Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100809 : vimarsana.com

complaints. a former reality television contestant. how will wall street react? we ll find out today, mond, august 9th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. and good morning. welcome to today on a monday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m ann curry. good morning, everybody. that happens to everybody. and this manhunt you were talking about earlier, is obviously unsettling for thousands who flock to parks like yellowstone. my son is actually there in a couple weeks. it s very unsettling. a man escaped from a private prison in arizona at the end of july. police have tied the two along with their female accomplice to the murder of a husband and wife in new mexico. that happened last week. and now they believe that this group is trying to flee to canada. again, they stress the group is armed and extremely dangerous. we re going to get the latest in a live report straight ahead. also ahead, exclusive video we ve got as police are carrying out a new search tied to the kyron horman case just a short distance from where the 7-year-old was last seen. the latest coming up. a little later, an emotional reunion 34 years in the making. a mother says she received a call back in 1976 that her two children had been killed in a tragic accident. take a look, this morning, they are together again. just ahead, they ll tell us how it all unfolded in an exclusive live interview. but we begin on a monday morning with that intense manhunt for two escaped inmates and their female accomplice. nbc s george lewis has the latest. george, good morning to you. good morning, matt. law enforcement officers throughout the west are looking for the three fugitives, and they warn these are extremely dangerous individuals who have killed before and who could kill again. reporter: police say inmates tracy province and john mccluskey broke out of prison in arizona with the help of this woman. mccluskey s woman and fiancee. investigators say there s evidence tying the fugitives to this crime scene in santa rosa, new mexico, a burned-out trailer where police found the charred bodies of linda and gary haas from oklahoma. since then the two escapees and the woman are believed to have traveled to the area around yellowstone national park. although investigators now say province may have split up from mccluskey and welch. we want the public to understand and be aware that they are violent and extremely dangerous. reporter: the two inmates got out of this privately run medium-security prison in kingman, arizona, last month. a third inmate involved in the escape, daniel renwick, was captured a week ago after a shootout with police in colorado. now the question, why were such dangerous men in a medium-security facility where they were able to cut through the perimeter fences? it appears to have been a human error on the part of several of that staff. reporter: an error that had deadly consequences for an innocent couple from oklahoma. authorities are offering $30,000 in reward money for information leading to the capture of the fugitives. they re warning people if they see anyone who looks like the escaped prisoner, they should call police immediately. matt? george lewis on this story for us this morning. george, thank you very much. now let s get a check of the rest of the morning s top stories. natalie morales is in for me at the news desk. welcome back and good morning, matt. today secretary of state hillary clinton will speak out about the weekend murders of medical workers in afghanistan including six americans. nbc s thomom aspell has more fr kabul. reporter: good morning, natalie. a hail of bullets ended the lives of foreign aid workers in northern afghanistan last week. the international community here is in shock. the bodies of ten murdered medical volunteers including six americans have been flown by helicopter to kabul. the taliban has claimed responsibility for killing them, claiming they were trying to convert afghans to christianity. these were selfless volunteers who devoted themselves to providing free and much needed health care to afghans. reporter: the dead americans have been formally identified. they are tom little, an optometrist from delimar, new york, who had been working in afghanistan for 30 years. we lived with danger all our life there in one way or another. reporter: another victim, sheryl beckett from knoxville, tennessee, had spent six years in afghanistan. dr. thomas grands quit his dental practice in durango, colorado, four years ago to work full time in giving free dental care to children in anepal and afghanistan. glen knapp was a nirs from lancaster, pennsylvania, along with two others who had been living and working here for 30 years. they were killed in a remote area of northern afghanistan last week. a british doctor and a german national and two afghans were also killed. the medical team was sponsored by international assistance mission which intends remaining in afghanistan despite the tragedy. the bodies of some of the medical workers will be flown home in the next few days. others will be buried here in afghanistan. natalie? such a tragedy. tom aspell in kabul, afghanistan, thank you. contradictory testimony at a war crimes trial in the netherlands where naomi campbell said she was sent a huge diamond by charles taylor. she said she received dirty looking pebbles but did not know where they were from. taylor has been accused for taking diamonds in return for weapons. new details this morning about the sudden forced resignation late last week of hewlett-packard ceo mark hurd. our melissa francis joins us with more. good morning. good morning. we re learning more about the woman at the center of the scandal. her name is jody fisher, and she was formerly a reality show contestant turned hp marketing consultant. she apparently greeted people at ceo functions from 2007 to 2009. she sued mark hurd for sexual harassment, and that suit was settled, but it revealed expense irregularities to the tune of $30,000. she s walking away with $34 million. he was a well respected and fiscally responsible leader until this. and stockholders are wondering what is next for the company. natalie, back to you. we ll have to wait and see what happens today. melissa, thank you. and an incredible sight caught on tape in western minnesota. take a look. a tornado ripped through an area near the north dakota border destroying a farm and a house and sending debris flying through the air. the house was fortunately empty at the time. there were no reports of injuries. that thing is huge! that is scary. it is now 7:07. back over to matt and ann. thanks, natalie. meantime. here s a problem. al is off today. right. stephanie abrams is here. we have an empty chair here because see the building across from us over here, 30 rock? stephanie is stuck in an elevator in that building right now trying to get that is a first, whether from a stuck elevator. i don poughkeepsie not before. nice start here at home. mix of sunshine and a few clouds. so matt and ann, we re just hanging out here. hopefully i ll see you at 7:30. i m trying to post pictures on twitter and facebook. worst-case scenario, you re stuck for four or five days. at least you have your hair and makeup people with you. actually, that worked out pretty well. we could do that again. let s not try to. now let s make a turn to politics. and president obama hitting the campaign trail with less than three months to go until the midterm elections. nbc s chief white house correspondent chuck todd explains, however, that it s been a little bumpy out there for the president. chuck, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, ann. that s right, it has been. but that doesn t mean the president isn t a political asset when it comes to fund-raising. so he s off to texas today to raise money in austin and dallas. now, don t expect any major texas democrats like bill white who s running for governor to actually be seen with the president. you don t want a photograph with him this close to november. it s actually a big week politically for the white house. a bunch of primaries tomorrow including one in colorado where the white house s choice for senate is struggling to survive a primary. reporter: with what appears to be a stalled economic recovery and the unemployment rate stuck at 9.5%, republicans see an issue to rally around for the fall campaign. the american people are screaming at the top of their lungs to washington, stop! stop the spending. stop the job-killing policies. and yet democrats in washington refuse to listen to the american people. reporter: but returning to the campaign trail today, mr. obama is expected to hit the themes he had been trying to drive home again and again for weeks. that republicans put the car in the ditch and don t deserve the keys back. when you get in your car, when you go forward, what do you do? you put it in d. when you want to go back, what do you do? you put it in r. you don t want to go in reverse back in the ditch. reporter: his weakening political strength gets a major test tomorrow in colorado where the white house is pulling out all the stops to rescue michael bennett. i ve never ran for office before. i ve spent my life turning around depressed companies and most recently working in local government. reporter: bennett is facing a tough liberal challenge from former statehouse speaker andrew romanoff who claims even though his opponent has been in the senate less than two years, he s already become part of the establishment. i would have fought for the public option. my opponent did not. i would have voted to prevent banks from becoming too big to fail. my opponent voted against that proposal. reporter: meanwhile, before first lady michelle and daughter sasha got back from a private visit in spain, a trip that s gotten panned by some for looking out of touch because of its international opulence during a time of economic anxiety at home, the president got in some quality basketball time sunday with stars joakim noah and derek rose of his beloved bulls. lebron james was also there. it was followed by a barb kecue that included gulf coast shrimp. he returns later this week for a mini-vacation to show that the region is coming back and is open for business. now, it s not all politics today in texas. in austin the president is going to give a major speech on education touting his goal to be the leading country in the world when it comes to college graduates. by the way, also tuesday, wrestling executive linda mcmahon finds out if she becomes the republican nominee for u.s. senate, matt, in connecticut. chuck todd at the white house. chuck, as always, thank you very much. former virginia governor tim kaine is the chairman of the democratic national committee. governor, good to see you. good morning. matt, good to be back. so the president is out there campaigning for some candidates. others don t want anything to do with him. i want to take you back to election night 2008 in that scenic grant park when the president walked out onto that stage. i mean, you had to hope democrats had to hope this was going to be a president who was going to open up new political territory for the party. and here you ve got a president and some candidates don t want to be seen with him. what happened? well, i think the candidates who are worried about it are making a mistake because i think this president still is doing the great work that the americans expect of him. the president and i met a month after that in grant park, and we talked about the fact that midterms will be very tough because they always are. since teddy roosevelt was president, the average midterm involves the party in power losing 28 house seats, losing 4 senate seats. and look, it s a tough time economically, and that means it s volatile. but the democrats have been doing the work necessary to get the nation going again. as the president says, the car was in the ditch. we re getting it out of the ditch with job creation, with a new energy strategy, with infrastructure investments. let me talk about you you bring up jobs. let s talk about that. here s what frank rich wrote in the paper over the weekend concerning the democrats prospects for the midterm elections. he said, quote, they are doomed to fall short if they don t address the cancer in the american heart, and that s joblessness. we saw the latest figures come out. 9.5% unemployment as of friday. even if there is a series of small miracles between now and the midterm elections, governor, you know that number is going to be unacceptably high when people go to the polls. so why shouldn t they hold democrats accountable? because, matt, what is the alternative? when the republicans were in control during the last decade, americans lost 8 million jobs. we gained 700,000 private sector jobs this year. we re growing again. and what is the republican strategy? they re saying they just want to go back to doing what they did during the lost decade, relax regulation, tax cuts for the wealthiest, and stand by as the economy collapses. that s no central strategy. we built a ladder. we re climbing and we re going to do it with smart investments, a green economy, infrastructure investments. america needs to go forward, not backward. we heard from you in the last few minutes and the president as of late which seems to be the developing strategy for the last three months of this campaign season. and in many ways, trying to attach the republican party to the more extreme elements of the tea party, but also, as the president has said, there s a lot of blame bush going on, looking back to those eight years. is that what the voters want to hear, in your opinion? well, i think, matt, what they mostly want to hear is the record of accomplishment. and so whether it s health reform that helps the middle class with medical bills, credit reform, wall street reform or recovery that s investing in green energy and made in america jobs, we always lead with the things we ve done. but you have to draw a contrast. when a republican party says that their main strategy is to go back and do the things that put the american economy in a freefall, the election in november is about a choice. it s a choice between going forward or embracing the policies that put the american economy in the ditch that we re still climbing out of. and that s the choice that we re going to make clear. quickly, governor, before i let you go, i m going to give you a new job. you are now a political travel agent. and if you had the chance if you had a do-over here and you could have planned the first lady s vacation with sasha, would you have planned the trip that we ve just seen her take given the current economic conditions, or do you think that was much ado about nothing? matt, i think it s wrong to talk about the first lady s family vacation as a politician. she s a mom. and you know, look. i ve been in elected office and political life for 17 years, and i ve got a wife and i ve got three kids. and when you re in office, you don t give up being a mom and a family member, too. this was an opportunity for michelle to join friends and friends daughters with a vacation with her kids and give them some exposure to a part of the world that they hadn t been before. and i don t think you talk about that and give it political analysis. i m glad that both the president and first lady are so focused on being good parents. dnc chairman tim kaine. governor, thanks very much for your time this morning. i appreciate it. you bet, matt. good to be with you. 17 after the hour. once again here s ann. thanks. oregon police spent the weekend carrying out a new search for missing 7-year-old kyron horman in a spot close to the school where he was last seen nearly ten weeks ago. miguel almaguer is in portland with the latest. miguel, good morning. reporter: ann, good morning. detectives won t talk specifics about their investigation, so we don t know what they did or did not find during this past weekend search. we do know they are clearly following leads and focusing on a small group of people. sunday investigators searched this property, a heavily wooded area just ten minutes from the elementary school where 7-year-old kyron horman was last seen back in june. according to kgw, the nbc station in portland, this is where dee dee spicer, a good friend of teri horman, told investigators she was gardening the day the 7-year-old vanished from school. on june 4th, kyron disappears. teri s gone for a period of time. dee dee s gone for a period of time. you have to connect all the dots. reporter: according to kgw, on the day kyron disappeared, witnesses at the property where spicer was gardening say she disappeared for an hour and a half and didn t answer her cell phone. dee dee is a real central figure in this case. and i think that more is to be revealed. reporter: authorities also searched spicer s home last month. at that time she was also called before a grand jury. back then spicer s lawyer said she was cooperating with authorities and denied any wrongdoing. she was not in any sort of communication with teri horman by cell phone when she was at the property where she was doing some gardening. reporter: spicer s lawyer couldn t be reached for comment on this weekend s search. so far, authorities have not named any suspects in the case, but kyron s parents have become more and more vocal in pointing the finger at spicer s friend, teri horman, the last known person to see kyron before he disappeared. i believe she s been involved the whole time. i feel that she has information that she s not sharing, whether or not it could bring him home right away, i don t think we know. reporter: but horman s lawyer has called speculation about the case a witch hunt. dee dee spicer and teri horman have been close friends for several years. in fact, when kyron s father moved out of the home he shared with his estranged wife, teri, dee dee spicer moved in for several days. ann? all right, miguel almaguer this morning, thank you. it is now 7:20. once again here s matt. ann, thank you. now to messages in a bottle found by cleanup crews in the gulf that are touching lives all around the world. nbc s anne thompson is in venice, louisiana, to explain this for us. an anne, good morning. reporter: good morning, matt. the war in afghanistan and the oil disaster are some 7,000 miles apart. two major news stories with seemingly no connection. until a bottle was discovered along the gulf coast. amid the tar balls on the beach of horn island, mississippi, cleanup workers found a weathered sambuca bottle filled with memories of a young man gone too soon. all the letters inside were individually wrapped. reporter: and each written to 21-year-old james prosser. the young man from wales died fighting in afghanistan last year. the letters told of james s courage and his family s pain trying to go on without him. james s mother, in one of her letters, she remarks about how it is each of our rights and responsibility to try and make this world a better place. and we were almost in tears reading these letters. and we wrote her back a letter. and we were trying to convey, you know, how we were trying to make a difference down there in the gulf. for me, it was just writing down my feelings about james and just, i don t know, hoping in some way that he d see them, hear them. reporter: sara adams wrote those words about her son last christmas. he was just thoughtful, you know, he was just kind. reporter: unable to face the holiday without james, the family went to barbados but could not escape their grief. they put their letters in that sambuca bottle, sealed it and cast it in the ocean. it traveled 1,300 miles. greetings from horn island, mississippi, usa. where a bottle of messages washed ashore on the 15th of july, 2010. reporter: and with them some of james s spirit, embodied now by the crew in mississippi. we decided that as a team, we re going to let them know how we feel and show them that respect and let them know that somebody does care. we re trying to clean up the environment, make the world a cleaner place, a better place through a tragic event. and james lost his life fighting, you know, doing a brave, remarkable thing. reporter: last night the crew celebrated the man in the family they had never met but who are now a part of them. thank you for your service in afghanistan and serving honorably. reporter: toasting james and his family with, what else, sambuca. for making a difference. making a difference. reporter: now, the crew in mississippi still has those letters, and they say they will do with them whatever james s family desires. matt? all right, anne thompson in venice, louisiana, thanks for that story. we appreciate it. coming up on a monday morning, an american mother charged with murdering her own children in scotland. we ll get the latest on that. but first, this is today on nbc. so, ah, your seat good? got the mirrors all adjusted? you can see everything ok? just stay off the freeways, all right? i don t want you going out on those yet. and leave your phone in your purse, i don t want you texting. daddy. ok! ok, here you go. be careful. thanks dad. and call me but not while you re driving. we knew this day was coming. that s why we bought a subaru. so we ve used the jaws of life and have sprung stephanie from an elevator. welcome back. thanks. your makeup looks good, though. that s all that matters. i was hoping for some hunky firemen to rescue me. that didn t happen. a lot more coming up. first your local news. fr folgers. bold flavor. exceptionally smooth. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am lisa robinson. let s get a check on the morning commute with kim dacey. good morning, everyone. no incidents or accidents report. just a traffic no to we want to pass along. on the topside of the beltway on the charles street off ramp, there is a new traffic pattern. the right fork of the offer has been it is going to be a little easier to get on charles street. otherwise, speed sensors up to speed on major roadways. 54 on the house to express my express why did 68 on the northeast corner of 95. mostly up to speed on the major roadways. 12 minutes on the outer loop west side. 11 minutes on the outer loop topside. no problems there. we will give you a live look outside the west side of the beltway on liberty road. no delays even on the outer loop. switching over to a lot to of 10170, looking west here, no delays there either. good morning, everyone. not so good news in the weather department. the heat and humidity is going to come back to record this weekend, and now we re seeing you what a decline. gorgeous weekend, now we re humidity climb. a mixture of sunshine and clouds. i between 90 and 95. tonight, partly cloudy and mckee, a slight chance for showers or thunderstorms. we will take it into the mid- nineties over the next couple of days. tuesday and wednesday, 94, 95, a chance for afternoon thunderstorm. we will see scattered storms all the way through the end of the week. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. robinette a live update at 7:55. robinette a live update at 7:55. my grandparents, they had a huge garden, with tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans. nothing beats the taste of fruits and vegetables in the summer. they re juicier. more colorful. they re perfect. that s why at giant, you ll find farm-stand quality fruits and vegetables, at prices you ll love. this week, enjoy orchard perfect peaches and nectarines, 99 cents a pound; and sweet white corn, 12 for $1.99. my grandfather would be very proud, and that works for me. celebrate summer, every time you shop with your giant card. it s 7:30 now on a monday morning, 9th day of august, 2010. we had a chamber of commerce style weekend here. some of these folks got an extra day for that weekend. we ll go outside and say hi to them in just a couple of minutes. lucky them. lucky us that we re here. i m matt lauer alongside ann curry. meredith will be back tomorrow. stunning new research that american girls are entering puberty younger than ever, some at the age of 7 or 8 years old. what s going on? we ll get into that coming up. that s actually very dangerous and makes them vulnerable to diseases later in life. also coming up, we expect criminals to cover their faces when they re about to commit a crime, but this is ridiculous. take a look. bank robbers dressed up as everything from darth vader to catwoman to commit their crimes. we ll have more on what appears to be a trend just ahead. also ahead, a moving family reunion more than 34 years in the making after a bitter divorce back in 1976, vickie just wanted her children back, but she says she actually received a call that they had been killed in a car accident. well, now more than three decades later, they are finally together again. we re going to talk to them in an exclusive live interview to find out what went on for these past 34 years. wow! that must have been something. let s begin this half hour with a heartbreaking story about an american mother accused of murdering her own children in scotland. we have nbc s martin fletcher in london with the latest on this story. martin, good morning. ann, good morning. it is tragic. she s still in serious condition in the hospital, but she s been arrested and charged with murder killing her three children. reporter: it appears to be a tragic tale of divorce and desperation. a mother who rather than surrender her children chose to allegedly kill them. sources say the woman from bakersfield, california, slit the throats of their twins and their 5-year-old sister, cecilia. her husband, the children s father, an oil executive, has asked for privacy, quote, at this difficult time. she said in a statement, our family is struggling to come to terms with the immense and tragic loss of three beautiful children. an autopsy was carried out on the children friday. the results have not been made public, but following the autopsy, teresa riggi, 46 years old, was charged with murder. reports indicate that after killing the children, she caused a gas explosion, hoping a fire would conceal the murders, then jumped 40 feet from a balcony. in america, her mother said teresa, an accomplished violinist and doting mother, feared she d lose custody of her children. in scotland where she took her children riding, instructors couldn t believe it. we didn t understand it, but i don t know if anybody does. reporter: the parents were going through a bitter divorce. after teresa riggi failed to turn up at a custody hearing last week, the judge warned the children may be in danger. but social workers said by the time they received the judge s instructions, the children were already dead. friends and family say they can t understand it. they say teresa home schooled her children. her whole world revolved around them. ann? martin fletcher, thanks. former profiler clint van zant joins us now. good morning. hi, ann. three beautiful children, a mother charged with their murder. based on your experience and what we know from this case, what do you think happened here, clint? well, unfortunately, what we see happens a lot of times, ann, three to five children are killed every day in the united states by their own parents. 200 women kill their children every year in the united states. and at least a dozen of the 50 women on death row in america are there because they killed their own children. so even though you and i say, you know, as parents, i mean, we would give up our lives to save our children, there are, unfortunately, others out there who wouldn t. and, in fact, in a case like this, may use the death of the children to punish the other biological parent. you know, the statistics, let s take a pause here. those statistics are chilling. chilling. i think most americans have no ideas that the numbers are that high. what other factors play into this? i mean, especially given that we ve just heard from martin s report that this mother was so dedicated to her children, she actually home schooled them, that she loved them so much, and that s what everyone says about her. sure. well, we look back at famous cases, susan smith, the south carolina mother who put her two children in car seats and drove the car into a lake to drown the children so she would be more marketable to her new boyfriend. and andrea yates, the texas woman who drowned her five children in the bathtub, believing in her own challenged mind that the children were going to have problems later in life. so in her mind, she thought she was saving them by killing them. so there are various reasons. but we can even go back to, you know, third century greek tragedies where the wife of jason, of jason and the argonauts, killed her two sons to punish her husband because he was having an affair with another princess. so this goes back in antiquity and forward the challenges. but the terrible thing is that innocent children wind up being pawns many times in these terrible battles between biological parents. well, clint, if this happens so often, let s talk about what signs we should be looking for. the people who know teresa obviously, she s charged. we don t know the outcome of that case. yeah. they say they found no signs. but are there signs? is it possible that there wouldn t be signs before something like this happens? i doubt that seriously, ann. just like the case last week of the man who killed eight coworkers in connecticut in a violence in workplace, in a situation like this, there are always signs, increased pressure, signs of mental and physical challenge. we just choose to overlook them. we choose to miss them. in this woman s case, we know that about a month ago she grabbed the three children, and she ran away from the family home. she hid someplace else. her husband knew she was experiencing challenges. in fact, told the court eventually that the children could be in danger. but by the time that information was conveyed, it was too late by the time they were located, the children were dead. it looks like it was, from what we ve been able to gather, just the day before they were found that he made that report. clint van zandt, thank you for your perspective. now let s get a check of the weather from stephanie abrams who is in for al and actually here. we re on the plaza now. girls week here. and how is the weather? you guys are from colorado. is this too hot? it s a little hot and humid for me. yes. i love it. you love it. but it was a lot hotter last week, you were saying. it s much better. so glad to be here. we re glad to have you here. thank you so much, stephanie. let s have a look at the weather across the country. we re going to start in florida where we have low pressure bringing a few showers to the sunshine state. now, here s the thing. this could be our next tropical entity. we re going toollow it as it heads into the gulf. otherwise the heaviest of rain will be in the southwest florida, down into the keys. good morning, everyone. we are off to a fairly quiet start this monday. a little bit of haze in some areas, with this opinion, and and ann, i think i m going to change it to here s what s happening outside your elevator. coming up next, the brave teenagers fighting back against obesity at a boarding school on weight loose. we re going to talk to them coming up right after this. come on up here where your brothers sit. [ birds chirping ] wow! did i ever tell you what it was like growing up with four sisters? that sounds fun. yeah.fun for them! [ male announcer ] chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy. with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably not that it always has to. moh-ohm. -do you have your lunch? -yes. and you know where your classroom is? uh huh. mom, i can walk from here. what about your. mom, i got it. [ female announcer ] they re never too big for a little something sweet. kellogg s rice krispies treats. we get double miles on every purchase. echo! so we earned a trip to the grand canyon twice as fast. uh-oh. we get double miles every time we use our card. i ll take these. no matter what we re buying. plus the damages. and since double miles add up quick, we can bring the whole gang. it s hard to beat double miles. no, we ride them! [ male announcer ] introducing the venture card from capital one, with double miles on every purchase every day. go to capitalone.com. what s in your wallet? oh, that s the spot! and get this year s colors up on the wall.this year. let s get better prices. and better paint. let s break out the drop cloths, rollers, brushes, and tape. let s start small. then go big. no matter what the budget. and when we re done, let s take a bow. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. behr premium plus ultra. the only interior paint and primer in one that s rated number one. we re back now at 7:41. one-third of american children are considered obese. 15 and fighting back. a new series follows the emotional journey of five teenagers at wellspring academy, a weight-loss boarding school in north carolina. take a look. my heart breaks because i know. i had something to do with it, you know. i know i did. i really need this in my life, and i just i want this so bad. i can t be the one to do it. he needs somebody other than me. we re joined now by two of those students, 14-year-old scotty basso and his mother, susan, and 17-year-old tanisha mitchell and her mother. susan is clinical director at wellspring academy. good morning to everybody. nice to have you here. good morning. emotional, scotty. we watched you in that tape, and it s very clear this has been an emotional journey for you. how are you feeling? i m feeling really good about i have a jersey here that i couldn t fit in before i came, and i can now fit into it. you know, it s been really hard, but it s turned out good so far. so far you ve lost a little more than 60 pounds, is that right? yep. you say it s been hard. what s the hardest part been? the being away from home and a lot more of the exercise and getting up in the mornings. discipline. yeah. yeah. tanisha, you have lost more than 150 pounds. yes. in four months. talk to me a little bit about how this has changed your life. and you admit, you ve got more to go. oh, yeah. but how has this changed your life so far? it s changed it a lot. i m definitely more active now. i m just have a whole new freedom with my movements. i feel really good. you have a disorder. is it called is it blunt or blount? blount. blount disorder. tell me exactly what that is. it s a growth disorder in my tibia, leg bone. and that causes my legs to bend outwardly. and so weight and excess weight on top of that disorder cannot be a good thing. exactly. so already by losing 150 pounds, have you seen has that disorder gotten better? yes, definitely. let me go to the moms here for a second now. melody, i think a lot of parents are probably sitting at home and they re saying, how did it get to this point? how did these two young people in their teens get so overweight? how do you answer that question? you know people are asking that. sure. of course, they probably are. i think mostly tanisha s did stem from her blount s disease, her being bedridden for a while because she did have a lot of surgeries. so couldn t be as active as other teenagers and other children. yeah, she was not active at all with her blount s disease. susan, you say you were candid on the tape. you say your heart breaks because you know you had something to do with it, talking about scotty s weight gain. ours came a lot from the types of food we ate. and knowing that it probably wasn t the best, but it was what we could do for the family. but then when scotty s depression set in, we danced around it instead of hitting it head you know, head first. susan, this susan now, working with young people, is it easier than working with adults in terms of getting them to change their lifestyle and the way they think about their health? well, i think it s a different approach where with teenagers, you want to show them and let them make it their own as opposed to just tell them. with adults, you can talk about it, tell them, but with kids, they need to be shown and see it for themselves so they can take it and run with it. what kind of success rate do you have with people this age? we have about 70% of the kids that leave our camps keeping the weight off and continuing to lose weight. scotty, is there one thing you would want to say with other teenagers out there who may be watching who are dealing with similar weight issues that you ve dealt with? just that i know it s tough, but if you try really hard, you can do it. and you ve just got to stick with it. how much more do you want to lose, scott? pretty much as much as i can, really. you think you can do it? oh, yeah. i know i can do it, actually, if i just keep to it. tanisha, can you do it also? yes. good luck to both of you. moms, thank you very much as well. susan, thanks for being here. appreciate it. thank you. too fat for 15, fighting back premieres tonight at 8:00/7:00 central on the style network. up next, the wild and wacky cast of characters robbing banks these days. we ll find out about that. but first, these messages. a promise to invent the first automobile. and to keep reinventing it. to build the type of cars that define true performance . while never sacrificing their true beauty. and to introduce innovations that help save lives and the planet. four simple words mercedes-benz lives by to this day. the best or nothing. that is what drives us. finally, frizz is finished. the best or nothing. avon invents advance techniques lotus shield treatment. just a little instantly smoothes. hair is in control for 3 days. call 800-for-avon to find a representative. [ woman #2 ] i d like to enjoy things again. [ woman #3 ] i feel these aches and pains. [ woman #4 ] the guilt. [ man ] my sleep just isn t right. [ woman #5 ] i m so anxious. [ man #2 ] i need to focus. [ female announcer ] depression hurts. cymbalta can help. with 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. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. depression hurts. cymbalta can help. cloups, famous entertainers, even darth vader. what do they have in common? they re part of a new fashion trend for bank robbers. our jeff rossen is here to explain this. jeff, good morning. good morning. my 4-year-old plays dress-up. now the criminals are, too. it helps the fbi. the weirder the costume, the better chance of catching them. think about it. would you pay attention to the headline man robs bank or the underwear bandit robs bank? this morning halloween comes early for the bad guys. reporter: decades ago, it was bonnie & clyde. we rob banks. this here is a stick-up! reporter: today the legend lives on. in just the past few weeks, we have darth vader, a cross-dresser, a backstreet boy and the robber obsessed with fresh flowers. in pennsylvania, police just caught this man who hit banks dressed in a blond wig, fake breasts and a toy gun stuffed in his clown pants. then there s the catwoman, knocking off shoe stores in manhattan. yes, that s really her police sketch. how about this woman, the underwear bandit who held up a mcdonald s drive-through in oklahoma, grabbing cash out of the register with underwear over her face. then there s the darth vader bandit. he held up a bank in new york armed with a gun and that famous mask. he s still on the loose, but with attention like this, maybe not for long. today the bank s manager issued a statement saying, catch him, we must. reporter: in boston, check out the backstreet bandit. this guy dressed up like he s a member of the backstreet boys. pretty close. they do it to mask their identity, but it actually helps us identify them. reporter: it almost feels like it can backfire on them, their need for fame and attention can also get them caught. exactly. exactly. reporter: because the weirder the costume, the bigger target they become. the fbi comes up with those catchy nicknames so the media picks it up, you pay attention, and help nab them. on the arrest of the so-called barefoot bandit. reporter: a bunch of fbi agents sit around in a room and say, underwear bandit. sometimes you folks name the bandits. reporter: we re very creative. it s almost like the criminals are trying to one-up each other. take this robber who got his nickname for obvious reasons. they arrested him two weeks after the heist. in fact, most criminals are caught. with bank robberies, the fbi has a 75% arrest rate. and by the way, despite all these stories, bank robberies are actually down this year. what the robbers are really doing is bringing attention on themselves. they re not really hiding their identity. they re allowing law enforcement, the media and the public to focus on them. and you don t commit too many robberies dressed like darth vader before you get taken off the street. the fbi says 80% of bank robbers are first-timers, amateurs who think those weird get-ups will help keep them out of jail. ann, not working. jeff rossen, thank you so much. up next, a mother reunites with children more than 34 years after she was told they were dead after your local news. i m from the gulf coast. i vacation here, my family spends a lot of time here. i have a personal, vested interest in ensuring that we get this job done right. i m keith seilhan. i m in charge of bp s cleanup on the gulf coast. bp has taken full responsibility for cleanup in the gulf and that includes keeping you informed. you may have heard that oil is no longer flowing into the gulf. there s less oil coming ashore every day, but we still have thousands of people ready to clean it up if it does. when oil is spotted, we get right to work. we re working with the coast guard and many other government agencies. summer is the busiest time on the gulf, so every day, we re working with residents and local business owners to make sure beaches are clean and that they can stay open. and our efforts won t come at any cost to taxpayers. the work s not over. we re not going anywhere. it may not be perfect every time, but we re going to be here as long as it takes to make this right. what s inside this little dial? how about three mascaras in one. almay s new one coat dial up mascara takes your lashes from full, to fuller, to fullest. so you can go from daytime to dazzling in three clicks. new one coat dial up mascara, only from almay. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am lisa robinson. let s check on the mcknew with kim dacey and traffic pulse 11. not looking too bad on the roads out there. something to talk about in rosedale, accident at rossville boulevard in philadelphia road. otherwise, not looking terrible around the area. we are up to speed on the major roadways. looking good except for the tops of the beltway, but a slowdown. 15 minutes on at the west side. the delay will take you a few minutes longer than normal. 95 sop to the beltway and 100. up to the beltway and 100. you can see that the outer loop is a little bit slow. top of the bricks from 70 down to edmondson ave. switching to a live look of i-95 south of the beltway, northeast corner, stop the traffic coming towards us on the west side of your screen. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. things are pretty quiet in the weather department. we have fared earlier this morning. 71 at the airport, 73 in cockeysville. humidity has gone up from over the weekend. temperatures are going to jump into the low 90s this afternoon. mixture of sunshine and clouds. we re going to keep the heat tomorrow. high-temperature aroun eight around 94, 95. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. another update at 8:25. it s 8:00 now on a monday morning. it s also the 9th day of august, 2010. kind of a pleasant morning here in the northeast. we re at about 75 degrees or so, going up into the mid-90s. but we ve got a nice group of people before it gets too sticky here on the plaza. we thank them for stopping by. summer. we can t complain. hope you had a nice week off. i did. it was really nice. i visited family in oregon. it was really fantastic. good to have you here while meredith s taking the day off. meredith s back tomorrow. coming up this half hour, a remarkable story. vickie had just gotten a divorce back in 1976 when she received what had to be the worst phone call any mother could receive, that her two children had been killed in a tragic accident. so imagine vickie s surprise when she received another call just last month saying, in fact, those children were alive. they are back together, and they re telling a remarkable story to us exclusively in just a little while. amazing. and also this morning, we re talking about some new research that s actually quite alarming. it s basically saying that girls as young as 7, 8, 9 are showing signs of puberty, matt. and this is not just sort of unusual. it s also incredibly dangerous because the younger you go into puberty, the more likely you will have breast cancer later on in life. so we re going to find out why this is. it s really a red flag. and there are some environmental factors according to the researchers. so we ll get into some of that this morning. also ahead, economics. the average cost of a year of college right now, you know what it is? $18,000. so how can average families afford to send their kids to college? if you re the parent of a young child, how do you start saving? we ll have advice on that as well. a lot to get to. let s go inside. ann s out here. that means natalie s at the news desk with all the headlines. good morning. good morning to you. the manhunt for two escaped murderers is focused this morning in and around one of the country s most popular national parks. u.s. marshals say tracy prov in, john mccluskey and a female accomplice may be in yellowstone national park. they escaped from a prison ten days ago. one of them has been linked to a double murder in new mexico. a christian medical aid group says it has no plans to leave afghanistan despite the massacre of ten members including six americans. the taliban says the relief workers were killed because they tried to convert muslims to christianity. a claim rejected by friends and family members. germany today shut down a hamburg mosque once frequented by some of the 9/11 hijackers. officials said it was being used again as a meeting point for islamic radicals. israel s prime minister testified today as a commission looking into may s confrontation that killed nine people on ships trying to bring aid to gaza. benjamin netanyahu says he is certain the inquiry will show israel acted legally. floodwaters that killed at least 11 people in central europe are now receding. heavy rain sent rivers over their banks in germany, poland and the czech republic. bridges and roads were washed away, and some areas were left without electricity. officials intensified their search over the weekend for kyron horman, the 7-year-old oregon boy who disappeared more than two months ago. on sunday investigators searched a heavily wooded area near the grade school where kyron was last seen back in june. and at the box office this weekend, the other guys took over the top spot, the will ferrell, mark wahlberg film took in more than $35 million according to early estimates. inception ended up in second. and step up 3d was in third. it is 8:04. let s go back outside once again to matt and ann. i really want to see inception. i thought you were going to see step up 3d. stephanie abrams has freed herself from the stuck elevator. eight people, one tahoe, wisconsin to new york. where do you sit in this tahoe? we sit in the back, us three. what s it like? it s very squished. and the floors are high, so my legs almost touch the other seats. but you have fun anyway, right? yes. i say that you guys keep going south maybe to tampa, florida, and we are going to see some nice weather there today. 92, a few scattered thunderstorms. hopefully have your bikinis packed there. and let s have a look at the forecast for the r good morning. we are off to a fairly quiet start. there could be a little fog in some areas this morning. this afternoon, a mixture of sunshine and clouds. high people from visiting from all over. we ve got hawaii and south dakota in the house. ann, over to you. thanks so much, stephanie opinion. and also a cool breeze is blowing our way which is really nice. coming up just ahead, a mother reunites with her two children more than 34 years after she was told they had died. their incredible story, an exclusive live interview coming right up after this. frankly, the idea of owning a minivan used to make me cry myself to sleep at night. but i gotta say my sienna is great. 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 toyota sienna on youtube. and the toyota sienna on youtube. i m a member of this hotel sre loyalty program.ce. well, how far away is it? okay, we take a train 40 miles to a dude ranch where we pick up a couple of horses that we ride to a nearby river. then we canoe upstream to a helicopter that takes us to the conference. or we could book with hotels.com and stay closer. see, with welcomerewards, no matter where you accumulate 10 nights, you get a free one. huh. smarter. [ male announcer ] accumulate 10 nights and get a night free. welcomerewards from hotels.com. smart. so smart. a heart attack at 57. that was a rough time. my doctor told me i should ve been doing more for my high cholesterol. you should ve listened. you re right. now i m eating healthier and i trust my heart to lipitor. [ male announcer ] when diet and exercise are not enough, adding lipitor may help. lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. lipitor is backed by over 18 years of research. lipitor is not for everyone. including people with liver problems and women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications, or if you have any muscle pain or weakness. this may be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. my dad learned the hard way. but you may be able to do something. [ male announcer ] have a heart to heart with your doctor about your risk. and about lipitor. long summer days, and not enough sleep. what i wouldn t do for a do-over. [ female announcer ] new neutrogena® clinical skincare. exclusive ion2 complex combined with activating cream helps restore collagen depleted skin. neutrogena clinical skincare is clinically tested to undo the look of a year s worth of skin aging in just 4 weeks. do-overs do exist. [ female announcer ] new clinical skincare. neutrogena. #1 dermatologist recommended brand. we re back now at 8:09 with an incredible reunion more than three decades in the making. a mother back together with a son and daughter she thought she had lost in a deadly car accident. we ll talk to them exclusively in a moment. but first, natalie has their story. natalie, good morning. hey, matt. vickie and her children say they have waited a long time to be together. it all began more than 34 years ago when vickie was separated from karen and scott s father. he wanted the divorce. and i said, i ll give you that, but i want my children back. reporter: it was the fall of 1976. vickie s divorce to her husband, jimmy, had just been finalized. victoria says after months apart from her children, karen and scott, ages 8 and 5 at the time, were on their way back to her. i was excited. i couldn t wait for them to come back home. reporter: but instead, vickie says she got a shocking phone call. there was a terrible car accident. her ex-husband in critical condition and her two young children dead. i was distraught. i said, well, where did this accident happen? click went the phone. reporter: devastated by determined, vickie says she tried to track down her ex-husband, jimmy, but vick ski said he vanished and so did any information about how her children died. not being able to see my children s bodies and not being able to bury them just devastating. i couldn t say good-bye. reporter: but karen and scott, the two children, were very much alive, living in new jersey. they say they were enduring a mystery of their own. i used to ask my dad, you know, questions like, where s mom? reporter: they say their father told them, mom had abandoned the family. he said, she didn t want you. she dumped you on my doorstep. reporter: after searching in vain, vickie, living just six hours away in rochester, new york, said she hired a private investigator. i couldn t find any answers. and i needed answers. reporter: meanwhile, all the kids wanted was stability. my dad constantly moving us from school to school. we didn t stay very long anywhere. reporter: vickie says her private investigator never got a good lead, but she found hope in the gaps of information. i truly believed in my heart that they were still alive. reporter: meanwhile, karen and scott were growing. and so were their suspicions about their father s story. he never gave us a straight answer. you keep hearing so many conflicting stories, you ve got to find out for yourself. reporter: last month with the help of an internet-savvy friend, karen and scott went looking for their mother. and in just days, they found vickie. they reconnected first over the phone. i felt like this void, this emptiness i had in my heart, it s just filled up instantly. i just had so much i wanted to say, so much i wanted to hear from her. it was definitely one of the better days of my life. reporter: less than a week after that call, vickie made the drive to georgia where her grown children now live. the reunion happened before she could even get out of the car. my daughter and my son came running over to the car, opened up the door, and hugged me. i wrapped my arms around them. the fullness in my heart, if it were a balloon, it would have been burst. just being able to hug my daughter and my son was a dream come true. and we reached out to karen and scott s father, jimmy black, who currently lives with scott. and he tells us after the divorce, vickie never called asking for the children back. he also maintains that he had no knowledge of that phone call that vickie says upended her world decades earlier claiming they were all dead in a car crash. he says he moved his children because he was trying to put them in better schools. matt? natalie, thanks very much. vickie and her children, scott black and karen cason, are with us. good morning to everyone. tears all around here. you must, in some ways, feel like life has begun again. yes, it has. you live your whole life being told one thing, and you find something else out. the person that was taken away from you at an early age, you finally get them back. i would imagine there are people right now, despite what they ve just seen, shaking their heads at home. at the time you were going through this separation and divorce, vickie, was there no custody agreement? was there nothing legal in place that you could have used to help find these kids? nothing. the only thing i had in my divorce decree was that custody and visitation rights would be decided by the new york state family court system. and when i met karen and scott after all these years, they said their father had told them that he had legal custody. so when we talked on the phone, they told me that, i brought a copy of my divorce to show them. your father never, ever had custody of you. you went to the police. the police could not help you? they couldn t track down this man and these children? i went to the we had several incidences in jersey city. and the police said, that s a matter for family court. and family court, then, didn t step up and they couldn t help you either? well, i went to family court, you know, where i live in rochester with my lawyer. and he says, we need the children in order to pursue this in court. i told him, i can t find my children. yeah. when did you two begin your own search? you obviously had questions. when did you actively start the search for your mom? i started searching it had to be in the mid- 90s. and it led to dead ends. and i didn t have you know, the internet wasn t back then what it is today. and social security administration told me, well, you know, if you can give us an unsealed letter, a letter with an unsealed envelope explaining why you want to find her, we can track her down through whatever information you have. they never forwarded it. i guess they didn t feel it was a good enough reason why. karen, you were told by your dad your mother abandoned you. she didn t care about you. was it only after a certain amount of time that it just didn t add up to you? after a certain amount of time, you know, my father would always tell me different stories. he said i told, you know, my father said, i told your mom you were dead. she s in the army. she s in the peace corps. his story always changed. at any point and it s hard to ask this question with you here, vickie. i apologize for this. at any point, then or now, do you think perhaps your dad is telling the truth and vickie s not telling the truth? i always look at it this way, you know. both parents have their own version of the story, okay? and i have to give her the benefit of the doubt. i have to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. the truth perhaps somewhere in the middle? when she tells me the story, and we talked about it three or four times over the past couple weeks, it always seem s to be te same. over the past 30 years when i asked him the story, it always changed. here s the thing that jumps out at me most, scott, for you is you live with him now. you re going he s watching this. and you re going to go home there tomorrow. there s going to be a lot of tension in that house, isn t there? well, there was already tension because my wife doesn t understand why i still let him live with me after i found out the truth. but the one thing i see is, no matter what, he s still going to be my father. and the second is he s a person. i can t put him out on the street with no place to go. he s on a fixed income. what he gets isn t enough to support himself in a regular apartment. i have a room in the back of my house. i rent him a room back there. quickly, what s the future of this relationship between the three of you now, vickie? oh, i will never, never lose my children again. never. and, you know, when i talked to them on the phone, when they first found me, and even when i got down to scott s house in georgia, i said, if i did not love you and i abandoned you and left you on your dad s doorstep, i said, it would have been very easy for me to say for when she called, i am not the victoria you re looking for. and i certainly wouldn t have driven all the way down here to come and see you. we wish you luck. thank you. thank you. with the rest of your story. appreciate you joining us this morning. thank you so much. and up next, a new survey on the rising cost of college and tips on how to pay for it, especially in these very difficult economic times. but first, these messages. and truck we make with a big fat red pencil. because they know a family s going to be inside. a teenager. a guy on the way to the job. the engineers of chevrolet. just another reason why we can offer a 5-year 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. and another reason why a chevy s a chevy. and get this year s colors up on the wall.this year. let s get better prices. and better paint. let s break out the drop cloths, rollers, brushes, and tape. let s start small. then go big. no matter what the budget. and when we re done, let s take a bow. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. behr premium plus ultra. the only interior paint and primer in one that s rated number one. the only interior paint and primer in one quick.what color are my eyes? almay intense i-color brings out your natural color. it s the number one eye intensifying collection in america. and it s my number one too. available in four shade collections. one for every eye color. intense i-color. only from almay. so i m proud to join the sunnyd brighten abook spree -ure. to bring free books to your child s classroom. just save sunnyd labels. when your child s class collects 20, we ll donate 20 books. and don t stop collecting. because sunnyd and i will award hundreds of books to the ten schools with the most lables. go to sunnyd.com open a bottle of sunshine. and help us make classrooms sunnier. and i feel like. [ female announcer ] kellogg s® wants to make kids happy one tummy at a time. because 9 out of 10 kids don t get the fiber they need, that s why froot loops® and apple jacks® have 3 grams of fiber in every yummy bowl. they re the cereals your kids love and the fiber their tummies love. which makes for a whole lotta happy. froot loops® and apple jacks, an oh-so-good source of fiber. kellogg s® makes fiber fun. [ female announcer ] kids who don t eat breakfast may not be getting the nutrition they need to keep their bodies strong. a nutritious start to the day is essential. that s why carnation instant breakfast essentials supplies the nutrients of a balanced breakfast. so kids get the protein and calcium they need to help build strong muscles and healthy bones. carnation instant breakfast essentials. good nutrition from the start. back now at 8:21 with the question being asked by a lot of parents and students these days, how will we afford college? well, tomorrow gallup and sally mae release their annual how america pays for college survey. here with a first look at the findings is cnbc s sharon epperson. sharon, great to have you here, as always. great to be here. the numbers tell the story. 70% of those in the survey agree that a college degree is becoming more important. but still, three-fourths of the same people in the survey don t have any plan for paying for college. and college costs are becoming more expensive. increasingly more expensive. and what this survey found was astoundingly people are saying that they re paying even more, 17% more, for all of the college expenses than they did even a year ago. they re looking at nearly $19,000 that they re saying that they re paying for college with everything included without financial aid. and that compares to about $16,000 a year ago. now, keep in mind, people are looking at all of their expenses. and they may not be considering the grants and scholarships and things that they re getting. this is a heavy price tag, but they re willing to pay it. at the same time, to help parents dig deeper to save, you say for people with younger children, they should really consider this 529 college saving plan that we ve been hearing about. but why do you say that given that especially as the market has gone down, this can actually take a knock. you can actually lose your savings. it can take a knock if you have a lot of it in stocks. if your child is 16, 17, even 15 years old, you want to reduce your stock holdings in 529 plan. what the 529 plan does, a lot of folks do it by age allocation. and so as your child gets older, it gets more conservative. make sure that the 529 plan that you re in has 15% or less invested in the stock market as they get to those late teen years approaching college. and know that you can also have that invested just in money markets and cds. it does not have to be invested even in bonds. and you can have other family members contribute. that s a great thing to do. for people who have got kids going into school this fall, you say a lot of them don t realize there s something called a hope scholarship tax credit. what is that? a lot of people don t understand, that s $2500 tax credit you can get. how do you get it? you put it on your federal income tax form. you make sure that you apply for that tax credit. again, that s a dollar-for-dollar credit for tuition, books, supplies. that s something a lot of people forget about. the only way to get access to federal and state grants and loans is submit what s called a free application for student aid. now, how do you do that? what s the deadline? can that work for this fall? that s a form, and that s surprisingly, this survey found, one out of four families did not apply for this form, did not fill out this form, thinking that they would not get any federal grants or aid. this is what you need to fill out to get state grants, to get federal grants. it s not too late. normally you really need to do it right after january 1st. you want to make sure you have that all together. but it s not too late to do it now. for this fall. there are a lot of programs you can do. where do you get this form? you can go online. where do you get it? fast fund. f-a-f-s-a. interest rate on federal loans is actually pretty good. always do federal loans first. they re usually better repayment programs and cheaper terms. do those first and then do private loans. those are variable loans. that s why you want to do the federal loans first. there are free searches online for scholarships. never pay for a scholarship. do fastweb.com. there are so many scholarships available there. also salliemae.com. also online, buying used books or buying books that are several editions ago. check with the professors, of course, first to make sure you can buy these. there s also a website to help you learn how to save. by the way, all this will be 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 mcknew with kim dacey and traffic pulse 11. very light volume especially for monday morning. a couple of things we want to mention. the first is rosedale. at rossville boulevard, of philadelphia road, and also report of an accident at north ellington north arlington ave. no delays to speak of. at westside and topside both checking in at 12 minutes and 16 minutes on 895 northbound. no delays there. we will give you a live look at the top side of the beltway. out of the traffic out of traffic, a little heavier. switching over to a live view of 95, you can see is a little bit slow from the beltway don t get it under 95. down to 895. good news out of the weather department. things happen pretty quiet for us on this monday morning. as we head to the afternoon, the heat and humidity will build up. we will turn the corner back to the old pattern. cockeysville, 75 chestertown. mixture of sunshine and clouds. warmer and more humid than saturday and sunday. high temperatures between 90 and 95. southwest winds at 10. there is a slight chance of a couple of showers and thunderstorms tonight. best chance will be in the afternoon on tuesday and wednesday. high temperatures will be in the low-to-mid-90 s. it to cool off into the 80s. we will have another update at 8:55. now i can stop pain from any angle with no mess. (announcer) new icy hot spray. relief that s icy to dull pain, hot to relax it away. and no mess. new icy hot spray. don t mess around with pain. 8:30 now on a monday morning. it s the 9th day of august, 2010. we re outside saying hi to all the nice men and women and boys and girls who are joining us on the plaza this morning on a pretty summer morning. we re happy to have them here. and out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with ann curry who is in while meredith is taking the day off and joined by natalie morales as well. coming up, more research parents will want to hear. it is amazing. researchers are saying children as young as 7 are showing signs of puberty. and not only is something sort of maybe predictable like the obesity epidemic a factor, but there are environmental factors as well. so we re going to take those topics one by one because this is very serious. this actually opens up a child a girl to having be more vulnerable to diseases like breast cancer. so we really need to face this thing now. we all have kids. your kids good eaters? no, horrible. terrible. yes. mine are finicky. it depends. it depends. they re not little babies either. terrible. nothing green. well, we re going to talk this morning about the five foods that your kids simply must be eating. and this goes for adults as well. what, cookies? that s actually a different kind of cookie. that s a healthy cook we. ah. we ll talk about that in just a second. bean brownies, yum. that works. okay. plus, the eight hidden benefits of being middle aged. there are. no, there are. it s got to be some good part of it. okay, take it from me. i think getting older is underrated. we re going to talk about it coming up. i think getting older is one of your choices, basically. al s not here today. stephanie abrams has a check of the weather. steph? usually moms try to hook up the kids with a man, right? but a little opposite today? it s opposite today. we re looking for a man for our 90-year-old mother. mom, what are you looking for in a man? somebody younger with money. hey! happy birthday to you. let s have a look at the weather here across the country. and maybe you ll find a man here in new york city while you re visiting for your birthday. beautiful weather. maybe at central park. a lot of people out there running. you ve got to get a guy that s in shape, good morning, everyone. we are off to a fairly quiet start this monday. a little bit of haze in some areas, with this opinion, and for your birthday forecast, all you have to do is logon to weather.com. speaking of birthdays, we want to head over to willard and see who s celebrating today. willard? wear your bathrobe and check out those meteor showers. we ve got quite a few this month. you might say they re the dog day showers. as a matter of fact, we will say. happy birthday from smucker s. how sweet it is. how fantastic they can be, it depends on the weather. herbert moore, mt. vernon, missouri, 100 years old today. celebrated his anniversary being a d-day war veteran. got his driver s license renewed until he was 103. i can t even do it at 80. rose lindney of west milford, new jersey, 100 years old. changed the tire on a model t ford while women couldn t even drive. can you believe in our generation, in our lifetime women couldn t drive cars. doorny juntunen. and she is from lyon mountain, new york, 100 years old. avid yankees fan, attends church weekly. we wish her a happy birthday. lou batori of glen arbor, michigan, 100 years old. still ski races and is honored by nastar and shovelled his own driveway during the blizzard of last year. how about that? you ve got to be careful with that, though. cleo garman, quanah, texas, 103, cancer survivor. how about that. encouraging? you bet it is. lives independently. god bless her. and finally, we have elmer harris. takoma park, maryland, our neighbor across the street. 100 years old today. takes no medication. can t beat that. seventh day adventist. fantastic. that s it. that s all. now back to new york. willard, thank you very much. when we come back, why girls in this country are entering puberty earlier than ever before. some as early as 7. we ll talk about that. but first, this is today on nbc. back now at 8:37 with today s health. a new study out reveals that girls in the u.s. are entering puberty at earlier ages than they have in the past. some as young as 7 years old. dr. iva horn is a pediatrician with children s medical center in washington. dr. horn, good morning. good morning. so this study included 1,239 girls of various races. it found that at 7 years old, 10% of children who are white, 23% of children who are black, and not hispanic, and 14% of hispanic girls had attained what s called breast stage two, which is a sign of puberty. yes. as a pediatrician, as shocking as this is, this is not surprising to you. why? it s not surprising because we are seeing the trend in our practices. and i think that this is consistent with a previous study, but it s telling us that unlike the previous study in 1997, more girls are developing at the age of 7 and 8. one of the chief researchers in the study is calling this a warning flag. because and the findings cite the most probable cause for this is this rising obesity epidemic in our children. absolutely. now, why is that? why is there this link? because girls who are obese have increased hormone levels. and particularly they have fat increase in fat cells and fat increases hormones. and so these girls who are developing earlier are also having earlier exposure to estrogen, higher levels of estrogen. and studies have shown that link of estrogen and breast cancer. okay. let s talk about that. you know, we don t want this. we do not want our girls to have puberty early because of this link. is it a strong link that these girls later in life are more likely to get breast cancer? is it a strong link? there is an indication that that may be the case. we have to follow these girls longer. the study is just the beginning. we have more work to do. and that s the great thing that the investigators are doing. they are looking at these girls. and they re following them over time to see if this early breast development leads to greater risk in the future. but these investigators don t think obesity is the only explanation. they believe that there are environmental factors. absolutely. like? well, there are chemicals and other things they are not certain of. in the environment? in the environment. and that s why we have to follow these girls over time so really get a better understanding of what this means. some parents are going to be worried about all the controversy regarding hormones in milk. because that has been something that was really debated when hormones were allowed to be used in milk production. are we still gray on this, or is there any greater information that links that as a problem probable factor in why girls become prepubescent? this study does not give us more information in that regard. i think what investigators are doing is following over time, and that s going to give us more information. this is just the beginning. but it s a great beginning for us to learn about what those future causes are. in addition to being more vulnerable to breast cancer, these children are more likely to be involved in sexual activity at an earlier age. because they ve been in puberty. so what is the message that we should give parents, first of all, about how to prepare children who are showing these signs for what is to come? what do we say to them? what do we do? what is your advice? sure. when you have a 7-year-old and her body is developing, she still has the mind of a 7-year-old. just like if you have a 2-year-old and that 2-year-old happens to be tall for their age. you treat them like a 2-year-old. and it s really important that parents continue to treat their children in an age-appropriate way and that they look at who their children are being exposed to because especially if kids have older siblings, they may be exposed to older kids. and the activities and behaviors of older children. but it s really important to make sure that that 7-year-old remains a 7-year-old. bottom line, though, is this is yet another reason to make sure our children that we do everything possible to make sure our children deal with obesity, that we don t allow our kids to remain obese if they are, that this is a real risk. and we look at the environmental factors. it s hard to know what to do. but i m sure a lot of parents will be looking for some ways to protect their girls from this kind of problem. well, absolutely. and parents should really talk to their girls about what s going on in their body at an age-appropriate level. but then also encourage their child to have a positive image of themselves and positive self-esteem because that s going to go a long way in the future as they re developing maybe sooner than their friends are. hopefully we ll get more information on what may be causing this. iva horn, thank you so much. great to see you. coming up next, the five foods your children should be eating. first, this is today on nbc. the kincaids live here. across the street, the padillas. ben and his family live here, too. ben s a re/max agent, and he s a big part of this community. there are lots of reasons why re/max agents average more sales than other agents. experience, certainly. but maybe it s also because they care about the markets they serve and the neighbors who rely on them. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. visit remax.com today. it s your life do it right we re back now at 8:44. this morning on eat smart today, five foods your kids should eat. poor food choices and overreceipting, two critical reasons why childhood obesity is becoming an epidemic. simple dietary changes can drastically the way they think, move and feel. nutritionist joy bauer is also a today contributor. good to see you. good to see you, matt. going to help out a lot of parents this morning and probably aggravate a lot of kids. let s start with by the way, adults too should be eating. the first right off the bat is seafood. it s brain food. that s right. and not all seafood. it s the coldwater, fatty fish. and that s because it s loaded with omega 3 fats. and we know through studies that omega 3 fats, it s a critical component of cell membranes in the brain. and people that eat a high diet that s rich in omega 3 fats optimize brain performance. it s that important. give me names of the fish. you say the coldwater fish. for example. salmon, sardines, anchovies. not exactly the things that kids are going to warm up to. how do you get them to incorporate it into their diets? my best advice is to make a sweet delicious sauce. over here this is my hoisin glaze sauce. it s on the website. all it is, it s hoisin sauce, rice wine vinegar and a little ginger. it tastes good and they re getting the fish at the same time. another thing you could do is pick up canned salmon and swap out tuna salad. tuna doesn t have as much omega 3 fats as the salmon. and if your kid is one who s saying i ll eat seafood, mom, i want fish sticks. the kind that are trade. you don t make that trade. it s not the same benefits. you don t want to fool yourself. don t give up. the second food kids and adults should be eating, beans. beans. and that s because beans help to stabilize our mood. they come packaged with fiber. and when we eat beans, the fiber helps to blunt the absorption of carbohydrates so we don t get these volatile spikes in blood sugars. we re more even tempered, and it could really help the crankiness and irritability. beans have become almost a bun punch line. once we feed them beans, will we be sorry that we did it? no. don t expect you re going to get a lot of tooting. even if you get some gas, the benefits really do outweigh some of the down side. but don t expect it. ways to get beans into their diet? hummus. i love hummus. it has a nice mild, luck yxurio taste. you don t want them dipping potato chips in the hummus. i went out on a limb and wanted to show you the extreme versatility of beans. i took a can of black beans, rinsed it in a colko colander a it in a brownie mix. true. it tastes like a brownie. doesn t it? it s still a fudgy treat, but you get a shot of nutrition and fiber. sorry, guys. that s easy. all right. oats. another thing kids have to be eating. it s a great complex carbohydrate. and because it s a little bit hard to digest, it delivers long-lasting energy throughout the morning. and it s not just about a morning bowl of oatmeal. you can use oats as a binder instead of bread crumbs in recipes like meatloaf and meatba meatballs. cookies. yeah, these are oatmeal cookies. as long as there s not a lot of butter and fat. i use applesauce, pull back on sugar and adding dark chocolate chips and dried fruit. you could even eat with for breakfast with a cup of skim milk. you like eggs and you don t like them just for breakfast. eggs are a high-quality, complete protein. it helps to strengthen and maintain our muscles. and for people looking to lose weight, the whites are great because they re only 17 calories, and they re pure protein. but even though the yolks get a bad rap because they have saturated fats and cholesterol, they also have vitamin d, selenium and choline. i think people should mix it up. some whole eggs mixed with egg whites. it doesn t have to be just scrambled eggs. this is an egg burrito. my kids, they love eggs. and you could add beans. and hummus. and finally, you like spinach. i love spinach because it has the trifecta of ingredients for enhancing eye health. it has beta carotene, lutein and xeazanthin. they ve been shown to reduce the risk for macular degeneration. why are you showing a burger? i take a pack of frozen chopped spinach, i nuke it, drain it and mix it in with lean ground turkey meat and a taco packet. seasoning? yeah. this is loaded with spinach, and kids really like it. five good ideas. everyday foods. very easy. joy, thank you. we appreciate it very much. we re back in a moment. this is today on nbc. by expanding the port, martin o malley is creating the next generation of jobs right here in baltimore. 5700 hundred jobs. that means work for today. but even more jobs for the future. 5700 new jobs that makes maryland more competitive in the world economy. without governor o malley, this expansion would never have happened. his commitment to upgrading our port and fighting for our workers is unparalleled. martin o malley, there s never a doubt who s side he s on. martin o malley. moving maryland forward. when you think of jousting, you probably think of knights going head to head on horseback. as you might remember, matt, meredith, al and i gave it a try at medieval times earlier this year. today s jenna wolf has given it a different try. why did you guys go so slow? they slowed down the tape. i thought so. this is a different twist on that ancient sport. we re not talking about jousting for entertainment, battling someone else, but instead competing for pure sport. reporter: armor, lances, battles and blood. that s jousting. but believe it or not, so is this. here in the shenandoah valley, though it s much tamer, a form of the ancient sport is still very much alive. once you ever sit the horse and go down that track, you re hooked. reporter: getting hooked involves a wooden lance, dangling rings and some pretty key hand/eye coordination. it s speed. it s agility. reporter: mona banden is the president of the national jousting association. yes, there is such a thing. at a jousting tournament, i m known as maid of midway. reporter: she s been at it nearly 20 years. what are the rules of jousting? you start your horse at the start. it s an 80-yard course. saddle up saddle up reporter: you have eight seconds to make it down the course. the object is to catch each ring hanging from all three arches. saddle up saddle up reporter: get every one, and you move on to the next round. there are four skill levels in competition. and the better you are, the smaller the ring gets. so this is the scale of ring size. you work your way through and keep on getting smaller and smaller. reporter: and this is the smallest? right. reporter: because after this, it s called invisible, right? pretty much. reporter: jousters like george cadet, an orthopedic surgeon, consider this the perfect hobby. generally when you tell somebody you re jousting, what is the reaction most often? the reaction is they re waiting for me to put on my suit of armor and knock somebody off their horse. reporter: people think if you re jousting, it s something to do with medieval times. yes. reporter: no doubt. that s because it all dates back to the middle aimings in europe where people jousted against one another. today s sport is considerably more family friendly. the youngest jouster here is 3. 9-year-old ashley was just 5 when she learned. what is the feeling like for you when you go through and you catch all three rings? it feels like you re very it s your lucky day. reporter: i knew exactly what she meant. yes! keep going! we ve got one, baby! at 40 miles an hour, an exhilarating feeling. it s not an expensive sport. the national event cost you 6 bucks to sign up. you don t have to have fancy equipment. reporter: the equipment may not be fancy, but it is rather big. in fact, here it s byoh. yeah, you ve got to bring a horse. what s the draw? i think for the riders, the draw is the adrenaline of riding down the track and get the horse to do what it s supposed to do. there are about a dozen jousting clubs in this country. the season starts in the spring and goes through october with the national championship tournament in leesburg, virginia, matt, just on the off chance. that i want to get down there? that you want to get down there. how big a ring were you working with? mine was that big. it was actually a life preser r preserver. that looks like fun to me. it was a lot of fun. big team sport? why not? they re doing it in high schools all across the country. coming up eight hidden benefits of being middle aged. yes! but first, your local news and weather. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. police in harford county are investigating the death of a 52- year-old woman the body was discovered just before 9:30 saturday night when paramedics responded to a call at the 1500 block to view drive. we got a 91 call from the roommate of the victim, who believed she suffered a heart attack. when personnel arrived at the scene, it was apparent that it was not heart-related, and that the victim at suffered trauma. that is being investigated as a homicide. anyone with information is asked to call our for crime solvers. we are off to a pretty quiet start this morning. we had a bit of a fog earlier. most of that has dissipated now. it will be warmer and more humid than over the weekend. high temperatures between 90 and 95. seven-day forecast through the rest of the week, it will be steamy on tuesday and wednesday. high temperatures and the low- to-mid-90 s. we will have another update at 9:25.