here's the warning from nbc's tom costello. >> reporter: it's big business stealing taxpayer identities then applying for and stealing refunds. scammers made off with more than $3 billion in 2014. last year, a 400% surge in phishing and malware tax scams. in ohio, jim found someone hot applied for a $25,000 refund in his name. >> they had my social security number, they had my wife's social security number. >> reporter: it happened to lisa in washington state. >> they had entered into deductions in order to create a substantial refund, a little over $5,000, that was being sent to a routing number and account number that i had never seen before. >> reporter: the refund, wired to a mysterious prepaid credit card. aaron stocks owns a jackson hewitt tax preparation franchise in los angeles. >> i've had over 20 in my local offices. >> 20 cases of people having their identities stole someone. >> yes. it's very, very common. >> reporter: to weed out tax fraud the irs is delaying refunds for 40 million americans to make sure the refunds are legit. most filing today won't get refunds until late

tom costello, nbc news, washington. >>> it's 6:19 on this saturday. cubans lining up outside the u.s. embassy in havana to get a visa. those lines are expected to get longer. that's because the obama administration abruptly ended the wet foot dry foot policy this week. that policy allowed cubans to get legal residency if they made it on to u.s. soil. they're praising the change saying it promoted human trafficking and dangerous journeys for mieg rants. >>> news 4 covered the changes in u.s. slr cuban relations. we've taken you through the island nations, including my own family's personal story. the question i most often get when reporting on cuba is how can i visit. as of now, americans still can't travel as tourists to cuba. there are other legal ways to visit. we're going to walk through those if you visit. i'll be pod rating a panel with cuba travel experts at the washington convention center. tickets for the show start the $11 and we should tell you, just heard from the folks who organize it. despite any weather out there, they plan to open on ti

i'm tom costello, news 4 here in washington. >>> your next trip to target is about to get easier. >> we have details on the company's plans for mobile payment. you're watching news 4 midday. gh'll be ri >>> have you ever lost your keys or wallet? who hasn't, right? you might need this. these are called pixcy points, you place them on everything you might end up losing then use your cell phone to find them using august meanted reality. only available for iphones but should be ready for android phones later this year. >> or just don't lose it. >> i'll put them on my children. >> you haven't lost one yet. >> i know, right? >> target is about to simplify your checkout experience. >> plans to launch its own payment app this year to allow you to store credit card information and avoid having to dig through your cash or wallet for cash. they have not released specifics but it will help the store compete with apps including apple pay and walmart pay. one thing about using cash agree, when you see the money, you're likely to spend less. >> realize what you're doing. >> with an app you don't s

for millions it's personal as tom costello reports. >> reporter: she's covered under obamacare but havingtrump she wants to see it replaced. >> what's not working about obamacare for you? >> the red tape. it should be as simple as me paying the premium, me going to a doctor that i want to go to. >> she admits she didn't have insurance before obamacare and her premiums have stayed under $300 a month, but her deductible has gone from $1,700 to $4,500. s that's a lot of money. >> for me it is. >> meanwhile, 600 miles away in crestwood, kentucky, this family voted for clinton. obamacare covered the cost of having a baby. losing that coverage, they say, would be a big blow to their hopes for the family farm. >> like most small business owners, we're kind of bootstrapping this. we've been at it a few years. >> nationwide, the affordable care act or obamacare has brought the percentage of americans without health insurance down from 16% to nearly 11%. premiums have jumped dramatically in some states but nationally they are up 20%, slower than the rate before obamacare took effect. >> if health i

and once they get off a plane. >> tom costello reporting there. at local airports here in the d.c. region, officials are warning passengers to be alert. spokesperson for reagan national and dulles international airport telling news4 that they want travelers to notify them of anything suspicious. thurgood marshall airport says travelers there will notice some stepped up security inside the terminals. >>> a pair of sisters were traveling to see their father for the final time and they were booted from their flight. he was sick and they needed to get to him really fast. once they boarded, one of the sisters got a text message saying it would be their dad's last night. she tried to tell her sister in the back of the plane but was told to sit down. and both were eventually kicked off that plane. >> i'm just begging the whole way out of the plane and ve back, but i was in shock. i was saying could you please let me go see my dad. he's dying. i said, i'm sorry, everybody, but i want to see my dad. he's dying. >> well, their father died the next day. allegiant said they expect crews to res

tom costello, nbc news, rockville, maryland. >>> a lot of people here talking about the weather. whenever we make the mention of snow, people have even more questions. we are broadcasting live on facebook right now at nbc washington's page. what about tomorrow's evening rush hour? any snow later in the week? >> we'll get to that. i'm going to tweet out a graphic later on. tomorrow evening looks fine. mainly what we're concerned about is going to be tomorrow morning. guys, we're not expecting that much. >> but it doesn't take that much. >> y'all know how it works around here. we get a little bit, and a little bit goes -- >> some delays. >> some delays. a little bit goes a long way around here. i do believe we could have some delays. i'm also on wtop. i've also heard they're already treating the roadways out there. pretreateding them. so that's going to help as well. let's go ahead and get into it. we have an increase in cloud cover. temperatures around 40 right now. yes, that is above that freezing mark. well above that freezing mark. so we're really not looking at much accumulati

nbc's tom costello reports. >> reporter: the most expansive and complicated search in aviation history is over. after nearly three years, the hunt for malaysia airline flight 370 has been called off. crews have been searching for the aircraft ever since it vanished during a flight from kuala lumpur to beijing on march 8, 2014. on board, 239 passengers and crew members. the search run jointly by the government s of malaysia, australia and china which spent more than $115 million trying to locate the missing plane released a joint statement saying, in part, despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modelling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately the search has not been able to locate the aircraft. the malaysia 370 mystery is one that is unlike any other. >> it they suspend the search before they find it, then it may go unanswered. >> reporter: in july 2015, the first crew that mh 370 was somewhere in the indian ocean. a wing flap from the aircraft washed ashore thousands of miles to the

tom costello, nbc news, massachusetts. >> that's a cool story. >> ridiculous images there. very cool. >> the sun is out as you take a look at the white house, but it may take some time before we start to feel the warmup outside. tom is tracking your hour-by-hour forecast with how soon we're going to get back above 60 degrees. >> reporter: a run through for the big day. we are a military family. they travel a lot. every four years when we got re-stationed you think it's going to be the biggest change in your life but there's always more changes to come. the first thing that we would do when we would get into our new place was set up the beds. and when i go to t.j.maxx i buy good quality things that are going to last a long time. everything i get there, i get at a lower price. shopping at t.j.maxx is always like a bonding experience. discover real value worth sharing. i just think that home, it's wherever your family is. maxx life at t.j.maxx. >>> 10:00 on the dot on this sunday morning. here's what's happening. five days left and a lot of careful planning going on. now on "n

tom costello has more on that. >> reporter: the symptoms are enough to send you to bed for days, vomitingdiarrhea, stomach pain, fever and body aches. the norovirus is spreading misery across the country. some moms dealing with multiple kids sick at the same time. >> my middle child had it saturday, sunday my older one got it and then on tuesday my youngest one got it for the second time. >> reporter: several hundred students have gotten the virus in several days, classes canceled. outbreaks in rhode island calling for schools to disinfect cafeterias and other areas in the school. this is not related to the influenza virus but it is highly contagious. >> and if you are near someone who is vomiting, the person vomiting creates a little aerosol. and if you're close enough, you can literally breathe it in and then you'll get sick 24 to 48 hours later. >> reporter: experts say the virus can live on bedding and counter tops making it tougher to fight. the best defenses are the most basic, frequent hand washing with soap and water, hand sanitizers are not enough. disinfect contaminated surfaces

here's nbc tom costello. >> reporter: they are two american retailing icons with roots going back to the 1800s. macy's and sears. >> sears where america shops for value. >> reporter: now both struggling against 21st century digital competition. macy's closing 100 stores and laying off up to 10,000 employees. kmart and sears closing 150 stores. even selling the craftsman tool line. another department store, kohl's s, also posting losses over the holidays. >> people can get their hair blown, go to the gym, go to the coffee bar. >> americans did spend big over the holidays. up 4% over last year. online sales up a whopping 17%. more amazon, less sears. >> i think it's sad, but it's a lot easier for people to just do online shopping. they can sit home on their couch. >> americans today are choosing discounters, among them t.j. maxx, ross and burlington. >> to survive, retailers need a digital and physical store offering something unique. even amazon is opening pop-up stores, where else, but the malls. >>> on the subject of that all online holiday shopping. today is expected to be the bigg

tom costello nbc news washington. >> well, today is holocaust remembrance day. that's where teams are conducting a conservation effort to preserve remnants of the holocaust. workers are restoring the building to original state. restoration is to continue for another two years. more than 1 million jews are thought to have died there alone. >> coming up next, we are trying to see if we can prevent a tragic out come of one of the most beautiful sites in the world and it's here in the bay area. we're going to take an in-depth whether suicide nets like the one about to be installed opt golden gate bridge actually brings down suicide rates for the broader area. >> and as you head out right now, temperatures are in the lower 50s. a lot of sunshine and this weather continues to warm up this weekend. we'll take a look at the complete micro climate forecast coming up at 11:44. at this moment....transp ortation leaders are meing oa p installing suicide >>> at this moment transportation leaders are meeting on a pressing topic, installing suicide nets on the golden gate brid

here's nbc's tom costello now with what it means for your wallet. >> reporter: it happened just as theythe opening bell. after months of toying with 20,000, the dow jones industrial average finally crossed the line. the dow represents 30 of the nation's biggest companies. if you'd invested $50,000 in the dow when the market hit a bottom back on march 9th, 2009, your money would have tripled by now to $150,000. just since election day, the dow is up 9%. leading the charge, manufacturing and banking stocks. goldman sachs alone up 30%. on wall street, they're betting on lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations. how much of this is an endorsement of what the stock market believes will be donald trump's policies? >> well, i believe it is -- there's a lot of it right now. i think the investors feel very positive about the future. >> reporter: but it's not just the trump factor. corporate earnings and an improving global economy have also helped. so what should average americans do with their retirement accounts? joanne wills was meeting with her investment adviser outside of boston today.

nbc's tom costello has details. >> reporter: it was not the way their vacation was supposed to start. >> don't cry. you're get another plane. >> reporter: the family escorted off a flight from new york to munich after they told the airline they had medication in case dora had an allergic reaction to nuts and dairy products. >> when i got kicked off the plane, i started crying. it was really bad because it's a horrible feeling being humiliated for something you can't control. >> reporter: on a recent u.s. flight, they told gail me mendelbaum they would not ask passengers to refrain from eating peanuts. >> i took it up with management and they told me in front of my 8-year-old, if you think he's going to die, just don't get on the plane. >> reporter: a group of families is claiming discrimination asking the government to order airlines to treat people with allergies to board early and allow them to wipe down their seats and tray tables. >> just avoiding contact and avoiding eating the food is enough. in very rare cases inhalation might be an issue but those would be very rare cases. >>

tom costello, nbc news, rockville, maryland. >>> time right now, 7:50. sun is up.though. >> you've been paying attention to my forecast. >> i have been leaning on every word. >> what are you here for? >> i'm just going head back home. >> absolutely not. >> you're right. clouds are coming in and a little bit of snow. >> what? >> a little bit of snow. >> don't get too excited, kids. >> we need the day off of school. >> i think because we've been talking about it so much, people are like, oh, my gosh, it's an inch. it's the timing of it. we're going to see it tomorrow morning. not everybody going to have it. a lot of people will have a dusting. some people waking up to nothing. we're waking up to a little sunshine and a gorgeous sunrise out there today. those clouds are on the increase. we will start to see those clouds moving in as we get into the afternoon. now, dry most of the day today. we will see some scattered snow showers through the day on monday. then we're quiet as we head into the next workweek. current temperatures, it's chilly out there. temperatures in

let's go to nbc's tom costello who covers aviation, familiar with the security arrangements. tom?ckly, we've checked with the faa and t the tsa. at the moment they report this is very much a local police or airport police matter. they do not have at this point any update on the status of what's going on there. keep in mind the tsa is not an armed security force. we all see them when we of course go into the airport. you will at times see a tsa, homeland security viper team. those are the armed s.w.a.t. looking teams that patrol the airports in conjunction with the local airport police authority. by and large, tsa officers are not armed. whatever the police response is to this incident, as it would be in any airport, that would be very much up to the local police on the armed officers on the scene. what i also would take note of, i just now checked to see if we've got a ground stop on the ground at that airport at ft. lauderdale. so far nothing official on the faa's website. we checked with them. they don't have anything either. it clearly is an immediately unfolding situation wher