Transcripts For WRC Today 20091119 : vimarsana.com

day. hope you join us tomorrow morning. we begin at 4:55 a.m. the today show starts right now. bye. good morning. nevermind? the nation s top health official tells women to keep doing what they re doing, despite those new recommendations about breast cancer screenings, but is health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius only adding to e confusion? this morning we ll hear from her. strike three? police say the florida woman accused of trying to hire a hit man to murder her husband tried to kill him twice before. this morning, new, undercover videos and an exclusive, live interview with the woman s soon-to-be ex-husband. and twiligh time. new moon hits theaters at midnight to the delight of twi-hards young and old, who wait made it line for days. and the star of the show, robert pattinson, is here with us live, thursday, november 19th, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this thursday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. i think that secretary kathleen sebelius was trying to clear up some of the confusion that s been created by theseew breast cancer screening guidelines. i m not sure she accomplished that, because a lot of women are still shaking their heads, wondering what do i do. a lot of women are more confused. sebelius says women should make the decision that is right for them, even if that means being screened starting at age 40. so, is she throwing the panel of experts who made those new recommendations under the bus? we re going to hear directly from her, straight ahead. also ahead, where should one of the world s most notorious alleged terrorists, khalid shaikh mohammed, be tried? attorney general eric holder says it should happen in a courtroom in new york city, saying he has faith in the american people and american prosecutors. but the man who was mayor of new york city on 9/11 says, no, this should be held in a military court, a military trial. rudolph giuliani will join us in a moment to tell us why. plus, today investigates the deadly trend among teens and tweens known as huffing, inhaling household products like cooking spray or compressed air. wait until you see the results of our hidden camera investigation using one boy who was just 9 years old. but we re going to begin with new controversy over those controversial breast cancer screening guidelines. on wednesday, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius released a statement telling women to keep doing what you have been doing for years talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions and make the decision that is right for you. a short time later, sebelius talked to ann curry, and ann asked her if she was advising people to ignore the new recommendations. i m telling women to take a look at the recommendations of the panel, which are, you know, looking globally at tens of thousands of cases, but then take that information and have a conversation with your doctor. are you saying that women should still consider having mammograms beginning at age 40? absolutely, based on their heal history and their physician s recommendation. some people are saying that your response to the panel s recommendations are essentially throwing this panel under the bus. your reaction to that? they routinely update various recommendations. the last time they updated guidelines dealing with breast cancer was 2002. they ll continue to do this, but they make recommendations lookinat a global set of data. what is important then is to take those recommendations and put them in a real health care setting with real patients, and every patient is different, every woman is different. and let s bring in nbc s chief medical editor, dr. nancy snyderman. good morning to you. hi, meredith. i felt like the secretary did not directly answer ann s question, so let me ask you directly, was the task force thrown under a bus? yes. these are independent researchers, doctors, scientists from across the country who have been appointed with the task of lookathe hard science, then giving the government and industry recommendations, and they did that on monday. what we as a population were unwilling to accept, which has become very apparent over the last 48 hours, is we didn t like the message, that message being that mammography screening for women in that 40th between 40 and 49, is not necessarily cost-effective. i want to say, the scientists didn t even look at the cost. they said you know, the yield is not very good, it s not a good screening tool. and when she said yesterday, the message is simple we know it wasn t just keep doing what you ve been doing, that s not what the recommendations were. so yes, i believe she was throwing them under the bus. do you think she was unduly influenced by the emotion of the moment or the politics behind it? a lot of people on the republican side are sang, see, this is the slippery slope we talk about. th is rationing starting. we d be foolish not to use the word rationing, but the question is, is it smart rationing? should we spend money and do the right screening tests? but rationing wasn t part of the original task force. it was to advise people about guidelines. this is a task force that has advised this government in the past. it has advised on mammography, prostate cancer screening, lung cancer screening, bladder, even when to do genetic testing for breast cancer. but we know that, as you and i have talked about over the last 48 hours, emotion, antidote, lobbying, advocacy groups, doct and patients have all weighed in, and i think what you ve seen is a political reversal. but you can t get away from the fact that a lot of women believe that, you know, that they were save ed because of a mammogram. i recognize that. and if it s one woman out of 1,900 that s saved, every woman will say, that might be me. i understand that, too. and this is the role of scientists, to take the emotion out of the science and to look at the science. that was their charge. they are supposed to look at the hard numbers and then give recommendations back. antidotes matter, but so does hard science, and that was their mandate. well, i think what matt said earlier is true. i think women are as confused as they ve ever been by this. yes. i think kathleen sebelius helped unroll that confusion message straight forward into today. dr. nancy, thank you so much. you bet. matt? now let s talk about the controversial plan to put accused 9/11 plotters on trial right here in new york city. we re going to talk to rudolph giuliani, of course, the man who was the mayor of new york on the day of the attacks, in just a moment. but first, nbc s justice correspondent pete williams has the latest. reporter: attorney general eric holder told congress that his plan to put the accused 9/11 plotters on trial in federal court in new york brings the best chance of getting a conviction. failure is not an option. failure is not an option. these are cases that have to be won. i don t expect that we will hav a contrary result. reporter: but he was asked at a senate hearing, how could anyone be certain of a trial s outcome, given recent history? i think a lot of americans thought o.j. simpson ought to be convicted of murder rather than being in jail for what he s in jail for now. it seemed to me ludicrous. you know, i m a farmer, not a lawyer, but i just want to make that observation. reporter: and another republican said trying the accused 9/11 plotters before military commissions would be better, given that the alleged mastermind already tried to plead guilty befor a military hearing at guantanamo. how could you be more likely to get a conviction in federal court when khalid shaikh mohammed has already asked to plead guilty before a military commission and be executed? i don t know what khalid shaikh mohammed wants to do now, and i m not going to base the determination on where these cases should be brought on what a terrorist, what a murderer wants to do. he will not select the prosecution venue. i will select it and i have. reporter: and holder responded to republicans who say he s treating the 9/11 attacks like a crime, not an act of war. we are at war and we will use every instrument of national powe civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others, to win. reporter: but john ashcroft, who was attorney general on 9/11, tells nbc news that the trial decision is a sign that the obama administration sees countering terrorism as crime-fighting, not as a war. that may be a new level of repudiation of the war on terror, not only to say that we re not at war now, which i believe we are, but it might be saying that there never was a war on terror, these were just criminal acts to begin with. reporter: and he said a new york trial will bring additional trauma to the city and the strain of added security, estimated to cost more than $75 million. as for when the detainees will come tohe u.s. for trial, justice department officials say early next year. for today, pete williams, nbc news, washington. pete williams, thank you very much. rudolph giuliani was the mayor of new york city on 9/11. he s also a former federal prosecutor. rudy, good morning. good to see you. good morning, matt. very nice to see you, too. thank you. you ve been outspoken in the last couple days, your distaste for this idea of trying someone like khalid shaikh mohammed in a new york city courtroom. i know you ve got a fairly long list of objections. give me your biggest concern. not necessary. if there s a military tribunal, which there now is, and there s a place to try him in a military tribunal and you re going to try others in the military tribunal, there s no reason to put new york through this needless situation or give him these additional benefits. if the president had come to the conclusion that military tribunals were impermissible and we had no choice but to try in new york, i d be the first in favor of it and say new york could handle it, even though it would pose an additional burden, additional risk. in this particular case, there is a choice, and i don t know if you have these military tribunals who they re for if not for khalid shaikh mohammed. when you talk about putting new york through this obviously, you re referring to possible security problems the mayor of new york right now, mike bloomberg, says we can hale it. the police commissioner, ray kelly, says he can keep the people of new york state before and during a trial. i agree, they will keep new york city safe, but i m sure they would also tl you it s an additional burden, and the point is, it s unnecessary. by additional burden, i mean tens of millions of dollars of additional burden. i was the mayor when the justice department decided to bring the south african terrorist to trial in 97, 98, 99. i had to close down the streets around the courthouse, close down the streets around the stock exchange, then i had to close down streets around city hall at the fbi s request, for which i was pillories for keeping people out of city hall. all of that was expensive. i had to add additional police, and these were terrorists pre-september 11th, hardly the profile of a khalid shaikh mohammed. someeople have criticized you, rudy, over the last couple of days, because you have really changed your opinion on this over the last ten years. now, i know when you made these comments that i m about to read to you, you say the alternative of a military trial did not exist, but i just want you to listen to the power of your own words. i know what they say, and i know they re white house talking points. they were put out the day i was on meet the press, but the reality is, they have nothing to do with military tribunals. but listen to the power of your own words. you said america is dedicated to the rule of law and maybe, just maybe, it will occur to some people who maybe have an open mind that we re not the demon that we re portrayed as in the radical world. that was in 2006. way back in 1994, you said this to the new york times after the verdict in the first wld trade center bombing case. you said, it demonstrates that new yorkers won t meet violence with violence but with a far greater weapon the law. what about the power of those words? very powerful words, and all those words i would say and would apply equally to a military tribunal, which is, in fact, a more appropriate form. the reality is, we are breaking precedent here. in the civil war, the first world war, the second world war, we always tried enemy combatants and attorney general holder has designated them enemy combatants in military courts. in 93, nobody thought to do it. i have written since then that it was amistake in 93 to treat it as a criminal justicematter, a mistake that s understandable because the clinton administration couldn t predict september 11th, but i have written and also argued that treating it as a criminal matter probably created the field for further terrorist attacks. this is not a new position for me. and then, of course, in 2006, it would have been silly to talk about a military tribunal. the very lawyers who will now defend khalid shaikh mohammed delayed the proceeding for two or three years to have military tribunals declared unconstitutional. they were fixed. attorney general holder is satisfied with them. well, you know, some people say that this gives a great opportunity for propaganda to khalid shaikh mohammed, but i guess the other side of the coin, rudy, might be, does it not give us a greater opportunity for propaganda to show off the institutions and laws of our nation? which we can fully and effectively do with a military trial. and the reality is, he would get a fair trial there. and i ve tried many, many cases, and a case like this, the government is put on trial. the more lured headlines, the more exciting headlines are the headlines against the government. believe me, when this trial is coming on hen ts trial is going on, you have me on to analyze the headlines for you. they re not going to be government does wonderful job handling case like this. the headlines will be 183 water boardings, the terrible cia did this to me and that to me, and my experience with these terrorists, and their defense will be some of it will be lies, some of it will be true. rudy, it s nice to see you. thank you very much. thank you, matt. let s get a check of the rest of the top stories for the day. ann is at the news desk good morning to you. thanks, matt. good morning to all of you this morning. we begin with president obama now on his way back to washington, wrap up his asian trip with an announcement that he is sending an envoy to north korea next month for bilateral talks on its nuclear program. the president also said the.s. and its allies are discussing more punitive steps against the nation of iran. before boarding air force one, the president rallied troops in seoul, south korea. afghanistan s president hamid karzai was sworn in this morning for another five-year term, and during his inauguration address, karzai said afghanistan security forces should be able to take control of the country in three to five years. he also addressed u.s. concerns over corruption in his government, saying corrupt officials should be tried and prosecuted. this morning there was another deadly attack in the pakistani city of peshawar. at least 19 people were killed when a suicide bomber struck outside a courthouse. leading republicans are vowing aough fight on health care reform, this after senate democrs unveiled their plan at $849 billion over ten years late wednesday. nbc s capitol hill correspondent kelly o donnell now joins us with more on this story. kelly, there are also moderate democrats who are not on board. reporter: ann, there are three moderate democrats who come from more conservative states who have not said they could support this bill or even the initial vote to get debate rolling. republicans say they want to slow things down, even threatening to read all 2,074 pages on the senat floor. now, the plan unveiled by senator harry reid would make insurance available to 31 million americans who don t have it now. to pay for it, there would be some new taxes and fees, including a jump in the medicare payroll tax for high earners, and what we haven t talked about, a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery. ann? kelly o donnell, thank you so much this morning. in case you missed these spectacular images in the night sky, a fast-moving meteor lit up the night so brightly that people could see it from california to utah. the light show lasted about ten seconds, and some witnesses reported a slight rumbling. and a much-deserved honor on wednesday for our own brian williams, who received the walter cronkite award for excellence in journalism, which honors the nation s pre-eminent journalists. brian called it the highest honor of his career and said cronkite was the man he wanted to be. 7:16 now. back to matt and meredith. very nice. congratulations, brian. that s nice. congratulations to you, annie. happy birthday. ah! i was trying to hide from that, but thank you. no. [ laughter ] that s cool. that trap door comes in handy sometimes. let us get a check of the weather now. al is down in washington this morning. al, good morning to you. well, good morning, matt, meredith. we are here live at the newseum, the interactive museum for journalism. we ll be talking about one of our good friends, tim russert. there is an xlibt heexhibit her honors tim. it s his office just as the way it was when he died. we ll talk about that later, but let s look at this big monitor here. winter storm warnings in the cascades, olympics, coastal storm warnings, gusts of up to 70 miles per hour. flood watches for parts of western washington and oregon. as we look at the rest of the country, you re g re g good morning, here we have clouds and a little light fog around the region, a little light drizzle around washington, but on radar farther to the west, where you see the blue, there are some steadier rain in south to west. 53 in washington and we ll see afternoon highs in the mid and upper 50s with occasional showers through the day and into tonight. morning lows near 50, afternoon highs near 60, a little chillier and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. > it was a snding room only crowd on the opening night of sarah palin s book tour. and while she had plenty to say to her fans, she didn t want to talk much about john mccain s criticism of her new memoir. nbc s andrea mitchell has the very latest. andrea, good morning to you. reporter: well, good morning to you. we re here at a myers supercenter in ft. wayne, indiana, where sarah palin will be signing books later today, but her traveling road show will have a hard time beating the thousands who turned out to buy books and cheer her on in michig. sarah palin launching her bus tour along with baby trig, thanking hundreds of supporters, the overflow crowd who couldn t even get inside to buy books. alaska and michigan have so much in common, with the hunting and the fishing and the hockey moms. hi, andrea! reporter: once again showing the flash that has made her a political star. what do you think of the newsweek cover? i think this is quite cheesy and i would never have posed for newsweek in shorts. reporter: and what about the fact that people are talking a lot about 2012. you didn t rule it out. you re not ruling it out. not ruling it out, not closing any doors either, though, focused on 2012. really, what i m able to do tonight is focus on this awesome area of our great land. reporter: one issue she didn t want to talk about, john mccain. for the first time, strongly defending his former campaign aides from her criticism. john mccain came out swinging that s it, we ve got to go, guys. reporter: he agrees with nicolle wallace and schmidt. are you surprised by that? i have great respect for john mccain, but i m thankful that i had the opportunity to write truth in the book. i love you. reporter: it took hours for her to sign books for everyone in line. some had driven miles, camping out overnig to see palin. she is our american spirit, i ll tell you. reporter: part celebrity, part politician. sarah palin is inspiration. she means whathe says and says what she means. reporter: you could see her as a presidential candidate? i believe she could be, yes, i do believe that. i think she would have made a good vice president, but i would still rather see her have her owalk show. reporter: whether or not she s laying the groundwork for another political campaign, sarah palin has proved that she is back and making millions along the way. meredith? all right, andrea mitchell, thank you very much. it is 7:20, and once again, here s matt. all right, meredith, thank you very much. now to the twilight saga, which has, of course, become a global phenomenon. the latest installment, new moon, comes out at midnight, and its star, robert pattinson, is going to be here live later in the show. first, nbc s lee cowan has more on twilight s die-hard fans. reporter: hollywood premieres always have their screamers. but fans of twilight are different. these are tween screams. robert pattinson! it s nice to think that when i m like 80, i ll be able to show these videos to my grandchildren. it s the coolest thing i ve ever had. reporter: the first movie sucked in almost $400 million. the sequel, new moon, may take an even bigger bite at the box office. i mean, we drove 6 1/2 hours, and i left my kids at home and my husband for the weekend. reporter: twi-hards, as they re called, have been lining up now for days, some in a daze. obsessed, addicted, in love. reporter: fitting, since twilight is about love. i m not scared of you. reporter: it s heroine is bella. her boyfriend is edward, a vampire. bella! reporter: and her best friend is jacob, a werewolf. that makes for a complicated triangle, but a marketing miracle. the novels, written by stephenie meyer, have sold more than 70 million copies. besides the movies, there s now everything from books on how to date a vampire to twilight coffee. so, what does coffee have to do with twilight ? not a thing. reporter: annette brut was such a twi-hard, she opened an entire twilight store. everything i ve done is from the position of a huge fan who has great love from the stories. the cardboard people reporter: the demand for life-sized twilight cutouts is so great now that at this warehouse in salt lake city, there s a cardboard population boom. you know when people start being obsessed and crazed over someone, they don t want to wait. reporter: so, just how popular are they? the company has sold almost 40,000 of these two-dimensional stars just in the last six weeks, 30,000 of them have been edward. at that rate, he actually stands to out-pace their former best-seller. yep. i ve just never seen one person craved after so much. reporter: part love story, part thriller, twilight has become a franchise that, like its characters, seems almost immortal. for today, leecowan, nbc news, los angeles. and i saw lunch you had set up outside a movie theater. i was there for two or three days. you know, it s killing me. but we re going to keep the mania going, because a little later, we re going to have yes, robert pattinson is here with us. right here in our studio. his fans are already outside. some of these people have been here mor just ahead, new undercover videos of a florida newlywed accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband. we ll talk to him in an exclusive, live interview. plus, huffing. important information for parents. is your teen engaged in this? good morning, everyone, it s thursday, november 19, 2009. i m barbara harrison. in the news this hour, while you were sleeping, some people in the prince george s county were not. a car crashed into their apartment building in largo. it caused a brief gas leak, everyone in the building had to get out while crews fixed it. today people in fairfax county will get a chance to speak out on a controversial new hunting policy, a two-month bow hunt. there s a public forum at 7:00 tonight at fairfax county government center. we ll take a break and we ll be back we have low clouds and patchy drizzle around washington. the radar is showing some steadier rain in the shenandoah valley and the panhandle of west west virginia. the highs should reach 60s drying up tonight. i-95 in virginia, one trailer stopped on duke street. we ll check out the topside of the belt way which is painfully slow at college park around silver springs and bethesda. tomorrow morning on the news4 today, a lot of people disagree with mammograms for one woman who s in the fight 7:30 now on a thursday morning, november 19th, 2009. another great crowd out on rockefeller plaza. lots of young folks out there, probably anticipating the arrival of one of the biggest stars on the planet right now. we re talking about robert pattinson. his new movie comes out at midnight. he is going to be here in just a couple of minutes. he s going to go out and greet some of those young ladies, so get the smelling salts ready. inside the studio, i m matt lauer alongside meredith vieira, and just ahead, the deadly practice among some tweens and teens. it s known as huffing, and it is a quick and easy way to get high using household products. coming up, one family s truly heartbreaking story and the results of a shocking today investigation. but first, a quick programming note. who do you think is the most talked about personality of 2009? no, no. no. it s not you, either, actually. could it be give me a couple okay. how about the woman who gave birth to octuplets, nadya suleman, after she already had six children at home. could it be the hero on the hudson, captain sully sullenberger, by bringing a commercial plane down safely in new york s hudson river? or perhaps, 19-year-old sensation taylor swift. probably the hottest thing in country music right now. they are just some of the people who share their candid reflections about the year that was in a new special that will air on thanksgiving night, nbc s people of the year. that is one week from today, 9:00 p.m. eastern time, 8:00 central time right here on nbc. look forward to that. should be fun. let s begin, though, this half hour with new revelations in a murder-for-hire case in florida. we ll talk exclusively to the alleged target, the accused woman s own husband, in a moment. but first, nbc s mark potter has the latest. [ sobbing ] reporter: when 27-year-old dalia dippolito returned home last summer and was told by police her husband had just been murdered, she broke down, inconsolably. no, no! please! reporter: but police say that was all an act, that dippolito had actually hired a hit man to kill her husband of six months. by the time you get back from the gym, you re going to find two things a dead body in the house, all right, or nothing. reporter: the purported hit man turned out to be an undercover boynton beach police officer with a video camera in the back of his car as dippolito assured him in newly released videotapes that she wouldn t back down from the murder plot. i m a lot tougher than what i look. i know you re thinking, oh, like, what a cute little girl, whatever, but i m not. yes, you are. you re beautiful. thank you. on the undercover tape, police say dippolito gave the hit man officer pictures of her husband and her home and discussed the cost of the hit. i was going to get $3,000 from you today and $3,000 when it s all done. right. so i m not going to collect all of it at once. reporter: dippolito then gave him directions to the home. you re going to go down the first one, make a left, and then there s going to be like a one-way ramp, keep going. then you re going to u-turn and it s going to be on the right-hand side. reporter: in court documents, it s claimed that dippolito actually tried to kill her husband three times. allegedly, in the first two attemp attempts, she tried toire another hit man and also tried to poison her husband by putting antifreeze in his tea. after dippolito s third alleged attempt, where she was told her husband was dead, she was finally confronted by police. the game s over with, okay? there s no more games with you and i. reporter: after she was arrested, she came face to face with the officer she thought was the hit man. you know who this guy is? no. you never seen him before? i ve never seen him before, ever. reporter: and then she saw that her husband was still alive. oh, my god. he s alive. come here, please. come here. mike, come here. come here, please. come here. i can t. you can t fix this. why not? i didn t do anything to you! i heard you. mike, come here, please! reporter: dalia dippolito pleaded not guilty to a charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and has said she did nothing wrong. i ll hear from you. all right. all right, thanks a lot. okay. bye. eporter: for today, mark potter, nbc news, miami. michael dippolito is with us now exclusively, along with his lawyers, jason brody and josh friedman. gentlemen, good morning to all of you. good morning, matt. good morning, matt. good morning, matt. michael, wow. i mean, you sat down this week, i understand, and prosecutors show you this latest tape of dalia in that car talking to someone she thought was a hit man. turns out, that person was an undercover cop, and she laid it out pretty coolly and collectively. what was your reaction? it s kind of unbelievable, matt. i mean, you know, watching it, it s kind of like she s ordering a cheese sandwich, you know, asking someone to kill me. so, you know, i believe that i thought i was starting a family with this girl, you know. and to see this is just i can t even put it into words. i m just very disappointed and in utter disbelief, i guess, is the way to put it. i want to play a portion of that other tape we just saw in that story where she actually gets a glimpse of you while she s being interrogated at police headquarters and realizes for the first time that, no, you weren t murdered, you re alive. let me just play this. i ll ask you about it on the other side. oh, my god! he s alive. come here, please. come here. mike, come here. come here, please. come here. i can t. you can t fix this. why not? i didn t do anything to you! i heard you. mike, come here, please. have you had any contact with dalia since that very moment? no, none. none at all. i guess it won t surprise people, you re in the process of getting a divorce. you know, i m quoting here, that when police showed you a portion of this tape, you said to them that you were not very surprised or shocked about all this and you felt some disbelief. i understand you were suspicious since some strange things were happening to you over the previous months. what kind of strange things? well, since i got married, matt, you know, i live a pretty quiet life. my life s boring, basically, you kn. i don t do a lot, but since i was married to dalia, you know, i ve been pulled over by the police, searched for drugs, the police coming to my house in the middle of the night searching for drugs, money that was supposed to go, you know, to probation for me to pay it off, you know, disappeared. and you know, all these things, things that maybe if one of those things happen to you once in your life, you d believe it, but you know, within a five-month period, things are happening to me that, you know, it s just un there s nothing to say about it. i mean, and, you know i know you and your attorneys now allege that she actually tried to kill you two other times before this last time. is it true that you stayed with her because you liked her family? i mean, a lot of people might shake their head at that. you ve got to understand, matt, i didn t want to believe it was her and i had a hard time thinking this. we were so close. and then on the flip side of it, you know, she was pregnant. we re supposed to be having a baby together. and you know, i m very close with the family, i thought. i had just taken her grandfather, who was dying of cancer, to a baseball game, the mother, the brother, the whole family went, my mher went. we did things together all the time. i just couldn t get that someone that was planning to kill me or steal from me or have me arrested would involve me in their family so closely. it didn t make sense, you know? this is probably and her being pregnant and everything, also. this is probably a little less comfortable to talk about, but you two met in october of 2008, and you ve admitted that she was someone you hired as an escort. so, when you look back i mean, clearly, that would raise some red flags in people s minds, but when you look back, do you think she was ever in love with you or was she continuing the role of an escort throughout the early stages of your marriage? you know, matt, that s how we met, but we moved past that, as in that was a thing of the past, and starting a new life together, like i said. it s just so hard to say. i mean, we did everything together laughed, giggled, joked, and i mean, i can t make sense of it. i can t make sense of any of this. and josh like i said, you know, we were having a baby, and i don t know, and that was fake. and so, the mother was even in on that, like the mother was going along with her being pregnant. i can t make sense of that either. real, real quickly the whole thing is just chaos. jason or josh, real quickly, if you will. a lot of people might be curious as to why michael needs a lawyer when it s his wife who s been arrested for trying to kill him. can you just explain that very succinctly? we re representing matt on the divorce case, and the divorce case is sort of intertwined with the criminal case. a lot of the stuff that michael s talking about, the money missing and the house, were all part of what s tied in we re trying to get back for michael. so that s what we re representing him for, not for the criminal prosecution. that s up to the state and we re leaving that to the state attorney s office to do that. all right. josh and jason and michael, we appreciate you all joining us this morning. thank you very much. thanks, matt. thanks, matt. thanks, matt. > let s get a check of the weather now from al, who is down in washington this morning. that s right, matt. we re at the newseum. and as we look at the radar, show you what s happening. pin-wheeling around that low pressure system in the northwest, bricking showers up around the mid-atlantic, into the northeast. as we look at the today map and see what s going on around the rest of the country, another storm coming into the pacific northwest, bringing strong good morning around the metro area, it s cloudy now, maybe a light fog, maybe a little patchy drizzle, but we are getting some light rain falling in western virginia, parts of the shenandoah valley and later today maybe a few passing showers with a high here 60 and any rain should end by midnight tonight. sun back on friday, highs on saturday near 60. and for weather any time of the day or night, make sure you check out the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. meredith? i ll take it, al. thank you very much. up next, the deadly danger to teens and tweens known as huffing. the alarming results of our hidden camera investigation right after this. back at 7:43. this morning on today investigates, a deadly trend among tweens. it is called huffing, kids inhaling toxic products found in almost every home. nbc s jeff rossen is here with a hidden camera investigation. jeff, good morning to you. this is really a startling and disturbing story. yeah, and i think a lot of parents will be surprised to hear about it. our investigation is so alarming, national retailers are now changing their national policies. it s all about kids and drugs. as parents, we talk to our kids about alcohol, pot and pills, but i don t know, what about hairspray? what about air duster that we all have in our homes? new numbers show this is now the it drug for young kids, and now they re getting high and getting killed. reporter: you re watching two brothers, 9 and 12 years old, buy poison. they re even joking about it with the clerk. we re going to get so high. yeah. how many hits are you going to take? reporter: the kids are working with us, under cover in some of the biggest retail chains. the poison for sale is often legal, common household products kids are inhaling to get high from cooking spray to nail polish remover to air duster to clean your computer. it s so popular you re going to get stoned with that. reporter: it s glamorized b videos posted online where kids appear to be huffing. this quick high all the rage among high school kids, is now invading elementary and middle schools. now, more eighth graders have used household cleaners than marijuana, cocaine and ha luis no jens combined. my parents didn t even suspect i was doing inhalants at all. reporter: why would they? ashley upchurch was only 11 years old, the all-american girl, lots of friends, a suburban cheerleader who was thriving in school. we were good kids, getting good grades. you know, people looked up to us. we were the popular kids, and we went behind closed doors we were huffing air duster. reporter: right under your parents noses? they had no idea. we did it everywhere cars, our bedrooms, we did it walking home from school. reporter: is it because you thought, this is completely harmless? yes. you don t get arrested for it, you don t go to rehab for it. people just kind of, they don t really think anything of it. reporter: but experts say, these products are so toxic, inhaling them can kill a child on the spot. kids don t understand, this is like russian roulette. they could die the first time, they could do it dozens of times, and on the next time, they could die. reporter: and they have. jeff and kathy williams lost their son, kyle. i should have known. it s my job as a parent. reporter: kyle never used drugs until a friend showed him how to inhale duster on the school bus one day. his friend told him it was canned air. how is air going to hurt you? reporter: kyle believed him and huffed himself to death in his own bed. there was a red straw coming out of his mouth and a can of dust-off between his legs. reporter: at only 14 years old, kyle was gone. the image of finding him in his bed dead stays with me every single day. reporter: you re a police officer. you re a nurse. you talk to your kids about drugs. did you ever talk to them about inhalants? it wasn t on our radar. don t say it can t be my kid, because it could your kid. reporter: because it s easy for kids. parents bring these products into the house without a second thought. no hiding or sneaking needed. the kids just raid the cupboard. or the local store. we sent these child actors, 9 and 12 years old, into ten stores in new york city, wearing hidden cameras. at staples, they tried to buy air duster but were denied. at this hardwarestore, the kids tried to buy paint thinner. another favorite for hufers. the clerk said absolutely not. these are harmful chemicals and you two are too young. reporter: but watch what happens at home depot. our kids bought that paint thinner, no questions asked. in fact, seven of the ten stores sold our kids inhalants. in most states, including new york, it s legal, but remember, one of our kids is in fourth grade. at this kmart, we took it up a notch. have you ever inhaled this stuff? have you ever taken hits with these? reporter: we told our kids to buy air duster and joke with the cashiers about inhaling it. would that raise a red flag? have you ever inhaled this stuff before? inhaled it? yeah. no. it s really good. that is very unhealthy. it makes you really high. it s not good. you should use it for what it s intended for, so you can clean your keyboard. reporter: yet, the clerk still sold it to him. same at this rite aid. we walked over to her, and i took it and i put it next to my mouth and i pretended to take a hit, like, and she had a reaction like, oh, my god, what is this kid doing? but, in the end, she still sold it to us. they try to joke like that. reporter: the cashier defended herself to our producer, also wearing a hidden camera. did you know they were going to use it for cleaning? i was surprised when they do that, and i say, uh! but i can t say no because maybe mom or daddy sent them to buy. reporter: it s incredibly disturbing. reporter: we showed our video to the partnership for drug-free america. if you showed video of a 9-year-old buying cocaine on a street corner, we would see outrage. we shoulhave the same concern and say to folks, they shouldn t happened. reporter: the high-stakes game where some survive. you lose complete control of your body. reporter: and some don t. it s just nothing that we wouldn t give for five more minutes with him, to talk about inhalants. reporter: do you think that would have saved his life? yes. experts say that is the only solution here, talk to your kids. warn them as early as elementary school, as scary as that is, how dangerous these products are. after telling the retailers what we found in our investigation, kmart, pc richard and son and cvs now all say they re going to ban the sale of air duster to kids under the age of 18 at all of their stores nationwide, so at least that s good. a policy already in place at staples. rite aid and best buy told us they re considering a change in policy as well. by the way, we should mention, all of the retailers in our piece say the safety of their customers is a top priority and they all follow federal, state and local laws. but sort of a wake-up call for parents, i think. absolutely. and if you have the stuff at home, make sure you lock it up or get rid of it. jeff rossen, thank you very much. r p tñ v  just ahead, good news for the people in the crowd. twilight s robert pattinson going outside. after your local news. 8s8[ [p-p! úúúúúúúúúúúú we have got some fog out there this morning, that s national airport, a live picture, looks like it s not too bad out there, but we do have drizzle falling around the region. the time right now 7:56. in the news at this hour, right now virginia state troopers are out in full force in northern virginia. they re checking to make sure you re not illegally driving in the h.o.v. lanes. police will be targeting people on the ramps. first-time offenders will be fined $125. several prince george s county families are waking up in a hotel room this morning after an suv crashed into their apartment building. it happened at the north hampton apartment building in largo, no one was hurt but the vehicle did strike several gas meters and caused a gas leak. we ll take a break and we ll come back with a look at weather and traffic for yo good morning, it s cloy cloudy and damp, the rest of the day a few passing showers with highs near 60. we are loaded up along 270 southbound from hyattstown down to the capital belt way. just volume along 395. the problem on the freeway has been clred. tomorrow morning on news4 today, we will be here with news, weather and traf 8:00 now on this thursday morning, the 19th of november 2009. that is the crowd outside anxiously awaiting the arrival of one robert pattinson, star of the twilight saga. we are inside and look who we have got, robert pattinson himself. hello, robert. are you ready to face your fans? before we walk out, do you realize that meredith and i could take our clothes completely off right now, walk out that door, no one s going to pay any attention to us. i recesent that. i have aood feeling. why don t you lead the way, ay? are you getting used to this? i m never used to this early in the morning. and i m worried about it being too cold out there. well, it s going to be chilly, but they ll warm you up, i guarantee. robert, some of these peoe have been here for more than a day. there they go. this movie opens at midnight. people have been lining up in theaters all across the country to get a glimpse at the second installment in the twilight saga, and it s expected to do gang busters at the box office. [ inaudible ] this time, there s a werewolf, and i think they handle it extremely well. it has to be a double-edged sword, because while they have to be happyhat people are going to see the movie and they re popular, it does change your life, and we re going to talk to robert about that when he joins us inside in just a couple of minutes. i think he s a very, very nice young man. i like him. my favorite sign out here this morning was a woman who held up the sign that said i m in love with a fictional character. have you ever felt that w about anybody? as a kid, um yeah. you know, not love, but i was completely just crazy about some sports figures. joe namath when i was a kid, muhammad ali, people like that. but this is this takes it to a different level. yeah, yeah, me, too. exactly. let s go inside. ann curry is standing by at the news desk. we ll have more with robert pattinson in a little while. ann, take it away. thanks a lot, matt and meredith. good morning once again, everybody. in the news this morning, on his way back to washington today after an eight-day trip to asia, president obama made an announcement this morning. the president said on his final stop in seoul that he will send a special envoy to north korea next month to press for nuclear disarmament talks. before departing, the president also rallied more than 1,500 u.s. troops outside seoul. today, two u.s. service members, meantime, were killed in a suicide car bombing outside a nato base in afghanistan. the attack came shortly after afghanistan s president was sworn in for a second term. president hamid karzai said that afghanistan s armed forces will be ready to safeguard their country within the next five years. more confusion this morning concerning those new breast cancer screening recommendations. health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius said on wednesday that women should just continue doing what they ve been doing and consult with their doctors. this week, an advisory panel sparked controversy when it recommended that women should not begin getting mammograms until the age of 50, instead of the age of 40. a major court ruling could en the doors to billions of dollars in claims against the federal government in how it handled hurricane katrina on. wednesday, a federal judge faulted the army corps of engineers, saying its failure to maintain a canal led to the flooding of new orleans. more than 100,000 people a businesses have filed claims for losses from the 2005 storm. and this morning, space shuttle astronauts are performing the first of three scheduled spacewalks. the shuttle atlantis docked with the international space station on wednesday, and today its astronauts are installing a spare antenna and cables on the station so it can continue to operatlong after the shuttle fleet is retired next year. always cool to look at those pictures. it is now four minutes past the hour. let s go to washington with al with the weather. thanks a lot, ann. we are here at the newseum, the interact museum of journalism. and between now and the rest of 2010, there is a wonderful exhibit here dedicated to our good friend and nbc colleague tim russert. it s called inside tim russert s office. if it s sunday, it s meet the press. joining me is tim s son and nbc youth correspondent luke russert. luke, good to see you again. how are you, sir? good, i m good. you just saw this moments ago for the first time. at went through your mind? how did you feel? well, my dad wasn t exactly the neatest guy around, so i remember that. that s what came back to me right away, but he did an extraordinary job. there s a lot of things here which i think really illustrate who he was, but this flag right here was really special to him, because that was my grandfather s flag he used to put in his breast pocket during world war ii. wow. and if yosee, it has russian on there. and the idea is if you were ever shot down over russia, this flag would be able to tell the russians, you know, i am an american, please take care of me. it s an amazing job. they did really good. a lot of this memorabilia came from you and your mom, marie. it did, yeah. why was it important for you to include this stuff in there? i think for two reasons. one, it s historically accurate, but it also reflects who he really was. he was so much just a happy father and so proud of his hometown of buffalo and so proud of his family. and you can really see that. his office doesn t have accomplishments. you know, a lot of times, you walk into somebody s office and there s their emmy award, their certificate pictures of them with famous people. absolutely. and here he has my little league team from when i was 7 years old, a picture of me from eighth grade when i had the crew cut. and the pictures of my mom and i skating. so, it s touching, very touching. and everybody who came into his office saw this sign thou shalt not whine. as you know, a lot of journalists like to whine. so, i don t have enough air time, or the camera isn t right or where s my makeup? that s the sign he had right up front thou shalt not whine, just go with the flow, enjoy life. thanks to you and your mom for good morning, here in washington, we have a cloudy sky and around the region and a little bit of scattered rain and steadier rain around the shenandoah valley and the panhandle of west virginia. right now our temperatures are holding in the low 50s. a few other areas of passing showers possible all the way into this evening and then drying out, sun returns on friday, highs near there s some more terrific memorabilia in here. we re going to show that to you in the next hour. meredith? all right, al, thank you very much. i m standing next to some kids who drove nine hours to get here just for the opportunity to see robert, much less have him this close. stephanie wanted to ask a question. it s you! it s what? it s you. is it? it s a doll of you. oh. is that disturbing or flattering? it s very disturbing. you got bit by a squirrel. she fed him to a squirrel. why? the whole cast, like gill stuck him in his shirt. why is that an excuse to feed him to a squirrel? that was my fault! some fans that are somewhat disturbed. we ll have a chance to talk with robert, coming up. clean up in aisle 6. at walgreens, i can get great prices on lights, cds, toys, anything. i need to celebrate the joy of the holidays. clean up in aisle 9. there s even snacks and pop. excuse me. ahhhh. plus m in and out in no time. that s important to a guy like me. bring home the holidays with select soda, 4 for $10, and crackers, just 50¢. walgreens. there s a way to find your joy. and crackers, just 50¢. no additives. no artificial ingredients. select harvest from campbell s now has twelve sps that are 100% natural. with ingredients like this, we want to show the world. select harvest, from campbell s. the chevy malibu and toyota camry received 5 star crash safety ratings. but only malibu has onstar. big deal. i ll just use my phone. let s say we crashed. whoops, you lost your phone and you re disoriented. i m not disoriented. now you are. onstar automatic crash response can call to see if you re ok. onstar emergency. is everything ok howie? 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(guitar music) to build up his savings account. that s simple alright. use your debit card for everyday purchases and automatically build your savings. with keep the change®. only from bank of america. we re back now at 8:11. new moon mania is in full swing ahead of the midnight release of the second installment in the twilight saga, and one of the main reasons is this young guy right here, robert pattinson. he s back as a century-old vam pine, edward cullen, and finds himself in a fight for his life. take a look. it s good stuff. robert, welcome back. it s nice to see you. you, too. last time you were here, it was in advance of a little movie, the first one, twilight, and that movie went on to make $380 million at the box office. the dvd sold 8 million copies. did you have any idea last time you were sitting on this show what you were in store for? yeah, i actually bought up a whole load of the dvds and was selling them in the back of my truck. no, i had no idea whatsoever. everyone always asks me and no one believes me, but i had absolutely no idea what was going to happen with it. it turned your life upside down. it catapulted you to a different level of fame. i mean, we just saw what happened when you walked outside. what s it like? kind of give me the wide-ranging view, what s it like to live in your shoes these days? um, i mean, i wish i could give a more wide understanding of what it s like, but i mean, i feel exactly the same. i mean, it s kind of i speak in an american accent when i m talking to crowds because it s so separate to my actual life. i mean, i still feel like i m kind of acting. i meani think that s the way so i don t go completely mad. it s so flattering on the one hand, robert, but on the other hand, do you ever wish there were times you could put the je genie back in the bottle? only about my teeth. about your teeth? i had to change my teeth a little bit for the first movie, and that s the only regret i have. you liked your old teeth better? yeah. god, i was supposed to do this brace thing, and i never wore the braces, so now i ve kind of damaged my teeth permanently. so, that s the only regret i have. one of the things people may recognize when this movie opens at midnight is because it stays true to the book, you re not in this one as much as you were the firsone. how do you feel about that? well, i m glad it s true to the book. i mean, geez, they would go crazy if what could be worse than this? sacrificed. but i always liked this book. i always thought it was the most complex book, and the most, especially for edward s character, the most relatable story. i like the idea of a guy who, you know, the more in love with someone you fall, the more you kind of lose control of the relationship and kind of attack and destroy it. i always thought that was interesting. kristen stewart was here the other day, and she said there are times she finds herself falling into her character, that she likes the character and she kind of takes it on, and you say you feel like you re acting sometimes. do you like this character, this guy, this kind of perfect romantic? it s funny, i mean, because i never play it as that ever. and that s what i don t understand about people why all this has happened? yeah. the character in the book, i mean, you can kind of see why it s an ideal guy, but the book is through bella s eyes, and she s madly in love with him, infatuates with him. so, i mean, i ve always had to find the negative aspects of it. you can t go to an airport, can t go to a magazine stand without looking at you on the cover of one of these entertainment magazines or the other kind of magazines as well. i m going to give you a chance to put some things to rest right here. what are the other kind of magazines? the tabloid magazines. so, let s do tabloid true or false. these are all things that have been written about you in the past year alone, okay? true or false you ve been dating nonstop? i mean, nonstop. literally nonstop, yes. okay, good, true. you re dating one of your co-stars, her name rhymes with tristen blewart. tristen blewart there was a listen hewart. so, that would be true. yes. you got engaged. yes. you were hit by a cab. yes. you had a drug overdose. yes. are any of these false? no. i actually come up with these rumors to spread about myself. because it works for you. and this talked about butt accident, butt injury, what was that? [ laughter ] um, i think that was my mother giving birth. so, that s horrible. i don t understand it, but you know what, i hope you re at least enjoying som of this. i really do. because there are very few actors or actresses who get to say that they re living in this kind of a predicament right now. i mean, it s kind of incredible, i mean, especially as i was literally, the day before i did this audition, i was going to quit acting because i never got any jobs. so, i guess it s not really quitting when you re not getting jobs, it s just surrendering to fate. it all worked out, and this new installment, the second installment, new moon opens in theaters nationwide, whether you say toght or tomorrow, midnight. so, good luck with that. thank you very much. thanks for coming by, robert. it s nice to see you. tomorrow on today, co-star taylor lautner stops by. but up next, what you might want to leave in the lobby when you catch new moon. the shocking calories and fat in movie popcorn. you don t have to worry about that, robert. right after this. appliances from walmart really helps. our new blender makes perfect salsa every time. and the mixer starts off slow instead of messy. with a lock-in lid and cool-touch walls, moving arod is easy. suddenly there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. 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(announcer) every smucker learns to wait for fruit to reach the peak of perfection to make extra delicious jam. and now to the eye-popping amount of calories and fat in movie popcorn. researchers tested samples from the country s three largest theater chains, and nbc s michael okwu has the results. let s all go to the lobby reporter: it s been tradition since 1912. let s all go to the lobby reporter: a movie and a tub of popcorn. delicious things to eat, the popcorn can t be beat reporter: and why not? after all, we re talking whole grains and low in calories. it s cheap, it s light, it s fun. and we re hooked. movies and popcorn just go together like peanut butter and jelly. reporter: but that stuff in theaters isn t air-popped, it s soaked in butter and oil, so unhealthy, one consumer advocacy group has drawn an eye-popping conclusion. at at least one leading theater chain, a medium or large-sized popcorn and soda is 1,610 calories, the equivalent of ingesting three quarterpounders with 12 packs ofutter 12. people have really no idea just how shockingly high in calories and artery-clogging saturated fat these snacks get. reporter: the center for science in the public interest says it s sent samples of popcorn and toppings from the nation s three largest theater chains to an independent lab for analysis. the kernel of the findings a small-sized serving of popcorn is up to 700 calories. medium and large, up to 1,200. to put that in perspective, this small would be as many calories as a pizza hut personal pepperoni pan pizza. the large would be, well, we ve already mentioned the large. at regal theaters, where the popcorn s popped in coconut oil, you d be consuming up to 60 grams of saturated fat. the fat you eat is the fat you ll wear. reporter: theater owners say their snack options, including the high caloric dris are driven by the patrons, as they have for years. they re delicious. they re nutritious. reporter: but nutrition watchdogs say the healthiest snack at movie theaters is no snack at all. let s all go to the lobby reporter: for today, michael okwu, nbc news, los angeles. to get ourselves a treat catchy little tune. joy bauer is today s nutritionist, dr. nancy snyderman, nbc s chief medical editor, back as well. hi, ladies, good morning. good morning. no surprise that movie theater popcorn is kind of bad for you, but the numbers are staggering. crazy. joy, these are medium tubs from the three biggest movie houses, beginning with regal. okay, so, what regal does is it s taking an innocent kernel and it s popping it in coconut oil, which is 90% saturated. so when you order a medium tub right. oh, my gosh, you re getting 1,200 calories and 60 grams of artery-clogging, saturated fat. that s with no butter topping. that s before all of that. a plain medium tub. it s the calorie equivalent of two personal pan pizzas from pizza hut. we move on to amc, a smaller portion. only nine cups in their medium, but still popping it in coconut oil. so, for 590 calories, 33 grams of saturated fat, the same equivalent as eating four soft-serve mcdonald s ice cream cones. and finally, cinemark. they re using heart-healthy canola oil, but this medium runs 760 calories, and it s the equivalent of9 dunkin donut munchkins. we re a nation dealing with obscenity that too! obesity. i m dealing with obscenity in my own life. obesity. it s not just calories that are the problem. look at the ridiculous portion sizes. this is like putting a slow bullet to your heart. if you 95 and back lick road looks like it s clear out there, but you can see some remnants of some fog that was out there earlier. good morning, everyone, we re following a developing story this morning, the faa is having computer troubles and having problems processes flight plan information, this means the faa has to process all the flight plans manually so you can expect some delays out there. we re looking at a live picture of a foggy national airport. it s going to cause some delays in the northeast and we will of course continue to follow this story for you. and we ll get a check on the weather too when we come back in it s cloudy, breezy and cool. we re getting heavier showers just to our west, and those will be in and out for the rest of the day ending by late tonight. some back on friday and saturday. could get some showers late on sunday. time to take a live look on the key ridge this morning. a little heavy traffic but no surprises. one more stop, we ll head up northbound to the capitol belt way looking much better. the pavement is dry so good news all the way around. tomorrow morning on news4 many people disagree with the new mammogram guidelines. we re going to talk with one who s in the fight of her life right now, who says i can t get stoned, turn off the lights and the telephone me in my house alone, who says i can t get stoned 8:30 on a thursday morning, the 19th day of november, 2009. just a week to go until thanksgiving. you can almost smell the turkey in the air. or is that my co-host? out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira. and by the way, these peoe are listening to the music of john mayer, who is just doing a little strumming in our studio. he s good. john mayer is going to perform a couple songs for us starting in this half hour. great. that sounds fun. great. and next week we have three hu concerts lined up for thanksgiving week, beginning on monday with international sensation susan boyle. she ll be here. her debut album i dreamed a dream comes out on wednesday. it just became the largest preordered cd on amazon. and susan will be here monday to perform live on the plaza for an entire half hour. and then on tuesday, we ve got the one and only alicia keys. oh, yeah. so beautiful and incredibly talented, humanitarian as well. then on wednesday, bon jovi again in a bigger concert. so, people are going to come on down, everybody, and enjoy. very, very nice. three huge events. speaking of huge events, wheel it out, folks! it s also ann curry s birthday this morning. oh, yay, ann! so, folks, can you go thank you so much! happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear annie, happy birthday to you bravo! are you 1, are you 2 that will take all day! happy birthday. thank you so much to everybody. thank you so much. do you want to smell the cake? no, thank you, but al wants to smell the cake down in washington. can you smell is from there, al? i can smell it. why don t you get closer to it? hey, guys, we are here at the newseum, and this is an amazing exhibit. this is the berlin wall exhibit. i m standing here this is checkpoint charlie, the guard tower that was on the eastern side of the berlin wall, and it s amazing. they took it down, they reconstructed it here. right over here, sections of the actual wall. this is the largest installation of berlin wall pieces anywhere outside of germany. each section is 12 feet high and weighs 3 tons. it s amazing. so, you ve really got to come down and see this. it is so powerful here at the newseum. let s take a look, show you what s going on as far as your weather is concerned. and as far as today, for saturday, the weekend, we re looking at mild conditions in the northeast, rain and another big storm coming into the pacific northwest, a southern soaker through the gulf coast. then on sunday, sunday, we re looking at more mild conditions throughout the upper ohio river valley, more rain in the pacific northwest, mild through thehe good morning, cloudy and cool around the region, we got a little scattered drizzle near washington, but out to the west, we re getting sol light rain, there s one heavy shower coming into madison and greene county, that s going to be moving right along the eastern blue ridge. low and mid 50s, now 54 in washington, highs today only in the 60s. sun back tomorrow and saturday with highs near 60, could get more showers late west, east. west, east. west ah, forget it. anyway, that s your latest weather. don t forget, you can check your weather any time of the day or night on the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. now, let s just head a little further away from here in washington to my good buddy, uncle willie scott. how are you, sir? hey, do you do wake-up calls on that weather show? i mean, if i absolutely. let me know what time you want to get up. i ll wake you up on wake up with al. whenever you call, i ll take you to the stock yard for breakfast. you ll love. it annie, sweet annie, god love her, birthday. and united states marine corps. we didn t mention that. anyway, you re unbelievable. that museum is unreal. one of the greatest shows in washington. happy birthday from smucker s. oh, boy, every morning i bought a new jar of smucker s, strawberry. i don t know about the preserves put it on a bagel not a bagel, an english muffin. anna weisen berger from carmel, indiana, 103 years old. fourth time she s tried to get on the show. we ve got to get a staff that knows what s going on around here. live, independent lady, keeps up with all of her gardening and growing delicious beefstake tomatoes, or tomatoes. barney good old barney tarnoff of sunrise, florida, is 100 years old. lived in staten island, new york, when it was nothing but a bare piece of land. they farmed it. paints beautiful pictures. his family is crazy about him. fannie silverstein, new york, new york. 100. lives on her own, attributes her longevity to a positive attitude in the morning and a little scotch in the evening. that gives you the positive attitude in the morning. eleanohersh, nashville, tennessee, home of the goo goo bar. and she owned a knitting shop until he was 94, worked all of her life. she says never too busy to go to a party. good for her. anna rae pomfret of cedar knolls, new jersey, 100 years old. avid mets fan and enjoys sewing and loves getting all dressed up to go to a party. how about that? party animals today. dennis morris, derwint, ohio, 102 years old. retired math teacher. get this, at that age, folks, a lesson he volunteers to teach troubled teens and help them get their ged in school. isn t that terrific? is that nice or is that nice? well, at s it. meredith is up there. happy birthday oh, it s not your birthday. wait until later. it s not my birthday. what s your name? susan myers. it s susan s birthday. she s 50. not ready for the smucker s jar yet, but she is 50. coming up next, speaking of birthdays, the ageless but aging scott hamilton returns to the ice. look at him. he is truly heroic fashion. the agony of defeat, as they say. the gold medal winner s first live t if you re anything like me, you re perfect! but since you re not, you should be getting ready for the target 2-day sale. i m getting there first, in order to get all of the door-buster deals on electronics, games, everything for the holidays. nothing s gonna stop me from being first in line. nothing. not that it s a competition. but someone s pulling ahead. ooh. ooh. starts friday november, 27th at 5am. announcer: today at the rink is brought to you by smucker s. with a name like smucker s, it has to be good. is morning on today at the rink, the one and the only scott hamilton. he won the men s gold medal in figure skating back in 1980? 84. hard to believe. now he s going to make his first live skating appearance in more than four years. good to see you. good to see you. since the last time you were here, let s g over some of what s happened. you ve retired from skating. yes. you were diagnosed and treated for a pi tu tarry brain tumor. you wrote a book. wrote a book. your wife had your second son. yes. you appeared on celebrity apprentice. am i leaving anything out? probably. it was just time. i ve been off the ice for a long time and i wondered whether the brain tumor took me off the ice or if it was just time and i was failing physically, i was getting old fast. and i wanted to be around for my son, so to get to optimum health, it was to skate again. without goals, i m not going to do much of anything. let s talk about age, because we re about the exact same age. for me, i get the aches and, you know, the pains. how is it getting back in shape to skate? no offense to lance armstrong, but this is not like riding a bike. yeah, it takes some work, doesn t it? it s just, it s a lot of stuff, and everything went away, everything. it s the hardest thing i ve ever done and it s the best decision i ve ever made. but you know, it s hard. i m still a work in progress and i ve got a long way to go, but i m working on it, you know? see all these people here, though? they re pretty happy you re back on the ice. are you going to skate for us now? i ll try. go ahead, young man. take the walker out to the center of the rink. ladies and gentlemen, the incomparable scott hamilton. when trumpets were mellow and every gal only had one fellow, no need to remember when cause everything old is new again long island jazz age parties, way to bring us some more cardies what they order now they ordered then because everything old is new again don t throw your past away, you might need it some rainy day dreams can come true again, when everything old is new again get out your white suit, your tap shoes and tail, let s go backwards and forward, come along be a movie star of your own don t throw the past away, you might need it some rainy day dreams can come true again when everything old is new again more? you want more? get out your white suit, your tap shoes and tails let s go backward and forwa forward you d better come along, be a movie star on your own don t throw your past away, you might need it some rainy y day dreams can come true again when everything old is new again scott hamilton, as young as ever. we ll see y in vancouver, pal. thank you very much. when we come back, mark back at 8:46. this morning on how to cook everything today, reinvented chili. here with his unique spin is the new york times columnist mark bittman, also author of kitchen express. mark, good morning to you. good morning. no beans about it. no beans about it. i m the queen of puns, honey. most people think chili, they think meat and beans and some tomatoes, but you ve got a real variation on chilies here. meat and beans is definitely part of the picture, but the reason it s called chili is because it s got to have chili in it. okay. which doesn t necessarily mean fire, but warmth, heat, a little of the great chili flavor. what is this one? this is black bns terriso. love that. spanish sausage and it s a nice combination, very, very ce. this is a mild level of heat in this. and this one you do in a skillet, which is interesting. you can do this in a skillet. if you precook the beans or use canned beans, this takes half an hour. it s nothing workwise. okay. here s we made this with pork, but you can make it with tofu, and i think you can substitute the tofu for the pork? yes, especially if you get the pressed smoked fu. pork is pork. what i like most about this one is it uses soy sauce with tomatoes, and that s a kind of interesting combination that you don t get a lot of, and really brings out the flavor of the soy. flavor, okay. it s kind of nice. this isvegan, and this is really interesting, because it s just lentils? lentils and carrots and smoked paprika. you can get it hot or you can get it sweet, but this doesn t look like much, i realize. it has an amazing smokinesso it. good flavor to it. and this is? let s go cook this one. we can talk about this, but it s a white chili with chicken or pork. and i m noticing the carbs. you ve got the crusty bread, the white rice, brown rice and the corn bread. can you mix those? anything you want. all right. this is the white chili with chicken and root vegetables. which we should mention that you can do with turkey instead of chicken because you re going to have leftover turkey and we ve already browned the chicken here. we add a little bit more oil. throw all this in? the leeks. if you could drain the potatoes a little bit and put those in. we ve got the chicken we ll put back in. and i ve got some parsnips and some turnips okay. all of this goes in? all of it goes in. wow, all right. so, this is after you ve cooked the chicken and there, the turkey, you take that out so you ve still got the juices in there. and here we have the secret ingredient, a chipotle turkey, which is smoked, bay leaf, little bit of sage. and this stuff is? um, some do you know what it is? lime juice. hang on for that. do you want that? okay. we ll need that for the end. we have 30 seconds to get to our end here. that s going to cook like that. for how long? a half hour. then we ll plate this. root vegetables. what kind of beans? chicken and white beans. were those out of a can or do you take those we cooked them before. you did cook them before. and when you re finished with this, we can add your lime juice and a little cilantro here, so can i get the beans out of a can, if i want to? yeah. i think it s always okay. it s always preferable to cook them yourself, but if you don t, that s fine, too. and the good thing about chili, mr. bitman, is that you keep it in the fridge or whatever it gets better by the day. and you can eat it for days at a time. exactly. and well i do. thank you very much. up next (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 we need to grow 20 million new jobs in the next 10 yes. your dreams makethe dif. american free enterprise. it s you. so dream big. announcer: the toyota concert series on today brought to you by toyota. toyota, moving forward. seven-time grammy winner john mayer is out with his fourth studio album. it s called batty studies, and he joins us now in the studio. hey, john, good to see you. good to see you, too. battle studies. yes. wt does that mean? it s sort of like the last couple years of my life deeply investigated and set to music. all right. i thought that made sense. it does. if you ve been living your life, it does. that was me trying to give it to you in television bite-sized form, but apparently, i can t win with you. let me give you some television bite-sized reviews of this album. why don t you read this. you don t need glasses. this is from rolling stone magazine. here s what people have to say about me. where s it right here rolling stone magazine says . rolling stone says this album is a study in craftsmanship and understudy in guitar ninjadom, and can we get a better angle on my face? no, no, that s it. i ll pat you on the back because you re doing it. we want to hear the song in its entirety. want to do that? what are you going to play? i love you. this is called who says. john mayer! who says i can t get stoned, turn off the lights and the telephone me in my house alone, who says i can t get stoned who says i can t be free, from all of the things that i used to be rewrite my history, who says i can t be free it s been a long night in new york city, it s been a long night in baton rouge i don t remember you looking any better, but then again, i don t remember you who says i can t get stoned, call up a girl that i used to know fake love for an hour or so, who says i can t get stoned who says i can t take time, meet all the girls in the county line and wait on fate to send a sign, who says i can t take time it s been a long night in new york city, it s been a long night in austin too i don t remember you looking any better, but then again, i don t remember you who says i can t get stoned, plan a trip to japan alone but it doesn t matter if i even go, who says i can t get stoned it s been a long night in new york city, it s been a long time since 22 i don t remember you looking any better, but then again, i don t remember, don t remember you oh, ooh, yeah good morning, everyone, the time is 8:56, it s tuesday, november 19. in the news this hour, we re follow a development in the skies. the fa having some computer problems and flight plan information. the faa has to process all flight plans manually so you can expect some delays out there. making matters worse this, rainy weather is also causing delays throughout the northeast. and we re also following a developing story on the rails, metro is reporting a disruption at huntington station, we re told that a switch malfunction, you can expect delays in both direction. i m going to check weather and traffic for you i gompg, we have clouds cover over the region and farther to the south where you see the moving color and areas of white, we re getting thundershowers moving into madison and greene county. don t be surprised if you hear some thunder as some of the moderate showers move on through. and as the day progresses, we ll have a little bit of thunder but drying out on saturday and sunday. we re heavy but relatively steady through most locations. and in montgomery county, still below the speed limit but stent and incident free this morning. tomorrow morning on news4, one group in particular is of higher risk of dying from breast cancer younger. we ll talk with one who red wine and ambien, you re talking it again, it s heartbreak warfare good to know it s all a game, disappointment has a name, it s heartbreak, heartbreak it s heartbreak warfare yeah, it s heartbreak warfare that s the one and only john mayer in our studio. john, thank you very much. you re gng to hear more music from john a little later on in theshow. meanwhile, we re back with more of today on a thursday morning. it s the 19th day of november 2009. i m matt lauer along with natalie morales out on the plaza. how are you doing? that s right, doing great. how about you? i m doing fine. we ve had kind of a big day today. yeah. we had robert pattinson here from looking for some linger-oners here from the twilight saga, and john mayer here. not a bad day to be oh, there s robert signing autographs. john kind of roamed the hall earlier as well. so, good day for fans of the today show. that s right. we ve had a good time. that s right. meanwhile, coming up in this half hour, did you know that 24 million people in this country have diabetes, and how about this, 24% of those people don t even know they have it. so, we re going to have some of a discussion on that subject coming up in just a little while. all right. also some questions that we re going to answer, too, as well, everything from how to get through holiday parties and what to do about the seasonal swine flu shots as well. also ahead, o course, tis the season to go over the river and through the woods to grandma s house for thanksgiving and for the upcoming holidays. so, how do you make the trip a little more bearable for your kids and for parents, of course? we re going to have some secrets. and if you re looking for a way, perhaps, to cut down on your energy bill, we re going to show you some cutting-edge home designs that just might be your future. we re going to show you the new solar houses to ways to lighten your energy load, coming up. all right, lots to get to. let s go inside right now. ann curry s at the news desk with all the headlines. hi, ann. hi, matt. thank you so much. good morning once again, everybody. in the news this morning, president obama now on his way back to washington from asia, said today that the u.s. and its allies have talked about new punitive steps from iran and how to get north korea to return to nuclear talks. obama said that he is sending an envoy to north korea for bilateral talks. before leaving south korea, obama visited u.s. troops and thanked them for their service. a suicide bomber killed at least 19 people today in northwestern pakistan. it is the latest in a series of attacks by islamic militants who are fighting back against an army offensive in the border region between afghanistan and pakistan. air travelers may see some big delays today, mainly on departures because of a nationwide computer problem affecting all the airlines. the glitch has forced officials to process flights manually. aaa is predicting more than 38 million americans will travel at least 50 miles this thanksgiving. that s a 1.5% increase over last year. more travelers will drive, but fewer will go by air because of tight budgets, added charges and fewer flights. senate republicans are vowing to block health care legislation unveiled wednesday by majority leader harry reid. the long-awaited bill would cost $849 billion over ten years. more moderate democrats are also not on board, and senate debate is expected in the coming days. two teenagers have been arrested in minnesota for deliberately assaulting unsuspecting victims and posting a video of the crimes on youtube. police are looking for at least six other teens in the attacks. and a boy has just a few scratches after a dramatic rescue in thailand. the 8-year-old schoolboy was trying to retrieve a ruler when his head became stuck between a cement wall and the floor. the boy was trapped for about an hour before rescuers were finally able to free him. aww. it is now four minutes past the hour. let s go back outside to matt and natalie. wow, that was hard to watch. thank goodness for that little boy. thank you, ann. let s get a check of the weather. al roker is at the newseum in washington, d.c. hey, al! hey, thanks, guys. we miss you. we are here well, we miss you, too. i ll see you tomorrow. and we are here at the newseum, as you mentioned, in a very special exhibit. it is a recreation of tim russert s office, and it is on display here until 2010. joining me is the ceo of the museum, mr. charles ogleby. welcome to the newseum, al. you have done a great job recreating tim s office and bringing a lot of memorabilia here. how did this come about? tim was such a great person and when he died it was like a head of state died. there was an outpouring of love for him, and the humanity of him is shown so well in this office. that s right. and you ve got some of tim s great memorabilia, including the famous or infamous white board florida! orid florida! who could forget that? it was really amazing. where did this come from? this was the one he had, and he gave it to us right after. we went right to him because we knew it would be a historic board. and who knew he was a jelly belly fan? right, jelly belly in a starbucks cup and all these signed baseballs. wow. so, you have his personal side that s right. and his professional side. of course, the buffalo bills are obviously represented well here. when visitors are able to go into his office, they ll just see tim, the human, the great good morning, we have a cloudy sky all over the region and on the radar we have some showers moving right along just east of the blue ridge where you see those flashes of white, those are areas where we re detecting some lightning in some counties now. ande have temperatures around the region in the low and mid 50s, a few more passing showers and that s your latest weather. ann? announcer: daily dose is brought to you by multigrain cheerios cereal, because it tastes good. al, thanks. this morning on today s daily dose, living with diabetes. november is national diabetes month. it s a disease that affects 24 million americans. nbc news chief medical editor nancy snyderman is alongside howard steinberg, who s been living with diabetes for 40 years. he s the founder of d-life, a tv show and online community for people with diabetes. good morning to both of you. good morning. we have a question from michelle in jupiter, florida. she asks my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes this past june. while we are happy to see diabetes being discussed with your segment, many people aren t clear that there is aeren betwe type 1 and type 2. please help explain. nancy. so, really fast, type 1 is usually the kind that we think of that affects children, that you re born with, there s a genetic link. usually, excess thirst, excess urination, exhaustion, sometimes infections. and type 2, we have classically thought of as an older person s diabetes, usually put with accompanying weight gain. but it s important to remember that these two things can be blurred. now you re looking at the symptoms of type 2 diabetes. blurred vision is a lot of times one of the first signs for people. but one usually has a real genetic component. the other is usually acquired. and that is as basic as we can get. but howard, if you ve been living with this for 40 years, did you get this as a kid? yes. i was 10 years old and it came on with a bang. that s classic. that s classic. let s talk about the symptoms. the frequent urination for type 1, unusual thirst, extre hunger, unusual weight loss, extreme fatigue and irritability and you ll know your child is sick. if any of those hit your kid, justsay,ou know what, can you check my child for diabetes? that s important for kids. just ask that. doctors may think it s something else and you really need to ask, howard? oh, absolutely. it s pretty easy to diagnose today. yeah. you give them a glucose tolerance test or there s an a1c test to determine if there s sugar in your blood, if you ve got it. and type 2, the number one symptom is frequent infections, blurred vision, cuts or bruises slow to heal, tingling or numbness in the hands or feet and recurring skin, gum or bladder infections. and if you re a woman over 30 inches, man over 40, you re susceptible to type 2. and it s typically onset, but what s scary is we re seeing it in children now. the rate of type 2 in kids has tripled in recent years, and that s just a function of obesity and the environment. so, get diagnosed, ask the questions. we ll go to laurie in delaware, ohio, and she s on the telephone with a question. go ahead, laurie. caller: good morning. good morning. caller: i am 50 years old with type 2 diabetes that is under good control. i have received the seasonal flu vaccine and wonder if i should get the h1n1 vaccine, or because of my age, am i not considered at risk? what do you think, nancy? it s a great question. diabetes is a lot like asthma. excuse me. it is a pre-existing condition, puts your immune system at risk. yes, get your vaccine. and it can play havoc, having the flu and having serious flu can play havoc with your blood sugar for many days. so it s important to be vaccinated. all right. we ve got a question that s kind of related regarding the holiday season, with lily from cleveland, ohio. she sent an e-mail, saying basically, with the holidays coming up, i have a bunch of parties to go to. which drinks have the least amount of sugar? howard? that s a good one for you. yeah, i ve certainly experienced. it it s best first of all, avoid the sweet mixed drinks with the heavy mixers the margaritas. cocktails. stick to a dry light wine or a beer low in carbohydrates. and it s okay to have a couple of drinks. you shouldn t deprive yourself. what about eating at this time? clearly, there are a lot of sugars. it must be difficult. oh, the banquet table at thanksgiving is loaded with that stuff from sweet potatoes and stuffing to pecan pie. again, diabetics shouldn t deprive themselves, but come in with a game plan. think ahead before you get to the table or even before you travel and think about how you re going to approach it, and give yourself a budget, a budget of carbohydrates, because that s what s going to raise the blood sugar. it wasn t too long ago we used to tell kids, don t touch any of this, you can t do this or that, and it was so rigid that nobody could stay on it. now it s about moderation and making smart choices. what s teresting, though, is a lot of these suggestions you re making are better health suggestions for anybody. absolutely. so, even though it must be such a tedious thing, what you re really doing is focusing and taking care and managing your health, and there s a real positive in that. absolutely. if you live the right diabetes lifestyle, you ve got a good chance of avoiding those devastating complications long term. so, when you come to the dinner table, fill up on those proteins and veggies first so you re not tempted to fill your, seichate yourself with those, therong things to eat. and to help you do that, there are a bunch of new devices, little gabqu. this is the big, big future, the cool stuff. show us. that s great. we re going mobile. our society is going mobile and there s all kinds of things that are helping you do that. and diabetes, you know, even though we re celebrating diabetes month, it s a 24/7/365-day lifestyle. so you need things that will help you do it every day. some of the new technologies are you have to test your blood sugar all the time in diabetes so that you know where it is and what y have to do. and so, there s some new things like continuous blood glucose monitoring. you wear a sensor. i m wearing one here, and i get a reading on a constant screen throughout the day so i know what to do. same thing with insulin delivery. you don t necessarily have to inject insulin multiple times a day. there s now devices where you can wear a pod on your body, and the device and a wireless device tells it what to do. right. and of course, we re moving to mobile telephones. everything s going to be in your iphone. your iphone some day will be able to check your blood glucose through your skin, tell you what s going on and deliver your insulin. thank you so much. and help you manage your lifestyle. howard and dr. nancy, as always, thank you very much. there s lots more to come. hey bets, can i borrow a quarter? sure, still not dry? i m trying to shrink em. i lost weight and now some clothes are too big how did you do it? simple stuff. eating right and i switched to whole grain. whole grain. studies show that people who eat more whole grain tend to have a healthier body weight. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains. and 110 calories per lightly sweetened serving. more grains. less you. multigrain cheerios. headaches know when you re stressed. tired. running on empty. to relieve headaches doctors recommend tylenol. more than any other brand of pain reliever. tylenol rapid release gels. release medicine fast. to silence headache pain fast, so you can feel better. knowing you can stop a headache. as quickly as it starts. announcer: today s moms is brought to you by walmart. save money. live better. walmart. this morning on today s moms, traveling with your kids. with the holiday travel season right around the corner, you re probably trying to figure out some sanity-saving tips before hitting the road with the little ones. vacation, all i ever wanted reporter: when it comes to traveling with children, hollywood got it right. what smells in here? russ, russ, your feet. reporter: so, we asked our viewers to share their secrets for making travel more enjoyable. on the road again back seat of the car is her domain. we let her bring extra stuffed animals, dvd player, water bottles and a bag of favorite snacks. she lays out what she needs before we leave the driveway. had to catch an early train if i could kiss the ipod creator that enhanced the ipod with video, i would. the ipod is like amex in our house never leave home without. truckin off to buffalo we allow them to pick one snack from their bag every 45 minutes to an hour. we pack healthy snacks to keep them from getting sugar highs. traveling along, there s a song that we re singing create a picture book of the trip. collect postcards, brochures, ticket stubs, and have the kids make their own scrapbooks on the way home from the trip. we ll make you happy and thanks to all those viewers who sent in those great tips i m here with valerie delia, a travel journalist and creator of travelwithval.com. val, good morning. natalie, it almost makes me want to have a kid! well, those of us who do have them, we know what it s like when you travel with them. you kind of go insane. yes. and a trip most people are traveling to their destinations this year. it s usually 80% of the people who drive. and this year when you are driving, there are going to be fewer rest stops because they re cutting back on budgets across the country. so, you need to find another way for kids to blow off steam. so, why not go to a children s museum? they are all over the country, and there is an association of them. i just visited one in rochester, new york, where the national toy museum is, where they induct all the classic toys wow, that sounds like heaven. it is heaven. so, they have a lot of interactive exhibits, even a butterfly garden. but they re all over the country, museums like this. and there are also playgrounds parks. good places to plan your stops, as you say, is your first pointer. yes. now, if you re flying with thekids, you suggest also navigating the airports before you travel, right? yeah. there s a lot of adult activities there like celebrity restauras, designer shops, but you want to find kid-friendly features. so, go online to ifly.com. it s a website that will map out the airport for you. for instance, jfk terminal 4 has arcade games in the arrivals level. terminal 4. yes. note to self. okay. seasonal activities santa comes to visit. there are concerts. so, there s also places that you can find other things for kids to do, lots at the airports. now, what about airlines themselves, what are some friendly, family-friendly airlines? all right. southwest airlines has infant fares. you know how infants under 2 go for free on your lap? let s say that you don t want to do that and you want to have them next to you. well, you don t have to pay a full fare. then there s jetblue. they have those videos on the seat back, that satellite system. right. that s fantastic for older kids. and american airlines has changing tables in their wide-body aircraft lavatories. i can t stand when they don t have a changing table. that s a pet peeve of mine. and you say travel train. that s one of the best ways to go. it is. it s family-friendly, they have a lot of leg room, generous luggage allotments and wonderful, huge windows to watch the passing scenery, and there s ample bathrooms as well. all right. valerie delia, more of your travel pointers, by the way, on our website, todayshow.com. so, some great family-friendly suggestions there as well. thank you. you re welcome. coming up next, the house you might be looking for the next time you re on the hunt. we re going to show you. with amazing new specials every week this holiday season. the great deals start each saturday. this week, from saturday 8 a.m. thru friday, you can get a free $100 walmart gift card with the purchase of any blackberry find out about more weekly specials at walmart.com and make the most of your holiday. christmas costs less at walmart. save money. live better. walmart. of maxwell house s flavor lock lid. hear that? seals it tight. smells like fresh ground. fresh fresh fresh fre that s our favorite part. .fresh! (announcer) taste why maxwell house is good to the last drop. .it s important to follow the cdc s guidelines to help protect your family. remember to wash your hands. and, to prevent the spread of influenza virus. .it s important to keep surfaces clean by wiping them down with a household disinfectant according to directions on the product label. you can trust lysol, because products like lysol disinfecting wipes and lysol disinfectant spray. .are proven kill the h1n1 virus. for more tips, visit lysol.com cer: 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. guy: mmmm! chef: we re kind of excited about it. announcer: campbell s healthy request. okay. ahh. then we will all do it together. treats! teets. teets. teets! yeah! look at this! oh! it seems like theest family traditions. you want some? always start in the kitchen. ( laughter, conversation ) rice krispies. happy thanksgiving. your walgreens pharmacist also dispenses wisdom. to help you make the right health care decisions. like understanding medicare part d. we ll walk you through a free plan comparison report. to guide you to the most cost-effective. and comprehensive plan, whether you re new to medicare part d. or you ve been covered for a while. so stop in and stay well. cheese! walgreens. there s a way to stay well. announcer: live smart today is brought to you by . ijs at work. this morning on live smart today, the house of tomorrow today. homeowners are looking for new ways to create high-tech houses and save energy, so let s take a tour of the next generation of solar-powered smart houses. up and at em, mr. j. reporter: the jetsons are the model for what we dreamed our houses would look like, futuristic furniture, space-age appliances and probably one heck of an electric bill. the smart houses of tomorrow are taking energy efficiency seriously. at the u.s. department of energy s recent solar decathlon, universities from around the world competed to fuse solar energy with intelligent design. one of the greatest things of our design was to integrate all technical systems and solar developments into the overall architectural design. reporter: a house made almost entirely of panels is one way to lower energy costs, but each house here emphasizes other ways to be environmentally friendly. the cheapest energy is the energy you don t use. so, if you can reduce your loads, make your house more efficient, then you re saving money and you re helping the planet. instead of having complicated, expensive technologies that are likely to break, what you do is simplify it down into pieces that you can use yourself. reporter: windows that actually absorb sunlight and use it to heat the house. there s no moving parts. there s no mechanical system. you put the glass in and you let the glass heat your house. reporter: team kentucky cools their house with self-tinting windows. a weather-predicting system allows the house to adapt to outside temperatures. and a control system puts everything in the hands of the homeowners. when users know where their energy s going and what they re using, it allows them to partner with their home and make decisions about how they might be able to change their daily lives to save a little bit of energy. reporter: some houses save space and move walls at the touch of a button. others recycle water back into the environment. rice university takes a low-tech approach, using energy star appliances and solar panels to zero out energy costs. a compact design keeps the price so low that it could be mass produced for $80,00 i found rosie and i brought her back home to stay. reporter: so, maybe this generation of smart houses don t come with their own rosie the robot, but they are packed with enough green power to jet us into the future. i d like that little thing to drive. interesting. anyway, coming up, from the house, the thanksgiving table. some creative ideas. in healthcare advancements cancer detection medical records, health for more people. means never forgetting is everything. is happening. right now. e e e e holi. and some foods mean gas. take beano before you eat to prevent gas 0r take a gas reliever after you get gas and bloat up like a cartoon character floating er 5th avenue. take beano before, and there ll be no gas. is the parade on? good morning, everyone, the time right now 9:26. we re following a developing story affecting air travelers everywhere. the faa is having computer problems that s causing delays all over. here s the latest. reporter: barbara good morning, there have been no cancellations here at reagan national airport at this point but there have been several delays and that s all because of these computer problems at the faa. the faa is having problems processing flight plan information so it s being done manually. we have sn several delays in departures and arrivals. passengers are being told to check the status of their flights before coming to the airport. again, you say this is cross the country. at least on the east coast. i ll get a little drizzle around the metro area. and now coming into culpepper county, how s the traffic? it looksike things are finally beginning to improve. headed for downtown, still very heavy as you make your trip north to the pentagon on 395. the faa is having problems with computers all over, but particularly hard hit the northeast. and coming up tomorrow morning in news4 today, many people disagree with those new i m gonna find some way to make it without you, tonight i m gonna find a way to make it without you that s alicia keys, who burst on the scene eight years ago at the age of just 19 years old. she actually has not stopped turning out hits since, and she s going to be here for a live concert tuesday on today. and you know, tt s not all, because we ve got three blockbusters in a row next week. on monday, britain s got talent sensation susan boyle will be performing on the plaza, and on wednesday, as you re seeing there, rock and roll superstars bon jovi are going to be taking us into the weekend. so, we ve got a lot of music. we love our jobs, right? we re very, very lucky. very good. but we re grateful to be able to give this music to all of you. and speaking of loving something, a lot of us love thanksgiving. yes. and a lot of us don t know how to set a pretty table. we ll get some simple and not too expensive ideas that will give your home that earthy, warm feeling, courtesy of design superstar colin cowey. if anyone can do it, he can. the tables upstairs are gorgeous. if you have little ones at home, you re probably wrestling with the decision whether or not to vaccinate your children with the h1n1 vaccine. this morning we ll meet two families who are making difficult choices. and later, the results of today s ambush makeover. you know the team is on the road this week, and they landed in granby, massachusetts, where they surprised 64-year-old susie slater, who described herself as a frumpy hippie. so, we re going to meet the new susie and see if there s been some major improvement there. how s it looking there, louis? i don t think he can hear us. oh, it s looking great. no, i can, actually. okay. we can t wait to see the results. we ll stand by for that later on. it s so pretty, i can t even begin to tell you. yay! good. okay, but before all that, let s go down to washington with al, who s actually been in the newseum, where there s a very special exhibit. hey, al. that s right. it s inside tim russert s office. but right now, we are here at the nbc interactive newsroom. and behind me, the kids get to work on their reporting skills. so, we ve got kind of a future matt and a future al there, getting ready to do the weather. back behind this gentleman sir, if you could just kind of move over that way a little bit, you could see a future meredith or ann working out, getting their stuff gether. so, pretty exciting. you bring the family down. everybody can work out look, he s doing the weather. wait a minute, i don t like that. a future me? taking me, taking my job? i ll drop that kid, i mean. it that s jamani, clayton, and over there is hannah. let s check your weather, see what s going on. for today, looking ahead to the weend, sunshine up and down the eastern seaboard, heavy rain down along the gulf coast, more rain and wind in the pacific northwest with mountain snows. then on sunday, sunday, sunny and cool in the northeast, showers around the western great lakes, more rain and snow in the pacific northwest, sunny and mild from from good morning, it s cloudy and cool, we have some patchy drizzle right around the metro area, but around the radar, you re getting heavier showers, even some thunder and lightning, from the south to the north east of the brew ridge and in madison county at this hour and the temperatures are hovering in the low and mid 50s, we ll only seek near 60 later on today, a few more passing showers and maybe a rumble these kids are pretty good. all right. so, if we get too much give jim bell or mark victor too many problems, we ve got our replacements right there, guys. all right, thanks. all right, al, thank you so much. actor kim chung is making a big name for himself as a scene-stealer in knocked up and the hangover. and now in community, he plays senior chang, a very inappropriate spanish professor. today we ll get a glimpse of his softer side. [ speaking spanish ] um, hello. so, you don t speak spanish, but you re a spanish professor. it truly is acting, so but we remember when we watched knocked up and also the hangover. hilarious. the hangover. you ve made a name for yourself playing inappropriate people. is there something about you we don t know or should know? after seeing me in hangover, there really is nothing else to know. coming out of the trunk. that was your true side? that was my true side, and my naked side as well. that was all sides of ken. all sides. all sides. tell us about this program you have on tonight. there is a softer side to your character. yes, yes. tonight s episode on community, you get to see kind of what makes senior chang tick, and joe mchale s character, jeff winger, kind of figures that out, and so, we become unlikely bffs. what a cast you get to work with, i mean, joe mchale yes. chevy chase. chevy chase. yes. you must be having the time of your life working with this group. it s the best cast top to bottom. having the time of my life right now. so much fun. it s so fun to watch. and all the actors, there seems to be a you feel as though you re eavesdropping watching it. there s not a sense that it s all in a studio and organized. right. it feels very free. yeah, no. is the work free, like very linear or does it become creative? we have a tight script, beautifully written, but we also have the luxury of improvising, so, it the best of both worlds. you get great writing, and then on top of that, they really do allow us to improvise. so it s only with talent, really great talent that you can allow them to improvise. so, congratulations on all that. thank you so much. i appreciate all that. we should tell everyone that you can watch community tonight at 8:00/7:00 central time here on nbc. congratulations. ken, nice to meet you. i appreciate it. thank you for not quizzing me in spanish. i was going there. i was going to. but i left that to ann. anyway, coming up next, the question of giving your kids the swine flu vaccine. into a whole. 24/7. satisfaction guaranteed. thataboy. [ male announcer ] prilosec otc. heartburn gone. power on. prilosec otc. dominates heartburn. 24/7. including the eight hours you spend with your eyes closed. prilosec otc. heartburn gone. power on. if you re anything like me, you re perfect! but since you re not, you should be getting ready for the target 2-day sale. i m getting there first, in order to get all of the door-buster deals on electronics, games, everything for the holidays. nothing s gonna stop me from being first in line. nothing. not that it s a competition. but someone s pulling ahead. ooh. ooh. starts friday november, 27th at 5am. fact. bleach doesn t get rid of stains, it just whitens them. with this stain-revealing dye you can see the stains bleach leaves behind. lysol power toilet bowl cleaner removes stains better than bleach while killing 99.9% of germs. to give you a toilet that s completely clean. lysol. the number one pediatrician recommended brand. lysol. disinfect to protect. for an unbeatable clean on hard water stains, try lysol lime and rust remover. would you like me to read you a story? you can t read. twas the night before christmas and all through the house. whoa! that s grandma! nothing was stirring, - not karah, not 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 find meaning inside. time now for our class of 2020 series on the group of students we ve been following from their first year in kindergarten to their high school graduation. and this morning, the nationwide debate over the h1n1 flu virus. a new national survey shows almost half of americans are choosing not to get the vaccine, and parents are weighing the pros and cons to decide what is best for their children. are you ready for this? reporter: zachary and his mom deborah are spending their saturday morning at a hospital. zach isn t sick. deborah wants zach and his two brothers to get the h1n1 flu vaccine before supplies r out. and you re choosing to get vaccines for all of your children today? yes. yes. reporter: according to the centers for disease control, 7-year-old zach and his two brothers fall within the high-risk category because of their age. every time i call the flu hotline clinic, they said that supplies were limited, so, i felt a little bit of pressure to get in there right away. some truly worrisome numbers out today on swine flu. reporter: from los angeles to the nation s capital, images of long lines and reports of limited supplies are dominating the coverage of the h1n1 flu virus. how are you guys doing? reporter: since their two children were born, mike and joanne have done their own research and decided not to vaccinate 5-year-old kylie and 7-year-old kanan. what s your favorite food? reporter: instead, kanan and his sister maintain a well-balanced diet with very little processed foods and take natural herbs and minerals like echinacea and zinc to boost their immune systems. since they ve made their decision, joanne and mike have taken a lot of heat from family and friends. joanne, joanne, you have to vaccinate, you know, you re being a bad mom. and it tugs at my heartstrings, but this was the best decision for our family. we just did a lot of research, a lot of reading, and there s so much data out there that concerns me, and a lot of what vaccines are made out of, a lot of the toxic elements that are actually in vaccines. reporter: the family s doctor supports their decision to forego vaccinations and encourages all of his patients to be informed before they make a decision. what they usually ask me is what do i believe. and belief to me is an origious connotation, and when it comes to medicine, i don t want to believe. i want to look at the facts and let the facts move me one way or the other. reporter: despite repeated assurances that the vaccine is safe, it is pervasive across the nation as parents question whether it was tested enough before the rush to production. there is no question that this vaccine and these types of vaccines have an extraordinarily good track record of safety. we encourage the parents to reconsider if they re deciding that they don t want their children to be vaccinated. don t move, okay? very important. don t move. almost done. there you go. reporter: zach s mom is aware of the concern surrounding the flu vaccine, and she respects the decision of other parents who don t want to vaccinate their children. i m really op-minded, and yes, i did look into it and i did do some research, and i listened to what my friends tell me, but in the end, i did decide to do the flu vaccine. reporter: two families making two differentnd difficult choices to do what they feel is best for their kids. and you can see more of zach and kanan and the rest of the class of 2020 along with all their stories since kindergarten at todayshow.com. coming up next, doing up your thanksgiving table right with decor expert colin cowey, right after this. that s why there are eight delicious kinds. of speal k® cereal. because every girl could use a little variety. special k® now in eight delicious flavors. than any other automaker. hey, ken. hey, ken. hey, kenny. hey, ken. [ drilling and hammering ] kenny. [ all ] kenny. [ male announcer ] and we could all use a little more quality these days. eighty percent of toyotas sold in the last twenty years are still on the road today. uh hum. no. [ male announcer ] which means, someday, this camry could be his. [ machines whirring ] of maxwell house s flavor lock lid. hear that? seals it tight. smells like fresh ground. fresh fresh fresh fre that s our favorite part. .fresh! (announcer) taste why maxwell house is good to the last drop. k the unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks lunch at olive garden could get any better until we tried the chicken and gnocchi soup mmm. so we enjoyed all we wanted. all for just $6.95. same time next week? yes! absolutely! vo: only at olive garden. announcer: from nature comes green works. natural plant-based cleaners without harsh chemical fumes or residue. because green works products are made by clorox they clean with the power you expect. and they re made with natural ingredients. also try new green works natural glass cleaner with improved streak-free cleaning. green works. naturally. simply wholesome ingredients and nothing more. this morning in today s home, thanksgiving day table settings. whatever your taste, if you d rather spend your money on the food rather than the decor, you should be talking to colin cowie, which is why we re talking to him this morning, because colin is an interior designer and columnist with viv magazine. he s also budget-conscious. good morning. good morning. i m so glad you re here. this is one of the things so many of us are worst at. you can make a great pie or a thanksgiving turkey. you may not be so great at decorating, but you re great at it. i love it, and if you re going to entertain, this is one of my favorite holidays of the year. and to sit with your family and friends for a couple of hours, if you really love them, make a beautiful table. so, you have basic ideas to get started. let s take for granted that each of the three tables, everyone s got a water glass, wine glass and a basic set of china. in ts setting, my inspiration came from nature, so the idea of pears. we used this throughout. this is a table runner we found from crate and barrel. so we ll hold that up when the camera comes to it. basically, this is what you re describing as your harvest table. right. this is real easy to do. the great thing about today s centerpiece becomes tomorrow s fruit salad. i also love the idea of being able to personalize the table. so, we ve brought these little boxes. the idea of putting someone s name at a place setting, when you re having 10 or 12 people, it balances the energy at the table rather than using it from a formality point of view. it takes away the stress. and it s also fun. it makes you feel special in that seat. this is a box of dollop. we put a note inside and a chocolate oh, look at that. this is yours. do i have one for me? one for each person. this one s for joey joey. a producer of our segment. we re going to open that up and there s a sweet chocolate, then there s a note which i m going to look at. oh, we re so thankful to have you in our lives. a thanksgiving note. or a long-winded one. thank you for making a short toast this year. that s a sweet way to send a message. i ll let that go to joey. that s great. we always love candles. this is $6. the whole price for this would be? less than $100 for the whole table, for four place settings. four people. under $100. and the centerpiece. moving into an urban chic kind of a look. it looks kind of bachelorish. and the idea is because it s about the sum of the pieces. so, let s start with the centerpiece. i ve used carnations, which seems to be america s least favorite and least expensive flower. and they don t look like something you wouldn t like. they look beautiful. just the heads of them when i put them together with a rubber band, it gives you an idea of one big lower. so you choose a color you love and mix them together with a rubber band. the vase was $2. so, some double-sided tape on the edge of the vase. i m just going to run this around like this. i put less than $5 of ribbon. you cut the ribbon. you cut the ribbon. oh, nice. how easy it is to do that. pretty. take that, pop it inside of there wi a bit of water. and you don t need that many of those for the table. no, you don t. in fact, for this table, i ve got less than $12 of carnations on the whole table. so, what you ve done is used the same white plates here. the same white plate. i found this bowl for $1 at walmart. these bowls. and then the centerpiece really is about the sum of the parts. so, these wooden blocks cost anywhere from $2 to $5 apiece. we ve got less than $15 of flowers on the table. we ve just used ribbon and candles. to give it a fall, autumn national look, the idea of using the nuts. see how the nut became the place holder over here. ee see. how did you cut into that? just a little hack saw. oh, my goodness. i ve got fingers left, fortunately. fingers are all okay. so, this worked out to $62 for the table. for four people. for four people. so, obviously, if it s a long table, a banquet table, do the multiples there of. now for the really glam look. sparkly. this is the glitz and glam table. you feel like now, okay, some people might ask, do you really want to put this large of a branch on the table? you know, i didn t have anything next to my neighbor since i lived in the city, but this is a manzanita branch. manzanita can be expensive, but you can find comfortable branches and things. a dusting of glitter on the centerpiece. and these candles. the candles are placed on birch blocks, which are $1 apiece. we found these, and the votive candles themselves were $1 at target. and these beautul napkin holders. amazing. aren t they gorgeous? i think this is like jewelry for the table. look how beautif that is. once again, we have our name tag. these and the placemats, these were $4 apiece. so the entire price for this table? $150. now, you could do that a whole lot less expensive if you didn t do the manzanita branch and you found something in your neighbor s garden. that would be the ultimate bargain. and when you look at the three tables, the great thing is these could be done two, three days in advance, because nothing s going to fall apart. so the day of, you can concentrate on your food and guests. very good idea. very smart. set it up and then worry about the food. colin cowie, i want to come to your house still to come, hoda is here with a whole other hour. our ambush hits the road will wrap up today in granby, massachusetts. we surprised a lucky lady. her hair is down her back. come on in. here she is. we re talking about massachusetts ambush. the bowels of the earth down there. what s going on? are you okay? hey. you have a beautiful voice. thank you. john mayer. john mayer with one more song. first, your local news and weather. good morning, everyone, i m right now 9: 57 on this 19th day of november we have been following a developing story from the sky, the faa is having computer problem this is morning, the faa does haveadar coverage and it is also communicating with the planes. however they say that they have had problems processing flight plans and they re having to do it manually so you can expect some delays. making matters worse, this rainy weather is also causing delays all through the northeast of this country. let s check on our weather right now. it s been cloudy and we have had scattered drizzle throughout the metro area this morning. we some scattered rain where you have the even a little bit of thunder there this morning, tantd rest of the day, some passing showers, highs reaching near 60. sunny on friday and saturday, highs upper 50s to near 60s. the outer loop of the belt way is still kind of slow into silver spring and bethesda. elsewhere, take a live look, 66 still loaded up, it s that lane squeeze as you head toward the capitol beltway. tomorrow morning on news4, a lot of people disagree with the new mammogram guidelines, but one group is at higher risk announcer: from nbc news, this is today with kathie lee gifford and hoda kotb. live from steweeudio 1-a in rockefeller plaza. it s thursday november the 19th. it s ann curry s birthday. happen iy birthday to ms. curry. she s a young yun one. i said what are you going to do? you have something fun planned? her daughter has a little temperature. she said i m so looking forward to just going home and being a mom. once your kids start to be 16, 17 they don t need you the same way. when they want to be cuddled and they want the cup of tea and they want to sit and be with you, it s so nice. i m sorry, but ann gets younger. it s almost scary. it s really starting to bother me. enough, enough, enough. and that ugly, ugly, ugly natalie morales. ech. how does she do it? how does she do it? what s up, toots? can we talk about this mammogram thing again? this is one of those controversy that s just keeps bubbling up. w, kathleen sebelius, who s the head honcho of health and human services. health and human services, right. she came out and said look, i know this study came out but please continue to get your mammograms as you have and consult your doctor. and your insurance will continue to pay for it. and then they say she sort of threw this study under the bus. that s what some people are accusing her of. taking this independent study that said don t get a mammogram until you re 50 and here s the thing. women between 40 and 49 they say there s a 1 in 1,900 chance you will be diagnosed with breast cancer. i was one of those, one of the 1,900. if you feel comfortable in a room of 1,900 women someone pulling a name out of a hat and saying this might be your name, it may or may not be, we re not 100, but it might be, then i think if your choice was i ll get a mammogram and make sure i m not that one makes more sense to me. i understand there s science and there s doctor talk and all this stuff i don t get but it s your life. but it s your life. and it s not russian roulette. it s not a crap shoot. early detection is key. they ve been telling us that forever. the thing that really concerns me is to say that women should no longer self-exam is truly mind-boggling to me. i think they think you re going to find something that s really nothing and then you re going to check it and test it and it s going to put you through the ringer and it s going to be nothing at the end. but i remember one time we d just left for vacation, we d just arrived in frarngs and i found a lump. and i went, all right, i m going to get on a plane, then, i m going to go home luckily i was looking all over for a place that would do mammograms was it nothing? on a holiday weekend in france. and i did it, and they sent the x-ray to my doctor in connecticut, and it was something that they said you can wait on this. but that s how concerned i was, that whoa, this wasn t here before, it s here now, let s do something about it. i think when you look at huge numbers i know that some of us, they say it s anecdotal, you re only one in a small number and blah, blah, blah. i don t like the word anecdotal. it s you. i sort of feel that way. and because it happened to me i talk to a lot of people that say it happened to me so the world seems much smaller and the numbers em you much bigger than they are. you re seeing your twit dwrer and facebook going up like crazy. yeah. i wonder if this was a thing they put out there to see what the response would be and now they re backinging off of this. no. they say this independent group also did the deal on prostate cancer, testing at 50. and they said this is the only time this independent group has been slapped, is on this breast cancer one. they ve done i wonder why. i don t know. because we ve accepted the other things about the prostate. and i have to say some of the most well-known renowned leaders in breast cancer research think that the study is right. like dr. susan love. yeah. so there s another side of this. the american cancer society says no. and at the bottom of the whole thing there is always some sort of speculation about who would benefit from this or who would be hurt from it. yeah. and it so often comes down to money. and if people stop getting mammograms, you know, who s that going to hurt? therefore, there s some question about lobbying in washington on the part of radiologists and that sort of thing. but how will we ever know? well, they also keep talking about the radiation you that get from mammograms is not good for you. but i question a lot of that radiation. when you go to the dentist and you get your x-ray. x-ray they throw a lead vest on you and everyone scampers out of the room and you re alone in there with the thing pointed here. and that thing is way too little. you wonder which part of your body to protect. but i was going to go you re going to be fine but we ll just all be out there. call whus it s over. if it s not scary then everybody come gather round. but i think we get it from airport but it would be over and over and over. they would be subjected to it. but if you ve got really bad teeth you could be too. you ve got ises. it s like so much else out there. the trouble is we hear so many differing opinions that we don t know as a consumer, we don t know who to believe anymore. the days are over when our government just told us something and we went oh, okay. we don t do that anymore. because we have google and now we can figure it out. a very healthy cynicism, i think. because somebody everywhere is going to get is going to benefit. did you hear about all the santas? there are santas in the department stores yes. do they have their own union? well, they re demanding, i think some of them are demanding they want the h1n1 shot. because they re at risk. because all those snot-nosed kids that s not ce. hopping up on them i m always amazed, you can be talking to a mother, and their kid is there, and is like, you know oozing. yeah. and the mother s standing there, she sees it, makes no effort to get that out of their nose. just let it dangle? just let it dangle. yes, and little johnny yesterday and it s just you can t take your eyes off it. it s just there. but do you think the santas should get the h1n1? yes. how would you like a little kid to say what do you want, johnny, besides a kleenex? you know. what? yesterday we went i forgot. yesterday we went to see a really great play, old play written by george s. kaufman and edna ferber called the royal family. so funny. jan maxwell is now my official favorite comedic actress, i think. ever since we lost the amazingly talented madeline kahn. every time you knew you were going to see her it was going to be a brilliant performance and you were going to laugh. jan maxwell is so spot on funny in this thing. it s a wonderful show. it s at the manhattan theater club. go see it if you he a chance. really, really funny. i needed a good laugh yesterday. too many snotty-nosed little kids around here. stop it. so we are once again in ok! magazine. is it okay or not okay? the okay or not okay thing. open to it, hoda woman. here it is. is it okay or not okay to be your kid s manager? which in essence i am right now with cass. so you think it s okay? well, what did i say? this is what you said. first of all, there s pictures of miley and her mom and jessica simpson and her dad and everything. you say, it is okay if you can manage not to lose your mind and destroy them in the process. if you can t manage that, then go get a real job. yeah. okay. i agree with myself. and i said, if your kid has talent then who better than you to guide them? but if you end up needing guidance because you ve become an out-of-control stage parent that s not pretty. and we ve seen both. yeah. we ve seen both. we ve seen them actually even in the studio. their parents show up and all of that trouble starts happening. would you grab that from me, please miss hoda woman? these are earpieces so we can talk to our people on the road. with jill and with louis. they ve been traveling, just so you though, they ve gone all over. to arizona and then where? then they went to troy, michigan. and then they went to indiana. and now i ink they re going to massachusetts. they re in granby oh, wait, they went somewhere and then they re going to granby, massachusetts. and that is today where we find a 64-year-old woman is waiting for her turn. hey, jill. hey. the pink cadillac fits in very well here. just to show you how in the middle of nowhere we are, when we are were banging on the door in the middle of the night she thought we were lost hikers or maybe a bear that happened to come up to the door. it was absolutely hysterical, youee here. she had no idea that we were coming because she cancelled on us. she told us she didn t want the makeover. she actually cancelled on us. oh, my goodness. so when we got here, she was absolutely shocked. i bet she was shocked. wow. what if she had said no when ou actually got there, too? well, we were nervous. but luckily, her daughter kelly was in on it. and right now we re almost done. louis, what s going on up there? well, i gave susie p i made her hair color bright as it once was, you know, when she was in her teens and 20s. and we also lena gave her a little bit of a haircut. great, you guys. she now matches joe from okay. she matches joe from yesterday. so now we have we have a lot to show you. it s a theme. it s a recurring theme. thank you, jill. hey, sarah. how are you doing, honey in. we re talking about the santas and the h1n1 virus. vicki wrote in, anyplace that s filled with kids, it s just a flying snot land. i hate the word snot. why do people keep using it? and we keep repeating it. we have a darling, darling actress with us. she is so talented and so beautiful. keri russell is with us. she is terrific. felicity . actress keri russell first grabbed at tension of audiences in the 1990s coming-of-age tv drama felicity. she even earned a golden globe award months after it premiered. i love the movie waitress. since then keri says perhaps the most important role to date is the mom of her 2-year-old son. hello. welcome. we were tease pg about natalie a little earlier but we both agree you could be natalie s little sister. completely flawless. yes. you re getting on our nerves. this movie that you have coming out in january called extraordinary measures, i just saw the trailer. harrison ford s in it. that newcomer. slumming it. it looks so moving. i was emotional watching the trailer. it is. it s an incredibly inspiring, real hero story. i mean, this guy, this actual guy, john crowley, it s unbelievable what he did. he has these two kids who two of the three kids have pompeii, which is this very rare disease. and he basically goes out himself and finds a cure for them. he s just the most incredibly proactive person i ve ever met in my life. and he s shiny and sparkly. he s the real deal. he s the real deal. so it s those kinds of scripts that seem to attract you. like the waitress was just we loved that movie. real people but struggling with real struggles and heroic in their own natural sweet way. i think so, yeah. how has becoming a mom affected the way you act? how has it affected t way i act? well, it s funny. you become a mom and you sort of think is it going to change everything? but it doesn t. you still like what you like. but i think the one thing is it makes you very sensitive and in tune to kids. you know, if any kid is in peril you re like, that s my kid! and if they get snotty and i agree with you, by the way. this holiday season especially, that s one of the reasons i partnered with u.l., and we re doing this whole safety campaign with moms and trying to get them to you know, at the holidays you re bringing all these extra cords and electronics and all these things into your house that aren t normally there, and we re just encouraging everyone to specifically, there is this u.l. mark that means it s been tested for sety. and that s a way to just in the hectic holiday time like the good housekeeping seal of approval. it is. it has been tested. it s okay. we re getting better at that, aren t we, as parents, taking care of things like outlets and that sort of stuff, making sure at least we re being warned. that s the thing, it s much more out there in the world and now, would you get your son the h1n1 virus the some of the people i m traveling with today we were all discussing. and i think it is offered. it s mixed in our group. some have and some haven t. my guy s 2 1/2. i guess they re encouraging oh, yes. you have not yet? most people would like to and can t get it. i know. it s really it s a funny thing. he is immunized with all another stuff, though. back to harrison, because your boy s in good hands, what s he doing? what was it like to work with him? he s so grt. i mean, we were doing the read-through. you know, when you read through a script for the first time, just listening to it. and i m just trying to be like the most quiet version of myself possible just looking down. and i m looking down, and then he reads his lines for the first time. you just hear that iconic voice. and i was just like ooh. indiana jones. indiana jones! and he s great. he s like this cranky, you know, scientist they have to pull out to get help. so brendan fraser plays the party. that s correct. i am not harrison s wife, no. well, keri, we wish you luck with the film. thank you for coming. so talented. thank you. come back when the movie comes out and we ll promote it a little bit. coming up next, the secret ingredients to a better sex life. and here s a hint, they are in your kitchen. do you ever wish there was a magical dust that could lift your libbido? well, there is. in fact, it s in your pantry. lisa drayer s a nutrition involvement and contributing editor for women s health magazine. and she says the right foods can help keep your sex life sizzling. and she s one month away from delivering her baby. so you ve obviously been eating something good. is it really true, though, honestly? can you eat foods that will change your libido, your sex drive and all that? you know, there is some preliminary research suggesting that certain foods can give you a boost in the bedroom. why don t we start right now? you always hear about dark chocolate being good for so many things. also libido? exactly. there s a chemical basis for it. and the reason is chocolate contains the compound fennel ethelamine which increases the feeling avenue traction between people. also it s the same brain chemical that s released when we experience the feeling of falling in love. really? that s why you get candies on valentine s day. and those who consume dark chocolate, one cube daily, women who do that report bigger desire and better performance. they re just happier because they re eating chocolate. i don t know. that s me. now we re into the hot peppers. spicy. here we re talking about the chi chili peppers which contain the compound cap saisin. the interesting thing here is the effects of kaps yaisin mirror the results avenue rousal. flushed cheeks, rapid heart rate. i know about sweats. so the food may elicit these fillings but we attribute them to our we ve done the chemistry part. how what is this part? here we re talking about the big moment. increasing libido and all that stuff. salmon sushi. not just any sushi but salmon. and the reason is research is suggesting that salmon can increase libido specifically due to the fish oils, dha and eta. one gram per day has been associated with increased libido. that s equivalent to about four to five ounces of salmon. and tuna is also good if you re a man because it increases sperm count. wow. when it comes to alcohol you say red wine is where you should put your money? red wine contains resveratrol, which is beneficial during sex. right, like you can t say it. it s very interesting too. apparently, alcohol makes you a better kisser according to the smell and taste treatment and research foundation in chicago. single guys prefer smooches that taste like alcohol. maybe you re less inhibited too. apparently they associate the odor with a woman s sexual availability. oh, my gosh. then i m incredibly available. i ve never been so available. okay. this is for the we can say orgasm. this is for a better orgasm. this is what this part s of the table about. we can say that word, satellite. asparagus is for a better orgasm. it contains folate which also contains another compound called frototiocin. is this for both men and women yep. both men and women. also red meat. zinc. and zinc actually helps curb production of the hormone prolaktin. and this is a good thing because high levels of prolactin can interfere with sex drive. there s a pizza staring at me. this is fun. there are three good reasons why you should enjoy pizza. the first is the cheese. it contains magnesium, which helps with muscle contractions. and we want our muscles to contract during sex. say it again. muscle contraction? muscle contraction. i don t get it. that makes no sense. why does it oh. i thought the cheese did that. the magnesium in the cheese. the magnesium in the cheese makes your stomach contract? like you knew that? not your stomach. your muscles. your stomach muscles. i ll explain it to you during commercial. y did not know the cheese made your stomach muscles contract! i ll explain it to you, baby sister. yes, i will. whatever. also the sauce contains lycopene, which helps get rid of squlu dono of. you don t have to tell us. you know about the lycopene? and peppers, high in vitamin c. which they we veot to go, honey. thank you, lisa. still to come, ambush hits the road. we re going to granby, massachusetts. 3w4r the faa computer is causing airport delays across the country. we ll have a live report from reagan national airport where the situation is expected to get worse if the problem is not fixed soon. also coming up on news4 midday, where to get the best grilled cheese sandwich in our area. news4 midda welcome back on this thursday. the final stop on ambush hits the road. monday we landed in avondale, arizona where we gave carrie romero a head to toe overhaul. and then it was off to michigan on tuesday where kathy helmetag was taken by surprise. look how great she looks. on wednesday it was off to indiana where joe as in joseph green got the royal and we gave one to his wife as well. remember? yeah. and finally at 5:30 this morning our butte aye response team shocked susie slater in granby, massachusetts. let s take a look at what happened. hi! this is jill and louis from the today show. we came all the way fm new york to make you over, susie. oh, my i thought i cancelled. you did cancel. that s too bad. wee here. we re here to ambush you. because you are a beautiful woman. oh, my god. i don t know what to say. i m that s a double surprise. that s the line you want to hear, i thought i cancelled. our team is with susie right now. you know them as louis locari, ivillage contributor and fashion expert to the stars. and jill myers. how s it going? hi, guys. it s going great. this is perhaps our most dynamic makeover, and i guess i should you say that every day, louis. i promise you. this really is a really good one. i want to start off by saying let s see susie just a few hours ago, actually at 5:00 this morning. we re going to get to that in a little bit. but let s hear a little bit of that she s a 64-year-old woman, and she usually works in audiovisual sales. she does water coloring on the side. she s been married 40 years. she has one daughter, kelly. she s 39 years old, and kelly lives with her. she doesn t have a beauty routine. her only makeup is moisturizer and sun screen. her salt and pepper hair is waist length, and she s never, ever colored it before. wow. she never goes to a salon, and her daughter occasionally trims her hair. she s had the same look since 1974 and describes her style as frumpy hippie. here s what she had to say shortly after we ambushed her. well, you tried to cancel on us, but that really didn t work. no, it did not. no, it did not. you really got me. i did. i tried to cancel. i thought the whole thing would just be too much, and i e-mailed and said i m backing out, i chickened out, basically. and my daughter went forward with it. well, let s rewind. why did you want this makeover? i m 63, going to be 64, and i am looking forward to my golden years with something other than this look that i ve had for years and years and years. all righty. so jill, set the whole scene there for us right now. well, she talked about chickening out. she literally has chickens. and it actually laid an egg while we were here. this is susie s family and friends. okay, shh. everyone s blindfolded. do not take off your blindfolds until we tell you. and louis hi. now it is about that time. now let s look at susie before. and let s bring out susie today and show you her just a few hours later. whoo! whoa! are you guys ready to see the new susie? take off your blindfolds! wow. oh, my god. all right, susie. are you ready to see yourself? i know you need your glasses. thank you. ready? step this way. are you ready to see yourself? oh, my god. oh, wow. oh, wow. amazing, right? what do you think? i m just thrilled. david has flowers for you. and kelly, come over. amazing, right? david, what do you think? i think you re gorgeous. you look great. and kelly, she actually got her to do the makeover. right, kelly? yes, i did. it was interest iing. i can t believe it. kathie lee, i love you. oh, thank you. you look beautiful, susie. are you glad now we didn t let you chicken out? yeah, you tried to chicken out, but we didn t let you. are you happy i tried to chicken out. absolutely. well, we see what louis did with the hair. louis, tell bus it. tell us about the hair. well, susie was born red, so i gave her the red hair she once had. and notice the light golden believable natural not garish red. lena gave her the cutoff ten inches, which she s going to donate, by the way, and shaped it around the face. and she still has her same natural appeal that she always has. looks awesome. that outfit is lovely, jill. is that from macy s, jill? it is from macy s. and i gave her theed jacket because somehow i knew her head would would be red in this one. and we gave her jennifer miller. the chickens will love it. great job. happy thanksgiving, everybody. thank you, jill and louis. coming up next, john mayer. i love him. seven-time grammy award winner john mayer has just released his fourth studio album, this one called battle studies. john describes it as a confessional, relaxed, and liberated album. and here s he s here to perform one of the cuts off the album. this one is called heartbreak warfare. lightning strikes inside my chest keep me up at night dream of ways to make you want to stay clouds in the air it s heartbreak warfare once you want it to begin no one really ever wins in heartbreak warfare if you want more love why don t you say so if you want more love why don t you say so drop his name push it in and twist the knife again watch my face as i pretend to feel no pain clouds of sulfur in the air bombs are falling everywhere it s heartbreak warfare once you want it to begin no one really ever wins in heartbreak warfare if you want more love, why don t you say so if you want more love, why don t you say so just say so how come the only way to know how high you get me is to see how far i fall god only knows how much i d love you if you d let me but i can t break through at all it s heart heartbreak i don t care if we don t sleep at all tonight let s just fix this whole thing now i swear to god we re going to get it right if you lay your weapon down red wine and ambien you re talking it again it s heartbreak warfare good to know it s all a game disappointment has a name it s heartbreak, heartbreak heartbreak warfare heartbreak warfare and we will be right back with more of today right after this. time to take you into today s holiday kitchenor a cajun thanksgiving. if you re looking for something a little different to do with your turkey, chef jiy has your recipe. owner of the seventh heaven in chicago. i know you do a couple of secret things. one of them involves these cubes of butter. a lot of butter. what do we do with those? i like to take the butter and kind of put it under the skin. it s kind of forcing the breast to be nice and moist. you just shove it right in there? right in there. obviously you re adding a whole bunch more calories to a very lean bird. before we put the stuffing in, we throw some more butter inside. what does it do when you put it in between the skin and because then it s just like basting the white meat there. it s so good. okay. and then we re going to take a little bit of creole seasoning. put a little bit on there. what is that you re putting on there? put a little bit over for you guys. a lile bit of creole seasoning. i like that. i like that. got any cheese? just kidding. i tell you what, butter and cheese are good things. that was the last segment. yeah. a little bit of jamaican jerk seasoning also. we re doing a little twist on it this time. jamaican jerk seasoning. and then we re going to take some jerk marinade. and where do you get this stuff? i have a recipe for it, otherwise any grocery store will have it. you re basically making a jerky. yeah. look at that. very nice. i m enjoying this. nice to touch the bird, you know? it s a good thing. now, at this time kind of the secret where you re going to get an always perftly brown bird, we take a little kitchen bouquet, just that s the stuff you use on meatloaf. it gives you like a little crust. what is that? it s the best stuff. it gives it like a crust, doesn t it? called kitchen bouquet. it s the best stuff. you rub it in? you just rub that in. and you re going to get a fantastically brown turkey every time. and don t forget the legs, right? and underneath you want to bake this how long? 15 minutes a pound. you want to bake this under some carrots. a little butter on top. you ve got a lot of butter going on. it s perfect. all right. my turkey s very happy. we re not doing a lost weight segment after this, are we? no. then the front? come around the front. let me get my hands a little cleaner. perfect. perfect. even more perfect. we take that. and then we ve made some jamaican jerk cream sauce, kind of a twist on a regular look how beautiful. that s so delicious. to take a bite of that or no? definitely. so you re going to put this what did you say this is? that s cornbread stuffing the juice oozing out of that. look at that. this is the real deal. come on. is it great? oh, my gosh. that is so moist. isn t that nice? and then we ll take a little bit of our you re putting more stuff on it? the country gravy. oh, my gosh. you ve got collard greens. i ll take it right like that. just right there. perfect. sweet potatoes. we have some red beans and tell us about this one. this is kind of a different take. this is turkey and wild mushroom etoufee with sweet potato polenta. you re killing me. where s the recipe for that? it s secret. he won t give us the recipe. i have it on seven.com, and it will be there for you. hoda, you are going to die. i probably will. mm! the crew can t wait till we leave and they can scavenge delicious. heavenonseven.com? yes. so we forgot to say that yesterday we went back to frankie & johnny s on west 45th street for lunch. it s open after renovation. we took a little picture with our friend peter there, the owner. mario. the most incredible shrimp scampi ever. you ve ever had in your entire life. we re so glad they re open for lunch again. we re talking better sex diet. allure wrote in, i think hoda needs to spend a weekend with kathie lee and get the talk. you know what? people misunderstood what i was saying. yes. they misunderstood. she wants know if kathie lee explained it during the commercial. i did. the people at home know that cheese made any muscles in your body contract? eating cheese. i wonder if you knew that. i didn t know. it was news to me. tomorrow don t forget, ambush heads home. so come on down to the plaza. plus two of the stars from this series, twilight. have a great day. bye-bye.