Transcripts For WBAL Today 20091211 : vimarsana.com

good morning. frozen nation. much of the country now in the throes of a brutal cold snap. below freezing temperatures from coast to coast. and with the wind, it feels like minus 25 in some spots. one in six. new numbers show the swine flu has sickened about 50 million americans and killed nearly 10,000. and the harshest months for the flu haven t even arrived. and today exclusive. jamie jungers, an alleged mistress of tiger woods speaks out. when did it start, how long did it last and who ended it? we ll ask her about it all in her first live interview today, friday, december 11th, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on a friday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. and i m so glad that you are back. good to be back. safe and sound. thanks. very emotional, matt. i think of everything we saw in the past couple days, it was seeing the troops. it was very emotional for us to see and i can imagine for you, too to be there. and al, too. we were listening to their personal stories of how long they ve spent away from their homes and families. so, yeah, it was nice to be able to see them. meanwhile, it was freezing in afghanistan, and you welcomed me back to one of the coldest days of the year here. it sure feels like it. of course, it s nothing compared to the subzero windchills and temperatures, minus 5 in the midwest. we ll get al s forecast in a moment. also ahead, two of president obama s biggest critics are in town, newt gingrich heaping praise on his nobel prize acceptance speech, even calling it historic. we ll talk about that and the battles obama still has to fight at home with david gregory in a few minutes. plus, one of the women who claims to have had an affair with tiger woods speaks out live. jamie jungers says she had a year and a half relationship with tiger that started shortly after his wedding. we ll talk about that later this morning. but we begin with that winter blast being felt across much of the nation. the weather channel s paul goodloe is in silver creek, new york, outside buffalo. paul, what s it like there? reporter: it is very cold and windy. snow still is coming down here, matt. again, we re in silver creek, about 35 miles south-southwest of buffalo, dealing with our first significant lake-effect snowstorm of the year, and this is a very light, dry, fluffy powder, which is horrible for making snowman and snowballs, but it s great for drifting and blowing across the highway. in fact, interstate 90, the new york state thruway not too far from here, is closed now because of this. numerous accidents. a jack-knifed 18-wheeler still causing problems there. and travel is definitely not ideal in this part of western new york. and we re still dealing with howling winds out here. temperature about 17, 18 degrees. the windchill with the winds gusting 30 to 40 miles per hour is about one, two degrees below zero. and the snow, an unofficial measurement here in silver creek. we re talking about a foot deep, but again, a lot of this is also drifting because the winds are still gusting 30, 40 miles per hour. it is definitely looking deep into the winter season here in western new york. matt? all right, paul goodloe in the middle of a big snowstorm. paul, thanks very much. and al is upstairs with more on the forecast. good morning, al, and welcome home. thanks a lot, meredith, matt. good to see both of you. here we go, the lake-effect snow, cleveland, buffalo, into parts of upstate new york. some of the snow actually reaching into maine right now. grand rapids and alpena, michigan, seeing the snow. we re talking about snowfall amounts anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow, but some areas locally could get 18 to 24 inches of snow. we re talking two feet of snow. the other big story, of course, the cold air covering much of the country. temperatures right now, these are temperature departures from normal. tallahassee right now is 21 degrees below normal. denver 12 degrees below, seattle 15 degrees below normal. these are the normal highs. it is going to be a rough one, and in fact, afternoon highs, chicago only 21, tallahassee 46, boise 22, denver 36 degrees. this cold air is going to hang in for at least another 24 hours, and then we ve got a big storm coming out of the gulf that s going to be affecting the east this weekend. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. we ll check in for your local forecast in a bit, but right now, let s turn to politics. the president and first lady are making their way back from norway this morning where president obama received his nobel peace prize on thursday. while here at home, his acceptance speech is drawing praise from some unlikely quarters, conservative republicans. david gregory is moderator of nbc s meet the press. good morning to you. good morning, matt. this is rather unusual, getting people like sarah palin and newt gingrich saying bravo, mr. president, we like this speech. is that good news or bad news for the president? right, well, it depends on your perspective. i don t know that some of the europeans who are a little bit more skeptical about the speech or even members of the president s base will be so happy about that, but look, across the board, this is being celebrated as an extraordinary speech because it was a statement about the need for just war, a defense, a robust defense of the war in afghanistan and a defense of america s unique place in the world, of american purpose in the world, to provide security while also to recast the relationship between the united states and the rest of the world. so, in some ways, it was a speech that president bush could have given in terms of message, but the tone was all obama, and that is the contribution that the white house feels he s made to the international scene. yeah, when you talk about a just war, what he said was he could not stand idle in the face of threats to the american people. so, as he heads home now, in the first of his 30,000 surge troops head off to afghanistan in the next couple days and weeks and months, has he made the case, in your opinion, good enough, or well enough, excuse me, that what s going on in afghanistan is to protect the people here at home? i think it s very difficult. matt, you ve just been there, you spent time with our troops. you ve no doubt seen the weariness of these multiple deployments. americans, i think, farther and farther away from 9/11, see the complexity and the difficulty of this war, and frankly, still question whether it s worth dying for, because the ultimate question is, can this really be won? is there a winnable strategy here? i still think that s very, very difficult. the president has said this is a vital national interest, but u.s. troops are still coming home at a date certain beginning in july of 2011, and i think there s lots of reasons to be skeptical about the prospects for an effective central government in afghanistan and a changed security situation, not just in afghanistan, but on the border as well with pakistan. president karzai made comments while defense secretary gates was there, saying, by the way, we re going to need money to pay for this military force for an awfully long time. let me turn to health care. in the senate, they re trying to come up with a compromise to help them get around the highly controversial public option. where s that going to go? well, right now, there is the hope that moderates, moderate democrats, will stay on board, but there are concerns, no question. the white house and democrats in the senate are concerned that some of that support may be slipping. there s a difficult balancing act here. they want to take the word public option out of the lexicon of this debate, keep liberal democrats, moderate democrats on board. they think they can thread the needle here, but it really is going to come down to a couple of votes with the overall goal here of trying to get this passed by next week. on a more personal note, let me say happy anniversary. thank you, matt. because i know this marks one year at the helm of meet the press. how s the ride been so far? it s been great. it s been great. i couldn t be any more thrilled one year in to be doing this program. i think it s such an important program, as important as it s ever been. i ve also been humbled by how challenging the first year is, the circumstances under which i ve taken over, but you know, i ve just got to focus on what we re doing and we re going to charge ahead. tell me what you re focusing on for sunday. well, the big issue for us is jobless recovery. that is the real question, i think, facing this president and facing this country. we re going to have a top economic adviser, christina romer, to the president on the program, and a pretty interesting roundtable, alan greenspan, jim cramer, jennifer granholm and mitt romney talking about jobs and when they ll come back. thanks, david. congratulations again on the anniversary. congratulations again to david. now let s get a check of the top stories from ann curry at the news desk. good morning. good morning to you, meredith. welcome back, matt. good morning, everybody. in the news this morning, federal health officials are reporting a big jump in swine flu deaths, as you just heard earlier. by their count, swine flu has killed about 10,000 americans so far, and most of them in just the last two months. the government is also reporting about 50 million americans that s about one in every six have had the swine flu. a new study finds that bone-building drugs such as fosamax, act nell and boniva may also help prevent breast cancer. doctors found women using the drugs were one-third less likely to develop invasive breast cancer, but they caution more studies need to be done. robert gates predicted there will be significant international sanctions against iran over its nuclear program. he made the comment in iraq where he met this morning with prime minister nuri al maliki. he also spent some time with u.s. troops. a u.s. official confirms that a senior al qaeda member has been killed in a u.s. drone attack in western pakistan. the al qaeda member was not identified, but the official said that it was not osama bin laden or ayman al zawahiri. police in pakistan say five americans obtained over terror links will allegedly be deported. the men told investigators they wanted to fight u.s. troops in afghanistan. amanda knox s boyfriend is speaking out after the two were convicted of killing their roommate in italy. he called knox a sweet girl and said she is incapable of killing anyone. overseas markets are mostly higher this morning and melissa lee is at the new york stock exchange. melissa, lots of attention there today on wall street regulations in congress. good morning to you, ann. house democrats are in the final stretch of finishing a bill that would be the most sweeping overhaul of wall street rules since the new deal. the bill would aim to regulate many of the areas that may have contributed to the financial crisis, including the $600 trillion derivatives market. a sticky point may be whether to create a consumer financial protection agency, which would have complete oversight of consumer lending. not creating that agency could cost the bill the support of some democrats, ann. all right, melissa, thanks so much. and in colorado, a freight train derailment on thursday sent rail cars plunging off a bridge and down about 25 feet onto a roadway below. fortunately, no cars were hit and there were no injuries reported. an investigation is now under way. it is now 7:11. let s go back to matt, meredith and al, who we re also welcoming back this morning. hello, traveler, how are you? good. again, just humbled by our trip out there with the troops. one word, brr. is that a word? here are the wind chill factors. feels like a degrees in carroll county. 12 degrees at and we re back because it s friday, and you know we have to tell you about our favorite night of the week, sunday night football night in america. it s giants stadium. no dome here. that s right, we re real men, where they play real football. eagles come flying in! periods of rain, temperatures upper 30s to low 40s. it s not football unless you re miserable! that s right, on sunday night football night in america. love it. meredith. now i know you re officially back, al roker. thank you. and now to mounting concerns over security in rio de janeiro, the host of the 2016 summer olympics. the games may be more than six years away, but officials in brazil are already working to make rio safer with the help of a familiar face here in the united states. cnbc s erin burnett is in rio de janeiro this morning. erin, good morning to you. reporter: good morning to you, meredith. and it s pretty amazing here. this fall, armed gangs actually shot down a police helicopter. they killed three officers. and it s just one example of a city with a crime crisis just a few years away from the olympics. now, they re hoping that rudy giuliani will help them out. of course, he s the former mayor of new york, famous for fighting crime there, but many people here tell us new york at its worst looks like easy street compared to this. it s overwhelming, beautiful beachings, modern skyscrapers, impoverished slums. and with slums comes extraordinary levels of crime. there were nearly 4,500 murders here in 2008, nine times the number in america s biggest city, new york. experts say one-third of rio s population lives in very poor slums like this one. drug lords rule, in part because they re better armed than the real rio police. they sell marijuana, cocaine, and increasingly, crack. according to the cia, brazil is the world s second largest consumer of cocaine. the security crisis here a big obstacle to rio s 2016 olympics. and the man running rio s olympics is betting on rudy giuliani to help. in final negotiations to hire him as a security consultant. in terms of security measures, because he was very successful in new york city. his insights and his know-how to help us to move forward this fight against crime. reporter: but it may be too much to ask. as several people told us in rio, this is more than crime. it s a full-fledged war. and people are very skeptical about the rudy giuliani headline. if he does become a security consultant, would it really just be a public relations exercise? a lot of those neighborhoods, by the way, you can see right behind me in that shot up on the hill. that was recently raided by police, and police are part of the problem. in brazil, police kill 1 in every 23 people they arrest. in america, meredith, they kill 1 for every 37,000 people they arrest. it gives you a sense of the scale of the problem. back to you. huge problem. erin burnett, thank you very much. it is 7:15, and once again, here s matt. meredith, thank you. now to the latest on the tiger woods sex scandal. there are a lot of new developments this morning, and nbc s peter alexander is here with them. peter, good morning to you. matt, good morning to you. welcome back. since news of this scandal first broke two weeks ago, more and more women are coming forward claiming to have had affairs with tiger woods, but one of the women who has remained silent is tiger woods only wife, elin, and many people are wondering if she will stand by her man. she s been called the mysterious mrs. woods. friends describe elin nordegren as being as elegant as she is private. the 29-year-old swedish mother of two is still in seclusion at the couple s florida estate, reportedly planning what to do next. we spoke to many people who said that elin is a very, very strong woman. she s not going to just let tiger get away with this because he s tiger woods. reporter: still, in its new issue, people magazine reports that nordegren, whose parents divorced when she was just 6, has vowed not to let that happen to her own family. she was alternating living at her mom s house and her dad s house, and she found that very disconcerting and very uprooting, and she does not want that for her kids. reporter: nordegren s father thomas, a successful journalist with his own swedish radio show, spoke about his son-in-law s betrayal on the radio last week. saying for now, i think my main job is to support my daughter and grandkids. elin s mom, barboro holmgren, who was rushed to the hospital earlier this week, is a swedish politician who recently arrived to support her daughter. elin nordegren wasn t always the reserved wife of golf s biggest star. in 2000, she starred in a swedish sports magazine and then moved to become a nanny for parnevik and his wife. parnevik introduced elin to her future husband, something parnevik now says he regrets. i feel sorry hearing this since me and my wife are at fault, hooking her up with him, and we probably thought he was a better guy than he is. reporter: tiger woods infidelity is making headlines around the world and stirring strong opinions near stockholm, where elin and her twin city just purchased this island estate worth more than $2 billion. he s a cheater and i don t think it matters that he s a celebrity. reporter: tiger s intensely public drama shows no sign of letting up. jamie jungers is a 26-year-old model and one of many women who claims she had a relationship with woods, revealed intimate details to dateline. he was pretty wild. one thing led to another and next thing i know, i was sleeping with tiger woods. it wasn t like boring married couple sex. like, it was fun and exciting. as for numerous reports circulating that there may be nude photos or videos of tiger woods, one of woods lawyers in britain tells nbc news that he s obtained an injunction, effectively, a restraining order on behalf of the golfer, that would prohibit any british tabloids from showing that material if it actually exists, matt. peter alexander, thank you very much. we ll have more just ahead, as jamie jungers, the woman who claims she had a lengthy relationship with woods that started just months after his wedding, speaks out in an exclusive live interview. saying all morning, it s great to have you guys back. what stood out the most for you on your trip, beyond the troops? we talked about that. i think how tense that place is. we were in kabul, keep in mind. we weren t even out in the most dangerous parts of the country, in the south in the provinces. but even in kabul, when we did the show from camp eggers, which is a fortified nato and isaf military base, you ve got to go through a whole other set of borderifications to get to camp eggers. getting out, we had to go through four checkpoints to get through the airport. you re aware constantly of the danger. yeah. and you ve never seen more people with guns. there are so many guns carried by people in different uniforms. you don t know whether they re afghan troops, u.s. troops, afghan police force, private security firms, but everybody s got a machine gun. you also see all the wonderful people who live there, the decent people. exactly. as well. all right, coming up, jamie jungers. good morning, everyone. the time is a 7:26. time to check on your morning commute. let s see what is going on this a smart this friday morning. an accident at 198 is blocking all lanes. avoid the bw parkway in that area. take 29 or route 1 as your alternate. approaching 32, an accident that is now gone, there is a delay. nothing major on southbound 95, you are tapping the brakes approaching the beltway northeast and as you make your way towards the harrisburg expressway. 15 minutes on southbound i-95, that is the earlier accident. 13 minutes on the outer loop. a 12 minute ride on the outer loop. south of the beltway northeast, a little bit of a delay but not as bad as you normally see it. somewhere is certainly a factor but the delays are not too bad. now we have the latest on the forecast. despite the sunshine, take a look, it only feels like 7 degrees near york, pennsylvania. actual temperatures in the low 20 s, we will have sustained winds from 15 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour. we only have a high of 36 degrees at best. it will feel like 20 throughout the afternoon. the wind is going to die down tomorrow. the possibility of a wintery mix on sunday before a decent warm up on monday and tuesday. updated news and traffic throughout the morning. we will see you at our next live update, 70 7:55. 7:30 now on this friday, december 11th, 2009. and baby, it is cold here in the big apple. we re taking a look from the top of the rock, where it feels like 8 degrees with all of that wind. we re going to go outside and brave the cold and get outside on the plaza and say hi in just a little bit. a big group hug out there just to keep everybody warm. exactly. i m meredith vieira along with matt lauer. ahead, a today exclusive. jamie jungers claims to have had an affair with tiger woods. and a survival story. remember bethany hamilton? 13 years old when she lost an arm in a shark attack six years ago. she s going to join us this morning in our studio, see how she s doing. she s a little chilly in our studio. plus, correspondent jenna bush hager drops by to tell us about one of hollywood s hottest stars. but first, a check of the weather with al. announcer: today s weather is brought you by advil cold and sinus, with the power of advil, plus a strong decongestant. ask for it at the pharmacy counter. all right, it is a brisk one out here! a birthday girl, jillian. how old are you? 8. 8 years old! where are you guys from? raleigh. all right, from raleigh, north carolina. that s terrific. got another birthday girl right over here. that s grace, and she s 10 years old. happy birthday, grace. let s check your weather, see what s going on. and we will see that currently we ve got oh, my hat was kind of doing a norton there. let s go to the map, shall we, and show you? we ve got the subtropical jet stream, and it is bringing a lot of moisture up along the gulf. low pressure s going to form along that, going to bring heavy rain for the gulf coast starting late tonight on into tomorrow. and then as we move into saturday, a mix of rain, snow and ice moves in the mid-atlantic states, into the northeast by sunday evening. it s all rain, but up to the north into new england and interior new york, we re talking about snow. so, it s going to be a frigid start that will only get us up to 36 degrees today. west winds got some nice folks who brought florida strawberries. those look awfully good. if they stay out here much longer, they re going to be frozen strawberries. now back inside to meredith. al, thank you very much. now to jaimie jungers, the first of tiger woods alleged mistresses to speak out exclusively. good morning to you. good morning. what you did not see, as al was doing the weather report, you had picked up tuesday s copy of the post that i was going to ask you about, because the headline there is let me check it out mistress tiger paid me. you looked very angry. yeah. took everything i had not to say something inappropriate on set. well, because that article suggests that tiger woods did pay you, paid you money and that, in fact, you used some of the money for liposuction. all of it is completely false. the first two paragraphs that i read made me seriously so angry that i wanted just to outbreak, like i don t even know how to feel right now. i am pretty upset. why did you decide to come here this morning and speak out? to clear the air, to make all these false rumors put, you know, in the past, that i can clear up everything, and people know what the real truth is behind the situation. so, let s talk about what you say the real truth is, jamie. when did you meet tiger woods, how did you meet tiger woods? i met tiger woods in 2005 in las vegas at one of the nightclubs. i was doing a charity organization during the day, and we had an after party in the evening. and his group of friends came in just to party. they weren t part of the charity. he had a vip host call me over to his table and requested to meet me. so, one of the guys came over, introduced himself and said tiger would like to meet you, and i kind of laughed and didn t take him seriously, because i didn t figure it would be tiger woods. anyway, he said it was tiger woods. i went over, he introduced himself and we ended up hanging out, drinking, pretty much what you do at a nightclub. but it escalated from there. yes. pretty quickly. yeah. what happened? we all left in a limo, me and a couple of his friends, went back to the mansion at the mgm, continued drinking more. as we re at the mansion i mean, it kind of became clear to me that tiger was interested. i didn t know how far it would lead. the more we drank, the more, i guess, flirtatious we got. so, it just, it kind of led from friendly conversation in a nightclub into back into his hotel. and you ended up spending the night with him. yes. did you think that was going to be it, jamie? did you think it was essentially one night? absolutely. but it wasn t. it didn t end up being that. no. what happened next? did he pursue you? yes. yeah, he called me the following day and said that he loved spending time with me, he d love to get to know me more and he gave me his phone number and told me to save it in his phone as a different name in case i lost the phone. and he said that he would love to see me shortly because he thought we had a connection, so. at that point, tiger was recently married. did you know that? did you know he was married? i did. was that something that you thought about at all? it was a brief i mean it was a thought in my head, of course, because i mean, i m not raised to be to do something like i did, and i m not saying that it s okay, but you know, it was something i did years ago and i m not saying that it s right, but, yeah, trust me, it crossed my mind several times. so, why did you continue the relationship? i had had a crush on tiger for years. i m not a huge sports fan, but i do watch sports and i just, i ve had a crush on him for a while and i was very excited and honored that he wanted to meet me and had interest in me. how would you describe the relationship that you had with him? it went on for, what, a year and a half? yes. every time we saw each other it was like we became more and more comfortable with each other, just became more of an actual relationship, boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. did he ever talk to you about his wife, ever mention her? no. the one time that his wife was mentioned was the first day that i met him and we hung out, and i m the one that asked him about her. but you actually, from what i understand, spent time in their home, in los angeles, as well. yes, i did. when she wasn t there, obviously. yes. ye yeah. this happened probably a month after we had been seeing each other and he flew me out, came and picked me up at the airport and i stayed there for a night. see, but i have trouble understanding, with you and all the other women who have come forward is this is a very public man. he s well known, tiger woods, a public celebrity, followed by the media quite a bit. how were you able to maintain a relationship and nobody know about it? to be honest with you, i m not really sure, because we went places together. people were taking our pictures in the nightclubs. we went together into restaurants. when i went to the mansion to see him at the mgm, i would have to check in under my name and say that i was there to see him. he would come down and pick he would come get me. so, he didn t try to hide the fact that he was seeing you. he didn t, no, mm-mmm. you came here today, you said, because you wanted to clear up some of the information that s been out there about you, like this headline tiger paid me. never paid you for anything, you said. nothing. i didn t even get a birthday card. i got nothing out of this relationship but a broken heart. you loved him? i did. did he ever tell you the same? no, and i never told him that i loved him. there were times where i wanted to, but i didn t. he was intimidating. you know, there s an article in today s paper, another article the quote said a hollywood madam says you worked for her as an escort. she says she has tax forms to prove you worked for one of her companies. she says although she never spent you on paid dates with tiger that you told her that he paid you for sex. that s all phony. i never heard the woman s name. you never heard of her? never in my life. i ve never been an escort, never will be an escort. this is all news to me. so, how did the relationship end? in 2006, it was in the wintertime. i remember talking to him on the phone. i was out in the garage. he said he called to check in, see how i was doing, pretty much normal conversation, see how my day was. and i had been thinking about it. i talk to my mom every day, she s my best friend and confided in her, what should i do about the situation, especially the more i spent time with him. and her and i came up with, you know, if he is really interested in you, then he will he ll, you know, show it. and at this time, i was in a relation or at the end of the relationship with a man that i was engaged to that i was with for six years total. and we still lived together. we were not together when i met tiger. we had already broken up, but we still lived together. i was not financially stable to move out and be on my own. so, the one time out of the whole year and a half i was with tiger, i asked him, can you please help me out? i didn t give him a dollar amount. i didn t say, can you buy me a house, can you i wasn t specific on what i needed, but i did say can you help me out? and he said, i can t, and i just, i said, i don t understand. like, i thought maybe he was joking and i was embarrassed already to ask him about it. and he did say, i m sorry, i can t, and that s when i told him, i said, i mean, that shows to me how much i mean to you and i can t do this anymore. i mean, i m already in a rough position in my life, and this just adds more drama to what i don t knneed. so, how do you feel now knowing you were never just one? i have a lot of mixed emotions about it. i mean, i still there will always be a place in my heart for tiger, but he obviously has issues, so i m there s parts of me that s angry and there s parts of me that i guess kind of don t find doesn t find it, you know, unbelievable, you know? but i guess out of all, i m pretty heartbroken. do you feel responsible, though, for some of the heartbreak that his wife is feeling right now? yes and no. i mean, i wouldn t want somebody to do it to me, so i guess i can, but i m not going to take the full blame for this, you know? i never wanted this to come out and i never would have said anything or could have done it years ago, you know. this is just something that happened between him and i and i didn t feel like everybody needed to know, but with everything going around today, all the false rumors, i needed to come on national tv just to say that they re not true. i mean, i have to ask you we re running out of time here you obviously have not been paid by nbc news for this interview. no. have you profited at all from this story? no. you haven t received a dollar not one dollar. not one dollar. would you sell your story? no, to be honest with you, i don t think i would, because i actually didn t even want this to come out. the only reason i m on here this morning is to clear up what s out today, this false information, to clear up pretty much everything that s negative, because it s all 99% not true. do you think he got what he deserves? i don t want to be the one to say that. i don t want to be the one to judge, so i don t know. all right. jamie jungers, thank you so much for joining us this morning. we freesappreciate it. thank you. and you can see more on the secret life of tiger woods tonight at 9:00/8:00 central time here on nbc. back now at 7:44. this morning we re wrapping up this series with a look at today s buzziest stories of the past decade. and the teenage surfer who lost her left arm when she was attacked by a shark. six years later, bethany hamilton is not letting that tragedy slow her down at all. we ll catch up with her in a moment. first, nbc s miguel almaguer has her story. reporter: to watch 19-year-old bethany hamilton glide through the waves, you d think she had been balancing on her board with one arm her entire life, but six years ago, she was just a typical teenager with a dream. put your hands together for bethany hamilton! reporter: since she was a little girl, bethany wanted to be a professional surfer. she attracted sponsors at a young age, showing off her skills on some of the world s most challenging waves. you just have to have really good strategy. reporter: in 2003, bethany s dreams took a dark turn when she faced a surfer s worst nightmare. as she paddled to catch a wave, a 14-foot tiger shark attacked. the wave came in, the shark came, boom, gone. like a dog, grabbed and went and didn t come to the top at all. there was no splash at all. and i looked over and she didn t have an arm. she was paddling in with one arm. reporter: in seconds, bethany went from pro surfing prospect to shark attack victim fighting for her life. less than a month after the attack, bethany was back on her board, learning to surf with one arm. today she competes with the world s best. how are you doing? i m doing really good. reporter: and since the 2004 release of her book soul surfer, bethany has traveled the world to tell her story of perseverance, proving that faith and hope can turn a devastating loss into an inspirational victory. for today, miguel almaguer, nbc news, los angeles. and bethany s here in the studio with us. bethany, good morning. good to see you. hi, matt, thank you for having me. it s great to have you back. physically, everything is back to normal. you don t have any lingering issues, other than the obvious, correct? yeah, yeah, i m good. just kind of adapted to it and moved on. you say you ve adapted to it. i ve tried surfing a little bit. it is a balance sport. it s all about balance. what do you do physically in terms of working out to build yourself up on the other side, and how did you learn to compensate? yeah, i do a lot of training involving balance, working on balance boards and just strengthening my body, like core and leg. and yeah, just trying to keep my body balanced, because i m using the one side a lot, so. and would you say now it s second nature to have one arm on the surf board as opposed to the way you felt prior to the attack? yeah, definitely. i ve just gotten used to it and i m just learning day by day how to do things differently. one of the things that i look at, when i watch you surfing some of these really big waves and i want to talk about one in a second but not your ability to stay on the board, but what happens when you get knocked off the board and you re in the middle of one of these big waves, the ability to swim away from trouble. how have you adapted to that? usually when you fall, the wave kind of just does its thing and the best thing to do is be patient, wait for it to be all done with and then just swim up. i love when people say that, you ve got to be patient while your body s being thrown in circles and you re being pounded by this wave. do you think these days when you re surfing, wherever you are around the world, of the possibility of something like that happening again? no, not really. i m just so, like, focused on getting more waves and i just love surfing so much and enjoy doing it. so, sharks don t come to your mind at all, you don t let them? yeah, not really. how have you adapted to the fame? because shortly after this happened, you became a national television phenomenon. you ve traveled now around the world. you ve met with a lot of other people. you were, when you came here the last time, a self-described home body, a very quiet young lady. so, how have you adapted to this? yeah, kind of becoming famous has been one of the hardest things for me, but at the same time, it s been such a blessing just to share my story, encourage other people in whatever they re going through, whether they can relate to surfing or not, they can relate to me in one way or another. and yeah, it s been a robust thing in my life just to be able to share my faith and my life. i know your work with charities is important to you and you ve done an awful lot of that and should be commended for that i also understand there is something else exciting, a movie? yeah. i m working on a feature film right now. it s called soul surfer, and it s really exciting. we re starting the film in january, and yeah, it s going to come out this summer, summer 10, and it s just really cool and i m just hoping for the best. yeah, it should be a good movie. i can t believe it s been six years, bethany, since we first met you, but you re doing great, and we hope it all continues. thank you. great to see you again. and up ahead, jenna bush hager introduces us to one of hollywood s most promising teen stars. we ll meet her. but first, these message easy. still ahead, a remarkable story. three young siblings, each born deaf, are now able to hear for the very first time. we are going to talk to them and their parents. also ahead, one man s inspirational quest to climb the tallest building in the western hemisphere. his story. but first, a check of your local news and for a lot of people, a very frigid weather forecast. live, local, late trading, this is wbal news. good morning, i am stan stovall. let s take a look at the commute. good morning, everyone. still dealing with some problem areas, 95, at 97 southbound lanes have been reopened. i am not at 95 zanne 175 there are some lingering delays heading toward 32. this is left over from an accident. it crashed clearing at windsor mill. 21 miles per hour on the outer loop approaching harrisburg expressway. not all that bad approaching the beltway. 97 at westminster. 16 minutes is your dr time on south 95. 13 minutes on the outer loop. a 12-minute ride on the west side. we do have a bit of a delay on the outer loop. once you get beyond that you are in pretty good shape. northeast waterloo by hartford moving well. until you get closer to harrisburg and the parkway. now the chilly forecast. right now the wind chill factor is only 7 degrees in west in westminster. 13 at the airport. eastern shore, the teens. the actual temperature is in the 20 s. a high of 35 degrees. it will feel like 20 feet white 20 despite the signs. there is rebound on monday and tuesday. thank you. make sure to check the bottom of the screen for the news and the traffic throughout the morning. 8:00 now on a friday morning. it s the 11th day of december 2009. and let me just tell you, it is frozen here in the northeast, in new york city. it s 22 degrees, but that doesn t tell the whole story because it s windy out. windchill about? 15. 15 the real feel in new york city. so that means we especially want to thank lenny and all his friends who are braving the cold, hanging out. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira and al roker. didn t you miss this? i do miss this. we did. we did. we had a different kind of crowd behind us for the last few days, but it s good to see these folks again. lenny. yeah, lenny and the gang. meanwhile, coming up in this half hour, we re going to meet an extraordinary family. all three children in the root family were born deaf. just a couple weeks ago, they all had a procedure on the very same day that allowed them to hear for the first time. that is fantastic. we re going to check in with that family in just a minute. how fantastic is that? that is very nice. also ahead, our contributing correspondent jenna bush hager is here. she caught up with a woman who is just 15 and on the verge of hollywood superstardom, and jenna will introduce us to her in a second. plus, another talented actress is stopping by, ms. kate hudson. she is part of the star-studded cast in the new movie nine. we ll talk to kate about that. there she is. there she is. and what else is going on in her life in just a bit. okay. we ll do it. what else could be going on in her life? nothing, nothing, nothing. nothing. let s go over to the news desk where ann curry has a check of the headlines. thanks a lot, matt. good morning once again, everybody. in the news this morning, bitter cold is gripping much of the nation this morning, and another two feet of snow could fall near the eastern great lakes. more than a foot has already been on the ground since thursday in the buffalo area, where many schools were closed and drivers faced whiteout conditions. federal health officials said on thursday that swine flu has killed 10,000 americans in the first seven months of the outbreak as charted in april. overall, at least 50 million americans have had the illness. these numbers are more than double the previous estimates. defense secretary robert gates is predicted a tough new round of international sanctions against iran over its nuclear program, speaking to u.s. troops in iraq, he refused to rule out military action. police in pakistan say that five american students with suspected terror links will probably be deported. the men allegedly told investigators they wanted to fight u.s. troops in afghanistan. president obama will focus on his top domestic priority, health care, when he returns from norway today with his nobel peace prize. senate democratic leaders say that they are close to a deal that preserves the president s goals of extending health care to millions of uninsured people while controlling costs. and a holiday tradition is back on the streets of providence, rhode island. the so-called dancing cop. tony lackore comes out of retirement each december to lift spirits and prevent gridlock during the holidays. at the limber age of 62, he still puts on quite a show, a show he started 25 years ago. yeah, look at that, uh huh, dancing, yes, uh huh, with the cars. uh huh, there he goes. it is now 8:03. let s go back outside to matt. matt, you try that. you know, i can t try that, but i live there, i ve seen that he s amazing. let s go over to mr. roker. it s awfully cold. i can t feel my face, which is okay, because it s not worth feeling. anyway, we have a group here. what is the group? this is power world. these are young ladies from all across the city. they ll be joining 500 young women at the hilton hotel today. we re going to be celebrating careers in science technology, engineering and math. thank you very much. and you ve brought a bunch of toys. we brought 100 toys! that s awfully nice. thank you so much. thank you. let s check your weather, see what s happening. pick city of the day, minneapolis, minnesota. nbc 11, kare 11. it s going to be a chilly one there. we ve got heavy rain working its way into california today, a lot of wet weather, i should say, on saturday. rain through the gulf coast, sunny skies in the east, snow in the rockies. then sunday, sunday! rain will mix with and change over snow will mix with and change over to rain. rain along the southeast coast. big storm continues to move in. another one coming into the west with snow, rain in the northwest, rain along the coast very happy friday. frigid friday. it feels like 12 degrees at the airport this morning. only up got a birthday girl. what s your name? my name s selina. and what s your name? emma. how old are you? 10. happy birthday. now back over to matt. thank you very much. when we come back, the lovely and talented kate hudson warms up our studio. but first, these messages. this year, my kids got the toys they wanted most of all. walmart checks other stores prices so. i don t have to chase sales. i get the hottest hasbro toys of the season at unbeatable prices. looks like we all got what we wanted. christmas costs less at walmart. save money. live better. walmart. and then how you thought about freshening the air now febreze is changing how you think about scent and light with the new flameless luminary. with scented shades you can change, it s even more beautiful more quickly than a candle. and lasts for more than a hundred hours. looks like the candle just met its match. the new febreze flameless luminary. now available with new limited edition holiday shades. oh, your mom brought that over. no way! these are the ornaments from when i was a kid. this is from mommy s first ballet recital. oh, and this is when i got a two-wheeler. pretty awesome. i used to have one of these. there s a new one. for lucy, to get her started. love, grandma. look lucy, this one s for you. ( gasps ) hallmark keepsake ornaments. at your hallmark gold crown store. one of many ways to find meaning inside. back at 8:07, and now to the much anticipated movie-musical nine. its star-studded cast features golden globe winner and oscar nominee kate hudson. she plays a journalist and obsessive fan of filmmaker guido cantini. you have such style. i always think that. that s the other thing i love about your movies. style. they re the only movies that tell the truth about the modern world. and what truth is that? death of religion, sexual revolution. i don t think religion is dead. and what exactly is the sexual revolution? that we can talk about. what was that, kate hudson? good morning to you. good morning. i was telling you in the break, i got to see the movie. it s fantastic. big movie, big, big, big cast daniel day-lewis, who we just saw, nicole kidman, penelope cruz, sophia loren, judi dench, goes on and on. fergie. for those who don t know the story, in a nutshell, what is nine about? it s about a struggling director who s trying to find his who s trying to create he s sort of lost it. it s based on it was a play production that was based on the fi film, felini s 8 1/2, and then made into a musical called nine, and now this is sort of rob s adaptation of it. rob marshall. rob marshall. phenomenal director. directed chicago as well. you had to audition i did. in front of him, singing and dancing. i did. were you a nervous wreck? no, i was actually really excited, because i haven t had the opportunity to audition like that. i think i was more nervous when i got the song that i was going to sing, because it was when i finally got it, i was like, i can t believe i m actually going to do this now, and then i got really intimidated and kind of nervous. well, because they created it for you, for your character, stephanie. yeah, they did, but the auditioning process, i was just so excited to sing for him. and then later i got to you know, he called me back to dance and then that was also, you know, fun. and i think a lot of people know i didn t know that you had that in your background, dancing and singing. yeah. i mean who knew? who knew? yeah, who knew? but yeah, no, i mean, i grew up my mom was a dancer and that s how she started. so, i think it was just sort of a family thing, you know. when you re a little girl, you go to dance class and it was sort of, you know, what my mom is. she s, at heart she s a dancer. so, i ve been doing it since i was little. so, you rehearsed for this for six weeks, took two days to shoot it. we re going to show a bit of the performance. it s cinema italiano. let s take a look. i love the cinema italiano guido, guido, guido, guido, guido, guido, guido, guido, guido and what people don t know is that dress alone weighed 15 pounds or something? ten pounds. ten pounds? yeah. yeah, i mean, it was heavy, and it was little. so, you know and yeah, i remember colleen, the costume designer, who was amazing, she s like here it is, and it was like, wow, then. then my hair alone, another ten pounds. exactly. it was, you know i m not the first one to say it, but i felt what so many have felt, and you know what i m going to say. looking at you doing that number, i immediately thought of goldie hawn. is there a little bit of a wink-wink to the audience of that number? you know, i don t know. i think for this film, it was sort of for rob, and when anthony was writing the script it was more about a representation of the time and who was the modern 60s girl, and especially in italy, this sort of bringing in the american the american influence and also explaining how influential italian film was at that time in america. it was, you know. but yes, i mean, obviously, my mother came out and became a sort of like phenomenon in the 60s, during laugh in, and that s where her career started. and so, i don t you know, it s sort of a funny little thing, yeah. then she came and saw you do this, right? she came to the set. she came to the set. she saw just a rehearsal, and she hasn t seen it yet. she s going to be my date to the premiere here, so, i look forward to mom being able to see it. now, i am not going to be one of those people who asks you about your personal life and relationship with a-rod but you are. no, i m not. okay, okay. i wouldn t be one of those to say how things are going, or, but since i asked but since we re here. how are things going? how are things going in my life? my son is really wonderful. uh huh. ryder s good. that s not your son, though. definitely not my son. well, merry christmas to you. thank you. and all the significant others one in your life. thank you very much. always great to see you, and congratulations on the film. it s really wonderful. i m a red sox fan, so i m a little mad at you, but anyway. we should let people know, nine opens on christmas day. kate hudson, thank you very much. now here s ann. announcer: today s good news is brought to you by folgers. the best part of waking up. meredith, thanks. now to today s good news. three siblings born deaf, each given the gift of hearing on the same day. we re going to talk to the root family in just a moment, but first, nbc s miguel almaguer has their story. reporter: mark root sees the world like most 1-year-olds. it s what he hears that s different. more? more? reporter: his sister s laugh, his father s voice, his mother s call you re so funny. reporter: have always been silent. born profoundly deaf, mark s experience is one he shares with his sisters, 8-year-old grace and 6-year-old evelyn were also born deaf. it s a challenge to have a deaf child because, you know, for obvious reasons, they can t hear you. reporter: for jennifer and ryan root, it s the absence of small moments most parents take for granted. i ve never really sang my kids to sleep. reporter: but technology helps bridge the gap from silence to sound. the girls each have a cochlear implant, a bionic ear. grace got hers when she was 3. evelyn was 1. why do you like your ear? because it makes me hear. reporter: the cochlear implant uses external microphones to pick up sound, which is transmitted to an internal device and is recognized by the brain. for both of the girls, the implant means partial hearing, but nearly full integration into everyday life. did you think reporter: at their public school, evelyn has her own teaching aide. grace s classmates use a microphone that amplifies sound. measured progress for both girls, especially for grace, who remembers the first words she ever heard spoken by her mom. she said, grace. reporter: she said your name? yeah. reporter: was it pretty cool? yeah. reporter: but ryan and jennifer now see the possibility for an even more independent life. we want to give our kids every advantage that we possibly can, like all parents do. reporter: so, last month, the family drove ten hours to the los angeles house ear institute. hop up on the bed. reporter: where in back-to-back-to-back surgeries, the girls received second implants, and mark underwent a bilateral procedure for two cochlear devices. the operations were a success. and last week, the new implants were officially turned on. for grace and evelyn, simple advances. because i can stand on both sides of my teacher. reporter: for mark, his first chance to hear sound and his father s voice. to be able to just say, you know, hey, you know, catch the ball, or whatever, is obviously very important. reporter: it will take time for the children to hear clearly with their new implants, but already, the operations have forever changed the tone of their lives. for today, miguel almaguer, nbc news, california. and grace, evelyn and mark are joining us this morning along with their parents, ryan and jennifer. and we re also joined by dr. roshini raj, professor of medicine at the new york city school of medicine. good morning to all of you this morning. i guess jennifer and ryan, starting with you. for your son mark, this is a first. your girls already had one side done. now it s been less than two weeks, really, since now they have hearing in all their ears. what would you say has been the difference you ve noticed? i know it s been a whirlwind for you. it has been a whirlwind for us. we just got back from los angeles, and to get their equipment, and we flew out here to new york four days later. and in the meantime, we re trying to adjust to sound, and that s a big adjustment coming from no sound to some sound, and so, that s been difficult. it takes a while for the brain to catch up, and so, this is not like turning on a light switch. it s really something that takes a lot of time. it might be surprising to know that your family did this, decided to do these, you parents, given the stress of surgery, decided to do this all in one day. why did you decide to do this all in one day, ryan? well, there s a lot of follow-up appointments and they re long trips for us. so, having them all be coordinated is a big advantage. so, it was practical. it was very practical. mark is going to be the one to have the biggest change in the last few weeks, because he went from no hearing at all to hearing now in both ears, right? that s right. have you noticed any change in him? somewhat. the sound is not turned up really high right now because that would be too shocking, so it s not quite up to the level of speech and all the regular noise that we hear, but he is just getting the sensation of noise and the sensation of hearing. his brain is getting used to it. and grace, i m wondering i know, you like playing with your little brother, but having the hearing in both ears, i mean, how is it different? i don t really know. do you like it? yeah. yeah? and do you get to turn it up and down? like, can you turn it off if you don t want to hear something? well, i have this coil uh huh, a coil behind your head. and if i take it off, i can t hear anything. a lot of people think that if i have the ear mold in, this yeah, that you can hear stuff? then i can t hear. i see. i see. dr. raj, you know, jennifer actually has something called wardinbolg syndrome, and you say you are deaf in one ear. and this is connected to how the children were born deaf? this is a genetic syndrome, and it s passed on through families and it encompasses deafness of variable severities. so you might have mild hearing loss or severe deafness and also some skin changes, eye color changes. and when you have the syndrome, you have a 50-50 chance of passing it on to each child. so each pregnancy, there s a 50-50 chance. well, it s great, i know it means so much to you, and both of you, but especially since you had faced this knowing that giving birth you would potentially have this problem, to have your children now be able to hear. thank goodness to science. and i heard you ve already gone to the rockettes. yes. you re having a good time. and getting to hear all of it, right, grace? yes. congratulations to your family and thank you for being here this morning. i think maybe mark needs his pen. okay. we ve got much more coming up. but for more on this story and more good news, you can head to our website at todayshow.com. once again, here s matt. all right, ann. thank you. now to leonard s look and a touching story of grit and determination, not for some kind of a medal or glory, but simply to reclaim a life. nbc s mike leonard has one man s incredible journey. reporter: challenges don t get much bigger than the stair-climbing event at chicago s willis tower, the tallest building in the western hemisphere. some try to reach the top floor in record time. and pay the physical price. others went at their own pace. and then there was 51-year-old mike stefan, the suburban chicago father of four who already triumphs before the race began by slowly shuffling his way to the starting line. here we go. let the games begin. reporter: a little over two years ago, mark steffan s life was a colorful collage of happy moments, a loving wife and family, a successful business career, a long list of loyal friends and an ongoing pursuit of extreme athletic endeavors, including 17 marathons and two iron man triathlons. then came august 11th of 2007 and a bicycle accident that fractured his spinal cord, leaving him a quadriplegic. doctors were blunt a life in a wheelchair was the best he could hope for. but on his emotional release day, after nearly five months at the rehabilitation institute of chicago, mark steffan demonstrated to a gathering of friends and family that he wasn t going to take that grim diagnosis sitting down. if my life were a bottle, that bottle got smaller, maybe i would never fill it to the top before, but i m certainly working hard to fill it to the top now. reporter: on his own, mark charted a comeback course that went far beyond what his doctors thought possible. hiring his own physical trainers, volunteering for experimental procedures, all the while pushing his broken body to the limits and beyond. unbelievable! 1.4. oh, my god. that really to me is the key. you know, if you think you re done, you re done. reporter: was this considered impossible after you were injured? not possible. not in the cards. reporter: why didn t you listen? i mean, truthfully, it s because i spent most of my childho childhood. reporter: he rose above that early bone degenerative disease to amazing heights only to suffer this fate as an adult. this is not the end. this is a story of hope. a story about a determined, gracious man what a beautiful day. reporter: who simply refuses to give up. so, there he was, attempting to reach the top of the willis tower, all 103 floors. the event was a fund-raiser for the rehabilitation institute of chicago, institute that helped mark get back on his feet. finally, after 2 hours and 14 minutes of incredible strugg struggstruggle. why go to such lengths? because you know, for a brief moment, as you re coming up the stairs, you re doing what everybody else is doing and you feel normal. reporter: above and beyond normal, i d say. for today, mike leonard, nbc news, chicago. bravo. what a great story. great guy. and now let s send it on down to washington to another good guy, our good friend willard scott. hey. dreidle, dreidle, dreidle happy hanukkah to all our jewish friends with us this morning. we love you very much. and we love our smucker s. take a look, if you will. as the wheel turns, you ll see some birthdays of some very special people in our hearts and minds. agnes boston of los angeles, california, 108. attributes longevity to being careful with her health and blessings from the good lord. peace be with you. okay, i ve rehearsed this for two days. vincenzina mazza. whoo-hoo! massapequa, new york. 100 years old. known for always helping other people and takes care of her 96-year-old sister. how about that? cooks for her. ah, beautiful. lawrence wooden of washington, d.c. lives here. 101. world war ii vet. honored with a purple heart. helped general patton in the battle of the bulge. how about that? good old patton. that was controversial. mary kascik. i got it. mary kascik of monongahela, pennsylvania. 100 years old. worked until her late 80s and then she mowed the lawn. how about that? marvin wood, naples, florida, 100 years old. ran a concession stand behind first base at sportsman s park for lou gehrig. back in the old days. madeline davico from englewood, new jersey, 103. retired teacher and champion scrabble player. makes the sweetest cookies on earth. how about that? that s all there is in washington, d.c., at this time. you know the dreidle song? i do. so does willard, apparently. just ahead, jenna bush hager chats with one of our young stars in hollywood. after your local news and weather. how s it going? live, local, late breaking this is a wbal-tv 11 news update. good morning. let s do a final check on your morning commute. hello and good morning. some problems out there. howard county, an accident on 175. still dealing with the crash on 195. 100 and 95. windsor mill at forest park, an accident. west side delays. your average speed heading down toward adkisson is 28 miles per hour according to our speed sensors. a delay south of the beltway. 49 miles per hour on 95. down to 32 you are going to look at the drive out of northeast and 12 minutes on the loop side. let s look at george traffic. 40 west, that continues down towards edmundson. harper, we have some delays over towards the expressway. that is the read it that is the latest. it is quite cold out there. here it has been called cold. 13 at the airport and 11 at the state line. actual temperatures in the low 20 s. winds are very blustery. winds at 25 miles per hour. the stars will between bling and the temperature will be dropping tonight. single-degree wind chill factors. tomorrow, 39 and partly cloudy. thank you for joining us. another up debts update at 8:55. 8:55. you d better watch out, you d better not cry 8:30 now on this frigid friday morning, december 11th, 2009. our crowd is bundled up outside but still in the giving mood, and that is the star of nickelode nickelodeon collecting donations for our 16th annual holiday toy drive. thanks to those of you at home and our sponsors, we have already sent more than $20 million worth of donations to needy kids across the country. $20 million worth. wow. that s a lot. especially in this economy. that s amazing. yeah, that s great. people are very, very generous. i think especially, though, because of the economy. yeah. what s going on? jenna bush hager is here, our contributing correspondent and all around nice lady, is here to introduce us to a 15-year-old actress who is becoming the toast of tinseltown. people are calling her the it actress. another it actress. we just mentioned. exactly right. also coming up this morning, talking about what to wear to the holiday parties. i know, matt, you have this thought, al. absolutely. you know all the dresses we ve found for you, meredith, as well. anyway, we ve got stacy london here to tell us what to do. and if you ve got those holiday parties, you don t want to spend the whole time in the kitchen. you want to mingle with your guests. michael bittman is here and he s going to show us five make-ahead, surefire surefire. surefire that you can make for your holiday party. that one right there is cheese shortbread. mm-mmm! i like it. i like bittman s holiday sweater. you know, i think you re having a man crush here, mark. i am. people not dignified his face is almost the color of the sweater now. exactly. first, before she freezes, let s say hi to miranda cosgrove, star of nick loedlode- hi, miranda. good to have you here. thanks. number one show with kids 2 to 11. what is it about the show, you think, that so resonates with these kids? i think the fact that it s interactive has a lot to do with it, because anyone can go online and become famous. anyone that s talented can do that. and that s what it s about, anybody can put their videos up and be noticed. and the folks at nickelodeon have made a really generous contribution to our holiday toy drive, so thanks to the folks there. sure. thanks for having me. we appreciate it. in the show, you sing the i carly theme, and you have a great voice. thank you. in fact, you did the closing credits for cloudy with a chance of meatballs. yeah, i did. any chance of putting out an album? yeah, i m actually working on it now. i was finishing up a couple songs yesterday and i ve been able to co-write on some of the songs, which has been fun. exciting to hear. my goodness, tv star, co-writing songs and you ve also been honored by st. jude s hospital for your help there. i was called to go to the children s hospital and i walked in and started to meet the kids and i just knew that was the charity i really wanted to be a part of. it s a great charity. thank you very much. merry christmas to you guys, too. how old are you? i m 16. she s a goddess in our house. we ve only watched the i carly movie about a thousand times. i love it! i m waiting for 1,001! thanks. how about a check of the weather, mr. roker? all righty, for today, lake-effect snows around the great lakes, some areas picking up two feet in the next couple of hours, in the next 24 hours. we ve got wet weather moving into california, the gulf coast as well. heavy rain through the central gulf over the weekend, heavy rain in northern california, heavy mountain snows as you work into parts of the great lakes i should say, the rockies. sunshine around the great lakes and again, some a frigid start that will only get us up to 36 degrees today. west winds and with all this bad weather, you want to make sure you check the weather channel 24/7 or weather.com online. okay. mr. roker, could we take a moment here and just say job well done, congratulations and good luck to a very classy lady. diane sawyer s last day on good morning america this morning. she s moving off to another show at abc, and we just want to say, diane, you re the best and congratulations. ten years she greeted folks every morning. she ll do great. she s done great interviews and she ll do great in her new job as well. congratulations, diane. she gets to sleep! that s right. are we jealous? we re jealous! not much. we love getting up! yeah. anyway, good luck, diane. good luck. all the best. all right,nd up next, jenna bush hager introduces us to one of hollywood s rising young stars. but first, this is today on nbc. now to one of hollywood s rising young stars. 15-year-old soairse ronan. today contributing correspondent jenna bush hager caught up with her. good morning, jenna. nice to see you. good morning, matt. matt, she s young, she s talented. and if her performance in the new film the lovely bones is any indication, you ll be hearing a lot more about soairse ronan. 15-year-old soairse ronan has landed major roles other young actresses can only dream of playing. yes, i saw him. i know it was him. you know it was him? i saw him with my own eyes. reporter: at 13, her powerful performance in atonement thrust her onto the world stage, placing her among the youngest actors ever nominated for an academy award in a supporting role. me being a young actress, it s really nice for someone to get recognition for that, you know? hey, mom! now soairse stars in the lovely bones, bai based on the harrowing best-selling novel. i was 14 years old when i was murdered. reporter: the film is about a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family from heaven while they try to find her killer. in the movie the lovely bones, you play the part of susie, who was murdered. was that emotionally difficult for you? i mean, i think if you have a heart at all, you re going to get upset if you re thinking about that nonstop for about nine months. so, sometimes i do get a little bit upset, but i just kind of had to get over that. the movie was based in the 70s. yes. how much fun was that for you? it was really, really fun. the only thing was, the platforms were incredibly uncomfortable. they were huge. because they were that high, literally. they were about that high. and it was funny because i used to be walking onto set or something and i would really be looking down at him. peter jackson. he s known, obviously, for the lord of the rings trilogy. i know, when you put it like that, it s like, what? but he also said something really terrific about you. he said that tell me! do you want to hear it? i m joking. he said you were a born actor, the real thing. aww, that s so sweet. i love pete. he s really involved and also is a really great guy, really sweet. on the subject of guys, soairse becomes a bit bashful. you have a boyfriend or a crush, or susie has this crush. i was wondering what you were getting at that. like i don t have a boyfriend. my dad is over there. sorry, dad, is this embarrassing? in some ways, this movie is about the importance of family. how important is your family to you? my family are everything to me. i mean, i m an only child, so i m very close to my mom and dad, and i love them so much. they come everywhere with me. i don t like talking about mushy stuff, but i m getting all mushy. i really do love them. i made you cry! that was my hope. no. you live in ireland still. can your life still be normal? i mean, you are this major actress. what is your life like? well, my life has changed quite a bit. now suddenly there s more people recognizing you and staring at you, and i don t like that kind of attention anyway. there s a lot of oscar buzz about your role as susie salmon. if you won the oscar, you d be the youngest actress ever to win. what would that mean? only when people mention to me that i ve been nominated for an oscar is when i think about it. other than that, i don t. if the awards come, that would be amazing, but that s just sort of an extra. exactly. that s the cherry on top about a thousand cherries on top. for soairse, life is certainly looking like a bowl of cherries. born to working-class parents and raised in ireland most of her life, this 15-year-old is quickly climbing the hollywood ladder. so, now you re going to go and show me some of these fabulous clothes you re going to be wearing for the gala and the rest of the premieres. do you like fashion? i certainly have a passion for fashion. all right, well, let s go and have a passion for fashion together. yes. i love this. but finding the right threads fit for a royal gala premiere, where you might just rub elbows with royalty, is no easy task. a dress to meet the queen, fit to meet the queen. yes. potentially. that is so pretty. so long, farewell. by the way, matt, just to clarify, soairse would be the youngest to win a best actress oscar. of course, tatum o neil is the youngest to win an academy award. she was 10 when she won for best supporting actress for paper moon. matt. and the lovely bones, which a lot of people are talking about, opens nationwide today. yeah. i saw it. it s a great movie. she is really terrific. that s great. jenna, thank you. good to see you. thanks for having me. up next, stacy london answers your holiday fashion dilemma questions. announcer: today s countdown to christmas is brought to you by j adore dior. back at 8:45. and this morning on today s countdown to christmas, ask stacy. stacy london is our resident fashion expert and co-host of tlc s what not to wear, here to answer your questions about holiday fashion and winter style. stacy, good morning. good morning, meredith. how are you? great, thank you. so, what are the trends we re seeing this winter, especially for the holidays? well, for the holidays, i always say, the thing that you can count on is shine. shine. a lot of people go for red or green. i say stay away from that or any combination of those two colors it s too spot on. too christmasy, but i love the idea of shine for holiday, and i think that s what we re going to see a lot of this season. you ll see a lot of it in stores, everything from sequins to rhinestones, all kinds of embellishment. and pearls are back. i m wearing some pearls. i notice that. we have e-mail questions here. one is from monica in attleboro, massachusetts. she writes i need help figuring out what to wear to a christmas party. i always wear black. i live in new england, so it will be freezing, and i want to look hot and not feel cold! well, that s a tricky thing when it s colder with cocktail wear. we ll bring out donna. let s see what you ve done. for somebody who always wears black, i won t say don t wear black, but look for cocktail dresses with mixed fabrics. the top is a black woven material, but a silver bottom. this is $40 from h&m. $40 dress. you cannot go wrong with that. you cannot go wrong. we ve paired it with a great little black jacket. menswear, almost like tux jackets, have become great for evening. add a little great shiny scarf in the silver. there s shiny you talked about. exactly, and the shiny in the brocade. add some great shiny jewelry. listen, the thing is, we ve done a nude stocking here. you could do a black opaque, but that could make the look heavier. right. nude stockings can keep you warm as long as you have the layering system going on. that s a great way to do more covered up, warmer, and still look hot for evening. beautiful. donna, you look fantastic. okay, next question comes from eva in los angeles, california. she writes, i love boots but feel like i ll never be able to wear them. i am really, really petite, so whenever i see them, i feel like i ll look even smaller! any suggestions? and danielle is going to come out and show us what you came up with. yeah. now, the most important thing when you are petite is that you can do a boot. you just can t do a boot that s high. you can do one that goes to the calf or knee why not? because it will make you look like you re standing in a bucket. there you go. if you lose the leg line, then you lose height and length, in even a petite person. so, you want to keep the leg line as long as possible. go for a shoe boot or a bootie, like an ankle boot like this, and keep the leg line locked. the other way to do that is make sure that your tops never go past your hips. then you get long legs, short torso. you make a petite person taller, longer and leaner. if you lose the leg, you lose the height. can a taller person get away with the ankle boots as well? absolutely. tall women don t have that problem. they can also wear higher boots as well. all right. eva, thank you very much. a lot of our viewers, last time you were on, you had the sexy faux leather leggings on. so many people asked questions. a big, big stink! we have video of that. we do? yeah. there you are. there i am doing a little moment knowing exactly what you re doing. yeah. so, anyway, heather in new orleans wrote in one of many where did you get your leggings or where should i look for a decent pair? we have some examples. let s talk about leggings, because i want to be honest with you, i m not a big leggings fan. why not? i feel like it s not flattering on most women. it s also a lazy book. it s taken the place of the velour sweatpants. now we ve got lazy leggings with t-shirts and sneakers. if you are going to do leggings right. you must do them, must consider them as a skinny pant. like the ones that i was wearing, i wore with a blazer and a blouse. it has to look deliberate. you have to consider it as a pant. i wanted to show you some ways to wear leggings, but are really appropriate. first of all, look for a legging that does not cut or bind on the leg. if you start to get rolls of fat on your thigh not a good look. do not do this! do not do this. but there are ways in which to wear it. on the first mannequin, i did a military style. the most important thing about this is that we ve done a legging from zara and paired it with that type of thing. we ve got to get going, stacy. evening, the sequins, obviously work, you want a blazer. slouchy, you do knitwear. and finally, scholastic, lots of color. that s the way to do it. stacy london, thank you. bring out our models one last time. remind you, if you have any questions for stacy, head to todayshow.com. we ll have all this on the website, too. it s all on the website. up next, fiv announcer: today s holiday kitchen is brought to you by hershey s kisses. delightful delicious one-of-a-kind kisses. this morning in today s holiday kitchen, make-ahead solutions for your holiday dishes. mark bittman is here to help you with your last-minute pot luck dinner. also author of how to cook everything. mark, nice to see you. hello, matt. here s what i like, we re keeping the homemade feeling for the holidays. these things obviously come from your own love and care. but you re not spending all the time in the kitchen when the guests are here. there s a lot you can do in advance, there s a lot of things you can do and freeze, there s a lot of things you can do spur of the moment, and that s what we re thinking about here. and not just for the holidays. you re starting off with everyday pancakes. you re not suggesting they make the pancake ahead of time, but you can make the batter ahead of time. you can totally make the batter ahead of time, and you know, keeps in the refrigerator for a few days. you just heat up some butter or oil in a pan. any secret you have to making good pancake batter? you use as little flour as you can to make a good pancake, and cooking them in butter, of course, helps. having a ladle helps. you don t freeze it, just put it in the refrigerator. you didn t have a ladle. that was a little jab there. okay, we got that. and you can add fruit or something the day of. funny you should ask. you have blueberries, okay. you can definitely add fruit. what i love is sliced bananas in pancakes. really great. we ll come back to it. the next one, this is great. again, if somebody comes over unexpectedly, you ve got something you can give them, it looks like you ve thought about it well in advance. this is cheese shortbread. this is essentially a frozen big cookie, but it s a savory cookie. so, it s butter, cheese, flour, egg, and very, very flavorful because it s got tons of cheese in it, and we ve made them with paprika, herbs and blue cheese. ordinarily, you can use swiss cheese. do you freeze the dough? and you can make this log, freeze it for a month if you want to take it out take it out, cut it frozen, which i did 20 minutes ago pop it in the oven. pop it in the oven. okay, it s nice. looks like you ve thought about it. the next is a dish with broccoli, and you like this if you are going over to a pot luck dinner. you can make something it s great. you can also make it ahead of time. you can make it ahead of time. it s great at room temperature. let me show you this for a sec. i ll throw these in the oven so we ll eat them in a minute. you cook the broccoli say half way. so you have nicely roasted broccoli with a little garlic and olive oil. just take the garlic out. obviously, you can leave it in if you want to. okay. ouch. and then sprinkle it with a little bit of blue cheese. you need no more liquid than that, just that? no, it roasts, so it gets this nice browning to it. okay. hello. every time you say blue cheese, meredith walks into a room. what s that, parmesan? breadcrumbs. that would go back into the oven. and you cook it and then you can serve it at room temperature. totally great at room temperature. guys, come around. you want a little rav noelie noodie? that means naked ravioli. so, if you have a meat feel, this is the meat without the pasta aren t they kind of meatballs? you can call them meatballs. swedish meatballs. but they re italian. so, there s parmesan live, local, a late breaking, this is wbal news today. here is a look at what of our top stories today. the trial of the self- proclaimed white supremacist accused of beating an elderly citizens calvin is accused of leading the attack. his alleged code-defendants mil deathler and watson find out n today s trial. let s take a look at this morning. we are in the low 20 s right now. 23 at the airport. it feels like 7 degrees in westminster. the wind chill is 11. the wind chill let marshall is 13 degrees. the wind is 25 miles per hour. we will contend with that all day long. 23 as the actual temperature. plenty of sun but it will feel like 20. wake up to 18 degrees tomorrow. high of 39. thank you for joining us. thank you for joining us.