Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100408 : vimarsana.com

good morning. breaking news. they re in. rescue crews have entered that west virginia coal mine to resume their search for four missing miners and it could be just hours before we know what happened to them. we re live at the scene. air scare. a major security incident on a united airlines flight from washington to denver. fighter jets scrambled, other airlines alerted of a possible terror attack. turns out it was all apparently caused by a passenger smoking in the bathroom. and one big step. president obama and his russian counterpart sign a landmark treaty overnight to slash both countries nuclear arsenal. a key move toward the president s goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons today, thursday, april 8th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this thursday morning. i m meredith vieira. i m matt lauer. this morning there has been a major break-through at that west virginia coal mine where at least 25 workers were killed in monday s explosion. that s right. after spending more than a day drilling ventilation holes overnight, officials determined the air was safe enough for rescuers to enter that mine. they are now in there searching for those four missing miners. we ll get the latest from the scene in just a moment. also ahead, the latest on that situation aboard united airlines flight 663. it happened last night and led to some extremely tense moments. the flight was about 30 minutes outside of denver when a flight attendant smelled smoke as a passenger left the bathroom, when the man was confronted, he apparently made a joke about setting his shoes on fire. that s when authorities were put on high alert. fighter jets were raced to intercept the flight. we ll have more on what was a tense situation coming up in a couple of minutes. plus, today is the day tiger woods makes his return to competitive golf this afternoon at the masters. we ll go live to augusta and also take a closer look at the controversial new nike ad featuring tiger woods and the voice of his late father. we want to begin with the drama that s unfolding right now in west virginia. nbc s tom costello is in naoma with the very latest. tom, good morning. reporter: matt, good morning. at 4:55 east coast time this morning, these 32 rescuers entered the mine. before they went in, they had to shave very, very closely to their skin because the rescue mask, the breathing apparatus, has to fit very tightly against their mouth. the concern is they are going into an area that s had very poisonous gases. they believe those poisonous gases have now dropped enough that these rescuers can venture five miles deep into the mine. for days now the drilling operations have been going round the clock. 1,100 feet above the mine to vent lethal levels of methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide, all with the goal of clearing away for four eight-man rescue teams now going in to search for the four missing miners. we re still in a full rescue mode. reporter: experts say the miners would likely have only survived if they made it to 1 of 2 rescue shelters inside the mine where there should be enough oxygen to last at least four days which would take them to friday from monday s blast. if things would go right, naturally the rescue team would be able to advance up to that refuge chamber. reporter: overnight the people of this small mountain town gathered together praying for loved ones missing and those deceased yet still inside the mountain. i have some dear buddies that are still in there. reporter: stanley stewart works in the mine. early in the day wednesday he was still waiting for word on who s missing and who s confirmed dead. i went to sleep and i can t get tired. i just sit up at night and my eyes are just wide open. reporter: meanwhile, some veteran miners who still work for the mine operator, massey energy, say they believe the company s approach to safety led to this tragedy. yet they fear retribution if they show their faces. it s like safety s put to the side just to get more coal. who can outrun who. it don t matter what you do or how you try, you just got to keep running coal. there s no excuses. reporter: ray worked in the mine for 28 years and says federal inspectors need the authority to permanently shut down unsafe mines. the law s got to change. in this country, unfortunately, every law that s ever been written for a coal miner s been by blood. reporter: back here live at the scene. each rescuer that is now in the mine is carrying 30 pounds of gear. again, they have to travel five miles in to the mine. they are hoping that they will reach the site where these men, if they re alive, would be by noon. and if these men have not survived, they would then switch to a full recovery mode for everybody who s in that mine and who is deceased. matt, back to you. tom costello in west virginia for us this morning, he s been covering this story since it started as well. another man working around the clock since monday s explosion is joe manchin, he is the governor of west virginia. he s just been included in that briefing. governor, thank you very much for joining us this morning. thank you, matt. take me through the details here, governor. we ve got these rescue crews now headed they re in the mine. they re traveling in a vehicle at this stage? is that correct? man trips. they re on rails and a man trip. they ll go back as far as that will take them. then they have to do the rest by hand. tom said by foot and by hand carrying everything in. at 4:55 they made a decision to go in. we got four teams, 32 people. up until then we had to make sure that we had air safe enough. that determination was made late last night after the final testing was done and the rescue workers have been chomping at the bits to go for a long time. they made the decision, and at five until 5:00, they advanced up to about the 82 grade. we ll know something this morning, maybe before noon, if they re able to get back to the 22 section. that s where they were able to get before when they were pulled out because of lethal gases. that s where we know we have three unaccounted for. that s where we know we have a chamber we haven t check. there is that sliver of hope it would be a miracle of all miracles. the families know that. i ve spoken to the families this morning before we did the briefing and i can tell you, the families desires are this, matt they understand we re in a full rescue mode. that means that we go in strictly with the purpose of finding these four unaccounted for miners. if, for some reason, we re impeded and can t go back for the gases are still too strong, they ll do a temporary block, to temporarily seal that area but not not seal it but just keep the gases there so they can start working and hopefully, with the family s wishes, go into a recovery and a rescue mode at the same time. their desire is to bring their loved ones, their family members, out as quickly as possible. we will try to grant that. but the main thing is safety for our rescue operators. i just want to make sure we re clear here. because in the early days of this tragedy, it was reported that 1 of 2 safety chambers had been checked. that s correct. so there s really only one left that has not been looked in. there might be two left that they re telling us. they check i think two or three chambers as they were working themselves then, and they had been shown not to be breached or there was no reason for those to be deployed. that means no one was there. the drama of this whole thing and the anxiety that we have is that where four people we know long person, where there is a nine-member team, they accounted for eight. one s missing there. and there were again nine people back in section 22. six have been accounted for but three s unaccounted for. and that s the chamber they could o not get and check. if someone was able to get or all three, then we feel they re going to be fine. if that s a miracle and it is a very slim, and our hopes are still a hope, but we understand the odds are long against us. just to clear something up, so as these rescue crews go in to look for the missing miners, will their path take them past the location where the deceased miners bodies are, and would some of those rescuers then immediately start to extricate those bodies? first, yes, it will take them by where they had located the bodies of our miners. they will go into a rescue mode, they will not stop at that time and the families understand. we ve spoken about that. they will be totally rescue mode trying to locate the four that have not been located. if for any reason we re impeded in doing that, we will rotate right back, keep a crew working for rescuing and finding those, and the rest of the crews will start in to that. that s what we intend to do. you can only imagine the emotions of the families of the missing miners right now. governor manchin, are there counselors with these people? now that the crews are in the mine, they must just be on pins and needles, waiting for any news, good or bad. you re right. the emotions are very but these are such wonderful people, they re such god-fearing people and they believe in their god and they believe in their families. and the family units are so strong, we ve had people, matt, there for four days straight that will not leave the staging area we have. we re protecting the families and nurturing them and loving them, but it is tough. right now, they want this to be concluded. we re going to do everything we can to do it as quickly as possible. they re making the decisions. i m asking them, what are their wishes? i go back and i convey that to all of our rescuers, all of the people making these decisions. but they know safety is the first and foremost thing. but also, they say it is time to bring our loved ones our brothers, our fathers, our dads, home. bring them home. governor joe manchin of west virginia, just such a difficult time. governor, thank you for your time this morning. once again, our thoughts are with everyone down there. thanks. let me tell you, we feel the prayers and we appreciate them so much. governor manchin, thanks. ten after the hour. here s meredith. now to the security scare caused by a suspicious passenger aboard a united airlines flight from washington to denver. nbc s chief justice correspondent pete williams is in washington. pete, good morning to you. good morning. a very strange episode started with something illegal but far less sinister sneak a cigarette on-board a flight. but with the smell of smoke and a flippant remarks, it turned into something more worrisome. it happened as the flight was in its final half-hour on the way to land in denver, flight 663 from washington to las vegas with a denver stopover carrying 157 passengers and six crew members. a passenger in the first class section spent a long time in the bathroom. when he came out, a flight attendant smelled smoke and notified a federal air marshal. the federal agent confronted the man who said he was putting out a cigarette on the sole of his shoe, but then he also made a sarcastic remark, something to do with a shoe bomb. the pilot notified air traffic controllers, fighter jet escorts were scrambled, two f-16s, the faa notified other pilots in the air of a possible terrorist incident. the man was restrained on the plane and searched. he was actually wearing sandals, not regular shoes, not even a trace of explosives was found on him. the plane landed and taxied to a remote part of the runway and bomb-sniffing dogs made another check of the plane and found no explosives. federal authorities say the man at the center of all this is a diplomat from the persian gulf country of qatar, identified as 27-year-old mohammed al madadi, assigned to qatar s embassy in washington and seen in what we thought was a photo of him. because he d normally have diplomatic immunity, one thing to work out today is whether charges will be filed and if so, what his disposition will be. pete williams, thank you. dave was sitting just a few rows behind the man who caused all the commotion and joins us now from denver. good morning to you, dave. at what point during this flight did you realize that something was wrong. you were sitting a couple rows behind this diplomat. right. so i was about two rows behind and we saw the guy that ended up being the air marshal up in the front of the cabin, up in the front galley with the individual and at first, i mean they were up there for quite a while with him. at first, several of us thought that they were just guys kind of pre-9/11. remember, they used to hang out in the galley and chat with the flight attendants and tried to get some free drinks. we thought it might be that for some time. then there was a lot of activity where one of the air marshals was moving back and forth and he traded places with the woman sitting next to the person of concern, as they called it. and once that happened, i was able to see the air marshal s weapon. it was clear that through his shirt and it was clear that there was something really serious going on. they then sat the individual down, put one air marshal next to him and one air marshal about two rows ahead of him. at that point we dropped a lot of altitude and we were pretty close to the ground, which i m not sure what that procedure s about, to cut off the cockpit communications that you can ordinarily listen to on the headphones. we knew something really serious was going on. we didn t know if it was a device or a bad guy. either case is really ugly. right? i understand you actually poke to the woman who was sitting next to this person of interest. what did she tell you? what she had said is that the man got up and went to the bathroom several times. the last time that he went to the bathroom he was in there for quite a while. 15 minutes. when he came back he smelled of smoke and just as she was putting two and two together, the flight attendant put two and two together as well and confronted the man, said were you smoking? were you smoking? were you smoking? he apparently made a gesture like he was trying to strike a match on his shoe. i mean how ridiculous can you be? so, at any rate, that s when the flight attendant then notified the air marshals and they got involved. i have to say that both the air marshals and the united crew were unbelievable. the air marshals did so much to keep the situation really low key. if you weren t right there within two or three rows you wouldn t have had any idea what was going on because they did such a great job of keeping it low key. there was no grabbing the man or restraining him or handcuffing thim or things like that. it was really remarkable. and more to the point, the united flight attendants and cabin crew were just fantastic. you can t imagine i certainly can t the kind of pressure that they were under. it was just remarkable. from thank goodness it ended the way that it did. thank you so much. you re welcome. thanks for talking to me. 7:15. here s matt. now to a big step toward nuclear arms reduction. president obama arrived in prague, czech republic, overnight where he just signed a new treaty with russia. it is a major move in his push for a nuclear-free world. nbc s chief white house correspondent chuck todd is actually there. chuck, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. well, look, this nuclear arms reduction treaty is nicknamed ask the start. for president obama he hopes it is just that, a start to even more reductions in both countries nuclear arsenals. receiving a red carpet welcome in prague, president obama returns to the czech capital, the site of his major address on nuclear policy a year ago. the existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the cold war. reporter: to sign a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with the world s only other nuclear super power russia. hosted by the czech president, the russian president and president obama, they posed for photos and put pen to paper. while the new start treaty is an important first step forward, it is just one step on a longer journey. as i said last year in prague, this treaty will set the stage for further cuts. reporter: the treaty limits deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 total for each country, a cut of 30% from the last treaty in 2002. long-range nuclear weapons are limited to 700 for each country. combined, the two countries account for 90% of the world s nuclear weapons with seven or countries accounting for the other 10%. experts say this treaty are only be a success if it leads to the russians agreeing to even more cuts. this treaty was really thought of as a stepping stone to the next significant reduction. reporter: today s historic agreement is another series of nuclear reductions between the former cold war adversaries dating back decades. of course, nuclear weapons isn t the only issue between the two countries. what to do about iran s nuclear ambitions was also on the agenda. the united states and russia are part of a coalition of nations insisting that the islamic republic of iran face consequences because they have continually failed to meet their obligations. reporter: now both presidents are participating in a joint news conference here in prague. in fact, the first question was about the biggest sticking point in these negotiations missile defense. it looks like both presidents agreed that they would continue those negotiations. where would the u.s. build missile defense shields and whether that would lead to further reductions in tactical nuclear weapons on the russian side which is of course what places like here and the czech republic fear, matt. chuck todd for us in prague this morning, thank you very much. now let s get a check of the morning s top stories. natalie morales is filling in for ann at the news desk. good morning, everyone. just days before toyota announced that big recall in january, one executive urged the company to come clean about safety problems. he warned colleagues in a newly surfaced e-mail, kwtd we are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. the time to hide on this one is over. we need to come clean. five days later, toyota recalled millions of vehicles with gas pedal problems. the executive later retired. two big airlines, united and us airways are in merger talks this morning. cnbc s trish regan joins us with more. why the talks and why now? natalie, good morning. it is a very tough business model these days, the airline industry. the hope is that these two major airlines, if they were to combine, then they would be able to better compete in the global marketplace. specifically with delta northwest which of course merged. so it is kind of a hope that they would have that edge that they would gain from being such a big operation. but natalie, they ve been down this road before in 2008. they tried to merge with continental. both of them did. they got a lot of opposition from the unions. once again that s going to be in the cards here. they ll have to get the unions on-board. trish regan at the new york stock exchange, thank you. police in afghanistan say they have arrested five would-be suicide bombers. it was the biggest suicide team ever caught in kabul. the taliban has released a new video of a man it says is an american soldier. he was captured last june in afghanistan. it is not clear when the video was made. if you ve been suffering from seasonal allergies, you aren t alone. expert say record levels of pollen are popping up due to the unusually cold, wet winter we had. the pollen is so sick, it s creating a haze over some cities. that explains a lot of the sneezes and sniffles around here. 7:20. back over to matt, and al. look at all the eye-rubbing. the good news is the cold front will be moving into much of the east bringing thunderstorms but it will wash a lot of the pollen out of the air. boy, here in the northeast and into the mid-atlantic states, record highs yesterday. boston, 90. providence, 92. allentown, 92. washington, d.c., 91. temperatures a little bit more moderate today with temperatures upper 70s, low 80s. then that front moves through tomorrow and those temperatures really take a tumble. 62 in new york city. only 61 in washington. boston with a high of 57. scranton, 54 degrees. rest of the country looking at plenty of sunshine, from the plain states down into texas with a big beneficial area of high pressure. new big low pressure areas move into the pacific northwest bringing big storms into there with lotsre the weather should step required on this thursday. it will be mild with the temperatures in the 80 s. overnight, a strong cold front and that s your latest weather. matt? al, thanks very much. just ahead, is it brilliant or offensive? the controversy surrounding the new tiger woods ad as he begins play at the masters. but first, this is today on nbc. ] i have asthma. and that s what it sounded like when my symptoms came back. i d get this tightness in my chest. like i was breathing through a straw. so i went back to my doctor again. we talked about choices in controller medicines. we chose symbicort to help control my asthma. [ man ] while it s not a rescue inhaler, symbicort improves my lung function, starting within 15 minutes. it helps give me the control to. [ inhales, exhales ] symbicort is a combination of two medicines. it will not replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms and should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol may increase the chance of asthma-related death, so it is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on other asthma medicines. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. with symbicort, my lung function starts to improve within 15 minutes, helping me. all day. symbicort is a good choice to help control my asthma. [ inhales ] [ exhales ] ask your doctor if it s a good choice for you. i got my first prescription free. call or click to learn more. [ male announcer ] if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. it s the chevy spring event. and everyone deserves a car, truck, or crossover they can count on. like these consumers digest best buys. and all backed by a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. discover for yourself, and see why over a thousand people a day are switching to chevy. during the spring event, qualified lessees can get a low mileage lease on this new malibu ls for around $199 a month. call for details. the switch to chevy starts at chevy dealer dot com. good morning. the time is 7:26. let s check the morning commute. good morning everyone. a few more problems to watch for. we have an accident in the sykesville area at liberty road and martin ave. burke avenue is still closed and we are dealing with capital is forming around the area on southbound 95 out of the white marsh area. 40 minutes is a short drive time on the outer loop on the northeast side. if you travel south on 95, you will deal with the delay at white march of want to get back to fort mchenry, just five minutes. here is a lot of you up traffic. this is passed the ramp from 795. inner loop allies are forming up towards 795 towards the top side of the beltway. if you travel on 95, this is coming out of the joppa road facility. that is the latest. good morning. things are pretty quiet right now but that will change by the time we get into tonight. for now, sunshine and temperatures in the upper 60 s and low 70 s. 69 degrees at the airport. the forecast for today calls for sunshine which will give way to clouds this afternoon. it will be dry for most of the dead. after 6:00, there is a chance for showers and some of those could be strong overnight. the temperatures will be on the lower end of the 80 s. a chance for rain early in the morning tomorrow and clearing up tomorrow afternoon. if you are going to the the o s home opener it will be fine. thank you for joining us and we will be back in 25 minutes. things are getting downright twisted at dunkin donuts. hurry in for our new freshly baked bagel twists, available in delicious cheddar cheese or cinnamon raisin. here for a limited time. america runs on dunkin . get swept up with the big chocolate taste of mocha iced coffee from dunkin donuts. it s just another one of our delicious, refreshing iced coffee flavors grab one today! america runs on dunkin . 7:30 on a thursday morning, the 8th of april, 2010. as we check out everyone in rockefeller plaza. the heat the last couple of days has been above average. we ll step outside and say hi to them in just a little while. inside the studio, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira. also coming up, the new tiger woods ad that has a lot of people talking. very controversial. the golfer likes straight into the camera as the voice of his late father asks, did you learn anything? much more about that and the verbal dressdown woods received yesterday from the chairman of augusta national. scientists think they may have found a way to tell which smokers are at the highest risk of developing lung cancer, a discovery that could lead to a relatively easy way to reduce that risk. obviously that would be huge news. just ahead, the latest on this research. plus, you ll meet a dog who will bring a smile to your face because he actually smiles when he s happy. this morning, riley is here to share his grin with us. i don t know if he s quite doing it yet. we ll begin this half-hour with tiger woods return to competitive golf and his first new ad since the sex scandal broke. nbc s peter alexander is in augusta with more. peter, good morning to you. reporter: meredith, good morning to you from augusta. for tiger woods, this day couldn t come soon enough as he hopes to finally change the topic from the mistresses to the masters. even before his first drive here this morning, tiger woods is now out with a new ad from his most loyal sponsor, nike. an introspective look. take a look for yourself. tiger, i am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. reporter: on the eve of his return to the game, tiger woods made his return to the airways. staring directly into the camera for this new nike commercial. his late father s voice in the background seemingly lecturing his son about responsibility. i want to find out what your thinking was, i want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything. reporter: spotted signing autographs at augusta national wednesday, tiger also received an unprecedented dressing-down by the chairman of the exclusive club where women still aren t allowed as members. it is not simply the degree of his conduct that is so egregious here, it is the fact that he disappointed all of us, and more importantly, our kids and our grandkids. reporter: before the tournament has even teed off, it s already a masters unlike any other. c cbssports.com, a reporter asked a woman, ma am, are you the stripper? we ve just got to be extra careful. the new york post also reports to escape the paparazzi, tiger rented two mansions in an exclusive gated community here. the smaller one for his entourage, the larger one for himself. still, on the course, tiger s ever move will be scrutinized, including this easily confused moment tuesday when he appeared to be texting. but a friend said tiger was merely taking video of a playing partner. his wife, elin, won t be here pursuing what some observers are now calling the elin strategy not standing by herman but not ditching him either. elin s approach is revolutionary. she s not quite leaving him but she s not quite staying with him. that creates kind of an air of mystery around her and also a fear of priorcy around her family that most other women county up in these tabloid scandals have not been able to have. reporter: elin is getting help at home from her father in from sweden. seen here taking his 2-year-old granddaughter sam to an orlando area park. but in augusta, after 144 days away from competitive golf, tiger finally returns, hoping once again to master his sport. he s a guy that can walk on to a golf course and his opponents would kind of be weak in the knees. now we aren t sure whether tiger still has that aura of invincibility he had every day he played golf. reporter: tiger woods has won four times in the past here at augusta at the masters, but not since the year after the first time he put on the ceremonial green jacket, meredith, have sports writers said that tiger woods is not the clear favorite. peter alexander, thank you very much. he will be the one everyone s talking about. for more on tiger woods and his unusual new commercial, we turn to advertising expert donny deutsch, the chairman of deutsche, ink. this commercial shows tiger in black and white staring straight into the camera while his late father s voice says i want to hear what your thinking was. when you first saw the ad, what did you think of it? i think it ad is stunningly brilliant. really. brilliant. one of the marked strokes of genius. it would be so easy for nike to kind of not advertise now, in six months show him playing golf. it walks right into it and it takes his father who is the conscience, the voice of god, and it just basically walks right in and says, this guy, tiger, is transformed himself, he s reflective. obviously what he did was terribly wrong. but to have his father s voice as the conscience i just think is brilliant. i have to tell you, it is brave, it is a stroke of genius. you see brilliant. others see this and think it is absolutely creepy, that nike and tiger woods are using his infidelity, using his father s voice to sell sneakers. look, this is their brand. they have to protect their brand. to not acknowledge it would be safe but i think would be wrong. what they re doing is basically he screwed up, and basically probably the most important influence in his life, his father, would be saying to him, what were you doing? why did you do this? if anything, they re kind of giving him one more spanking. but tiger woods said in the past his father was unfaithful to his mom. but his father was still his guiding force. this is not about who s perfect and who s not. it is about at the end of the day as this guy is about to play golf, his conscience, his guide is saying to him, what were you doing? it is almost saying all is not okay just because i m playing golf and with every moment i go, this is what i m thinking about. i think it is an administration that this thing is not over. i think it is such a creative bravery to it. i salute nike. wouldn t it have been braver for him to look into the camera and address he s done that already. he did that for a half-hour in his mea culpa. this is an ad. nike has to do what s best for nike and their shareholder. i look at that brand and say that s a brave brand. they are acknowledging a controversial spokesperson. so they had another choice? no. they could have done the safe, easy move, no ads, let him become a golfer again, he wins the masters, then his brand is back to what it was. not exactly. but then in six months, he s playing golf, hitting golf balls. most advertisers wouldn t have hit it head-on, though i think it is a brilliantly stunning move. i give it a 10-plus-plus. folks at nike bravo. i d love to take people down but my mouth dropped. just, wow! somebody s really thinking. i suppose no matter what side you come down on, people are talking about it. you can like tiger woods or you can hate tiger woods. as a marketer, it is a brilliant stroke of genius though. okay. let s get a check of the weather from al. hey, we re on! hello. shaking hands with friends. this is a huge choir. they were just singing a moment ago. they re from washington state. very nice. all right. let s check your weather, see what s going on and show you, we ve got snow to talk about back up through wisconsin and chicago may see a few flakes ahead of this system. we got a lot of rain to talk about. snowfall s not going to be too bad. talking about three to six inches of show. nothing too horrible. rest of the country we ve got a risk of strong storms today along the mid-atlantic states, into the northeast. rain in the pacific northwest, sunshine from the plain the weather should be pretty quiet for most of the dead. we will start off with sunshine and clout should pick up this afternoon. and we got some snow back in appleton, wisconsin. these hockey moms, the appleton wizards. don t forget, check your weather, whether you re in appleton or anywhere across the country, on weather channel on cable or weather.com online. we re going back to meredith. thank you, al. up next, promising new research on a simple way to detect and possibly prevent lung cancer. that s right after this. 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(announcer) not just sinus headache. ahhhh! but pressure. and congestion. introducing sudafed pe® triple action™. for more complete relief from the sinus triple threat. sudafed pe® triple action™. more complete relief. sudafed pe® triple action™. have you tried honey bunches of oats yet? every spoonful is a little different. mmm. they got three kinds of flakes. this is delicious. it s the perfect combination of sweet and crispy. i love it. this is so good. this is great. the magic s in the mix. we are back now at 7:42. this morning on today s health, lung cancer. researchers believe they ve now found a way to identify people who are most at risk. and a possible treatment for the disease. here s nbc s chief science correspondent robert bazell. reporter: despite the enormous risk, only 10% to 20% of current and former smokers develop lung cancer. now scientists are learning why. there are significant alterations reporter: the doctor and his colleagues have identified a set of genes shown in this pattern on a computer chip. we specifically found that this high level of activity of these genes precedes the development of lung cancer. reporter: before the cancer develops, people with this gene pattern usually get display shah, abnormal cells that often become cancer. we can actually reverse the activity using a drug that inhibits this pathway. reporter: the drug is a plant product with few side effects, inos. tichlt ol. it is already sold in health food stores. in a small initial experiment, they found in 6 of 10 people the drug returned the gene pattern to normal and their abnormal cells also appeared healthy again. the national cancer institute already is testing inositol in smokers to see if it reduces the rate of lung cancer. with this latest research, it shows treatment could be more targeted. what would you think if somebody took your work to be an excuse to continue smoking? i think that would be a mistake. lung cancer s only one of many diseases that are associated with cigarette smoke exposure. reporter: still, this early work holds the promise of reducing deaths from what is still the biggest cancer killer. for today, robert bazell, nbc news, boston. dr. nancy snyderman is nbc s chief medical editor. nancy, good morning to you. hey, matt. long way to go here. this is a very tiny study. ten people. but cool stuff at the most basic level. this is sort of i think this big take-home message. when you smoke, all those thousands of cancer-causing compounds bathe the airway in the carcinogens that cause early cancers. what these doctors did was put a little brush down into the lung and they got little cells and they looked microscopically at these cells and tried to figure out in which smokers were those cells starting to be abnormal and could they stop a cancer from developing. that s where this is a big break-through on a genetic basis. it is exciting in two areas. one, that they ve identified these cells. and, two, that they may have come up with a drug that can reverse the activity in these cells. and a drug that s already on the market, and this inositol, found in fruits, beans and grains which sort of tells you, yes, there is a compound on the market, but perhaps what we eat can also have some anti-cancer protection. when we talk about 10% to 20% of people who smoke getting lung cancer, i want to make sure i get this right. are those only the people who have activity or excess activity in these cells? let me turn that number upside down because i don t like that number. it is only 10% to 20% of smokers get cancer. they die of emphysema, heart disease, colon cancer they re dying of other things. that s why they don t develop lung cancer. yeah. 90% of lung cancer patients are smokers. that s the important thing i want to drive home. so cigarettes are still the number one cause in this country for everything, including lung cancer. i m glad you said it that way. because you know what happens? people have this mindset where they say, wait a minute, if they can develop a pill that i can take that can reduce my risk of getting lung cancer i ll start puffing away. i ll smoke a couple of extra cigarettes. this is not a go-ahead to say, well, if only 10% of smokers get cancer, and after all, if there is something on the market, it can t be a big deal. this is years and one pathway of cancer production. what if there are other pathways that these abnormal cells grew up to be cancer? cool break-through but really, really still in the lab. you expect larger studies based on this? yes. we already know there is an ongoing study. increasingly, we re going to find cancers at the molecular and genetic level. surgeons like me in 50 years are going to be out of business. that s the way to go. but, man, this is not a free ticket to say i can smoke. nancy snyderman, doc, thanks so much. coming up talk about changing subjects dramatically we ll meet riley, a dog that smiles. but will he do it here? we ll find out right after this. it s super stylish. oh, and the available dual-view entertainment center? awesome. hold on. i just finished episode 8. oh, boy, if i wasn t married. [ laughs ] i tell my husband the more time i spend in it, the less stressed i feel. and the fewer headaches i get. honey, mommy s having a timeout, ok? [ male announcer ] meet the family and the new sienna on youtube. toyota. and the new sienna on youtube. to talk about our new blueberry juice drinks. they re made with my tasty, ripe blueberries, packed with those antioxidants. let s whip up a sample. or just try this. [ chuckles ] where do you want to go? nowhere. who do you feel like seeing? no one. depression hurts in so many ways. sadness. loss of interest. lack of energy. anxiety. the aches and pains. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a prescription medication that treats many symptoms of depression. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens, you have unusual changes in behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. ask your doctor about cymbalta. depression hurts. cymbalta can help. nutri-grain one good decision. can lead to another. made with real fruit and now with more. of the whole grains your body needs. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. to smile. this is riley, a dog that smiles. he s here along with his owner, maureen. good morning to both of you. that picture was taken on riley s first birthday. that s the first time you actually saw him smile? he s definitely made he has a wide variety of facial expressions. that s the first time it s ever been caught on camera. so have you i would imagine you ve tried numerous times after that to get him to continue to smile. definitely. is it easy? does it happen by chance? is there a command you can use? i wish there was a command you can use. no, it happens by chance. that picture was just pure luck to get that. it wasn t the cake that provoked it or something like that. no. just to be clear, there s nothing in the cake. we hadn t thought about that! maybe it s gas. why did you go there? i m just trying to get to the bottom of this. as it were. you mentioned other facial expressions. what other kinds of expressions does he offer? he sleeps a lot. whenever you pet him he gives you this look that kind of says, can t you see i m sleeping, leave me alone. and things like that. were you surprised he became such an overnight sensation when you put this on the internet. i posted it first on my facebook thinking that two give my friends a good laugh. my friend actually his name is john he s the one that saw the picture on my facebook. he said that he was actually in a night class when he saw it and he laughed outloud in his lecture hall. he posted it and that s when it started to go viral. you going to smile for us, riley? come on! he s like, okay, i like that. i ve been told that his picture is now a screen saver on a library in iowa or something? there you go. he s trying. thank you, riley. it s a mona lisa smile. alright kid, let s get ready for this morning s quiz. christopher columbus sailed the ocean blue. in 14 hundred and 92. nice! follow me, the missouri river is this way! lewis and clark expedition of 1804. oh, he ll never get this. magellan, 1520. awww, my 8 layers must ve given it away. help keep your kid full and focused with 8 filling layers. of whole grain fiber found in kellogg s frosted mini-wheats cereal. this is one giant leap for mini-kind. keeps em full. keeps em focused. hoo hooo! keeps em full. keeps em focused. because your census answers are more than just answers. they re the first step toward a happier, healthier community. we can t move forward until you mail it back. 2010 census. trugreen s taught me a lot. like how every lawn is different. some people want a place to play. others, a place to chill. yo, b. but i ve learned from trugreen if you treat every lawn special, the sky s the limit. i m gonna go public next summer. what s crackin, baby?! bobby! 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[ male announcer ] spread the word subway now has breakfast! get the deliciousness just the way you want it, like the subway western egg white muffin melt. build your better breakfast at subway. live, local, late breaking. good morning, i am a stan stovall. let s get another check on the morning commute. a few new accidents to add to the list. if you re traveling in sykesvile, an accident at liberty road. if you travel on the north side outer loop at the harrisburg expressway, we have a report of an accident there. there is another accident in the towson area. we are it down to 60 miles per hour on the beltway. the outer loop on the north side has a dry time of about 20 minutes. the inner loop from 95 on the south side will take you 20 minutes because there are slow spots. here is a lot of view of the delay. live of viewto it of 95 coming out of ne. it looks good but once you get too close to my white marsh, it will get slow. that is the latest on traffic. so far, things are pretty quiet on this thursday. there is a little sunshine and it is pleasant with temperatures in the upper 60 s and low 70 s. things will change as we go into this afternoon. after 5:00 or 6:00 this evening, there will be a chance for thunderstorms. some of those could be strong. the high temperatures will be in the low to mid-80 s per the rain will and early on friday morning. the weather should be fun for the o s home opener. a dry weekend coming up . be sure to check the bottom of your screen for updated news and in 8:00 now on this thursday morning, april 8th, 2010. our summer like weather to about to come to an end but our friends on the plaza are enjoying it while they can. we have stepped outside to join them. i m meredith vieira along with matt lauer and al roker. great crowd this morning. just ahead, a murder case from california. a man admitted to shooting and killing his former neighbor but the community including the victim s own family, have thrown their support behind the gunman after he claimed his victim had molested him for years. we ll talk to a sister in a moment. on a much lighter note, have you heard of tom shoes? you know the story behind it? jenna bush hager, our national contributing correspondent will tell us that story. let s just put it this way those shoes are good for your soul. that s more than just a play on words. a little bit later on, we ll show you some spectacular photos of sleeping babies. and the babies are just days old. we ll meet the sisters behind these pictures. if these don t bring a smile to your face, nothing will. look at that! that photo right there actually brought a smile to the dog s face. they are so sweet. but first, let s get a check of the top stories from natalie morales filling in for ann. rescue teams this morning are finally back inside that west virginia coal mine searching for the four miners missing since the monday explosion that claimed at least 5 lives. west virginia s governor said this morning, the men might have survived if they had reached a secure chamber. he said the miners families and friends hope for a final answer today on the fate of their loved ones. search teams could not enter the mine until the holes had been drilled to prevent dangerous gases. president obama joined his russian counterpart this morning in the czech republic signing the most significant nuclear arms treaty in nearly two decades committing both nations to reduce nuclear arsenals by nearly a third. the president is confident they ll ratify the treaty. no charges will be filed against that diplomat from qatar blamed for a mid-air bomb scare over denver last night. the passenger apparently joked about setting his shoe on fire when he was asked about smoking in the bathroom. the flight from washington to denver landed safely with a military jet escort. some heavy lifting today for the shuttle discovery astronauts. they made a 13-ton delivery to the international space station, including science experiments, living supplies, and a walk-in closet. of course in space, that would and float-in closet. now here s brian williams with a look at what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. natalie, thanks. coming up tonight on nightly news, if you are a suffererer, i don t have to tell you allergy season is awful this year. this season promises to be a heavy one. we ll explore the reasons why tonight on nightly news. natalie, we ll look for you tonight. for now, back to you. thank you, brian. 8:03. let s go back outside again to matt and meredith. we re over here. i m right here. where you guys from? where you from? camilla, georgia. what are your names? i m cheryl lynn crump. this is my husband, charles crumbp. what was the name of eddie murphy s character? they should name it the crumbps. chicago, illinois, nbc 5, few rain or snow showers, temperatures in the low 40s. your weekend outlook, rain and showers in new england, rain in northern california. sunny and mild through much of the rest of the country. showers around the central great lakes. then sunday sunday we got a few more rain showers in new england, wet weather central california into the pacific northwest. much of the rest of the country, y, the weather should step required on this thursday. it will be mild with the temperatures in the 80 s. overnight, a strong cold front we ve got an official teenager. what s your name? nadine. happy birthday. thank you. now back over to matt. when we come back, a serious story. a man who shot and killed another man he says abused him as a child. so is he a murderer or a hero? we ll get into that right after this. 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[ female announcer ] new and improved miracle-gro moisture control potting mix. success starts with the soil. back now at 8:09 with the murder case that s shaken a california community to its core. a man accused of gunning down his former neighbor who he says abused him for years. now the town is rallying around the shooter. we ll talk to his sister in a moment, but first nbc s lee cowan has the details. reporter: it s picture postcard perfect. how could anything go wrong here? but behind the picket fences of ft. bragg, california, lay one town s dark secret. i had no yesterday that our neighbor was the kind of guy that would rape kids. reporter: mindy used to live next door to a boy scout leader named darryl mcneal. she trusted mcneal, just like her brother, aaron vargas, trusted him. but last february, aaron, now an adult, drove to this remote trailer and shot mcneal point-blank with a pistol. was there ever a time that you looked at your brother as a murderer? no. when i look at aaron, i see a sad little boy that needs help. reporter: the crime was shocking for his family. not as shocking as his motive. aaron alleged mcneal had molested him for years, starting when he was just 11 and continued stalking him even after he became a parent. i think aaron thought that his child was going to be next and i think he just snapped. reporter: suddenly, aaron didn t seem the monster. and the community felt betrayed. i m full of grief, and anger, and guilt. reporter: because you thought you should have seen it? yeah, somehow. reporter: as the story started spreading around town, so, too, did the rumors that aaron might not be mcneal s only victim. at least 12 other boys, now men, came forward with similar accusations but there was no one left to prosecute. there were no tears either. in fact, there were almost cheers. demonstrations, yard signs started sprouting up. there were bumper stickers, even t-shirts, all supporting aaron. you think it was justified? definitely. reporter: richard says his brother, james, told him that he was stalked by mcneal, too. it so damaged him that he committed suicide. in richard s eyes, aaron is a hero. i think he ought to get an award. i m sorry. reporter: letters started pouring in to the district attorney s office begging for leniency. most surprising even mcneal s own family didn t want aaron punished too severely. although mcneal was never charged with child molestation, his wife, liz, told the d.a., i believe my husband had a secret life, and continued that i do not believe that a state prison sentence would be appropriate. if it all sounds a bit like vigilante justice, his attorney makes no apology. if it is vigilante justice, it is. but it is a murder. reporter: he entered a plea this week to involuntary manslaughter. aaron could nsentseuld b could more than time served. a man still shackled by his past. nbc news, lee cowan. mindy is aaron s sister. good morning. there was a point where the d.a. wanted a 50-year sentence for your brother and wanted a murder trial. as lee just pointed out, he may get out with time served. you don t want him to serve one more day in jail though. why is that? it just doesn t make sense to punish someone who s been put through hell for 20 years. he s the victim and he s not a danger to the community, he s a very kind and caring person. why torture him anymore? why continue the abuse and put him in jail is continuing the abuse. he says the abuse began when he was 11 years old. you didn t know at the time what had happened to him except that he changed. right. i saw drastic changes in aaron when we were children. i didn t know what was wrong but i knew something was really wrong with him. he was in so much pain. he went from a happy kid to a very troubled, very troubled adult. yeah. he withdrew from his friends, from his family. he was just sad and angry. he could just see it in his eyes. he was in pain. you say that you think that he snapped and that s what led him to mcneal s home with a gun. tell me more of what you belief happened. i believe that mcneal had mental control over aaron. it was like he was holding him mentally captive for 20 years. aaron could not escape him. he was that scared little boy around mcneill. i think aaron became a parent and it put into perspective what was done to him and how horrible it was and then i think he felt that his child was in danger and that his child was going to be next and i think as a parent, the instinct to protect your child do you think he went there that day with the intent of killing him? i think he went there with the intention to scare him to leave him and his family alone. but he did fire that gun. whether or not the gun went off accidentally, that will be discussed at the next hearing. would it matter to you if he made the decision in the moment to kill the man, if it was vigilante justice? i still wouldn t put that label on it. because aaron wasn t seeking revenge. he s not a vengeful person at all. it s really not a case of vigilanteism. the post traumatic stress disorder that he has and the harassment and the stalking and the risk of his child being abused. that s not vigilanteism to me. that s just a desperate man who s trying to protect his daughter and himself. i know you ve spoken to him. he s in jail currently. what message does he want to get out about why he did what he did? i know he would be very hurt to be labeled as a vigilante. i think he just wants people to know that he s been through hell and that he hit his breaking point and he feels for all the other victims. he feels for the mcneills and he just wants help. he s crying out for help. and the fact that the suspected molester s own family, including the widow, has pleaded with the judge for leniency, what does that say to you? what does that mean to you? it says to me that they understand the situation and that they know aaron to be a very kind and gentle person and that he doesn t deserve to be locked up. since his arrest, we ve discovered at least 12 other people have come forward and say they, too, were molested. some said that they reported this to the police years ago and nothing was done. do you think if something had been done, maybe your brother would have been spared the torment he went through? yes. he probably would have never been abused in the first place if something would have been done when it was first reported and other victims would have been spared also. mindy, we appreciate you being here. thank you very much. thank you. up next, jenna bush hager on one businessman making a difference one shoe at a time. but first, these message. have you tried honey bunches of oats yet? every spoonful is a little different. mmm. they got three kinds of flakes. this is delicious. it s the perfect combination of sweet and crispy. i love it. this is so good. this is great. the magic s in the mix. it s the chevy spring event. and everyone deserves a car they can count on. one that s backed by a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. and named a consumers digest best buy, two years in a row. discover malibu for yourself and see why over a thousand people a day are switching to chevy. during the spring event, qualified lessees can get a low mileage lease on this new malibu ls for around $199 a month. call for details. the switch to chevy starts at chevy dealer dot com. aveeno hair shines in real life. new aveeno nourish plus shine with active naturals wheat smooths damaged cuticles for 75% more shine in one use. real shine, for real life. yours. 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[ sniffs ] morning. you got in pretty late last night. dad, i m not sixteen anymore. still, it was late. well. you re not gonna have to worry about that anymore. yeah, why s that? todd s a lucky man. the best part of wakin up. that s what i told him when we talked last week. .is folgers in your cup announcer: today s good news is brought to you by folgers. the best part of waking up. this morning on today s good news, a successful and stylish shoe company on a mission to give something back. today contributing correspondent jenna bush hager is here with details. i like this story. good morning. good morning. i bet you ve seen these around town. maybe you haven t. but they are the most popular selling brand at stores like nordstrom s. when you hear the story behind the company and its founder, blake mckowski, you understand why buying a pair is good for your soul. the faces of these children tell a story of hope and promise thanks to the simple gift of new shoes. for many, the first and only pair they call their own. but four years, blake mckowski saw a different story in these faces while vacationing in argentina. they weren t allowed to go to school because they didn t have the proper footwear which was part of the uniform. you know, i grew up in texas. never had to worry about shoes or food or clothing or any of the bare necessities. i wanted to do something to help. reporter: he s had a brain for business since he was a kid. he s sit on the golf course and as golfers came by he d sell cookies and kool-aid. he started this college laundry and delivery pick-up business. there were a million ideas. reporter: now, all grown up, blake wanted to make a kimpb difference. he sold his other companies and with a small investment started tom s shoes. if we start a pair of shoes today, we can get rid of them tomorrow. i shorted it to tom. reporter: not a charity but a for-profit company based on what he calls one-for-one. every time we sell a pair we give a pair to a clihild in nee. i want our customers to feel they make an impact when they buy that pair of shoes. there is a kid in argentina or new orleans that was getting maybe their first pair of shoes. reporter: his one-bedroom california apartment became home base. go back to that day. it was just me and three interns in the beginning and we didn t know anything about shoes. we didn t know anything about retail. for the first year or two years it was a grind. i had to beg people to buy shoes. reporter: blake refused to give up. less than a year later he returned to argentina with the inter interns, his family and college buddies to make good on his promise to help. we had no idea what we were going to do except give away 10,000 pair of shoes. it is awesome because we hand-placed those shoes on those kids feet. it literally was then at that moment that i knew that tom s just wasn t an idea, that it could really help a lot more than 10,000 kids. reporter: since that first shoe drop, tom s has distributed more than 600,000 pairs of shoes in 28 countries, proving that blake s initial, and only, investment made for a viable and charitable business model. i could have taken that money and i could have bought 40,000 pairs of shoes. now that would have helped a lot of kids. but then all my resources would have been depleted. but instead i took that same amount of money, not a penny more that s been invested in tom s. now we ve give them almost 15 times what i would have done had i just given it wall away in the beginning. that s what sustainability is more about. would you say you re more of an entrepreneur or a social activist? it used to be it was very mutually exclusive like going if the peace corps and being in corporate america. you couldn t really do both. with tom s, i feel like we ve combined the two. what is a typical day like here in the office? man, there s no typical day. his tiny tom s team has grown to almost 100 employees. it . it is amazing to see the strong work ethic everyone has. keeps an old guy young, on your toes every day. young people are a big part of tom s foundation on campuses nationwide. like you feel connected to something, it s it doesn t feel distant. reporter: these days, blake lives on a sailboat with few personal belongings and dreams of a community inspired by tom s shoes. this next generation of young people, we re going to change the world. we need them to. we need young people who really care about these things to get excited and come up with the next business model and to be on chens c conscience consumers. we re really on a mission. today is tom s annual one day without shoes where people across the country will pledge to go barefoot to know better what it feels like to go without shoes, something we all take for granted. we shall put on the shoes that you brought us. you didn t bring us any shoes? does anybody have those back there? by the way, while we were watching the piece, both natalie and jenna both mentioned how cute blake is. nice to see you were focused on the right thing there. he has a good heart. he s a very smart guy, a very good entrepreneur. he s making money but giving back. and what he wants is other people to use his business model to do different things to help others. that s amazing. but 600,000 pair he s given away. that s incredible. he told this story about one mother who walked up and said, my kids haven t been able to go to school. they ll have to switch off days to split shoes. now because tom s, they can go to school every day. thanks very much, jenna. for more good news, check our website, todayshow.com. a programming note, next week on today. kate gosselin, will be with us to talk about everything that s going to in her life. tuesday right here on today. good morning everyone. we are trying to wrap up this rush hour. there are several new accidents to report. greensburg avenue has an accident reported there and the outer loop at the jfx and all lanes are open but there are still delays leading up to it. if you travel at fourth street and petapsco avenue, delays are there. southbound 95 on the northbound outer loop have slowing. 30 minutes is your drive time on the outer loop on the northeast side. we can give you a lot of view of traffic on court road with delays on both sides. here is a lot du of 95 coming out of the joppa road area. once you get to white marsh down to the beltway, there will be slowing. good morning. things are pretty quiet to start the day. there is a lot of sunshine and it is beautiful but it will change into this afternoon. the clouds will come in and we will have rain. 60 to downtown. 62 downtown. sunshine mixed with clouds today and the clouds will thicken up and a good chance for thunderstorms after 5:00 or 6:00 this evening. high temperatures will be in below 80 s and the rain will last through friday morning and will clear up in the afternoon. if you go to the o s game, it should be fine. thank you for joining us. we will have another update at 8:55. 55 [ male announcer ] itchy dry scalp? get selsun blue for itchy dry scalp. strong itch-fighters target scalp itch while 5 moisturizers leave hair healthy. selsun blue. got a clue? get the blue. 8:30 now on a thursday morning, the 8th day of april, 2010. while you re looking at the nice people that gathered here on the plaza, some of us are looking to the skies and saying, man, it is another beautiful day here in the northeast with blue skies, a light wind, already around 67 degrees. little cooler than yesterday. we have change coming tonight, into tomorrow. okay. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira, al roker and natalie morales. coming up, we ll talk about the five mistakes that a lot of investors tend to make. these are mistakes that can cost you a lot of money. susie susie ormond s here to walk us through the mistakes people have made in the past. i want to get an aw from all of you. we ll have two sisters who photograph babies into an art form. they only have shots of newborns less than 2 weeks old. i did that with both josh and luke. they weren t quite that young. they were like four weeks old. i look at those pictures and remember how tiny they were. you can t get them to do that now. no, not at all. also, switching gears to a much more difficult subject to talk about, we ll bring you up to date on the latest of the rescue and recovery efforts on the miners. matt had a really emotional interview with one of the family members who has lost his son, brother and nephew in the tragedy. the davis family. heartbreaking. but let s get a check of the weather. for today, basically looking at decent weather. afternoon temperatures here, 70s, 80s into the mid-atlantic states. just as warm down in florida as it is here in the northeast. 80s and 70s in the southwest. 40s in the pacific northwest. another big storm comes in there bringing a lot of wind and rain, mountain snows. risk of strong storms as a cold front moves in all this warm air from the east, up into parts of the weather should be pretty quiet for most of the dead. we will start off with sunshine and clout should pick up this afternoon. these folks from suffolk, virginia. who knew it was the home of mr. peanut? by golly. that s his grandson right there. all right. let s check in down in ft. meyers, florida and say hello to mr. willard scott. hello, uncle willie. the greatest team in new york city. how nice it is to be a part of a wonderful group of winners. happy birthday from smucker s, speaking of winners. try their strawberry ice cream topping some time. happy birthday. elsie thompson from clearwater, florida, right up the road. 11 yea 111 years old. lovenia posey of pearland, texas. 110. retired sunday schoolteacher and proud to have built the furniture that she sits on in her home. did it all herself. florence smith of peotone in illinois. 100 years old today, happily engaged to an 88-year-old guy and is looking forward to getting married. how about that? throw a little rice. attributes her longevity to taking vitamins. happy, happy honeymoon. look at joseph, handsome delve. joseph bouley, grafton, ohio. 100 years old. enjoys buying and selling items at auctions. and goes to mcdonald s every single day. helen johnson, prospect, kentucky, 102. retired teacher, proud grandmother and get this to new york knicks player allan houston. robert grundy, panama, new york. 100 years old today. served as a medic in the navy. god bless the navy. enjoys planting fruits and veggies in his garden. worked for a local church until he was 97. you re a navy man or woman, you re always tops. that s it for now. now back to the greatest city in the world. thank you very much, willard. up next, susie ormond reveals the five biggest investment mistake back now at 8:37. this morning on today s money, we re talking about investment mistakes you do not want to make. investing is always risky knowing what to avoid can save you thousands of bucks. suze orman is the host of the suze orman show on cnbc. nice to see you. you think with all that investors have been through over the past couple years they re a little more cautious looking for these mistakes more? they re a little more cautious but i have to tell you, their bad habits are starting to come back in the bad times. it s like nothing happened, i can t even believe it. so we have to warn them again. let s talk about common mistakes. you have five of them. the first mistake you want to talk about is investing before you re ready. when are you not ready? you re not ready when you are nervous. you re not ready when you don t know what you re doing. here s the rule of thumb it is better to do nothing than to do something you don t understand. a lot of times people get a call from a financial advisor and say, matt, if you don t make this investment by tomorrow, you are going to miss out on this opportunity. the interest rate is going away. you might not be ready. so it s better to do nothing. so until your gut tells you, yeah, i understand that i want to do it, just don t do it. you think people who got up in those troubled mortgages years ago made those decisions before they were ready, didn t take the time to really read into it? they were ready, they just didn t have the knowledge. they were doing something that they did not understand the ramifications if it went the other way. the next one is something i think you ll find happening in a lot of households around the country, and this is using a financial advisor who s willing to see just one person of a couple. why is this such a big mistake? for years i sat behind the desk and i actually saw people. and sometimes the wife or the husband would say, you know, i don t have time, i m not good with money, i don t want to come in. however, how can i plan for you, matt, for your future, if i don t know say you re aggressive. you want to risk the money but your wife is conservative. she s scared. she doesn t want to risk anything. how can i make a plan for one person unless i meet both of you and understand both of your emotional needs as well as both of your financial needs. but do you expect a financial advisor who meets a couple and the one person in the couple don t want to be a part of it to turn that couple down? if both of you didn t care how does that work? actually, i had a rule. enough about your money to make time to come in and see me together, i didn t have time to see you. all right. both need to get involved. that s right. third mistake, being afraid to invest when the stock market is going down. lot of people isn t it a valid fear though? it s valid, but if you have time on your side, you don t need your money for at least ten years or longer i can t tell you how many times i sat here and said this with you as the market goes down, if you invest every single month in a good quality stock, exchange traded fund or mutual fund not a bad investment, but it is going down because the markets are going down, it goes down, you buy more shares. when the price is less, you have more shares. in the long run you will make more money. so don t stop investing. month in and month out is the way to go. if you just stop you would have missed the 65% rise since last march. this next one is being an all-or-nothing investor. this is a personality type, isn t it? yeah, it is. so many times people either take all of their money and they invest and they buy one thing, or they get afraid and they sell it all at one time. listen, if you don t know what to do, sell half. put a little money in. you don t have to do everything. because the risk is a lot less also. if you buy everything or sell everything and you re wrong, you have lost everything. you have lost everything. so stage into it. you don t have to do everything all at once. this next one i think takes a little explanation. buy i a loaded mutual fund versus a no-load mutual fund. explain the difference. yes, a mutual fund obviously is a pool of money where you invest and you buy little shares of stocks that s managed by somebody known as a mutual fund portfolio manager to buy one through a financial advisor, they charge you what s called a load. a commission. a loaded mutual fund has about a 5% commission built in to it. you you re paying that commission to someone who has no impact on the overall success of the fund. that s just a service fee. that s a service fee. and somehow people think if they buy a loaded mutual fund, they pay that service fee to a financial sales person i m sorry advisor. that fund will perform better. they have nothing to do with the performance of that fund. that s done with the portfolio manager. so a loaded fund that gives you a 5% commission, if you invest $10,000, it is immediately worth $9,500. you re behind the eight-ball right after the back. you have to go above 5% in value just to break even. the advice is when you can, always buy a no-load mutual fund. and a reputable financial advisor should tell you that you have that option. forever again i told you, for years i sat behind the desk. i would say to people, if you buy this, i make this much money. however, if you just want to do this on your own, here are three or four mutual funds that will accomplish the same things that you could pay for no fee whatsoever. oh, that s a brainer, huh? just go and buy the no-loaded one. that s what you should do. five common mistakes, five pieces of good advice. as always, thanks very much. 8:43. catch suze s show 9:00 on cnbc. this is today on nbc. announcer: today s moms is brought to you by walmart. save money, live better. walmart. back at 8:45. this morning on today s moms, sleeping beauties. there is nothing quite as beautiful as a newborn. we found two sisters who have made an art out of capturing a child s very first days of life. like a present that suddenly arrived, we come into this world. we come into this world in miniature. a moment in life that for the lucky few is captured by photographers kelly and tracy. the star of today s foe show shoot, evan wiley, seven days old and just under 7 pounds. his mom jenna wants to remember every moment with her first child. he s always got this eyebrow little look that he does. pretty adorable! reporter: which is why she s driven 30 miles outside her home in omaha to let kelly and tracy work their magic. the 39-year-old twin sisters grew up in montana, but family and the lure of country living drew them to blair, nebraska. today they work in tandem from a small studio in kelly s backyard. tracy poses the infants while kelly handling the camera. we do things and we don t even have to communicate. we just know it. reporter: they only photograph babies under 2 weeks old. little models with huge demand. people will look at the images and say, that s a pretty baby that s sleeping. but that s the hardest part. each baby is a little bit different. some are really, really curly. some those like their toes touched. they let you know what they don t like and what they do like. reporter: the room must be kept at a constant 90 degrees. a noise machine mimicking sounds from the womb runs at all times and every session starts with a full belly. get a good burp out of them. that little bit of gas in their tummy, boy, it rocks their world, big-time. reporter: and at the end of the day isn t that cute? oh, my gosh! reporter: the extra effort is priceless. tracy and kelly have put some of their best photos in the new book sleeping beauties new bornes in dreamland. ladi ladies, good morning to you. they are just marvelous pictures. you can t look at them and just smile from ear to ear. what do you love about photographing babies? we ve done all ages but there s something that draws us to the newborns. i think it is the most difficult because people look at the images and say it is just a sleepy baby, but that s the hardest part. why is that the hardest part? you really have to know babies and be able to comfort them and it makes it a challenge. naturally they are very, very sleepy at that age. we re just really capturing them at what they do best. 90% of the day they re sleeping. why is it important that all of these babies are two weeks or younger. as soon as they start getting a little weight on, they have more alert time. but if you get them between days five through ten, they ll be the sleepiest. you put them to sleep with that warm temperature and sound machine, then once they are asleep you manipulate them. right on. perfect posing is what we re all about. what we focus on is the face of the baby. because when the mommy first saw that baby they looked at that face. that s what we try to focus on when we do our photography. how do you find what to put them in? we have this little baby in i guess that s a blanket in a basket. in others you had little caps on their head. we have a closet like you would not believe. we try to do something a little different each session. we re constantly on the lookout for new props. that s the fun part of this type of photography is that you can do something new, each and every session. we re always trying new stuff. you are both moms yourself. absolutely. does that make a difference? does it make you bring something to this work that you wouldn t otherwise? i don t think it is a requirement. we ve spent the last 2 1/2 years, 3 years every week with a newborn in the studio. just that constant practice with newborns has made it really easy. one thing that has helped us, we re great with newborns. for people out there who wouldn t come to your studio but would love to try this on their own, what tips would you give them? i think it is easier for us as photographers because the mommy has that smell to them which makes it harder. a newborn will do different things for us than they will for their mommy. really! absolutely. they re more alert. there is the constant desire to feed. they re all the same. i think it is easier for us. but i think to have that nice common sort of energy is very important with newborns. a lot of time with first-time mommies, they get very nervous. a newborn can sense that nervousness. so to keep your energy calm yet assertive is very important. any difference in photographing boys versus girls in terms of which is easier? in our experience, boys are easier. boys are much easier. they just like to lie around. they re a little more laid back. girls are divas. little tiny girls are the f tiniest. six, seven points, they re tough. they make you work harder, for sure. i don t know how you d ever pick a favorite. it is always our most current session. it s last week s session. well the book is fantastic. thank you very much. thanks. book is called sleeping beauties. check out more photos on our website, todayshow.com. back in a moment. this is today on nbc. the movie date night starring tina fey and steve carell opens tomorrow but our gene shalit thinks this may not be the right choice for your date night. good morning and welcome the critic s corner. date night is so lightweight that it floats up to no good, beyond the reach of even tina fey and steve carell to save it. luckily, steve and tina are riding such a crest of tv popularity, that not even this stupefying movie can damage them. this is just a big misunderstanding. the fault lies not in our stars, but in sean levy and josh clostner, the director and writer, disrespectfully. they had no idea who they were dealing with. we are going to die! they have reduced tina fey to mugging and yelling, and running in heels in this wasted 87 minutes of uncomedy. this is the nypd. oh, my god, that s them! just when i thought car chases were obsolete, they shovel in a screech of wingnuts and lugnuts that drove me nuts! it is a suburban couple out on a rare evening in new york. they are many bushed in a ritzy restaurant who force the couple into a case of mistaken identity. we didn t have a reservation so we took yours. now they think that we re you. you just took our reservation? what kind of people are you? there are a few amusing gags. excuse me, mr. and mrs. triple horn? get up now. but the rest should have been gagged. honey, get up now. according to latest reports, miss fey and mr. carell are in stable condition resting comfortably and likely to recover. wow. i just wasted half my life. and that s the critic s corner for today. oy, fey. ouch! we love them though. i have a feeling people are going to go see it anyway. he said they re riding the high because they re great. exactly. hopefully. you re not chiming in here. clearly had he a strong opinion about that. just ahead, we ll talk about staying chic during spring showers. i guess we re talking about umbrellas? is that it? the hottest looks for the season? plus the controversy over new tiger woods ad as he returns to competitive golf at the masters. after your local news and weather. good morning. i am indeed the sarah. it is a clock 55. good news for many wall baltimore residents. water has been restored but public works officials said they need help to bring the water pressure back up. power was restored before sundown last night. dpw was able to pump water back into the system. a fire that started under grant took out a utility pole. the result was low pressure or a water pressure for about 200,000 customers. even though the water has returned, people are being urged let s take a look at the forecast . good morning. things will be pretty quiet today. it will change this evening where we see a chance for under stern s after 5:00 or 6:00. until that time, a mix of sun and clouds. some of the storms could be strong with high temperatures in the lower end of the 80 s. the strong cold front will come through and the rebel and early on friday. for the o s home opener, it should be fine. it will be cooler with high temperatures only in the upper 50 s and low 60 s then it will be a dry weekend . thank you for joining us. we will