Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100106 : vimarsana.com

back now with more of today on a wednesday morning, the 6th day of january 2010. although we have said it s a little better here in new york, it is still chilly, so these people are going above and beyond the call of duty this morning, and we thank them for that. hi, mom! because it is still cold. it s 27 degrees in new york city. and out on the cold plaza, i m matt lauer along with natalie morales. that s right. al is out at the consumer electronics show in las vegas, which is a little like sending a dog to a kibbles and bits convention, because wow! al loves gadgets. wow. he just called you a dog, al. what have you got there, al? well, this is called. it s called a tune bug. you attach your ipod or mp3 player to it and it vibe rates it causes vibrations in your bike helmet or whatever surface you put it on, so you can hear it through my helmet. this is really cool now the problem is you have to wear the helmet everywhere. well, you could put it on your head, i suppose. and there s 3d printing. you send this to a company called shapeways and they ll print anything out 3d. there s a 3d photo. we ll get into this stuff. oh, that s cool. i ve seen it cool. weren t you in avatar also? yeah, i was. that s nice, al. i play sigourney weaver. you did, okay. it s great makeup. we re going to check with you in just a couple of minutes. here in new york, money 911. okay, that s right. yeah, because it is that time of the week. as always, on wednesdays, we check in with our expert panelists and try to help you out with our finances, and our team has advice on everything from credit card fees, because they ve all gone up starting january 1st to creating the best savings for your nest egg. and what do dennis rodman, mackenzie phillips and hollywood madam heidi fleiss agreed to do? they re fighting their addictions and dr. drew pinsky is helping us with celebrity rehab, it is season three now. before that, ann is inside with a look at the headlines. thanks a lot, matt. in the news this morning, everybody, good morning once again, the democrats filibuster majority in the senate is a bit more fragile today with word that two democrats will not seek re-electi re-election, and one of them, chris dodd, is chairman of the senate banking committee. having served five terms as senator, and he s also played a prominent role in the health care reform debate. the other not seeking re-election is byron dorgan after serving three terms in the senate. multiple missile strikes hit northwest pakistan today, a haven for militants who attack american troops in afghanistan. the missiles, believed to be from u.s. drones, killed at least 13 people. president obama says he will not tolerate further security breakdowns. on tuesday he called the christmas day airliner attack a screw-up that could have been disastrous. he said the government had enough information to stop the attack ahead of time but said the intelligence community failed to connect the dots. overnight, it was so cold in parts of florida, colder in tallahassee, florida, than in anchorage, alaska. and cold is the story in much of this nation. nbc s janet shamlian is in kansas city, missouri, with more on this, and she s out in the cold. janet, good morning. reporter: bitterly cold. good morning to you, ann. temperatures are in a free fall in about two-thirds of the country right now, and forecasters say this is not a typical two or three-day cold snap, that this one is going to hang on. in a winter that s already dumped crippling snow and ice on much of the nation, now comes the deep freeze. some of the coldest air of the season so far will be moving in. blowing snow, even blizzard conditions possible at times. reporter: bitter, bone-chilling cold blanketing as much as two-thirds of the u.s., from the rockies pushing east and deep into the shell-shocked south. what are you going to do? they wanted to go swimming, you know? we came to florida to go to the beach. reporter: even where they expect winter s worst, it s a record-breaker. minus 37 at international falls, minnesota. minus 16 in st. joseph, missouri. by week s end, little rock could see 10 degrees. dallas will be in the 20s. when you have conditions like this, sustained periods of this kind of cold weather, it really is about protecting people s lives. reporter: the nation s bread basket s turning into an ice box. near des moines, iowa, tim cullen is using three space heaters that are doing little to cut the chill. i ve got to admit, this is the coldest i think i ve ever been. reporter: beyond the cold, even more snow is coming. frozen like a popsicle. reporter: not everyone is running from the cold. we re just conditioning our bodies to exactly. enjoy the rest of the winter. we live here. we might as well face the facts, right? reporter: forecasters say what s unusual about this cold snap is how widespread it is and how long it will last. i think it s miserable. i ve got four pair of socks on and my feet still get cold. reporter: the cdc has issued an advisory about exposure to these cold temperatures, including the threat of frostbite and hypothermia. and ann, here in kansas city, they won t get above freezing until next week. ann, back to you. i m not even going to ask you how many pairs of socks you re wearing, but get inside as soon as you can. finally now, today a violent confrontation off antarctic between a japanese whaling ship and a conservation group. antiwhaling activists say their boat was cut in two by a japanese whaling vessel when they tried to disrupt a whale hunt in antarctica s waters. the group said all of the crew members were rescued. it is now five minutes past the hour. let s go back outside to matt and natalie. thank you. thank you very much. we ve got some friends here from australia who have some relatives in boston. everybody say good day to our friends from australia. good day! good day, mate. do you feel at home now? not that well. all right, let s get a check of the weather. with mr. roker out in las vegas again. hey, thanks, guys. we re here for the consumer electronics show. opens up tomorrow. we re getting a sneak peek at a lot of the cool stuff today, thanks to our good buddy, mr. paul hochman, contributing writer at fast company magazine. so, much like ourselves, we want thin. we want to be thin. and this tv is about as thin as it gets. i ve been working on thin all my life. that s a little unhealthy, i ve got to tell you, but it s great. it s actually 2.6 millimeters, the world s thinnest television. that s as thin as a quarter. here s a quarter. just about the same thinness. this is the first time anybody s seen this, first time in the world. this is where things are headed. weighs about eight pounds, very light, you can hang it on the wall. lg s pushing the edge of what s possible. and it s so new, they don t even have a price on this thing. that s right. it s not even available. if you have to ask, you can t get it. okay. now, they re teaming up to create this computer. in fact, one of the designers, david lewis, contributed to this. this is a fairly well known laptop company, but also, they ve added style and the sound quality, which is really beautiful, huge speakers. that s what they re famous for. so, design is what you re paying for. an lcd projector within a camera? correct. this is from nikon. it s the s-1,000 pj for projector. and you take the picture and then press the projector button and it will project up on the wall. or if i turn it on properly, it will project up on the wall. there you go. and then the picture i took of you earlier with the helmet, very flattering. wow. you can project up on the wall. take a picture, you have home movies. and of course, if your lighting is correct, it s obviously brighter. exactly. 3d printing. 3d is the big thing since avatar. now you can make it. a company called shape waves. they have a $500,000 printer, a 3d printer. you can print out any words you want, any shapes. we have cufflinks for our executive producer jim bell, my initials there. if you want to be your own james cameron and do your own avatar, this is the world s first 3d video camera? yes, from panasonic, and it s really a professional camera at first. when it comes out, how much is this going to be? it s going to be over $20,000. woo! yeah, so we ll both pitch in, but two lenses make it 3d. then you d have to watch it on one of these new tvs coming out. what you saw earlier. solar for everybody. the chief designer for apple decided that not all sol solar-powered stuff had to look like a science project and he made this beautiful. this you hang in your window for the day. and the next day for about 20 hours you can play your iphone. very cool. and this tower does the same thing, gathers energy from the sun and reduces your dependence up for 30 s by this afternoon. this is the mildest we have been all week long. a slight chance for some flurries. tomorrow and that s your latest weather. ann? okay, al, thank you so much. this morning on today s money 911, timely advice for your money emergencies, from dealing with new credit card laws to your retirement accounts. our team of experts is ready to answer your questions, so we ve got today financial editor jean chatzky, author of a new book called money 911. we ve got david bach, the founder of finishrich.com and author of start over, finish rich, and also he s the new father, by the way, born on new year s day, right, of james. and sharon epperson is very happy for him. she is cnbc s personal finance correspondent. and me. and we ve got natalie standing by with people from our crowd who have some questions this morning. so, good morning to all of you. good morning. now let s get to some questions right away. the first one really shows someone who s been really smart about what to do about credit cards. a lot of people worrying about their rates. we ve got a video question from judy in ohio. go, judy. the rate on my oldest credit card was raised to 29%. even though i pay on time and maintain a zero balance. i have even tried to negotiate a lower rate unsuccessfully. what i would really like to do is cancel this card in protest. also, i ve heard rumors that there may be fees placed on no or low-balance accounts. what are my options? jean, 29% as a rate sounds ridiculous. and yet, this is what a lot of good customers are facing right now. we ve been hearing from a ton of people who are getting the very same notices that you are, that despite the fact that you pay off your balance all the time in full, your rate s going up. canceling the card in protest is not going to help you at all, and you need to think about what is going to help you rather than what s going to potentially hurt the credit card company, because although they hate to lose you, they don t hate to lose you that much. so, here s what i want you to do. look around for additional credit, but don t cancel this card if in the next 6 to 12 months you are going to potentially apply for a new mortgage or a car loan, because canceling it, since it s the oldest card that you have, is going to take your credit score down more than canceling another card that you may have in your wallet. but you don t have to use the card. no, you don t have to use the card, but you have to watch out for these inactivity fees, because they are coming. we re seeing some companies start to levy inactivity fees of $90 a year if you re not using your card. the thing to do is actually take it out of your wallet once a month, use it to buy something small and pay it off every single month, because then you won t get thrown into the pile with all of those other potentially inactive customers. paying it off means you don t pay the 29%, so that s the way through all this. makes you angry. but if you don t use the card, they may cancel it, and that s something you want to be concerned about. you don t want them canceling the card because you re not using it. and we ve got michelle from virginia who has a question about where to put our money this year. hey, michelle. caller: hey. i have a $25,000 certificate that i need to reinvest by january 11th. should i put it in another certificate earning 1.65% interest for 18 months or is there somewhere else i could put this money and earn more than 1.65%? thank you, michelle. 1.5i6% we just heard about interest rates 29%, and now 1.65% isn t that a great business, loan the money out at 29% and only give you 1.65%. here s the question you have to ask yourself when you invest money when do you need the money back? if this is short-term money, like emergency money, security money, then you need to keep it safe. here s the problem, the rates are very low. the national average is 1.65% for about a year. you can get up to 3% if you go out on a five-year cd. but i want you this year to look for a credit union account. actually go and open up a account at credit union. go to findacreditunion.com. because the rates are a little high right now for credit union members, so for a lot of americans, it s a great place to put some very safe money. i would also be looking at government savings bonds right now, but again, the rates are very low, but the key is, if it s short-term money, you need it fdic insured, also. that s critical. also, another place, there are new checking accounts offering higher rates of interest. you can go to checkingfinder.com. you may be able to find a checking account that will pay you 3%, even 4%, as long as you re willing to use your debit card ten times a month and bank electronically, which many people are doing anyway. and you don t want to tie up your money in a long-term cd, necessarily. if you want the liquid cash, you probably want it in a credit union account, a high-yield savings account, something that you can get access to that money quickly. and rates may start to go up at the end of this year as the economy improves. thank goodness. let s hope that happens. we want that to happen well, we want it on the side of saving. not necessarily on the side of mortgages. exactly. we want to win in all cases. in all cases always. especially for people who are on retirement, because they ve got to watch their money. we have a question from the internet in new york, antoinette on skype has a question. hi, good morning. my question is, how do i deal with an account with two financial institutions? should i consolidate to one? and also, i have two cds that will be maturing at the end of february and march this year with the total of $10,000. should i take that money and continue with the cds or should i make a contribution to my roth i.r.a. for 2009 and 2010? who wants this? go, sharon. you have to worry about, first thing, is do you have an emergency fund? do you have money saved? if you have that already, then you can think about where you re going to invest this $10,000. i think a roth i.r.a. might be a great idea for investing that money and so that you can have $5,000 for 2009, $5,000 for 2010. you can do that until february 15th. still put the money in the roth i.r.a. i think that s a good idea. people get confused, though, and we hear this all the time. when you put the money in the roth i.r.a., that s the basket, that s the account. once it s in there, if you want to put it in a cd where you know it will be perfectly safe, you can do that. you can also put it in stocks or bonds, but you want that account, because the money in that account can grow tax-free forever. that s why i.r.a.s, roth i.r.a.s, 401(k)s make so much sense. what about the question i m not sure you answered consolidation depends on the fdic protection. if you have more than $250,000 in a single institution, you want to find another institution, because until 2013, that is going to be the limit on the protection on your money from the fdic. so, more than that, you divide and conquer. less than that, you could have it in a single institution. right. and the advantage to a single institution is simplification. it s having one statement one place. and if you ve got one adviser often when people have multiple advisers, they re not looking at the money together as one big picture. but if you have more than $250,000, as jean was talking about, but you really want it all together is it worth it? is it worth that argument? well, that s the money you want make sure it s fdic insured. if you re talking about investments, brokerage account, mutual funds, it doesn t matter. doesn t matter. and the insurance is with the brokage account. a lot of people don t pay attention to where their money is. natalie s out at dean & deluca with a person from the crowd. i ve got lewis and tanya from columbia, south carolina. what is your question? my question is, on a brand new internet-based business, personal shopping automobile business, what percentage should we be putting back for retirement? good investment deals as well. i ll give you the magic formula for this for anybody that s self-employed is you should be paying yourself at least 10% of your gross income as it comes in. the single biggest mistake self-employed people make is waiting until the end of the year to fund your retirement accounts and you don t. here s what i would tell you. open a self-employed retirement account, sepi.r.a. you can put $46,500 away tax-deductible. every time money comes into that internet business of yours, you should be sweeping it directly into a sep-i.r.a., every time. if you re not making money every day on online, every two weeks i d be working with the money in your account, sweeping it into a sep i.r.a. so you re getting all of that money built up throughout the year. the big advantage is you get to put four times as much money into a retirement account and people don t do it. but if you haven t started already, 10% s not enough. you ve got to up it to 15%. we ve got much more to get to, so hang tight. we ll be right back with more money questions and answers. and coming up later, dr. drew pinsky is back talking about celebrities he s been helping overcome drug addiction. having a heart attack. i remember being at the hospital, thinking about my wife. i should have done more to take care of myself. now i m exercising, watching my diet, and i trust my heart to lipitor. (announcer) unlike some other cholesterol lowering medications, lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and certain kinds of heart surgeries in patients with several common risk factors or heart disease. lipitor is backed by over 17 years of research. lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems and women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications or if you have any muscle pain or weakness. this may be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. i ll never forget what i went through. don t take your health for granted. (announcer) have a heart to heart with your doctor about your risk. and about lipitor. fresh butter taste yes, that s here no hydrogenated oils so there s no trans fats here whoa. turn the tub around talking about nutrition [ female announcer ] i can t believe it s not butter has 70% less saturated fat than butter and no hydrogenated oils, so there s no trans fat. i can t believe it s not butter, butter taste, better health. and we re back with more of today s money 911 with our fantastic expert panel. and you know, we ve got a lot of questions coming in about student loans. we ve got tina from knoxville, tennessee, on the telephone. hey, tina, what s your question? caller: good morning. i need help in finding out what to do with my student loans. i graduated from college in 2005 and i borrowed from sallie mae $46,000. since that time to now i have been on the income-sensitive repayment plan, but my loans never seem to go down. i now owe over $150,000. my income is under $50,000 yearly, and presently, i m on an educational deferment for nine months and it will be up at the end of march. what can i do? good question. how does that happen? well, she s got private loans which have been accruing. the deferred payment, the interest is still accruing. so, what you need to do right now is go back to sallie mae. first of all, you need to know exactly how many loans do you have? because it sounds like you don t have one loan. my guess is multiple loans. and which ones are private and which are federal? sallie mae protects loans, so you need to ask how many loans do i have, what s the interest rate? it could be as high as 18%, almost like a credit card if you have a private loan. and especially if you ve been late. so, go back and find out, how many loans do you have? are any of them renegotiable? can you consolidate them? sallie mae is where you have to start, though. have you actually called sallie mae to discuss this with them? caller: mm-hmm. what did they tell you? they were united fund and sallie mae bought them out. so they re all private. they re all private. they ll have to work with you, because at your income level, there s simply no way at $50,000 a year that you can pay those loans back if you ve got a high rate. caller: and they want me to pay starting in april $1,200 a month. i cannot do that. right. and you ll have to let them know that you simply can t and be persistent and stay on the phone and let them know you want to pay something, you just can t pay this, and should your income go higher, you can pay more money. and pay the one with the highest rate if you can t consolidate. unfortunately, they re private. if they were federal, she could look into the income-based repayment plan, but that s only for federal loans. unfortunately, she has to work with the lender directly. how many loans do you have? well, just one. one loan. caller: yeah, just one loan. let me be honest, we would never recommend going bankrupt on the today show, but the reality is, the type of loan you have with the income level you have is exactly what s forcing people into bankruptcy. so, they need to work with you or they re going to have a loan that s going to go into default. that s what happens in the real world, and quite honestly, they know that. caller: they said there s no programs for me to work with on. this was, you know, my income payment plan has already went as far as it can go. all right, thank you, tina. thanks, team. great job. much more still ahead. v/manag% yw%ig andtay@àh%a,thnbm whoo! still to come, dr. drew season of celebrity rehab. if you want to see the weather ahead, push here. if you want to access 10 gigs of music you just downloaded to your hard drive, push here. and if you want to pull away from it all, you can push here. the all-new-40-gig hard drive nav and entertainment system on the 2010 lacrosse. from buick. it s the new class of world class. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. it is back to the courthouse this morning for baltimore mayor sheila dixon. her lawyers hope to be granted a new trial. it would focus mostly on a juror conduct pre that the defense argues that five of the jurors acted inappropriately when they contacted each other over facebook. if a new trial is not granted, dixon will face sentencing january 21 and could be thrown out of office. stay with wbal tv and wbaltv.com for the latest updates. we will have a live report at noon. a convicted sex offender released on parole last spring is behind bars this morning after allegedly fondling an 8- year-old girl inside a church. a 26-year-old rodney key sexually assaulted a girl last sunday in the st. james church in southwest baltimore. at the time, the man was homeless but was hired by the church to do odd jobs for them. baltimore county police are looking for the gunman accused of shooting a 13-year-old boy on new year s eve. the suspect is 14 years old. the shooting left to the victim in critical condition. and what with information is asked to call baltimore county police. we should be 41 for the normal high. we will be somewhat closer to that today with a high of 38 or 39, depending on your location. we did start it with some light snow around the eastern shore and the northern part of the state. we have is going to get interesting by tomorrow night. a clipper moves through here. by friday morning, maybe a couple of inches of snow on the ground. by saturday, only 30 degrees for the high, and will be would be so it will feel a lot worse than that. sunday, a high of only 27. we will have other update at 9:55. it who are better drivers, men or women? men don t merge. the woman will sit there and wait. this is what men do. you see where i am over here? and, ka-blam, and then we re all an hour late. depend brand. for women and men. american woman, stay away from me, american woman, mama let me be doesn t it feel today that women are juggling many things at once, more than ever, from the board room to our children s classrooms to making time for our husbands and trying to have some time for our friends. well, apparently, there are five things that every woman should know how to do that might make their lives easier. so, we re going to find out what those are tomorrow here on today. aww. and i m ann curry along with natalie morales. al s, by the way, out in vegas. we ll hear from him in a couple moments. he s at the consumer electronics show. and in fact, let s hear from him right now. yeah. al you ve got the need for speed, i hear? that s right. you know, the radar detectors that the police use cost about $2,000, or professional baseball teams. well, we ve got a couple members of the las vegas summer baseball club here, and they re going to this is called pocket radar. for $250, you ve got a professional quality go ahead, guys, fire it up. okay, so he s throwing it 25 miles per hour. this is great. you can take this down and see how fast your kid s throwing the ball. it s really kind of cool. look at that, boom. 26! he s getting it up there. getting it out there. don t blow your arm out before the summer s over. and let s see fast pitch. say again? let s see his fast pitch. too many monitors. we want to see a real fast one. here we go. 33. oh! oh, that was close. kind of a little brush back there. kind of clipped me. there are a lot of tv screens behind him. we may want to be careful with that. yeah. thanks a lot. then, of course, we re also cooking up a storm here. we ve got chef david walzic from the sw restaurant at the wynn, and he s going to be showing you how to do short ribs all in one pot. i mean, this is going to be great. yeah, baby. that s what we re talking about. you re just in heaven, al. surrounded by technology and food. that s comfort food. that s right. al, thanks so much. if you could combine the two. actually, i was thinking about that little speedometer. you could do it to make sure your kids aren t driving too fast. there s a lot of excuses of course, you would have to be standing outside while the kids are doing it. that s true, but you know what, i m the kind of mother who would do that, so, we don t want to get into that. yes, you are. that s a different story. al, thanks. we ll hear from you in the cooking segment coming up, but this hour we ve got dr. drew is back. he s helping some famous faces with their problems for addiction. among them, mackenzie phillips, heidi fleiss, actor tom size more and basketball star dennis rodman. we ll hear about it from dr. drew, coming up in a few minutes. also, let s get a check of the weather with al back in vegas. hey, al. make the monitor work. hey, guys. okay, we re just having a little technology issue, but we re all good. we re all fine. we re all fine right now. this is the asis skype book. so, you get this thing and any if you ve got a skype account and somebody else has a skype account, you can make free video calls anywhere in the world using skype. and it comes with this lovely lady to set it up. no, only kidding. anyway it was working just a moment ago. let s take a look, show you what s going on as far as your weather s concerned. while it s getting started, we ll take a look at the weather, see what s happening. there you go. current temperatures wow, it s chilly! temperatures right now 28 in jacksonville, 39 ft. myers, key west only in the 50s. and then highs today only getting into the 40s and 50s throughout much of florida. temperatures 15 to 20 degrees below normal. as you move across the rest of the country, you can see that cold air is really streaming down out of canada and will continue to stream down tomorrow and on into friday with temperatures well below zero in the plains and then moving on into the upper mississippi river valley. only 20s in the northeast. and then add to that, we ve got a little low pressure system bringing some snow starting tomorrow on into friday. and we could be looking at some really miserable conditions. ther we have a slight chance of flurries but a little more sunshine. at 30 degrees in baltimore today. e.b. present baltimore and that s your latest weather. ann, natalie, back to you guys. okay, al. you re doing a great job out there, by the way. enjoy those ribs. coming up next, we ve got celebrities fighting to stay sober, as we ve been telling you. dr. drew pinsky is working with them. y( laughs ) there we go. 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[ male announcer ] for a better-looking tomorrow. vicks nyquil cold & flu. the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep you ever got with a cold.medicine. the doctor is in. eight celebrities are once again turning to dr. drew pinsky to help them overcome drug and alcohol addiction. the third installment of celebrity rehab with dr. drew premieres tomorrow night on vh1 and will follow stars like dennis rodman, heidi fleiss and mackenzie phillips, as they battle to stay sober. dr. drew, nice to have you here. thanks, natalie. third season, so congrats to you. you say this is the most intense yet with the cast of people you have. tell me their stories. well, this is a group that s very diverse in terms of the kind of treatment issues that are presented to us. one is that these are, some of them, very severely, biologically dependent and addictive, so will get very ill in their withdrawal. others like mackenzie have been in recovery before and understand it well. there are people who are resistant, like dennis, who claims he is court-ordered to be there. i have to write him a letter that he satisfactorily completed treatment. and when i tell him, look, if you don t participate, i ve got a problem here right. i m not going to report and he still just is completely resistant to the process. what is interesting in the group is that two of the celebrity patients actually have a past relationship together. former hollywood madam heidi fleiss and actor tom sizemore. there you see tom there. an abusive relationship. he was convicted of assault and battery in 2003. wru concerned that past history was going to get in the way of their treatment? of course. whenever there is a relationship, it is a concern. both people have to consent, and in fact, it did not take them away from their treatment. they all stayed with me through sober house, and in that environment it was a little more problematic. tom, i have to tell you, it took him a while to come into treatment. it didn t come in with the rest of the patients, he came in. he s very sick. he spends most of the time in bed. so it doesn t disrupt heidi s treatment at all. she s very kind to him through most of the treatment. then towards the end, things get a little rockier again and i would not have predicted that given where we started. mackenzie phillips was here on the show. of course, a lot of us know her from one day at a time, and her history of drug addiction started so young. she was just 11 years old, and we also know she had an incestuous relationship with her father and she s been in and out of rehab. remember, her father injected her with drugs, exposed her to drugs according to her. what s the course of treatment for someone who started at age 11? you can anticipate it s a lifelong struggle and she is a heroin addict and heroin is a life-long disease. it does not go away. it is a fatal condition. and given the trauma she s had, the early onset of the disease and seriousness of the drug of choice, it s remarkable she s alive and she s had long periods of sobriety. let s listen to this clip we have. i started using as a really young person. i didn t get clean until i was 32, okay? and i stayed clean until i was 42. that s amazing. that s fantastic. then my father passed away. i kind of i just kind of lost my did his illness trigger some of that decline, do you think? absolutely. so, as you said, here s somebody she was sober for ten years. well entrenched in sobriety. something happens and fell off the wagon again. but again, this is the thing people don t understand about addiction. addiction is closer to asthma or diabetes than it is to an infection, say like a skin infection. it s not like when you treat it, it s over. you treat it and you have to participate in continuing the treatment, and even when you do, just like with diabetes, even when you re manager your blood sugar properly, occasionally it goes out of control for various reasons and you have to get back into treatment and get reentrenched. mackenzie does so well in treatment that she s sort of viewed by patients as the teacher s pet and heidi becomes brutal with her. they start setting her up for things, and it right side like a competition, sounds like. well, it s like a little family. it s a classroom and things start happening. right. and they have to learn about themselves through that process. tell me more about dennis rodman. he wasn t there out of his own voelsion. this is a court-ordered thing. he was the way most people people look at what we do and say they really don t want treatment, and you re right. many of them want to be on tv, they want to get paid. look, when i treat people normally, it s normally because either their family sends them, their employer sends them, or in dennis s case, the court sends them. we don t care their motivation. we know that if they believe they re going to die, we re likely to be more successful in treatment, but if we can get oyer hooks in them, we can do some work. in this case, eventually, dennis does kind of come around. how bad was his alcohol pretty bad. i actually do brain scans on him to show him the damage from the alcohol. we document that. wow. of course, we ve been reading a lot about the johnson & johnson heiress, casey johnson and her death, and also at the age of 30 long history of drug and alcohol abuse, in and out of rehab as well. yes. brittany murphy died last month at the age of 32. cause of death hasn t been determined yet, but there were reports that painkillers were found in the house. yes. what is the lesson here? i mean, this is a story that you see over and over again. yeah. in hollywood. yes, you do see it over and over again. the lesson i want people to know is this is not about their fame. the fame is what allows these diseases to spiral out of control, and maybe to a greater extent than for the rest of us. there s not the kind of structure there. there s not family and employers to bring them back into treatment earlier. they have more power, so they can their disease can manifest more completely. but it s not the fame that causes the disease. these are very severe mental illnesses we are seeing here, and we have to take note of that, learn from it and be emp threatic towards these people. and you just finished sex rehab with dr. drew, and of course, one of the stories we ve been talking about an awful lot is tiger woods. do you think he had a sex addiction? it certainly sounds like sex and love addiction, doesn t it? it s not just sex addiction, too, because he had these relationships he was cultivating and kept all the plates spinning where he became upset with the women if they cheated on him. we laugh about it, but boy, that must have been a struggle to maintain that life. we also hear there was some chemicals in his system when he was in the car crash and those things go together, chemical and sex addiction. they make one worse. dr. drew pinsky, thanks and good luck with everything you have going on. i appreciate it. season three of celebrity rehab premieres tomorrow night on vh1. coming up next, back to las vegas for a cold-weather dish that will warm your soul. you can smell it from here already. 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[ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. in today s kitchen, keeping it simple, yet hardy in just one pot. raised short ribs. it s the perfect dish for this kind of weather. throw in some root vegetables and you ve got a meal. david walzog is the executive chef at sw, at the wynn hotel. i love this, all in one pot? one pot. and it makes it so easy in the kitchen for cleanup, for entertaining. it s one of the best things. so, you start off with the short ribs. here s the deal prime short ribs, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. that s it. right? and then all these aromatic vegetables onions, celery, carrots, potatoes, artichoke bottoms. a little sprig of herbs that s rosemary, thyme and bay leaves all tied together. and you brown the ribs on both sides? we have everything kind of seared and kind of browned off. then we re going to add some red wine. okay. ooh. now, how much do you want to throw in? so, that s about eight ounces or so. uh huh. just a little bit. just it kind of like soured out the sauce, it adds some roundness to it. so, you let that boil for two or three minutes. this is a real rich beef stock. mm. look how it glistens. in that goes. mm-hmm. ah. and so, you let this simmer for a little while longer. you let that simmer a little bit. this is about two hours in the oven. when do we add the tomato paste? so, the tomato paste went in can go in now, and it gets stirred about. throw in the garlic. so, you simmer it on the stovetop and then it goes in the oven for how long? covered? for about two hours. so, we have finished product here. oh, yeah. and look at this. this has been in. very tender. it s all kind of like, you know, pulled from the ribs, very tender. let s plate that up, because we have to. because we have to. because we have to. and i notice you ve got a couple of sides over here, too. you ve got parmesan cream spinach. we have parmesan cream spinach, we have mushrooms, one of my favorites. this is a great, like, earthy mushroom that s just wonderful. hold on. oh. balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and basil, the potatoes. so, one pot. it s really, really wonderful. that s great. and thanks for making that for me for the ride home. sure. i appreciate that. we can always a little white truffle. vegas style. a little black truffle chips black truffles on top. david walzog, it s been a pleasure. thank you. we have more coming up. trapped in the trance of their shopping routine, some people don t notice the difference between meat and mystery when they enter. .the frozen zone is it real chicken? or something else? some chicken nuggets and tenders look like they have mystery meat. with my perdue frozen nuggets, there is no mystery. just real all-white meat, made with 100% natural ingredients, no fillers, no preservatives, and a delicious taste your family will love. perdue frozen chicken. all-white meat. no mystery. look who s on our couch, hoda and piers. hello. what have you got coming up? we have a lot coming up. tim allen, who s hilarious, has a new movie out, crazy on the outside. it s great. you ve been seeing a lot of movies together. we have. should your fiancee be suspicious? she s not happy and she s trapped in slow, bad london. 16 inches of snow. it s amazing. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. it is back to the courthouse were baltimore mayor sheila dixon, whose lawyers hope to be granted a new trial. the meeting would focus mostly on a juror conduct. the defense argues that five of the jurors acted inappropriately when they contacted each other over facebook. if a new trial is not granted, dixon will face sentencing january 21 and could be thrown out of office. stay with wbal-tv and wbaltv.com for the latest updates and we will have a live your forecast for today s variably cloudy, with a high in the upper 30 s. to mark, increasing clouds and snow by tomorrow evening. it looks like a couple inches of accumulation. much colder by saturday and sunday. see you back here for 11 news at noon.