Transcripts For WBAL Today 20091124 : vimarsana.com

not going to the movies as much. we re not eating out as much. we have to save money where we can. at giant, we know that saving money is important. with holiday rewards, you can now earn points good for up to 20% off a future shopping trip every time you use your card. i m saving money, and i m getting something back. and that works for me. good morning. coming soon, president obama will make an announcement on whether he will send more u.s. troops to afghanistan within days. this after a late-night meeting with top advisers. consumer alert. a record number of cribs recalled for a danger they could pose to children. but could millions more not recalled be just as dangerous? this morning, important information for all parents. and the hottest ticket in town. the obamas host their first white house state dinner tonight. so, who s on the invite list? well, we ll tell you today, tuesday, november 24th, 2009. ptions paid for nbc-universal levision and wco to today on this tuesday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. this morning, white house press secretary robert gibbs tells nbc news president obama now has all the information he wants and needs to revise this nation sfghan strategy, and that s following a rigorous final meeting with his war council. that s right. it was the ninth time obama has sat down with his top aids since september, but he was unsatisfied with the information he received and sent his team back. we re going to get the latest from a live report from the white house in just a moment. also ahead, a mother of four young children who got popularity blogging about the joy of parenting survives a deadly plane crash along with her husband. both spent months in comas. now they are slowly recovering. we ll have an exclusive, live interview with them coming up in just a little while. then later, important information for anyone planning to race out to the malalalalala those spectacular early-morning door-buster deals. well, they may not b quite as spectacular as you think. coming up, what every shopper needs to ow. > but on this tuesday morning, we ll start with the news out of washington that president obama is ready to make an announcement on whether he ll send more u.s. troops to afghanistan. nbc s white house correspondent savannah guthrie has the latest on this. savannah, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. the president is likely to make his decision any day now and likelyo announce it in a primetime speech one week from today. we are told by senr aides the president now has all the information he needs. he had one last, we expect, meeting with his war council last night in the situation room, and it had a bit of drama to it late at night, well into the evening. some seen leaving the white house as late as 11:00. at this meeting, we understand, every senior adviser at the table was able to give his or her opinion, but the president did not tip his hand. now, we know he s looking at a range of options, up to an additional 40,000 troops. all of the options he s looking at would increase troops by some amount, so, the real question is, number one, how many, of course, and also, where to deploy them. another issue the president is said to be laser focused on is exit strategy. so, while the president hasn t made up his mind on this final decision, we re told hisery cle ande do expect that decision within a week, matt. savannah, the deliberation process has been a long one, and i guess my question is and this depends, obviously, on which strategy he chooses but is it your idea he s going to try to implement this as soon as possible, even at the start of the year? reporter: well, certainly, but look, i mean, there s a lot of practical application to this. it would take probably up to a year to get the full 40,000 that the general mcchrystal, the commanding general of afghanistan, asked for. it would take about a year to get them in the country. it s not clear whether he ll go with that full request made by mcchrystal and give the 40,000 troops, but it takes time, of course, to get the troops in and all of the support personnel that goes with it. and as we think about this, the calendar is not on the side of the administration here. bear in mind what mcchrystal said in his own assessment to the president, that failure to gain the upper hand within the next year against the taliban and al qaeda could risk losing entirely. matt? time of the essence. savannah guthrie at the white house this morning. savannah, thanks for your reporting. we appreciate it. it s four minutes after the hour. now here s meredith. matt, thank you. now to the biggest crib recall in u.s. history. more than 2.1 million drop-side cribs. nbc s tom costello is at the headquarters of the consumer products safety commission. tom, good morning. reporter: hi, meredith, good morning to you. these are drop-side cribs made by stork craft. the concern is that parents have been known to put this railing in upside down. regardless, the railing has been known to become detached. the plastic hardware along the sides can break, children can easily become trapped between the railing and the mattress or even worse. it is this drop-side crib made by stork craft out of canada that is now part of the biggest crib recall ever. 2.1 million cribsold in both the u.s. and canada since 1993. the removable railing or drop side has proven to be deadly. we know of 15 incidences and 4 deaths because children have become entrapped between the mattress and the drop-side. reporter: stork craft is one of the most widely purchased brand names in baby cribs with products sold at some of the biggest retailers in the country, including target, walmart, sears and kmart, sometimes undhe storkraft name, but also under the fisher-price brand name until december 2004. earlier this year, stork craft recalled 500,000 cribs after the mattress support brackets broke. and crib safety has become a major concern for the consumer product safety commission, with more than 5 million cribs made by various manufacturers recalled over the past two years. it was a mixture of suffocation and hanging that caused his death. he was compressed you know, he couldn t breathe and he basically choked and hung to death. reporter: nikki johns found her 9-month-old son liam stuck between the rails on a drop-side crib. called 911, and my brother and i did cpr on him until the ambulance got there. and they took him to the hospital where they pronounced him dead. reporter: liam s death led to a massive recall of simplicity and graco cribs after investigators determined a faulty design led many parents to install the drop side upside down. with some retailers now refusing to carry any drop-side cribs, the industry standards board voted just last week to no longer certify any drop-side cribs for sale in america. the advice from the head of the cpsc if you have an old one, get rid of it. people lik to ps baby items down generation to generation, but it s not worth it. it s not worth it when your child could be seriously injured or even killed. reporter: if you have a drop-side crib made by this company, the advice is to use one of these plastic gadgets here that you can get from the company, the fix. you literally put it in place right down he, and that prevents the drop-side from moving down. however, there s widespread concern just about whether any drop-side crib is safe. meredith, we asked the company for a comment. they refused to comment. back to you. tom costello, thank you. inez tenenbaum is the chairman of the consumer products safety commission. chairman tenenbaum, good morning to you. good morning, meredith. i just want to make sure that i understand this correctly. do you recommend that anybody who has a drop-side crib, whether it s manufactured by stork craft or some other company, do you recommend that they replace that crib if they possibly can? i do recommend this, and short of replacing the crib, if you can get the kit from stork craft, which makes the side immoveable, that s another remedy for this situation. how reliable do you think that kit is? well, you can call you can call the company and get the kit, and it is made of plastic, so, if you can afford another crib that does not have a drop side, or even if you can t afford it, there are many charities in communities that will provide you with the new crib. that really is the safest way to handle this situation. as tom reported, the industry standards board voted last week to no longer certify any of these drop-side cribs for sale in the united states. does the commission have the power to ban the sale of these cribs? and if soouldou conder doing so, considering that millions of these cribs have been recalled over the past two years? well, the commission will write regulations in the next few months, and we will look at this issue about drop sides, but i do not think that drop sides, if it s not going to be certified by the industry, will be a part of cribs in the future. they have been shown to not be reliable. and over time, when the parent raises the side up and down, they re becoming detached from the cribs. so, i think in the future, you will not see cribs with drop sides. are you saying, then, that in the future you will ban them? well, we re in the process of rulemaking, and we will take a hard look at this, but i think in the future, these drop sides will be banned. also, my understanding is that there s no requirement that cribs in general be tested before they are manufactured. should there be requirements? there should be requirements in terms of specific design of cribs, and we have not had that in the united states because we ve relied on voluntary standards. last year, congress passed a new law allowing the cpsc to write mandatory standards on the design and manufacture of cribs and we re in the process of doing that. very quickly, under president bush, the consumer products safety commission was criticized for being too cozy with business, essentially, toothless. how do you assure the american public, particularly parents out there that a worrie tt that s no longer the case? well, what we re going to do is enforce every law that congress has passed. and last year, it passed a sweeping new law called the consumer product safety improvement act. we are enforcing that law firmly but fairly. all right. consumer products safety commission chairman inez tenenbaum, thank you very much for your time this morning. thank you, meredith. let us get a check of the rest of the morning s top stories. busy news y. ann s at the news desk. good morning to you. good morning, matt, meredith and all of you. we begin with the attorney for the ft. hood shooting suspect major nidal hasan. he says he will likely plead not guilty and use an insanity defense. hasan is accused of 13 counts of premeditated murder in connection with this month s shooting, and he may face additional charges as well. he is still hospitalized this morning. iran s president ahmadinejad on a trip to brazil says he hopes the punishment will not be severe for three american hikers who entered iran illegally in july, but he says their fate is up to iran s judicial system. china says it executed two men today for their roles in last year s tainted milk scandal. officials said six children died and more than 300,000 became sick from milk products laced with melamine, a chemical added to make inspectors think the milk was high in protein. today, south carolina lawmakers begin considering whether to impeach governor mark sanford. he is facing 37 ethics charges. sanford has been under scrutiny since vanishing for five days last summer and admitting to an extramarital affair. and one of our favorites around here, paula deen, is recovering this morning after she was hit in the face with a flying ham. it happened monday in atlanta where she was helping to unload a truck of food for the needy. that s when an eight-pound ham hit her, and in her words, knocked her cuckoo. it really hurt, but she was not seriously injured. and no, she s not hamming it up there. it was really painful. anyway, she s going to be cooking ham the next time she comes here, i bet you. she likes pork. she does. i feel bad for the guy who threw it. he thought it was a cute thing at the moment. not so cute. glad she s okay. she s a good sport. we love paula deen. mr. roker? let s look at what s happening as far as our travel weather is concerned. you can see this pesky low pressure system getting together in the midsection of the country, spinning around and that s causing airport delays, probably for rain and fog in minneapolis, des moines, chicago, morning fog, afternoon rain. milwauk milwaukee, more of the same. look for more showers in the pacific northwest. we re expecting some rain down in southern texas. and we look for some morning showers moving o we are goioing to deal with f and on up rainshowers this morning. mostly cloudy skies today, with high temperatures sneaking into th hat s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thanks very much. now to the economy and a new revelation that executives at two of the firms which figured promintlin the fancial meltdown walked away with huge payouts in the years that led up to the collapse on wall street. nbc s senior investigative correspondent lisa myers has details on that. lisa, it s going to make a lot of people mad. it absolutely will, matt. this study found that executives at lehman brothers and bear stearns cashed in big time in the years before their firms impled. and even though they suffered huge losses at the end, their ceo still walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. critics call it being richly rewarded for failure. it was the early phase of the financial meltdown last year. first, bear stearns was sold t avoid collapse. then lehman brothers went bankrupt. shareholders lost billions and thousands of employees lost jobs. but a new study by experts at harvard law school titled wages of failure found thatin 2000, the top five executivest each firm had received staggering amounts of cash bonuses and it sold mountains of stock. bear stearns executives cashed out about $1.4 billion. and lehman brothers, $1 billion. people whonveste in these companies should feel betrayed. the whole idea of capitalism is that the people provide the capital and the executives take care of it for us. in this case, the peopl ovided their cital and the executives took it. reporter: the study found that when the firms collapsed, both bear stearns ceo james cayne and lehman ceo richard fuld lost about $900 million worth of stock, but the study said they still came out well ahead overall, walking away with $388 million and fuld $541 million. they were rewarded hundreds of millions of dollars and they got that reward for making catastrophic decisions. reporr: lt year, cayne bought two condominiums here at the iconic plaza hotel in new york city. price tag, $28 million. fuld also remains a wealthy man. he has an $8 million estate in greenwich, connecticut, sold his park avenue apartment in new york for $26 million this summer, and has a $14 million oceanfront estate in florida which he sold to his wife for $100 earlier ts year. shareholders are suing executives of both firms. gerald silk represents former hman sharehoers w claim executives weren t truthful about the firm s financial condition. lehman crashed and shareholders lost billions of dollars when dick fuld and others walked away personally very, very wealthy. reporter: fuld s lawyer wou not comment. cayne s did not respond to requests for comment. both men have denied wrongdoing and said their firms were swept under by a financial tsunami. cayne has apologized to employees and investors. fuld says he wakes up every night thinking what could i have done differently? matt? lisa myers for us in washington, thank you. jim cramer is host of cnbc s mad money. good morning to you. good morning, matt. people are watching that, sick to their stomachs. one of the questions i have where were the boards of directors for these companies? many of theoards of directors were somewhat captured by management. difficult to understand the structure. the companies and the boards were part-time people and they didn t understand what was going on. you have to watch that and i m sure peoethk, okay tt was th, this is now. has the culture seriously changed or is it going to get right back to that situation? get right back. nothing s really changed. why? well, some of the more responsible firms have changed, but you know what? it s really not a lot of penalty. what has happened to these people? nothing, right? they got the money, they left. has there been any investigation of them? are there any indictments? they got away with it, so why shouldn t the next guys try? it s a bad commentary. let me ask you some general economic questions. unemployment numbers are still horrible, one in ten americans out of work in this country right now. got other people who are underemployed. then there are the whole group of people who are worried about losing their jobs, but you keep hearing economists and experts talk about green shoots. right. these are areas of encouragements. what do you see as green shoots now? auto sales, not bad, october pretty good. post cash for clunkers? yeah, november not bad. not a lot of cars, excess inventory. not a lot of excess inventory at retailers. retailers have are saying november s been pretty good. also, existing home sales, stabilization. those are all very good signs. a lot of housing sales were due to the fact that people thought the tax credit would expire. it s been extended since april, interest rates low. what happens when the tax credit is over and the rates creep up? if employment picks up, we will be fine. if not, then you will have another leg down. everything is keying on jobs. got to have more of them. black friday, okay? there s so much pressure. it used to be just this kind of thing we threw around and did on talk shows. so much pressure now on the numbers from black friday and season. is there more pressure this year than normal based on the state of the economy? i think that people at the retail level, many of the managers of retail, are not carrying a lot of product, not a lot of merchandise, because they were worried that things would be bad. it looks like things are going to be okay, much better than last year. so, no, they re not freak out. they re in pretty good shape. possible green shoots there as well. yes. jim cramer, thanks very much. you can catch jim on mad money week nights at 6:00 and 11:00 eastern time on cnbc. it is now 19 minutes after the hour. once again, here s meredith. matt, thank you very much. it is washington s hottest social event since the inauguration. president and mrs. obama host their first state dinner tonight. nbc s norah o donnell is at the white house with more. norah, good morning. reporter: good morning, meredith. that s right, it is the hottest ticket in town, and the white house is staying tight-lipped about who s on the invite list. so, we re going to have to wait until tonight to see who s lucky enough to make obama s a-list. white house social events have seen some changes by the obama family, from concerts to easter egg rolls. come on, you can do it! happy halloween! reporter: even halloween parties. but nothing compares to a state dinner. and tonight is the obamas first. the fact that they re younger, i think, makes us feel like the party s going to be a bit more rocking. reporter: the president and first lady will host the prime minister of india, manmohan singh, tuesday night. the dress code, black tie. the setting, not the state dining room, but a massive tent on the white house lawn, allowing room for more guests. 320 are expected, including some of obama s earliest and most important supporters, not only from washington, but also from hollywood, like hollywood super agent aria manuel, whose brother is obama s chief of staff, and movie producer david geffen. the clintons did hold the record for the most invited guests to a state dinner, topping out at nearly 700 when they hosted india s then prime minister in 2000. probably feels different when you re out in a tent on the lawn, but the simple fact is, you know, you are at the white house. reporter: the big question leading up to the event, what will the first lady wear? style watchers say she could choose a dress from an indian american designer. she often does say something about the event through her choice of clothing. reporter: a guest chef from a swedish restaurant in new york will prepare the meal with the white house kitchen staff. and the menu will feature items from the first lady s vegetable garden, fitting, since the prime minister is a vegetarian. i think this time around, the vegetarian dishes will be the star. reporter: the first state dinner sets the standard for how the obamas will greet all future foreign leaders. one thing to remember is, you know, this is 200 years of tradition. we re steeped in tradition on how we manage a state visit. reporter: and we have learned that the entertainment tonight is going to be jennifer hudson. meredith? that s pretty good. norah o donnell, thank you very much. and coming up, the latest on the shocking murder of 5-year-old shaniya davis. her mother and another man are under arrest in connection with the case. just ahead, shaniya s father speaks out in with pillsbury pie crust, making the perfect holiday pie requires one skill the ability to gracefully accept compliments of pillsbury cinnamon rolls bring everyone to the table in their sunday best still ahead, a heads-up for holiday shoppers. why all those amazing black friday door-buster deals may not be as good as they seem. plus, we ll talk to the parents of four young children who survived a deadly plane crash. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. let s get a check on the morning commute with sarah caldwell and traffic pulse a lebron. what roads and problems around the area. an accident in catonsville at river road and frederick road. west side delays in a moment. columbia and parks fill pike, and the crash and northbound 97 at 100. speed sensor indicates it is moving well past it. delays are substantial on southbound 95 out of the white marsh. . 14 miles per hour at harford road. this delay is backing of traffic on southbound 795 of the owings mills area. a bit of a delay on eastbound i- 70. 20 minutes is going to take you through the stretch on the west side. the six-minute ride on the five south. prior to that, getting down to just beyond the beltway, you are going to deal with delays. going away from us, this delay begins at belair towards dulaney valley. he will switch to a live view of traffic on the west side. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. light rain, drizzle, and fog this morning will stay with us through lunchtime. i-95 towards aberdeen, cecil county, and elsewhere, just a light drizzle. look at the temperatures, upper 40 s right now in most spots. 48 in catonsville. only a couple of degrees this afternoon. rain showers will it be with us off and on the through the morning. we should check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. our next live update at 7:55. 7:30 now on a tuesday morning. it s the 24th of november 2009. it is a brisk fall morning here in midtown manhattan. we have got just the thing to warm up this crowd outside. we have got a live concert from 12-time count them 12-time grammy winner alicia keys coming up in our next hour. that should be fun. inside the studio, i m matt will have alongside meredith vieira. and just ahead in this half hour, the latest on a story that s just awful, the brutal murder of 5-year-old shaniya davis. her north carolina community is still reeling from the news, and in just a moment, her dad, brad lockhart, speaks out in an exclusive live interview. also ahead, we re going to talk to a mother and a father, the parents of four young children who survived the fiery plane crash, thanks in part to the help of complete strangers. they suffered bad burns and spent months in comas. this morning, we re going to meet the whole family and find out how they re doing. and the mom is someone that some of our viewers may know because of her parenting blog called anemi dialogues. a lot of people remember that. plus, are all of the black friday bargains actually worth waking up early for? we ll tell you what you need to know to separate the good deals from the ones out there just to attract your business. but we begin with new developments in the tragic murder of 5-year-old shaniya davis. we ll talk exclusively with her dad in just a moment, but first, nbc s tom truong has the latest. tom, good morning. reporter: good morning, meredith. the man accused of killing 5-year-old shaniya davis is expected to be in court in the next couple weeks, this after her loved ones said their final gmz. now that the family of 5-year-old shaniya davis and a gathering of more than 2,000 mourners have laid the little girl to rest now i give you to the lord above. watch over my angel, my sweet, precious love. reporter: the full attention shifts to the investigation into her inexplicable murder. mario mcneill is accused of raping and killing shaniya. he s seen here in this hotel security video carrying her the day shaniya went missing from her home. after nearly a week of frantic searching, investigators found shaniya discarded in a wooded area near fayetteville. mcneill is charged with first-degree kidnapping, rape and murder, and perhaps more shockingly, shaniya s mother is also in jail. ma am, the state of north carolina alleges that you did engage in human trafficking with a child as the victim, knowingly provide shaniya davis with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude. reporter: officials say antoinette davis who was pregnant, sold her daughter into prostitution, possibly to pay off some debts, something so many struggle to comprehend. for, we know that in our earthly house reporter: among all the tears is a question why did a 5-year-old girl become a murder victim? it s a question her father hopes no other parent will ever have to face. take it back out there in the community for these things that people do not know no better, people that can t control themselves, don t understand, need help and don t know how to find help. we need to put it back out in their hands to prevent things like this. reporter: mcneill is currently under suicide watch and authorities say as the investigation continues, shaniya davis mother may face more charges. meredith? thanh truong, thank you very much. shaniya davis father, brad lockhart, is here with us exclusively along with his lawyer, mike freed. good morning to you both. good morning. good morning. i want to start please, accept our condolences. we are so sorry for the loss of your little girl. we have seen you grieve publicly. we have also seen the outpouring of love for your daughter at her funeral. some 2,000 people attended. many of them didn t even know her. when you looked out over that room, what was your reaction? just breathtaking, amazed that there was actually that many people out there that actually cared, that have a heart and are willing to make a difference. she touched a lot of people. she obviously touched a lot of people. what was it about her? how would you describe your little girl? the smile just brightens everybody s heart, just energetic, and you can see it through her smile and her action and her demeanor. she was just a pleasant little angel to be around and made everybody happy. she went missing on november 10th. that s when her mom reported her missing. when was the last time that you saw your daughter? on october 2nd, right before leaving out of town. can you tell me about that exchange with her? i dropped her off at my sister s and was sitting there, and shaniya climbed on my side step to my truck and put her hands on the window, on the ledge of the window, and i told her to be a good girl, do well in school, told her that i loved her and she told me i love you, too, daddy, and just asked her to make sure she calls me every night and she said she would, and she gave me a kiss and went into my sister s house. then right after that, she went off to live with her mom, is that correct? a week later. a week later. eight days later. and i know that at the time, your sister, carey, had been helping you raise shaniya since she was a year old. she was 5 when she went off to see your mom. but carey expressed concerns about her going off with antoinette davis, that she was worried that antoinette neglected her other child, a 7-year-old boy. did carey ever express those concerns to you that she didn t like this idea? no, she didn t. carey s always been really supportive and always allowed me to make the decisions as far as what s in the best interests of my child. again, i don t think it was that great of a concern as far as my understanding, speaking with carey. you ve said that one of the reasons that you let shaniya go off with her mom was that you believed antoinette when she said she wanted to be a mom, that it was important to her. you wanted to give her that chance. looking back now, i m sure you ve second guessed this a million times. do you regret the decision? have you sat there and gone, gee, if i had only realized this or that in terms of a red flag? i do, but witness obviously make decisions in life that sometimes have repercussions or adverse situations that drift from our decision and we just have to continue to believe in god and hope that our decisions are the correct ones. there s a lot of people out there that do good things and bad things and can change our decision s outcome. were there red flags that you think you missed, brad? i know that social services had been to her home, in retrospect. right. i don t think i really missed any. of course, there s always speculati speculation. there s always things that you can look at and say, well, maybe, maybe not. or assumptions is a better word. but i m not much on assuming. it s one thing to lose a child, that s horrible enough, but then to find out that her mom is charged with human trafficking, with selling shaniya, possibly to pay for some debt. knowing her the way that you know antoinette davis, do you believe she s capable of that? my heart would tell me no, but apparently, she has some culpability in this. somewhere down the road, she had it in her to be able to do some heinous crime like this. you have not spoken with her since this happened. i have spoken with her. you have spoken with antoinette? the day she came up missing, not since she s been arrested. mike, will brad have any role in this case now going forward against both davis and mr. mcneill? obviously, that will be up to the prosecutors. obviously, they ve kept him very well informed. we expect to meet with them again this week to be brought up to speed, and whatever brad needs to do to be cooperative, he will. we just deployed law enforcement particularly for prosecuting this as human trafficking, which it is. it s not something that light is shed on very often, the concept of human trafficking, and that s clearly what it appears to be in this case. i know that s one of the main reasons that you wanted to be here this morning, brad. we appreciate you coming. yes, ma am, thank you. thank you. thank you very much, mike. thank you so much. and now let s get a check of the weather from al. thanks a lot, meredith. it s fairly mild across much of the country today, especially through the plains, where minneapolis will see temperatures 15 degrees above normal. 12 degrees above normal in chicago. even caribou, maine, going to be warmer than usual. more normal temperatures as you get into the southwest with temperatures in the 40s, 50s and 70s. 30s through the rockies, 40s in northern new england, 40s again up through parts of minnesota, which doesn t sound wa we are going to do with off and on rainshowers and drizzle as we go through this tuesday. the clouds will stick around. we ll shooting for a high temperature in the low 50s. that s your latest weather. if you want to keep track of your weather throughout the day, check out the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. meredith? al, thank you. up next, flat screens for $400, laptops for even less. but are those black friday door-buster specials actually real bargains? what you need to know, right after this. announcer: today s consumer is brought to you by bank of america. get the most out of your everyday purchases today. back now at 7:43. this morning on today s consumer, black friday bargains. retailers are doing just about everything they can to lure your business this week and throughout the holiday season, but are those door-buster deals you re seeing as good as they seem? todd marks is senior editor of consumer reports. good to see you. nice to see you, too. here s the remarks you ll see in the ads this weekend for a limited time only or while supplies last, minimum two per store. these lure in deals, these door-buster deals. if anybody goes out on a friday morning, do they have a real good chance of actually getting the items they see advertised? well, a real good chance? it depends. the reality is, you ve got to get up at the crack of dawn, even earlier, because some stores are opening at 4:00. for, as you say, a very limited supply. get caught up in the hyperbole of, wow, a $250 laptop. you and 100 other people are going to be battling for two, and the worst thing about it is that you don t generally get rain checks for these items, so you re out of luck. so the advertisement is simply the store s way of getting you in the store and getting you in the door, and they re hoping if there are no more laptops for $250, you re going to buy something else. they dangle things at or below cost and get you to buy something more expensive. and often they offer what is called a derivative, and a derivative is kind of the product you went looking for in the first place but with some changes. yeah. you know, on the surface, a derivative may seem like a clone, siblings, if you will, but there are very small, sometimes not so small nuances. the model number may be nearly identical with perhaps a letter at the end. what it may lack, though, is a key feature or a key accessory. so, you want to be sure you check the manufacturer specifications on the website of the product you want to get what you re paying for. when you mention the website, sometimes in an advertisement, they ll say you can also find these great deals online at our website. are they always the same deal? absolutely not. as a matter of fact, consumer reports did a big poll, and one of the consumers perception of the shopping experience, one of the biggest turn-offs is fake sales. when something s always on sale for 20% off, is it really on sale? online prices and in-store prices was another turn-off because there s a discrepancy often. a store will tell you that they will do a price match guarantee. basically, what that means is if you find the product for the same amount or less or less being the important thing yeah. they ll match that price. but it s really it s generally a geographical area, correct? well, it s what s deemed a local competitor. we will match the price of any local competitor. got to be a brick-and-mortar store, never an internet price, and don t even try to think of trying to match a price they have on amazon. it won t happen. another sales technique that stores are using right now is something called bundling, basically, come in and buy the flat-screen and they re going to combine it with a blueray player, you buy both. is it a good idea? not always. consumer reports is looking into that, especially with electronics, and we found that the price differences, if any, are marginal at best, most of the time. and two, you may get a product combination bundled not to your liking. in other words, you may get a tv with an audio system, which you may not want, or a tv with a blueray player that s not the top of the line or the one you really want. buy them separately. the savings are not worth it. a couple other quick items what do people need to know about return policies? any changes? more restrictive. holiday time, good news is you have a longer time to return it, sometimes around february, but stores are holding people to the letter of the law. you need a receipt. and this last one. here s a great way, todd s going to tell you right now, to save 10% on a purchase, but it comes with a caveat. yeah, it s the store credit card routine. save 10%, discounts as much as 20%, open an instant charge card. i m there to buy the tv, they say do you want to apply for a charge card. i should say yes yes. if they re going to give me a discount, but? say yes, buy the item, then pay it off immediately and cut up the card. you re ahead of the game. thank you very much. my pleasure. happy thanksgiving to you. coming up, a real whodunit in studio 1a. the mystery of the morning show murders. you can t look back on 2009 and not think of the miracle on the hudson river here in new york. that s right, the actions of captain chesley sully sullenberger and his co-pilots rescued the lives of all the people on board. and i sat down with sully and his wife for a thanksgiving special, nbc s people of the year. during those 30 seconds or minute, you did not think of your family. you re smiling. and i had the same reaction. there was no time. laurie you have to realize. not a fleeting thought? not a passing you have to realize what the stakes were. you had to realize how hard this was. trust me, sully and his wife both had a lot more to say. wait until you hear what they say has happened to their relationship after that faithful day. looks good there. i would think they would be much closer, because my gosh, the you don t have a sudden bombshell to drop, do you? we ll hear why she says it s a little bit better. i think that we have a leading that s a tease. that s good. nbc s people of the year thanksgiving night at 9:00/8:00 central time right here on nbc. are any of you going to the state dinner tonight? nay. no. nobody wants to share a car with me, no? i m not going. i m staying here. alicia keys live in concert out on the plaza. first, your local news and weather. live, local, latebreaking. this wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. time for a check on the morning commute with traffic pulse 11 and sarah caldwell. a little bit of rain and a lot of problems. westbound 129, another crashed there. you can see delays was down 100 and 29, another crashed there. at owings mills, in new accident. on the inner loop with the j.f.x., delays quickly developing there. this begins approaching seven had a 95 all the way down to edmondson. 795 all the way down to edmondson. southbound on the harrisburg expressway, you are going to be sitting in traffic. 20 minutes is your drive time on the outer loop west side. six minutes i-95 south. not too bad approaching the plaza there. pretty bad as you can see here out of going away from us all the way to dulaney valley. you? you can see is heavy there. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. the rain may taper off this afternoon but this morning we will deal with the same stuff. the heaviest stuff is up on i-95 towards aberdeen. elsewhere, the distance light drizzle and fog. it is just light drizzle and fog. should for a high of 53 this afternoon. rain may taper off this afternoon but will not clear out. chance for a shower on wednesday and thanksgiving day. maybe rain and snow showers on friday. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. our next live update at 8:25. 8:00 now on this tuesday morning, november 24th, 2009. two days until thanksgiving and eight until the lighting of the rockefeller center christmas tree. alicia keys, part of that celebration always, but this morning she is here to light up our plaza with a live concert. i m meredith vieira. where are you guys from? talking about in this half hour? no, you re talking to each other we did not say a word. yes, you did. we honestly didn t! i was talking about alicia keys and we re happy to have her. we certainly are. coming up this half hour. yes, absolutely! also ahead, a family you won t soon forget. stephanie neilsen a lot of people in our audience may know her from her parenting blog called the nini dialogues. well, stephanie and her husband survived a terrible plane crash and now she is back to writing her blog and writing about her children and the challenges of what she and her husband have been through. we ll talk to her in a couple minutes. they re lovely. i was just talking to them. they re great. plus, we ll unravel the murder mystery going on behind the scenes at the number one rated morning show with the proud author of a brand new book, mr. roker. wow. i can t wait to see that. you. and we want to remind you, it s our 16th annual toy drive here on the plaza, something we are very, very proud of. so, if you come by the plaza, please bring a new, unwrapped gift for a needy child, as you look at some of our celebrity elves who come by. to find out how you can become part, just logon to todayshow.com. see, this sounds crazy, i thought that was actually happening for a second. you thought it all of a sudden started raining and stopped raining i couldn t figure it out! that doesn t mean you re crazy. no, exactly. let s go to ann at the news desk. good morning, everybody. the biggest crib recall in history is now under way. it involves more than 2 million cribs made by stork craft, which the consumer products safety commission blames for at least four infant deaths. for more information, go to todayshow.com. nbc news has learned that president obama will announce his decision on more u.s. troops for afghanistan soon, most likely next tuesday, and probably in a prime time address. the president held what s called a rigorous final meeting with his war council on monday night, and military officials expect the president to deploy up to 35,000 additional troops. that is fewer than requested by his top military commander in afghanistan. the white house is hosting india s prime minister for talks on afghanistan and pakistan, and for the president s first state dinner tonight at the white house. the attorney for the ft. hood shooting suspect, major nidal hasan, says his client will likely plead not guilty and may use an insanity defense. hasan is accused of 13 counts of premeditated murder in this month s shooting. iran s president ahmadinejad said on monday that he hopes those three american hikers who crossed illegally into iran will not be severely punished if found guilty of spying. he spoke during a trip on brazil, and the president of brazil defended iran s right to a civilian nuclear program. now here s brian williams with what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. hey, ann, thanks. coming up when we see you tonight in one town, they live with the most expensive medical care in america, but in the town just up the road, the cost is much lower, and it has some people thinking, how can we ever fix this health care system? we ll have that story tonight, however, on nightly news. ann, for now, back to you. it s now 8:03. let s check the weather with al. thanks, ann. we have a lot of alicia keys fans here. what time did you get here? 3:30. so you got a prime spot. i m right here. you re right here. let s check your weather and see what s happening. we ll show you, here s what we ve got for our thanksgiving day weekend. tomorrow s travel, rain in the pacific northwest, snow showers through minnesota, minneapolis may have some problems, rain around ohio. look for rain also down in florida. and the thanksgiving day parade. as you can see, variably cloudy skies, mild. we are going to deal with off and on up rainshowers this morning. mostly cloudy skies today, with high temperatures sneaking into the got some macy s thanksgiving day participants. where are you guys from? mississippi! all right. meredith? thank you, al. i m here with my buddies, madison and lindsey. madison s from california and lindsey just moved back to new york. enjoying the holiday here in new york city. coming up next, the long road to recovery for a beloved mommy blogger and her husband who survived a fiery plane crash. we re going to talk to them exclusively right after this. bouquets are unique. because they re beautiful like flowers, but made from delicious fresh fruit daily. .you can even add chocolate! so make any occasion special. delivery available coast to coast. visit, call or go to ediblearrangements.com .it s easy to access low prices. but. .say you live out here. can you get affordable prescriptions from walmart? now you can. i m don, and my job is to make sure you can get free home delivery of your medications. whether you live here. .or here. a 90-day supply of many popular generics is just $10. plus get free shipping on over 3,000 other generic and branded prescriptions. call 1-800-2-refill for your free home delivery. save money. live better. walmart. call 1-800-2-refill for your free home delivery. it s the toys r us after thanksgiving sale with our lowest prices ever! with over 120 doorbusters! now, for the first time ever, stores open midnight on thursday! plus don t miss extra doorbusters friday 5am to 1pm. storewide savings on hundreds of terrific toys! get 50% off toys from the hottest brands! toys r us, where kids are a big deal!™ we re back at 8:08 with a couple of people who at one point perhaps may not have been here. stephanie and christian nielson are survivors of a plane crash that killed their pilot last year. we ll talk to them in a moment, but first, nbc s george lewis has their story. reporter: when she came out of a medically induced coma, part of the treatment for burns over 80% of her body, stephanie nielson was a bit like rip van winkle. i woke up and barack obama was our president. reporter: it was in august of last year when she and her husband were badly burned as the small plane he was piloting crashed in arizona. we actually hit the ground and then woke up after the initial shock of being stunned, waking up to an inferno. reporter: after they were rescued, stephanie wasn t expected to live, a big shock to the followers of stephanie s blog, the nienie dialogues, her personal stories about the joys of being the mother of four. she doesn t say motherhood is easy, but it is the most rewarding and special job that any woman could have. reporter: fans rallied around stephanie and christian as they began their slow, painful recovery. i just want to say thank you so much for how you ve inspired my life. aww, thank you. reporter: stephanie, who s had to endure rounds of surgery and physical therapy, says one of the hardest moments was when her daughter jane first saw her scarred face. i ll just never forget. it was like she had seen a ghost. i mean, she just, she came in expecting to see her mom, and it was somebody completely different to her. reporter: but through all the pain, stephanie still keeps blogging, still finding joy in motherhood. her latest entry well, friends, it s thanksgiving time. i am so excited. i have so much to be thankful for. living is top on the list, but i m sure you all knew that anyway. for today, george lewis, nbc news, los angeles. stephanie and christian nielson are here with us exclusively along with their four children, nicholas, oliver, jane and clair. good morning to all of you. nice to see you. good morning. thank you. first of all, how are you both doing? how are you feeling? better than a year ago. yeah, good. pretty good. i would imagine. still a long way to go, though. you ve been through an awful lot. because of the severity of your injuries after this crash, you were both placed in medically induced comas. how long were you in one, christian? oh, gosh, i think you know, i remember asking that question, how long have i been asleep, and the reply back was six weeks, and my first recollection was six weeks after the accident. do you remember what the first thought you had was when you came out of the coma, what the first thing you remember? well, naturally, my first thought was, you know, how is stephanie? i got the report on her and i asked about our friend who was also in the airplane, and sadly heard that he had passed away, and then i knew the children were okay because our family, i m certain, was taking care of them. stephanie, you were in a coma for three months, and when you came out of that coma, did you immediately understand the severity of your injuries? no. no. how did you come to realize that? just, you know, through time my family would, you know, kind of give me an idea. and i realized that i couldn t move my hands or my legs, and so, at first i was really scared. i didn t want to know. i didn t want to know, you know, if i didn t have any toes or feet or you didn t want to look in the mirror? no. that took a long time. you wrote this blog, the nienie dialogues, and it was all about parenting, it was about the joy you felt for being a mom and how much you love it, the challenges, the ups and downs, but being a mom, and there was a period after your accident where your kids, and they re young the oldest is 78 couldn t really bring them to come to the hospital to visit you because of your appearance. how difficult was that? that was the worst of this whole thing. i mean, the pain, everything. i think it was the worst to have to face my children and have them sort of reject me a little bit at first. it was i thought everything that i had done was just stripped from me, all my motherhood, all of the joys of being a mother and a wife was just gone. it was important for you to get back at writing at some point, i know that. yes. but you ve changed your blog a little bit, because well, tell me how you ve changed it. it s been more therapy for me now, so, you know, i ve been more writing my inner feelings and the difference of being a mother from before and now. i m curious, christian, do you notice, has she changed in the role of mom? you know, i ve probably less noticed the difference less than others, but to me, she s the same mother she s always been and the same wife she s always been. she s wonderful in every way. in the piece there, stephanie, we saw you having a chance to talk to some of the people who read your blog over the years. yeah. what have you read from them? what s their response to you getting back on and writing more? i think i ve just given them hope that any challenge can be overcome with the right attitude and i think our belief in god was one of the definitely one of the reasons why we re here, and it was nice to share that with people and inspire that way. clair and jane and nicholas and oliver, last thanksgiving was hard, i know, because your mom and dad were in the hospital. is this a lot better this year? yeah? and has your mom changed at all? do you notice any changes? no. mm-hmm. no? clair says no and jane says yes. what changes do you notice? she s getting better. she s getting what? she s getting better. she s a better mom these days even than she was before the accident? wasn t that nice? it s nice. you didn t do that, did you? when you get out there, you say i m a better mom. that s pretty great. that s great stuff. what would you like to say that you re thankful for, stephanie and christian, on this thanksgiving? oh, yeah. we have everything to be thankful for, but most of all is our family, that we were preserved to live and to spend time with them, and there was some real pleading while we were still in the hospital that we could live and spend another day with our children, and here we are. wow. we ll get a chance to speak with your siblings after the accident here on the show, so best of luck to them and continued happiness to you and your children. thank you so much. happy thanksgiving. to read more about these people, you can check out stephanie s blog. logon to our website, todayshow.com. what s our favorite part of honey bunches of oats? the sparkly flakes. the honey-baked bunches! the magic s in the mix. my favorite part? eating it. honey bunches of oats. taste the joy we put in every spoonful. i m sorry my signing still isn t very good. i learned a new sign to show you. merry christmas. male announcer: gifts of gold she ll treasure, and at kay, you ll find the latest styles. one more reason kay is the number one jewelry store in america. do you like it? to earn cash back from holiday shopping. that was easy. earn cash back on purchases to pay down your credit card or go into savings. with the power rewards® visa® credit card. only from bank of america. are still on the road today. uh hum. no. uh-uh. - which means, someday, - ( dings ) this camry could be his. ( car wash whirring ) reliability, to move you forward. and now to the special congratulations for mr. roker. somehow, along with his duties here at today, on the weather channel, and just about everywhere else, he has found time to write his first novel. it s called the morning show murders, and leading up to its release, we noticed some strange things happening here. it was a dark and stormy morning over at studio 1a. hey, good morning. reporter: what seemed like a normal broadcast was anything but. amidst our morning coffee, something else was brewing, something evil. someone had murder on their mind. the nightmare began at 7:48 but first, these messages. reporter: a commercial break and ample time for the killer to get into disguise. the suspicious figure ran amuck, terrorizing the studio and locating the weapon of choice. meanwhile, our executive producer, jim bell, hard at work in the control room, unaware danger, death was lurking just around the corner. at 7:50 eastern standard time, jim received his last emmy. reporter: the number one morning show was now in mourning. i m heartbroken. dealing with the sadness of it is overwhelming. reporter: who was capable of such a brazen, brutal act? former fbi profiler clint van zandt gave a glimpse into the mind of a killer. this was a gruesome, a grisly crime. there was a lot of anger and rage expressed when the killer used his weapon to hit the victim over and over again. reporter: the suspects were brought in for questioning. did i do it? oh, come on. i didn t do it. i did not do it. i didn t do it. did somebody say i did it? reporter: with pressure mounting, the finger-pointing began. you know what? my money s on curry. i was in the studio. i mean, i have witnesses. there are people who saw me there. three words kathie lee gifford. well, there s only one person that possibly could have done it, that would have had a motive, and that would have been matt lauer, i mean, obviously. the day before jim died, matt went into his office. matt went in screaming, screaming that i was getting more airtime. and apparently, jim said, well, of course she s getting more airtime, she s better at what she does than you are, and i think that just matt snapped. he snapped. a break came today in the murder of today executive producer jim bell. it turns out the emmy used in his killing was for outstanding hurricane coverage. all signs are now leading to al roker. a search is under way in his neck of the woods. [ sirens ] all right, i admit it, i did it, yeah, and you know what? i m not sorry, either! every day, jim bell s cutting my time. i need a quick weather here, 30 seconds here. how much more can a man take? al is out on bail. his new book the morning show murders. congratulations on the new book. thank you. but before that, you had the opportunity to kill jim bell. how come you get all the good assignments? just lucky, i guess. he actually wasn t harmed. we had a stunt double in there. exactly. where did this idea for the book come? why a murder on morning tv? well, they say write what you know. i ve never actually killed anybody, that i ll admit to, but you know, i do know a little bit about morning television. i ve worked with you guys. and it s something i ve always wanted to do. i always loved mystery and my mom was a great reader of mysteries and she kind of inspired me. so, this was something i always wanted to do. and your heart of the book is this character named billy blessing. yes. and he s a real jovial guy, reminds me of somebody else we know. well, he s a chef. based on someone we know? he s a bald, little stocky, so i see denzel washington in the movie, obviously. already gone there. but no, he s a chef. so you know, chefs are very popular on morning television. you kind of combine them. of course, i had not the first iota of a way to write this, so i teamed up with dick lockey, a terrific murder mystery writer, and we teamed up in the process. he said you were brilliant in fleshing out the characters, and some of them are a bit bizarre. are they based on any of us? we re not in the book, are we? on advice of my toernsiattor i ll say no. there are no characteristics that will jump out at people? nothing? listen, no. maybe subconsciously, somebody works their way in. that s it. but not wholeheartedly. here s what i want to know, when do you do this? exactly. you know what, you ve got three kids, i have three kids. you get up early in the morning, so do i. where do you find time to sit down and write this book is this. well, like you guys, i m traveling all the time. i wrote a good part of it while i was in beijing, you know, during and then flying, in hotel rooms, airport lounges. i m making the most of my time. we want to mention, because you mentioned earlier good company. we have celebrated crime novelists who said many nice things about you. many people did. janet ivanovic said al roker s mystery thriller is a winner. james patterson, a best-selling writer himself, says al roker should quit his day job. please don t. many of you feel the same way. and they called it a great fun. so, congratulations. here s my problem with the plot of the thing we just showed there. what? if you went after jim bell with an emmy, first of all, it would bounce off him. he s the man of steel. he s tough. he would have squashed you like a bug. they caught him by surprise, right behind him. don t forget, al, we have the power down here. we can close your mike. you talk about the emmy. go to 86. you didn t receive an emmy for hurricane coverage. no. you know, matt, my truck operator, tom bear, said don t you wish you had your weight back? right about now i do. ooh! get off of this, and don t forget it gets old! when all else fails, go to b. go to b ? what s b ? oh! cleveland! is there a c ? just for no particular reason, just to do. just because you can. good luck with the book. he murdered you. thank you. also want to thank steve asher, who did a great job congrats. and there s a sequel live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. let s get a final check of the morning commute with sarah caldwell. kind of a messy ride out there. rain and not helping matters. if you are heading out on westbound 100, we have an accident there. foreclosures in effect there. on the outer loop of the beltway at liberty road, accident being reported that there as you approached security. somewhere between liberty and security, are reported accident. heavy delays not only on the west side but on the inner loop of the beltway on the northwest corner towards the j.f.x. you can see it is heavy on the j.f.x. now in the southbound direction. six miles per hour on the outer loop from belair to the harrisburg expressway. 20 minutes is your drive time on the on the west side. not to bet on southbound 95 towards the 895 split. obviously, rain limiting visibility about harford road. 95 and joppa road, delays in place there. good morning, everyone. this is the storm that would not leave. off and on rainshowers that will stay with us through the morning and into early afternoon. heavy stuff, up 95 in harford and cecil county. 40 s in the present time would be able maybe sneak into the low 50s. should for a high of 53 degrees this afternoon. off and on of rain showers. drizzle this afternoon. 50 to 55. the% chance of a shower on thanksgiving day. we will have anothe 8:30 now on a tuesday morning. it s the 24th day of november 2009. another packed plaza crowd and a lot of these people here for a great reason. they re here to listen to 12-time grammy award-winner alicia keys performing on our plaza. a native new yorker, started playing class capital piano at the age of 7, was writing songs at 11. this girl s got it all, and she s going to put on a great show in just a couple of minutes. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira, al roker and ann curry. and what else is coming up? well, actually, tomorrow it s bon jovi s turn to rock the plaza, a great way for everybody to get ready for the long holiday weekend. so, if you re in the area, please come on down. we d love to have you. also coming up, we ll be talking about how to not spend all of our money when holiday spending, how to stay on a budget. we have great tips for that. obviously, a lot of people spent lots of money last weekend watching the movies. twilight: new moon, third biggest weekend opening ever. ashley green is with us. she plays alice cullen in the movie. good to see you. congratulations. thank you. i mean when you listen to these numbers, $140 million in three days, could you ever expect that? no, absolutely not. i don t think we expected what we made on the first one, let alone the second one. it s crazy. it s insane, but i love it. as al said, you play alice cullen, which is the future seeing member of the cullen vampire clan. one of the things you get to do in the movie, which is really cool, is you drive a porsche through the streets of italy, but that could be a little scary, as well, i think. it was a little scary. i think it was scarier for the producers, actually. that you crash it. there was about one, yeah. they taught me how to drive it in a parking lot, and then when it came to it was this narrow road with a bunch of people in the way, and then i had to do my lines. so, it was kind of it was a risk, but it came out good. it did. it came out great. you have a new movie coming out soon, apparition. this movie, being with twilight, how has it changed your life both personally and professionally? twilight basically gave me a career. i really didn t have one before, you know. i was a struggling actor. i was working at the bellmont and i was reading the book series when i got the part. in the course of a year, i don t think i ve stopped in a year. so you were already a fan of the series in terms of the books. i was. well, before i go in for the audition, i like to know what i m getting myself into, so i read it in like a day and a half and was, of course, that much more determined to get the park. so, how do you react to the fervor? we had taylor and robert out here earlier, and you know, the reaction is pretty amazing. i mean, how have you gone from zero to basically 100 in terms of how people react to you and your name being so famous now? i mean, before, it was, you know, i was another struggling actor in hollywood, and now people care what flavor ice cream i eat. so, it s a really what flavor do you eat? i do pink berry. they had like 20 different flavors. but no, it was basically nobody cared and now every movie you make is scrutinized and my mom knows everything i do all the time. she s like, so, you went out again last night. fame has that other side to it. congratulations on all the success. we want to tell our viewers that new moon is we are going to do with off and on rainshowers and drizzle as we go through this tuesday. the clouds will stick around. we ll shooting for a high temperature in the low 50s. and that s your latest weather. first of all, we want to say hello to rebecca meyer. she s the latest contestant eliminated from nbc s the biggest loser. rebecca, nice to see you. nice to see you. you started out at 299 pounds. correct. what do you weigh now? you look fantastic. i weigh 157 pounds. wow, that s amazing! 122 pounds in six months. you were known for pulling big numbers, so were you surprised when you only lost three pounds in the last weigh-in? yeah. it was definitely a huge surprise to me, because you know, i pulled 18 the first week. but it just goes to show when it comes to stress and, you know, getting close to your goal, it s hard to pull those big numbers. so, the finale is in two weeks. do you think you have a shot at the $250,000 for the home prize? oh, yeah. yeah? i m definitely going to go strong, finish strong, you know? good for you. well, you look great. congratulations. thank you so much. that s terrific. god bless. the biggest loser airs tonight at 8:00 eastern, 7:00 central right here on nbc. and of course, if you want to check your local weather any time of the day or night, go to the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. meredith? all right, al, thank you very much. just ahead, a live concert from 12-time grammy winner alicia keys. take out the papers and the trash this morning on live smart today, some of the most creative homes you ll ever see. nbc s chief environmental correspondent anne thompson shows us how one man is giving new life to some old materials. reporter: the homes look like something out of a fairy tale, marked by whimsy and imagination. each is a story of resurrection told by designer and builder dan phillips. we have such waste. there is just a numbing quantity of waste, and we can press that into the service of not only solving the problem of choked landfills, but providing affordable housing and a venue for training workers who don t have skills. reporter: that s a lot to expect from piles of construction trash, but phillips is transforming huntsville, texas, by turning materials discarded by others into homes. this is redwood up here. i got 17,000 board feet of redwood for the cost of shipping. reporter: oh, my gosh. he is the ultimate bargain-hunter and recycling. a man gave me 12 french doors, three feet by eight feet. and so, it makes a dandy greenhouse. reporter: complete with stickers from a past life. 80% of the materials on the property are free. reporter: 80%? yeah. reporter: wow! either headed to landfill, the burn pile or the mulcher. reporter: phillips has no formal training in design or construction. the plans for each house are determined by the materials available. that s how the treat house got a window in the first floor. a budweiser can inspired this house. and yes, those are bones from the butcher, now decoration and door handles on phillips latest project. you know what i m struck by? i really thought it would look more like a hodgepodge. well, it can if you re not careful. the abiding rule is repetition creates pattern, but it also creates unity. reporter: so, warped wood becomes eye-catching siding, license plates shiny roof shingles, and picture frames a mesmerizing ceiling, all built in an energy-efficient, earth-friendly way. phillips builds for those who can t afford homes, struggling artists and single moms. with almost no money invested in materials, he can sell them for below market value, making owning this house a fairy tale come true for christie stevens and her sons. it s a huge sense of relief that i don t have to come up with a huge amount of money every month. it s cozy and comfortable. it s ours. reporter: phillips hires unskilled labors to teach them a trade. that s given 22-year-old josh starkey confidence and something more. a career. i always say if it wasn t for dan phillips or the boy scouts, i d be in prison. i m going to do this for the rest of my life, hopefully, and help people. reporter: the creations stand out in huntsville, known for its town square, state prison and larger than life statue of hometown hero sam houston. did people think you were crazy when you started? they still think i m crazy. reporter: phillips houses and philosophy are giving new notoriety to huntsville. big cities from across the country, including indianapolis and houston, are coming here to learn new ways of recycling. inspired by phillips, huntsville collects leftover construction materials and gives them away to nonprofit groups and low-income housing builders. in five years, it s kept 300 tons of trash from going into the landfill. but phillips business is no charity. if i can prove that you could make a reasonable living building for the poor using recycled materials and unskilled labor and still come out, then it s in the marketplace, then we ve really done something. reporter: changing architecture and attitudes to write a happy ending for people and the environment. for today, anne thompson, nbc news, huntsville, texas. and coming up next alicia ke welcome back to cooking with delilah. today i m making a classic sweet potato pie. everyone can enjoy, even lactose intolerant folks. while i let my friends enjoy the secret ingredient, lactaid milk. like it? mmmm. that s because delicious lactaid milk. is 100% real milk. that s lactose-free so it s easy on the stomach. which lets you enjoy that great flavor alone. and in your favorite recipes. welcome back to the table. lactaid milk. love it with lactaid. that s hard to find. don t miss out on holiday card rewards, only at giant. earn one point for every dollar you spend. good for up to 20% off a future shopping trip. if you have a card, then you ve been earning since november 6th. how many points have you collected? 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. she is a 12-time grammy award-winner, bound to win a few more for her latest album the element of freedom, which comes out next month. ladies and gentlemen, alicia keys. here we go, come on! good morning! come on! good morning, come on. you feeling good? listen. i just want you close, you know i do, where you can stay forever you can be sure that it will only get better you and me together, through the days and nights i don t worry cause everything s gonna be all right people keep talking, they could say what they like but all i know is everything s gonna be all right no one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i m feeling no one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i feel for you you, you, can get in the way of what i feel for you when the rain is pouring down and my heart is hurting you will always be around, you know that, this i know for certain you and me together, through the days and nights i don t worry cause everything s gonna be all right, hey people keep talking, they could say what they like, but all i know is everything s gonna be all right hey, hey, no one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i m feeling no one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i feel for you you, you, can get in the way of what i feel i know some people search the world to find something like what we have i know people will try, try to divide something so real, so until the end of time, i m telling you there is no one no one, no one can get in the way of what i m feeling no one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i feel for you oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, can get in the way of what i feel for you thank you! no, thank you, alicia keys! another song in a moment. but first, this is today on nbc. falling in and out of love with you alicia keys new album the element of freedom doesn t come out until next month, but it is already receiving huge praise. listen to this. the new york post calls it brilliant, perfect and the year s biggest must-have. alicia keys, good morning to you. good morning. that s not a bad review, if you can get them, right? it s amazing to me and that s how i feel. i love this music. the element of freedom, december 15th, is going to take you somewhere beautiful. it s been years since your last studio recording. this time, talk about freedom, you allowed yourself, you said, to let go. yes. how did that change as an artist? i think with experience you get a little more balanced, and i learned the balance of being able to create, being able to have time with my family, being able to really experience life, and that made for the best music so far. and your other passion in life these days is a charitable organization called keep the child alive. absolutely. which focuses on hiv treatment for aids in africa. and you will be busy on december 1st. december 1st is very exciting. we re doing a show in new york city at the nokia theater. it s already been sold out, and i m so glad that we ll be able to talk about world aids day, talk about what s going on, talk about keep a child alive. and i actually have a special announcement i m going to make that day that nobody wants to miss. so december 1st. tune in. you won t give us a hint? it s something that will change five people s lives. fantastic. we look forward to that. what are you going to sing for us? we ll go for the single try sleeping with a broken heart. i love this song. i can t wait to play it for you, and i m thrilled to be here. well, we re glad to have you. ladies and gentlemen, alicia keys. all right. if you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart, then you understand what this song is about. i m gonna say how i feel, that s good, baby, that s good even if you are a billion miles away, i could still feel you in my bed near me, touch me, feel me and even at the bottom of the sea, i could still hear it inside my head telling me, touch me, feel me, and all the time you were telling me lies so tonight, i m gonna find a way to make it without you tonight, i m gonna find a way to make it without you i m gonna hold on to the times that we had, tonight i m gonna find a way to make it without you have you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart, well you could try sleeping in my bed lonely, own me, nobody ever shut it down like you you wore the crown, you made my body feel heaven bound why don t you hold me, need me, i thought you told me you d never leave me looking in the sky i could see your face and i knew right where i fit in, take me, make me, you know that i ll always be in love with you right till the end oh, so tonight, i m gonna find a way to make it without you tonight i m gonna find a way to make it without you i m gonna hold on to the times that we had tonight, i m gonna find a way to make it without you anybody could have told you right from the start it s about to fall apart so rather than hold on to a broken dream or just hold on to love and i could find a way to make it, don t hold on too tight, i ll make it without you tonight so tonight, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, without you, oh, no tonight i m gonna find a way to make it without you i m gonna hold on, i m gonna hold onto the times that we had tonight, i m gonna find a way to make it without you hold on i wanna sing it, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la la, la, la, la, la have you ever tried, have you ever tried sleeping with a broken heart thank you. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. here is what of our top stories. jurors for torn to the court house this morning for the fourth day of deliberations in the trial of baltimore mayor sheila dixon group after about 80 hours of deliberations, jurors say they are making after about 18 hours of deliberations, jurors say they are making progress. all of the questions surround the gift cards intended for the mayor s tora in 2007. stay tuned to wbal and wbaltv.com for updates. bac let s take a look at the forecast with tony pann. off and on rainshowers will be with us through the morning. it will taper off a little bit this afternoon. the cuts will stay with us. klaus will stay with us. branch teller chances will stay with us through the holiday. rain shower chances will stay with us through the holiday. don t expect a washout. still a chance for rain both days. a rain or snow showers on friday. we will have another update at 9:25.