Transcripts For WRC Today 20091115 : vimarsana.com

home or your dogs. and if you re going out to redskins at fedex field, sunshine and 65 degrees at kickoff. all right, and that does it for us. have a great day. good morning. going rogue sarah palin s new book is at the center of a new political storm reigniting disputes over the fight for president and top mccain aides are fighting back. rescue at sea. a dramatic rescue after a couple heading for hawaii hits the perfect storm. they were rescued in the nick of time and in a today exclusive we ll find out how. man s best frienhome from war and greeting of a lifetime caught on tape. we ll meet that service man and his loyal dog and ask how this video went viral. today, sunday, november 15, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning, everyone. welcome to today on it this sunday morning. i m lester holt. i m jenna wolfe. i have not been able to get your attention all morning because you are knee deep in a book that doesn t come out until tuesday. we have a copy of going rogue. sarah palin s book. interesting book. one of the headlines in here is that she goes after a lot of the mccain campaign staffers for controlling her, what she should wear, even what she should eat. mccain cpaign folks this morning are firing back saying a lot this is bunk. we ll get into that coming up and more of what s in the book. we re also covering the story of that dramatic rescue that broke overnight. a couple nearly lost at sea. forced to abandon their boat in the pacific ocean after hitting a storm. crazy story in that one. terrifying. we ll hear from the woman who survived that horrifying chimp attack nine months ago. doctors didn t expect her to make it. now she speaking out about what happened and how she finds the strength to keep going. charla nash spoke with meredith vieira this weekend and we ll have a preview of that interview coming up. he left his heart in san francisco but tony bennett hasn t forgot his old neighborhood of queens. i tagged along as he went back to high school. he ll show us what s it s about coming up. how was that? he s just a matter. i love his music. loved meeting him. got to spend quality time with him. did he let you sing? not sing. neither do we. but the fun thing is how the kids all related to him. he s like a rock star. he transcended generations. he talks about that. he s n about demographics. don t sing fuor us and you l be set. sarah palin s new book making a lot of waves and it s not even out yet. mike viqueira got a copy and takes a look at what s inside. reporter: inside going rogue s 413 pages, palin describes the moment when she first learned that she was john mccain s surprise pick for the gop ticket. it didn t come as a huge shock, she writes. i certainly didn t think, well, of course this would happen but neither did i think what an astonishing idea. eventually palin says shed had a rude awakening to national politics. tensions with the mccain staff that left her shocked and angry. on page 233 she describes you she was caught unaware when the news of her teenage daughter s pregnancy was announced on television. i thoug on page 285 palin describes her reaction when told the campaign was lagging in the polls. part of the solution was getting palin a nutritionalist. now you re going to tell me what to eat. on page 315 palin explodes with resentment after her family s $150,000 bill for new clothes was leaked. my family was made to look like a heard of hillbillies. on wednesday palin begins a bus trip through nine states, many expected to be presidential battlegrounds in 2012. she is also scheduled high profile interviews and is on the cover of newsweek. it may look like she s preparing for a presidential run, many are not so sure. given the move that she s done, i don t believe she s eyeing 2012 as much as being a leader in the conservative movement. reporter: for now palin s approval rating remains low. she represents a brand of partisanship that while very pular with her base, is not popular with the larger body politic politic in this country. i m proud of the campaign we ran. i m proud o sarah palin. we continue to have a great and wonderful relationship. reporter: mccain is looking forward but inside the pages of going rogue, palin spends time looking back. for today, mike viqueira, nbc news, washington. we re joined by david gregory. good to see you this morning. she does go after the mccain campaign for the way she was handled. the campaign manager said today it s all fiction. but aren t we sort of owed some explanation as to where she was in those weeks that she wasn t appearing in interviews with the press? look, i think a lot of this underscores how risky this decision was by john mccain to put her on the ticket. they were going for a big splash. they got it. they gott at the republican convention. they got energy in the base. they also got a lot of headaches with sarah palin and in the end she proved to be a liability. if you look at the exit polling where 60% didn t think she could be qualified to be president. that was a drag at the very time when they were trying to make obama s lack of experience an issue. and then you have all of this sort of playing itself out. you know, yes, to directly answer your question, there are probably going to be a lot of people who want to know what that internal dynamic was like and where she was at various periods of time. they were clearly trying to manage her all along the way to try to, you know, to contain her in some ways but use her for the energy she provided on the campaign trail. there was a prominent member on the campaign trail, hillary clinton. did this come up? she s not committing to reading the book but watch the exchange and hear what she says about getting together with her. before i let you go, when i get a chance to talk to you, i ask you about politics. i m out of politics, david. you may not have heard but sarah palin has a new book out. in it she writes this. should secretary clinton and i ever sit down over a cup of coffee, i know that he would fundamentally disagree on many issues but my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail. is this somebody you would like to sit and have coffee with and do you plan to read the book? absolutely would look forward to having coffee. i never met her. i think it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her and i ve got more than i could say greats to read but there will be a lot of attention paid to her book and i m sure i ll see snippets of interviews as i channel surf in singapore and in shanghai and in beijing. you know, i m ready to have a cup of coffee and maybe i can make a case on some of the issues that we disagree on. there you go. maybe there will be a big summit here down the road. i never read the whole book. the bits i read is about the campaign but also a lot of things that personalize her and give you insight into her family and values and how they operate. you can t read this book without wondering is part of this image repair in preparation for another run perhaps for president. what s the thought down in d.c.? it s an obvious question. republicans i talk to say that s not what they expect for a couple of reasons. one, they still think she s not doing the kind of work you would be doing if you were going to try to overcome some of the obstacles like the exit poll i mentioned. people feeling she s not up to that job. other work you would do to lay groundwork. i should point out republicans think her influence is overstated. on the other hand she has name recognition. she s a very popular person within the republican party, a compelling figure more generally if you look at the people buying her book. and she can build on that in terms of tapping into that energy and i think the real question, lester, is whether she represents a leading edge to conservatives as we go into the midterm election and then ultimately 2012. david gregory, good to talk to you. thanks very much. let s get more on this morning s headlines from cnbc s melissa francis at the news desk. we begin with president obama who conditions his eight-day trip through asia. earlier today the president met with russian leader. they met to discuss a nucle ams reduction treaty. this was the fourth meeting between the two leaders this year. scary moments above a flight last night that forced an emergency landing. the plane was headed to denver when it struck a flock of birds. we go live to the airport where the plane landed. liz, good morning. reporter: good morning. you know, it was very, very tense here. things have calme down. all the frontier flights are on schedule. about 7:30 was a very frightening experience for folks. it happened just after takeoff. a frontier plane that was headed to denver had to make an emergency landing after hitting a flock of birds. passengers in the plane say that it shook and filled up with smoke. we spoke with one passenger about his experience. the plane immediately started going down to the right like that. and i think everybody in the plane thought we were going down. reporter: now, 129 of all of those passengers are all safe right now. they have not confirmed what kind of birds these are but i have to tell new this area there is a very large canadian geese population and they have had some issues with trying to keep them off the runway. back to you. terrifying. thank you so much from kshb in kansas city. new developments in morning in the case of shaniya davis, the missing 5-year-old north carolina girl. on saturday police arrested the girl s mother. she s been charged with human trafficking d felony child abuse. they still do not know have shaniya is. a prison 150 miles northwest of chicago is being looked at to hold inmates from allegheny bay. illinois governor pat quinn hinted at new plans for the prison. bruce springsteen is on tour opening his show to major crowds on friday night. the problem is they were in michigan. continued saying ohio a few more times in the show until the bandmates whispered in his year. there s one thing to mess up if you re in ohio and you say new york by mistake. when you mix up ohio and michigan. there s rivalry there. those fans were, like, thank you, bon jovi. they ll forgive him. he s the boss. janice huff is here with a check of the weather. we ll throw it to t a good sunday morning. temperatures outside, 40s in the western suburbs and 50 near downtown. mid-50s in the suburbs of maryland. and the sun is shining. it s going to be a beautiful day today. temperatures up near 70 degrees later on this now to a drama that played out in the pacific ocean over the last several days. a couple setting off from san francisco in a small boat heading fo honolulu ran into bad weather and some big trouble. in a today exclusive, christopher and brandy join us by phone to tell us about the ordeal. good morning to both of you. good morning. we understand you have been through quite a harrowing ordeal in the last couple of days. chris, you and brandy take off from san francisco. you boht the pacific star. you went to honolulu to start your commercial fishing business and the weather turns terribly bad. tell me what happens after that. all of the factors adding up basically with the storm we had to turn around and start heading away from honolulu. to safely navigate the storm and with our vessel we only had so much fuel. it was critical. we had some reserve but it was just critical the timing and how much fuel we had aboard. with turning into the storm and fighting it for a day and knowing the forecast, we would have to continue on that course for a few more days leading us back into the middle of the pacific. the risk factors just added up. it was just safe to get assistance. i know that you sent out this distress signal and all you could do is wait. what went through your mind as you sat there and waited in the middle of the pacific ocean and waited for help? everything. everything goes through your mind. i understand the weather was getting much, much worse. at some point you finally do see a cruise ship heading your way. could you remember the thought process there the minute you both laid eyes on help that was coming towards you? i do, yes. you know, the safest place is always aboard your vessel. getting into the water or doing a vessel exchange or rescue operation has its hazards in itself. so up until the very last minute i m constantly thinking do we really need can we tell them to go under way and we re okay and we ll make it or, you know, just to carry through. you actually did get t help from the cruise ship. we should mention. it wasn t just the two of you. your two dogs were with you. i understand the two dogs were well taken care of when you got out of the ocean where you were there for a while and got on this cruise ship. the two dogs were pretty much the big heros in this one. yes, they were. you know, they were the recognizable figures aboard. we would take the dogs for a walk and what not and they were pampered and all of the guests would go these are the dogs and are you the people? by the way, exactly. we re so glad you guys are okay. we appreciate you joiningmornin. thank you. we ll be right back after this. if you think all batteries are the same. consider this: these duracell batteries were given. to the mattel children s hospital, u.c.l.a. because when it comes to kids and healing. you re not just powering a toy. you re powering a smile. duracell. trusted everywhere. flu are not reassuring. child deaths up 35 in one week according to the cdc. 540 children are infect einfect. we understand the peak perhaps has been seen in h1n1. should we take that as good news in that the worst is over? i m not sure that s the case. we have to be careful when dealing with any flu particularly a pandemic influenza. you have to be careful. it s unpredictable. that s one oth issues we faced. it could go up and come down. that would be the peak or it could peak and gradually come wn or peak, come down and then have a second wave as we get into the middle and end of the winter. right now we can t make anything out of this little bit of an indication that we may have hit a peak. it s very, very dangerous to do that. every te you re on i ask you the same question. where s the vaccine. we were supposed to have 200 million doses at this point. it s on the order of about 43 million that have been delivered so far. is it still this issue with trying to grow this virus in the laboratory? that s still the underlying problem that s really causing all of the difficulties of this gap between supply and demand. we re closing that gap gradually. things were much worse a few weeks ago when it was much less than we anticipated. as the gap closes slowly but surely we ll see an alevation of that stress. there is a gap between supply and demand but it s getting better. knowing at this moment that we re at a peak, should some of us stand back and not worry about the vaccine? i wouldn t say not worry about it. you should certainly if you fall within the group of people who are recommended to get vaccinated continue to try to get the vaccine. a healthy adult with none of the risks not in the priority group certainly should not be trying to get in front of someone or even the people administering it should not vaccinate those people. young children, pregnant women and people with underlying conditions to get vaccinated. hopefully as vaccine comes in more and more and that gap closes, then people who are in the next tier could get vaccinated. it s not too late. some people ask that question if it s going peak, should we forget about getting vaccinated. absolutely not. there will be a lot more flu out there and people will benefit from the vaccine when it becomes available to them. we appreciate your willingness to come on and answer our questions. thank you very much. we ll take a break and be back with more after these messages. - pie. - apple or cherry? cherry. oil or cream? oil or cream? cream. please. when other toppings are made with hydrogenated oil, the real dairy cream in reddi-wip s sure an easy choice. nothing s more real than reddi-wip. fork or. spoon? still to come, doctors did not think she would make it but charla nash survived a horrifying chimpanzee attack. we ll get a preview of meredith vieira s conversation coming up. we ll meet the family live and find out more about a magic moment after these messages. the house. ll h whoa! that s grandma! nothing was stirring, - not karah, t maya. - how did she do that? magic. grandma loves you. girls: good night, grandma. be there to read them a story every night. read to me again. new recordable storybooks, only at your hallmark gold crown store. one of many ways to nd meaning inside. baby back, baby back, baby back your favorite baby back ribs just got en better, slow-smoked in house for hours over pecan wood chips to create a sweeter, smoky flavor and fall-off-the-bone tenderness. then they re triple-basted in one of our three delicious flavors chili s new better-than-ever baby back ribs, part of our three courses, two people $20 deal. or you can share an appetizer, choose two entrees, and share a dessert. i want new baby back ribs for a limited time, only at chili s. (announcer) in america we don t just dream when we sleep. we dream twenty-four seven. we dream with our sleeves rolled up. our dreams are expressed in digits. they re made of steel. add those dreams up, that s free enterprise. growing our economy for the long-run. it s what weeed to grow 20 million new jobs in the next 10 years. your dreams make the difference. american free enterprise. it s you. so dream big. 8:26 is your time and 50 degrees. do not adjusts your screens, the sunshine is out over the nation s capitol. it s sunday november 15th, 2009, and here is what is making news this morning. d.c. mayor is expressing anger over the killing of a 9-year-old boy. he was killed in his own apartment. somebody opened fire in the holiday and at least one of the bullets threw through the door and struck the boy. he died at the hospital. police in montgomery county need your help finding a man that attacked a woman last night. and investigators say the man followed a woman as she walked to her apartment and forced her in woods. she was able to fight him off but suffered injures. and obama wants the government to rule the rails. the white house is expected to have agency to oversee the trail. and changes need to be made. we are going to take a break and chuck will be back with you. stay with us. let s check a check on the forecast now with meteorologist, chuck bell. chuck, we finally have sun? absolutely. finally. we have waited for the sunshine for days and days and days and now it s back across the area. for you folks looking out your window at thick fog this morning that won t last too much longer. and make your outdoor plans without fear or hesitation today. 46 degrees in frederick, maryland, right now. and 43 in manassas. 51, downtown. and 51 degrees in prince georges county. and then it will be a nice day today. the fog around this morning, temperatures will be climbing up in the mid-60s by noontime and 70 degrees for a high temperature today. certainly will be nice weather. highs tomorrow into the mid-60s, and sunny weather for sunday, monday and tuesday and wednesday. the next chance for rain rolls in on thursday until late in the day on friday. back over to you. coming up at 9:00, a full hour of your news weather and sports, and this week s edition of kids post, and we hope to see you then. back on this sunday morning. it s november 15th, 2009. we ve got a great crowd out here on the plaza, am i right? i m jenna wolfe along with lester holt. the woman who survived that terrible chimp attack nine months ago remarkable woman. we re hearing from her for the first time. charla nash sat down with our own meredith vieira for a conversation. we ll preview that. she ll talk about what she remembers of that horrible attack coming up. we brought you this video yesterday. talking about a video going viral. a service member home from war that received a greeting of a lifetime from his dog. the video had hundreds of thousands of hits. we ll find out how the video became the youtube sensation. that dog was beside herself screaming at joy at the sight of him walking through the door. tony bennett is now going back to school. he s going to show us the school that he and his wife co-founded in queens, new york, and the special mission they re on. can t wait to see this. first, a check of the top stories withelissa francis. president obama met earlier today with russian president dmitry medvedev. chuck todd is in singapore traveling with the president. good morning. reporter: good sunday from singapore. as often is the case at international summit, it sed side bar meeting where presidents gets the most waork done. that s what happened on sunday. the two talked about a nuclear arms reduction treaty, a new start. the current agreement expires december 5th. the two countries have been negotiating l year to get something in place by that time. unlike they ll meet the december 5th deadline, they believe they ll get an agreement by the end of the year but not in time to get the treaty actually ratified out of the united states senate. on the issue of iran, both presidents express disappointment that iran hasn t taken the deal that s on the table when it comes to what to do with their own nuclear fuel. and president obama said time was running out. the two apparently behind the scenes did talk about what sanctions against iran might look like and finally on the issue of climate change, the leaders from the copenhagen summit take police station next summer, briefed these asian pacific leaders and admitted in public that nothing concrete is going to come out of that copenhagen climate summit. at best they ll agree to talk about having an actual agreement sometime in 2010. melissa? all right. chuck todd, thank you. the president is urging congress to hold off on any hearing into the ft. hood shooting until after a federal law enforcement have completed their investigation. this comes as 6 of 13 victims were laid to rest on saturday including a funeral held in california. in wisconsin, family and friends of staff sergeant amy krueger filled a gym naz yum to pay their respects. a place cooker for the austin college kangaroos on texas. on saturday the coach put him in the game for the first time this season. he made the extra point but despite thompson s best efforts, the austin kangaroos lost the game 44-10. that s a check of the news. let s head back outside to jenna who i m sure could make that kick i have no doubt. hands down. i probably could have done it with these on, too. my foot is freezing. i ll put it back on. let s get another check of the weather with janice huff. christmas has come to rockefeller plaza. look at the ladies all dressed in red and gen in the shirts from high hometown of columbia, south carolina. you and i graduated from eau claire high school. you re a janice, too. i am. all of these ladies are from the area of columbia. i love the hats. this is the new official south carolina christmas tree. it s not the same as the tree on the plaza but it s good. thank you so much, ladies. let s check the weather and see what s happening around the country today. we have rain and snow across the central portion of the u.s. from kansas into oklahoma and missouri it s rain and then back to the west it s heavy snow over colorado. they expect 7 to 12 inches of snow on the ground in denver they got about 4 a good sunday morning on news4 miles per hour meteorologist, chuck bell. it s off to a bright and sunny start in washington on this sunday morning. 51 degrees in national right now, and 51 degrees in prince georges county. it s in the low to mid 40s in the western suburbs. and a little fog still left out there that is burning away quickly. a sunny tonight we have football night in america here on nbc. we re taking you to indianapolis. the stadium is a dome so you don t have to worry about the weather but if you re tailgating, there will be patchy showers with temperatures 52 at the start of the game dropping into the 40s later on in the evening. and now we ll go back inside to lester. thank you very much. the victim of the violent chimp attack nine months ago is speaking out this weekend with a new interview. jeff rossen is here this morning. this is not an easy story to watch. this is a remarkable woman. very, very brave. it was a brutal attack. you ll see how severe these injuries were. the chimp mauled her out of the blue last winter and she s been in the hospital ever since. at first doctors didn t even think she would live. this morning in an exclusive any interview you ll see that charla nash is defying all odds and we should warn you, her facial injuries are so severe, the images are graphic. this violent mother now wears a veil to avoid scaring people. the doctors have said the one thing you haven t wanted to talk about is the extent of your injuries and certainly don t want to be reminded of what happened on february 16th. it s not something you want to know. right. i don t want it to bring back like nightmares and stuff. i just want to leave it with getting healthy and strong and go forward. reporter: the attack was as violent as it gets. what s the problem? he s killing my friend. who s killing your friend? my chimpanzee. hurry up, please. repter: travis the chimp took off charla s lips, nose, mouth, ears and hands. since the attack, she s interviewed her brothers and her 17-year-old daughter. she s kind of my best friend. reporter: she sees her mom often but charla cannot see her. doctors had to remove her eyes all because travis the chimp snapped. you save his dwings like would you a child s drawings. that s right. i put them on the refrigerator for him. reporter: that s the chimp s owner, sandra herold. he couldn t have been more my son than if i gave birth to him. reporter: after what you ve been thrgh with this, your friend is in the hospital fighting for her life, you still think chimps should be pets? would i have done it again, yes. reporter: charlie s family is suing herold and the city saying officials missed the warning signs. animal experts say chimps shouldn t be pets. this is whatan happen. they re the closest thing to us. they are dna. we can give them blood transfusion. thy can give us one. how many people go crazy and kill other people. this is one incident that i don t know what happened. did you ever talk to sandra about that saying i m scared of this chimp? i always told her i was afraid. he was big. he was like a gorilla. reporter: charla says she s not angry. this weekend meredith spoke with charla s medical team that put her back together and said charla is one of a kind and her will to live actually ended up saving her life just that bravery. jeff rossen, thank you very much. we ll let folks know meredith s exclusive interview with charla nash airs tomorrow here on today. up next this morning, a youtube sensation. yesterday we showed you a service member coming home from war and one very happy dog. this morning we ll meet the west virginia airman, his familynd his loyal dog, gracey, live. and it s loaded with over five-thousand dollars in savings! eighty pages, bursting with over a thousand of the newest, hottest toys. there s lots of exclusive toys, your kids want. and tons of great deals, you gotta have! amazing deals you won t find anywhere else. .plus all of the coolest new video games and gear! we ve got the perfect gifts so you can make your ultimate wish- list! toys r us.where kids are a big deal. ™ my son s got all that and he s on his first date. well, when he feels the instacool sensation, he ll know that pepto s about to kick in. honey, do you feel. the instacool sensation yes, mom. thank you, mrs. wagner. [ male announcer ] new pepto-bismol chewables with instacool. a little while ago a thought popped into my head. i don t want to worry about my computer freezing or crashing. i decided to tell microsoft about it. and suddenly, windows 7. i don t know how they did it but i have lots of stuff going on right now and, do i look worried? it s great. i told them to improve something and they did. i wonder what else i should tell them? maybe to pay my rent? i m a pc. (pointing to self) windows 7, my idea. i learned a new sign. merry christmas. male announcer: save on all bulova watches. one more reason kay is the number one jewelry store in america. do you like it? because we believe that ideas are limitless. that s why, everyday at ge, thousands of scientists and researchers at our global research centers and throughout the company are redefining what s possible by creating the advanced technologies that create jobs. the american renewal is happening right now. i told you. this joyful reunion happened in 2005 when then lieutenant andrew schmidt returned from a tour in afghanistan and his dog gracey couldn t believe her eyes. during the last several days the video has become a youtube sensation. joining us is the schmidt family. and of course weave gracey. hi, guys. good morning. good morning. andy, let me start with you. you knew that you missed gracey while you were in afghanistan for five months. did you have any idea what gracey s reaction would be to when you you got home? well, we re really close. dogs get to be like your kids. the truth is i missed all of my family and when i got off that plane i was home a little bit and then when i got to drive down the street and look out the window i was home a littl bit more. i knew when that door opened and she came running out, i felt like i was really at home. i felt like that was the homecoming. the family was back together. i definitely i didn t know how she would react but i know that i missed her. jen, let me ask you this. you actually filmed this little reunion. you knew it would be a special moment. you told your husband to wait outside. you went outside and let the dog out. did you have any idea it would be that emotional though? no, i didn t. i didn t actually know how she was going react. sometimes if we go away she actually pouts and hides from us. the fact she ran out and jumped into his lap made it even better. jen, they say that when a parent is enlisted in war, it s usually hardest on the children. at the time you guys didn t have any kids. could you tell that gracey missed andy while he was away? yes. she was like our child before we had anthony. as you pet owners know, they are your kids. she level missed him. she as a way of acting out to me sometimes. she doesn t listen and things like that. she really missed him a lot. you can tell. when he came home she was much happier. they say when military people deploy go ahead. i m sorry. go ahead. they say when military people deploy sometimes what happens is the children actually lash out and maybe they get in trouble at school if they never have before and it s funny. she was a little disobedient after i left. they really do act like kids. they really are kids to you. just a part of the family. we certainly can t get enough of watching this video. andy schmidt, good luck to yo you are heading back out to the afghanistan with the air national guard unit this spring. jen, little anthony and of course gracey, thank you all for being with us. take care. thank you very much. we ll be right back after this. now your chase card let s you make your own payment plan for what you charge. introducing blueprint. blueprint s free and exclusively for chase customers. for a big purchase, there s split. it lets you decide how much. or how many months you want to pay. so you can be comfortable managing all of your large purchases. if having a plan matters, chase what matters. create your own blueprint at chase.com/blueprint. don t throw anything at the tv set. it s getting very close to holiday season. it s approaching. that means holiday parties and a lot of party food. from bowls of chips to trays of finger food, it s hard to tell what s the right thing to eat and what s not so right. here to help us this morning is susan. good morning. you are going to test our buffet navigating skills. we ll go from healthy to least healthy. we ll play a game. go from best to worst. that s listed over here. justi you have 30 seconds. go. you re not even done yet. you like salmon or shrimp? shrimp without the cocktail is healthy. did you hear a buzzer? there was a buzzer. it s over. all right. i heard the buzzer. we have them here. this is the worst. for worst i had meatballs. i had spinach artichoke dip. let s see who is right. give a lift to that. this is the worst? uh-huh. i had that as number three. spinach and artichoke. healthy but full of cheese and fat. that s the worst especially if you have it with bread or crackers. not great. and pigs in a blanket. delicious. you can t sing the praises. hot dog and pastry. avoid those. anything in pastry. even fruit or vegetable, it s fattening. you have to watch yourself. good to know. doesn t necessarily matter what s stuffed in there. no. usually fruits and vegetables and fatty. this is helpful. these are things we ll be seeing. this is middle of the road. we ll start with this. okay just not in great qualities. heart healthy. will you eat just a healthy portion? meatballs especially if they are turkey, they re fine to go. they re really good to go. i m so tempted as we go here. portion control. stuffed mushrooms. again, you are talking filled with cheese. just go easy on them. mushrooms themselves aren t bad. when they get filled and you eat 12 of them. how could this be middle of the road. unidentified object wrapped in bacon is a water chestnut or chicken liver or date or something and it s half a piece of bacon. i would have put that down there. it s not that much bacon and not unhealthy inside. don t eat a dozen. these are healthier options. this in great quantity. that looks appetizing. salmon. be careful because sometimes there s sour cream under it. you can try one. you are so tempted. shrimp cocktail is safe and healthy. that with a spritz of lemon or a little cocktail sauce. that will not kill you and vegetables. not a surprise. there was spinach and artichokes at the other end you said i couldn t have. this is clean. this is great stuff. protein and filling. great. this is a very good guide. very useful in weeks to come. it thank you so much. coming up next. famous for his voice but now helping a new generation of artist generate a deeper appreciation for the arts. this year the frank sinatra high school of the arts, a new york city public school, moved into its first permanent home. the 8 year old institution was the dream of tony and his wife who convinced private donors to fund it. i said let s put this school in my favorite city in the world. reporter: the same part of queens tony bennett grew up in. as for the sinatra name he was my best friend. he changed my fe. he said i was his favorite singer. all his fans came over and visited me. i ve been sold out ever since. reporter: the movie fame was inspired by the city s better known performing arts school but bennett refers to sinatra high as the anti-fame school. we produce powerful artists. i would run into people like burns and they say it takes six years before you know what you re doing. we were able to work it from the ground up so we could work with tony about his vision artistically my vision academically and really create the school we wanted. reporter: kids here get to embrace their passions. each majors in one of the arts and a lot more. you have to balance academics and performing arts so we have three performing arts classes a day plus academics so it s a lot to handle. reporter: a recent open house drew 1,200 interested students. we audition for six days in the fall. those students who come in go through a lengthy audition process and then we look at their academics to see if they re really able to succeed here. reporter: tony bennett is himself a product of an arts school and in addition to singing, he s an accomplished painter. and his amazing career represents a lesson he hopes these young students will some day learn for themselves. being an artist you fall in love with life and with nature and you realize what a gift we have to just be alive. any of us who did performing or music in school, how would you love to go to that school? he was so happy. so cute how the kids are like this guy is a rock star. they loved him. love that. now we re going to get a check of what s coming up on meet the press with moderator david gregory. coming up this morning, secretary of state hillary clinton joins us to discuss the foreign policy challenges facing the administration while she weighs in on sarah palin and her new book. don t miss that. a special discussion about america s failing public schools. we have education secretary arne duncan, newt gingrich and the reverend al sharpton touring the country finding out what schools need. that s all this morning on meet the press. our thanks to janice huff and michelle francis for being with us this weekend. holiday time. next weekend, finding the with best holiday deals. see you back tonight for nbc nightly news. so long, everybody. captions by vitac www.vitac.com a victim of violence. a 9-year-old boy shot to death in his own home. how gun fire took a life when d.c. police were out in full force. watching the rails, the new government steps they want to take to make sure you are safe. chuck bell seeing when all the rain moves out leaving a brighter day ahead. good morning, everybody. i am eun yang, and welcome to news4 today at 9:00. a look at all the day s top