it's monday, february 29th. coming up on "early today." leo wins, "spotlight" shierchs, and chris rocks on. >> well, i'm here at the academy awards otherwise known as the white people's choice awards. and the political insults and miscuess the candidates sprint for votes ahead of tomorrow's super tuesday with 12 states voting.

anonymous shopping cart guy. that and much more as we kick off a busy week ahead. "early today" starts right now. good morning. i'm dara brown. the award goes to -- last night the stars came out for the awards. "spotlight" won best picture wheel mad max, fur yore road and the revenant won big. it had plenty of controversy with the #oscarssowhite hanging over the festivities. jennifer jennifer jennifer is live. >> reporter: good morning. hollywood's biggest night did not disappoint, not with the glamour or the glitz or the controversy and with the ceremony there were some big surprises. >> spotlight. >> reporter: the title described the moment.

attention for best picture. >> this film gave a voice to survivors and this oscar amplifies that voice. >> reporter: best picture favorite ""the revenant"" still won big. best for alejandro for the second year in a row and a first career oscar for leonardo dicaprio for best actor. >> i thank you all for this amazing award tonight. let us not take this planet for granted. >> reporter: best actress went ton rie larson. >> thank you to the fans. thank you to the moviegoers. thank you for going to the theater and seeing our film. >> alicia for the danish girl while bridge of spies mark rye land pulled an upset for supporting actor beating out heavy favorite sylvester

>> reporter: mad max fur rose. six for technical. demonstrators blocked the way protesters lack of diversity. >> otherwise known as the white people's choice award. >> reporter: jikt also on host chris rock's mind when the spotlight was on the industry movie's best and the big winner last night may have actually been " the girl scouts. chris rock called out the girl scouts saying he missed cookie season. when they tallied it up, they had $65,243 in cookie sales. dara. >> thank you. that was a great moment to watch everybody in the audience eating cookies as the show was going on. this morning the candidates prepare to make their final pitches to voters before tomorrow's 12 races. over the weekend it was a

rubio and donald trump. >> that a guy with the worst fake tan in america is accusing me of putting on makeup. >> you're a choke and a liaring. >> donald trump likes to sue people. he should do that to his face. >> it's rubio. >> have you seen his hands? they're like this. you know what they say about men with small hands. you can't trust them. >> ted cruz, meanwhile, attacks trump on his tax returns. >> there have been multiple media reports about donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia. maybe his taxes show those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported. >> cruz has released a few returns and rubio released all

trump's meg whitman telling nbc's news that chris christie's endorsement of dunld trump is an astonishing display. donald also nabbed his first senatorial backer. but his failure to strongly condemn a former ku klux klan david duke on cnn may hurt the donald. while he did reduke him back in august trump seemed to stumble sunday morning. i didn't even know he endorsed me. david duke endorsed me? all right. i disavow. give me a list of groups and i'll let you know. >> i'm just talking david duke and the ku klux klan. >> honestly, don't know david duke. >> the other candidates quickly pounced. >> we cannot be a party that nominates someone who refuses to

the ku klux klan. we cannot be a party that does that. >> we don't have any white for white supremacists in the united states of america. it just doesn't make any sense to me. >> and trump was again on the defensive with nbc's chuck todd on a retreat telling, quote, italian leader muse lee know. he said he likes italian quotes. we'll find out how he feel does in tomorrow with a slew of can contests. the latest nbc news "wall street journal" poll shows donald trump with a 17% lead. he also holds a healthy lead while rubio trails at 19%. in cruz's home state of texas. the senator manages to sflip the numbers at 39% to trump's 26%. if that turns into a surge of report. it remains to be seen in tomorrow's showdown. on the democratic side

words on saturday's south carolina results. >> yowl lost african-american voters 84/16, worse than any poll had shown. senator, what happened? >> well, we got decimated. that's what happened. among older african-americans, it was pathetic from our perspective. >> bernie sanders lost to clinton by a near 3/1 margin. adding urgency to tomorrow's super tuesday races for candidacy in colorado sanders tried out a new campaign last night. >> and you run on a platform calling for a full loaf, at worse you're going to get half a loaf. half a loaf, you're going get crumbs. american people today do not

they need the whole loaf. >> clinton, meanwhile, looked past sanders during a speech in nashville. >> because ultimately we are all in this together, no matter what some people running for president might say as they insult one group of us or another group of us, i believe that america is great right now. what we need is to be whole. we need to be whole where all of us have a place. >> but she could face more questions as the state department plans to release a final batch of e-mails later today. despite his setback in south carolina, sanders vowed to continue fighting through super tuesday, picking up the support of former dnc vice chair who announced her separation from the committee. in tns the former secretary of state leads by 26 points and in

20-plus point lead, 59-38. it was a horrific scene at a sunday church service in dayton, ohio. a pastor was allegedly killed by his brother in front of the congregation while the choir was singing. he just walked to the pulpit when the shooting happened. his brother, 68-year-old daniel schooler was in custody and there was likely a domestic injury. there was no word on a motive. no one else was injured. in virginia a man accused of killing two people including a rookie accomplish on her first days on the job is expected in court today. 32-year-old staff army sergeant assigned tothe pentagon is accused of killing one and injuring two others who were responding to a domestic disturbance. after he surrendered they found his wife dead in their home.

we have officers involved in a shooting? >> we have three officers that have been shot. >> prince william county police department is in very deep mourning over the loss of officer ashley gwinden. >> last night a vigil was held for the 28-year-old officer who was sworn into the police force just this past friday. thank you anonymous shopping cart guy after an unidentified guy used a cart to stop a suspect in his track two weeks ago. officers were able to tackle on the ground. he ran into the store to try to get away from police. he was wanted for jaywalking and was arrested for disorderly conduct and parole violation. afterward you can see the shopper picking up his things and just continued shopping. >> in southern india there was an elephant who went on a rampage during a religious festival.

trunk and throwing it in the air with ease as two rode on his back. it took two hours to bring the powerful pachyderm under control. no one was hurt which featured a parade of decorated elephants. >> nbc meteorologist bill karins has your weather. >> how strong is that elephant? that's incredible stuff. this week the big story is going to be what's going to happen on tuesday and then into wednesday. are we going to see a very veer repeat of last week? thankfully it does not look like that now. your leap day weather today, the only nasty stuff still feeling like winter. that's where it's cold. a little bit of snow in the graiks but the rest of the country looks pretty good. let's get into what's going to happen late tonight. storm system comes out of the central rockies, redevelops. hail threats over oklahoma city,

about 3 million people mostly in the state of oklahoma are at risk for some of those severe storms. then late tonight into tomorrow we watch the storms intense ify over arkansas. by the time we wake up they're clear. by 5:00 p.m. that's where we see the storms over tennessee, alabama, and mississippi. those are some areas we're going to have to watch carefully. isolated tornado at worst but not a big outbreak. that's your national weather. now here's a closer look at your day ahead. so in areas of texas, we could see an isolated shower or storm today from houston up to shreveport but temperatures are looking very warm. i mentioned it still looks like winter in the north. look at duluth. only a high of 14. the good news, the super tuesday doesn't look like it's going to be a ruin for any voters. >> that sounds good. thank you, bill. there are some leap day sales for consumers to tell you about. plus find out what one senator is doing to make your

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an off-duty nypd officer was killed in an early morning hit-and-run sunday. 25-year-old officer vincent harrison was standing on the shoulder of the new jersey turnpike after he was involved in a minor accident with another car. him. that driver initially stopped but then fled the scene. they found the driver and are determining appropriate charges. chuck schumer is leading the fight in the increasingly shrinking airline seats. it's dropped from 35 inches in the '70s to 16 irns today and passengers are like sardines. he wants the faa to establish seatline guidelines and introduce an amendment. it was a race to the top this weekend, well, of the rock that is. yesterday was the eighth annual climb to the top where nearly

rockefeller center all 66 flights. the event raised nearly $99,000. now it's time for some business news. disney announced yesterday that the u.s. theme parks will adopt new seasonal ticket pricing. single day tickets will vary depending on whether it's value or peak time of year. prices will raise from 1g $05 to $104. head over to pizza hut. they're giving away free pizza to whoever has a february 29th birthday. just ahead, talk about a confident golfer. gary woodland loose his pants to save par. sports is up next.

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speedway. >> who didn't get a good restart of that. kevin harvick, he spun the tires when he went into third gear. >> look at the back straightaway. this will be the race. here they come. around to the line looking for the flag. four cars involved in the back. >> that's jimmie johnson's 76th career victory tying dale earnhardt and dale earnhardt jr. finished the race in second. and the seahawks taking on the number five musketeers. the pirates got off to a fast start including 26 at the half. seton hall never let up even though xavier let up in the second half. the pirates, 96-81. next, ohio state played iowa on a cold streak losing three of their last four to a close one on the final buzzer but they

hawkeyes, 68-64. finally pittsburgh against duke. the blue devils fighting to catch the red home team but the panthers gave their ncaa tournament hopes a major duke by spanking duke, 76-62. well, just ahead, who wore it best at the oscars' red carpet. plus, we've got to the moments everybody has been talking about on hollywood's biggest night. od's bigges what backache? what sore wrist? what headache? what bad shoulder? advil makes pain a distant memory. nothing works faster stronger or longer than advil it' s the world' s #1 choice. what pas in?

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joo now to as scars' red carpet moments. many of the ladies made daring fashion choices. among the more popular looks were bold colors, sequins, plenty of thigh-high splits. many viewers tweeted about stacey dash's somewhat awkward appearance. >> please welcome miss stacey dash. >> i cannot wait to help my people out. happy black history month. thank you. >> thank you. but enough about black people. >> dash later rew e responded explaining she was asked to show her int increased diversity in hollywood. one to go vie rat was kate winslet.

and viewers loved finding out what charlize theron's favorite part of the ceremony is. >> what's your favorite part of still coming to the oscars, your fell low oscars or what is your favorite part? >> the hamburgers. >> the hamburgers. you wanna see something intense? new pantene expert gives you the most beautiful hair ever, with our strongest pro-v formula ever.

a building considering the iowa state senate would allow children under the age of 14 to shoot handguns. while supporters say it brings iowa up to date with most other states they argue it's creating a, quote, militia of toddlers. nbc's kristen dahlgren spoke to both sides. >> reporter: for the hood family in central iowa, shooting is a way of life. >> it's a fun sport, a way to relax, go down and relieve some stress.

of the local scholastic shooters. >> stand by. >> reporter: but while 16-year-old grace competes using a handgun, the law says 13-year-old emma isn't allowed. >> when i learned that i couldn't do it until i was 14, i was kind of a little irritated because i want to do it now. >> reporter: the family supported iowa lawmakers moving toward a new law that would allow children of all ages to handle handguns. >> this is not about giving our children the combo to the gun safe. this is about allowing them in a supervise said nair owe learn a great sport. >> reporter: last week the iowa house approved the measure but debate was fierce. >> it returns the power back to where it fully belongs, back in the hands of parents. >> we passed laws for those parents who lack the parenting skills needed to protect their own children. >> reporter: the bill now goes to the state senate but opponents are quick to point to cases of kids getting their hands on a gun with tragic results.

when her 2-year-old got ahold of her concealed handgun while they were shopping at wall mutt. most states don't specifically restrict handgun use by children. in iowa kids 14ur7bd are allowed to use rifles or shotguns and federal law still makes it illegal for minors to purchase guns, but for the brady campaign to prevent gun violence, this debate takes away from what they see as the more serious issues. >> it represents the gun lobby's vision, which is selling as many guns as they possibly can, that every mother, father, and child in america is armed to the teeth rather than focusing on the things that we really can do through policy. >> reporter: the question for lawmakers in iowa now are guns safe in these hands. kristen dahlgren, nbc news, new york. and now a look ahead. a mem of s.e.a.l. team 6 will receive the highest military

rescuing an american doctor in 2012. senior chief edwin byers jr. is the first to receive it since the vietnam war and in celebrating birthdays. rule turns 40. motivational speaker tony ron bins is 56. i'm dara brown. thanks for watching "early today."

weaking news overnight. a large investigation in a quiet long island neighborhood. what police a saying. plus a department in mourning. an nypd officer killed in a hit and run. the suspect is in custody this morning. it happened again overnight. a pedestrian hit in the city following a deadly weekend on the roads. "today in new york" starts now. good morning everyone. i'm darlene rodriguez. i'm michael gargiulo. chris cimino is here. >> beautiful weekend. 60 degrees yesterday. not that mild today. but well into the 50s. in the upper 40s in and around the city. subfreezing northwest sections of new jersey.