today," the loss of a legend. the music business mourns and remembers whitney houston at last night's music awards. greece's parliament approves sweeping budget cuts. and winter no-show. the warm winter forces buffalo, of all places, to opt for manmade snow. captions paid for by nbc-universal television hello and good morning. i'm lynn berry, and today we begin with the show going on. with the music world still

reeling after the weekend's tragic death of pop star whitney houston, last night at the grammy music awards they paid tribute to the singer while not far away the investigation of her death continued. nbc's mark barger reports. >> reporter: they honored whitney houston. >> it's a tragedy. we're at a loss for words. we both feel like she was family and like we lost one of our own. >> reporter: the grammys acted quickly to include a tribute by singer jennifer hudson. >> i was too nervous to speak to her, but i literally wanted to rub my shoulder against hers just to say i rubbed shoulders with whitney houston. >> reporter: even as the singer's memory was honored an autopsy was completed but the l.a. core nr's office says the official cause of death is weeks away pending a toxicology

report. >> we won't make a final determination until all the tests are in. >> reporter: earlier in the day, houston's 18-year-old daughter bobbi kristina was breesly hospitalized and treated for stress. the teen's father bobby brown let his emotion show during a performance saturday night near memphis. in the past week, reports of erratic behavior on houston's part reappeared. a close friend of the singer recounted their final contact, an exchange of voice mails saturday morning. >> just that normal sound of kim, where are you, i'm in chicago, call me back, call me back, i want to speak with you. that was it. i'll always remember that ♪ i look to you >> reporter: just as whitney's fans will cherish her incomparable talent. >> it was a huge night for the singer r & b sensation adele.

we're going to have more on that as well as tributes to whitney houston. that's coming up a little later in the show. first over the weekend on the campaign trail mitt romney scored victories in the main caucuses and a straw poll. now regarding that straw poll wing rival rick santorum's camp says he hasn't been playing fair. we have those details. tra trac tracy, good morning. >> good morning. let's start on the campaign trail with the straw poll. romney beat santorum, 33-31. santorum seemed to imply that maybe romney rigged the straw poll. here's what he said. the cpac did it over the weekend. for a while ron paul did those polls. they make reference to the win by romney. romney's spokeswoman said that

santorum has a history of making statements that are not grounded in the truth. now, moving forward to today and what's going on here in washington in virginia nearby today, president obama will unveil his 2013 budget plan. it promises, he says, to cut $4 trillion from the budget over 10 years with some new spending in areas like education and transportation, but also some new taxes, letting the bush tax cuts expire for the wellty and 30% minimum tax on millionaires. lynn? >> tracie potts for us in washington. thanks so much. now here's a look at other stories making news early today in america. a woman in virginia almost was killed when powerful winds brought a tree down on her home. she was sleeping, pinning her to the bed. firefighters worked over an hour to free the woman who suffered life-threatening injuries. unfort analystly the good news end there. building inspectors deemed her house uninhabitable.

this weekend the winter continued is bizarre in atlanta. it caused one fountain nearly to become encased in ice. spectators braced the cold to get a glimpse of the rare site. that, of course, is not normal for atlanta. and finally over 100 people gathered outside city hall in san jose to ruffle some feathers. a classic pillow fight broke out. they spread the word on facebook and twitter. come on, buddy. this is the first year of the event which was inspired by a similar battle held across the bay in san francisco. now for a look at your national and regional weather, someone i always have to tell to be nice to me, bill karins. >> someone you always want to hit with a pillow. >> welcome back, bill. good to have you. >> good morning. we showed you the pictures from atlanta. actually winter. we've got snow out there and snow in areas of the middle of the country. areas in white are under winter

weather advisories. areas of texas where we had snow all the way up into areas of nebraska and areas of arkansas. we do have a couple winter storm warnings here, areas just outside of little rock heading up the highway to ft. smith. overall very light. not a huge winter storm. you can see on the radar, all the white is the snow. the bluer shading is the heavier senator, actually north texas to the dallas area where it's too warm, you're just getting rain. but outside dallas, you're getting snow. you can see it's all spreading through the ozarks. kansas city is going to have a light coating of snow, springfield joplin, all the way up to st. louis. it's not a big snow event. our computers are saying one 1 to 3 inches. everywhere in the state of missouri and through oklahoma, these little white spots is where we could see maybe 3 or 4. that's about it. this will head to chicago later tonight with about 1 to 2 inches of snow. yesterday was brutally cold, anywhere from the great lakes to

northern new england. today it's a slow warm-up after a chilly start. 35 in boston, 45 in d.c. the southeast even begins to recover. and there's your icy, messy stuff in the middle. we're pretty quiet in the intermountain west. that's a look at your forecast. now here's a look at the weather outside your window. chances of light snow in places like indianapolis. that will be lighter toward evening afrmt yas such as milwaukee, snow showers. denver, colorado, not bad. 35. and this was a winter blast, but that's it. it looks like it's heading out. valentine's day onward look much warmer. coming up, greece votes for cuts, gas guzzles higher, and what men are buying for valentine's day. your early morning business headlines are straight ahead. plus the big grammy winner whiend she says she's going to stop singing sad songs. everything goes right for

lefty, another game-winner for kobe, and motown history on grammy night. you're watching "early today."

good morning and welcome back to "early today." i'm lynn berry, and here are some of your top headlines this morning. more than 100,000 protesters fought with parliament after they passed an austerity bill to avoid bankruptcy. buildings were set on fire, people were injury and at least 45 rioters were arrested. arab league leaders asked united security council to send peace keepers to syria. al qaeda leader called on followers to oppose president bashir al assad. crews are finally pumping some 500,000 gallons of crude off the cruise ship.

many attended sunday's service for victims of the accident. in venezuela enrique, a 39-year-old state governor has won a primary to run against hugo chavez in an election set for october 7th. and in southern chile, hundreds were seeing red. they were smark and throwing over 30 tons of tomatoes at each other in a massive food fight that is intended to promote the local crop. and now here's an early look at how wall street kicked off the day. the dow opened at 12801 after falling 8 9d points. the s&p fell 9 points the nasdaq fell 23. taking a look at overseas trading in tokyo ta knee quay gain 5d 2 while in hong kong the hang seng was up 103. well, investors may react to the battle over greek debt. the unpopular austerity bill passed by the greek parliament was a requirement from the eurozone nations to get the money by march to avoid default.

japan's economy shrank october to november by 0.6% which was larger than expected. samsung is suing apple which wants them to block the new galaxy smartphones because of patent violations. >> the average price of a gallon of gasoline is up over 12 krenltss in the past three weeks to an average of $3.51. federal prosecutors have presented evidence against avon products looking into charges company executives broke foreign bribery laws. five staffers at the royal bank of scotland were arrested into investigation into alleged tax fraud involving their personal finances. rupert murdoch says he will not close down his best-selling newspaper "the sun" after five employees were arrested for allegedly paying bribes to police and other officials. boeing said the problem with the fuselage of the new dreamliner is being fix and will not slow down production.

and for valentine's day, a survey says most men who buy flowers give them to their wife or a significant other. only a third buy them for their mothers. and on valentine's day spending on chocolate and gifts is expected to hit nr than $125 per person this year. on average men spend twice as much as women. well, coming up kobe wins it for the lakers, and the celtics bounce back. plus, the red wings chase an nhl record. and one more. cinching a few lone putts like this one rallies him to the head of the pack. your early morning headlines are straight ahead. and it's a winter monday morning brks tu rest of the week looks like spring. your forecast is coming up. you're watching "early today."

good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today." and in sports, having played bridesmaid, tiger woods so many times in the past, fill millenson's was extra sweet. here's mario solis with all your sports headlines. mickelson rallied from six shots down to rally at pebble beach. he came out in attack mode making difficult putt after difficult putt. that moves into 14 under par and a two-shot lead.

tiger struggled all day, five bogeys but had a lone bright spot at 12. he would finish tied for 13th. as for mickelson, he had one for him on 12. how about a 35-footer to save par. no doubt about it, everything going right for lefty. mickelson takes pebble beach for his 40th pga win. lakers winning their season-long grammy trip. down one with seconds to play, that's kobe time. the black mama striking gives them four seconds left. they win, 94-92. derek voss set out to win a second straight game. rajon rondo was ready to go from the opening trip between the legs to chris wilcox he had 15 helpers, and rondo could also score. the clinic added ten rebounds to complete the triple-double. celtics tame the bulls, 95-91. don't adjust your tv sets. those are the throwback jerseys

for memphis, and, yes, they're pretty grizzly. they say when you look good you feel good. that's why they lost to the jazz, 98 to 88. finally the red wings are down in history. they tied if nhl record with 20 wins straight at home. it was set by boston and matched in '76 by boston. red wings win 4-3. they can break the record tomorrow night against dallas. and that's your look at sports on "early today." i'm mario solis. paying tribute to whitney houston, and the grammy's big winners. your early morning entertainment headlines are straight ahead. plus, there's no greater sign just how strange the winter has been than a snow shortage in buffal buffalo. you're watching "early today."

welcome back on this monday morning. hope you had a wonderful weekend. middle of the country we're messy this morning. we've got a wintry mix in many areas, not just snow. the snow is moving your way, if it hasn't already. same with oklahoma into areas of north texas and little rock. that's the areas you need to watch out for for snowy slippery commute. east coast, it's cold, but we're going to warm it up a little bit. no problems in areas like colorado, wyoming, up to montana. by the time we get to

valentine's day, we're going to watch a much warmer weather pattern. many areas above freezing. that's nice if you're heading out. the southeast is where we'll have light rain to deal with. carry your extra umbrella for someone. if you're watching us in jacksonville, florida, in nearby gainesville, learn from the remains of creatures that are millions of years old at cruisin' the fossil free way at the florida museum of natural history. that's your early event of the day. i don't know where i come up with this stuff. okay, bill. ing that you so much. now here's look at this morning's look at entertainment. there's no doubt their night was darkened by the death of whitney houston but the show definitely did go on saying we had a death in our family. ll cool jay held a prayer later accompanied only by piano jennifer hudson sang houston's trademark hit "i will always love you."

she received a standing ovation. foo fighters won five grammys for rock. another singer amy winehouse won for best pop duo with tony bennett. taylor swift took two awards. but this year the night belonged to 23-year-old english soul singer adele, well deserved there. she matched beyonce for most grammy wins by a woman in a single night with six, including album, record, and song of the year. ironically, though, given the succession of her ballads about break-ups and heart aches, according to "vogue" she's done with those kind of songles. she said people always expect her to be a miserable person but now she's going to focus on the warm fuzzies. she does have a new boyfriend so it's going to take. >> allison morrison had an angry all bum and then it was about love and now they don't like it.

>> what are the teenagers crying over their stereos going to do? j this comes to us from wgrz channel 2 in buffalo new york where saving the city's annual celebration called for desperate measures. this year's bizarre winter forced the capital to buy snow. snow-making machines were brought in to blanket streets with 15 tons of snow one day before winterfest. usually winter batters the city with brutal lake-effect snowstorms and the buffalo residents, this year's temperatures seemed more artificial than the fake snows themselves. it was kind of bizarre. this weekend we had an arctic blast in our area. >> i know. they've been canceling winter stuff all over the place and cancel snowmobile rides up in canada. i'm lynn berry. this is your first stop of the day today on your nbc station.

>> live, local, late-breaking, this is wbal-tv 11 news today. >> after some snow and cold over the weekend, things are quiet. teens temperatures in the teens and low 20's. mostly sunny skies today with a high temperature into the low 40's. we have some rain in the seven- day forecast. >> 22 degrees on tv hill. we remember legendary singer whitney houston and we'll hear

from my local woman who knew whitney as a child. >> the mayor will give the state of the city address today. >> time to press pause on the gop race for the white house. >> a chilly start to your morning commute. we will let you kn

[captioning made possible by constellation energy group] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> live, local, late-breaking, this is wbal-tv 11 news today. >> good morning. i'm mindy basara. >> and i'm stan stovall. thank you for joining us this morning. >> if rolley feels like winter -- it finally feels like winter. >> we have the cold left behind today. temperatures were below 40's. k