today is saturday, march 26th, winter really over? today is saturday, march 26th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. welcome to today. i m lester holt. and i m amy robach and i m really sick of putting on gloves and hats and scarves. it s spring. dude, where did you put my spring. we re just a week away from april, but the snow and bitter cold make it more like early january. we know it s going to end. we think it s going to end. but when? we ll get to the weather in a moment and we re certainly hoping for good news. also coming up, the search for a missing honor student. the north carolina student vanished three days after christmas and now police are struggling to turn up any heeds as her family endures the pain. we ll have an update. we ll also head to italy where amanda knox is back in court convicted of killing her british roommate. this morning the prosecution is putting their key witness on the stand. we re live in italy with
to grow. a bunch of events going on down here today. a marathon that will be running not far from here. you do need jackets and perhaps gloves. i can t remember wearing gloves at a cherry blossom festival kickoff. there is also a chill in the hearts of those attending this year s festival. i want to step aside. there is indeed a certain solemn knit to this year ace festival because of the devastation in japan. last week, hundreds took part in a candlelight vil vigil. a lot has happened over the ensuing 99 years. this annual blooming significesa peaceful state of relations. you do get that sense, very serene, beautiful. is it everything you expected? it is more, really gorgeous. reporter: we are getting the organizers of this year s festival say they expect the peak period to be sometime between march 29th and april 3rd so you still get time to get down here and see the peak of all of this. another annual event is a yoga demonstration, over by the sylvan theater. this
jim: kentucky with 15 seconds. clark: they should go for the last one at about eight seconds. jim: it s in knight s hand jim: kentucky with 15 seconds. it s in knight s hand. he beat princeton at the gun. yes, with five seconds! ohio state racing up the floor. their season on the line. buford for the line. no, and kentucky pulls off the monster upset. wildcats take out the number one overall seed of the tournament! greg g.: and that s how it wound down in newark just a few seconds ago. the kentucky wildcats knocking off the number one overall seed in the tournament, the ohio buckeyes. meanwhile on tbs taking place right now, 2:30 to play, the rams of v.c.u. with a four-point lead on the seminoles of florida state. 65-61. with that we welcome you to road to the final four. greg gumbel along with greg anthony, kenny smith and charles barkley. just a terrific game and as i said to you when you walked back into the studio you have to give all the credit in the world to john cal
core breach at one of the damaged nuclear plants and contaminated water likely seeped from the reactor core exposing three workers to 10,000 times the amount of radiation normal for that area. now, this news comes as the body count from the disaster passed 10,000 and more than 17,400 people are still listed as missing. a virginia man teaching english in japan has made it back from the quake-stricken country. donny donovan was not able to fly back home on this past monday. he just wrapped up his program with his teachers just before the quake. he started the long trek back to his apartment and on the way the devestation began to sink in. where i was living the damage didn t look too terribly bad. i mean, once you have seen on t.v. what happened, i feel like i m fairly lucky what happened to where my place was. he spent four days in an overflow shelter after the earthquake. the u.s. embassy got him a flight back home but he will be head being back in two weeks. a power