Transcripts For WBAL Today 20110406 : vimarsana.com

comes through your windshield. one woman s harrowing encounter today, wednesday, april 6, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning and welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. i m meredith vieira. it is a race against time in washington to avoid a government shut down. so far democrats and republicans appear far apart on a deal. now the obama administration is telling federal agencies to prepare contingency plans if friday s deadline is not meant. what would a shutdown look like and how would it impact you? we ll get the latest in a live report from the white house ahead. also, remember the uproar from the tiger mom? many found her tough love measures extreme. now there is the self-described panda dad. he has a much different take on how to raise a family. we ll meet him coming up. also we want to check out what s in the studio. check out famed treasures worn by the likes of elizabeth taylor, mataylor r taylor, marilyn monroe and charlie chaplin. they are owned by debbie reynolds. she s always fun. we ll begin in washington with the threat of a government shutdown by week s end. savannah guthrie has the latest. good morning. reporter: good morning. this morning white house aids are telling me this could go either way. there were late night meetings on capitol hill. but the threat of a government shutdown is verile real. all right. hello, everybody. reporter: a government shut down now potentially days away the president is venting frustration over the failurer to reach a deal. we don t have time for games. we don t have time for trying to score political points or maneuvering or positioning, not on this. reporter: after a closed door meeting with congressional leaders at the white house produced no breakthroughs it was back-to-back duelling news conferences. we want the largest spending cuts that are possible. we are going to continue to fight for those. i hope the republicans do what the country needs, not what they believe the tea party wants. reporter: republicans want $61 billion in cuts. democrats have agreed to $33 billion and the two sides disagree on what to cut. both parties say they don t want to see the government shut down. we think we re right. reporter: in 1995 republicans got the blame after a battle with president clinton ended in the government closinging. shut it down. reporter: but in the current volatile political climate no one knows who the american people would fault this time around. congressional leaders in both parties are worried about fallout from a shutdown. they don t know who the winners would be, who the losers would be. politicians hate uncertainty. reporter: bracing for impact there was an e-mail sent to federal agencies to prepare contingency plans while house republicans playing for time proposed a one-week budget extension if there is no deal. this is the path to prosperity. reporter: meanwhile an even bigger battle looms as republicans unveiled their budget for next year. a blueprint to cut medicare, medicaid and lower the corporate tax rate to save more than $6 trillion over a decade. this is the most predictable economic crisis in our history. what are we doing? playing politics. reporter: the president said yesterday if there was no progress on these talks he wanted to see speaker boehner and leader reid at the white house today, tomorrow, the next day until there was a deal. the meeting is very much possible today, matt. savannah guthrie, thank you very much. senator chuck schumer is a democrat from new york. good morning. good morning, matt. it s my understanding that a piece of legislation has to be publically posted for 72 hours before it can be voted on. if that is the case, aren t we inside that window now and doesn t it make a shutdown inevitable? well, there is a way to avoid it with a short-term piece of legislation that could be put on the floor as late as today. so you re okay on the timing then? well, tonight is really the deadline, matt. but there is a glimmer of hope. the talks proceeded between the house republicans and senate democrats late last night. some progress was made and the fact that the president hasn t yet called that meeting at the white house is an indication that maybe there is a chance to avoid the shutdown which we want to avoid. tell me about the progress. be specific. do you know where the compromise is headed? well, there are three areas of concern. one is the number. we have met the other side more than halfway, $33 billion. they keep moving the goal post back because speaker boehner is pulled by the tea party. that was the clip you showed where they said shut it down, no compromise. that s not how it works. you re telling me there is progress. i want to know where it is specifically. the progress could be on where the cuts could occur. they have demanded the cuts be on a very small portion of the if you do cuts that deep you cut things like cancer research, aid to students going to college. if we expand it and look at agriculture temperature, ba banking and health care you can get to the number without cutting into the muscle that people don t want to cut. most americans don t want to cut. if you have the final say on the compromise, could you find another $5 billion or $10 billion in cuts to satisfy republicans? absolutely. we can find cuts in other areas. i believe that leader reid has offered those cuts at the conversations last night. you know, you talk about speaker boehner and in some ways it does appear he s in a very difficult position here. he s got a lot of pressure coming from the tea party. yet he s got to try to compromise with democrats to avoid the shut down. these are your words. we take it for granted because of the intense political pressure by the tea party the speaker needs to play an outside game and an inside game. as long as he continues to negotiate it s okay by us if he needs to strike a different pose publically. you re saying he s playing a game, talking out of both sides of his mouth. is that accurate? i wouldn t be that harsh. he has a contingency, the tea party, but he has to walk a tight rope. we re sympathetic, but it s his job to tell the tea party they can t have everything. they are getting some things but they can t get everything their way. when you look at things the tea party and others on the far right are looking for no funding for climate control, planned parenthood, public broadcasting does it seem this is les about economic policy debate and they are making b an ideological stand here? that s right, matt. you have hit the nail on the head. even in the cuts they want to make, we can find other cuts that don t cut into the muscle. that don t prevent students from going to college. they say no, not because they care about the deficit but they have an ideology to get rid of all government. some government is wasteful. some government is productive. the tea party s popularity is declining and it ought to be a message to speaker boehner. in a washington post poll it was asked who wouldle people blame if the government shuts down. a pox on all your houses. it goes 37% for the president, 37% for the republicans. the people certainly want both sides to compromise. as they look at it, they see we have met them more than halfway. we are not moving the goal post back and i think at the end of the day they will understand it s the tea party that s the problem here. senator schumer, thank you for spending time with us. thanks, matt. now a check on the other top stories with ann curry at the news desk. good morning. we begin with good news this morning. a breakthrough in japan overnight as workers at the troubled nuclear facility were able to stop radioactive water from gushing into the ocean. this according to tempko which operates the plant. meanwhile local fisherman are demanding compensation in the wake of the nuclear disaster. libyan rebels are slamming nato alleging the international coalition isn t doing enough to protect them on the battlefield. stephanie gosk is near the front line with the latest in ajdabiya. good morning. reporter: we re on the western edge of ajdabiya in kind of a staging area for the rebels. there is real anger these forces were pushed back by one of the heaviest barrages of artillery by gadhafi loyalists they have seen in days. the top commander is openly criticizing nato for not doing more to protect the citizens of misrata, a town in the west that s been surrounded by gadhafi s forces for weeks now. nato, in its defense, says they have been holding back because they are concerned about civilian casualties. here in eastern libya, there is a u.s. envoy in the city of benghazi. chris stevens is here on a fact-finding mission to offer ways that the u.s. can support the rebels with nonlethal ass t assista assistaassis assistanc anks for the reportering. .em at least nine deaths are blamed on severe weather in southern u.s. the massive storm system cut across from the mississippi river to the carolinas causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. the national weather service confirmed eight tornadoes so far. of the 38 suspected twisters that ripped through the region. boeing has acknowledged that it miscalculated the risk of metal fatigue 737 jets saying it was aware cracking would occur but it was not aware it could happen so soon. boeing is under fire after a five-foot hole ripped open mid flight on a southwest airlines jet last friday. the company recommends inspections on all 737s now after 30,000 flights. now to wall street and cnbc s amanda drury at the new york stock exchange. good morning. good morning. the u.s. stock markets are sitting around their highest in nearly three years. gold prices are at a record high. we all know oil prices are also sky high with the average gallon of gasoline now up 86 cents from a year ago. according to new figures from masterer card this is putting the squeeze on nonessential spending. they were saying the growth in online sales accelerated last month as shoppers were trying to save on gas. back to you. thanks, mandy. finally a stunning victory brought this year s ncaa victory to a close as the women of texas a & m took their first championship title beating notre dame 76-70. just one night after uconn s win made jim calhoun the oldest coach to clinch the men s title gary blair became the oldest coach to win the women s title at 65. let s hear it for the old guys. yeah! they are only old in partly cloudy skies. temperatures in the 30 s right now, a little on the chilly side. upper 50 s and low 60 s this afternoon. and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. now to more on japan s nuclear crisis. officials have stopped highly radio active water from leaking into the ocean but there are concerns over tainted fish making their way to the u.s. my fwiguel almaguer is in los angeles at a major fish vendove. good morning. reporter: much of the fish comes straight from japan. it s fresh and they say it s clean. the federal government s inspectors were here yesterday. many are still worried. fresh fish imported from japan. a $236 million industry last year alone. much of the mackerel, yellowtail and thai snapper at this los angeles distributor came from japanese waters less than 40 hours ago. still, some restaurants and consumers aren t taking any chances. no. we are not serving any fish from japan now. i think as a new mom, especially one that s breastfeeding, i am worried about radiation in the whole food supply. reporter: despite the caution the u.s. government says americans should not be concerned. people should feel confident in the safety of the food supply. reporter: the food & drug administration, the fda, says it s ramped up the examination of seafood from japan. so far, the fda says not a single radioactive fish has been detected in this country. fda established a safety net to be sure anything coming into this country is safe for human consumption consumption. reporter: last month the government halted all from japan. but new worries now as tons of radioactive water was sent into the ocean after thousands of contaminated fish were found within miles of the plant the japanese government announced new radiation standards for fish. india banned imports of all food from japan. on this side of the pacific ocean, japanese fish still sells where you can find it. yes, we are still buying fish from japan. i believe it is safe. i m a physician. and i m very much aware of issues about radioactivity and i don t think we really have to be concerned at this time. reporter: imported fish from japan still considered safe. but today, some won t take the risk. although the u.s. imports hundreds of millions of dollars of fish from japan every year it s important to keep in mind only a small percentage of the fish we eat in this country actually comes from japan. again, the fda says it s safe to eat. meredith? all right, miguel almaguer, thank you very much. it s 7:16. once again here s matt. the trial of italian premier silvio berlusconi got under way this morning. he s accused, as you remember, of paying for sex with an under aged prostitute and using his influence to cover it up. while today s hearing didn t last long the messy case has thrown italy into an uproar. michelle kosinski is in milan. good morning to you. reporter: good morning. the first day of silvio berlusconi s trial lasted eight minutes. it s all procedural. he didn t make an appearance. he s already facing three other trials for corruption, but of course this is the one that gets the attention, the women, the allegations of wild parties and he has not exactly been shy about all of this. silvio berlusconi s latest defense? that at age 74, even he could not have done it. telling a newspaper, even though i m a mischief maker, 32 girls in two months is too much even for a 30-year-old. you never see him frustrated. he s not afraid of the public or the media. reporter: these tv show girls said his infamous parties at the villa were elegant dinners where they might dance and the prime minister would sing. he s like a second fatherer says barbara guera, but leaked photos show them in progress with barbara dressed like not quite a police officer. dozens of prostitutes and young women were recruited for silvio berlusconi, but they defend him. he s not a monster. he s a simple man. reporter: alexandra said she s been to many of the prime minister s parties. they weren t full of sex and partying and naked women? no. i never see this like crazy things. he loved me. but, you know, it s like a platonic love. reporter: and admits silvio berlusconi gave her more than $150,000. when was the last time you talked to him? today. reporter: you talked to him today? on her sparkly phone she called him but the person who answered said he was with a group. he s actually accused of having sex with teenage runaway turned heart throb ruby when she was 17 and getting her released from jail for stealing with silvio berlusconi saying she was related to hosni mubarak. if he were convicted of this crime he could never be a politician for the rest of his life. reporter: he s faced many trials for corruption but always walked away. this case is not necessarily a slam dunk. he insists he didn t sleep with ruby, didn t know her age and thought she was related to mubarak. the prosecution has a lot to prove. a lot depends on what he knew, when he knew it. reporter: the teflon head of state is now in the hands of three judges, all women the no-nonsense kind. prosecutors have 20,000 pages of stuff. lots of wiretaps, but it remains to be seen what s actually damning because what leaked so far isn t necessarily, at least so far as crimes are concerned. silvio berlusconi has been light hearted. the other day handling a tough immigration issue he made a joke and said when women were asked who wouldle sleep with the prime minister 33% said yes and 67% said, what, again? not everyone finds it funny, matt. thank you. coming up, was it excessive or necessary force? a 2nd grader pepper sprayed by police after throwing ale violent tantrum in school. we ll talk to him and his mom. first this is today on nbc. henson, we re going to go over sales figures, complete this merger and present to the board. sink your teeth into some big n toasty if you understand. good. you ve got spunk. a big day calls for the new big n toasty. wrap your hands around fried eggs, cherrywood-smoked bacon, and cheese on texas toast. america runs on dunkin . just ahead, debbie reynolds reveals some of the remarkable hollywood treasures she s collected throughout the years and is now putting up for sale. plus, one driver s very close call when a 2 x 4 comes smashing through her windshield. we ll tell you what happened. first your local news and weather. i thought i was going to be it forever, but then it was dig deep time, and i brought it. and i struck like a cobra. that was a good tag. 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[ male announcer ] build your better breakfast with all the flavors you choose. try an irresistible steak, egg & cheese, with toasty tomato or chipotle southwest sauce on tasty flatbread. only at subway! 95 towards edmondson, southbound 75 backed up approaching the beltway. northbound 83 approaching middletown road, watch for an accident. delays of volume-related be on that point. let s show you what it looks like 40 west. picking up in volume, normal volume-related delays this morning. fort mchenry, coming towards us, saw the traffic. nothing major at the toll plaza. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. chilly start for us, but we don t expect rain or snow or anything like that. temperatures in the 30 s, even below freezing up north. same thing in parksville bird 41 degrees in this city. mixture of sunshine and clouds. high temperatures this out and it in the upper 50 s and low 60 s. 64 tomorrow. slight chance for a shower of. pretty good chance for rain on friday. it should clear up over the weekend by saturday afternoon. close to 70 on sunday. check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. back at 7:55 with another live update. 7:30 now on this wednesday morning, 6th day of april 2011. belief it or not, we have a little bit of spring sunshine in the northeast. that s a nice change for the folks gathered on the plaza. they deserve it. inside studio 1a i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. just ahead, a really frightening accident. take a look at this. a woman was driving with a camera rolling when a truck hit that 2 x 4 in the road and it kicked up and came through her windshield. most importantly, she did not get hurt. she ll be here to share that story in a live interview coming up. also ahead a young couple with an 18-month-old daughter who had their life turned upside down by a tragic coincidence but they say their story is one of hope, not heartbreak. how about this? the startling amount of salt in restaurant meals. would you ever eat two family sized bags of potato chips? yes. that s how much is in one popular restaurant s chicken dish. what you should and should not be ordering when you dine out. we begin with the second grader pepper sprayed by police after he threatened teacherers. we ll talk to that young boy and his mom in a moment. first kerry sanders is in lakewood, colorado, outside denver with details. good morning, kerry. reporter: good morning, meredith. this is the sort of pepper spray they used against aidan, the same sort they use against any suspect. the only difference here, this was an 8-year-old 2nd grader. this is my room. i m a fan of spider-man and like the other superheroes. reporter: at home 8-year-old aidan seems like most kids his age. hi! reporter: police say on february 22nd the 2nd grader went into a violent rage in his classroom. he started throwing chairs at two teachers who locked themselves in an office and called police while aidan reportedly screamed, if you come out, you re gonna die. police say he threw a tv cart and tore wood trim from the walls. they tried to deescalate the behavior that occurred. he was swinging a stick. he was using it as a weapon. he was violent. he was verbal. he was abusive. i wanted to make something sharp for like if they came out because i was so mad at them. i was going to try to whack them with it. the officers told him to drop it. he wouldn t. reporter: so police pepper sprayed him, twice. of course, it burned my eyes so i couldn t see. our officers had to do something to diffuse the situation in a hurry before someone was hurt. reporter: aidan has a history of behavior problems. this was his third run-in with police at school, but aidan s mom says police should have talked him down as they had before. i think it s excessive. i think that they could have tried to talk to him for five, ten minutes to see if they could get him to calm down, but it doesn t seem like that s what they did. the officers made a great choice that day in choosing the pepper spray. reporter: keep in mind this is the same school district as the 1999 columbine high school massacre that left 15 dead. i also now kind of collect these things. reporter: even aidan admits he s got anger issues. i kind of deserved it, but reporter: aidan wants to be a marine but has concerns. when i also behave like that i m thinking my future is going to turn around into the homeless, bad thing way. reporter: aidan no charges were filed at all. in fact, aidan is no longer at this school. he s now enrolled at a school for children with behavioral problems. meredith? kerry sanders, thank you very much. 8-year-old aidan is here along with his mom mandy. good morning to you both. good morning. this is a tough situation for everyone involved, mandy. i understand why you believe using pepper spray on an 8-year-old is excessive. but the police say your son was posing a real threat to teachers, that, in fact, he admits that he wanted to hurt them and they felt they had no choice. can you accept or entertain the possibility that they didn t have any choice but to use spray on your son? to a degree, but the school he was at was for children with socialle and emotional behavioral issues. i thought it was not. i thought he was now in a school for behavioral issues. the school has a classroom specifically for these children. why does that make a difference? because they know what the kids are capable of before they took him on. and then they could have also called and asked for a special unit who deals with children from the police department in these crisis situations. had that been done in the past? the police had been called in to deal with your son on two other occasions. all other times they have been able to talk to him, find out what was bothering him and calm him down. aidan, what was bothering you? what happened? i just get angry a lot. what happened that day? do you remember what you were doing when the police arrived? not that much. but i remember most of it. and what part do you remember? do you remember them asking you to put the stick down? yeah. like the first time they said it like i just kind of did it slowly. and then once it touched the ground, that s when it happened. once the stick touched the ground that s when they sprayed you? yes. do you think if they had t not sprayed you, you would have tried to hurt your teachers? no. you don t think so. do you understand what s going on with aidan, mandy? this isn t the first time it s happened. what triggerers this at school? usually it s a transition period from a structured event such as social studies or reading into a free time and going back to a structured event that he has a problem. is it something that happens at home as well? no. he is a normal 8-year-old child at home with us when he goes to see his nana in wyoming, when he s at soccer, swimming, babysittere babysitters, he s fine. there has to be something. has a doctor diagnosed aidan with anything? we have had many doctors. he sees a therapist weekly. they all say there is nothing mentally wrong with him or there is no disabilitiy there. do you know why you get angry at school sometimes when you don t get angry anywhere else? i don t know. it s just that s the way my body goes. i can t control it for some reason. mandy, if you had that day to do over what would you have hoped they would do differently? that they would have called the right section of the police department to come and talk to him before i got there. i was only ten minutes out. tough question. if you were the parent of another child in that school would you be more accepting of the decision they made? i m not sure i would. there were no students in this classroom when it happened. at this point, aidan, you re in a new school now. how is it going there? i went there before but it s doing pretty good. i know that the police are not filing any charges. the school has dropped this. do you want to drop it, mandy, move on? or do you want to see something happened to the officers that used the pepper spray? i do want them to get training like other local police departments in our area have for a crisis situation with children. i don t think it is right for an 8-year-old to get pepper sprayed. i appreciate you coming on. a little tired this morning, huh? yeah. it s early. thank you again. thank you. let s check on the weather from al. announcer: today s weather is brought to you by chico s. it s who you are, so chico s. good morning, everybody. we have some flooding to talk about up in south dakota where they say this is the worst flooding they have seen in 40 years. they haven t crested yet. of course we ve got flooding along the red river throughout the dakotas and minnesota as well as they continue sandbagging operations. let s show you what s happening. afternoon temperatures part of the problem. we have snow melt up there as temperatures go above freezing in the dakotas. 90s in west texas with some areas getting over 100. 90s in the southwest. snowshowers in northern new england. wet weather in the western parts of new york and pennsylvania. thunderstorms and monsoonal moisture. plenty of sunshine into the midatlantic states and we ve got more rain and snow in the pacific northwest. we are off to a chilly start this wednesday morning, but we don t expect precipitation out there. there might be a couple of showers overnight. that s your latest weather, meredith. okay, al, thank you very much. sorry about that. i was talking to aidan here. up next, healthier alternatives to the saltiest restaurant meals including a pasta dish equal to 11 orders of fries. plus, debbie reynolds shares treasures from some of hollywood s most iconic film stars. first, these messages. i wear what i love, because expression means everything. i wear the pants. and the tops. and the jewels. i grab life by the accessories. some say i ve done it all. i say i m just getting started. too hot to trot baby i m so chico s. which beneful prepared meals. tonight? roasted chicken recipe? - savory rice and lamb stew. - [ barks ] you re right. tonight is a beef stew kind of night. [ announcer ] beneful prepared meals. another healthful, flavorful beneful. he hangs here. because you don t see this everyday. (child) because we read the books . (man) and watched the movies . and now we re living it. because i can fly with harry. follow me! because now i can turn my brother back into a human being. (narrator) from unforgettable adventures, to the wizarding world of harry potter, only at universal orlando resort. 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. tough being the only girl. aw, there s the man of the house. who s this ? this is rufus. hey, rufus. he s actually pretty talented. you wanna see him do a trick ? ok. hey rufus. who do we love ? we love our bank. we love our bank. we love our bank. we love our bank. yes, yes. you really love your bank don t you. ally bank customers love our 24/7 customer care that allows you to talk to a real person anytime. ally. do you love your bank ? eat it eat it we re back at 7:42. this morning on eat this, not that, a salt attack. many meals at your favorite restaurants are packed with sodium and that can spell serious health trouble. david zinczenko is author of the eat this, not that series 2011 and the new no diet diet. good morning. nice to see you. good morning, matt. we have done seg. s and a lot of times we are dealing with fat and calories but sometimes the meals have enough sodium to sink a ship. that s what we are concentrating on today. for sure. people think of fat and calories as the punch of bad nutrition. salt is a sucker punch you don t see coming. 5% of the salt we eat comes from home. that s it. what do doctors and nutritionists say is the proper amount of sodium intake per day? if you re african-american, over 50, around 1,500 milligrams. otherwise, 2,300 which is just a teaspoon of salt. we average 3,400. 2,300 milligrams. keep that number in your minds as we go through the meals. starting with ruby tuesday s mediterranean shrimp pasta. it has 3,900 milligrams of salt. that s 50% more than the average person should have in a whole day. and i think they accidentally boiled the noodles in the mediterranean sea. you re talking here about a dish that has over 1,000 calleries and 4,000 milligrams of sodium. it would be the sodium equivalent of 11 large orders of french fries. not good. ruby tuesday has the grilled petite sirloin with steamed broccoli and white cheddar potatoes. what s the count? it s genius because it s only 460 calories and 900 milligrams of sodium. so you are cutting 60% of the calories, 70% of the sodium and 60% of the fat. you re getting a really nutritious, protein-filled meal. on to ihop, the thick cut bone in ham and eggs has nearly double the recommended daily amount of sodium. this is another day in the salt mines here. i think thick refers to the layer of salt. what you get here is not only more than two days worth of sodium, but you get 37 servings of planter s peanuts. this is the sodium equivalent right here. but ihop has a healthier alternative. this is the simple and fit turkey bacon omelet. only 730 milligrams of salt. what s great is you cut out 3600 milligrams immediately and drop several hundred calories. this wille get attention. the applebee s weight watchers chipotle lime chicken. you hear weight watchers and think it s good for you. salt is sneaky. this is not called salt watchers because this has 5,000 milligrams of sodium. under 500 calories but you have 5,000 milligrams of sodium. you re replacing fat with salt for flavor. that s the equivalent of these chips? 31 servings of ruffles. you can have their half grilled chicken caesar salad. jennifer hudson should sing about the half order. it s 810 milligrams of sodium, 400 calories and just five grams of saturated fat. yeah, but it s still all right. and the carbs are going from 51 grams to 12. here s the killer. this is pf change s double pan fried noodles with pork. i had to look at it twice. this has 7900 milligrams of sodium. yes. it s the sodium equivalent of 263 triscuits. it s double pan fried. it s not bad enough to do it once. they have to pan fry it again. if you re at pf change s and you don t want the lot s wife special that will turn you into a pillar of salt, you should get the buddha s feast and you will be smiling as you cut 90% of the sodium out of the meal. it s not just fat and calories. look at labels, check the sodium content. david, good to see you. thanks, matt. up next, what would you do if you were driving and a 2 x 4 came crashing through the windshield? one woman s extremely close call right after this. [ man ] on your mark. [ 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. imagine what it can do to your skin. but dove isn t soap. it contains pure 1/4 moisturizing cream because, everyday moisture is the key to beautiful skin. and who knows moisture better than dove. oh, do it oh, do it [ female announcer ] coffee is like life. it s better when you add your flavor. coffee-mate, from nestle. where everyone feels at home. where the company, the conversation, and the food make all who enter feel welcome. a place that feels as warm with a crowd. as it does with just a friend. it s a place you ll find town house crackers. because they re part of what makes your place the place. welcome to town house. where good times reside. we are back with a frightening accident caught on tape. wendy cobb decided to film two trucks blocking both lanes in front of her when one of them kicked up a 2 x 4 in the road. wendy is okay with her husband and son. it s amazing that you re okay. this is a big piece of wood coming through your windshield. how fast do you think you were driving? between 45 and 55. we were approaching a stoplight and slowing down. you saw it coming? i did. you had seen it on the road and you well, first of all, we should explain to people, you re videotaping with one hand and driving with the other. we don t recommend that at home. i had the camera aimed at a truck beside me. i was watching the road and i actually saw it the first wheels hit it and i saw it coming. you were hoping to report these two drivers to their companies because what they were doing was irresponsible. you don t scream. i would have been crazy. everybody has said that. i don t know why. i don t remember. i can just stay stunned silence maybe. it was horrifying. probably grateful the kids weren t in the car. that was my first thought. not how close i aim to being hurt but thank goodness they were at school. calvin, you re an emt? yes, sir. what was your reaction? i was at the hospital doing clinicals. i work for cleveland county ems. she sent me the picture andr(t&c said, i m fine, but i m coming to show you the video. i m like, what video? she comes to the hospital and i showed my friends, nurses there. it s unbelievable. i have been in ems for 13 years. one thing you hope you never have to do is treat family. we re blessed that she s safe, the kids weren t in the car. it s amazing. what a video. a lot of people have seen it because of you, chance. what did you say when you saw it? oh, my god. you told her to put it on youtube, right? yeah. because people might be interested. we wanted to see if we could get a thousand hits on it. you got more than that. we re glad you re okay. just ahead, debbie reynolds after your local news. so, you got a chevy malibu. nice. a consumers digest best buy three years in a row. and an epa - estimated 33 miles per gallon highway. all starting under $23,000. and what does your neighbor have? a bad case of car envy. very well qualified lessees can get a low mileage lease on a 2011 chevrolet malibu ls for around $179 a month. call for details. see your local chevy dealer. oh, do it oh, do it [ female announcer ] coffee is like life. it s better when you add your flavor. coffee-mate, from nestle. it s better when you add your flavor. oh, hey carl i see your breakfast bar has been destroyed well, it s not a bar carl, remember? it s breakfast on the go! it s got granola, emerald nuts, fruit. have a bar. no thank you, carl. i am good. more for me. ya more for you carl. sfx: ka-chunk! sfx: ggrrrrrrrr. carl humanize your morning. emerald breakfast on the go! [ male announcer ] visine-a is clinically proven to relieve all your worst eye allergy symptoms. it goes right where you need it, relieving allergy eyes in minutes. get visine-a. no other allergy eye drop is more complete. but you re not sweet you hit on my friends i m not your fool i won t just sit here and drool i m tired of sharing you this is the end so i found a new love a natural true love that comes from a leaf green and bright zero-calorie, guilt-free no artificiality my soul sings with joy and delight its name is truvia i had no idea and i am loving every single bite [ announcer ] truvia. honestly sweet. . live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. here is sarah caldwell and traffic pulse 11. still a lot going on in this city, and we have delays on southbound j.f.x. all the way into town. franklin, lanes closed due to a motor vehicle accident, but it is also impacted light rail. it was bridge is set up that the cultural center. 15 miles per hour on the west side outer loop. inner loop delays from greenspring towards the j.f.x. bit of a back up from owings mills towards the beltway. southbound 95 out of the northeast, 28 miles per hour to philadelphia road and a belt camp, accident. for this outcome is out i-95 and rte. 198, a crash and it delays leading up to it. traffic in the west side, outer loop de lasik. that is the pace of things outer loop delays. that is the pace of things. tony, over to you. it is a chilly start for us, and nice weather-wise. temperatures in the low 30 s. 30 in parkton, 35 in jarrettsville, warmer downtown, 43 at the maryland science center. a mixture of sunshine and a few clouds. it will stay dry today, to bidders in the upper 50s and the 60 s. temperatures in the upper 50 s and low 60 s. back at 8:25 with another live update. bge s instant discounts got our homeowner to switch to energy star® cfl bulbs. 3-way cfls really click with my style. learn to speak the language of energy efficiency at bgesmartenergy.com. we re back now at 8:00 on a wednesday morning. it s the 6th day of april, 2011. it s finally pretty in the northeast. we have a bright sunshine day. there s the view from the top of the rock. just above us in rockefeller center. the bad news is it s only 38 degrees. so it s chillier than we like, but that s okay. say hi to the nice people on the plaza. i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira and al roker. coming up in this half hour it s a difficult story to tell. two parents of an 18-year-old daughter, within nine days they each got a tragic diagnosis. something to make parents out there stop and think about their lives. the good side of the story is their friends, family members, their communities, even total strangers have rallied around them. we ll talk to the couple in a few minutes. then on a lighter note, debbie reynolds is here and filled our studio with real hollywood treasures. there she is. everything from charlie chaplin s hat to costumes worn by the likes of marilyn monroe and that outfit worn by elizabeth taylor. debbie will tell us what makes them special and why they are up for sale now. she s an icon. she sure is. remember the book about the tiger mom? we have a guy who calls himself the panda dad. he has a much different approach when it comes to parenting. he ll share his advice. and he snacks on bamboo. pretty neat. he s more laissez-faire. than tiger mom. ann curry is at the news desk with the headlines. hi, ann. good morning once again, everybody. in the news there was progress but no breakthrough overnight in talks to prevent a partial shutdown of the federal government on friday. president obama will summon congressional leaders back to the white house if they can t agree on a budget for the rest of the fiscal year. vice president joe biden announced that debbie schultz has been picked to be the new chairperson of the democratic national committee. she is expected to keep her house seat as well. she replaces the outgoing chair tim kaine who is running for a u.s. senate seat in virginia. higher fuel prices caused a dip in retail sales according to a credit card tracking agency. cold weather delayed clothing purchases. online selling increased as shoppers tried to save on gasoline. utility workers in japan say workers have stopped a leak of radioactive water from the earthquake and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant. the water flowing into the ocean raised concerns about seafood safety. a libyan rebel leader accused nato of failing to protect libyan civilians by taking too long to call in air strikes. in response, nato says it is more difficult to go after gadhafi s heavy weapons because they are put in areas where there aren t many civilians. fighting resumed around the palace of laurent gbabgo who refuses to step down. he appeared willing to surrender and then backed away. two boys playing on a beach in australia didn t realize how close they may have come to danger. this photograph taken a few weeks ago appears to show a great white shark in shallow water just 30 feet from where the children were digging in the sand. you might have heard about the cow who jumped over the moon. what about a cow that jumped over a fence? a german farm girl was not allowed to get a horse, so she spent two years training her cow luna to behave like one. well done. it s now four minutes past the hour. let s go back to meredith. you have to love a jumping cow, right? exactly. thanks, ann. al is standing by with a look at the forecast. al? that s right. we found a bag piper here. [ cheers and applause ] why the bag pipes? it s tartan week across north america. today is national tartan day. all right. what tartan is that? this is the ellis island tartan. for all americans whose ancestors came from ellis island can wear this beautiful tartan. i love the sound of the pipes. you have to love the pipes. flint, michigan, nbc 25, mid michigan s best. showers and cold. 48 degrees and we ve got activity making its way across the central plains into the central great lakes. more wet weather in the pacific northwest. they may pick up another foot of snow or so in the cascades tonight in the sierra. high surf advisories along the central southern california coast. snowshowers northern new england. beautiful weather throughout the southeast on into texas. west texas going to see places over 100 degrees today. chilly start for us this wednesday, with just a few clouds hanging around. we don t expect a rain or snow during the day today. maybe overnight, a slight and thas your latest weather, meredith? al, thank you very much. coming up, the tragic coincidence for a family with an 18-month-old daughter. how they are fighting back. color color.don t go away. 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[ male announcer ] ask your veterinarian about k9 advantix ii. how about a coastal soup and grilled shrimp salad combination? or maybe skewers of wood-grilled shrimp. seafood lunches starting at just $6.99 at red lobster. don t suffer waiting for your pills to kick in. add alaway. for fast eye itch relief that works in minutes and lasts up to 12 hours. only alaway comes from bausch & lomb. for fast eye itch relief, add alaway. those of us who know grass doesn t turn green just because the calendar says to. and that a big difference can grow from a small budget. for those of us with grass on our sneakers. dirt on our jeans. and a lawn that s as healthy as our savings. the days are about to get a whole lot greener. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. we re lowering the cost of reclaiming your yard. with spectracide weed stop, buy one get one free. we re back now with a story of heartbreak and hope. in a cruel twist of fate this year the parents of a toddler each got life-threatening diagnoses within days of each other. we ll meet the bonds in a moment. first janet shamlian has the story. good morning to you. reporter: matt, good morning. this is every parent s fear, that you and your spouse may not be around to take care of the most precious person in your life, your young child. once you meet the bonds you see this is a story of hope, not despair. as alisa and nathan bonds saw it, life was just about perfect. their 18-month-old daughter sadie delivered joy beyond what they had i mann ma magined. a fairy tale wedding in 2005, they felt they had it all. we were in a good place. i had no complaints. well, i wanted to lose 20 pounds. that was it. but, you know. if that s the worst of it that was the worst of it. reporter: valentine s day this year delivered heartbreak and turned their world upside down. during a colonoscopy, doctors found nathan had a malignant tumor, stage three rectal cancer. just as they were coming to terms with the devastating diagnosis, nine days later alisa was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer which is considered incurable. that made me angry. i don t ask really why we have cancer but i was angry at my tumor that it was going to get in the way of takening ca itaki her. reporter: he wouldn t have to go it alone. in a testament to just how much they are loved, friends from all corners of the country showed up at the bond home in brooklyn. they divided up the work from taking nathan to chemotherapy to girl time with alisa. because of the treatments alisa quit her job and nathan is on leave. with mounting medical bills their friends created a website for donations. al lolisa is blogging about the journey through cancer. it is strange to me that something so horrible could bring about so many blessings. reporter: while the future is uncertain what has never been in doubt, the bond between them and their unflappable spirit. we are determined to get through this. if you envision our circumstance, don t envision the cancer. envision the healing. envision us playing with sadie when she s 5, when she s 10, arguing about the keys to the car when she s 16. that s what we ask. reporter: unimaginable heartbreak that a young family is facing with infinite grace. and the same can be said for their close circle of friends who are tackling their nonmedical need with military-like organization. they are in great hands. matt? janet, thank you very much. alisa and nathan bond are with us this morning. good to see you both. good morning. good morning. i was reading this last night and i was thinking, why are you sharing this? i can imagine this must be hard enough to deal with in the privacy of your own home and the privacy of your own thoughts. why do you want to talk about this publically? i didn t actually. i just started blogging for our family and friends because people didn t want to be intrusive but wanted to know what was going on. for me i thought it was cathartic. so it covered a couple of bases. and then my friends got organized. they created a website for us. and then someone in the media picked it up. we thought, okay, it s a local human interest story. it is strange. in some ways you must be fwaning strength off of the support of other people. without a doubt. that s one reason we continue to be open in sharing. it s inspiring to us the outpouring of love from everybody else and for some reason we are inspiring other people as well. all we have done is get cancer. well, let s mention mention that janet came to your home a week ago. you had a long flowing head of hair and i understand the day she got there because of the treatment your hair decided to fall out so you decided to be proactive here. yes. how are the treatments impacting you physically other than the most obvious ways? the first week owas terrible. really sick. lost a lot of weight. just in bed. since then it s gotten progressively better. i think your body finds a new normal. there is a lot of fatigue. he had to go to the hospital the other night for a fever. i didn t sleep that night. the baby woke up early. so it s tiring. you said you feel your body has bestrayed you. yeah. you have both side you don t spend a lot of time asking why me or in this case why the two of us. how do you avoid that? i think if you spend time worrying about what s happening today you re going to miss out on what s actually going on during the day or worrying about tomorrow. for us, it s about trying to enjoy every moment we have together. how much time do you spend trying to and this is a hard thing to ask you two. but if you re in your position, you ve got to spend some amount of time preparing for the future for your daughter. how much of your time does that occupy? very little. we did it up front. we tried to handle it right away so we could let it go. so we knew we had a plan in place and then we could get on with the business of healing. i need your help on this. i don t want this segment i thought about this this morning. i don t want people at home to just simply find despair in this and i know you don t want that either. so help me out. what is the where is the humanity here? where is the piece of this that people can walk away with and take a deep breath and feel better this morning as opposed to feeling very sorry for the two of you? well, it s not a done deal. i mean, we have a lot of time. we have the best medical resources available to us. and we have a lot of love. i think love gets you through not just the love we have for each other but for our daughter and all of our family and friends. if you operate on the love, you get to enjoy every second of every day. maybe that s the gift of this. you have learned a lot about friends, family and humanity in general. and perfect strangers. i think we ll take away not so much when we are well, which we will be, is not the illness but the outpouring of love from perfect strangers literally all over the world. that s what we re going to tell sadie about when she asked about our cancer later on. we wish you the best. i think you will teach people important lessons. thanks. good luck to you both. thank you so much. appreciate it. 16 minutes after the hour. find out more about the bonds journey on the link to their blog that can be found on our website at today.com. we re back right after this. 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[ female announcer ] 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. great ride down. if you have high cholesterol, you may be at increased risk of heart attack and stroke. don t kid yourself. talk to your doctor about your risk and about lipitor. but one is so clever that your skin looks better even after you take it off. neutrogena® healthy skin liquid makeup. 98% saw improved skin. does your makeup do that? neutrogena® cosmetics. and all my investments, but it s not something that i want to do completely on my own i like to discuss my ideas with someone. that s what i like about fidelity. they talked with me one on one, so we could come up with a plan that s right for me, and they worked with me to help me stay on track or sometimes, help me get on an even better one. woman: there you go, brian. thanks, guys. man: see ya. fidelity investments. turn here. we are back at 8:20. legendary actress debbie reynolds was just 19 years old when she danced in singing in the rain. she earned an oscar in the unsynchable molly brown. but she s also a passionate collector of hollywood memorabilia. now thousands of her costumes and props are hitting the auction block. we are lucky to have you here this morning. good morning. good morning. talk about a collection. 3,500 costumes. black magic has me in its spell. that s from marilyn monroe from bus stop ? she was fabulous in that. she just did that so campy. it s one of the things going on auction estimated to sell between $80,000 and $120,000. where does your love of this come from and how did you gather so much? it took me 50 years. just when i heard mgm was having an auction of everything in 1970 i ran there and raised my hand. i spent all my money. and everything i have made since then. i just kept buying and buying because i didn t want to see it broken up. i wanted it to be a museum for all the fans to have. i didn t make that goal. that was my real goal. now you re letting go with some of the costumes. i m selling everything. everything. i want everyone to have a little bit of everyone that they love. jimmy stewart, james cagney, humphrey bogart. i have over 3,000 costumes. from some of the most famous movies. all the academy award winning movies. this is going on sale. before we move on there is another marilyn man row item. it s the dress she wore in the seven-year itch. the famous white subway dress. they expect it could go between $1 million and $2 million. that s the dress everyone remembers. that s the icon, the most famous. she was married to jodie mad joe dimaggio. he didn t like it when that dress went up. that was no good for him. he didn t want the world to see her panties. we want to see this. this is charlie chaplin s hat from when he portrayed the tramp. that s one of the bowlers he wore. one of the most famous. you know it s charlie s. it has the little bow on the side. that s what tells you it s charlie s. that was his trademark. they expect it to go for $20,000. i m going to keep it for that. i ll tell you. that s a beauty. that s a winner. moving on from there, this is grace kelly s dress. she wore it in to catch a thief with cary grant. i love cary grant. we have his outfit. we have the complete cast, not just the leading ladies. it s everybody. talk about a tiny waist she had. my gosh. all the stars had 17-inch waists. we just kept in shape. it wasn t the wildness they make of it today. we just kept in shape, exercised every day, every morning. that s expected to go from $30,000 to $50,000. or whatever. this is from charlton heston in ben hur. this is the belt that goes with it. the mannequin was too big and charlton was small. he was very limber, you know, lithe. and the hand cuffs are great. they have magnificent costumes. it was a great picture. absolutely. that s expected to sell from $20,000 to $30,000. or whater. i know. push up the price. this is from little woman . and this is the june alyson, janet leigh and the whole cast. this is just one of the outfits. i have all of elizabeth s from cleopatra. and national velvet as well. in later years you and elizabeth made up. you were best friends. she got involved with eddie fisher before he was your ex. all was forgiven. yes. now that she s passed can you share something about her we may not know? well, she wanted what she wanted and she got it. we found that out. you do find out people are wonderful, as they mature. she met a wonderful man, richard burton. he was fabulous. i have all of richard s things, too. you do? well, richard was one of the funniest men. he could quote poetry and he loved to drink. and elizabeth liked to drink. they had a hot time in the old town tonight. debbie reynolds, always a pleasure. and june 18 is the auction. june 18. everything must go. all right. pro fifiles in history. thank you. we re back after your local news and weather. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. let s get a check on the morning commute with sarah caldwell and traffic pulse 11. dealing with delays on southbound 95 at two howard county. 198, an accident off to the side. debris in the road, backing up traffic all the way down through to the accident scene and. franklin street and howard, all clear. light rail service has been restored as well. heavy delays southbound j.f.x. all the way down into town pre at 22 miles per hour on average out of white marsh. outer loop delay is starting to dissipate on the west side. in bel camp, watch for an accident blocking two lanes at philadelphia road. another one at howard county and glenwood. here s a look outside it at some of our cameras. we will switch over to a live view of traffic on the beltway northeast. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. tony, over to you. it is a little chilly this morning, but we don t expect weather problems. 32 in parkton, but only 31 in taneytown. a mixture of sunshine and clouds as we head through the day today. upper 50 s and low 60 s. tonight and during the day tomorrow, a slight chance for a couple of rainshowers. high near 64. a better chance for rain on friday. it should clear up by the tail end of the weekend. thank you for joining us. another update at 8:55 am. another update at 8:55 am. 8:30 now on this wednesday morning, april 6, 2011. rockefeller plaza is overflowing this morning. a big, big crowd and also always we thank them all for stopping by. coming up this half hour the debate over the best way to raise your kids. [ cheers and applause ] a couple of months ago created some controversy with the tiger mom s strict methods. in reaction a guy who calls himself the panda dad has come out. in his home, controlled chaos reigns supreme. he says it s helping him raise independent, self-reliant children. we re going to be talking to him. later on we re going to look at the inside life of an extreme couponer. we re going to introduce you to two women who take couponing to the extreme. i mean, they will save hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars at the grocery store every week. they are really amazing. saving money for things they want to cook at home. and speaking of cooks, we ll talk about a side of julia child probably most people don t know. there are new details about her life and a secret world of espionage. first let us say hello to the stars of the new movie hanna. good morning to you both. the reviews have been phenomenal for the movie. you kick some butt in this movie for sure. i do a bit, yeah. eric gets a hard time. it was good fun though. you know, we trained for months beforehand and then did our choreography together. so it was a good way to bond actually. it was. beating the hell out of each other is a good starting point. let s explain why. in the movie you re living an isolated existence in the arctic region. you re the father, you re the daughter and you have to teach her everything from fighting to killing. why is that so important? we discovered that during the course of the film i m keeping quite a dark secret from hanna as is cate blanchett s character. i m teaching her survival instincts because once she leaves the forest her life is in danger. she s being trained to be an assassin. and cate blanchett is coming to kill her which is every young girl s dream. how much training for the fight sequences did you both have to go through? well, i trained for a couple of months before we began shooting. i did that back in ireland. i worked out in the gym which i had never done before. i have muscles and things like that. i did different styles of martial arts. then we started she was ready to go when i got there she was on it. she was completely, you know, ready to rock. i was ready to kick some. she s quoted as saying you re one of the most lovely guys i have worked with. he s a terrific actor and hilarious. she said that? don t listen. it s all lies. it s funny because we were playing a father-daughter dynamic but in real life we re more like brother and sister. with my australian sense of humor and her irish it was fun. it was fun. thank you so much. good luck with the movie. thanks for coming by. hanna opens in theaters on we are off to a chilly start this wednesday morning, but we don t expect precipitation out there. there might be a couple of showers overnight. don t forget. you can get your weather any time of the day or night on cable or weather.com online. all right, al. up next, a self-described panda dad takes on tiger mom. first this is today on nbc. we download about four free songs a month. i play online poker two nights a week. my fiancee shops online about an hour a day. we re exposing ourselves to web viruses that could obliterate our finances and leave our future together a bleak and tortured existence. [ laughs nervously ] i got it covered. we switched to kaspersky. no matter who you are, we ve got you covered. kaspersky, the most advanced internet security software. and this morning on parenting today you have heard of the tiger mom. well, get ready to meet the panda dad. amy chua caused a stir with a memoir about her extreme parenting methods. no tv, no play dates and an a was the only acceptable grade. one dad is adding his voice to this debate. reporter: amy chua s tough lo was all part of what she calls being a chinese mother to her children. her book caused controversy. a storm erupted over what many call extreme parenting. reporter: but the strict parenting yield eed results. now sophia is weighing acceptance offers from harvard and yale. it caught the attention of author alan paul. if that s a tiger mother, what am i? reporter: he and his wife rebecca have three children. alan is the parent who s home more often and for three years that home was a world away. my wife became the china bureau chief for the wall street journal in beijing. i have lived in china. i have seen it firsthand. reporter: that inspired his essay, tiger mom, meet panda dad, for the wall street journal which quickly became the most popular blog on the site. panda parenting is allowing your children room to be responsible. reporter: it s a more relaxed approach but with a good dose of what alan calls common sense. pandas are cuddly, lovable but they are bears. i don t think they are a pushover. one of our children had a report card that wasn t what we thought it should be. we didn t berate him, call him garbage. we made it clear that we expected it to be better. their three kids, jacob, eli and anna aren t sold on the tiger mom s methods either. i don t really practice violin or any instruments at all. i think that the fact that she wants her kids to practice something like that three hours a day every day is pretty ridiculous. panda dad alan paul is with us now. he s the author of big in china, my unlikely adventures playing the blues and being a star in beijing. at first blush if you compare you to amy chua you appear to be polar opposites. is that an over statement? i m sure we have the same overall goals for our children to be happy and successful in life. i m more focused, i think, on the day to day and on getting them to adulthood as product tiff members of society. is it possible amy concentrates more on the successful side and you concentrate more on the happy side? i think that s fair. i m sure if you ask she would want her children to be happy and i certainly want mine to be successful. there are a lot of ways to get there. what i wanted to say was first of all where are the dads in this dialogue? second of all, i didn t want people to feel inadequate if they weren t doing this and there are other ways to be successful. is yours a method or just no method? basically you describe it as controlled chaos. it s very laissez-faire, but you say your kids are very independent and self-reliant because of this. it s not a method where i m going to write it down a to z. if you have a problem, if your kids are having a problem you have to be involved, intervene and keep them moving. i think anybody who reads my book big in china which details things we did in china will see i wasn t just letting things go. because of your is this style of parenting a reaction to what you saw in china or would you be this kind of parent whether you lived in beijing or not? i think i would be this kind of parent whether i lived in beijing or not. i saw in china there were different kinds of parenting. i think it s a misnomer to say all chinese people parent in that style but it does come in part from chinese tradition. for the record your wife said, my knees get weak sometimes when i come home late because there is no dinner on the table, there is homework everywhere. is it possible that amy chu chua errs a little bit too far on the side of structure and you a little bit too far on the side of no structure. i don t think so. i think because i have chosen to do a lot myself without having more help sometimes things do become a little bit of controlled chaos. the homework that s everywhere is usually done. i will say that. which is important. again getting to your question of where is the dad in this. what role do you think dad should play in this particular discussion? i think every family is different. i think that in america today there are many people doing many different things and there are a lot of people with two-parent families. there are a lot of two working parent families and fathers have to be involved. i think how they are involved depends on the family and on the couple, but i think they need to be involved and they have a say. amy chua echoes wha you said. she said, quote, i generally believe there are many ways of being a good parent and the panda dad sounds like a great father. having only read his posting i think alan paul probably agree on more issues than he thinks. well, i wouldn t disagree and i have said as much in some of my posts. thank you very much. up next, how to use extreme couponing to save big on your next trip to the grocery store. we ll talk about that. first this is today on nbc. we are back at 8:45. we all know clipping coupons can save you money, but for some people it s not just a way to save. it s a way of life. my 11th commandment is thou shalt not pay retail. do you think the 40 boxes at home is enough? i think it s important to be completely done and prepared before you go to the grocery store. since we have been extreme couponing we have saved close to $40,000. this is the money i shop with right here. i don t need my wallet. i need these. a new series on tlc called extreme couponing profiles the lives of couponers and reveals tricks for grabbing the best deals. jamie and tiffany are featured in the first episode. good morning to you both. good morning. we are talking about saving a tremendous amount of money, aren t we? absolutely. you both started for different reasons. tiffany, you have seven children. jamie, they call you the coupon diva because you wear your heels and makeup when you go shopping. right. how did you get started? my husband took a drastic pay cut at work. a couple years ago? it was. almost two years ago. because of that i didn t want my life to change. i wanted to buy the same things that we had always gotten. i didn t want things to change in my household. so i learned about couponing and i started that way. ultimately my husband lost his job. i m glad i had that opportunity to learn until that day happened. you became a student of this to say the least. i did, absolutely. tiffany, a different reason for you. we have a lot of children. seven. we had student loans we have been paying for a while and we didn t want the same thing for our kids. we wanted a way that was fun and easy to save money and put them through college. i watch the episode. when i look at your homes, tiffany, you have stuff under the kids beds, a whole shelving situation in your bedroom. i do. do you think you have gone to extremes? i didn t think so at first. but you start thinking so. if you were to walk in the house you wouldn t know i was a couponer. you would have to look around before you saw anything. the kids love it. they call it our mini mart. what about you? you buy a lot of stuff. do you worry about shelf life and whether they will expire on you? because i shop so often and continually add to my stockpile it s easy for me to watch the expiration dates on perishable items and the nonperishables as well to use what i purchased quite a while ago and use that first. so you use everything you purchase. that s the idea. certainly if we don t use it, i donate it. you do. you have different approaches to couponing as well. tiffany, starting with you, what s your approach? collecting the coupons and preparing to go out there and use them. you know, the first thing i do is look at the sales ads. i like local blogs and i get ideas from them. i print coupons off line. not every coupon in the sunday paper applies to us. i like natural and organic foods. so i google those and go directly to the companies and ask for coupons. then i make up a list and take them to the store and go shopping. jamie, what about you? same thing or slightly different? it s very similar. the planning for the shopping trip takes hours. six hours, i heard. absolutely. i m completely dedicated to it because time is money. the amount of time i put into preparing for shopping trips equals the amount of money i will save. in that first episode you saved how much money? do you remember? i saved 94% on my shopping trip. so it was a little under $2,000 and you got it for a little under $100. that s right. you, pretty similar. i saved about 98% on mine. my husband did one and saved about 93%. we saved over $1,000. for those who have never done it before and are looking at you not thinking you re crazy, what s your advice? well, it applies to everybody. whether or not you re single or you have a huge family, there are other things you want to spend money on. i want to spend it on entertainment and things for my kids. it s easy to get started. she s right. the very first step is to grab coupons. collect some coupons. there are lots of resources online. print coupons, take them to the store. see if that item is on sale. pair a coupon with the sale and see what you can score. shop with a friend. it is fun. do people in line ever get upset when you see your thousands of coupons? we get mixed reactions. nobody wants to be in line behind me because i have seven kids anyway. you re a pain in the butt no matter what. right. good luck with the show. extreme couponing premieres tonight on tlc. up next, julia child s life inside a spy agency. first this is today on nbc. long before she was mastering the art of french cooking, chef julia child was julia mcwilliams, an awkward, tall young woman who wanted to be well traveled and well informed. she tried a few different jobs but when world war ii broke out she had the chance. a covert affair tells the story of the couple s far east adventures inside the spy agency. jenny conent is the author. good to see you. i like how you found the story. how did it come to you? i was on a book tour and the national archives announced they would release a huge treasure trove of classified documents. they contained all the secrets of this vast network of people that had secretly worked for the o.s.s. during the war. there were crazy names. mo burg of the white sox, chief justice, actor sterling haden and the least likely person was julia child. the o.s.s. preceded the c.i.a. and the main mission was political warfare, gathering intelligence to guard our country s safety, rumor campaigns and real subversion, guerilla activities. are we talking about dangerous spying with julia child? was she photographing documents? she did work for the o.s.s. she was an intelligence officer. in fact she was not a spy in the mata hari sense. she never parachuted behind enemy lines. at 6 2 , she was a memorable-looking woman. she was a target. she was bright and became head of the o.s.s. registry. it was like the nerve center of their operations. she guarded all of their most top secret documents. their future war plans, all the cables and top secret intelligence from the joint chiefs of staff, the identities of their agents working behind enemy lines. it was an incredibly responsible job and she was good at it. it was during her travels for the o.s.s. that she met paul child. they developed a relationship but in the beginning he wasn t sure she was what he was looking for. he was probably more looking for a woman named jane foster. in some ways this becomes her story as well. who was she? jane foster was in some ways the mirror image of julia. she was a wealthy california girl, very adventurous from a conservative family, a socialite, well brought up. she was very alluring, witty, sophisticated. she spoke a lot of languages and paul child was like that. he spoke french and was well traveled. julia was very sheltered, very naive, very inexperienced. paul really preferred jane foster. yet, paul and julia developed a relationship. fast forward to 1955. paul is cabled to come back to washington. what eventually happened was they got caught up in a wave of paranoia. fear that gripped the country during the mccarthy era. there were suspicions that they were communist spies and there was a huge fbi investigation. went on for 14 years all over the world. international investigation around a big russian spy ring. jane foster, this great friend of theirs during the war in india and china was caught up in the spy ring and when the french police arrested jane and ransacked her apartment, paul child s name was in her address book. so guilt by association. they get wrapped up in this. the irony of this is, if we get back to the julia child people were familiar with, she probably never would have developed the flair for cooking had it not been for her days in the o.s.s. she was a meat and potatoes girl from pasadena. the one time she fried chicken before the war she almost set the apartment on fire. paul was sophisticated and was appalled by her cooking and said, we ve got to do something about this. a fascinating story. thank you so live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. testimony continues in the trial of frederick christian, a baltimore county man accused of murdering his girlfriend during the 2009 thanksgiving holiday. jurors heard graphic testimony as crime scene photos were presented at shown the location where the body was found. prosecutors portrayed him as a violent man who now let s take a look at the forecast with tony pann. we are off to a chilly start. temperatures in little below average for this time of year. we should make that into the upper 50 s and low 60 s. slight chance of showers tomorrow. best chance of rain on friday. it will clear up over the weekend. sunshine in the afternoon. sunday looks like a nice day. we will be in the 70 s all the way through the beginning of next week. we will have another weather update at 9:25. henson, we re going to go over sales figures, complete this merger and present to the board. sink your teeth into some big n toasty if you understand. good. you ve got spunk. a big day calls for the new big n toasty. wrap your hands around fried eggs, cherrywood-smoked bacon, and cheese on texas toast. america runs on dunkin .