Transcripts For WRC Today 20091021 : vimarsana.com

good morning. a young person s disease. that s what health officials are now calling the swine flu outbreak. more than half of all hospitalizations, people under 25. 55% of all deaths under 49. why do the virus seem to be targeting the young? where s mer? a masve search in florida to find a 7-year-old girl last seen on monday walking home from school. this morning her mother speaks out to us in a live interview. and crank call? new portions released of the 911 call placed by those colorado parents involved in that alleged balloon hoax. he got inside, and it took off, yeah. okay. where is he at? he s in the air! reporter: but authorities believe it was no emergency, just one big acting job today, wednesday, october 21st, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, everyone. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m erin burnett in for meredith this morning. good to be with you again, matt. the swine flu outbreak the focus of a hearing today on capitol hill, and of course, we know there s going to be plenty of talk about those numbers you were just mentioning about who s getting hit the hardest. they do get your attention. 93% of all confirmed cases in the past seven weeks have occurred in people under the age of 65 with the majority of them 24 years old and younger. it s almost the complete opposite of what we tend to see with the seasonal flu. so, what seems to make that age group, the younger, more susceptible? we re going to talk about this with dr. nancy snyderman in just a couple of minutes. and also ahead, another health insurance denial that s going to upset plenty of parents watching. last week, meredith talked with the parents of an adorable 4-year-old who was originally denied coverage for being too fat. well, guess what? this time, different story, a 2-year-old girl deemed too small. we re going to talk with her family coming up. there she is. all right, plus, we ll show you the most popular halloween masks that could be showing up on your doorstep this year. and let s just say, we live in a country that loves scandals. these are fun. yeah, but first, let s get to the top stories of the day. natal natalie s in for ann at the news desk. good morning to you. good morning to you. today in afghanistan, president hamid karzai s main political opponent agreed to a runoff election one day after karzai himself said yes to a second round of voting after widespread reports of fraud in the first round. the results of the november 7th redo could impact the decision on sending more u.s. troops to afghanistan. in neighboring pakistan, people are keeping a close watch on developments in afghanistan and on growing violence in their own country. nbc s stephanie gosk is in islamabad. stephanie, good morning. reporter: good morning, natalie. the taliban said their next target would be the schools, and they made good on their threat. islamabad feels like a city under siege. in recent weeks, the taliban has shown it can strike at will anywhere it wants, even here in the capital. yesterday it was the islamic university. two suicide bombers. the first hit the girls feteria just after lunch. i saw a lot of blood here, four to five girls lying on the floor. reporter: seconds later, an explosion at the law department. in total, six people were killed. retaliation, the taliban says, for a new military offensive against their stronghold of south waziristan. the u.s. says this area is used to launch attacks against u.s. troops in afghanistan. a retired general told us the militants goal is to destabilize this nuclear armed country. these people are ruthless. they have no compassion. they are animals in the world of muslim. reporter: and their brutal tactics have rattled pakistanis. overnight, every school was ordered closed. pakistani intelligence says that there has been a u.s. drone attack just north of their military operation. the military says that these attacks only undermine their own fight against the taliban. natalie? stephanie gosk in islamabad, pakistan, thank you. vice president joe biden is in poland this morning. it s a trip seen by some as damage control after the administration scrapped missile defense plans in the region. new details now about swindler bernie madoff s prison life. legal papers filed in the civ case say he shares a cell with a convicted drug offender and eats pizza cooked by a child molester. he also reportey spends time with a mob boss and convicted spy, jonathan pollard. overseas markets are mostly lower this morning, and as for wall street, cnbc s trish regan is at the new york stock exchange for us again this morning. what are we focusing on today, trish? good morning, natalie. we re focusing on, yet again, earnings for the quarter. a number of major companies reporting this morning. morgan stanley is out today, boeing, wells rgo, so investors will be watching all of them carefully. what s critical here, natalie, is that not only do we see an increase in earnings, but that investors start to see an increase in top-line revenue. in other words, you can t cost-cut your way out of a recession. at some point you need to start growing sales. natalie. trish regan at the new york stock exchange. thank you, trish. well, tonight the phillies hope to clinch a spot in the world series in game five of the national league championship series. the phillies now lead the dodgers three games to one. the yankees also now lead the american league series three games to one as well after pounding the angels last night 12-1, a-rod again with another home run. game five in that series tomorrow night. getting a lot of fun. it s about 7:05 right now. let s turn it back over to matt, erin and al. not to discount the other teams right now. no, no, no. but it would be really cool to have a phillies/yankees world series. easy on the travel, tell you about that. the metro series or acela series, something like that. all right, natalie, thanks very much. sure. mr. roker s here checking out some weather that s beautiful here in the northeast. that s going to be changing towld the weekend. again, stuff that s coming to the east right now affecting our friends from texas all the way up into minneapolis. we ve got snow in denver and rainfall amounts tt are going to be quite a bit, especially down in texas. we do have some one to two-inch amounts up into the upper mississippi river valley, but the heaviest rain down in eastern texas, where there will be flash flood watches and warnings probably going up because the ground is already that s your latesther. matt? all right, al, thanks very much. now to the swine flu and new information on who is most at risk. nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman is here with the latest, and it s some eye-opening information, nancy. eye-opening information, matt. the information is highlighting how different h1n1 is from the regular seasonal flu, with young people being especially hard hit. in fact, in the past seven weeks, more than half of all hospitalizations are people under the ages of 5. 25. as millions of americans prepare to fight off the flu this season, a new reminder from the cdc that h1n1 is a virus all its own. this is really, really different from what we see with seasonal flu. reporter: perhaps the biggest difference, the so-called swine flu is hitting young people the hardest. the cdc says of those hospitalized with h1n1 since september 1st, 53% were under the age of 25, 39% about ages 25 to 64, and only 7% were 65 or older. as for deaths, nearly 24% of those who have died were under the age of 25. 65% were ages 25 to 64. and nearly 12% were over the age of 65. compared to the seasonal flu, this is a big change. it s almost completely reversed here. nearly 90% of our fatalities are occurring in people under 65. reporter: as for the h1n1 vaccine and reports of nationwide shortages, the cdc says progress is being made with more of the vaccine becoming available every day. that s good news for people across the country who have literally been lining up to protect themselves and their families. and i think the h1n1 has become an epidemic, and i think all parents need to have their children vaccinated. and nancy, it seems like the world turned upside down. i m trying to think how many times you and i have sat here. right. we ve talked about the seasonal flu, we ve talked about the very young, infants, and people over 65 who perhaps were ill to begin with being most affected. why is this younger, healthier group being targeted? is there any theory on that? well, there s no immune recognition. this is a new virus. two things. it s novel, which means it is new to young people. it jumps speacies a little bt of bird, little bit of pig and human component. but anyone born after 1968 just hasn t been exposed to any component of this in the environment. so, when young people sort of come face to face with this virus, it s like their immune systems almost overreact. they re just too robust, and that s what s causing a lot of problems, with secondary pneumonia really being the culprit. there was talk about doctors being very concerned with pregnant women. right. now i understand they re also looking at the obese. yeah. this became little bit of a concern over the summer when one icu in michigan noticed that 10 out of 12 of their patients were really quite heavy. then it raised the question, is obesity an independent risk factor and does that play a role for pregnant women, who we know are being hard hit? it may be that if you re fat, you just can t move your lungs as well and clear out little bits of mucus, but we know pregnant women are also at ris because there s some immune system change being pregnant and because they don t move their lungs as well. doctors are saying in the cases where the virus becomes fatal yes. it moves very, very fast. so, it begs the question, what are the signs people, parents, anyone should be looking for where you say to yourself, no, i m not going to fight this at home, i m getting to a hospital? it s very efficient. for most people, it can be fought at home. but really high fever that doesn t go away in 24 or 48 hours, any kind of dehydration bause some people are reporting nausea and vomiting with this. and boy, if you have shortness of breath and you have chest pain and you re really having difficulty breathing, that s a 911 call, because we know that teenagers who are getting into trouble really have that difficulty breathing as the seminole concern. and really quickly, because there s been talk about the shortage in the vaccines, where is the best place peopl can go to get information on where and when they can get the vaccine. cdc has the best website, flu.gov. it s very frustrating for everybody. we knew this might happen. there is this overlap of people getting sick and not yet enough vaccine everywhere. therollout is coming. it s been slower than anybody wanted. it will get to a place near you. check with your county health department, your pediatrician. but most pediatricians, in fact, are not carrying it, matt. you ll have to look for some other place for distribution. flu.gov. flu.gov, a really, really good website. nancy, thank you very much. you bet, matt. 11 minutes after the hour. here s erin. now to president obama s whirlwind visit to new york last night, here to raise money for the democratic party, but he used the trip to send a message to wall street. nbc s savannah guthrie is at the white house this morning. good morning, savannah. reporter: good morning, erin. well, the president s going to be in campaign mode again today. he ll travel to new jersey for a rally for new jersey governor jon corzine. and as you mentioned, he was on the fund-raising circuit last night, a pair of lavish fund-raisers in new york city. and the timing of that got some criticism, because his aides, of course, had been blasting wall street for bonusing, and about a third of the attendees there were from wall street. well, the president decided to use the opportunity to send a message. so, if there are members of the financial industry in the audience today, i would ask that you join us in passing what are necessaryreforms. don t fight them. join us on them. the white house has been angry because the financial industry is fighting regulatory reform. later today the president s going to announce some tax credits focusing on main street, trying to increase lending to small businesses. one more thing about those bonuses, erin. i talked to a bank of america official the other day who said when we see these eye-popping figures, first of all, they re only projections, and you should keep in mind, this is all of compensation. so it would include salaries, wages, bonuses, health insurance, dental, all of those kinds of benefits. they think that s perspective we re missing here. nevertheless, the white house has really been blasting them for it. savannah guthrie, thanks so much. it s 7:13. once again, here s matt. erin, thank you very much. now the latest on that alleged balloon hoax out in colorado. the federal aviation administration has now opened its own investigation into the matter. this as new portions of the 911 call made by the heene family are being released. nbc s lee cowan has more on that portion of the story. lee, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. yeah, those newly released portions of the 911 call are even more disturbing than before, which has the residents who live here even more upset that all of this may have been an act. i think my 6-year-old boy what s wrong? he got inside and it took off. yeah. okay. where is he at? he s in the air! he s in the air? yeah. he s only 6. he s only 6. reporter: the larimer county sheriff says it was quite a performance. it s supposed to be tied down so it s just floating and it s 20 feet up. uh huh? but i don t know what happened to the tie, but it s loose got loose or something, so it s flying. okay. you think he s flying around in the air somewhere? yeah. reporter: a newly released clip of mayumi heene breaking down to a 911 dispatcher. we can t find 6-year-old falcon. and, uh, my other son said falcon was at the bottom of the flying saucer. he said he was in there, but anyway, i tried to find him okay. we re going to get you we re going to get you help, okay? just stay on the phone with me here. reporter: it was pretty convincing. neighbors rushed to her aid, including kim hix, whose children go to school with falcon, the boy feared trapped in that balloon. well, my daughter had told me earlier when school had started that falcon said he had a spaceship. reporter: she didn t believe it, though, until she actually saw it flying. but now she s outraged, not so much that she may have been duped, but that her young kids had to go through it, too. i was so worried that i was going to have to explain to my kids that something horrible happened to their friend, and that s not fair. reporter: perry caravello worked with richard heene on a host of odd projects in los angeles and says he left a lot of destroyed relationships in his wake. he got talent, but he abuses it by going after these crazy things. reporter: originally, richard heene wanted to go into comedy, but his fellow comedians say his obsession with being a reality tv star took over. he was always looking for this kind of a thing, you know. he was alws wanting a big moment. reporter: and he got it. but as the company that sold richard heene the helium to launch his alleged hoax came to pick up their empty tanks, a deflated richard heene could only stand by and watch. he wanted fame. he got notoriety. some say in his mind they re one and the same. any stardom to him is good stardom, whether it s good or bad, it s still good stardom. reporter:lthough, matt, he may not be able to profit from any of it. although charges have not been filed yet, if convicted under colorado law, he cannot earn or make any money with anything related to this hoax if it has anything to do with the way he has to pay that money back. lee cowan in ft. collins, lee, thank you. it s now 17 minutes after the hour. here s erin. now to efforts to rebuild iraq s economy. a two-day conference under way in washington, d.c. many in attendance are former american soldiers and diplomats who served in iraq and are now making the choice to go back. i recently traveled to iraq to meet a few. it s a monday night and brad camp is at his favorite place, the go-kart track. which one should i take? number 8. ah, excellent, dale earnhardt jr. s old number. reporter: but the tennessee native isn t home. he s in northern iraq. after ten years as a diplomat here overseeing billions in public works projects, camp decided to stay. you know when i arrived in iraq, i saw incredible opportunity that i hadn t seen since the fall of the soviet union. reporter: camp feels at home here, as does dan rice, another american who s here so much, he bought a villa. the west point grad served in the national guard and was serving in iraq whe a bomb exploded in 2005. we were hit by an ied. it wasn t anything serious for me, just ear drums. reporter:e received a purple heart and didn t end up hating iraq. that s something commander david petraeus understands. well, iraq does get in you. some of us spent years there, literally, and there is something about ancient mesopotamia, there s something about the land of two rivers. reporter: in 2007, rice and two fellow soldiers started the marshall fund to invest in rebuilding iraq. they think the biggest opportunity is in farming. most people think of iraq as baron desert, but you can grow almost anything here. these are grapes, and the plan isn t just for grape juice, but yes, iraqi wine. rice is buying farmland, a tomato processg plant and soon bringing the first american fast-food joint to the country. there will be a mcdonald s, there will be a burger king, there will be a pizza hut. reporter: still, for u.s. brands to succeed, they must overcome iraq s skepticism of america. the men we met all experieed it, but they ve made friends. we spend more time together and we work together. his family shows the best hospitality that can be shown in iraq, and his wife s a fantastic cook. reporter: she s a good cook, huh? you can try. reporter: proof americans who served in iraq can help win the peace long after their tour of duty is over. and the soldiers we spoke to believe that as iraq recovers, the united states should be a winner, too. tomorrow you re going to meetn american family trying to make that happen. it s 19 past, and once again, here s matt. all right, erin, thank you. a 6-year-old florida girl could soon be evicted from the only home she s ever known. nbc s kerry sanders has that story. reporter: kimberly brothman is a loveable 6-year-old withvery adult problem. there s me riding my bicycle. reporter: she and she alone is facing eviction. where s the can opener? reporter: the cute redhead lives with her legal guardians, her grandparents. do you want to do the mayonnaise, too? reporter: and that s where the problems gin. the grandparents live in a florida retirement community where the bylaws clearly state residents have to be at least 55 years or older. i believe that they should go. they should find somewhere else to live. reporter: the homeowners association expects a judge s order any day now. what happens if there s an eviction notice? do you then become the heartless, over 55-year-old ogre, as you put it, ogre? no, the sheriff will. i ll be merely the president of the board who is trying to enforce the policies of our association that she agreed to when she moved in. reporter: this is n a new debate. it s been going on for five years. but by the time the grandparents accepted that it would be best to move, the housing market crashed. they were asking $225,000 for the house. now they ve lowered it to $129,000, but there are still no buyers. no, we do not want to remain here. we want to leave. we want to move out of here, as soon as i can sell this house. reporter: because kimberly s mother has a chronic drug problem, she lost custody of her child more tn four years ago. now grandparents jimmy and judy stotler face the very real possibility state welfare workers will put kimberly in foster care until their house sells. why would you go and split this family up if the goal is to reunify them anyway? and does that mean, well, if judy and jimmy never sell their home or don t sell it for five years that the best solution would be to have kimberly with people she doesn t know? i can t imjinagine not havin her. and that s not an option anyway. she s our little girl. we re the only parents that she knows, and the only parents she s going to know. reporter: on the legal side, all now agree, technically, kimberly is in violation. now a judge must decide what s the legally moral solution. for toda kerry sanders, nbc news, clearwater. i think if they are trying to sell this home and doing their best, then there s it d be really hard to think of taking this child away from them. right. they re giving the best effort they can to sell the house and move out. exactly. i also worry a little bit about i have a 6-year-old, and i m worried about how this is all being discussed right in front of her. right. because this is traumatic enough. she can understand probably a lot more than people realize. certainly can. still ahead, the latest on a desperate search under way in florida to find a missing second grader who disappeared while on her wa just ahead, a healthy 22-pound 2-yearld actually denied health insurance for beg too small. her outraged parents will be with us. also, the former publicity director of a major fashion company accused of hacking into the voice mail systems of her rivals more than 1,000 times. . good morning. it s 7:26. a police officer has shot wounded a suspect in northeast washington in the 900 block of 21st street. we are told the suspect is in critical condition. police tell us all officers involved are okay. more swine flu vacinations in montgomery county in rockville. you can see the long lines already. pregnant women and children between six months and two years are priority. this morning s round of vacinations start at 9:00 a.m. we will check i m a buyer for tj maxx. i m a shopper at heart. we re dealing hands on with the designers. after that, it goes straight to our customers. i get the best deal, so they get the best savings. our customers go from fashionistas. to maxxinistas! tj maxx. mostly clear and chilly. temperatures 48 in washington. low to near 40s in the nearby suburbs. no frost. milder, weather watt tern. afternoon highs, mid 70s today and tomorrow. then, perhaps some rain friday afternoon. a likelihood of rain friday evening and off and on on sat. drying out sunday. how is the traffic? tough times 95 northbound, loaded up. all lanes are up. police activity earlier on the southbound side. wilson bridge, not to worry. 270, incident free. on the outer loop, new hampshire avenue, broken down vehicle in the roadway. eun? news 4 is always connected to you on facebook and twitter it s 7:30 now on a wednesday morning, 21st day of october 2009. it is going to be a lovely fall day here in the northeast, temperature in the high 60s, maybe 70 tomorrow. really nice. we re checking out everyone enjoying the morning in rockefeller plaza. some of these people waving to erin burnett, who s inside studio 1a, filling in while meredith s taking a little time off. nice having you here. it is good to be here, and it is a gorgeous day. it s beautiful out there. just ahead this morning, the latest on the disappearance of little somer thompson. the 7-year-old was last seen on monday afternoon. she hasn t been seen since. we re going to talk to her mother in just a couple of minutes. and also ahead, a high-flying new yorker who dated some of the most eligible men in town. she s now in big trouble with the police. police believe she was actually using a computer program, matt, to hack into her rivals voice mail systems thousands of times. we re going to have much more on that story coming up. also ahead, the real deal on short sales. are they really worth it for sellers who are trying to avoid foreclosure? and what if you re a buyer, should you avoid a short sale at all costs? we re going to get into that, just ahead. but we do want to begin with the 7-year-old florida girl that has been missing for two days. we re going to speak with her mother in just a moment, b first, nbc s mark potter has the details. od morning, mark. reporter: a good morning to you, erin. despite the searches day and night and hundreds of tips coming in, police sayhey still have no idea what happened to somer thompson, and as time passes, they re more and more concerned about the outcome. more than 100 officers on horses and on foot, along with volunteers, spent all of tuesday and into the overnight searching through woods and the orange park neighborhoods for any sign of 7-year-old somer renee thompson, who was last seen monday afternoon. well, we are hoping and praying that she is alive and that she is in our area and that we find her very soon. reporter: each passing hour, though, is increasingly difficult for the girl s family. i m just so worried about her. this is not like her. she s a very, very loving little child and very friendly. if anybody knows anything, please contact us. reporter: investigators are now treating the search area as a crime scene. well, obviously, we believe it s foul play, due to the fact thathe did not return home. reporter: the clay county sheriff says somer was walking home from school with her sister and friends when she got upset and ran ahead of the group, which then lost sight of her. it was just a childhood squabble. there was some teasing. they were teasing her about something, and she ran off and that was the last time she was seen. reporter: police are concerned about an incident a week and a half ago in the same neighborhood where another girl was approached by two adult strangers who tried to coax her into their car until a good samaritan intervened and the adts drove away. my first question to the little girl was, do you know these people? she said no. my second question was what did they say to you? and she said they said to get in the car. reporter: so far, though, police say they have no evidence linking that incident to somer thompson s disappearance. tuesday night, hundreds of supporters held a candlelight vigil at the little girl s home. if anybody has her, just please let her go! reporter: where her family waits and hopes for good news. meanwhile, police are interviewing registered sex offenders in the area and a local military base is supplying volunteers to help with that large-scale search, which continues today. erin? mark tter, thank you very much. and we are now joined by somer s mother, diena thompson and the sheriff of clay county, rick bessler. good morning to both of you. good morning. diena, i know it s an incredibly difficult time for you. how are you holding up this morning? i m still here, but i just can t this is not happening. that s how i feel. it s just too surreal. i know, obviously, you he great hope she will be found and safe very soon. what can you tell people about somer? what is she like? she s creative, she s smart. she doesn t know a stranger. she just likes to talk. she likes to be around people and kids and be involved. she s just wonderful. and the details that we have now, diena, are somer was last seen monday afternoon on her way home from school with her sister and her twin brother. what did you hear from your children about what they saw happen? they told me that she got into a little squabble with a little classmate and her older sister told her to quit fighting and she got mad about that and walked off ahead of them and they lost sight of her and we have not been able to find her since. how far is the walk from the school usually, from the elementaryschool, to your home? maybe a mile. we re out of the bus route, so they have to walk. sheriff bessler, what is the latest on the investigation? obviously, mark potter was just reporting you ve been investigating registered sex offenders in the area. i know you ve had 150 or more leads. do you have any news? well, that s one of the aspects of the investigation. our ground search is continuing. we ve expanded the area that our search is involving. we re using helicopters, horses, dog teams. we ve gotten lots of volunteers that are going arm to arm through wooded areas, searching for any clues or any information. we just really need a break in this case. we need a tip. we need a phone call. somebody knows where somer is, and we need that person to call us. and we are going to be giving anyone watching who might have that the full information of how to reach you i just a moment, sheriff, but i wanted to ask you about the other incident, a week or ten days ago, when another little girl was approached by adults to get in the car. did that go through your sheriff department? was everyone in the neighborhood aware that this sort of thing had just occurred or not? that call was handled by the orange park police department and municipal department within our jurisdiction. but like yesterday afternoon, we didn did locate the vehicle and people involved in that case and we re certain there is no connection in the somer disappearance. so we re confident about that. so you re confident about that. diena, did you even know that had happened ten days ago? no, ma am. and what would you like to say, just in case somer is somewhere, going to come back safe, but watching this morning, to say to her? that we love her and, mer, you re not in trouble. if you re scared, just come home and if somebody has her, please bring her back to us. she belongs with her family. she belongs with us. she belongs with her twin brother. please just bring her home. diena thompson, our thoughts d prayers, and everyone watching, of course, are with you and your family for somer to come home safely, and sheriff bessler, thank you very much also for being with us. we of course want to give you the information on how to contact the clay county sheriff s office. the number 1-877-227-6911. you see it on the screen. i want to read it again. 1-877-227-6911. or you can send an e-mail to cart@claysheriff.com. that s cart@claysheriff.com. and now let s get a check of the weather from al. all right, thanks very much, erin. and as we take a look, show you what s going on afternoon temperaturewise, here in the east, temperatures anywhere from 5 to 12 degrees above normal, but in the rockies, in the plains, anywhere from 20 to 25 degrees below normal with temperatures in the 30s and 40s there. as you can see, we ve got heavy rain stretching from texas all the way into minnesota and wisconsin, rain in the pacific northwest, sunny and warm in the southwest on into southern,,,,i, clear and chilly around the region. good morning. temperatures in the upper 40s in washington and near the bay. elsewhere, low and mid 40s. nearby suburbs, a few locations around the shenandoah valley and rural areas of virginia and maryland, upper 30s. afternoon highs, mid 70s. friday and saturday, cooler. clouds around and a likelihood of evening showers friday. off that s your latest weather. to keep track of the weather all day long, check out the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. now to a new york socialite, the recently fired fashion director for fashion house dolce & gabanna accused of carrying out offenses against her old boyfriends new girlfriends. reporter: she has hung out with so many bold-face names in recent years, she s become one. her romances with people like jason pomerantz and record producer josh deutsch playing out publicly. but privately, the so-called it girl with the boles gabanna account allegedly had problems with her old boyfriends new girlfriends like interior designer nina freuden berger who dated deutsch. in a complaint charging her with computer trespass, eavesdropping, harassment and stalking, she admitted i used the spoofcard to get into voice mails. spoofcard? spoofcard is a service tt disguises your phone number and changes it to anything you want it to be. reporter: and besides disguising the identity of the caller, spoofcard enables the caller to bypass any voice mail passwords. that allowed wise to access and sometimes delete her rivals voice mails on more than a thousand occasions, the complaint said. 337 calls to freudenberger s number and more than 100 calls each to three other alleged victims. but spoofcard, said the company president, is no more to blame for criminal activity than any technology, including computers or the phone itself. you could use the phone for legitimate purposes or somebody can use a phone to make a bomb threat. reporter: in fact, in the digital age, disguising one s location or identity for mischief or worse is nothing new. from paris hilton allegedly accessing lindsay lohan s voice mails to philadelphia news anchor larry minton hacking into co-anchor alyssa lyng s e-mails to generate gossip. and last year, diane lane starred in the movie untraceable. the bad guy hiding his web cams and cell phone locations with technology that had been around for years. aww. now, he s stealing my financial data and all my passwords. reporter: in this case, a spokesman for ali wise says she never intended or did anything malicious. it was just a prank. but she could get four years in prison, which is spoofcard s cohen says is fine. i think she definitely should be held responsible. reporter: a red carpe golden girl who s lost her gig and could soon lose her freedom, too. for today, mike taibbi, nbc news, new york. coming up next, short sales. they can land buyers with a great deal and keep sellers out of foreclosure, but are they actually worth it? we re going to tell you. back at 7:44 with a great way to get a deal on a home if you have plenty of patience. as nbc s michael okwu tells us, short sales are anything but short. reporter: it was a moment adreanna tisherman thought might never happen. the single mom of 7-year-old gia made a bid on this townhouse in february, but she just moved in, eight months later. i had nervous breakdowns, a lot of tears, a lot of not understanding. i felt very disrespected because they had at one point told me that i was just a number and just a file. reporter: tisherman got a deal $150,000 less than what the previous owner paid, but at a price. i ended up living in a hotel for a couple of days because i needed to be vacant from my apartment. reporter: she bought the house in a short sale. that s when the lenders agree to take less than what they re owed on the property. we re seeing a lot of short sales because house prices have declined. reporter: shelly and rich hedvina put a bid on this three-bedroom house in california back in january. daughter dana was 2 months old. now she s about to turn 1 and they re still waiting in a rental and living out of boxes. okay, that s christmas. for the most part, i m just frustrated. i want to be settled. i want to be in a house. i want to have a nursery. i want to know where my kids are going to school. reporter: short sales have made up 12% of all sales this year, but getting in clearly requires stamina. why? lots of red tape. the seller has to prove financial hardship. then there s coordinating between the multiple mortgage lenders and liens. experts say it takes about 2 1/2 months for the banks to respond to short sale request for homes like this. 2 1/2 months just to get the ball rolling. that s twice as long as it took a year ago. mortgage bankers know there s a problem too much volume, too little manpower. we are looking for more people, but we have to hire qualified people that understand the proces reporter: and short sales can be tough on sellers, too. 4/14, they lost the paperwork they said they had found the day before. reporter: maryann phillips put her house on the market back in march but didn t close until october. i had nine offers on it, and they took so long to process the paperwork. they had all walked. they had found either other properties or they just lost their patience. reporter: in fact, 60% of short sales neveran out. after all the hardship, adreanna tisherman says she would never do it again. but then, at times, she s glad she did. this is really home. it s part of us right now. reporter: for today, michael okwu, nbc news, valencia, california. up next, who will be showing up at your door this halloween? this year s hottest masks, and i bet matt s going to try one on. oh! well, obviously, there isn t a lot of time left for you to decide whatou re going to be for halloween, so we thought we share just a few ideas. these are some of the masks that are going to be hot come october 30th, and number one, perhaps right there, al. david letterman, which actually went out of production, but they ve brought it back. why did they bring it back? i don t know. i don t know. we are a scandal nation. it s true. that s just disturbing that s not a good likeness, is it? what else are they going to be talking about? this is the one erin really wants to try on, kate gosselin. the hair wig. ricky s hair in new york says they ve sold out of it twice. they ve sold out of it twice? i think you have to pull your hair back. pull it back? it s the reverse mullet. wow. that s a good look. woo! there you go. oh, yeah. you kind of look like her. oh, yeah. nice. who gets the bernie madoff one, then? go ahead, al. no, i don t think so. good thing there are only three of these here. i can t get it off there of the. thank goodness. it s on there too tight. but bernie madoff comes complete th a jumpsuit. orange jumpsuit. and the super striker. very nice. now you know what to expect. so, what are we all going to be? can t give it away! 7:55. 48 degrees. another sunny day in store for us. good morning. i m eun yang. we have just learned a suspect has died from a police-involved shooting in northeast washington. it happened just after 5:00 a.m. in the 900 block of 21st street. no word on what led up to the shooting. all officers involved are okay. if you ride metro in virginia, you have a chance to speak out about possible fare hikes. they are looking for input from riders about how to deal with the budget gap. it begins at 6:30 at george mason high school in false church. we re going to take a i love clothes! so my girlfriend says, shop tj maxx. their buyers deal directly with designers. the savings come directly to me! behold a fashionista. who s now a maxxinista! tj maxx. e. good morning. off to a fresh start. 48 in washington. mid 40s in prince george s. low 40s in montgomery. mid 40s in arlington. farther west and north, a few locations have dipped into the upper 30s. no frost around except for out in the mountains of western maryland and western virginia. as the day progresses, quite a warmup underway. temperatures by noontime into the 60s. mid afternoon, into the low and mid 70s. tomorrow, increasing clouds. warmer. highs, upper 70s. friday, we will have a mostly cloudy day. cooler in the 60s. likelihood of late afternoon and evening showers. occasional showers likely on saturday. highs in the mid 60s. we will have temperatures with sunshine back just near 60. jerry, how is the traffic this morning? tom, some very slow traffic on 95 and 395 northbound near washington boulevard. police activity. also, police activity on 95 and newington. it is a painfully slow morning. top side of the beltway, broken down vehicle, outer loop of new hampshire, jammed coming out of college park around to silver spring. thank you, jerry. more 8:00 now on a wednesday morning. it s the 11st day of october 2009. can you just tilt up a little bit? look at the beautiful blue sky. look at the nice people in the plaza, the warm temperatures going up into the high did i make you dizzy there? yeah, wow, that s amazing. hey, jimmy, could you tilt down just for a second? there you go. there s the sidewalk here in rockefeller plaza. it is beautiful out here. it s really nice. it s going to get up into the mid-70s. really? 77 tomorrow. all up and down the eastern seaboard. is this technically the indian summer? we have not had i don t think we ve had our first frost here in new york. okay, just checking. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer with erin burnett, filling in while meredith is taking some time off. and mr. roker joins us as well. coming up, we ve got another story about a child being denied health insurance. that s right. if it has a familiar ring, you have heard it before. last week meredith was talking to you about the family of that little baby. well, he s not so little and that s why he was denied insurance. today, a story on the opposite end of the spectrum, a little girl denied because she s too small. we ll talk to the family there coming up in a couple moments. also coming up, striking a balance for women between family, work and faith. this is more on our series a woman s nation. maria shriver s here to talk about the increasing role that women are playing in mega churches around the country and other religious institutions. we ll check in with maria in just a couple of minutes. and today is the last day that you can vote on the music that tim mcgraw, country superstar, will be performing on friday when he puts a concert on live here on the plaza. choices again something like that, live like you were dying, or red ragtop. you can vote on our website or text your choice to 46833. big fan of tim mcgraw, erin burnett. you like country music in general. love country music. i decided i m going to be here. you re going to love friday. let s go inside. natalie s at the news desk with a check of all the headlines. natalie? good morning again, matt, erin and al. good morning to you. u.s. health officials are warning, the h1n1 virus or swine flu is hitting young people the hardest. the cdc says since september, 53% of the hospitalizations from swine flu were for people under the age of 25 and nearly 90% of deaths were under the age of 64. officials say this is almost a reversal of the regular seasonal flu. this morning, afghan president hamid karzai s chief political rival, abdullah abdullah, agreed to a runoff presidential election next month. it comes a day after karzai bowed to international pressure to accept a u.n. finding of massive voter fraud and agreed to a new election. the u.s. wants political stability in the region as president obama considers whether to send additional u.s. forces to afghanisn. and today the president will get an update on afghanistan from senator john kerry, who met with karzai on tuesday. last night the president spoke in new york, meantime, at two fund-raisers, estimated to bring in about $3 million for the democratic national committee. today in india, a deadly train wreck near the taj mahal. at least 21 people were killed when one train crashed into another. some survivors remained trapped for hours in the wreckage. and now here s brian williams with a look at what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. brian? hey, natalie, thanks. coming up tonight, for so many women, having it all means doing it all. what do they get for their efforts? a lot of them high blood pressure, depression, stress. dr. nancy snyderman has tips for the balancing act, that s tonight on nightly news. natalie, back to you. and a close call for a man in russia lucky to be alive. a surveillance video captures the dramatic seen. as the man was crossing the street, an out-of-control bus came barreling towards him. he escaped within inches of being hit. the bus also smashed through about 20 cars. police say the bus s brakes failed. four people were injured. that is just unbelievable, but that man very, very lucky. 8:04 right now. let s go back outside once again to matt and erin. there is a tall glass of vodka in that guy s immediate future. yeah, i ll say. that was close, natalie. yeah, really. thank you very much. thanks. mr. roker that s amazing. got a check of the weather for us. tall glass of vodka. what is he director of the today show? anyway, we ve got some nice folks here. where are you guys from? oakdale, california. oakdale, california. oakdale! hi! all right, they re excited about oakdale, all right, we like it! let s check your weather, see what s going on. and we ve got rogers, arkansas, knwa. cloudy and mild, temperature about 70 degrees. we ve got beautiful weather up and down the eastern seaboard, gorgeous weather, but we ve got a lot of rough stuff working its way out of the rockies on up into the plain states and the upper mississippi river valley. clouds moving into the pacific northwest. we ve got heavy rain from texas all the way up into minnesota and parts of wisconsin. michigan, we re looking at maybe some flash flood watches and warnings as you move down into parts of west and eastern texas. and we ve got the marines here! absolutely. stewart jacobson representing toys for tots, new york citynd the naples, florida toys for tots for the marines. all right. good to see you all. you want to sell it to the marines! we re having the first annual 21-gun salute luncheon at the 21-g 21-gun. you bet. nice group you do thaticicicic,, well, we have the marine corps marathon happening too this coming sunday. should be good weather for that. today, clear and chilly, low 40s. washington, near 50. near the bay, upper 409s. a few locations farther west and north, upper 30s. no frost. mild afternoon. lots of sun. highs, mid 70s. a bit milder tomorrow. cooler on friday and saturday. that s your latest weather. can we run that footage of the guy being missed by the bus again real quickly? okay. all right. it happened in russia, and as jim corgan, our crack camera guy said, than goodness he was rushin! that s jim corrigan. oh, that s comedy! right there. when we come back, another family caught up in a health care debate. we re going to meet them right after this. y feast introduces an entirely new way to celebrate any moment. fancy feast appetizzrs. simple high qualiiy ingredients like wild alaskan salmon, white meat chicken, or seabass and shrimp in a delicate broth, prepared without by-products or fillers. new fancy feast appetizers celebrate the moment. hi! trick or treat. weren t you guys just here? no. yes. no. thanks to walmart s unbeatable prices on snickers, halloween costs less at walmart. save money. live better. walmart. trying to be big like you, dad. you re so good at keeping everyone full and focused with your fiber. but you already are great at doing that. really? sure! you re made with fiber just like me. but best of all, you re the perfect size for smaller kids, and they love your chocolaty taste. kellogg s® frosted mini-wheats littleites cereal. an excellent source of fiber packed in a smaller size. to help keep your little ones full and focused. now where you going? to practice keeping em full and focused. i have big shoes to fill. [ female announcer ] arthritis targets your body where it s weak. where it s vulnerable. tylenol arthritis works with your body to block the pain, without interfering with certain high blood pressure medicines like aleve sometimes can. so you don t just feel better, you feel better knowing doctors recommend tylenol more than any other brand of pain reliever. back now at 8:09. for the second time in a month, a colorado child is at the center of a controversial health insurance case. last week, we met alex, a healthy 4-month-old who was originly denied coverage for being too fat. well, now the parents of a 2-year-old girl claim she was deemed too thin. we re going to be talking with the bates family you see there in a moment, but first, the little girl s story. as far as rob and rachel bates are concerned, their 2-year-old daughter is a healthy 22-pound girl. the family s health insurance company disagrees and has denied coverage for azlyn, citing height and weight guidelines. the case is reminiscent of another colorado child who made headlines earlier this month. rocky mountain health plans denied coverage for 4-month-old alex lange, because he was considered obese at 17 pounds. his company has since changed its policy and will no longer consider obesity a pre-existing condition. the bates have admitted azlyn is undergoi treatment for an active gag reflex. that could be a factor in the insurance company s decision to deny coverage. the statement released by golden rule insurance says, if a child s treatment results in a change in condition after the treatment ends, we would reconsider coverage for that child. and the bates family joins us now along with dr. nancy snyderman, nbc s chief medical editor. good to have you with us. and thanks for bringing your family. thank you. yes. absolutely. she s on her best behavior, and so is little elliott over there. so, what happened here? she s not sick. no, she s not sick at all. she was full-term, you know, and weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces when she was born and she s just petite, and that s the issue. she has always been in the third percentile and following her own curve, but she was a picky eater, and you know, her being in the third percentile and a picky eater, we just wanted to be proactive parents and get her therapy to fix the picky eating, because we want her to be able to eat a wide variety of foods and not just things she wants to eat like chocolate. that sounds pretty normal. yeah, pretty normal. so, we personally sought out the therapy, not the doctor. it was not prescribed by the doctor. it was not you know, obviously, we told our doctor we were doing it, but it was not and this was just to help her eat better foods, eat more eat better foods, yeah. more variety. and in that process, it was just found that she has a minor minor gag reflex, which was causing her to not like certain foods. and so, she s been in therapy for ten weeks and is doing great and the therapist even says that she s thriving and fine. and she s developing normal. in fact, possibly advanced. so, rob, what happened? i know you were switching jobs, right? that s right, yeah. so that s when this sort of happened. and i have a letter here that rachel thank you for sharing with me from united health care golden rule where they said we are unable to provide coverage because her height and weight do not meet our company standards. correct. and that s because it was a pre-existing condition? did they why? yeah, we re not sure. you know, it seems as if they re discriminating about the fact that she s got that she s smaller, that her size is an issue. but i don t see why that would be a factor in whether or not a child is healthy. dr. nancy, i don t understand. if a doctor says you don t understand? because there s nothing here to understand. this is just so bogus. you know, when a pre-existing condition for a child this age is birth. let s be real. so, that s the pre-existing condition. so, she doesn t fit on the normal growth curve. they say that s the 50th percentile, but if every child who goes to the pediatrician gets height and weight plotted over the years, not everyone s at 509th percentile. but if you re at the 1st or 3rd percentile, but you re growing at your own curve, that should not be a hit against you. and even if there were a medical problem, even if she couldn t eat or she has a metabolic or gastrointestinal problem, don t you want to help her? why would you deny somebody health care? a child. and if an insurance company is part of our health care system, i think there s a moral and ethical obligation to say we re part of the bigger picture. this is egregious. is this commonplace? also, what about colorado? rach rachel, you live in colorado. the baby last week was from colorado. are they saying they re not boding well for colorado right now. i know. i think what we re really seeing is the cherry-picking of health care plans across the country. last week we talked about how crazy it was that there was a chubby baby being denied, and i said next thing you know, we ll hear about a skinny kid. so, here s the skinny kid. now i think there are probably parents all over the country saying, oh, my gosh, that s me, and we re going to hear more of these. what are you going to do about health care, try again with united health care, or yeah, we re hoping they ll change their minds. we ve already appealed once and found that didn t work. we just got another denial letter. so, we ll just have to see. but beyond that, we re going to continue on with the cobra plan and then look into other options. if anyone doubted the significance of health care reform in this country, this is why things have to change. right. this is ridiculous that in a nation this wealthy and this strong, that we re denying care to people who need it. well, thank you so much for coming in. and i know, azlyn, that your nickname is pixie, which is very appropriate. so, thanks so much for coming in and also to dr. nancy. thank you. up next, the expanding roles of women at mega churches. we ll take a look. little things can turn against you when you travel. but if they do, you know who to turn to. your american express charge card gives you assistance around the world. and something perhaps more valuable. peace of mind. can your card say that? 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(announcer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you care. i love you mom. i love you too. choosey moms, choose jif. this is a honda pilot. and this is the chevy traverse. it has more cargo space than pilot. and traverse beats honda on highway gas mileage too. more fuel efficient and 30% more room. maybe traverse can carry that stuff too. the chevy traverse americas best crossover. introducing the 60-day satisfactionuarantee. buy a new chevy and if you don t love it, we ll take it back. announcer: today s a woman s nation is brought to you by chevy. now to our special week-long series a woman s nation. this morning, the increasing role of women in church and other religious institutions. we re going to talk to our guest editor, california s first lady maria shriver, in just a moment, but first, nbc s janet shamlian introduces us to some prominent women of faith. reporter: it s the largest church in the country. each week, more than 40,000 worship in a huge arena, the former home of the houston rockets. how many of you are ready to worship the ld today? reporter: joel osteen is the pastor of oakwood church. that all heaven is sing look at those guys at the church. reporter: but they have a well-known co-pastor, osteen s wife victoria. we re going to have a celebration of praise. reporter: she s a constant presence and a role model for the women who belong to lakewo church. some say this ministry couldn t really exist without your influence. how do you react to that? you know, i hope i m bringing something of value to the table. i believe that i am, because i believe as women, we want to identify with women who are doing things, who are making a difference, who feel like they have purpose in their life. reporter: a mother of two, osteen leads the women s ministry. and like her husband, she s an author. a life in the spotlight, one she says isn t perfect but hopes will inspire others. i just really belve that women need to realize that as soon as they begin to see themselves as valuable, then they are what they see themselves as. i m going to work the word of god. reporter: there is also a female face at the forefront of atlanta s world-changers church. tabby dollar is a mother of five and pastor of the church, sharing the pulpit with husband preflo. both spouses are out there working, and many times, even as a woman comes home, she s still, you know, having to take on the next role with the family, with cooking and homework. reporter: beyond the church, her ministry extends to the streets. to have somebody like pastor dollar to be committing her life, the ministry has shown me who i am. reporter: a former prostitute, she says she helped her change her life. i think that s what most women deal with on a regular basis, you know. am i being effective at work to really make a difference without sacrificing who i am and the needs of my family. reporter: taffy dollar and victoria osteen, women of faith helping others find theirs. for today, janet shamlian, nbc news, houston. and maria shriver joins us along with pastor ed young and his wife lisa, founders of the fellowship church in dallas/ft. worth. good morning to all of good morning. nice to see you. good morning. lisa, what s your role in the church? how do you describe it? i would say that i am a teammate of ed. co-pastor in any way? you could call it that. we re not that into titles. we re into just doing what we need to do. this is a changing role, what we ve just seen on that tape and what you practice in your daily lives is a changing role when it comes to religious institutions, where traditionally, men wore the robe. so, are you meeting any resistance with this? not really. i think we re in a day in age, as we ve been seeing all week with the study on women, is that women need an identification. they need someone to look at on the platform. and i think that s one of the things that we offer, strong leadership for women who have questions and need answers. does lisa s does your wife s role in this church symbolize what s happening with women in your congregation in general? no doubt about it, matt. we re seeing this in pretty much every realm, every slice of life. so, i think it s a healthy thing, it s a great thing, because fellowship church would not be the church it is without lisa s role or without the role of women, nor would any other business. we celebrate that. i think it s a great thing. maria, according to this study, women who are in the workforce are less likely to have time for religious activities. the flip side of the coin, by the way, is also true the more religious a woman says she is, the less likely she is to work outside the home. so, what is this telling us? well, i think that the study tells us that women need religion in their life. they re turning to faith-based institutions for many of the things that community and government used to provide for them. but i think it tells us that we re conflicted across the board. torn. torn, in struggle, in transition. and that s why i think many churches have seen this and have been very progressive. this is a challenge for churches that are more dogmatic, that are not accepting of divorce, not accepting of same-sex relationships. it will be challenging for them to survive in this kind of environment. basically, what you two are faced with is you have to deal with reality, and reality is that more and more women are in the workforce and not spending as much time at home. so, how do you prevent those women from leaving the church and being caught up and consumed by other activities in their lives? well, we talk about it all the time, matt. we talk about, directly to men and women, about being overcommitted, overstimulated and over the top. it s so easy to hydroplane through life. so we talk about those priorities versus the commitment, because often they don t sync up. so, when people have that priority right and usually, the women lead out, because they re the ones who have that heart to want to take their families to church then i think great things happen. so, i think the role of the woman is like the soul of society, and also, i m finding, is the soul of the church. what about more practical things in terms of just providing more hours, where women who are working can come find spirituality at times where they normally wouldn t during the week? i would say that s why we have to do a better job of what we do on the weekend. we have services on saturday nights, on sunday morning, providing venues for women to come, but not just i mean, they re giving us their hour. they re giving us a little bit more than an hour. it s got to make a difference for the rest of the week in their lives and be life-changing for them. many of these churches have been very progressive, though. they offer marital therapy right. after-school. they offer a whole array of services that they weren t offering before, correct? that s right. and they re getting women are needing religion and spirituality more in their lives, but they re also going to buddhism, they re going to kabbalah, they re out there searching. i m glad you brought that up, and we don t have much time left, but the difference between women seeking religion and women seeking spirituality is a real difference, isn t it? yes, it is. and we talk about the relationship with god versus just being religious. religious stuff is like jumping through a hoop sort of to appease god, where a relationship is different. and women have that intuitive sense, matt, to really seek god and want to know him. so, i think that s just a beautiful thing the way god has made women. well, i agree with that. i was going to say, did you tee it up for her. you could not have ended that in a better way for her. so nice to meet you. lisa, be careful here. we re going to be right back. but first, these messages. 8:26. 48 degrees. tom will have your forecast after the news. good morning. i m eun yang. we have just learned a suspect has died from a police-involved shooting in northeast washington. it happened just after 5:00 a.m. in t 900 block of 21st street. no word what led up to the shooting. all officers involved are okay, police tell us. there are more than 1,000 people lined up for the swine flu vacination clinic in montgomery county. look at those crowds. it is still half an hour away from the opening. this is the line at picard drive. pregnant women and children up to six months have priority. weather an traffic are up next. stay with us. good morning. sunny and cool. temperatures near 50. afrnoon highs in the low and mid 70s. upper 70s tomorrow. showers likely late friday afternoon, friday night and off and on on sat, drying out on sunday. how is the traffic? pretty tough trip on the outer loop college park to silver spring. a couple earlier issues are gone. just left with volume. that s the case along 95 and especially 395. police activity at washington boulevard is gone. back to you. we re just born making noise 8:30 now on a wednesday morning. it s the 21st day of october 2009. an absolutely stunning day here in the northeast. going to continue tomorrow, get even better. and on friday even better. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with erin burnett, who s in for meredith while she s taking time off, natalie morales and al roker here as well. friday? rain. friday rain? are you sure about that? no. yeah? but you think. about 50/50. i think so. all right, cool. coming up in this half hour, we re going to talk about some fall fix-ups. that s right, things you should take advantage of today and tomorrow, because maybe not friday. yeah. gutters and all sorts of things to get your house and lawn ready for the winter. take advantage of indian summer. that s our pal, lou m manfredi manfredini. also ahead, richard gere is here in this half hour. oh, all the ladies, all of a sudden. woo! richard gere starring in the new movie amelia about amelia earhart. no, he does not play amelia. he plays her husband. and it s a fascinating role, because not many people know abou amelia earhart s husband, so i didn t even know she was married. she was married. i didn t know she was dating. i didn t know she was ill, right? anyway, richard s going to talk about that and some other things. he s very busy these days, so we re happy to have him here. we ve got another famous face with us today. everybody say it norm! yeah! george wett is here and he shares his insight into the beverage of choice for norm beer! yeah! one of my favorite greetings when he walked into heers, norm, hey, can i draw you a beer? no, i know what they look like, just pour me one. he is cool. norm, how s life treating you? it s a dog eat dog world and i m wearing milkbone underwear. there are a thousand of them. okay, all right, moving along. also, we re going to find out who the next finalist is in our kid reporter series coming up. so excited to hear who won that one. mr. roker, how about a check of the weather? stop before friday. norm, what s up? never mind. it s cold out there. yeah. let s check your weather, see what s happening. we ll show you for today, heavy rain from the western great lakes all the way down into texas, rain in the pacific northwest, gorgeous here in the east. along the east coast of florida, some dangerous rip currents. tomorrow that rain gets gets,/ic warmer weather on the way for today. good morning. lots of sunshine now. our temperatures are near 50. we will see it continuing to climb all the way into the mid 70s by mid afternoon with lots of sun. some sun tomorrow morning. we ll be in the upper 40s. upper 70s by tomorrow afternoon with a few clouds. friday, mostly cloudy, highs, mid 60s. likelihood of late afternoon and evening showers on friday and around for saturday as well. more that s your latest weather. now let s head on down to washington, d.c., and say hello to mr. willard scott. i love that tie, sir. bon jour, you devil. that s a blueberry. blueberry festival from michigan. ooh, nice. isn t that nice? you don t like the tie, you can eat it. delicious. i love blueberry pie. you look so good. oh, thank you, sir. oh, you re just a devil. happy birthday from smucker s. actually, smucker s makes a great blueberry jam. never had a taste of that before. they make everything good. hagar, who used to make slacks. hagar young, beautiful lady, demopolis, alabama. get this,113 years old. secr to longevity, she claims, is minding her own business. you want to know something? she s right. tell that to the government. we have vivah walters, medina, ohio. she s 100 years old today and served as a grand marshal for many parades all around her town. happy birthday, ma am. beautiful lady, halkaline. i ve never heard that word before, like alkaline, but with an h. bergsten of plattsburgh, missouri. 104, former preacher. gave inspirational readings until 1998 and wrote a devotional article to the church magazine. happy birthday. beautiful young lady. i love this one. this has got to be a nickname, tink spencer, greenwood, mississippi, 100 years old. began playing the saxophone when he was just a kid and still plays in a local band at 100. happy birthday. ernestine leggett, willingboro, new jersey. 105. remember they used to sell leggetts at the drugstore years ago? anyway, retired teacher. whitewater rafted in her 80s. attributes longevity to home cooking, meatloaf, mashed potatoes. leila, sweet leila dodge, wilmette, illinois, is 100 years old. worked with the jane adams home, the hull house it was called up near chicago, helped unfortunate and less fortunate people. and she was in the canadian air force. that s it. now the sweetest rose of ireland is here in new york city erin, god bless you, darling. thank you. you made my day, willard. you re the best. up next, richard gere, but first, this is today on nbc. it s hard to believe, but richard gere, the golden globe winner, has been lighting up the silver screen for nearly 30 years now. don t laugh yet. it gets funnier. now he stars alongside hilary swank in the movie amelia actually, 34 years. 34 years? yes, 34 years. this is going to be a problem. playing the legendary pilot s husband putnam. take a look. earhart here. putnam here. you should be sleeping. you should be working. i ll be in honolulu on the 3rd and with you in oakland on the fourth of july, okay? don t keep me waiting. i won t dare. after the fourth, we re going home. where is that? for me, anywhere you want. hey, richard, good to have you back. thanks. how are you ing? i haven t seen you in a long time. you look great. you work every day, you know? you re one of those people. you re working a lot, too, based on this movie. last time you were here was for chicago, believe it or not. no, it s not that long ago. in the studio, it s for chicago, . why haven t i been here? allen, why haven t i been on the show? this is like six years ago? it s the whole bad blood thing. look at it. here it is. this is your last performance here on today. you see? you see? there you go. well, that explains why you haven t been back, right there. this is a fascinating role. i mean, how many of us went to school and after school we read about amelia earhart, but we didn t know anything about her husband. what did you know? about him? nothing. nothing. absolutely nothing. i mean, obviously, i did a lot of research on him. i didn t have much time. meira nieer, who directed this film, sent me the script, and i said i m doing two films back to back. i don t have any time. she said, please, read the script. so i read the script and i said there s something here. i like this relationship. george putnam s a very interesting guy. putnam publishing company was his family. he was out of that family, and really didn t want the family business. in his 20s, he was the mayor of a wild west town vandorgen. how do you know these things? i do the research. it s all written here. when you re coming, i ve got to do the homework. so, he was a mountain guy, really, and then had this other life that he got sucked back into in new york and he was the ceo of putnam. he was a promoter at heart, and he discovered amelia earhart he was a p.t. barnum type, absolutely. i think he had a good sense of joy and humor about the publishing business, about journalism, about celebrity, about all those things. but was their relationship about love? because some have called it a relationship of convenience. or was it about business? i think it s a mixture of that and many other things. i don t think it s ever been clear. there s different points of view on that. i was struck by still photographs we found of the two of them in their estate outside new york and how relaxed and open and loving they were with each other. we also have these films that they had done he did these promotion films pushing her career, and she was an incredibly shy person and just was giggling the entire time, saying, okay, i want you to come down out of the cockpit, come across the wing, i ll come over, hold your hand, i ll talk to you a little bit and i ll kiss your hand. and she got out of the plane she started giggling. okay, stop. he d come out, stop. let s start again. and then they went from there. try again, and they would never get through a take. hilary swank, who plays amelia, was here on friday. she described you it s a coincidence, because it s how i usually describe you as lovely. and i just wanted to know how you would describe he calls me up in the middle of the night and says the same thing. i shouldn t say that, though, should i? good morning, lovely. yeah. how would you describe her? lovely. she s really i ll tell you, i ve known her a long time, not well, but we ve seen each other around, and i likeher. she was actually over to my house for dinner a few years ago. when i jumped into this thing, it wasn t it was too quick for me, and i decided to go to toronto where they were filming and just get a sense of what was going on. and i hadn t seen her in a while. and she came into the office where i wasoing some research, and i had to do a triple take because she had already become amelia earhart. i mean, obviously, physically, she had done the haircut, and she had clothes on and was getting the voice down, very distinctive voice she had. but she had already internalized it to the point where she had coaxed amelia out in an emotional level, psychological level, and i think she does an amazing job in this film. it might have been a rush for you. people are saying great things about how quickly you got into the role and the chemistry you two have on the air, so congratulations. thanks. don t wait six years. no. but what about the yankees, man? what about the yankees? you like the yankees. what about the yankees? amelia opens nationwide on friday. what about the yankees? this morning on today s home, some simple fall fix-ups. getting ready for winter now, taking advantage of the next couple days while it s warm, and you could save a lot of money doing it because you might be eligible for a federal tax credit. we ll get more on that in a moment. do-it-yourself expert and today contributor lou manfredini is here with more. good morning. i hear you re famous on this show and i m glad i got this segment. no, no, no. okay, so, where do we start? insulating your attic is one of the best ways to really make a difference in your energy costs this year, and it does qualify for the federal stimulus tax credit, which is up to it s 30% up to $1,500. okay. now, when you get into an attic space like this, you ll notice insulation like this up there. you ll have a couple of options. there is some fiberglass bat insulation that s over top. you can spre i out. wear a mask and safety glasses. i am a favor of blown insulation. this is cellulose typically, they ll give you the machine for free if you buy the stuff. you start to blow this in, and as it builds up and goes it takes a couple minutes to get going you can fill this void up. you can see how up high we have the r-60, the r-39. the thicker the insulation, it s like wearing a hat on your head in the wintertime. how do you know if you ll get a federal tax credit for it? we have all the information on the website. there s an energy tax credit so you understand what you need to qualify to get that credit. go to the website, because a lot of people will have that question. rodents want to come inside in the wintertime. they re looking for a warm place. they get cold. there is no such thing as one mouse. like a cockroach. exactly. when you go on the outside, make sure there s no clutter in the house. now look here, this is a gap underneath. they can fit inside a dime. you don t just want to put bait there, because they can go inside and die inside the wall. stuff some newspaper. what happens is they come in and out, when this is out, they eat a little bait, stuff the newspaper in one more time, they eat the bait again, then once it s out, seal up the siding. they have a better chance of dying on the outside. if you have pets, cover this with a milk crate so they don t get at it. right. but that prevents you from the smell because i know sometimes you have an animal die in the wall and then the smell. exactly. okay, this is what we need to do over the next couple days, while it s warm. before thanksgiving, we want to make sure we put the lawn to bed. one of the things you ll do is core aerate. this is my eco-friendly version from agri-fab. this pokes holes in the grass and by doing that, it exposes the roots down below. and you re putting the weight on so it actually pokes through. right. and there s no engine, no mess. it s eco-friendly. right. then you use the winterizing fertilizer. the fertilizer gets spread out onto the grass and it gets soaked into that area where you just poked all those holes. that s a pretty cool machine. which promotes healthy root growth. how much does something like this cost? this is from scott s? yeah. this is about a $40 spreader. okay. this is, you know, $20 for the bag. you want to go ahead and take the leaves you can mulch those with a mulching mower like this. that is a natural fertilizer. all right. and the gutters, last but not least. real quick, a do-it-yourself. once you clean it properly, this is gutter stuff that you can do for $600 or $700. once you clean them, it literally gets stuffed inside. want to do a whole house system, this is by a company called leaf guard, where this gets installed seamlessly. it does not leak, and they guarantee that if it ever clogs, they will clean it for free. this is a whole house value-added proposition. i love the setup there. lou, thank you. nice to meet you. and next, norm s ode to beer and matt lauer playing only a handful of people can go by one name. you ve got madonna, you ve got cher, maybe beyonce. but there is one other guy who only goes by one name, and it s normally shouted norm! america s favorite bar patron and cheers star george wendt has written a tribute to the frothy beverage. drinking with george: a bar stool professional s guide to beer. george wendt, good morning. good morning. nice to see you. thank you. how did you develop, of all people, a taste for beer? you know, my grandfather used to send me to the kitchen for beer, and i used to pop open the can, and my reward for bringing it to him was a nice little sip. a nice little sip. yeah. and you developed a love story, is that how it happened? yeah, just took off from there, yeah. one thing you don t mention in the book is your favorite beer. yeah. why do you hold back from that? you d get crateloads sent to your house. i love all beer. you know, asking me to choose a favorite beer is like asking me to choose my favorite child, you know. you can t do it. no. one of the things george recommends when you re in a bar okay, this is a tip straight from norm. yes. establish a beachhead. what do you mean by that? well, if you re in a crowded bar and there s a party of four or five people with you, you can t just all get to the bar. so if one person can kind of, you know, get in to just get an order in, then it s much like the allies at normandy, you arrange for supply lin back. but i cover bar theory in several chapters in the book. extensively. yeah. is there a proper way to taste beer or just swill it on back? you know, like wine? you know, there are probably some craft brew enthusiasts who could tell you you ve got to be in the right vessel and the right temperature and everything, t i just enjoy it. it s fun. yeah. by the way, it s one thing to be a beer enthusiast and another thing to have a drinking problem. and how have you managed to stay on the right side of the line there? faking it a lot? i don t know. denial? no, no, no. that s not true. no, no. let s have fun. first of all, george is going to show us one of his favorite things here. this ithe rainbow cone? rainbow cone. named it after an ice cream shop from my old neighborhood. we ve asked a few members of our crew to help out. okay. erin. erin burnett normally, this is done in a bar with a tap. yeah. you see a row of taps and you just ask them to open up all the tapes for what s underneath. okay. for example okay. and the idea here, george, is to what, get kind of a mish mash? yeah. it s a mad house out here. you don t want to be drinking just one beer. this is surprising. go ahead. go ahead. okay. chug, chug, chug, chug! memories come flooding back. just as healthy. fun, right? it s actually pretty good. you want a taste? and you say you hate a warm six-pack, right? yeah. but there s you ve developed one way to really get it cold fast. the fastest way i know is with a fire extinguisher. yeah. you use a fire extinguisher? well, yeah. then you ve got to, of course, have another one on hand in case there s a fire. you might want to do that in your own home, not at a restaurant or something. or at a picnic or something. when you re in a ba do people always yell norm? no. just on the today show. by the way, i understand in german yeah? norm is helmet. yeah, yeah. my character was called helmet. and sam was called hubert. hubert and helmet, yeah. i don t know why. that s nice. natalie wants to play beer pong with you. volunteer i just have a newscast to do a little bit later. you ve been waiting all your life i haven t done this since college and i was good in college. come on, erin, you have to join me. quickly, we have 30 seconds left. what are we doing? u first. oh, wind. i didn t check for the wind. so, the idea is to get it into the cup and it eliminates come on, nat. oh, she almost got it. double bounce. oh! oh! come on! somebody s got to get something on here! throw them all down! yeah! yeah! all right, natalie, you ve got to drink. you ve got to drink. george, congratulations. oh! 8:55 is your time. a live look outside. tom will have your forecast after the news. good morning. it it is october 21st, 2009. in just a few minutes, the doors will open on a swine flu clinic in montgomery county. this is the health center in rockville. some people camped out overnight to get a good spot in line. 1,000 people in line. pregnant women and children between six months and two years have priority. the clinic has 200 shots and 1,000 doses of the nasal spray. not everyone can receive the nasal spray. today, you may have to dig deeper in your pocket to drive near dulles. they will likely approve a rate hike on the dulles toll road. an additional 75 cents at the main gait, 25 cents at the ramp. well take a break bright, blue, sunny sky. live view from our sky watcher camera. the foliage turning the ought tomorrow colors in the northwest neighborhood of washington. forecast, sunny. warming up nicely into the mid 70s by mid afternoon. a bit warmer tomorrow. cooler. rain likely friday into saturday. how is the traffic? we are still dealing with some delays. no accidents o along 270. heavy and slow from jaerm mantown down to the split. 395 northbound, loaded up to and across the 14th street bridge. hov, okay. outbound moving along. the doors are opening as we speak. a big crowd ghered at the swine flu clinic in montgomery county. we re back with more of today on a wednesday morning, 21st day of october 2009. just a great morning here in the northeast. and let s just take a second to thank all the nice people who stopped here, spending some of their time with us, waving to the people back home. we appreciate them coming by. we nearly got dive-bombed by a pigeon there a second ago. i m matt lauer along with erin burnett, who s filling in while meredith s taking some time off. al roker is here and jenna wolfe is joining us as well. a lot to get to this hour, including more on the mysterious disappearance of 7-year-old somer thompson in florida. this little girl was last seen walking home from school on monday afternoon. no one knows what s happened to her since. this morning we re going to hear from her mother and we re going to get the latest on the investigation. and then in these tough times, people have lot of financial questions. well, we have assembled our crack financial team to help you if you re having a hard time paying with your mortgage, trying to sell your house. we re going to check out all your options with our money 911 experts. and this is a tightening credit market. a lot of people probably experienced this. even when you have excellent credit ratings, you re not able to get a new card or are getting denied on refinancing, which is a big problem. so, we ll tell you how to navigate that and get around it. can i just say one thing? can you hold that sign up? number two on my bucket list is meet matt lauer. what do you think number one is? unless youaise m to number one, i m not coming over there. am i number one or number two? you re making me feel like number two. very nice. you saw where you were going with that. there you go. nice to see you. here, can i have that? what s number one? number one own a home. all right! oh, okay. that s a good one. not in any particular order! apparently not. that s cool. also coming up in this hour, we re going to talk about revealing a winner. today s kid reporter is finally at the point where we are finding out the results of round number two. we sorted through hundreds of tapes of young cub reporters. we re going to find out which one of these lucky kids will go on to the finals. very exciting. can i say, also on the bucket list things you can help her out with, getting a tattoo. okay. and she wants to go to niagara falls! niagara falls! slowly i turn. never mind. let s go inside. natalie s standing by she has no idea. i know. natalie s standing by with a check of the headlines. natalie. all right. good morning to you all once again. good morning, everyone. this morning the centers for disease control is warning the swine flu vaccine will not be widely available until the middle of next month. the cdc is urging people to take precautionary steps to prevent the fls spread. the cdc reported earlier that half of those hospitalized for swine flu since september are age 24 and younger and about one-third of all the deaths were in the 25 to 49 age group. voters in afghanistan will try again to choose their next president. today the man who finished second in the discredited august election, abdullah abdullah, agreed to a november 7th runoff. his announcement came a day after president hamid karzai bowed to international pressure to accept another round of voting. the outcome could influence the future of u.s. military involvement in afghanistan. in north florida, the search for a missing 7-year-old girl is now into its third day. neighbors held a candlelight vigil last night with the family of second grader somer thompson. she was last seen monday afternoon walking home from school. earlier on today, erin spoke with the sheriff heading the search and also with the girl s mother, and she asked diena thompson how she s holding up. i m still here, but i just can t this is not happening. that s how i feel. it s just too surreal. our ground search is continuing. we ve expanded the area that our search is involving. we re using helicopters, horses, dog teams. we ve gotten lots of volunteers who have been going arm to arm through wooded areas, searching for any clues or any information. we just really need a break in this case. we need a tip. we need a phone call. somebody knows where somer is and we need that person to call us. and what would you like to say, diena, just in case somer is somewhere, going to come back safe, but watching this morning, to say to her? that we love her and, somer, you re not in trouble. if you re scared, just come home. and if somebody has her, please bring her back to us. she belongs with her family. she belongs with us. she belongs with her twin brother. please just bring her home. and if you have any information about 7-year-old somer thompson, police ask you to call them at 877-227-6911 or e-mail them at cart@claysheriff.com. the federal aviation administration launched its own investigation of the runaway balloon that caused nationwide alarm last week and delayed flights at denver s airport. police are investigating the episode as a criminal hoax. former new york city police commissioner bernard kerik spent the night in jail. a federal judge revoked his bail tuesday, claiming he was trying to influence witnesses and the jury pool for his upcoming trial. he won lead ypraise after his leadership in the 9/11 attacks and was nominated to head of security. a suspect turned himself in after police say he held up a check-cashing store. seen on this surveillance tape, the victim cried and tried to talk with the suspect about god, even prayed with him, then hugged him. according to police, the man took $20 and the victim s cell phone. it is now five minutes past the hour. you re up to date right now. let s get another check of the weather from al. thanks a lot, natalie. as we show you what s going on, we ve got a lot of rain working its way from texas, remnants of tropical storm rick moving through mexico and some snow back through the rockies. rainfall amounts going to be anywhere from one to two inches up through the upper mississippi river valley. heaviest rain, though, going to be centered in eastern texas from austin all the way up to texarkamydyiçmçmçmy$/içmçmçmydyy good morning. bright sunshine and a blue sky. temperatures are now climbing into the low 50s around the region. we ll continue to see it climb another 20 degrees or more as we get into the mid afternoon hours. should hit the mid 70s. then, tonight, clear. we will be down in the upper 40s tomorrow morning, upper 70s tomorrow afternoon. a few clouds around. mostly cloudy friday. morning lows, low 50s. a likelihood of late where s the music? today s money 911, where our experts help you with your money emergencies. in the hot seat today, today s financial editor jean chatzky, founder of finishrich.com, david bach, and cnbc s personal finance correspondent ms. sharon epperson. natalie is across the street with questions from the crowd. everybody ready? ready to go. an e-mail first from lauren in huntington, pennsylvania. i was on the money 911 segment last may. at the time, i was making $15,000 and my credit score was 690. i opened a checking account with pnc bank as a new customer and applied for a credit card through them and i was denied. my credit score went up. i replied for the credit card and was denied again. i have four hard inquiries on my report but still no credit cards. i was wondering if it is worth trying to apply for a credit card through td bank, or if the number of hard inquiries is negatively affectingy chances for being approved. also, i am making $24,000 and have been provided with room and board. lauren needs to understand, until you re making $30,000, a lot of the big banks don t really want to deal with you. they also want a credit score of at least 720, and you re not quite there yet. so, i would work on improving your credit score before you apply again. and if you really feel like you need a credit card, you want a secured credit card, which is a credit card where you just deposit some money in a bank. usually, you earn interest on it. you pay your bills on time for a couple of years. it will automatically convert to a regular credit card. and if u go to cardweb.com, you can find a list of those credit cards. and does that help your credit score? absolutely. you pay your bills on time, it goes on your credit score, it improves your situation and it doesn t look any different than a regular credit card, so it s like using the same thing. let s go now to skype. we ve got alison from houston, texas. alison, good morning. and what s your no, i guess we re going to natalie now across the street, okay. that s right. i have katie gill with me from mississippi. and you have a question about investing. i do have a question about investing. i am 17 and i ve g some money saved away. what tips do you have for investing the money or anything like that? and you re getting ready to go to college next year. i m definitely going to college. something to think about. so, let s turn it over to david. first of all, i love the fact that you re 17 and you re already thinking about investing, because the number one thing we hear from everybody in their 30s and 40s and 50s is, if only i had started younger. so, at 17, let me tell you something, i talk about the latte factor. if you take just $3 to $5 a day and you re at dean & deluca right now if you start saving that money, the place to start saving money automatically just taking a little bit are you working right now at 17? yeah, i m currently 17. and are you working? oh, no. not working. 17 s a good age to get a job. i went and got my first job at 15. go and get a job, start saving a little bit of your paycheck and open up a roth i.r.a. a roth i.r.a. for a young person is the best vehicle to save long-term. if we can just get you saving $3 a day, you can build a million-dollar portfolio by retirement. i m telling you, starting at the age of 17 will change your life. cool. all right. great advice. okay, good luck. and now, let s go to the phone where we ve got amy in lansdale, pennsylvania. amy, good morning, and your question? caller: good morning. i recently became unemployed with no savings, although i m receiving unemployment compensation, i m still having a hard time paying my bills. i currently owe my landlord over $1,200, and yes, i am a renter, and i have a car inspection of over $600. i m fearful that my situation s only going to get worse and becoming further in debt. i ve eliminated all necessary expenses, i ve appliedor food stamps and have been denied. i have contacted local non-profits and don t qualify for that, either. it seems that the only help out there is for the homeowners or the homeless, which is great. but my question is, is there any help for anyone who rents so that we don t end up on the streets? sharon? that s a very difficult situation, of course, that amy finds herself in. one of the things she wants to do, if she hasn t already, is go to 211.org or dial 211 to find out about any type of non-profit organizations in your area that might offer rent assistance. it might be difficult if you re already getting unemployment assistance. you may not qualify for this, but check with those organizations. you also need to look at your budget, not just about your rent, but the other things that are really affecting your budget food, shelter, clothing. and so, for food, go to somewhere like angel ministries. see what they can do to help you perhaps with food. with utilities, you might qualify for liheap. you might get the low income energy assistance progr in your area. the other thing is to look at what you re doing with your telephone. a lot of times if you just cut to a cell phone, you can cut your bill there sharply. you mentioned perhaps trying to get some money for tuition from the state. now, that is something that pennsylvania does offer, but it probably is not enough to cut all the bills that she has. and the other thing she really wants to consider is perhaps moving in with someone or tting roommate. that can cut down on your rent as well. sure. all right, sharon. good luck, amy. now we have an e-mail from becca from albuquerque, new mexico. my credit score is excellent. i was just laid off. my mblg money is gone. do i try to sell my money at a loss and buy my way out at closing for a price of $10,000 to $15,000? it s forcing me to use credit cards for everyday expenses. the money would come from a cd that comes for a renewal this week, but it s part of my retirement fund. i was also going to pay off what does she do? chances are, if you take money out of the cd, you ll pay taxes out equivalent to 30% or 40% of the balance. so it s a huge no-no, if you can avoid. it i would make sure that your house is priced appropriately. talk to your bank about the possibility of selling it at a loss, selling it short, so that you don t actually have to come out of pocket to make up that difference. a lot of banks are willing to do it. and although the $15,000 sounds like an awful lot of money for her, in the scheme of what the banks are dealing with these days, it s really not that much at all. so you may find it easier to deal with that. hopefully, becca gets some help. absolutely. now to natalie with another question. i have phil here, a student at nyu in the physical sharp program. what s your questi? i had a question about student loans. i was curious how the current financial situation was going to affect the availability of private and federal student loans? very good question. david, do you have some suggestions? it is a good question, and what s really happened is that private student loans have become very difficult to get because they can t pack these loans up and sell them to investors like in years past. so, what s happening is people like you who are going to school are getting more and more federal loans. and so, here s the good news, rates are lower than they were two years ago for student loans, but the problem now is that they re harder to get. so you re going to have to apply for federal loans. and the same thing we were talking about this in the green room the cost of college is going up. right. astronomically. just had that this morning. because the states are just not getting as much money, funding as much money toward the colleges, and so they re increasing tuition at rates far beyond inflation. yeah. we expected about another year that we ll see a loosening of private student loans. so, i think you ve got 12 more months before we see that back in the marketplace. it s starting a little bit. it is. it s just taking a little bit of time, but it s better than it was a year ago. we have an e-mail from theresa. another credit score question. my credit score is 830. i have an excellent payment record and my only debt is my home. i m trying to refinance at a 30-year at 4.875% down from a 15-year. i m a retired physician with well over $800,000 in assets. my work is now lecturing, but because i am retired and didn t make any income last year, they say they denied my loan. they said they re not sure i can repay the loan. i have a perfect credit scored, never late on a loan and have been with bank of america for years but they refuse me. i am insulted and find this ridiculous reasoning. have you ever heard of this before? unfortunately, i ve heard about it a lot. it s not just this one person. it s happening to so many people. a lot of people who have been laid off or decide to go into consulting, they re facing the same thing. why? it s not just your credit score. yes, you need to have excellent credit these days, but you also need to have income. you need to have proof of income, and that is key in today s mortgage environment. and unfortunately, if you don t have that usually for two years time, documented income, you re going to have a hard time getting this loan. so teresa shoul not be insulted she should not be insulted. don t take it personally. don t take it personally, yes. jean chatzky, david bach and sharon epperson, thank you so much. we re going to reveal your depression is a serious medical condition at can take so much out of you. i feel like i have to wind myself up just to get out of bed. then.well. i have to keep winding myself up to deal with the sadness, the loss of interest, the trouble concentrating, the lack of energy. if depression is taking so much out of you, ask your doctor about pristiq®. (announcer) pristiq is a prescription medicine proven to treat depression. pristiq is thought to work by affecting the levels of two chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, teens and young adults. pristiq is not approved for children under 18. do not take pristiq with maois. taking pristiq with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. tell your doctor out all your medications, including those for migraine, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. pristiq may cause or worsen high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or glaucoma. tell your doctor if you have heart disease. or before you reduce or stop taking pristiq. side effects may include nausea, dizziness and sweating. (woman) for me, pristiq is a key in helping to treat my depression. (announcer) ask your doctor about pristiq. is it real? no. just decorations. i m going to make the biggest pumpkin of l. the biggest pumpkin? i need to make a witch s hat. in case my hat falls off. it s pointy and then. a spike. mamma. the best treats are the ones you get at home. rice krispies. childhood is calling. ( laughing ) have come home to custom roasted maxwell house. really great flavor. i love the taste. hmmm. hmmm. smooth. rich. fabulous. is it hmmm? hmmm. (announcer) taste why maxwell house is good to the last drop. (female narrator) why maxwell house which cheese slices do you prefer. pasteurized processed cheese product? (lou gentine) or natural cheese slices? at sargento, our deli style slices are always made naturally. sargento. persnickety people. exceptional cheese. announcer: today s kid reporter is brought to you by carnival cruise line. this morning on today s kid reporter, time to announce our week two winner. so, you know we had hundreds of kids apply to join our team as a young journalist. that s right. and on monday, we introduced you to a talented group of semifinalists meg from charlottesville, virginia, brodie from stillwater, oklahoma, vanessa from west seattle, washington, and nina from new jersey. the competition tough, and after tallying thousands of votes, it s time to crown our next finalist. drum roll, please! and the winner is brodie myers from oklahoma! wow! yeah, brodie! thank you so much. you did it! yeah, dude, congratulations! thank you so much! i can tell you re excited. they re playing the fight song, too. yeah? so, is this an exciting moment for you? you ve got that oklahoma sooner fight song going on, right? cowboys no, i m an oklahoma state fan, see? okay. well, there you go. so, are you excited about this, being one of theour finalists? very. i m also very surprised i m from oklahoma because samantha isler. oh, you re both from oklahoma. oh. well, we ve got a little state competition going on there. interesting. okay, we know you re a huge sports fan because you re wearing that shirt, but also, you told us you do your reports at home on your karaoke machine, right? is that how yes, i do. i love doing that. and of course, you got a big thumbs up from everybody here for your sunday night football night in america yes. can you do that again for us, brodie? thank you. yeah, i can do it. my face might get a little red, but don t worry. sunday night football in america! that s what al looks like, so al s face gets red all the time. all the time. wow. thank you. you ve got to down. brodie, do you have a good football call? ifou re going to make it as a sportscaster, you re going to need a good oklahoma state cowboys football touchdown call. do you have a good one ready? yeah, i have one. let s hear it. do you want me to demonstrate? yes, please. you bet. all the way into the end zone. touchdown cowboys! all right. man brodie, you are awesome. bob costas will have to wait for a number of reasons. but the good news is, they can share a wardrobe. oh! thank you. brodie, that s just al s sense of humor again getting him in trouble. all right, well, we look forward to having you back here in new york, okay? thank you. brodie myers, congratulations. now, with week two down, brodie joins sammy isler, as he said, also from oklahoma, as a today s kid reporter finalist. a lot of talent in oklahoma. that s right. next week we re going to meet four more hopefuls vying for a spot in the finals. still to in this morning on today, we re going to take you to some unusual hotels around the world, from one where a giraffe can stop by your window to one with an upside down room. yeah, that s right. mm-mmm. new ship smell! [ band plays anchors aweigh ] [ ship horn blows ] light & fit has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand and a taste you ll find. [sluuurrrrpppp!] irresistible. light & fit. great taste, fewer calories. and i was so tender to the touch but i didn t know why. my doctor diagnosed it as fibromyalgia. and then he recommended lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of over-active nerves that cause chronic, widespread pain. lyrica is fda-approved to help relieve the unique pain of fibromyalgia. so now, i m learning what a day is like with less pain. lyrica is not for everyone. tell your doctor about any serious allergic reaction that causes swelling or affects breathing or skin, or changes in eyesight including blurry vision or muscle pain with fever or tired feeling. lyrica may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people. some of the most common side effects of lyrica are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs, and feet. do not drink alcohol while taking lyrica. you should not drive or operate machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. could your pain be caused by fibromyalgia? ask your doctor about lyrica today. and so does new air wick imotion. it s the only continuous air freshener with a smart motion sensor, so it sees when there is more activity and automatically adjusts the fragrance. it creates the perfect scent in your home s busiest places. air wick freshmatic ultra with imotion gives you freshness where life happens. air wick, it s good to be home. and you have that moment of. oh, yeah! well. this. is mine. sprinkled with cinnamon, sparkling with taste. cinnamon toast crunch. enjoy the cinnsation. coming up, it s pumpkin season in today s kitchen, and we are making sweet and savory pumpkin ravioli. well, we re not making it. he s making it. plus, from fashion to food to great gadgets, we ve got great gift ideas for you. you re on a box of cereal, al. wouldn t be the first time. that s right. announcer: trying to be good to your heart? so is campbell s healthy request soup. low in fat and cholesterol, heart healthy levels of sodium, and taste you ll love. chef: we re all kind of excited about it. guy: mmm! i can see why. announcer: campbell s healthy request. m m! m m! good! for your heart. still haven t tried activia? listen to this story. my problem was occasional irregularity. my commercials didn t convince you? i am definitely a skeptic. actually, my mom convinced me. and i have activia every morning for breakfast. activia definitely helped with my occasional irregularity. activia is clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system in two weeks when eaten every day. chances are someone you trust can recommend activia. take the activia challenge. it works or your money back! activia! 9:26 is our time. 51 degrees. a lot of beautiful sunshine out there this morning. good morning. i m joe krebs. in the news for today on this wednesday, the 21st of october, if you ride metro in virginia, you have a chance to speak out about possible fare hikes and board members were looking for input from riders. tonight s public budget forum begins at 6:30 at george mason high school in falls church. let good morning. bright october sun and a southwest breeze will be warming us into the mid 70s. a beautiful blue sky. the foliage becoming more colorful. right now, in the low to mid 50s around the region and will continue to climb into the mid 70s for a high today with lots of sunshine. clear tonight, upper 40s tomorrow morning. should make it into the upper 70s by thursday afternoon. friday and saturday, cooler weather, highs in the 60s. likelihood of afternoon and evening showers friday and likelihood of showers sat. how is the traffic? american legion bridge, moderate both directions. very good news after what we have been through this morning on the beltway. lanes are open. uneven pavement. moving along relatively well. 395 northbound, still packed in tightly. significant delays to the 14th bridge. issues earlier this morning. tonight on news 4 tomorrow on news 4 today, we are connecting with the mayor. d.c. mayor this allman brothers t-shirt, rodeo, making noise with the southern boys the distinctive voice of country superstar mr. tim mcgraw. we want to remind everybody he s going to be live on our plaza this friday on today, and you can pick out one of the songs. the choices are something like that, live like you were dying, or red ragtop. you can vote at todayshow.com, all for free, or text your choice to 46833. voting ends today. get your votes in and then come on down with your ten-gallon hat and pickup on friday morning to enjoy the program. i m al roker along with jenna wolfe. good to see you. goodo see you, too, al. and coming up in this half hour, who needs to wait for the holidays to give a fun gift or maybe get yourself something special? from makeup tutorials to a throwback joystick that lets you play pacman on your tv. jenna is very, very excited about this. i said, that was i m sorry, there s a lot of cool things over there. that one is my favorite. that s the one you want. is there something wrong with that? not a thing. i m still 13 years old underneath. that s jill martin working it. plus, one of the hottest chefs in new york is here with a great meal for your fall table or any time of year. sharing a popular recipe, pumpkin ravioli. first, al, a check of the weather? all righty. let s see what s happening. we have heavy rain through the western great lakes down into eastern texas. rain in the fink northwest, gorgeous here in the east with temperatures above normal. and then for tomorrow, continues mild here in the east. the rain moves into the upper ohio river valley down into the gulf coast. mçmçmqmçmçmçmçmçmqmçmçmç great weather for outdoor work and recreation for this wednesday. temperatures already hitting the 50s. we will continue to climb into the mid 70s for highs by mid afternoon. clear tonight. we will bottom out in the upper 40s tomorrow morning. sun in the morning. clouds in the afternoon. a bit warmer into the upper 70s. friday and saturday, cooler. highs in the 60s. morning lows, 50s. a likelihood of afternoon and evening hours friday and again on saturday. look and that s your latest weather. all right, al, thanks. up next, fun finds for fall. but first, these messages. hey,! to demonstrate the clning power of our newest pledge product. i m gonna clean my couch with this pledge? not that pledge, leah. use the pledge fabric sweeper. it s quick and effective, removing as much pet hair. as 145 stinky lint roller sheets. wow! it really works! ooh, that is one big hairball. ( cat meows ) pick up pet hair. that s the beauty. of the pledge fabric sweeper. you ll find it where you find pledge. s.c. johnson, a family company. new aches and pains, .and new questions about which pain reliever is right for your body. tylenol 8 hour works with your body, with one layer that dissolves quickly. .one layer that lasts all day .and no layers tha irritate your stomach the way that ibuprofen can. it s tough on your body pain. not on your body. it s tough on your body pain. here s an easy way you can enjoy the convenience of steam-in-the-bag vegetables and the great taste of sauce. try green giant valley fresh steamers. each bag microwaves in minutes, steaming the vegetables until they re cooked to perfection. try green giant valley fresh steamers. oh, so delicious who cares? jell-o sugar free pudding. every diet needs a little wiggle room. jell-o sugar free pudding. light & fit has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand and a taste you ll find. [sluuurrrrpppp!] irresistible. light & fit. great taste, fewer calories. it s about getting the quality you deserve. savings like this don t come along every day. custom upholstery at ethan allen. extraordinary savings. limited time. today it s about planning for the future. it s about great style and great savings. take advantage of this rare opportunity. custom media at ethan allen. extraordinary savings. limited time. have fun, fun, fun this morning on jill s fun finds, whether you re that s such a cute cartoon. whether you re in the market for a fall pick-me-up gift for yourself or a treat for someone special, us weekly contributor jill martin has great suggestions to put a smile even on the most ghoulish faces. ghoulish? i m sorry. yes. anyway, how are you doing? i m great, and these are i know you love gadgets. i do. so there s something for everyone. speaking of ghoulish faces, if you want to fix that, this is debuting on the todayshow. women out there, fashionistas, it s an at-home beauty kit. you hook it up to your ipod and it walks you through the process. it walks you through as you put the makeup on so you know exactly how to do. but you ve got to look down and then look up. no, no no, just listen. and it comes with five pieces of makeup, cosmetics, $69.90. and you pause it as you go along. hopefully, it will pause. or yocan turn it off. okay, so, this is great. it comes out tomorrow, but you can preorder it today. $69.90, $250 value. this is a great tng for beauty lovers. okay. then what do we have here? okay, so, after you drink all those beers from the george segment, you ll need to relax a little bit. sure. so, these are eye masks that massage you. it feels like little fingers on your eyes, and i actually want you to try the head version of it. okay, yeah. the head case. the head case. do you feel it? it s like fingers, and it actually talks to you telling you to relax. and it has music in it. whoa! all different things. it s great, right? it s getting tight, very tight. very tight! okay. too tight! time to move on, but this is for those of us who love head massages. or you could just put your head in a vice. everyone, i it really does work. i like it. yes, it s great! okay, moving on to food. you know, why don t you just save some money, give somebody a hammer and tell them to hit themselves with it? okay. after you hit yourself with the hammer yes. you re going to want to eat. and you know when you eat a pistachio nut and never know what to do with the shells? this company came up with a great thing. you just put it inside. there you go. so, it s great for entertaining. you can also do it for olives, which is another great alternative. all right. these are laveughers. these are great, because i don t know if you eat breakfast in bed a lot, but i m working. you re working, but the weekends. indentations and silicon mats, so the bowl doesn t slide. that s cool. i swear by these. these are at delight.com. uyyou like to eat in bed a l. revealed on the today show, i do. now, you make your cereal online, they ship it to you, all natural, $4.90 it starts at. you pick whatever you want and look, they put your face on. it here s you. uh huh. i have everyone s face on it. very nice. this is great if you want your kids to eat healthy. they can make it online. it gets shipped to you. and this is the best. the ceo guarantees his product so much, he gives his cell phone number. that s pretty cool. fabulous, right? wow. you d better have unlimited calls. and the cost is not that much more expensive than regular cereal. at all. cap n crunch is $4.99. this comes to your house and has your name on it. i like this stuff. this is an investment if you travel a lot, but this you re going to love. now, i ll try this. yeah. this will not be like a hammer. it s already playing, i love you, man. do you see the movie? i do. cool. so if you re traveling a lot this great. or in a car a lot, this is great for your favorite movie. and then, we can take are you enjoying the movie? hold on just a second. we re going to get the headpiece. okay, so, while al you keep going. while al s enjoying the movie and eating pistachio nuts, we re going to go retro. yes. which, i love this, and i actually got my father this for father s day. it is old-school atari. jenna s playing right now. it has got all the games and you just plug in the joystick. excuse me? sorry, came out wrong. $40 from fredflair.com. you plug it into the computer or tv and it gives you all of the old games. she s actually good how much did you play in college, jenna? whatever look at this. boom! she s good. what a way to end. end what? sorry for at buice. and you can get more information on our website, todayshow.com. all right, jill martin, thank you so much. and coming up next, one of new york s hottest chefs shows us his recipe for pumpkin ravioli. but first, these messages. and if that means making sacrifices, we re used to that. not here! when you choose progressive, you get more. more? oh, you ll love more. you also get concierge claims service, 24/7 live support, and pet injury coverage. that s totally awesome! brother jeffrey hasn t spoken in 12 years! i once went 12 whole minutes! saving without sacrificing. now, that s progressive. call or click today. trying to be big like you, dad. you re so good at keeping everyone full and focused with your fiber. but you already are great at doing that. really? sure! you re made with fiber just like me. but best of all, you re the perfect size for smaller kids, and they love your chocolaty taste. kellogg s® frosted mini-wheats little bites cereal. an excellent source of fiber packed in a smaller size. to help keep your little ones full and focused. now where you going? to practice keeping em full and focused. i have big shoes to fill. three courses, two people, $20. start with a shared appetizer. choose two entrees from over 15 chili s favorites, like our new, better-than-ever baby back ribs. then share a dessert. chili s three courses, two people, $20. cold and flu viruses fact: your child could pick up the flu virus, even h1n1, from surfaces. but, lysol disinfectant spray has the power to stop the spread of cold & flu viruses. it s approved to kill more germs than any other brand. it even kills h1n1. lysol is the number one brand recommended by pediatricians. lysol. disinfectant to protect. also use lysol disinfecting wipes to kill flu viruses. what shape are your kids in? campbell s kid soups add a unique naturalea salt for a healthy level of sodium and no artificial flavors. they re a healthy lunch choice you can both feel great about. so many, many reasons it s so m m! m m! good! maybe one of the most important. ( uplifting orchestral music playing ) ( inhales deeply ) ( sighs ) that s the power of pine sol, baby. ooh, soft and sweet. this morning in today s kitchen hot chef john dellucci calls his cooking style fusing modern techniques with european flavors. translation? this guy makes some good food. his memoir the hunger was released earlier this year and he s executive chef and partner of new york city s waverly restaurant. good morning. good morning to you. how are you? i understand you have an unpublished number at the waverly inn restaurant. we ll put that up on the screen. pumpkins are everywhere. everywhere. and they re nutritious. nutritious and cheap right now. they re piled to the ceiling i the supermarket. so, today we re making we re making pumpkin ravioli and we have a pumpkin cheesecake, too. beautiful. we like a theme, right? how do we get started? these are apricot cookies with eggwhite and sugar. smash them, if you would. but they re so pretty. you still want me to do that. why, what s this for? we re going to put that in e ravioli. just literally smash it? smash it. did you see me play pacman before? whoa! i m sorry. i was doing well with the joystick, so i got a little crazy. that s enough. okay, we re done, sorry. got a little excited. we re going to add a little of this this is pumpkin, by the way. this is just pumpkin, okay. if you would help me, put the egg right in there. you got it. how did i do so far? good. and the cheese. all of it some. all of it. that s good, that s good. by all of it, i thought you meant all of it, so i was thrown by your directions. and i ll put some salt in there. and nutmeg. sure. thank you very much. go ahead. don t mind me. i ve never done this before. no. maybe you can do it. we only have four minutes for this segment. that s all right. oh, that would end in disaster if i did what you just did. hey, john, i m not so strong in air quotes, in the kitchen. not so strong. okay. so, we have here a ravioli dough. perfect, okay. which i cranked out of a pasta machine early this morning. do you have to make your own dough he? can you use any kind of dough? you can find this dough or similar dough in the supermarket. okay. so, i m going to put some egg wash here. and i already took some pparai and put it in my bag. i m going to make little dots like this. you can determine the size as well, right? it s not exactly a science. okay. and i m just going to fold this over. i m going to feel where the apperai is, like that. okay. and i m going to take a little ramekin and make are these words made up o are you i m making them up. this is a ramekin? i ll follow you. and you have to wait until these completely dry, right, before you do anything with them? well, they re dry. they re dry there. oh, okay. so, we had some cooking already. a right. and when the raviolis float to the top it means they re finished. they re done. so we have sage, butter and olive oil. we put some olive oil in the pan. that s pretty hot. and we re going to mauck a brown burn, a burn wazet, can you say that? [ speaking french ] i don t cook there, but i do speak french. you might as well. might as well tell people that i cook. i m going to use the cracon what did you say that was there? okay, so this is going to cook eventually. not now. i m just going to quit talking now. so we have sage and olive oil and butter, and the butter is going to the butter s going to caramelize. boy, that smells great. doesn t that smell great? it really does. just shake the pan like this for a little built because it s fun. you look like you re having fun, so that works out well for you. it works out very well for me. okay. it s also going to crisp up the sage as well. and that will be fused into the butter and olive oil. that sounds smart. sounds sage. the color is browning. that browny hue. these are done. they re done. do we have time? what about this? we ll put the cheese in. oh, that s on top. and we have the pumpkin ravioli that we mixed into a cheesecake. the extra pumpkin you mixed into a cheesecake. that could be an extra segment. you did that on the side while you were waiting. so let s plate this. most importantly, taste. so you want all the butter out ow. careful. i got some on my shirt already. ow. whoops! i just got fourth-degree burns in my private area. oops. that looks amazing. a little pepper. and perfect. a little all right, let s plate. here we go. i m excited. couldn t be any pressure. no, i m good. this looks fantastic. and i can tell you from personal exrience, it is hot. it is hot. it s hot. perfect. all right, can i get one big taste? please, please. and you re going to put a little parmesano can i taste this one? oh, i m going to taste this one. i want to taste it too, actually. okay. no, join me. so good. so good, right? so fantastic. are you happy with it? good. onderful. i had something to do with the a.m. rhetto, too. you did. we ll be back. first, thi are you okay? i m going to be okay. what happened? what happened? nothing, i m all good. nothing, just something splattered. oh. oh. you, too. john was there for that part. john didn t shave. we just tasted it, fantastic. i haven t shaved for years. yeah, what is this? what is this? hoda this morning, too, but i made it what? al, come on, go. i m so sorry for my co-host. for your co-host! i am over it. it is enough! what do you have coming up? i don t care! what do we have coming up? no, you take it. i m going to shave my legs. we only have an hour, so let s go. we re going to go to dean & deluca. sounds boring. what else do we have? i m not helping today. we have five seconds five things women notice. unique hotels. oh, gosh. ooh! unbelievably. where you can scuba dive to your hotel room. all kinds of fun things. and hoda, hopefully, will be joining me. i don t know. i ll have to think about it. i kind of like it, though, hoda. all that coming up. our time is 9:55 on this wednesday, the 21st of october. in the news4 today. as many as 1,000 people showed up at a swine flu clinic in rockville to check out this crowd at the picard drive health center. pregnant women and children between six months and two years have priority. the clinic has about 200 shots and 1,000 doses of the nasal spray. bright october sun illuminating the foliage that s getting more colorful with every day that goes by. there is capitol hill. a gentle wind out of the southwest. that combination is going to warm us into the mid 70s. lots of sun. tomorrow, into the upper 70s and partly cloudy. on friday, mostly cloudy. high, mid 60s. occasional showers are likely on saturday but they should be ending by saturday evening. as we get into sunday, should be drying out an cooling down. good weather for the marine corps marathon. jerry, how is the traffic? good morning, everyone. road work is set up. 95 northbound as you head towards lorton road, construction in the right lane. pretty good size backup. elsewhere, 270, kachlt beltway college park to silver spring, f finally beginning to ease up. d.c. mayor, adrian fenty will hey, everybody. it is wednesday. we re so glad you re here with us today on october 21st. it s wednesday matinee day. it is. what are we seeing today? probably the show that from my take has looked like it s gotten the greatest reviews of anything this season. that s jude law in hamlet. i hear he s incredible. that s what they re saying. good. i want to see. that should bes a fascina fa we were very busy that s night. we went to a terrific event called the angel ball. it s what denise rich does in memory of her daughter. it was a beautiful event. jennifer hudson sang. so did blake. it was a big a couple of things happened. natalie cole came out to get an award. natalie cole just got a kidney transplant. looked so beautiful. looked so healthy. elegant. so classy. she and denise are very, very close friends. she s singing up a storm, natalie, all the way up until the holidays. working hard. remember when she was here? we were worried. she s waiting for her transplant. she could barely get up on the stool. she looked like a million bucks. denise has lots of friends. there sis middle. see my arm? i look like a linebacker. that s my rection to our flu shots we got yesterday. we did do our flu shots. we saw other people there. star jones. i think we might have a picture. star still looking great. she s skinny mini. what she s done, denise has formed, as many, many people do when something strikes so close to home, she started a foundation. star looks great. in honor of her daughter called gabrielle s angel foundation. i think it s the largest nonfederal agency that raises funds for leukemia research. thank you for the invitation and for a lovely night. and our big boss got a big award last night, too. then i had to high tail it over to the waldorf where jeff was inducted into the broadcasting cable hall of fame. 13th annual. brian williams was hosting it. i made it just in time to hear his speech. it was funny. frank was there. they also honored 40th anniversary of monday night football. which is now on espn. which we ll talk about in a moment. there s good news and bad news at espn. i guess there were 25 people who were inducted. when i walked in, brian williams was saying since there s nobody here named zucker was the last one. moving on to espn there is a story about an affair an espn analyst admitted to having with a girl that work there had. so what. people have affairs. you have them all the time. unless it s your husband you don t really care. is that what you re saying? yeah. this woman, a 22-year-old, decided to write a letter to his wife talking about their relationship. i guess she was expecting him to come clean. she wrote this letter that somehow ended up in the paper. it would be jarring to be on the receiving end of this. basically she says things like what does she say here? she talks about his childre she s so up to date on everything they re doing. she gives details so that the wife realizes that this was true. here s a quote. i ve been asking him to come clean to you about everything from when we first slept together in st. louis in his hotel suite where he assured me i wouldn t have to worry about getting pregnant since his visectomy. what she s saying is he told me intimate details about their life. it goes into the family and the rest of it. in the end of it it describes his body pretty graphically. anything that s obvious. it s fatal attraction-ish. he told his wife this girl was calling. i guess he came clean about the story. said she s obsessive and a little psychotic. there are two schools of thought. my gosh, she s psycho. this poor guy. she s putting a wrecking ball through things, wrote a let tore the wife. other people obviously will say what is his problem having an affair with this 22-year-old. i think they re both totally at fault for wtever is going on here. we want to ask our facebook people, would this guy, his name is steve phillips, i don t know him, would this guy be considered a victim of his relationship with this girl? this kind of thing certainly does make men who are having affairs freak out. like the movie fatal attraction did. that s why it hit home so well. can we talk about this? of course. it s betiful. this is a handmade shawl that a woman guess what her name is who made this shawl. very weird. hoda. is she from egypt. she is. she made this small herself. she happens to work with my mother. i m just saying. at the library of congress. look how beautiful these butt tons are are. y it s called shawls by hoda. $80 to $85. with the holiday coming, that is a great, great, great gift. your mother s happy now, hoda. they re all cheering down in washington. yes, they are. lots of stuff going on here. here s a piece of video that is crazy. crazy video. the bus. yeah. okay. i don t know if you guys have ever tried to cross the street and sort of beat the cars before they come. sometimes you think i can make it. i m going to do a quick sprint. this guy in russia did something that was astonishing. look at this. he s running. look. look. i guess the brakes went look, look, look again. he has his briefcase. here comes the bus. look. oh, my gosh. something happened to the brakes on the bus, they re saying. they couldn t stop. the guy couldn t control it. four people were hurt on the bus. that guy made it. yeah. that s a lesson. sometimes you think i ll save five seconds or ten seconds by trying to sprint. i do that sometimes. wouldn t you think that just automatically he would drop the and go a little faster. drop the briefcase. maybe he s a kgb guy. he s got state secrets in there. he knows what putin s up to. what are you talking about? i just have a vivid imagination. i still like jimmy s joke. well, he was russian. he was russian. that was jimmy s joke. i was surprised that new york is not higher on this list. we have america s most stressed out cities, people. chicago comes in first. houston, boston, l.a., san diego, denver, san francisco, detroit, tampa, portland. that was fast. new york is not till 17 out of the 25. i don t know how they decided. some of the least stressed out cities are miami. hello. dallas. tt one surprised me a little. that s quite the happening city. vegas. everybody s on vacation. either drunk or cincinnati. that s an interesting one. and minneapolis. those are the ones that are less these are big cities, though. i think they just polled big cities. i am surprised new york isn t in there. the way we are rushing around and that kind of thing. although last night we were driving down to wall street. and it was one of those you know, that sex and the city beautiful background where it s a crystal clear night. the brooklyn bridge. wall street skyline. the two of us were together. magical. we re spending too much time. i can t take it. i can t take it! stop it. okay. let s go to sara. then you dropped me off at 10:00 at the waldorf. anywho. we re getting a mix of comments about the affair and letter. angie wrote she thought it was brave of the young woman to write the wife. i think the letter s actually really disturbing. here s the thing. she did tell the truth. i mean, i think. she does. she seems to capitalize off the wife s pain. i don t want to hurt you but. when she said the staying home with the kids. but he likes me because i m passionate and want to do something with my life. that has nothing to do with anyone. that was just mean. stephanie wrote karma is a beep. so. i don t think there are any heros in that story. thank you, sar ra. interesting to see how espn handles this. and how the wife handles it. and if they stay together or go for counseling. i guess there s he s admitted to many, many, many affairs at espn. with the mets when he was at the mets before. . anyway, when we come back we re going to continue our five things that every woman needs to know series. this morning we re going to have some very, very important health information. five things you got to know right after these messages. this morning on five things every woman should know the top five diseases that affect women. women may not realize they are at a higher risk than men for many serious health issues. today dr. raj is the medical editor of health magazine. very smart lady. heart disease, we keep drumming this in everybody s head. but it is the number one killer of women above all other things. and kills more women than men. absolutely. women don t realize this. it s the number one killer. women are just as prone to get it. often they go undiagnosed because their symptoms are a little more atypical. they may not have the hollywood heart attack. they may have an indigestion or heartburn like feeling. we have a 3d animation. you see the heart there. the blood vessels supplying the heart, those are arteries. if something happens in those arteries, they get clogged, we see cholesterol plaques forming, they block the arteries. you don t get blood to your heart. the muscle starts to day. that s what a heart attack is. women are more likely to have a second heart attack within six years. they are. there are a couple of reasons for that, probably. one is like i said, they don t get diagnosed as quickly. they actually get worse heart attack. more heart muscle is damaged which puts them at risk for a second heart attack in the next few years. the othe thing is we think women have different types of heart attacks. it s not the typical blockage of those large arteries. they actually get disease in the smaller arteries of the heart which are harder to diagnose and harder to treat as well. there s no test for such a thing? the typical angiogram doesn t show those small arteries. any prevention? absolutely. there s a whole key. the risk factors include things like high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes. exercise will help with obesity. exercise in general will help reduce your heart attack risk. obviously stop smoking. let s talk about ost pro sis. bone loss. it happens as we age. it starts happening earlier on. there are things we need to be aware of earlier on to prevent this from happening after menopause. calcium and vitamin d. if you re talking about vitamin d as that magic vitamin sure. it s just as important as calcium. can you rebuild lost bone? exercise helps we build lost bone. even calcium and vitamin d will help later on as well. this is the normal one the left. the problem with osteoporosis, it puts you at risks for fractures. i hurt my wrist a couple of weeks ago. i had that hairline thing. he said this could be a warning shot for osteoporosis. i go every year for the bone density test. it s a simple, simple thing. even if you re younger and your doctor says you re not ready for the bone density, it s never too early. let s talk about colorectal cancer. that s what killed audry hepburn and farrah fawcett. it surpasses breast. it s a very common cancer. women who have a family history are certainly at risk. if you have a his. referee: ry of poppics. alcohol. low physical activity. if you have a history of a disease called chrone s disease. one is often overlooked. that s depression. women suffer from that. fwtwice as much as men do fr depression. one in four women will suffer from severe depression in their lifetime. one in five women actually go get treatment. they take pills or alcohol to dull the pain. exactly. first of all, substance abuse is a risk factor for depression. hormonal changes. when we go through pregnancy, p women will get more liver disease, more at risk for pancreatic cancer,. women are unhappier now than they were 30 years ago. thus we re seeing more and more of this in the world. absolutely. dr. raj, thank you so much for being with us. tomorrow we re going to tell you the five things women should know about personal finance. coming up, stephanie march from law and order: special victims unit. we re going to catch up with her after these messages. in 2000, stephanie march launched the role of ada alexander cabot on law and order: special victims unit. after a stint in the witness protection program, her character returns to the show tonight. i finally claw my way out of appls,nd you guys bring me this cluster. i want the mother s consent. in writing. with witnesses. hello. she got cranky in the witness protection program. she did. how are you? good. thanks for having me. coming in to see us on your day off. we appreciate that. you know what s funny? i used to cover local news. whenever there was an abuse story or rape, we always thought people had trouble watching it. when your show started originally, i thought i wonder if people are going to watch this? it turns out this happens to be the most popular law and order of all. what do you think the magic is? i can t claim to be a part of the magic. we had concerns, too, when the show started. you hope, your desire is to present it without exploiting it. i think the fact that we handled it so sensitively and we had wonderful writers and great actors on the show, it reached an audience that wanted to hear more about it and wanted to learn more about the subject matter and was kind of hungry for more information. it shouldn t have been in the dark as long as it was. do you rip these stories from the headlines as well the way other shows do? absolutely. the truth is stranger than fiction. half the things that they come up with from the real world, the real headlines are things that we could not use on the show because it s so graphic and bizarre. sick. absolutely. yeah. your show continues to build. which is because in this network landscape the ever changing. it is ever changing. ever shifting time slots. why do you think people are still interested in these kind oftories? i think because they re very real human stories. it s such a cliche. they re ripped from the headlines. but they really are. and people want to hear a story. people want to be told a story that they can relate to or that they re curious about. it s just good old-fashioned story telling. i think they sometimes want to see some justice done, too. we hear one horrible story after the next. you just want to hear somebody paid for those crimes. it s cathartic. it is. your character is kind of cranky. s that a good way to describe you? that s more fun to play. i would describe her as slightly less militant than you used to be. but maybe not the life of the party. not the girl with the lamp shape on her head, probably. how long were you in the witness protection program? i m still trying to figure that out. they keep bringing me out, putting me back in. ask the writers. in real life you re a happily married lady. how long have you been married? five years in november. what does mr. wonderful do? he cooks every now and then. he s a short order cook. down the block. he makes breakfast crepes. that s wonderful. he loves the fact you re this movie star, too, not just tv star. what s the movie you re in right now? the invention of lying. the great thing about my life right now is that i can keep my toes in with the law and order world and continue to work on this character i ve been so closely identified with for good or bad or whatever. and i can do comedy and i can do some theater. it s a great situation. it s a good life for you right now. yes. just real quick, your charity, one kid, one world. and i believe you guys ha a link to it on your website. we promote education in third world countries. i had the great privilege to go to kenya a couple of times and work closely with some schools you re seeing here in the photographs. we got to run. thank you. good luck. go and enjoy the rest of your day. thank you very much. > why so many people waited for hours overnight and in the morning to get the swine flu vacination. we will also let you know about the next opportunity to get the vaccine. good morning. i m joe krebs. coming up at news 4 mid day, metro is dealing with a spike in crime. we will run down the most dangerous station. that s like staying home. how about spicing up your travel plans with some wild hotels. editor and chief of budge travel magazine is here with lodging suggestions that will blow your mind. how are you? great. >tell us the appeal. some of these are very wacky, zany hotel suggestions. these days people are really looking for travel experiences that resonate. something to write home about. where you can really make memories that last a lifetime. a real adventure. yeah. these hotels, we have six hotels that really all have stories unto themselves. you really have lasting memories. let s start in berlin where you have a whole bunch of interesting rooms including like an upside down room. this is the propeller island city lodge in the heart of berlin. what is going on here? it s 30 rooms in this 19th century townhouse all designed differently by an artist. this, we re looking at the upsi down room. the bed is actually on the floor. everything else is mounted on the ceiling including the tv, your dresser, your lamps. it s just totally bizarre. don t go if you ve got vertigo. what s this one? this one is the castle room. you sleep in a fort. there s actually this amazing mini golf course that surrounds the bed. it s really fun for kids. this one is a room called disoriented. it s sort of like a fun house. again, not great for the vertigo. don t drink a lot of beer in berlin and go back to that room. floor s on the slant. the bed s from the ceiling. this one s called symbols. it s really meant to activate your imagination. how could you fall asleep? you couldn t sleep there. berlin is supposed to be such a city now in europe. there s tons to do. let s move on to one of our favorites, i m sure. the wine hotel. this is the hotel in the netherlands. it is north of amsterdam. what they ve done is they have four wine casks, oak barrels that they have moved from a swiss lodge look how beautiful that is. those have a particular smell. i ve been in one. i m sure you have. there are these two twin beds. you can actually stand. it s very big. the barrels are big enough that they have held 19,000 bottles of wine in the past. all right. that s fascinating. let s take a dip under the sea. tell us about this place. this place is called the underwater lodge in key largo, florida. you literally scuba to your room. it is a former marine lab. 21 feet under the water. who are these people? you scuba to your room. then they bring down dry clothes and dinner for you. it s this totally amazing experience where you look outside on to barracudas. so you have to be a licensed scuba if you re not, they ll train you for three hours in advance and get you down there. it s really for the adventure. key largo. never heard of it. what else? there s a capsule hotel. where is this? this is a roving hotel. these are former capsules that were attached to oil rigs. if you needed to escape the oil rig you gotnto one of these puppies. like a pod. exactly. they re pods. my husband would hate that. they re dressed up on the inside with sheepskin rugs over hammocks. why would you want to do that? personally, not my favorite thing. to say you did it. it s really bragging rights. are these expensive? that one s really affordable. $75. it should be. some of the other ones are not as affordable. this one s cool. this is for animal lovers. if you love animals you actually have a giraffe that might peek into your room. the giraffe manor in kenya. they might come in and steal your scones. is there a safety issue? there haven t been any issues there in the past. it s so much fun for kids who love animals to begin with. that is crazy. lastly, yousaid this last one sort of defines the word road trip. right. this is a hotel called the exploranter overland hotel. it s a truck. it s sort of how rock stars travel. it sleeps 25. you can actually make a family vacation of it. come on. what s the cool thing? the cool thing is that it takes you into the back country of south america. you can get into the back country of patgonia and see places you couldn t get to otherwise. thank you. you are adorable. excellent. all righty. coming up, how well do you know your halloween movies? kathie lee is going across the street to find out. dean and da l da lieu ka. i m on my way. and we re back with our who knew? quiz show. halloween is just around the corner. we want to test your knowledge of halloween movies. contestants will watch a clip from an iconic halloween movie. kathie lee is across the street at dean & deluca s ready to hand out $100 to whoever gets a question right. the resident movie and pop culture movie at newsweek magazine is here with us. we ve both established we don t like gori movies. this is a young couple. they re in new york. they re from different places. i m not asking anymore questions. johnny depp made his film debut in this 1984 slasher film, the first of eight films about a man who kills teenagers in their dreams. see if you can figure oit out. i know who he is. who? the killer. you do? yes. if he get s me, i m pretty sure you re next. me? why would anybody want to kill me? don t ask. just give me some help nailing the guy when i bring him out. brng him out of what? my dream. what is it? nightmare on elm street. yes, indeed. that s the right answer. they want the cd. i can t believe that was johnny depp for starters. that was johnny depp. it was his very first appearance. freddy kruger also has a middle name. it s charles. and he s on myspace. but i wouldn t friend him. let s go back across. a couple from orlando visiting. this 1973 film about a little girl possessed by a demon was the first horror film to ever be nominated for the best picture academy award. let s look at it. is there someone inside you? sometimes. who is it? i don t know. is it captain howdy? i don t know. if i ask him to tell me, will you let him answer? no. why not? i m afraid. that was to me the scariest one ever. what is the name of that one. exorcist. the mom in that movie, ever actress in hollywood was offered that part. shirley mcclan. audrey hepburn. it went to ellen bersen. she injured her back. she fell on her butt and injured her spine. dealing with the possessed can be dangerous. visiting from wisconsin, ladies, whether you ve seen the 1979 version of this vampire film or not, you probably still know the title character. he s undoubtedly the most famous vampire of all time. let s take a look. look at me. look. who is that guy? who is he? yeah. the name of the character. what s the name of the movie? love at first bite? the three of you are going to have to fight over everyone has a story. here you go. the correct answer there is dracula. yes. not twilight. he decided not to wear fangs. he wanted to look more manlike. it s amazing to look back at these actors. he also played skeletor in the he-man movie. from austin texas, a single panel cartoon published between 38 and 1988 inspired this 1991 movie about an encentric wealthy family where the people find it bizarre and frightening. see if you know it. hello, sweetheart. could you? oh, thank god. welcome, honored guests. entrails? it s like dinner at my house. what do you think? the adams family. yes, indeed. another classic. another classic. based on the new yorker cartoon series. most people don t know the adams family started out as a cartoon in the new yorker. didn t have names. then they became a tv series. then they became a movie. then m.c. hammer recorded a new version of the song for the movie. i remember listening to it in the car. it s a good song. there s snapping. dancing. it s coming to broadway in the spring, by the way, in april. they re visiting from alaska. a 28-year-old vince vaughn as the split personality norman bates. roll the tape. hold on. a girl works for you for ten years, you trust her. it must be some kind of a mystery. i can t check with the bank, no. they never laid eyes on her, no. you sat there while i dumped it out and hardly even looked at it. even flirting with me. this one s kind of hard. it s a remake of an alfred hi h hitchcock one. psycho ? yeah. gus van sant really wanted to do this. this was his big project after good will hunting. he had a seance with alfred hitchcock before he did this movie. thank you so much. we ll be back with more halloween trivia coming up next. kathie lee s coming back across t street. i m all join yoplait in supporting the fight against breast cancer. with your help. .yoplait will donate 10 cents for every pink lid sent in. help us win. we ve been fighting the war against breast cancer. .for over 10 years at yourlidmatters.com. like 2009 h1n1, wash your hands and get your flu shot. regularly disinfect surfaces. and talk to your friends about doing the same. let s help spread protection against flu viruse like 2009 h1n1. ever wonder how cheez-it bakes. so much real cheese in such small bites? baking complete! well, now you know. cheez-it. the big cheese. (to the tune of you know. do your ears hang low? ) does your nose go to the do your side? t wide oes your elbow have a crinkle? do your knees sorta wrinkle? does your chest tend to freckle? do you have crooked smile? do your eyes. .sit wide? do your ears sorta wiggle? does your hair make you giggle? does your neck grow long? do your hips sing a song? do your ears hang low? vodove and walmart. find real beauty for less. we re getting saucy in today s kitchen with jim leahy. every try to bake a loaf of bread and you get a brick instead in no more thanks to chef lahey s new book. he s going to show his his technique for making the absolute perfect loaf. hello, jim. hi. how are you? is there a see rcret to maki the perfect loaf? there are no secrets. it s very, very simple. i ll show you how simple it is. tell us the type of bread we re going to be making. we re going to be making one of the specialty breads from the book which is coconut and chocolate. i love both of these flavors together. basically this is a basic no need method whi knead method. we have our flour. we re going to add a little bit of yeast. we re going to add our salt. stir it together like this, just very, very simply. then we add our liquid. which is water. just water. about a cup? if i remember, it s 280 grams of water. 280 grams. i m a big fan of the metric system. you re alone here. i know, i know, i know. it just makes sense. just tell real people out there. is it a couple o cups? yeah. it s a couple of cups. okay. good. thank you. speak english. until it looks like this. it should look like that. how s that? that s a better way of describing it. if it looks like this it looks like a little pasty. exactly. that s good. then we re going to add some chocolate. dark chocolate. and coconut. that s fresh coconut? i have an alternate recipe where i m probably going to put up online where i use fresh coconut. i prefer it. the dry is fine, too. in these bowls there s supposed to be chunks of chocolate that are hard. chunks of chocolate that are hard. for the sake of television and making everything seem beautiful, which is what you want to do on tv why are we here? because we are beautiful. we basically put these into a proofer. which is a mistake. what s a proofer? we kind of got them warm. melted. okay. tell us what to do. this is very, very thick. gloppy. when it ferments it s going to look what like this. put it aside for how long? let it sit and ferment for anywhere from 12 to 18 hours. if you live in michigan or wisconsin or one of these northern brutally cold states, it can go as long as 24 hours. the dough is a very small piece of dough. it doesn t have the abily to kind of insulate itself. you re talking too much. chop, chop. let s go. let s make it. put a little bit of flour on the work surface. yep. she s got to wear that tonight. try to remove this this might actually hold on. you need to back away. i m not over it. this is the moment. you know the tv moment we were going to have. i think it s adorable. hey, look. you said you like chocolate. you don t even get that i m over her. get in line. this is a mess. who knows? it might actually come out better. you have 30 seconds. take the dough. we re going to fold it over very simply like this. this is a disaster. should we go taste it? come on. let s eat it. quick, quick! is this it? this is the dough we re going to be putting into the oven. should we just eat it? that one, yeah, it s delicious. this is the cooked thing. we made a mini loaf. jim, thank you. we got to go. you re very, very welcome. that was awesome. we ll be back. first, this is today on nbc. sonny s with us ready for matinee wednesday. trying out the bread. an italian cook. is it good? mmm. tomorrow we re going to show you really great, fabulous halloween costumes for your whole family. captions by vitac www.vitac.com