Transcripts For WBAL Today 20091106 : vimarsana.com

good morning. tragedy at ft. hood. a 13th victim has died overnight following that shooting rampage at the nation s largest military facility. this as a troubling portrait emerges of the alleged gunman, a military psychiatrist about to be deployed overseas. this morning we re live at ft. hood where the military community is searching for answers today, friday, november 6th, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on what is a very sad friday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. the death toll now stands at 13, 30 others wounded by that gunman who went on a shooting spree at ft. hood thursday afternoon. and this morning we re learning more about the alleged shooter, major nadil malik hasan, the military psychiatrist. earlier in the day, it was believed hasan had died after he allegedly ambushed fellow soldiers, many of whom were preparing to leave for the front lines of iraq and afghanistan, but late thursday, military officials said hasan was, in fact, alive. he survived being shot four times, and this morning he is hospitalized under heavy military guard. from what we understand, hasan is a devout muslim and was set to be deployed soon. people who know him say he was vocal about his disapproval of u.s. involvement there. and take a look at this surveillance video aired last night on cnn. a convenience store clerk says that man is hasan dressed in traditional muslim attire, calmly picking up breakfast just hours before the shooting. coming up, much more on hasan s background and possible motives. we re also going to talk to ft. hood s commanding officer in just a moment. but let s get right to nbc s lester holt. lester, good morning to you. reporter: meredith, good morning. ft. hood is the largest military installation in the world and has lost a disproportionate number of soldiers to the wars in iraq and afghanistan, but this loss is being felt in a whole different kind of way. there is mourning here and there are also lots of questions about how a man trained to help soldiers instead is accused of going on a deadly shooting rampage. a military base turned war zone. [ sirens ] the alleged gunman, any day nid hasan was recently to be deployed overseas. of muslim dissent, he was at the soldier readiness center where soldiers gathered for medical screening. he was armed with two guns, one a semiautomatic and opened fire, striking down more than 40 victims. in an exclusive interview with nbc affiliate ksl, a father of a soldier whose identity he did not revealed describe what his daughter says happened before the gunman started shooting. he said allah akbar and just opened up on everybody, and initially, she thought that it was part of the training, some real-life scenario, but it was within a second or two that she realized it was for real because the person next to her was shot and killed instantly. reporter: a female security officer shot hasan four times before s.w.a.t. teams were able to storm the building. he was not killed as previously reported. he is currently in custody and in stable condition. she ran off after she got shot? oh, okay. reporter: lisa fund s daughter, amber barr, was one of the injured soldiers who was shot in the stomach. she s a fighter. reporter: as alarms sounded around ft. hood, families awaited word about loved ones. president obama called it a horrific outburst of violence. it s difficult enough when we lose these brave americans in battles overseas. it is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on american soil. reporter: the 39-year-old man believed responsible is single with no children, a military psychiatrist. he was previously at walter reed in washington, d.c. late thursday, federal agents searched a home in kensington, maryland, where hasan lived during his medical training. authorities are looking at several internet postings they say may offer clues. one blog posted by username nidalhasan compared suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades. the post reads, to say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. it s more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. and the fbi is here on the post this morning taking part in this investigation. they are not speculating as to whether the victims were chosen or hit randomly. we should also note they are not ruling out the possibility that some of those hit by gunfire were actually hit by friendly fire. we hope to learn a lot more in briefings as the day continues. matt? all right, lester holt at ft. hood for us this morning. lester, thank you very much. it has been declared a day of mourning at ft. hood. lieutenant general robert cone is the base s commanding officer. general cone, good morning to you. good morning, matt. let me just first offer my condolences to you and all the members of the ft. hood family this morning. thank you, sir. it s been really remarkable the outreach that the local community and across the country, the people have reached out to ft. hood. we are putting together packages right now to assist the soldiers in dealing with grief, to assist our youngsters that are in school, and it is overwhelming how this country has reached out to us. we ve had reports that the alleged shooter in this incident, major hasan, is unconscious, on a ventilator. can you tell me, sir, his exact condition this morning, and was he conscious at some point and able to talk to investigators or answer any questions at all? my understanding is that he is in stable condition and they are going to work to attempt to interrogate him as soon as it is possible. you re trying, i would imagine that has not been possible to this point. i know you were trying to piece together what happened and why it happened. have you spoken to distant family members, friends, fellow officers, fellow soldiers? have they told you, have they been able to paint a picture of this guy for you? well, i did have the opportunity last night to go to the crime scene again. i went down as it was finishing up yesterday and then spent some time at the hospital last night, in terms of trying to understand what happened. and i think what s really hard for people to understand is how so many people could be injured by a single gunman, which is what we believe now is the case. and i think that really has to do with these confined quarters that these folks were in. a lot of these youngsters were telling me last night that, essentially, because it was so crowded, he was able to move. the soldiers, many of them thought that because this is a training facility, that the gunfire was not unusual to them. many of them, the first they knew that they were hit by the bullets, some of them, as many as three and four times. you talk about amber barr in your lead-up here, amazing young lady. i spoke to her last night. i think what s most notable about her is the fact that despite the fact she was shot, she assisted in helping other soldiers put a tourniquet on a soldier, carried him out to medical care, and only after she had taken care of others did she realize that she herself had been shot. you know, general, we re finding out more about major hasan, including reports that she d received a poor performance evaluation at his previous post at walter reed army medical center. he had done some arguing with other soldiers and officers about the wars in iraq and afghanistan. he was said to be upset about his own impending deployment. was this it s a simple was this guy on your radar at all as a possible threat or a risk? he was not, not at my level. but i m sure as most of these details begin to come out, i think we ll have a much more complete picture. we re getting a lot of help with the fbi and with the army criminal investigating division, and i m sure all of these factors will be uncovered. according to a relative of one of the witnesses to the shooting, major hasan shouted allah akbar or god is great before he opened fire on the soldiers. can you confirm that from other reports? there are firsthand accounts here from soldiers that are similar to that. which raises the question again, obviously, of motive. i mean, was this a guy who was so afraid or concerned about being deployed that he snapped or i lost my as a devout muslim, do you think there was some religious motivation for his actions? apparently, we have lost the audio for general cone. hopefully, we ll re-establish communications with ft. hood in just a little while. it is now nine minutes after the hour. once again, here s meredith. matt, thank you. for more on the alleged gunman s background and how this could have happened at a u.s. military base, let s bring in nbc s chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski and retired army general barry mccaffrey. gentlemen, good morning to you. good morning, meredith. good morning. good morning. jim, i ll start with you. do we know anything else about possible motive here? well, you know, meredith, we re hearing stories that major hasan had been trying to get out of the army for some time. and as a doctor who was treating soldiers with combat stress and he was reportedly disturbed by their horror stories of the wars, and as matt just alluded to before, as a devout muslim, he was telling family and friends and just casual acquaintances on the street that he was growing increasingly upset about his depending deployment to iraq and the possibility he d have to face off against fellow muslims. the big question today for the military is who in his chain of command might have known about any of this and what, if anything, did they do about it, meredith. let me ask general mccaffrey, based on what we are learning about this man, should he have been on the list to be deployed? well, of course, you know, meredith, the military are going to be very circumspect about the entire matter. they ve got to get an fbi and cid criminal case built against him. so, most of what we re going to hear will be indirect. at face value, it looks as if this was a political act by a disaffected officer with years of signals that something was going wrong. so, it s shocking, it s heartbreaking. i mean, there s hundreds of thousands of military families or relatives and friends now who are in mourning or worried about their young people. this is a real tragedy. but there are thousands of young people who are sent overseas and put in harm s way. what kind of attention is being paid to them in terms of their mental health, general? well, of course, we ve got to remind ourselves, these young people in the armed forces are without question the toughest, most competent, well-trained people we ever had in uniform. 43,000 have been killed and wounded. their leadership is superb. many of them are on their third or fourth combat deployments. as a general statement, they re the best young people in the country. now, a bunch of them, as many as 20% coming home, have challenges trying to process seeing their buddies killed and wounded, but i think there s a huge effort as a general sense to keep a disciplined, effective fighting force. and certainly, you re seeing that with this brilliant, young general, bob cone, and the way they handle this terrifying incident right in the heart of one of the safest places in the country, which is a u.s. army installation. there were also reports, general, that hasan had told family members that he had been harassed by members of the military because of his muslim faith. is that common? well, of course, again, factually, it s hard to know what s going on, but the quick answer is, of course not, you know? the army s one of the most diverse institutions in the country. when you look around, you see men and women of all faiths and colors and command positions. so, i imagine what we re also seeing, though, is a period of a consistent level of behavior in which he was becoming alienated from the purposes of the u.s. armed forces. that s the story, in my mind. why didn t we pick up on this guy? why were we investing in his education if he was giving off signals he wasn t prepared to defend the constitution of the united states? and finally, very quickly, finally, the two weapons he had were not military-issued. how did he get them on the base, to begin with, and what precautions is the military taking going forward around the globe? well, you know, as a member of the military, he would have had the proper identification and passes to get on the base without having his vehicles inspected by military or civilian police. so, that would have been easy enough. and to the point you were asking general mccaffrey about just a moment ago, meredith while, you know, there are systems in place for the military to sort of check and weed out those problem soldiers before they get into the battlefield, at the same time and i think general mccaffrey would agree there is tremendous pressure on these military commanders to keep as many soldiers in their unit as possible to go face the wars in iraq and afghanistan. all right, mik, general mccaffrey, thank you both. it is 7:14. for more, here s matt. meredith, thank you. ft. hood is the army s largest u.s. post with about 40,000 troops stationed there. it s also a very close-knit community. nbc s janet shamlian has more on the mood on the base this morning. janet, good morning to you. reporter: matt, good morning. it s a very somber morning here. you know, ft. hood families prepare for the possible loss of human life overseas, but a deadly rampage here on base in their community was just beyond comprehension yesterday. in the minutes and the hours after that attack, an unusual dynamic took place soldiers in iraq and afghanistan calling, texting, e-mailing back here to texas to make sure their loved ones here were safe. in the moments after the attack, there was utter disbelief. why did they do this? i mean, i mean, they re supposed to be soldiers like brothers. there s a bond. reporter: as it all unfolded there comes one. there comes another ambulance. reporter: family members were desperate to make contact, not knowing were their loved ones safe. i was scared. i was shaking. i was nervous. i was panicking. i called him and called him. at first, he did not call, and he finally called me back and told me that he was on lockdown. reporter: word of the shooting spread quickly across the globe. cynthia wood got text messages from her husband, who is stationed in iraq. he wanted to know if their 2-year-old was in daycare on the base was safe. when i was first driving here, i was pretty hysterical. i was in tears, and that s about the time that my husband was texting me, trying to get information. reporter: no one at the daycare was hurt, but many parents weren t able to check on their children for hours. my son, he s 5, and he s still on the base as of right now. reporter: amber barr was among those who was shot. she placed a heartbreaking call to her mom in wisconsin to say she was hurt but alive. i asked what happened and she said, mom, i can t tell you. i knew she was in a lot of pain and crying her eyes out. reporter: as the tragic news unfolded, families with ties to ft. hood shared thoughts online with messages like this we shouldn t have to worry about our husbands when they are home at ft. hood! it s hard enough during deployment. and from twitter three gunmen, one is dead, where is my husband? 31 injured! ft. hood is five minutes from me. i m so scared. ft. hood may be one of the world s biggest bases, but anyone here will tell you, it s always felt like family. you just don t think that these things are even possible, you know? we walk around with a blanket of security knowing that your soldiers are out there fighting for our country, and then something like this happens. it s just, it s ridiculous. reporter: with dozens of shooting victims, a call for blood donors last night reminded everyone just how close this community is. the hospital was overwhelmed with people wanting to help. the hospital was so overwhelmed last night, they had to send people home. they simply didn t have the staff to take those blood donations, but they ve said they will start accepting them again this morning. it s a day of mourning here in ft. hood. in fact, matt, they ll be mourning here for some time to come. matt, back to you. all right. janet shamlian in ft. hood as well this morning. it s an insult. exactly. it s an insult to these men and women in our military who put their lives on the line elsewhere that they should have to worry about their lives on a military base. and as she pointed out, some people were coming back from war zones to be in that room and gunned down by one of their own. the psychological impact of that for those who survived. who knows how severe that will be. as we start to look at this and journalists start to look, they ll find all these red flags and wonder why no one put them all together well, we re already seeing some of them, but exactly. let s go to the news desk. ann is standing by with the other headlines of the morning. matt and meredith, good morning. beyond the tragedy that we heard about yesterday, there is some other news to get to this morning, including president obama, who is now focusing on his hard sell for health care legislation ahead of a planned vote in the house tomorrow. nbc s white house correspondent savannah guthrie has more on this. and savannah, he also has an important unemployment benefits bill to take care of today. reporter: that s right. the president s going to sign a bill that will extend unemployment benefits for those who have exhausted theirs and also extend that home buyers tax credit. and then as you mentioned, it s health care. the house is expected to pass a bill tomorrow, a milestone, but the vote s going to be tight. the president expected to travel to capitol hill for some last-minute lobbying. on thursday, thousands of demonstrators came to capitol hill to protest health care. this was an event organized by congresswoman michele bachmann. she urged people to go door to door and lobby their members of congress personally and they did. and on thursday, the president surprised reporters in the briefing room to tout two key endorsements, one from the seniors group aarp, the other from the american medical association. and finally today, ann, the president plans to go to walter reed army medical center and visit with wounded troops, a visit that was actually scheduled before the tragedy at ft. hood. ann? all right, savannah guthrie, thank you for your reporting this morning. the u.n. s nuclear agency s investigating evidence that iranian scientists have tested an advanced nuclear warhead design known as a two-point implosion device. that is according to reporting in britain s guardian newspaper, which says that this technology makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile. the man who was once picked to be the nation s homeland security secretary is now facing more than two years in prison. former new york city police commissioner bernard kerik tearfully pleaded guilty on thursday to eight felonies, including lying to the white house and tax fraud. the mother and babysitter of a 7-month-old baby who was missing for five days before being discovered in a box under a bed have been charged with several felonies, including desertion of a child. at a press conference on thursday, the sheriff held the infant girl, who is in good health and is now in protective custody, but the sheriff did not say what led the mother to give the child to the babysitter. and take a close look at this robbery suspect, a very close look. this man is accused of robbing a bank in maine earlier this week. he briefly got away with a stack of money but was caught by police, and yes, it is uncanny, but he looks a little like a certain anchor we all know, who dresses actually just like that. yeah. he s got those sunglasses. you know, i ve got three kids to feed, okay? so, where were you? wow. i have to say oh, my gosh. that s bizarre. and the getaway car was driven by a katie couric look-alike. great. and the similarity wins by a nose. oh! ouch. that was uncalled for. that juwas uncalled for. that was they say everybody has a twin somewhere. mine is an evil twin. felon. actually, that s the good twin. [ laughter ] let s get a check of the morning s weather from mr. roker. all righty. let s see what s going on. pacific northwest. this is a powerful storm. we re talking waves 25 to 28 feet along the washington/oregon coastline. 130-mile-per-hour jet stream drive in this thing. it is going to be a mess. we re talking about snow levels dropping to 2,500 feet. we re also looking at anywhere from one to three inches of rain. rest of the country, it is going to be a fairly quiet friday. the winds are going to pick up a little bit this afternoon. it will be breezy and cool. high temperatures and the the upper 40 s and and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. and still ahead, much more on thursday s shooting rampage at ft. hood and the army psychiatrist accused of ambushing his fellow soldiers. bu ( piano music playing ) by putting an end to paper medical records, we have ushered health into the digital age. saving lives, sometimes when seconds count. managing chronic conditions. making amazing new discoveries. and, oh yes, saving a lot of trees. kaiser permanente. thrive. still ahead, al, ann and i get punk d, and matt goes right along with it. hi, nice to meet you. anna, right? matt and paul. al. huh? al. al. how s it going? the photo shoot that went very wrong as the cameras rolled. roberto, what should we be thinking of? wait until you see this. live, local, latebreaking. the this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. time to get a check on the morning commute with kim dacey in for sarah caldwell. we have a couple of problems to talk about on the roadways. in pasadena, at accident at edwin raynor boulevard. it is being diverted onto 100. accident at folly quarter road, closed in both directions. westbound 100 at waterloo road. southbound harrisburg expressway approaching padonia road, were part of a disabled vehicle there. outer loop here is all jammed up all the way from 705 to edmondson ave. you will see delays so then add a little extra time if you re having that with this morning. weather will be fairly quiet this friday. nice weather on top as we head into the weekend as walt as well. 42 degrees in stevensville. most of you have dropped into the 30 s early this friday morning. we will see a little bit of cloud cover from time to time. the significant thing and the forecast is the winds on this friday. there will kick up to 20 or 25 miles per hour this afternoon. it will feel like it is in the 40 s for most of the day today. tonight, the growing season will come to an end for most of you. the winds will die down and the temperatures will drop into the upper 20s and the 30 s but early saturday morning. it will stay in the mid-to- upper-thirties in the city. on the weekend, we will lose the wind and keep the sunshine. 70 on monday of next week. the next chance for a will come late tuesday. but then, i temperatures will be close to 60. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic informati how long is she going to be living here? (mom) give her one of these. (announcer) cheerios, with one single gram of sugar. ahh. hey. (announcer) .makes for a perfect beginning. maybe we ll keep her. (cheerios spilling) (announcer) how can something so little. .help do something í 7:30 now on this friday morning, november 6th, 2009, a day of mourning at ft. hood following thursday s tragic shooting spree. 13 now dead, 30 others wounded. i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. and just ahead, much more on that shooting and the suspected gunman, an army psychiatrist. major nidal malik hasan had apparently been on the fbi s radar for some time. we re going to go back live to lester holt, who is at ft. hood. we ll get the latest in just a couple of minutes. also ahead, on thursday we told you about certain wall street firms which have received more doses of the swine flu vaccine than some hospitals here in new york. well, our report has led to a new order from the cdc that impacts health departments in all 50 states. we re going to tell you about that as well. also ahead, remember the set of triplets we met back in may? the 22-year-olds were badly burned as toddlers in a house fire. they spent the next two decades trying to hide their painful scars. when they were last here, they were just starting a cutting-edge treatment to erase them. a little later today, they re going to join us here in the studio to show us the results. but let us begin with that deadly massacre at ft. hood in texas. nbc s lester holt is there. lester, good morning, again. reporter: matt, good morning to you. here s the local paper massacre on post. they don t have to say what post. everyone here knows it s ft. hood. everyone here either works here or knows someone who works at this post. there is huge shock here. we learned overnight of the 13th death. we also learned that the accused shooter, nadidal malik hasan survived. he was shot by a female security guard, but he is alive and apparently in stable condition this morning. fbi now involved in the case, trying to find out exactly what was ticking inside his head. we ve learned he was trying to get out of the service, and there have also been some internet postings listed under his name that talk about sympathies with suicide bombers. his family says he had been suffering some harassment as a muslim soldier, and that was one of the reasons he wanted to get out of the military. he was apparently about to be shipped out to the war zone. i m joined now by colonel jack jacobs, retired u.s. army colonel, medal of honor recipient and a professor at the military academy. jack, let me first talk to you about this question of whether he might have been harassed. he was a major in the u.s. army. does that color this at all, in your view? no. i don t think it makes any sense. majors do not get harassed except maybe occasionally by general officers, but that doesn t make any sense. that report doesn t make any sense. and i doubt seriously if it was true. harassment is invariably immediately reported through the chain of command. no, i think that that s nonsense. reporter: if you have a major who, a, doesn t want to go to the war zone, wants to get out of the military, is suspected of putting postings online sympathizing with suicide bombers, why would that person still be in line to ship out? that escapes me as well. as i understand it, the feds had already targeted him because of suspected postings about sympathies. he s also apparently said in public things that would automatically flag him and prevent him from being processed for overseas movement. i m astounded that the feds, who keep a very close eye on it, have not only spoken to and started an investigation with the military establishment, who also keep a very close eye on this. i think there are going to be a lot of explaining to do in this case. reporter: as a retired officer, how do you deal with this as a commander? right now, this is being portrayed as an isolated incident, one man. but you know what s going to be happening in barracks around the country, the discussions. how do you deal with that as a commander? well, when anything like this happens, it takes leadership in order to make sure that everything stays in an even keel. that means the entire chain of command, from the commander all the way down to the lowest ranking noncommissioned officer spends as much time in the barracks as he possibly can. there are sessions with advisers, with groups of units, with individual soldiers, and almost invariably, anything, any negative fallout from this kind of thing is always nipped in the butt. like most things, it takes leadership. colonel jack jacobs, thank you for your insight. again, as we said, the fbi is here on the post right now. they will continue to question people. some great stories coming out of this, though in terms of heroism. soldiers, some of them wounded themselves, helping other soldiers, giving first aid at the scene. we ll be hearing more of those stories throughout the day, matt. lester, thank you very much. colonel jacobs, thank you as well. let us get a check of the weather now from al. all right, thanks a lot, matt. as we take a look to see what s going on as far as your weekend is concerned, we are expecting sunshine up and down the eastern seaboard, some showers around the central great lakes, wet weather, stormy weather in the pacific northwest, coastal flooding along the gulf coast. for sunday, we re expecting more sunshine along the eastern seaboard, mild conditions it is going to be quiet close to the work week today. a little bit breezy. high temperatures can please degrees below normal. mid-to-upper 50s at the beaches. that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. and now to growing outrage over the distribution of the swine flu vaccine following our report that some top firms on wall street received more doses than many hospitals. the cdc is now demanding all states conduct an immediate review of their distribution plans. cnbc s trish regan has the very latest. trish, good morning. reporter: good morning, meredith. the criticism has been mounting since we first broke this story. the question is, what is wrong with the distribution channel that provides vaccine to employers like goldman sachs and citigroup before making sure that every hospital and doctor has enough for their high-risk patients? with thousands of pregnant women and children waiting in long lines across the country for their chance to try to get a vaccine for the potentially deadly swine flu, new questions are surfacing about how the hard-to-come-by vaccines are being distributed. as today first reported thursday, in new york city, many of the scarce vaccines have wound up on wall street, and at firms like goldman sachs and citigroup, while doctors and hospitals in new york still scramble, trying to locate vaccines for high-risk patients. there are people that are in need that are at higher risk that should be getting the vaccine. reporter: the outrage even reached the white house, with the federal government now looking for answers. that has led our director of the cdc to call state and local officials and remind them that there s a priority list. reporter: the cdc sent out a nationwide letter, demanding that all states review their plans immediately and work to ensure that the maximum number of doses is delivered to those at greatest risk as rapidly as possible. though the cdc is responsible for allocating vaccines to state and city health departments, it s the individual states that decide where the vaccines end up. an update reporter: new york city health commissioner thomas farley defends his department s distribution system, pointing out that employee health clinics, even those at the unpopular bailed-out investment banks, can play a significant role in vaccinating individuals. what the company does for a living does not figure into our allocation vaccine. they still have employees who are at high risk people with diabetes, heart disease, pregnant women. reporter: still, critics argue, the health department is probably more likely to find people at high risk at hospitals and in doctors offices than on the floor of the new york stock exchange, another recipient. and they are questioning the government s ability to fairly distribute the scarce vaccines. it s unlikely that a large number of high-risk individuals pregnant women, young children, health care workers and first responders are on wall street. now, the financial firms that have received the vaccinations have pointed out that they applied just like everyone else for them, but morgan stanley told me after seeing our report, they decided to donate all of the 1,000 doses they received to area hospitals. so, a generous move there, meredith. very generous and smart as well. trish regan, thank you very much. up next, today gets punk d. the unusual and hilarious photo shoot matt, ann, al and i were involved in. back now at 7:41 with the grand finale of our special series today gets a laugh. all week we turned the cameras on you, playing practical jokes on unsuspecting passers-by. today it was my turn, and i thought it was only fair to give my colleagues a taste of their own medicine. we spent months planning the perfect prank, a photo shoot gone insanely wrong. my fellow hosts believe they ll be featured on the cover of tv guide magazine for a story about great television casts. this could blow up in an ugly way. we hire actors to play the photographer, his assistant and tv guide s photo director. their mission? create the most bizarre and uncomfortable photo shoot our team has ever experienced. meanwhile, our surveillance crews rig a studio with dozens of hidden cameras, microphones yeah, that s good. and a secret control room to capture it all. my friend and colleague brian williams acts as my eyes and ears, coordinating the chaos behind the scenes and helping to move things along. all right, it s game time. hello. hi. i m roslyn, nice to meet you. you re the talent. yes. hi. meredith. roberto. nice to meet you. anna, right? ann. matt and paul. al. huh? al. al. okay. al is not happy. how s it going? roberto, what should we be thinking of? what is the idea here? i ve been told it s a variety show, right, what you do? variety show so, they re like the dancers? no, these two i mean, you have the body of a dancer. they re looking at me like they wanted to kill me. i thought it was a compliment. those two are the clowns. those are definitely the clowns. energy, huh? energy, energy. where do you want us? what order do you want us in? let s see it, guys. oh, beautiful smile. you guys have beautiful smiles. i can t believe you re just on a news program. just a news program? the first thing you re going to do, i believe you guys are above the good and the bad, so, pretend you re walking on water, okay? so, how would you walk on water? just give it to me. whoa. the guys are falling off. record them. yeah, yeah. oh, my god. oh, my god! yes, yes! beautiful. you re swimming, swimming, swimming. they re swimming? i think you guys you could drown if you fall in water. so, we have another idea. yeah? to work with the logo, the colors. and we want to put you guys in each one of the colors of the rainbow. look at you, ann. oh, al. he s a peach. orange you glad you came? do you put this here? yes. why, what for? the bickering between the photographer and the assistant all part of our master plan. tell you, we use the props. okay. what? whoops, sorry. what s wrong? nothing. i don t know. you don t feel like you re getting upset. it s just my face. all right. so, let s try to represent the rainbow. mary, you go like this. yeah, as low as you can. no, i wouldn t jump on his back. can i give her a box? all right. oh! [ laughter ] you re interrupting to critique, what is this? here we go! nice. i m pretty sure you re going to have babies this way. matt is the boss, right? you re the boss? no. not the boss, no. we re all, this is an ensemble. paul is the boss. no? al. al. al, like alberto. al, not hal, al. pretend you re racing and one of you s winning. okay, one, two. okay, let s do that again. i don t see it. i don t see it. one, two, go. nice. okay. let s move it along. but just when they think things couldn t get any worse, they do. we wanted to make the uncomfortable the outrageous. my accomplices wheel out a rack of hideous costumes. we have a couple different things. so, we have these sort of warrior gladiators for the morning show warriors. you guys are number one in the ratings, you have been. so, this is the barber shop quartet. and this last one here, and these are really stunning and beautiful, is morning show royalty. say we re going to leave you alone to decide. you guys discuss. we ll start with one and we ll see what we have time for. i fully expected meredith, al and ann to flee or refuse. i think the only two that are the quartet and the gladiator at a stretch. but much to my surprise, ten minutes later, they were gladiators. the conqueror what the hell, if you re going to go for it, might as well go down in flames. this could be really cute. it could be the end of our careers. let s do this. all right, the first look we re going to do is you actually fighting each other, because you re on the show we re the team. huh? we re the team. yeah, like fight. get physical. we re not fighters what s that? not fighters? we re lovers. we cannot fight. we can t fight each other. we re like this to you, hold this to you. i want something like this. grrr! yes. that s it. i don t like it. okay, give that that for real. now we have it. come on. come on, be physical! there you are. there you are. yeah, on the ribs. participate in the team. fight. yes! you see? you guys fight. you want to give me the reading? no, it didn t work. what do you have to do? what is your problem? she doesn t have a problem. look, this girl, she talks like crazy. before you guys came here, she was driving my head like no, no. we like her. leave the set. no, i want her to leave the set. i m going to leave because i m professional thank you. thank you so much. thank you. all of you like trying to give me a hard time. she was giving me a hard time. you know what, you have the pictures here, i m going home. use them. whatever, you know? you have gooder stuff over there. so use whatever you can. i am out of here. what a waste. mamma mia. we re done. we re done. call it a day. he s crazy, let s not do this. oh! whoa! how long are you guys going to be? my shoot starts next. oh, my god! what are you doing here? i m afraid you ve all been punk d. that guy was a fake? and it wasn t me. really? that camera? where is he? oh, my god! oh, my god! i could have killed you! oh, my god. the whole thing. oh, my god! it gets worse. it gets worse. one person among you, one of the four knew? matt lauer knew! matt lauer knew. it was matt. i told you! it took you long enough to get in here. did you know? you knew! you try walking in this thing. very nice. well done, roberto. [ laughter ] oh, no. we did look good, though. yeah. you know what the saddest thing to me? we actually believed we were going to be the cover of tv guide. that is so i mean, what were we thinking? on any other day, i was positive you would refuse to get in any of those costumes. that s how gullible we are. and we re team players. that s right. we showed that we really love each other and we act as a team. that s right. that s going to change, however. that s all over now. it s over. thanks to brian williams and tv guide, who worked so hard to create an unbelievable photo shoot. you can read about it we re not on the cover! when the behind-the-scenes story hits news sustained next week. oh, dear. i don t want to read that. coming up, more of today gets a laugh. kathie lee and hoda are going to take over a diner. wait until you see what they do. still ahead, an update on those triplets undergoing a treatment to erase 20-year-old burn stars. plus, the gang from sesame street celebrates 40 years. live, local, latebreaking. this wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. b1 start with the weekend forecast. the only thing we can talk about is the breeze that will pick up later this morning and into the afternoon. right now the wind is not too bad. 35 in randallstown. 37 in edgewood. upper 30s in rock hall. buses and the skies expected during the day today. a little bit of a breeze in the northwest. because of the breeze, it will feel cooler than that. the temperatures will drop into the upper 20s and low 30 s tonight. we will get a nice warm up over the weekend. keep the sunshine and lose the wind. 58 on saturday, 65 on sunday. 70 degrees on monday of next week. the next chance for rain will hold off until tuesday into wednesday. let us go over the kim dacey and see if there is good news. a big problem in middle river. two accidents in the same spot. one involves a bus with school children on board. be aware that there is a big situation over there. disabled vehicle sat out on the harrisburg expressway approaching padonia road. edwin raynor boulevard at 100, right lane of the southbound then ran a whole lot onto 100. an area to avoid their. but the supply at 70 on the west side shows the the outer loop is crawling there. we have 11 minutes and there. beltway at harford road on the north side, out of harford road to charles st.. that situation there. you should check the bottom of your screen for updated is and traffic information with more on the school bus a 8:00 now on a friday morning, 6th day of november, 2009. cold but sunny morning here in new york. perfect weather for a parade, as this city gets to celebrate the yankees 27th world championship from the canyon of heroes downtown. i m matt lauer with meredith vieira and al roker. just ahead, new hope for old scars. for the past few months, we ve been following the story of triplets burned in a house fire when they were only toddlers. the scars very difficult to carry. so, they ve been undergoing a new treatment to erase them. and coming up, they ll show off their new results. also ahead, 40 years of sesame street, and elmo and the gang are here to help us celebrate. oh, there they are. they don t look a day over 3 1/2. plus, four secrets to a great marriage. first, let s check the morning s top stories, and for that, we head over to the news desk and say good morning again to ann. and good morning to all of you and to you this morning. investigators are now gathering evidence to understand what sparked the shooting rampage at ft. hood, the nation s largest military post on thursday. the toll has now risen to at least 13 people killed, including a civilian and 30 others wounded. the alleged shooter, an army psychiatrist, is alive and in stable condition. nbc s lester holt joins us now once again from ft. hood, texas. lester, good morning. reporter: ann, good morning. the military has confirmed that nidal malik hasan, that major, had received the deployment orders to go to afghanistan. there had been reports that he had been trying to get out of the military. he was, apparently, wearing a uniform when the shooting rampage happened yesterday, in a place in which soldiers returning from war are processed and treated, in some cases. we re now told of the 13 dead, 1 is a civilian. 28 others this morning are still hospitalized with various injuries, all said to be in stable condition, ann. all right. lester holt, thank you so much for your reporting on this very sad story. in other news this morning, house democratic leaders are fine-tuning the health care bill ahead of a crucial vote tomorrow. on thursday, thousands of people joined republican leaders at a washington rally to voice their opposition to the bill. a conviction in the first trial stemming from a raid on a polygamist ranch. raymond jessop was convicted for sexual assaulting a minor and faces up to 20 years in prison. and youtube perfo you u2 a concert to commemorate the berlin wall. many people s view were blocked by a wall of a different sort, a security barrier around the concert site. still, the music was described as fantastic. it is now 8:02. let s go back to al. thanks a lot, ann. got a lot of folks here from iowa. go hawkeyes! go hawkeyes! yeah, very nice. your birthday. you re 16 today. what s your name? hannah. happy birthday to you. thank you. let s check your weather and see what s happening. they re standing by me because they know all about corn in iowa. huntington, west virginia, wsa zee newschannel 3. sunny and cool, 57. we have the jet stream bringing the track across the pacific northwest, bows up to the north and brings in the record highs. into the weekend it kind of flattens out. rain down through it is going to be a fairly quiet friday. the winds are going to pick up a little bit this afternoon. it will be breezy and cool. high temperatures and the the upper 40 s and th and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you very much. and up next, a set of triplets badly burned as toddlers. an update on their recovery, right after this. 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yes. yes. and chandra? definitely the same for me. my skin is a lot smoother and great texture. reporter: better texture, smoother skin and high hopes for greater improvement. the triplets have had two more procedures since we last saw them in may. let s take one more look at them before this all started. and here they are, jordan, trae and chandra berns. dr. jill wible performed the treatments. dr. nancy snyderman, our chief medical editor. ladies this is the longest couch ever welcome to all of you. thumbs up, thumbs down? definitely thumbs up. chandra, you had the most severe burns. yeah. talk about the results. over the last few months since we were on the today show last, it s pretty much a gradual improvement. you know, our skin has gotten a lot smoother, the texture is a lot smoother, the color i can remember from the last time i saw you, there was more elevation yeah. it seemed here on this particular arm. and that is much smoother now. yeah. it s definitely a lot smoother, mm-hmm. and we talked about three things. we talked about aesthetics last time. we talked about mobility, too, because scar tissue can limit mobility. what s been the results there? definitely, scar tissue can limit mobility, and i think for a lot of people, the ultrapulse laser will help with their mobility. it did for me right here. it s helped a lot. that joint in particular was a difficulty for you, your elbow joint on your left arm. what about self-esteem? i mean, we talked before about, you know, the summer months came and a lot of the young ladies that you knew were wearing short sleeve or tank tops and you didn t want to do that. so, talk to me a little bit about that. well, i think any burn survivor is a little self-conscious about their burns just like we were, and from this laser treatment and sharing our story, we have really gained a lot more confidence than we had before. so, just by talking about it and coming on a show like this and saying, the heck with it, you know, let s take the secret part of it out of it and talk about it, that helped in addition to the laser? definitely, yeah. dr. weibel, are these results typical, what we re seeing here? yes, these are typical. we ve treated hundreds of burn patients and we re seeing great results. not only burn scars, but acne scars, surgical scars and traumatic scars, and the laser was brought to market for wrinkles, so it does a great job. for burn patients, great improvement and we re still studying it and learning more. let s talk about the procedure. you re very honest. you say, first of all, it hurts a little. but you re given some topical anesthesia, is that correct? yes. and it does hurt during it. immediately following the treatment, what s the skin look like? right after the treatment, it maybe for a couple hours it s a little sore. it looks like you got a bad sun burn. and then over the next couple days, it will, you know, heal, and then after about a week or two, you ll start peeling and then so, the dead skin peels away. yes. and that s when the new growth of the healthy collagen can take place? yeah. it takes months. it can even take up to a year, but we re removing scar and then healthy skin is coming in. dr. snyderman, what do you think about this? i mean, is this the wave of the future? i think increasingly, lasers are going to change how we treat all kinds of things. so, while it went from wrinkles and acne and now we re talking about real medicinal reasons for, at least the skin, these lasers are out there, 70,000 worldwide jill told me. so, this is another application. the real cool thing is going to be, how do you stimulate that deep, deep, deep layer of the skin where the stem cells are, where the collagen is, and sort of get the old scar off. and that s where the real science is going to be, whether you interject stem cells or whether you stimulate the patient s own. but i mean, look at the proof. these guys are living proof of the fact that this works. what about expectations here? i mean, the fact is, you re never going to have skin that bears no scar, correct? so, how many more treatments do you want to go? what level of change are you looking for? well, i think that s really up to dr. weibel, but we re thinking probably at least probably a couple more treatments. every person is different. every scar is different, so you know, the number of treatments ranges from every person. and there is a nuance in that, matt. as a physician, you have to say good is not necessarily perfect. right. so, this is really good. are you guys comfortable? and then that s that doctor-patient conversation. and i think with the luminous ultrapulse, typically, it s four to six laser treatments. but i agree, when i m happy, when they re happy, both, but every time you treat, you get improvement, and with the technology improvements we see, we re doing a lot better. typically, cost in this case? $500 to a couple thousand depending on body area, but a fraction of the surgery costs. and better than surgery. we agree. you look great. thank you. thank you. it s nice to have you back. thank you. good to have you. doctors, thank you very much. thank you. by the way, you can watch the berns sisters video diaries at todayshow.com. up next, sesame street turning 40 and elmo and friends are ready to celebrate in our studio right after this. sunny days, sweeping the clouds away mm-mmm. new ship smell! 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(guitar music) for 40 years, sesame street has entertained and educated children around the world, and i recently found my way to sesame street to find out what makes it so special. sunny day, sweeping the clouds away reporter: when it premiered in 1969, it was a revolutionary way to learn. can you tell me how to get, how to get to sesame street reporter: 40 years later, sesame street is still welcoming the world. hi, leila leila s taking elmo to play chess! have fun. reporter: the street has come together to celebrate the happy times. friends, we d like you to meet our little baby. reporter: and cope with the sad times. big bird, when people die, they don t come back. ever? big bird? reporter: sesame street was the idea of joan gants cooney. it combined warm and fuzzy characters created by jim henson. in 1969, nobody thought sesame street would be a success. they didn t have a clubhouse. it wasn t ooky-gooky sweet. everyone thought it s a 13-week job, you know, it s pbs. we have so many friends here and we have a really good time and we learn how to cooperate. do you like to cooperate? um are you good at it? well, do you see you re hesitating. do you know the people i work with? maybe you don t like to cooperate. reporter: it s taught three generations of children not only the basics of learning, but also about empathy, tolerance and inclusiveness. diversity and inclusion were a big part of what the 60s were about. it s not like we re consciously or obviously preaching diversity. it just happens to be that we include everyone on the show. everyone is a part of the neighborhood. i m going to be wandering around sesame street. what are the most important things i should look for? well, if you re wandering around, you should look for the signs, okay, so you do not get lost. don t want you to get lost, meredith. reporter: humans may live on sesame street, but it s the furry monsters who are cultural icons. we don t create characters to play down the children. elmo has a young voice, but i don t think of him as a 3 1/2-year-old. i think of him in certain ways as a comedian. this is a song about elmo, who likes to play and yelmo yelmo! [ laughter ] elmo likes to learn spanish, too. can you say anything in spanish? yes. what s that? come close to elmo. see, it means kiss! oh. [ laughter ] reporter: the educational focus changes every season. this year, young viewers learn all about nature. oh, oh, oh, wow! jessica! reporter: a-list celebrities often stop by. even the first lady finds time for a visit. are you part bird? no, big bird, i m not. sesame street has lasted 40 years because? because of humanity. this is my tab hat, this street is my home reporter: while much has changed in 40 years, the people and creatures on sesame street endure, as teachers and friends who encourage children to think, dream and discover. sesame street is my home and sesame street is produced by the non-profit sesame workshop, and the photos we just saw are from the new book a celebration: 40 years of life on the street, and that includes a dvd of the very first episode. and here to help us celebrate are elmo, cookie monster and abby cadabby! yay! hey, folks. happy anniversary. congratulations! elmo big 40. yeah, you are. yeah. elmo, i ve got to tell you, when you kissed me on that tape, ann gave me kind of a look, you know? yeah. well, it wasn t a bad look. i know you re an equal opportunity kisser. elmo is. yeah, i know. that s good. we ll kiss later. are you excited, cookie monster, about learning about nature this year? oh, yeah. me love learning about nature, yeah. yeah? yeah. me love to walk around in me backyard and, you know, find interesting things to eat? of course, to eat, yeah. [ laughter ] i didn t want to say that, but abby, how is fairy school going? oh, boy. i m telling you, i am learning so much, mostly how to take care of our gerbil corn. yeah, we have a class pet. oh. it s very exciting. that is very exciting. terrific. meantime, you had the first lady visit and you had meredith visit. how was meredith? meredith is sweet. we had a little talk on the steps. you did. yeah, yeah. well, you were trying to get me, as we saw, to cooperate more with my co-host. i have a little trouble with that. zoe was. i have a little bit of an attitude. you helped her, that s good. you helped us all to cooperate. elmo, what s the matter? elmo loves this 40. you love the 40? you like the big 40 can t believe we can count this high, yeah. can you believe that sesame street has been around, elmo, for 40 years? isn t that really cool? i mean, elmo it s very cool. elmo s mommy and daddy came in 3 1/2 years ago you don t want to eat that. what are you trying to do, cookie? it looked delicious. cookie monster, you re supposed to be eaty healthy, but we actually have something for you guys. we thought we smelled something delicious. how about this, cookie monster? sesame street turns 40. now, this 40 you could eat. yes. if you wanted to. that s cool. me could go for cake, yeah. that s so cool. thank you! we re going to cut this up in a second. what do you guys have planned for the next 40 years? um well, we hope that we get to sing and dance and love each other as much as we ve been loving each other for 40 years. oh, we hope so, too. can i come back and bring my friends, elmo? oh, yeah, you can bring everybody. all right. thank you guys. cookie monster, elmo, abby cadab cadabby, thank you so much. congratulations. 40th season begins next tuesday on november 10th on pbs, stations everywhere. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. let s get a final check on the morning commute with kim dacey. the biggest thing we have going on now is in middle river, two accidents in the same spot. one involves a school bus, with kids on board. the aware of that. possible lane blockages there. also an accident in pasadena. edwin raynor boulevard is being diverted onto 100. you have to stay left to avoid that. you might just want to avoid the area because of that. this involves a medevac helicopter coming in because an overturned suv. and for me, accident there. fort meade, an accident there. this is from 705 to edmondson ave. a live look at the beltway at harford road shows the delays just a bit, tap the books at par 4. good morning, everyone. things are quiet in the weather department. a couple of clouds are drifting by from time to time. temperatures are in the upper 40 s right now. 42 degrees downtown at the maryland science center. the forecast for days mostly sunny. breezy, cool, i temperatures and in the upper 40 s and 50 s. the winds will diminish tonight and will be cold. over the weekend, we are looking good. we ll keep the sunshine and lose the wind. 65 on sunday. we will have another update i like this one. [ drill whirring ] thank you. excuse me, sir! can you tell me which coffee tastes better? a, definitely. this one. thank you. in a national taste test, more hard-working americans preferred the taste of dunkin donuts over starbucks. try the coffee that won. excuse me, sir! thank you. try any of our authentic hot lattes, including our pumpkin latte, for just 99 cents. 8:30 now on this friday morning, the 6th of november, 2009. it s a somewhat chilly morning here in new york. we owe all these fine folks a special thanks for stopping by to say hello. we are going to actually, we ve moved across the street. those folks are on the plaza. we re across the street, because behind the curtain here is the world s largest something. something. we ll have a big reveal in just a moment. hmm. also ahead, here today, possibly gone tomorrow. jeff corwin is with us this morning. he s bringing along two animals that are on the verge of extinction. we re going to try and find out more about that and what we can do to prevent that from happening. also coming up, you know, a lot of people have a lot of questions about stress these days. it s a big issue for a lot of people. we ve got your questions to answer this morning in a special segment coming up with dr. nancy snyderman. and we ll explain why the two toms, hanks and brokaw, are hanging out in the big easy this morning. okay. first, we ll bring in oscar and tony-winning actress marcia gay harden to help us explain what s behind that curtain. good morning. good morning. how are you? it is actually well, why don t you tell us what it is? behind this curtain, as you will see in a few minutes, is the world s largest children s book, and it was inspired by a bunch of kids who took a cruise on carnival s spring cruise, and they, they talk about their dreams. and so, carnival is launching a wonderful new ship called carnival dreams. and they re working in tandem with st. jude and helping kids earn money for cancer there. and so, we re going to unveil this book and i m going to be reading this book of dreams to children sitting out here today. and then next week i get to christen the ship. and we ve already got to thumb through the book this morning and it s fantastic. beautiful. and the illustrations are great. before we unveil it, can i just say, i came to see you in god of carnage recently, and congratulations on winning the tony award. thank you. it s a fantastic show, and i know you re almost near the end of your run. we have one week left. oh, my gosh. i know. it s so much fun. i have a sadness about it, certainly. we had such a great run. i love the cast, jeff daniels, hope davis, james gandolfini. i love them so much, but it s time to go home and do homework. that s the reality. the thing about you is i have never seen you in anything i didn t think you were fabulous in. thank you. really. never. and i have to say, you looked great in your gladiator suits earlier today. thanks a lot. you know what it s time to do? it s time to read a book, or at least reveal a book. okay. i m going to blow the horn and that will apparently send the curtain down and we will see the world s largest children s book. watch your ears. wow! how beautiful is that? that is gorgeous! are you going to turn the pages? that s a big page-turner. they have the pages all around here for people to see and read, but it s a beautiful book. it s about kids losing their dreams and then finding them again. the name of the book again? it s called the dream plucker of parisport. marcia gay harden. it s little early for all those ps, but we can do that. that s right. be careful how you pronounce that. it s a nice holiday gift, too, holidays just around the corner. marcia gay harden, thank you very much. thank you. it s nice to see you all. okay. we ll have much more on this event on monday with a series of reports from our four today s ki it is going to be quiet close to the work week today. a little bit breezy. high temperatures can please degrees below normal. mid-to-upper 50s at the beaches. all right, that s your latest weather. and of course, it s friday. we didn t have a sunday night football game last week because of something called the world series, but we ve got it bigger, we ve got it badder, we ve got sunday night football night in america ! that s right, and we are taking on the big one. clear and cool. temperatures in the mid-50s on sunday night football night in america ! meredith. are you okay? i can t even get up. i know, it happens okay now? okay. lose your balance i know. [ horn ] oh, geez! okay, now. up next, two toms, hanks and ( sighs ) ( music throughout ) hey bets, can i borrow a quarter? sure, still not dry? i m trying to shrink them. i lost weight and now some clothes are too big. how did you do it? simple stuff. eating right and i switched to whole grain. whole grain. studies show that people who eat more whole grain tend to have a healthier body weight. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains. and 110 calories per lightly sweetened serving. more grains. less you. multigrain cheerios. veterans day is next wednesday, and this morning in new orleans, they re getting a head start honoring our nation s servicemen and women with the grand reopening of the national world war ii museum. nbc news special correspondent tom brokaw is there along with another good friend, actor tom hanks. guys, good morning to both of you. good morning, matt. well, there is a dazzling new addition to this museum in new orleans. we ll show you a little picture of that right now, but we re in the theater, tom and i are, where last night mr. hanks premiered beyond all boundaries, which is a smashing film on a large screen about what the world war ii experience was like. tom, i know you ve been working on this project for five years, but i dare say, i think even you were impressed by how well it turned out. well, i think it did. it fills up a room and it does it in more than three dimensions. i believe they call it a four-dimensional experience, but i actually think there s seven dimensions that are there s time and width and depth and well, let s just say four other dimensions that go along with it. i m not sure how it works, but it is an all-encompassing experience, and you can only see it it can t play on any other screen anywhere else in the world except here at the solomon theater in new orleans. among other things, when you re sitting in the theater and you see the bombing runs and the battle of the bulge, you feel the rumble, the bombs go off behind you in the theater, the light flashes. this goes on here. let me talk to you a moment about your own experience with this museum, and you ve been here from the beginning. you made a financial contribution. you came for the opening of it. playing captain miller in saving private ryan really changed your life in many ways, didn t it? well, steven ambrose, who s the grandfather, godfather, father of this museum was the main source of research and inspiration for an awful lot of what saving private ryan was. now, i was an actor and i m just looking for some brand of a hand hold, a clue, a crack into the a bridge between the screenplay and what we re going to have to do in the course of during the day. and deep inside the notes of citizen soldiers, i found just an antidote that steven ambrose had discovered and didn t put it in the big print of the book but put it back in the back. he said there was a captain that was part of the d-day experience who would read his letters from his wife once and then tear them up in tiny pieces and throw them away. and someone asked, well, why are you tearing up those letters? aren t they precious mementos from home? he says, it doesn t matter what i m carrying around with me, it matters what s inside my head. and that was the type of totally human, very idiosyncratic behavior that any actor would look for in order to bring to a job. and the fact that steven ambrose had done that work and presented it in such a tactile manner, it made a substantial impact on me. saving private ryan helped launch a whole new awareness in this country of world war ii. yes, it did. no question about it. it became it made a war industry all over again. well, but are there lessons still to be learned from world war ii, beyond just the emotional content of that experience? i would have to i think that what it is is it brings it it took it out of the mythic realm of something that happened long ago that is just about iconography and turned it into, again, just human behavior. world war ii was fought by 17-year-old kids, 22-year-old kids in the entire world, woke up every day with sort of a command of try to make the world a little bit better. we all have to make a contribution. and i think and it s not hard to make a direct parallel to who we are today. just 2009 is loaded with many of the same sort of institutionalized trouble and global conflicts that world war ii was. a different scale, a different pace, but it s still, if you are so inclined, desires attention to be paid by each and every one of us, and that, i believe, is sort of an emotional connection that certainly beyond all boundaries in the national world war ii museum has to make at its core. otherwise, it s just a building with pictures. we re here in the theater, but we also have a stage canteen next door. you re looking at pictures inside the museum itself now. one of the things that always strikes me when i come here is that that war was so up close and personal. i mean, people were flying in open cockpit airplanes. they could see the enemy face to face wherever they were. and then they came home and put those memories in some kind of a compartment in their mind and then moved on with their lives. well, i don t know how you would develop a sort of museum for that very fact. i think that what s extraordinary about that generation is not merely that they went off and put their lives on hold for the years 1941 to 1945, but how in the world do they come back in 1957, be having a job, be raising a family and setting up a christmas tree on, you know, in december, hoping that the kids are going to have a good christmas. what went through their kids? how did they make that massive adjustment to killing or being killed and then coming home and getting on with the rest of their lives? one damn thing after another, i think. i think it s an extraordinary experience for them and a direct relation to what we re expecting our young people and veterans to do today. veterans day is a nice day to ponder that. well, one of the things that happened in this country as a result of their experience is that they came back much more mature. they had had training and discipline. they had seen the realities of the war. they went in as 17-year-olds, but when they came back, they were like 30-year-olds. they aged quickly, didn t they? and they were all in it together. that was another thing. the thing you always get from veterans, hey, i just did what everybody else was doing, and they did. they just did absolutely they did what everybody else was up to. there was no complaints. steven ambrose used to say there were two sayings during the war. one is, hey, we re all in this together, so stop complaining. and the other one was, hey, don t you know there s a war on? so stop complaining. you could take that to the bank, i think, even in 2009. well, i think it goes without saying, mr. hanks and i are unabashed enthusiastic supporters of this museum and all that it means, and we hope a lot of people will come here and see the film and go through the museum and learn from it. tom, thanks. every hour on the hour. every hour on the hour he s going to be here playing. back to you, matt. all right, tom and tom. thank you both very much. and by the way, bon jovi will be here next wednesday for a special veterans day performance to honor our servicemen and servicewomen. up next, can they be saved? we ll meet some of the world s most getting something back in this economy? that s hard to find. earn holiday rewards at giant, every time you use your card. earn one point for every dollar you spend. good for up to 20% off a future shopping trip. redeem your points and start earning again. only with your giant card. makes me feel great when i find a rewards program that really works. i love seeing all that savings racking up. that s my favorite part of the trip. but i wasn t ready to give up taste. sometimes, sacrifice is the name of the game. well i ve heard eating whole grain oats can help lower my cholesterol. it s going to be a challenge. sure we want to lower our cholesterol, but let s be real, being healthy is tough yea (announcer) honey nut cheerios cereal tastes great and can help lower cholesterol. bee happy. bee healthy. (announcer) try apple cinnamon cheerios. baked in apple with a daring amount of cinnamon. every 20 minutes, a plant or animal species becomes extinct. in fact, scientists estimate that only half of the species alive today will be thriving by the end of the century. famed naturalist jeff corwin is hosting a new msnbc special about that frightening prospect. it s called future earth: 100 heartbeats. he s also written a companion book 100 heartbeats: the race to save earth s most endangered species. jeff, good morning to you. good morning. we use that term 100 heartbeats. what are we talking about? well, it s really about the ultimate club you never want to join, because in order to join 100 heartbeats, it means that you are 100 lifeforms away from extinction. and what s really shocking, and what we discovered in the book 100 heartbeats, and the documentary, is that we ve now reached a time in our world when i was a college student, we used to always joke about this idea of like living in a world with animals in cages. we ve actually reached that state. and the book explores what happens when a species pushed to the edge and what do the heroes of conservation do to pull them back from the precipice of extinction. because there are heroic stories as well. the difference between endangered and extinct? well, to be endangered means you re very close to extinction, and to be extinct you re gone. is the ultimate price you pay for being endangered. but in the book and in the documentary, we try to take a glass is half full approach. we look at this model of 100 heartbeats, this moment in time where you are almost at the point of no return. and some of these stories end tragically. there are species we have filmed that i ve experienced that are now extinct in the wild, and that same token, there are species that we have filmed that have recovered and tell a powerful story of what human beings can do when they care. so, you have brought three creatures that are in some varying stage of extinction. what are we going to start with? well, i m going to show you something come on. we have two minutes. i ll try not to get this one of the things we look at in the book and documentary is this incredible creature. this is the chinese alligator. there are only 50 of these animals left in the wild. that s it? adults. this is a creature because of habitat loss and the black market trade in wildlife has disappeared. this is a species that if we don t rally now immediately, we will lose this. and the great challenge for us is look at it you can touch him. i can? aww. i ll touch that part. yeah. but when you look at a creature like this, you have to ask yourself, what is the price we pay when we lose a species like this? and what is the price? the price we pay is we lose our planet s biology and our national heritage. there s an old saying that we don t inherit the world from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children, and what are we leaving for our children when creatures like this disappear? now, this is close to now you have one that is extinct in the wild. i have something cool. bring them over here. they always say for me, this is the most powerful story, and we write about this in the book. we actually just came back from panama for the documentaries for msnbc that we ve been working on. this right here is the panamanian golden frog. look at this little guy. i want you to look at this jewel of a frog. when i first went to panama years ago, there were millions of these frogs. about a year ago, my daughter watched me on television, said dad, the next time we go to panama she was so enamored by this frog show me this frog. and i said, i can t. she said why? i said because it s now extinct in the wild. they do not exist. we actually found the last frog, the last wild golden frog and we talked about it in the book and we talked about it in the documentary. we ve got 30 seconds to go on that. that is the last frog, right there. these are the last. they are now living in captivity. don t let them out in the studio. i don t want to lose them. this is from this is the story of hope, though. this is the bald eagle, which was really on the verge of extinction. we can come over here. okay. those frogs are actually from my friends at zoo new england and the franklin park zoo. this is from the national eagles center. my good friends at the national bald eagles center. what i love about the bald eagle is this creature truly symbolizes what we can do when we focus and when we care. this is a species like the golden frog, almost disappeared, but now there s nearly 100,000 bald eagles from 400 pair now surviving. these are things we look at in the documentary and this is what we look at in the book. it s the mission of the story. again, half full. that s a beautiful look at me looking at you. i think he wants to eat you. thank god you re not a salmon. jeff corwin, thank you very much. the book is 100 heartbeats and future earth: 100 heartbeats boss:hey, glad i caught you. i was on my way to present ideas ú about all the discounts we re offering. i ve got some catchphrases that ll@ make these savings even more memorable. gecko: all right. gecko: good driver discounts. now that s the stuff.? boss: how bout this? gecko: .they re@ the bee s knees? boss: or this? ú gecko: sir, how bout just fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more@ on car insurance. ú boss: ha, yeah, good luck with that catching on! anncr: geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. nate brodie has the shot of a lifetime. throw a football through a target at a new england patriots game and win a million bucks. that is the premise behind a new book by award-winning sports columnist mike lupica called million-dollar shot. mike, good morning. welcome back. how are you? good morning. good morning. where did the idea for this come? i wanted to see if i could put one of my characters into a situation where he felt like one of his heroes and he had to make a throw, but i wanted it to be a modern story. so, his dad s lost his job. his girlfriend is going blind in a parallel story, and all of a sudden, he feels the pressures of being the dad. if i can just make this one throw. so, this million dollars means a lot to this kid and this family. it means everything, and it comes with unforeseen circumstances, because the pressure starts to get to him. is this your sixth book in this genre? it s the sixth starting with travel team in 2004. what is it about this age group and this form that kind of connects with you so much? matt, as a parent of four children and somebody who s coached, a serial little league coach that i am, i see how important sports is. but what i have found out more than anything in my life doing this is being a teammate is like the greatest classroom for kids because it teaches them about unselfishness and character and heart and all the things i write about. you re going to go all around the country promoting this book, and as part of that promotion, you re going to give people a chance to actually throw a football through a target, not for a million dollars, but for $5,000 donated to charity, correct? yes. and some of the kids and kids will get a chance to compete for $1,000 themselves from here to california, and for a few minutes, they re going to feel like a character in one of my books. walk over here with me, then. we ve got kristen and jason here. they re going to compete for charity, all right? this is kristen. you re 12 years old. you like football and soccer, right? yes. okay. have you ever done anything like this before? no. have you taken any practice throws? yes. a couple, okay. you are competing for the goddard riverside community center, a group that helps children in need through the youth programming and counseling. kristen, first of all, give kristen a hand. give it a shot for $5,000. you get to come up to this line right here. ladies and gentlemen, here s kristen. come on, kristen. i can t do it. oh! okay. it was a good try. kristen, come on back here. that s all right. next we have jason. jason is 15 years old, loves football, baseball, basketball. you re throwing on behalf of first book, correct? yes. that s an organization that provides books to children who need them. all right, jason. go get them, jason. jump up there as well. $5,000 for charity if you get it through there. give him a hand. oh! good try. come on back here, jason. let me tell you right now that the penguin young readers group has agreed to donate hit or miss. so, based on those throws, $10,000 goes to charity this live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. officials at shock, said that if a mass casualties similar to the one at fort hood were to happen at a base close to baltimore, the center would not be able to handle all the patients. 13 people are dead and another 30 injured after a gunman opened fire at the nation s largest military base. one of the doctors at shock trauma said that many patients would be sent to area hospitals. people should expect security to toughen up at military bases in toughen up at military bases in dunkin donuts is your destination for delicious fall flavors. for a short time, we have all your seasonal favorites. try any of our authentic hot lattes, including our pumpkin latte, for just 99 cents. america runs on dunkin . the whole gang will love six fresh, delicious donuts for just $3. affordable treats to share with friends, family, and co-workers. grab six donuts for only $3 today. america runs on dunkin . now let s take a look at the forecast with tony pann. the weather should be pretty quiet on this friday. a little breeze out of the northwest, but that is about it today. temperatures upper 40 s and low 50s, mostly sunny skies. expected temperatures to stay in the 40 s. if you were going the other to ocean city, a touch warmer, 50 s. we will keep the sunshine and lose the wind over the weekend. 65 degrees on sunday. 70 on monday of next week. the next chance for rain will be late tuesday and wednesday. by that time, high temperatures will fall back into the upper 50s and the low 60s. at this point, looks like an outstanding weekend. we will have another update at 9:25. lisa, your family thinks you might have roasterphobia. i m not roasterphobic. maybe a little. well, there s always my perdue® oven ready roaster. but that s a whole chicken. it s okay, dear. my perdue® oven ready roaster is already seasoned in its own cooking bag. and it cooks in about half the time. it s that easy. my work here is done. 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