probably wouldn't have caused problem for construction but painting. >> opening tonight. >> nbc "nightly news" is next. we will have more on the bay area at 6:00. we will see you tonight. high anxiety. tonight nuclear inspectors head to iran, as the war of words flares and the u.s. urges israel not to attack. matter of face. the culture wars explode on the campaign trail. why rick santorum has the obama campaign lashing out. >> body shop, a surge in american boomers going in for new knees, as refusing to slow down takes a toll. and on the move. news tonight about those world famous ruby red slippers. captions paid for by nbc-universal television

>> good evening, everyone. despite fresh signs iran is expanding its nuclear program, the u.s. tonight is publicly calling on a jittery israel not to launch an attack. joint chiefs of staff chairman general martin dempsey along with britain's foreign minister today said an attack on iran would have grave consequences for the entire region. israel fears iran is close to building a nuclear weapon. the u.s. wants israel to give economic sanctions more time to work. iran, meantime, was demonstrating its own resolve today. we have two reports beginning in tehran with nbc's ali arouzi. >> reporter: lester, iran remains defiant in the face of international pressure. the oil ministry announced that it was cutting off oil supplies to britain and france after the european union imposed sanctions on iran's fuel exports. there are few signs that iran intends to back down from its nuclear path. western diplomats say iran is

moving to expand its production of enriched uranium at an underground facility but lacks some of the key equipment. the international atomic agency has not commented but is due to start a three-day visit tomorrow in its latest attempt to assess the scope of iran's nuclear program. meanwhile iran flexed its military muscle again today, starting a two-day military land exercise while its navy sent two warships to syria. they entered the mediterranean by the suez canal. this is only the second time this has happened since the islamic revolution in 1979. at the same time, iran's foreign minister announced today that iran was willing to move quickly to resume talks with world powers after those talks collapsed a year ago. lester. >> let's get washington's take on this now from nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell. >> reporter: good evening, lester. the obama administration believes that tehran is blustering, that iran's oil

exports were already about to be shut down by european sanctions. in fact the u.s. believes those tough sanctions is why iran has just agreed to finally come back to nuclear talks. u.s. officials are hoping those negotiations could prompt iran to eventually agree not to pursue a weapons program, but israel is not on the same page. today america's top military official, general martin dempsey, who was in tel aviv last month, called iran rational, a rational actor, but said israel does not accept the u.s. view and is not ready to trust diplomacy. he spoke to fareed zakaria. >> a strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn't achieve their long-term objectives. but i also understand that israel has national interests that are unique to them. of course they consider iran to be an exotential threat. we are of the opinion that the

iranian regime is a rational actor and that's why the current path we're on is the most prudent path at this point. >> reporter: tonight president obama's national security adviser is in israel and met with israel's prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, only the latest in a series of u.s. envoys trying to persuade israel that iran does not yet have the technical capacity to build a bomb, hasn't decided to build a weapons program and that sanctions could still work. there was more blood shed in syria today. activists say dozens of people were killed during the continued crackdown by government forces. meantime syrian state tv is reporting on the assassinations of a state prosecutor and a judge killed during an ambush near the border with turkey. to presidential politics now and the continued rise of the culture wars on the campaign trail. tonight the obama campaign is lashing out at rick santorum over comments about the president that santorum says were misinterpreted.

ron mott has the details on the trail for us tonight in steubenville, ohio. ron, good evening. >> reporter: hey, lester, good evening to you. rick santorum has planned a campaign stop here in steubenville for tomorrow morning. meantime today he stopped just long enough to try to clarify some comments he made that some interpreted as a knock on president obama's faith. >> it's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. >> reporter: after saying the president's energy philosophy was based on a phony theology saturday -- >> i wasn't suggesting the president is not a christian. >> reporter: rick santorum had a real challenge, separating religion from theology, no less on a sunday. >> so, senator, i've got to ask you, what in the world were you talking about, sir? >> well, i was talking about the radical environmentalists. that's why i was talking about energy. >> your use of the word "theology" or do you wonder that that might lead some people to suggest that you were questioning the president's faith? >> well, no, because i've

repeatedly said i don't question the president's faith. i've repeatedly said that i believe the president is christian, he says he's a christian, but i am talking about his world view. >> reporter: each of the republican candidates has voiced disapproval on the president's stance on energy and the environment. only santorum, who serves in the polls after winning an election trifecta earlier this month has linked him to theology. the former pennsylvania senator not only explained his use of that word this morning, he also answered to critics questioning his theory that prenatal care leads to more abortions. >> the bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions. >> reporter: meantime, mitt romney remained out of the spotlight sunday in utah, where he took part in 10th anniversary celebrations this weekend for the '02 winter olympics. back on the campaign trail, ron paul played to large crowds in missouri saturday before heading to north dakota today. while newt gingrich focused on

his home state of georgia, citing the importance of home field advantage. >> if any of the three of us lose our home state, if santorum loses pennsylvania, romney loses michigan or i lose georgia, you have, i think, a very, very badly weakened candidacy for any one of the three of us. >> reporter: this week could be crucial in the campaign. there is a debate scheduled for wednesday night in arizona. it's the only debate between now and super tuesday on march 6th, lester. >> all right, ron, thanks. we want to bring in cnbc's john harwin. let's talk about this home state advantage or maybe disadvantage. depending how it all slices down. romney finds himself behind in his home state in michigan. how big a development is that if he can't pull off michigan? >> reporter: lester, this is fascinating. we're about to find out in eight days whether or not mitt romney can use superior resources and negative ads to stop rick santorum's surge as he stopped newt gingrich's earlier. if he can't do that in his native state, we'll know that he is a badly weakened candidate and rick santorum has a real shot at this republican nomination.

>> we heard rick santorum and a question of whether he misspoke on the issue of theology. clearly he has strong conservative social viewpoints. that plays well with the base right now. how does that play, though, later on with moderates and independents? >> reporter: well, that's exactly what the white house was trying to call attention to, to hitting back. first they're trying to protect themselves against any questioning of his faith, just as they did on his birth certificate earlier. but they want to try to cast rick santorum as out of the mainstream, somebody whose views on contraception and a range of social issues are things that independent voters, especially women in suburban areas and swing states simply can't live with. >> john, thanks very much. there's late word tonight of a deadly avalanche at a washington state ski resort. local authorities say three people were killed, several more were missing in the snow, but they have since been found. the ski patrol says it has recovered the bodies of the three skiers who died. it happened at the stevens pass ski area located about 90 miles east of seattle.

there is signage up letting everybody know that these are out of bounds areas and they opted to ski those particular areas. after soaking much of the southern u.s. tonight, a large winter storm has churned north into much colder territory, dumping snow across several states. weather channel meteorologist mike seidel joins us now from southern virginia. mike, how's it looking out there? >> reporter: well, it's a snowy evening here in southwest virginia, lester. this follows a morning where they saw more snow in one hour than they have seen all season and following yesterday's highs in the 60s, this is quite a turn-around. a taste of reality for one day. take a look at the roads today and the visibility down to about a quarter mile or less on i-81 here in virginia. also heavy snow fell across parts of kentucky and tennessee. take a look at the radar. tonight the inowov mg from west to east. it will taper off here in western virginia in the next coovle of hours heading out towards the coast. chmond maybe gets 2 to 4 inches. m as tamps temperatures fall in raleigh, you may get up to an inch of snowfall.

another 2 to 4 here. we've already had 8 inches here but this all moves off the coast tonight. later tonight it tapers off and by 8:00, 9:00 in the morning, the rain and snow is gone, it does not go up the coast. new york, philadelphia, boston, you miss out on this one. tomorrow look at those temperatures, again as we've seen most of the winter, at or above average in the 50s. including washington, lester, where the snowfall total remains tonight stuck at 2 inches. i can tell you, lester, they missed the storm by about that much tonight. back to you. >> mike seidel, thanks much. now to the economy. a mixed bag of news tonight. the good news on wall street, they're inching ever so close to a significant psychological milestone in the economic recovery, but there's bad news, namely the skyrocketing price of gas. cnbc's brian shactman joins us with insights on both fronts. first let's talk about the dow moving above 13,000. that sounds great but in the big picture, what's it mean? >> reporter: listen, we are almost double where we were in the 2009 lows. the jobs picture is much

improved and people's 401(k)s are definitely bigger and that gives a lot of foundation for consumer confidence and consumer spending. but there are a few things to consider on the down side. we've been here before around 13,000 and it has not held. and also a lot of people watching the show tonight swore off stocks forever a couple of years back and they haven't enjoyed this rally as much maybe as they wanted to and it feels a little top heavy so they're cautious about getting back in. all in all, wall street is optimistic but maybe a little more cautious than they have previous times that we've been here. >> a lot of us are worrying this price of gas if it continues to go up could derail this economic recovery. normally we're talking about this around memorial day, the driving season. right now, as you know, things are moving northward in a hurry. what's going on? >> reporter: this is part of the apprehension with the dow 13,000. the national average is $3.53 a gallon right now. that's the highest it's ever been this time of year. some estimates have us at $4.25 by april and that's before the peak driving season that you just referenced.

there's no doubting on a tight household budget that has an impact. maybe you don't buy spring jackets for your kids or the baseball cleats for upcoming baseball season and that has a trickle-down effect. there's a few things to consider for wrinkles as well. in oil prices, there's that iran premium, the fear premium and it can go either way. if things go wrong or israel does something, we could go up $10 higher in a heartbeat. on the downside, if things settle down in iran and also in syria, we could pull back to the $90 range but those are two big ifs, lester. the reality is right now oil and gas prices are high enough where they could have a negative impact on this fragile recovery. >> brian shactman from cnbc, thanks. tonight whitney houston has been laid to rest next to her father, john houston, in new jersey. fans and onlookers paid their respects today by lining the route to the cemetery. houston's family gathered at her gravesite for a private burial a day after an emotional memorial at the church where she sang in the choir as a child. when nbc "nightly news"

continues on a sunday evening, replacement parts. the explosion in new knees as baby boomers fight the toll of time. and the march of the penguin that needed a little help finding his footing.

back now with some health news affecting more americans than ever before. there's been a surge in the last few years of baby boomers having knee replacement surgery, as their refusal to slow down takes a heavy toll on their aging bodies.

our report tonight from our chief medical editor, dr. nancy snyderman. >> reporter: decades of running, biking and competitive sports took their toll on sara kate loman's body. >> the pain was grueling, grinding, constant. i could not get my knee in a position of comfort. >> reporter: now at age 54, she's one of about four and a half million americans walking around with an artificial knee. >> people at work said to me, you know, gosh, you know, we enjoy working with you but we've never seen you smile so much. they didn't know me out of pain. >> reporter: loman is part of a growing trend, people opting for knee replacement surgery earlier in life. >> there were times that this procedure was only done for people who were older than 65 years of age. >> reporter: not anymore. the number of baby boomers getting total knee replacements tripled in a ten-year period. and even though there can be complications, nearly one in 20 americans over 50 is walking around with a new knee. what's behind the increased

demand? well, experts point to a few factors. america's obesity epidemic, aging athletes not taking care of their aching joints, genetics, and the fact that we're living longer, more active lives. >> previous generations, they were taught to live in pain and make some compromises. a lot of their attitude was about self-sacrifice. and today, people are less willing to do self-sacrifice. they're really very much in tune with their quality of life, want to maintain their quality of life. >> reporter: and that can be hard to do with advanced knee problems. >> i was basically sucking advil and really at the end it wasn't helping too much either. >> reporter: less than one year out of surgery, 61-year-old ernie miller is back to working, traveling and spending time with his teenage son. >> i have a new lease on that part of my life, that i can continue to grow this bond with him. maybe i can't beat him anymore at basketball, but at least i can play. >> reporter: though he feels great, he admits the surgery made some things a little

harder. >> i can tell my wife i can't go shopping because my knee hurts. i still try to use that, but she doesn't buy it anymore. >> reporter: dr. nancy snyderman, nbc news, mountain view, california. up next here tonight, a retro fit for dorothy's ruby slippers and the man who had the right stuff a half century later.

these days there are literally hundreds of satellites in orbit above the earth, but 50 years ago tomorrow, there wasn't much up there at all, when friendship seven blasted off from cape canavarel, the mercury capsule that carried the first american into orbit, one of a select group of american space pioneers who had the right stuff.

they were test pilots turned into astronauts or what some back then called spam in a can. the first two mercury flights just to the edge of space each lasted barely 15 minutes. it was on the third mission, a marine aviator named john glenn, became the first american to actually orbit the earth. >> god speed, john glenn. >> the mission lasted almost five hours. >> oh, that view is tremendous. >> yesterday at cape canavarel, 50 years later glenn and fellow astronaut scott carpenter gathered with the scientists who helped america even the score in the space race. >> there wasn't any closer brotherhood ever formed than that which came together to get things off, but you're the people that made it happen. >> everything about space we take for granted today was untested then. >> roger, zero g. >> glenn recalls scientists were worried his eyes would change shape in the weightlessness, so

they taped up mini eye charts on top of the instrument panel. what glenn could not imagine then was that half a century later, the u.s. would be depending on the russians for rides into orbit. he talked about it with brian williams. >> sort of a little bit of nostalgia, but in the bigger picture, i'm sorry that we're not maximizing the research return out of the space program. the international space station is the most unique laboratory ever put together by human beings. it also means without the shuttle, we have no way of getting into space ourselves. >> today, exotic robots and landers go where 50 years ago we imagined man himself would some day travel. but none of it would have been possible if not for those mercury pioneers who first reached for the heavens. john glenn also has the distinction of being the first living astronaut to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his first space flight. tonight a lot of nature lovers are gathering at california's yosemite national

park hoping to catch a spectacular glimpse of nature's beauty. it's a rare phenomenon that happens there for several days this time of year. the sunset hits a water fall at just the right angle, making it appear bright red, as if lava is flowing down the side. that light show lasts about two minutes. we learned today that the most famous ruby slippers in the world are on the move at the smithsonian in washington. officials at the national museum of american history say dorothy's shoes from the 1939 classic, "the wizard of oz" will be removed from display for several months while they're repaired. the folks say the slippers are old and fragile and could use a little tlc after being on continuous display after someone anonymously donated them in 1979. up next, a step in the right direction. now they're happy feet.

our final story tonight is about a little guy at a zoo in southern california who needed a little help to put his best foot forward. that's when the folks who care for him turned to a popular shoe company to give him a new lease on life. here's nbc's kristin dahlgren. >> reporter: he started life a tiny penguin called tim. there's a reason his name now is lucky. santa barbara zoo keepers noticed the little guy had a limp. his leg wasn't growing right. they tried a splint. >> but that meant he couldn't learn to swim and be a normal penguin.

>> reporter: so zoo keepers looked for a miracle. what was at first a strange request soon turned into a pet project for the local shoe company. >> what they did first was they made a hand-stitched boot. the minute we put it on, we knew we were on the right track. >> reporter: engineers here at teva are used to making high performance shoes for humans, but taking the technology in something like this and shrinking it down to a perfect fit for a penguin brought a new set of challenges. >> we had to make sure he could get up and down the rocks with traction on uneven surfaces. >> reporter: it took some trial and error but when his feet were finally happy. >> when the right boot got there, it was glory, hallelujah, because he just stepped up, put his chest out. >> the best part was he could get in the water and swim. really improved his quality of life. >> reporter: oh, how his life has changed. lucky has his own song on youtube. ♪ penguin wearing a funky shoe >> reporter: and the bird who

was different, now joins in all the penguin games. his new friends don't seem to notice his fancy footwear, his new winter booty, much more than a fashion statement. >> it really took a community to make this happen, and, you know, it saved his life. >> reporter: santa barbara's special little penguin, who seems to know just how lucky he is. kristen dahlgren, nbc news, santa barbara, california. that's nbc "nightly news" for this sunday. brian williams will be here tomorrow. i'm lester holt reporting from new york. for all of us here at nbc news, good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com