obviously massachusetts had a lot to contend with in recent days, politics may not be number one on people's minds, but tomorrow is primary day. polls open at 7:00, open until 8:00. we promise to let you know what happens. . . good tuesday morning. right now on first look, reaction to nba player, jason collins, announcement that he is gachlt from the white house to homes across america. >> new dna evidence found on one of the boston bombs belongs to a female. bha could that mean? billionaire, richard branson,'s treem of space travel is one step closer s a monster hurricane with 330-mile-per-hour winds. actress, katherine zeta jones continues her battle. good morning. the nba insists it will be

business as usual moving forward despite two words that helped to shatter one of pro sports barriers. washington wizards senator, jason collins, saying, i'm gay. more on the announcement from nbc's mike taibbi. >> reporter: he was drafted as an inside scoring force. while jason collins is not a star or a starter anymore, the 12-year pro is now something no active player has ever been, openly gay. >> there have been tens of thousands before him. he is the first to come out while playing and saying, i'm gay. >> reporter: he wrote, i want to do the right thing and not hide anymore. i want to take a stand and say, me too. the reaction, hugely positive. from kobe bryant, proud of jason. nba commissioner, david stearns, saluted his leadership mantle and chelsea clinton, his classmate at stanford, cheered

him for having the strength and courage to become the first. first lady, michelle obama, added, we have your back. openly gay athlete competing in individual sports, martina navratilova and billy bean only came out after they retired. jason collins has changed that. >> male athletes have been in the closet and are feeling like it is a possibility to come forward. what jason did today is incredible. >> one brave seven-footer, his career not yet over, the rest of his life just beginning. mike taibbi, nbc news, los angeles other reaction from the sports world was mixed with one popular radio host calling the news a nonstory. >> i really don't care. it means less than nothing to me that there is a gay player now out in the nba. there are plenty of gay people in america. you have to figure some of them are playing sports. >> while reaction has been

mostly positive, even prompting a phone call from president obama saying he was impressed by collins courage, chris brassard drew fire for these comments on outside the lines. >> i believe that is walking in open rebellion to god and to jesus christ. >> espn later apologized calling his comments a distraction. collins revealed his number, 98, is an out spoken sign of solidarity with the gay community. the year matt shepherd was killed in a gay hate crime. shepherd's mother, judy, said that news made her cry. she was honored turning to the boss tom marathon and bombing investigation. fbi agents visited tamerlan tsarnaev's widow and collected a dna sample to compare it to female dna found on one of the bomb fragments used in the marathon attack.

that dna could have come from anyone monday, surviving suspect, dzhokhar tsarnaev has a high-profile addition to his legal team. judy clark has successfully negotiated live sentence for past clients sparing them the death penalty. he was wounded in a shootout with police and is recovering from a prison hospital. the faa is investigating a deadly mid-air collision of two small planes. alan ken its zen with the faa says a single engine cessna landed on a golf course on monday after colliding with another cessna eight miles northeast of ventura. all three aboard the plane sustained minor injuries. in the mountains northwest of santa monica, firefighters combed through smoking wreckage of the second plane and recovered the pilot's body who was believed to be the only one on board we are learning more about the secret shopping bags full of cash that the u.s. has been sending to afghan president, hamid karzai.

that's taxpayer cash. nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell has been following this story. >> hamid karzai confirmed the cia has been dropping off bags of cash at the national security office for years. he says, it isn't millions. it is 30e7b8$00,0$300,000 a mon. that adds up to $36 million by karzai's account over years. we checked with the white house state department and the cia and none would deny this report. that goes to a confirmation. i asked one official if payments had been delivered every day to karzai's office. he said, we never said it was every day. one interesting footnote. iran had been delivering payments to karzai until about a year ago. they cut him off because he was getting too close to the u.s. >> that was nbc's andrea mitchell reporting now, it is time for your "first look" at this morning's

dish of scrambled politics. >> sandra day o'connor says it was probably a mistake for the court to take the infamous bush v. gore case. her comments come 13 years after the ruling where she voted with the majority to give george w. bush the presidency. now, she tells us lgbt activist dan vafasavag says the conversation over jason collins coming out isn't about gay people. >> ultimately, this comes down to is who straight people are. this isn't about whether jason collins or other athletes who happen to be gay are pan sis. it is about weather heterosexual men and pro athletes in locker rooms are pan is zis children of same-sex couples will soon be treated like everyone else when it comes to applying for federal student aid. it will take into account income

from both parents as long as they live together here is a title no one in congress wants. most unpopular. it shows arizona senator jeff flag gets that honor with an embarrassing 32% approval right after promising the family of a shooting victim he would vote yes. he takes it over from minority leader, mitch mcconnell. speaking of senator mcconnell, he was the butt of a joet by president obama at this weekend's white house correspondents' dinner some folks still don't think i spend enough time with congress. why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell, they ask. really? why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell. the kentucky republican's campaign tweeted this picture of a senator at a bar with a beer sitting next to an empty stool with with a glass of red wine. no word if the president plans

to take him up on that drink. that's your morning's dish of scrambled politics parts of eastern iowa are dealing with severe weather, hail ranging from pea size to two inches fell in waterloo causing millions of dollars of damage to cars. that hail left covering that in some places looked more like snow. speaking of snow, this is bill karins with the weather. you know what's coming. >> it is almost may. give me a break. >> it was so nice in some areas of the country. it wasn't very nice from d.c. to southern new england. we are looking at a warm end of april in the middle of the country and then it is going to come to a screeching halt. it was 80 in denver, 80. remember that. you are going to be shoveling snow in two days in denver. it was 80 degrees yesterday. it was 102 in phoenix. here is the story. it is still very warm in the middle of the country. it is pretty mild in the east. the cold air is coming down through montana as i speak. it is down to 37 degrees in billings.

the cold air is on the way. a pretty good-sized storm coming down from canada. it will have enough moisture to produce some snow. here is the 48-hour snowfall map that i retired five times already this spring. we are watching the pink area with the possibility of up to 6, 10, 12 inches of snow at higher elevations from casper to cheyenne and denver. denver is supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow. that's not today. that's tomorrow. again, enjoy a little bit of warmth while you can in the midwest. even kansas city, omaha, minneapolis, could see snowflakes in the days ahead. >> hopefully, they will have a beautiful summer. >> i hope so. better than this. stocks on a terror as the government reports a rare surplus the public is one step closer to traveling through space. these guys own the best restaurant in the world. we'll tell you where it is when "first look" returns in three minutes. [ lane ] are you growing old

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welcome back.

here are stories making news this morning. president obama is expressing concern to vladimir putin about the reporting use of chemical weapons in syria. the white house says use of such weapons would be a game changer. the pentagon says it won't speculate on any intervention plans. defense lawyers are asking the jury to find courage during closing arguments of the trial of dr. kermit gosnel who faces capital murder charges in the death of four babies that were born alive and then killed at his clinic former south african president, nelson mandel that la, is said to be in good health and spirits after a recent hospital stay. they visited the 94-year-old for the first time since his treatment for pneumonia a massive hurricane spinning on the surface of saturn with winds of up to 330 miles per hour. it is 20 times larger than the average hurricane spanning the

distance from new york to miami. talk about a close call. take a look at this. baseball reporter, kelly nash, was at fenway park over the weekend when she took this selfy, a foul ball coming near her head. thankfully, she was not hurt. turning to the world of business now where kayla tausche has the headlines. >> the fed begins a two-day meeting, widely expected to keep the interest policy are to the for seeable future. job market weaker than expected. the fed's decision, due tomorrow afternoon. the free first class upgrade might be over in their effort to squeeze more cash from passengers. they are auctioning unfilled business class seats to those of us in coach. virgin atlantic and aus tree an airlines are among those taking bids for beds. nielsen is reportedly testing a tool to track online viewing of

tv shows. several networks, including nbc and fox, have signed up for the pilot program, which nielsen hopes will come standard to measure viewing on sites such as hulu and youtube. the s&p is at a record high and for the first time in his strir stri, the dow has not logged a single three-day losing streak. they are predicting their first quarterly surplus since 2007 thanks to higher than expected tax receipts and lower federal spending virgin galactic completed its first rocket-powered flight this morning. more than 500 would-be space tours have signed up for the $200,000 ride of a lifetime. back here on earth, one chinese baker isn't breaking the sound barrier but her fast hands have earned her a guinness world record for filling a plastic bag with 20 cakes in seven or eight seconds mama mia, a crisis in italy.

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angie's list -- reviews you can trust. oh, angie? i have her on speed dial. one week away from a special election in south carolina to decide who will fill a house seat vacant by republican, tim scott. nothing was off limits as the two canned dates traded verbal jabs. nbc's chris clackum has the details. >> reporter: face-off between mark sandberg and democrat, elizabeth tolbert bush for a congressional seat produced only brief references to sanford's extramarital affair when he was governor, where he lied about hiking on the appalachian trail but was instead in argentina to be with his lover. she referenced it in her answer about federal spending. >> when we talk about fiscal spending and protecting the taxpayers, it doesn't mean you take that money we saved and

leave the country for a personal purpose. >> reporter: sanford did not respond instead said -- >> i couldn't hear what she said. i didn't hear it, i'm sorry. >> reporter: later, he alluded to it when asked if he would still vote to impeach president clinton. >> i would reverse the question to you and i would say this. do you think that president clinton should be condemned for the rest of his life based on a mistake he made in his life? he is attempting a political comeback. his argentine lover, now fiancee, often at his side. colbert-bush, whose brother is comedian, stephen colbert, a successful business woman, leading in the polls for the election next tuesday. chris clackum, nbc news. joining me now, elite vibek,

staff writer with the hill. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> starting with that debate last night, was it smart of colbert-bush to br i this uing . >> i think she brought it up in a way that was effective because mark sanford keeps branding himself as a fiscal conservative who is going to manage the district's finances in a good way. she says, you didn't manage the finances in a good way when you used taxpayer dollars to travel to argentina. he has denied that. he did pay an ethics fine. i think she did that in a way that was honoring the elephant in the room. the other big news, nba player, jason collins, coming out as gay. the white house issued a message of support to him. do you think this is a sign that momentum is moving toward support of gay rights? >> absolutely. i think this is a historic moment and jason is breaking in you ground. there was a lot of support from

his nba colleagues. to be honest, some of the comments on places like espn were mixed. we will see what the reaction is really like whether he steps out on the court next time. new poll numbers show some serious backlash against five u.s. senators that voted against gun background checks earlier this month. do you think this issue will be a deciding factor when they are up for re-election? >> that's a good question. a lot of new groups are trying to make it a big issue for their re-election run by michael bloomberg and gabrielle giffords. i think the next election will be a real test for how effective these will be. >> thanks, elise viebeck, thanks for being here. a thrilling finish in the nba with a chance to tie the game. the oklahoma city thunder failed to score twice. the houston rockets get a 105-103 victory to stay alive. they trail in the series, three games to one. you may remember 7-year-old

jack hoffmann, who has brain cancer. he took a handoff in the nebraska spring football game and ran 69 yards for a touchdown! monday, jack met with president obama who gave him a football with the presidential seal and his autograph. with the kentucky derby coming up saturday, they held the annual bed races event with 38 teams competing in a 600-yard dash. prizes are awarded based on fastest time, best decorations and most entertaining teams during a soccer match in russia, one official got upset with one of the players and pushed and kicked him. the linesman has been given a lifetime ban from officiating. some amazing images from a lifetime ago of what may be the oldest film showing african-americans playing baseball on a georgia plantation in 1919. it is american history captured on film. just ahead, rocky balboa hits the great white wave.

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well, rocky the musical is coming to broadway. >> you forgot the part of the interview, yo adrienne after a successful debut in germany, the show is planning to have rocky, the musical light up the winter garden theater. mama mia will be moving to a smaller theater to make way for it. katherine zeta jones has checked into a health facility to deal with her mild case of bipolar 2 disorder. she first sought treatment in

2011 to cope with cancer diagnosis of husband, michael douglas just how did carey mulligan get the role? she surprised leo with a kiss in the audition. the director and leo agreed she got the part. the wrongful death trial of michael jackson heated up as opening statements were made on monday. concert promotion company, aeg live, is looking to prove it was not liable for the pop star's untimely death. the company said it will bring to light some ugly stuff. >> i don't want to hear anymore. >> let the man rest. finally, matthew perry shared his exciting day for a friends reunion episode. it would be called old friends and would take place on a park bench when we are in our 80s. >> that's going to entertain us? >> what cast would you bring back? >> the cosby show, saved by the

bell. what would you bring back? >> the cosby show would be pretty good. >> they are all grown and have their own families. >> i think i would go something like old school. a sequel to mash, maybe not the cast. >> a new one. >> a follow-up. >> this is "first look" on msnbc. stay tuned. "way too early" starts right now. jason collins has become the first openly gay athlete in prosports. collins is with the washington wizards. >> collins is the first active professional athlete in any of the four major sports to make that announcement while still a player z collins says i'm a 34-year-old nba center, i'm black and i'm gay. that's right. he came out as black and gay. even more shocking. he came out as a player for the washington wizards.