Transcripts For KNTV Today 20110930 : vimarsana.com

trials that have the world watching. the amanda knox appeal almost at an end. the trial of michael jackson s doctor just beginning. each one producing exploding testimony and courtroom drama. we re live in italy and los angeles. today, friday, september 30th. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, everyone. welcome to today on a friday morning, a special split edition. i m matt lauer in italy. ann curry is about nine not about, exactly nine time zones away in los angeles where she is covering the manslaughter trial connected to michael jackson. good morning to you. that s right. good morning, matt. we ll get to the latest on both of these trials, but first, the death of the world s most wanted terrorist, matt. that s right, anwar al awlaki was a major player in the yemeni s terror network, an american-born al qaeda leader accused of inspiring several attacks against the united states including the failed bombing of the passenger jet back on christmas day in 2009, that jet bound for detroit. we want to get the very latest on this story right now. jim miklaszewski is live at the pentagon. what can you tell us? u.s. officials tell us and confirm the american military launched a drone strike at a convoy in the eastern province of yemen today aimed at killing anwar al awlaki. nbc has been told by a senior official that in fact anwar al awlaki is dead. he has been an elusive target for years, many drone strikes and other missile strikes were aimed at awlaki but he always managed to escape and with this news today this would be a huge victory in the war against al qaeda. senior u.s. military and intelligence officials have said for some time now that al qaeda in yemen and the arabian peninsula poses the most serious terrorist threat to the united states, because not only are they committed to attacking americans in the u.s., but they also have the wherewithal to do that. matt? mik, let s make sure we understand awlaki s role in the terrorist network. do american officials say he actually took part in the planning of attacks against u.s. interest or did he merely inspire some of those attacks by his words? no, absolutely. he was considered a hands on operator for al qaeda involved in every aspect of attempts to kill americans. he was behind that christmas day underwear bomber a couple of years ago, behind a plot in which explosives were packed in ink cartridges to be mailed to the united states. he was also inspirational to others, it s believed, the ft. hood shooter, u.s. army major who killed 13 soldiers and other plots. he was far more than inspirational. as one u.s. intelligence official said, he got up every day with his only intent was to kill americans on u.s. soil. all right, jim miklaszewski at the pentagon with more on the killing of anwar al awlaki, jim, thank you very much. let s turn now to los angeles and ann. matt, thanks. here in california we re following an amazing story of survival, a 67-year-old man rescued from the bottom of a ravine nearly a week after reported missing and found by his very own determined children. we ll talk to them in just a moment. first nbc s kristen dahlgren is in valencia, california, with details. good morning. reporter: good morning, we re told david lavau is in good spirits. happy to be alive who when he went missing his children took matters into their own hands. i thought i heard a voice and i said hello, and i screamed down there. someone said help. reporter: that someone was david lavau a retired cable worker who rescuers pulled from the bottom of a cliff late thursday after his son and daughter combing the california state highways heard his cries for help. if anyone can find our dad, it s us. with he stopped at every ravine. my brother got out of the car and kept screaming. oh my god there s our dad. i ran to the top where the bushes are, and i ran and i saw my dad s car. i finally got to him and of course i hugged him and we both cried. i said, how did you make it? and he said, i drank the water in the river and i ate leaves and bugs. he asked for a chocolate milkshake. he said he tried to crawl up the hill with a broken bones. reporter: lavau had been missing for nearly a week and family members set out to retrace the route from oxnard, california, in the hopes of uncovering a trail. they found him in castaic, nearly 50 miles away. we narrowed it down to he had to have had an accident on a cliff somewhere. and we were driving through and instantly heard someone yelling help from down below. i said dad we re going to be there. hang on. he just was crying and crying and so i just slid down. reporter: but at the bottom the grim future their father could have faced. lavau s blue car landed next to a silver one to a completely separate accident. the driver of the other car hadn t been so lucky, his decomposing body still in the vehicle. my dad crashed there, survived, and now the family that s been wanting their father to know what happened and now they have peace. i wish it was better peace, i m sorry for that. reporter: california highway patrol is investigating the cause of lavau s accident. supposedly just lost control there was a bright car and if you saw where the accident happened, several cars have gone off. this is a bad section of road. this has been the fourth incident i ve been on here where we ve had cars over the side. reporter: lavau was air lifted to henry mayo hospital suffering broken bones and dehydration, he s in stable condition and expected to recover. i don t think his life is in danger right now. he s in a great deal of pain, very dehydrated and very hungry. he didn t have a lot of resources to handle with it so he suffered through it. reporter: family and friends whose search efforts paid off glad lavau is alive because they took efforts into their own hands. we found him. no one else did. we did. reporter: the identity of the victim in that other car hasn t been released. as for lavau, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, multiple fractures in his back but only expected to be in the hospital, ann, for another three or four days. that s pretty amazing. kristen dahlgren thank you so much. we have chardonnay, sean and lisa lavau all with us. good morning to all of you. good morning. good morning. the first question is how did you know to look in that particular area? sean? we actually would not have a show long enough to talk about how long that happened. it was joint efforts in many different directions, and putting together chardonnay and her husband, jesse, and morgan gonzalez and her girlfriend bethany, and me and jessica, and lisa, and her daughter, and just everything collaborated and ended up just joining forces and ended up actually meeting almost at the same spot within a half hour. it just, it just, we were just talking about it, getting ready for this and we re still baffled ourselves. you were doing this even though authorities were conducting their own search. what made you decide to jump into the search yourself. actually i ll let my sister chardonnay talk about that. she really handled a lot of the beginning work of the missing persons as well as the detective work, so chardonnay, its eight all yours. well, my goodness, where do you start. what happened first is that immediately when our stories matched up that we had a problem, that my father was missing, we were connected through to the missing persons homicide department in los angeles with detective harris. detective harris ended up work ing with us and being able to put things together and try to wean out what could have been foul play and what was the real issue, and once the stories started matching up and us realizing that my father was missing from a period of time, that we were aware of certain things with text messages, that we were able to zero in and ping his towers of the satellite towers of the cell phone towers actually to be able to narrow down exactly where my father was coming through, and knowing that he was coming back through castaic. which is pretty amazing. so when you finally then got to this location, and you heard his voice for the first time, lisa, you want to take it? what was your reaction? well, i wish i could say that i was there. i was actually we went up to from 126 to the highway, and sean was getting out of his car at one area, so we had actually two cars and six people looking for my dad, so what happened is, one would go to one ravine and look over the hill and my daughter and i marquelle go to the next ravine and look over and as i was looking at the ravine before my brother, i left that ravine and i see jessica coming up the street saying, we found him. i get out of the car at that point and all i know is i can see my dad s car, and sean and him saying, go get 911. so i left at that moment and it was a long ride down the mountain. very amazing, and is it true that one of the first things your father asked for was chocolate milk? he must be a big fan of that. a whole lot. we really have to correct this one. my father s favorite thing is a chocolate malt. malt. oh. it wasn t chocolate milk. sorry. he loves his frosty freeze. well, i m sure he s going to get a lot of those now. it s so great to hear what you ve done. i bet the next time you need a loan or to call in for money if you re on vacation your dad s going to probably be more likely to say yes after all of this. you are all three heroes. thank you so much for joining us. thank you. thank you. thank you. all right, now once again here s matt. all right, ann, thank you very much. now to one of the trials that is capturing the world s attention, the murder conviction appeal of amanda knox in perugia. right now the prosecution is delivering its rebuttal in a courtroom not far from here. amanda knox will have her chance to address the court and deliver a statement probably on monday. we ll have our exclusive and very emotional interview with her parents in just a moment, but first let s find out more about what s taking place inside the courtroom. nbc s keith miller has been covering this trial and the one before it for the better part of four years. keith, good morning. good morning, matt. four extraordinary years and the drama doesn t stop. amanda knox is the only female american locked up here in italy for the charge of murder, but the knox family is hoping the outcome of this appeals trial will reduce that number to zero. amanda knox in court this morning appearing pale and weak. so much so, one of her lawyers offered comfort with an embrace. her defense team has a reason to appear confident, after delivering a powerful summation of the case thursday, concluding knox should be set free. she got no sympathy from the prosecution. on rebuttal this morning they forcefully argued the original dna evidence is valid. it is an argument the prosecution won t let go, despite a court appointed forensic scientist calling the work of italian crime scene investigators sloppy, and the dna results unreliable. the final days of this appeal trial sent centered almost entirely on knox s character. the question being raised in court, is knox capable of murder? defense lawyers said knox had been crucified by the prosecution, attempting to justify wrongfully imprisoning her for murder. the assessment of all the evidence has been completely revised so therefore the scenario is completely different and we look forward to the appeal. reporter: another defense lawyer asked the judge and jury thursday to look at the knox family, sitting in the front row of the courtroom. they are terrified, he said, also victims of this crime. it was a moving court performance that left knox s family in tears. and earned one defense lawyer a kiss of gratitude from italy s most notorious defendant. and one of the most dramatic moments in court this morning, the prosecutors saying not just his team but some people in seattle thought that amanda knox was guilty and he went on to say that her back is covered and she just may walk saying once again it s the black man who will take the fall. and matt, he s referring to rudy guede. sentenced to 16 years in prison. playing the rates card. playing the race card. clearly the prosecution and the defense pulling out all the stops. this is knockout time. they know it s do or die. she will walk free or they ll keep her locked up for life. keith miller, thank you very much. after another very tense day in court on thursday, i caught up with amanda s parents, and at this stage of the appeal i think you ll see their emotions are clearly very close to the surface. what is the one piece of evidence that you have heard in this appeal or in the first trial or what is the one key lack of evidence that you think vindicates your daughter? common sense. that s the thing that is missing especially in the first trial, and to use the theory of the prosecution, four people inside a very small room, one person fighting for their life, three people, i m sure their adrenalin s running, and for amanda and rafaelle to leave nothing in that room, no hair, no blood, no saliva, nothing, no fingerprints, anything, it s physically impossible to take place. and to me, that is just pure common sense. she s going to get a chance to stand up in court in the next couple of days. yes. after 1,400 plus days in prison, she s going to get to state her case. right. first of all, how do you think, knowing your daughter, she will steel her nerves? think about that moment and what s at stake? i don t expect her to steel her nerves. you know, it s actually going to be very painful to listen to. but you say it s going to be hard for you, and part of me as a dad would say my daughter s going to get a chance. um-hum. to speak her mind and speak from the heart. yep. why is it going to be so hard for you to hear it? because she s literally fighting for her life. she is totally terrified by what s happening to her, and the fact that this is important, that she get up and try to say exactly what she s feeling and thinking. even though it s a good thing that she can speak, we will see the pain or hear the pain in her voice, and it s like watching your child be tortured. there was a point this morning where the judge in the case was listening to one of amanda s lawyers, and he was nodding his head. now, you re smiling. he seemed to be nodding in agreement. have you guys, first of all, did you see it? i heard it. i heard about it, because people were other people saw it, yes. people were astounded because he is so stoic and does not show expression and to have him nod is like phenomenal. big. which raised the request he question in my mind, have you two and the rest of your family become expert tea readers? do you look for every facial expression, every piece of body language from the judge and the jurors to try and get a hint as to what s going through their mind, even though you don t understand a lot of what s being said. absolutely, because that s one piece that we can see. we watched how the jurors and the judge reacted when the prosecution was presenting, because like you said we can t understand most of it and we only get little updates in english to us so we spend a lot of time just looking at these people and so then we were then comparing how they were reacting when the defense presented. they stare at amanda constantly. that s what i noticed in court, constantly looking for her reaction. amanda really hasn t showed a lot of emotion to them, you know, she s been fairly stoic herself. you know especially when lamumba s lawyer was just assaulting her character she winced you know at things being said about her that are just so untrue. the next few days are going to be a turning point in your lives. you re either going to get to take amanda home or she s going to remain in prison for a very long time, pending a final appeal. right. right. if it comes to that, can you go through this again? we will. we will. it does not matter. we ll find a way. she s not staying here. period. i mean, you know, amanda will find a way to live through it, if she can do that, you know, that s the least that we can do. we re not stopping, and no parent would. if you had a kid who you knew was innocent, wouldn t you do everything that you could to help them? everything. you just don t stop. we re going to have much more of our exclusive interview with amanda knox s parents later in the show and don t forget of course on monday where we re expecting the verdict in this murder conviction appeal. special coverage here on today and on nbc news. back to new york, natalie morales is standing by at the news desk with a look at the other headlines. good morning to you. good morning to you, matt and everyone. an oregon couple is facing up to six years in prison for the faith healing death of their infant son. dale and shannon hickman were convicted of manslaughter thursday. prosecutors said the couple relied on prayer alone when their newborn delivered at his grandmother s house developed breathing trouble. experts testified the baby would ve had a 99% chance of survival with proper medical care. a group of house democrats is asking the justice department to investigate chief justice clarence thomas. being asked to investigate chief justice clarence thomas, may have violated ethics when his wife accepted from a think tank. a thomas spokesman said any admissions were inadvertent. bank of america will become the first to charge customers a monthly fee $5 for using their debit cards when they shop. consumer advocates say it could pave the way for other banks to do likewise. check out this example from a spanish soccer league after exchanging words with two opponents. the player in red steps on an opponent s foot. the victim waits a second, falls to the ground. must have worked because the other guy was penalized. that s an example we re seen a little too much in soccer. 7:21 right now. back out to al for a check of your weather. thanks so much, global kids here, globalkids.org. let s find out what s happening for your weather today, we ve got basically a gorgeous day out west, record highs in the plains, wet and cool here in the northeast, and great lakes, could see some flooding. the sunshine continues down through texas, we ll see a few showers and thunderstorms in southern texas, the heat is back in the southwest, 101 in phoenix today. that s what s going on around the country. here is what s happening in your happy friday to you. well, we re going to be much cooler than wednesday. your highs shape up like this. gilroy hit 100 on wednesday. just 77 for today. 62 in san francisco. cool and cloudy all day long. your bank of the west seven-day show you by saturday temperatures drop more so. the rain moves in monday. intensifying midweek. ow let answer head back to ann in los angeles. all right, al, thank you so much. just ahead, here from los angeles a key witness at the trial of michael jackson s doctor, claims he was ordered to gather the singer s medications before 911 was called. we ll hear from him and talk exclusively to a member of dr. murray s defense team. but first, this is today on nbc. look, every day we re using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where s it going to come from? that s why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what s it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we ve got to be smart about this. it s a smart way to go. just ahead, prince william and kate make just their second formal appearance since their wedding. we ll have the details on that. ann? plus was that the first lady? vitch toa surprise visit to target after your local news. t good morning to you. it s 7:26. i m laura garcia-cannon. a motorcycle gang member is behind bars accused of gunning down the leader of the local hell s angel. he was arrested by an officer near ucsf headquarters. he was on patrol when he spotted gonzalez acting suspiciously inside a car with washington state license plates. he s a member of the motorcycle gang accused of jeffrey pet grew last friday inside a casino. let s check the forecast with christina loren. finally a friday. we have a little bit of fog in santa cruz. mostly sunny to start you out in the east bay. temperatures drop off significantly as the next weather maker pushes on shore. drizzle is possible in the north bay. then the real weather kicks in monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday. rain chances every day. get out the raincoats. 58. that s it for you on wednesday in the city. let s check your drive with mike. big changes ahead here, christina. 101 north from tully all the way part the airport is slowing down. and then heading south out toward hayward. slow across the san mateo bridge. and northbound is getting pretty crowded. the metering lights are on. for the latest traffic and news updates, check out bay area morning news on facebook. i ll have another local news update in half an hour. 7:30 now on this friday morning, september 30th, 2011, as we move down rockefeller plaza, a chance to wave hello with the friends and family back home. i m ann curry in los angeles. matt is in perugia this morning. hey, matt. how are you ann? sorry, fighting the sun a little bit. coming up, much more of our emotional interview with et etta mellis and curt knox. also we ll give you a lay of the land in the courtroom and show you where the key players are situated while this appeal is ongoing and also take to you a house that has now become one of the most infamous crime scenes in all of italy. coming up soon. ann? thanks a lot, matt. also ahead we ll hear from the key witness who took center stage in the trial of michael jackson s doctor on thursday and also what he told the court could bolster the prosecution s case so in a moment we ll have exclusive live interview with a member of dr. murray s defense team but first we want to get a full report now on what happened yesterday from nbc s jeff rossen with the latest. jeff, good morning to you. ann, good to see new los angeles. seems like every single day there s a new big headline coming out of the trial in the court behind us. the latest one comes from michael jackson s own bodyguard. he was in the room when michael jackson died, when he stopped breathing and he says when that happened, dr. murray made a stunning request. pack up all the drugs. this is michael jackson s bodyguard on the job, protecting the pop star, but on june 25th, 2009, there was nothing alberto alvarez could do to save his boss. he was laying on his back with his hands extended out. reporter: he is the prosecution s key witness on the stand thursday. alvarez told the jury when michael stopped breathing, dr. murray grabbed the medicine. did he then instruct you to take some vials or do something with some vials? yes, while i was standing at the foot of the bed he reached over and grabbed a handful of vials, and then he reached out to me and said, here, put these in a bag. reporter: prosecutors say murray was trying to hide the evidence before calling 911 and recruited alvarez to help. he then pointed toward the i.v. stand and he said now get that bag or move that bag and put it in the blue bag, that at the bottom of the bag what appeared to me a milky white substance. reporter: the milky white substance prosecutors say was the powerful anesthetic propofol. what did you think the items were being packed up for, if anything in. i thought we were packing to get him ready to go to the hospital. reporter: prosecutors say the drugs never made it to the hospital and dr. murray repeatedly lied to emergency workers, concealing the drugs, they say, and covering up his crime. this evidence in conjunction with other evidence is going to show that when his client needed to be revived he didn t care. all he was thinking about was himself. reporter: but dr. murray s defense attorney ham everydmere. alvarez s story. is it possible you are confused about the timing of these particular events? is that possible? no, sir. reporter: the defense claims dr. murray asked alvarez to call 911 immediately and alvarez told the jury that part s true. he said alberto, hurry, we have to get him to a hospital, we have to get an ambulance. reporter: alvarez admits he didn t call right away, distracted by michael s children. there they were, prince and paris, standing in the doorway, watching their father die. paris screamed out, daddy! reporter: alvarez got emotional. bewhen you heard paris screa out daddy, was she crying? reporter: yes, sir. reporter: that s when he called 911. . he s pumpings his chest but it s not doing anything. reporter: two hours later he was pronounced dead. did you speak to conrad murray following his bed? he said thank you for your help and we did our best. reporter: dr. conrad murray claims his innocence and says he did nothing wrong. the defense says michael jackson gave himself a lethal dose of propofol. the trial is progressing right on schedule, ann, as we finish this first week, several more weeks of testimony left. jeff rossen thank you so much. matt alford is a member of the defense team. good morning. seems as though yesterday was not a good day for your client. i wonder how you re planning to recover from the testimony of getting the vials before calling 911. the problem is mr. alvarez his story has continued to evolve over time. he gave a brief statement initially and it wasn t until two months later when he had gotten together with the lawyer, heard about the potential charges coming against dr. murray and he goes in and tells this new version of the facts, and then in the preliminary hearing he adds more. now he s in court adding more to it. kind of like the old adage mark twain said, i have such a good thing i remember things that never even happened. given the he said/he said nature of this kind of testimony and you re saying now you re going to poke holes into the credibility of the security guard. absolutely. given the he said/he said nature do you have to call conrad murray to the stand? no. he does not have to testify. you never make that decision in a case. a case is evolving during the entire trial. you re always preparing your client for potential that he may wish to testify, which is actually his right to make that decision, not the lawyer. what will make you decide whether or not he testifies, what will be the linchpin? for example if we feel the state hasn t proven their case there s not a chance we ll subject him to the skilled cross-examination of the d.a.s here in l.a. county and that s generally the major factor is we know that the jury knows, and this is a smart jury, that they know that the state of california has not proven the case. by his own admission your client, dr. conrad murray has said that he was giving michael jackson this drug, propofol. that s right. at his home during the, for two months prior to his death on almost a nightly basis so how is that not reckless and negligent, which is part of the definition of involuntary manslaughter? well, it s not in and of itself reckless or negligent or to the level of gross negligence. he did admit doing that. he also if you recall, he was michael jackson was addicted, if not physically, at least mentally to propofol. there s no question about that, that he felt he needed it to sleep. dr. murray was attempting from june 22nd to wean him off propofol, so therefore, do you immediately pull an addict away or do you try to wean them off? well, okay, let s ask the question this way. given the audiotape that dr. murray himself took with his cell phone. right. which we hear michael jackson woozy, clearly out, not himself, what can justify why a doctor would give that patient these kinds of medications, hearing what that, the voice of michael jackson as we heard on that audiotape, why is that not negligent own recklesogniz and ? like i said we weren t part of the scenario. we come in after the fact. absolutely but he was a doctor. he was michael jackson s doctor. even the celebrity you are, ann, we don t know the relationship between a doctor and a patient looic that. michael jackson can t go down to the doc on the box in the corner and seek treatment. if michael jackson you hear from so many people if michael jackson didn t get what michael jackson thought he needed, then you were no longer with michael jackson. but that s a moral decision that a person needs to make as a doctor. and dr. murray made that decision to try to help his patient and friend of three years to help him away from this life that he had gotten himself into. dr. murray tapes that. when people say he taped it, what was he going to do, sell it or whatever he was going to do? what do you think would be the best evidence, if you were an addict, the morning after, say you re an alcoholic, someone tapes you the night you can t even remember, you ve blacked out and the next morning you go, ann, take a listen to yourself. take a listen to that. you hear that. that may be the linchpin that you say my god, i didn t know it had gotten to this. i do need help. thank you so much. we look forward to talking to you more about this. thanks for the opportunitily to come on and finally get a little bit out there from our side. thanks. much more from los angeles later. for now let s go back to new york and for a check of the weather with al. hey al. today s weather is brought to you by massage envy. from stress relief to healthier skin, massage envy is here for you. you can find nationwide locations at massageenvy.com. we still have hurricane ophelia to talk about, right now, it s a category 2 storm, 100 mile per hour winds moving north-northwest at 9 miles per hour. the path of the storm right now will take it to the east of bermuda between saturday and sunday morning, but we still have to keep an eye on that. we re also looking at record high temperatures out west, boise, idaho, 91. 92 in great falls, temperatures 15 to 30 degrees above normal, out to the east we ve got cooler than normal temperatures, windy and wet, detroit 52. 59 in chicago, green bay will see a high of 51 degrees happy friday morning to you. taking a live look. it actually looks kind of cold this morning. temperatures are much cooler, and it s breezy. throughout the day today, the onshore flow will increase. 60s and 70s by the coast. mild conditions. temperatures in the upper 70s in san jose through the afternoon. 68 degrees in san francisco. major changes after this weekend. rainy weather. s starting to feel a little more like fall in this part of the country, that means sunday night football night in america. we ve got a good one for you, the jets fly into ravens m&t bank stadium, so big it goes off the graphic. partly cloudy, 30% chance of showers, temperatures in the upper 40s on sunday night football night in america. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. still to come, kate dazzles at her second formal royal engagement since the big wedding. we re live at buckle ham palace with more on that. and then the first lady michelle obama makes a surprise trip to target. we ll tell you about that. but first these messages. ahh, one. two. three. one. two. and, three. 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[ chuckles ] yeah. ocean spray blueberry juice drinks real blueberries, real good. welcome back to a special edition of today on this friday morning. now to the duke and duchess of cambridge adjusting to life in the spotlight, that of course includes charity work. prince william and kate have followed in the footsteps of princess diana visiting a place she cared deeply about. nbc s michelle kosinski is at buckingham palace with more. reporter: good morning. inevitably there are comparisons to princess diana, now the young prince and princess touchingly taking over the visits to children. here prince william is the star, cracking jokes,ing the room. catherine was the shy, serious one. as sleek as ever the couple of the moment make only their second formal appearance at home since their wedding. this visit is dear to william s heart. make sure you get a copy of this. reporter: meet with children battling cancer where he has stepped into his mother s role as president of the trust. here in the same place, making her first solo appearance as a princess, almost 30 years ago. this hospital was also one of her last appearances before she died. this people s princess also dazzled in an understated gram russ form fitting dress all seriousness and concern. she was like if you need anything come to me, come to us. reporter: that s great. sounds like an invite to the palace it does, yeah. reporter: while william was right at ease, talking sports, video games, making everyone laugh. despite having been up all night flying two rescue missions and maybe having to touch the hair and tie a tad. catherine was downright shy, much more relaxed outside. we haven t seen a lot of the couple lately, though over the weekend at a friend s wedding, kate was regal in red and pricey prada shoes. this is her job now and how did the duchess do? i think she s doing a fabulous job already. i love kate. i love kate. reporter: she s gotten the style thing down. it s her warmth and ease with strangers that they ll develop, as she too, walks in the footsteps left by another beautiful princess, not so long ago. apparently all the glamour and magazine covers haven t changed catherine all that much. a fashion blogger saw kate in a low-end clothing store that she tried on stuff in the dressing rooms just like anybody else and when she went to pay show that had a bunch of rewards cards, and she said she had so many of them she had to sift through to get to her credit card. matt? all right, any shoal kosinski at buckingham palace. speaking of shopping the first lady michelle obam aau tt. the story behind the photos right after this. 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[ monica ] i have a small part in a big movie. i thought we d be on location for 3 days, it s been 3 weeks. so, i used my citi simplicity card to pick up a few things. and i don t have to worry about a late fee. which is good. no! bigger! bigger! [ monica ] .because i don t think we re going anywhere for a while. [ male announcer ] write your story with the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries. get started at citisimplicity.com. back now at 7:50 with the unexpected guest who showed up to shop at a target store in virginia. nbc s kelly o donnell is in alexandria, virginia, with the details. good morning. reporter: good morning, natalie. well, mrs. obama has said she likes to do normal things that aren t a part of her white house life. but those trips have been pretty much a secret until now. it turns out the first lady s to do list included this virginia shopping center. check this out. behind those dark glasses, tucked under that nike cap, one of the world s most famous women. yes, that is the first lady of the united states at target. so when you have a photo of the first lady out of context there s a bit of a wow factor. reporter: like any mom except her aide was juggling not one but two blackberries. secret service agents were blending in, dressed down in casual clothes. mrs. obama spent 40 minutes in the store thursday afternoon, apparently unnoticed by other shoppers. sources say she was recognized only by the cashier and a photographer from the associated press who worked sources to find out she was there. and really the only way they can go out and shop is if it is incognito, on the fly, with no one paying attention. reporter: aides say mrs. obama likes to get out and run errands. on this trip, she bought dog food and treats for bo. she had waxed nostalgic about going to target before moving to the white house. i drove my own car, took the kids to school every day, went to target. reporter: it hasn t always been bargain shopping. no disguise when she visited high-end stores in europe. mrs. obama s much admired taste inspires trends. this is a gap dress. reporter: her fondness for affordable clothes. he ll be happy to know like this is like a $30 dress. reporter: specific brands have been part of her appeal. this is a j. crew ensemble, thank you. you can get some good stuff online. reporter: another style icon kate middleton makes all the tabloids when she pushes her own grocery cart. beyond a desire to break out of the bubble, doing ordinary things in tough economic times can be good for a public image. it s great pr for them, because they can say look, on this trip and others, we know what s going on outside the gates of the white house. reporter: and other first ladies have had that same desire. we re told that hillary clinton was spotted wearing dark glasses taking walks outside the white house. laura bush was seen at a pottery barn shopping in georgetown but there were no pictures, and because this wasn t an announced trip they didn t need the same security they d have at a typical event so she was able to hide behind those glasses. she likes a good bargain like all of us. yes, she does. you know what was in the basket? i hear she bought toys and food for bo and other items and walked around the store for 30 minutes and the cashier was the only person to recognize her. mrs. obama could i see i.d. please? what about that disguise? exactly. ann talks to ellen, just ahead, after your disguise? ann talks to ellen, just ahead, after your local news. i think it might be broken. or maybe it s trying to tell you something. yeah, but what could it be trying. oh, i left my 401(k) at my old job. and i left a jacket on the back of my door. but i think the line is talking about my 401(k). leave a 401(k) behind? roll it over with the company that s helping more people reach retirement than anyone else. when it comes to investing, never settle. fidelity investments. [ laughs ] [ laughs ] [ laughs ] that s awesome. you can read that? [ female announcer ] the accufit digital system, exclusively at lenscrafters. is about 5 times more precise than manual measurement techniques. lenscrafters. than manual measurement techniques. sometimes life can be well, a little uncomfortable. but when it s hard or hurts to go to the bathroom, there s dulcolax stool softener. dulcolax stool softener doesn t make you go, it just makes it easier to go. dulcolax stool softener. make yourself comfortable. i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school. the opportunities that i had at the university of phoenix got me to where i am today. i m mayor cherie wood, i m responsible for the largest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. good friday morning to you. i m laura garcia-cannon. this morning a massive man hunt is under way for a double murder suspect who has been one step ahead of the law for more than a month. alameda sheriff deputies were hot on bassler s trail when he started firing a gun at them. the deputies were not injured in the shootout. it s unclear if he was hit. he is described as a gun enthusiast who knows how to survive in the tough and rugged terrain. his family says he s mentally ill, which experts say adds another challenge for those looking for him. my concern is that there may become a suicide by cop scenario. and that is when the individual foes that there s no way out, and they either shoot it out with police or end up forcing the police to kill the individual. bassler is wanted in the killings of two men. 7:56 right now. let s check the forecast with christina loren. a little cooler. oh, yeah. it s cooler out there. we re going to continue the cool down. happy friday. you made it to the weekend. weather is significantly changing over the next couple of days. much cooler this morning. much cooler afternoon. temperatures reaching the upper 70s in san jose. by the weekend, the cool down continues. mostly cloudy saturday and sunday with a little bit of coastal drizzle produced by really thick fog. then monday significant rain moves in. 79 in san jose. 69 in san francisco. here s your seven-day outlook. cool and you di conditions saturday and sunday. rain arrives late monday and sbenz fis on tuesday. the bulk of the moisture comes through wednesday and thursday. before all is said and done, we could be measuring rainfall totals in inches. so this is a significant weather event. make sure you re aware of it. let s check your drive with mike. get your rest. we re going to be busy from the looks of your forecast. busy northbound 880 around davis. earlier a big rig was stuck this the middle of the road. just for a few minutes, but enough to cause all this. made worse by a new issue. got details. sounds like a cement truck with trailers blocking the middle lane. that s not good news. not at all. we ll check back with you in the next half hour. and check out nbc bay area morning news on facebook. look, every day we re using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where s it going to come from? that s why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what s it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we ve got to be smart about this. it s a smart way to go. it s a smart way to go. you guys are exactly who i had whoin mind when i createdg! my new jumbo breakfast platter. it s a ton of food: 8 of my new mini pancakes, hash brown sticks, scrambled eggs, plus bacon or sausage, all for only $2.99. it s just the kind of breakfast hardworking guys like you need. .yeah. they re here! ladies, you have the right to remain sexy. 8:00 now on a friday morning, the 30th day of september, 2011. a chance to take a look at some of the nice people who have gathered outside our studio in rockefeller plaza. big crowd on a friday morning. we thank those people for being there. i know al has been spending some time with them. meanwhile, i m matt lauer in perugia, italy, trying to give you a lay of the land here. i m in italy, ann is live out in los angeles. i mentioned al and natalie are in new york, and coming up in just a couple minutes we ll take to you some of the places at the center of the amanda knox murder conviction appeal case. we ll travel to the house where amanda and meredith kercher lived together and where tragically meredith kercher was killed in 2007. we ll take you inside the courtroom where amanda knox was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 26 years in prison. it is where she is now fighting for her freedom. we ll have more of ore interview with her parents. ann? matt, thanks. that s right. also this morning a tragic case in san diego, a woman found at an historic mansion hanging, her hands tied behind her back. authorities ruled it a suicide but the woman s family believes she may have been killed. they ll tell us why in an exclusive live interview coming up. first, that health scare for ellen degeneres. as we told you earlier this week, she called paramedics to her office after experiencing chest pains. we visited ellen s show on thursday and we talked to her about it. let s take a look. listen i go the to tell you before i do anything else, got to give you the you know, on behalf of everyone worried about you at the beginning of the week. i know we didn t have to worry about you. i m fine. it got out of control, turned into something totally different. reporter: you had to go to the doctor. i did. cardiologist. i m done. i m fine. i m good. reporter: all right, don t scare us like that. no more. i just wanted to see how much people love me. reporter: and we love you a lot. and we re going to have more with ellen with an interview next week. first let s get a check of the morning s top stories from natalie at the news desk. hey, natalie. good morning to you, ann, good morning everyone. one of the most notorious terrorists is dead. a senior obama administration official tells nbc news that anwar al awlaki was killed in a u.s. drone strike in yemen today. al awlaki has been linked to several plots in u.s. including the underwear bomber and 2009 shootings at ft. hood. a 67-year-old man is being hailed as a miracle survivor today. late thursday david lavau was pulled from the bottom of a california ravine days after his car plunged at least 150 feet down. he may have been there for six days, drinking creek water and eating leaves and bugs. his children found him during their own search. officials say his injuries are not life tleening. taud the paramedics who responded the day michael jackson died are se to testify in his death trial. thursday michael jackson s former bodyguard testified dr. conrad murray ordered him to pack up a bag of medicine viles after jackson stopped breathing. prosecutors argued murray wanted to conceal he was giving jackson a power of the anesthetic. murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter. meantime, a visibly and pale amanda knox appeared in court for the continuation of today s trial. today the prosecution argued that dna evidence links her to the murder of her roommate even though independent experts called it unreliable. knox will address the court next week. now for a look at what is trending today. what has you talking online. a top search of yahoo! s on television s golden girls, tina fey and eva longoria each made $13 million in the last year, making them tv s highest paid actresses. youtube is louie the cat with two faces turns 12 this month. pretty astonishing to see that video. and soup supermodel gisele bundchen urges women who maxed out their credit cards to break the news to their husbands in lingerie and high heels. some people claim it is sexist. you think? 8:04. back outside to al. hey, al. thanks so much, natalie. let s show you what s happening. our pick city of the day, laredo, texas. isolated thunderstorms, temperatures in the upper 90s. we have that upper-level low spinning around the great lakes, finally getting out of here. we ll get showers in the northeast, look for clouds in the pacific northwest, beautiful day i should say actually. record highs in the plains, the heat continues in the central u.s., but we re going to actually see cooler conditions around the great lakes on into the central mississippi river valley and the northeast. that s what s going on around the country. here s what s happening in your neck of the wo we have kind of a superforecast four inland today. temperatures in the mid to upper 70s. really comfortable numbers. you ll notice pretty much a cloudy start all across the bay area. sunny skies later on today. 81 in concord. significantly cooler than when we start out this week. 68 in san francisco. we do have the kensest fog this morning. then the rain arrives. temperatures getting cold, cloudy, ooh, the rain comes in tuesday, wednesday heavy periods of rain into thursday. and that s your latest weather. ann? all right, al, thank you so much. coming up next a woman s bizarre death in a mansion in southern california, ruled a suicide but the family believes she may have been murdered. we ll talk about in an exclusive live interview coming up right after this. 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as improbable as that may sound investigators say that s what it suggests. the families say there is more to this story that investigators ignored. at this cemetery, a long way from the historic mansion sits a grave so fresh it s still unmarked. rebecca zehao was 32 when her sister mary found she was hanging, naked, hanging from a rope, hands tied around her back. i said that s not possible. reporter: it began with the death of a 6-year-old boy, max, the son of rebecca s boyfriend. he was in her car when max tripped and fell over a second floor railing, an accident that eventually claimed his life. investigators say rebecca was so upset she took her own life. as improbable as it sounds, they believe rebecca tied herself up, even copied the knots and videotaped it to prove it could be done. based on the information and evidence we have, we believe this case is a suicide. reporter: rebecca s family maintains investigators got it all wrong. rebecca was happy and healthy. suicide, they say, was against her beliefs. we believe rebecca was killed, and we owe it to her to find what really happened to her. reporter: the sheriff s department ruled there was no evidence of murder, no fingerprints or dna but there was a bizarre message scrolled across the bedroom door, she saved him. can he save her. not own investigators know what that means. the court reporters indicate there were cuts and bruises on rebecca s body. she was fighting something or struggling against something to have those contusions. reporter: investigators don t so see them as significant and neither did a medical examiner we asked to review the case. i don t think you can reasonably come to the conclusion based on evaluating these abrasions and bruises that it means that a struggle occurred. reporter: but the family also has questions about a woman s cry for help, a neighbor reportedly heard that night. detectives investigated that possibility but say it was teens playing on a mereby beach instead. we now believe that it was unrelated to what happened at the mansion. reporter: and then there s the blood the coroners said had pooled in her back. if she died hanging, it would have pooled in her legs and ankles instead but investigators explained that away, too, saying when zahau was cut down she lay on her back for hours. still her family doesn t buy it. i truly believe the suicide was staged. i truly believe someone wanted to make it look like my sister committed a suicide. reporter: what the family is asking for now is a brand new investigation, this time being done by an independent agency instead. for now the case remains officially closed unless new evidence comes to light. ann? lee cowan, thank you so much. we re now joined by rebecca s sister and brother-in-law, mary and doug and their attorney anne br bremner. thank you for being here i know this is a tough time. you heard the answers to all of these questions that have been raised. why do you still maintain that your sister s death was not a suicide? because i know my sister, and i had spoken to her the day before she died, and we had conversations about vacations, holidays, and upcoming visits. she went about her day as normal routine, and they are telling me that my sister has came up with this elaborate plan within a two-hour time frame window without tell anyone, without any history of psychiatric problems, any psychiatric medications or any previous attempts for suicides. nevertheless, there was this terrible experience, having the death, actually the accident of a little boy, who would eventually die, who was in the house essentially in her care. um-hum. why don t you believe that would have been enough, given the reporting from the investigators that there was a phone call to her phone shortly before her death, that it didn t look good for the little boy, for little max. that phone call nobody knows what that phone call says and nobody knows what that voice mail says because it s been erased so it s all assumption, and as far as what has been said, we don t know, and my sister, i know my sister, that she would not commit suicide because there was a tragedy such as that, especially when she thinks it was hopeful that day, and she was looking forward for the ct scan the next day that was going to happen. how do you no he that she was hopeful the day she died? she texted throughout the day. we had conversations throughout the day. she also e-mailed my other sister in germany telling all of to us pray because it s looking very hopeful. doug you re a police officer. yes. you look at this kind of stuff. yes. how do you assess it from where you sit in this position of being a husband and also the brother-in-law of this woman who died? i would like to have the police reports to make an opinion from that. you want a copy of the police reports? yes, i do. why do you think you deserve a copy of the police report and most people get a copy? the case is closed. i don t understand why we don t have them. why don t you believe, see this is the thing, you re a police officer. you re raising questions about whether the police officers, the investigators in this case can be trusted, when you say you want a copy of the police report. why do you doubt whether they did due diligence in this work? mary? because they told us about their suicide conclusion by the time we got to san diego, which was the second day we got there, and they came and talked to us within a few days and they have already made up their mind that it was a suicide without any of the information, without any of the investigation. and they also omitted to tell us a lot of things such as adam passing the lie detector test with flying colors, and in record time, and that is not what it is, and the warrant came out and it was inconclusive. so you re saying that you feel that the authorities did not give you the truth or the complete truth on everything that you asked them. exactly, exactly. and several things were omitted especially when we asked the question specifically about details of her autopsy and when the autopsy report came out we found out about the trauma to her head, tape residue on her legs, but no tape at the crime scene. where is the tape? why would my sister bind her feet with the tape first and decide oh, by the way i m going to switch that over to a rope? i mean, what is the reasoning to are that? you have so many questions you re saying that have not been answered. anne, this case is technically closed. it has been ruled a suicide, and the boyfriend of the woman who died, your sister, mary, you know, actually had asked the a.g. for, to review the investigation, and the decision was made that we don t need to review the investigation so why are you still talking about this? we re asking for an independent investigation. the boyfriend asked for a review and didn t allege there was any problem with the underlying investigation. that means the a.g. won t review it under the law. he said there wasn t issue, he had confidence in it so that s why the review watts denied, he was asking for something that couldn t happen under the law. we want an independent investigation just like in the michael jackson death case with the attorney general. there are so many questions in this case, the blood settled in her back, the doctor said she had blunt force trauma to her head, inconsistent with hanging. this would take a slicirque du soleil contortionist to do this, roped to a bed going over the side, there s two witnesses that heard her cry for help. independent investigator its, including independent medical examiners have taken each one of those point by point and have said it s possible, it s explainable, and so this is obviously something that is going to still be discussed and continued. thank you so much all of you for joining us. i know it s not a lot are time for you and mary, very sorry for your loss. thank you so much. thank you. we ll have more information about this case on our website today.com, and we are going to be right back. my sister s new boyfriend told her that he thinks sundays are just for watching football. believe that? 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[ male announcer ] it s always having a reason, from the smallest details to the big decisions. and putting everything through everything before we stand behind anything. doing things right has always defined what we do. and now it defines how we ship. announcing free shipping. no minimum order. no end date. from l.l. bean. welcome back to perugia, italy, after nine months of hearings the appeal of amanda knox s murder conviction is in its final days, it is the talk of the city and we paid a visit to the place where this case began. amanda knox and meredith kercher lived together in this house on a hillside not far from the center of perugia. they didn t know each other until amanda rented a room upstairs next door to merediths. it s the room past the mattress on the patio. november 1st, 2007, meredith went to din we are friends. the very next day she was found dead on the floor of that bedroom, the result of multiple stab wounds. four days later, amanda knox and her boyfriend, raffaele sollecito, were arrested and charged with the murder. the house was declared a crime scene and closed off for a year and a half. the first trial of amanda knox and raffaele sollecito was a sensation, covered by journalists from all around the world. it took place in this building just across the street in the center of perugia, built in the 1400s, you wouldn t even know it s a courthouse except for the constant media presence outside. in december 2009 they were convicted of murder and amanda sentenced to 26 years in prison. today in the same courthouse in the same courtroom, they re appealing that conviction. as you walk down three flights of stairs into the basement of this building that used to be a university, you re struck by the contradiction, on the one hand there s the old world architecture, the frescos on the walls surrounding you. on the other hand there s the modern technology. this place is wired with cameras to capture what goes on here. it s a cramped, small courtroom. when court is in session it s packed. you can smell cigarette smoke and what people had for lunch. the judge and assistant judge sit up front surrounded by jurors and alternate jurors. here at the defense tables amanda knox sits there, raffaele sollecito sits there surrounded by their legal teams and over there you ll find the family members, amanda knox s parents witnessing an event they can t imagine in a language they can t understand. when we come back we ll have more of our exclusive interview with amanda knox s parents and they ll talk about that, the frustration they have sitting in the courtroom knowing their daughter s very freedom hangs in the balance, not being able to understand the language spoken in that courtroom. but right now, let s go back to ann in los angeles. all right, matt, thank you so much. coming up, a mom who reinvented herself as an escape artist, tries to break free from her chains life on our plaza. coming up after your local news. good morning to you. it s 8:26 right now. i m laura garcia cannon. a is a lean at farm is recalling bags of chopped lettuce because of possible listeria contamination. the recall does not affect anyone in the bay area because the bags were shipped to an oregon food distributor. the recall involves lettuce sold under the name of true leaf farms. a sell by date of september 29th. it was only sold in oregon, washington and idaho. for additional details head to nbcbayarea.com and search lettuce recall. it is moving day for dozens of san francisco tech start-ups that actually call pier 38 home. the city s port authority is kicking them out claiming the pier is unsafe. several have already left. the port authority, which controls the pier, says there are building code violations unsafe.e the pier 8:27 right now. weather and traffic after this. style like a fashionista. save like a maxxinista. fashion direct from designers. savings direct to you. t.j.maxx. let us make a maxxinista out of you. good morning to you. 8:28 now. we re headed towards a pretty cool, cloudy day all across the bay area. 79 in los gatos. 68 in san francisco. 78 up in wine country, santa rosa. agricultural interests up there definitely focused on the forecast. we ve got a lot of rain moving in quickly. as of monday, heavy showers moving into the bay. heavier rain monday to thursday. it is jammed. i told you about is still over on the shoulder on davis. that s causing all of the slowdowns. the slow down for 238. and redwood road. slow down the east shore freeway. but the cement truck has moved in the last few minutes. 8:30 now on this friday morning, september 30th, 2011. you re looking at a crowd outside studio 1a, as there you see kurt stone helping out with our education school supplies. today is the last day we re gathering supplies. for details head to our website at today.com. i m ann curry, in the meantime in los angeles, matt is in perug perugia,ity lathis morning and al and is on the plaza. matt to you. coming up more of our exclusive interview with the parents of amanda knox, ed ta mellas and curt knox. they ll talk about sitting in the courtroom for hours and hours and not being able to understand the proceedings because of course the language being spoken is italian, a language they don t understand. we ll talk about an emotional moment in court on thursday, when we talk to her parents and don t forget on monday, when we expect a verdict in this appeals case. we will have complete coverage for you right here on today. ann natalie, excuse me, back to you. a lot of anxious moments. plus from here in new york how much influence do you have over your friends and your neighbors about the things that they buy you? none. no keeping up with the jon joneses? none of that. a family who secretly pushed products and their friends during their everyday lives and reaction from their friends. they re all still friends. worry being product placement. they re selling you, it s a really interesting experiment about how much we really do influence people. wow. and talk about reinventing yourself, we got the story of a mom who decided to tap her inner amazing randy and become a great escape artist. she s here, in 50 plus pounds of chains and locks to show us her amazing skills. all right. we ll get to madam houdini in a minute. first a check of the weather. we have nice friends. where are you from? denver, colorado. that s great. any special reason you re here in. yes. his birthday. what else? i had something i wanted to say. ooh. angie, i love you so much. i want to spend the rest of my life with you. oh, geez. i want to make you feel as special as you make me feel every day. angie miller, will you marry me. yes! all right! how long have you guys been dating? about nine years. wow! you ve been here before, angie? no, actually. that s terrific. congratulations. many years of happiness. aren t you going to put the ring on the finger? come on we got to see what it looks like. what s your name? nathan. nathan is a smart guy. he didn t take anything to chance. he wrote it down. he wrote down what he was going to say. he s got a little cheat sheet. that s beautiful because you know what, i baubled mine. you re a smart guy, a smart guy. i was wondering what that was. i thought that was a price tag. that was good. oh, she s still in shock. twe use a prompter the only thing that could have made that more romantic is if it happened here on the golden gate bridge. take a look at this romantic start we have for you this morning. mostly cloudy. this is indicative of an area of low pressure that s going to dramatically change our weather as we head through the next few dpaps mostly cloudy and school. 79 in san jose. that s it. we continue to drop off as we head through the next few days. heavy rain in the forecast wednesday into thursday. get that umbrella handy. you ve got a secret? i do have a secret. what s that? i haven t told anybody at work but i m going to have a baby. surprise! you re having a baby. is this your first? yes. congratulations. does your husband know? no. you don t want to say anything to him? congratulations? surprise! surprise! man, do you have anything for us? i got nothing. zero. nice to have you guys here. all right. coming right up still we re going to be talking about the influence that our neighbors actually can have on us. are your friends pushing some products on you? you never know. first this is today on nbc. we re playing tho back now at 8:37. kicking off our special series, have you been brandwashed? the movie the joneses a seemingly perfect but fake family are a team of stealth marketers with one purpose to push products on unsuspecting neighbors. he s done this for real and his company, biology, inc., has documented what they say is a revolutionary guerrilla marking theory. 35 hidden cameras, 17 microphones, a crew of 15 running around, hiding in the background, hiding in the bushes, in the garage. marketing project that went inside a real family s home, inside their real lives, with one goal to have them influence the lives of others, to show how people are most vulnerable in their own environment. when they re unaware a commercial message is sneaking into their heads. i was looking for genuine, i was looking for real. i was looking for a family that is open-minded and open to the process. reporter: the perfect family had been found, a replacement jones family, except for one important detail. they were the living, breathing real-time deal. no scripts, we simply rolled the cameras and taped all the interactions, everything in real time. reporter: a series of events took place at the morgansons. friends and neighbors and a peppering of strangers were invited, specially selected brands were the stars of the show. the scene was set, everything ready and in place, but would the fish bite? this experiment was conducted for martin s new book brandwashed: tricks companies use to manipulate our minds and persuade us to buy. also with us gina and eric morganson and still friends elise and jim. good to have you here. good morning. it seemed a brilliant experiment in marketing and proved to be. right? is that why you did this? i wanted to prove most of the stuff we do every day is not controlled by ourselves but by someone else. we are so affected by what everyone around us tells us, and we re not aware of it. that s what i wanted to prove with request this experiment. you found the perfect family. what it was about the morgansons that attracted you? they were good looking. right? number one. number one, but the second part was we tried to analyze their friends to find out how much influence do they have in the communities and what we realized was these guys are aspirational for a lot of people. they have a huge network, so when they say something everyone else follows them in california and that s really the trick. jean and eric, you have a big social circle, a lot of influence as martin said with your friends. having people over often. did you find it hard to push these products? did you find it, i mean, a little bit out of your comfort zone to sell them on things all the time, gina? it was amazingly natural because we found we did that anyway, and when people came over and they had given us these great products from dsw and kiss my face and wine, and they had taken a survey from us and lots of pages and got to know what we liked so it became very natural. these were brands of things you would use normally anyway. yes. eric, did you ever feel you were maybe going a little too hard with the sales approach, sales pitch here? you know, i m constantly talking about brands, whether they are the brands that martin introduced us to or the stuff that we use every day and as our friends influence us on their brands. you re marketing, you re both involved in marketing so you were interested in the experiment of it. the surprising thing was, and i was shocked about that, 51% of what we re talking about every day at the dining table is about brands so it seemed to be pretty natural. so elise, when you found out that the ruse was up and found out you were duped all along and were buying these things, did you feel badly about this? not at all. honestly i didn t feel duped at all. no? because they had to keep it a secret to make the experiment valid and true, but we live, as you know in a very livable city, the o.c., so it was just normal. we became the target of all those reality shows, so why not finding why we buy what we buy, so it was incredible. i didn t feel we got duped at all. jim, you bought some of the products they specifically pushed your way as well? i was looking for a present for my wife, which is every man, husband s nightmare and all the sudden i went by a store and saw pandora jewelry, which gina told me about at that party. so i bought that wife the pandora bracelet. martin, what does the experiment tell us first of all? nine out of ten of everyone influenced by this experiment actually bought the products. nine out of ten? nine out of ten. shocking news, one of the brands had a sales increase of 1,000%. 13,000 people were influenced by those people, 13,000 people. future marketing right here. right? is this it? it is, and it s going to be even more. we see all sorts of different techniques used by sleeper cell families, all that stuff taking over. you don t know what your neighbors are selling you. good to have you all here, martin, gina, jim and elise. we have a poll on brand loyalty on our website. martin will be back tomorrow on weekend today with the results as well. up next, a mom who reinvented herself as an escape artist performs one of her daring stunts for us live next. but first, this is today on nbc. . first this today we have the story of a mom who turned a recent job loss into a great escape literally. today national correspondent amy robach has her story. don in a puna purnell realiz had to take a plunge into a unconventional market, a word of caution, please, please don t try this at home. donna purnell begins her morning like most suburban moms, brushing her teeth, feeding the kids breakfast, feeding the dog, you the. ing on chains and padlocks. that s right, the had 3-year-old mom from medford, massachusetts, is known as alexandria the great and she is an escape artist. there s always an element of oh my god i can t believe i m doing this. reporter: until recently no one knew she did this. why did you keep it a secret? i wasn t sure how it would be perceived. reporter: donna had been secretly practicing escapes when she was 17 when her husband, bill, tried to win her over with a stunt. he did this rope tie underwater. i said i can do that. he said no you can t. i said let me try. i did it better than him. reporter: it stayed a hobby for 30 years until donna and bill lost their jobs. at her husband s urging donna decided her only option was to reinvent yourself. he said i think it s time we show the world what you can do. i said i don t think it s ready for that. don t try this at home. reporter: bill posted a youtube video of alexandria the great. a month later a quarter of a million views, and invitations for donna to perform. it s such an unlikely profession for anyone. it s okay for a 50-something year-old person to do this and a woman at that. i can t take the mile off my face. reporter: and i couldn t take the look of horror off mine when donna chained me up for an underwater escape. this is so heavy, oh my gosh. sorry. reporter: i m imagining myself underwater now and freaking out. you do this, and this is fun for you? yeah. reporter: but donna knows it s not all fun. this profession has risks, big risks. this is dangerous. oh, extremely dangerous. everything has its trials and tribulati tribulations, but you have to overcome them, like life, and you have to just get through it. reporter: and i was hoping donna would just get through the afternoon as she let me lock her up for her underwater leap of faith. number two. reporter: we wrapped donna in 55 pounds of chains and padlocks. oh my gosh, donna, i feel awful. reporter: one way to escape. this is all it takes. reporter: a bobby pin? and you can get out? i am going to, yes, i have three kids to come back and cook dinner for, so yes. reporter: after 60 seconds underwater, a sigh of relief for all of us. how d that feel? good. reporter: good? i was holding my breath and i had to take three breaths watching you hold your breath. it s not lost on donna her most famous escape is called leap of faith because she certainly has had to take one. jumping in and getting out and percent veering and finding something i m good at, it s invigorating. my name is donna purnell and i m an escape artist. donna purnell is on the plaza. there she goes. this is not a sleight of hand. this is the real thing. this is technique, the stuff we have is from the local hardware store, real clocks and chains. you see the marks on her. you can see it on the skin. she is shaking these things. i am pretty nervous underwater. this one is okay because she can breathe. the underwater is scary. look at the marks. this is not pretend. i don t want anybody to do this at home. you say this has built your confidence. yes, it really has. i guess it s invagigoratininvig. i jumped out of my box and i hope i inspire people to go with it and jump out of that box theory. thank you so much. we ll be back after this. this is today on nbc. back now, today at 8:00, with today s extra yard and we are featuring none other than the nfl s mark sanchez. of course he dominates on the field for the new york jets but off the field he s equally as impressive. new york jets quarterback mark sanchez may be a fierce competitor on the field, but off it, he s a real mama s boy and proud of it. his mother olga is a constant influence, at his side from the beginning. i remember him saying when he was a little boy when he grows up, i want to be a football player. every time i see him run out onto the field it brings back that first time. what we ve done as a family is just support them all the way, be there, you know, from pop warner all the way to the pros. reporter: which is why for one of the biggest stars in the biggest city, it s the littlest people that keep him grounded. remember your ready set go? reporter: like his nephew nico and niece gabriellea. he credits his success on the field by the foundation of his family under him. it s a chance i get to be part of it wouldn t be possible without them. i m thankful my parents did what they could to support me and my two ordinary olders encouraged me. reporter: the holehollenbeck center in east l.a. where he grew up. before i donate money i donate time. reporter: what do you teach them? stay positive, smile, have fun, you can tell the young kids thinking about college at 10, 12, 13 years old that i said look, it s the most important thing you can do. a lot of them, hispanic origin like myself that s huge for me to help them. they see my last name and skin color and i hope it helps them. reporter: the hispanic community has shown a growing interest in the envelope with viewership up by 40% since 2008 in games simulcast in spanish. football used to be soccer but now because of you they re on your side now. i see big sombreros at games. reporter: also a fixture at games, mark s father nick, a member of the orange county fire authority. him being a fire captain he has this whole crew he s in charge of. i m the quarterback of the team, you know, nothing happens until you say go. he showed me how important it was to demand from his crew, demand from my teammates, so i m lucky that way. reporter: in return, mark gives to the families of other firefighters, donating time and money to tuesday s children, helping kids who lost a parent when the twin towers fell, and he even helped design a t-shirt with sales benefiting families of first responders. when you get to meet the people that are affected it takes you away from football for a second, now i get a chance to hopefully help them cope with their loss. reporter: despite all the serious work this 24-year-old has time for a little fun. i got to ask about the white pants. um-hum. reporter: in the gq spread the joe namath shoot. they weren t a little snug but looked like it. reporter: teammates are giving you slack for that? a lot of them are asking me to wear it on an away game with the team. i said not in a million years. reporter: what s it going to take for to you win you over? they got to win over my mom. she s got to love them. reporter: for now he s focused on football with his family to thank. i ve made it to this point because of a lot of people who helped me get here. this isn t a one-man deal. how could you not love a mama s boy? catch him of course on the field this sunday night, football night in america where the jets take on the ravens. good morning. stanford is seeing an increase on the reports of attacks on campus. a 75% increase from 2009 when nine sexual assaults were reported. though the number is startling stanford public safety officers say there s a silver lining is atrwarto rfoeport those crimes. p welcome back, folks. big changes over the last 15 minutes. 680 northbound. there s an accident just past capitol. this is causing a big problem. three cars involved. then three more chp vehicles big backup down 101. trying to take 880. that s an easy workaround. but there s the rest of the south bay showing good slowing here as well. we ll jump up to oakland because the backup at davis street has cleared oakland itself passing the coliseum is really jamming up for the northbound side. there it is right arouuntil 3:0 p.m. check out nbc bay area morning news on facebook. another update in half an hour. we re back now more of today on a friday morning, the last day of september, 2011, looks like a great crowd of people have gathered out on the plaza in new york city, rockefeller plaza that is. we are happy to give them the chance to say hi to the folks back home. mean while i am matt lauer in perugia, italy, this morning, covering the murder conviction appeal of amanda knox. ann curry is some 6,000 miles away in los angeles, where she is covering the involuntary manslaughter case of michael jackson s personal physician, conrad murray. samantha guthrie and al roker and natalie morales are holding down the fort in new york city. nice to see everybody. coming up, more of our interview with edda mellas and curt knox, parents of amanda knox. they re going to talk about the emotions and the frustrations as we continue our interview. ann? all right, and matt, here in los angeles, another dramatic trial we ve been following all this week, michael jackson s personal physician is facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of the king of pop. paramedics who treated jackson take the stand today but on thursday, emotional testimony from his bodyguard who called 911. you re going to hear some of that call. now al, let s go to you. thanks so much, ann. from here, today s real estate our guru barbara cochran is back, open house tours from the suburbs of chicago to the beaches of california. we re going to show you how far your cash can go when you buy that house these days. let s get to natalie over at the news desk with the day s top stories. good morning. good morning to you, savannah and al. this morning a major victory in the battle against al qaeda. american born cleric anwar al awlaki was clikilled today in a drone strike in yemen. during english language sermons on the internet he incited violence. he was linked to the underwear bomber in the u.s. and a plot to mail explosives to chicago. a 67-year-old california man is lucky to be alive today after a car plummeted off a mountain road into a ravine. his family found them thursday during their own search. he may have been stranded there for up to six days. the man suffered broken bones and fractures but none of the injuries is life-threatening. an oregon couple has been convicted of manslaughter for failing to seek medical help before their infant son died. the boy had breathing problems when he was born but the couple prayed and used olive oil instead of using a doctor. he passed away less than nine hours after birth. the parents are members of a faith healing church. debit card users watch out, bank of america announced it is going to start choosing $5 a month to consumers who used debit cards to pay for purchases. other banks are following suit. bank of america is the largest u.s. bank by deposits. it is hard to believe but this pit bull puppy is going to be okay, once you ve seen this spray we ll show you. blue swallowed a small garden flagpole and surgeons managed to remove the pole without damaging other parts of blue s body. i don t think we want to know how that flagpole came out though. hopefully he sticks to puppy chow. he s adorable. what a cutie. get a check of the weather? nice folks, cure ret syndrome. how do you find? www.rettsyndrome.org. category 2 storm hurricane ophelia, moving north to the northwest at 9. by late saturday on into sunday it passes hopefully to the east of bermuda. for the rest of the country, you can see lots of clouds, working their way into the great lakes, with rain there, plenty of sunshine and record highs through the northern plains, and we ve got beautiful weather in the pacific northwest, plenty of sunshine there, 101 in phoenix today, 75 in atlanta. make-a-wish guy, christopher, how are you doing? yeah! good to see good morning to you. taking a live look at sonoma. we still have mostly cloudy conditions. the clouds will thin out in the east and the south bay. but you ll be socked in, mostly cloudy and foggy in the te today. 68 in san francisco. 83 in redwood city. and 79 in los gatos. major changes in the next few days. temperatures dropping, rain moving in. first significant showers late monday. they intensify tuesday and then wednesday into thursday the bulk of the moisture comes through. and that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. as we await the verdict probably on monday in amanda knox s murder conviction appeal case her parents, edda mallass and curt knox are obviously sitting on pins and needles. they re hoping they ll be able to take her back to the united states sometime soon. i caught with them after a particularly emotional day in court on thursday. the first thing i noticed i m sitting in that courtroom today just behind you and i thought how frustrating for you, amanda s life is hanging in the balance and you don t understand much of what s being said about your daughter in that courtroom. it s a very tough situation, but there s been some people that have been extraordinarily nice that, you know, have been translating for us, because we have not been provided a translator, so we get the general gist of what s taking place, but nuances and i don t know how you go through that. we ve just had to sit and a lot of times we do sit there. also sometimes i remember to ask amanda, okay, explain to me what was going on, because she also gets the nuances and so she ll also fill us in, sometimes when we don t have a volunteer who will translate for us. the other thing that struck me, i was one foot behind you two. you were ten feet behind amanda and she never looked around. she s not supposed to. she can t. she s not supposed to look at you, not make eye contact with you. you can t whisper. nope. offer words of encouragement. nope. we do anyway. we walk by and i ll say something to her. sneak a little? i do, or i ll walk in front and be looking at her lawyer its, making like i m talking to her lawyers and going, amanda, hang in there girl, it s okay, and her lawyers play along, because we re not supposed to talk to her. yeah. there was a moment today that really caught my attention at one point amanda smiled about something. you turned around and you looked at me and said amanda it s smiling. i bring it up for this reason. it was such a mom moment. it seemed as if you cling to those little moments where you see your daughter smile. um-hum. well, i mean, everything is so serious, and there are times when everybody in the courtroom laughed, but if amanda cracks a smile and it s caught on camera or somebody takes a picture of that, it s sent out there in the media and it gets twisted that amanda s not taking this seriously so she s had to put on this face and so the fact that she found something to put a grin on her face, it was a good moment. it was a very good moment because it allowed her to do that. i thought and not trying to be an armchair psychiatrist but i thought it allowed you absolutely. one of the nice exhale moments, perhaps remember amanda before all this. absolutely and she s still in there, even though we ve seen a more serious amanda, there was our daughter again the one who smiled all the time. it got emotional at the end of the session today. yeah. luciano gerga, his attorney wrapping up his summation, thanked the jury for being open-minded and thanked amanda for her strength. i m watching you now. they adore her, not only as lawyers, do they know she s innocent, they really adore my baby, and to hear them express that in court, to hear them tell everybody how much she means to them, it s obviously very moving. my conversation with edda mellas and curt knox, parents of amanda knox. i want to mention lester holt will be here this weekend in perugia covering the developments in the appeals case and probably will be here on monday when as i mentioned we expect a verdict to come down. right now let s go back to ann in los angeles. all right, matt, thank you so much. here in california the case everyone is watching, the involuntary manslaughter trial of michael jackson s personal physician, dr. conrad murray. on thursday some stunning new evidence was presented and nbc s jeff rossen is at the courthouse with more. good morning. as we end up this first week of the trial and it has been explosive and emotional perhaps more so than i think many people thought, seems like a new headline coming out of here every day and the latest headline comes from michael jackson s own bodyguard who took the stand on thursday, and told the jury that when he was in the room and after michael stopped breathing, dr. conrad murray made a stunning request, pack up the drugs. this is michael jackson s bodyguard, on the job, protecting the pop star, but on june 25th, 2009, there was nothing alberto alvarez could do to save his boss. he was laying on his back with his hands extended out. reporter: he is the prosecution s key witness on the stand thursday. alvarez told the jury, when michael stopped breathing, dr. murray grabbed the medicine. did he then instruct you to take some vials or do something with some vials? yes. while i was standing at the foot of the bed he reached over and grabbed a handful of vials, and then he reached out to me and said here, put these in a bag. reporter: prosecutors say dr. murray was trying to hide the evidence before calling 911 and recruited alvarez to help. he then pointed towards the i.v. stand and he said now, get that bag or move that bag and put it in the blue bag, at the bottom of the bag there was what appeared to be a milky white substance. reporter: that milky white substance prosecutors say was the powerful anesthetic propofol. what did you think the items were being packed up for if anything? packing up to get him ready to go to the hospital. reporter: prosecutors say the drugs never made it to the hospital and dr. murray repeatedly lied to emergency workers, concealing the drugs, they say, and covering up his crime. this evidence is in conjunction with other evidence is going to show that when his client needed to be revived, he didn t care. all he was thinking about was himself. reporter: dr. murray s defense attorney hammered at alvarez s story. is this possible, mr. alvarez that you are confused about the timing of these particular events? is that possible? no, sir. reporter: the defense claims dr. murray asked alvarez to call 11 immediately, and alvarez told immediately that part s true. he said alberto, hurry, we have to get him to a hospital. we have to get an ambulance. reporter: but alvarez admits he didn t call right away, distracted by michael s children. there they were, prince and paris, standing in the doorway, watching their father die. paris screamed out, daddy! reporter: alvarez got emotional. when you heard paris scream out daddy, was she crying? yes, sir. reporter: that s when he called 911. we have a jgentleman here tht needs help, not breathing. he s pumping his chest but he s not responding to anything. reporter: two hours later, michael jackson was pronounced dead at ucla medical center. following the pronouncement of death, did you speak to conrad murray? yes, he said thank you for your help, and i said to him, we did our best. reporter: dr. conrad murray maintains his innocence, says he did nothing wrong here. in fact the defense claim is that michael jackson himself injected himself, gave himself that lethal dose of propofol and mixed it with lorazepam. the big argument, will the defense have conrad murray take the stand? in your interview with one of the defense attorneys this morning, that decision has not been made yet. all right, jeff, thanks. still ahead this morning, foods that can make you sick. we ll tell you what to watch out for. coming up next, what you can get that s right after ts.d s real in cranberry and pomegranate blueberry. they have bubbles and come in these really cool cans. it s real fruit juice, crisp sparkling water, and no added sugar. comes in diet, too. it s refreshing, tasty the whole family will love it. you want one? i ll wait a bit. all right. mmm. 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[ female announcer ] lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems and women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications, or if you have any muscle pain or weakness. this may be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. [ man ] still love that wind in my face! talk to your doctor. don t kid yourself about the risk of heart attack and stroke. if lipitor s been working for you, stay with it. lipitor may be available for as little as $4 a month with the lipitor co-pay card. terms and conditions apply. learn more at lipitorforyou.com. hey big spender this morning on today s real estate homes for under $500,000. the real estate market tends to pick this up time of year between labor day and thanksgiving. here with great houses on the market is today real estate contributor barbara corcoran. good to see you. good morning, al. you have a great house you found in snoqualmie, washington. why? it s a great town, great school district and the prices not too high for your buck. this house has 40% of its land mass dedicated to open green space, a great place to raise a family. the front is picture perfect and for me kind of looked tucked in that yush landscapicozy landscad curb appeal. the inside living room has soaring ceilings and wayne s coating, and in the dining room recessed cabinet on the left-hand side, the kitchen is really big with big wood floors, tile counters, back splash and granite cooktop island. santa cruz, you found a nice bun gallow fo$469,000. it s two blocks from the beach, real california bungalow. they ve updated everything that was bad about it and haven t changed anything that was good about it. it makes you want to look inside that purple door. inside you ll see that all the rooms are light flooded. that s strong art. who cares? it works there. neat as a pin and warm and welcoming and spacious. the outside makes you think it will be litter on the inside. it ain t. there s a black and white kitchen, typical genre of those house. needs a few big chunky red cookie jars. other than that, picture perfect. out back the patio is just the right size, totally comfortable, picture you sitting there in the beautiful california weather. you found a beautiful cape cod in west barnstabl. you want to have a cape cod. it s the image of what everyone wants in massachusetts. you look at the front gate, totally charming, like you re going into a secret garden. there isn t much of a garden to be honest but a big front yard and mature trees. once you get inside it has everything you want in a modern house and yell still charming. the windows are everywhere. it s light flooded. you can t find a shady spot in the whole house no matter how hard you look. that s a waiting room. how many people today can say they have a waiting room? have a seat and wait for something. that s pretty cool. in the family room it s comfortable, a little dining area off to the side, all of the rooms are blended. you can see the porch out the back. i love the kitchen,e ee eit s w and a kitchen is perfectly suitable, a good house. newport, rhode island, you found a home for under $500,000. you can spend millions of dollars on a mansion. this is no mansion, a traditional 1895 cottage, just a couple of blocks from the beach. looking on the outside you would swear it s too plain. it s not. the interior has an open floorplan and has refinished wood floors and exposed brick, a simple kitchen with an old-fashioned cast iron stove and dining roomed aanysent to the kitchen, the space is very usable and the best thing in my book is the magical garden, fully private, fence organizations of it and other parts are open, it s sunny, lush, a gated entry, stone walkways and award winning garden and look at that patio, not a bad place, looks line an outdoor living room. gorgeous. finely, evanston, illinois, $499,000. what did you like about this? i liked everything about the house but most importantly victorian charm starting with its front door but everything inside has been updated. the big living room has inlay hardwood floors, crown moulding and delicately carved wooden fireplace. it s not pompous. the dining room is bright and whimical with a tile fireplace and shuttered windows. it s not quite that big enough for the house but you forgive it because every ninlg is charming. the ceiling has sky lights, beautiful cabinets and breakfast island. the step deck leads to the patio, a wedding place or kids to stage a show or fall down the stairs, whatever. it s unusual and adds a lot of importance to the patio you sit on high on the trees above it. the house reminds me of you. cope thokeep these comments yourself, al. bright and whimsical. oh, al. we ll be back with more of today right after these messages. [ female announcer ] this is not a prescription. this is edith and ellen. i was the first-born. i got married first. i had children first. and i m the first to get this haircut. i was the first to get a flu shot. you didn t make an appointment yet. don t need one at walgreens. strolled right in and got my flu shot early from my walgreens pharmacist. they re all specially trained. so now i m number one. it only took you 77 years. [ female announcer ] arm yourself with a flu shot from all walgreens and take care clinics. walgreens. there s a way to stay well. g from all walgreens and take care clinics. pasta bowl is almost over. for just $8.95 try new sauces like roasted mushroom parmesan and hearty pizzaiola meat. choose all the sauce and pasta combinations you want just $8.95, with unlimited salad and breadsticks. so hurry in to olive garden. i d like a decaf 360 calories please. i ll have a triple iced 410 calories please. you know what. i ll have this instead. 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[ male announcer ] we ve always made it right. and now we ship it right. announcing shipped for free, guaranteed to last. no minimum order. no end date. from l.l. bean. coming up, how to avoid getting sick from some of your favorite foods. and a look at fall fashions. two ladies from our crowd get a head-to-toe ambush makeover. i think she s happy. vegetables picked at their peak so fresh my knees grow weak inspired by fine chefs in rome gourmet soups you make at home [ male announcer ] introducing new bertolli frozen meal soup for two. like chicken minestrone with crisp vegetables, white meat chicken, al dente pasta. [ chef ] fresh tasting restaurant style [ both ] bertolli soup s in the freezer aisle [ male announcer ] new bertolli meal soup. who s she? new downy unstopables. here to shake up your fresh. toss these little scent boosters in before you wash. and the fresh scent will last until you re ready to wash again. new downy unstopables. the fresh too feisty to quit. you want that? you want a warm, super-delicious strawberry toaster strudel yeah but now i have nothing to eat sure you do. hey! you can have the pop tart! pillsbury toaster strudel. the one kids want to eat a very good morning, everybody. time now 9:26. i m jon kelley. the crosswalk where a young girl was run over and killed this week does have a dangerous history. she had just stepped off the curb when a teacher driving the bmw slammed into her killing her at the intersection. just last year a report showed a local lawmaker listed it as one of the most dangerous intersections in the entire city. families who live there definitely agree with that report. ignacio rivera s daughter was hit and nearly killed by a car three years ago right there. now he wants something done. at least put an officer here at least in the morning when the kids cross the street. the woman who hit ciorelli torres is a teacher at a neighboring school. she s not been charged as the case is still under investigation. you may notice a new addition to police uniforms. a camera to record interactions with passengers. it is aimed at increasing transparency in the agency which has come under scrutiny for fatal shootings. officers are supposed to turn on the camera before any contact with passengers. it will create a record for any incidents. after the trial de whether to buy cameras for all patrol officers. welcome back. you made it to friday. cloudy friday. it s going to be kind of cool as well right by the water, but nice conditions inland. this is what s happening out there. area of low pressure is approaching the coast as it gets closer to us, the cool air will continue to push on shore. that means our temperatures are going to be in the 60s and 70s. a little drizzle up in the north bay. downright windy in the east bay hills all the way through tomorrow. then the major changes arrive. 79 in los gatos. 70 in santa cruz. a lot of rain headed our way. tuesday, wednesday, thursday, we could accumulate up to an inch in the heaviest spots which is pretty significant this time of year. back over to you, jon kelley. i m ready for the fall, but i don t know about all this rain. for the latest updates feel free to check out nbc bay area news on facebook. do you feel like how much people love you? because of the outpouring? it was great ann. reporter: you knew people loved you anyway but now you really know. yeah. reporter: everybody at the today show is totally ann talking with ellen degeneres about her recent health care. we ll learn more from ellen, stopping by next week here on today, got a brand new book, pretty cool. we love her. lots of love for ellen around here. coming up in the half hour we ll look at some foods that can get you sick with that listeria outbreak this week, some items you eat every day are more prone to causing food poisoning than others. what they are and how to keep yourself healthy. important information there. fashion trends for fall, a sneak peek at this season s hottest looks from plaid to lace at new york s fashion week. this is for fall we ll show you how the runway looks make it to your closet. parents around america rejoice. we are going to show you how to make a healthy guilt-free pizza at home that your kids will scarf down. that s in tooled s kitchen. first amy robach and jenna wolfe telling us what s going on in weekend today. we re following the amanda knox trial. live in perugia, she will be finding out whether or not she ll be set free and to los angeles for the trial of michael jackson s doctor ended its first week of explosive testimony. then tricks of the trade, do you spend more money when you shop counterclockwise in a store and would you stay local to a product if another brand was offered at a lower price? we ll tell you the secrets behind brand watching. do you remember the famous movie lines play it again sam and mirror, mirror on the wall. lots of people go to school for seven years, called doctors, some of the quoted lines, but could it be we ve been flubbing those lines over the last couple years? yes. all that and more when we see you this weekend on today. it s play it sam. it s surprising how many lines we misquote. frankly scarlet i don t give a damn get messed up. it s shirley, scarlet, don t call me shirley. thanks so much. see you this weekend and al, how about a check of the weather? we re going to need a bigger boat. let s see what s going on for this saturday, rain in the pacific northwest, heavy rain in the northeast where we do not need it. the heat continues in the southwest and sunday, sunday! expecting more rain, even light snow showers in the mountains of west virginia, afternoon rain in the pacific northwest, the heat continues through the south and they re going to have su good friday morning to you. not too bad for today or tomorrow. late sunday getting cool and cloudy around here. then our next weather system arrives. we could be talking about record rainfall as we head through next thursday. really wet week ahead. 68 in san francisco, 83 in redwood city. the system arrives as we head into this weekend. and it could just sit off shore dumping rain over the bay area for several days. your seven-day forecast shows you on and off showers tuesday, cold and rainy wednesday, then heavy periods of rain for your thursday. football night in america. that s right the new york jets flying high with mark sanchez into the m&t bank stadium. boy that rolls off the tongue. partly cloudy, a 30% chance of a shower, temperatures in the upper 40s. everybody s favorite, sunday night football night in america! natalie? scared, al. i m going to move over here. coming up next how some of your favorite foods could make you sick. gam scery tore ve grocery store checklist right after this. think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! i want healthy skin for life. 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[ beatboxing ] today s health brought to you by biotene for soothing relief of dry mouth. this morning on today s health foods that can make you sick, cantaloupe and row main lettuce have been in the headlines this week because of listeria contamination worries. fresh produce is not the only food you should worry about. how can you avoid getting sick? dr. rashini raj, editor of health magazine. good to see you. what do you advise about cantaloupes, whether to eat them? we have 16 deaths due to the cantaloupe listeria outbreak so the advice is if you have any cantaloupes at home, check the label, the contamination is from the rocky ford region in colorado, so if it says rocky ford or jensen farms throw it out. sanitize any surface contaminated by the cantaloupe. including knives, too, of course if they ve sliced through them. what about the symptoms of food poisoning in case people fear they might have it in. sure. in general food poisoning is a limited illness that lasts 24 to 72 hours and involves diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, abdominal cramping. all at the same time. and often all at the same time but usually it runs its course on its own and the bug gets out of your system. unfortunately in some case it is can persist and become fatal. foods that are in the top of the list for concern. tuna is at the top. tuna is one of those that caused several outbreaks in the past decades and really what s happening is what s crawled scromboid poisoning. it s a toxic released in fish. unfortunately it does not get killed when you cook it so you have to beware of any fish, how it s handled. you hopefully can trust your stores but if a friend is catching a fish and wants to cook it with you, make sure it was refrigerated as soon as it was caught. if there s a bad odor get rid of it. leafy greens, make sure you wash them. the problem is you often don t cook them so any bacteria will not be killed. wash them very well and separate it from other things you re cooking like raw meat and raw eggs because you don t want cross contamination. you ve got cheese. cheese is especially for pregnant women because listeria is a big concern. the unpasteurized cheeses to contain the bacteria. it could cause miscarriages and still births. some doctors tell women to avoid cheeses. any soft cheese unless it s pasteurized, it will say it on the label. i skipped over ice cream maybe because i didn t want to believe ice cream was on the list but it s right up there. why should we be concerned? usually it s the egg concern here, some ice creams are made with raw eggs, if someone is making it at home they have to be careful how they re handling the raw eggs so you have to be careful. which leads us very well in our final item which is eggs. yes. no eating the cookie dough before it s kid. oh i used to love that doing that. i still love that. chocolate mousse, all of my favorites. salmonella, you need to cook the eggs to make sure there s no danger of that. there goes my weekend plans. coming up next hot off the runway, inside look at fashion week coming g of a dry mouth? it can be the side effect of many medications. dry mouth can be frustrating. and ignoring it can lead to. sipping water can help, but dentists recommend biotene. biotene moisturizes and helps supplement some of saliva s enzymes, providing soothing relief when you need it most. don t ignore dry mouth. look for biotene in your oral care section today. this has been medifacts for biotene. we re gonna have, we re gonna have we re gonna have a good day [ female announcer ] wouldn t it be nice if we focused less on the number and more on how the fit makes us feel? and all my ladies got pride today [ female announcer ] take the special k challenge. drop a jean size in two weeks and slip into size sassy. so many delicious ways to get started at specialk.com. what will you gain when you lose? those five food groups sound a whole lot better when you put them in a taco shell instead of a pyramid. old el paso. when you gotta have mexican. this morning on today s trial long sleeves are in stores now but this was showcased on the fashion floor six months ago. we got a sneak peek with fin fashion s cindy levy. we re here at lincoln center, freezing cold in february but looking at the stuff coming into stores and six months and getting excited. there are going to be a lot of lady-like clothes out there for fall 2011, one of my favorites is lace. there was lace on the runway from mark jacobs to jason wu, beautiful tailored high-necked blouses, they feel special but not at all revealing, great look. another thing you are going to see in every store at every price point come september 2011 is plaid, plaid on almost any runway. we saw 70s inspired plaid, long plaid skirts and completely fitted plaid suit. great stuff out there. my advice, wear a little bit, not a lot. another big trend for fall 2011, capes and ponchos, traditionally casual outerwear given a designer twist. we saw it from joseph altazara to rag and bone. new way to wear it, put it over your sparkling dress. don t just save it for saturdays running saturday in your jeans. bye-bye today show. see you in the spring. here with us this morning is sippedy levy glamour magazine s editor in chief. when you did, what do you look for in the trends? i look for things that get repeated. it s great to see a fantastic show. what you want to see are the trends that crop up again and again and again because those are the things that filter down to the streets of america what we see on the runways translate to what ends up in our close net different ways. yes, exactly. you don t want, no designer expects a woman to walk down the street with the head-to-toe runway. you want to wait for something to inspire and then into your wardro wardrobe. denise the lace trend was huge and denise lace on lace. lace on lace. what i love about this look in addition to the fact it s two lace pieces is that this is actually almost work appropriate lace. put a little cardigan over that you could wear it to the office. lace you can go girly, bridal wedding night or super sexy bedroom lace. this hits the sweet spot in the middle, it s sophisticated, chic and looks fantastic. also by the way, really nicely priced, that top is $50 from banana republic, the minniu min is $80. on the runway we see this look to that look it is drawing that inspiration. yeah and it s polished, a kate middleton effect. we love it. thank you, denise, you look great. next trend that you saw cindy was plaid. plaid was everywhere. whether you like it or not it s here. here comes mara, show you how you can do it in smaller doses. we were talking before about how plaid if you have memories of school uniforms can scare you a little bit. what i love about what mara is it up a little bit pairing it g with a pattern, which is a great fashion dare to take for fall. she s wearing her plaid jacket with a dotted shirt underneath. you can do that with stripes as well. it s a great weekend look. you also see a lot of plaid skirts worn under big coats. you don t have to go head-to-toe plaid. mara you look great, thank you very much. finally the capes another big trend. yes. our model elaine, come on out. i think elaine looks fantastic and by the way all of the women work at glamour. the looks are fantastic. this cape doesn t put you in mind of sherlock holmes or a superhero. this cape is $80, a nice price, is that she s wearing it over skinny bottoms, a mini skirt in her case and tights and boots or over slim cut jeans. you don t want the big cape over the big dress or skirt. just looks like you re wearing a moo-moo. this is a shop, chic look. ladies, one last look here. great job. what do we have to look forward to next time around? spring. lots of prints. for now this is what it s about. enjoy the look. thank you so much. i love the look of fall already. coming up in today s kitchen [ screaming ] [ zapping ] there goes dwayne s car. oh, man. there goes dwayne s house. whoa! whoa! and there goes dwayne. man, that thing does not like dwayne. [ male announcer ] state farm s got you covered. nice landing. it was. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. in tooled s kitchen what s for dinner? guilt-free low calorie pizza. here is arianna, the contributing chef for prevention magazine. good to see but good morning, al. this is pretty simple. it is pretty simple. really quick the dough, here is one we already have finished. this is a whole wheat dough? whole wheat. everybody loves pizza but let s put a healthy twist. just because it s whole wheat it s not lower calories? just a little bit. every little bit helps. it s the trust, we re going to roll a dough so after you have your dough, you cut it into four and put it in its own little bowl and freeze them. great. which is great, pull them out at any time. we have balls we ll dust with a little bit of flour. did you oil this at all? no, just dust with a little bit of flour. roll it first? little bit of flour. you keep saying a little bit of flour. why can t i get that? come on, wake up, roker. nice and thin. we want a crispy, crispy crust. we ll grill this pizza so this is great for outside or if you don t have an outside grill or cold you can do it inside. these are already done, our grilled pizza. we grill one side. take that with us. and we put the grilled side up, because we re going to throw it on the grill again. look at the array of toppings that we have. this would be great when you re having a party. exactly. top your own pizza party. everyone gets involved. it s not about the crust so much, it s about your toppings. we want you to know you can use low calorie ingredients, a lot of vegetables, low-fat, lean proteins like prosciutto, chicken sausage and turkey sausage. you talk about the sauce you don t have to have a red sauce? not at all. pes toe, olive tempenade. you see the toppings. low-fat, skim, goat cheese, low-fat ricot and mozzarella. people too much sauce? you don t want too much because it oozes and gets messy. right. i m going to do a little bit of pesto, and then once we get our toppings on, you throw it back on the grill for a few minutes. right. and you know you got a great pizza. this is a great way with kids to get vegetables into their diet. into their diet which is so important now. even some flavored olive oils, chili garlic, rosemary basil, and you have fun with it. you have a great time and like you said it s a great time to have a party. give us some examples. here are some examples that we have in our magazine in prevention. you can find them on prevention.com, barbecued chicken with celery to give it texture, southwest with corn and pablanos, and mediterranean with roasted pepper, grilled artichokes and lemon. dairy free alternative. yes, so this is when you can make these to your diet or your allergies or what your likes and dislikes. so good. thank you so much. recipes at today.com. thank you so much. i m going to get barbecue sauce on you. coming up, brooke shields. and fabulous makeovers. have a great weekend, guys. see you next week. i m a curious seeker. i am a chemistry aficionado. diphenhydramine. magnesium hydroxide. atheletes foot. yes. i m a people pleaser. if elected, i promise flu shots for all. i am a walking medical dictionary. congratulations virginia. inflamed uvula. i m virginia. i m a target pharmacist and i m here to answer your questions. good morning. the time now 9:56. i m jon kelley. a teacher in vacaville has banned a common courtesy from his classroom. what steve cuckovich won t allow students to say bless you when someone sneezes. he says the policy has nothing to do with religion. everything to do with discipline. when you sneeze, in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. so they were saying god bless you for getting rid of the evil spirits. today what you re doing doesn t make any sense any more. he stopped lowering grades after parents complained, but he says he ll find another way to discipline students when they choose to use that phrase. according to the weather outside christine lorenz says we may be sneezing coming up. gez und height. ga zund height is right. taking a live look at the golden gate bridge. you can already see those changes heading our way. marine layer formed to about 1500 feet this morning. instead of getting compressed and forced right to the surface by high pressure it is mostly cloudy from san francisco through livermore and san jose. major changes monday and tuesday. the system brings about our most significant rainfall. highs in the 60s and 70s. we could pick up to an inch of rain in the heaviest spots before all is said and done. this weekend, just drizzly. you don t have to cancel those outdoor plans until late monday. then tuesday, on and off showers come into play. cold, rainy weather on wednesday. periods of rain thursday. 65 degrees. yeah, john, we re in for it. it will get wet and rainy and windy next week. i still say bless you for the forecast. for traffic and updates check out nbc bay area news on facebook. another update in one half hour. captions paid for by nbc-universal television this is today with ho hoda kotb. live from rockefell plaza. let me tell you what it s all like it is friday, september 30th, 2011. we have a special guest in the house. singer and musician, ben folds. look at you. yes. there is a weird ben folds i knew about you, but i did not know about your rabid fans. they are anything everything you do. every little thing. that could be true. all right. we asked you about the drink of choice. you chose? a gin and tonic. that is your thing? it doesn t make you feel bloaty and i don t have hangovers with it. the sing off has been on for a while. yes. ben is a judge along with sara baralleis along with nick la chay as host. what is all about this? it is a cultural wave that will save this country. why? music education has been on the down. filling in the spaces are kids sings in colleges. there are about four-to-eight acapella groups in college now. they have to learn the insides of harmony like these things. that s harmony. all right. this show is not about egos. it is people working together. i cannot tell you many times where you heard someone on the radio and you go to a concert and listen to it and you say that is not anything what i thought. when you actually hear them all alone out there, you get that. why did you request a keyboard in front of you? [ laughter ] because i did not have a lot of confidence that i would be able to sing. i thought if nothing else, i could rock back and forth and play this. what kind of things do you like to do on the keyboard? do something on that keyboard. well, i don t really play one of these things. i play a piano. i can pretend. i can play one on television. i write stuff on this sometimes. i could work on this song you have written called 46-year-old southern boy who likes gin and tonic. go. 46-year-old southern boy who likes gin and tonic you are singing off the card. new album comes out october 11th he s reading the cards. it can go on and on. i understand it s friday. it is friday. if you want to write a song at some point, let me know if you feel inspired. give me lyrics. you will come up with that? yes. that was good. that was magic. this morning, when we were both in the makeup room, something happened on the plaza and it was magic. it was a proposal. those are always terrific. watch closely at this proposal. there is something unique about it. take a look. i have something i wanted to say. what s that? angie, i love you so much. i want to spend the rest of my life with you. i want to make you feel as special as you make me feel every day. angie miller, will you marry me? yes. all right. if you notice on the box, it was the most beautiful moment. on the box were a couple of written things a cheat sheet. al roker looked at the box. he was nervous that he would not be able to remember everything he had to say. put that ring on the finger. let s see what it looks like. nathan. nathan is a smart guy. he did not take anything to chance. he wrote it down. he wrote down what he was going to say. you have to get it right. you have to get it right. smart guy. it is a sweet moment. a smart guy making the girl happy by saying the right thing i ll need you for the next one. here s the thing, ashton kutcher and demi moore have rumors they are splitting. this is what is interesting to everybody. they are publicly on twitter communicating back and forth which is an interesting thing. some of the tweets that they are talking about, let s see if i have them here. do i have them? the tweets from them? no. anyway, maybe you have them. there it is. that s something else. they are going back and forth with tweets. when you have a private melting down of a relationship, if that is the case, and you thank you so much. here we go. he tweeted. his latest was when you assume that of which you know nothing of, you make an ass of you and me. hit it. say day before the anniversary, moore tweeted from a greek philosopher, turn to yourself instead of your failings and you will forget your anchor. go ahead. you got nothing there? no, i don t have anything to say. when you get that kind of wisdom over twitter, there is nothing to be said. ashton tweeted a song, don t believe the hype. they are going back and forth in the media, which is what do you do think about that? i know you had a few break ups yourself. this is your fourth marriage? eighth. no, fourth. i think it is silly. look, they were talking about people on the show that is across from our show. it is disturbing our ratings. my thinking was i wasn t going to pay attention to that guy. okay. you are like what? okay. forget that. back up. you are not supposed to talk about that stuff. it is pretty good instinct he has. he is a celebrity. she is a celebrity. that s giving attention. that s fine. they decided to be public. that s okay. it makes people happy. here is something interesting. if you are if you live in mexico. are you melting down? if you are in mexico, they are starting this new thing. a lot of marriages in mexico end after two years. they decided why not make it so you have a two-year commitment. at two years, you can rethink it. you can decide to go forward or you can decide that you have gone far enough. that s something that is on the table. it gives you a two-year window to wiggle out of it. and? you know what, i think that is a reaction to a racket around divorce. a lot of lawyers make money on it. this kind of deflates that racket. what it does is it splits everything up beforehand. that is a good idea. we will cheer everyone up. it is friday. we have our cutest baby contest. you have to vote. there were so many cute babies. it was hard to choose the final ten. payton from new mexico. look at braden. come on. trinity. couldn t you look at trinity all day or wyatt? and william and harrison are from georgia. they are twins? yes. abbey is in the house. so is andre. he likes the right guy. yeah, he does. berkley. a grown woman. i love her. i love cohen from ohio. you have until sunday, october 2nd, at 9:00 p.m. pacific to vote. we will narrow it down to five. those five will come to the studio. this is the time of day we do kathie lee s funny. she is not here. she had betty white help her out. listen. this pirate goes into a bar. he has a steering wheel in his pants. the bartender says, do you realize you have a steering wheel in your pants? the pirate says, arrrrgh, it s driving me nuts [ laughter ] yes. arrrrgh. it s driving me nuts. i love it [ laughter ] she loved it. here s the best thing about the joke. kathie lee stole it from our cameraman. it was his joke. we want you to get a shout out credit. it is that time of day where we do our bobbie s buzz. this is where i pop up and show you interesting things. i came across this smart idea for women. convertible heels. you can have four different heels in addition to the one on your shoe. you can go to the office with the lower kitten heels. you can pop them in and out. you get five pairs of shoes in one. i did not leave you out. i did not bring you a black t-shirt. i do have here that will work on my shoes. joe has something called untuck it. what are you doing, joe? joe likes the camera. joe is wearing shirt by untuck it. it is the perfect length so it can stay untucked. that is a great idea for you. and then these are toothpaste pads. if you want breath of god, you can put that in your pocket. good job. nice job, bobbie. coming up next, the cranky and confused. how brooke shields landed in a haunted house. it s the time of the week women all over the country look forward to. ambush makeovers. you have it right after this. 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[ male announcer ] we touch a lot of things throughout the day. so it s nice that clorox disinfecting products help kill the germs that can live on surfaces for up to 48 hours. feels sweet when i can touch you [ male announcer ] hey, have you heard? it s bring your happiness to work day. campbell s microwavable soups, right where you work. in three minutes, the deliciousness that brings a smile to any monday. and soup has what you need at work, to work. make any place, your happy place. campbell s it s amazing what soup can do. i feel good say saving best just around the corner that is the talented and beautiful brooke shields starring in the broadway musical the adams family which first began as a magazine cartoon back in the 1930s. as you might guess, brooke plays the role of morticia adams. welcome to the party. thank you. we know that any broadway star that comes up here is always exhausted because you have incredible hours. the hardest working people in show biz. how are you holding up? this is the first time i ve done a show with two children and there are eight a week. it s not that they are inhuman, but you do get into a level of fitness vocally and bodywise. you do it. you would be surprised what you re capable of doing. vocally what is so great, you get stronger and stronger and stronger. it makes it more challenging and it s fun. you took bebe neworth s role. i love bebe. she is a really good friend. i didn t want it to be anything i just wanted to try to make it my own and not copy her. it is hard. you try to take on a different take to it. they added a lot of dancing in the tango. they switched some of the songs around and gave me higher keys to sing in and gave me different harmonies. they mixed it up for me, which was good. the music was cool. vocally, it s not that challenging a show for the morticia character, but even within that oh, god. that was in the first week. i m stronger now. brooke was watching the beautiful baby contest. okay. she kept saying can we add a baby? we can t add a baby, but we ll show this baby. who is this? my friend michael has this little baby. this little baby has the sweetest little face. he always has that expression on his face. i m putting him in the mix. how are your kids? they are great. they are getting so big. how old are they? 5 and 8. look at all of you. look at the red hair. who are those people? where did they come from? i have them for nine months and they come out looking nothing like me. something happened that i m not aware of. my husband is pretty safe about it. i m the one not safe. they re funny. they re really smart and difficult and getting sassy. i ve got to really curb them. i have to be really tough with them. are you the disciplinarian? i am. my daughter, my older one was acting really mean the other day to her sister and she revels in it. i said why are you doing that? why are you being so mean? you re a mean person. i felt bad when i said it, but instantly, she goes, i am not. i said then stop acting like e one. even though i felt like you should call child services, i did realize she needed to understand, we both learned the difference between being one thing or acting like it. and she got it. we both got a little scared. teaching exestenialism as a young age. we wish you so much. it is extended through december because of this one. it was supposed to go through october but they extended it through december. the right thing to do, finish out the new year. it s a great show. people are loving it. great. coming up next, music trivia for a master musician. we are playing a game. it s a new totino s pizza stuffer. [ male announcer ] give your kids the new totino s pizza stuffers. new, minimum mess, maximum fun! i was just gonna say that! about this flat haircolor! [ gigi ] try nice n easy anti-flat, always dimensional. in one simple step, get tones and highlights built into every shade with nice n easy. mom: what s that, rosie ? you are exactly one of a kind hi there ! let s learn to clap ! clap, clap yeah ! like that ! you re sooo big ! sooo big ! a-b-c-d-e-f-g a-b-c-d-e-f-g cause we were made for each other, for always toy sfx: h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p. h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p. q-r-s q-r-s. we re gonna have, we re gonna have we re gonna have a good day [ female announcer ] wouldn t it be nice if we focused less on the number and more on how the fit makes us feel? and all my ladies got pride today [ female announcer ] take the special k challenge. drop a jean size in two weeks and slip into size sassy. so many delicious ways to get started at specialk.com. what will you gain when you lose? my co-host ben folds is one of the top selling artists in america but also a judge on the sing-off. does being surrounded with music mean you re well versed in a show? i guess it does. joe levy from maxim magazine and pop culture expert, is here to put us to the test on how well we know our lyrics. i want a clean fight. ben, good luck. hoda, no eye gauging or elbows. don t call it an anthem, it s beyonce and singles ladies. listen and fill in the lyric at the end. if you like it then you should have put a ring on it. i will award randomly extra points for dancing like that. you are correct. you are correct. hoda is in the lead. ben this involves one of your fellow judges on the sing-off. that s on when? 8:00. what night here? monday night. on the home of the peacock. you sit with judge sara bareilles do you know the words to her hit song love song? i m not going to write you a love song because you asked for it because you need one i m not going to write you a love song you may want to hit the buzzer. i m just saying. it s a tie. give it to ben. my lyric is because my a.r. person wanted her to write it. it s make or break in this if you re on your way, that is a reference to her record company that asked her to write a marketable love song. moving on. one song katy perry can be sure will play the fourth of july. i m talking about firework. fill in the lyric. light up the sky like the fourth of july baby you re a firework tell me something that s what you re worth. it was something like that. well, it was something like that. you were closer than ben. still it s 1-0 for hoda. the lyric is come on, show them what you re worth. let s test your skills with a lit many rap. pit bulls give me every day. i would take you home with me if i could the break of dawn. close. close. do you have a guess here? i don t. in the house tonight everybody have a good time hold on. wait. shake that. close enough. the judges will award you for a partial lyric. exact lyric, we wanna see you shake it. [ male announcer ] it s always having a reason, from the smallest details to the big decisions. and putting everything through everything before we stand behind anything. doing things right has always defined what we do. and now it defines how we ship. announcing free shipping. no minimum order. no end date. from l.l. bean. good morning, everyone. the time is 10:26. i m jon kelley. a slap on the hand could get a sausalito councilman some jail time. for gosh sake. don t hit me. don t shush me. you put your hand on my side of the table. well okay. come on. all right, everybody. the marin county distribute attorney says it will decide soon whether to file charges against mike kelly for the incident you just saw. he slapped the hand of councilwoman caroline ford during a council meeting. she said she decided to pursue charges because she wants to be assured there will be a change of behavior on the council.usesn th h verbal abeus in the council chamber for more than a year now. kelly did apologize for the incident that took place on tuesday. n welcome back to you. well, what a difference a day makes. we have mostly cloudy conditions all across the bay area. onshore flow is back. it will strengthen as we head through the weekend. that means cool cloudy weather starting today lasting through sunday. then the rain arrives monday. the day works out like this. a little bit of drizzle in the bay area. that s it for today. even some of the warmest cities across the bay, san francisco. you ll only hit 63 and breezy conditions throughout the east bay hills. 83 for redwood city. 79 in los gatos. then our weathermaker arrives. monday to tuesday, we re going to see showery weather, then tuesday, wednesday, thursday. that weather will start to intensify. we ll see heavier periods of rain all the way through wednesday and thursday potentially picking up to an inch of rainfall before all is said and done. for us that means we could see flooding, we could see downed power lines and trees. this is definitely a system that you don t want to let your guard down on. time to dust off those um umbrellas. thank you very much. for the latest check out nbc bay area news on facebook. we n th day friday with today s plaza ambush makeovers. we have a special guest co-host filling in for kathie lee who is secretly reading his cards. it is ben folds, a musician and judge on the sing off. and i somehow landed the ambush makeover day. i hear the two people responsible are contributor and stylist to the stars luis lacari. la la la and today us weekly contributor and author jill martin. jill martin how was it? friday, out on the plaza. it s so great to be back on friday. we are there, the signs there, great choices. our first lucky lady is laurie ranger, 54 years old froa oregon. her make-up routine consists of putting on mascara. this is definitely a celebration because i know you ve been through a lot. yes. i just finished radiation two weeks ago for breast cancer. and you re all healthy now. yes, i am. and i know you re so excited to give this to your mother. yes. very excited. she used to drag me around and tell me how toe get my hair cut. i m glad she can get the chance to have something forced on her now. now we are going to boss her around. i know you re nervous. you ready to go? yes, i am. we are so happy for laurie. she is here with her son josh and daughter-in-law cheryl. keep your blindfolds on. here is laurie ranger befor let s see the new you. oh! are you guys ready? take off your blind folds. you re going to freak. wow! the new you. are you ready? you are hot! tell us about the hair. i wanted to make it softer and more glamorous. she let her hair grow and it wasn t doing a thing for her. this great cut gives her fullness, big hair, soft hair that is in this season. and i lightened it for you. josh and cheryl are taking pictures. what do you think? she looks great. now we have to walk around the city all day. that s great for fall because you can layer it, a leather jacket, a blazer. look at these great shoes from talbot s. you re hot. who is next up, ben? we have debbie. she is celebrating her tenth anniversary with her husband. she jumped at the chance to celebrate with a brand-new work. let s listen to her story. i have to tell steve to behave. tell me why you want this for your wife. she s been very sweet to me. and it s our tenth anniversary. are you ready for a sexy new look? i am so ready, yes. take a look at this we are going to trade this in for a sexy new dress. ready to go? i am so ready. we are ready. it s exciting. all right. she is here with her husband. steve. keep the blind fold on. they should have given me one of those. let s take one last look at debbie before. show that shot. come on out. here she comes. steve is going to freak. take off your blind fold, honey. oh, wow! i know you re dying. i ve got to see yourself. turn around here. oh, my god! you are a hot new york ticket. i can t wait till tonight. that hair looks awesome. thank you. could i have given you a better anniversary present? that s perfect. of course i brightened her hair color. we added the fullness and softness with natural make-up. keep it simple is the trick. are you freaking? what s going on over there? i don t know what to say. that is a cool outfit. i can t tell you what he asked me to put her in. we compromised and i gave her a leopard trench which is huge for fall available at macy s. a big round of applause for our ambushees. coming up next is all about our furry friends for your family. also safety tips f. in the coming weeks and months, you may notice something a little different about eggland s best eggs. now, in addition to the taste and nutrition you and your family love, eggland s best will proudly be displaying its support for susan g. komen for the cure®, the world s largest breast cancer organization, in its promise to end breast cancer forever. eggland s best. better taste. better nutrition. and a greater commitment to what matters. because part of being the best is doing good. but sometimes i wonder. what s left behind? [ female announcer ] purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena® naturals. removes 99% of dirt and toxins without dyes, parabens or harsh sulfates. so skin feels pure and healthy. [ female announcer ] from neutrogena® naturals. if you think occasional sirregularity is no big deal,y. think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! pantene said, breakage and split ends? get pantene breakage to strength. [ female announcer ] the keratin protection pro-v system helps prevent then repair split ends. zero fear of breakage, 100% more strength. pantene. hmmm, what are you doing? studying. studying? quantum physics. that s not mine?! i don t know where that came from! aw, do you ha. is that a check? that s not a good check is it? what do you think? it s a bad check. [ male announcer ] we take the time for our cheese to mature before we bake it into every delicious cracker because at cheez-it, real cheese matters. those five food groups sound a whole lot better when you put them in a taco shell instead of a pyramid. old el paso. when you gotta have mexican. listen to this. three out of four americans don t get enough vegetables. so here s five bucks to help you buy v8 juice. five bucks. that s a lot of green. go to v8juice.com for coupons. you can count on us. it is time for today s pets. as the air cools down and leaves begin to change, it s tempting to let fido spend more time in the great outdoors. there are some safety tips you need to know. julie bank is executive director of animal care and control of new york city. she is here to celebrate october s adopt a sheltered dog month. every dog we are going to show you, each one is available for adoption, right? we have five dogs available at animal care control in new york city waiting for a home. this is buddy. i go to central park and see people running with their dogs. i feel like the dog is being dragged. you say when exercising with your puppy, take it slow. if they are not accustomed to exercise, it s important to ease them into it slowly. take them to the park by all means. if they are not comfortable, take it slow. start slow then go faster into your routine. this is such a sweet dog. this go can go to a home with a family that wants a dog that is going to love with them and take care of them. he is really a good boy. this is how you keep your dog safe and secure. that dog wants to say. tell bus this dog. sonia is a miniature pinscher mix. she is sweet. don t let her fool you. down on the ground she is pretty active. she needs a family that likes an active little dog. she has a collar and tag on her neck. it s important you have a collar, a tag and leash on your animal. during the holiday time, doors open with parties, you leave your animal out in the yard. you want to make sure they are identified. if you lose them, go to your local animal shelter to find them. thanks, sweetie. it s halloween. i don t know if dogs like this or dislike this. she likes to be a fairy witch. some dogs don t. that is the most important tip here. if your dog does not like a costume, don t force them or put it on them. if you re going jut side on a holiday parade or something like that, if your dog does not like to be outside, leave them home. you have a dog, right? yeah. what do you have? a pit bull mix. we did ours as a mummy. she wasn t happy. animals that bite when you try to force a costume on them, never do that. and halloween candy, you have to be careful. it s poisonous and can make your animal really sick. in many cases we see deaths. let s bring poncho out. when do you decide whether or not to put a sweater on your dog? most important thing, if it s too cold for you, it s too cold for them. different breeds have different requirements. as you see with poncho, she s got low hair and you always want to keep a sweater. if you have a yard, keep your animal inside if it gets too cold. let s bring out scooby. scooby-do. not what i was expecting for scooby. you have to be careful of fall plants and other chemicals out there. they will eat anything. with chemicals, we have antifreeze we put in our cars. that is very toxic to animals. if it leaks, they can get sick quickly. oh, scooby. scooby is 11 years old. was turned in by her people. she is looking for an older family where she can relax with them and chill out. she is really a good girl and has a lot of love to give. if you want to adopt any of these dogs, go to our website. kid inventions that will make you want to kick yourself for not coming up with that idea. living with diabetes is a reality for me, but i learned that i don t have to use a vial and syringe as part of my daily routine anymore. my doctor showed me the novolog mix 70/30 flexpen. flexpen is discreet and comes pre-filled with my insulin. flexpen goes with me and doesn t need refrigeration. and it s covered by most insurance. if you re still using a vial and syringe, ask your healthcare provider about the benefits of flexpen. flexpen is a discreet, pre-filled, dial-a-dose insulin pen. you can dial the exact dose of insulin you need. and inject insulin by pressing a button. novolog mix 70/30 is an insulin used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. do not inject if you do not plan to eat within 15 minutes to avoid low blood sugar. tell your healthcare provider about all medicines you take and all of your medical conditions, including if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. most common side effects include reactions at the injection site, weight gain, swelling of your hands and feet, and vision changes. other serious side effects include low blood sugar and low potassium in your blood. get medical help right away if you experience serious allergic reactions including body rash, trouble with breathing, fast heartbeat, sweating, or if you feel faint. flexpen is made by novo nordisk, a healthcare company committed to diabetes care for nearly 90 years. i ve made flexpen part of my routine just like spending time with my family. ask your healthcare provider about novolog mix 70/30 flexpen today. learn more about the different insulins available in flexpen at myflexpen.com. flexpen. insulin delivery that goes with you. why did you buy my husband a falcon? thanks for the falcon. i didn t buy anyone a falcon. sure, you did. you saved us a lot of money on auto insurance. i used that money to buy a falcon. ergo, you bought me a falcon. i should ve got a falcon. most people who switch to state farm save on average about $480. what they do with it, well, that s their business. oh, that explains a lot, actually. [ chuckles ] [ male announcer ] another reason people switch to state farm. aw, i could ve gotten a falcon. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. [ falcon screeches ] what do the trampoline, earmuffs and popcicle all have in common? each sprang from the minds of a young person. we have other clever kid inventions which have gone on to become successful businesses. hi. first of all. wow, some of these kids are so ingenious. they turned into millionaires. i m here to show you how they did it. tell us about mak n bacon. they ran out of paper towels. he said i can t let it drip dry. the light went off with 8-year-old abbey. she tried to find little parts of broken this and that. she made the dish. you drape your bacon over it, put it in the microwave, all the fat drips in there and you have leaner, crispy bacon. how much did she make off this? she became a millionaire by the time she was a teenager. this is now sold at walmart next to the microwaves. who invented the napkin? next up we ve got what do we have? these are crayons. they are crayon holders. 11-year-old cassidy goldstein was coloring. all her clayors were broken. she was trying to figure out how to solve that problem. she found one of those little tubes you use to keep roses fresh with water. stuffed the crayon parts in there there you go. a crayon holder. works like a syringe. genius. anything coming to you? . this one i love. all kids who have mittens know the feeling when snow gets inside your mittens, it s a terrible feeling. she was playing with her brother one day. this is k.k. gregory. she decided they had fleece laying around her house. she sewed up these gloves which musicians love. you put them under your mittens and they keep your wrist warm and keep the snow out. i can play the piano with these on. exactly. lastly, a lot of candles are made with girly scents. there was a smart cookie who says let s make one for men. this is 13-year-old hart maine. he said why don t you make them in scents a man would like to buy? man can, candles for men sold in a can. it s grass, campfire. that s one of my favorites, campfire. i m afraid of the brown one though. that s coffee. of course you are. thank you, sweetie. coming up next curtis stone in the kitchen. [ female announcer ] pillsbury chocolate chip cookies with hershey s chocolate chips. for a moment of warm, gooey, togetherness. chocolate chip cookies. from pillsbury. and these are the ones you ll love on a school night. pillsbury crescent dogs with just a few ingredients you have an easy dinner. pillsbury crescent dogs. school night ideas made easy. it is time for today s kitchen. cooking with chef curtis stone. he is hosting barbecue and the blues tonight at the fourth annual new york city food and wine festival. food and music, doesn t get much better than that. hello, you. what s going on? what s with the show? you re always on a new show. we ve just been filming in las vegas. i still have a hangover from it. what we are doing tonight, we have this incredible event, barbecue and blues. it s incredible music. you would like that. even better food. i shouldn t say that because the musicians are very talented, but i m a much better cook than they can sing. i ve got lobsters on the barbie. i m going to make corn butter. what kind of corn here? sweet corn. the last the summer has to offer. don t be scared of it. give this some elbow grease. do you like cooking? yeah. i can make french toast. excellent. wait for it. it s coming. it s coming. here it comes. it s coming right now. what do you do with the corn juice? you take the corn juice. put it in here and make it nice and hot. bring it up to a boil. wisk it around. this is just corn juice. it gets sticky. it gets almost custardy. i missed you so much. your producer doesn t take my calls. a little bit of thyme and butter. i ve been a busy boy. i miss you guys. not enough really. cook it up. reduce it down. give it a good wisk. then you do a french technique where you thicken with butter. what do you think, ben? that s amazing. that s all i get? absolutely fantastic. the butter cooks the lobster. you end up with delicious tray of lobster. can we taste it? it s just come off the grill. ben, thank you for filling in today. we appreciate it. the sing-off airs on monday night. tune in to watch it. ben s got a cd ben folds, best imitation of life. next issed kardashians all week. ve got kim, khloe. bye. captions by vitac www.vitac.com i am a face unclogger. i am a nose coach. i am a throat untickler. i am a human cough suppressant. and i am the sniffles worst nightmare. i am a target pharmacist. ask me about cold and flu remedies. and these are the ones you ll love as dinner. grands! mini pizzas. grands! biscuit dough. plus 3 ingredients make an easy dinner everyone loves. grands! mini pizzas. from pillsbury. start your morning a whole new way!