>> yesterday we did this whole segment about how you want a dog and you're so excited, and you feel you could handle a dog. so then i go home and i'm taking down my tree, christmas tree. which is so dry. people should take their trees down and let go because they're dangerous. they really are dangerous. >> right. >> so anyway, i'm taking it down, and i smell something awful, and my poor little doggy jasper had vomited all over the rug, okay? all over. and then proceeded to have problems throughout the house. >> what does that have to do with the tree? >> nothing. except i went to dr. kay, who is our vet. he is unbelievable. but i digress. i went to dr. k. i was so worried. he was trembling. and the doctor said did you take your tree down by any chance? i said yeah, how funny that you ask that. he said if the dog drank any of the water, that could make him quite ill. so i don't know if that's what it was, but my point in all of this was when you get a dog you are really getting a baby. and you have to prepare yourself for the fact that animals have accidents. you can't control it. it's not on your time ame. it's when they're ready. you can't just leave it for somebody else. >> why do you think i wouldn't be good at this? because here's the thing. look what -- >> i've seen you in the dressing room. it's disgusting. >> okay. >> you don't pick up. >> okay. i already have a dog walker. this is before i have the dog. that way, see what i mean, when i come to work during the day, someone can walk the dog. >> you don't want to walk the dog. >> i do. when i'm out. and i noticed when i was going to starbucks right by my apartment there's a vet right there. >> well, that's good. okay. >> so i'm ready. >> all right. i just hope you're prepared for all the things that can happen in your me. if you have really nice things -- >> i don't. forget about it. i don't. >> i want you to get a dog. >> speaking of dogs, there was a little bit of a controversy yesterday during our show, okay? i was holding a dog that was kind of like a kangaroo. its legs were really long. >> oh, my gosh. >> it was long. anyway, so while the -- we were doing the segment, the dog got a little out of control. >> crazy. >> and then it ran away from me, and there are a couple of places that said i cursed, which i don't think i ever do on the air. >> i think they thought you said the s-word, right? >> the s-word. let's watch and see what really happened. >> this is called heeling. >> sorry. >> did you catch her? >> i probably did. [ slow motion ] >> well, that doesn't help when they slow it down. >> i didn't say -- >> what did you say? come on. >> i think i said she's -- she's -- shiz, like sheeeez. >> gawker and perez hilton, both of whom think there was some cursing going on -- >> why do they care? >> i don't know why they would care. if they really want to hear cursing, they can just go to your dressing room. there's another side of meredith that only we know. >> i am a little bit bad that way. you're right. >> but it's nice. >> i had an accident on the air once. not an accident. i swore on the air once. >> you did? >> let's take a look back. >> meredith. >> oh, geez. you shouldn't be -- oh, [ bleep ]. >> okay. >> i'm just going to clarify something in that last segment we did that i was behind the wheel. i thought i saw a shift in front of me. it wasn't a shift. it was actually a vehicle. that is some of the finest driving i've done in months. >> no, you said -- >> i said chip. >> you said chip. that's what i said. >> exactly. >> there's some video out there that is causing some controversy. we saw it in the make-up room earlier, and it's one of those things that makes you cringe a little. this is a woman from south dakota. her 8-year-old son, right? >> it's christmas time. >> yeah. >> she's running a video of him. and he has gone on ebay, right? just kind of looking around. thinks that he pressed the buy button for a mustang. >> a real mustang. >> and he -- it's heart-breaking actually to watch it. he's crying. he's saying i'm so bad or -- >> let's watch the tape. this is while his -- his mom taped it while he was crying. >> why did you buy that $50,000 car on ebay? >> i didn't. >> you did. >> i did. oh. can we cancel it? >> it won't cancel it. you hit buy. [ crying ] >> is that true? did i? >> i'm afraid so. >> i am horrible. >> you're not horrible, baby. you made a mistake. [ crying ] >> oh, no. >> what kind of car was it? >> it was a mustang. i didn't mean to buy it. i was just looking, and he said when i tried to exit out i hit buy. i didn't mean to. i'm like oh no, oh no, so i turned the ipad off. >> hey, bub. you didn't buy it. [ laughing ] you didn't buy it. >> oh. >> that's very upsetting to look at. the mom and the son were actually on earlier in the morning. >> yeah. she was asked do you have any regrets, and she said my regret is i took the video vertically because that's where she got criticism. i think it's weird to -- first of all, that kind of stuff as being funny, i don't get it. i don't get -- she said she wanted her kid to learn how to take a joke. >> right. and develop a good sense of humor. then when he was asked how did you feel when she told you that it was a joke he said that was okay, right? and it's not okay. >> because this video -- like a lot of these, they live forever and ever and ever. i can even just think of today like this kid's classmates are saying it's already on youtube, and it's gotten a gazillion hits. she thought it was funny. i think it's one of those things that you're watching her embarrass him. i was totally turned off. >> right. i mean, i don't know their family dynamics. but when you look from the outside at it, you just see a kid that's heartbroken. he thinks they're going to have to sell everything. and the guilt that he felt. >> we're against it. >> yeah. >> okay. so meredith vieira, we asked people to tweet you yesterday. okay? meredith has a twitter account, which we found out. >> why does that sound disgusting when you say it? to tweet you. such a connotation -- >> you are a total sicky, okay? these are the tweets that you have done over the last -- your last one was 607 days ago. okay? >> i have never, ever -- >> yes, you did. i was with you when you tweeted. don't you remember when you were learning? >> yeah, but i never -- i don't think i actually put -- >> you did. >> okay. i did. >> here. you wrote this one. two of them. now that i'm tweeting, that twit lauer can't be far behind. >> that sounds like me. >> and then you wrote this one. "it's cold outside, but i'm one hot mama." >> i did not write that. >> apparently you did. >> oh. >> 600 and -- how many days? i can't see. >> i don't know. i can't see. >> 667. or 87. let's do a tweet, should we? okay. we're going to tweet your first tweet. her twitter handle, by the way, is meredith -- @meredithvieira. >> that's so original. >> what do you want to tweet? >> i do not -- >> don't even do that. >> -- want -- >> wanty. >> -- want to tweet. >> i'm not tweeting. i'm deleting that. good-bye. good-bye. how about i'm just going to write "tweet me. come on." by the way, i just want to let you know how many -- no. this is what you're doing right here. >> okay. >> okay. tweet me. send. now, the thing is you got since yesterday -- >> right. >> -- an additional not 1,000 twitter followers. not an additional 2,000, but an additional 3,000. >> why would -- how do you get followers if you are saying you don't tweet? i don't -- they're following -- >> they're following you. they're waiting patiently for you. >> we'll see. >> all right. >> i get to do this ihoda playlist every thursday. >> go ahead. >> this is a good one. i think you're going to like it. it's old school. you may know it. >> wait, wait, wait. i know all about this music, okay? kathie lee and i have talked about your playlist. >> get ready. this one is so good. get ready. >> we've hijacked -- >> what? >> take a listen. ♪ >> what is this? oh, no. ♪ could hold you >> oh, no. k.l.g. is singing at alabama jack's. ♪ i'm crazy for crying >> oh, no. ♪ i'm crazy for loving you oh, no. indeed. >> what is alabama jack's? a hangout of hers? >> yes. it's a hang-out that she loves. it's where -- bambino is front and center. this is in key west where kath is, and this is one of her favorite hang-outs where she says people do clogging and they drink a lot. >> clogging? really? >> yeah. >> i thought that was north carolina clogging. >> yeah, i like it. >> all right. >> does she ever do this, or it's always you that has the music? >> it's always me. what happened there? can we do mine still? >> sure. i guess. >> you'll like this one. let's do it. no? we don't have it? what? >> that was it. >> oh, no. ♪ >> how do i write that? >> you can't. is it okay or not okay? we do this thing every week. let's see. the question is is it okay to leave your underwear at your home? >> you mean not wear underwear? >> yes, not wear underwear. >> okay. >> what do i say? >> i mean it literally. i say -- >> no, it's not -- >> why do you have this prop? no, it's not okay. why, oh why, would you ever go without your undies? well, if you are wearing a super clingy dress and you don't want panty lines, i kind of get it. apparently, you've done that. but other than that, keep you why undies on, please. >> kathie lee says ask the people who regret doing so, and there's your answer. >> have you ever done that? seriously. be honest. be honest. just be honest because -- >> who cares? >> no. >> no. i've worn spanx without underwear, but i always wear spanx because i'm very self-conscious. >> really? >> yeah. i always wear spanx. even if they're hanging out. i don't even care. i'd rather have them hanging out than not have them on. do you ever go without yours, your underwear? >> not the way these women do where they get out of cars with their legs wide open. i do not do that. >> but why would you ever go without your -- >> because when i was a kid, i took tap dancing, and so i always wore a leotard, and so sometimes i'll have a leotard that's covering up. >> okay. but you wouldn't ever just go free? >> no. >> okay. >> no. no. >> mm-hmm. >> no, i would never do that. >> all right. it's time for web-tastic. we're going to turn to our girl sara. hey, girl. >> hey. we have another fun one to make you laugh. there's nothing better than these cute little babies. okay. go ahead. let's run it, and then we'll talk. [ laughing ] [ vacuum noise ] >> it's okay. it's okay. >> the vacuum scares the little baby. they've seen the reaction earlier, and they wanted to see if it was the vacuum, so they turned it on again. >> to scare the kid ain? >> it's good parenting. today the theme is good parenting. >> cruel. this is a cruel program. >> all right. coming up, he kept it off, and we'll talk to our friend al roker. look at him reading to children. and talk about amazing transformations. two women get ambushed on the plaza for head to toe makeovers. but first these messages. ound o. then i read a book while teaching myself how to play guitar; ran ten miles while knitting myself a sweater; jumped out of a plane. finally, i became a ping pong master while recording my debut album. how you ask? with 5-hour energy. i get hours of energy now -- no crash later. wait to see the next five hours. went home and fed her family. now she's helping her community. no wonder it's hard to focus on her own needs. but she's got one a day women's, a complete multivitamin with key nutrients women may need all in one pill. because our focus is you. with key nutrients women may need all in one pill. i've got two tickets to paradise!l set? pack your bags, we'll leave tonight. uhh, it's next month, actually... eddie continues singing: to tickets to... paradiiiiiise! no four. remember? whoooa whooaa whooo! you know ronny, folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. and how happy are they jimmy? happier than eddie money running a travel agency. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. [ bleep ]. >> many of you are resolving to lose weight in the new year. >> wait. >> just go ahead and put it on gawker immediately. okay? >> i'm so sorry. >> stay where you are. [ bleep ]. >> i dropped all my cards. >> we're a little late with the beep. >> a lot of people are vowing to lose weight and get a little inspiration. you're going to get going. our good friend al roker is here. he spent a lifetime battling his weight. >> at his heaviest -- >> at his heaviest al weighed 340 pounds. today he is more than 100 pounds lighter in his new memoir "never gone back" al talks about breaking the yo-yo dieting cycle for good. hello, al. >> how good is it to have meredith back, al? >> so good. >> meredith has done this. there's a cleanse. >> what is it? >> this is almond milk, strawberries, protein powder. i usually put a little almonds in it as well. >> mm-hmm. >> you want to put that down? >> yes, i'll put that down. >> okay. >> al? >> yes. >> by the way, this book is riveting. for those of us who've known you for a long timish it's funny how revealing it was even to us. were you at all uncomfortable with revealing that part of you? >> you know, i wrote it, and i worked with a terrific co-writer, a woman laura morton. but you know, i didn't think it was that big a deal, and then i started hearing from people and they say it's brutally honest. i thought, oh, wait a minute. maybe i shouldn't have put this in here. >> so why did you? because it is brutally honest. some of your stories are -- >> whenever i go out to speak or i'm at functions where people keep wanting -- what did you do? how did you do this? what did do you? i say maybe i should write it down. so that's what i decided to do. >> well, your dad was such a major player for many, many years, and on his death bed he asked you -- he said to you, al, you know, i want you to lose the weight. that's a lot to carry around. >> yeah. you know what, it was one of these things where i did it. you know, he made me promise, and he made me swear to god that i would do it, and i did. he was gone about a week and a half later. you kind of forget about that stuff, and then the new year started, and i started really thinking about and we found out we were pregnant with our second child, nicki, and i thought, you know, i have to do this. i had been thinking about bypass earlier. kind of had gone back and forth and i finally said, i'm not going to do this. i'm just tired of this. i'm tired of doing this dance. so i decided to go ahead. i met with this fantastic surgeon dr. marina cureon and got it done. >> you said you have to do it. anybody who is dealing with weight issues, you have to do it for yourself. >> yeah. we know we're fat. you're telling us, oh, you've got to lose weight. we know we do. that's the way it works. but until you -- in a sense it's like any alcoholic or anybody who abuses drugs. until you're ready to do this, no program, no 12-step program, nothing is going to work for you until you're ready to say, you know what, i think enough of myself that i'm going to take the step to do it. >> well, the pain that you carried around from when you were a kid is something i think a lot of overweight people can identify with. but when the comic strip "fat albert" -- or the cartoon came out, that was something that really cut to the quick. >> oh, my gosh. i'm a sophomore in high school in new york city, and let's see, he's black, he's fat, he's funny, and his first name is albert. well, check, check, check. and it was horrible. i mean, that first day the morning after going into school and hearing everybody go "hey, hey, hey." and you joke about it and you -- yeah. and you're dying inside. >> and you said you were an insecure kid and very shy inside. >> i'm still very shy. >> you hide that well. >> well -- >> i would never think that of you. >> like my mentor, willard scott, he's afraid of speaking in public. instead he's one of the most famous weather people ever. you know, and you find ways to mask that pain, and for me it was food. >> you know, you've had issues with weight and then you've lost weight and regained weight. the name of the book is "never going back." how do you know that? what are you doing now that convinces you? >> i think -- look, i had the bypass. i lost almost 140 pounds. and then about 4 1/2 years ago my mom got sick. and i was driving back and forth to north shore long island jewish, exit 34 on the l.i.e. and i fell back into the same old habits. the trigger, the pain, the fear of losing my mother. and after she passed i thought, you know, i cannot do this again. i put 40 pounds back on. it just so happened a dear friend of ours, john harris, had lost weight doing this cleanse with a nutritionist, melissa bowman-lee out in chicago. i thought, you know what? i'm doing this. and your assistant brook has done this. >> yeah. >> and i thought, you know what? i met with her. and it was great. it changed my life. because whether you do this cleanse or a juice cleanse or whatever you do, that -- but the exercise, as you know, is so important. i found -- melissa does this slow exercise. a little less. you're not sweating. you do it in a cold gym. but i found it changed my physique. it changed how i felt about exercise. i still hate working out. >> all that stuff is great. al, this book is a terrific read. it's fun to read. there are recipes in the back. there's a lot of take-away, and i think it's inspiring, and we're so happy for you. so happy for you. good luck with this. >> it's so good. i'm glad i got to do this with you. i missed kathie lee. of course you're the gift that keeps giving. >> hello gawker. >> yesterday when you said -- obviously you haven't had any work done. >> i have feelings too, you know? whatever. >> you were fantastic. >> any-hoo -- >> hey, are you going to tweet us some more because that was riveting. >> al's book is "never goin' back." he is never coming back. you can check out our story on "dateline's" new year new you special. >> two hours. >> at 7:00, 6:00 central here on nbc. >> coming up, the small town stars that make their way to the big. we're going buck wild with cast members from mtv's newest reality show. first, these messages. but i'm still "stubbed" up. 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[ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save $1 visit alka-seltzer on facebook. it sparks a movement. because people can't keep it to themselves. look! no ugly spots! awesome! incredible shine. i'm switching for good. love, love, love finish! over a million people have switched to finish. join the finish revolution and get up to half off. man: at turbotax, we know this is more than a paycheck. it's long, hard days, late nights, and missed little league games. you've worked hard to earn your money. and we think you should have the power to keep as much of it as possible. we have tax experts to answer your questions. we'll back you and support you. because a dollar here, a dollar there-- every dollar is more important when it's yours. turbotax-- the power to keep what's yours. try it free at turbotax.com. they're starting off the new year with a brand new look. our two ladies from our ambush makeovers. >> and they're reality stars serving up some sass -- >> oh, look at nene. look what kathie -- >> plus, how to look like a million bucks on a dime. we've got some beauty insider tricks. >> first your local news? >> uh-huh. and what else? >> weather. >> i've heard that rumor. okay. ♪ i said are you going to be my girl ♪ we're back with more "today" on this thirsty thursday. it's time for our plaza ambush makeovers where two lucky ladies get plucked off the plaza and we surprise them with brand new looks. >> working today as always our "today" contributors and stylists to the stars -- ♪ louis licari, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪ >> thank you, meredith. >> "today" contributor and contributing editor to "people" style watch, jill martin. >> all right. how were the pickins out there, lewis? >> it was good. it was freezing cold, i have to tell you, so it was one of those days where you had to look at the eyes, but other than that, it was great pickings. a lot of people were there. >> you got sisters, didn't you? first up is doris skiles. 61 years old from seely lake, montana. >> 51. >> oh. okay. until recently she hasn't done anything to her hair in 20 years, so she was thrilled when we approached her on the plaza. take a listen. >> well, i love doing sisters because this is going to be so much fun, and i can make you look better instantly with this blanket on you. but tell me why you want this for her. >> she works so hard. she's a grandmother. she deserves a new, fabulous look. >> oh. i know you're surprised, but excited? >> i am. i'm totally -- and i need this. >> are you ready to ditch the blanket for a hot new dress? >> i am. >> oh, my god. yes. >> how exciting. okay. she's here with her sister, who we're going to make over next, but she's also here with a couple of friends. bobby is here and linda. all right, ladies, please keep on your blindfolds. all right. here is doris before. all right, doris. let's see the new you. ♪ baby, you're a firework >> wow. >> whoa. >> wow. >> oh, my gosh. >> are you ready? bobby and linda, take off your blindfolds. >> oh, my -- all right. doris, are you ready to see yourself? all right. put your glasses on and turn around. right here. >> oh, my god. >> wow. you look absolutely beautiful. >> do you love it? >> spin right around, sweetie, and look right there, if you wouldn't mind. tell us about the hair, louis. that was -- >> what a better way to start the new year than with her makeover. this is all about being rich and glamorous. we made her hair color. added depth, and, of course, arsene gave her this great very simple but very chic hair style. >> how do you decide the hair color? it's really beautiful. >> it's a brown, but it has different nuances of color in it, and that's what makes it special. it's not a dull brown. it's very much a -- >> look at the friends, by the way. we need kleenexes galore. tell us what you guys think of the makeover. >> montana isn't going to be the same. >> do you love? >> my aunty is beautiful. >> jill, that's the perfect dress. perfect. >> just because it's after the holidays, you can sparkle a little bit. this is great for maggie. i just want to show the back. show the back. how beautiful is that back? >> gorgeous. love it. >> and the jewelry is kendra jones. >> love it. >> perfect. all right. doris, why don't you take baby steps over to your friends. and now we're going to talk about your sister. >> and you're going to face the wall. okay? >> you're going to face the wall so you can't see. >> all right. doris's sister cindy is 53 from surfside beach, south carolina. her daily beauty routine consists of putting her hair in a ponytail. so she jumped at the opportunity to receive a glam new look. let's listen to her story. >> now it's cindy's turn. so what do you think about all this for her? >> you know, i think that she works very hard, and she never gets dressed up. she never does anything for herself. and so she deserves this. she needs to feel better and -- yes. she deserves it. >> that's so nice to hear, right? >> yes. >> okay. >> she's beautiful anyway. >> all right. it's a lovefest, and there are tears, but we're going to turn them into smiles. are you ready? >> i'm so ready. >> okay. so obviously cindy has never -- hasn't seen doris since her makeover. doris hasn't seen cindy. >> look at doris, she's being blocked by jimmy our floor manager. >> once again here's cindy before. let's see cindy now. come on. >> wow. wow, wow, wow. >> hot mama. >> all right. are you ready? everybody turn around. ladies. get the masks off. >> oh, my god. >> did you see your sister too? >> all right. want to see yourself? >> yeah. >> take a look. look in the mirror. >> surprise. >> wow, wow. >> oh, my god. >> you look so beautiful. now look right in the camera. look right there, sweetie. yeah. >> wow. >> right? >> this starts with the hair. the darkest blonde, the darkest warm blonde. then this is very close to her natural color, which she was born with, actually. she looks a little more alive. the swept-away bang erases years. combine that with the make-up, which is soft. the tip is as the aging process goes on, less make-up goes a long way. >> i don't think people realize that, that less is more as -- >> less is more. >> the outfit is fantastic. >> a little leather. when we put this on, she said i want this. it's from andrew market. it's an indoor-outdoor jacket. you can wear it indoors and out, and the jewelry statement necklace is kendra scott. >> doris, come on, join your sister. take baby steps. a big round of applause. good job, sisters. beautiful. >> all right. a woman is always looking good. "real housewives" diva ne ne leakes is here right after this. again? it's embarrassing it's embarrassing! we can see you carl. we can totally see you. come on you're better than this...all that prowling around. yeah, you're the king of the jungle. have you thought about going vegan carl? hahaha!! you know folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than antelope with night-vision goggles. nice! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. [♪...] >> i've been training all year for the big race in chicago, but i can only afford one trip. and i just found out my best friend is getting married in l.a. there's no way i'm missing that. then i heard about hotwire and i realized i could actually afford both trips. see, when really nice hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. so i got my four-star hotels for half-price! >> men: ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e ♪ hotwire.com >> announcer: save big on car rentals too, from $12.95 a day. she's famous for speaking her mind and serving up sass on bravo's hit reality show "the real housewives of atlanta." >> but nene leakes has been pulling double duty lately. she's got that role on "the new normal" where she plays rocky, a fierce assistant who's not too different from the real nene, as we've noticed. hey. how are you? >> good morning. how are you? >> you're a busy bee, i have to say. >> i am. >> you got your fame from "the real housewives of atlanta." and you quickly took it and ran with it. and not everyone can do that, can they? >> not everyone can do that. that's very true. i've been very lucky. i've been very blessed. i think when you get an opportunity or platform such as the "real housewives of atlanta" you have to use it to your advantage. and i was able to do that, and now i'm on a primetime television show. >> yes, you are. >> are you loving that? >> i do. i love ryan murphy. he's fantastic. he is the creator of "glee," "american horror story." and now "the new normal." i love it. quite different than reality. it's a whole hour. lots of hours. >> you earn the money. >> yes, you do. >> in "the new normal" there's a scene in one of the ones -- i think it was the pardon me scene with the turkeys and all that where you and -- you're actually playing your mother's role, your father's role, and your role. that must have been such a trip. so much fun to play all three roles. >> i couldn't wait to do that. >> look at this. >> look, i got a new job. >> i love that strawberry lemonade. that menu is huge. thank god for those pitchers. >> i am the new assistant to mr. brian talon. daddy, my dreams are coming true. >> dreams don't pay no bills. >> neither do you, you dummy. >> you won't make it out there. >> this is so fun to watch you. it must have been fun to do. >> i was so excited when i got the script for me to play the characters. i called up a few friends who've done that same thing before like tyler. and i was excited. >> tyler perry. >> i was excited to do that. >> you're also on the cover, right? of "ebony" magazine, money and power. >> look at you. >> pretty big stuff. some people were not happy with that. why do you think that is? >> well, i did some interviews, and i talked about -- i just -- my personal thoughts are i felt like i got a lot of flak from my own community, meaning the african-american community. i feel like we don't support each other the way that we should. i feel like i deserve to be on that cover more than anybody else. i am an african-american who crossed over to primetime, which is not easy to do, and it's not a lot of african-americans who are on a primetime scripted series, so that was huge. and i did so many other things. i have my own charity. i own restaurants. i did so many things that i felt that i deserved it. the editors over at "ebony" felt i deserved it. and that's why you see me on the cover. >> you say some things -- when people come up to you -- because i know not everyone's kind. and you are known to speak your mind. do you say what you think? >> i do. most of the time i try to keep it really real and say what i think. and sometimes i'm very direct, which can sometimes hurt people, but when i say direct, i'm just -- i don't feel like i have that tone, you know, that voice where it's like really sweet. i feel like if you ask me and i just tell you very directly, and sometimes it can shock somebody who -- >> can i ask directly, are you back with greg? what's going on? >> greg and i are definitely back together. >> okay. did he propose to you? we heard a rumor he proposed to you on new year's. >> no. it's not -- >> you tweeted about it. >> i tweeted about it on new year's eve. and i love twitter, as a matter of fact. so please follow me on twitter, everybody. @neneleakes. you need to follow me so you can hear me trash talk. no, i'm not trash talking. i talk about a lot of nice stuff. no, i think people can see on "the real housewives of atlanta" that greg and i are together, and i think people want to know if we're going to go to the next level. >> right. that's what i'm asking. >> the answer is? >> you'll have to tune into the housewives. >> that's not very direct. >> thank you. >> oh, man. >> tuesday, 9:30, 8:30 central time. >> from normal to buck wild. >> oh, no. >> some people are calling it the new "jersey shore" right after this. >> okay. good morning to you. i'm meteorologist chris warren with your weather channel forecast. for today looking across the country, the snow that we saw in southwest texas will be moving out, and the system will bring rain throughout parts of the gulf coast, the gulf coast of texas. still a frontal system hanging around parts of central florida and disturbances rolling over the top. will bring a chance for some showers where the mildest air is going to be to the south. coldest air still to the north with readings in the 20s and 30s in many spots for daytime highs. on saturday another system, not much with it as far as moisture goes. still a chance for some showers throughout parts of the gulf coast states. still going to be cold in the northeast. and we're looking at lake effect snow and possibly several inches of snow over the next few days, including saturday. the tug hill plateaus are right in here. and the coldest air still going to be here in northern new england, the northern plains, and we're looking at some cool air throughout much of the west. still a chance for some snow showers throughout the great lakes on sunday. throughout parts of the southeast more clouds and some showers. it's going to be cold throughout the plains with temperatures topping out for highs only in the 30s. and then on monday you can see a front lining up right here. that's going to help bring in a little cooler air on tuesday. but it's still going to be lingering right around the canadian border. minneapolis dropping just a few degrees. we're starting to see some warming conditions early on in the week. and you can see another area of low pressure setting up here throughout parts of the southeast and then in the southern plains, chance for some rain as things are turning mild. temperatures getting into the upper 40s for louisville. and in chicago 41. we're going to watch out for the chance for some showers the beginning to the middle of next week. as the next system rolls in. things are going to be pretty quiet, though, in the northeast, with highs in the lower to mid 40s. another system moving into the pacific northwest. remember weekdays on the weather channel starting at 5:30 in the morning you can wake up with al. i played a round of golf.id in the last five hours? then i read a book while teaching myself how to play guitar; ran ten miles while knitting myself a sweater; jumped out of a plane. finally, i became a ping pong master while recording my debut album. how you ask? with 5-hour energy. i get hours of energy now -- no crash later. wait to see the next five hours. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. move over "jersey shore." mtv has some new kids in town. small town, west virginia. >> the new show is called "buck wild," and it follows the lives of nine adventurous friends doing a little country living. let's face it. if you haven't been to a dump truck pool party, then you are missing out. shane gandy and shay bradley are two of the show's stars. hey. are you all ready? tonight is the big premiere. >> 10:00. >> we've seen some of the clips and there's a lot of -- it looks like people diving in mud baths and laughing and hooting and hollering. what happens in this show? >> you know, that was a little bit of it, but it's just nine of my friends living in the middle of nowhere. just making our own fun, doing what we want and when we want. >> with what we got. >> with what you got. >> what do you got? >> not much. that's what i'm saying. we got what we got. >> there's ridiculous stuff. >> like what? tell us what you think is ridiculous that people can have fun with. like what? >> i don't know. you can have fun with tires. >> that was just tarps, and we just put soap suds and water and slid around. >> what's the message you're trying to get out, besides your having a good time. is there something you want the audience to walk away with? >> it's just have fun. live in the moment. >> you only live once. so live it up. >> the senator of your great state was very upset that this was going to be on mtv, and actually said, look, they went to mtv and said we wish you guys will take this off, it's going to make us all look terrible, and we don't want to all be cast with this broad brush. what do you think about that? >> well, as far as the criticism goes, i represent myself and myself only, so to say that nine individuals represent the whole state of west virginia is just silly. you know? >> but do you think that it's a good thing for west virginia? i think that's what he was saying. that it poorly represents young people in west virginia. >> i'm representing myself. >> we aren't representing everyone there. we are who we are. >> even my best friends on the show, if they do something embarrassing, that's on them. i represent myself only. >> i picked you as the crazy one. >> what do you do? what kind of crazy stuff? >> well, i get in this big old tractor tire, and, well, at first she starts it up. she's on flat ground. she rolls on it. let's take it back there to the holler and roll down this big old hill. >> so you roll down in a tire inside it? >> inside it. and i'm going there -- my knees hitting me in the face. oh, my gosh. then it flips me out. oh, my gosh. >> then what happens? >> then i can't do nothing. i'm just laying there like in a maze. oh, my gosh. oh, that was awesome. >> he does the craziest stuff, and he gets up like nothing happened. >> okay. you know your lives are going to change because the fame that happened to the "jersey shore" kids could be happening to you. >> are you ready for that? >> sure. >> we haven't changed at all. our friendship, nothing's changed. >> okay. we wish you guys good luck because "buck wild" premieres tonight on mtv. >> good luck. >> uh-huh. >> okay. >> next up we're going to show you how to look like a million for way less. we'll be back with more of "today" on nbc. ♪ beautiful girls ♪ back now with "today's beauty" and how to look like a million bucks for just pennies. >> "glamour" contributing beauty editor andrea pomerantz is the author of the new book "how to look expensive." it's full of insider beauty advice that celebrities pay top dollar to get. hey. >> hi, guys. thanks for having me. >> you're going to tell us how to do things. >> i'm going to show you how to do great things that are celebrity secrets. they're simple, they're easy, and most important, they're free. first thing has to do with champagne. >> why are we putting champagne on our hair? >> we're putting champagne on our hair because we highlighted half of her hair. this is a before. that's the after. >> just wait. champagne on your hair -- >> champagne on your hair. if you've got any leftover bubbly, it doesn't have to be good champagne. it can be the cheap stuff. what you're going to do is pour some. i'm going to show you what we did. >> pour champagne on your hair. >> save a little for us. >> saturate the hair. then use the heat of a blow dryer, and a diffuser. it will give you the beautiful -- if you can see the ends of her hair have that gorgeous ombre effect that people spend a fortune on. >> and it doesn't look disgusting. >> it adds body to your hair and makes it bright, shiny. >> you blow it dry. >> next time you shampoo, you'll still have the highlights. >> wow. >> okay. >> like the old lemon juice trick. >> now, these tips come from jennifer aniston's dermatologist? >> shhh. >> secret's out. >> secret's out. bobby buca may kill me that i said that. but here we go. i'm talking gauze pads with soy milk. it helps with pigmentation. it counteracts the pigmentation. dip it in. i'm going to do it on your face. you could do it on your chest for pigmentation. just go like that. you could do this a few times. >> what exactly does that do? what exactly does that do? >> what that does is it counteracts pigmentation. so it will even out your skin tone. >> dark spots, will it get rid of them? >> bingo. >> really? >> soy milk. >> wow. >> what about bags under the eyes? >> bags under eyes we've got two really fun ideas. we made jell-o squares, wrapped them in saran wrap and -- >> you froze them. >> we froze them. and you can keep them in the fridge for when you have those nights when you know you're going to have a bad morning. >> that is rude. that is really rude. >> how long do you keep them on? >> you leave them on for ten minutes. >> okay. >> i'll give you each one of these. >> yeah. sure. >> do you eat this? >> green tea antioxidant popsicle. again, this would feel great on the bags of your eyes. but it's also a great skin treatment for redness. and everyone has green tea. how easy is that? i keep these in the freezer all the time. they feel great. >> i'm not going to give you one. i think you're busy enough. >> okay. >> this one i didn't quite understand. it's using your mascara wand for eyeliner. >> any mascara you have will work. this is one of my favorites. what i did is i use a eyeliner, a eyeliner brush. >> you stick it in. >> you stick it in and then you have a two-fer. >> what's the difference between using regular eyeliner and that? >> cheaper. >> oh, it saves you money. >> saves a few bucks. it's also a great trick. actually, makeup artists do this because you can do it very subtly and make your eyelashes look really thick. >> oh, okay. >> i like the gold too. >> this is blake lively's makeup artist's trick. again, she told me blake would till her for sharing it but i'm doing that. what you do is after you apply the black, or you can do it without the black, you rim your eyes with gold. it's almost like walking around under candlelight. gives you this gorgeous glow. >> wow. >> we all love. >> what's the olive oil? quickly.
>> yesterday we did this whole segment about how you want a dog and you're so excited, and you feel you could handle a dog. so then i go home and i'm taking down my tree, christmas tree. which is so dry. people should take their trees down and let go because they're dangerous. they really are dangerous. >> right. >> so anyway, i'm taking it down, and i smell something awful, and my poor little doggy jasper had vomited all over the rug, okay? all over. and then proceeded to have problems throughout the house. >> what does that have to do with the tree? >> nothing. except i went to dr. kay, who is our vet. he is unbelievable. but i digress. i went to dr. k. i was so worried. he was trembling. and the doctor said did you take your tree down by any chance? i said yeah, how funny that you ask that. he said if the dog drank any of the water, that could make him quite ill. so i don't know if that's what it was, but my point in all of this was when you get a dog you are really getting a baby. and you have to prepare yourself for the fact that animals have accidents. you can't control it. it's not on your time frame. it's when they're ready. you can't just leave it for somebody else. >> why do you think i wouldn't be good at this? because here's the thing. look what -- >> i've seen you in the dressing room. it's disgusting. >> okay. >> you don't pick up. >> okay. i already have a dog walker. this is before i have the dog. that way, see what i mean, when i come to work during the day, someone can walk the dog. >> you don't want to walk the dog. >> i do. when i'm out. and i noticed when i was going to starbucks right by my apartment there's a vet right there. >> well, that's good. okay. >> so i'm ready. >> all right. i just hope you're prepared for all the things that can happen in your home. if you have really nice things -- >> i don't. forget about it. i don't. >> i want you to get a dog. >> speaking of dogs, there was a little bit of a controversy yesterday during our show, okay? i was holding a dog that was kind of like a kangaroo. its legs were really long. >> oh, my gosh. >> it was long. anyway, so while the -- we were doing the segment, the dog got a little out of control. >> crazy. >> and then it ran away from me, and there are a couple of places that said i cursed, which i don't think i ever do on the air. >> i think they thought you said the s-word, right? >> the s-word. let's watch and see what really happened. >> this is called heeling. >> sorry. >> did you catch her? >> i probably did. [ slow motion ] >> well, that doesn't help when they slow it down. >> i didn't say -- >> what did you say? come on. >> i think i said she's -- she's -- shiz, like sheeeez. >> gawker and perez hilton, both of whom think there was some cursing going on -- >> why do they care? >> i don't know why they would care. if they really want to hear cursing, they can just go to your dressing room. there's another side of meredith that only we know. >> i am a little bit bad that way. you're right. >> but it's nice. >> i had an accident on the air once. not an accident. i swore on the air once. >> you did? >> let's take a look back. >> meredith. >> oh, geez. you shouldn't be -- oh, [ bleep ]. >> okay. >> i'm just going to clarify something in that last segment we did that i was behind the wheel. i thought i saw a shift in front of me. it wasn't a shift. it was actually a vehicle. that is some of the finest driving i've done in months. >> no, you said -- >> i said chip. >> you said chip. that's what i said. >> exactly. >> there's some video out there that is causing some controversy. we saw it in the make-up room earlier, and it's one of those things that makes you cringe a little. this is a woman from south dakota. her 8-year-old son, right? >> it's christmas time. >> yeah. >> she's running a video of him. and he has gone on ebay, right? just kind of looking around. thinks that he pressed the buy button for a mustang. >> a real mustang. >> and he -- it's heart-breaking actually to watch it. he's crying. he's saying i'm so bad or -- >> let's watch the tape. this is while his -- his mom taped it while he was crying. >> why did you buy that $50,000 car on ebay? >> i didn't. >> you did. >> i did. oh. can we cancel it? >> it won't cancel it. you hit buy. [ crying ] >> is that true? did i? >> i'm afraid so. >> i am horrible. >> you're not horrible, baby. you made a mistake. [ crying ] >> oh, no. >> what kind of car was it? >> it was a mustang. i didn't mean to buy it. i was just looking, and he said when i tried to exit out i hit buy. i didn't mean to. i'm like oh no, oh no, so i turned the ipad off. >> hey, bub. you didn't buy it. [ laughing ] you didn't buy it. >> oh. >> that's very upsetting to look at. the mom and the son were actually on earlier in the morning. >> yeah. she was asked do you have any regrets, and she said my regret is i took the video vertically because that's where she got criticism. i think it's weird to -- first of all, that kind of stuff as being funny, i don't get it. i don't get -- she said she wanted her kid to learn how to take a joke. >> right. and develop a good sense of humor. then when he was asked how did you feel when she told you that it was a joke he said that was okay, right? and it's not okay. >> because this video -- like a lot of these, they live forever and ever and ever. i can even just think of today like this kid's classmates are saying it's already on youtube, and it's gotten a gazillion hits. she thought it was funny. i think it's one of those things that you're watching her embarrass him. i was totally turned off. >> right. i mean, i don't know their family dynamics. but when you look from the outside at it, you just see a kid that's heartbroken. he thinks they're going to have to sell everything. and the guilt that he felt. >> we're against it. >> yeah. >> okay. so meredith vieira, we asked people to tweet you yesterday. okay? meredith has a twitter account, which we found out. >> why does that sound disgusting when you say it? to tweet you. such a connotation -- >> you are a total sicky, okay? these are the tweets that you have done over the last -- your last one was 607 days ago. okay? >> i have never, ever -- >> yes, you did. i was with you when you tweeted. don't you remember when you were learning? >> yeah, but i never -- i don't think i actually put -- >> you did. >> okay. i did. >> here. you wrote this one. two of them. now that i'm tweeting, that twit lauer can't be far behind. >> that sounds like me. >> and then you wrote this one. "it's cold outside, but i'm one hot mama." >> i did not write that. >> apparently you did. >> oh. >> 600 and -- how many days? i can't see. >> i don't know. i can't see. >> 667. or 87. let's do a tweet, should we? okay. we're going to tweet your first tweet. her twitter handle, by the way, is meredith -- @meredithvieira. >> that's so original. >> what do you want to tweet? >> i do not -- >> don't even do that. >> -- want -- >> wanty. >> -- want to tweet. >> i'm not tweeting. i'm deleting that. good-bye. good-bye. how about i'm just going to write "tweet me. come on." by the way, i just want to let you know how many -- no. this is what you're doing right here. >> okay. >> okay. tweet me. send. now, the thing is you got since yesterday -- >> right. >> -- an additional not 1,000 twitter followers. not an additional 2,000, but an additional 3,000. >> why would -- how do you get followers if you are saying you don't tweet? i don't -- they're following -- >> they're following you. they're waiting patiently for you. >> we'll see. >> all right. >> i get to do this ihoda playlist every thursday. >> go ahead. >> this is a good one. i think you're going to like it. it's old school. you may know it. >> wait, wait, wait. i know all about this music, okay? kathie lee and i have talked about your playlist. >> get ready. this one is so good. get ready. >> we've hijacked -- >> what? >> take a listen. ♪ >> what is this? oh, no. ♪ could hold you >> oh, no. k.l.g. is singing at alabama jack's. ♪ i'm crazy for crying >> oh, no. ♪ i'm crazy for loving you oh, no. indeed. >> what is alabama jack's? a hangout of hers? >> yes. it's a hang-out that she loves. it's where -- bambino is front and center. this is in key west where kath is, and this is one of her favorite hang-outs where she says people do clogging and they drink a lot. >> clogging? really? >> yeah. >> i thought that was north carolina clogging. >> yeah, i like it. >> all right. >> does she ever do this, or it's always you that has the music? >> it's always me. what happened there? can we do mine still? >> sure. i guess. >> you'll like this one. let's do it. no? we don't have it? what? >> that was it. >> oh, no. ♪ >> how do i write that? >> you can't. is it okay or not okay? we do this thing every week. let's see. the question is is it okay to leave your underwear at your home? >> you mean not wear underwear? >> yes, not wear underwear. >> okay. >> what do i say? >> i mean it literally. i say -- >> no, it's not -- >> why do you have this prop? no, it's not okay. why, oh why, would you ever go without your undies? well, if you are wearing a super clingy dress and you don't want panty lines, i kind of get it. apparently, you've done that. but other than that, keep you why undies on, please. >> kathie lee says ask the people who regret doing so, and there's your answer. >> have you ever done that? seriously. be honest. be honest. just be honest because -- >> who cares? >> no. >> no. i've worn spanx without underwear, but i always wear spanx because i'm very self-conscious. >> really? >> yeah. i always wear spanx. even if they're hanging out. i don't even care. i'd rather have them hanging out than not have them on. do you ever go without yours, your underwear? >> not the way these women do where they get out of cars with their legs wide open. i do not do that. >> but why would you ever go without your -- >> because when i was a kid, i took tap dancing, and so i always wore a leotard, and so sometimes i'll have a leotard that's covering up. >> okay. but you wouldn't ever just go free? >> no. >> okay. >> no. no. >> mm-hmm. >> no, i would never do that. >> all right. it's time for web-tastic. we're going to turn to our girl sara. hey, girl. >> hey. we have another fun one to make you laugh. there's nothing better than these cute little babies. okay. go ahead. let's run it, and then we'll talk. [ laughing ] [ vacuum noise ] >> it's okay. it's okay. >> the vacuum scares the little baby. they've seen the reaction earlier, and they wanted to see if it was the vacuum, so they turned it on again. >> to scare the kid again? >> it's good parenting. today the theme is good parenting. >> cruel. this is a cruel program. >> all right. coming up, he kept it off, and we'll talk to our friend al roker. look at him reading to children. and talk about amazing transformations. two women get ambushed on the plaza for head to toe makeovers. but first these messages. ound o. then i read a book while teaching myself how to play guitar; ran ten miles while knitting myself a sweater; jumped out of a plane. finally, i became a ping pong master while recording my debut album. how you ask? with 5-hour energy. i get hours of energy now -- no crash later. wait to see the next five hours. went home and fed her family. now she's helping her community. no wonder it's hard to focus on her own needs. but she's got one a day women's, a complete multivitamin with key nutrients women may need all in one pill. because our focus is you. with key nutrients women may need all in one pill. i've got two tickets to paradise!l set? pack your bags, we'll leave tonight. uhh, it's next month, actually... eddie continues singing: to tickets to... paradiiiiiise! no four. remember? whoooa whooaa whooo! you know ronny, folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. and how happy are they jimmy? happier than eddie money running a travel agency. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. [ bleep ]. >> many of you are resolving to lose weight in the new year. >> wait. >> just go ahead and put it on gawker immediately. okay? >> i'm so sorry. >> stay where you are. [ bleep ]. >> i dropped all my cards. >> we're a little late with the beep. >> a lot of people are vowing to lose weight and get a little inspiration. you're going to get going. our good friend al roker is here. he spent a lifetime battling his weight. >> at his heaviest -- >> at his heaviest al weighed 340 pounds. today he is more than 100 pounds lighter in his new memoir "never gone back" al talks about breaking the yo-yo dieting cycle for good. hello, al. >> how good is it to have meredith back, al? >> so good. >> meredith has done this. there's a cleanse. >> what is it? >> this is almond milk, strawberries, protein powder. i usually put a little almonds in it as well. >> mm-hmm. >> you want to put that down? >> yes, i'll put that down. >> okay. >> al? >> yes. >> by the way, this book is riveting. for those of us who've known you for a long timish it's funny how revealing it was even to us. were you at all uncomfortable with revealing that part of you? >> you know, i wrote it, and i worked with a terrific co-writer, a woman laura morton. but you know, i didn't think it was that big a deal, and then i started hearing from people and they say it's brutally honest. i thought, oh, wait a minute. maybe i shouldn't have put this in here. >> so why did you? because it is brutally honest. some of your stories are -- >> whenever i go out to speak or i'm at functions where people keep wanting -- what did you do? how did you do this? what did do you? i say maybe i should write it down. so that's what i decided to do. >> well, your dad was such a major player for many, many years, and on his death bed he asked you -- he said to you, al, you know, i want you to lose the weight. that's a lot to carry around. >> yeah. you know what, it was one of these things where i did it. you know, he made me promise, and he made me swear to god that i would do it, and i did. he was gone about a week and a half later. you kind of forget about that stuff, and then the new year started, and i started really thinking about and we found out we were pregnant with our second child, nicki, and i thought, you know, i have to do this. i had been thinking about bypass earlier. kind of had gone back and forth and i finally said, i'm not going to do this. i'm just tired of this. i'm tired of doing this dance. so i decided to go ahead. i met with this fantastic surgeon dr. marina cureon and got it done. >> you said you have to do it. anybody who is dealing with weight issues, you have to do it for yourself. >> yeah. we know we're fat. you're telling us, oh, you've got to lose weight. we know we do. that's the way it works. but until you -- in a sense it's like any alcoholic or anybody who abuses drugs. until you're ready to do this, no program, no 12-step program, nothing is going to work for you until you're ready to say, you know what, i think enough of myself that i'm going to take the step to do it. >> well, the pain that you carried around from when you were a kid is something i think a lot of overweight people can identify with. but when the comic strip "fat albert" -- or the cartoon came out, that was something that really cut to the quick. >> oh, my gosh. i'm a sophomore in high school in new york city, and let's see, he's black, he's fat, he's funny, and his first name is albert. well, check, check, check. and it was horrible. i mean, that first day the morning after going into school and hearing everybody go "hey, hey, hey." and you joke about it and you -- yeah. and you're dying inside. >> and you said you were an insecure kid and very shy inside. >> i'm still very shy. >> you hide that well. >> well -- >> i would never think that of you. >> like my mentor, willard scott, he's afraid of speaking in public. instead he's one of the most famous weather people ever. you know, and you find ways to mask that pain, and for me it was food. >> you know, you've had issues with weight and then you've lost weight and regained weight. the name of the book is "never going back." how do you know that? what are you doing now that convinces you? >> i think -- look, i had the bypass. i lost almost 140 pounds. and then about 4 1/2 years ago my mom got sick. and i was driving back and forth to north shore long island jewish, exit 34 on the l.i.e. and i fell back into the same old habits. the trigger, the pain, the fear of losing my mother. and after she passed i thought, you know, i cannot do this again. i put 40 pounds back on. it just so happened a dear friend of ours, john harris, had lost weight doing this cleanse with a nutritionist, melissa bowman-lee out in chicago. i thought, you know what? i'm doing this. and your assistant brook has done this. >> yeah. >> and i thought, you know what? i met with her. and it was great. it changed my life. because whether you do this cleanse or a juice cleanse or whatever you do, that -- but the exercise, as you know, is so important. i found -- melissa does this slow exercise. a little less. you're not sweating. you do it in a cold gym. but i found it changed my physique. it changed how i felt about exercise. i still hate working out. >> all that stuff is great. al, this book is a terrific read. it's fun to read. there are recipes in the back. there's a lot of take-away, and i think it's inspiring, and we're so happy for you. so happy for you. good luck with this. >> it's so good. i'm glad i got to do this with you. i missed kathie lee. of course you're the gift that keeps giving. >> hello gawker. >> yesterday when you said -- obviously you haven't had any work done. >> i have feelings too, you know? whatever. >> you were fantastic. >> any-hoo -- >> hey, are you going to tweet us some more because that was riveting. >> al's book is "never goin' back." he is never coming back. you can check out our story on "dateline's" new year new you special. >> two hours. >> at 7:00, 6:00 central here on nbc. >> coming up, the small town stars that make their way to the big. we're going buck wild with cast members from mtv's newest reality show. first, these messages. but i'm still "stubbed" up. 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[ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] to learn more about the cold truth and save $1 visit alka-seltzer on facebook. it sparks a movement. because people can't keep it to themselves. look! no ugly spots! awesome! incredible shine. i'm switching for good. love, love, love finish! over a million people have switched to finish. join the finish revolution and get up to half off. man: at turbotax, we know this is more than a paycheck. it's long, hard days, late nights, and missed little league games. you've worked hard to earn your money. and we think you should have the power to keep as much of it as possible. we have tax experts to answer your questions. we'll back you and support you. because a dollar here, a dollar there-- every dollar is more important when it's yours. turbotax-- the power to keep what's yours. try it free at turbotax.com. they're starting off the new year with a brand new look. our two ladies from our ambush makeovers. >> and they're reality stars serving up some sass -- >> oh, look at nene. look what kathie -- >> plus, how to look like a million bucks on a dime. we've got some beauty insider tricks. >> first your local news? >> uh-huh. and what else? >> weather. >> i've heard that rumor. okay. ♪ i said are you going to be my girl ♪ we're back with more "today" on this thirsty thursday. it's time for our plaza ambush makeovers where two lucky ladies get plucked off the plaza and we surprise them with brand new looks. >> working today as always our "today" contributors and stylists to the stars -- ♪ louis licari, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪ >> thank you, meredith. >> "today" contributor and contributing editor to "people" style watch, jill martin. >> all right. how were the pickins out there, lewis? >> it was good. it was freezing cold, i have to tell you, so it was one of those days where you had to look at the eyes, but other than that, it was great pickings. a lot of people were there. >> you got sisters, didn't you? first up is doris skiles. 61 years old from seely lake, montana. >> 51. >> oh. okay. until recently she hasn't done anything to her hair in 20 years, so she was thrilled when we approached her on the plaza. take a listen. >> well, i love doing sisters because this is going to be so much fun, and i can make you look better instantly with this blanket on you. but tell me why you want this for her. >> she works so hard. she's a grandmother. she deserves a new, fabulous look. >> oh. i know you're surprised, but excited? >> i am. i'm totally -- and i need this. >> are you ready to ditch the blanket for a hot new dress? >> i am. >> oh, my god. yes. >> how exciting. okay. she's here with her sister, who we're going to make over next, but she's also here with a couple of friends. bobby is here and linda. all right, ladies, please keep on your blindfolds. all right. here is doris before. all right, doris. let's see the new you. ♪ baby, you're a firework >> wow. >> whoa. >> wow. >> oh, my gosh. >> are you ready? bobby and linda, take off your blindfolds. >> oh, my -- all right. doris, are you ready to see yourself? all right. put your glasses on and turn around. right here. >> oh, my god. >> wow. you look absolutely beautiful. >> do you love it? >> spin right around, sweetie, and look right there, if you wouldn't mind. tell us about the hair, louis. that was -- >> what a better way to start the new year than with her makeover. this is all about being rich and glamorous. we made her hair color. added depth, and, of course, arsene gave her this great very simple but very chic hair style. >> how do you decide the hair color? it's really beautiful. >> it's a brown, but it has different nuances of color in it, and that's what makes it special. it's not a dull brown. it's very much a -- >> look at the friends, by the way. we need kleenexes galore. tell us what you guys think of the makeover. >> montana isn't going to be the same. >> do you love? >> my aunty is beautiful. >> jill, that's the perfect dress. perfect. >> just because it's after the holidays, you can sparkle a little bit. this is great for maggie. i just want to show the back. show the back. how beautiful is that back? >> gorgeous. love it. >> and the jewelry is kendra jones. >> love it. >> perfect. all right. doris, why don't you take baby steps over to your friends. and now we're going to talk about your sister. >> and you're going to face the wall. okay? >> you're going to face the wall so you can't see. >> all right. doris's sister cindy is 53 from surfside beach, south carolina. her daily beauty routine consists of putting her hair in a ponytail. so she jumped at the opportunity to receive a glam new look. let's listen to her story. >> now it's cindy's turn. so what do you think about all this for her? >> you know, i think that she works very hard, and she never gets dressed up. she never does anything for herself. and so she deserves this. she needs to feel better and -- yes. she deserves it. >> that's so nice to hear, right? >> yes. >> okay. >> she's beautiful anyway. >> all right. it's a lovefest, and there are tears, but we're going to turn them into smiles. are you ready? >> i'm so ready. >> okay. so obviously cindy has never -- hasn't seen doris since her makeover. doris hasn't seen cindy. >> look at doris, she's being blocked by jimmy our floor manager. >> once again here's cindy before. let's see cindy now. come on. >> wow. wow, wow, wow. >> hot mama. >> all right. are you ready? everybody turn around. ladies. get the masks off. >> oh, my god. >> did you see your sister too? >> all right. want to see yourself? >> yeah. >> take a look. look in the mirror. >> surprise. >> wow, wow. >> oh, my god. >> you look so beautiful. now look right in the camera. look right there, sweetie. yeah. >> wow. >> right? >> this starts with the hair. the darkest blonde, the darkest warm blonde. then this is very close to her natural color, which she was born with, actually. she looks a little more alive. the swept-away bang erases years. combine that with the make-up, which is soft. the tip is as the aging process goes on, less make-up goes a long way. >> i don't think people realize that, that less is more as -- >> less is more. >> the outfit is fantastic. >> a little leather. when we put this on, she said i want this. it's from andrew market. it's an indoor-outdoor jacket. you can wear it indoors and out, and the jewelry statement necklace is kendra scott. >> doris, come on, join your sister. take baby steps. a big round of applause. good job, sisters. beautiful. >> all right. a woman is always looking good. "real housewives" diva ne ne leakes is here right after this. again? it's embarrassing it's embarrassing! we can see you carl. we can totally see you. come on you're better than this...all that prowling around. yeah, you're the king of the jungle. have you thought about going vegan carl? hahaha!! you know folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than antelope with night-vision goggles. nice! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. 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[ male announcer ] this commercial is not about getting fios; it's about getting fios. that moment after you finally got it that you actually get it. when you see the difference 100% fiber optics makes, and you say "woah we are not on cable anymore." when online videos aren't herky jerky, you get it. or when a movie downloads in two minutes, you get it. last chance to get fios for just $79.99 a month for two years with a two-year agreement. plus $300 back. go to got2getfios.com today call the verizon center for customers with disabilities for america's fastest, most reliable internet. at 800-974-6006 tty/v. verizon fios. she's famous for speaking her mind and serving up sass on bravo's hit reality show "the real housewives of atlanta." >> but nene leakes has been pulling double duty lately. she's got that role on "the new normal" where she plays rocky, a fierce assistant who's not too different from the real nene, as we've noticed. hey. how are you? >> good morning. how are you? >> you're a busy bee, i have to say. >> i am. >> you got your fame from "the real housewives of atlanta." and you quickly took it and ran with it. and not everyone can do that, can they? >> not everyone can do that. that's very true. i've been very lucky. i've been very blessed. i think when you get an opportunity or platform such as the "real housewives of atlanta" you have to use it to your advantage. and i was able to do that, and now i'm on a primetime television show. >> yes, you are. >> are you loving that? >> i do. i love ryan murphy. he's fantastic. he is the creator of "glee," "american horror story." and now "the new normal." i love it. quite different than reality. it's a whole hour. lots of hours. >> you earn the money. >> yes, you do. >> in "the new normal" there's a scene in one of the ones -- i think it was the pardon me scene with the turkeys and all that where you and -- you're actually playing your mother's role, your father's role, and your role. that must have been such a trip. so much fun to play all three roles. >> i couldn't wait to do that. >> look at this. >> look, i got a new job. >> i love that strawberry lemonade. that menu is huge. thank god for those pitchers. >> i am the new assistant to mr. brian talon. daddy, my dreams are coming true. >> dreams don't pay no bills. >> neither do you, you dummy. >> you won't make it out there. >> this is so fun to watch you. it must have been fun to do. >> i was so excited when i got the script for me to play the characters. i called up a few friends who've done that same thing before like tyler. and i was excited. >> tyler perry. >> i was excited to do that. >> you're also on the cover, right? of "ebony" magazine, money and power. >> look at you. >> pretty big stuff. some people were not happy with that. why do you think that is? >> well, i did some interviews, and i talked about -- i just -- my personal thoughts are i felt like i got a lot of flak from my own community, meaning the african-american community. i feel like we don't support each other the way that we should. i feel like i deserve to be on that cover more than anybody else. i am an african-american who crossed over to primetime, which is not easy to do, and it's not a lot of african-americans who are on a primetime scripted series, so that was huge. and i did so many other things. i have my own charity. i own restaurants. i did so many things that i felt that i deserved it. the editors over at "ebony" felt i deserved it. and that's why you see me on the cover. >> you say some things -- when people come up to you -- because i know not everyone's kind. and you are known to speak your mind. do you say what you think? >> i do. most of the time i try to keep it really real and say what i think. and sometimes i'm very direct, which can sometimes hurt people, but when i say direct, i'm just -- i don't feel like i have that tone, you know, that voice where it's like really sweet. i feel like if you ask me and i just tell you very directly, and sometimes it can shock somebody who -- >> can i ask directly, are you back with greg? what's going on? >> greg and i are definitely back together. >> okay. did he propose to you? we heard a rumor he proposed to you on new year's. >> no. it's not -- >> you tweeted about it. >> i tweeted about it on new year's eve. and i love twitter, as a matter of fact. so please follow me on twitter, everybody. @neneleakes. you need to follow me so you can hear me trash talk. no, i'm not trash talking. i talk about a lot of nice stuff. no, i think people can see on "the real housewives of atlanta" that greg and i are together, and i think people want to know if we're going to go to the next level. >> right. that's what i'm asking. >> the answer is? >> you'll have to tune into the housewives. >> that's not very direct. >> thank you. >> oh, man. >> tuesday, 9:30, 8:30 central time. >> from normal to buck wild. >> oh, no. >> some people are calling it the new "jersey shore" right after this. >> okay. good morning to you. i'm meteorologist chris warren with your weather channel forecast. for today looking across the country, the snow that we saw in southwest texas will be moving out, and the system will bring rain throughout parts of the gulf coast, the gulf coast of texas. still a frontal system hanging around parts of central florida and disturbances rolling over the top. will bring a chance for some showers where the mildest air is going to be to the south. coldest air still to the north with readings in the 20s and 30s in many spots for daytime highs. on saturday another system, not much with it as far as moisture goes. still a chance for some showers throughout parts of the gulf coast states. still going to be cold in the northeast. and we're looking at lake effect snow and possibly several inches of snow over the next few days, including saturday. the tug hill plateaus are right in here. and the coldest air still going to be here in northern new england, the northern plains, and we're looking at some cool air throughout much of the west. still a chance for some snow showers throughout the great lakes on sunday. throughout parts of the southeast more clouds and some showers. it's going to be cold throughout the plains with temperatures topping out for highs only in the 30s. and then on monday you can see a front lining up right here. that's going to help bring in a little cooler air on tuesday. but it's still going to be lingering right around the canadian border. minneapolis dropping just a few degrees. we're starting to see some warming conditions early on in the week. and you can see another area of low pressure setting up here throughout parts of the southeast and then in the southern plains, chance for some rain as things are turning mild. temperatures getting into the upper 40s for louisville. and in chicago 41. we're going to watch out for the chance for some showers the beginning to the middle of next week. as the next system rolls in. things are going to be pretty quiet, though, in the northeast, with highs in the lower to mid 40s. another system moving into the pacific northwest. remember weekdays on the weather channel starting at 5:30 in the morning you can wake up with al. i played a round of golf.id in the last five hours? 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[ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. move over "jersey shore." mtv has some new kids in town. small town, west virginia. >> the new show is called "buck wild," and it follows the lives of nine adventurous friends doing a little country living. let's face it. if you haven't been to a dump truck pool party, then you are missing out. shane gandy and shay bradley are two of the show's stars. hey. are you all ready? tonight is the big premiere. >> 10:00. >> we've seen some of the clips and there's a lot of -- it looks like people diving in mud baths and laughing and hooting and hollering. what happens in this show? >> you know, that was a little bit of it, but it's just nine of my friends living in the middle of nowhere. just making our own fun, doing what we want and when we want. >> with what we got. >> with what you got. >> what do you got? >> not much. that's what i'm saying. we got what we got. >> there's ridiculous stuff. >> like what? tell us what you think is ridiculous that people can have fun with. like what? >> i don't know. you can have fun with tires. >> that was just tarps, and we just put soap suds and water and slid around. >> what's the message you're trying to get out, besides your having a good time. is there something you want the audience to walk away with? >> it's just have fun. live in the moment. >> you only live once. so live it up. >> the senator of your great state was very upset that this was going to be on mtv, and actually said, look, they went to mtv and said we wish you guys will take this off, it's going to make us all look terrible, and we don't want to all be cast with this broad brush. what do you think about that? >> well, as far as the criticism goes, i represent myself and myself only, so to say that nine individuals represent the whole state of west virginia is just silly. you know? >> but do you think that it's a good thing for west virginia? i think that's what he was saying. that it poorly represents young people in west virginia. >> i'm representing myself. >> we aren't representing everyone there. we are who we are. >> even my best friends on the show, if they do something embarrassing, that's on them. i represent myself only. >> i picked you as the crazy one. >> what do you do? what kind of crazy stuff? >> well, i get in this big old tractor tire, and, well, at first she starts it up. she's on flat ground. she rolls on it. let's take it back there to the holler and roll down this big old hill. >> so you roll down in a tire inside it? >> inside it. and i'm going there -- my knees hitting me in the face. oh, my gosh. then it flips me out. oh, my gosh. >> then what happens? >> then i can't do nothing. i'm just laying there like in a maze. oh, my gosh. oh, that was awesome. >> he does the craziest stuff, and he gets up like nothing happened. >> okay. you know your lives are going to change because the fame that happened to the "jersey shore" kids could be happening to you. >> are you ready for that? >> sure. >> we haven't changed at all. our friendship, nothing's changed. >> okay. we wish you guys good luck because "buck wild" premieres tonight on mtv. >> good luck. >> uh-huh. >> okay. >> next up we're going to show you how to look like a million for way less. we'll be back with more of "today" on nbc. ♪ beautiful girls ♪ back now with "today's beauty" and how to look like a million bucks for just pennies. >> "glamour" contributing beauty editor andrea pomerantz is the author of the new book "how to look expensive." it's full of insider beauty advice that celebrities pay top dollar to get. hey. >> hi, guys. thanks for having me. >> you're going to tell us how to do things. >> i'm going to show you how to do great things that are celebrity secrets. they're simple, they're easy, and most important, they're free. first thing has to do with champagne. >> why are we putting champagne on our hair? >> we're putting champagne on our hair because we highlighted half of her hair. this is a before. that's the after. >> just wait. champagne on your hair -- >> champagne on your hair. if you've got any leftover bubbly, it doesn't have to be good champagne. it can be the cheap stuff. what you're going to do is pour some. i'm going to show you what we did. >> pour champagne on your hair. >> save a little for us. >> saturate the hair. then use the heat of a blow dryer, and a diffuser. it will give you the beautiful -- if you can see the ends of her hair have that gorgeous ombre effect that people spend a fortune on. >> and it doesn't look disgusting. >> it adds body to your hair and makes it bright, shiny. >> you blow it dry. >> next time you shampoo, you'll still have the highlights. >> wow. >> okay. >> like the old lemon juice trick. >> now, these tips come from jennifer aniston's dermatologist? >> shhh. >> secret's out. >> secret's out. bobby buca may kill me that i said that. but here we go. i'm talking gauze pads with soy milk. it helps with pigmentation. it counteracts the pigmentation. dip it in. i'm going to do it on your face. you could do it on your chest for pigmentation. just go like that. you could do this a few times. >> what exactly does that do? what exactly does that do? >> what that does is it counteracts pigmentation. so it will even out your skin tone. >> dark spots, will it get rid of them? >> bingo. >> really? >> soy milk. >> wow. >> what about bags under the eyes? >> bags under eyes we've got two really fun ideas. we made jell-o squares, wrapped them in saran wrap and -- >> you froze them. >> we froze them. and you can keep them in the fridge for when you have those nights when you know you're going to have a bad morning. >> that is rude. that is really rude. >> how long do you keep them on? >> you leave them on for ten minutes. >> okay. >> i'll give you each one of these. >> yeah. sure. >> do you eat this? >> green tea antioxidant popsicle. again, this would feel great on the bags of your eyes. but it's also a great skin treatment for redness. and everyone has green tea. how easy is that? i keep these in the freezer all the time. they feel great. >> i'm not going to give you one. i think you're busy enough. >> okay. >> this one i didn't quite understand. it's using your mascara wand for eyeliner. >> any mascara you have will work. this is one of my favorites. what i did is i use a eyeliner, a eyeliner brush. >> you stick it in. >> you stick it in and then you have a two-fer. >> what's the difference between using regular eyeliner and that? >> cheaper. >> oh, it saves you money. >> saves a few bucks. it's also a great trick. actually, makeup artists do this because you can do it very subtly and make your eyelashes look really thick. >> oh, okay. >> i like the gold too. >> this is blake lively's makeup artist's trick. again, she told me blake would till her for sharing it but i'm doing that. what you do is after you apply the black, or you can do it without the black, you rim your eyes with gold. it's almost like walking around under candlelight. gives you this gorgeous glow. >> wow. >> we all love. >> what's the ol
>> nine. >> no, it is an eight. because you know, it is just so extremely humid to day and we are coming off that 93-degree high yesterday. it does feel like summer is supposed to feel like it does around here. >> it is summer. >> that would be good. >> i'm master of the obvious. >> we have got bus stop buddy pool side with muggy the dog because it is 60's and 70's to get started. wear that sun screen at the pool or beach today, and reapply. there is your ultimate doppler radar picture. showers popped up to the northwest of baltimore, and, it entering our viewing area. 77 degrees is our current temperature. 69 percent relative humidity. is there your high, 94, hot hot, humid, hazy sunshine. tonight we have chance of thunderstorms popping up. these could be loud. you have been warned. >> you could never rule out, a pop up thunderstorm. >> at least you are paying attention. >> yes. >> lets talk burr majors. only slow down 95 south woodhaven to the vine once you get past betsy ross bridge and only incident you have is a disable vehicle. lets start in east white land north bound side of 202 you can see that slow down approaching, route 29, as we go to the southbound side of 26th street approaching pen rose avenue we have a disable vehicle there on the right shoulder, and aside from that, really your majors are already, 95 and 76 going to be the only big slow downs. >> let get back to this story in bucks county where police are investigating a deadly triple shooting, in bristol township. >> steve keeley is live with the very latest, and you just got new information about how many people were affected by this. >> reporter: official confirmation from police is one person dead inside the house and unofficially, a second person, brain dead at the hospital with a third person shot in the back at the same hospital. so, lets just show you victim number two because that is one we have a picture of and that is one identified by several family and friend, josh johnson a man shot previously five or six years ago in philadelphia, that shooting left him in the wheelchair but left him with a use of his hand and his caretaker came by, finding out that he was killed and, she went to the hospital and got the news from the doctor's that he is brain dead, and now david heckler the bucks county d.a. is on his waste here to give us the official update but police, tell us, a man in his 30's was dead in the house, josh and another man in his 30's was taken to the hospital. what was about, who did the shooting, they have also figured out and they will be updating this. here is caretaker telling bus josh's troubled life both here and in philadelphia unfortunately. >> he got shot. >> was that in philadelphia. >> reporter: yes. >> reporter: then he was in the wheelchair. >> he was in the wheelchair after that. he was in a wheelchair. he remained the same still, the josh that he was. >> he moved up to bristol have after he got out of the hospital in the wheelchair. >> to get away from the drama and stuff like that and i don't know, like somebody got it out for him. >> reporter: just like our story yesterday, moving out of the city does not guarantee you getting a way from any of the gun violence kendra jones the caretaker told us josh was armed here at his house for protection so he had a gun. he may have been the shooting in all of this and may have turn the gun on himself or other person did that as well. or we could have two shoot their shot each other and killed each other here with that third man being wounded in the back. we will have all of the answers for you and if you don't see me doing it we will have it on our web site as soon as we get those answers from the bucks county d.a. david heckler. >> perfect steve, thank you. well, a mom in new york city accused of abandoning her baby on a subway platform. police have have release aid picture i'll show new a second of the little girl basically sitting in the stroller. hoping that somebody will recognize the mom or the baby, police also released video of the woman on the stage. she push the stroller on the platform and then the train stopped yesterday morning. she push stroller out, doors closed she moves on. the doors closed she rode away in the subway car. the baby by the way is in the hospital. now, she close the columbus circle subway platform and that is one of the most wealthy, nicest, most safe, platforms in the new york city right there near central park at 59th street. maybe she had that in mind. that is why she chose the columbus circle platform. >> someone did take care of the child and get it to police. thank goodness. what a wild night in southern california. >> a day in the california amusement park ends in injury. two dozen people were stuck on the ninja ride at six flags magic mountain in california officials say they were stranded for three hours. four passengers, were injured and has been injured. fire officials say ride hit a tree branch which caused to it malfunction. >> i have been there many times, my kids, my daughters loved it when they grew up in southern california. it does go through trees. roller coaster through trees apparently they let a branch get down too far and it clipped one of the cars. somebody will be in trouble. >> i know. >> well in, southwest philadelphia what a wild night 5:00 o'clock yesterday afternoon. people take to the streets, in protest over fire department's response to the deadly wild fire. they say it took too long, fire fighters say oh, no we didn't. >> this is one we have been hearing about, four year-old twin sisters with the four year-old boy and would month-old brother all perish in that fire on saturday morning very early in the morning. 6500 block of gesner street. several homes were destroyed in that fire. jenny joyce is joining us life from southwest philadelphia with really both sides of the story because it really is two different accounts of how long it took the fire fighters to respond, right. >> reporter: that is right, sue and last night fire commissioner spoke up defending his team saying they had a ladder truck on the scene of the gesner street fire within three minutes, and engine a arrived within five minutes on a different call at the time. however an entire community as many as 300 people, believed a different story, they took to the streets to voice their frustration with the department saying it took close to 30 minutes for fire fighters to arrive and get to work during the protest at least three people were arrested, one woman in the crowd fell to the ground, she had a seizure, police office's arrived in bulk to try to control this scene. at one point intersection of 65th and wood land was shut down because of the masses. people were still out here as late as 10:00 o'clock last night, despite the fact that the fire department, and the fire victims are right across the street from one another, there is not a sense of community right now as tensions are high. >> they said that they have have reported on 65th and governor within three minutes. fire department is right there to report within three minutes but that fire station didn't report to us. it took them 20 minutes to get here. it took them ten minutes to prepare. all of these houses wouldn't be damaged. >> they in that fire house right now, sad, distraught because they pride themselves on saving lives, and it is not fair for someone to satisfy it took 30 minutes. guess what, cell phones have call logs, however said that believes that show us a call log. if you believe it took 30 minutes show us the call log. >> and commissioner sawyer went on to say members of the fire department know this community. think know members well. they say children have them at the daily basis and there is no way they wouldn't respond to this fire in a timely manner. mike? >> speaking of the call logs how soon will they release that? that might help a bit. you would think that with happen today. >> reporter: yeah, yesterday there was in word on how soon we could get those dispatch logs. >> you'll get them today. maybe calm everybody down and we will see. 7:09. happening today state senate in pennsylvania will vote on a new cigarette tax that could raise millions of dollars to help philadelphia's under funded school district. maybe 90 million-dollar sue. >> and without this city leaders say schools wouldn't be fit to open up in the fall. last week state house of representatives approved the tax and governor said wow sign off on it too. without at digsal revenue school district officials say they will have to layoff 1300 more educators, besides people who have already laid off. >> senate will sign off but they already did, so, it is pretty much a done deal. >> two extra bucks for every pack. another building collapse in philadelphia, roofs of two row homes came crashing down on the 6,000 block of spruce street, basically between 60th and 61st street on spruce in the cobbs creek section. yesterday afternoon. investigators say a wall between two of the homes gave way, an adjoining wall causing it to collapse. both rooms and second floors came down, one of the homeowners noticed crack in the front bedroom within the last week or so, home inspectors, say no complaints or violations have been reported on either home. red cross says it is helping treat families affect by the collapse, of course, crews came in yesterday afternoon later on and pushed the houses down. almost all the way down to the street house. >> it happened so fast. >> a lot of clean up happened across massachusetts after a harsh weather, the rain caused the ground to soften and when the wind came on in, it knocked down a whole bunch have of trees. in this neighborhood a large tree knocked down two others before it crashed in the condo complex. and more disturbing details surrounding death of the georgia toddler whose father left him in the car for seven hours, while he went to work. >> the investigators say they is, three three-year old justin ross harris put, 22 month-old cooper harris, his son into his car, his old, car seat, several days before he died. they say it was, rear facing, a rear facing seat and it looks like it was too small for little boy. parents then purchased a larger car seat, a couple weeks before the incident. it was a front facing seat. investigators believe harris switched out the seats in order to bolster his claim that he forgot his son was there. authorities say they also found marks on little cooper's face suggesting the child struggled to let him get himself free from the car seat as the car heated up. >> that is hard to hear. >> wow. >> twelve minutes after 7:00 in california there is a push for new laws after a mass shooting in aisle vista. the proposals from legislators include i gun date base for officers who are answering a call to check out the welfare of a resident and they will be able to get weapon information, within 90 seconds. the shooter in aisle vista killed six people and wounded 13 others before killing himself. new to south of africa, defense team for oscar pistorius has rested his case. this is as video surfaced of the athlete reinacting the night of what happened, when his girl friend was killed it shows oscar running without his prosthetic leg and him carrying a woman, what he said he did for his girl friend after she was shot. video was made by the defense, by a u.s. based company and was not shown at trial, though. verdict is expected sometime next movement coming up at 7:30 our legal analyst will be in here to talk about what has now been the impact of this video being released as the public saw it. should that affect the trial, will it affect the trial. this video reported a plane enthusiast sunday showing a boeing 737, rolling on the runway. >> yes, that is a big plane, on the runway, so this pilot does a very good job of gunning the engine to take off. >> the experts say that the maneuver is practiced but not often caught on video and they say they were never in any danger and that the russian planes could have preceded with landing but no one was hurt. >> way too close. >> you wouldn't have known about it had that plane enthusiast wouldn't have been out there videotaping. >> phillies and brewers, best team in the national league, continue their series tonight in milwaukee. chase utley, homered last night, in a rare phillies win. >> how about that. >> rare. >> yeah. >> ryan howard added an rbi for the phillies in their three-two win. cole hamels got a little bit of support, pitch in the seventh inning and pick up a win for phillies, first win in a long time. >> only his third of the season. >> third of the season and it is july the eighth. good news for some former pro football players. >> a federal judge has given approval of a deal that would, compensate the ex-athletes for concussion related injuries, more than 4500 former players filed suit against the nfl just two weeks ago. league agreed to remove 675 million-dollar in cap money on damages after the judge questioned whether there would be enough money, to pay all of the claims. we're 17 days away from training camp opening up and i posed this question. >> oh, yeah. >> why did the phillies have the only logo in all of the nfl that faces, to the left. the big screaming eagles is facing left. >> you meant to say eagles. >> what did i say. >> phillies. >> i got phillies on my mind. >> have of course, that is an eagles logo. >> they face the left. >> all other team logos, like the denver broncos horse he faces right. they all faith to the rise. >> i'll explain it. >> yes, there is a reason or at least i believe so. 7:16. a young preschooler, gets a heart warming welcome when he returns to class after being home sick for a week. unaudible. >> that is sean harris, quite the ladies man. >> apparently so. >> so sean harris posted this video of his son, tyler, returning to school, he says that this was, quite a good group of acceptance, you know, looks great, he was out sick for a little bit for over a week. so tyler was so touched and his tad was so touched by kids hugging he posted video with the hash tag proud father, kids can end racism. >> yeah, i think it just took that simple scene have of a kid coming back to school and everybody hugging the kid, kids of all colors hugging each other. >> yes. >> we are the world. >> that is right. >> we are the children. >> yes, you know it. >> it is from the 80's, too. >> time for weather and traffic. >> well, we will get in the 80's today but no, 90's are in store for us. so we have to remind you have once in a while to take care of yourself in weather like this because we don't want to hear any incidents of anything bad happening, to anybody because of the heat. slow down, take plenty of breaks, if you have to be outside. we know there are plenty of you who have have to work outside if you are a landscaper or working construction, these can be tough days for you, drink plenty of water, dress for summer and stay in the shade as much as possible. air conditioning is preferred if that is possible for you. ninety's will be returning thanks to the southeasterly winds. humidity yeah, still with us with high pressure in control. we have a system that will be moving through, so thunderstorm chances are tonight and tomorrow, for the most part, and still up in the air about thursday, it looks like right now thursday may clear out for us, today and tomorrow not only worst days with the heat but with the thunderstorm activity that could cut through tonight, it looks like from the fox future cast possibility is around maybe eight or 9:00 o'clock tonight and those thunderstorms are finished with us, morning dry, tomorrow, muggy of course but dry and then by 2:00 in the afternoon on wednesday we will see scotterd showers here and there and should clear out by thursday. that is when we will see improvement in the comfort level of our weather, but it is 77 degrees in philadelphia just after 7:00 in the morning. seventy-seven in dover. 69 degrees in mount pocono. 74 degrees in atlantic city. we will check heat index to see how it feels, 77 feels like 79 but once sunnies up we will see though heat indexes rise ago lot more, meaning that it will feel more than the actual temperature so 94 will feel like 98 later today. 90 degrees tomorrow, if we make it to the 90 that would be second heat wave of 2014. eighty-eight on thursday. improvement. by friday we will have low humidity. friday may be best weather day of the week as far as being comfortable outside with warm temperatures and low humidity. saturday and sunday is looking good for weekend so far sunny and warm both days, 85 on saturday, 88 on sunday. things are improving in that seven day forecast, kacie. >> looks good to me thanks very much, sue serio. today is a fabulous traffic day, you will have have your delay on 95 but we have no accident, really it is touch and go on 76 but you can see all and all things are looking fantastic. we have two disable vehicles we will talk about that a little bit slowly, north bound side of 202 at route 29 in east whiteland also just some normal 202 northbound traffic. southbound side of 26th approaching pen rose avenue you have another disable vehicle on the right shoulder so not causing any drama. you know, i like jimmy fallon. i like his impression of, neil young. so he pulled it out again last night. he is doing neil young's version of iggy azalea hit song i'm so fans. he had some help, watch. >> ♪ >> how about that crosby, stills and nash show up. wow. >> there are a couple of albums. >> yes. >> that is a great moment. >> so cool. >> he is good. >> he gets better every night. is that on another network. >> who cares. >> next up, danger being offered to your children, down the shore, right on the boardwalk, i mean out in the open too, right during daylight hours. the drug even police say, they have never seen, in our shore towns before. we will tell you what it is. police say, they have found a mother accused of doing this abandoning her baby, in that new york city subway station yesterday. officers say they are questioning this 20 year-old woman, so far, no charges have been filed because they are just getting to the questioning. that baby is okay, and in the care of children services up in manhattan. lets go down the shore to atlantic city. police are warning of a liquid form of a synthetic drug they say a store gave to teens, just walking by on the boardwalk. >> dawn timmeney is live in the social media center to tell us the rest of the story, dawn. >> reporter: very disturbing. two teenagers workers at angels and saints on the boardwalk offered them hooka pens to try but then the teens got sick almost immediately, and police say inside those pens, is a form of liquid, synthetic marijuana. and that drug can be deadly as you can see in the you tube video, marijuana in the original form was banned in new jersey two years ago. police arrested the owner and store clerk there is that you tube video. the store's license is suspended and people we spoke to say they are surprised, stores would just give it to teenagers. >> i heard about it. >> the liquid weed, it does surprise me because there is a lot of teens out here all the time on the boardwalk and they come here just to have fun. it is in the right that they would do that. >> police say their investigation led them to the boardwalk outlet store. some within there offered undercover police officers there synthetic marijuana in the original form saying it with get them buzzed. atlantic city police say this is first time they have seen synthetic marijuana in the liquid form in the area on the boardwalk and they are extremely concerned about this. >> that is for sure. all right, watch out for that. 7:27. still ahead, do you pay for a credit card report? our expert say that is a waste of money. you have heard of credit karma, we will tell you four more things you're paying for you will do to it day that it is a big waste of money. we will save you money right, quincy. >> yes, you will, new york yankees fan fell asleep at a baseball game and now he wants yankees fan fell asleep at a baseball game[ mom ]w he wants when the nest gets too quiet... it's time to find some real harmony, with nature. [ family screams ] elmo! [ wolf, kids howling ] [ train whistles ] [ bird chirps ] [ people screaming ] [ snoring ] music to mom's ears. [ female announcer ] turn your visit into a getaway. busch gardens and water country usa summer packages from just $60 per person per night. [ mom ] we may live in houses, but we're born for busch gardens. atlantic city, new jersey, oh, what a perfect place to be on a day like today, taking a dip in the ocean, it is about 72 degrees in that ocean right now. and boy will that be refreshing during a 94-degree day. there is muggy the dog. it will be humid today. buddy carrying the sun screen during these lazy, hazy days of summer. temperatures starting off in the 60's and 70's, we will give you an eight out of ten in your weather number today. it does feel like it is supposed to feel at summertime around here. we have thunderstorms in the forecast and that high humidity. ultimate doppler nothing to show you, at the moment, a little bit of shower activity, showing up in lancaster county, doesn't look like that is doing very much, we have sunshine, milk with a few clouds, 77 degrees to start with 69 percent relative humidity. high later on is 94 tonight we're down to 74, this is where we can get pop up thunderstorms, some could be strong to severe. thunder might wake you up tonight, kacie. >> i hope not. >> thanks very much, sue. we have a few accidents cropping up, we have one disable vehicle in abington, meeting house road at susquehanna road. we will stay in abington for this one. we have an accident there with the car fire, so fair way between old york road and 611 and rydell road, a car fire and accident at that scene. we have the the southbound side on the roosevelt boulevard at tyson avenue in the inner drive, mike. two credit 30 in the afternoon in south africa. trial continues there, maybe for a little bit more, this morning at that murder trial, oscar pistorius his defense team finally rested its case a little while ago. verdictes expected sometime next month, meanwhile look at this video, video surfaced of the athlete, reinacting, what he says, happened the night he shot and killed his girlfriend , it shows him running without his leg and carrying a woman, that is what he said he did after he shot her. video is made by the defense, for the defense and was never shown in court. but will it play a role in the final verdict. and how did they see it. why wouldn't they show it in court, that is reason they made it. >> general public is playing it out on tv for the general public, which means the judge probably had access to it if she wanted to see it. it was prepared by the the defense and it is what we lawyers called work product they decided not to put it as part of their case. that is their decision. defense decided they weren't going to use it. reason thinks video as i watch it, it the cuts both ways. i think it goodies for pistorius and his team because it shows his side of the story, it shows reinact. which is visual account for people that are making an asses. of whether he is guilty or innocent. but it is also good for the the prosecution because the prosecution will be able to pick it apart because he testified, to the way that it occurred and maybe video depict is it differently. so both defense and prosecution didn't use it so it is not part of the trial. >> what do you like or what don't you like about it. >> well, what you do like about it from oscar pistorius standpoint it shows exactly what he says happened, it shows that he was, when he made and took the the shots where he was, how he did it. how he reacted. it supports his side of the story. but the prosecution would pick it apart and say no, it didn't exactly happen the way he said it happened at the bail hearing. they would tend to point out inconsistency whiz would bolster their case. >> i understand why they would make it. it makes it easy for judge and two assistant that sit behind her to understand their point, and instead have just words, could the prosecution make their own little video. they could have made their own video but it has to be authenticate todd come into court. in that way it could not come in because they have to make their own assertions and based on evidence. it is pretty hard. normally, reinact. s normally things like that are put on by the in this case the tea fence. >> right. >> so if the general public saw it and you say the judge probably did see it even though they didn't play tonight front of everybody in the courtroom. >> right. >> would that be a problem, with people out in the general public saw it. they don't to have make the decision. >> they're not making the decision at all. normally would i say jury would be sequestered and jury wouldn't see the video. judge is out there she goes home every night. i'm sure she saw it. she's well schooled in the law. i don't think it will make any difference. >> i think you have met john kruk, one of our favorite phillies. it sure is making big news. front page of the new york post, snore loser. you are such a snore loser. this guy was asleep, and he is at the yankees game and espn crew was doing the game, and john kruk, john kruk does it with dan schulman for espn on sunday night, former philly right there. this guy you made fun of me, listen to what they said in a lull in the game about the sleeping fan how comfortable is that. >> probably won't have any neck problems tomorrow. >> is that guy to his left his buddy who is just letting him sleep or is he here alone. >> maybe that is his buddy and likes him a lot better when he is asleep. >> this went on for a little while. now this by is suing for ten million-dollar. espn, yankees, john kruk, dan schulman, maybe vendors around him. he is suing everybody. does he have a case. >> this is a definition of the frivolous lawsuit this gives lawyers like me a bad name. complaint which i read kruk unleashed avalanche of disparaging words. as you heard from that video there is no disparaging words at all. all of the disparaging things were said on line about him but yankees and kruk and everybody else didn't have anything to do with it. they made observation that he was asleep and guess what, he was asleep. so it was true. it wasn't disparaging. there is no basis for a lawsuit at all. >> all right ken, thanks. >> good good to see you. >> get your priorities straight, are we too addict to our cell phones. surprising number of us that say our smart phones are more important then personal hygiene. the the survey ahead. plus, looking to make a few new friends, are you willing to pay. new dating web site that sets you up with potential friends. potential pals. >> no kissing. randy newman, right. >> toy story. >> yes, it fridays toy story. >> randy, around a long time. there are dozens of dating web site, of course and i'm trying to get caitlin roth on any of them. but here is one, there is millions of people looking for love, romance, some kisses but now there is a web site, in search of a different kind of of relationship, strictly platonic. people looking for friends that our good friend is back from maternity leave, kerry barrett. >> nice to be here. who is looking for platonic relationships, by the way. >> well, i am. >> nobody that i know of. >> exactly. but let me tell you about it anyway. it is called rent a friend. it may sound desperate but more than half million users on the site friendship business ace parentally booming. here's how it all works. friend create profiles, for free, for what you see on facebook and then those friends, charge members for their company. users get charged by the hour and that is on top of the $25 a in fee from the web site to set you up on these friend dates. you can hire a wing man or woman for a night out on the town and you can hire somebody to take to the office party. that goes by a different name. but the sites state that physical contact is not allowing between members and friends. you are on a strict, no touching basis. >> okay. >> i guess that is how that works. >> no member touching. >> no member touching at all. >> sure, kerry. >> here's the thing kerry barrett, by the way how is your brother, brennan. is he good. >> very well. >> well, i have been in situations where lets say you are in another town and you wanting to to dinner. >> um-hmm, little creepy, eating by myself. >> sure. >> it is 25 bucks. >> feel creepy going to eat by yourself, really. >> a little bit. >> no, i can see that about you. >> sue has a point. >> the point is, for instance, you get invited to a wedding and you have a plus one and you are not dating anybody but you don't wanting to by yourself. so you can hire somebody, no funny business, i can see where this is useful. >> wasn't this the premise of the movie years ago american gig low whatever it was with richard gear. >> i guess it was but if you are hiring same sex friends can you hire any friends. >> you can hire any gender wing man and women. >> they have golfing buddies there. >> if you are single and looking to mingle and you hire a friend to come with you for a wedding then you just drop your chances. >> you are on the wrong web site then. >> i kind of like it, even though it sounds like an escort. >> it does. >> yeah. >> all right, thank you for that. >> you're welcome. >> sure. >> happy ending. >> aren't you glad you are back. >> you brought up this point this lawsuit against john kruk and espn for ten million-dollar this guy sleeping, caught on camera, so conviction i what reaction are you seeing on twitter, what do you feel about that. >> he cannot sue. i have sarah a here what do you think about it. >> i don't think he should sue. he was just there sleeping. he should have have been watching the game because he was there. >> i agree with sarah we will get more comments coming testing. today we have a southeasterly breeze at 15 miles an hour. so that will off set upper 80's, be very hot, on the beach, 72 degrees is your ocean water temperature. low rip current risk but uv index is very high. right now we have high pressure in control, we have southeasterly wind, pouring in that humidity for rest of the day and pop up thunderstorms, when we show you this future cast doesn't look like they get fired up, and not by 1:00, even 3:00 p.m. not much going on. it is not until after dark that we may see pop up showers and thunderstorms moving through. that is for tonight. and then for tomorrow morning we're fine but pop up showers are possible in the afternoon again. the question is, will we make it to 90 degrees, again tomorrow but get a heat wave. it will be a close one on wednesday, thursday so far, so good. 77 degrees in philadelphia so far, it is warm, muggy out there. make sure you drink water today, 69 degrees in mount pocono. seventy-seven down in dover. we have southeasterly wind around, making things, very, very humid. here is your seven day forecast. this is hottest day of the week, we may make it to 90 tomorrow. we will see what happens with the storms around. 88 degrees on thursday. it will get better. we will go nine out of ten for thursday. but friday will be a ten. temperatures in the mid 80's and low humidity. then we will get to the weekend, saturday and sunday, it looks like sunshine both days, temperatures in the 80's both days, nothing extreme, very seasonal, mid-july weekend, coming up, kacie. we're in for it now. weekend looks great. thanks very much, sue. we have a couple accidents abington township fair way between old york road and 611 at yrdell road. take it slow there southbound side of route one at tie son avenue, boulevard, inner drive has an accident. little slow there as well and norristown high speed line a reminder weekdays 9:30 to 2:30 p.m. you for board on the platform until the furnishes of august. >> every day i try to learn something new. >> such a renaissance man. >> yes. >> well, one little boy's inspiring story shows us why you should do that. you should never give up. one year-old amputee proves he has gotten the hang of walking with his new prosthetic leg. >> do you got it. >> i got it. >> okay. >> this video has gotten nearly 1 million likes on facebook and you can see why. >> i got it, i got it. >> what a cutie. >> hey mom, i got this. >> wow, what a sweetheart. >> lets get back to this. we need your opinion on this we talked to ken rottweiler our legal analyst, baseball fan wants espn to pay him for what he says are disparaging comments made about him, during alive broadcast of the yankees game, yankees were playing the red sox. yankees play the red sox every weekend. according to the smoking gun.com this guy's name hoist sleeping, andrew richter is suing the network espn, our johnny kruk, former philly, and his broadcasting partner dan shulman for ten million-dollar in damages. the announcers started to make comments when there was a lull at the game about this sleeping fan live on tv. right there in the stands. here it goes. >> probably won't have any neck problems tomorrow. >> i mean is that guy to his left his buddy who is just letting him sleep or is he here alone, what is the deal. >> maybe that is his buddy and he likes him a lot better when he is asleep. >> maybe not his buddy and he needs to rent a friend. when cities reporting that the lawsuit names the yankees and major league baseball, as, defendants. quincy, it is probably a producer in the booth who said let's punch that up. they will be involved in the lawsuit too. what do you think. >> no, wait, come on, listen, you fall asleep at a game. they should sue him. yankees ticket are very expensive. they are still expensive. the team is in third place. here's another thing yankees were up. it was a close game. it was like two -one. they were playing rival boston and you fall asleep. >> sometimes baseball, you can get a little bit boring. >> yes, a lot of lulls in the game. >> it was the fourth inning, i have ed here. what do you think. >> he should be happy he is at a game. i don't think you can get ten million-dollar for just falling asleep. >> i agree. >> everyone i'm talking to agrees. you cannot sue. if you have that money to sue you can put that machine toy something else. i want to know the lawyer. we should blast the lawyer, that filed this lawsuit. frivolous. >> a couple of things. >> woman coming up behind you lets just say we started making comment about her outfit. >> take care. >> i love this lady. >> look at the size of this woman's bag, it is gigantic, yes. >> it is already 8:00 o'clock. >> there is probably illegal contraband in there. >> yes. >> very attractive. >> what is your name. >> shelley. >> who are you wearing. >> who am i wearing. >> i'm wearing new york and company. >> i love it. >> take care, god bless. >> did you get a number. >> you are not getting me sued, i'm not saying anything bad about that lady. >> watch this guy coming up behind you now. >> what do you think he does for a living, accountant. >> how are you doing, what do you do for a living. >> i work at wells fargo. >> not an accountant are you. >> no. >> how are you doing. >> welcome to good day. >> q, it noise tie day can you get that tie off please. it will be 98 degrees. >> it is a summer tie. >> he likes it. >> yes. >> all right, guys. >> coming up, new information, about donald sterling, oh, boy, overnight did you hear about this. the trial gets underway in a few hours. l.a. clippers, are involved, of course. >> right, there is a neurologist in los angeles who says he knows what may be behind this guy's eradic behavior. cow pay for a credit card report. our financial expert says that is a waste of money he found five things we should stop is a waste of money he found five thinall the chickenop in your grocery store is inspected by the usda... but perdue asked them to go further. they verify that all our chickens are cared for in a clean, safe environment... and fed an all-veggie diet. no other chicken company does this. but at perdue, we believe in a better chicken. well, at perdue, we say you are what you eat...eats. so we feed our chickens an all-veggie diet, including corn and marigolds with no added animal by-products... hormones...or steroids. because at perdue, we believe in a better chicken. right now, that guy sleeping is a pea, pea head and maybe he has had too many beers. >> wow, that is a very major insult. >> we have quality viewers. pea, pea head. >> yes. let's get to this because this is important. it is tic season. a lot of people doing stuff. some ticc carry that lime disease and doctor mike is here. >> yes, we need to check ourselves even more, for tics. >> listen, my son nicholas, i diagnosed lyme disease over him over the the weekend the the the. ic that bit him is a pea, pea head, okay. >> okay, harsh. >> what do they carry. >> well, this is frightening, all right. we live in an area, and we all necessity about lyme disease, because it can be very, very serious. it needs to be treated and diagnosed. there is new data that in addition to lyme disease, one out of 10tics at least in new york and new york is not that far from here is now carrying the the disease. that is a parasite thaw can get: you can get two for one. >> now, that is not my son's armpit but that is, close to what my son looked like over the weekend. >> wow. >> that bull's eye. >> it is a bull's eye rash. and my wife first thought it was eczema. it turns out it was lime disease. he is on antibiotics. now this little picture here is the parasite that goes inside your red blood cells. now, before people panic, the good news is, in most healthy people it doesn't cause a lot of problems but if you are elderly, you have an immune system that is not working right it can lead to significant problems. so if you have a child or loved one that is being treated for lyme disease and they are not getting better, you better check to make sure they don't have something else crawling around like this. >> that is why sue and kacie in commercial breaks check me for tics. >> thank you, kacie. >> now lets get to this other thing real quickly here, breast cancer link to high cholesterol. you know how many people have high cholesterol in this country, doctor. >> too many. bottom line is that this is a study, and this is a very controversy study. some show if you have high cholesterol it does increase your risk of developing breast cancer. some studies show, no but if you are a woman out there with a family history of, breast cancer, you want to do everything you can to reduce that risk. one of them is to stay fit and make sure that your cholesterol is down. we're not there yet where we're telling all woman to go on cholesterol medicine. what i'm taking from this study is look, nobody benefits from, no one benefits from high cholesterol. keep it low, keep your weight down, stay in good shape because those clearly will reduce your risk. >> doctor mike, have a great day. >> i love you all. good day tuesday july 8th, 2014. could it be day two of the weekend and could it be second day, how hot will it get and when will we get relief. those answers coming up in the weather authority forecast. >> there are five things we are wasting our hard earned money on, dumb things we need to stop spending on and you could do it today. we will give thaw top five. ♪ >> what he told our quincy hard business working with beiber and nickie menaj. >> he knows beiber. >> it is video game day by the way, video game day. watch this. >> do you remember this. >> our very own the roots, performed super mario brothers remix at the wawa welcome america festival over the fourth of july weekend. is what your favorite video game of all time. it has been so many of them. >> what is yours. >> i will reveal that in a matter of minutes. weigh in on twitter. >> i got caught in this program with candy crush. >> still doing it. >> no. >> video game but i guess it is for fun too. >> it has evolved, let's just say that. >> you can include words with friends, new version of video game: let's get into weather and traffic. >> lets start off with bus stop buddy, pool side if only we could all be so fortunate today because it will be so hot and humid. we have temperatures in the 60's and 70's, warm and yes, there is muggy the dog for today, making sure that he gets a nice bowl of ice water today. so make sure everybody gets taken care of on a day like today, stay in air conditioning as much as you can during the heat of the day between noon and three. it is eight out of ten with all that humidity. we will have showers and thunderstorms in a few places later on in the day. 80 degrees already. it is only eight in the morning and southeasterly winds at 14. we had a breeze out there. just a hot breeze. 60 percent relative humidity and high temperature of 94. tonight we have a chance of thunderstorms popping up, a few could be strong to severe, 74 degrees overnight. ninety-four is so hot. >> i know. >> all right. thanks, sue. at least it is in the raining. abington township we have a bad accident fair way between old york road and 611 and rydell road. we have a car for there. give it sometime. you will need your patient this is morning. southbound side of route one at tie son avenue an accident there in the inner drive of the boulevard. taking a look at your majors 76 is slow if you are headed westbound 15 extra minutes there same thing for 95 south 15 extra minutes from woodhaven down to the vine. seventy-six eastbound not too bad 476 north about an extra ten minutes this morning. if you are heading home from the shore and elongated your weekend 42 north doesn't look too bad and new jersey majors look good as well. >> tensions still running high in, southwest philadelphia, neighbors are accusing the local fire department of not responding fast enough in that fire that claimed the lives of four children. >> jenny joyce is live outside the fire department station at the center of the this story, jenny. >> reporter: well, that is right, it is filled with protesters. people saying they want justice, this morning and it took too long to arrive for meet, just a half block down the road. fire commissioner is firing back saying he had a crew on the scene and and voiced his frustration with the department in their eyes. it took close to 30 minutes, the fire department, challenging that claim that their ladder truck was on the scene within three minutes and an engine arrived within five minutes. it was on another call. protesters, seized control of these streets, police office's rested at least three people, and then shut down intersection of 65th and wood land because of the masses. they were out here, as late as 10:00 p.m., last night, fire commissioner is standing by his team in admirable effort in battling the street fire. >> we just want justice, that is all we want. >> they was in the here in three minutes. it took over 30 minutes. they took ten minutes to set up. they took 20 minutes to show up. when do you that math it is 30 minutes. >> you have to understand that a part of life, three or four houses were already on fire. that is a challenging effort. those members, they can see those same kids walk by the station every single day. they are hearts are broken. there is no way, no how that these members were not responding in the timely manner to save a life. >> so again fire department is right behind me this scene just about a half block down the road, so close, geographically, however, this community is struggling right new to stay united after that weekend tragedy. mike. >> everybody is hurting, you know, so raw. >> all right. 8:06. >> yes. >> well, happening today, this will happen, state senate will vote on that new cigarette tax that could raise millions, almost a hundred million-dollar to help philadelphia's under funded school districts, without it as you know, city leaders say schools would not be fit to open in the fall. that is just weeks away by the way. the senate, the house of represent, approved the tax. the governor said that he signed off on it too. so without that additional revenue school district officials say that they have would layoff 1300 more educators. so it would go to the senate, senate will do that and governor will sign it and your cigarette smokers out there, pay two extra bucks, close to $10 a pack. what you think is, people would quit. >> yes. >> you wouldn't get as much money. >> so what the state is saying we believe you won't quit, you are so addicted to the cigarette you will pay that extra $2. >> we will see. >> okay. most colleges have traditions, kept live by students spanning generation after generation. >> like villanova wildcats. >> yes. some traditions are cooler then others. >> yes, business insider ranges top ten in penn state, the third the spot. forty-six hour no sleeping dance marathon has been around since 70's and takes place every february. majority of the money raised goes towards research to fight cancer. since it began thon has raised more than 114 million-dollar. >> congratulations to the nittany lions. that is one of the best traditions for sure in this country. >> everybody gets so excited about it. >> some of the others include chris if i cream challenge at north carolina state university this involves a lot of running and eating, doughnuts, long the way. you eat doughnuts and run it off. >> and then you get sick. >> not quite as benevolent as thon. >> no. >> have you ever heard this, this is call the spirit splash and they do this at central florida university. students jump in the campus reflecting pool on home coming weekend. again, not as benevolent as thon. >> no. >> but it is a tradition. >> it is a tradition. >> get naked. >> number one cornell dragon day at cornell university. >> what are you dragging. >> they build build massive dragon that is are paraded around campus good like a chinese new year way to get big dragons from chinatown. >> pretty cool. >> i like that one. >> speaking of the sports, the dude that owns the l.a. clippers this donald sterling, does donald sterling have alzheimer's disease. one person believes so. >> it is a neurologist. she was hired by sterling's wife and she testified that he does have alzheimer's. sterling is in the middle of the trial over los angeles clippers sale. his wife made a $2 billion deal to sell the team after donald sterling was heard making racist remarks. but he says sterling that he didn't have, he didn't have the authority to do that. sterling was called to testify yesterday but he didn't show up in court. he is expected today. see what happens there. you know tour of france is on right now, tour of france, it is grueling, no question bit. they had stages, right. >> right. >> if you win a stage you put on the yellow jersey. i won the stage. they put you up on a stand, you get a trophy, you get some flowers you won the second stage and they normally have beautiful woman to the right and left and they normally give kisses. >> okay. >> the guy wins and he is looking for a kiss. let me give you his name, he is an italian cycle less, vincento newbelly. so watch as he is about to get his kiss and his flowers and stuff like that. watch this he gets the kiss from that one. oh, double kiss, very european. how about you. >> no. >> wow. >> no, thanks. >> that could not have been more obvious. >> i had this happen about a month ago. >> one girl kissed you and other girl wouldn't kiss you. >> there was only one woman involved. so she asked me to go have have cocktails. very flirty. very flirty. why did i even start this. >> i'll save you. >> do you want me to keeping. >> real quickly. at the end of the evening it was going great, i thought, you know, maybe i'll go in there, take her back to the car. so do i one of these. she said lets do this again. you know what i did. >> you tricked her. i did the european double kiss. >> yes. >> and went back in my home. >> if that is what you meant to do. >> that is what i meant to do. >> yes. >> she says that she has not been asked for an autograph in years. she's so famous. what people want her to do for them instead. plus, what is she saying about the future of music. so what would replace an autograph in 2014. >> we know. >> it is not a kiss. >> i know what it is. >> yes. >> does it begin with an s. the answer to treating your dog's fleas and ticks is staring you right in the face. nexgard, from the makers of frontline® plus. it's the only soft, beef-flavored chew that kills both fleas and ticks. vets recommend it. and dogs, well, they're begging for it. nexgard is for dogs only. and hasn't been evaluated for use in pregnant, breeding or lactating dogs. reported side effects include vomiting, dry flaky skin, diarrhea, lethargy and lack of appetite. use with caution in dogs with a history of seizures. recommended by vets. loved by dogs. from the makers of frontline plus. veggies you're cool... reworking the menu. mayo, corn dogs...you are so out of here! ahh... the complete balanced nutrition of great tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals. 9 grams of protein... with 30% less sugars than before. ensure, your #1 dr. recommended brand now introduces ensure active. muscle health. clear protein drink and high protein. targeted nutrition to feed your active life. ensure. take life in. just by switching to progressive. so you'll be bringing home the bacon in no time. sorry. get a free quote at progressive.com. we can feel it outside, if you haven't been out of air conditioning, it is quite muggy out there, very warm. our temperature has already reached, 80 degrees. seventy-seven right here at our station at fourth and market. plenty of sunshine all day to day with the heat index it will feel close to a hundred degrees. tonight, pop up thunderstorms, some could be strong to severe, that is your weather authority forecast, kacie, what do you got with traffic. >> we're talking about amtrak power problems this morning, so we have got septa suspended services on the trenton and chestnut hill west lines, again, amtrak, power problems, this morning. so all services suspended on trenton, and chestnut hill west. we will get more on that but that just came in. >> that stinks. >> all right. we will try to save you some money, right now what do you say. apparently dan rick cot owe says we're blowing money on five things that we can save money just stop doing it right now. what are they. >> the first thing is if you are an average reader reads two books a month and you are down loading those books, sue on to, ipad or kind will. >> prices about 15 bucks for a new book, you can actually most libraries now allow to you down load, for free to your electronic device, that very same book. if you do two books a month that is $360 a year in your pocket, thaw can save for free. philadelphia public work,. >> by the way, mr. barnes and mr. noble calls and they need to talk to you. >> here's something, i have a tendency to get collision insurance. now we talking about when you rent a car. >> when was the last time you read your car insurance policy. >> never. >> would you go to the orthodontist than read through that thing. >> if you have an old car and you are paying a $500 dedoublingible plus $500 for collision insurance, chances are you may want to think about dropping the collision part have of your insurance, you'll save up to 50 percent. you only want to do that if the carries only worth say a couple grand. >> so that is if you own this clunker in your driveway. >> yes good don't get that collision insurance. >> what do you do at rental car agency. >> renting a car, mike use the same credit card for reservation and to pay for the car. most credit cards have some kind of insurance on there, for your car rental. >> yes. >> not any extra. >> okay. >> a lot of people blowing money on smart phone apps. >> with those picture apps. >> be honest, how many times a month did you say it is only 99 cents. >> $1.99. >> it adds up. here's the the deal, most apps that you buy there is an equivalent app for free. but problem is finding them up until now. neat little place called free apps.org, there is literally hundreds of apps for free. find one to do what you need it to do. >> free apps.org. >> what about health insurance, are we paying too much. >> this is big money. if you are in a relationship, married or domestic partner and you are both working. i cannot tell you how many times i see this you are both getting separate health insurance policies through work and you are contribute to go that cost. average contributions for an employee business $4,600 a year. >> yes good here's what i want to you do, think about dropping one, going to a married or family policy which will cost you more, but save what the other spouse is already putting in. here's the icing on the cake, guys a the lot of employers want to you o pt out, they will offer you extra cash for coming out of the insurance. drop one of them, keep one, get extra cash. >> trouble is, you have to stay married then. >> no, it can be a come particular partner as well. >> thank you. >> credit reports, i just paid for my credit report. >> kacie, don't pay for credit reports. reality is you can get them easily for free. your credit report by law you can get once per year free at annual credit report.com but credit score up until recently you to had to pay for. that is free as well. credit karma.com plus a lot of your credit card companies are putting it on your statement. no reason to pay for it any more. put that money towards your 41k plan and save a boat load of dough. >> do you ever notice dan that people born in the 80's, smell. >> really. >> go find like a 30 year-old person and smell them. >> let me look around the news room, they are a bunch of them. >> yeah, they are running the station. >> go find maryann ande if she medicals. >> all right mare, i'm coming over good reason i bring this up, you have heard of the millennials, those are people in the 80's. >> somewhere around them. >> i'm calling them smellenials, what this generation would give up just to keep their cell phones, okay. that is why they stick. did you watch 24 last night, it was good. >> yes. >> we have one more episode, finally coming up and guess who we have on? that with man right there. ivan is on good day don't miss that. the cadillac summer collection is here. ♪ ♪ during the cadillac summer's best event, lease this 2014 srx for around $329 a month or purchase with 0% apr and make this the summer of style. i love martha read and the vandellas. if we have 90's tomorrow it will be another heat wave second of the year. is there a new government study that finds this, we certainly have, ditched our landlines at our houses and just use our cell phones. four in ten, close too 50 percent only have a cell phone we don't have that appliance in our house, experts believe, the slightly leveling off now, could be a people are holding on to their land lines because their part of the the internet and cable tv package and they provide the internet services, your tv service and they give you a line but you have to hook up an appliance to it. centers for disease control and prevention have been tracking phone use for some reason for a decade. >> do you know why i kept my land line. >> why. >> my sister is a 911 operator in maryland and she scared me into not getting rid of it. >> in case your battery is dead on your cell. >> we need to call 911. >> yes. >> so i still keep it. >> i'm a fall because dan would shoot me, talk about a waste of money, i have had the same comcast service for three and a half years. i got it first day i got it three an a half years ago. give me the the land line too. i never went out and got the phone. >> we tried to call you. >> nope. >> every time i call to pay my bill over the the phone, they go is what your phone number. >> i have no idea. >> i get calls on the tv screen, i don't know that number. >> let's talk about smelly friend of ours, people in their 30's, you stick. you ever walk out the door, and realized you forgot your cell phone. >> mostly we would turnaround even if you are late to work. you go back and you grab it. what if you for got to put on deodorant would you ever go back to do that put deodorant on. >> when it comes to the 20 something this is not me, don't include me in this i was born in the 90's, the answer is yes, this would leave their deodorant at home. bank of america trend reports, based on the 87 percent of people who said deodorant was essential. >> only 87 percent. >> not essential. >> not essential. >> 87 percent don't care. more valued their they will phones. 93 percent considered them a necessity. 91 percent felt their tooth brushes were more important to have. >> wait. >> would you rather have your cell phone on you then go back and get this deodorant. >> yes. >> you can stink as long as you can communicate. >> yes good they cannot spell you on the other even of the texting. >> great thing with phone conversations, you can be nude and stinky. >> and have stinky breath. >> horrible breath. >> last saturday i went down to star bucks on a saturday morning. i didn't brush my teeth. i had hat down over my head, nobody will recognize me. can i have a selfie with you. now my breath is horrifying. >> there is a green fog in front of the camera. >> smile. >> it is a filter, without a filter. >> a filter without a filter. >> instagram filter. pepper mint patty. >> yes. >> charlie brown good hey still ahead just over two weeks until, eagles training camp, it is 17 days away and after all of these years is there something i just noticed about the eagles logo, why in all of the nfl the the eagle is the only logo that faces to the left. why would that be. i'll show you after the brea it is 8:30. lets look at bus stop buddy are you liking his hawaii shirt today. very festive. he also has got sun screen on. he has muggy the talk. it will be a hot, humid day to day. you can be pool side that is great otherwise just stay hydrated take care of yourself. eight out of ten in your number today. we are seeing a few echoes on ultimate doppler but it noise the raining anywhere. 80 degrees is our current temperature, 80 degrees right now at 8:30 in the morning. 60 percent relative humidity. high of 94, later on plenty of humidity today and tonight and some thunderstorms may wake you up later, 74 degrees overnight. some people like to sleep through thunderstorms. if i can speak today. if you are heading out we have amtrak power issues that means septa's line trenton and chestnut hill west, excuse me those are suspended this morning. the trenton chestnut hill west lines completely suspended if you are ready to head out. you can see majors have hefty delays, traveling by car this morning, 95 south, double the travel time, same thing for 76 west. seventy-six eastbound not too bad, 476 north a big slow down approaching route one. our collogue kerry barrett is back. she has been on maternity leave. so we know she's married to the lovely john, they have a daughter name avery. so cute. now she has, john, j barrett, hi kerry, so nice to have you back. >> nice to be back. i was on the dark side for a while but now i'm back in the morning. >> how is everybody. >> we are doing really well. it was a long time coming as you guys know, so we're incredibly grateful to have him. he is a good either, very good sleeper, you can see him there, so yummy, he is most snugly kid ever. it is a struggle to leave him. sue and caitlin came over to visit while on maternity leave and sue brought over this beautiful blanket and this beautiful hat you see him wearing there that one of our viewers knitted, and brought into the station for sue to bring. he is doing very, very well. >> look at how adorable. >> this is since he came to visit. >> he has already changed so much. >> he has doubled in weight since he was born. he is a good either, so beautiful. >> big blue eyes. he is a dream. >> he has your eyes for sure. >> yeah, he is doing good. he is an aggressive tutor, we have discover that about him. he lifts his entire body off the crib. he gets into this. >> i do too. >> well, who doesn't. >> how does it feel to be back, first day back. >> i feel a little out of my element. >> you look great. >> i'm glad to be back. i'm liking the structure i'll put that it way good we have missed you,. >> i missed you guys. >> if you don't know at home what a great personality, one of the funniest people, i have ever known. >> ah, thanks. >> thank you. >> thank you, kerry good i didn't hear that but i don't think i wanted to. >> probably not. >> we have done store business this woman over the years, philadelphia's oldest, resident has passed away. >> her name is anna henderson. she lived to be 114 years old. she was the sixth oldest person on the planet. this video is of her celebration of her birth the day last year in west philadelphia. anna moved to west philadelphia at just 22 years old from down there in georgia. >> so that means as we dot math here, born in 1900. >> 114. >> my goodness. >> what a great life. >> look at all of her family around her, her legacy. >> um-hmm. >> all right. >> i have a quiz, good day quiz. >> okay. >> most stressed out parents, who do you think they would be, they have fallen into two categories, we already know raising a teenager is stressful, right. >> right. >> but why? the reason you may not realize, it is not just because they are acting up. lets get back to another quiz, have you spotted, the difference here what is different about our eagles logo. it is only nfl team to have a logo that faces to the left, why? what is the purpose? what is the designer have in mind here. we will explain next. >> here's a picture of one of the youngest viewers, a hh. >> thanks momma for tweet ago this. >> good looking baby. >> cutie pie. >> brooklyn in the house. you have traffic news, kacie. >> i do have traffic news heading out on septa we have issues, power problems, trenton and chestnut hill west services have been restored, which was suspended for 20 minutes. >> it is restored. chestnut hill west and trenton. all right. 8:38 is the time. there are 17 days left until eagles training camp begins. if you have taken a good look at the eagles logo lately, mike has been telling but this you might have noticed something different at least since mike pointed it out. >> can you spot one thing, that makes us difference from every team in the nfl, mike. >> well, we have set this up because i'm a logo official, the fedex logo is behind me. i was walking down fourth street. did you ever notice, lets see which way should i go, our logo here, between e and. x, is an arrow good do you see. >> right. >> there is an arrow right there. >> do you think designer really had that in mine. >> he said yeah, we put an x because we are always on the move. lets put up eagles logo. how many teams are in the nfl. >> thirty-two. >> we are only one where our logo faces off to the left. the birdies facing to the left. miami dolphin, it jumps to the right. >> right. >> or even, the letters, green bay packers, um-hmm, their logo goes to the right. can you help me out. chicago bears big c goes to the right, to the right. den letter broncos their horse is going off the to the right. let's bring the eagles logo, backup, we go to the left. >> to the left, to the left good to the left, to the left. now what i have been told is that the designer wanted to put that is an e, the feather, to form an e. >> okay. >> so from about right over here, to over here. >> if i squint i can see it. >> i see it now. >> that little claw at the bottom. >> that extra triangle. if you go from here over, over, it is an e. you want to get rid of the claw. >> so is that true did the designer have that in mind. i know cristina lurie came up with the midnight blue color scheme, instead of the kelly green. some people are still upset with her. she watches the show. could you call me and tell me is that supposed to be an e in the plumeage. this is what i think about at night. i got to get a life, quincy, seriously. >> i get it now. >> what was that, a chicken or the eagles. >> for the the love of god, quincy. >> i hear him. >> he has turned into a chicken. >> there he is. >> how are you guys doing, i'm here at new cafe, the independent mall but i got to talk with the king of r and b, trace songs we will see the interview coming up dave songs will talk to quincy and this should be fun, hi quincy. >> so he is current king of r and b. a lot of people are texting and tweeting. he is not the king. he is current king of r and b. this is his hit album. check this out. >> ♪ >> we have the king of r and b music today, his album came out last week. trigger in stores now, trace songs how are you doing. >> i'm doing good, what is happening with everybody watching "fox news". we have the number one album in the country. >> so, i like that. >> yes, the way i talk. >> okay. so, tell us about the album. >> it is in stores right now. shout out to everybody that is on the album, nickie menaj, juicy j, and, myself, of course, and i'm excited about it. >> yes. >> i can't, we cannot do that here. get the album to see what he is talking about. >> so, album, this is your second song with nickie menaj. >> how was it connecting with her. >> amazing, first song was put together, you may know it, excuse me, a big song, big, big song. and then the song like within that realm of the club, radio, smash records i have and working on her at the height of her career and height of mine, it is just love. >> justin beiber, i listened to the song, foreign remix with justin beiber. he is announcing with you. you bounce but he is bouncing with you. >> he is doing something different on there. all my beliefers out there, he is on the album and he is doing what it is that he does. he is doing the beiber thing. >> it is out right now, trace songs, the king of r and b, this is your sixth album. >> i'm working hard, working hardy want to be considered king one day, you consider me king that is crazy, appreciate that. >> can you give me like three seconds. >> wow, wow, wow. >> what song is that. >> i was just saying wow, wow and you could fill in the wow, wow. >> like ♪ >> yeah, we have to keep it cool now. trigger, trace songs, out right now. >> that was trace songs, everyone the king of r and b. >> are you the prince. >> they had him perform at villanova when lol smiling face was his top song. >> talk bit, kacie, that was way back in the day. >> he is good. he is a performer. he is a real deal good great smooth voice, man. hey q. >> yes, sir. >> you the the man. you know what is behind you there independent mall, of course. >> yeah. >> let me tell you this if you hang around until noon they will have a live reading of declaration of independent. do you know why? >> why is that it commemorates are first time it was ever red in public, july 8th, 1776. >> i knew that. i can't wait. i will be here at noon. >> just standing out there. >> on the other sides of the independence mall, it is in the backyard. >> yes, the backyard of the hall. >> gotcha. >> that would be in between chestnut and your walnut. >> yes. >> your tree area there. >> yes. >> wine maker has created unofficial collection of wines inspired by the popular game, game of thrones, the tv series. it is not a game but tv show called game of thrones. they have made a wine on it. >> kacie has been binging on it. lets see if she bingees on the show, it is called the wines of westeros, 12 different varieties including the knight watch, the white walker and the lancaster because they always pay their debts. cases air railable for preorder on line giving fans the opportunity to do some binge drink ago long with the binge watching of their favorite show. >> i would have to be drink to go watch this show. >> it is so good. >> it will suck you in. >> horrible day yesterday for me, horrible. >> how many did you watch. >> probably six or seven. >> is this where everybody is name. >> little bloody. >> a lot of people died and i'm in the okay with it and i don't want to talk about it. >> i don't like all that sword fighting. >> that is why i'm sad. >> bloodied and name, a bad combination. show on discovery one days. there is name in the phrase. >> is there naked first dates, that is a new show. >> you go on the first date and you are name. >> i will start watching. >> bloody naked and afraid. >> still ahead, anybody watch the bachelor. have you heard of the new show married? married at first site. i have to watch this. first time you meet someone is your wedding day. >> wow. >> these couples know nothing about each other. well, a little bit from visiting on line but they are getting married at their first time seeing each other. i'm watching this darn thing. ♪ come have fun at sesame place with everyone's favorite furry friends. enjoy rides where you can splash... and whirl. and, play in the all-new cookie's monster land. with 5 exciting rides, a monster clubhouse and more! get unlimited visits and more with a season pass for six payments of $18. ♪ meet me at sesame place! it gives you options based on your budget -- it's a piece of cake. i was told there would be cake. get a free quote at progressive.com. this is your vacation week you picked a good one. of course, weekend was good after we got over the fourth of july rain. today looks pretty nice. now temps even on the beach will be pretty hot in the upper 80's. southeasterly breeze at 15 miles an hour. 72 degrees. le rip current risk and uv index is very high today. slight chance of the a thunderstorm but that chance doesn't come until much later in the day maybe not until after dark. here is your seven day forecast. this is hottest day of the week. then we will get up to 90, maybe tomorrow, if we do that would be an official heat wave but we will see how much sunshine we get before more thunderstorms roll in. thursday looks like it is getting better with 88 degrees and perhaps no rain, still iffy there but we will go with the optimistic view. friday not too humid and high of 85. this is peak comfortable weather day of the week. lets head in the weekend sunny skies for both saturday and sunday, temperatures in the 80's hopefully holding off thunderstorms until monday, kacie. >> thanks very much sue. talking about septa we did have a big suspension on the trenton line and also on the chestnut hill west line, those are restored, both lines, amtrak power issue but out of the way you don't need to worry about it. abington township fair ways between old york road 611 and rydel road. you have an accident and car fire there. anticipate a big delay heading past that scene. heading out on i-95 you're heading southbound will be a little bit slow 76 will be slow heading westbound also the pennsylvania turnpike westbound is slow this morning, sue. so, when thud parent, think about getting hitched. coming up why experts say you should tie the knot before your child turns three. the cadillac summer collection is here. ♪ ♪ during the cadillac summer's best event, lease this 2014 srx for around $329 a month or purchase with 0% apr and make this the summer of style. sue. >> um-hmm. >> i'm tweeting someone. >> all right. >> that little thing sticking out through that wall, the constitution visitors center there. it is basically sixth and market street. >> yes. >> that is a great area do you know the visitors center has a beer garden now, and, you can have parties there and i just want to tell you something, on october the second i think it is, i'm planning a party, would you come to this. the second you've got to try this. what about if we had a big party and you get to try all of the stuff i have tried over last couple of years. >> even the pig face. >> yes. >> so it will be a viewing party, if you watch the show and taste stuff i have tasted, we have set up food at visitors center, like october 2nd, it is a thursday, would you come to that ape meet the whole cast and crew. >> will there been beer in the beer garden. >> there will be beer, and food. >> so, if you would do it tweet us, or facebook us, would you come out for that. fifty bucks or whatever. we will give it to a charity, how is that. it is tuesday, july the eighth, 2014. kacie. >> have you heard of the new show married at first sight. these couples know nothing about each other but they are, tying the kno. why they are heading to the alter so quickly. >> so they have never seen each other before. first time they vice witt each other they get married. >> apparently. >> so have you seen these wedding pictures. stunning images. a photographer captures a tornado on a couple's wedding day but is this a dangerous new wedding trend? we will explain. >> okay, last night i admit it and i will turn in my man card, i watched the bachelorette. is there kacie's friend aaron murray, you have kissed him right on the lips. that is kacie's man. he is visiting with andy the batch alreadyette and i saw something in her eyes that is very disturbing. lets talk about it. she seems way too interested, in her soon to be husband maybe, brother
the argument against it they just killed it. it was really bizarre. >> the events of last week leave one to ponder the question is there such a thank as a four-ring circus and i've asked that a lot during my time in albany in the most recent past. what's interesting is the with the election of the speaker hopefully we can see, you know, t shenanigans of the last week put in the fast and we can do the people's business. what's interesting is it really does appear that the speaker concluded after the fiscal cliff vote on january 1st, that it was untenable for him to bring the $60 billion flood relief bill to the floor, given the mood of a significant numb over of members of kopg. >> he alienated members of congress because they felt like he caved. the white house had won and the next thing he's going to do that week and the last thing they'll do before they close the lights is $60 billion new in spend something. >> absolutely. there's concern among many members on the republican side with the debt and deficit and after adding at least the view of many of them, an additional $4 trillion based on the package that was passed to bring another $60 billion in this context was troublesome. but the problem is that disaster relief is traditionally immune from the poisonous parts of politics but for the first time in modern american history it was injected. >> fran, i want to get your perspective on this. you're still not in your house, right? >> i am not. >> your house flooded during hurricane sandy? >> yes, it did. >> how do you respond watching this go down? >> it's very disheartening. everyone in government constantly reaches out to us saying were we're there for you and we'll do everything we can to help you and here we are at day 68 and we have not received anything from our insurance companies. we've had all our adjusters come out. but now we're watching our government officials say -- it doesn't matter if there's not enough money to pay your claims. it's not important enough. so we're going to push this off. we're at day 68, and everyone is displaced. people cannot get back into their homes. >> well, i think that one is that it was pure politics. no doubt about it. it was another package that was bog to pass with a -- it was going to pass with the minority of the majority and that was an issue. part of the problem is, it shouldn't have taken this long. we should have been debating this a lot earlier. the president didn't submit his package to the congress until december 7th so it was well after the storm and we were well along in that area and certainly, and then the senate took its time and actually, added in a lot of extraneous provisions and the extraneous provisions are one of the things that delay it. when people with pillar the bill with $150 million for fishery disasters alaska and mississippi because it has extra money added in for other disasters that are not sandy-related it slows the progress of the bill and absolutely, the $9.7 billion, which was to basically, to fund the -- allow the national fund insurance program to borrow from the treasury, additional amount had to be done. we had to keep, just like the debt ceiling, we have to keep the full faith and credit of the u.s. government and we have to make sure we pay our bills and people bought flood insurance policies and paid their premiums, we need to pay those off. >> diane, i want to talk about flood insurance in a second so hold what thought. >> we'll go back to what happened with speaker boehner. i think what we saw on display that day was the worst kind of politics and the kind of thing that really turns people off to government in general and particularly to the congress right now. john boehner was not so much concerned about the vote on the sandy relief package but he was concerned about the vote on his leadership and he was more interested in being leader than they was in leading on an issue affecting thousands of people that i represent and congressman jeffries does and fran. in this whole discussion it's not whether the bill has pork and what pork actually means, one man's pork is another man's necessity. what was really distressing is there seems to be this narrative now that says -- in order for us to provide relief to someone like fran someone else has to suffer first. that's a very dangerous precedent. >> you know, let me play this bit of sound. this is in the wake of hurricane irene, right, and this is in 2011 when every time this happens we have some sort of emergency supplemental as we should. things get destroyed the government is one of the core roles of government. you said that we had president seen this partizanship before but here is eric kantor in 2011 stipulating as a general principle, emergency supplemental has to come out of someone's pocket. we can't spend above the baseline. here he is. take a look. >> you believe that any federal much that comes out for hurricane irene needs to be met dollar-for-dollar with spending cuts? is that right? >> yeah. the house has already acted and funded over $1 billion for additional disaster relief pun and that money has been offset by savings elsewhere. like any family, would operate when its struck with disaster. it finds the money it needs to take care of a sick loved one or what have you and goes without trying to buy a new car or put an adig on to the house. >> i'll point out, hurricane irene hit his constituents. he was talking about -- >> that was a remarkable thing. to say what you will about that as a principle he was putting his money where his mouth was. >> exactly. i'll point out, i never said "pork." let me be clear, there are things in here that that are nice to have and that are important. >> like tofu or something healthful? >> there you go. >> but not that we necessarily have to have right now and it should be done as an emergency because the key then is when you designate something as an emergency, it means it doesn't count against the budget caps. but it does add to our $1 trillion deficit. it does add to our -- >> it also means it's hard to vote for without getting killed on programs like these and finally -- i think that -- >> a couple of differences here. first of all, in this particular instance you had a senate that passed a bill and the speaker promised a vote on the bill, welz publicly prior to the close of congress and then he went back on his word as peter king indicated it was a knife stab in the back. the other thing that's interesting here is that the states of new york and new jersey, along with a few other states, california and illinois, new york and new jersey which were hit hard are donor states. these are states that regularly send tens of billions of dollars more to the federal government that we get back and we consistently step up for america and in this particular instance we asked america to step up for us and the congress to date, has failed. >> i'm not -- i'm not defending what happened on the floor and the way it transpired. i am all for debate and amendments. that's what -- that's the american process and that's a wonderful process. i would like to see some of that funding stripped out and often, you see one chamber or the other jam the other chamber which is what happened here at this time. they should have done the $9.7 billion and we need to debate the rest of the package because there's stuff in here and quite frankly, i worked on the senate bill. i've read the senate bill many times. i read it recently after it was enacted and or passed. in between, sometime on the floor that i missed, they redesignated some of the core of engineers construction funding to -- so it wouldn't just go to sandy reconstruction but it would also deal with hurricane isaac in states that were affected in the mississippi valley. what are those two states? louisiana and mississippi. who are those people behind that? probably the ranking member of the appropriation's committee, senator cochran and probably senior democrat on the committee, so that, to me is part of the problem in the system and i don't to continue. >> why do you think they would be interested in putting the money there? let's look at it. i said the year of the flood comes every other year now, it seems. as congressman jeffries said new york and new jersey are donor states. if we got back what we gave to washington we wouldn't being have this discussion. we could take care of ourselves, but we don't. but the likelihood of places like mississippi, louisiana, florida and the gulf coast states will get a lot faster than we are and what's going to happen now is you're going to have members of congress from new york and new jersey and connecticut in the northeast states that may say, you know what? we're going to parcel out aid to you more slowly than you gave it to us. >> so this is what i learned this week in preparation for this. our flood policy is a total disaster? >> yes. >> and you've had this experience first hand. it's really important. it may sound remote to you, but listen to me, we'll have more floods so we need to get it figured out. flood policy may sound remote and abstract but fran o'connor from new jersey, you're living flood policy, living through it and, tell me what the experience has been. you're in an area that is part of the national flood insurance program. you have to buy that government insurance in order to get a loan on your house in your area because it's part of the flood plain. what's happened to you over the last 32 months? >> well, in march of 2010, our area suffered a very devastating and catastrophic flood. our basements filled with water. our -- the water spilled over into our living space, now kmoe, up to four feet in most homes. so after that flood, we ripped out our walls, our flooring and we had to dispose of all of our possessions and there was previously an ongoing army corp study and we requested the status of the army corp project and we were told that the army corp project going on for 20 years, was still probably decades away from completion. >> 20--year-old project, decades away from completion? the army corps of engineers is we could do a whole show on that but, continue. >> so we attempted to find alternative methods to protect our home and our goal was to save our neighborhood and save our home. and so, we researched the feasibility of buyouts, flood protection, such as an interim wall and any kind of flood mitigation projects that we can research. and at the end of the day we determined through the help of our engineer that the most economical way to save our home was to build an interim sheet pile wall to follow the alignment of the army corp projects that in the design stage. and that was, you know, at the time the most economical avenue that we attempted to take. and so we were researching it and we were working on it and unfortunately, after -- it took us about six months to put our houses back together and after just about a year, after that, we were slammed by hurricane sandy. and our homes were hit with a flood to the same catastrophic area that we had just gotten hit prior. and so, our brand new applieses and our furnaces and our air conditioners. >> everything that had been rebuilt and replaced. >> and, you know, the unfortunate part about it is your insurance never covers everything that you need to replace your home and so, we're a group of homeowners that had to go out and talk loans out. we had to take sba loans and seco mortgages and -- >> people will say, maybe we shouldn't be living in this. it's easy for me to say. it's not my home and has all the connection someone has to their home but if this is a place that's going to flood three times in 32 months and as the climate changes there's going to be more floods, is there a feasible future? >> well, at this point i think we all resigned to the fact that after we got hit for the third time and we just can't keep doing this. you -- our homes are no longer safe to live in and so now we understand the only alternative that would be available to us would be for our homes to be bought out. >> and that's absolutely -- i mean, that's something that's being pioneered after the '93 floods is doing this buyouts and you had the town of arnold, missouri and in illinois which are not property values are not the same but they bought out the towns and floodwaters returns to the same area two years later and they were not flooded. >> so the national flood insurance works like this, after hurricane betsy, the private market wasn't offering flood insurance because it's very hard to assess the risk so the government came in and created the flood insurance program and you pay the premium and it's purchased through the private insurer but backstop by the government but after katrina, it blew a $17 billion hole in the budget of the thing and now we'll have sandy blow another huge hole in it and it doesn't seem to me like the program is effectively -- it seems to me the program is having perverse incentives as far as teams incentivizing buildings in areas that it shouldn't. >> and the program, to put it in perspective, after the claims are paid, this $9.7 additional, there's about $30 billion in the hole to the treasury before sandy, the program took in $3.5 billion a year in premium revenues. so it is severely, no pun intended, under water. >> and on the state side, in senate, we created a bipartisan task force to study the effect of hurricane sandy. sandy didn't seem to discriminate across senate districts so the entire coastal community from the east end of long island to the south shore of staten island has been hit including lower manhattan. we don't talk about that but lower manhattan was offline for quite a while. not to negligent the effect on our transportation system, the better tunnel flooded for almost two weeks. what we're trying to do is look at what role state and local governments will play in future hazard mitigation. including things like, you know, rezoning areas so people won't be able to rebuild there. how do we add yetly compensate people for the value of their properties prestorm, not post storm. one of the immediate effects of sap did is she has driven down property values across coastal communities by at least 25% and that could affect the real estate markets in those areas for another 20 years. >> to that point, there are two questions that have to be asked. one, are there areas where it's not feasible, based on the probability of extreme weather events continuing to occur that we shouldn't we build. plan has indicated that herself, her family and perhaps some neighbors have concluded that in her instance it's not feezable. and the other question and this was part of the package that has been submitted by governor cuomo and christie and others, are there areas where with restructuring that's done, to greater protect, against the possibility of extreme weather events, people can build, but the government and partnership with the private sector can created a infrastructure where we can better protect folks from future events? >> one of the trends we've seen -- there are two trends. a greater share of disaster funding has been coming from federal government as close to state level got we have. i think we have some data on that prekatrina and post katrina. katrina is the innext point and understandably. this is a risk-pooling enterprise and if one area of the country, you see the share between insurance and federal aid has really flipped. also, the number of weather events per year that have coast over $1 billion in damages from 1980 to 2012 has spiked. i mean, now, the question there is -- there's two things going on there. more concentration of value in areas that are flood-prone and there are worse weather events. and the question i want to ask and the question we need to get to is, reckconceptizing, the faf disaster. no one is talking about that. we're going to keep passing supplementals and putting bandaids on stuff and put programs that were put in place in 1968 when there was a completely different climb and so it's going to be penny wise and pound foolish. we'll talk about that after this break. i've always had to keep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for more than 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. >> steve ellis. >> you were talking about the flood shuns program and the problems with the flood insurance program and one of the thigs that's interesting when you look at the senate bill is that for sandy relief is that it requires that the corps review its existing projects that were built to provide flood protection and storm damage redux and in six months come back and tell them how they performed but this three months they're start to building new projects so we're essentially, most likely going to put back into place spending billions of dollars, virtually the same structure. we're going to rebuild in a very similar manner with beach replenishment projects and berms and dunes that will keep in harm's way and that's been the problem with our flood plain policy and even with the flood insurance program, one of the things is that the only team you have a mandatory purchase requirement is if you're in the 100-year flood plain. >> explain that steps. >> exactly. it doesn't mean it floods once every 100 years. i had means there's a 1% chance every year that you will flood. that means in a 30-year mortgage you'll flood at least once. so what we found is that that is dumbed-down our nation's flood control policy because in a lot of places in the country and i'm not necessarily saying in your town but in a lot of places in the country it's get 100-year protection and you're perfectly fine and you don't have to buy flood insurance but there's a 200-year event which has a half percent chance of happening refry year. >>nd the point is those are moving figures so what a storm 100 years from now is different than what it is. >> somebody is upstream from you you're now much more likely to flood because that water is republicaning off through the subdivision much faster. it's a dynamic environment and we're not arming people with the information and we're not arming people with the facts that they need to be purchasing flood insurance. >> and the other problem we have particularly with respect to insurance is not just flood insurance. we've had homeowners all across the region fighting with their insurance companies right now and we're finding people with insurance and who think they have the coverage to protect their home, forget about the flood insurance, in jn, wind damage or hurricane damage or content are finding that they either don't have -- their insurance company the not responding to them. that's a conic problem. most people are underinsured. it's an industry on people betting against themselves. you hope you never need it and the insurance companieses are not in the business of paying out claims and their goal is to keep the money you gave them. they don't want to pay it out and we're finding that people think they have a particular level of coverage but when you delve into their insurance policy, they may not necessarily have it. we see with flood insurance people have flood insurance for structure but not for content. >> right. >> but then what the insurance companies. >> or wind damage but as soon as the wind is over 74 miles an hour you don't have hurricane coverage. >> the insurance companies think structure of a house is not what the local building department says. so they say structure is your foundation and your roof. what makes the house habitable. but it doesn't include sheetrock, insulation, floors. we would not allow you to live in a house with those things. but the insurance companies said, that's not structure. >> the broader pron here is that insurance is a way of dealing with the risk of catastrophe and it has been since the dawn of civilization, basically. >> and inform people of the risk. >> but the point is that the risks are changing. this is a thing that i think the policy apparatus and the united states congress of which you're now a member is completely in the dark about, which is that we're entering the era climate disaster. it's here and it's going to get worse. if you look at the report written by some of the insurance company, they see the writing on the wall and they're putting it into their balance sheets but it's not happening in the united states congress. >> we clearly have to re-evaluate the manner in which the national flood insurance program is put into place and implemented. and have that policy discussion moving forward. we obviously, hopefully, on the 15th, have to take care of the remaining $51 billion in aid perhaps maybe the extraneous items like the alaskan fisheries. which i'm sure are important. >> but we have to move forward to provide the aid to fran and other communities and all that, but the existence of the national flood insurance program is a necessity for the very reasons we discussed. the private market will not step into this situation. it didn't in 1968, moving forward which is why we created a program and it certainly will not now given the extreme nature and increased risk with severe weather events. >> no. clearly there was a market failure or lack of it in 1968 when they created the program and then they tried to write a program that actually was done in a risk-based rates and nobody bought it. in the early '70s we jacked up subsidies to the program and that's what start -- some of our problem in the fact that we had underpriced insurance which created some of the problem in our balance sheet. and it's also induced people to build in harm's way because it hadn't informed them of the risk or charged them. >> i want to be clear. you guys are saying opposite things. you're saying insurance is underpriced and you're saying it's overpriced? we're clear that you two are disagrees if the price is right? >> i paid $3,000 a year in flood insurance. i don't think it's underpriced. >> part of the problem is because of the way the system is and because we have a flood insurance program it's what they call adverse selection. the only people that buy flood insurance are the people most likely to need it because that's all we require. >> exactly. >> so we don't have whereas when you have, you know, you have insurance for homeowners they're selling policies all over the country and so we don't have that in the flood insurance program so it's kind of intensed this problem that's there. >> and again, this is the problem. flood plains areas will expand and areas exposed to extreme weather will expand. weather-related damage and catastrophe will become more common. everything that's conceptized around what the roll of the dice is has to change because the snake eyes will come up more and more and more and right now federal policy is absolutely totally and completely blind to that basic fact. and the irony of it all as we talk about dollars and cents is it will cost more money unless we get it right and unless we put in poll as yous that mitigate floods and encourage people not to build in flood plains. we're going to produce not only more disaster and human suffering and misery and more being out of your home and having to deal with the consequences of that. but we're also going to deal with a situation where we're spending billions and billions and billions of dollars in more money thank you all for being here. i really enjoyed the conversation. >> thank you. >> the 112th congress untold shore of bipartisanship. that's next. officemax can help you drive supply costs... down... ...and down. just use your maxperks card and get a case of x-9 paper for only 1-cent after maxperks rewards. find thousands of big deals now... ...at officemax. i'm here to unleash my inner cowboy... instead i got heartburn. [ horse neighs ] hold up partner. prilosec isn't for fast relief. try alka-seltzer. kills heartburn fast. yeehaw! the standard story you'll hear about the 112th congress ask they were a do-nothing congress. they let traditionally noncontinues very shall partizan bills like the violence against women's act expire. but that's only half the story of the last congress because over the past two years the 112th congress has managed to get a lot of stuff done. for instance, in mid 2011 they were renewed the patriot act for another four years and passed the 2012 national defense authorization act, a $662 billion bill that codified indefinite military detention for the first time and barred the transfer of prisoners from guantanamo bay to the united states. and last month they passed the defense authorization act that included the same indefinite detention at guantanamo bay provisions as the 2012 version and a new round of iran sanctions mention other things. and last week they revised the wire-tapping act which allows the government to spy on american's e-mail and common communications for another five years. all of these bills past both the senate and house with very broad bipartisan majorities. as senate intelligence committee chair diane finestein pointed out last week, the come is a place where she's been able to work in a true by bipartisan manner. >> one of the best experiences of my senate career has been the ability to work in a bipartisan way in this committee. to really put things together between both sides. to have staffs working together on both sides. sometimes, that isn't possible. but most of the time, it is and i think it's the way the intelligence committee was supposed to function and the fact that i does function that way. i think is real testimony to vice chairman chambliss and the work we've done together. >> vicious partizanship of the 112th congress on anything domestic often overshadowed the broad consensus seen on matters of national security and that complicated not only the story of the 112th congress but our conception of bipartisanship and its value as a whole. joining us now is the codirector of the liberty and national program and president and ceo of the naacp and the host of wviifm steve ellis is still here. liza, if you had to sort of sum up from the perspective of the policies that you're keeping an eye on, sum up what this congress, was it a do-nothing congress? a congress driven by partizan provision or a productive bipartisan enterprise? [ laughter ] >> you summarized it very well, i'm afraid. the story of national security legislation in this congress was really not a story of, you know, trying to get valuable legislation through and getting blocked by this de facto 60-vote threshold. forget about the threshold, congress charged that in the senate, the senate charged past that threshold on a number of national security provisions what that had some very disturbing implications for liberties. >> for instance? >> you did name some of them and i'll go into a little more detail. the national defense authorization act. the most recent one. that is an act that's also passed the year before in 2011 that codifies indefinite detention for a group of people that's very, very broad in the current war against al qaeda and taliban and associated forces so that not only -- >> associated doing a lot of work there? >> it is. and the other thing that's doing a lot of work is substantially supported. anybody who substantially supported these forces is subject to indefinite detention which is not something that you would get if you went back and read the authorization for use and military force from 2001, which describes a narrower set of people, frankly. >> so we've actually expanded? >> legislatively, yes. in some ways, this bill was basically codifying what the lower courts have been doing. >> have allowed. >> have alouds. >> the supreme court hadn't weighed in on whether this is okay. will it? i don't know. >> let me ask you this, ben, the naacp is not an institution that's focused on national security issues, for understandable reasons but i wonder sometimes and i'm not someone that welcome i don't myself, that's not the thing i spend most of my time reading about but i wonder if when you think about this stuff, the role of an organization like naacp to weigh in on this stuff partly because of the history of what the civil rights movement faced and -- >> look, we're not a national security group. we're a freedom group and this is about freedom at the end of the day. this country, we used to be completely opposed to the government spying on your mail, but now it's online and we're apparently cool with, you can read all my e-mail and listen to all ni cell phone conversations. that's a big problem. >> although that's one thing congress did right but i'll get back to that. >> you know, the -- as far as we know, right? >> right. >> i live a few miles from the national security agency, who knows with them? but with the usa patriot act, its definition of terrorism says, if you break a law while p putting lives in danger, seeking to influence policy in the united states, you've violated the patriot act. that's like everything martin luther king did in public. >> breaking laws? law plauzbly, who knows. >> birmingham, the children's march, the march on washington, the march -- every anti-abortion protest? any time you're in the street you put people in danger and you're often breaking a law. so you know, again, we should all be up in arms about this stuff, and yet, you know. >> and frankly you don't have to have broken a law or be suspected of breaking a law to come within what the patriot act allows the government to do in terms of getting information about you. >> i want to ask you guys what this means for our conception of bipartisan ship. that's part of what the core is. always the story, we are had bipartisanship and we lost it and that's bad and that doesn't seem to me at all a complete picture of what this congress was. we'll talk about that after we take this break. 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[ both laugh ] febreze? how about that? yeah. febreze anti-clogging technology keeps it smelling fresh. febreze. breathe happy. bipartisanship, yay or nay? >> how disturbing is it that the success of the 112th congress is to pass legislation that essentially criminalizes elements of democracy? like the place where democrat and republican comes together, is in the erosion of civil liberties such that you will little rally turn back elements of american history and that that is how we define success. >> and the thing to me that was so crystallizing about it and the reason i wanted to have this specific conversation was that we had this week where we're watching the fiscal cliff "countdown" and the contentionness and the sandy vote and it was like, by the way, the fisa extension sailed through. and that was the thing. so people remember how controversial this was back in 2008. this is harry reid in 2008 talking about this bill. and then him talking about it four years later. take a look. >> fisa, the president's favorite. his ability to spy. that's what he wants. the problem is, that he wants to do it not in keeping with the constitution which raises some concern with us. and the american people. >> fisa, mr. president, this is an important piece of legislation imperfect as it is, is what is necessary to help us be protected from the evil that's in the world. >> for people at home watching this, exact same bill. >> literally. nothing was changed between the reauthorization. >> except for who happened to be in the white house which is part of the reason why senator reid, a drakt, not saying it was right. >> but freedom should be the bipartisan thing. >> i'm not disagreeing. i'm just pointing out the pure politics and the pure theater of this. so that's what a lot of this congress was. a lot of theater and a lot of bombast and was the least prukive since world war ii. >> and it did specify their agenda as far as blocking president obama from doing anything and it's arguably been successful. >> but it doesn't work in both directions. and this is kwooe. harry reid in the opposition opposed the warrantless wire tapping and his president from his party gets in and all of the sudden he wants to give hymn due deference but the republicans remain in lockstep and the reps say they want to block everything the president does. sandy can be, don't want to block this. >> so it begs the question where is the tea party. the boston tea party would have violated the u.s. patriot act. >> but some members did in the senate, they did -- >> and rand paul particularly. >> right. so i think there was some of that tension but it just wasn't enough and there were a lot more people -- there is this sort of, whether it's true or not, this sort of security vein that runs through the republican party that's supportive of that so you peel off a small portion, not a whole party to move -- >> but -- i'm not defending it. >> this is the part that hurts. >> hold that thought, we'll take a quick break. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. 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bipartisanship and partisanship in the 112th congress. and particularly, the layer of the story about the level of partisanship in this congress that didn't get enough attention which is we focused on all the places where it was extremely partisan and all the data shows increasing polaration and the debt ceiling fight and domestic policy and the violence against women act totally bipartisan pieces of legislation left to die over partisan obstruction. once you turn your attention to the national security area and civil liberties and things like that it's been a bipartisan enterprise. a lot of legislation has come out of the congress not passed by 61 or 62 but 85 or 90 reasons. and this is an area, there was something you were going to say before we got to break and i rudely interrupted you. >> i have to respond to the point that fear is sort of used as a way to push these things through and i think that, yes, i think sometimes fear is used as a way to get what people in the executive or people in congress want to do anyway. but i actually, i take them at their word. i think dianne feinstein is very worried about another terrorist attack. genuinely believe that. it often comes from a place of again win concern about security. what's missing from this picture -- what i was going to say is what's missing from this picture is any sense of the history in terms of how these powers are actually used. and they're not actually used to keep us safe, at least not that we can tell. but historically, if you look at what the church committee found in the 1970s, these broefr broad surveillance powers, very, very quickly get turned against unpopular political and social and racial minorities. >> and there have been coming out of denver and such. >> absolutely. >> so my point is they just -- senator feinstein you're saying there's a again win concern. i think it's deploying this universally-accepted policy around fear and threat to pass what would otherwise be absolutely problematic for the majority of people. >> and -- i think there's a -- >> i think they can both be true. >> i'm saying where is the evidence for her concern? >> but she's not using it. >> isn't the again winness is part of the problem. right? if you go back and read the 1% doctrine and the book on dick cheney, he wasn't faking it. he seriously was a super paranoid dude. and you know what? he went through 9/11 and that messes people up in some ways and he thought, i mean, the point is -- >> the point is you're saying that they don't use it for the concern that they've expressed. >> it's extremely broad, extremely broad. and the problem is we're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. with all due respect we're not like every other country on earth. we have this notion of ourselves as defenders of freedom and people are willing to take a risk for freedom who have done that again and again and when you inject fear into that and you don't have a public conversation about it, we change and we change in ways that are profound and, yet, profoundly undiscussed. >> i think what's happening here is -- i think what's happening here more than fear is the b bureaucratization of fear. >> but it's the way policy works. >> but it doesn't work. that's the point. >> i'm saying in -- >> it continues and the policy is at stake. one small national security benefit was the whistle blower protection extended to a contractors so that's a tiny -- it's significant -- >> to the intelligence community they were stripped from their house bill so people who work in national security still don't have any protections for blowing the whistle. that wasn't a coincidence. >> but what we're saying is there's something unique and distinct about the way partisan politics operates under the conditions of war on terror model and fear-based model and the tough you guys spend a lot of time at and i have a tremendous amount of respect for the work you do and your organization does because i think you play it fair and straight accrues the board idealogically. what i'm hearing from you is it's not that different from the way congress operates in a lot of other areas. >> absolutely. there's a lot of log rolling and it is iner tia. and the other dynamic is that the republicans have always tried to portray themselves as the party of national security, the democrats have always felt vulnerable on that so it's sort of ends up being the sort of perfect storm that lusz legislation forward. it's not surprising in the house, sandy supplemental bill that they have put together, not a dime was taken out of any of the veteran's funding, for instance, in that thing. everything else got at least a little bit of the nick but cemetery funding or facilities construction for veterans all was held and that was the only part of that that was. >> and the missing link there was president obama. as you said the democrats feel a little vulnerable here. if you go back and look at the voting record back in the 110th congress, when the fisa amendment was passed it was passed with a bipartisan majority with 69 votes in the senate. so the democrats were voting for it back then too and there was a window here and the window was, they were waiting for leadership and waiting for president obama to back them up. without him getting this there and fighting and he had that opportunity but even though national security legislation is usually a one-way ratchet, the last administration overreached so far that he could have said, this is different. we have to go back. but the democrats aren't sticking their necks out on the if the president is a the this. >> and part of the fiscal cliff is, let's not do it to steps. >> the domestic side, let's cut it and let's not cut the defense despite the fact that if we had across the board cuts it would have taken the defense budget back to the level it was at 2006. >> people don't get just how much defense has grown in the last 10 or 12 years. and one of the questions that i have and could we throw the polling up, the support for keeping gitmo open and endorse the use of drones. 79% of democrats and 91% of republicans. >> 79% of democrats. and my question is here is. and i'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, the cause and effect. which is to say -- do people informing their public opinion talk their queues from their partisan representatives? and i think tea party realization is a efficient way to go about navigating a democracy. they say this is fine and i trust them because i trust them on things like the sandy supplemental and defending medicare so my opinion gets formed by the queues i'm taking off my partisan leadership or is it the other way around? the fact that there's a bipartisan consensus in congress around national security issues because there's solid public opinion, bipartisan consensus and the representatives reflect that? >> i think you're assuming a better conduit between the people and their representatives in either direction, than actually exists. >> that's the assumption of democracy. >> but let's be honest, this is a multi-billion dollar industry. there's a drone kwau kacaucus i- so they -- and so it's not surprising that we see congress supporting drones. one of the untold bipartisan stories of this congress was legislation to open the domestic skas to surveillance drones. >> another bipartisan victory of the 112th. >> exactly. so then there's the spin and then there's the media and the fact that most of the information about the drone program, certainly the targeted killing program, is not available. and so it becomes very easy for public opinion. >> do you think this is an interest group issue, basically? >> it's a lot of things but i think you have to follow the money. >> a big part of this is silence. a big part of this is simply silent. >> it's not being discussed much. you have instinct and insight. insight can actually trump instinct. queue got to have debate and discussion. and the silence, you have instinct and fear is a powerful instinct and that's what as play. >> look, i think a lot of it is i trust barack obama and i voted for him and i think he has passion and empathy and good judgment and they thinks this is okay. >> if you go back to the beginning of 2008, just after the president was elected one of the first things he said is, i want to close gone tan month, we're not that nation. when you see the passage of legislation that goes against what you authored. >> they jammed him up on the authorization spending and he didn't say a word. >> he was silent. >> but this suggests and i think to bring us around to this causal story we're telling you here about this -- the fact that they'll really did a bunch of stuff in the beginning that was in keeping with their promises. he signed an executive order on the first day and they released memos and there was movement in all directions and then they got hammered in congress and got hammered on the sunday shows and all over the place and then they retreated. that's part of the story particularly in the early stages and that says something about interest groups or public opinion. it says something about being responsive to where the median voter is on the issue and being wordried that the median voter in the median congressional swing district is thinking you're going to bring a terrorist to his house, basically, and put him in your basement. >> one of the things president obama says that part of leadership is been willing to do what you think needs to be done even despite what the public wants you to do. being willing to at least fight the nice and go to the public and articulate why it's important to continue the fight. i think with president obama, two issues. it's not just about compromise. it's the consistent perception that he capitulates. not even the rigorous discussiontion to explore all the issues on the table and the silence has become his philosophy. >> but be clear on fisa. he was leading. >> you always want to listen to a wiretap. >> of course. >> thank you all for being here. >> what we can learn from the country's newest murder capital. that's next. blooper . counting up the year's murder is a annual grim thesity for cities. in 2012, chicago was the top of the list, 506 murders the most and 2011 homicide total of 433 and finished six-murders shy of the 512 murders it recorded in 2008. for years chicago murder's rate has increased and decreased under various mayors but last year was particularly embarrassing for chicago mayor rom emanuel. and in new york, on the on the other hand, a city with three times as many people in chicago, homicide h are down about 18% in the last year under mayor michael bloomberg and new york finished the year with 418 murders the lowest number in any year since reliable records were kept beginning in 1963. now, washington, d.c., a place once so plagued with killings. people used to say d.c. stood for "dodge city" recorded just 88 homicide last year according to the metro police department so would what we've seen over the last 20 years is a remarkable in the crime nationwide including many big cities but persistly high levels of violence in impoverished communities and some extremely-worrying localized upticks in last year. the divergence between chicago and new york gets us to examine crime and what causes it to go down. i have keith suber, he mentors troubled yoult and gang members in brooklyn. he's a former member of the crypts gang and served ten years in prison. and the professor and codirector of the university of chicago crime lab. great to have you both here. let's start on the criminalology side with you, harrold. what's going on in chicago somethat's the first thing to ask. it's getting national attention. monica davey had a great piece in "the new york times." great reporter if you're out there, journalism gods, show a little -- she had a really good piece about the homicide problem. and she made this point, more than 80% of the city's homicide took place last year in half of chicago's 23 police directs. so half of the districts are producing the homicide largely on the city's south and west sides and neighborhoods on the northside not far from lake michigan acknowledge they heard about a rise in the city's homicide rate but says it did not affect their sense of safety. incredibly localized problem here. >> by the way, i loved half of that story. and i hated the headline which was that homicides are soaring. we're actually quite low compared to ten years ago, you know. overall this story is not as bad as people might think. >> but it sells papers. >> well, i thought -- but i thought she captured very well the human dimension and the disparity. many people live at a level of safety that's comparable to a west city. if you live lincoln park or the other side you're quite safe. if you live in the far south side or westside of chicago, young people there you know, face a very high homicide rate and as the rates have come down in so much of the city the disparity is very glaring. i don't know that it's different from cleveland, detroit, many other places, but we clearly have a challenge there that needs to be addressed. >> keith you were nodding your head when i was talking about the new york data and that's someone who was been around violence in coney island neighborhood and coney island is being repped hard today on the the show. we had hakeem jeffries here and you're from coney island. when you look at the data, how does it line up with your personal experience and what is your understanding of why homicide have come down in the city so much? >> i think basically, what's happened is the spike of jobs. the economy coming back to new york city. i think the fact that people now are starting to understand that murder is something serious. crime is something serious. people out there selling drugs. people getting involved in that lifestyle, people want to change their life nowadays. so basically what we're seeing is a turn around, especially in my community in cope any island. there's a spike of jobs and a promise of jobs. they're building and building. a lot of these senators, they've put funding in place so we can train these individuals because they don't want coney island to be known as a gang-plagued community as we're building. >> are you saying that people's understanding of how acceptable violence is in dealing with rival gang members, that that's changed over time? >> yes, i think so. it really has. there's no more structure in gangs. when i was involved in gangs there was structure. my brothers were the original members of the seven immortals which the movie "the warriors" was made from and there's always the president, vice president, the war sfloord a hierarchy. >> a hierarchy and now a lot of youth are just doing things to prove themselves to other individuals in the community. >> that's right. >> look, we -- the we've gone after the heads of these gangs and gotten a lot of them in prison and what happens is that you cut off the head and you get 100 heads. everybody is their own head of the gang and have their own set. we have a real problem of a. >> caller: sure of violence in many of our communities and we have to deal with that head-on and we have to admit that that's been created by a broader contech. a context of failed criminal justice policies and context of a gun-drenched nation and a context of poverty. the reality is that in places like this, there's never a job for you but the gang always has a job for you. >> always. >> and so that's why, you know, when mayor bloomberg last year -- think where we were this time last year. we were saying stopping first has to go down and murders will go up. it went down, right? >> right. >> but jobs went up and that's why murder went down. is that, from a social science perspective, one of the things that i think is fascinating when you dive into the literature on crime, this is what happened. a massive boom in crime, particularly violent crime in this country, peaking around the early 90s. it's been declined. massively and rapidly and these are the sort of big national statistics and it's declined in different communities across racial barriers and income barriers and urban and rural and we don't understand why it happened. is that basically the where we are? >> i think there's a lot of truth to that and my colleague absolutely would like to say there were all these police chiefs total idiots in the '80s and all the others they were brilliant in the '90s. it's like the stock market. it goes up and everyone has a theory about it. we know way less than we should about what's effective to bring the crime rate down but we do know some things and we have some good ideas. >> i want to know what we know right after we take this break. . i'm consolidating my assets. i'm not paying hidden fees or high commissions. i'm making the most of my money. and 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[ rodger riney ] at scottrade, we give you commission-free etfs, no-fee iras and more. come see why more investors are saying... i'm with scottrade. is a better car than camry. to argue would be rude. nissan altima. with moving-object detection. lease now. just $199 per month. visit choosenissan.com. road and track called sentra an economy car minus the look and feel of an economy car. wonder how civic and corolla look and feel about that. the all-new nissan sentra, with best-in-class mpg. lease for $169 per month. visit choosenissan.com. >> harrold pollack, codirector of the crime lab in chicago. what do we know about the crime in the last -- >> there's no one thing that explains it. but i think policing is better and i think there's no question that sort of the new york city innovative cops on the doc process and -- >> explain that what means. what changed about policing. this is the dominant story that gets told and then i'll let you respond to it. >> new york city enlarged its police department and improved the management of it and focused on every week we want to understand, where relevant crimes happening? and if we put a bunch of dots across the city where are the crimes and where the police officers and what are they doing in relating to those dots so that brings the police to the places the crime is happening. if you take a place like chicago or new york the way the politics work you're going to get tremendous law enforcement where upies live and influential people are. that's not where people are getting killed so you have to have some counterweight to that and that's something that was done more effectively. >> does that resonate with you, keith? that the presence of miss in a neighborhood does succeed in this basic bringing violence down? >> it comes down to the "how." >> exactly. because what happens is a lot of times the youth out on the street, if, say if a murder took please and the presence comes because now, they're looking for people to cooperate. but where was this presence before the murder took place? that's a lot of things where a lot of times in the community where people choose not to trust the police, choose not to deal with them. but what happens -- what i've come to see from being a former gang member is that it's okay. it's okay to live in your community and do the right thing in your community. i'm not saying that you should tell the police -- let me -- i'm not saying you should tell the police every little detail of what goes on in your community. but if someone gets murdered or if someone is unjustifiably killed, if there's a crime that takes place. >> somebody's raped. >> somebody's raped, those types of crime need to be reported. >> but this is an interesting point because bun of the things and one of the focuses on policing that happened was prevention as opposed to frrgs. the emphasis of preventing crime from happening as opposed to catching people who did crime and one of the issues in chicago now isn't just the high murder rate but the unsolved murders and it's colossal. you go into a community and you know, most cases are made at the local level by basically, someone informing. >> that's a number that every citizen should know about their city and most don't. we focus on the homicide rate. did it go up? did it go down? we don't talk about the solve rate and the fbi releases it every year and we really should have it down to the zip code because what you see when you look at the zip code level is the impact of segregation on our law enforcement. in any segregated society, the way it has worked, whether it was south africa or here was if crime happens in the ghetto, that's a problem to fixing itself. if you kill somebody outside of your area or outside of south central, then you got a problem because if you kill somebody in, that's okay. and that was with us until very, very recently so part of what happened here with cops and come com stat was a good thing. but you have to go one step further. because the other legacy of segregation is that the cops fear the people in the neighborhood. and when you actually put cops on the beat, when you require them to be part of that neighborhood. when you do what bill bralten has done in los angeles and respect the people in the neighborhood and get to know them, crime false further faster. >> and the point is that that philosophy is not revolutionay and it makes me think of two things. one is the intimate relationship with vie leps that young people have as a result of the number of unsolved murders and unsofld crimes. >> because they don't think the state will provide justice. >> it's not think, it's a fact. they know the brother or father they lost no one has come to investigate that murder. wonderful article and what erika ford charts that there is a direct link between those young people who have been victims of crimes before they become perpetrators of crime. the specific correlation. >> it gets to this epidemiology of this. >> and by the way, we need to talk about how young people think about violence and how we can help young people deal more effectively with with each other when they often have scars from being exposed to violence, either being victims or perpetrators in various ways. and i think that -- >> part of that, i mean, part of that is the great work that we're doing in the schools and part of that is making sure that people -- if you having a says to a psychologist. we have neighborhoods in this country where the kids are twice as likely to suffer from ptsd than soldiers coming back from the front but we have to deal with it the same way. >> and then the stigma around those issues. a lot of people in low-income communities. there's tremendous stigma about seeking out and acknowledges that you have issues and coming forward and use the resources are there. >> i want to go back to the i want malt regularship with violence. when i was young my father was a politician. the fact that he was a politician didn't change the thing that soldiers came up to our house with guns this hair hand, tried to kill my mother in front of us and my sisters and for two years after that we lived under house arrest with armed soldiers so it turns your neighborhood and your home into a domestic battleground. so because i've mentored young girl what have been victims of that crime, it specifically affects your relationship with the notion of safety. and what you ups intimately is that you're on your own. >> i want to ask you, keith, about the way that you think -- for naught about violence and then and think about it now after this break. that make kids. and even fewer that make moms happy too. with wholesome noodles and bite sized chicken, nothing brings you together like chicken noodle soup from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. diarrhea, gas, bloating? 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[ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'. until i show them this. the oral-b pro-health clinical brush. its pro-flex sides adjust to teeth and gums for a better clean. the pro-health clinical brush from oral-b. >> esther, there's this 1993 article in the "post" that got a lot of attention and this was at the peak level of violence. getting ready to die young, children in the violent d.c. neighborhood plan their own funeral. children as young as 10 have said where they want to be buried. what their want their mourners to wear and they want their funeral floral arrangements to spell out their favorite brands of clothing. this gets to being drenched in a universe where people are dying and subject to violence. keith, what did that do to how you thought about violence, seeing that around you? >> growing up on coney island is i've been surrounded by violence and growing up in the projection, and the projects all over chicago, d.c. -- when you live that environment you become a product that environment. it becomes cliche' to stand in front of the building every day with your home boys, drinking and smoke a blunt. this is the reality of it. this is what our youth think is the way of life right how. a lot of them don't have the initiative to get out and go find their appointment and this is why we're trying to bring this abroad. >> but violence, specifically, what did you think about it as a way of dealing with someone either doing something to someone you loved or -- >> well, i mean, there was a time when i was a very violent individual at one time. and a lot of times you don't think about what you're doing to someone to hurt them when the thought is in process. it's like if it happens there's a reaction. this is the mentality and now it's even more so with the video games and the kids that sit there all day and play video games and it becomes easy to pull the trigger in the video game and in real life, people think that it's the same thing but it's not because you're dealing with the flesh of of a human life. >> i think it's important. there's a risk here that we put it all on these kids. and we the grownups that run society don't take responsibility. >> if you go back and, say, to prohibition. if question we were sitting here with a reformed member of al capone's gang during prohibition. how can we stop violence in our neighborhood? someone could say, we have to stop print prohibition. >> here's the most macroversion of this is there's an article out, kendra jones wrote this remarkable arrested kel that looks at the crime to peak and falloff in the context of let. we started putting a lot of -- the post world war ii levels went up because of the lead in gasoline and then the catalytic converters and the lead comes down. and those two curves of the amount of lead in gas and the amount of violent crime per 10,000 people match each other with about a 23-year gap which means, when we start putting lead in the air. we start getting more crime 23 years later and we start taking it out and we get less crime. that's like the human individual level of why is someone reacting to violence or trauma and then the most diffuse molecular environmental level and my question to you is -- how plausible is this as a theory of what's happened? >> i think that -- three no one thing that explains a huge fraction of what's going on but i think it's very plausible that lead is a serious problem and anything that lowers people's cognitive abilities and challenges people's executive function is a real problem and this has been for decades we've known that we've had serious lead problems. we haven't dealt with it as aggressively as we need to and it's striking. if you look at the numbers kevin mentions in the article, we would need $400 billion to deal with this problem in one shot. i don't know if that's a good or bad policy in and of itself. when the financial system was under stress we came up with that level of money because we all understood, we cannot survive as a so seat if our financial sector is threatened. when i look at the problems we're facing in urban america that we faced for decades i don't see the same sense of urgency that's says -- we really need that level of commitment to deal with it. and it's certainly plausible that lead is an important issue. >> and here's where the politics gets tricky and it gets to what you were saying, ben, about the kind of ways in which the com stat model and the new policing has created backlash. we should be paying attention to violence in these neighborhoods and we should be addressing it but the ways we tend to address it in our political system can often produce a lot of perverse reactions. we'll talk about that right after this. >> we're talking about violence and crime and the kind of twin realities that i think of violent crime in america which is that we've seen this remarkable drop-off in lots of cities and across the nation and yet at the same time, the intimate experience of violence this certain very specific localized places is still horrible. and unacceptable by any standard. and talking about ways of continuing to try to push that rate down and reduce violence and different methods. and one of them is this interrupter's model used in chicago and it gets to what you said, keith. you talked about it in terms of an action and then a reak, right? there's no that loop is something is done and violence is a response. and this is about literally, interrupt the loop. take a look. >> by the time we got out there, the fight had just ended. one group of guys said the young man threatened that he had a gun and that he was going to kill him. so he started fighting and ended up getting his teeth knocked out. when kobe got him off location i asked kobe to take him to the hospital. the story about sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you? words will get you killed. >> that's right. >> the model there is basically, when there is an incident, it is going to people and basically, trying to council them away from the reaction, right? >> to diffuse it. >> how effective has this been and does this have promise for a way of thinking about those continuing to push the level of violence down in these communities that have been resistant to some of the other trends? >> i think it's helpful. i don't think we know in a rigorous way how helpful but it's definitely been helpful and it changes the tone that you don't -- i think that we have to create an environment where violence is the last resort rather than the first resort and i've been out on that corner with the interrupters and if you talk to people in those communities they believe that those interrupters are being very helpful and people will they will those interrupters things that they won't tell other people. a lot of times people don't want to retaliate but they need a dignified path not to retaliate and the interrupters can be helpful. i don't think it's a cure-all but i think it's an essential element in prevention focus. and the idea of we think of the world as having white hats and black hats and that's not the way the world unfolds. >> what do you mean? good guys and bad guys? >> when a young person commits an act of violence he's a bad person. he did it because of some deeply-rooted criminal identity he got. that's not the way violence unfolds. >> i want to interject something as well because i want to quote ircan ford in new york. when she works with young team who have become perpetrators it's from the standpoint that they were initially victims and there was no process between them being victims to becoming perpetrators. that the state intervened in. so in other words, it's the point you made. this motion that the unsolved murders is where you have to deal with the culture of violence. if you're only talking about -- you're never tackling the culture in which violence rages. i know from experience. i know from you living in a space in a home where there's soldiers and guns. what it does to your humanity and your psyche is just dangerous and at 12 you're not equipped to make your family safe. but that's what you feel. and you're asking children to adopt policy and actions that an adult is responsible for and while you have the interrupters and different interventions that work we're talking about and what we need is a policy that respects the humanity of these children as mrg's children and doesn't create this kind of apartheid of neighborhood and geographical apartheid and then criminalizes those who adopt violence. >> i think the political problems for recall emmanuel are a good sign. i wreb when i lived in chicago murders were much higher and frankly, no one cared and by "no one" i mean the small group of white elites that ran the city of chicago because it wasn't happening then and it wasn't happening in those neighborhoods. >> because you go into the -- you criminalize is mothers that are grieving because of what they might do because they lost their kids. no one will suggest that. >> caring is important. the courage that we've been talking about, folks actually going out there and getting between two men, one that may have a gun is critical. but we actually have to have the courage as a society to make that enough. >> that's right. >> because right now, that's not enough. >> right. >> because we drench that area with guns, right? that's not enough because that area doesn't have jobs. you can train for all the jobs you want but if there's no jobs you can't find a job. so we actually have -- and because, quite frankly, too few of our chiefs have the courage to tell their cops, get out of your car. walk that neighborhood. know that neighborhood. in san francisco, we had two very dangerous places. and one of them we brought crime down very fast because the cops got out of their cars. >> what you should know for the news week ahead coming up next. ...and down. just use your maxperks card and get a case of x-9 paper for only 1-cent after maxperks rewards. find thousands of big deals now... ...at officemax. five days later, i had a massive heart attack. bayer aspirin was the first thing the emts gave me. now, i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. 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[ coughs ] [ male announcer ] you can't let a cold keep you up tonight. ♪ vicks nyquil -- powerful nighttime 6-symptom cold & flu relief. ♪ ♪ so, what should you know for the week coming up? thanks to the most comprehensive study of their time, you should know that being officially overweight is correlated with higher life expectancy than being normal weight. we know the body mass index over 30 had a higher risk of death but those with bmis of 25 to 30 had a lower risk of death than those of one between 18.25 and 25. there's a lot we don't know about the relationship between weight and health. the metric used to determine whether someone is the appropriate weight body mass index declares a lot of adults as obese. we know it may be time to question whether that metric itself is a useful one for facilitating a healthy weight. transocean and the spill in 2010 is pleading guilty to violating the clean water act. you should know we are still drilling in deep water in the gulf and the arctic and extracting oil in north dakota. each new technology of fossil fuel brings with it risks of continued carbon emissions. the fbi ran an all-time record number of backgrounds checks for gun purchases in december suggesting many rush to buy guns in the wake of the newtown massacre. there are no statistics for the purchases, the majority of them require a background check. they serve as a rough approximaty of sales. 2.8 million background checks up from 2 million in november and up 49% of december 2011, which itself, was a record high at the time. you should also know while gun sales have been spiking up and setting records, the percentage of american households with guns has been declining. we are increasingly headed toward an america where a smaller and smaller number of people have a larger amount of guns. i want to find out what the guests think we should know. >> that bmi news wasn't good for me. evidence based introductions -- >> that's bragging. that's bragging. that's a humble brag right there. all right, continue. how do we feel, huh? >> you should know that evidence based interventions can reduce crime an analysis of ban sports edition reduced crime and helped young people stay in school. >> okay. >> you should know if you see a crime, if you see a beef happening in your community as men in the community, get in the middle of it. step in. talk to the young brothers. talk to the young sisters. tell them this is not the way. offer them sense, hope, offer them something where they can feel comfortable to open up to us adults. a lot of time the youth don't like to open up to us. standing in the middle can oftentimes be a good thing. >> we should know not only do we have a do nothing congress the last two years, we will have one the next two years if reid doesn't change the filibuster. >> there's claims on the table that looked promising, then it looked like it was being gutted from the inside out. we are going talk about that. d-day, whether it's going to happen or not. when pressure arose over it, mitch mcconnell changed. pressure works. >> it's usually important. we think the filibuster is mr. smith. put on your depends and stand there. that's not what it is. that's what we want it to be. you know? if you are going to block democracy, we need to see your face. >> know whether you are on the west side of chicago, south side of chicago or sandytown, you are america's children and entitled to emotional justice. you should not have to be shaped by the legacy of untreated trauma and violence that we sanction and accept. in one week's time, the tsa, temporary shelter assistance runs out. the fact they have not passed the formal legislation means you are leaving millions of people who have been made homeless homeless again. we are having that discussion tomorrow morning. >> i want to thank harold from the university of chicago, keith, ben and aster. thank you all. thank you for joining us. we'll be back next week saturday and sunday at 8:00 eastern time. coming up next is melissa harris perry. the politics on the weight loss industry. plus, kevin drum will be there as well. all that on "mhp". see you next week here on "up." ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you turn an entrepreneur's dream... ♪ into a scooter that talks to the cloud? ♪ or turn 30-million artifacts... ♪ into a high-tech masterpiece? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it. woman: we're helping joplin, missouri, come back from a devastating tornado. man: and now we're helping the east coast recover from hurricane sandy. we're a leading global insurance company, based right here in america. we've repaid every dollar america lent us. everything, plus a profit of more than $22 billion. for the american people. thank you, america. helping people recover and rebuild -- that's what we do. now let's bring on tomorrow. this morning, my question. who is profiting from your new year's resolution to lose weight? plus, the one element that could be causing everything from high prime rates to lower iqs. the war on poverty, then and now. first, are the democrats ready to get this party started? good morning, i'm melissa harris perry. president obama will move forward with one eye on the political moment of the day and the other on the political legacy of a lifetime. when the time comes to hand over the keys to the white house to the successor, so too, will the president hand over his role as the head of the democratic party. jefferson, lincoln, roosevelt and reagan left behind empowered coalition without the charismatic leader who helped forge the original alliances. president obama's obligation is to ensure a democratic party strong enough to stand on its own after he's no longer there to support it. quite frankly, without the president to lean on, the democrats are looking wobbly at the moment. right now, the democratic party is basking in a residual warm and fuzzy left over in the wake of the president's re-election. in november, 51% of rerespond t rerespondents gave the democratic party a favorable rating compared to 40% of the gop. it's only temporary. before the election, you have to go back to the summer of 2009 to find a time when americans weren't just as disgusted with democrats as they are republicans. the president has his work cut out for him. there are certain pred assessors to turn to for guidance but there's one american icon president obama needs, martha stewart. no one knows more about party planning than ma that.