before the joint economic committee. that starts at 10:00 eastern time, and obviously, investors will be looking for hints of a policy shift, although none is expected. if you go with conventional wisdom, this will be more dovish talk. also we get the minutes from last month s fomc meeting, released at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. in other news on the fed, politico is reporting that chairman bernanke met privately last week with house oversight and government reform committee chairman darrell issa, along with other lawmakers. they are said to have talked about the central bank s efforts to try and stimulate the economy and possible exit strategies as well. now, issa sent a letter to bernanke last month expressing display that the fed was not providing lawmakers with more information about how it plans to wind down its bond portfolio. maybe he hasn t wanted those things to leak. the news of this meeting leaked, but the details did not. among some of the other items on today s u.s
and good morning. we begin with new details from that still unfolding story in cleveland. the suspects, three brother, are set to be questioned today by police. they may also formally be charged. the third victim, michele knight is going to be released from the hospital. the other two women are staying at a secret location under the watchful eye of police and coverage begins with abc s devin dwyer. reporter: this cleveland a growing celebration of three lives saved. flowers, balloons and banners welcoming the women home after a decade gone. i m happy that these children were found alive. reporter: missing the longest michele knight seen here in her high school yearbook. her grandmother is still stunned. i didn t think we would ever see her again. reporter: the family of amanda berry who bravely called 911 in disbelief too meeting her 6-year-old daughter jocelyn. missing is amanda s mom who passed away in 2006. what hurts me the most is mandy don t get to see h
cnn s medical unit got an early look and one expert says we re at epidemic levels. dr. sanjay gupta is in atlanta. what are you expecting to hear? elizabeth cohen has been working through the night on getting these numbers. one number, which is important and what we expected. widespread outbreak of the flu. 47 states, up from 41 states with an outbreak of the flu. some good news. the number of states with high levels of activity has gone down from 29 now to 24. two additional deaths in young people, from 18 to 20. but there may be some relief as you say in sight. we are at epidemic threshold. that basically means we are seeing more cases than we expected to see at this time year. big question? will those cases stay elevated or will they start to come down across the country? we keep hearing, get a flu shot, get a flu shot. some got our flu shots early. yes, i m gloating. if you haven t gotten your flu shot yet, is there enough vaccine? i think so. i crunched some number
markets before a great bull run started after that. just pointing that out. financials among the laggers today. jpmorgan chase has been down more than 1%. here s what the markets have done today. lackluster trading in the open this morning, then a move lower around noontime. it was around the time that facebook hit open. the dow saw its biggest declines there. the same thing for the nasdaq, down 27 points right now. 1% decline right now. we re at the lows of the session at 2786 and the s&p is down nine points at 1295. one hour to go before the stock everybody is talking about closes in the first day of trading, of course. we have a bet on this. remember that, bill? yes, we do. we re of course talking about facebook. the stock opened at 11:30 a.m. eastern, got a pop out of the gate. not as strong as some people predicted. it almost slipped to $38 a share, only to bounce back and to hold on the modest gains into the close. it could be the most heavily traded ipo on record
wrong thing. and this is not what the government should be doing. he s wrong there. welcome back to hardball. rick santorum opposes president obama s compromise on contraceptive coverage. doesn t surprise me at all. he has an issue he thinks is tailor made for him. could rick santorum ride this to the nomination? is this the perfect political outcome for the obama administration? john lew said they didn t expect to win over the bishops on this. has obama won over the middle? we didn t expect to get the universal support of the bishops or all catholics. i think that what we have here is a policy that reflects bringing together of two very important principles in a way that s true to the american tradition. david corn is an msnbc political analyst and bureau chief for mother jones magazine. the two principles there, with clear respect for the first amendment, religious liberty, but also respect for women s rights and what s seen by today s standards as full health