. >> when reporter bill mitchell arrives the road is closed to traffic and the tennessee department of transportation, better none as tdot, is using a giant hydraulic hammer to break up the enormous rock. >> it was huge. it was massive. it covered up an entire lane of the road. they were hitting this thing with all they had, and it was not cracking. you can see little splitters of rock fly up through the air. but as far as breaking that thing apart, it wasn't going anywhere. >> the 24-mile two-lane highway goes through a narrow pass called the gorge and is flanked by little frog mountain on the one side and the ocoee river on the other. the trip through the ocoee gorge normally takes 20 minutes, but with the road closed, the detour around the mountain adds more than two hours to the commute. >> there's a tremendous amount of pressure to get the road open. but you have to do it and do it safely, though. >> steve jones, tdot's county supervisor, knows commuters want him to work fast. >> we got people that get mad at us when we stop for five minutes doing maintenance work. you can imagine

>> bill neely who was in the crimea for us. andrea mitchellefore that who now departs with secretary of state john kerry for kiev. thanks to you both. we are now joined by michael mcfaul, who just days ago departed as u.s. ambassador to russia to return to stanford university as an expert on the region and the country and its president, vladimir putin. mr. ambassador, a lot of folks on tv over the weekend seem to desperately want this to be a plot line, putin versus obama. if you're vladimir putin, however, how much is the u.s. a part of your thinking and how much is this truly a domestic matter to you? >> well, for president putin, ukraine is very important to his vision of creating what he calls a eurasian economic union. and just a month ago he was victorious in his view when then president yanukovych rejected the european and started negotiations with russia. but then just a few weeks ago, that president, yanukovych fled russia, and that was a big blow to putin, a big blow of what should happen in terms of his vision in terms of russian an

that's andrea mitchell in kiev with secretary state john kerry. bill neely is in the crimea area. what is going on with the mixing it up between the ukrainian military and the russian -- well russian military in effect, if not in uniform? >> well, it was interesting, chris, when we were getting those verbal warning shots of that extraordinary news conference by vladimir putin saying, well, we might not stop here in crimea, we reserve the right to go into eastern ukraine. here there were literal warning shots from vladimir putin's troops. it was a fairly extraordinary incident at an air base. russian troops had already taken over that air base. ukrainian troops this morning decided they wanted to go back in. they formed up as a unit, led by a flag carrying general and they moved forward. when they got to within several hundred yards of the camp, the russians decided to fire warning shots in the air. the ukrainians stopped momentarily, not very long and then moved forward again. there was another volley of warning shots and i counted about four sets of warning shots before the ukrai

mitchell reports. ronan farrow daily is next. >>> i'm bill karins, the weather will go downhill in a hurry across the central significant airport problems late today into this evening, areas like chicago and kansas city and st. louis and it's a warm day from texas to the east coast. enjoy it while it lasts. salesperson #1: the real deal's the passat tdi clean diesel gets up to 795 highway miles per tank. salesperson #2: actually, we're throwing in a $1,000 fuel reward card. we've never done that. that's why there's never been a better time to buy a passat tdi clean diesel. husband: so it's like two deals in one? avo: during the salesperson #2: first ever exactly. volkswagen tdi clean diesel event, get a great deal on a passat tdi, that gets up to 795 highway miles per tank. and get a $1000 dollar fuel reward card. it's like two deals in one. hurry in and get a $1,000 fuel reward card and 0.9% apr for 60 months on tdi models. [ mala body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying activ

bill is much cooler. the more you know. >>> we're back. andrea mitchell back with me now.week, you had a chance to sit down exclusively with former president jimmy carter. >> that's right. i spoke with him at the carter have in atlanta about his new book, a call to action, women, religion, violence and power. we also talked about the crisis in ukraine as well as his distant relationship with president obama. >> why did you choose this time to focus on women and the way women are victimized around the world? for the last three years, we've been concentrating on the relationship between religion on the one hand and the abuse of women and girls on the other. existing abuse of females is the worst and most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on earth. that is derived i would say indirectly from the fact that religious leaders say women are inferior in the eyes of god but when they see that the pope and the southern baptist convention and others say that women can't serve as priests equally with men they say i'll treat my wife the way i want to because she's inferi

follow the show online and facebook and twitter at mitchell reports and my colleague ronan farrow is up next. >>> i'm billooks interesting this week, we have a winter storm moving across the country but thankfully a lot of southern areas and middle of the country will deal with rain. most of the northern half will get snow. that storm moves into the midwest through montana, a nice quiet day before it arrives in chicago. enjoy. the recent increase in cafeteria prices is not cool. when you vote for flo, we'll have discounts. ice-cream discounts. multi-cookie discounts. pizza loyalty discounts! [ kids chanting "flo!" ] i also have some great ideas on car insurance. [ silence ] finding you discounts since back in the day. call or click today. i like her. purina pro plan can help him drachieve it. ♪ driving rock/metal music stops ♪music resumes music stops ♪music resumes [announcer] purina pro plan's bioavailable formulas deliver optimal nutrient absorption. [whistle] purina pro plan. nutrition that performs. great. this is the last thing i need.) seriously? the last thing you need is some guy giving you a new

chuck to do and andrea mitchell and chris matthews. first, billarins, i don't want to hear it. >> march is a cool and cruel month. 60 to 70 degrees and now the windchill is near zero in the east. unbelievable. the snow fell hard in western new york. that's where we had up to a foot of snow all the way from almost towards detroit to burlington and buffalo and new york and you got nailed. detroit you need only 3 more inches of snow for your snowiest winter ever. notice it's snowing from portland to bangor and icy mess with snow on top of it around albany, new york. careful driving in those areas. the cold air is the story. winds are gusting to 37 miles per hour from d.c. to philadelphia to new york city. the windchill right now in philly is 3. this is like january type weather. negative 10 in buffalo with snow on the ground and minus 9 in pittsburgh. at least the rest of the country, you're seeing a beautiful thursday, but it's from the great lakes to the northeast that we're still going to struggle. by friday, we get a little warmer. saturday, spri

bill gates, the wealthiest man on the planet. >> all eyes are on how vladimir putin plans to deal with ukraine. >> i spoke to lincoln mitchell, advisor at the human rights institution and alexander cooley. i asked what vladimir putin's next move could be. >> i assume if he realises he pushing into eastern ukraine, he'll bite off more than he can choose. that, i think, is off the table. if he takes crimea, effectively what's happened. let's call it a land grab, you incorporate it into rush aas a new russian province, now you have a ukraine that lost most of his pro-rush voting block. >> in an election they'll vote for the people that want to bring it into n.a.t.o. vladimir putin - all of ukraine is important. by breaking it up, it's dramatically damaged russian standing. certain russian influence and the rest of ukraine will be diminished. the other is building the projects in eurasia, how do you commit to khazakhstan, belarus, and say "we'll have rule of law, a regional administration in which russia abides by a preestablished set of standard. it will be difficult for russia to assure the former soviet satellites that it's, in fact,

mitchell as well. appreciate you. let's bring back our panel, talk about the zombie or ghost plane theory savage. billt of people quite frankly don't like us calling it ghost plane or zombie plane. because in deference to the people who are on board that plane. one can understand that correct? >> yes. yes, i would agree with that. but to incapacitate a crew, either through depressurization or smoke, is also very far-fetched because in any kind of smoke situation that is recognized by the pilots in the cockpit you immediately don the masks. then you have full control of the breathing and the communication. in addition to putting out a squawk and declare an emergency that indicates to the ground that you are in an emergency situation. so it's -- without the irrefutable facts having been established of what was going on that aircraft and who was in control of it, then you really are just -- you're chasing theories. >> yeah, absolutely. bill, i've just got another question for you, then. because this one is from joe. joe said if any bodies from mh 370 are recovered from the ocean could they tell for certa

mitchell, and of course our martin savidge. i want to pose this land theory to some of our experts now. pilot bill savage, to you first.nt to bring in a former senior fbi profiler mariel toole to ask as well. first i want to go to bill. what about this land scenario? people are saying, we've been talking about the southern -- whether it's in the southern indian ocean, but what about if it landed -- what about the northern arc? what if it landed on land? >> if the airplane didn't have a severe impact on the ground or in the water, elts would not have gone off. you wasn't have elts if it made a landing. >> mariel toole, in an investigation this large, who might make that call if the focus is over water or it's over land? >> well, that is an area of expertise that's outside of the behavioral part of it. so the behavioral experts would not weigh in on that decision. but what we would weigh in on, what they might ask us is, is that behavior consistent with what occurred beforehand? so in other words, if you have a crew and the -- all the passengers who are extremely quiet. there's no noise. there's no indication from what w

bill he never got. checking his experian credit report and score allowed him to identify and better address the issue. then drive off into the sunset. experian. mitchells," united front. in paris today, secretary of state john kerry joins forces with our european allies to put the pressure on putin to back down in retreat from crimea. and this hour, kerry meets with his russian counterpart to continue to urge direct talks between russia and ukraine. >>> mother russia, but can the u.s. and europe stop putin's ultimate end game? back stateside, critics on the hill say we should have seen this coming. >> this president does not understand vladimir putin. he does not understand his ambitions. he does not understand that vladimir putin is an old kgb colonel bent on restoration of the soviet of the russian empire.

mitchell and dr. nancy snyderman. >>> first, forecast with bill karins. >> what happened to friendly families?r jeb is trying to eat his breakfast now and we are calling him names. >> are we going to beat that baby for three hours too? >> we need to talk to someone. >> we need to talk to bill karins. >> i have nothing better to talk about. in northern new england a snowstorm is coming and everybody else in the new england area and mid-atlantic it's going to rain all weekend. the deep south we are going to have a severe weather threat. active weather heading into your weekend. main concern is severe weather late this afternoon into this evening. maybe even a few tornadoes. we are talking east texas including dallas, houston, san antonio, to new orleans. memphis and late tonight heading into areas of mississippi and alabama. a lot of rain down here in the south but this isn't the main event. the main event will be later on tonight. the rain is going to be plentiful. maybe this is mother nature's way of cleaning up the east coast after a horrible winter but we are going to get 2 to 4 inches of ra

and a piece of the past making a colorful come back, hand painted bill boards part of the landscape of new york city. >>> i'm nicole mitchellhing from high winds to heavy snow this morning how will that impact your plans for st. patrick's day, i'll have the forecast. >> and dell and i are back with you in 2 1/2 minutes. >> crimea overwhelmingly proffers leaving ukraine. >> white house diplomacy, president obama meeting with palestinian leader, the two men set to discuss the potential framework for talks with israel. >> parades celebrating st. patrick's day taking place across the country, the can't recovers keeping two mayors from marching. >> the revival of one of the largest cities in the world. >> jubilation in the crimean planes. the disputed territory voting to revine russia. 97% said yes to the referendum. good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm receive stay. >> i'm del walters. moscow and the west, russia wasting no time saying it will move to address the referendum. >> kiev's new government called the referendum illegitimate, endorsing a presidential decree to call 40,000 reserve troops. the u.s. and eu say

mitchell. >> you mean j edgar hoover. >> i am sorry, j edgar hoover with attorney generals. also the few that did not get them to try to change their behavior. billin 1940, he lied when they told him to discontinue a list of people that could be detained in a national emergency. he lied and did not do that. in this case, it was just habitual behavior. he probably saw no perceived need. john mitchell did not even know that the burglary had taken place until he was asked to defend the fbi and prevent the files from being public. >> even when he was calling ben bradley, he did not know. >> that is right. the reason i know that is from the files in the investigation. he had not read the files and he had not been briefed on them. yes, he was making the strong claim of national security and endanger lives. >> this is a big book, 596 pages. when did you talk about this with your agent? how long ago was it that they wanted to do this book? >> i got my contract in may of 2012. >> so you had done all the work before -- >> yes. >> what has been the reaction to your book? >> the reaction has been generally positive. on publication day, january 7, the fbi rel

bill after watching the cnn documentary black fish. so many people saw it. so many people were moved about i it. seaworld has not commented. joining me to discuss this are tory dunnan and jane velez-mitchelltory, i want to start with you. what would this proposed law do? >> john, first of all, it is really important to put all of this into perspective. note the fact that seaworld does have this major presence in san diego california. let's talk about what this would do. to would reportedly prevent seaworld from using killer whales in shows. that's the big headline, as well as potentially ban captive breeding. reports are that bloom was, indeed, moved into action after watching the documentary black fish. seaworld had dubbed this all as prob begpropaganda. i reached out to seaworld and the spokesman tells me they haven't seen the specifics of the legislation yet. once they do, they plan to issue a response a little bit later on in the day. >> we know there is a lot of legislation that gets to the table. any sense this has a real chance of passing. >> john, it has really been called a bold proposal at this point. i mentioned sort of the impact seaworld has in san diego, california. we have

mitchell is here. >> some of the places that have struggled finally mild, temperatures in the 30's, close to 40 through the northern tier of the country, billingsng to be a mild day overall. denver at 71. enjoy it while you've got it. some temperatures like minneapolis at 42 and 50's and 60's on the east coast, with that next system are going down. you already see that in the midwest tomorrow and then minneapolis as that system goes through into the 20's. we'll watch for that. enjoy it while you can, because it is going to be a short-lived warm up, like mother nature is teasing up this time of year. back to you. >> ok, nicole, thank you. >> the u.s. is send ago navy destroyer to search for the missing malaysian airlines passenger jet. it is near south china expected to reach the coast of vietnam in hours. it carries two helicopters used for search and rescue. the bowing was carrying 239 people when it disappeared two days ago. john is an air safety consultant and former board member of the national transportation safety board, joining us from miami this morning. we're glad to have you and your expertise this morning. there are so many questions