making rash judgments, suspending his campaign. it was then-senator obama who was very calm. let's no overreact. let's kind of be methodical. they're confident that, that's the kind of response of american people want. although as we have seen here, it can sometimes get them into a little trouble. >> michael, good to see you. thank you. >> okay. still ahead -- what to expect from wall street in this new year.

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getting enough sleep could be key to the mental health of your teenager. a new study finds that adolescents who have bedtimes of midnight or later are 24% more likely to suffer from depression, and 20% more likely to think about committing suicide. that's compared to teens whose parents set bedtimes of 10:00 p.m. or earlier. the research from columbia university included more than 15,000 teens and their parents. new year, new decade and a lot has changed in the past ten years, including the cost of just about everything. let's say the cost of a ticket to the empire state building observation deck in new york. in 1999, it was $4. fast forward 10 years, it's $20. that's a 400% increase. joining me now live from

washington, d.c. is ilan mewy, retail reporter for "the washington post." good morning. >> good morning. >> let's go through a few more items that really jumped a lot. an auns ounce of gold up over 3. "the new york times" went up from 75 cents to $2. slurpee at 7/eleven, 90 cents to $2.12. the cost of raising a newborn to age 18 jumped 76%. we're used to prices going up but why so much for these things? >> i think this list is fascinating. it gives us a lot of perspective over what changed over the past ten years. i think the thing people will remember about this past decade is it was a decade of economic boom and economic bust. that's definitely reflected in some of numbers. if you look at the price of gold, for example, gold spiked tremendously over the past two years, as investigators looked at that as a safe place to store their money while the stock market has been going crazy. we are seeing some of the bigger

economic picture reflected in the numbers that are on this list. >> the average cost for wad a wedding, $20,000. that's up about 8% since 1999. that's kind of flat, i guess you would say, comparatively. a gallon of milk, 6%. top 100 music cds, 2% more now. tom cruise still making $20 million per movie. that didn't change at all. any of these stick out for you? >> well, yeah, i think these are important because they're a snapshot of these things now. but if you look at the bigger picture, you will see that, again, some of the economic tumult that we had over the past couple of years are reflected in these numbers as well. if you look at the price of milk, milk has spiked and then it dropped tremendously. in fact, i was talking to one of my co-workers who said she felt like she was living in the 1990s again when she was in the grocery store looking at the price of milk because it has come down so much over the past year. there's been a lot of fluctuation in prices over the past decade, and i think that's what we're seeing in some of

these numbers. >> let's look at some of the other things that has come down. most significantly over the past decade, plane tickets are down significantly. we forget about that. average interest rate for credit cards, double a batteries, the cost of a mortgage, apple imac computer desktop dropped 33%. what items do you see going down in the coming decade? >> well, i definitely think electronics are one area to keep an eye on. you look at the price of the imac dropping so much. we're used to electronic prices going down as technology becomes more available and more widespread but i think that what has thrown off retailers in a lot of stores prices have come down even faster than they ever expected. so that's something to keep your eye on if you're looking to save a couple bucks. >> ylan, thanks, good to see you. happy new year. >> you, too. still to come -- rush limbaugh talking about his latest trip to the hospital. this is msnbc.