Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100721 : vimarsana.com

whole story? this morning that official, shirley sherrod, speaks out. and red-faced sumner redstone, the 87-year-old chairman of viacom, bribed a reporter trying-to-give up a source. we re not going to kill him. we just want to talk to him. we will protect you completely. give us the name and you will be well rewarded and well protected. and all his spokesperson can say, it was just sumner being sumner today, wednesday, july 21st, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. we ll get to that frightening experience on the united airlines flight. did the obama administration make a huge mistake forcing an agriculture department official to resign for comments she made in an naacp event? part of shirley sherrod s remarks were released by a blogger. cable news outlets pounced on the remarks and quickly interpreted them as racist. even the naacp condemned her, and she was quickly forced to resign. but, as it turns out, it was a story of how she chose to overcome her own racial biases nearly 25 years ago. the agriculture department now says it s going to conduct a thorough review of her ousting. we ll speak to the worm at the center of the controversy, shirley sherrod, straight ahead. plus, lipped ndsay lohan is waking up in her new home, a jail cell. why they are talking about releasing her much earlier than previously announced. let us begin with dozens of passengers injured on a cross-country flight that ran into heavy turbulence over kansas. nbc s tom costello covers aviation for us and is in our washington bureau this morning. tom, good morning to you. reporter: hi, meredith, good morning. this was a united airlines flight from dulles airport to l.a. with 255 passengers, ten crew members, when it encountered extreme turbulence over ckansas at about 34,000 feet. passengers describe a sudden violent drop, people slamming their heads against the ceiling inside the cabin, then being slammed back down into their seats and the seats of other passengers. among the injured, four flight attendants who were presumably up and working at the time. the plane then diverted to denver international airport where it was met by firefighters and paramedics. in all 25 to 30 injured, one critically. once the plane finally did make it to l.a., some of the passengers described the ordeal. we just, the bottom fell out. people hit the ceiling. it was pretty bad. it felt like i had gone down an elevator shaft and hit the bottom and came back up. that s what it felt like. everyone was screaming and that was very horrible. the person behind me, he actually flew up and then he landed like kind of across the aisle onto somebody else s head. reporter: the injured were taken to denver area hospitals, most with what are described as moderate walking injuries. those would be bruises, whiplash, strains and sprains. the faa says its first look at the plane finds no obvious signs of damage. the faa and the ntsb are investigating but it s a good reminder, meredith, why we re all told wear our seat belts even when we re sitting down. back to you. absolutely, tom. very scary experience for those folks. tom costello, thank you very much. it is 7:04. now to the turbulence facing the obama administration over the resignation of an agriculture department official. was she forced to quit her job for comments that were taken completely out of context? we re going to talk to shirley sherrod in a moment, but first, nbc s savannah guthrie is at the white house with the latest. savannah, good morning. reporter: good morning to you, matt. these developments are moving really quickly. at first there were condemnations against shirley sherrod for alleged racist remarks. now some of the very first people to rebuke her are now apologizing and over the night the white house directed the agency that fired her to reconsider. this is the video at the center of the controversy. the first time i was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm reporter: first posted on a conservative website, it shows shirley sherrod, a georgia-based official with the u.s. department of agriculture, and obama administration appointee, at an naacp dinner in march of this year describing her reluctance to help a white farmer who came for aid. i was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here i was faced with having to help a white person save their land. so i didn t give him the full force of what i could do. reporter: the video became an overnight cable news sensation. miss sherrod must resign immediately. the federal government cannot have skin color deciding any assistance. how many more people like miss sherrod exist in the obama administration? reporter: the action against sherrod was quick and decisive. the naacp condemned her, calling her remarks shameful and intolerable. the usda asked her to resign. sherrod says she was driving monday afternoon when she got the call from an official in washington. she said they want you to pull over to the side of the road and submit your resignation. it was just unbelievable. it was just unbelievable. reporter: but sherrod says it was a rush to judgment. the incident she had described at the march naacp dinner had occurred more than 20 years ago, before she worked for the usda, and it was a story she told as an example of overcoming her own prejudices. that s when it was revealed to me that it s about poor versus those who have. and in telling that story, how i changed while working with him, i used that to help others to see it s not about race. reporter: the farmer who sherrod is accused of treating unfairly went public tuesday saying she is no racist and saved his family farm. i appreciated everything she done for us, and we got our farm back. reporter: still, in a statement tuesday, agriculture secretary tom vilsack stood by his decision to fire sherrod saying, quote, we have been working to turn the page on this sordid civil rights record at usda, and this controversy could make it more difficult to move forward on correcting injustices. but by tuesday night, the naacp had reversed course. officials looked at the full context of her remarks made at the naacp s own event, concluded they d been, quote, snookered by fox news and those who posted the video. they were too quick to condemn. we made a mistake here. we had a very good batting average. it is near 1,000 but times we make a mistake and we made one here. reporter: for shirley sherrod, the damage has been done. they called me a racist, of all people. they called me a racist. when you look at my work, when you look at everything i ve done, you know that i m not a racist. reporter: all right. so initially officials here at the white house said this was solely at the discretion of the agriculture secretary, tom vilsack, that the president was briefed only afterward although staff knew something of it, and that he fully stood by the agriculture secretary s decision. however, late last night after the full video was posted on the naacp website, the white house contacted the agriculture secretary and encouraged the agriculture secretary to take another look. he now says he will and let me read the statement from tom vilsack. he said, quote, i am, of course, willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the american people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner. but no word yet, matt, this morning whether or not shirley sherrod gets her job back. savannah guthrie, thank you. shirley sherrod is with us from atlanta. ms. sherrod, good morning to you. good morning. what a 24-48 hours you ve had. let s go through it here. you were villainized, forced to resign, and when the oopses began, the naacp which originally came out against you, apologized saying they made a mistake and now i even understand the agriculture secretary who originally stood by his decision has said he s willing to see more information. can you describe your emotions as we sit here and talk this morni morning? you know, it s so hard looking at the last 24 hours. when the department when this first came to light i said to them you need to look at the whole thing. that s not the message i was putting out there. and for them all day yesterday to say they were standing by their decision and now at this late hour to be saying they are now willing to look at the facts, you know, it s hard to take at this point. what s outrageous about this is this story that was sent out there as an example of racism on your part was the opposite. it was a story of enlightenment and transformation of overcoming the narrow mindedness that you had been surrounded by as a younger woman and here it was completely misconstrued and misrepresented. yes, and i couldn t get people i couldn t get the people i was working with, people who should have listened to me, to see that because that was one of the things i kept saying. you need to look at the whole thing. that s not my message. that s not me. if you look at my life, if you look at my life s work, you would know that that s not me. as a state worker in georgia, you tell this story about how you were dealing with a white farmer who was about to lose his farm and perhaps the temptation was there on your part to continue down the road. you had seen so many travel in the past and maybe not give that farmer, that white person, all the benefit of your help, but you had this almost an epiphany at that moment and said, wait a second, the civil rights movement was not about black versus white. it s about the poor and the powerless and this man deserves as much help as anyone. could anyone who had listened, who would have listened to the entire story have thought of you as a racist? i don t think they would have. anyone most people would not have known me, but if they had looked at the entire tape, i just don t see how they could have come away with it thinking i was a racist. i don t know who to blame here, ms. sherrod. the activist who put forward this garbage in the first place has an agenda. we shouldn t be surprised by that. the cable news network who played this on and on and talked about it, we shouldn t be surprised by that. i am shocked at the naacp, i have to admit, that they did not investigate further before condemning you and i m shocked at the obama administration for not putting an investigation in place either. can you give me your thoughts on that? yes. i was particularly hurt by the naacp s reaction to it because they you know, i put years, all of my life has been about civil rights work and fairness and if they had just taken the time to look at it, to see, to look at me, to see what i ve done, i m certain they would not have come out with that first statement. but i can appreciate the fact that they now have looked at it, they ve seen, and come up with a new statement. and as for the obama a administration, why do you think the secretary of agriculture acted so quickly in this situation? you know, that is so hard to take especially when i kept saying look at the entire thing. look at my message and no one would listen. no one would listen. the naacp, ms. sherrod, now calls this a teachable moment. what lessons have you learned? oh, gosh. you know, it s the outpouring of support has just been great for me. i don t know that i would have done anything different because this is just me. this is my life. it s all about fairness. and then to not be treated fairly, you know, in this whole situation, it s just something hard to deal with. the door seems to be open a little bit to you getting your old job back. do you want to walk through that door? you know, i am just not sure of how i would be treated there now. that s one i just don t know at this point. shirley sherrod, i thank you for your time this morning. thank you. david gregory is moderator of meet the press. david, good morning to you. good morning, matt. so when the administration and the agriculture department or the secretary first saw this edited version of this story, they went into full damage control and didn t bother to check if there was legitimate damage created. it s pretty striking, and i think your interview only underscores that. they had an opportunity to look at the full tape just like news outlets did. they had an opportunity to talk to ms. sherrod to try to get a sense of the context here and that s a key word. we live in a time. when he was defending and explaining some of the comments made by reverend wright, such a huge controversy, he took pains at that point to put that incident into a greater context about race in america. and yet in this case the administration acted so quickly when what was necessary here was some context. do they almost have to offer her her job back? i think it s going to be difficult not to if they have a real re-assessment of all the facts here and certainly it s been indicated by white house officials and the agriculture department they re willing to do that. i ve been told by senior administration officials the president certainly supports going back and looking at all the facts here. so, look, as the president often bemoans we re living in this 24-hour cable news cycle and he s often critical of that. they got caught up in that themselves here judging too quickly and taking the steps now to re-assess. david gregory, good to see you. thanks, matt. oops doesn t even describe what happened. what a mess. a check of the top stories from ann curry at the news desk. meredith and matt, good morning. good morning, everybody. also in the news the u.s. announced new sanctions against north korea announcing the sanctions in south korea. secretary of state hillary clinton said they will fund the nuclear weapons program. she and secretary gates visited the demilitarized zone. the cap is still holding this morning but now what? anne thompson tells us what is coming up. anne, good morning. reporter: good morning, ann. this seems like the test that will never end. that is fine with the people here as long as it keeps the oil from flowing into the gulf. but a potential problem moves just on the horizon. for six days now the ceiling cap has held back the oil, but there is trouble brewing in the caribbean. a tropical wave near puerto rico could become a tropical depression or storm by thursday closing the weather window at the leak site that has allowed crews to make so much progress. the probability is low at this time that there would be gale force wibdz. we re watching it very, very closely. reporter: bp is working on another way to stop the oil. this plan is called static kill, a low-pressure version of the unsuccessful top kill. bp wants to pump heavy drilling mud through the blow-out preventer with the sealing cap closed to plug the well. the government has yet to give the go-ahead. if it s approved to do so, it s 100% chance we ll go ahead with it. i think we ll have covered all of the risk analysis, all of the issues with the procedures and stuff. reporter: bp believes the well is stable and those five leaks have been detected. national incident commander allen dismissed them as drips. we found nothing that would be consequential towards the integrity of the well head to date. reporter: now the price tag for this cleanup is $4 billion and yesterday bp sold assets in the u.s., canada, and egypt to help pay the bill. ann? anne thompson this morning. anne, thanks. today the president will sign that new financial overhaul bill that s aimed at preventing another market meltdown. he says the bill includes the strongest consumer financial protections in history. health experts are urging the fda to stop endorsing the drug avastin for breast cancer. this after recent studies failed to show any benefits for breast cancer patients. and take a look at what happened when a fox got his head stuck in a chain link fence in california. lucky for him it happened near an ice cream store and there was a man willing to spoon feed him ice cream and milk so the fox was eventually able to free himself and an animal control officer said he was sure it s the cherry garcia that gave the fox the strength. look at that. there you go. it is cute. 7:18. let s go back to matt and good morning. things are pretty quiet right now there are showers are out there and there is a chance for thunderstorms this afternoon. some of those to be strong to severe. and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. british prime minister david cameron makes his first official visit to washington. his trip is being dominated by questions over bp s possible role in the release of the pan am flight bomber. cameron brushed off calls for an investigation but according to new york senator chuck schumer an investigation is still a possibility. michael isikoff is nbc s national investigative correspondent. good morning to you. let s review what we know. bp has acknowledged that in 2007 it urged the british government to approve a prisoner transfer agreement with libya, even said it knew that agreement, if everybody said it was okay, would help them in terms of an oil drilling deal with libya. it said it had nothing to do with the release of the lockerbie bomber al megrahi. you ve looked closely at this story. do you have any evidence that would indicate otherwise? a semantics game here because although bp says it never raised al megrahi s name, there was no question about the only libyan prisoner in a united kingdom jail who was at issue here who could be eligible for transfer and it was megrahi. the lockerbie bomber. right. what s really interesting and you ll see the senate, which is going to be holding hearings next week on this,cusing in on interesting aspects of it. the bp official who made the call to the british government to urge the transfer, mark allen, a former top british spymaster, former mi-6, chief of counterterrorism, this is the british version of the revolving door. the guy left mi-6, went to work for bp. he had a relationship with gadhafi. he was helping bp facilitate this oil deal which was front and center on both the british government s mind and bp s mind. and bp is keeping him away from the press right now. can he be forced to testify? well, look, a u.s. senate committee is not going to have the subpoena power over a british citizen but certainly you re going to see the senate. there will be somebody from bp invited. it s not clear who will show up but there will be a lot of questioning about mark allen s role and specifically how much and who bp lobbied in the british government. al megrahi was released for compassionate grounds because he had prostate cancer and a doctor said he would only live three months. in fact he s now lived almost a year since his release. a lot of questions about that medical report. you ve seen it. well, certainly when people actually read the contents of the medical report, family members and others are going to their blood would be boiling over this because there s exaggerated compassion for megrahi and his family. it talks about letting him return to libya, to allow him to reunite with his family. it will help with their coping with this illness. and medical evidence seems to be when you look at it closely highly suspect. michael isikoff, thank you so much. and coming up, she s only spent one night in jail. just ahead, why expecting a baby could make it tough for you getting a mortgage. plus the soup nazi returns and guess who was there for the opening. hair is in control for 3 days. call 800-for-avon to find a representative. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. here is sarah caldwell and traffic pulse 11. looking like rush hour with some of those delays falling into place. we have a vehicle fires at evans way being put out. fayette street and walton avenue, all the lights are out. be careful at the intersection. heaviest spot around the west side of security. 33 miles per hour is where you back down down towards edmondson on outer loop. 49 on southbound 95 out of the white marsh area. 15 minutes is your drive time to the west side stretch. 11-minute ride on southbound 95. here is a live view of traffic for you on the west side i-70. you can see the back up there. we will switch over to a live view of, but on the bw parkway. all of that is a volume-related. let s get the latest on the forecast from tony. things are pretty quiet for us. a couple of showers and sprinkles on the radar. some stuff moving across the lower eastern shore. nothing that is going to slow you down for the wednesday morning commute. let s take a look at the forecast as we head into the afternoon. there is a possibility of a few more thunderstorms popping up. we will keep an eye on that. high temperature of around 90 to 193. 92 to 93. 97 on saturday. a strong cold front will go through saturday night and sunday morning. be sure to check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. back at 7:55 with another live update. 7:30 now on this wednesday morning, july 21st, 2010. a large, energetic crowd sharing love with us. we ll head outside to say hello to them in just a bit. i m meredith vieira along side matt lauer. just ahead in this half hour, a lot of times when a couple is expecting, that s when they need to find a new and bigger home. that s right. these days some banks are now rejecting mortgage applications just because the woman is pregnant. is that fair? what do you do if you need a loan? we ll have advice from jean chatzky. plus, six teenagers have been charged with a suicide bullying case of phoebe prince. were other factors also at work in her life away from school that played a role in prince s tragic death. we ll have exclusive new details in the case. and viacom s chairman, sumner redstone, caught apparently trying to convince a reporter to give up a source on a story that put redstone in a less than favorable light. we ll hear that tape and check out the fallout in just a little while. but, we re going to begin with lindsay lohan s first night in jail and just how many she may have left. nbc s lee cowan is outside the jail in linwood, california, with more. lee, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, meredith. now the sheriff s department here is now saying that between the jail overcrowding situation here then time off for good behavior, lindsay lohan may not even serve a full two weeks behind bars. she could do as little as 13 days of that 90-day sentence. then it s straight off to rehab again. this morning lindsay lohan is just another inmate in a jumpsuit. after the kind of circuit you d expect from one of her court appearances. paparazzi on the ground, news choppers in the sky, even glitter thrown from the crowd. but inside court the big top came down, and a somber, tired looking lohan, sat speechless, waiting to be taken into custody. all cameras are ordered to be shut off. reporter: and when the time came, only a courtroom sketch artist was allowed to record the moment that lohan was taken away. she is scared as anyone would be but she is resolute and she s doing it. reporter: lohan was driven away in handcuffs to her new temporary home and booked like anyone else. no more jewelry, no more cell phones, and no way to tweet. inside it s business as usual. reporter: except for the fact lohan isn t with the rest of the women in this 2,200-bed facility. she is by herself, isolated in a 12 by 8 foot cell for the next two weeks. is that time enough? some former inmates say even a brief lockup can be a powerful tool. if she uses it to continue to blame everybody else, it s a hurdle. if she uses it to flip the switch and move forward, it s a good thing. it s transformative. reporter: no matter how long she serves, it s only part of her sentence. she faces a 90-day in-patient rehab. addicts who have been there before say a court order is often the only path to recovery. one of the only reasons why i m sober is because the courts committed me to either four years in prison or a year in rehab. as a result i m a convicted felon but i spent a year in rehab and that helped me hit a bottom and now stay sober. reporter: but hitting bottom is different for everyone and no one knows just how deep she is except lindsay lohan. she stepped up. she s accepted responsibility and that s really all i have to say. reporter: meredith, lindsay lohan will go directly from jail into that 90-day in-patient rehab. the judge said she wanted a quick transition there so you figure if she does roughly two weeks here then the 90 days in rehab, lindsay lohan technically won t be a free woman until sometime in the fall. meredith? lee cowan, thank you very much. what life is like behind bars, piper served 13 months in a prison for drug-related charges and wrote about it in her book orange is the new black. good morning to you. it s actually 11 months in prison and two months in jail and you really saw a difference. you preferred prison. there s a stark difference between a federal prison and a federal jail. between prison and any jail facility and i think that s a little surprising for folks. a jail is in many ways much more restrictive and much harder to sort of get the patterns of life that help you do your time when you re in a jail facility as opposed to a prison. spe of the 24 hours, lipped is it a very scary thing? she at this point has been through the very scary process of intake. literally shedding your skin, you know, giving up your clothes, obviously your jewelry, any possessions you have, taking on that uniform, you know, that baggy in her case orange uniform and becoming a prisoner. it is a transformation. it s not the first time she has been at linwood. she was there for about 84 minutes for her dui and that experience didn t really seem to faze her given what s happened since. as lee cowan pointed out, she may only be there two weeks, three weeks because of prison overcrowd i overcrowding. what impact can it really have? i think this will be a very different experience than her previous experience. an inmate.or experienced life she s going to be in 23-hour lockdown, protective custody, and segregated housing unit which is the shoe, the hold, not a good place to be. it s not a nice place to be. why? i think a lot of people would assume that s a much safer place for her to be, that if she were out within general prison population that someone might figure out it s lindsay lohan, let s take a shot at her. it it is a very secure place to be. she will certainly be safe. s not that the other prisonersce were the worst part of prison. quite the opposite. and i department like everyone i met in prison, but some of the women that i met and the things i learned from them were some of the only things of value you can really draw from the experience. i don t know that being locked in a room for 23 hours guarantees a change in lindsay. that will really rest with lindsay. what would you advise her to do in the time she is there? i would advise her to read every single book she can get her hands on, everything they allow her to have. i would advise her to write letters to the people who mean the most to her and to the people who have really been a strength to her and who have helped her and to really try to forge those bonds and think long and hard about what her next steps are. that s one of the things i do. piper, thank you so much for your perspective. thanks, meredith. now a check of the forecast from al. thank you very much, meredith. a warm one out here. we have a cutie. who is this? this is haley veazie. all right. very cute. we re from alabama. from mass valley. and from a cutie to crinkle. eclaires. calling the shots. very nice. tracy. nikki. what kind? oh, the pecan cheesecake. we like it. let s check your weather, shall we? as we look, we have tropical troubles out there. a tropical wave expected to strengthen the next 48 hours. head west/northwest. even if it doesn t become a storm it will cause problems for southern florida by friday. if it does become a storm we ll call it bonnie. afternoon temperatures, the heat is on down to the gulf coast. dallas 99. garden city 100. and that heat extends all the way into the southwest. the temperatures into 100 and teens. the northern plains, 80s and 90s in the northeast and another cutie. what s your name? kaitlyn. where are you from? and a good looking family. what s your name? the jacobs family. two good looking boys there. all right. now let s head back to matt. thanks so much. you think people would learn by now that if you leave something on a voice mail it can come back to haunt you. billionaire media mogul sumner redstone has just learned that lesson. nbc s mike taibbi explains. reporter: the article on the daily beast website was about a media mogul strong-arming a subordinate into producing a show he wanted on an all-girl band called electric barbarellas. then this voice mail. sumner redstone. i think you know i run viacom, and cbs, and mtv. reporter: sumner redstone, worth $9 billion and at 87 still a volatile force in broadcasting and entertainment, was after the source of peter lauria s story. i know you may be reluctant. we have to have the name of the person who gave you that story. we re not going to kill him. we just want to talk to him. we re not going to fire him. we just want to talk to him. we will protect you completely. reporter: it had a bit of a tone of that michael in the godfather. don t be afraid. come on. you think i make my sister a widow? reporter: but writer lauria s only concern was for his sources. my initial thought was, i have to make sure that they have cover and they re protected. i wasn t worried about me at all. reporter: a viacom official confirms it s sumner redstone s voice. said the spokesman, anyone who knows sumner and his history knows he s colorful, aggressive, extremely intelligent and passionate. this was just sumner being sumner. sumner being sumner fired tom cruise, former ceo tom preston in the past and now this. we re not going to hurt this guy. we want to sit him down and find out why he did it. you should be willing to cooperate, give us the name, and you will be well rewarded and well protected. sumner redstone s message to peter lauria is not crazy in the way mel gibson s tapes were crazy but it shows that maybe he doesn t have the same judgment that he once had 10, 20 years ago. reporter: viacom spokesman folta would only say leaving the voice mail was not a good idea. he ll have learned his lesson. for today, mike taibbi, nbc news, new york. we live in a world where nothing almost nothing you say just goes away. exactly. well, that s not going to go away. not for a while. up next, why expectant couples looking for a new home could have a tough time getting one. this is our pool. our fireworks. and our slip and slide. you have your idea of summer fun, and we have ours. now during the summer event get an exceptionally engineered e-class for 1.9 percent apr or lease one for $689 a month. one tribe, y all one tribe, y all one tribe, y all we are one people [ female announcer ] when you choose pepsi, you support the pepsi refresh project. which is giving away millions of dollars to refresh communities across america. one, one, one people [ female announcer ] so choose pepsi. one tribe, y all [ female announcer ] every pepsi refreshes the world. one, one, one people we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned an l.a. getaway twice as fast. we get double miles every time we use our card. no matter what we re buying. and since double miles add up quick. romans! get em! 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[ indistinct shouting ] there s oil out there we ve got to capture. my job is to hunt it down. i m fred lemond, and i m in charge of bp s efforts to remove oil from these waters. bp has taken full responsibility for the cleanup and that includes keeping you informed. every morning, over 50 spotter planes and helicopters take off and search for the oil. we use satellite images, infrared and thermal photography to map and target the oil. then, the boats go to work. almost 6,000 vessels. these are thousands of local shrimp and fishing boats organized into task forces and strike teams. plus, specialized skimmers from around the world. we ve skimmed over 27 million gallons of oil/water mixture and removed millions more with other methods. we ve set out more than 8 million feet of boom to protect the shoreline. i grew up on the gulf coast and i love these waters. we can t keep all the oil from coming ashore, but i m gonna do everything i can to stop it, and we ll be here as long as it takes to clean up the gulf. we re back at 7:44 this morning on today s money why it s tougher than ever to get a mortgage. rates are at historic lows but lending standards are so tough now that some banks are actually denying mortgages to families expecting a child. jean chatzky is today s financial editor. good morning to you. good morning. this comes from a story in the new york times yesterday. we ll talk about the instance of pregnancy in a second, but generally speaking how much tougher is it to qualify for a mortgage today than it was, say, two years ago before the economic meltdown? significantly. we re coming out of this era of loans where people didn t even have to document their income in order to get a very, very large mortgage. they could just say this is how much i earned and people were willing to take their word for it. and banks learned their lesson and they got punished for that. that s right. now enter this situation. you re a family. you re a woman. you re pregnant. you want a mortgage. you want to move up to a better house or buy your first home. the very fact the woman in a family is pregnant now can be a real deterrent to that family getting a loan. what the lenders are saying is we need to see income and we need to see income not just now but that will generally last for the next three years. these are standards set by fannie mae and freddie mac and the banks are adhering to these standards and they re checking on your income not just when you apply and qualify for the loan but before you close which can lead to problems. and because studies will show that a certain percentage of women who have children do not return to the workforce. they stay at home and become stay-at-home moms so then that family loses half the income or a percentage of income. or if you qualified based on your income and your spouse s income, you had the baby, you re on maternity leave, now you go to close, the bank can say to you, well, you don t have that anymore. first of all, so a family that is expecting a child on their own need to ask some difficult questions. you know, will we be able to afford this loan down the road? but if they come up with the answer of yes, even if the mother does not go back to work, we can still afford it, what do they do? it do they hide the pregnancy? even if the mother or the father doesn t go back to work you can still afford it, then qualify for that loan based on the single income to just eliminate the problem. but if you know you re going to be going back to work and you are going to be needing and receiving both of those incomes, get a note from your doctor that this is when it s okay to go back to work, get a note from your employer that this is what your salary will be when you go back to work. so the pregnancy issue is just one example of how tough it is to get a mortgage. talk about credit ratings and credit scores and how that is impacting people today in their attempt to get a mortgage. you have new data out this week that 25% of people now have credit scores of 599 or below. so they ve fallen below 600. and that s the lowest category of credit scores. people in that category are not going to qualify in many cases for mortgages for car loans and if they do qualify they ll pay significantly more. what s the take home message here? a, keep your credit up. don t use any more than 10% to 30% of the available credit you have on those credit cards. that should take your score up. if you re a family and expecting a child, bite off as much as you can chew? is. make sure that you can actually afford it once you go back to work because the worst case is you buy a home, you can t afford it and then we see what happens to people. jean chatzky, thank you very much. 48 after the hour. still ahead, were there other factors besides bullying at play in the tragic suicide of phoebe prince? we re going to have the latest on that story. it s pain relief without the pills. no pills, no pain. how can you get pain relief without taking pills around the clock? try thermacare heatwraps, for all day relief without pills. i was surprised, thermacare worked all day. you feel the heat. and it relaxes and unlocks the muscle. you ve got to try it. 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[ male announcer ] share your toyota story on facebook.com/toyota. have you tried honey bunches of oats with real strawberries? wow. it s seriously strawberry. they re everywhere. it s in the bunches, on the flakes, even real strawberries in the mix. can i have some more? honey bunches of oats with real strawberries. it s delicious. nobody does it quite like us. [trumpet playing reveille throughout] reviving the economy means reinventing the way we do business. here s to the owners showing us the way. [trumpet playing reveille fades to silence] live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. at time to get another check of the morning commute. just got a little bit busier for motorists on the j.f.x. in the northbound direction. at coldspring lane, we have an accident blocking the left lane. definitely not out, but it may impact traffic southbound as well. fayette street and milton avenue, traffic lights out at that intersection. use extra caution getting through there. on the north side, looking at those delays from harford towards the harrisburg expressway. if you are going to travel on the west side outer loop, 30 miles per hour on average through that stretch. 19 minutes on the outer loop west side. 15-minute drive time on the northeast outer loop. here is a live view of the west side at old court road, going away from us is out of the traffic is out early traffic. we will switch over to a live view of traffic north of o donnell. everything is running smoothly here. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. things are pretty quiet this morning. a couple of light showers and spiegel s popping up on the radar grid showers and sprinkles popping up on the radar. this afternoon, we could see some more thunderstorms popped up. a mixture of sunshine and clouds, warm and humid. some of these could be strong to severe. high temperatures in the low 90s. seven-day forecast, hotter before it gets better. the heat index over 100 to start the weekend. a front should go through on sunday. as always, you can check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. we re back at 8:25 with another live update. we re back now 8:00 on a wednesday morning, the 21st day of july, 2010. that was al roker saying hi to some of his friends out on the plaza on what looks to be a beautiful day here in new york city. if these people come back on friday they ll be treated to a concert by one of the great singers/songwriters of this day. that is john mayer. he will be live in our 8:30 hour this friday morning. should be a great show. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira and al roker. and coming up, you have some new information that n that tragic story we covered for quite a while, the suicide, the bullying death of phoebe prince. the 15-year-old who committed suicide in january. six of her classmates have been charged in connection with the case, but did the teens problems extend far beyond high school and the bullying incidents? coming up an exclusive look at newly attained court documents that are very revealing. also ahead, i hope we all agree, a much more positive story a. young man who is only one of ten people in this country to receive a new kind of bionic hand. he is going to be here to show us how it has changed his life and it s changed it dramatically. there s michael right there. that is quite something. something he couldn t do a short time ago. amazing. and a little bit later on more fallout from the surprise announcement of the engagement of bristol palin to levi johnston. now it looks like for some reason, and we ll find out why, that marriage may be put off for a little bit. before we go any further, let s get a check of the top stories of the morning. ann is at the news desk with all the headlines. ann, good morning. thanks a lot, matt, and all of you this morning. today on this broadcast a government official at the center of the new storm of controversy after being accused of racism said that she s not certain she wants her job back. shirley sherrod said she was pressured to quit after a speech describing her reluctance to help a white farmer. it was the video was used to vilify her on fox television, she lost her job. then a video of the full speech backing sherrod s story that she was actually explaining how she overcame her own prejudices. it also turns out the incident happened 24 years ago and that she helped the farmer who today says she helped him save his farm. the white house has encouraged the agriculture secretary to review the case. severe turbulence at a united airlines jet last night injured at least 25 people, one of them critically. the cross-country flight from los angeles to los angeles was diverted to denver. witnesses said that passengers and crew members were thrown so violently around the cabin, some hit their heads on the ceiling. a 12-year-old girl was swept away by floodwaters near flagstaff, arizona, tuesday, and drowned. county emergency officials warn 900 people to seek higher ground as heavy rain fell on an area ravaged by wildfires last month. secretary of state hillary clinton announced new sanctions today to curb north korea s nuclear program and its aggressive behavior to south korea. secretary clinton and defense secretary gates toured the demilitarized zone in a strong show of support for the south. meantime, china expressed deep concern today about joint u.s./south korean military exercises which are scheduled for next week. overseas markets are mostly higher today. cnbc s erin burnett is at the new york stock exchange keeping a close eye on fed chairman ben bernanke today. erin, good morning. reporter: ben bernanke is the person to watch. everyone on wall street wants to hear what he s going to say. in his testimony to congress this afternoon, how will he answer the question about how big the risk is that america is going to fall back into recession? does he think the fed needs to do something else to try to help the economy and perhaps, most important, does he think this economy is going to start adding jobs on a massive scale? those are big questions everyone will be waiting to hear the answers to that. another bright spot, ann, maybe he ll think about this. apple says the economy is doing just fine, thank you very much. ipad sales through the roof, and apple knocking it out of the park on earnings. at least people want those gadgets. back to you. erin burnett, thank you so much. now brian williams. brian? hey, ann, good morning and thanks. as you may know the blue fin tuna is in big trouble. they were already threatened by overfishing. now along comes the gulf oil spill. they could disappear entirely. we ll have a progress report on nightly news. back to you. it is now 8:04. back outside for a check of the weather with al. thank you so much. we have these nice folks from florida. they brought some flowers. well, thank you very much. would you like a smile. that s very nice. here you go. some nice flowers for you and these nice people from las vegas. let s check your weather, see what s happening. salt lake city, ksl-5 sizzling, 100 degrees today. we are looking at a risk of strong storms in the northeast all the way back into the central plains along a frontal system, low-pressure area going to be causing some problems. we are off to a fairly quiet start. there s a chance for a shower thunderstorm again today. that will be mostly this afternoon. some storms developing later today could be and that s your latest weath weather. matt? still to come, did more than just bullying factor into the tragic death of 15-year-old phoebe prince? exclusive new details in the case. wow! chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy, with a 100,000 mile, powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably - not that it always has to. now, get 0% apr for 60 months on a 2010 traverse with an average finance savings of around fifty seven hundred. see your local chevy dealer. 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 new chips ahoy made with reese s peanut butter cups are here. our real chocolate chips. and reese s peanut butter cups. crammed into one exciting new cookie. so now, more than ever, there s a lotta joy in chips ahoy! so now, more than ever, copd doesn t just make it hard to breathe. it makes it hard to do a lot of things. and i m a guy who likes to go exploring . get my hands dirty. and try new things. so i asked my doctor if spiriva could help me breathe better. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled maintenance treatment for both forms of copd. which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva keeps my airways open. to help me breathe better for a full 24 hours. and it s not a steroid. spiriva does not replace fast acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. stop taking spiriva and call your doctor right away if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, have vision changes or eye pain. or have problems passing urine. tell your doctor if you have glaucoma, problems passing urine or an enlarged prostate. as these may worsen with spiriva. also discuss the medicines you take. even eye drops. side effects include dry mouth, constipation and trouble passing urine. i m glad i m taking spiriva everyday because breathing better is just better. ask your doctor if once-daily spiriva is right for you. they used to spend hours on the couch, watching t.v., playing video games. and with all you hear about childhood obesity, i was concerned. now i take a more active role in their health like insisting on lots of play time and making sure they eat right. like when i make burgers i use lean jennie-o ground turkey. i m proud i got them off the couch. well, sort of. anncr: be well. with all the great tasting ways to eat lighter. only from jennie-o. love to see kids spirits shine. superstar and mom, martina mcbride and sunny d sunny taste. sunny spirit. sunny d. brings out the best in kids. sunny d we are back now at 8:09 with the new details in the bullying/suicide case of phoebe prince. she s the 15-year-old who took her own life back in january allegedly after being tormented by a group of classmates. today national correspondent amy robach is in south hadley, massachusetts, with the latest. amy, good morning to you. reporter: good morning to u you. phoebe prince moved here to get a fres new start. newly obtained court documents show phoebe prince was deeply troubled before she ever set foot in south hadley high school. it was a story that made headlines around the country, a warning about cruelty and the dangers of bullying. phoebe prince, 15 years old, beautiful and smart, committed suicide after months of relentless torment by her high school classmates. a car with a couple of kids in it, throws a drink calling her an irish slut, an irish whore, why don t you kill yourself, and she did. reporter: the so-called mean girls, four girls who reportedly saw phoebe as a romantic rival along with two popular boys she dated. in the days leading up to phoebe s death prosecutors say the mean girls bullied her so often phoebe hanged herself at home to escape the torture. from information known to investigators thus far it appears phoebe s death on january 14th followed a torturous day for her in which she was subjected to verbal harassment and threatened physical abuse. reporter: all six accused bullies have been criminally charged with felonies and could face years in prison. but court documents recently obtained by emily vaselton of slate tell a different story, one that suggests the teen s troubles extended beyond the halls of south hadley high. the most surprisingly involved her mental health history because that really hadn t been disclosed. reporter: the documents revealed that in november of last year phoebe attempted suicide swallowing an antidepressant drug and going into organ failure. also detailed in the documents, phoebe had taken prozac and had a history of cutting herself. an interview with a classmate shows the extent of phoebe s self-mutilation describing how she, quote, lifted up her hoodie and showed cuts on her chest above her bra and all the way down to her hips. it changes how we might think about what happened to her in south hadley as a result of the bullying and how much the kids who bullied her couldn t really be held responsible for her sue sued. reporter: there s no question the bullying was taking its toll on phoebe a. text message sent on the day of her death threatening suicide. quote, i can t do it anymore. i m literally home crying. what more do they want from me? do i have to od? also a note asking for forgiveness. the six teenagers who have been indicted are faces charges from statutory rape and will get under way this september. amy robach, thank you very much. amy, who you just saw in that piece is with us exclusively, the senior editor for slate. emily, good morning to you. good morning. in the media the cause of phoebe s suicide has been linked basically to a back of jealous predatory kids who acted en masse because phoebe was new to the school and very popular with boys. the d.a. described it as a nearly three-month campaign of relentless and torturous bullying. after reviewing the grand jury report, you found something quite different, didn t you. right. i was looking at police interviews and i ve also done a lot of interviews with students and, you know, there were a couple of conflicts that phoebe had with different kids. she got involved with a boy named shawn and that made his girlfriend upset. and another boy, austin, and that made his girlfriend upset. this was sort of normal girl drama until really right before she died, the last day of her death when the bullying really became serious. so none of the kids you talked to or school administrators thought she was unfairly targeted by kids? they thought there was a reason for it? well, that she was involved in these conflicts, that it s more complicated than predatory pack of kids descending on her and that there are different levels of culpability of the kids. there were really only three kids involved in bullying her on the day that she died. the other three kids no one says were anywhere near her the week before her death. and yet they have all within charged. and facing serious felony charges. from your research you do not believe the facts justify that criminal retribution? it s hard to see how that is the right solution in the case which isn t to say terrible blame department happen here or that this death isn t tragic. just the notion of criminally charging six teenagers in a way that blames them for the death of the girl who had this much more history. in pushing for those charges, one of the reasons he did so was because the school had dropped the ball in terms of dealing with bullying. did the school do enough? i mean, they knew phoebe had a past history of some serious problems. her mom alerted the school to that. they knew she had tried to commit suicide right after thanksgiving. right. so there was a counselor on nurse in regular contact with phoebe and her mother, between her suicide attempt in november and her death, and the question is whether the school should have been doing more than that, whether there should have been a broader effort. i don t feel i know the answer to that. it s a really hard question. certainly i think that after phoebe s death, the school bungled the public relations aspect of this case. they were bound by confidentiality laws not to explain not to say what discipline they were imposing but they didn t do a very good job of making that message come across clearly and the community really parts of it lost confidence. do you think part of this was just an impulse on people to place the blame somewhere? yes. i think this is a really sad, awful thing, and i think we do have this strong impulse to want to point fingers and have a clear explanation, a very clear black and white narrative for what happened in this case. and it s just more complicated than that. and right now they are heading into pretrial situation in the fall, are people in town, is it more about phoebe or is it about these kids and maybe some injusti injustice? i think it s more about phoebe and one reason for that is when you have criminal arges in a case like this you really shut down honest conversation. lawyers get involved. it becomes very difficult to apologize, hard for people to take any responsibility. so the town, i think, really has not had an honest conversation about these charges, you know, what these particular kids did versus some sort of broader failure of the adults in the community or a broader problem nationally. maybe they will take the time to address it. thanks for having me. up next, the young man whose life has been changed by a new bionic hand. oh, love me oh oh oh just love me oh oh oh just hold me oh oh oh just kiss me oh oh oh just want me l-o-v-e love, love, love, love l-o-v-e love, love, love, love [ female announcer ] feel the refreshing burst of flavor in the new real fruit smoothies from mccafé. strawberries and bananas blended to perfection with creamy yogurt. a small for just $2.29! the simple joy of real fruit smoothies. when pain keeps you up, nothing is proven to help you fall asleep faster than advil pm liqui-gels. rushing real liquid relief to ease you to sleep fast. for nighttime pain, make advil pm your #1 choice. over a thousand people a day are switching to chevy. they like that vehicles like the 2010 malibu, traverse and silverado half-ton have each been named a consumers digest best buy. they like that chevy backs the quality with a one-hundred-thousand mile powertrain warranty. they re not just trading in, they re trading up. qualified lessees now get a low mileage lease on this malibu ls for around one ninety-nine a month. call for details. the switch begins at chevydealer.com. let s raise a glass to cookies just out of the oven. to the morning bowl of cereal. and to lactaid® milk. easy to digest and with all the calcium and vitamin d of regular milk. [ female announcer ] lactaid®. the original lactose-free milk. announcer: today s health is brought to you by nicorette. quitting sucks. nicorette makes it suck less. we re back with 8:20 on today s health. a new technology that s opened doors for a special young man. we ll talk to him in a moment. but first, nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman has his amazing story. good morning. it s an amazing story for a very amazing young man. michael waldrin, one of ten people to get a new type of bionic hand, a great advancement in the field of pros thetics. when i was younger, making friends was tough just because some kids would see the hand before they would see my personality. that was the hardest part of growing up having to always kind of try to teach people to look past that. today is the day 18-year-old michael never thought he would see. he was born with a congenital malformation that robbed him of four fingers on one hand. he doesn t deserve that. he s such a good boy. you always want your kid to be popular or normal or whatever. it s hard when he comes home and says, you know, somebody called him stubby or piggly wiggly and there s nothing you can do. that s the hardest part. he has to learn to deal with that on his own. and that s exactly what he s done. from playing in the orchestra to starting for his high school lacrosse team, michael has taken his birth defect and learned how to adapt. i use a lot of rubber bands, duct tape, i think a coat hanger. if somebody tells me i can t do something, it just makes me work twice as hard to figure out how to do it. today low tech meets high tech. he s getting a bionic hand and for the first time it will help with a partial hand amputation and allow each finger to move independently. this is the first device externally powered, it has power from a battery. if we give an input signal to one of the electrodes, that information is being sent down into the processor and then to the fingers. little things that many of us take for granted michael is learning to do for the first time. wow. and two weeks after getting his hand, another milestone. michael graduated from high school. graduation is huge. you know, the exchanges, the new lives. and grasping the new life with the new prosthetic, how amazing is that? that s the whole package right there. michael is here with his mom, fran. good morning to both of you. hey, michael, how are you doing? i m good, how are you. i m great. how long have you had this? a little over a month. how does it feel? it takes a lot of getting used to. i picked it up. the learning curve is pretty quick? definitely. you had become expert at learning to do things with one hand or adapt to the hand you had, your right hand, and now you re learning to do things as a two-handed person. yes. i m pretty much working backwards. it definitely is different from the norm. this isn t a quiz but let s talk about how you use it, how adept you are and how small an object you can actually pick up with it. can you show me some things? well, one of the things according to the programming is if i hold an open signal i can actually go into a pinch to where i can pick up smaller things like this block. if i can get hold of it. and the way you re doing that, you can show me with this arm here by flexing these muscles in here. when i say the open signal it s pretty much just as if you were opening your fingers how this muscle here would open then that electric pulse is picked up by a sensor right here and then if i go to close there s another sensor on this side. interesting. you were born right-handed, right? yes. you were born with trying to use the hand that was least able to help you. yes. and now i understand you re going back to trying some things right-handed. yes. when you re born with a condition like this you have to go through therapy and that s how they realized i was supposed to be right-handed so i had to work around that and learn how to write and do everything with my left happened. can you pick up the box of tissues because your mom is a cryer. this is very emotional. this is what i dreamt of the last 18 years, you know, for finally there was something out there that could help him, make life a little bit easier. you really decided that he would have to face these challenges in many ways on his own. you didn t sit there and go out and fight his battles and teach him how to do things or do things for him. you felt it was important for him to figure things out. absolutely. i ve always given him the opportunity to try anything and everything he s wanted to do. and he figured it out on his own. and apparently michael, from what i read about your mom and what she said in the piece, you re someone who has always maintained a pretty incredible attitude through all of this. we have every confidence, nancy, this is going to be a life changer for him. absolutely. smart. a good candidate for this. fabulous candidate and young and that helps with the adaptation. michael, congrats. it s a pleasure. fran, more tissues. there you go. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. let s get a final check of the morning commute with sarah caldwell. dealing with problems in j.f.x. in the northbound direction. the accident is being cleared and the left lane. there are some delays as you can see developing. there are delays in the southbound direction opposite the accident scene. fayette street and walton avenue, and accident in the dundalk vicinity. this begins from belair towards the harrisburg expressway. 22 miles per hour south of j.f.x. through the beltway. some delays on southbound 795. one more accident worth mentioning, sought i-95 towards the capital beltway, prior to that at powder mill road, at risen accident being reported. it is starting to thin out towards i-70. sandy point, it disabled vehicle reported on the bay bridge. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. over to you, tony. things are quiet this morning. a couple of the sprinkles on hd doppler. this afternoon, we have the possibility of some thunderstorms or redeveloping, kind of like yesterday. some of those could be as strong to severe. a mixture of sunshine and clouds, a chance to get a shower and thunderstorm. 40% mark on it, especially this afternoon. high temperatures in the low 90s. it will get caught before it gets cooler. it will get hot to before it gets cooler. chance for a few scattered showers and thunderstorms on sunday as the cold front goes by. that should get rid of the heat. we look forward to temperatures dropping back into the 80 s on monday and tuesday. we will have another update at 8:55. 8:30 now on this wednesday morning, july 21st, 2010. where does the time go? summer feels like it is flying by. it s a beautiful morning out here on the plaza. and just ahead in this hour, we ll get some design advice from nate berkus telling us about color, how to infuse color into your home, even if you re like me and very frightened of the notion of color. i m. white wall kind of gal. embrace the color. also ahead, do you set curfews for your kids? yes. yes, yes, yes? they don t always keep them. i m not great. now that they re in college it s very hard. good luck with that. yeah. it can be a bone of contention for kids. it can be tough for parents. what age do they start? what should the punishment be if the child breaks the curfew? we ll talk about that in just a couple of minutes. i think we can all use advice on that. also, by the way, if you watched the seinfeld episodes you probably know who we re talking about in these pictures, the soup nazi. no soup for you. that s right. and the man who inspired that is back in business and look who was there for the first day, for the grand opening. meredith loves soup. i used to go there all the time back in the days i worked at cbs and i would be so scared, literally really? did he remember you? he wasn t there. no soup for me. they didn t yesterday while i was there but they used to. the soup is so good. but it s too hot for soup. somebody else who is very hot, selena gomez has a hot career and she has a new family film called ramona and beezus. you were a big fan. i read them in third grade and then in fourth grade and now i get to do the movie. how does that feel? it s an hop honor. i was terrified. she didn t want anyone to turn these books into a movie. it s an honor to be a part of it. and proof of what a great actress, beezus is the straight a student. i didn t make that straight a in school but i did my best. she s a goody two shoes and since meredith says straight as, which one of us do you think was the biggest goody two shoes? do you mean like straight as? straight as, you know what are you talking about? it s did he haefinitely ann. you would be a straight a student. i didn t always get straight a. the smiley faces. they weren t smiley faces, they were hearts. okay. enough of that. stop ridiculing me. let s talk about you. it sounds like a real labor of love. you had this connection when you were younger and you get to work with this really cute she is 10 and she will make you cry. she is beyond talented. i was blown away the entire time i was shooting with her. she gave you sisterly advice all the time. she gave me advice about everything. i was going through a break yum and i started dating someone else and she goes, sweetie, don t you think it s too soon? she s so smart. like she s way smart. is it true you will be leaving the wizards of waverly place ? we don t see a future just yet with it but we ll see. do you have a second album coming out? my second album is called the year about rain. it will come out this fall before school. what a talent. how old are you? do you mind my asking? i turn 18 tomorrow. happy birthday. thank you. so much talent. birthday tomorrow. movie opens on friday. a good month for me. thank you so much. mr. roker? yes, let s check your weather. what have you done recently? really nothing compared to selena. i m a slacker compared to her. let s check it out today. storms all the way from new england back to the plains. in the pacific northwest, warm through the southwest. storms in the upper things should be pretty quiet to start the day today. there is a chance for a shower or thunderstorm, but that will be mostly this afternoon. some of the storms late and they ro that s your latest weather. you can get your weather any time of the day or night weather channel on cable or online. matt? oh, uncle willie. that s right. i saw matt walking away, i m thinking take a look if you will at the strawberry jam jar. 111 years old, bernice madigan. worked for the government for years during world war i. honored at a museum. and we have adrian allen. adrian is a handsome devil from wilmington, north carolina, 100 years old. attributes his longevity to staying active outdoors. enjoys playing bingo. mary millen of powersville, missouri. she s 100 years old today and a retired teacher who taught on an air force base in spain and an avid reader to boot. gussie levine of monsey, new york, writes children s books and all the proceeds to st. jude s children s hospital. fantastic. and altus davidson of stroud, oklahoma, 100 years old. claims his longevity is accepting the good lord when he was just a kid growing up. eleanor anderson of orlando, florida, is 100 years old. stays active. loves doing different crafts. rosalind weil, san diego, california. 100. hosts bridge parties for her neighbors on a weekly basis on the weekends and loves being outdoors and watching birds. you can t beat the combination. that s it. play some more bridge. now back to little new york. all right, willard. thank you very much. when we come back, how a splash of color can freshen up any room. nate berkus will show us how. this morning on today s home color, changing the look does not need to be a major home renovation. some paint and creative thinking can go a long way. nate berkus is an interior design expert and host of the nate berkus show. it s great to have you. i was just saying to you in the break, i m one of those people very scared of color. i go into a store and there are so many options. it s paralysis. you re in the paint aisle and no one know what is to do. you say not to be afraid. what i say it this. everyone thinks when you want to incorporate color into your home you have to paint the entire room or you have to commit to buying a sofa in red. that s not the case. the best way of doing it is through pops of color, through paints that are inexpensive, quick, and some creative things people don t think of. speaking of creative, let s start with this. this is a book case. it s all white except for the inside right there. favorite decorator inside trick, meredith, of all time. you can use this in kitchen cabinets or a book case you buy from a big box retailer, paint the back. bookshelves are mott just for books. they re for our picture frames, our mementoes, things like that. when you add a great splash of color like this turquoise, that makes everything more important. it makes everything pop. absolutely. so what s cool about that this is something you can literally do in a few hours. you take everything out, take the shelves out, paint the back, and you ve just brought color into your room without a big commitment. a picture of a floor you painted orange, of all things. talk about not being afraid of color. well, i m allowed to be bold, i guess. i have permission. so if you buy a house, the floors are crummy or there s a rug on top and you remove it and the floors are bad, you don t automatically have to replace the floor. people spend a lot of money refinishing floors and sanding and sealing and they think it s a weekend project and it turns into a ten-year project and then there s marital issues. so the truth of the matter is that if you ve got hardwood floors and they have a bad finish on them or they re in bad condition, one of the things that i ve done in my interior is i ll grab a gallon of paint. you have to ask the expert in the paint department what the best is. you can pick any color. i ve chosen a great green here. i painted my floors white because they were in bad condition and it changes the whole feel of the space. any color will work? any color. you just have to make sure it s sealed probably. that way it won t chip or fade. let s move on to accent pieces. this is where i incorporate color into my home. a lot of people think that. people think immediately, pillows or a throw and that will be my color or fresh flowers, which is great. but another way of doing it, and these pieces are a great deal. these are both from ikea. the chair was unpainted and it was unfinished wood and it was 20 bucks. which is great. isn t that great? i paint it had bright yellow and this is like a pop of color. you can repaint it some day if you don t like it anymore. again, it s not a big commitment. it s a much cooler way. and we have a picture of a room that s classic until you put that yellow chair in there. the yellow chair, the pops of color are the things that take that to another level and everyone can do that. everyone can absolutely make that decision on their own. okay. and any kind of paint in particular that s best for these? you know what semigloss? i like it on furniture because it has a sheen and looks better. again, this table, ikea table, under 100 bucks. it comes in red. you don t have to paint it. no work but a great way to bring in color. and finally head boards. a picture of one from one of the magazines that is yellow actually. you can take a simple room and with a head board change everything. that s all black and white and gray, that room, and with that bright pop of yellow, that s what makes it an interior that looks like it s, you know, been professionally done. and so that s the way to incorporate color that makes it look like you ve hired a professional. and not just color but fabric, too. this is a blue velvet. you experimented with the fabric. i m a velvet fan. call me elvis. the thing about velvet, it s a great fabric because it s a very deep fabric so this beautiful blue looks great in a room of all neutrals and velvet retains the color. it looks rich. for somebody just starting out to incorporate colors into their rooms, the number one piece of advice, do you start small with something simple? absolutely. look at your wardrobe, your favorite dress. a favorite sweater. take the color from that. paint the back of your book case. buy an accent table or, you know, a chair like that and see how you like living with it. sometimes i bring flowers in and see whether that color works. is that good? that s a great way. i love fresh flowers. i think it s a nice thing we do to honor ourselves even if it s from the grocery store for a couple of dollars next to the sink in the morning makes you smile. you make me smile. good advice. now i m not so scared. by the way, the show premieres september 13th. up next, how to set curfew for your kids without starting world war ii. back now at 8:47. this morning on today s family setting curfews for your kids. believe it or not, it can be done in a way that will minimize the fussing and the fighting. david swanson is a clinical psychologist, father of three and author of help my kid is driving me crazy: the 17 ways kids manipulate their parents and what you can do about it. hey, david, nice to see you. you say when setting a curfew for your kids or deciding on a curfew for your kids, three things should come into play, safety, better interest, and situational happiness. these are three inate parental desires. as parents we want our kids to be safe. we want to look out for their better interests and future and see them be happy. when we try to set a curfew, we see they re not happy so this creates a conflict. as a parent you should always put safety first. you ll hear some parents, the more lenient parents say, wait a second, i m not going to set a curfew for my kids until they prove they need one. in other words, until they screw up. is that a good approach? no. it s a horrible approach. why? curfews keep kids safe so we want them back at a reasonable hour, but it says more than that. i m working with a 17-year-old right now and his parents were divorced some years back. at this point he wants nothing to do with his mother. i asked him, what happened? what went wrong? he said, i never felt she cared about me. the example he uses over and over and over again is the idea that she didn t care when he came home. parents who say i don t have a curfew because i trust you and know you re a responsible individual is doing a disservice to the child? i wouldn t say she is doing a disservice but is expose that go child to an unnecessary safety risk. i mean, we both have kids and i m going to ask you, what good comes about for any kid after 11:00 p.m.? mine are 9, 6 and 3. they re not out until 11:00. what s appropriate? i think 16 is really when the idea of a curfew becomes front and center. this is a typical driving age and so for a 16-year-old we re looking at 9:00 or 10:00 curfew. for a 17-year-old maybe 10:00 or 11:00. for an 18-year-old, midnight. how often have parents heard the lie where a child comes home and they say, you know, joey s mom lets him stay out until midnight. mike s mom lets him stay out until 1:00 in the morning. it doesn t necessarily mean that it s true but how does a parent deal with it? it s so funny because we all deal with that. the kids want to pose the example of others pit you against other parents. this is character comparison. always put safety first and happiness last and stick to your guns. you may even want to set up a meeting with other parents and set up a similar curfew so you don t have to struggle in the future. many people relax the curfews at this time. how do you get kids geared back up for school? start about two weeks out. get things back into the typical routine so this has to do with everything, not just curfew but the video games under control. if your kid had a bunch of schoolwork to get done, get that done because they will sleep in and get them up earlier. that s the trick. send your kids off to college, all of a sudden they have no curfew and then come back to your home for the summer. do you impose a curfew again? i think you do. you re hoping with that kurfy few, by the way, they ve internalized it and it s a good message they get to bed on time and do well at their studies in school. you just created a problem in meredith s home. nice to see you. thank you. the book is help, my kid is driving me crazy. the return of the so-called saup nazi and meredith just happened to be there. do you have a favorite seinfeld episode? of course. i think the one about the soup man. is that what we re going to talk about? they are real and they re spectacular. that was one line. what was the episode? that was the episode. that s it. when you double dip. the double dip episode, you re putting your whole month into the salsa. and mine was the bet. master of your domain. puffy shirt. for many fans, it was the soup nazi and now the man who infired ti inspired the episode is back in business. peter alexander has the details. excuse me, i think you forgot my bread. bread $2 extra. $2? everyone in front of me got free bread. you want bread? yes, please. $3. what? no soup for you. reporter: for the last six years there s been no soup for anyone, not since the inspiration behind that unforgettable seinfeld closed up shop at his iconic store. gazpacho, please. spanish. adios. reporter: but now the original soup man who has long blind the soup nazi nickname is an insult is back. they had a deejay, dancers, fine, one dancer. soup s on, right? reporter: a yankee slugger and a television legend. not that one. do you have your money ready? i have my money ready. reporter: of course nothing says cool and refreshing on a sweltering new york summer day like a hot, steaming bowl of turkey chili. bread? beautiful. you re pushing your luck, little man. reporter: and apparently we were pushing our luck to think that the man behind the soup would show up to his own reopening. he departmeidn t. chickenvegetables. reporter: no vegetables? no soup for you. lining up from norway, egypt, even as far away as new jersey. no soup for you [ bleep ]. reporter: but, fortunately in the end hi there. no bread. there was soup for all of us. how is it? delicious. reporter: i hear you. we all found a favorite. turkey chili is fantastic. really good. what s it called? very good. they re all good. golden raisins. in a bad mood, i don t know. shouldn t be after that. the cups are smaller. the shrinkage. only on today the incredible lady gaga. then enrique turned up the heat. this friday john mayer. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. the fate of a proposed casino in anne arundel county will fall in the hands of voters. the maryland court of appeals has ruled that a referendum can go forward on the measure. the court made a ruling within hours of hearing arguments from attorneys on tuesday. the court needed to render a fast ruling to make sure that the referendum is added in time now let s take a look at the forecast with tony pann. again today we have the possibility of showers and thunderstorms. we should see the light showers, if anything, this morning. late in the afternoon there is the possibility of strong thunderstorms again. otherwise, a mixture of sunshine and clouds. high temperatures in the low 90s. it will get father before it gets better. but the time we get to it will get caught before it gets better. but the time we get it saturday, the 100th in public places. back into the 80s that by monday and tuesday of next week. we will have another update at 9:25. at 9:25. he inherited a $1.7 billion budget deficit. then an economic crisis. but martin o malley went to work. cutting $5 billion in waste and government spending, while also making opportunities for middle class families a priority. freezing college tuition four years in a row, record investments in our schools, and tax credits for small businesses to create jobs. while other states are still struggling, martin o malley is making the tough choices. to move maryland forward.