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[ male announcer ] you should not take reclast if you're on zometa, have low blood calcium, kidney problems or you're pregnant, plan to become pregnant or nursing. take calcium and vitamin d daily. tell your doctor if you develop severe muscle, bone or joint pain, of if you have dental problems, as rarely jaw problems have been reported. the most common side effects include flu like symptoms, fever, muscle or joint pain, headache, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. share the world with the ones you love! and ask your doctor about reclast. or call 1-866-51-reclast. year-long protection for on-the-go women. i'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. >> the president today facing new challenges in his first term. fresh numbers on the budget deficit and fresh anger from the left over the president's plan to rein in government spending. and a chilly warning involving al qaeda, weapons of mass destruction, and an attack experts say is a question of not if but when. plus, a developing story. multistate search happening right now for this missing little girl. she is 7 years old from oklahoma and police say they know who took her and they believe the child is in grave danger and skater nancy kerrigan reacting to the drama and sadness. her father dead, brother under arrest for assaulting him. i'm tamron hall at the msnbc headquarters. thank you for joining us this hour. the numbers out on the economy that come as the president tries to prove he is dealing with issue number one and that is getting americans back to work. the congressional budget office now predicts, look at this, unemployment will average 10.1% this year which includes the crucial midterm election for congress and drop only slightly to 9.5% in 2011. again, after the midterm election it predicts a $1.3 trillion deficit and a drop to $80 billion $980 billion. richard wolffe is at msnbc political and a list here to talk with me. someone said this morning to me that the president won't have the state of the union address. he will have the state of how to get the union back to work address. what do we make of these new numbers and his plan for a freeze on spending? >> reporter: well, there's no question this white house wants to play hard and fast to jobs and the economy. obviously they've spent a lot of time on health care which is still unresolved and this budget piece speaks to something related but something slightly different which is the concern especially among independent voters, those voters who were so important to him winning the election in 2008, have drifted against him now as we're seeing in the polls. those voters are the ones saying the deficit matters. it's important. and while the white house acknowledges, look, it may not sound like a lot of money over ten years, it's still a substantial and important move to freeze these budgets. there will be some winners and some losers. not every program that will be cut but they say this is an important statement of the president's longer term budget problems. >> we're talking about in the proposed spending freeze it would amount to $477 billion. you say this is to play to the independents but as i mentioned you've got people like robert reich and other liberals and progressives who believe this is a stunt and may in the end hurt the poor who may benefit from some of the programs that are frozen. >> reporter: what white house officials are saying wait and see what's actually going to get cut because if it comes down to unwanted pieces of hardware for the defense department, maybe those liberals and progressives won't feel so bad about things and in the end the legitimate point, i think, is this question of the budget that they are not freezing, if you're really going to deal with a long-term deficit problems in the country, you have to deal with social security and even defense spending and medicare and those entitlements, those obligatory spe pieces of spending. >> richard wolffe, thanks a lot. some big economic numbers out this morning as well we just got in. the consumer confidence index for january rose beyond expectations to 55.9. now that is the highest number in more than a year and the third consecutive monthly increase but the news is not so great on the housing front. new figures show home prices slipped slightly in december by 0.2%. prices are down 5% from a year ago. and better news, though, for the auto world. ford motor company says it will add 1,200 jobs when its chicago plant starts producing a new version of its explorer suv but the new union workers we hired at sharply reduced wages. in baghdad at least 18 people are dead and dozens more injured because of a suicide attack near a criminal investigation office. the bomber drove a car packed with explosives to the entrance of the office and blew himself up. and this bombing comes just 24 hours after three suicide bombers hit three hotels killing at least 36 people. the other big story right now a congressional commission on weapons of mass destruction is issuing a dire and urgent warning today especially warning americans that we are not prepared for a biological attack. here is what former senator bob graham, the chairman of this commission, said just this morning. >> it is more likely than not under the current circumstances and without decisive and urgent commitment that there will be a weapon of mass destruction used by a terrorist organization some place on earth between now and the end of 2013. >> nbc's justice correspondent pete williams joins us. pete, does this information, this report from the commission, come as a big surprise? >> reporter: that conclusion they reached last year. this year's report, tamron, is to look at what the government has done since to try to counter the threat and the answer according to this commission report is not nearly enough. it says that the government is still up unprepared to deal with the bioterrorism attack. for example, it says the u.s. is woefully behind. that's the phrase they use, in its ability to produce vaccines. just look at the swine flu epidemic, they say. we had lots of warning it was coming, but when the flu actually peaked, people could not get access to the vaccine when they wanted it. the report gives the government an "f" grade for the capability to respond to an attack. they say there's no national planning to get the federal government working with state and local governments after a bioterror attack. no consistent registration of hazardous materials. they say they need to tighten lab security and the scrutiny of employ yaes who work with hazardous materials. the initial report was due last year. congress said take another year, look and see what's been done and there's some good news here but mostly not nearly enough. >> so the bad news that was in the report, three fs, how then are these problems corrected? what happens next, pete? >> reporter: well, the homeland security department says they have started to work on some of these things and the report acknowledges that, but they say, and this is sort of coupled with something that the former heads of the 9/11 commission are saying to congress today, that the u.s. lacks a sense of urgency on some of these priorities including its response to by owe weapons hazards isn't doing enough to try to deal with the potential nuclear threat from iran and north korea, tamron. >> nbc's pete williams, thank you very much. we'll be talking much more about that report. and authorities have uncovered an extensive weapons cache in a new jersey motel room. somerset county investigators seized hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a grenade launcher. when they searched the room of a suspicious man, they apprehended him outside a gas station. there were maps of an american military facility and a civilian community. lloyd woodson of reston, virginia, faces charges on multiple weapons charges. the fbi has not found any signs of a link with this suspect to terrorism but they did say found a lot of weapons in that room and yet another political divide in this country and this time it is over whether haitians fleeing the earthquake should be allowed to immigrate to the united stat states. according to a new "usa today"/gallup poll, 50% of democrats favor the number of immigrants the u.s. accepts. but among republicans that number is at 67% who were in opposition of it. and in haiti the situation certainly remains dire with the haitian prime minister estimating that haiti will need global aid for the next five, even ten years. nbc's michelle kosinski is live on the ground with the latest what's happening there. michelle, what's the update? >> reporter: hi, tamron. well, there's an update in many, many areas here in haiti. i mean, this is such a problem with tentacles that extend around the world really as international aid continues to come in. there's also an internl problem of people migrating here. the focus has been on port-au-prince. after devastating hurricanes in 2004 and 2008 so many people were the countryside moved down to the capital where resources were already fairly scarce and now there are so many problems in port-au-prince, by the way, where so many supplies for the rest of the country come from, now those people are moving out en masse to areas like cities that are extremely poor and do not have the resources for these people. talking to some of the organizers here in several outlying towns and they said, look, we just don't have food for them. we don't have housing and we don't have medical care. we've been traveling around the country looking at some of these locations yesterday and we saw a hospital that before the earthquake had roughly 100 people in it, and this is a makeshift hospital already because the regular hospital was almost destroyed during the last hurricane in 2008. so now you have 150 more people come up after the earthquake and they had four doctors there. just really difficult situation. there are so many stories like that. >> michelle, it's interesting as well. we were just showing surveillance video that we got the moment the earthquake hit. it was four different vantage points of what was happening at that moment in time but, you know, i saw something interesting regarding so many people living in tents and others who do not have even a tent to call a temporary home. you have the rainy season coming up in may and then june you have the start of the hurricane season. so in addition to what they're dealing with immediately in time in the next few months this problem, again, could flare up with so many people not even as i said having a tent to call a t temporary home. >> reporter: yeah. i think you summarized it, that there's not enough housing. different organizations right now have plans in place. they have areas set aside. we are expecting an update on that tomorrow morning. we do know that the u.n.'s partners here have set aside these areas where they want to put thousands and thousands of tents. some of it has started on a really small scale but it's taken this long to get to really even the point of organization for all these people. you mentioned that video. yeah, you can see the shaking at that moment. in some of the camera angles, it really doesn't look that strong. we know that the ground shook pretty violently for more than 20 seconds. but to see it happening, you sort of think, wow, just those seconds of shaking that looks manageable from some of the vantage points, that's all it took to bring down roughly half or more of the buildings in this capital city and to kill some 200,000 people. that's all that it took to do that. i think that's what you're left with when you see that. now you have some 3 million people in need of shelter and other resources. just the situation is overwhelming really from whatever vantage point you're looking at it. >> michelle kosinski live for us in port-au-prince. thank you, michelle. and skating star nancy kerrigan is reacting today to the news surrounding her family. her father is dead, her brother under arrest for assaulting him. >> i need my little girl back. anyone out there who knows where she is, please return her. >> a very emotional plea from the father of a missing 7-year-old little girl. we're going to have the very latest on the search for aja johnson. and amazing pictures you'll want to see as we follow a group of haitian orphans as they make their way to safety in the united states. i remember being at the hospital, thinking about my wife. i should have done more to take care of myself. now i'm exercising, watching my diet, and i trust my heart to lipitor. 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(announcer) have a heart to heart with your doctor about your risk. and about lipitor. the brutal attack of a woman in washington state is caught on tape. the woman was making a deposit at an atm when a man snuck up behind her and viciously beat her. after the attack the suspect stole the woman's wallet which had only 15 cents inside of it. the woman says she had to get 37 staples in her head after that attack. police are hoping that surveillance tape will help them capture the person responsible. nancy kerrigan has had her share of heartaches. 16 years after the infamous attack by tonya harding kerrigan now is mourning the death of her father and the possibility that her brother, mark, might be responsible. police arrested mark kerrigan yesterday, charging him with assaulting 70-year-old daniel kerrigan over the weekend. the elder kerrigan died of a heart attack later. jeff rossen is in stoneham, massachusetts, with the very latest. >> reporter: hi, tamron. good morning. yeah, more heartache for nancy kerrigan, a woman who has been through so much now dealing with this intense personal tragedy. let me lay out for you exactly what police say happened. first of all they say it happened here at the kerrigan family home in stoneham, massachusetts, over the weekend. when police officers arrived they say that mark kerrigan, nancy's brother, admitted to them that he assaulted his father, nancy kerrigan's father. basically it was a fight over the phone, according to the police report. mark kerrigan told police officers he tried to use the phone. his father wouldn't let him use the phone. so mark kerrigan admitted to getting into a struggle with his father and actually putting his hands around his father's neck. he says when his father fell down to the ground and collapsed, mark kerrigan thought he was faking it. when police officers arrived they say mark kerrigan was intoxicated, belligerent and combative, all words from the police report. now mark kerrigan is charged with assault in his father's death. he has not been charged with the murder because it has not been declared a homicide yet by the medical examiner. those youautopsy results, which will be key to this case, could take a couple of weeks. even though dan kerrigan, nancy's father died and police are sort of connecting the assault with that death, they're only charging him with assault at this point until those autopsy results come out. once again, the kerrigan family, of course, very emotional, very upset by this, wouldn't speak with us on camera but told us they are just focusing right now on dan kerrigan, that 70-year-old father of nancy, and all of the contributions he made in this life. tamron, we'll continue following this for you from massachusetts. back to you now. and we just got a statement in from tonya harding whose name will forever be linked to nancy kerrigan after the attack and she is saying regarding the passing of nancy kerrigan's father, quote, through her representative, tonya feels very sad for nancy and her family and extends her deepest sympathy and condolences to them. tonya's beloved father al harding passed away this past april so she understands the grief nancy and her family are feeling at this difficult time. new words from tonya harding, at least through her rep regarding nancy kerrigan's tragedy. today marks the first birthday of octomom nadya suleman's octuplets. she gave birth to those eight babies at once. she already had six children, and that sparked a heated debate in this country on the ethics of child rearing and fertility treatments. california's medical board is now still reviewing the doctor who implanted the embryos. me meanwhile for her part nadya suleman has been showing off her body in magazines like this "star" magazine. she went from 270 pounds to 120 pound. she says that her new body is from working out, not from surgery and she's even considering a workout tape. well, who knew "the price of right" is not for the faint of heart. a woman actually passes out when she sees what's up for grabs during the showcase showdown. when she heard the brand-new car, it was just too much for her to take and down she went. host drew carey and her fellow contestant eventually helped her get up and she went on to win the car. so a bump on the head and a new car. time for your business entrepreneur of the week. kim and mark benson were out of work and down to their last $18,000. she took the lessons she learned losing 200 pounds and sent that money into starting kim's light bagels and a weight watcher meeting website. more wings ! 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description. >> fascinating new comments from the president and we'll talk much more about that comment and perhaps read the tea leaves on what the president was saying there. in the meantime speaking of tea leaves in florida a one-time long shot appears to have taken the lead in the battle for u.s. senate in a new poll. former state house speaker marco rubio is now leading governor charlie crist for the republican nomination 47% to 44%. the quinnipiac poll finds he moves ahead on trust, values and conservative credentials. in october crist had a 15-point lead over rubio. and president obama's picture won't be up in the new york city's times square much longer and could be replaced by sarah palin. an outer wear company that used an image of the president in front of the great wall of china on its giant billboard says it will take it down tomorrow. the white house requested that billboard be removed, actually asked three weeks ago. a spokesperson says the company has reached out to sarah palin but has not heard back from the former alaska governor about her feelings regarding a potential times square billboard. that will be very interesting. but back to work. senator al franken is introducing a plan to put americans back to work. what's inside franken's $10 billion jobs bill? and msnbc.com followed a group of haitian orphans from the destruction in haiti all the way to their new home in the state. amazing pictures of their journey. have thermocontrol™. designed with the comfort of athletic fabrics in mind, stayfree® with thermocontrol™ quickly wicks moisture away for exceptional dryness. so you stay incredibly comfortable no matter where your day takes you. stay dry. stay cool. with thermocontrol™ only from stayfree®. as the great recession? or as the recession that made us great? allstate has seen twelve recoveries. but this one's different. because we're different. we realized our things are not as important... as the future we're building with the ones we love. protect yours. put it... in good hands. ♪ ( cracking, crash ) that was delivered fast! it's not delivery and we'd like it back. - you've reached greg and doug... - that's not yours. - if you leave your name and number... beep. - can i have the pizza back please? new digiorno ultimate toppings pepperoni, with 50% more pepperoni. taste. believe. it's not delivery, it's digiorno. believe this! you can go to vegas with me. enter through facebook for a chance to win... a fantasy football draft party hosted by... jerome bettis and digiorno. more than 7 million americans have lost their jobs since the start of the recession in december 2007 and a number of people out of work as of december 200915.3 million. and that's an unemployment rate of 10% before the recession it was 5%. and we'll soon have new employment numbers come out next friday to add into this equation. nbc's luke russert joins us live from capitol hill where, luke, senate democrats are certainly talking a lot about getting people back to work. al franken proposing something very interesting. tell us about this. >> reporter: there are a few things that are going to happen today, tamron. number one is senate democrats are going to propose an $80 billion jobs bill. republicans call it son of stimulus. democrats say that it's a bill that is necessary to help get folks in america back to work. what is in this bill? four real interesting tenets. number one, it would increase lending to small businesses. a lot of the criticism has gone to democrats saying big banks are not helping out small banks. they will try to write that check. number two, it would give money to cops and firefighters, local and state governments could p - provide jobs for them. number three, it'll go to building bridges, highways, tunnels, infrastructure projects, and, number four, it will try to retrofit a lot of buildings to make them more energy efficient. mr. franken from minnesota has a very interesting proposal under this umbrella which is get $10 billion to simply making schools and public libraries more energy efficient using firms that hire contractors of under 500 employees. so that's an interesting proposal. it could fall under this. timing looks to be in a few weeks from now to get a final vote. it could be filibustered, though, tamron. they will need republican support to get it through. >> luke live for us at capitol hill, thank you very much. >> reporter: take care. president obama is going to press forward with health care and other parts of his agenda despite the political risk. it's a risk that will be measured certainly in november when voters will decide whether to let democrats keep control of congress. already this year ted kennedy's former senate seat has gone to a republican. we know that. there are signs democrats on the president and vice president's former seat could be loosening as well. on the phone larry sabato of the center for politics, larry, thanks for joining us. we played a clip just a few minutes ago of the president saying he would rather be a strong one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. what do you make of the statement there from him? >> well, it's a reasonable thing to say. i'm sure democrats would prefer that he was a good two-term president. obviously when a president is a one-term president that generally means disaster for many of the people in congress and gubernatorial seats and all the rest. >> it's interesting senator evan bayh of indiana was on with "morning joe" and asked about the tough race, the tight race he's facing, new poll numbers out for him as well. the list goes on and on here. let's read the tea leaves. you have beau biden saying he will not run for the seat once occupied by his father. you have the race in illinois turning into an interesting one as well and the predictions, quite honestly, are not good for what the democrats might see in november. >> well, that's true. it's january on my crystal ball we have democrats possibly moving as low as 52 seats currently, of course, they have 59. but it's january. things change. >> but it's been a heck of a january, wouldn't you say? i mean, we're only, you know, a bit into this year and already it's been an incredible one from the economy, what happened in massachusetts and even at the end of last year with the attack -- the botched attack on the airliner. it's been an incredible few months for these democrats. >> it has and you can get certain irreversible decisions made. for example, you mentioned beau biden. he would have had a 50/50 chance of winning that seat in delaware or something close to 50/50. now obviously a democrat will have less of a chance, more of a long shot against congressman mike castle. >> who has raised an incredible amount of money, $1.7 million. >> yeah. that's absolutely true. i always remind people in a small state like delaware it's three counties. only 880,000 people. in a midterm election you will have at most 250,000 to 300,000 people turn out to vote. well, that means you could win a senate seat with 150,000 votes. and, remember, there was a little guy named joe biden who was 29 years old in 1972, the year of the nixon landslide, swept delaware. nixon swept delaware, and biden came out of nowhere as a local official to defeat a former governor and an incumbent senator. so, you know, strange things happen especially in small states when you can campaign person to person. >> it's interesting, larry, the tone you just described, the biden story is how the republicans and some independents are describing scott brown, this little guy with his pickup truck coming in and sweeping through massachusetts. my last question has to do with unemployment. the unemployment number does not look any better, at least the estimates for the midterm election, perhaps even a bit worse the number of people out of jobs. so even though it is only january, the outlook for the number of folks who will be out of work and could be out of work is not good for november. >> yes, and if the unemployment number is still well above 9%, if it's anywhere close to where it is today at 10%, you can pretty much count on republican house gains exceeding 25, 30 seats. so that is a critical number and, again, it's -- there's nothing an incumbent party can do about it when you get close to november. in january it's possible to do some things, and the president will be proposing some in the state of the union to reduce that number. >> all right, larry sabato, thank you for joining us, director of the university of virginia. regrets comparing people to stray animals after telling a town hall crowd that as a child his grandmother told him to quit feeding stray animals because they breed. in a new interview with politico bauer defended the point he was trying to make that federal assistance can create a problem of dependency. bauer, one of the front-runners for the gubernatorial primary, can see that the language he used was unacceptable. and celebrities continue to offer help to haiti. one of them is offering very hands-on approach. actor john travolta and wife kelly preston arrived in haiti with a plane filled with supplies. travolta piloted his own 707 from florida packed with food, medical supplies, doctors and also scientology ministers. and there have been some heartwrenching stories out of haiti the past two weeks we've shared with you and i'm sure you've seen them even online. in particular millions around the world have been mesmerized by the desperate plight of more than 300,000 orphans. those were orphans before the earthquake. our website msnbc.com has been tracking the journey of a pennsylvania church group who sponsored orphans in haiti before the quake. an investigative reporter has followed the story. you spent a week, was it, with these kids. first of all, tell me about this organization and how you even found out about these children. >> well, life church is a church in allentown, pennsylvania. they hadded orphanage before the quake. they didn't plan to run it, it was handed them. someone gave them the keys to the orphanage. they rushed down with supplies and a lot of prayer and went in to see how the kids were to take care of them, to secure the compound. >> where was the orphanage? >> right in port-au-prince, a mile northeast of the airport. they strung razor wire, they took care of those kids, supported them, defended them. essentially after a week they started to deteriorate. they were trying to help the neighbors but the more they helped neighbors, the more people would come, strangers would come to charge their cell phones, to get food, to get water and finally they decided that the situation might not be secure for the children so they bugged out. everybody got in the advance and they went out to the countryside to a new orphanage where the children are safe for now. >> how many children were they able to relocate? >> there were 12. they weren't trying to save hundreds of thousands of orphans. they were trying to save their 12 who they were responsible for. >> this is incredible. i mean, again, they were there when the earthquake hit. thankfully none were injured. >> they had just started at a new school. they were in a new house. the house was cracked and crumbling. but everyone was safe. >> right. >> couldn't go back in the house so they were sleeping in tents outside. >> what struck you -- i'm looking at the video and they're playing and laughing in the midst of all of the sadness in the country. you were telling us about the personalities of these kids blew you away. >> the kids are very sweet. you can watch the full video online. they're very sweet, very loving, they sit around and play dominos. some of them are killer domino players. a couple of the little girls, tom boys, they're ready to fight the boys. they weren't whining. they weren't complaining. they understood what had happened around them. >> really? >> but just right next door three people were killed in a house right next door and they knew about that. they were hearing screaming through the night but they were keeping it together and their church folks protecting them were keeping them very calm and upbeat. >> how many people from the church in pennsylvania were on the ground? >> half a dozen came and then a second wave, another half a dozen, a medical team. they're helping now at a u.n. hospital. they sent out pediatricians and other doctors and they're now distributing, now that the children are out, the church folks have not left. they're helping the neighbors with food, shelter, 2 x 4s and tents. >> are they eligible to be adopted by families, for example, in the u.s.? >> adoptions already under way have been expedited in some cases. some of these kids have parents in haiti. some were true orphans, some were slave children rescued, some abandoned, and some had parents who had dropped them off for safekeeping so there are parents in allentown ready to adopt these children but no one is going to go too fast. >> sure, absolutely. bill, it's incredible reporting and video and pictures. msnbc.com and actually you can read more on msnbc.com about these beautiful children, their fill interactive series of videos and pictures and follow along on their incredible journey and maybe be inspired by their resilience. a whole lot of controversy brewing in colorado after a white supremacist group decided to adopt a highway. colorado's department of transportation gave the national socialist movement a neo-nazi organization, permission to clean up a one-mile stretch of roadway. well, state officials say they have no legal grounds to deny them and decided they had to grant approval. and some troubling new statistics out today about teen pregnancy. the pregnancy rate among 15 and 19-year-olds increased 3% between 2005 and 2006. it is the first jump in more than a decade. and teen abortions also went up in that age group. the data collected by nonprofit organization shows a clear reversal from the downward trend that started in the '90s. police want to talk to the stepfather of a missing oklahoma girl last seen with the child on saturday. we'll have the very latest on that case and the search for little aja. and the president introduces us to an eighth grader looking for help for her crumbling school. that happened at last year's address to the joint session of congress. well, a year later, we're going to tell you how she is doing. this is a very interesting story, a before and after. you will be surprised by what happened. ♪ people say i'm forgetful. maybe that's why we go to so many memorable places. love the road you're on. the subaru outback. motor trend's 2010 sport/utility of the year. it can go from a scratchy throat in the morning. to a cough. to a full body ache... at night. new tylenol cold rapid release gels day and night work fast too. they release medicine fast to relieve painful coughs, congestion and sore throats. so you can rest, day and night. feel better, tylenol cold. and if you think all batteries are the same... consider this: at iowa lakes community college, the students learn to keep america's wind turbines going and to keep them safe, the only battery they trust in their high voltage meters are duracell rechargeables. so whether you're responsible for tomorrow... or enjoying today... it just has to work. duracell smart power. duracell trusted everywhere in oklahoma a father makes a desperate plea for his daughter's safe return. officials have issued an amber alert for this child, aja johnson. she is 7 years old. authorities believe she was taken by her estranged stepfather lester hobbs after he shot and killed her mother. >> i need my little girl back. she is missing. i love her dearly. and she needs her medication. please, lester, if you're listening or anyone out there who knows where she is, please return her. >> covering the story for kosu radio, gail, thanks for joining us. right now we know authorities believe that aja's life could be in danger. where are they focusing this search at this point? >> well, it was originally suspected that lester would be headed to davenport, oklahoma, which is more north and east in the state but he also has relatives who live in california, oregon and texas and so our state authorities have reached out to those states as well. >> in that sad interview with aja's father he said that she needed her medicine, her medication. do we know what he's talking about there? >> well, several different reports talk about the fact that aja may be bi-polar, that she was on medication for attention deficit disorder, those kinds of things. and, like you said, it was a desperate plea by her father that she needs her medicine and wherever she went there was not enough for more than one day. >> what else do you know about this lester hobbs and the circumstances surrounding aja's mother's murder? >> yes, lester hobbs is the estranged husband to aja's mother. he has a past of domestic violence abuse. he was last seen driving a 1992 toyota white paseo car, a two-door car, several tattoos on his arms and hands and he was not supposed to be around aja. aja's mother was not supposed to be in the presence of her daughter, this is according to a court document issued in december, without supervised visitation. so aja's biological father, j.j. johnson, you saw there in the tape, was granted emergency custody of aja in november. >> and, gail, you mentioned that authorities believe that lester hobbs could be headed to his sister's home. is his family cooperate iing wi investigators? >> at this time i don't know any information on that exactly. but, like i said, relatives are in several other states where our state authorities have reached out there. >> we certainly hope this little girl gets to her father. gail, thank you very much. we certainly appreciate the update on aja johnson. the transportation department has announced a ban on texting while driving for truck and bus drivers. those who send and receive text messages take their eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds out of every 6 seconds and that is a 55 miles per hour texting driver is cruising down the entire length of a football field without looking where he or she is going. drivers who violate the new ban could be fined nearly $3,000. and tomorrow's state of the union falls almost exactly one year after the president's first speech before a joint session of congress. and in that speech the president singled out ordinary americans who had inspiring stories of hope and the young girl who desperately wanted her school to be fixed up, the ceo who shared $60 million in profits with employees and was also the story of a town destroyed by massive tornadoes, vowed to rebuild leaner and greener. eli is a national political reporter for t"the washington post" and he checked in on all three of those stories one year later. thanks so much for joining us. let's start off with the schoolgirl. that got a lot of attention, captured so many hearts. recap her story and where she is now for us. >> reporter: well, it got a lot of attention because the president when he was campaigning went and visited her in the school a couple of times and then invited her to the state of the union speech. i think he was really hoping to be able to get her a new school. he's ut a lot into rural education and that was a make campaigning platform for him. unfortunately, sort of a year later, i think things in south carolina and things with the young girl are sort of emblematic of where things are in the kcountry. the economy has been rough and there hasn't been too much progress on the school front. the girl's mother has lost her job. they've had to move to atlanta and the school, which was 112 years old last year is now turning 113 years old. >> and the mayor, bob dixon of greensburg, kansas, devastating tornado. recap that story and where that situation stands for the town and for the mayor. >> reporter: sure. yeah, again, it's indicative of how things are going everywhere. it's a town in kansas that's trying to rebuild and right now the really incredibly difficult thing for them is they can't create enough jobs to build as fast as they want to. the population is still half of what it used to be in large part because they can't get employers to come in. nobody can get a loan. manufacturing companies are cutting back when they hoped they would be growing. unfortunately, the town, even though it's been able to build all these buildings with federal money, is still empty. it's like a state-of-the-art ghost town. >> the banker i mentioned, his story, again, recap a year later. what is his situation? >> reporter: well, i think his situation is great because he has a lot of money and he'll be okay. the frustrating thing for him, i think, his example here really has gone unheeded. it's frustrating for him a year after giving away $60 million a year after the president making a huge example of this, a year later he's waking up picking up the morning headlines and reading about more huge bonuses that are still being given out just to top executives for keeping them for themselves. i think he's really frustrated, frankly, that more people didn't sort of look to what he did and mimic it. the culture just does not change. >> so what struck you most about these three stories other than the obvious that they were supposed to be stories of inspiration but sadly that is not the case a year later? what else struck you? >> well, i mean, what struck me is for all three of them and the lessons they've learned in the last year are probably pretty similar to a lot of the lessons the administration has learned. they have learned they have to be patient. when they sat there in the house chamber for the state of the union, they thought that maybe by now some of these problems would be solved but i think now a year later when they listened to obama speak they're going to take much more of the long view and they're not necessarily going to be pessimistic but i don't think they will have the same unbridled optimism they did a year ago. >> what a compelling report you have there. thank you so much for your time. msnbc will carry the state of the union address live tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. and a canadian after a member o people for ethical treatment of anim animals, threw a tofu cream pie at the canadian ministry yesterday. i'm trying to see the video myself. oh, my goodness. they oppose something that the minister supports and defends. hmmm. hmmm. smooth. rich. fabulous. is it "hmmm?" hmmm. (announcer) taste why maxwell house is good to the last drop. if you choose a sauce based only on the label, you might be missing something. with prego, it's all about the sauce. in a blind taste test, more people preferred prego over bertolli. the sweet and savory taste of prego. it's in there. accidents can happen, but with liberty mutual's new car replacement, if your new car is totaled within the first year, we'll give you the money to buy a brand-new car. and with our accident forgiveness, an accident won't cause your price to go up when you renew. if you qualify, you could save an average of $345. these are just two of our valuable features available to all qualifying drivers. plus, those who switch to liberty mutual save an average of 20.6% over their prior policy. because doing the right thing isn't just for responsible drivers. it's for responsible car insurers, too. that's our policy. find out how much you could save. call us directly at... some women's groups are calling on cbs to say no to tebow. they want the network not to cancel the planned airing of a super bowl ad starring tim tebow and his mother. the ad is controversial because it discusses abortion. the ad reportedly was paid for by the christian group and tells the story of how tebow's mother ignored the doctor's recommendation to abort the pregnancy after being sick on a trip. they have given no indication the protest would have an impact, saying cbs would ensure any ad was appropriate for airing. instead of cutting jobs, ford says it will add more than 1,000 new assembly workers to its roster. the jobs, though, will not be in detroit but in another great american city. phil lebeau is there in chicago. great news for people who want to get back to work. >> the auto industry starting to build back up. they stripped out so many jobs, closed so many plants the last year, year and a half that the production was at a level of producing maybe 10 million vehicles a year. sales are now running above that. you're starting to see the automakers gradually bring back workers, add second shifts. that's what they're doing on the south side of chicago, ford adding 1,200 workers, where they'll build the new explorer suv. ford announcing earlier this month it will be building electric vehicle components as well electric vehicles at a plant in detroit. general motors announcing it will be building electric motors at a plant in the washington, d.c. area. that's coming out today. so, what we're seeing is a gradual increase in jobs for gree green-oriented vehicles or adding shifts at other plants that have been stripped down over the last year and a half. while this is encouraging, tamron, keep this in mind. number of jobs being added over the last couple of months, maybe 5,000, maybe 6,000. last year, the auto industry cut 170,000 jobs. so, this is just a drop in the bucket but certainly some welcomed news for a beaten down industry. >> welcomed news for a family who will benefit from the mom and dad working at that plant. thank you, phil. that does it for me this hour. i'm tamron hall. i'll see you at 3:00 with david shuster. chris jansing picks up the top of the hour, special commission warns the u.s. is not prepared for a biological terrorist attack. chairman of the commission, former senator bob graham will be with chris to explain. bacon? gotta get that bacon! smokey bacon, crispy bacon, tasty bacon! 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