dow will hit that record level today. but we'll see where the numbers settle. >> alison kosik, thank you so much. the dow closing there. and bill weir is filling in for jake tapper today. "the lead" starts right now. it isn't what vogs are saying about the passengers of flight 370 that's alarming. it's what they're not saying about the crew. i'm bill weir, and this is "the lea lead". in the world lead, four days, that's how long those pingers on the black boxes may have left, if they're even still working at all. as the search zone shifts yet again, more ships are on the way to intensify the hunt for the missing plane. and investigators finally admit what cnn has reported for days, that the plane's disappearance is considered a criminal act. somehow they say they've cleared every single passenger on board of suspicion, but they've yet to do the same for the dozen crew members. also in world news, he was

linked to the group that took 52 americans hostage in iran and held them 444 days. now, he's seeking a visa to come to the united nations as iran's ambassador. should the u.s. let him in? welcome to "the lead." jake tapper has a little bit of laryngitis. i think he sounds like barry white. his doctor disagrees, so i'm sitting in. australia, the base of operations for missing flight 370 which disappeared 27 days ago after taking off from his country with 239 souls on board. the prime minister is the one who broke the news to families more than a week ago that investigators now believe that plane went down somewhere in the indian ocean. malaysian officials, of course, have taken heavy beating, criticism for their handling of this baffling mystery.

and more ships are on the way to the search zone as we e speak. pentagon spokesperson tells cnn the u.s. has spent nearly $3.5 million on the search. that's just for everies in the air. u.s. hasn't spent a dime yet on undersea operations. let's bring in our aviation correspondent rene marsh. why is the search zone being shifted again? >> yes, again, and, bill, we'll tell you last friday up until this tuesday, crews had been scanning one area off the coast of australia, but now they say they've searched that area, found nothing so, they're shifting the zone again. as for the criminal investigation and who's responsible, some have been ruled out while others remain under the microscope. 25 days in and malaysian police say they remain focused on the pilots and anyone who had contact with flight 370 before takeoff, ranging from those who prepared on board food to one who is packed the cargo.

>> this is a criminal investigation, it is ongoing. we have not concluded the whole thing. >> reporter: malaysian investigators have been treating the disappearance of flight 370 as criminal since march 16th. four areas of interest, hijacking, sabotage, and personal or psychological issues. so far, police say all passengers have been cleared in those four categories. as for mechanical failure, it's still on the table. aviation authorities are investigating that. wednesday families of chinese passengers were briefed privately on the latest. malaysian officials called it a good meeting. family members had a different take. >> i don't think it just give us any useful information because they just sent us to ask questions for -- we just ask four or five questions and after that they said the investigation team is very busy. >> reporter: meantime, the search zone shifted yet again.

ten planes and nine ships are now zeroing in on an area in the indian ocean slightly eastward of the april 1st zone where they found nothing. despite the dead ends, there's no talk of quitting. >> i think if you ask the australian prime minister what his long-term intentions would be, he'd say we'll be searching for this aircraft till hell freezes over. >> reporter: more ships have been dispatched including a british submarine with advance sonar. the australian ship, ocean shield, reaches the zone in another day. on board is a pinger locator, designed to find beacons on the black boxes, which will stop pinging in days. if they haven't already. and what about those satellite images? we haven't seen any new ones in a while, and it really is unclear why, if you remember, we saw many day after day just last month. it could be officials are tired of being wrong. those images gave false hopes. many of those objects turned out to be garbage. but one experts suggests it could be that the best eyes

people on ships and in planes are already in the zone so he says only use satellite images when you don't have anything else. bill? >> all right. rene marsh, appreciate your reporting there. let's bring in our cnn aviation analysts, miles o'brien, david soucy. good to have you both back. miles, what do you make of this new emphasis on the malaysian airline on cockpit security, that month one pilot could ever be alone up there? is that a law already in the states? >> it is. that's standard operating procedure, post 9/11 procedure in the u.s., the reinforced cockpit door. anytime the flight crew leaves the cockpit for any reason, another crew member, a cabin person, or another person, a backup pilot, would go on board and be on the flight deck. for security, this is to help see when he comes back to the door to identify the right person a is at the door and open

the door for that person. this is surprising to a lot of us who follow aviation that malaysia had not followed that procedure up until now. this tells us there's a lot of focus on a deliberate act. was there a passenger, another crew member who commandeered and got into the flight deck alone or in fact one of the flying pilots that was there alone and was able to do something -- the term we've been using a lot is nefarious. so a high-time captain could convince a low-time junior first officer to get him a cup cfo fee and be alone on that flight deck. >> we'll get into this, the idea that the malaysian authorities have cleared every passenger on that. let me talk to you about the malaysian inspector general saying this mystery, quote, would never be solved. at some point you have to wonder

is this lost hope, is this real ism? is he setting expectations? we've never seen anything like this, so it's hard to know where the line is. right? >> remember where that's coming from, from the investigation of the criminal intent. he says it will never be solved, i can understand that from a criminal point of view. even evidence of the site may not give them any clues as to whether it was criminally invoked or not. so i want to at least in my mind hope that he's not saying we'll never solve the mystery because i think we will. with the evidence we find when we find it. they'll keep going until they find something, until hell freezes over. >> miles, in terms of the search as we heard there, 3.5 million bucks on airplane surveillance there. why not put an aircraft carrier out there? >> i've been asking this question, bill, since, you know, the beginning and did ask the chief spokesman at the pentagon. he said, well, the "george washington," the aircraft

carrier in japan 7th fleet which could be there in less than a week if it started steaming with those nuclear power plants going, could be on site and eliminates a lot of the issues of range, could put helicopters in close proximity to potential wreckage sites, a lot of eyes on target as it were. he said, well, george washington has tasks currently and frankly no one's asked to have it. it's sort of up to the malaysians to say, hey, we could use an aircraft carrier. given the conditions now and the conditions in the future, winter coming, why not put more aircraft and ships on target? >> i suppose it's a strategic question as well, but if any country can afford an extra aircraft carrier in that area, it would be us. what about this, david, the families of these 18 chinese passengers meeting privately for three hours today with the malaysian government? we're spoiled after, you know, in a dark way when the ntsb has control of investigations like this. at least they give you something

every day. do you get the sense they just don't have anything to share? >> to me that's management trying to do more personalized communication. they've got a lot of fault for texting out the messages th s t had before. they' trying to personalize this, manage their losses as far as how they're telling people that they don't know much. i think that's a critical part of the investigation right now. it's just managing the fact that they don't know. >> and, miles, if they can't hear a ping and let's just say they can't find any flu shot otm the plane, how long do they keep following that grid across the indian ocean? >> until the weather becomes too adverse. eventually they'll have to quit for the winter, and that's a hard thing to say for the families -- we've found nothing and now we can't even search because the seas are too high, there's no chance we can even retrieve any wreckage. hopefully they can keep going for a while. we'll have to see how the weather goes. but it's such a large area that

they're really going to have to get lucky to find eve an piece of wreckage at this point. finding a piece of wreckage after all this time then backtracking to where the plane was in the water, that's a whole other matter. >> right. and you get the sense, david, the aussies are taking over? would that be a good thing if they did? >> more than a sense. they've been officially dictated to have everything from -- everything they find out there, china, whatever ships, boats, whatever airplanes find anything, it has to be centrally located. that's classic example of how to handle this investigation. it has to be controlled. everything has to be indexed, everything has to be kept track of in one singular point. >> they say they had an air-traffic controller to keep track. you'd like to think that means the skies are filled with search planes but only ten at any one time. >> yeah. and before we were talking about throw everything we've got at it and that makes sense, but to me it looks like they're having a hard time managing what they have now if you look at how that search pattern has moved. it doesn't seem to be sense cal to me, but i don't have all the information so i'm not judging

it. just saying it doesn't look very sensible. >> david, miles, as always, appreciate your insight. coming up, it is not an answer, but it is a response. the strict new rules malaysia airline pilots will have to follow even though there's still no clue as to what happened in that cockpit. and general motors' ceo hearing on more apologies the day after the company has dragged -- discovered to have dragged its feet on a potentially deadly problem for ten years. would this stop you from buying a gm car?

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investigators are removing much of the suspicion about passengers, scrutiny remains intently on the pilots and the crew of flight 370. while there's not a sh lred of e evidence that the captain or co-pilot had anything to do with that sudden turn from the flight plan, malaysia airlines is putting strict new guidelines in place for its cockpits. pamela brown is, following this for us. we could start with confirmation, what we have been reporting for a lot of days here, that this is criminal. >> absolutely. but now malaysian officials are saying this on the record as we've been talk about on the show, bill, saying this is a criminal investigation. also we're learning from sources close to malaysia airlines, bill, that the company sent out a memo to its employees basically boosting cockpit security. here's a couple of notes from that memo. one prohibits any pilot or first officer being left in the cockpit alone, and then also if either need to leave the cockpit a senior cabin steward must take

their place until they return. a new development today is the fact that investigators say they have cleared all 227 passengers from being responsible for bringing down the plane. so that means that they are basically ruled out that those passengers were involved in a sabotage, hijacking, those other scenarios that we've been discussing, those possible theories. but i've spoken to an investigator here in the u.s., and he says basically -- he says how can you be so sure that these passengers didn't play a role in bringing down the plane. let's take a listen. >> you're talking about investigating passengers which resided in 14 different countries, which requires tremendous coordination internationally across law enforcement agencies. so that everything's been cleared is an outrageous statement in my mind. it take miss months to do a thorough investigation to look for any potential motive. >> however, police do say they will continue questioning passengers' relatives and anyone else who may have had access to the plane. but again as we heard there from sean henry, who was formerly

with the fbi, it seems a little premature to clear all the passengers. >> you don't have to be a cop to say that doesn't make sense, how could they have gone through that list. is this the equivalent of fbi in malaysia or local police? >> what we also need to make clear, we're dealing with a language difference here so perhaps something was lost in translation. that's been something that the experts i've been speaking to have been concerned about from the beginning because during the press conferences you hear certain words, we don't know if cleared means we didn't find anything in their background to mean alarming but to us is that means they've ruled out these passengers having any development. perhaps there's a discrepancy with this, but, yeah, it's the malaysia police saying, look, we've cleared them. >> say that's true. say they managed somehow to knock 227 people off the list. that leaves the crew and the pilots, which they've had 27 days to look into now. so how do you think that goes? >> well, you know, authorities have been focussing a lot on the crew, of course, ever since this investigation really began.

they've been focusing on the captain and the co-pilot from that doomed flight. if for no other reason than they were in charge in the cockpit but a senior malaysian government official told cnn they found nothing to indicate either of them are responsible for the plane's disappearance and at this point they're not accusing them but they're also not letting them off the hook along with those other crew members who had access to the cockpit. but they continue to investigate down to every mi nut detail here, bill. we're talking what the crew members ate, if they ate the same meals of course and who even prepared food. they're looking at everything. and also interesting to note here, even though they're saying it's a criminal investigation, they're also saying they're not ruling out mechanical malfunction as a possible cause. so bottom line, they just don't know why that 777 is missing. >> don't know. >> don't know anything. >> the latest on day 27. >> yeah. >> thanks so much. coming up on our politics lead, the supreme court rules that it is your right to pump money to as many candidates as

you want. but what does that mean for the future of elections? and in the world lead, he was part of the group that stormed the u.s. embassy in iran and took americans hostage. now he's been tapped to represent his country at the united nations. and american lawmakers and former hostages are livid. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody...

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welcome back. the politics lead, today the supreme court struck down the overall political donation limit. now under the new ruling you can still only give 5200 bucks to a candidate per election cycle. but now you'll be able to give 5200 bucks to to as many candidates as you want. chief justice john roberts says the cap on total donations intruded, quote, without

justification on a citizen's ability to express the most fundamental first amendment activities, end quote. arguing on the other side in dissent, justice stephen breyer said the change will create, quote, huge loopholes of law and undermines perhaps devastate what is remains of campaign finance reform. and american lawmakers, as you might imagine, are equally split. >> freedom of speech is being upheld. >> all it does is take away people's rights because as you know they're trying to buy america. >> let's bring in dana bash with more on this. good to see you. tell me about the real-world implications. how is it going to affect this election psycycle? >> well, when it comes to which party is going to benefit more, along the lines of conversations i've been having with sources today, it seems as though in a bipartisan way there sort of ayn greemt it's probably going to be a wash that democrats and republicans are going to make more money, have more money,

particularly in the campaign committees because it's not just individual candidates but the campaign committees also can get unlimited donations from individuals. but what opponents are really upset about is that it's not so much this specific decision. they see a pattern at the supreme court for just chipping away at limits for federal donations and that this is just the latest step for citizens united, what was the biggest, but there could be more to come given the way the supreme court is ruling on all these issues. >> citizen united is of course a scourge for democrats in this town. president obama got scolded by samuel alito in the state of the union. but does this mean they lose power? is this money that would have gone into a super pac, so-called dark money now coming out into the light? >> that is sort of the counter way to look at it. some sources i talked to, democrats, are looking at it that way, saying, you know what, if there is a really rich person out there who has wanted to give more than the limits have

allowed until today, then their only option was to get to these outside groups. now they can give in a more regulated, directed way to campaign committees and also to candidates. the downside, of course, is that as somebody who watches members of congress on capitol hill, many, many days, every day almost run from their committee rooms and run from their votes outside the capitol to use every waking moment to dial for dollars. >> right. >> going to have to do that even more because there's more money available to everybody, which means they'll have to spend more time. >> i think most people would be stunned to realize how much time lawmakers spend asking people for money. >> instead of doing the jobs their constituents sent them to do. i will tell you that to a person on both sides they don't like it, and that is a bipartisan disdain. >> dana bash, thank you. in other politics news now, after the white house's muddled response to the attacks on the u.s. diplomatic post in benghazi, libya, he took the

blame and then he took the exit. but former cia deputy director michael morrell today denied any kind of cover-up or political influence behind the edits he made to those now infamous talking points used by the white house. yet he claims he was not the one who removed the reference to al qaeda. republicans on the house intelligence committee remain suspicious that the white house was pulling morrell's strings at the time. >> you made significant substantive changes for the white house, whether it was on bee half, we don't know, but we know you are the one who made those changes. >> ma'am, if you look at the record, what you will see is the changes i made were fully consistent with what our analysts believed at the time. >> four americans were killed in the september 11th, 2012, attacks in benghazi including ambassador chris stephens. for days afterward the administration blamed a spontaneous protest over an

anti-muslim video which turned out to be false. up next on "the lead," he has a duty to contribute to peace, security, and human rights. but has hostage-taker on his iranian resume. now the white house is under pressure from people on both sides of the aisle and from former hostages to keep him out of the country. i dbefore i dosearch any projects on my home. i love my contractor, and i am so thankful to angie's list for bringing us together. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. those little cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours.

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the man identified as one of the people responsible for the iran hostage crisis is heading to new york city after iran's presidents tapped him as ambassador to the united nations, a move former hostages are calling, quote, a slap in the face. our foreign affairs reporter elise l elise lavit has details. >> the hostage crisis was the catalyst for three decades of hatred between the u.s. and iran

and both countries trying to put the relationship on a better footing and with this appointment of this former student involved in the hostage taking group, the u.s. and the hostages themselves are thinking, what are the iranians thinking? >> reporter: he was an iranian student involved in taking americans hostage.

because what his past would clearly get in the way of his present. >> and that's why, bill, this is not going over well on capitol hill. senators trying to block the appointment. senator ted cruz has proposed legislation denying a visa to any supposed former terrorist and that's why with the congress so important to this nuclear deal with iran that the obama administration is really hoping the iranians reconsider. >> elise, thank you. let's go up to the hill to get some of those voices right now let's turn to congressman elliott angle, senior democrat on the house foreign affairs committee. part of the buried lead, congressman, is you're agreeing with ted cruz on this, who calls

this move by the iranians willfully, deliberately contemptuous and you're opposed as well. but why? i can understand the outrage of those held hostage but at a certain point hard pressed to find anybody in iran's diplomatic core that you could talk to without seeing them as an enemy in some way. >> well, let me just say this. for ted cruz and angle to agree on something it has to be right. this fellow being a communicator for those who took hostages, i think it's a terrible insult to the united states at a time when iran is talking with us, purportedly is doing that in good faith sh, they continue to wreak havoc in other places of

the world, major funder of hezbollah, continue to do that with impunity, and now this, which is a real slap in the face. the iranians should withdraw their nomination and should send somebody else, because this -- all of us that were alive at the time remember that hostage crisis and not something we can turn a blind eye too. >> is this from president rue waw rouhani or the supreme leader ayatollah? >> we have no way of knowing. obviously the supreme leader is the final decisionmaker on things like this. i've always said that rouhani, it's not clear to me that heck make any of these decisions without the blessings of the supreme leader. it's just very, very troubling. it's a slap in the face to americans. and it ought to be withdrawn. and, you know, it's very difficult for us to block a diplomat from coming in.

but if it's proven that he was part and parcel of it, i would urge our authorities to deny him entry into the country. >> i was looking at the rules, we have a 60-plus-year agreement with the united nations that we have to let anybody in but they are limited to a 25-mile radius of manhattan, so they can't go to disneyland but they can get into your district, congressman. let me ask you about whether this sort of thing throws a wrench into our nuclear disarmament talks. do you think this is a deal breaker? as you said so, much going on with russia, with syria, but for the nukes, is this a problem? >> it's a problem for me in that again if iran is negotiating with us in good faith, and i hope these talks with iran are successful. i want them to be successful, but i have my grave doubts but a, you know, first of all while these talks are going on, iran continues to enrich, that's troubling. and secondly, as i've just

stated, there are events going on in syria in that terrible civil war where iran is part and parcel of the starvation and the civilian population. and they continue to support his followers, his terrorist organizations. it's as if the iranians are thumbing their noses at us saying we're going to negotiate with you but we're not going to change any of our bad behavior while we're negotiating. it seems to me if you're really serious in having negotiations that are fruitful, you'd stop some of the outrageous behavior. and sending this diplomat to new york as their representative to the u.n. is just another indication that the iranians think they can get away with anything. that, i think, is is an ominous sign to their seriousness in these nuclear talks. >> you didn't even mention the fake american aircraft airier

they're building perhaps propaganda purposes. thanks for your time. wolf blitzer wandered over from "the situation room." >> not a far walk. >> good to be in the dome sil here in washington, d.c. >> thank you. how do you like it here? >> i'm figuring it out. >> nice setup we have here. >> yeah. good people. >> part of our team. >> i'm proud to be on your team. we could tell stories. you've got the australians coming up. they've taken the lead. >> the australian ambassador to the united states to tell us the latest of what's going on with the search. so frustrating. first they start off outside malaysia in the south china sea, then they say never mind, go to the southern part of the indian ocean, then they say never mind. then they go 700 miles north, then they say never mind. now they're 200 miles east? what's going on with this search? do they know what they're doing? the australians are obviously deeply involved. we'll get the latest. >> we look forward to it coming up at the top of the hour. on "the lead" next, a pledge to do the right thing that comes nearly ten years too late.

gm's ceo plays defense on capitol hill for the second day in a row as members of the senate paint the company's recall scandal not only as deceptive but criminal. and it won't do much to help in the spirit of flight 370 but could the latest move by malaysia's government help repair the country's image? at od, whatever business you're in, that's the business we're in

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introducing the xfinity my account app. welcome back. i'm bill weir in for jake tapper today. we turn to the money lead now. criminal, deceitful, and just down right cheap. that's pretty much how members of a senate subcommittee summed up general motors' failure to recall millions of faulty parts during a hearing on capitol hill today. gm's ceo mary barra was called back for a second round of questioning and was drill ed on what the company knew about the flawed ignition switches and why it failed to act for near lay decade. 13 deaths and 32 crashes have been linked to the defect since red flags were first raised back in 2001. poppy harlow joins us from chill with details.

we saw some tough questions on day one. how did mary barra do today? >> reporter: she faced even tougher questions from the senate committee in two-plus hours of testimony. the ceo of general motors opening her testimony saying she is deeply sorry for the lives lost. we know that at least 13 lives were lost as a result of this ignition switch failure. but democratic senator claire mccaskill, who chairs this committee, in the hearing said let's call this, quote, a culture of cover-up, quote, egregious violations of public trust, to give you a sense of the tone in the hearing room. senators just like members of the house wanting to know why general motors did not come forward for a decade about a problem that they knew about that in 2004 if not earlier. what we do know is gm created a new part, a new ignition switch part that didn't give that part another number. that is very abnorm for this company or any auto company to do.

that was the real focus of the questioning, is was this a cover-up or was this just extremely sloppy work and a lack of communication? i want you to listen to what kelly ayotte had to say. >> the fact that there would be two identical parts, in other words, one's defective and one isn't, and you didn't change the part number strikes me as deception. and i think it goes beyond unacceptable. i believe this is criminal. >> it is not an appropriate practice to do. it is not acceptable. it is crucial. it's engineering principle 101 to change the part number when you make a change. >> reporter: here's what's critical. if this is found to be criminal, that is a huge problem for general motors. we know the justice department has launched a criminal probe, but that is all we know. we don't know the findings. this is really the beginning, bill. i can tell you mary barra did say today again in testimony

that, look, the company prebankruptcy in 2009 had more of a cross culture focus than focusing on the consumer. she's promised time and time again that is changed in a new gm, but senator barbara boxer said i'm held responsible for things i did yesterday and this company needs to be held responsible as well. this is a ceo ha has been working at general motors for more than 30 years. she was one of the head people in product development and engineering, so i think lawmakers are having a hard time stomaching this, how did she and all the other executives have no idea. >> poppy harlow reporting from the capitol, thank you. it is reasonable to wonder what kind of impact this recall scandal will have on gm's image, not to mention the company's bottom line. we bring in the author of the book "engines of change," a guy who won a pulitzer covering gm scandals of years past. paul, good to see you again. >> same here, bill. >> we so wanted to believe gm was back.

this was such a great from the ashes, a phoenix rises story. but this looks really horrible for this company. try to quantify it. how bad is it? >> it will be a problem financially. it won't be crippling. they have the financial resources to handle this, but in terms of their image and reputation, which is a huge part of selling cars, i mean, consumer confidence has a direct relation to people's willingness to buy a certain brand of automobile, and this is going to be a problem, i think, for a long time for them. it smeks of back to the future, the other gm. and this will be a huge time crunch for the executives. instead of focusing onñ5 "3múyp marketplace and getting the better of toyota and ford, they'll be tied up in legal proceedings, investigation,

congressional hearings, all kinds of things. ó will be significant short-term damage but most of it will not be financial. >> the stock down a little this year, but up a quarter, 25% from last year. let me ask you about that management question because mary barra, she's the first female, you know, gm there, but -- or ceo gm, but she didn't come from outside the industry. she's been there her whole career. it would be easy to blame a lot of this on rick wagoner and a lot of the guy who is drove this company into bankruptcy. but we thought that crisis had gotten the hue brbris out of th boardroom. what does it say about systemic issues about this company? >> that is the fundamental question here. i mean, mary barra got up in front of congress yesterday, in front of the senate today, and she said, hey, that was the old gm. we have a new culture now. the question is what's the proof of the new culture? it's one thing for the ceo to

get up and say we have a new culture, but it's another thing for the company to fundamentally change its ways of behavior. look, all of this happened in the past. but nonetheless, you know, it's been five years since the bailout in bankruptcy of 2009 and none of this was really addressed during that time. so that is a fundamental question. has the company's culture really changed? is there a culture of accountability, responsibility? she did appoint a new vp for product safety, but i believe he reports two or three levels down from her, does not report directly to her. these are all things that only bechaifr answer, not testimony in front of congress. >> would you buy stock in gm these days? >> you know, the market doesn't like uncertainty, and i think this is going to create an aura of urn certauncertainty, so invs will be careful. there's a couple of issues on the legal front here, one of the

issues that has clearly already surfaced is whooo what kind of legal liability they will have to victims of families, even though this is the -- those liabilities could have been wiped out in a legal sense by bankruptcy. you know, the company may have to play -- are morally obligated to pay some restitution. but the other issue is this -- general motors just got the government out of its ownership structure a few months ago, went public. you've got to almost wonder whether it might be shareholder lawsuits that say, hey, i invested in this company, i bought shares in the ipo of the new and reborn general motors, but this was not disclosed in any of the disclosure documents that led up to the ipo, potential liability. i don't know if that will happen or how valid such a claim will be, but this is clearly a field day for lawyers. >> paul, always appreciate your insight. thanks.

>> thanks, bill. coming up marx lay sha's prime minister gets a first hand look at home base for the flight 370 search operation, but could his latest trip be more about optics than actual investigating? we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪

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in the world lead, in what may be an attempt to change the country's pe sepgs as out of touch, the prime minister is getting up close and personal with some of the key players involved in the search. our correspondent is in perth where the prime minister will be later today. what are they saying about this trip? >> he's expected to alive in the next few hours or so, bill, and when you talk about the optics, he e will be doing this in front of news cameras, touring the base, shaking hands with the search teams that are taking to

the air every single day. he will be arriving just as the search begins. he will also be getting briefs on the actual search itself. and he will be meeting with australia's prime minister. the timing on that, we're not exactly sure. but again, he arrived here last night. it's a very short trip, about 24 hours, and all of this happening, bill, as you point out, as his country is getting raked over the coals for its handling of the investigation. >> we've been talking about four days of battery life left in those black boxes hopefully, but it doesn't matter if no one's out there listening for the pings. is the ship carrying that navy device in the search zone yet? >> reporter: it is almost there, from what we understand. it is scheduled for late tonight or early friday australia time but it's not much use unless debris is found.

the clock still ticking, hoping they find some debris. >> thanks for your reporting. that's it. i'm bill weir. jake tapper may be back tomorrow. or maybe i'll be here as well. but bedo know that wolf blitzer has the latest in "the situation room" which starts now. bill, thanks very much. the mystery of flight 370. malaysian authorities openly confirm the investigation is criminal and has been indeed for weeks. passengers are cleared of wrongdoing, but the flight crew, the cargo handlers, the food service personnel are still under scrutiny. new security rules, malaysia airlines decides that no pilots or first officer may remain alone in the cockpit. so why did it take them so long to do what the united states has been doing for years? and the air search is to resume shortly, but the search zone once again has been moved. thrive australia. i'll speak