Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100302 : vimarsana.com

good morning. chaos and confusion. desperate residents turn to looting in the wake of that devastating earthquake in chile, as much-needed aid trickles in, authorities are struggling to maintain order. this morning, ann curry reports live from one of the hardest hit areas. repeat offender? san diego police step up the search for missing 17-year-old chelsea king, and now investigators believe a man held in connection with her case may be responsible for another girl s disappearance. and he s back! i thought you were leaving us. but i did leave! i went away to the strangest place. jay leno returns to the tonight show and finds there s no place like home, today, tuesday, march 2nd, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this tuesday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. secretary of state hillary clinton is in quake-ravaged chile today, and she s bringing with her the first wave of u.s. aid to that region. that s right, but getting that aid to some of the hardest hit areas will be challenging due to damaged roads and widespread power outages. as for the total damages, it s now expected to exceed $15 billion. the death toll has now climbed above 720. ann curry is in the devastated city of constitucion. we ll get to her in a few minutes. also ahead, our hidden camera investigation that will you buy underwear that is not sealed in a package. we actually found popular chains trying to resell used items. more on what we found, just ahead. governor romney s looking at me going what are we talking about? we ll talk about that in a second. also, we ll have more of our special series great tv families reunited. if you grew up in the early 70s, there s a good chance you walked around singing this song right here. come on get happy that is the theme song to an all-time television classic the partridge family. this morning the cast is bringing a whole lot of lovin to studio 1a. we ll kaw up with them coming up. also ahead, david letterman s executive producer and girlfriend are speaking out about the late-night host. some of it he will probably want to hear. some of it he will not want to hear. we ll have more on that story as well. but we begin with the frantic search for survivors in chile. ann curry is in the badly damaged city of constitucion, miles outside of santiago. good morning to you. reporter: good morning to you. our news team drove overnight to get to this part ravaged by the earthquake. the population is 38,000. 353 people are known to have died here. behind me, that is the factory that was once the largest employer here in town. now, locals say that after the earthquake, five tsunami waves came from over there in the ocean, the largest of which they describe as 50 feet high, and this is just one town among many that is reeling here in chile. new signs of life in hard-hit concepcion three days after the quake, knocking heard under an apartment building has rescuers sending in tiny cameras to found those buried alive. hope despite so much despair. debris, roofs down. what a mess. from the air, you can begin to see the extent of the destruction, over hundreds of miles, town after town flattened by mother nature. with half a million homes damaged, many need a place to live. but the deepest agony is for those missing people they love. rosa bustamante tells us she hasn t seen her granddaughter, claudia, since the quake. she s 12 years old, rosa says, we don t know anything. we don t know whether she is alive or dead. we need to find her. chaos is increasing. supermarkets are now rationing food. some say there is not enough. this woman says her children are hungry. police are out in force to stop people from stealing food. too late for this store, stripped bare. some gathered at this market to beg for food. workers gave what they could. because of the threat of violence, police have imposed curfews and have arrested those who violate them. in the fishing town of dechatto, stunned silence as residents try to come to terms with the devastation. this man s saying, i haven t seen any help here, nothing. these fishermen hope they can salvage their livelihoods. in the town of payaway, the first of the funerals. mourners gathering in one of the only buildings still intact in this devastated town. but aid is starting to arrive. the convoy driven by volunteers brought food and clothing monday. this woman, whose town is almost all gone, speaks for many in saying, we must have strength to move forward. as of late yesterday, there were 128 aftershocks since the quake and 14 of them occurred as a magnitude 5 or higher, matt and meredith. and we actually felt a tremor here this morning. so, from near the epicenter of constitucion, chile, back to you. we want to get the rest of the top stories of the day from natalie, who is filling in at the news desk while ann s down in chile. good morning to you. good morning, matt and meredith. good morning, everyone. today the u.s. postal service announces that a bad situation is getting worse as it loses billions of dollars every year. tom costello s at postal headquarters with more on potential changes to mail delivery, likely to affect every american. tom, good morning. reporter: good morning to you. we re talking about the explosion of e-mail, online shopping, online banking and also a terrible economy. all of that has got the postmaster general saying that his agency needs to change radically if it s going to survive. that old adage about letter carriers staying on the job through snow, rain, heat or gloom of night doesn t make any mention of e-mail or weathering a 21st-century great recession. today the postal service is in trouble, big trouble. in just four years, mail volume has dropped off a cliff, from 213 billion pieces delivered in 2006 to fewer than 170 billion projected for 2010. most lost to the internet. and the financial losses are mounting. $7 billion in the red by the end of this year. last year the postal service lost money. it lost money in each of the previous two years. and the projections going forward are not bright. reporter: not bright and likely to get far worse. the postal service has already said it may need to cut six-day-a-week service down to five, close some post offices, raise rates and restructure how it funds its retiree benefit programs. but all that would require congress to sign on, and so far, it s refused. while critics argue the entire postal service model is broken. without competition, how can anyone be efficient, how can they be interested in serving consumers when consumers have no choice but to use them? reporter: well, again today, the postmaster general is expected to call for cutting saturday mail delivery, possibly closing some post offices. but again, congress has to weigh in on all of this, and the dire situation grows more dire. natalie, back to you. all right, tom costello in washington, d.c. thank you, tom. well, this morning, congress will hold more hearings on toyota s recent recalls. toyota s announcing it has picked former transportation secretary rodney slater to head a panel to review the company s quality control systems. meantime, gm says it will recall more than a million chevrolet and pontiac compact cars to fix power steering motors that can fail. the recall affects the 2005 to 2010 cobalt, the 2007 to 2010 pontiac g5s, the 2005 and 2006 pontiac pursuits sold in canada and 2005 and 2006 pontiac g4s sold in mexico. overseas markets are mostly higher this morning. on wall street, cnbc s trish regan is at the new york stock exchange. trish, what are you watching there? reporter: hey, good morning, natalie. financials are very much in focus today. we have the senate banking committee reportedly near a deal on financial reform. now, this is pretty critical. there are two elements here that are being talked about. one, the expectation that there would be a consumer financial watchdog within the fed. the other big issue is that the government would have the ability to unwind any kind of failing financial institution. finally, greece still in focus. investors are looking for some resolution on that debt crisis. natalie, back to you. trish regan at the new york stock exchange, thank you. and it was a tough way to start the day for a man in australia who woke up early to see the sunrise. instead, he got stuck on the side of a cliff and he had to be rescued by helicopter. lucky man. it is now 7:09. back over to meredith, matt and al. sunrise he ll never forget, for sure. good to be alive. natalie, good morning, everyone. until the storm gets here it will be pretty quiet during the day to day. during the day to day. there s a chance that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thanks very much. president obama travels to savannah, georgia, today to talk with local business owners about the economy and ways to create more jobs, but it is the president s attempt to reform health care that drew recent criticism from former massachusetts governor and republican presidential hopeful mitt romney. he s out with a new book called no apology: the case for american greatness. governor romney, it s great to have you back. good morning. thanks, matt. good to be with you. you re releasing this book, and you know what people are saying. the fact that you re launching it now, it s your unofficial launch of your presidential campaign in 2012. are you in? you know, that s you heard the expression about counting chickens before the eggs hatch. well, this is counting chickens before the hen has met the rooster. i haven t made a decision like that yet. i ll think about that after the 2010 elections. but frankly, this is a book that flows from my many years of experience in the private sector, in business, going around the world. i think america s got some real challenges. you sound, though, like a guy who wants to be in the mix. you know, you ve been having a good time taking some shots at president obama over the last several months. your zingers are out. obama s going downhill faster than lindsey vonn, america s not better off than it was $1.8 trillion ago. so let me start by asking this. has president obama done anything right, anything good in the last 12 months? no question about it. he s done several things well. most of those things are where he had changed his view from where he had during the campaign. for instance, he s left our troops in iraq and they re being more successful there. he boosted our effort in afghanistan, which is the right course to take. he did not close guantanamo, thank heavens. and his education effort to encourage more charter schools is a good effort, but overall, i am not giving him a passing grade for the year. but when you say the country s not better off than it was $1.8 trillion ago the dow is at 10,000 now, the gdp was declining at 6%, it s rising at 6% right now. we were talking about the possibility of a great depression. most people aren t talking about that anymore. so, aren t we better off? when you have 10% of our people almost unemployed and a lot more looking for work, when they ve been promised we ve been able to hold the rate at 8%, if we were simply going to borrow another $878 billion from the chinese that kind of debt and unemployment does not make people in america have a brighter future. had the administration not taken some of the steps it did take, though, might not that unemployment figure, though, be at 12% or 13%? could have taken much better steps. this administration has added so much debt that it s frightened the financial markets and made it more difficult for small businesses to grow. on top of that, when they put in place cap in tax, you scare businesses away from investing. when you talk about putting in a program in place which takes away the right of workers to vote on a union, you provide the incentive for businesses to pull back. the private sector is scared in america right now. it s the most antijob, antigrowth, anti-investment agenda we ve seen in washington in decades. a couple of things quickly. on health care reform, you had spoken out against the president s plan. critics say it s very close to the plan you put into law in massachusetts. if the democrats go the way of reconciliation, get this bill passed in the senate, what is going to be the short and long-term impact of that? well, immediate reaction will be outrage on the part of the american people. they have said in every way they know how they do not like his health care plan. by the way, our health care plan in massachusetts, one heck of a lot better. number one, lets states resolve these issues, whether they have a federal government one size fits all plan. that s what we did. number two, don t raise taxes. no need to do that. number three, don t cut medicare on senior citizens. his plan does all those things. that s why it s wrong. in your book no apology: the case for american greatness, you say that the country needs a renewal and fresh ideas to cut through complicated problems. do you see yourself as the best person to offer those fresh ideas? and i ask that with all due respect that people had a chance to look at your ideas in the last presidential election and they weighed in on them. well, i have a lot of ideas. so do other people. that s the great thing about this extraordinary democracy of ours. but what i m saying is we don t need to apologize for what america is. we have brought extraordinary economic wealth to people around the world, lifted people out of poverty. we ve brought freedom to people around the world. but this country is under extraordinary stress right now. the challenges we face really could cause us to be passed by other nations, and washington politicians have not dealt with the real challenges we face. we ve got to fix our schools, we ve got to fix energy, we ve got to stop spending money we don t have, and we ve got to get our entitlements on a sustainable basis. that s not happening. it s got to happen soon. the book is no apology: the case for american greatness. when you do decide whether or not you re running, will you come and announce it here? i ll be right here, matt. governor mitt romney, thank you very much. good to see you. good to see you. 7:16. here s meredith. you heard him, matt. thank you very much. how would you like president obama to speak at your child s graduation? that is the prize of a nationwide challenge announced by the white house while we were in vancouver. arne duncan is the secretary of transportation and will help select the winning school. secretary duncan, good morning to you. good morning, meredith. thank you for having me. pleasure to have you. before we get to the challenge, yesterday the president announced grants aimed at low-performing schools if they are willing to take dramatic steps to change the condition they re in, drastic steps, even. and he pointed to, as an example, a school in rhode island that recently fired all its teachers after only 7% of the 11th graders passed the state math exam. do you think that other failing schools should follow that lead? well, i think this is a decision that has to be made at the local level. it s not something we should decide from here, but we have to do the right thing by children around the country. we have a dropout crisis. it is economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable, and the president yesterday, i thought, showed real courage. alma powell, colin powell, this is an absolute bipartisan effort. we have to work together to be successful. if we use just the rhode island schools as successful, don t you risk losing the good teachers with the bad there? there are many great teachers in any underperforming school. again, it s a local decision what the right thing to do is there, but what we all agree on is the status quo there isn t good enough. we have to get better. everyone agrees on that. i d like to congratulate the national union leadership for no one s defending the status quo, we have to get better. how that plays out has to be a local decision. the money would also go to districts that close entire schools when they are failing, something you did when you ran the public schools in chicago. between 2001 and 2006, i believe you closed 38 schools, but a study by the university of chicago, a subsequent study showed that the children who left those schools for others didn t do any better. so, wasn t it just shifting the problem from one place to another? no, there are lots of different options here, and what we re advocating is often making sure those schools, existing schools, stay strong. in many places, you can t move children around to different schools, but you can come back and create much better options in communities that have been historically underserved. we ve seen example after example around the country, whether it was in chicago, whether it was in l.a., a recent school where attendance went up 20%. that s an additional 20 days of school each year that children are going to school, an additional month. test scores in philadelphia went from 7% to after the turn-around 54% of students meeting state proficiency standards. we see dramatic, dramatic improvement. the big thing the country needs to understand is poverty is not destiny. we have hundreds and hundreds of performing high-poverty schools around the country. we have to make that the norm, not the exception. our students, regardless of where they come from, regardless of background, can do extraordinarily well academically. we have to make sure every child has a chance to get a great education. let s talk about the challenge for public high schools, encouraging them to compete for the chance to have the president speak at their commencement address this spring. what are you hoping to achieve with this challenge and how will you determine which school wins? first of all, meredith, i don t know about you, but i can t remember who my high school commencement speaker was, and this is going to be just an absolutely memorable day for whichever high school wins. this is a race to the top commencement challenge. the president s asking every high school to put their best foot forward and demonstrate what they re doing to make sure that every student graduates from high school, college and career-ready, which is his goal. he s committed to doing this every single year. so, this is just a really fun challenge. the applications are due march 15th, in less than two weeks. and so, we expect many, many high schools around the country to submit, whether it s their essays and applications or video presentation, and we look forward to a very, very vigorous competition. the public s going to help us decide. we want every high school to demonstrate what they re doing to give every child a chance to be successful and fulfill their tremendous academic ial. you re right about one thing, i do not remember my commencement speaker. education secretary arne duncan, thank you so much. thanks for having me. the deadline is march 15th. for more on how to enter, logon to todayshow.com. it is 7:20 and once again, here s matt. meredith, thank you. san diego police have expanded the search for missing 17-year-old chelsea king, who hasn t been seen since last thursday. this morning there are new questions about the registered sex offender held in connection with the case. nbc s janet shamlian is in san diego with the latest on this story. janet, good morning to you. reporter: matt, good morning. officials are refusing to call this a rescue mission, and her anguished parents are somehow holding on to hope that their daughter will be found alive. and yet, here at the san diego jail, police say they have the man who knows where chelsea king is. what happened to her. he s a sex offender who now may be connected to other recent crimes. the lush trails of this san diego area park attract hundreds of runners every day. last thursday, 17-year-old chelsea king was among them, stopping for a run after school, something her family said she d frequently do. when she didn t return home by the usual time, her father raced to the park. so, once i realized there was a running trail there, i did what anybody would do. i took off running. i ran about a mile and called for my daughter and yelled as loud as i could yell. reporter: a massive search was launched. by sunday, the number of people looking for the straight a senior topped 1,500. divers are now using sonar to explore the waters of nearby lake hodgins. we re just praying for chelsea to get home. you re seeing the faces of the parents, and that s what drives us to do everything humanly possible. i will say that they are literally moving heaven and earth to find this little girl. reporter: a suspect is behind bars. he s 30-year-old john gardner, a registered sex offender. he s not talking, but authorities say there s physical evidence linking him to the case. the investigation is widening as detectives believe gardner is tied to a december assault in the same park. many times, an offender will look for the same type of victim, the same age, but they also look for the victims in the same area, too. reporter: and then there s the case of 14-year-old amber dubois, who vanished from the area just over a year ago while walking to school. she s never been found. there are just enough similarities for it to be eerie. reporter: for now, the focus is on finding chelsea, as a heartbroken mom and dad wait for word. just help us get her home, okay? help us get her home. that s what we need. reporter: as for the man behind bars, court documents from his 2000 arrest for child molestation indicate he showed no remorse for his actions, and at the time, a court psychiatrist said that he would continue to be a danger to young girls in the community. matt, back to you. all right, janet shamlian, thank you very much. just ahead, david letterman s executive producer and ex-girlfriend for ten years speak out about the late show host and his relationship with his staff. but first, this is today on nbc. still ahead, are some stores that you shop in selling used underwear? our hidden camera investigation. suitcase? huh? where do gummy bears hide? under the seat. look! yeah! 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[ laughter ] [ male announcer ] a consumers digest best buy. with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. it takes you farther. and brings you closer. good morning, everyone. 7:26, time to check on your morning commute. good morning, everyone. several accidents to watch for. if you travel along philadelphia wrote at valley forge way, watch for an accident. one in lutherville and york road, the other in vidonia and halton. hammershire rod, another accident location. 18 minutes is the drive time on the outer loop west time. backing up traffic down towards the belt way, you will travel on the north side for just about 13 minutes. 11 minutes on southbound 95. we can give you a live view in a couple of spots, not jailed by any means. pretty nice heading down towards 40. white marsh, normal delays. tony has more on the forecast. it has been pretty quiet this tuesday, we re watching a storm system, and of out of the gulf of mexico. mostly today is going to be fine. temperatures in the mid 30 s already, we should be in the 40 s by this afternoon. you could see some light rain or snow developing today after 4:00, but with no freezing temperatures the road as it should be fine. do not worry about your commute. a good chance for a light snow overnight, a couple of inches of accumulation by the time it tapers off on wednesday. could be some snow showers on thursday again, but the good news is that sunshine is coming and temperatures in the 50 s for the first time in about one month by friday. thank you. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic, the next live update is at 7:55. the next live update is at 7:55. i woke up in love this morning 7:30 now on a tuesday morning. it s the 2nd day of march 2010. got some nice people out on the plaza rockin to or jammin to or maybe just swaying a bit to one of the classic tv hits from a classic tv family, i woke up in love this morning by who else? tell us, meredith. the partidge family, matt. am i right? and look who s here this morning. that is the cast in our green room playing the board game based on their hit show. we re going to bring them up to the studio. we ll talk to them in just a little while. meanwhile, in that studio, i m matt lauer here with meredith vieira. hard to believe the partridge family premiered 40 years ago. 40 years ago. yikes. it will be fun catching up with them. and a story that will make people cringe. employees at popular clothing chains found restocking and reselling used underwear and bathing suits. coming up, our hidden camera investigation. you re not supposed to do that? no! ugh. first, a way to find happiness by taking stock of the rooms in your house. we ll explain in a second. but let us begin this half hour with new details about the david letterman sex scandal and alleged extortion plot against him. nbc s peter alexander is here with the latest. peter, good morning to you. reporter: matt, good morning. nice to see you. when he s not in front of the camera, david letterman prefers to live a mostly private life, and even know, the details of his in-office scandal have largely remained a secret, but there is a new in-depth account of his late-night world that some describe as a cult-like environment. it was a stunning admission and the first chapter of a complicated, salacious tale. i have had sex with women who work for me on this show. reporter: the confession follows the now infamous blackmail attempt by longtime cbs producer joe halderman. prosecutors say halderman tried to extort $2 million from the late night star after threatening to write an embarrassing screenplay about letterman s marital indiscretions. and caught in the middle, letterman s former girlfriend, stephanie birkitt, a letterman assistant and sketch regular who reportedly had a sexual relationship with her boss. it appeared david and stephanie were seducing each other on national television. reporter: this month s vanity fair goes inside the world of letterman s late night staff. it s like a cult says one staffer. you arrive as an intern and stay for life and people do fall in love with dave. one producer said she d be sitting in her office with her back to the door. all of a sudden, the hair on her arms and back of her neck would stand on end. she would turn around and say dave would be standing in the doorway. she said the man was electric. reporter: but he was also, cording to vanity fair, a heartbreaker who didn t stay faithful. his companion for years says we were together for ten years, though i know it s a vague definition of the word together since he was apparently with his current wife regina for the last two of those years, and to my knowledge, none of us were involved in a polygamous cult. the piece also attempts to shed new light on the breakdown of letterman s accused extortionist, a tv news producer who had fallen into tough times financially and emotionally. he was having a hard time with the divorce, alimony payments, and his ex-wife had just moved his young son to colorado. reporter: the last straw for halderman? seeing letterman pull up his $100,000 car just down the street from halderman s modest connecticut home, dropping off stephanie birkitt after a romantic embrace. pleading not guilty, the former war zone journalist now faces his own battle in court. and david letterman s executive producer tells vanity fair the comedian is willing to testify. so far, the defense team has been trashing david letterman, making comparisons to tiger woods. those are media strategies. pretty soon, it s going to be time to either craft a legal strategy or very seriously think about trying to cut a deal. reporter: for his part, joe halderman is charged with first-degree attempted grand larceny. so far, no trial date has been set. if he is found guilty, halderman could face up to 15 years in prison, matt. all right. peter alexander, peter, thank you very much. mark seal wrote the vanity fair cover story about the letterman scandal. he joins us now exclusively. mark, it s good to see you. welcome back. great to be back, matt. thank you. you re a great writer and, you know, a great researcher. i just want to know what kind of an unfiltered view you think you ve got of this. you spoke to a really good friend of david letterman s. right. a really good friend of joe halderman s. right. one former segment producer and a former girlfriend of letterman s. did you get a clear view of this? i spoke to a lot of people. i think i got as clear of a view as possible. you know, i was able to piece together what i hope is a compelling narrative about a pretty sensational story. since the scandal broke, there have been accusations about the work environment over at the late show, and to boil them down simply, the women who reportedly had a relationship with letterman were advanced and promoted. those who didn t were less fortunate. did you find anybody willing to corroborate that claim? well, mostly people who just talked about it, and that s the industry buzz. but the main thing underlying all of this is david has an incredible charisma. people want to be around him. people want to be close to him. not only people who work for him, but also the women on the show, like who can forget drew barrymore jumping on his desk and pulling up her top, and you know, all the other women like julia roberts, who basically grew up flirting with him on the show. that is what really jumped out to me from your article. right. david letterman s sitting here, you don t want articles written about this. you want it to go away. but on the other hand, you re portrayed as this guy with this almost bill clinton-like charisma. that s right. that s right, yes. not only do women want to be around him when they work for him, but after they leave the show, they still want to be around him. that s right. and you write after they re married, they still think about david letterman. what do they put in the water the there? one woman says she watches the show 18 years after leaving there and says i hope letterman likes me. she thought of basking in the buzz of dave. meryl markel, a longtime companion of david letterman, spoke to you on the record about this story. right. what do you think was she able to shed light about? well, she s hilarious. she s a great comedy writer who created much of dave s current show. and she just said that the overlap with his current wife, the affair with her and the affair with merrill overlapped a number of years, and she said, you know, when you ve got a guy with two combs all over the country and these people stalking you, anything can happen. a lot of cover stories. rob burnett, executive producer of dave s show and a dear friend really talked about the atmosphere at work. he did. he said look, i ve got a couple of daughters. i d be proud to have them work in this environment. right. right, yeah. he said i ve got two daughters. i d love to have them work here one day. you know, the charge of halderman s lawyer is that dave created and fostered a climate of sexual misconduct in the office, and rob burnett said absolutely not. there s never been a harassment claim. and so, it goes from there. it seems to me, mark, there s a high-stakes game of chicken being played right now. right. most people would agree it d be best for everybody involved if there s some kind of a plea deal or settlement. or, of course, the district attorney has a lot to say about that. right. but both are also possible, sides are also positioning themselves to say we re willing to go the long haul on this. and what do you think s going to happen? yeah, you know, who knows. it s going to go the trial date is expected to be announced soon. we ll see what happens. but you know, rob burnett said, you know, 99% of celebrities who get blackmailed back down and pay the money, and he said it was a great mistake to think dave would do that. and he said dave letterman s more than willing and even eager to testify if this goes to trial. could you imagine being in a jury and sitting there and david letterman comes in to testify? i think the jury room would be packed. mark seal, who wrote the vanity fair cover story on this, thank you. thank you, matt. and vanity fair hits newsstands this week. let s get a check of the weather now from al. thank you. we re out here with taylor, who is 10 years old today. double digits, girl! where are you from? boston. boston, all right. very nice. happy birthday, young lady. thank you. we ve got nice weather for you. let s check it out, see what s happening. out west, they ve got a big storm, another one coming onshore. it s going to bring a lot of rain, a lot of wind. take a look. rainfall amounts into central and northern california, we re talking one to two inches of rain. wet weather along, all the way up into the pacific northwest. strong risk of strong storms down in florida, rain and snow along the mid-atlantic coast. midsection of the country from the great lakes down to texas, fabulous weather, plenty of sunshine. got a group here, empower! where are the weather should be pretty quiet on this tuesday until we get to the late afternoon and evening, at that time we will get a chance for a light rain lenny, no dummy, moving over with the ladies. very nice. hey, and if you want to check your weather any time of the day or night, go to the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. up next, used underwear sold as new at some popular stores. the result of our hidden camera investigation. batten down the hatches, right after this. hey, you made your own lunch. yep! look in your bag, made you something. 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(announcer) get your first prescription free and save on refills. advair. now you know. back now at 7:43 with our ongoing series secret film exposed! this morning, a shocking practice at some popular retailers. nbc s jeff rossen has the story. jeff, good morning to you. good morning, meredith. big ew factor on this, of course. yeah, big. but it s an important story for all shoppers. our hidden camera investigation uncovered store employees selling used underwear like they were new. these are big-name stores where we all shop, and even we were surprised by what we found. just the thought is revolting. would you ever buy used underwear from the store? okay, first of all, ew. it s completely disgusting. i think i draw the line on used shoes. i wouldn t buy used underwear. reporter: but our hidden camera investigation reveals that s exactly what you may be doing when you buy lingerie at some popular retail and department stores. does returned underwear that s used end up back on the sales floor? yeah. reporter: tiffany luxinger has worked at three victoria s secret stores. now she s exposing a shocking secret behind the scenes. employees accepting returned underwear that s been worn, then putting it back out for sale like it was new. we would retag it and put it back on the sales floor. reporter: even though it may have been used. it may have been used, yes. reporter: and, she says, it gets much, much worse. if a product comes back as returned, it obviously has an odor to it, we will put it on a hanger, hang it up to dry overnight so the odor has time to come out of the product. we ll retag it the next day and put it back on the sales floor. reporter: that s disgusting. it is disgusting. reporter: but, we wondered, how common is this? to find out, we went shopping at an upscale mall in new jersey, buying underwear, lingerie and bikinis at eight major retailers, places we all shop. we took our skimpy apparel home and removed all the tags and protective stripping to make it look like they had been worn. then we marked each pair with two tiny black dots. hi. reporter: a week later, we went back to the stores and tried to return everything. this time, wearing hidden cameras. hi. i d just like to return this stuff. reporter: believe it or not, every store took our items back for full refunds, but what our hidden cameras caught next surprised even us. at bloomingdale s, watch as this clerk retags our returned underwear, then casually walks it back out for sale. at victoria s secret, the clerk wastes no time sneaking new censors on our thongs and bikini, and then another clerk puts them back on the shelf as new. thank you. reporter: at the gap, the clerk moves even faster, returning our used underwear to the sales floor within seconds. in every case, we knew they were ours because of those two black dots. amazingly, it s not illegal to sell used underwear, but it could have health implications. reporter: microbiologist peter kamique says used undergarments can harbor material that could last for weeks. fecal material could be the most concerning substances. you can have bacteria, substances, fungi. these are things one person could transfer to another inadvertently through the garment. reporter: but that didn t stop stores from rushing our items back to the rack. though we never found our items at j. crew or saks, here at macy s, they re retagged, hanging up for you to buy. at nordstrom, here s our bikini for sale with no tags or hygienic liner. remember, we ripped it off. so, we asked the clerk, could this suit have been worn and returned by someone else? no, you can t wear them and return them. you can t wear them and return them? yeah, because then the tag would be off. reporter: oh, really? remember, a clerk put new tags on them after we returned them. while this store says it s against their policy to resell used underwear, this clerk says that s not the reality. was there a rush by managers to rush them back to the floor as soon as possible? yeah, i would think so, so we can make more money. reporter: did stained items end up back on the sales floor? yes. employees are in a rush, a lot of them don t care and they don t double check to see if it was used or not. reporter: so, we took our experiment up a notch. before returning the underwear, we visibly stained several pairs with baby oil. surely, no stores would take those back, right? wrong. at the gap, bloomingdale s, victoria s secret and macy s, they not only took back the stained panties, but put them back out for sale. we took our findings to the street. i can t i lack words for that. i can t even speak to that. that s a private area of your body. you don t want grossness near there, especially if it s foreign grossness. reporter: in statements, the stores involved told us their customers safety and satisfaction are top concerns and their employees made a mistake in reselling used merchandise. they said our investigation has prompted them to re-educate their workers about this policy. still, insiders say shoppers should play it safe. just be cautious. know the possibilities of where the item was and wash the item before you use it. yuck. whenever we found our used underwear back out for sale at all of these stores, we bought them again to make sure other shoppers did not get stuck with it. the best advice, as we said, wash all of your new underwear and bathing suits before you wear them. meredith, i can tell by your face yeah. you said it is legal to sell used underwear, but is it legal to mark it as brand new? well, it s unclear, but this may actually violate, according to government officials, some states consumer protection laws. you should check with your individual state, but we were surprised it s not illegal to sell them even if they return them. but yeah, it may violate state laws if it s sold as new. jeff, thank you very much, i think. tomorrow on secret film exposed! you won t believe what s growing on and inside your children s bath toys. meanwhile, just ahead, something much cleaner. the partridge family gets back together live in our studio. but first, these messages. hings to do. we ve got the tools and hardware to get em done. and with new, lower prices all through the store. so you can do more fixing. replacing. fastening. and updating. for less. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. right now, get a ryobi 18volt starter kit, with drill and circular saw, for the incredible price of just $99. and a kind of pressure behind my eyes. i m wondering if you ve ever been checked for cortical spreading depression. 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[ female announcer ] splenda®. america s favorite no calorie sweetener. still ahead, what you should be feeding your children for breakfast. plus, great tv families reunited. we re going to catch up with the cast of the television classic, the partridge family. there they are. but first, a check of your local news and weather. increase in 6 months. pete, back it up! 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[clucking] and softer feels better. look for delicious cadbury s, reese s and hershey s products in the easter candy aisle. cause no bunny knows easter better than hershey s. the sparkly flakes. the honey-baked bunches! the magic s in the mix. my favorite part? eating it. honey bunches of oats. taste the joy we put in every spoonful. honey bunches of oats. we call the bunches in honey bunches of oats the prize in the box. well, now there s a prize inside the prize. pecans! pecans! baked into crunchy oat bunches. taste the delicious surprise in every spoonful. honey bunches of oats with pecan bunches. beautiful. good morning, everyone. 7:56 is the time. we have your morning commute standing by. we are unfortunately dealing with heavy delays around the area and several accidents. starting right at philadelphia road and valley forge way, clearing an accident there. also on harford road in the alameda in the city. delays are forming around the area as we run through the maps. watch for this one, eastbound 100 at ritchie highway. 80 minutes is your drive time of the elderly west, 14 minutes eastbound. that is there on the northeast corner. a live view of traffic, heavy delays in place. going away from us, down to edmonton, a live view of traffic at quarantine road. this is the inner loop coming towards us, jammed conditions because of the traffic set up at the drawbridge. let s check with tony for the forecast. things should be pretty quiet today. the clouds are picking up in advance of the storm system that is going to visit us tonight. temperatures in the upper 30 s, same thing in rockville. mostly cloudy with a chance for a light rain or snow showers after 5:00. the evening to be ok, one to two inches is all we expect of this storm. thank you. be sure to check the bottom of the screen for updated news in traffic, the next live update is in 25 minutes. is in 25 minutes. how about over here? n let s go back to the left. waffling is back at dunkin donuts. for a short time only, enjoy the return of the delicious oven-toasted waffle breakfast sandwich. america runs on dunkin . coldwell? yes, banker? i took the liberty of beefing up security now that we have the j.d. power & associates award in the office. is that really necessary? well, our agents work really hard. of course. but the locked door is probably sufficient. too much? coldwell banker, ranked highest in customer satisfaction. we never stop moving. 8:00 now on this tuesday morning, march 2nd, 2010. and we have got one message for the crowd, come on get happy! that, of course, is the theme song for everyone s favorite 70s singing family the partridge family . this morning we got the band back together. we re going to talk to the part riches in a moment. there they are, four of them. i m meredith vieira along with matt lauer and al roker. by the way, good news, danny and david and brian and suzanne there, they re going to answer viewer e-mails later in the show. go to our website, todayshow.com. get those to us and they will answer them. okay. also ahead, a new path to happiness. we found two women who said you can find it by figuring out which room in your house you are stuck in emotionally. they ll be here to explain. the kitchen. the bathroom. no. no, okay. plus, a first ever look at evidence from some of the most famous cases in the history of the los angeles police department, including the assassination of rfk and the death of marilyn monroe. good stuff. a lot to get to. ann curry is down in chile covering the earthquake there. natalie morales is at the news desk. she s got a look at all the headlines. good morning to all of you. this morning, secretary of state hillary clinton is visiting earthquake-ravaged chile. she s delivering 20 slight telephones as part of a larger u.s. aid package. saturday s 8.8 quake and resulting tsunamis claimed more than 720 lives. chile s military failed to restore order monday in concepcion, where a supermarket was set on fire. chile s president says the situation there, though, is now under control. flooding and mud slides in peru killed at least eight people monday. most of the dead were members of one family who sought refuge on top of their house, which later collapsed and was swept away. general motors says it will recall more than 1 million cars in the u.s. the ao maker plans to fix power steering motors on late model chevrolet cobalt and pontiac g5 vehicles. last month, federal officials launched an investigation into reports of power steering failures on the cobalt. nato and afghan forces say their two-week offensive has broken the taliban s grip on its former stronghold in marjah. nato s top military commander, general stanley mcchrystal, visited marjah on monday for the first time since it was cleared of militants. his visit came on a day when six nato soldiers and ten civilians were killed in a string of attacks across afghanistan. and a trial date will be set later this month for the man charged with the 2002 kidnapping and rape of utah teenager elizabeth smart. on monday, a judge ruled that 56-year-old brian mitchell was faking mental illness and is competent to stand trial. anxious moments monday at an irs mail processing office in ogden, utah where a suspicious substance was found. the fbi sent hazardous materials crews to the site and they found the substance did not pose any danger. the scare came, though, less than two weeks after a man angry with the irs crashed his plane into a texas building that housed federal tax workers. you are up to date with the news right now. it s 8:03. let s go back outside once again to matt and meredith. all right, natalie, thanks very much. not too bad out here this morning. it s actually it s a beautiful day. 36 degrees. how much? i think it says 36. oh, it does say 36. that s not bad. where s al? al will back me up. that was scintillating. unbelievable. she made me seem like i was lying about it. well, we ve got some nice i thought you said 60 something. no, it s not 60 something. it s okay. we ve got some folks here, u.p. of michigan. having a good time? having a great time. yoopers! you bet. you bet ya! don t you say that in minnesota? you say you bet ya in okay, let s check your weather. toledo, ohio, nbc 4, scattered snow showers, temperature s 39 degrees. and the jet stream band of air 20,000 feet above the earth s surface. that storm track, good news is it s keeping that storm it s going to eventually move right off the coast. and so, the northeast storm and coming out of the south, that s going to move off the atlantic coast. that s good news. we ve got showers moving into the pacific northwest, but for the most part, things are going to be pretty quiet by the midweek period. very, very quiet, and we like that. and look at this, the partridge family album. my gosh! album, yes. now, is this yours? it s mine! that s the weather should be pretty quiet this tuesday, until late afternoon, at that time we will see a chance for rai that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you very much. and up next, the super groovy family band with the hip clothes and the cool bus. the partridge family reunites in studio 1a right after this. special k protein shakes a truly great-tasting breakfast shake. with 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, it s the creamy, delicious way to satisfy. your hunger to help you lose weight. so you can kick the tin can habit. try special k protein shakes today. diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating. that s me! can i tell you what a difference phillips colon health has made? it s the probiotics. the good bacteria. that gets your colon back in balance. i m good to go! phillips colon health. [ children shouting ] come on, kiddo, let s go. [ laughs ] hold on a second. come on up here where your brothers sit. [ birds chirping ] wow! did i ever tell you what it was like growing up with four sisters? that sounds fun. yeah.fun for them! 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reporter: laurie, the sensible one, serving as the voice of her generation. this group is supposed to be a democracy. reporter: danny, the smart aleck, wise beyond his years. of course, my mother is the one who will have to decide it. however, there are some legal points that i have to go over. reporter: and there were the youngest collaborators, chris and tracy. no fair, they get to stay up. they re older. we didn t ask to be born last. golly. reporter: most days, they were having a ball, getting it on. together, together, together reporter: busting a move with mom at the wheel, from smalltown california to the big time. hey, kids, hollywood boulevard! reporter: there was no sex and no drugs, and with their brand of rock and roll, these partidges never laid an egg. in fact, with the success of the show also came seven chart-topping records, including i woke in love this morning, i woke up in love this morning, went to sleep with you on my mind reporter: and the best-selling record of 1970. i think i love you, i think i love you, i think i love you reporter: that hit sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. the family s adventures took them from casinos to clubs to block parties, but in between gigs, they acted just like any other family, complete with sibling rivalry and motherly advice. i think it s important that you be honest with yourself and others, don t you? reporter: the partidges took their final bow after a jam session in 1974. as the song goes, the fun they brought into our living room was roller coaster, it s going faster and here they are today, david cassidy played keith partidge, danny bonaduce was, of course, danny partidge, brian forster played chris and suzanne crough was tracy. how are you doing? i was trying to watch your faces while you were looking back at that footage from 40 years ago. is this fun or cringe-worthy? frightening. is it really? absolutely frightening. did you see dave s look on his face? when, then or now? just now. both. and it was so odd to see the pilot, because i was 19 years old and the music that we did only for the pilot, i dubbed somebody else s i was lip-syncing to somebody else s voice. it was the only time, because once the series sold, i started recording in the studio and making the partridge family and david cassidy records. i made a career i dubbed for brenda porcaro. and still does. how was the relationship among the children? when you were shooting these, how well did you get along or not get along? how was the dynamic on set? we got along good. the second chris danny killed the first one. exactly. in my defense, he had it coming. there was a chris for one year, right? right. yes. then you came on the second season. i stepped into some shoes here. this show had already been going, but we all got along great, i think. i want to read you something. this is a review in the christian science monitor uh-oh. after the first season. it went like this. would that every fatherless, financially distressed family could take up guitars against a sea of troubles like grin-and-bear it shirley partidge and her five whinsome metropolitans, it s imapplausibility upon applausibility from the records to the psychedelic bus they rode around in. someone taking it very seriously. keep in mind we sold way more records than the christian science monitor. why was it such a hit? i think it touched a nerve with everyone at the time. very difficult now in the culture we lived in, but coming out of the 60s and still having that free-wheeling kind of thing. i have been asked this a million times and i really think that from what i have gathered over 8 million people asking me and telling me, my brothers, my sisters, we all wanted to be one of those characters. and wouldn t it be cool to be traveling around and playing music and having had the opportunity to tour and be rock stars? was it just the fantasy factor, the cool factor that got everybody? i thought it was a combination of that, and i think america was also looking for a funny, wholesome show, you know? you re counting us through waves, and i think everybody was looking for the obvious. they were looking for that face. that s what they were looking for. as long as he brings it up, i mean, you i mean there s something not fair. when i was at the start of the show david cassidy! i was a little kid and he was a grown-up. now he looks wonderful and i have the flesh of a shar-pei. something s not right here. your fan site, the people were crazy. like elvis, maybe the beatles, and then you. what was it like to walk in your shoes during that time? if i could disagree, he out-sold the beatles in 1970. i think i love you came out on the same day as let it be. i think i love you was at number one, let it be stopped at number six. what was it like? well, it s still i have to be honest with you, my whole career, it was launched and i ve been blessed to be able to say i m still out singing those great songs, playing hits, and to touch so many people s lives, to bring light into them, i can t even tell you the stories i ve heard from fans that were in dysfunctional families like most of us actually were. and it brings light into my life now because somebody every day of my life comes up to me and says you brought so much happiness to me and so much joy to me, and to know that all over the world, you know, my last tour i was playing stadiums to 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, and i m still out there carrying the torch. and you have such a shinier, nicer story. i get i have a brother in prison! all right, i m going to go with the lyrics to a song. come on get happy, all right? hello world are we supposed to join in? here s a song that we re singing come on get happy how much of you were actually singing? i was. listen carefully, matt. i think i love you i m out! were you singing? well, i was very good at being milli vanilli. so no singing, no singing it was on the back of every album. a disclaimer, right? the voices of david cassidy and shirley renfrew. so when it came to playing the bass? the only time dave ever raised his voice to me everybody yelled at me. i was a horrifying child. but it was the third episode and i m playing the bass like this and like this. and david comes up finally and you kind of walk carefully around david because he s such a big star. and he comes up to me and i m scared. and he goes, you don t strum a bass, you pluck it! do you think you can learn to pluck? and i went, okay, man, i ll pluck. brian, were you on drums? well, sort of. yeah. you were going through the motions? i was going through the motions, so he actually he actually got pretty good. he took lessons in his dressing room every day. i had a drum teacher, so i was supposed to practice and all that. and suzanne, the tambourine? tambourine, triangle and cowbell, anything that they put in my hands. she played wicked cowbell, let me just say that. with an i sos lees triangle, you wouldn t believe it. i m thinking with david, we ve got the number one sex symbol in the country at that time. you were a young girl. well, and that s funny. we were talking about this last night. all my friends were going, well, oh, my god, i love david. don t you love david? and i was going, he s like a brother. why would i love him? that s creepy. no, no. isn t that creepy? yeah! no, i loved suzanne in a very creepy way. well, you re danny. one of my favorite memories, too, was suzanne. i remember that well, suzanne who? by the way, shirley, we had hoped, would be here. she wasn t able she s on tour, and and she would be happy to be here. can i tell you, i spoke with her two nights ago. she s doing a tour playing symphonies. she s on a 17-day tour, and shirley, if you re out there, i know you wanted to be here. she said to send her love to all of you, what s left of us, and she s doing 17 concerts in 17 nights with symphony orchestras. while we re on the subject of concerts and music, did the partridge family music no. influence any other oh, yeah. i mean, when you think of any other groups of that time, who do you think might have been influenced by your music? zeppelin. i ve got to think first. greenday. clapton. clapton has admitted it. i got to play with eric once on the rock awards and i actually got to know john, paul, george and ringo and played with john a few times, played once with paul, because i was 13. the beatles broke and i was hir hired, as all of us were, as actors. i had done a bun ach of leads in like mod squad, bonanza and all that. and at the end of the year, i did this pilot. who knew what was going to happen? and they didn t even though they knew i could play and sing, they didn t care. i was cast as an actor. someone mentioned susan dey a couple minutes ago. susan dey, anybody keep in touch? susan who? the only way you can reach susan dey i think is by teleprompter. she does not come out of the cave as far as i can tell. i have not seen or heard shirley ran into her about ten years ago literally? did she knock her down? probably. i don t know. i loved susan. i haven t seen her in years. she became a very close friend of mine, and you know, i felt like she was a sister. she was very close to my age. she was two years younger than i. and if you re out there watching, susan, we still love you, we still not me so much. no, i m being sincere. listen, we ve all shown up. where the hell are you, susan? are you too good for us for christ sakes? i think if you ve learned anything about this, you had your hands full with him back then. yes, and we still do. actually, every time he gets arrested, people call me up. i swear to god. no, like i m his problem, seriously. no. well, you have been my problem many times. there you go. but people call me up as if we re still living in the same house together. and like, yeah, hold on, i ve got to pick him up from school. no, i m picking him up from prison. david, danny, brian, suzanne, thanks. thank you. thank you for coming back. thank you, america. it was fun to reminisce with you guys. we really appreciate it. by the way, they ll be sticking around to answer some of your e-mails later on in the show. so, get your questions to us at todayshow.com. and tomorrow on great tv families reunited, we ll catch up with the cast of the popular 80s sitcom 227. still ahead, never-before-seen evidence from the lapd s most sensational and famous cases of all time. but first, these messages. eating well has never been so craveable. with quaker dark chocolate mocha hazelnut cafe squares. isn t this how whole grains should taste? 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[ male announcer ] for a free trial pair certificate, go to getacuvue.com. acuvue oasys for astigmatism. jay leno made his big return last night to the tonight show, and he started off as if he woke up from a bad dream. take a look at this. there s no place like home. there s no place like home. there s no place like home. jay, jay, it s me, kevin. kevin! you remember me, don t you, jay, your old pal, ross? ross, of course. you had us worried. we thought you were leaving us. but i did leave. i went away to the strangest place. it was wonderful, but some of it wasn t so nice. now, there, there, jay, you just had a bad dream. but it all felt so real. you were there and you were there. just checking in on my little leno. well, he took quite a hit, but he s going to be just fine. whoa, nbc really did cut your budget. look at this ratty ass barn. i can t believe you re doing your show from here. show? it s the tonight show with jay leno. that was a great way to start off. it was cute. anything with betty white. betty white, man. how hot is betty white now? she s very hot. she and abe. super bowl commercial. we wish leno, obviously, the very best. yeah. and his guest tonight, nice lineup, sarah palin, good morning, it is 8:26, we have a final check on your morning commute. a good morning, everyone. we are dealing with a new accident on the harrisburg expressway, two right lanes have been taken out. harford at the alameda, accident coming into the city. heavy delays leading up to that, approaching 795. he s found 100 approaching ritchie highway, eastbound of 100, approaching ritchie highway, watch out for another accident in down. outer loop north side, 12 minutes from 83 over towards 95 on the northeast corner. traveling northbound on harrisburg expressway, here is what your delay looks like. not only here but on the beltway leading to the expressway. switching over to a live view of traffic, the blaze are easing up on the inner loop. the delay is easing up on the inner loop. we may have cloud cover this morning, but we will get through the commute dry. that will change tonight and during the day tomorrow. temperatures in the upper 30 s, sneaking into the low 40 s this afternoon. a chance for snow showers this evening but by then the temperatures will be in the 40 s, so we expect no trouble on the road. we only expect a few inches of accumulation from the upcoming storm system. flurries on thursday, good stuff like sunshine and 50 s over the weekend. thank you for joining us, we will have another update at 8:55. it is 8:30 now on a tuesday morning. it s also the 2nd day of march 2010. nice weather here in new york. kind of blue skies, moderate temperature. a little breeze in the air. nothing these people can t handle. and we are very happy to have them joining us. and speaking of happiness, in just a couple of minutes, meredith, you re going to tell us how women can help gauge their happiness. i m going to do my very best. we have two women who developed a new way to take stock of our lives by actually using the rooms in your house. so, what does it mean if you re in the child s room or feel trapped in the attic? we ll explain. the house is a metaphor. all right. got it. also ahead, from rfk to marilyn monroe to o.j. simpson, we have a never-before-seen look at evidence from some of the most talked about cases in u.s. history. also, don t forget the cast of everyone s favorite musical family, the partridge family, they re sticking around to answer your e-mail questions coming up in our next half hour. so, if you have a question for them, just logon to our website, todayshow.com, and we ll try to get to them. all right, but first, can we say hi to peter krauza, one of the stars of the new nbc comedy parenthood. good to see you. good to see you. welcome. it s good to have you here. nice to be here. this show is based on a movie from 1989 of the same name. yes, it is. it s about the braverman family. right. you played yam. tell me about him. adam is the kind of father who wants to try to fix everything and doesn t succeed all the time. and he desperately doesn t want to turn out like his father, played by craig t. nelson. who s great. and as you see, ironically, adam is not that different from zeke at all. and a lot of people are going to assume it s a comedy, this show, but it s also a drama and there are a lot of serious story lines, including the story line about your son. yeah. you ll see the pilot episode tonight that it turns out my son, max, is diagnosed with asperger s syndrome, and the creator of our series, who also created friday night lights, has son has asperger s, so it s a personal project for him, as well as ron howard, who created the movie back in 1989. you re a dad. i am a dad. how does this impact how you play this character? well, my son s 8 years old. he s quite a character. recently we were at lowe s, you know, the home supply store. sure, sure, sure. and he was begging for one of those mechanical arms that you can reach things with. oh, sure. described to me that he really needed this thing. so, the other morning after breakfast, he had a flashlight shining over a heating vent in the kitchen. i said, what are you doing? and he said, you know, a lot of times, dad, mice are attracted to light, so he had the mechanical arm ready to catch the mice this is all good stuff. you know, i ve got to shave, i ve got to shower. what do you need to do, trying to get him to say brush his teeth, and he said hunt. he s a hunter and a gatherer. yeah. so, everything s working. he s all wired correctly. well, the cast is really amazing, and of course, all of us are thinking of laura tyranny, originally cast and diagnosed with breast cancer. how s she doing? she s doing really well and is doing a play here in new york and working on rescue me with denis leary. laura graham replaced her on the series. it was a strange beginning of the show to have some tragedy on the series, but you know, we re on the air tonight. come around. and your time slot, so that s good. peter is very kind of modest. he said to me inside, we are going to single-handedly save the network. well, you do it, peter. thanks a lot for that, matt. parenthood debuts tonight, 10:00/9:00 central time right here on nbc. peter, it s great having you. we re rooting for you. we appreciate it. how about a check of the weather, al? all right, let s see what s going on. for today we re basically looking at sunshine in the northeast, rain in the pacific northwest. we re also expecting to see sunshine through the gulf coast. then as we work our way through tomorrow, you ll expect to see more rain along the mid-atlantic coast, some showers working their way along the west coast, sunny and cold in the plains right through the gulf coast. now to the latest contestant dismissed from the ranch on nbc s the biggest loser couples. melissa morgan was sent home after she actually gained a pound, leaving her husband, lance, behind. melissa is now with us. melissa, how are you? good, how are you? good. when you started at the ranch, you were at 233. you re now at 199 when you left the ranch. yes. how much have you lost since then? i ve lost 31 points. i m at 168. terrific! congratulations. yes. you literally had some ups and downs with your weight. were you surprised about you ga gained a pound, which is not unusual for weight loss? i was surprised. i mean, you re on the biggest loser ranch. you don t expect to gain weight. i had a huge weight loss that first week. and so, you know, i guess i wasn t terribly surprised by the plus one, but when i was in the third week and only lost one pound, i thought i would die. i couldn t imagine. you got into some heated debates with jillian and bob. what was up with that? well, they thought i was playing the game and were upset with me because i wouldn t admit that i was playing the game. and anyone that knows me knows, if i m playing the game, i m going to tell you i m playing the game. and i really was struggling. i wasn t losing weight. well, but you re still losing now. i am. congratulations. that s great. thanks. and don t forget, melissa morgan, thank you very much. thank you. an all new the weather should be pretty quiet on this tuesday until we get to the late afternoon and evening, at that time we will get a chance for a light rain that s your latest weather. and don t forget, if you want to check out your weather any time of the day or night, go to the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. coming up next, well, there are some ways to find happiness. just look at the rooms in your house. but first, this is today on nbc. hey hi could you take all of these in for me please? all of them? well, it s the boston crème pies and the apple turnovers, oh, and the white chocolate strawberries, and the key lime pies so you need them let out? no, no, no - in out uh, in out no, in [ female announcer ] yoplait light, with 28 delicious flavors at about 100 calories, it only tastes fattening ok, i was just outside out and then i came in - so if you could. announcer: today s woman is brought to you by acuvue contact lenses. acuvue. see what could be. this morning on today s woman, true happiness. we all want it, but finding it is the hard part. that s where the new book the nine rooms of happiness comes in. it s a way of looking at your life through the metaphor of a house. the book s authors are psychiatrist lucy danziger. good to have you both. thanks for having us. interesting book. the title is the nine rooms of happiness. how did you come up with that title? well, all women are harsh on themselves. we are our own harshest critics, and i said to katherine, is this universal? and of course, she says yes. she sees it in her practice. it s the little things that really bring us down. so, we decided to use the house metaphor as a way of dividing up your problems and helping women really solve those problems. so, every room represents a certain series of problems or set of problems. a different area of a woman s emotional life. all right. so, let s look at the nine rooms, beginning with the attic. explain what the attic symbolizes. all right. for most people, there are family expectations. they wanted you to go to law school. you didn t want to go to law school. you know, so, these expectations are conflicting. in the bedroom, we talk about sex, romance, intimacy, the kind of sex you re having, the kind of sex you wish you were having. okay. and the search for a mate. the child s room? well, whether or not you have kids, the decision to have kids, and of course, the conflicts brush your teeth, go to bed, do your homework. all of that, that disciplining can be very so, all about parenting. exactly. then we go to the kitchen. the kitchen. the kitchen is for emotional nourishment household chores, who s doing what or who s not helping enough around the house. what about the living room, what does that symbolize? the living room symbolizes social life, friendships. are you upset with your friend? are you feeling like you disappointed somebody? and next, the bathroom? the bathroom issues of weight, vanity, health, am i okay? am i worrying about cancer? and then the closest relationships, they are in the family room. this is your siblings. you might be fighting with the sister, your brother s driving you krai crazy, your mom calls all the time. the nearest and dearest. and the home office is next, actually. that s career, purpose, work, the bills on your desk. so, it s also the bills, okay. yes. finally, the basement. what does that symbolize? the basement is the largest room in the house, underlies the entire emotional house. everyone has one, even if you don t really have one. that represents childhood memories, past memories, things like a teacher who said you ll never amount to anything, that really you keep reacting to in your adult life that keep you down. so, once you know the rooms or areas why wl you may be unhappy, how do you begin to tie these together? well, first of all, you might be in the wrong room. let s say you re having a fight with a best friend. she s not calling you back you think you ll be in the family room for that or the living room. and in fact, you might be in the living room, but also, there might be childhood memories that come into play. we say you deserve to be happy, and sometimes that means knowing your limits, telling your friend you can t help her throw a baby shower, and it s okay to have that conflict. we say to women, know your limits, it s okay. so, once you identify what the problem is, you can figure out what room you re in, right? and then from there, you look at what patterns are repeating. what s happening in that room that keeps you stuck? and we provide then key strategies. we call them key processes. can you give me an example of the strategies? sure. one of the ones we like a lot and i use a lot in my practice is the relationship equation. a patient says my mother is driving me crazy. and i say, look, you can t do anything about your mother. she s your mother. she s going to always be your mother and she s going to stay the same. but you, we can help you feel differently, react differently, behave differently. and when we help you, it changes the outcome of the relationship. so, if you re a, your mother s b and the outcome of the relationship is c, changing a changes c. you can t do anything about the other person, but you can change yourself. you also use circles to help people understand how to be in a happy relationship. how does that work? right. that was something that set the light bulb off for you. i think it s great to think of the venn diagram. we say sorry, all you jerry maguire fans, but nobody completes you. you complete yourself and you come together, two whole people, and the overlap is the relationship. you have areas outside that are you and so does your mate, that overlap is key. so, to make sure that you have the right amount of overlap for you is great. and you don t worry about what other people think. it has to be making yourself happy. but these, again, these rooms are a metaphor. all the rooms can t be tidy at any given point. no. absolutely not, and you don t need them all to be tidy. we give you the tools to close doors, to come back at a time at a later date when you re ready to deal with what s happening in that room. but just because one room s messy doesn t mean you can t enjoy the rest of your house. that s the important thing. you always focus on the mess. you could have eight neat and tidy rooms, we always focus on the mess. exactly. so, we say close the door. we empower you to close the door and come back later. and one of the things we found out is that two-thirds of women say they want to be happier, and the good news is, you can do it if you have a set point that s 50% 10% might be the circumstances, but once your basic needs are met, you can change 40% of your own happiness. you have that power. you know, you said, lucy, that this is not a diet, but you lost 25 pounds while writing this book. how did that happen? well, first of all, i d like to say i learned so much. this book is about teaching other women what we have learned. and one of the things i learned was not to internalize your stress. i would stress eat. a lot of women think about things at the end of the day, and for me, i would do that and eat ice cream or cookies and soothe myself. and i realized, rather than internalize these things, i needed strategies to cope and deal with conflict in my life. and katherine really provides these in the nine rooms of happiness. each of these strategies has helped me, so i don t think, you know, what should i eat, i think what s eating me. so, what room were you stuck in as you were doing that? i think it was a bathroom-kitchen thing. ah, two rooms! i was not taking care of myself. so, i had to learn to take better care of myself. we say in self, take care of yourself. the airlines have it right. they say put your oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you. we say to women, we give you permission to take good care of your inner self as well as your outer self. all right. the book is called the nine rooms of happiness. lucy dan zinger, katherine murdoch, thank you for being here. thanks for having us. and what s the best food to feed your kids? this is a very big year for the national urban league. the organization is celebrating its centennial, 100 years at the forefront of the civil rights movement. marc morial is the president and ceo of the national urban league. marc, congratulations. thanks, matt. happy birthday. hey, it s a great birthday. let me start with this and i m not going to offend anybody, least of all you, but if you did an informal poll here, asked what is the urban league, they might know the name, but they re not familiar with what you do on a daily basis. so, what is it? we help people find jobs. we train them for jobs. we work with young people in after-school programs and early childhood programs. matt, we serve 2 million people a year in 100 communities from coast to coast, and we help them uplift themselves and become economically self-sufficient. when you look at the first 100 years of this organization, what stands out as a highlight to you? what do you think one of the major accomplishments has been? obviously, the passage of the civil rights voting rights and fair housing acts, but our continuing effort over those 100 years to help people find employment and to train them for better employment and to open doors to, whether it s corporate america or government, as the nation changed in the 20th century. you ve brought some folks with you. they re all waving the flag. and if you look at the buttons, marc, it says i am empowered, and this is an initiative that you re creating as a part of this celebration. what exactly do you want people to do? we want people to go to iamempowered.com and consider signing a pledge. that pledge surrounds four important goals. one about our kids, one about jobs, one about housing and one about health care. matt, we re trying to change the conversation in this nation to focus people on goals we need to have for the future. you know, i want your take on something. you often hear people say that once this nation elected barack obama as our first african-american president, then we started living in a post-racial society. is that accurate? my take is that we re moving to a multiracial society. and our goal should be not necessarily post-racial, but perhaps post-racist and multiracial. the nation is changing, and i think we have to embrace the contributions of all ethnic groups and all races. and barack obama s election, while significant, has never been the goal. the election of a single person isn t the goal. the improvement of the quality of life for all people, that s the objective. parody is the goal. so, what you re saying is there s still a lot of work to be done. tons of work. yeah, well, 100 years at the forefront of the civil rights movement. our congratulations to all the fine people at the national urban league. marc, thank you so much. thanks, matt. appreciate you. thanks for bringing that message to us. we re going to be back with much more on a tuesday morning. this is today on nbc. back at 8:52. for the first time ever, the los angeles police department is opening its evidence room to the public. a behind-the-scenes look at one of the nation s best known homicide units. nbc s lee cowan gives us a sneak peek. reporter: it was that riff this is the city, los angeles, california. reporter: and those words that helped make the lapd a star. my name s friday. reporter: it was the 60s version of reality tv, although real crime in los angeles hardly suffered for real drama. it s the hollywood cases that make the news, that carry the interest of the american public, and sometimes around the world. reporter: the lapd has investigated some of the most notorious and sensational cases in history. whether it was the death of marilyn monroe they say they are not so sure the death may have been accidental. reporter: or the brutality of charles manson. if i wanted to kill somebody, i d kipick this book up and bea you to death with it. reporter: and now? this is the fork that was sticking out of ms. labianca s chest. reporter: some of the grisly and iconic evidence detectives uncovered is for the first time going on display at the palms in las vegas. they work so hard and they work so diligently, and we wanted them to give an opportunity to show the world what they do behind the scenes. reporter: crime scene photos like the one of marilyn monroe are displayed, to be sure. there is the rusty car that charles manson s followers drove on their murderous rampage in 1969. there is the long-barrel .22 revolver and a blood-stained rope that the manson family used to tie sharon tate to a rafter. some of this stuff, it s disturbing, you know? homicide, it s a disturbing business. reporter: some of the items need no explanation. if it doesn t fit, you must acquit. reporter: who could forget the bloody gloves from the o.j. simpson trial? this is also one of the gloves. reporter: never before have they been seen outside the courtroom until now. that does have to be one of the most famous gloves in history. i can t think of another. reporter: they re all famous and important. in fact, a judge actually had to decide whether to allow all this evidence on display in the first place. they re all artifacts, as uncomfortable as some of them may be. perhaps none so much as robert kennedy s assassination. we ve all seen the grim aftermath at l.a. s ambassador hotel. get the gun! get the gun. reporter: but until now i m not sure if that s a bullet hole in his upper right reporter: few have seen the blood-stained dress shirt he was wearing, his initials stamped in the collar. i have never gotten this close to history at all, ever. reporter: they are silent testimonials, not only to the criminals, but especially to the victims, haunting reminders and lessons learned. for today, lee cowan, nbc news, las vegas. some of that stuff is gruesome, but i d be interested. i think it s fascinating. you not so much? to a degree. some of it. to a degree. some of it would be off-putting to me. hard to take. yeah. just ahead, the cast of the classic tv show the partridge family is back. they ll be answering your e-mail questions, so keep sending them. but first, we ll have a look at your local news and weather. good morning, it is 8:55. one of our top stories this morning, police are looking for a suspect that shot a9-year- old woman in the face and neck and left stab wounds in her thighs. the victim was found in the 1500 block of north avenue, she was taken to shock trauma and is expected to survive. expected to survive. anyone with information is asked coldwell? yes, banker? i took the liberty of beefing up security now that we have the j.d. power & associates award in the office. is that really necessary? well, our agents work really hard. of course. but the locked door is probably sufficient. too much? coldwell banker, ranked highest in customer satisfaction. we never stop moving. the weather should be quiet, we are watching a storm coming out of the gulf of mexico that could bring light snow today and tomorrow. after 4:00 there is a chance for rain showers or snow showers this evening. of course, there will be no problems on the road because the temperature will be in the 40 s. a few inches of accumulation is all that we expect out of this storm. thursday, we will turn up the heat, pushing the temperatures into the low 50 s on saturday and sunday. another update is coming at 9:25. how about over here? hmm. let s go back to the left. uh. waffling is back at dunkin donuts with the return of the waffle breakfast sandwich. two oven-toasted waffles with a hint of maple, complete with fluffy egg, a slice of melted cheese, and now with delicious sausage. so hurry in today because it s only around for a short time. america runs on dunkin . try our oven-toasted waffle breakfast sandwich today, only at dunkin donuts.