Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100402 : vimarsana.com

good morning. signs of life. at least 153 workers trapped for more than five days in a flooded chinese coal mine. this morning for the first time, rescuers hear the sound of tapping. the very latest from the scene. security changes. the government announces significant new measures being taken to beef up security on all flights entering the u.s. how will they impact the way you fly? and spring has sprung. from record rain to record warmth in the eastern part of the country. that s giving a lot of soaked residents a reason to mile as we begin a long holiday weekend today, friday, april 2nd, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, everyone. welcome to today on this good friday morning. i m matt lauer. i m ann curry meredith who is back next week. those knocking sounds you talked about in china come from deep underground. we know from experiences in this country with mining disasters rescuers don t have a lot of time. no question about it, time is of the essence. hundreds were working apparently in that unfinished mine on sunday afternoon when it was flooded with water. more than 100 did planning to escape. officially the chinese government says there were 153 workers believed to be trapped underground but some believe that number could actually be a lot higher. we want to get right to this story. jim maceda s in london with the latest. jim, good morning to you. reporter: hi there, matt. we are monitoring this, as you are, and we re understanding that there are new sources of information that are reporting to associated press from the rescue scene. there s actually at the site an operation set up there to talk to the press. that is right, what you ve said so far there could well be a break-through this morning in that coal mine accident. it is in the morn province, you mentioned 153 workers. that s the figure they re still talking about as being trapped in that mine since sunday when the workers were digging tunnels and they broke through an old mine shaft which was filled with water. that s what triggered the flooding. today a source now close to that rescue operation said that they heard tapping on pipes. the tapping was initiated by rescue workers. perhaps even shouts were heard in response to that rescue tapping. about 850 feet below ground. again, this happened after the tapping was triggered by rescuers above the ground. rescuers started then to send down glucose and milk products apparently hoping that that would bring some nutrients to those 150-plus trapped workers. this is a very complicated rescue, matt, because the mine workers are trapped in nine different locations within the mine area. these kinds of operations we ve seen over the years, we ve covered them. they are decreasing in china, but they are still deadly. over 2,600 coal miners were killed last year alone, but there now of course is a glimmer of hope with the tapping and perhaps even shouting coming from 800 feet below. we ll continue to cover this story. jim ma dceda for us in london, thanks very much. very dramatic to hear the shouting when they realize they re alive. after five days. let s get a check of the morning s other top stories from tamron hall at the news desk. good morning, everyone. today officials are announcing a new strategy on passenger screening based on lessons learned from the christmas day attempted bombing. nbc s pete williams has more. reporter: tamron, administration officials say they re adding a new layer of security based on threat intelligence to decide who to subject to secondary screening for flights to the u.s. from overseas. the u.s. is doing away with the rule imposed just in january that automatically resulted in secondary screening for anyone flying here from 14 countries, mostly in the middle east and africa. instead, tsa will focus more on other indicators, including such obvious factors as people who have recently been in yemen or such traits as partial names, passport numbers or physical descriptions derived from the intelligence. now the terror watch list will still be used. in fact, the number of people on it has doubled. one senior official says the attempted christmas day bombing provided a needed jolt to the security system. tamr tamron? nbc s pete williams, thank you. homeland security secretary janet napolitano today tours flood devastated rhode island as residents there assess the damage. the weather channel s julie martin is in warwick, rhode island. good morning, julie. reporter: tamron, the sun is shining, the rivers are falling here in new england, but after a week of dealing with record floods, the worries aren t going away so quickly. the sun may be shining, but concerns over flooding are far from over. in hard-hit rhode island, water is starting to recede, leaving crumpled roads and damaged businesses behind. more than five feet of contaminated floodwater poured into the town of cranston. 60 years of business. everything that s in there s gone. if you re listening, obama or anybody else, please help us out. reporter: the president was listening. late thursday, president obama called the governor of rhode island to offer federal assistance. the president also made a surprise visit to the emergency management agency in framingham, massachusetts thursday where he was briefed on response efforts. but as residents wait for federal aid, life has to go on. in coventry, rhode island, continued fear over a failing bridge along the swollen pawtuxet river. if it goes, hundreds of homes are at risk. there is a danger of this bridge collapsing and going downstream and taking out a dam. reporter: in old mystic, connecticut, water pumps work overtime to drain waterlogged basements. it s the worst ever in my lifetime. i m over 70. reporter: in wayne, new jersey, residents needed boats or waders just to get around. transportation troubles here in rhode island also clearing up. a stretch of i-95 in warwick that was closed now has reopened. now in terms of train travel though, that remains suspended here in the northeast. tamron? julie, thank you. an explosion and fire this morning at a refinery in washington. three workers are missing, four workers were injured in that. an american astronaut and two russians are on their way to the international space station after lifting off today in kazakhstan. they ll spend more than five months in space. and, an emotional reunion last night when 10-year-old henry came off the ice after a flag ceremony before a hockey game and he was surprised you hear that scream? he was surprised by his dad, home from iraq earlier. the washington capitals helped arrange this entire thing. i could watch this, like you guys, i know over that, okay. i need a tissue. it is 7:07. back to matt, ann i am way too emotional. it s great, isn t it? we can all our temperatures are around 50 degrees or so. low clouds and fog around the area. that will burn off. we expect a lot of sunshine during the day today.du that s your good friday forecast. matt? bill, thank you very much. as we showed you a little earlier, president obama made a surprise visit to the flooded northeast on thursday. he s logged a lot of miles this past week to outline his ideas on everything from afghanistan to health care to jobs. he s hitting the road again this morning. nbc s savannah guthrie s at the white house. savannah, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. the president is traveling today to charlotte, north carolina to talk about jobs and the economy. on thursday it was health care. once again, that was the main event. i love you back! reporter: on thursday, the president took a health care victory lap in portland, maine where he laughed off suggestions that his greatest legislative triumph hasn t yet helped him in the polls. can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? you d planted some seeds, and they came out next day and they looked, nothing s happened! there s no crop! we re going to starve! oh, no! reporter: the latest usa today /gallup poll shows the country is still deeply divided. 47% saying it is a good thing the health care law passed, 50% saying it was bad. the white house is banking on events like the maine rally and a massive public education campaign to tout some of the law s features. but changing minds on health care after a year of polarizing debate may be too heavy a lift. unless the economy changes, unless the unemployment rate moves down significantly, i think the public s mood is set and their attitude toward health care will be very hard to change. reporter: mr. obama wrapped up his day with a pair of democratic party fund-raisers in boston where he talk about the senate race that caused a big political shakeup and invoked the name of a democratic party icon. now think back to just two months ago. everybody thought our chances at progress were suddenly doomed. a republican had won ted kennedy s seat. massachusetts, you caused quite a bit of excitement around the country. but we did what our friend teddy would have done we kept up the fight. because it was the right thing to do. reporter: and the president joked about the result. as joe biden said, who has a way with words what? he said it is a big deal. reporter: well senior aides here are aware of the criticism that if the president is talking about health care, the perception is that he s not focused on voters number one concern, which is jobs. so this visit to north carolina today is intended to highlight jobs created by the stimulus act. matt? savannah guthrie at the white house, thank you very much. republican tim pawlenty is governor of minnesota. hi, governor. good morning to you. hi, matt. good morning to you. thank you very much. hey, there are a lot of republicans talking about repealing health care reform, this new law has been in effect ten days. you re part of that chorus. let me ask you two questions on that, governor. one, what are the real chances of that? well, the chances would be if the republicans took control of the congress come the fall, they could take actions to, if not repeal it outright, at least change and alter the course of it, and if need be, not fund it. there is an effective way to change or alter or effectively repeal the legislation. as we get to november in the mid-term elections, governor, do you think that s what voters are really going to want to talk about? are they going to want to talk about turning back the clock on health care, or is it all going to be about jobs and the economy come november? jobs and the economy are clearly the number one issue, matt. no question about it. but we should also remember, health care is an important issue. our health care delivery system is broken, it does need to be fixed. we just don t think the way that the president did it was the correct way. remember one thing he stood in iowa the night that he won the iowa caucus and promised, gave his word, that this would be a bipartisan effort that republicans and democrats would come together. he didn t live up to that promise. in an interview here on the today show this week, the president said to me that he feels this is a centrist bill, or law, now, even though it didn t receive one republican vote in congress. let me play you something he had to say to me, governor. a lot of commentators have said, you know, this is sort of similar to the bill that mitt romney, the republican governor, and now presidential candidate, passed in massachusetts. so is that correct? is the current health care reform law what mitt romney got passed in massachusetts in your opinion? well, this law didn t receive any republican votes, so to characterize it as a bipartisan or centrist piece of legislation i think just denies reality, matt. reality matters and the president i think is being cute with describing it that way. there were a lot of good ideas that republicans and democrats could agree on, could still agree on, but he chose to take this in a way that s going to increase spending, the country s going broke, this is going to be a financial problem down the road, it increases taxes, and has this big overreach into this individual mandate that many people feel is unconstitutional. and overreaching by the federal government. back specifically to my question. do you think the current version of health care reform is what mitt romney as governor of massachusetts got passed back there? well, i would just defer to all the people, including the president and others, who have said there are a lot of similarities between it. but i want to make this clear mitt romney hasn t been governor of massachusetts for four years. he is a sharp and good leader and he is a friend. if he d have been governor the last four years, i believe he would have done some things to try to adjust it or improve it. let me ask you a little bit about sarah palin. her new show on fox news debuted last night. did you watch it? you know, i saw a segment of it but i didn t have a chance to watch the whole thing. she was part of the losing ticket in the last presidential election, and yet it seems as if she has emerged from that election as the most popular voice, or the most listened to voice, in the republican party. why do you think she has found so many eager listeners over the last year? well, i think governor palin has a strong voice, a clear voice, a voice that s calling out a lot of concern and tapping into the passion and the frustration of the big part of the conservative movement in this country. so they look to her i think for leadership and for guidance and for her advocacy and it is working for her. let me ask you one final question about the rnc. it s been kind of a tough week over there for the director of the republican national committee after this report came out that an employee arranged some kind of a trip to some sort of strip club. do you still give michael steele your full support? well, that s a terrible incident, matt. it is just a stupid thing. it is people involved with really bad judgment and they didn t have the controls in place to catch it and flag it so he has to take responsibility for that. they ve done that. they ve fired the employee so i hope that they ve learned from this. it is something that should not have happened, it s on michael s clock, but he s taken responsibility for it. hopefully they can improve and continue on from here and ilpñ believe they will. he still has your support. yeah, he does. okay. minnesota governor tim pawlenty, governor pawlenty, always nice to have you here. thanks for your time. thank you, matt. 16 after the hour. here s ann. it s good friday for christians all around the world. as the catholic church commemorates one of its holiest days, pope benedict is facing growing accusations that he played a role in covering up sex abuse at the hands of priests. nbc s anne thompson is in rome this morning with more on this. ann, good morning. reporter: good morning, ann. tonight pope benedict xvi will lead the way of the cross at rome s iconic coliseum as catholics mark the day jesus died and continue to struggle with the ongoing clergy sex abuse scandal. as pope benedict performed the rituals of holy thursday, washing the feet of 12 priests, as jesus washed the feet of the apostles at the last supper, and blessing holy oils, he made no mention of the crisis. accusations that church leaders, perhaps even the pope himself, did not do enough to protect children from sexually abusive priests. the pope is the target of some victims lawyers. they want to question the pontiff under oath about the alleged coverup of predator priests. the vatican s top lawyer says as a head of state, the hope has imnity. legal experts say the attorneys would have to prove a chain of control from the pope to the abusing priest. the catholic church is not the monolith people think it is. the pope does not give orders to every parish priest. reporter: while the pope remains silent on the issue this holy week, bishops around europe are taking action. in germany, the church opened a hotline for abuse victims. in austria, vienna s cardinal held a service for those abused by priests, letting them tell their stories from the altar and the cardinal himself asking for forgiveness on behalf of the church. here in rome, vatican officials say the pope s silence so far should not be interpreted as insensitivity. they point to the letter he sent to the irish church last month as evidence of his concern. there are very, very profound and touching words from the victims with the profound understanding of the situations. reporter: but for some, the vatican s silence and seeming lack of action is difficult to understand. there s probably this looking past each other. they would look at us and say, well there you are, looking for some sound bite, quickie answer, and here we are trying to assess it very carefully. we look at them and say, well, here s this crisis unfolding and you re not responding. reporter: while there is this cultural disconnect between the vatican and its faithful, we do know one thing that healing will not come quickly. in his holy thursday sermon, dublin s archbishop said that first the credibility of the church can only be restored once it recognizes its past failures, and that healing for the victims cannot be fast-tracked. ann? this thing is not over obviously. thank you so much, anne thompson. 7:19. here s matt. new developments in that bullying case at a massachusetts high school that led to the suicide of 15-year-old phoebe prince. the superintendent spoke to nbc s jeff rossen to address accusations that school officials didn t do enough to stop the abuse. jeff, good morning to you. reporter: hey, matt, good morning. we re talking about one case here in one school here in the small town in massachusetts, but if you think about it, this really does affect every parent and every school coast to coast. bullying is of course a major problem in many, many schools. so the question here this morning is, did school officials here miss the warning signs. as you mentioned, the school superintendent here is now breaking his silence with me to address the issues about what he knew and when. at south hadley high, a tragic example held dangerous bullying can be. 15-year-old phoebe prince killed herself. prosecutors say after months of torment. she was a really good friend. reporter: friends say phoebe was bullied in the hallways, on her phone and online. they say it was common knowledge to students and staff, but school officials never stopped it. the whole incident is upsetting. reporter: thursday, the school superintendent agreed to a one-on-one interview to answer the accusations that administrators ignored repeated cries for help. we do not know of any staff member who did not report something that they should have reported to us. the people who work in our schools care deeply about the students there. they would not stand by seeing a student hurt. reporter: but the local d.a. says that s not true, that phoebe s mom did complain twice. the actions or inactions of some adults at the school are troublesome. reporter: the d.a. says the inaction of your staff at the school was, in her words, troublesome. how do you respond to that? she ll have to explain what s troublesome. it s not troublesome to me. reporter: he says the principal only found out about the problem a week before phoebe s suicide in january. the alleged bullies, a group of classmates dubbed the mean girls have been charged with harassment, along with two boys charged with statutory rape. do you think school administrators should be held responsible in general for bullying cases like this? yes, that s part of their charge. so if staff members knew about this and didn t do anything, what will happen to them? they will face disciplinary actions. but so far you haven t found that. that s correct. reporter: but now more parents are coming forward. i have a son in the middle school here in south hadley. he has cerebral palsy. he gets picked up regularly here. i called the school to address it and they don t do a thing about it. reporter: the phoebe prince case is becoming the face of an age-old problem. in springfield, massachusetts a young boy hanged himself last year after being teased about his size. in ohio, jesse logan hanged herself after a nude photo was spread around her school. and the list goes on. 40 states now have antibullying laws on the books, but still kids are acting out. parents need to sit down with their kids, tell them they are here for them, but also hold them responsible when they engage in this behavior. reporter: leaving a town to wonder if someone could have saved phoebe s life. i hope people will get a lesson out of it. treat each other with respect. reporter: the alleged bullies will be in court here in massachusetts next week. experts are telling us that they re hoping school administrators across the country are watching this, watching this all play out, to see what can happen when the red flags are ignored. jeff rossen in massachusetts this morning, thanks very much. still ahead, the desperate search for a 12-year-old colorado girl who headed to a birthday party on sunday and hasn t been seen since. the latest on that investigation. but first, this is today on nbc. it s definitely expensive having a growing family. and it s something that you think about. we try to be conscious of that and plan out our meals so that we can feed everyone on a budget. at giant, we know saving money is important. every time you shop with your card, you can enjoy thousands of real deal savings and weekly specials. like super g spiral sliced ham, $1.28 a pound, and beef rib roast, $4.99 a pound. this weekend only. it makes me feel good because we re saving money. and that works for me. only with your giant card. still ahead, the woman who nearly sacrificed her relationship with her own mother to expose a massive fraud. plus, the chicken dish packed with the same amount of fat and calories as 15 sliders after your local news. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. time for a check on the friday morning commute with sarah caldwell. it is good friday, so volume is a fighter. we are seeing problem spots out there. in sykesville, an accident at route 32. at security on the ramp to the outer loop of the beltway, there is an accident clearing there. slowing up as your perch the beltway northeast. for the south, there are delays developing there. six minutes on a 95 south to fort mchenry. on the west side, just 12 minutes. moving very well around the area. the problems are going away from us on the outer loop, very light this hour. southbound 95 approaching for makemie in the right to, disabled vehicle taking of the left lane. stay to the left and you should be ok. good morning. the sunshine is out and there are a couple of areas near the bay with low clouds that will burn off quickly. humidity is up a little bit. eastman s at 6 miles per hour. generally clear conditions over us. dry conditions will continue today. the storm will that closer over the weekend. it looks like it will come through the area dry on easter sunday. the forecast today. mostly sunny skies. southeast winds of 5 to 10 miles per hour. we are back at 7:55 with another live update. 7:30 now on a friday morning, the 2nd of april, 2010. a beautiful spring morning here in midtown manhattan. we ve gone from record-shattering rain to near record-setting warmth in just a matter of days. we want to say hi to these nice people out on rockefeller la pl. i m matt lauer, alongside ann curry who s nice enough to fill in while meredith is on vacation this week. just ahead, if you re eating out and you want to eat healthy, what do you order? a lot of people say, i m going to have chicken, no red meat, chicken is lighter, better for you. did you know your favorite meal could have as much saturated fat as 62 let me say this again 62 strips of bacon. that s a chicken meal. for chicken, i can t believe that! what do they put on top of that? bacon. dishes to avoid and lighter alternatives. also ahead this morning, a family nearly torn apart by a multi-million dollar fraud when a daughter realized that her mother was actually helping carry out that scheme. we ll talk to that woman about the agonizing decision she had to make and what her relationship with her mother is like now. also, captain richard philips revealing new details about his hostage ordeal last year at the hands of somali pirates. we re going to hear exclusively from him. but we begin with a frantic search in colorado for a missing 12-year-old girl who disappeared on sunday as she made her way to a birthday party. nbc s lee cowan has the latest. reporter: it was only ten blocks. barely a ten-minute walk from her home in greeley, colorado. but the birthday party 1212-year-old kayleah wilson was supposed to attend taking it day by day, trying to stay strong and positive and not go totally batty. reporter: more than 40 investigators, including agents with the fbi, have been searching all week. but have come up empty handed. they say there s no witnesses, no surveillance tape, and no new clues. about all you can do is put your head down, dig in some more and go after more leads, possibilities. reporter: the path she may have taken to the birthday party seems obvious enough. including a tunnel going under a freeway. it would be the only place she wasn t in public view. someone must have seen her. you know? but it s just sad that they don t know where she s at. reporter: a facebook page has been set up asking for prayers and information. and police have gone back to re-interview family and friends, just in case kayleah may have taken off on her own. but even that seems unclear. there wasn t any real conflicts, be no reasons that she would have left. reporter: her stepfather says kayleah did have an older boyfriend. he s 17 in fact. police say he s cooperating and is not a suspect or a person of interest. i m just dumbfounded. i have no idea. it s total shock to me. reporter: for now, the mystery of kayleah s whereabouts remains just that. i just want her home, and safe. reporter: but the longer she s missing, experts say, the harder the mystery may be to solve. for today, lee cowan, nbc news, los angeles. let s get a check of the rest of the forecast from nbc s meteorologist bill karins. announcer: today s weather is brought to you by chico s. some women are destined to wear chico s. we have a beautiful morning. one of the largest crowds of the entire year out here on the plaza as we head into the easter holiday break. what s easter like in vegas? it s warm. you hide the eggs? you go find them? we go in the casinos and find eggs. instead of the coins coming you the, you get that. yes. we have all our friends here today with the light it up blue campaign. what are you go guys going to do today? just talk about our philanthropy a little bit because it is autism awareness day. we just want to get the word out there. if you want to look at your forecast for easter weekend, saturday into sunday, still very nice on the east coast. as we go throughout the northern portion of the country, that s where it is going to start cooling off and that s where the stormy weather is going to be. we re also watching severe thunderstorms heading into the tennessee valley. it is going to be hot in areas of south texas. easter sunday, very warm through much of the country. should and fabulous forecast for everyone with the exception of northern california up through the pacific northwest. that s where it is going to be stormy and cool weather. but overall it looks like a hd doppler at are all clear here. we have to go way west to buy this edition. not a concern today. forecast calls for a lot of now it is supposed to be national pillow fight day. right? what time does the pillow fight start? tomorrow. 3:00 p.m. international pillow fights. if you want your hour-by-hour forecast, you can always get that at weather.com. now to a verdict in the controversial case of an alleged animal cruelty in florida. tamron is back with details on that. allison densmore was accused of intentionally starving her own cats to death and for a year, prosecutors and many in her community labeled her a pet torturer and an animal abuser. she was even fired from her job but it took a jury just five hours to find her not guilty. we find the defendant not guilty. reporter: it was an emotional scene in this florida courtroom after former schoolteacher allison densmore was cleared on felony charges of animal cruelty. she was arrested last april accused of leaving her two cats, speedo and gizzy alone in her boca raton apartment alone for months with no food or water. in court allison testified she left the apartment because she was worried about an ex-boyfriend who became abusive. i was scared. the whole time looking out the window, is he showing up at this point? is he going to be there? because i didn t know. i was even scared sometimes to go in. reporter: but authorities argue that she had left the cats alone to die, speedo and gizzy had reportedly tried to scratch through the walls looking for food before being found by her landlord. they starved to death while densmore was living in a separate apartment. allison, if you had realized that your cats didn t have enough food and water to make it, would you have gone back and gotten them? yes. would you have called someone? yes. could you have called someone? yes. reporter: after she was charged, she was fired from her job as a special education teacher at a middle school. it has taken us a year to get to a point where she can function again. it s going to take an additional year because of this. reporter: dinsmore s father says he is now considering a lawsuit saying felony charges should have never been brought against allison who, if convicted, would have faced 20 years in jail. allison was fired from her teaching job back in december. she s now returned to college studying pediatric physical therapy. tamron, thanks so much. coming up next, the surprising truth about your favorite restaurant chicken dishes, including one that has as many calories as 15 burgers. that s coming up right after this. t. had a passion for pink. and pearls. i was a sucker for sequins. always knew what i loved, and insisted on wearing it. [ jazz horns blow ] because expressive is never excessive. i guess some women are destined to wear chico s. chicka boom boom boom, yeah, yeah so i couldn t always do what i wanted to do. but five minutes ago, i took symbicort, and symbicort is already helping significantly improve my lung function. so, today, i ve noticed a significant difference in my breathing. and i m doing more of what i want to do. so we re clear it doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. my doctor said symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it s significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today. i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. 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you could go there and you can have a rack and a half of ribs. this is the equivalent check this out this is the equivalent of having seven scoops of haagan-dazs vanilla bean ice cream. just in this chicken sandwich and people order it because they think it is better than some of the other things. order the chicken, look like a buffalo. buffalo chicken. don t pick on chili s because they do have some good meals. you could get a guiltless chicken sandwich and chili s it s only 610 calories. the thing is you re going to be saving 900. that s a huge difference right there. you can have a couple scoops of haagan-dazs right there. crispy orange chicken bowl. this comes from applebee s. the big problem here is the sodium number. here you have 1,900 calories in this chicken dish right here. okay? but then applebee s pours a little bit of salt on your wound by giving you two days worth of sodium which is 12 large orders of french fries from mcdonald s. let me get that number 4,250 milligrams of sodium. yeah, right there. instead, get the margarita chicken at applebee s, it is absolutely delicious and it is only 700 calories. the thing is if you make that swap a few times a week that s a huge savings. you re losing a pound a week. let s move on. this next one is baja fresh. this is their char broiled chicken nachos. i have to be honest with you, anybody that hears the name nachos and thinks they re getting a really healthy meal at a restaurant, probably not thinking too well. in this case, baja fresh puts the nut in nachos. this is 2,020 calories, 41 grams of saturated fat. again, that s two days worth of saturated fat. 4 grams of trans fat, which are not good. you end up having it be the equivalent, calorie equivalent, of 34 chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies. a basic sit-down snack for me. you re much better having the chicken tacos. you ll save 1,400 calories. all of these restaurants off healthier alternatives. let s move on to outback steakhouse. they have their alice springs chicken quesadilla. a lot of people think chicken quesadilla sounds pretty healthy. in this case, you re getting 2,100 calories in these chicken quesadillas. it is 3,477 milligrams of sodium. it s 61 grams, or three days worth, of saturated fat. it is the calorie equivalent, matt, of this is what i ve been smelling 15 white castle burgers. 15? 15. you could eat this, or this. i wouldn t recommend either of them. sliders, back-slider. this is the cheesecake factory. this is chicken and roasted garlic meal. this has 2,600 calories. i don t want to pick on them but the fact is they have a half-dozen chicken and pasta dishes at cheesecake factory that are over 2,000 calories. in this case, this has 62 grams of saturated fat. to give you an idea, matt, of what that is, it is 62 strips of bacon. i mean just a few more strips and i think you can officially call it kevin. i mean this is not what you want. if you go there and you get one-half of the chicken sandwich, it is 548 calories. you ve saved 2,000 calories in one meal. you stay up late thinking of these lines, don t you? that s good. kevin bacon. i like it. you just got it? what did you think he was talking about? that will show you the level in our studio right there. david, thanks. up next, an exclusive interview, captain richard philips reveals what he actually thought the somali pirates who held him hostage for five days were doing at the very end right after this. 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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. now to the high seas drama that riveted the world nearly a year ago. richard phillips, the veteran captain of the maersk alabama was held for five days on a lifeboat. he tells me it all began with what was supposed to be an even exchange, a deal phillips for the pirates leader. now the transfer is going to be made. your crew brings the leader. he would come out on deck. he gets on the lifeboat and you re supposed to get off. it s like, okay i m actually driving the lifeboat because they don t know how to drive. right. and then what happened? and then he came into the boat and then he wanted to learn how to run the boat. so i basically gave him a little instructions, then he started steering off the ship and then i said, okay, we going back? nope. that s where i learned never trust a pirate. those are words to live by. you also learned more details just what it was like for him when he was being held. 96 hours on an enclosed lifeboat, temperatures getting up to 110, 115 degrees in the lifeboat. humidity was terrible. not only were the physical conditions terrible, they put him through emotional torture as well. mock executions so that at the end of 96 hours, he was at the physical and emotional breaking point on that lifeboat. in fact, when actually the rescue was going on, maybe that s one reason why he didn t think he was being rescued. wait until you hear in the special on sunday night what he thought was happening when he was rescued by navy s.e.a.l.s. that s date line, 7:00, 6:00 central on sunday night. he s our guest here monday central on sunday night. he s our guest here monday morning. that prov to help prevent rescript most seasonal nasal allergy symptoms, including congestion, so you can have more symptom-free days. 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( mockingly ) you hear about sully? live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. time to get another check on the rush hour commute. it is good friday, so volume is lighter out there. we have several incidents to run down. sykesville, eastbound burnie road, the eastbound direction is closed due to traffic. you are able to alternate on the westbound side. security at out of the ramp, that accident looks like it is gone, but an easy ride elsewhere. speed sensors not indicating any delays, fortunately. we want to let you know that there is an accident shutting down all southbound lanes at 29. 95 or 295 would be a much better bet this morning. at greenspring, that a whole lot. inner loop not a whole lot. no problems of the harrisburg expressway. disabled vehicle has been cleared from the right tube. john has a check on the forecast. couple of areas have low cloudiness. that will burn off. 47 at the airport. this should remain rather, through the day. resistant east peace will probably hold the persistent east breeze will probably hold the temperatures down at the bay. the storm out to the west fades out to the west with high- pressure dominating the area as we go to the easter weekend. mostly sunny and seasonable of the temperatures continue. mid-to-upper-70 s for the highs. sunset this evening after 7:30. you can check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. back 8:00 now on a friday morning, the 2nd day of april, 2010. it s almost 50 degrees out on the plaza. we have got a massive good friday crowd here in rockefeller center. we thank them, even if they re holding their signs upside down. we don t care. we re happy to have them here. lots of sunshine today in the big apple. 70 degrees by the time it s all over, maybe even into the low 80s. it is such an exciting time. spring is here, time for change, easter eggs, chocolate. i m matt lauer, along with ann curry. meredith and al have this week off. coming up, you have a really interesting story. i do. what would you do if you knew your mom was involved with something, was caught up in a multi-million dollar scam? and what would you do in terms of your relationship, if you maybe were worried that she might get into trouble? what would you do? if you revealed the scam. right. this really happened to a woman. we ll talk to her in a moment. she faced that agonizing dilemma with her own mother. you remember the expression when the economic crisis hit this company that some of these companies, these banks, had become too big to fail? we ll talk to an expert this morning who says the only way to avert any other future financial crisis is to make sure these banks are too small to fail. interesting idea. also, did you have a curfew when you were a child? at certain ages, yeah. i think tended by the time i was 17 or 16. right. what should we do? i think the question is, especially with technology, which is keeping i think a lot of kids up later, especially as they get a little older, tweens, teens, we have advice this morning on setting curfews for our children. it is actually good for them. but first, let s get a check of the morning s stories from tamron hall. good morning, everyone. signs of hope today in china where more than 150 people have been trapped for five days in a flooded coal mine. today officials say they ve heard tapping and maybe shouting coming from inside the mine. officials say four workers were missing and three injured at a explosion and fire at a fee finery in washington in a rural area in the northwestern part of the state. the sun is shining on new england today after days of record rains. the region s rivers are receding but now millions of gallons of sewage-laced water are streaming into waterways. today homeland security secretary janet napolitano will be in rhode island which has suffered the most damage. president obama pledged federal aid thursday during a visit to an emergency management center in massachusetts. president obama travels to north carolina this morning to promote his plans to create jobs. the president was in maine thursday where he urged americans to withhold judgment on his health care overhaul until the reforms take hold. in jerusalem, christian pilgrims today are commemorating good friday, retracing the steps of jesus on the way to the crucifix. israel s military says it retaliated for a rocket attack on southern israel today by attacking four weapons facilities in the gaza strip. but hamas claims a cheese factory and movie making complex are among the sites hit. gunfire and chaos this morning on chicago s south side. at least six people were shot in two separate incidents when police were investigating the first shooting, gunfire broke out again. and, a pilot is back on the ground in pennsylvania after crashing his powered parachute into a tree thursday at valley forge. he was stuck 75 feet in the air for two hours before rescuers could get him down. the question now will he try again? it is 8:03. now back to matt, and ann. it is not the position you want to end up in. you talked about the fact national pillow fighting day is tomorrow. got one with my name on it right here. no way! al s off today. bill karins is here with a look at the forecast. and defenseless. take it away. as far as the weather for the pillow fights tomorrow, i think they re doing a big one in union square, 10,000 people in new york. it is international, too. the weather heading towards the easter weekend, pick city of the day, burlington, vermont. sunny and warm, temperatures are going to be around 70 degrees. we ll continue to watch great weather drying out in new england. as far as severe weather today, we ll watch mostly what s going on in arkansas, areas of texas, also louisiana. severe storms and don t expect too many tornadoes but definitely a lot of hail and definitely some damaging winds. the rest of the forecast throughout today, the west will be stormy. looks kind of chilly and here is a picture from sunrise showing a bit of a fog bank. this will burn off a very fast. we expect a really nice day with temperatures well above t so many wonderful people out here from los angeles, here with a group today. you guys are playing carnegie hall today? where you from? from michigan. back inside to matt. i ll take it over here, bill. thank you. coming up, would you risk getting your own mother in trouble by exposing a massive scam? one woman who did that shares her emotional story right after one woman who did that shares her emotional story right after this. r twir threading my hair through some bright coloured rings these are a few of my favourite things when the curls break. when the ends split when my hair goes mad i simply remember my favourite thing and then i don t feel so bad new dove damage therapy has been reinvented with fiber actives, so keep on doing your favourite things. and let dove take care of the damage. 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. because right now it s rollback time at walmart. which means thousands of rollbacks all over the store. it s another way to master your budget. and another great day for the savers. save money. live better. walmart. 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(announcer) choosey moms, and dads, choose jif. well you re making this for me. let s wind em with precision. open our throttle to even more selection. and turn that savings swagger up full tilt. so when the time comes to bust open a can of doing. we ve got all the tools for all the things we need to make em happen. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. right now, get scotts nature scapes mulch for the new lower price of just $3.88. back now at 8:09. it s always a good idea to be skeptical when it comes to investing. so what happens when your own mother comes to you with a full-proof money-making idea? dateline s chris hansen is here with one family s dramatic story. chris, good morning. reporter: good morning. it is called an affinity fraud, getting like-minded people together, family and friends, to spread a con. in the case of one company, trienergy, helped authorities expose a fraud but it nearly tore her family apart. you won t believe what investigators say happens to much of the money. to kim flanagan, the mining company called tri energy seemed like a blessing. her own mother had put money in an the investors planned to use their profits for charity. you have just normal people that want to do good in the world. and make money at the same time. and make money at the same time. reporter: kim and her husband invested $10,000, but pretty soon they had a sinking feeling they d been scammed. henry jones, a company leader, kept saying the huge payouts were just around the corner. it was a financial soap opera. that s when you thought, uh-oh, we got taken. um-hmm. you just remember thinking that it was naive and stupid. reporter: and yet kim s mother was still pitching the investment to friends at church. did you express your concerns to your mother? yes. she was still a believer. i had to do something to help stop it. reporter: kim complained to state regulators who said they needed more information, so she went on a mission to get it and began secretly recording company conference calls. what did you think when your wife decided to mount her own investigation? i know i couldn t stop her. reporter: but there was a complication. kim s mom could get in trouble for promoting the investment even if she didn t know it was a scam. they could come after your mother at some point. yes, absolutely. it was devastating to our family. reporter: kim turned her tapes over to the securities and exchange commission where a federal investigation had in fact been under way. the government says tri energy was a $32 million ponzi scheme that used family and friends to spread the fraud. if someone s telling you they can get you huge returns that you can t get anywhere else, it s not true. reporter: jones was convicted of fraud and is serving 20 years while he appeals. as for kim s mother, in the end, the government saw her more as a victim than as a perpetrator. but where was the money? check out what investigators say henry jones did with millions of dollars from unsuspecting investors. reporter: cash that was meant for charity spent on this? clearly a long way from humanitarian projects. in all, investigators say more than $21 million went into producing movies and music videos, much of it apparently a big vanity project for one of the perpetrators, henry jones. chris hansen, thank you so much. kim flanagan and her husband david are the couple that helped bust this ponzi scheme wide open. good morning to both of you. watching this, your eyes teared up. what s the worst of this? it s hard to control the emotion a little bit. i think there was just so much damage that was done. and i know that it s not just to my family. there were so many other people involved. and this type of scheme, tri energy wasn t the only one that exists out there. so i think it s hard to know the kind of damage that it you know, that has happened, and that is very prevalent. in our society right now. this is not the only scam. so the anger, i m sure, is part of this. hurt is part of this. so let s think about how we can channel that into helping people who may be vulnerable, as you just said, to this. you talked about these late night phone calls. give us a sense about what those were like. why were they held late at night? what kinds of things were said in these phone calls? i think late at night, just logistically is when people were available. it was nightly to keep the momentum going. it seemed like there was always something that was happening, progress that was being made, then setbacks that would happen, where more money was needed to be able to complete it. and i think that it was a daily pow-wow to keep people involved, to make it feel like things were being moved forward, that there was progress that was being made. you knew at some point as we just saw in the tape that this didn t sound real. by the way, this is before everyone heard about the madoff story, the madoff ponzi scheme. so you didn t have a lot of knowledge about ponzi schemes, but you felt that something was wrong. why do you think that so many members of your family because it is not just your mother. it was your aunt and others in the family. why do you think so many people did not want to hear it when you said, look, this doesn t sound right? well, they had a lot invested, and no one wants to feel like they were made a fool of, that they were taken advantage of. and the people that were running it, henry jones and others, were very convincing. they were very good. when you asked questions they d just make it more complicated and you d feel like, well, i don t want to be the only one that doesn t understand this. henry seems to know what he s talking about. so you re not an expert in accounting or ponzi schemes. your brother is an accountant. right? my brother is my accountant. you called him up. what did he tell you to do? we knew that my mother was involved. we were suspicious and he said, you know, talk to the montana state authorities. i m going to talk to the washington state authorities and let s see what we can find out. and he also suggested you might want to tape record some things. yes. we didn t know what to do. i thought it couldn t hurt just to record some of these conversations. and it became an obsession for months and months. i recorded i just laid on my bed with the speaker phone on and a little tape recorder in my hand and recorded phone calls. when you talked to your mother and you toll her what you were doing, and that you were going to try to stop i know there was a terrible moment when she was talking to a widow who had nine kids at church to tell her to join the ponzi scheme and you said, that s it. i ve got to do something. that was my breaking point. but when you talked to your mother and told her what you were doing, when she was so a believer in all of this, that must have been so difficult. it was difficult. and you know, first when we knew that she wasn t going to listen to us, that the pull of this group and their mentality was so strong that she would listen to them before she would listen to concerned family members, when we knew that she wasn t going to pull away from it, that s when the next step had to happen. and where i knew something had to be done. kim, it takes a lot of courage to do what s right anyway, but you obviously are an example of how deep the courage can be, so we obviously applaud you because you ve helped so many people. we re going to find out more about what you ve done and you, dave, have done tonight on our broad ca broadcast tonight on dateline. next, why making big banks small enough to fail could be a good thing for the u.s. economy right after this. chevy malibu stands behind theirs for up to 100,000 miles. which makes it pretty clear whose standing out front. a consumers digest best buy two years running. chevy malibu. compare it to anyone and may the best car win. now, qualified lessees get a low mileage lease on this 2010 malibu ls for around $199 a month. call for details. see your local chevy dealer. to finish what you started today. for the aches and sleeplessness in between, there s new motrin pm. no other medicine, not even advil pm, is more effective for pain and sleeplessness. new motrin pm. so i couldn t always do what i wanted to do. but five minutes ago, i took symbicort, and symbicort is already helping significantly improve my lung function. so, today, i ve noticed a significant difference in my breathing. and i m doing more of what i want to do. so we re clear it doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. my doctor said symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it s significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today. i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. 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[ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, (announcer) right now, all over the country, discover card customers are getting five percent cashback bonus at home improvement stores. it pays to get more, it pays to discover. the usual? yes, please. anything else? when you re trying to be good, tempting treats can be wicked. no thanks, i m good. new special k fruit crisps. with two crispy bars for 100 fruity calories. it s the delicious, new way to stay on track. now, being good s a cinch. with new special k fruit crisps. despite the worst economic crisis since the great depression, may nor american banks are arguably, according to some estimates, larger and more powerful than ever. how did it happen and what can be done to prevent another financial meltdown? simon johnson is a professor at m.i.t. sloan school of business and author of the new book 13 bankers the wall street takeover and the next financial meltdown. simon, good morning. what s the reference 13 bankers in the title? much of last year there was an incredibly important meeting at the white house. 13 bankers were brought in. the top people in our financial structure and they were told they were going to be saved, they could keep their jobs, their bonuses, their pensions, their boards of directors, all their key staff. no change, no harm to them, go out and basically you can go out and do it again. that s the message. they were saved. the government stepped in and used billions of dollars in taxpayer money to prop up these failings banks. in your opinion did the government have any choice? was there an alternative? the government had to save the financial system. we re a credit dependent economy. there is no way around it. but they didn t have to save these exact banks and these 13 bankers in the way they saved them. it was unnecessary, way too generous and it creates an incentive for them to go out and take reckless risk again. it created a perception, also. tim geithner said a couple of daes ago the president had no choice. george bush, the previous president, had started this program. had he no choice but did it create the perception the government was more closely aligned with wall street than the working stiffs on main street? from it is just a perception, it is a reality. they did not have to save citigroup and management and directors of citigroup, nor bank of america. these are huge failed corporations in america. failure is good. you can t have a free market economy when some people get out of jail free. it just doesn t work. talk about what s happened since then. did the culture on wall street change? i mention in the introduction that arguably these banks are as big as they were, if not bigger, and more powerful. what, if anything, in the culture at these banks changed from the bailout time until now? nothing at all. h . bonuses up 17% in 2009 to $23 billion. now they re getting cash. remember the administration says please, very nicely, don t do it again, have deferred compensation later when you see things are okay. the head of wells fargo took a huge amount of cash. when pressed his spokesman said, we had a great year in 2009. excuse me? wells fargo didn t go a great year. they were saved by the government, the taxpayer. as you know, legislation is working its way through the senate right now, financial reform legislation. tim geithner said to us on this show there s no way president obama will sign that legislation unless it has sufficient teeth to prevent the whole concept of too big to fail. what s your take on that? can it be accomplished? not by this legislation. there are no teeth in the dodd bill currently before the senate that would do away with too big to fail, that would prevent a repeat of this. it is very important. i have great respect for secretary geithner, a very esteemed and respected civil servant but he is wrong on this key issue. it is very important that people focus on this. you say that to prevent this from happening again these banks must not be too big to fail, they have to be too small to fail. how do you accomplish that? you make them smaller. too big to fail is literally true. they are so big that when they fail, have you this horrible choice, do we rescue them or do we allow the economy to collapse? is we re talking about banks on their way to $3 trillion. there is no evidence that anybody else in the economy benefits when banks are above $100 billion. these banks are ten times too big. from a social point of view. but you create this very fundamental argument, and the argument is between free market system let companies, if they re successful, get as big as they want to get versus government control and how much control is too much control. look, teddy roosevelt faced the same issues 100 years ago against the monopolies. what we ve lived with for 100 years, if you get too big, that may be good for you privately but from a social point of view it is dangerous. that s monopoly power. we fixed that more or less in the industrial part of our economy. we need to fix it properly once and for all in the financial part of our economy. simon johnson, the book is called 13 bankers. thank you very much. thank you. just ahead, how to figure out what curfew is appropriate for your children. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am sarah caldwell. the morning commute is getting busy out there. if you head out of town and the next few minutes, all traffic is being held about 895 at harbor tunnel did nothing getting by at the moment. there is an accident there, and they are in the process of clearing it. another problem at fort mchenry. we will switch over. it has just been cleared. the plant the land was blocked approaching the left tube and there. we will switch over point out of the problem spots to avoid. whiskey bottom road, an accident there. a disabled vehicle on about 895 at the harbor tunnel. their role in all traffic in the northbound direction. eastbound of the road, blocked at 32. sykesville, it has been that way all morning. in the meantime, not all whole lot in terms of delays this morning. no delays on the j.f.x. on the harrisburg expressway it is good friday, so we re looking at lighter volume. we want to check on the forecast and for that we go to john collins. sun is out this morning. 50 degrees at the airport. humidity and barometer is up. it is a pretty quiet morning this morning. here is the weather map. big area of high pressure over the system. this will continue, with the southerly breeze bringing in warm air. this stays out to the west. mostly sunny skies. 74 to 79. areas close to the day bay probably not quite as warm. 80 on saturday. again, a lot of sunshine. saturday night, some clouds. more sunshine on easter sunday high temperatures a little bit cooler, and the mid-70 s. that is it for weather and traffic. traffic. we will have another a pretty shot. isn t it? welcome back. 8:30 now on a friday morning, the 2nd day of april. that s a shot from the top of the rock looking back at the empire state building in lower manhattan on a gorgeous good friday here in new york city. hope it s nice where you are as well. just another chance to say hi to the nice crowd of people gathering in our plaza. our biggest crowd of the week. i think spring break s kind of wrapping up around here. this might be the last week. most people back to school on monday. we ve got chocolate, we ve got easter egg hunts. we ve got some lamb. flowers are out. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer, along with ann curry here while meredith s on vacation. bill karins is in for al, and tamron hall is in for ann. i think you re caught up. coming fe ining up in this , a touchy subject for parents and kids. curfews. how do you set the time? the time keeps changing? in my house they sort of say, i m getting older, mom? what about weekends versus weekdays? we want to figure out that road map coming up for parents. also ahead, our now-award winning bow to wow series is back. jill rappaport has brought some little pooches this time. we ll try to find them a good home. look at that hair-do! wait until you see that haircut. plus a lot of people wonder, can you be considered overweight and still healthy? there s a theory that some people have skinny and aren t fit. we ll look at that subject, and it is interesting because there is a perception, but you can actually measure more your cholesterol, high blood pressure, things like that than necessarily what you see on the scale. a lot to get to but let s get to a weather forecast for the all-important holiday weekend. looks good for travel in the east. as we head out west, that s where it is not the best. as far as what we re dealing with in the northern plains, that s where it is cool and chilly. we re seeing a lot of wet weather, possible severe weather today into tomorrow through the tennessee valley. hot stuff is going to be there down in south texas and also in florida. as far as easter goes, heading out, everyone getting those easter eggs in the east. should be fine, dry. as we go through the rockies though, northern california, northern nevada, idaho, much of the st hd doppler at are all clear here. we have to go way west to buy this edition. not a concern today. forecast calls for a lot of so this is the magic. huh? the jazzercise? best workout in the world. as far as your weather goes, if you want to find ot your travel forecast, head to weather.com. i ll take this little walk so you can see all these nice people. coming up next, talking about meeting dogs and we ll try to get them adopted. we re back now at 8:36 with bow to wow. e our series where we clean up some needy dogs, then find them homes. jill rappaport is back. but we have some congratulations to hand out. you just won a genesis award, a great awar from the humane society for reported on animal welfare. congratulations on that. thank you so much, matt. our show won as well. my wonderful producers were there with me holding me up on stage. vivian and sarah. i got some great kibble in my swag bag. i was so honored. congratulations. we re proud of you. bow to wow is one of the series you won for. we have a new installment this morning. they say the best things come in small packages. today we have the cutest collection of compact canines. april at the animal care and control of new york city brought us four tiny tots. starting with rockin roger. you look like i do when i come out of the shower. this is roger. he needs a serious grooming. he s a 1 1/2-year-old poodle-maltese mix. he needs a little makeover there. he was left at the precinct? people that found him brought him in to the precinct. police transported him in to us, which happens all too frequently. once he gets cleaned up, he s going to be a handsome boy. you re going to be a handsome boy. up next, a lively playful pug aptly named mr. pugsley. he s a big kisser. he s squirmy. he s a good boy. he s very energetic. he is. announcer: he s very. announcer: now to sweet june. she s so sweet. shaking like a leaf. owners fell on financial hard times and they can no longer afford to keep her. has she been like that since she got here? yeah. she needs to really feel secure and comforted. she could be scared of me. she s not being nippy or anything. last up, bobbi, 5 years old. a nice hefty boy. the groomer s going to have his work cut out for him. he s a fluffy boy. his owners surrendered. the family had a baby and couldn t take care of him. these dogs are great with kids. he seems very does siciledocile. people don t know they can come to a shelter and get a pure-bred dog. they are very, very cute and we ve got richard here from animal care and control of new york city. richard, welcome back to you. thank you. let s just remind people, our record is 100%. we ve adopted every dog. right immediately after the show. to really outstanding homes, too. not only are these dogs available, there are other dogs at shelters all across the country. thousands across the country. absolutely. the first dog we want to bring out after the make overis bobbi. let s look at the before picture. let s bring bobby out now with ann. what s neat about bobby, when you want to put his leash or collar on, he lays flat on his belly. i don t know if he ll do it on the rug, but he does it on the floor. how old is bobby again? he s 5. i like the bandana. is that your idea, ann? my idea. you accessorized. look at that little flippy tail. he s a really, really good dog. these dogs are great with children. he says take me! take me! bobby, ann, thank you. the next dog is june. the only female of the group. tamron hall has june with her. remind us about june. a fox terrier. she likes to get under the covers and cuddle with you. how do you know that, richard? i don t know. we should mention, when we first looked at her, when she first picked her up, she was shaking like a leaf. she was shaking and shaking and shaking. but she ll get under the covers, keep your feet warm during the winter. and very mellow. these dogs have a reputation of being hyperbut she s extremely mellow. tamron, thank you very much. june, thank you. on to our next dog, another male. this is roger. roger needed a serious grooming. amy robach s bringing roger out. he had serious matting going on. now he has a cool haircut. do you see a resemblance? separated at birth. roger s very, very high energy. he loves going to doggy daycare. if you have another dog around, he might be right for your family. he settled down nice but he s really a high-energy dog. doi doggy daycare does him well. he has a little bit of an underbite going on there. you re not the first person to say that. amy, roger, thank you very much. finally, you got to love the name alone mr. pugsley, brought out by bill karins. he was found as a stray, believe it or not. he s in real good condition, considering. he loves these kisses. we have any idea how old he is? he s 5. 5 years old. he is so great. first, he s a pure-bred. very playful. little bit of an escape artist. he likes to run, too. i watched you run with him a second ago. which is terrific. all right, bill, thank you. let s bring all the dogs back out. we ve got mr. pugsley, roger, june and bobby. good news already, a tone in my ear, we ve gotten phone calls requesting to adopt ann, tamron and amy already. which is very nice. we re keeping our record intact. just had a call for bill as well. richard, thank you very much. let s get good homes for these little pooches. jill, congratulations on your award again. back in a moment on good friday. this is today on nbc. this morning on today s family, kur fucurfews. as our children age, they want to stay out later and later. is it a good idea to set a deadline and how do you figure out what it should? lisa b. lkin is the author of the new york times mother lode blog. i can hear mothers and fathers saying, boy, tell me about it. it is a major problem. what should we think about when we actually set the time because we re getting pushed, lobbied by our kids constantly. two very easy if i could come here around say 9:00, then we could all go home. there is no one answer. there s no right answer. there are are some that are wrong but it is really an equation. you have to, like most things with parenting, say, okay, what are the factors in my equation, why am i doing this? am i doing it to keep them safe? to keep them healthy? am i doing this because my parents did and that s the way it should work? why are you saying you need to be home? i think it is that s a good question. the reality is that they ll ask you that question if you don t have an answer. you re in big trouble. start with tweens. there s got to sort of be a generally accepted appropriate time for tweens. well, there s the what everyone else is doing, and some parents react i don t care what everyone else is doing. but what everyone else is doing is relevant because it is the social water that your child swims in. again, are you doing it because kids need to be home and in bed at a certain time? or are you doing it because your particular child needs to sleep more than average? are you doing it because they don t get their homework done unless you set a firm schedule? so at about the tween age is when you re starting to think about those things. i would say 9:00 or 10:00 for tweens, period. we did this on mother lode. we kind of scanned the audience. that s where people came down, 9:00 or 10:00. during the week is very different of course than during the weekend. but 9:00 or 10:00, in the house, you can t make them go to sleep, you can make sure they re in bed. it s just that is sort of your job, is to set the case. when i say 9:00, or 10:00, i mean in bed by 10:00. that s it. but whether it comes to even agers, it is a more slippery slope. what s the average? i have two teenagers. i have to say, i have not set a time ever. i was thinking before this segment what was my kids curfew? i d rather keep it an open conversation with all the these factors. it depends. every day you talk about it? no. but it s a sense of, okay, i want you in during the week at a time that you can get into bed and get up in the morning and function. so that s again be in by 9:00 or 10:00, maybe 11:00 if there s something going on. weekends are harder though. weekends it really is an ongoing conversation. who you with? where are you going? what kind of kid are you developing into? is my goal to give you more independence? because that s what you need? is my goal to give you more structure because that s what you need? so what s your answer? depends on the kid and depends on the day. to say 11:00 every night, i think along the way you re causing yourself more problems than what about causing rather than why not switch it to what s best for your child, in other words not about your problems, but about his problems. maybe i m just tougher but i m pretty firm about being home by certain time, being in bed at a certain time. problem for weekends, especially now we re really challenged by our technology. i m sometimes finding children, my children, with the computer in the bed and i wonder so the lights were off, and you went to bed. again, they all get muddied up. but yes, we went to bed. when the lights were out, the lights were out. well, no, there was that flashlight under the covers so it wasn t always as clear as that. now technology also, the other way. when they re out of the house, they can check in with you in a way we couldn t check in with our parents. so that is an argument for a little less stringency sometimes. i know where my kids are without seeing them. if you re saying that you don t actually have hard times, like i sort of do, you really then are basically trusting your gut on the from circumstance to circumstance. which is what we do all the time. but if your child is out, your teenager, it is a weekend, it s 2:00 in the morning no, that s not okay. before you go out, where are you going, who are you going with and what time will you be home? that then becomes that curfew. for me i don t want to be awake worrying. what s the best response when your child says, well, you know, so and so s mom is saying that i can stay saying that their daughter can stay out to this time. what s your response to that? again, you don t ever want to be the parent who sets your parenting roles based on what everybody else does. but you do want to have a sense of what everyone else is doing. if only because, well, for several reasons. your kid is not going to be the social outlier and i listen, but then i don t necessarily change my mind. it is a conversation i want to have. i know to know what other parents are doing. i don t simply want to do it because other parents are doing. i get it. that s what you said. if your child actually breaks curfew? there has to be a known penalty in advance. if you come in late, you will lose pick what works. television rights. the right to go out tomorrow night. the right to ever leave the house again. whatever works for you to reflect how important this is to you. i think one of the scariest things for a child to lose is your faith in them. that would be a that s what this is about. you re basically getting them ready to go where you re not going to be telling them what to do. it s got to be inside them somewhere. lisa belkin, thank you so much for having the conversation. coming up next, a woman comes face to face with the anonymous good samaritans who saved her life. bu interesting grooming. thanks. i did it to let the judges know that my dog is the right choice. i got the idea from general mills big g cereals. they put a white check on the top of every box to let people know that their cereals have healthy whole grain, and they re the right choice. just like buttercup. (announcer) general mis is the only leading cereal company to put healthy whole grain in every box. the choice has never been easier. for whole grain guaranteed, just look for the white check. we re back now at 8:52 with a touching meeting between a woman stricken with leukemia and the strangers who helped to save her life. here s nbc s george lewis. reporter: to look at her today, you might not believe that alta ray spent a year undergoing cancer therapy. right now, i have nothing. it s all gone. i had leukemia. that s what i was dealing with. reporter: through her ordeal, her three sons and daughter were at her bedside. at one point she almost died from complications of her treatment. it got so bad that my throat closed down, my heart stopped, i stopped breathing and they had to do a tracheotomy in order to stabilize me. reporter: but she pulled through, surviving the long months of chemotherapy and blood platelet transfusions. this center at ucla collects 7,500 units of blood platelets a year. during the course of her treatment, alta received 93 units of blood. from how many different donors? 17, i believe. reporter: she never thought she d get to thank any of those people until ucla invited alta to meet some of them. she gladly waived her patient confidentiality rights to do that. i m so honored to have the opportunity to thank them. in person. reporter: matthew hoffman, one of the donors, was also looking forward to the meeting. when you hear that somebody s actually recovered from a serious illness because you ve been one of the donors, that s just amazing. reporter: and so they finally met. alta and ten of her donors. how are you? thank you so much. reporter: getting together over lunch near the ucla medical center. posing for snapshots. savoring the moment. it s great. to know that she s there, her children are happy to have their mother at home. reporter: for alta ray, a chance to express her gratitude. i m so grateful, so honored to be here to be able to look you in the eye and thank you for my life. reporter: a pretty amazing gift. alta ray says her donors represent the best of humanity. for today, george lewis, nbc news, los angeles. poignant. obviously a lot of people want the confidentiality for a lot of reasons. but the fact that she could break that down and get these people to respond. can you be overweight and healthy? live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. a third phase of h1n1 could be on its way. maryland records its 45th swine flu death as officials in the southeast reported a spike in cases. the centers for disease control and prevention says that an adult in baltimore is the latest casualty. you need to keep your guard up against swine flu, and that means getting the vaccine. if you are vaccinated during last winter s campaign, you are still protected. if you did not, it is not too late to get yourself and your child vaccinated. every county in the state is offering free vaccination clinics the next week to find clinics the next week to find one in your we started the morning with some sunshine and temperatures in the 30 s. storm out west thanks to the west, but clear skies. sunshine stay with us. mostly sunny, unseasonably mild temperatures continue to mid-to- upper-70 s. seven-day forecast, which includes easter weekend. tomorrow, 80 degrees. maybe some clouds on sunday morning. then the sunshine returns. easter sunday, iceland and the mid-70 s. another update at 9:25.