Transcripts For WBAL Today 20101124 : vimarsana.com

we re looking at a crowd that is extremely happy because we just had a great concert from kings of leon. we ll have some more music a little later on. i m matt lauer along with my friend al roker and a lot of people hitting the roads. this is one of those big get away days. new tsa screening procedures are in effect. and we have got today s money 911, if you think in the next couple of months you could be getting laid off, we have some advice for you. plus who s going to make the guest list for the wedding of the century. i know a couple of people who are on the list. did you get an invitation? i would be stunned. let us go inside, tamron hall is in while ann s on assignment. good morning, everyone, a u.s. aircraft carrier is headed for korean waters today following the north korean bombardment of the south korean islands setting dozens of buildings and homes on fire. the navy will engage in exercises with south korea on sunday. anthony wader was found guilty after holding a 16-year-old neighbor captive for more than a year. sentencing will begin in january. a massive explosion inside a coal mine in new zealand has erased any hopes of finding 29 miners trapped in a similar blast five days ago. this is one of the busiest travel days of the year, millions of americans head out for thanksgiving celebrations. tom costello is at reagan international airport. any signs of people boycotting those full body scans as the internet bloggers have threatened to do? reporter: we have seen at this checkpoint in washington, you could be in and out of that checkpoint in three or four minutes max. we have not seen any sign of that opting out protest. 1.6 million penal traveling by air over the course of this holiday thanksgiving period. 40 million people going by car, the biggest problem will be the weather in the midwest where they re dealing with some rain, some sleet and some ice. back to you. all right, tom, thank you. a special thanksgiving diary, five organ donors have part all of the donors and recipients are doing very well and everyone in the chain agrees that it was a great joy times five. and finally a very important matter of state today at the white house, president obama pardoned one of these two birds in an annual thanksgiving tradition, the newly crowned national turkey, along with its vice presidential alternate will then be september to george washington s mt. vernon estate to live out the rest of their days on the farm and luckily not on the table. it is three minutes past the hour, back to matt and meredith. i think their names are apple and cider. thank you for that little thanksgiving tidbit. let s go over to mr. roker for a check of the holiday weather. we have got a great view of the keyboardist. not too shabby. let s check your weather and we have got some weather to deal with as far as airport delays. winds 30 to 45 miles an hour in boston and newark. snow and sleet developing, there could be some problems there. salt lake city a lot of snow yesterday. snow showers today and chicago rain and sleet and winds later today, we ll probably go through the airport today. heavy rain and thunderstorms. nice travel conditions here with sunny skies and a high near seasonable. 54 down on the lower eastern shore. shore. that s your latest weather. tamron? this morning on today s money 911, your most pressing financial questions answered. today s financial editor and author of money 911 and sharon epperson, cnbc s financial expert. we have got so many questions. we have got anna from ohio. she s joining us from skype. good morning, anna, what s your question? good morning. my question is me and my husband have a 529 for your 9-year-old son and he wants to take the money out of this account, close it out, use some of the money to catch up and some of the money we ll put into an ira in our name because he has heard that having this money in our son s name will hurt hiss chances of getting financial aid later. i disagree, i want to keep the account, i think we ll be sorry when it comes time for him to go to college. what should we do? this is a great question. anna, i am with you 100%, if you can afford the leave the money in there, it will not hurt his chances of financial aid, in fact having the money in a 529 is really considered your asset and the schools don t look at it until the second or third year in which he goes to school, but that $9,000 won t hurt you. i would take future contributions and put them in an ira if you need to play catch up for your own retirement. as we say all the time, your retirement has to come before college because there s financial aid out there for college, but there s no financial aid for retirement. you ll be glad you have some money in the 529. we didn t even talk about the taxes and the penalties, but believe me, you don t want to . we have got nicky in virginia. how can i help you today? hi, how are you? thank you for taking my call. what s in my other sibling s and i do to protect our 84-year-old widow s mother from a younger sibling who we think is taking advantage of her. mom paid off her large credit card debts, just moved in with her, now she is joined on mom s account, the house that dad paid off now has a mortgage and mom has $20,000 plus in credit card debt and she sounded really sad when i talked to her about her debt once, now mom is also talking about selling the house for a third of its value. that is a tough one, nicky. we re sorry that your family is in this situation. unfortunately, this is the conversation that comes up a lot around the holidays through thanksgiving. i would suggest if you can put this conversation off with your family until the day after thanksgiving. but here s what i would tell you. the most important thing is who has signatory power on your mom s checking account and credit cards. ideally, if you don t is your sister right now on the credit cards and the checking account? just on the checking account. i would recommend to your mom the following. there s what s called dual signature. is your mom in a good capacity, does she understand what s going on right now? i think so, i live in another state than my mother does, we re like a country apart. so in essence if you don t trust your sister, i would do two things, i would suggest to your mom that there be two signatures on all checks. ideally your sister won t be signing the checks. but you actually tell your sister, you can tell your mom, mom, will you just copy me on the statements, the bank will actually send the statements to your home or you can get online access. you can say, just let me be the second set of eyes for you. the third thing i would say is it s possible your sister has good intentions and you may also want to have a conversation with your sister about this and say, i m also going to be watching over this, i m going to be looking through the statements and looking through the checks, i know you mean the best, but i m going to be watching you. let s go to the phones, arnie from san francisco. caller: my questions are i will be laid off from my job in five months, i ve been in the company for 11 years. do you have any suggestions for what i should do no preparation for the layoff. i do have a mortgage that has a 6% interest rate. should i try to do a loan modification or should i refinance and then do a loan modification? i m sorry about your situation with your job, but i do want to ask you, do you have any leads on a new job? have you started looking? do you have anything lined up? caller: not yet. you need to try to get even a part-time job. but the other thing, are you the sole owner on this home? caller: yes. unfortunately, you re not going to like what i have to tell you, they re going to want verification of your employment and of your future employment and you re not going to be able to say that you re going to be employed for a long period of time, and if you try to get a loan modification, if you don t have any income, that s going to be difficult for you. you may want to looking into selling that home and rent something cheaper. but make a list of all the expenses that you re going to be able to cut right now and what you can cut when you lose your job. also keep in mind that you may want to stop if you re contributing to retirement, i hate to say this, but right now you need to build up your savings, so stop putting money into that 401(k) or that ira and start building that liquid savings that you v and also you want to try to get a line of credit. and all the while, you re still looking for a job. it s worth trying to re-fi that mortgage now. as long as you ve got five more months of income and you re not doing anything dishonest, she could certainly try. if you re employed, that s but you do need to be truthful on the questionnaire. that s right. thank you all, jean, david, sharon, great pleasure, happy holidays to you. still ahead, the next big choices awaiting prince william and kate now that they have picked the wedding date and the church. up next, a touching story of thanksgiving from st. jude s children s hospital. right after this. turn the tub around talking about nutrition [ female announcer ] i can t believe it s not butter with no trans fat and 70% less saturated fat than butter. butter taste, better health. cozy up, spread joy. there s no story without a cast of characters, and just like we mix and mingle, so do the delicious tastes and textures in every handful of chex mix. we re made to mix. we removed the alcohol and made it less intense. it still kills bad breath germs for a whole-mouth clean. and it s never felt so good. new less intense listerine® zero™. our series thanks and giving. on friday, auburn and alabama face off in one of the year s most famous college football games. the young athlete will be with the team in spirit, but not on the sidelines. 18-year-old shaun dreams of playing on this very field. i want to play in this uniform every day. reporter: the st. louis rams honored him on the field for his personal battle off of it. please welcome our honorary captain, shaun coleman. reporter: shaun knows that this is where he belongs. he s one of the best offensive linemen in the country. we got on him early in the process, watched film on him, talked to his coach, found out a lot about him. has a great size and a great future. at 6 7 , 285 pounds, shawn was at the top of his game, having just committed to a football scholarship at auburn university. months later, lumps on his head and his body would turn out to be something no one expected. cancer. i was completely shocked, there was no better way to put it. it was surreal. reporter: shaun s mother told him the lumps were malignant. from the first meeting he never doubted that he would beat this. he accepted it and told me to buck up, it s going to be okay, he s going to be fine. reporter: shaun was dged with acute leukemia? the common age group is a little younger, but it s a continuous variable. the cure rate has gone from 4% to 94% thanks in large part to advances at st. jude s research hospital. but even with these successful numbers, it s still a mystery why someone as seemingly health think as shaun would be diagnosed. that s the problem, we don t know why kids get leukemia and that s why we re doing all the research to try and figure out. as he continues to fight the leukemia, shawn s coach and teammates are standing behind him, holding his place on the team for when we s ready to play again. when you re a great player in this league, you definitely have a shot to go on to the nfl and be a great player there as well and he s definitely got that ability. reporter: shaun still works out daily and sits with his team on the sidelines. he has two years to go to finish his treatment, which he compares to the game of football. i look at the opponent and like my coaches, they set up a game plan for me every week, i use my game plan to overcome whatever it is to my achievement. reporter: and in addition to his achievements, shaun s mom s dream of playing football again will be a reality. i don t see anything that s going to stop him. i would say in the next two years, he ll be running out of the tunnel at jordan harris stadium and within the next several years, he ll be living out his dream in the nfl. i know i m going to win. marlow thomas is the national outreach director. we heard the piece, it went from 4% to 94%. is this going to be 100% krurable? the whole reason it s come up to 94% is that we have gotten better at combining the drugs, at customizing the drugs, dosing the child, depending on their own dna, we have got to come up with better antibiotic drugs and all of this has led to us not using radiation on children. and we re the only hospital in the world that does that because we re able to cure leukemia without radiation. his quality of life is going to be up to 100% because he doesn t have to suffer the side effects of radiation. marlow thomas, happy thanksgiving. . you, too. we have one more song from the kings of leon. but first, these messages. with the capital one venture card we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned a holiday trip to the big apple twice as fast! dinner! [ garth ] we get double miles every time we use our card. and since double miles add up fast, we can bring the whole gang! it s hard to beat double miles! i want a maze, a sword, a. oww! [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one and earn double miles on every purchase, every day. go to capitalone.com. i wonder what it could be?! what s in your wallet? i wonder what it could be?! lose those lines for up to a year! juvéderm® xc is the gel filler your doctor uses to instantly smooth out lines right here. temporary side effects include redness, pain, firmness, swelling, bumps, or risk of infection. ask your doctor about juvéderm® xc. doorbusters start at 4am this friday at sears get a forty inch samsung lcd for four ninety-seven ninety-nine. this velocity micro seven inch tablet is two forty-nine ninety-nine. .save one-forty on this craftsman mechanics tool set. be the santa you want to be. sears now the healing power of touch just got more powerful. introducing precise from the makers of tylenol. precise pain relieving cream works quickly to activate sensory receptors. it helps block pain signals fast for relief you can feel precisely where you need it most. precise. only from the makers of tylenol. the today show s 17th annual holiday toy drive is underway and we have got a great donation from one of our generous contributors. we have an avon representative. tell us a little bit about the donation from avon this year. we re so happy to be donating over $2 million worth of toys. they re all for boys, we have toys and products and a lot of goodies here. you are a woman out there, you re an avon rep, getting in contact with the customers. yes, i love it. i ve been selling avon for ten years now. this is for boys and girls. little bubble bath and items for girls. some great products here for the holidays. this is actually a sleeping bag. this is a great sleeping bag. thank you very much. thank you to avon by the way. we ll have celebrity guests out here collecting gifts out on the plaza if you bring a toy or a piece of clothing for the needy. up next, another song from kings of leon. 19 days, 8 hours. 20 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes. 18 days, 17 hours. [ mom ] let s go, young lady. 12 days, 18 hours. 10 hours, 12 minutes, 7 seconds. come on. it s no days! 5 hours and 59 minutes and 42, 41. [ female announcer ] the hallmark countdown to christmas ornament. this christmas, make it joyful, at your hallmark gold crown store. is spreading their love for fruits and veggies. gerber nature select baby food. 100% nutritious. 100% up to gerber standards. [ baby giggles ] [ female announcer ] welcome to the gerber generation. [ baby giggles ] the gerber generation loves whole grains this much! gerber graduates snacks with yummy whole grains, and the vitamins and minerals your toddler needs. [ child giggles ] welcome to the gerber generation. [ female announcer ] keurig has over 200 varieties of gourmet coffee and tea to choose from. keurig is the way to brew fresh, delicious coffee in under a minute. way to brew. [ female announcer ] so with keurig, every cup tastes like it s brewed just for you. because it is. choose. brew. enjoy. keurig. choose. brew. enjoy. naturally colorful vegetables are often a good source of vitamins, fiber, or minerals. and who brings you more natural colors than campbell s condensed soups? campbell s.® it s amazing what soup can do.™ live, local, latebreaking. this is a wbal-tv 11 news update. hope you are doing well on this wednesday before thanksgiving. things looking gorgeous in the heart of central maryland. high today of 52 degrees. mostly sunny skies. a couple of clouds by this afternoon. 54 and beautiful down to the south in ocean city. tomorrow, kind of messy. a wave of s it s just now it s not just thanksgiving without the annual macy s thanksgiving day parade. we re going to bring you the marching bands, the floats and the balloons. i ll be there along with matt and meredith. macy s thanksgiving day parade immediately following today at 9:00 a.m. right here on nbc. meanwhile inside studio 1a, i m al roker alongside tamron hall. you re going to do some traveling today? i m leaving out of here, but april 29 is the date prince william and kate middleton have picked for their wedding. you have their date marked on your calendar, don t you? i ve got it. plus would you give your kidney to save someone you had never met? we re going to meet the people involved in the largest kidney transplant chain ever performed in the u.s. 16 donors, 16 recipients and their doctors, we re going to talk to them all coming up. another song from southern rocker kings of leon, but first, al, one of the king this is morning. it s good to be king. with a check of your forecast. let s show you what s happening. a parade, cloudy, temperatures 36 to 40 and the winds 7 to 14 miles an hour. so that s good news. thanksgiving day some rain in the pacific northwest. rain in the upper mississippi and oh river valley. sunshine in new england, then on friday, we have got showers along the east coast for your shopping pleasure. sunny, frigid and cold in the plains and then for saturday, cold in the plains, rain in the west, a few snow showers around the great lakes and then sunday, sunday, more rain along the west coast into the southwest, mountain snows out west, plenty of sunshine, but cold weather for the great lakes into the plains down into the gulf coast. we are going to see sunny skies to partly cloudy conditions. temperatures in the low 50s. thanksgiving, messy start, up next, just how vod are prince william and kate middleton in planning their wedding? we ll have that after this. sometimes i worry. yeah. what if something bad happens? so what happens if someone gets my credit or debit card and buys a ton of stuff? that would be. really, really bad. 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[ whistle blows ] [ squishing ] [ male announcer ] pool filled with caramel. not as good as chocolate filled with caramel. introducing milky way simply caramel. life s better the milky way. 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. and vitamin d of regular milk. it s that time of year. time for campbell s green bean casserole. you ll find the recipe at campbellskitchen.com. campbell s.® it s amazing what soup can do.™ so i mix together a packet of hidden valley ranch, 1 box of spinach, and 16 ounces of sour cream, and tonight everyone gets a taste of something special. ranch spinach dip. [ male announcer ] hidden valley ranch. mix it up. the koubd count down is on, prince william and kate middleton have six months to iron out the wedding at westminster abbey. stephanie gosk has the latest. reporter: five months, that s all they have to plan the most spectacular and complicated royal celebration in decades. a top priority and a delicate one, the guest list. there are those that should get invites, those that shouldn t and those that muftd. westminster abbey has the capacity of 2,000, but as many as 8,000 can be packed literally up to the rafters. and it won t be just heads of state and european royals. it is being called the people s wedding. i m sure the abbey and the palace will be very, very conscious of the need to reach out to all constituencies in britain in the ceremony, let it be as grand as you like, but let it also be inclusive. reporter: a public holiday has been declared, street parties are being planned. everyone is invited to the procession with its pomp and it s circumstance as it winds through these streets just as it did 30 years ago with charles and diana. as the future head of the armed forces, the prince s bride will have a full military escort, flying over and soaring military music. in the category of wedding dilemma most people don t have, they will have to choose a carriage, there s over 100. there the glass coach, the queen alexandra coach, and the coach equivalent of a luxury limo, the sixth horse edward vii. the procession will wind its way from the abbey to the reception, likely to be held at buckingham palace, the best balcony for the newlyweds to make an appearance. than they will usually end up throwing a party. for today, stephanie gosk. nbc news, london. up next, sweet 16, we ll meet the people involved in the largest kidney exchange ever right after this. if you fight to sleep in the middle of the night, why go one more round ? you don t need a rematch, but a rethink. with lunesta. lunesta is thought to interact with gaba receptors associated with sleep. lunesta helps you get the restful sleep you need. lunesta has some risk of dependency. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving or engaging in other activities while asleep without remembering it the next day have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. stop fighting with your sleep. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. get lunesta for a co-pay as low as zero dollars at lunesta.com discover a restful lunesta night. so i mix together a packet of hidden valley ranch, 1 box of spinach, and 16 ounces of sour cream, and tonight everyone gets a taste of something special. ranch spinach dip. [ male announcer ] hidden valley ranch. mix it up. start with cookie dough. add frosting. [ giggles ] [ female announcer ] then sprinkles. [ both giggle ] [ female announcer ] fun. easy. [ child ] wow. [ female announcer ] at pillsbury.com. 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 now to the people behind the largest kidney exchange ever. 16 patients, thankful to be alive and thankful to their 16 donors, including a soldier and an nbc news viewer, we re going to talk to them in a moment, but first, nbc s tom costello has their story. reporter: what does it take for someone to give a kidney to a total stranger. after two tours in iraq and one in afghanistan, army specialist patrick duncan had seen enough, enough suffering, enough death. i think that up close and personal and now it s time for a change, now that i can actually save someone s life, it just means so much. for patricia harris, it s a trade, she ll donate and someone else s kidney will help save her son. i will move heaven and earth for my son, but more than that, i can improve the quality of life of someone else, that s what god wants us to do. reporter: jonathan was just 12 when his sole kidney started to fail, then open heart surgery and chronic asthma, now at 22, the kidney his brother gave him has also failed. i guess that just means i was put on earth to reporter: after 25 years of kidney disease, rhonda carry is also hoping for better things. i m praying that this will be the only trance plant that i ever have to have. patrick, patricia, jonathan and rhonda are part of the biggest transplant chain in the history of the u.s. what i try to do every day is try to find more kidneys for my patients. reporter: the kidney transplant director another georgetown. 32 trands plants over three weeks, spread over three different hospitals, georgetown, walter reid. only approximately a fourth of the people that sit on the transplant list will ever be transplanted. so you have to get a living donor for the rest of these patients if they re ever going to get a transplant. reporter: there simply aren t enough donors. there s over 65,000 americans wait forgive a transplant but only 6,000 people actually gets one. that means every 23 minutes, someone dies wait fog arrest kidney. relatives, friends, even strangers can donate. from watching television. reporter: christine hall stepped forward after watching our report on the doctor last year. i began thinking, why don t more people do that? and then i realized the question should be why don t i do that? reporter: donors and recipients were finally introduced. patrick harris s kidney went to rhonda carry. thank you from the bottom of my heart. reporter: when pat trick harris met his donor, he was overcome. for a long time, i had to leave us alone. jonathan is going to take good care of it. and i hope it gives him a whole new lease on life. reporter: and jonathan s mom, her kidney went to kochar. so many lives so much gratitude, that s what it means to get a kidney today. good morning to all of you. good morning. let me ask you, we have heard, some people have decided to just do this out of the goodness of their heart. if somebody decided to do this, what are the risks of the healthy folks who want to donate a kidney? well, it is major sunshine surgery, the risk of bleeding or the risks are very small. most healthy people can be without any risk that they can be in the hospital one or two days and they can pretty much return to normal activities in more than a month. you have tours of duty in afghanistan and iraq. why did you decide to do this? i decided to do this because i have lived all my life, i have lived a healthy life and for someone who can t have that life just because they re on dialysis, it wasn t fair so i decided to do what i had to do to give them a good life. and rhonda, you got the kidney donated by specialist duncan. you got a lot to be thankful for, you and your family, this thanksgiving? yes, i do. i m very thankful and i thank god that i was able to be a part of this and i thank god that i got patrick s kidney. and patricia, you and your son jonathan, you ve been through a lot together, he had a kidney that would have been donated from his brother. what would it mean for you and jonathan to have gotten this kidney for him. well, it s definitely going to increase the quality of his life providing him an opportunity to live a young man s life that without this having occurred come independent of each other. i can see that bond, it s very special. christine hall, you saw the report that tom costello did on nightly news with brian williams and you were moved to act and you said this helped you improve your life as you got ready to donate a kidney? it did. how so? i think you re referring to my weight loss. yes. i lost 40 pounds getting ready for the surgery. wow. knowing that you, as a bonus, you re in better health and you have helped somebody, how did that make you feel? honored. yeah, that s terrific. doctor, you ve done 16 pairs, what s next, 20, 24? what are you thinking? well, al, actually our national organization, the united network of organ sharing is now going to make this a national program. so what we re most proud of is the fact that more people across the nation will be able to participate in these sort of exchanges and be transplanted. that s terrific. happy thanksgiving to everybody, please enjoy and we re so proud of you, thank you so much. thanks, al. and just ahead, we have got one more song from kings of leon. but first this is today on nbc. [ female announcer ] we know you ve got a lot on your plate at thanksgiving. which is why safeway has everything you need to get it all done. right now get a safeway frozen turkey for just 47 cents a pound. that s our promise. that s ingredients for life. safeway. t [ male announcer ]. ife. with new breakfast melts. try the sunrise subway melt®, or the melt-tastic breakfast b.m.t. on flatbread. they re melted goodness made irresistibly delicious, get yours starting at 7am. subway. build your better breakfast. david hyde pierce and doris roberts. but first, one more song from the kings of leon. i ve been running around i ve been looking down at all i need ain t afraid to go to the place i can t reach you know that i could use somebody you know that i could use somebody someone like you you know that i could use somebody you know that i could use somebody someone like you i m off to sleep i want you to know that i want you to know that you re what i need i ve running around i ve been looking down at all i see live, local, latebreaking. this is a wbal-tv 11 news update. very good wednesday morning. we are going to see plenty of sunshine throughout the day today. temperatures in the low 50s, a brisk northwest winds, tend to the teen miles per hour. tend to 15 miles per hour. fog and clouds throughout the afternoon hours. another wave of showers and