Transcripts For WBAL Today 20110629 : vimarsana.com

we ll meet yoda, the world s ugliest dog, today wednesday, june 29th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m ann curry. we want to go to this dramatic scene in athens where thousands of protesters are venting their anger to avoid a bailout and avoid a crippling debt. michelle, i know this vote in parliament is scheduled for any moment right now, probably between 7:00 and 10:00 here in the united states. what do the police there what does the government there expect to happen if that austerity package passes? reporter: i think you re going to see more of the same, matt. all the local political analysts believe that this is going to pass. probably a lot of protesters know that, but they are so angry. they do not want this bill to pass. they don t like the fact that this is a budget loaded with deep cuts in spending, many, many government workers are going to lose their jobs. they re going to have lower pensions. a lot of the assets owned by the government are going to be sold, and taxes are going up dramatically, all for them to pay their bills. and they are very, very angry about it. i think you will see this throughout the day, this kind of movement with the tear gas being thrown and the riot police pushing the protesters away and back away from parliament. we ve seen this for the last 48 hours. this is a two-day strike that s been called because of this vote. michelle, though, the people in the streets there, they have been reading the headlines. they know the financial shape that their country has been in now for the past couple of years. what do they see as the option to this austerity package? reporter: yeah, that isn t clear. when a country loses its ability to borrow just like a person loses its ability to borrow, austerity gets imposed one way or the other. they can either choose to do it themselves. the vote passes. they get help to get through some of their problems for the next several years, or if they don t get any money, it will be very, very messy. they ll have all kinds of cash flow problems. it s a really wonky way to say social security payments will not happen. all kinds of social security nets will disappear almost instantly because the government just won t have the money. so the austerity is coming one way or the other. they don t seem to understand that. all right, michelle caruso-cabrera live in athens this morning as protesters take to the streets outside the greek parliament. michelle, thank you very much. it s three minutes after the hour. here s ann. matt, thanks. here at home, the wildfire in los alamos, new mexico, has grown to more than 60,000 acres in just 48 hours. as those flames move closer to the city s nuclear weapons lab. nbc s janet is there. reporter: this is a fire with just 3% containment but a bit of a break for firefighters. the fire has slowed down and has not advanced any closer to the los alamos national lab. that said, there s growing concern about the safety of that lab and the hazardous materials stored inside. this is the out-of-control fire lapping at the border of the los alamos national laboratory. and this is the front line of the fight. hundreds of firefighters battling a blaze that went from small to life threatening in a matter of days. it is now extremely close to the lab where dangerous radioactive material is stockpiled and where officials insist those materials are safe and secure. our facilities and nuclear materials are protected and safe. reporter: but they offered no details. the sprawling nuclear lab remains shrouded in secrecy. authorities did admit there is fire all around it. and all around the city of los alamos, under a mandatory evacuation, many say they would have left anyway. the smoke was coming in, it became basically just too much. we were having trouble breathing. reporter: thousands went to stay with friends and family. hundreds are in shelters like this one inside a casino. actual stress of getting out of los alamos. reporter: it is full of people and anxiety. as many here know this could be home for a while. i learned that through the last fire, that you don t put your hopes up too high. reporter: every tool has been brought in in a battle against a blaze that could triple in size. this is the highest-priority fire in the united states right now. reporter: having already scorched the fringe of los alamos, officials say the winds could carry it in any direction at any time. a big response to this fire, more than 800 firefighters are on the scene. the national guard is here protecting people s homes. people have left for shelters or staying with friends and family. and ann, people who haven t left may reconsider doing so today. the smoke that blankets this city is as thick as it s been since the fire started on sunday. back to you. thanks for that warning, janet shamlian, thank you. it is 7:06. we re only halfway through 2011, but the 2012 presidential race is already intensifying. and some key players have been focusing a lot of their attention on the key battleground state of iowa this week. nbc s kelly o donnell s in pella with the latest. kelly, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. we ve been talking to voters here around the state who say this is really an ideal time for them to get to see and size up a number of candidates and would-be candidates. that s sure happening among republicans. but another candidate who knows how valuable iowa can be to a white house run was back, and that s the president of the united states. hello, iowa! reporter: iowans expect to hear plenty of this. you know, i know you ve been seeing a lot of politicians around lately. reporter: warmly courted by the president tuesday who stopped at an aluminum manufacturer to talk jobs. iowa, you and i, we go a long way back. reporter: a few hours away, sarah palin brought her brand of celebrity to a movie premiere attended by about 300 iowans. it is a wonderful story about american values. reporter: shot documentary style, the movie depicts palin favorably as a tough reformer in alaska. sarah had the courage to try. she had taken on the system already. reporter: made by conservative filmmaker steven bannan who says palin cooperated but had no control over the film s content. i think this film plays to the core value of the tea party and tea party movement and i hope it energizes people to get actively engaged. sfwh we re still thinking about that. reporter: palin was asked about bristol s comments that mom has already decided. she gedefinitely knows. we ve talked about it before but some things just need to stay in the family. what s said on the fishing boat stays on the fishing boat. reporter: just-declared candidate michele bachmann you are the first people in the united states to see the bachmann for president bus! reporter: who made stops in new hampshire and south carolina tuesday faces new candidate scrutiny including financial records for a family business. i d like you to meet my husband, marcus bachmann! reporter: the couple owns bachmann & associates, a minnesota mental health clinic run by the congresswoman s husband who is a clinical therapist. while bachmann campaigns for less government spending and opposes an expansion of medicaid, nbc news obtained state records that show the bachmann s clinic received government funds. $137,000 in federal and state medicaid payments since 2005. that money considered reimbursement for treatment provided to low-income patients. and that s the kind of thing that many health clinics do do, and there s no suggestion that there s anything improper about that. we reached out to the bachmann campaign for specific comment. we did not hear back. but michele bachmann will be coming back to iowa for her first bus tour as a candidate officially in just a couple of days. ann? kelly o donnell, thank you very much. rachle mel maddow joins us . good morning. hi. sarah palin, how much longer can she wait? i think a long time. i think what the candidates are doing right now is essentially introducing themselves to a public who may not remember who rick santorum is or who michele bachmann is for that matter. sarah palin does not have that problem. nobody in america doesn t know who she is. i think she can wait a long time. we re a half year away from the iowa caucus. so if she waits that long or not, how will that change the republican race? well, i think that as long as mitt romney is the unquestionable front-runner, there is going to be some hunger among a significant number of republican activists, in particular for somebody else with a big name to get in. there s dissatisfaction with mitt romney as the front-runner. and so as long as there s nobody challenging him, and it looks like tim pawlenty does not pose any threat of doing that, i think that the race is going to remain quite wide open. michele bachmann seems to be considered right now a front-runner. i m wondering, it seems to me it might be argued that she s taking some of the support that sarah palin would want from the tea party. so one might argue and there are those who are arguing that those two are going to have to confront each other at some point. do you agree with that? i don t think there s any reason to think of sarah palin and michele bachmann competing for the same voters any more than there is to see that sort of competition between herman cain and rick santorum or between jon huntsman and tim pawlenty. i think we re sort of past that. there s a lot of competition for that. i mean, tim pawlenty wants to be seen as a tea party favorite. we just heard in that report michele bachmann tried to make the case that she s a purist tea party candidate despite the fact she has this hypocrisy program with having been fitted herself with so much government spending. i want to get your take on something chris christie said. let s take a listen. i think he s so concerned about making sure everybody likes him that he s paralyzed to be able to make decisions. and i think that s what it does when you re worried about being liked. you don t want to decide anything because you know you re going to aggravate somebody. does the new jersey governor have a point that the president is making mistakes because he wants too much to be liked? i think chris christie is really good at polishing his own brand. and his brand at this point is i m the guy who screams at my own constituents. when he was asked recently by a constituent whether or not there was an issue of fairness with him sending his kids to private school when he was cutting public education so drastically, he screamed back at that constituent, that s none of your business. that s his brand. let s talk about, though, obama specifically. do you think he s trying too hard to be liked? chris christie is auditioning for vice president. he would like to be taken seriously on the national stage. that s why he s embarrassing himself in his own state, taking a state helicopter away if his son s baseball games so he can go meet with iowa republican donors. he is auditioning. and his brand is i will be rude. and rudeness is actually what he s trying to sell as a form of political authenticity. so to attack the president on that ground is to invite a favorable comparison with his own style. you re saying he doesn t have a point, okay. well, he has a point for himself. there also seems to be, however, growing discontent in the left at president obama, a discontent over his position on libya, afghanistan, the bunltdg. is this something his campaign needs to worry about as we move towards the election? we ll see some of it today, the president hosting a gay rights reception at the white house, still sitting uncomfortably on his assertion that he does not support same-sex marriage. the gay community very excited about same-sex marriage rights having been extended in new york and that tension between the president s position and what the community sees as a victory. i think the president s going to have to worry about the left when it comes time to rubber meeting the road and organizational enthusiasm on the part of the democratic base being important to get out the vote. it may be too early for him to really be courting the left, but we ll see it in terms of his strategy. rachel maddow, thank you so much. sorry to spring the latin on you, but i knew you could handle it. you can catch the rachel maddow show weeknights on msnbc. let s head over to the news desk where natalie morales has a check of the morning s top stories. good morning. a standoff at a hotel in kabul has left at least ten civilians dead. a team of heavily armed taliban fighters stormed the intercontinental tuesday night and battled with security forces for several hours. nato helicopters took down three gunmen on the roof. and afghan security forces ended the standoff on the ground. meanwhile, clashes have erupted in cairo for a second day as the families of those killed during the uprising against the former egyptian president called for swift prosecution of officers believed to be responsible for the violence. riot police used tear gas against protesters who responded with fire bombs and rocks. a senate panel has voted to give the president limited authority to continue the operation in libya without the use of u.s. ground forces. this after the house rejected a similar resolution last friday. and a federal panel votes today on whether or not to revoke approval of the top-selling cancer drug avastin. recent studies show the drug is ineffective despite impassioned pleas from breast cancer patients who says the drug keeps them alive. to another developing story in the world of medicine and reports now that the surgeons conducting clinical trials of medtronic s bone growth protein used in spine surgery did not report serious complications and some reportedly received payments. our chief science correspondent robert bazell joins us live. good morning. good morning. this is a big battle today. a prominent group of spine surgeons is charging another group of spine surgeons wrote research papers that hid serious side effects of this drug. the drug is called infuse, and it is made by the medtronic corporation. according to the current issue of the journal spine surgery, the doctors writing the papers got payments from medtronic as high as $23.5 million and as little as a half million dollars. infuse is used during some spine surgery to make bone growth. side effects include male sterility, pain and death. a doctor at the university of wisconsin said that much of that money came from medtronic for patents on devices he developed, but it did not influence the papers he wrote or edits. other doctors say the same. medtronic says it told the fda about the side effects and warned them on the label. the doctors writing about this say it reveals how much money can be paid to doctors who write about certain drugs and devices. natalie? we ll be hearing much more on this story on nightly news. johnson & johnson is recalling more than 60,000 bottles of tylenol extra-strength caplets due to a moldy odor. the smell is caused by trace amounts of a chemical that can cause stomach upset. an update on a warm and fuzzy story we brought you earlier this week. the polar bear has now arrived at her new home in louisville, kentucky. she was found after being abandoned by her mother on an alaskan oil field. she ll be living at the glacier exhibit where she s expected to thrive in a chilly state-of-the-art facility. looks like she s enjoying herself already. she s made herself quite at home. 7:16. we ll turn it back to matt, ann and al. what do you think? let s go see that bear. road trip! let s go. i want to see that little bear. that moldy odor with the tylenol. we have one of those on the set. we might have to recall this whole studio. mr. roker is here after a day off with a check of the weather. we ve got our first atlantic tropical storm of the season. good morning. it is going to be a beautiful day at home and cut temperatures in the upper 60s and low 70 s. mostly sunny is our forecast. high temperatures in the mid- 80 s. a piece of debris led to tense moments on tuesday for the international space station. this after an asteroid zipped by earth at what s being called relatively close range. nbc s jeff rossen watching all this. good morning to you. most of us were eating lunch monday at 1:00 p.m. or working, but at that exact moment, an asteroid whizzed by. chances are you didn t see it, but it was close for an asteroid. then on tuesday, another near-miss as one nasa engineer put it, it s like a game of dodgeball up there. reporter: there it is, the asteroid appear toured on home video streaking across the sky. experts say it was the size of a small house. and this week, it passed within 7,600 miles of earth. in the vast universe, that s closer than it sounds. if you think of the earth as your house and the moon as your garage, this object same so close it knocked a flower pot off your back porch. reporter: experts say we were never in danger. the asteroid was close but still a safe distance away. nasa says this is the largest asteroid to be tracked this close to earth ever. this object that we found, we determined that it would pass closer to the earth than our communications or weather satellites. go ahead. reporter: the drama wasn t over yet. the very next day, tuesday, space junk was on a collision course with the international space station. spotted so late, there was no time to move out of the way. instead, the six astronauts including two americans got the order from mission control, climb into the escape capsules. the probabilities are still in the red threshold. and we are still planning to have you shelter in place. reporter: space junk is manmade debris like pieces of satellite orbiting the earth. some of it passed within 1,100 feet of the space station. that s around three football fields away. the closest encounter ever tracked. this was really an emergency situation because the object was following an erratic flight path. so the crew had to take shelter. we ve got debris. reporter: feels like the movie armageddon around here. space junk, asteroids, what a week. the value of seeing these things in advance is that you can at least give warning because an object of this size, the size of a house, could have been an explosion as big as a military bombing attack on a county. there is a scary new reality here as well. nasa is closing up shop on the shuttle program. the final mission is scheduled next month. if space junk or an asteroid were to hit the international space station and there is no shuttle to fix it, experts are worried the massive complex could fall uncontrolled down to earth doing some serious damage. but matt, before you hide under your bed or your anchor desk, experts say we re actually safer now than we ve ever been before, able to spot these asteroids sooner with better technology. that whole story didn t make me feel so safe, jeff. it s nice of you to say that at the last minute there, but thank you it could be a disaster. disaster. still getting over the flower pot getting knocked off my house. coming up, it was a tense day at the casey anthony murder trial as the defense hammered away at the man who discovered caylee s remains and also hammer add way at casey s father. we ll have details. first, this is today on nbc. still ahead, the royal family s pr nightmare. why britain s prince andrew and his questionable friendships are raising eyebrows. also ahead, stop the competition. yoda, the ugliest dog in the world, is live in our studio. yoda s the one on the left. but first, your local news and weather. in the weather there s a change in the sea so from now on there ll be a change in me and my walk will be different my talk and my name [ male announcer ] rust-oleum ultra cover 2x gives you twice the coverage, twice as fast as any other brand. .changes made for nearly 100 years, we ve been giving people the power to change. .changes made it s not ready yet. (announcer) every smucker learns to wait for fruit to reach the peak of perfection to make extra delicious jam. to come and try coffee-mate s new cafe collection flavors. then we asked them to show us how the taste inspired them. new rich caramel macchiato. one of three new ways to add your flavor. with coffee-mate, from nestle. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. there are problems out there, sarah. two accidents affecting major roadways. inner loop west side of frederick road. down to 15 miles per hour. that accident dixon 3 left lanes. traffic squeezing by in the left lane. it will take a while before it delays start to filter out. 15 miles per hour on southbound 95 approaching keith ave. 895, you can take that as your alternate. best bet, take the keybridge. avoided altogether. that is a mess. north side, looking at a slow spot. accident at 29 at wyman park in the city. we will show you what looks like at 95. at fort mchenry, avoided. live view of traffic in area on the west side of frederick. that is what looks like on the accident scene. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. tony, hopefully you have better news. we had a cold front with scattered thunderstorms, and now the winds have shifted to the northwest. upper 60s, low 70 s. fairly comfortable. forecast for today, mostly sunny, less humid. kind of breezy, but nice. beautiful weather through the end of the week. it gets warmer as we head into the holiday weekend. slight chance for afternoon thunderstorms. you can check the bottom of your screen for updated news and traffic information. we re back at 7:55 with another live up it. baby baby ooh baby baby 7:30 now on this wednesday morning june 29th, 2011. we have an energetic crowd with us this morning. but as they say, you ain t seen nothing yet. friday we re throwing a party on the plaza to get ready for the fourth of july weekend. hitmaker will be here live and he s bringing along a bevy of his favorite friends along with marc anthony, t-pain and ne-yo. that will be something to watch. i m ann curry along with mr. matt lauer. some new drama at the casey anthony trial. we ll be live with some tough questions the defense had for casey s father and also for the man who found caylee anthony s remains, matt. we ll talk to savannah guthrie and star jones about that in just a couple of minutes. also, he earned the nickname randy andy in the british tabloids. now the new profiling is prince andrew s controversial behavior including a friendship with a convicted sex offender and the unusual relationship with his ex-wife, sarah ferguson. we ll talk to the man who wrote that profile in just a little white. and take a look at this. a face only a mother could love. we ll introduce you to yoda, the newly crowned ugliest dog in the world, just ahead. but we ll begin this half hour with some serious news. there were some highly confrontational moments at the casey anthony trial on tuesday. nbc s kerry sanders is in orlando with the latest. kerry, good morning. reporter: good morning, matt. for six hours on tuesday, the defense zipped through six witnesses, but two were especially combative. the meter reader, roy kronk, who found caylee s remains in the woods, and casey anthony s father, george, who the defense claims helped cover up not a murder but rather an accidental drowning. george anthony on the stand for the fourth time. this time exasperated. defense attorney jose baez was hammering casey s father, demanding an answer. did he take up with this woman, crystal holloway, a volunteer, who joined the search for caylee and in an intimate moment reveal a secret? you never told crystal holloway, while the two of you were being romantic, that this was an accident that snowballed out of control? objection. assumes a fact not in evidence. reporter: the defense claims 2-year-old caylee was not murdered but rather she drowned in the backyard swimming pool, and casey s father, george, helped his daughter cover it up. so the record to be clear, the answer is yes or no, mr. anthony? would you ask that one more time, please? you never told her, this was an accident that snowballed out of control? never did. reporter: george left the stand, looked at his daughter, casey at the defense table barely acknowledged her own dad. george and his wife, cindy, awkwardly face each other. moments later, their son, lee, testified he believed his sister s story that caylee had been abducted by the nanny. you were completely sold on the lies that your sister had told you? yes and no. reporter: all three members of the anthony family seated in the back row of the courtroom. george and cindy as far apart as possible. cindy glaring at her son. i was a meter reader for orange county, sir. reporter: the defense has suggested meter reader roy kronk who discovered caylee s remains in august is their key to reasonable doubt because he rediscovered those remains in december. i noticed something that looked white. and there was a, like, a gray bag down there. i don t know what it is. i m not telling you it s caylee or anything of that nature. reporter: kronk said he was distracted by a snake he found that day in august. but four months later, it was the same roy kronk who testified he went back into those woods and he found caylee s skull. the defense wants the jury to believe kronk s multiple visits were suspicious, and his credibility tainted. if you go on good morning america show? yes, sir. and did you get paid for doing that? i was paid for i was paid for a licensed picture of a snake, but i knew that there would probably be an interview involved. were you paid $15,000 for doing that, sir? i was paid $15,000 for a lan licensed picture of the snake, sir. reporter: the alleged mistress, crystal holloway, is expected to take the stand today. and the lawyer representing roy kronk has been told he may also be re-called again today. kerry sanders in orlando. thank you very much. star jones is former prosecutor and former host of the view. savannah guthrie is our legal correspondent. good morning to both of you. good morning. roy kronk, we have issues on the stand with roy kronk. what is the defense trying to prove here? they re trying to show that he has no credibility. i think they made a real mistake i don t know about you, savannah, but i find that when you have a witness like roy kronk, why not treat him not as a hostile witness but just get the information out that you need, like yeah, i moved the skull around. if you can establish the chink in the chain of the forensic evidence, then you can get the death penalty off the table, take the needle out of the arm. i agree with you. it seems the defense missed the boat on roy kronk, instead of indulging itself in conspiracy theories, maybe kronk had the body, hid it for several months, something there s absolutely no evidence of. when right in front of them kronk is testifying, yeah, i may have poked that skull a little bit. which contradicts that first story, it rolled out of the bag. which also suggests somebody s messing with that skull. if the duct tape is not found on the skull, then premeditation goes out of the window. and again, the two words we have to keep in our mind here, reasonable doubt, okay? always in the back of our mind. let s talk about casey s father, george. he s asked if he s had an affair with a woman involved in the search. he denied that. and then denied telling her that caylee s death was, quote, an accident that snowballed out of control, end quote. has the defense managed to score any points with the theories they put forward in their opening arguments? or statements? in some sense, i thought george anthony, in contrast to his testimony earlier in the case, looked a little squirrely as to whether or not he had had an affair with crystal holloway, aka river cruise. he acknowledged he sent her a text saying i need you in my life and had been over to the house. but in some ways that s just a sideshow. these got credibility problems, too. that s an understatement of the century. first she said she had an affair, then she didn t. as i think about it, i ve covered these trials for now, what, 20 years at this point. there s always a whackadoo that attaches themselves to the family of the victim. and this is a cuckoo for cocoa puffs kind of girl. she s out there talking about an affair that has not been testified to. we can t call her a mistress. she changed her story on that issue herself. she s not testified yet. not yet. until it gets into the courtroom, it s not evidence. who wants to take me through this family disagreement. it s all yours, star. look at her. we have casey s mom going on the stand followed by casey s brother, lee. what was the major contradiction here? the major contradiction is did the mom get an investigator to go out and look in a specific area in the woods. in the woods suggesting that she knew that was the area where they could have found the baby s body. she says she did not. lee then took the stand and said no, in fact you did, and we had an argument about it. what s so odd about it is, what is the point of this testimony? either a, the defense did not adequately prep their witnesses and didn t know there would be a disagraemt or is it just trying to show how dysfunctional this family is? if so, mission accomplished. i want to save time for this last thing. you didn t hear me, obviously. i m sorry, matt. i apologize. i want to save time for this last thing. i m done. the question we ve been asking since the case began, will casey take the stand? the judge said in court that he wants to talk to casey personally and ask her the question, is your decision to testify or not to testify yours and yours alone? so where is this leading us? there s obviously disagreement in the defense strategy from the attorneys and the defendant. and i think at some point the court wants to make sure that there are no appealable issues. as star knows, this is something that happens in every criminal case. when the defendant chooses not to testify, the judge will make a record, have this colloquy with the defendant. is this your choice? are you making it voluntarily? but the plot thickens because i think many of us think casey wants to testify. so the judge is going to make sure, this is your decision. so get on the record and say if you re really not testifying, why? and that is all the time i have. remember when they used to give you cues on the view ? now. same thing. star and savannah, thank you very much. let s get a check of the weather now from al. thank you very much, mr. lauer. we ve got some nice friends here hanging out. i ve got the woo woo going here. where you from? chattanooga. chattanooga, tennessee. woo! let s check your weather, see what s going on. hey, man, we ve got some high heat and humidity from oklahoma all the way into iowa. we ve got heat watches and warnings and heat advisories. look at these temperatures. san angelo, 100. phoenix, 110. up to rapid city, 102 degrees. the rest of the country, it s downright balmy here in the northeast with temperatures only getting up into the 80s and 70s. 60s around western new york. more heat out west. showers and thunderstorms move into the pacific northwest with the risk of some strong storms there through the plains. wet weather along the southeastern atlanta coast. sunshine, great lakes to the southwest. beautiful it is going to be a beautiful wednesday. when sen shifted to the northwest. humidity is going down. high temperature of around 86 this afternoon. don t forget to check your latest weather. go to the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. matt? all right, al, thank you very. coming up next, would you pay more than $4 million to live in a home that is no wider than your car? we ll take you on a tour of new york s narrowest house. plus we ll meet the ugliest dog in the world, yoda. but first, these messages. thanks to the venture card from capital one, we get double miles on every purchase, so me and my lads earned a trip to san francisco twice as fast! we get double miles every time we use our card. i ll take these two. .no matter what we re buying. .and all of those. and since double miles add up fast, we can bring the whole gang! it s hard to beat double miles! whoa dude. [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one and earn double miles on every purchase, every day. go to capitalone.com. what s in your wallet? richard, why are you wearing grandpa s jacket? i m not richard. i m grandpa smucker. [ male announcer ] tim and richard smucker knew that just like their grandfather they too would make the world s best jam. with a name like smucker s, it has to be good. express hydration. the fast absorbing body lotion with breakthrough 24 hour hydraiq. absorbs in seconds. lasts for hours. express hydration with hydraiq. nivea. it s a cloud of depression. and although you ve been on an antidepressant for at least six weeks, you re frustrated that your depressive symptoms are still with you. seroquel xr, when added to an antidepressant, is approved for the treatment of major depressive disorder. for many, taking seroquel xr with an antidepressant was proven more effective than an antidepressant alone for treating unresolved symptoms of depression. talk to your doctor about seroquel xr. then visit seroquelxr.com for a free trial offer. call your doctor if you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children,teens, and young adults. elderly dementia patients taking seroquel xr have an increased risk of death. call your doctor if you have fever, stiff muscles, and confusion, as these may be signs of a life-threatening reaction or if you have uncontrollable muscle movements, as these could become permanent. high blood sugar has been reported with seroquel xr and medicines like it and in extreme cases can lead to coma or death. your doctor should check for cataracts. other risks include decreases in white blood cells, which can be fatal, seizures, increased cholesterol, weight gain, dizziness on standing, drowsiness,impaired judgment, and trouble swallowing. use caution before driving or operating machinery. for more help putting distance between you and your depression, ask your doctor about adding seroquel xr. if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. back now at 7:43, they say size isn t everything. a house that just hit the market here in new york city seems to prove that. it s barely wider than your living room sofa. here s today real estate contributor barbara corcoran. reporter: new york s west village has always had a unique flavor of its own. bohemian, artistic, and for the past few decades, expensive. celebrities like sarah jessica parker call this neighborhood home. and one distinct house has been captivating the imagination of tourists and residents for over 100 years. located at 75 1/2 bedford street, past residents include cary grant, john barrymore and the poet edna st. vincent. real estate broker paul bolson recently gave me a tour. i understand the whole house is built on a carriageway. it was, yes. is that typical of its time? it s not. this is an atypical house. everybody in new york wanted to use the space they had. and they squeezed this little house they squeeze the this house between the two houses that were here before. reporter: i had to measure the house myself just to believe it. 9.6! i told you! reporter: at 990 square feet, it s a little like living in a dollhouse. when you come in here, it s like entering the rabbit hole. your mind expands the room and it s just a great space. let s see if that works on my mind as i squeeze through this little kitchen here. reporter: four working fireplaces, original beams and a communal garden make up for some of the home s shortcomings. what is this, an ez-bake oven? it s so tiny. so do the details justify the price tag? the current owner did put in a million-dollar renovation. reporter: what? $1 million? what do you spend $1 million on 990 square feet? that s a gut renovation. reporter: i want to see those receipts. a narrow staircase links all three floors for a total of seven rooms. welcome to the master bedroom. reporter: this is the master bedroom? where would you fit a bed? we ve got a bed right here. cary grant used to live here. reporter: okay. why not? and then there s the not-so-private bathroom. prettiest room in the house. reporter: no doubt. a nice clawfoot tub. what about these windows? you ve got to be kidding. you d have to be an exhibitionist to be in this tub. a little bit of a free spirit, yes. reporter: still, bo believes someone out there will appreciate the novelty. you re asking $4.3 million for this house. yes, we are. reporter: how would you justify that price? for under $6 million, you really don t get anything in the west village. reporter: and who, bo, do you picture living in this home? i think somebody who definitely has to have an open mind. reporter: you re goingrháhp & need somqját with a really fat wallet to buy this skinny little home. that was today real estate contributor barbara corcoran. next, the world s ugliest dog. wait until you hear where yoda s owners found her. that s coming up right after this. yes! ha ha! 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yeah. so someone clearly didn t want yoda. yeah, i guess not. they never claimed her. but it s a story with a happy ending. when you first laid eyes on yoda, did you see big things in her future in terms of ugly dog competitions? no. when i first laid eyes on her, i saw big things in terms of getting her to the doctor. you thought yoda was a rat at first, right? there s all kinds of i thought she was bringing me a dead field rat. nicole, when your mom said, put the dog down well, she didn t know what it was, but what did you why did you insist on keeping it? i don t know. you were just a little girl. i was little and i was, like, crying. i wanted her. i don t know why. why does yoda keep her tongue out like that, by the way? she always has-now that she s gotten older, she has no teeth. oh, so it just falls out. there s nothing to hold the tongue in. so you hear about this competition, and you entered. did you think you were a shoo-in or that you were going to face tough competition? honestly, i was going just for the experience, more or less. i figured maybe she might get a ribbon and that would be nice. and you got more than a ribbon. you got this trophy here that s, what, about ten times well, more than that, i think, bigger than she is. and also i think you got some time of monetary award as well. and you got to be on the today show. so if i gave you a coupon that said you could have a free jill rappaport makeover for yoda so she would no longer be the ugliest dog, would you take that coupon? or do you like her as she is? we love her just like she is. that s good because i don t think you could do anything with her. jill s pretty good, but i m not sure. anyway, what s in the future? are you going to enter more competitions? i ll definitely go to next year s. reclaim the title. good luck with that. yoda, nice having you here. we re back after this. i d like one of those desserts and some coffee. - sure, cake or pie? - pie. - apple or cherry? - cherry. oil or cream? oil or cream? cream. some use hydrogenated oil. reddi-wip uses real dairy cream. nothing s more real than reddi-wip. it s trade-up time. cause the prices we ve been waiting for on those features we ve been looking for. are here. which means we can finally kick out the old and pick out the new. we ve got til july 6th. let s snag some serious savings. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. get this maytag refrigerator for 698 bucks. that s two hundred dollars off. try finding that price somewhere else. i love the fact that quicken loans provides va loans. quicken loans understood all the details and guided me through every step of the process. i know wherever the military sends me, i can depend on quicken loans. with less chronic low back pain. imagine living your life with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a non-narcotic treatment that s fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning, everybody. i am stan stovall. time for another check of the morning commute with sarah caldwell and traffic pulse 11. good news and bad news. accidents have been moved off the side of the west side and a 95. heavy delays in both areas. in a look at frederick, we have an accident on the shoulder. 23 miles per hour on average on the inner loop. those delays stretch back to i- 97 and continue all the way towards the accident scene. outer loop delays as well. and acting traffic on northbound 95. keith ave, accident off to the side. look at the delays behind it. all way back to white marsh boulevard, southbound 895 at a crawl. folks trying to get off of 95 and take that instead. i suggest you continue to take the east side of the beltway all the way to keybridge. 95 and the 895 split, focusing in on a 95 coming towards us. you can see the pace of things did not moving at all. west side of frederick, all lanes open. delays in both directions there. tony, over to you. at least the weather is nice. we had a cold front go by a couple hours ago. humidity is going down. upper 60s and low 70 s. 75 at the airport, 68 i parkton. it will be a little bit on the breezy side, but very nice this afternoon. gray weather tomorrow. 84. it gets hotter over the weekend. we are back in 25 minutes with another live update. we re back now, 8:00 on a wednesday morning. it s the 29th day of june, 2011. we ve got a nice crowd gathered on the plaza on what is a spectacular day. we ve got bright blue skies. not a cloud in them. maybe a couple of wispy ones. moderate temperatures. and i don t want to jinx anything, especially coming up to the fourth of july weekend, but off to a nice start around here. a lot of places it s going to be too dry to have fireworks. not the problem here. may i say, how much do we like his hat? out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with ann curry and mr. al roker. coming up in a couple of minutes, we re going to talk a little bit about one of the most controversial members of the royal family. that s right, we re talking about prince andrew. there have been a lot of questions of late, stories linked to scandals including his own wife, sarah ferguson. we ll be talking to one of the contributing editors of vanity fair about that. also ahead, in our studio right now, one of our favorite actors is here, tom hanks is in town. he s talking about his brand-new movie called larry crown. he stars opposite julia roberts. i think he was grabbing something from the sequel. he s got a transformer. oh. because that s the other he s promoting now another movie. he s not in transformers. that s how big he is. he doesn t have to only promote his own movies, he can promote other people s movies. we ll be talking to tom about larry crown and some other things in just a few minutes. how much do we love tom hanks? what s going on here? it s unscientific, but it s enjoyable. a little later, jenna bush hager takes us on an adventure in cajun country. natalie s standing by at the news desk with the headlines. good morning, everyone. we begin with the chaos erupting in greece today as clashes broke out between greek police and protesters trying to stop the country s parliament from voting on spending cuts and tax hikes, in exchange for giving greece more bailout funds needed to prevent a catastrophic default on its debt. now for a check on how that crisis could impact our markets here, let s turn to cnbc s mandy drury. what s the concern there on wall street? you ve actually had a couple of good days if you re an investor in hopes that that greek vote would pass. obviously, what is happening will have a big influence on how our market will close. also big news coming out of bank of america. it s going to be paying $8.5 billion to settle claims by investors who lost money on soured mortgages when the housing market crashed. good news for walmart today. it says it is for three months going to be cutting gasoline prices by a dime a gallon at its murphy usa and walmart gas stations in 18 states. back over to you. mandy drury, thank you. fire officials say today could be the turning point in the battle to keep a new mexico wildfire from reaching the los alamos national laboratory and nuclear weapons facility. fire has reached the fringes of the complex where nuclear materials are stored. thousands of people have already been evacuated from the area as thick smoke blankets there. meanwhile, venezuelan president hugo chavez tried to clear up rumors about his health by appearing last night on cuban television with former cuban leader fidel castro. chavez had been unusually quiet since having abdominal surgery in cuba two weeks ago. now here s brian williams with a look at what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. brian. hey, natalie, good morning. and coming up tonight, when we see you for nightly news, the tens of thousands of american veterans who go to bed homeless and hungry every night. in l.a., the number of homeless vets has risen so high, a class action lawsuit s been filed. we ll have that story tonight and much more when we see you for nightly news. natalie, for now, back to you. thanks, brian. now for a look at what s trending today, a quick roundup of what you re talking about online. holy hash tags. the hope is now on twitter. 84-year-old pope benedict used his ipad to tweet for the first time tuesday, sending out his prayers and blessings. and he posted the vatican s new website. a legal snag has more people than usual googling lady gaga. michigan law firm filed suit against gaga on friday claiming she s profiting from the shipping charges on her japan earthquake relief bracelets. a gaga spokesperson says the lawsuit is without merit. and just after appearing on this show on tuesday, actor shia la beouf went viral with his comments confirming that he had a fling with co-star megan fox while filming the first transformers movie. it is 8:05 right now. you re up to date. let s go back now to al with a check of your weather. today s weather is brought to you by tropicana. and hello! we ve got some nice folks here. march of dimes. what s going on? how you doing? i m here for babies day. this is a one-day fund-raising event for farmers insurance where we ve set out to raise $2.6 million for the support of healthy babies and healthy mothers. the way you can help support is by going to marchofdimes.com/farmers to be here for babies today. that s awfully nice. thank you so much. and he s a strapping good-looking young man. here s what s happening today. the atlantic hurricane season, we re looking at 175 miles east of tampico, mexico. it will make landfall sometime late tonight into tomorrow. a risk of strong storms up through the plains. showers in northern new england. wet weather along the southeastern atlantic coast. the heat is on from texas all the way up into the northern rockies. we ve got a few showers in the pacific northwest. morning fog gives way to some sunshine and 76 in los angeles. that s wha it is going to be a beautiful day today. mostly sunny skies as we head through the afternoon. humidity is going down. high temperatures in the mid- 80 and that s your latest weather. matt? thank you very much. as we say hello to our friends from marietta, ohio. when we come back, a look at prince andrew and why he can t seem to stay out of the headlines. we ll talk about that right after these messages. ious! i ve never tasted anything so delicious. richard, why are you wearing grandpa s jacket? i m not richard. i m grandpa smucker. male announcer: tim and richard smucker always looked up to their father and grandfather knowing that one day they too would make the world s best jam. grandpa says it like, i ve never tasted anything so delicious! i ve never tasted anything so delicious! tim: [ laughing ] you got it! male announcer: for five generations, with a name like smucker s, it has to be good. now use the best suncare recommended most by dermatologists. neutrogena®, with technologies like helioplex. it provides the highest average spf and unsurpassed uva protection. get the best. neutrogena®. took some wild risks when i was young. but i was still taking a risk with my cholesterol. anyone with high cholesterol may be at increased risk of heart attack. diet and exercise weren t enough for me. i stopped kidding myself. i ve been eating healthier, exercising more, and now i m also taking lipitor. if you ve been kidding yourself about high cholesterol, stop. along with diet, lipitor has been shown to lower bad cholesterol 39 to 60 percent. lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. [ 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. lets go. haha. 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. back now at 8:10, with mounting troubles for a member of the royal family. nbc s peter alexander joins us with details. reporter: ann, good morning to you. the royals are still basking in the afterglow of prince william and kate who leave for their north american trip today. but royal watchers say for years buckingham palace has struggled with a major pr problem, that s how to handle prince andrew. fourth in line to the world s most celebrated throne, prince andrew is both affable and outgoing. the proud father of two young princesses, beatrice and eugenie. but the duke of york s indulgent lifestyle and controversyial acquaintances have also made him a frequent of the tabloids. in the draft issue of august s issue of vanity fair. the trouble is andrew, as all our mothers used to say, people judge you by your friends, and he s been very indiscreet with his friends, even self-destructive. reporter: among andrew s less than savory friends, american billionaire jeffrey epstein, a convicted sex offender who admitted soliciting an underage girl for prostitution. as britain s trade ambassador, he met with moammar gadhafi and has dined with the president of kazakhstan. both visits, the palace said, made as part of his official duties. he does do an effective job, things come back and bite him. and this is the problem with him. he just seems to be unable to shake off scandal. reporter: perhaps his most scrutinized relationship, that with ex-wife, sarah ferguson. britain s disgraced debt-ridden duchess who 15 years later still shares a home with andrew. and in 2010 was caught as part of a british tabloid hidden camera sting, trying to sell access to the prince. 500,000 pounds when you can, to me, open doors. reporter: ferguson later apologized and said prince andrew was never involved. andrew, a war hero, has benefited by the unconditional support of a very powerful ally, his mother, the queen. despite the scandals, this march she awarded her son with britain s highest possible honor. that was a signal to everybody that the queen was bestowing on andrew her protection that he was untouchable. he s her favorite child. so he can t do anything wrong. reporter: but elizabeth can t be queen forever. and observers say andrew has very little in common with his more serious and introverted older brother, charles. that relationship may be the most significant of all as royal watchers say, andrew s future role in the monarchy could be up in the air. and a palace spokesperson told me last night that the prince s meeting with that man, jeffrey epstein, here in new york in december was to use his words, unwise. they would not, however, comment on sarah ferguson and the duchess of york. peter alexander, thank you. ed kline who you just saw in that piece as a contributor editor to vanity fair magazine, he wrote about prince andrew for the august issue. good morning. good morning. as i remember, princess margaret, also then the number two in line. that s right. also got into all kinds of trouble with the press. this is sort of similar in some ways. well, you know, number two always seems to be getting into trouble in britain. you know, there s a lot of pressure on them. of these charges, these accusations, against prince andrew, which do you think is the worst or most difficult for him and why? i think a picture of him with his arm around one of these underage girls that jeffrey epstein had flown to london set off this terrible, terrible scandal in britain and made his mother, the queen, step in and give him a tremendous knighthood to signal to the whole country, he s under my protection. is there anything that he s done that actually, though, crosses the legal line, or is it really simply appearances? well, that s a good question and hard to answer because no one has yet proved that he, in fact, attended naked pool parties with jeffrey epstein or had massages from these underage girls. but we do know that he has gone around the world raising money for his ex-wife, sarah ferguson, from some very dodgy characters. well, you raise sarah ferguson because, of course, we all know about the scandal in which she was videotaped sort of trying to sell access. so she s apologized to her ex-husband. she s taken the blame for this. is there any reason to believe that he s dirty in this particular way, really? well, she claimed that he actually knew that she was selling access to him as the british trade ambassador. his problems are two women, farrah ferguson on the one hand who gets him into trouble all the time and his mother who covered him up all the time. you re getting psychological here. has it affected his ability to be the trade ambassador? are there enough questions now being raised? because he s not just a prince, he s the face of britain when it comes to raising trade money. that s right. and there have been calls in the house of commons which is really unusual when it comes to the royals to fire him from that job. you ve raised some questions in the piece that we just saw that peter did about how long this protection can last. it really sort of begs the question sort of how bad is his relationship with his older brebre brother, charles? that s a good question. because as his mother, the queen, who is 85, starts to recede, charles is going to start to take a greater and greater role in the royal family. and he s made it very plain that he wants to streamline the family, make it much smaller, which means that andrew and his daughters, beatrice and eugenie, are not going to be on the royal dole for much longer. so he wouldn t be british trade ambassador any longer? you re saying he s going to leave him without any money? well, i think they ll keep him on a very short leash, take him off that royal that trade ambassadorship, not make his daughters working royals who are going to be supported by the royal family. this is something he s tried to prevent for years. wow, sounds like the prince has got to get a job. ed kline, thank you so much for joining us. by the way, the august issue of vanity fair hits newsstands later this week. and coming up next, guess who s here. we ve got oscar winner tom hanks, one of our favorites here in our studio right after this. 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[ intel bong ] two-time oscar winner tom hanks has been an actor, writer, producer and director. now he is doing it all at once for his latest film which is called larry crown. hanks plays the title character who heads to community college after losing his job. and that s when sparks start flying between larry and his professor played by julia roberts. take a look. you ready for your final? well, we ll find out. i drew the order last night. and? you re last. lucky me. thank you, by the way. what did i do? kept our secret. oh. i don t do many things well, but i can keep a secret. gentlemen do. tom, welcome back. thank you. that s the sum total of what i do well. what you just told me, matt, will never leave my lips and the headsets of the entire crew. don t you worry about that. you were one of the biggest stars in hollywood. i ve told you that often. you ve told me that also. julia roberts is one of the biggest stars in hollywood. so when you guys want to talk about a project, is there a super-secret phone line? is there a phone booth off the ventura freeway? what happens? there is a preamble that goes along with it, whenever i can track her down. she was either in india, indonesia or italy when i first talked to her about this. she was making the three i movie, eat, pray, love. i don t know what time zone you re in or what the kids are doing, but look, this is official business call in which everything drops. all right. but, see, you called her again, you re producing directing, you called directly. there are no casting agents, agents, nothing like that. we warned her her phalanx of operatives that i would like to speak to her, and they okayed it. and then i got one of those 18-digit numbers, 051163701322. is that a 3? i m not sure but i had to dial it, like, nine times. did she say yes immediately? no, i will send this to you. i wrote it i d like you to be in it, i would like to be your boss, but only if you think there s something there. if you hate it, just say it ain t for me and all will be forgotten. larry crowne goes to community college. you re of the same age so it isn t one of those creepy teacher/student relationships. it could be. we always started off the other teacher is george takei. we flipped a coin and said, where will the romance begin? man, luckily it came up heads because otherwise, we re talking to a whole different mass audience, i m telling you right now. timely, without a doubt, but a different audience. you d be with kathie lee and hoda. i think we might have been part of the gay pride parade which i would gladly be on the float for. chemistry. everybody talks about it when you get to big stars taking part in a movie. it didn t seem to be much of an issue. well, i don t want to blow out any secrets, but in a lot of ways chemistry can be faked in motion pictures. do you really think it can be totally faked? if you don t actually like each other, you have to have a huge amount of respect for each other and you ve got to identify with the material. but julia and i met about 12 years ago on a photo shoot. and i thought she was everything she was cracked up to be. and then we would work together on charlie wilson s war. thank you. thank you. thank you. yeah, yeah, yeah. it never works the way it s supposed to work. the applause is supposed to begin before i say thank you. but we became really good pals. i mean, honestly, we laughed a lot. working together on this, i think she trusted that i would try to establish as the boss the same ease of working atmosphere as we had on that. watching you promote this movie and you ve been around doing it, you seem to be having a lot of fun which is unusual because you re not usually that much fun here. so when you have been like on univision, doing the weather, this video has been making the rounds. let me tell you. what was going on here? first of all, i was told i was doing the weather with tiki delgado. who hasn t wanted to try to master the samba. there i am. and then trying to speak in spanish. not easy to do as al roker, but i had a feeling that if this had been me and al roker trying to point out the weather, not exactly the same. no offense. no offense, al. i believe and tiki delgado is a former miss venezuela. and you are a former mr. new jersey. i m a miss new jersey. whatever. so when you re doing the dance, you re thinking this screen spouts off. you can t do this for any movie. you can go around the world and have a good time promoting it which, by the way, i think our press junket is getting damn good reviews which makes me feel great. but you wouldn t have done this, for example, for charlie wilson s war. no, i don t think so. it didn t work the second time either. mercy applause. scattered mercy applause. real quickly, you were just with the queen. yes, i was. oprah. of the other country. how was that? that was everything it s cracked up to be. you know, 172 people in buckingham palace, bagpipers and a nice cut of lamb. nice chunk of lamb. you know, good piece of meat for dinner. i had no complaints. it s always fun to have you here. thank you, matt. pleasure to be here. thanks very much. larry crowne is in theaters starting friday. and tom s back in a moment. live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara. let s get a final check on the morning commute with sarah caldwell. busy morning. it is a nightmare out there. keybridge was a good alternate. not so much anymore. on the inner loop, those delays have stretched back from the earlier accident scene at frederick all the way to quarantine road. once you got off the keybridge, you will be sitting in traffic again trying to get off the city. unfortunately, this just the result of a busy morning on the west side. in a traffic jam up approaching quarantine towards frederick road. southbound 95 and keith ave, the accident is off to the side. that is almost a better bet. southbound 95 instead of in other parts to keybridge. 25 miles per hour is still. he will sit in traffic from white marsh to the 895 split. over towards the harrisburg expressway, you can see we are holding on to delays on southbound 795 because of the west side. just a mess this morning. if you can delay your departure, maybe a better bet this morning. on the beltway, quarantine road at a crawl. we will switch to a live view of the earlier accident scene at frederick, where we are not making much progress. tony, over to you. at least the weather is nice. cold front going off the coast right now. at the monte is down. it will turn out to be a nice day. temperatures at the present time pretty nice in most spots. 68 degrees in parkton. forecast for today, mostly sunny. it will be a little breezy this afternoon. high temperatures route 86. another good one coming up tomorrow. it will get warmer as we headed to the weekend. temperatures hang around 90, with just a slight chance for an afternoon thunderstorm. we will have another update at 8:55. stanley! somebody help! my hero! anyone can be a hero with the new captain america cherry coolatta from dunkin . america runs on dunkin . friday, pit bull live with marc anthony, t-pain and ne-yo. four hot performers, one cool concert. the toyota summer concert series only today on nbc. pump it up and back it up like a tonka truck 8:30 now on a wednesday morning, the 29th of june, 2011. as we say hill low hello to our friends on rockefeller plaza. and guess what. on friday, if they come back, pit bull has been featured in j. lo s latest song. he ll be here live on the plaza and getting help from marc anthony, t-pain and ne-yo. those four hot performers on stage here on friday on stage. maybe he ll bring j. lo. wouldn t that be nice? and that outfit. i m ann curry with matt lauer, natalie morales and al roker. some people are going to plan some kind of major patriotic bash for the fourth of july. how can you make yours the best that can be? who better than that lady, martha stewart. wouldn t you like to be invited to that picnic? martha will have creative ideas coming up. later, jenna bush hager taking us into cajun country and show us the time she had with crawfish, gators and a few other critters just ahead. i could not keep them waiting any longer. we ve got patrick dempsey and josh duhamel, two stars. hello there. you know it s a michael bay movie when you have cars exploding. how much fun was it acting in this film? josh, this is your third transformers film. yes. it s a full day s work. i had the best time i ve ever had. everything is so larger than life all the way through the production. so 300 cars destroyed. so this is a chick flick? is that what this is? damage cars. they were going to be crushed anyway. we helped them along in their process. i got it. transformers: dark side of the moon. you show your dark side. i get to play a different character and i had a blast doing it. he s a good villain. people don t know this. they don t know that. quite a turn from grey s anatomy, right? right. i like the balance of all that. you are really good at it, in fact. and you are really good playing a soldier. i ve got to tell you, at one point in the movie, you actually made me cry. aww. because the two of you really embody this kind of courage that the soldiers need to stand up against terrible evil and difficulties like patrick dempsey. i appreciate that. thank you. all the guys you were with are military men, aren t they? yeah, all the guys in the movie who are active duty who are back from iraq or afghanistan. of course, josh, you re from minot, north dakota. and kind of the face of helping flood relief. i m doing what i can to raise awareness. it s pretty devastating what s going on there right now. you know, it s a very resilient community. if anybody can handle something like this, it s them. but they need help right now. i m just trying to raise, you know, awareness and as much money as i can. there s a website on my facebook page, minot area community center has a fund that all the funds will go directly to the people trying to restore their lives. and today.com as well as the dempsey center. i know you re involved in a charity as well. yeah, a wellness center for people with cancer. i give them as much support as possible. we have a nice bike ride and run in october. we ve raised $1 million in the last couple years. that money goes directly back into the community and hopefully the people whose lives are affected. it s nice to have you here. couldn t wait to be here. check out the new transformers, blowing up 300 cars! what damaged cars? mr. roker. that s what s going on around it is going to be a beautiful wednesday. when sen shifted to the northwest. humidity is going down. high temperature of around 86 this afternoon. that s your latest weather. now let s head on down to washington, d.c., and say hello to big willie scott. you are looking fantastic, sir. getting better like you, baby, every day. 500 pounds a day. you re the best. meredith vieira, i wasn t here to say good-bye. good-bye, her zimeredith. we check the old jam jar. here is edna yoder, mennonite name. south hutchinson, kansas, 100 years old. loves her family, loves to quilt, do all kinds of home things. plude blackmon of montgomery, alabama, 100 years old today. proud volunteer, does all sorts of things, meals on wheels. he s a fabulous man in the community. they love him. take a look at ella mae pratt from decatur, illinois, 100 years old today. she is proud to say that one of the first batches of chicken she ever made was with colonel sanders right in the kitchen. good old louie, sweet louie neff of zephyrhills, florida. he s a huge fan of nascar. you know more people watch that than any sport there is? and volunteers with local hospitals, too. can t beat that. on the birthday list, monica kuntz from circle, montana, cowgi cowgirl, 100 years owed today and loves to watch rodeos, especially bull riding. we re sort of in that business here at nbc. yes, we are. bull something. i forgot. anyway, paul lovell, and he is from bridgeport, west virginia. i want to go back to west virginia. did i say that right? and 100 years old today. a proud ww ii veteran and was once taken as a prisoner of war in the battle of the bulge. that s all. and ann, i m so proud of you. i love you. everybody loves you. willard, i love you so much. that is so sweet. coming up next, jenna bush hager s adventure in cajun country. but first, this is today on nbc. we re back now at 8:39 as we kick off a special series america the beautiful. it s our way to celebrate the beauty and the culture of the country s various national parks and heritage areas. today contributing correspondent jenna bush hager is here with her very first destination. i like this series. hi. today we re taking you to atchafalaya swamp in louisiana, the heart of cajun country. although this country requires no passport. reporter: right here, just 100 miles beyond the city of new orleans, you ll find a wilderness of winding water, soaring cypress and curious creatures. the atchafalaya basin, the landscape bountiful and mysterious filled with twisting bayous and backwater lakes. sometimes for boating but always majestic. a land rich not only in nature but in the unique culture. i lived here my whole life. 71 years. if you can find where you belong, i think that s the key to it, then this is where i belong. reporter: the cajun people, descendants of french canadians, fled here to the swamp over 250 years ago where they built a new life, fishing and hunting. and for crawfisherman roy, he contributes today. hello. have you been fishing? been trying. reporter: a tradition he tried to teach me. so we re going to try to fill this back up, right? oh, yeah. we ll fill this back up. reporter: they don t look too happy. i don t blame them. reporter: for roy, the waters are a road, a home and a living. look what i got. some crawfish. four pounds of crawfish. that s enough for dinner, right? oh, yeah. reporter: whoa! coming out hot. and i soon learned not just a cajun way of life but a cajun sense of humor. natural? natural mess. reporter: that s a mess? oh, yeah, you wouldn t make it. reporter: i wouldn t make it? no, too slow. most of the cajun people are happy and jolly and real friendly. look at me. reporter: get out, sir. come on. it s time to go. he ll be fine until i put a little cajun spice on him. that s so sweet. a flower. when you think of the word swamp, you might think of someplace spooky or scary. but as we traveled further, another word came to mind, magical. nature tells a story. it s not something you have to speak in words. reporter: david allemond has lived here his whole life. the last few years have not been easy. a hurricane, an oil spill and epic flooding. i ve had to leave twice in the last ten years. but we get up every day. we do what it takes to make our day go. and we keep on keeping on. and that s what cajuns do. the cajun way of life is the joy of life. we don t take anything for granted. reporter: especially when a nine-foot alligator is hot on your tail. it s okay. reporter: it s become clear that these cajuns have learned that even the worst disaster is made bearable by sharing delicious food, dancing to infectious music and savoring a cool evening breeze on a hot atchafalaya knit. jenna, i invite everybody to come to the basin. except for my little crawfish friends, we all had a wonderful time down there. tomorrow we head from the swamps of louisiana to the wild west of texas. and we visit big ben national park. i ve never seen you move faster than when that nine-foot alligator was there. that thing was huge. that s a big alligator. it scared me. i have to tell you the truth. jenna, thank you very much. up next, martha stewart s ideas for adding a touch of style and patriotism to your fourth of july party. there s martha going at it right there. first, this is today on nb martha on today is brought to you by macy s. the martha stewart collection is now available only at macy s and on macys.com. this morning on martha on today, a fourth of july celebration. you don t need fireworks to make your guests ooh and ah this weekend. you might want to try inexpensive crafts and decorations straight from the pages of martha stewart living. good morning. good morning. you are just in time. the holiday s coming. a lot of us have no idea what we re doing. it s so much fun. it s three days. you have to time to make all these simple but very effective cookies and decorations. candy favors like this. m&m s and these little swizzle sticks. they re so cute. napkins. just find fabrics. so fun things that are red, white and blue and put them together. i love these little rockets filled with candies and fine patriotic red, white and blue candies, tie them up. these are sort of like crackers, candy crackers. so that done, but let s talk about the spectacular idea. firework cookies. now, these look impossible to make, right? they do. let s show people what they look like close up. you can see they re frosted cookies. you ve taken frosting everybody s buying it to figure out how to do it. you re saying people can do this at home. yes. show us how. the first thing, flood your cookie with white icing. i like that word, flood. just use a squeeze bottle. just get the consistency of your royal icing which is basically confectionary s sugar and egg whites and a little flavoring of lemon juice. just a tad. and you just spread the whole cookie. keep squeezing until you get a nice flood. we have it covered here already. so you can pick up one. you want to do red or blue. i ll do red. now, you start in the middle and just put a dot. a dot. then do eccentric circles all the way around. you can alternate red and blue or just read. circle. you re doing well. they do not have to be perfect circles. this takes a little elbow grease, as i always say. you have to squeeze pretty hard. and you can find one of these tubes anywhere. i want to make sure you have one that s all done. okay. is this a competition? because i m going to get going here. get those concentric circles. this is an old baker s technique from france. remember on the tops of napoleons? oh, yeah. you know, they had those little beautiful drawings. beautiful designs, right. so then take yeah, you re doing okay. that s enough to show the technique. then take the point of the bamboo skewer and pull from the center out just lightly. and see what happens? like you re making a little pie. like you re cutting a pie. but lightly, just do the top service and you get those beautiful designs. even though mine was kind of like not perfect. clean the tip of your bamboo. mine is so pretty. it is perfect. but as you get more adept at it, you get more and more, do complicated, beautiful designs. you could spend so much time. now, striped tablecloth. this is a drop cloth from home depot. it s a canvas drop cloth. use a fabric paint. tape off masking tape. tape off lines and then just down the line. dab like this. then let it dry and pull off the tape and you have stripes like that. we ve run out of time, just leave the tape on it. no, no, no. and then decorating your kid s bike or your bike. do you have a bike in i do have a bike. they re so much fun to decorate. all the clip art is in our magazine. how did you do that? we show you how to do these spoke covers, how to do the wheel cover. this goes right on the wheel. it s very simple. this would be great at getting kids to get on the bike but get the whole family out on the bike. and do your own little parade or take the bike to your fourth of july. do you have one in your town? i do have one in my town. these are so much fun. just make sure you keep anything that s hanging away from the wheels so that you don t have an accident. martha stewart. putting ai smi smile on the hol. do you want to ride? i do. can you do it in your skirt? i have a skirt on. be careful as you shoot this. first, this is today on nbc! it is a pleasure, and we mean that, to welcome back our good friend, len berman. he s here to catch us up on the wild and wacky moments from the world of sports. lenny, welcome back. i can t go on. you guys are too kind. all right. well, the last couple of months feature the kentucky derby, the dallas mavericks and the boston bruins. but what were truly the top sports stories? let s go spanning the world. unbelievable! all right. on your mark, get set. in south carolina high school soccer. that s a goal. play ball! everybody flipping out. as cabrera for cleveland, paul konerko for chicago. got him. pitcher ross for texas. ditto. the guy on the left at indianapolis. look out. in italy, the penalty kick goes off the crossbar. the goalie celebrates. but look at the ball. bounce, bounce. that s a goal. just another case of premature exhilaration. oh! in france. a motorcycle mishap. here we go round the mulberry bush this goes on for a while. speaking of bush, the former president was at the game. and look out, sir. the dodger fan dropped his kid, he didn t get the ball either. but tiffany goodwin shows how it s done in the richmond times dispatch. ball, kid and nobody got hurt. time for a brek in the action. at clemson during the rain delay. the game of choice was bowling. and converting a rare 7/10 split. but their rain delay activities, jousting. back to the action. evan longoria for tampa bay being interviewed. take it away. wow! all right. so it was only a commercial. but that s a pretty cool grab, don t you think? our an mimals of the month. fans were chanting, jump! and he listened. our fans of the month. you know, i m not sure that s going to work. you know? oh, yeah. our athlete of the month. in new zealand. this is the world s first triple backward bmx flip. and you re asking, how does that look on helmet cam? well, makes it look queasy. and at the president s race in washington, teddy roosevelt finally won for the first time, but he was disqualified for using a segway because in president s racing, you re not allowed to ride softly and carry a big stick. oh! that s why he only shows up every two years. i can t believe you re groaning. you re groaning. exhilaration. that was good. hdtv. it s in color, right? it is. and it actually went out over the air. unbelievable. come back soon. great to have you back. we re going to be back after your local news and weather. they had a camera some live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am mindy basara police in northeast baltimore are searching for the person who shot and killed in liquor store delivery man. the victim was making a delivery to erdman liquors 3:00 yesterday afternoon when someone walked up to him and opened fire. he died at a hospital. police are investigating the robbery. now let s take a look at the forecast with tony pann. we are setting up for nice weather here the next couple of days. we had a cold front of it at a cold front go through. humidity is going down. it will be a little bit on the preseason, but very nice this afternoon. little bit on the breezy side, but very nice this afternoon. tonight, much cooler. upper 50 s, low 60 s. it does get warmer over the weekend. saturday, sunday and monday, fourth of july, a slight chance for an afternoon or evening thunderstorm. thank you for joining us. another weather update at 9:25.