Transcripts For WRC Today 20091214 : vimarsana.com

good morning, time is critical. rescuers plan to try again this morning to find two missing hikers on the snowy slopes of oregon s mount hood. this, after crews discovered the body of their companion. cutting tie accenture becomes the first sponsor to drop tiger woods. this as an another alleged mist ris comes forward with a message for the golfer s wife. i m just sorry for her pain. i hate that i m a part of it. this morning, an exclusive interview. and berlusconi bloodied italy s prime minister hit in the face by a man wielding a statue during a rally. he s in the hospital with a broken nose and two missing teeth and the attacker is behind bars today, monday, december teeth and the attacker is behind bars today, monday, december 14th, 2009. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, welcome to today on a monday morning, i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. this morning, it s a race against time on oregon s mount hood to find those two missing hikers, missing since friday. rescue crews know roughly where they are, but have been hampered by bad weather. they recovered the body of the third climber, said to be the most experienced of the group. also ahead, much more on tiger woods, including one of the questions a lot of people have asked, as more women come forward, claim that they had lengthy relationships with the golfer. how did woods secret life stay out of the public spotlight for so long? we ll talk more about that and hear from one of those alleged mistresses as she speaks out for the first time. how s this for a special series? today gets odd. what s new about that? we split up into teams, we tried out se pasttimes that ordinarily we might not have tried. this morning the adventure matt and i had as we hit the beach in search of lost treasure. let s begin on a serious note and the desperate search for those two missing hikers on oregon s mount hood. nbc s lee cowan has the latest on this. lee, good morning to you. reporter: it s believed the two hikers are around the 9,000-foot level on the western side of mount hood on the face of a steep glacierthere. but with all the recent snow of late, the threat of avalanches is making it impossible for rescuers to look for them on foot. winter on mount hood, treacherous but appealing to the three 20-something mountaineers who took off friday in hopes of reaching the frozen sult. but they never made it back. 26-year-old luke gullberg, thought to be the most experienced climber of the bunch, was the first to be found. his myspace page showed he had a penchant for mountaineering, especially ice climbing. he even posted a picture of him summiting mount hood before. from the looks of his body, rescuers said this time it appears that he had taken a fall. his partners, katie nolan had mmited mount hood several times. anthony vietti is an experienced climber as women. despite their experience, rescuers say they did not bring a radio locater bacon. something they say could have narrowed the search. a camera found near luke s body shows no signs the climbing party was in any oious trouble. everyone was smiling. reporter: the conditions on the glacier remained treacherous this morning. growing fears that like so many victims mount hood claims, these two may never be found. now matt, tonight would be the fourth night in a row that the two have spent on the mountain in subfreezing temperatures, but rescuers insist this is still a rescue operation, not a recovery operation. the last time this many climbers were lost on mount hood in 2006. three climbers died and two of their bodies were never found. lee cowan, thank you very much. it s now four minutes after the hour. here s meredith. to the latest fallout in the tiger woods saga. accenture has announced its ending their six-year relationship with the golfer. mark potter has more. reporter: good morning to you, meredith. over the weekend, tiger woods lost his first big sponsor, he and his agent have not commented on that. but the company has had it very clear why it dropped tiger woods. for six years, tiger woods and the global consulting firm, accenture have done business together, with woods appearing in company ads, and accenture calling his success on the golf course, a metaphor for the company s success. but not any more. in a statement sunday, accenture said reporter: this makes accenture the first major sponsor to fully cut its ties with woods, since the scandal over his personal life unfolded. this is the first kind of blow to brand tiger in terms of the business world. reporter: in the wake of woods recent web statements, admitting infidelity and saying he would leave professional golf indefinitely to be with his family, othe sponsors are also weighing their relationships with woods now. among them, gillette, which said in a statement reporter: at&t said, it s evaluating its relationship with woods. but two other major sponsors, nike and electronic arts, still fully support woods and say their business ties remain solid. over the weekend, woods got another boost, more personally, from the man closest to him on the golf course, who claims he knew nothing about woods personal activities. he s been incredibly gracious with the media. he s never not committed himself to the media and he s been great. he makes one mistake and they run all over the guy. reporter: but with woods latest statement and sponsoring weighing their options, more personal and business trouble could still lie ahead. now meanwhile, the pga tour says it respects woods desire to be with his familily now and will woman him back whenever he wishes to return. in the meantime, it could mean a big financial loss for professional golf. thank you very much. mike lupica is a sports columnist for the new york daily news. you just whispered something to me under your breath just now? when his caddie said, he made one mistake, i hope they count a bit better when he s on the golf course, because he made more mistakes than that. he had a bad weekend. one sponsor dropping him, another removing him from their marketing campaign. another evaluating their relationship. do you suspect it will get better before gets better 14. it might get worse with this konga line of former girlfriends and he s going to take some kind of haircut from sponsors. but when this is going on, when you re in a celebrity barrel like this, you think it will never end. but it always does end. and i believe that he s doing the right thing, by going away. because what he s doing now is he s changing the subjt. what are we talking about? we re not talking about the way he behaved like a slob. we re starting to talk about sponsorship and how much the golf tour isoing to miss him while he s away. that part is pretty smart. we re talking about sponsors dropping him or re-evaluating their relationship with him. i do think that nike is going to stay with him. i think the video games i think the kids playing these video games are going to be far less judgmental than adults are. he two options. he was either going to go to rehab or go away. i think going ay in the short one is really smart. because he had to do something to stop the bleeding. how long do you think he needs to stay away, mike? it s an unknowable thing. some said he will come back for the masses, like four months. i think he could take six months off or even a year. the question for him is how much the ticking clock of trying to pass jack nicklaus s record of the majors are going to influence him time ck. or do he woo take him at his word. is he going to become a better husband. when he had the knee injury and he was out, i think the ratings dropped 50% for golf. we ve seen this movie before. in the short run, golf is going to take a big hit. but that, to me, that s part of his comeback. the comeback begins with people missing him. with people starting to mark time until he comes back. whenever that is. and then once he comes back, he better play great golf. when mike tyson got out of jail and nobody has ever compared it what he did with what tiger s doing. and mike tyson, that with a his biggest sin. he couldn t box any more. you better win some tournaments when you come back. thanks, mike. thanks. much hr or tiger woods in other next half hour. but now a check of the day s news with ann curry. we begin with word that the three american hikers held in iran after straying across the border from iraq will be put on trial. the three have been held in iran since july, are accused of espionage, with their families saying the three are innocent tourists. the cham of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral mike mullen is in afghanistan in the advance deployment of 30,000 more troops. taliban fighters killed 16 policemen in two separate attacks in afghanistan. the group, doctors without borders said 2,000 people have died because of fighting in southern sudan. a quarter of a million people have fled their homes because of the increasing violence there. italy s prime minister, silvio berlusconi, was hospitalized overnight after being hit in the face with statue overnight. he suffered a broken nose and other injuries. the attacker said to have a history of mental problems, has been arrested. overseas markets are mostly hiker, an cnbc s melissa francis with big news from citigroup. citigroup announcing it will pay back $20 billion that it borrowed from the t.a.r.p. fund. remember, it originally borrowed $45 billion. citigroup was among the hardest hit by the financial crisis. the difference between the $20 billn and 45 has converted to government ownership in the company and the government said it will sell off the stock and the debt. so good news for citigroup, lifting the markets so far. back to you. icy roads in part of the northeast made driving dangerous and sent scars skidding into each other. in pittsburgh and connecticut. forecasters expect warmer temperatures there today. dangerous conditions. it is now 7:11. let s go back to matt and meredithth and one of those forecasters and find out what he s got to say. it s warm right now, but we ve got a lot of fog to deal with starting from the mid-atlantic states into texas. causing big problems as far as travel is concerned. let s check it out. show you what s happening. dense fog advisories, raleigh, washington, d.c., all the way to houston and airport delays may be a big problem, from washington, d.c. to atlantatlant gorge, in addition to the follow, we have patchy ice on area overpasses, bridges and ramps, so watch out for that, patchy ice around the region this morning, that s lingering moisture from yesterday s rain that s frozen up. look at the temperatures, we are near freezing at this hour under and that s your latest weather. matt? thanks very much. now to the economy, president obama meets in the white house with the nation s top indusy executives. nbc s white house correspondent, savannah guthrie has details. reporter: aides say the message to the bankers will be simple and direct. taxpayers bailed you out, now step up to the plate. reporter: the president and first lady sunday night rang in christmas in washington. [ bell ringing ] reporter: but with wall street ringing in bonus season, today the president will meet with ceos from some of the nation s biggest financial institutions, who will hear a message of frustration. that the president previewed in an interview with 60 minutes. they re still puzzled, why is it that people are mad at the banks. well. well, let s see you, you guys are drawing $10 million bonuses after the worst year that america has gone through in decades and you guys caused the problem? reporter: the president wants ceos to repay the favor to taxpayer who is bailed them out. and do more to stem the tide of home foreclosures, as well as increase lending to small business. vulnerable to the prospect of a jobless recovery as unemployment lingers at 10%, the president s economic advisors fanned out on the sunday talk shows. jobs have to be the top priority. and every bill is going to be a jobs bill, going forward. reporter: but how will the administration pay for its new jobs initiatives? including $50 billion in new infrastructure spending? senior economic advisor, christina roemer on meet the press. will taxes have to go up for the government to pay for additional stimulus? no one is talking about raising taxes in the middle of a serious recession. reporter: on the president s other priority, health care, a breakthrough agreement in the senate to drop the controversial public option in favor of an expansion of medicare, proved fragile. with key moderate senators on sunday, expressing reservations. did has some of the same infirmities that the public option did. it will add taxpayer costs. it will add to the deficit. it s unnecessary. reporter: well back to the economy forea bit. the senior advisors to the president say they expect job growth to return in the spring. and while they say the recession is technically over, at least one of those advisors says it s not really over until people are back to work. matt? savannah guthrie at the white house, thank you very much. michael steele is the chairman of the republican nation committee good to see you this morning. good to see you. let s talk about health care reform. the president said he thinks the senate will pass his version of the bill by christmas. is the president s stocking going to be empty on christmas day? i hope so, matt, i really do. it s an amazing feat of episodes in washington where people are not listening to what folks back at home are saying. i think the latest polls are showing up to 60% of the people want this thing either stopped, slowed down or somehow modified to take into account, as savannah reported, the spending. i mean, no one s telling us where this money is going to come from to pay for a lot of the changes that the health care bill has in it. you have lieberman and others sitting there going, well, i don t know, this is not what we thought it was going to be, still a little bit of a public option here or this. so the reality is there s so many different points of view on this one bill. then you roll that into medicare, which, you know, the cbo last time i checked score was going bankrupt. and yet you want to cut money from that and then model the entire system around that? to me, the american people are saying enough s enough right now. let me talk about it from the republican s point of view here. because it seals as if this delay stalled, that is the major strategy. and i understand that you disagree with the direction that the democrats are taking this. but do those 60% of americans in this country still want you to do something else? do they want you to roll up your sleeves and work with the democrats on something better as opposed to just delaying and stalling? no, matt, you re absolutely right about that, you re absolutely right. and in fact, as mitch mcconnell and john boehner have tried repeatedly to do over the course of the spring and summer, there have been numerous pieces of legislation and amendments to both house and senate bills that have been rejected out of hand. and so, yes, the american people do want us to come together and work towards a bipartisan, bomb-up, slow steady process of health care processes that can be addressed without raising costs, health care premiums, et cetera. i agree that there s that desire. but there s also the desire that this thing gets slowed down or stopped a little so we can focus on just that. let s talk about the meeting the president is going to have at the white house with the top bankers. he wants them to lend more to small businesses. he wants them to stem the tide of foreclosures. he says the people on wall street still don t get the pain and anger that people are feeling on main street. what should theresident be doing that he s not doing, mr. steele, in terms of the banking industry? well i think first off, he should recognize that banks aren t going to lend money to people who can t pay them back. if small business owners are closing their doors or contracting their operations, where are they going to get the money to pay back the banks. so the banks can open up the floodgates of cash, but you still have on the other end the ability of the individual nsumer, the small business ner, to pay back the loan. so why is that the situation? well the situation is, they re up against the wall. they re up against the wall in terms of their costs. the tax burdens, the regulatory burdens that have been placed on them at state level as well as the federal level. so there s this whole cycle of not understanding exactly how the economy works with respect to small business owners. take that pressure off of them. let s eliminate the capital gains tax. let s reduce the unemployment tax. let s give other incentives to small business owners to invest in their expansion of their operations so they can hire more people. so that credit that the president is saying they should be after? they can at least afford to pay it back. republican national committee chairman, michael steele, thank you for joining us. here s meredith. to the first comments from american college student, amanda knox, since she was sentenced to 26 years in prison for murdering her roommate. nbc s mike taibbi has details. reporter: behind bars for first time as a convicted murderer, amanda knox was in shot clock, that s what the 22-year-old exchange student told a group visiting with her in prison. associated press reporter patricia thomas accompanieded group. she said when the verdict came down she felt horrendous. she said she went back to the principle, she went into her cell, she was sobbing. and the prison guards came in and held her throughout the night. reporter: knox did not directly discuss her trial and her conviction on charges of murdering her former roommate, british student meredith kercher, except to say she was hoful about the future. she is definitely not defeated. she is clinging to the hope that the appeal will get her out of there. reporter: in the meantime, her co-defendant and former boyfriend has also spoken out for the first time since he started his 25-year sentence. reporter: of his former lover, he said, amanda is not capable of killing. it s impossible and absurd, she s such a sweet girl. knox s family said she s received thousands of emails and letters. and just one negative note, telling her to enjoyating pasta for the next 26 years. for now, knox is trying to adjust. we entered her cell and spoke to her and the first thing she said to me, i m scared. the prison was actually very nice, it was very clean, there were christmas trees were up. but nevertheless, it s a prison. reporter: knox said she s hoping to be working in the prison laundry as a way to pass the time. her appeal is not likely to be argued until next september at the earliest. for today, mike taibbi, nbc news, london. still ahead, much more on the tiger woods scandal. plus one of his alleged mistresses speaks out for the first time. first, this is today on nbc. one of hollywood s most ambitious and expensive films ever made, avatar. and today gets odd after your local news. good morning, everyone. am welcome, i m barbara harrison. it s monday, december 14, 2009. and in the news at this hour t five northern virginia men being held in pakistan will remain there for the time being. judges in that country will review the case before the men can be deported. they are accused of joining militant groups to fight american soldierings. there are some school delays to report. warren county and wakefield country day school are all opening two hours la. river front christian school and midland christian academy are opening one hour late today. and beale be back with weather and traffic good morning, temperatures are near freezing to watch out for patchy ice on the bridges and overpasses. jerry, hoe s the traffic? a tough time out there, 95 at newington and the fog has certainly turned into a issue. we ll check montgomery county along i-270. kochlg up on news4 at 5:00 this evening, it s the payment plan that s making a here s to discovering that the little things in life are often big things and the time well spent doesn t always mean money must be spent people everywhere are building their lives on more solid ground through sound choices and a smart approach to their finances and they re turning to suntrust for easy ways to save money and take more control over it live solid, bank solid. suntrust. 7:30 on this monday morning, december 14th, 2009. that s a look at new sci-fi thriller, avatar, the brainchild of that man over there. oscar winner james cameron and his first feature film since a little picture called titanic. inside studio 1a i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. the latest on a tragic story in florida. back in october, 15-year-old michael brewer was set on fire alleged by by another group of teenagers. coming up, his physical therapists will show the painful rain habitation michael is undergoing each and every day and we ll talk to another child who saw it happen. and on a much lighter note, matt and i bundle up and hit the beach in search of hidden treasure. let s begin with more on tiger woods and the sex scandal that seems to grow every day. nbc s peter alexander is here with more. peter, good morning, what can you tellus? reporter: corey wrist has not said a word publicly since the scandal broke about. you now the 31-year-old single, stay-at-home mother is coming forward because she said she needs to set the record straight. wrist has a message for woods wife, elin and has a word about how the golfer kept his affair a secret. he would tell me, this is your room number, it s under this name. i would go to my room, he would open the middle door ande had two rooms. reporter: that was august of 2006 in atlanta. the one-time wrist wrist said she ran day viewed with woods on the road. a lot of people would book his itineraries for myself. it was under an alias name. reporter: wrist said she met woods two months earlier. when a man invited wrist to join woods for a drink. i think it was very comfortable. he was not afraid to show his affection in front of everybody who was there. he was very affectionate and let me by the hand and we just kind of disappeared. and that was the start. reporter: wrist said their relationship lasted for two and a half years. reporter: how did nobody know? people knew. reporter: she admits she knew woods was married. but he insisted his relationship with wife, elin, was on the rocks. that he was not happy at home with his wife. that he would stay there because she was pregnant and they were expecting their first child. and because of his reputation and the image he has, he had to uphold that. reporter: corey wrist is just the latest to share her tiger tale. with tiger woodstill in seclusion, now beginning an infinite break from professional golf i interviewed tiger woods. reporter: sky tv in new zealand is currently promoting an interview shot last month where woods spoke about his wife and their two young children. family first and golf second. always be like that? always. reporter: and equally, ironic, their recordshat woods $22 million yacht in south florida has been loaded for a geway. the boat now disguised by a white tarp. meanwhile, the swedish golfer who introduced woods to his wife takes a new swing at woods. if she stays with tiger, because she loves him beyond anything and there s no pricetag on her love. if she leaves, it s because he behaved like a moron. reporter: why are you coming forward now? because i feel i need to defend myself. reporter: against what corey wrist calls false tabloid reports. . reporter: were you a prostitute? no. did tiger woods pay you anything? no. never. reporter: but she said tiger woods kept pursuing her. each time she said she declined until their last conversation in december. we had an argument over i don t make enough time for him. and that was it. you don t make enough time for him? that s correct. as for elin. i m sorry for her pain. i hate that i, i m a part of it. i feel like i have to take responsibility for the things i ve done. and one day i m going to have to look my son in the face and explain all this. so i m very sorry. reporter: corey wrist told nbc news that she thought she was the only other woman in woods life. but said she would become suspicious when she would wake up in the middle of the night and see woods texting who she assumed were other women. right now let s bring in gerald posner, chief reporter for the daily beast. it s hard to keep track of this. at last count there are 15 or 16 women who have come forward and the question you re hearing asked more than any other question, gerald, is how did tiger woods manage to keep this secret. according to your reporting, it was less about luck and more about a pretty well thought-out plan? yeah, exactly. matt, you know this morning i just broke a story on the daily beast. i ve been spending days trying to get toth and through interviews i ve discovered he had two different parts of his life. one the hidden life that was run by very, very close friends. people like brian bell, who got married this weekend. tiger was supposed to be his best man. he wasn t able to show up. he was the one who bought the tickets, did the alias for rachel uchitel to go to australia. there s a handful of old-time friends, personal friends of tiger who ran what i call his extra marital affairs for him. on the other side, there was his business agent, who was caught flat-footed and shocked at the trail of reckless evidence, the emails, the voice messages, the texts, the private accounts that tiger used to keep the affairs up. but, gerald, you also report and i m not going to mention the name of the law firm, because we haven t been able to confirm this, but that tiger woods had a law firm basically on retainer for situations that could get messy. any time a potential scandal came up or a tabloid would call him, with a potentially damaging photograph, he would let this law firm handle it and squash any rumors. yeah. as a matter of fact, this law firm is one of the premiere, one of the best firms in l.a. one of the things they specialize in is they represent a-list hollywood clients, who have trouble with the tabloids, they go after the tabloids. and in 2007 they were able to squash a story that the national enquirer had when they had grainy pictures of tiger woods and a girl in his car. now when it came time to call tiger on a story that broke all of this. the national enquirer called mark steinberg and steinberg immediately forwarded them to the law firm. there was no crisis management team. there was no media team in place. that s one of the reasons that tiger has handled this so badly. one of the other things you report is there has been a financial deal and you make this a certainty, between tiger woods and rachel uchitel how are you so sure that money has changed hands between those two? i can t say that money has changed hands. here s what i can say with certainty, and that is, of this weekend, the offer on the table to rachel uchitel was up to $5 million. a pay-out over time. the same way that michael jackson paid the boy who accused him of molestation was $20 million. a payment over every year. why would he pay that particular woman all that money and not these other women? matt, that s the key question. look, you have corey on later today. other people have gone on to extra you had something else on the today show. why is he only paying her $5 million? the reasons i keep hearing is that his marriage is hanging by a thread and it s rachel who has the final bits that would put it over the edge. he s the one that she fell for. he s the one that has the voice messages that is thinking leaving his life and loves her. and she s the one that talked to him and his wife hours before the accident in conversations that nobody yet knows about. tiger wants if a quiet. $5 million s worth the price of trying to keep his marriage. it s also the amount, remember, that i reported he first offered his wife $5illion five days after his marriage to stay with him. there s something about $5 million that he happens to like. what a mess. let s get a check of the weather from al. all right. thanks, guys, a little chilly. what s acm? alleghany college of maryland. we re up here on a leadership tour. thanks for coming out. let s check your weather and see what s happening. we ll show you where it s awfully cold. these are current air temperatures, 18 degrees below zero in glasw, montana. and as you take a look at the wind chills for today, it feels like it is 13 below in sioux falls, 26 in des moines. actual air temperatures for highs today in that area it s going to be very cold. single digits, teens and 20s. rest of the country, that cold air is going to be making its way to the east and to the south. we re looking at 30s in new england. 20s in the i good morning, we have a little patchy fog around, but were mornl, we have patchy ice, watch out for that this morning especially on elevated services like ramps, bridges and overpasses for the next couple of hours. it should warm up today into the upper 40s to near 50 degrees or so. tonight partly cloudy and maybe a little fog around tomorrow morning. partly to mostly cloudy tomorrow highs in t that s your latest weather. for the latest weather, go on the weather channel 24/7 or weather.com online. matt? thank you very much. up next, insid the futuristic world of avatar. famed director james cameron s first feature film since tie t ik, we ll talk to him about his 12-year journey that could forever change hollywood right after this. back at 7:44 with a true hollywood powerhouse, it doth get much bigger than a james cameron movie. he s the man behild aliens, the terminator and the highest-grossing film ever, titanic. now james cameron is back with avatar. take a look. good to have you. we re fully mature on the flight out. great muscle tone. think if you can take them out tomorrow. there s yours. hey. pleased to meet you. james cameron, good morning to you. pleasure to see you. nice to see you again. we were saying in the break, it s a bit like birthing a baby. making this movie. a baby that took 14 and a half years to make it. technology that had to catch up with the script. avatar in general, that s the scene played by jake worthington, jake sully. he meets his avatr for the first time. it s this big blue, ten-foot tall alien essentially that he can mentally connect to and sort of telepathically control. so humans can t breathe the air on this planet. so if he s going to go out and meet the aliens on this planet, he s got to do it through a surrogate body. you ve directed ground-breaking movies before. but this you say is your greatest challenge, ever. what separates this film? this is a particularly tough film, the time, a lot of animation of all of these creatures and we had live action as well, plus we were shooting it in 3-d. and the trick is to stay, keep the heart of the movie alive while you re dealing with all of this technology. ultimately, you say for all the talk of the technology, this is really at its heart, a chick flick? all of my movies are chick flicks. this film is no different, i love strong female characters. i love writing complex women. and even those sam worthington s story and we follow him, we have these amazing women in the movie and there s a love story. there s a message about greed and when people want a lot of things, imperialism all of that. and how that tends to destroy the environment and here they are doing the same thing on another pristine planet that we ve done here on earth. it s a way of looking back at ourselves from this other world and seeing what we re doing here. you know, insiders in the business are saying they hope this does for movie-making what sound and color did in the past. do you see yourself as a pioneer? no pressure at all. i like the pioneer technology and i like the big show, i like the big spectacular show that i used to love when i was a kid, going to see star wars. i think this film is a celebration of that by bringing people back into the theater, showing them something that they couldn t have managed and doing it in 3-d. you know, that s what i set out to do with this movie. but there is a lot of pressure, not just because of the technology involved, but because it s been 12 years for you. the last movie was titanic, biggest-grossing movie of all time. this cost over $200 million. i don t cop to that, but it s up there. definitely up there. are you feeling pressure, cause at the end of the day the bean counters will be looking at this? we d like to make some money with the film. the studios like me to do this type of movie and the fans like me to do this type of movie. it s what i ve always done. there s the huge risk you re going to fall on your face every time you go out there. i m sring at you, what goes on in that mind of yours. i don t even know myself. you don t even want to know. what are you going to do at this point? i m an unemployed director. so if you hear of any opportunities, let me know. i ll pass them your way, james cameron, thank you so much. congratulations on the movie. it opens on friday. again the movie is avatar, james cameron. still ahead, today gets odd. who knew that a day at the beach could turn into a full contact sport. you won t believe what matt and i were up to. just ahead, a look at the painful recovery of that 15-year-old florida boy, set on fire, allegedly by a group of classmates. plus we ll talk to one of the boys who was there and whose brother is now charged in the case. but first, your local news and weather. good morning, everyone, i m barbara harrison. it s an ugly monday morning out there. weather problems are causing flight delays this morning. all three airports reporting delays to hartsfield international in atlanta and o hare airport in chicago. there are also some school delays to report all in virginia. warren county and wakefield country day school are all opening two hours late this morning. riverfront christian school and midland christian academy are opening two hours late today. good morning, we have got some patchy fog around washington. we can only see the top of the washington monument. the fog will be dissipating in the next couple of hours. we have got patchy ice on elevated surfaces including bridges and overpasses. now 34 in washington, but later on today we should warm to near 50 degrees, partly cloudy and partly cloudy tonight, upper 50s tomorrow. colder weather and gusty winds tuesday night into wednesday and thursday. a little sampling around the area. you can see the fog is certainly an issue, but theraffic seems to be dealing with it fairly well over here. forestville road, serious crash police are dealing with that. bashl are. coming up tonight at 5:00, it s the payment plan that s making a come back. we re back now, 8:00 on a mondaymorning, the 14th day of december, 2009. the tree there in the foreground, a crowd of people in the background. probably going to spend some time with us this morning and head out to do some more christmas shopping. only ten shopping days left. if you ve got people on your list, you haven t purchased things for, get out there and get it soon. out on the plaza, i m matt lauer, along with meredith vieira and al roker. a nice group out here today. a lovely group. a big one. coming up a serious and tragic story, we ll bring you the latest on 15-year-old michael brewer, the florida teenager who was deliberately set on fire, alleged by by another group of teens. we re going to find out what his rehabilitation schedule has been like. what he s going through. and then we re going to hear from a 13-year-old boy who was tually there when the incident occurred. his 15-year-old brother has been charged in this crime. we re going to find out what he has to say. pretty tough. and then, a little bit later on, who should be time magazine s person of the year? that s right. well don t deny it. just say, yeah. take it. we re going to reveal the winner live wednesday here on today. but in the meantime. we ll get a sneak peek, by checking out the seven finalists up for this honor. it s always fun to kind of guess about this every year. we re usually wrong, aren t we? always. plus a special series that we re calling today gets odd. we ll explain exactly what matt and i that doesn t look good. totally wrong. she tried to steal something from me. that s what happened. did you get sand in your hair? but i ve watched it since then, so it s fine. let s go inside, ann is standing by at the news desk with a look at the headlines. i m so glad meredith survived. good morning once again, bad weather is hampering the search for two climbers missing sin friday on oregon s mount hood. rescuers found the body of their companion, luke gullberg on saturday. officials said the climbers are experienced, but did not carry an emergency locater beacon. the nation s top military officer, mike mullen, is in afghanistan days before u.s. troops start arriving. he said he s concerned about growing cooperation between the taliban and al qaeda. today, taliban fighters attacked to checkpoints in afghanistan, killing 16 police officers. the main sessions of the u.n. climate talks in copenhagen were suspended today, when african nations walked out to pressure the wealthier countries to reduce more greenhouse gases. on sunday, 25,000 demonstrators marched near the climate summit, demanding that all nations do more to protect against climate change. over the weekend, police made more than 1,000 arrests. president obama is meeting today with the heads of the nation s top banks. he wants banks to increase small business lending and also business lending and support stronger government regulation. the president s chief of staff, rahm emanual, lit the national menorah in washington on sunday. more than 1,000 people braved the cold rain to celebrate the jewish festival of lights. and now here s brian williams with what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. as you know, it s our most popular segment making a difference. to send this year on an up note. all the way out for the next two weeks, we re going to have one each night during this season of giving. we look forward to hearing. brian thanks so much. it is now 8:00. we ll go outside to matt now. hey, gorgeous. she s looking at me like what are you talking about. let s get a check of the weather from mr. roker. that is a cute outfit. the hat and the coat, very nice. we ve got these nice folks out here. who is bd? big daddy. well okay then. i think i have the vapors. let s take a look at see what s happen. for today s pick city, mobile, alabama, nbc 15. afternoon showers, high of 69 degrees. and as we look at your week ahead, we are expecting hvy sn in the pacific northwest. above-normal temperatures in the east with wet weather through the gulf coast. mid-week, we look for the much below normal temperatures to move east with cold conditions up through new england. mountain snows in the pacific northwest. latter part of the week, you will see that we re looking at chilly conditions for the eastern half of the country. mountain snows and snowshowers good morning, partly cloudy now and cold, watch out for patchy ice, we have had reports of multiple accidents mainly on elevated surfaces. right now 34 in washington and it is hovering right near the freezing mark elsewhere. highs today should climb into the upper 40s to near 50 degrees. 40s in the evening, up next, the difficult road to recovery for the florida teen set on fire allegedly at the hands of five other boys. michael brewer s physical therapist shows us what his life is like now. and we ll talk to one of the boys who was there on the day of the attack. that s right after this. walgreens wants to remind you that there s no greater joy than the joy of giving, whether you give a little part of yourself or something else. like unique stocking stuffers from walgreens, all at great prices. hey, that tickles! so come in and stuff all your stockings in no time. with a great selection of fun and useful gifts for everyone on your list, walgreens makes stuffing those stockings a breeze. and i like a cold breeze. walgreens. there s a way to find your joy. really soft, really smooth lips. my blistex new lip massage. the soft tip smoothes away rough spots, as emollients moisturize and protect. my lips feel amazing. we re back now at 8:08 with the latest on a horrible attack of a florida teenager, who was set on fire back in october, alleged by at the hands of a group of classmates. we ll talk to the mother and brother of one of those boys in a moment. but first, nbc s carrie sanders has more on the victim s painful recovery. reporter: 15-yr-old michael brewer courageously shared a single photo of himself in the hospital. the bedsheets concealing the scars that cover 65% of his body. and now the florida teenager is giving us a look at what he sees from his hospital bed every day. walls covered in cards. thousands of well-wishes from strangers. like today he s doing this with another patient. reporter: michael s physical therapist said just being able to throw the ball is huge. diaz says stretching is most difficult. when he s laying down, everything is tight if shoulder, trunk, hips, all the way down. i would be standing there pushing his leg all the way. reporter: it s hours ever incremental progress. it s very painful. he s crying all the time when we do that. reporter: diaz says michael s aching journey to a new life is haunted by a question. every now he would go back to why did they do this to me. reporter: why did they allegedly douse him in rubbing alcohol and light him on fire? three clsmates are charged as adults with attempted murder. 13-year-old baby-faced jeremy jarvis, youer brother of one of the suspects was also arrested. but after prosecutors dropped charges against him, jeremy apologized to michael. i want to express my deepest sympathy to mikey and his family. i will pray for mikey to grow stronger every day and for mikey s speedy recovery. reporter: after nine weeks, michael s recovery is only just benning. we ve been to the operating room twice now for skin grafts and we ve taken care of the legs. we ve taken care of most of the torso. reporter: doctors graft undamaged skin over burned areas. but a patient will only accept their own skin, or that from an identical twin. so in michael s case, with so much of his body burned, doctors have had to rely on tecology to make a small piece go a long way. but even as undamaged skin can be stretched, like this dressing, doctors say michael will never be the way he once was. for today, kerry sanders, nbc news, miami. 13-year-old jeremy jarvis is with us, along with his mother and the family s lawyer, steven melnick. good morning to all of you. there might be people sitting at home saying, why are you appearing on tv. you re putting yourself in some risk. you ve got a 15-year-old son in custody, charged with attempted murder in this case. you have a 13-year-old son who was arrested and released. although no charges were filed, i understand there s still a chance. why are you here today? i m basically here because i i just want everybody to understand that there s two sides to every story. and my children, they re not the monsters that they ve been painted out to be. i mean if you know them or see them if you know them, you see the difference. people that don t know them, they they re not the monsters that they ve painted to be. some horrible happened. there s no question about it, michael brewer was attacked savagely, doused with alcohol, set on fire. jeremy, i know for legal reasons you cannot talk about what happened that day. but i do want to say that as the story we just aired was running, and you were hearing the description of what michael brewer is going through, you had a very a difficult reaction. you put your hands on your head. i don t know whether you couldn t watch what was happening to michael. or couldn t stand to see yourself on tv. which was it? it was what was happening to michael. because michael is one of my friends. and well he was one of my friends. and until all of this happened. now i can t see him. i can t talk to him. the only thing i can do is pray for him. you aren t able to say what did happen. can you tell me, were you in no position, jeremy, to stop what happened that day? if you were there, and you saw what happened couldn t you have stopped it or helped to stop it? no. how come? because there s some real ramifications now. these are questions that jeremy can t answer at this point in time. the state attorney s office may want to speak to jeremy. so i just there s issues about what happened, i just can t have him talk about it. mrs. jarvis, you say your sons are not monsters. yet, if the reporting is correct, one of your sons doused michael brewer with this alcohol. and i m just does it make it sound like he was a choir boy before this happened. how would you explain that? well i mean there s, i mean like i said, there s two sides to every story. and we don t deny that there was wrongdoing on denver s part. i m trying to put it into the correct words. if the shoe were on the other foot and it wasour son, jeremy, who had been doused with alcohol and set on fire, what would you want to happen to the boys who were involved or were there? i have said this before and i ll say it again that i agree that there should be punishment. but in my opinion and it s not just because it s my son, but my opinion is that this is a child. and to throw just throw him away, i don t see how that helps. i mean you know, maybe rehabilitate or something. i don t see throwing a 15-year-old away for up to 30 years, possibly, that that helps. and there s victims on both sides in different ways. we re going to follow this story, obviously, denver still in custody awaiting trial on this. and steven thank you, jeremy, thanks for being here. mrs. jarvis, thank you very much. it s 15 minutes after the hour. we ll be right back. ( sfx: lever and stairs flattening noise, and sliding sound ) pop-tarts®, plse! ( sfx: toaster pop ) when you give your kids. kellogg s frosted strawberry pop-tarts®. baked with real fruit, they ll rise. and you ll shine. ( sfx: mom giggles ) pop-tarts®. made for fun™. we ve got moof this year sest prichottest toys! plus, us! save big on the best board games. stores open late every day until midnight! no additives. no artificial ingredients. select harvest from campbell s now has twelve soups that are 100% natural. with ingredients like this, we want to show the world. select harvest, from campbell s. this is maggie. a very smart little girl. i m not a little girl i m a big girl. and this is a seat from the seven passenger toyota highlander. this is a little seat, i m a big girl. well this is the eight- passenger chevy traverse. which offers more room and an epa estimated 24 on the highway. that s a big girl car. i want the big girl car. a very smart little girl. the chevy traverse. america s best crossover. compare us to anyone and may the best car win. to the kickoff of our special series, today gets odd some might say we do that every day around here. but that s another story. we all have hobbies, i like to golf, ann likes to take photos. al likes to cook. meredith likes to make fun of short people. what? what about other people, we decided to give someone else s pasttime a shot. a hobby, an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation. you know needlepointing. stamp-collecting. a lovely game of chess. but does this look like pleasure? does that look like relaxation? yes! how did we get here? and how did a quiet day of metal-detecting turn so ugly? for starters, we never, ever dreamed we d even be metal-detecting. we left out did you ever think you d be at jones beach with a metal detector in the dead of winter. if i have to cheat, i will come back with gold and lauer will come back with nothing. that s my plan. although, he will cheat. eel take one of those fake teeth out of his mouth and that will be it. you re asking me, if i find something entitin the dead of w on jones beach in the sand, after freezing my butt off, after i find a gold ring, will i go out and try to find the owner? is that a serious question? having lost something that meant a great dl to me and knowing what it s like to have that sense of loss and how painful it is? truly painful to your core? if i find anything i m keeping it. but before we set out to find our buried treasure, we had to find something more valuable. a buddy system. fred and mike have been metal-detecting for 30 years. we ve all seen the idiots on the beach with the metal detectors looking for pennies. sometimes we get the last laugh. i would like to check your pockets. i ve got nothing. what s this? that s my blackberry. fred, do mont people come in their fashion ski jackets? excuse me. good luck. good luck. as we probe the sand, we probed for answers. is there kind of an injury of the trades? do you guys get tendonitis, mel detector elbow? how much money have you made? we discover it s like finding a gold ring in a heck of a lot of sand. it seems like at the moment there s not a lot of need for this little pouch i m wearing on my waist, is there? i think we ve got a defective sweeper. what is that? a bottle cap. a false positive? did i miss it again? this has pop top written all over it. and soon, pop tops were about to make us pop our own tops. all of that for a bottle top? that sthat s aggravating. what s in a? all kidding aside, do you ever do this in all of these bottle caps, do you ever just stop and think, god, people really litter. this girl needs a lot of work. fred, you re either with moo me or against me. while my co-host dug up half of jones beach, one was us was about to hit the mother lode. yes! yes! we found a nickel! five cents, baby! yeah, and as the saying goes, that and a nickel will buy you well, 10 cents. but let s see who got the biggest booty. i got a lot of stuff here. i got myself a ring. that s a pop top. i got myself a ancient coin. that is a penny. what do you have? the best there s about a 7 73-carat white flawless diamond ring. y re a liar, you re a cheat. metal detecting isn t a hobby at all. you didn t find that. sometimes it s a contact sport. fred! he s a cheater! you know what i found out out there, the number for my lawyer, who will be contacting you very shortly. wrestling on the beach over a plastic diamond. well, whatever. it was fun. coming up tomorrow, kathie lee and hoda go searching for bigfoot. and we go plane-spotting. bird-watching? no, you spot big birds, planes. now to tiny dogs, we re switching gears here. we ve become a big problem, animal shelters in california are reporting a glut of abandoned chihuahuas. a breed made popular because they ve been featured in some movies and owned by a few celebrities. here s nbc s george lewis. reporter: call it the chihuahua crisis. out in california, shelters are putting out the call for help. we ve seen an incredible increase in the number of chihuahuas. but i m an heiress! i have a trust fund. reporter: blame it on those lovable little characters from last year s hit movie beverly hills chihuahua. or the chihuahua in legally blonde. hi, i m elle woods. and this is bruiser woods. reporter: not to mention those taco bell adds. and the fact that celebrities like paris and britney have been photographed with their chihuahuas. a lot of people thought hey, this would make a great pet. then had second thoughts. chihuahuas can be high-strung and difficult to housebreak. which is why many become unwanted. this is petunia, a 3-year-old chihuahua mix, quivering a little bit. some shelters in california say that fully 60% of the dogs they have up for adoption are either chihuahuas or mixes like petunia. and many are shipping the dogs out of state, even as far as toronto, canada. our shelter is not alone in this breed crisis, if you will. anwith animal shelters being saturated with one specific breed or one breed of dog, it does make it little bit challenging to place all of them. reporter: the shelters are hoping their call for help will attract more people like svetlana henderson and her son, martin. we are gentle. they re just so cute and they can ride in the car andasy to manage. just, yeah, we have room in our home for another family member. reporter: shelters advise that chihuahuas can live to up to 20 years, so they want people to regard adopting them as a long-term commitment. for today, george lewis, nbc our time is 8:26 right now, 34 degrees and you can still see a layer of fog out there here in the nation capital. we have had that all morning long on this morning, december 14, 2009. park police are on the scene of a eastbound traffic on the parkway is shut down right now as police complete their investigation. there are also some school delays to tell you about. all of them in virginia. faulkner coty, warren county and wakefield country day school are all opening two hours late this morning. we ll take a break now and we ll come back and look at our good morning, the patchy ice and fog we have seen dissipating this hour. a bit milder tomorrow turning windy and colder into wednesday an thursday. taking a live look over at the capital beltway, springfield out toward 66, lanes are open, looks like the follow is dissipating here. be careful, might still be a little if not frozen, at least wet. joe. tonight o 8:30 on this monday morning. a crowd with us on the plaza, right now we re dropping their donations for the annual holiday gift drive in santa s bag. carried by actress emily blount. she is not the only talented actress we have with us this morning. oscar-winner actress nicole kidman will be stopping by to talk about her role in the new movie nine. and then later on, we ll be talking to one of the women who allegedly hadden a affair with tiger woods, she baeks her silence in an exclusive live interview. and we ll have affordable alternatives. we re talking about the hottest gifts this holiday season. we found a spitting image of a $600 coat for just $35. we ve got jean chatzky showing us how to save big bucks. but first, we need to say hello to emily blunt. she pls queen victoria in the new film, young victoria. emily, nice to see you. queen victoria. people think of her as the older lady who alwaysas in mourning. you play her as the young queen. well thank goodness. no i mean i knew very little about her in the younger years. you know, i knew of the sour-faced old lady being wheeled around. so tell us what she was like as a young lady? she was really the antithesis of my image of her. she was vivacious and a modern-thinker for that time. i m wondering if shooting this, i understand a lot of it was shot in august and you re wearing those costumes in 90-degree weather. how did that feel? it was warm. a lot of sweat? loving those wardrobepeople, weren t you? yes. the corset is an indurns test, it really is. you said you didn t want to play her, she s somewhat relatable? she is, i found her to just be a girl who s in love and she s in a job where she s way over her head. and i think a lot of people can identify with that. it s really a love story between her and albert which was really the greatest love story in monarchy history. they had nine children and he died very young. and that s the image everyone has of her, the widow in black. but before that she was a lot of fun. it sounds like it s going to be breaking a lot of perceptions about her. i hope so. you really wanted to do this part? i did, very much. i beat up security to get it. you buried the lead there, emily, that s nice. emily blunt, thank you so much. we ll remind the audience that the young victoria opens in limited release on friday and christmas day nationwide. you know my first name is albert. that s right. and he also wear as corset. those are spanx. let s check your weather for today, mountain snows in the pacific northwest. sunshine up and down the eastern seaboard. as we move into tomorrow, some of the frigid air makes its way into the great lakes. showers in the northeast. wet weather in the southst and good morning, the iciness we have had earlier this morning is beginning to melt now and the patchy fog is dsipating and the temperature should be climbing quickly now. upper 40s to near 50 that afternoon. maybe a little fog tomorrow morning a front approaching by tomorrow afternoon be sweep away the clouds and don t forget, you can check out your weather any time of the day or night on cable or weather.com online. that sound effect always gets me. when we come back, the lovely and talented nicole back at 8:36 with oscar-winner, nicole kidman, a big part of the all-star cast new movie, musical nine that includes penelope cruz and daniel day-lewis. the muses, the incredible women that made italy what it is today. the country run by men for themselves run by women. whether they know it or not. so i am the women behind the great men? the great women. a way, yes. and these muses, they fall in love with the men? exactly. they fall in love with them. i d rather be the man. nicole kidman, good morning to you. hi. that is a scene with daniel day-lewis. you play the leading lady of guido contini. you re the muse in all of this. this is what robert marshall said when he was casting it. he said when the character claudia comes onscreen, hee has to be the iconic film star and nicole has really attained that in your life. you re laughing. you re an icon. i always laugh. no. well that s how he sees you. sophia loren is an icon. in this movie, you are the iconic character. yes. i play that part. your little girl was just six months olds when you did this movie. no, no, three months. she was three months when you accepted the part? no, when i accepted the part i was pregnant. but she was born just before we started shooting. so what was it about this part because you, you hadn t been in movies for a while. that was a back seat to your personal life. what was it about this movie that made you say, you know what, even with a new baby, i want to do this. only a couple of weeks work and i think it was my way to put my toe in the water again. and i love rob marshall, who is the director. and sohen he asked me to do something, i say yes. you say yes. moulin rouge was another musical that you were in. it brought back musicals to theater as something wonderful to go see. different playing in a musical second time around? easier? yeah, easier, actually. yeah. and also because i had a much smaller role in nine moulin rouge i was carrying the whole film. so that s a far different responsibility. in nine that daniel s responsibility. so he had more of the pressure, i think. but you had the pressure of having to sing unusual way. which is probably the song that most people identify nine with. the song that barbra streisand sung. i never heard her rendition. i saw her in new york just recently. i was one of the lucky few. you were there. that night, wasn t it incredible? it was amazing. but you didn t want to have to compare yourself to her, obviously listening to it. yeah. was it a scary thing to have to sing that song? it s always scary to have to sing. but as an actress, it s a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to be able to sing and dance, as well as act. because that s what ey used to do and i think when you go to drama school, that s what you re taught. i ve got to be able to do it all. so it s rare that you get asked to. and when you do, it s a joy. we have a little taste of that. so let s put that out for the audience. in a very unusual way i want to cry something insidee goes weak something inside me surrenders and you re the reason why you re the reason why i can t believe you were nervous. very nervous. that was like 3:00 a.m. in the morning, on the streets of italy. on the streets of italy, for real? they don t tell you that. freezing cold. and the whole town, because we were shooting in a little italian town, they were all standing out there watching. which makes it even worse. you ve really settled into a small town of yourself. you re outside nashville. you have a big farm there. tennessee. actually we have place outside of nashvilleth and we have a place in nashville as well now. how has your life changed, would you say? it s simpler and it s filled with love. so that s a nice place to be. it s a very nice place to be. and you ll be spending the holidays there or? we go back to sydney. to australia? our families there so we re taking the family down there and spend chrtmas a new year there. that s lovely. nicole, thank you so much. thank you. good luck with the movie, it s terrific. and nine opens nationwide on christmas day. up next, today s countdown to christmas, is brought to you by jadore, dior. this morning on today s countdown to christmas, a game of high and low if you re keeping a close eye on your bottom line this holiday season. you might want to pay attention. today financial editor, jean chatzky went shopping for some of the most-wanted gifts of the season and came back with some lower-cost alternatives. jean, this a great idea. there s so much to get to here. i ll just let you jump in. the first thing we ve got are these sleeping bag puffy coats. the 80s are back and this one is $650 from norma kamali s website. and this one, she designed a collection from walmart. $30. i see people throwing their tennis ball for the dog. they use one of these. and people are wiping other people off their gift list, but they re still giving gifts to their pets. how much is this one? the go dog go launcher. $120. the chuck-it launcher, $10. i see the people using this. they go for miles, they re incredible. scarves, what have you found? not just scarves, infinity scarves, they go all the way around your neck. it s like a turtleneck. $45 from echo. this one is from meetma.com. very much the same look, $15. can we talk about quality. it s one thing to get a bargain, it s another thing if it falls apart the day after christmas. they re both acrylic. i like this knit on this one. but $15, if that s your budget, it s a nice gift. these are touch gloves from echo. if you ve you ve got an iphone and you need to move things around, you don t have it take your gloves off in order to make it happen. these are $30. these are dots gloves, you can get them at thinkgeek.com for $15. cashmere blanket, $325. this one is gorgeous, it will last you forever. old navy, fleece blanket. they feel nice and they re $10. but that s a little bit like saying cashmere, fleece the alternative for mercedes, is a wagon. if you only have $10 to spend, it s a nice giftth and if you want a little bon appetit, this is $90 from borders. and we found this on overstock.com, 12 of her pbs television shows for $34. fancy nancy, very big. four all the 4-year-olds in your life. the doll is $40, the game, colorforms dress up is about $11. stationery, kate spade from crane.com, $125. this is from the website where people are making their own things and selling them. $25 for 16 cards. again they are personnelized, not as high quality, but i think they re very nice-looking. you can go to the website. here is the ipod speaker box, right? this one changes color, it s i-home, great for the psychedelic teenager in your life, $59. this one from thinkgeek.com. believe it or not, this is a speaker. the lego piece is a speaker. it sounds fine, it drains power directly from the device, it needs no batteries, it s $20. do you get a warranty with some of these lesser-priced gadgets? no. flip cams, very important. the hottest item of the season. $229 for this flip-cam. it shoots in hd. you can get 120 minutes recorded with this camera. this is a low, from kodak, it s the zi-8, $150. this one we found, it does not shoot in hd, it s called the jaz, it s $40. if you all you want to do is make some simple youtube videos and put them on the web, that s just fine. your next item? the beatles rock band, $130, hot gift of the year. if your kid is just a little bit into music, you can play the shirt. i ll turn it off so itoesn t ruin the rest of the segment. but you can, i learned to play a song yesterday on the shirt. on the shirt? yes. how much? $29. thinkgeek catalog. flat-screen tvs? one in five people are going to buy a flat-screen tv. these are both 32-inch. this one is $529. this one is vizio. it s $320. we found it at buy.com. believe it or not, both of these are under the price in which people are spending for a 32-inch flat-screen tv. so we did very good on both accounts. up next, a firsthand look at the contenders for time s person of the year. who s on the list? first, this is today on nbc. time magazine has picked its person of the year since 1927. the choice can be sometimes surprising, controversial, but ways interesting. and we re going to reveal this year s live here on wednesday. first, a sneak peek at 2009s short list. nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, one of the most politically-powerful women in u.s. history, she s spearheaded the push for health care reform. steve jobs, the founder of apple and a visionary whose technology is revolutionizing power and media and communication. ben bernanke, the chairman of the federal reserve. usain bolt, the incredible speed continues to break records in track and field, including his own. general stanley mcchrystal, the top commander in afghanistan, working to make the war there a success. the chinese worker, not an individual, but a growing influential group in one of the world s most powerful economies. and president barack obama, who was time s person of the year in 2008. and richard stengel is time s managing editor. good morning to you. good morning. nice to see you. love this. so barack obama is on the short list again. he was the choice last year. have you ever had that where somebody has won twice and consutively. we ve had people who have won multiple times, fdr. and certainly barack obama has been the prime mover over so much happening this year, the economic rescue to the health care plan. to winning the nobel peace prize, afghanistan. sounds like he s heading in that direction. he always does that. he always leads you in one direction only to pull the rug out from under us. i m looking at peel like nancy pelosi, ben bernanke. one name that jumps out at me is stanley mcchrystal, the architect in afghanista the one who called for these additional troops. and i think i m leaning in that direction. me, too. i m with you. interesting. are you all leaning in that direction? no. here s the thing about mcchrystal. he really has singlehandedly reached out to the afghanistan people. he came in, he barack obama results at what mcchrystal did you mentioned earlier. you mentioned nancy pelosi, what makes her a top contender? she s the first woman speaker of the house. she may be the strongest in decades. she has piloted what is probably the most important legislation in decades. she is an interesting and pivotal person. i might be trying to dissuade you from something. you guys have sometimes reason really thrown us a curve. like the year you had the mirror, you, the reader. what about the chinese worker? china every year is so important in the global economy and this was the year of the economy. in fact, if china had not had 8% growth, that it s had, due to all the workers, the world economy would be in a much worse place. so it s a way of looking at china s influence on the world. which is incalculable, really. do you make the final decision? or is it a vote? we consult with all of our correspondents and writers and previous people of the year. you make the final decisions? you make the final decision? it sounds like sounds like he s not going to tell you. i think ben bernanke. i m going with bernanke. and you re going with ? i m going to hold my opinion. come on! we ll do it tomorrow. all right. the jury is still out. rick stengel, thanks very much. we ll reveal time s person of the year wednesday morning live here on today. we want to know who you think is most worthy, log on to our website to vote. our time right now is 8:56, 36 degrees outside, and you can see the fog surrounding the washington monument out there this morning. good morning, i m joe krebs and in the news4 today, this morning s commute has taken a tragic turn. park place are investigating a deadly accident. eastbound photographic on the park way is shut down as police complete their investigation. because of the weather, we also have some school delays to tell you about. these are all in virginia, warren county and wakefield country day school all opening two hours late. riverfront christian school in midland christian academy are opening one hour late. we ll take a break now and come back and look good morning, the ice is quickly melting, the fog continues to dissipate and we have a partly cloudy sky for this morning. we should take it into the upper 40s to near 50 later on this afternoon. upper 30s by dawn on tuesday, partly to mostly cloudy as they try to approach us from the west. we ll have temperatures climb into the upper 50s but then that front will come by by mid to late afternoon. some gusty winds out to the northeast and it will stay cold wednesday all the way into the weekend. jerry, how s the traffic? topside of the capital beltway, not that bad. no accidents presently reported. let s see how we re doing elsewhere. the trip to 395 northbound pretty heavy and slow across the 14th street bridge, be careful, it s not frozen, we still have some wet roadways to deal with. tonight on news4 at 5:00. it is the payment plan that s making a come back. back now with more of today on a monday morning, the 14th day of december, 2009. it s a nice day here on the plaza, with a great crowd gathered. and you know what, they are experienced what is probably going to be one of the warmer days this week. we re going to drop toward the middle of the week. it will feel much more seasonable. it s going to be brutally cold. thursday night into friday. on moo the weekend. it s kind of the right time for that. it makes you feel like you re in the holiday spirit. so i m all for that. you re on board? i m on board. are you on board? bring it on. minneapolis was cold, i was in minneapolis this weekend. so we can t complain. what was the temperature there? one gree. they said that was warm for them. winter in minneapolis. i m matt lauer along with al roker and natalie morales. it seems that the situation for tiger woods continues to deteriorate. one of his sponsors, accenture, dropped him over the weekend, others may follow suit and more women keep coming forward. saying they had relationships with the golfing superstar. coming up an exclusive interview with one of those women. and on a lighter note. of course the holidays are real stressful time. maybe you re thinking about trying to relax, going on a little trip after the holidays? i think we ve got some inexpensive trips for you. you may not know it, but january is actually one of the best months for travel deals. you have to know where to look, how to book, and we ve got all the details for you. that s my kind of trip right there. also coming up. have you guys finished your shopping already? just about. do anything online? all of it online. if you re one of those people who are going online to shop, which a lot of people are of course during this craziness of the holiday season, there are ly 11 days left to stock, to stuff that stocking. so we re going to give you some tips to help you know how to make your internet shopping faster. easier, and also save you some money. you know what s a pain? when your billing address is different than your shipping address? and some websites don t quite get that? not good. anyway, let s go inside. ann is standing by with a look at the headlines, ann? thanks a lot, matt and al and natalie. in the news, two climbers are missing after a third subfreezing night on oregon s mount hood. rescue efforts were hampered sunday by fresh snow that posed an avalanche risk. the body of a third climber was recovered on saturday iran s foreign minister said three hikers who strayed across from iraq will be going on trial. relatives of the united states government say the three were innocent tourists. this morning, joint chiefs arm admiral mike mullen is in afghanistan in advance of the deployment of 30,000 additional u.s. troops. also today, taliban fighters killed 16 policemen in two separate attacks in afghanistan. president obama is meeting this morning with top financial industry ceos, talking about economic recovery, small business lending and the administration s plans for financial reform. police in utah plan to conduct a second interview with the husband of a utah woman who vanished a week ago. susan powell reportedly disappeared from her home without taking her purse or cell phone and police are calling the case suspicious. icy roads in parts of the northeast are making for dangerous driving. sending cars skidding into each other in pittsburgh. forecasters expect warmer temperatures there today. and the princess and the frog took over the top spot in the weekend box office, taking in $25 million according to early estimates. the blind side was second. those are some of the top stories at three minutes past. let s go back outside to matt and natalie. l s get a check of the weather. mr. roker just moved and he s got some guests. $25 million so far in gifts are on their way to needy children and families as part of our 15th annual toy drive. this morning, we ve got a great gift, donation from ann butler, the president of party light. anne, nice to see you. what are you guys donating this year? we re donating a lot of wonderful home fragrance and persal ce products. about $2.5 million. we at party light know how to give. so whaef done is given to all the charities around the country. and what s wonderful about it is that the children of these families who really need a little extra help during the season, they can give these products to their moms and dads. that s nice. beuse we re always thinking about giving stuff for the kids. but it s nice for the good morning, we have had patchy ice aroun the region this morning there, s still maybe a little lingering ice around the shadowing area, here in washington, the mid 30s now as we as the nearby suburbs. highs there may reach lo50s later today. partly cloudy and tonight partly cloudy upper 30s by dawn tomorrow. maybe a little bit of fog tomorrow morning, partly to mostly cloudy on tues al, thank you. to the growing scandal involving tiger woods. in statement friday, woods apologized for his admitted infidelity and asked for forgiveness from his family and friends. and said he was taking an indefinite leave from golf and now one of his major sponsors has dropped him. an exclusive interview a woman who said she had a two and a half-year affair with tiger woods is speaking out. let s get this right out of the gate here, why are you talking now? because i m being attacked. they re saying horrible things in a very hurtful things that just are not true. like what? tt i m a hooker and a prostitute and that he s paid me for things. and it s not true. none of that is true? none of it. you got nothing? financially gained nothing from your relationship? that s correct. but why speak about this now? i know you have a 7-year-old son. did that play into it at all? that s everything. that s why i wanted i m not trying to volunteer myself saying you know i m part of this and me, too, look at me. i m very ashamed of this. and i have to set an example for my son that i made a mistake. and these are the consequences. but you knew that going in. i mean you knew going into a relationship with tiger woods that someday you might be in this position, right? i did not think i d be in this position. i thought, i knew what was happening was wrong. and i knew that there could be problems. that s why i walked away from this relationship. i believe some things he had told me. and i wanted to believe them. and then his actions were speaking louder than his words. and i got out of it. let s start from the beginng. tell me how you met him. in 2006 at a nightclub. that s correct. yes. how did he approach you? he did not approach me. he sent somebody over who was supposedly his trainer and just said, tiger woods would like to meet you and would you be interested in having a drink with him and his friends. and i agreed. one thing led to another. that s correct. tell me how t relationship evolved? he immediately just pursued me. and he would tall and text and invite me on trips with him. and we built a friendship. and that s how it all started. how intense was the relationship? how long was this relationship really carrying on? it was only six months of a physical relationship. and then i ended things. and then we did maintain a two and a half-year friendship after that. and he still pursued me and invited me to numerous places. and again, i did not go. you didn t go. why not? because i wasn t interested. i just i felt guilty when i saw the picture of his wife and his child. i had convictions and i just you know, i knew that it was wrong. and so after six months you came to this realization. you knew he was married though, going in. but after six months, you all of a sudd, the lightbulb went off and you realized, i can t keep doing this? i realized, yes, i don t want to be a part of it. and i also was working full-time and i didn t have time, really to pursue it. and just knowing that he had a newborn child. and i think the things that he was telling me, i realized were false. what was he telling you? just that his marriage was on the rocks and there was a baby on the way and he had to uphold this image. and stick it out for now. and things were not good at home. and what made you realize th, that he wasn t being true to his word. that that wasn t, he wasn t going to leave his wife. the media. i start seeing them out and the pictur being printed. and i just then i didn t believe it. and then i also would wake up in the night and he would be texting, you know in the middle of the night. and i would ask who he s texting and he said checking emails. so i had a feeling it was something bigger. you started realizing at that point with the texts and or things that he was having relationships with multiple women. that s correct. yes. and when you start hearing the names of the multiple women and the pictures, you re grouped in with them. yeah. how are you feeling seeing all of that? it was disappointing. because i think we with all would like to think we were special. even though we knew what was happening was wrong. i had no idea that it was this intense. that the scale was this large. and was he telling you during this relationship with him that he wanted a future with you? he led you to believe that. how? just the things he would say to you. and just how horrible things supposedly were at home. and you know, how much fun he has with you and how much he cares. and inviting you everywhere. i honestly don t know how he had the ti to have so many women in his life. and how did you manage keeping this all a secret? how did he manage keeping it all a secret for so long, do you think? i don t know. i don t think it was a big secret. that s how i m, that s why i m here. because i think too many people saw that. and i didn t come forward and say, you know, i had an affair and i wanted to publicize this. this is something i m embarrassed about. but i know that people knew. and he didn t hide it so well. he did ask at times, you know at times, don t call me right now, there s people around. or i ll call you later. but people knew. people knew and they covered his tracks? exactly. you were meeting with him how often? it just varied. it was a long-distance relationship. so sometimes once a month. sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. it just depends on what was happening. you said this relationship kept going on for about two and a half years. more of a friendship. when was the last time you heard from him? in september. and what was he asking of you then? to meet him somewhere. if i would join him in a few places. even though you hadn t been with him in about two years? he s always done that for the last two years. he s constantly pursuing you? uh-huh. what s the enticement? or what is he telling you? what s he offering you? do you miss me, i miss you. would you like to come and see me? and he s telling this to like seven or eight other women? yeah. and i think, you know, i m sure he did the same thing with everyone. i ve been listening to the reports and i see these girls talking and it seems like a pattern. he knew it was clearly do you feel you re different from all the others? i would like to think so. you know i how are you different? i wasn t looking to get anything out of this relationship. i wasn t saving every message and hanging on every word that he said. i did walk away from this. i made a moral decision that that this was not right. and i would like to think i m not the party girl that they re claim that i am. i do go out with my goifrs agir and have fun. and i m not judging them by any means. i m not putting anybody down. i m a stay at home mom and i ve worked hard and i try to set the right example for my son. has this been hard for you and your son? yeah. hat is your son hearing? well some of the horrible things you know. he has to face a lot of, he s suffered a lot of consequences from this. and i ve had to explain to him the mistakes that i ve made. so i has been very tough. you know and my family as well. i don t think anybody wants to see their daughter or granddaughter in this situation. so do you feel that you re to blame for that? yeah. has your son faced questions from classmates at school? yeah. you know and teachers. i think the school s been great. they ve been protecting him. and you know i have to tell him the truth to some sense that i think i ve done a really good job at that. what about elin? how do you imagine she s feeling? i can t imagine the pain that she s feeling right now. from all this. did you think about that, though, when you started this relationship? i did not. i was being selfish. i thought like, what is in this for me? i was caught up in it. he has a way to make you believe that he s a very honest and good man. and i m not saying that he is not a good man. i don t think he s an honest man. but i didn t think about her at that time. i just believed what he was telling me. and now, do you think about her a lot? i do. i m very sorry. and i hate that you know, someone has to suffer the consequences of my actions. and her children, i m a mom, so i can only imagine. if you had the opportunity to sit down with her, and talk with her, is there anything you would like to say? just that i m sorry. you know, what can you say at this point. i mean she s obviously having to be very strong right now in and dealing with a lot. and i am deeply sorry and i wish i could take it back. this is one of those situations where i m definitely learning from my mistakes. well, corey wrist, we appreciate you telling us your story. thank you very much. we ll be back right after this. oh, and this is when i got a two-wheeler. pretty awesome. i used to have one of these. there s a new one. for lucy, to get her started. love, grandma. look lucy, this one sor you. ( gasps ) hallmark keepsake ornaments. at your hallmark gold crown store. one of many ways to find meaning inside. 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. like 2009 h1n1, there are several steps you can take. wash your hands and get your flu shot. regularly disinfect surfaces to reduce the spread of germs. and perhaps the most important step of all, talk to your friends about doing the same. instead of spreading flu viruses, like 2009 h1n1, let s help spread protection. like 2009 h1n1, because it keeps coming back, olay quench invites you to break that cycle with olay quench body lotion. clinically proven to help keep dry skin from coming back. olay quench. so warm and fluffy. make the most out of the most important meal of the day. this morning on today s travel getting a great year in the new year. if sun, sand and surf seems to be too good to be true, we have some fantastic vacations to help you recharge after the holidays. but you ve got to act fast so says katie diamond, a travel expert from expedia.com. why is vacation after the holidays so great? the travel companies know that people are watching their wallets. so there s some really great deals available in a lot of destinations. you say you can save a significant amount of money if you book something which we would call a package, the hotel and the air fare combined, can you choose your hotel? you can. is there wiggle room there? yes. you absolutely can book the flight of your choice, the hotel of your choice. it is a way to save a significant amount of money. how much? a couple hundred dollars. expedia customers save on average $350 just any time of the year. but in january, i know customers who have booked trips to maui, have saved an an average of $698. where else can we go if we want to get sun after the first of the year? caribbean is looking good. jamaica and dominican republic are two spots in the caribbean that will give you good value. a hotel in the dominican republic, is offering 30% off their rates if you book now and the end of december. and a lot of hotels are ever offering the second or third hotel night free at ski resorts. some in park city utah, properties offering $300 a night rate, second night free. now your hotel rate is $150 a night. i saw another trip from dallas to telluride, california, four nights at the mountain lodge in telluride, about $715 per person, including a 40% discount on their typical rates. good news doesn t stop there, you re talking about deals in europe? yes. same time? yes, january, february, a quiet time after, relatively quiet time after the holidays. so airfares into europe are a little bit lower. i m seeing the best fares into duin and barcelona. from a lot of u.s. cities. and then, the hole tell rates in europe are again really where you re going to see great deals. we should stop and look at the calendar, you re talking about deals for travel say the first week, second week, third week of january. but when do the prices start going back up again. for sun and ski destinations, january is the ramp-up. booking right now, you re going to find the best deals. family of four weekend getaway? yes, san diego is a great value, $73 average hotel rates per night in san diego. i m seeing orlando deals like you wouldn t believe. i saw a trip from four to baltimore, down to orlando, four nights the second week in january under $800 for two adults and two kids. flight and hotel. you don t want to look for the word se or sale. you want to look when you start to google it. you want to use certain buzz words to get you the best deals, what are those? we re used to looking for the word sale in the post-holiday markdown time. but it s look for the word deals when you re booking online. the tab, the link. on expedia at the top of e page, click through, like going straight to the sale section of your store. and the word package. packages are your best friend. booking your flight and the your hotel together? yes. katie diamond, thank you so much this morning. coming up here on today, a woman who lost more than 100 pounds and kept it off, the latest member of joy s fit club. we ll get to the secrets of her success after these messages. i thought we weren t going to spend too much? but these gifts are from santa. guess santa forgot we re in a recession. well, maybe santa was a little thriftier than you think! well, maybe santa. maybe santa doesn t need any help doing santa s job. chestnuts roasting on an open fire. ( crackling ) you ll know when you re ready. 01.01.10. the special k challenge begins. get started with a free box when you buy one, now at specialk.com. get started with a free box when you buy one, cococome up for a visit. mom: so we took her to our olive garden. girl: it was really cool just hanging out - the three of us. vo: try our new manicotti formaggio with shrimp in creamy carbonara sauce. or with chicken in homemade parmesan sauce. vo: only at olive garden. (announcer) maybe we could all use. a little more softness. with ultra downy, you re surrounded with softness. the kind you just can t get from detergent alone. ultra downy. feel more. now save a dollar at downy.com. cer: trying to ultra downy. 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. yep! look in your bag, made you something. (announcer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you care. choosey moms, choose jif. and a cookie can be art or comedy, a stroke of genius the life of the party. a cookie can be a force for world peace, or a cookie can just be a cookie. get recipes at bettycrocker.com. i know you re a fan of glee right? i love that show, it s great. get ready for a whole new twist on the group singing phenomenon. eight of the best cappella groups from around the country in a new show called the singoff. the winners will receive a $100,000 prize and a recording contract with epic records. the two-hour premiere is tonight on nbc. you re a good singer. meanwhile coming up on today, tips for online shopping. plus your local news and weather, right now. let s all sing that but first your local news and weather the largest tool selection. know that sears has this year, christmas comes early for the boys. and with web to store, you can buy online and pick up in five. 200 c3 drills, 150 auto hammers? is it the hat? buy online. pickp in-store. right now, save on all mechanics tool sets, tool stora, and compressors. more values. more christmas. that s life. well spent. sears. ( crackling ) you ll know when you re ready. 01.01.10. the special k challenge begins. get started with a free box when you buy one, now at specialk.com. get started with a free box when you buy one, no additives. no artificial ingredients. select harvest from campbell s now has twelve soups that are 100% natural. with ingredients like this, we want to show the world. select harvest, from campbell s. fact: your child could pick up the flu virus from surfaces. lysol disinfectant spray kills cold & flu viruses, including h1n1. lysol is the number one pediatrician recommended brand. lysol. disinfectant to protect. it s a cold day out there, 36 degrees right now, we had some fog earlier, looks like it s cleared out. and we check in with jerry for traffic. in the news at this hour, the u.s. senate has cleared the way for washington to use district money to fund abortions for low income women. the measure is a part of the district s budget bill that was passed yesterday without restrictions. the bill would also legalize medical marijuana in washington. currently congress must approve washington s budget and often puts restrictions on the district. supporters of same-sex marriage will hold a rally tonight s rally will be held at the kennedy recreation center that s set to begin at 7:00 this evening. we ll be back with a look at weather and traffic in a moment. good morning, morning fog and ice now dissipating, highs around 50 amend tomorrow should will mostly cloudy, highs mid and upper 50s and winds will pick up during the afternoon and evening and clearing us out and getting us cold again. we re still loaded up as you head south to the belt way, be careful, still deeg with fog. it s a payment plan that s making a come back. this is our destiny! i m having an affair. with a married man. you re not saying oh, yes, i am! that is our way of showing you that the award season is getting under way and these are some of the movies that are mentioned as contenders. so we ll take a look at some of the favorites when we take a look at the golden globe nominations live tomorrow here on today. meantime, coming up here on today, finger foods at your fingertips, new takes on old favorite recipes. including pigs in a blanket. al, i know that s one of your favorites? who doesn t like those? and what every interior decorator knows, that you may not, from the perfect-sized rug to what to hang over your couch. some rules to live by that will make your house a design pro. and speak of hanging something over your couch, hopefully not a pig in a blanket, how about some affordable art or a nice watch, skip the crowded malls and let your fingers do the shopping. because it s easier and more affordable than ever. we ll show you some ways around it. but first a check of the weather. increasing chance of pigs in a blanket no, we re looking at you re obsessed now. showers along the eastern seaboard. above-normal temperatures in the southeast. heavy snow in the pacific northwest. mid-week, looking for chilly conditions in the eastern third of the country with snow, interior sections, mountain snows in the pacific northwest and for latter part of the week. we expect to see some lake-effect snows around the great lakes, we re looking below-normal conditions, the eastern half of the coue cou good morning, temperatures now getting above freezing in most locations, wire into the mid and upper 30s right now, we ll have a partly cloudy day with afternoon highs climbing to near 50 degrees, partly cloudy tonight, bottoming out in the upper 30s. paly to mostly cloudy at times on tuesday, that front will be approaching from the midwest. out ahead of that, we should warm into the mid and upper 50s. when the front goes by, the thank you so much. coming up next, the secret to beinging about your own decorator from one of the country s top designers, coming up after this. (announcer) you ve wanted to quit so many times, but those days came and went, nd the cigarettes remained. but today s a new day. and a few simple steps can make a real difference in your next quit. things like starting with a plan to quit smoking. .getting support. .and talking to your doctor about how prescription treatments can help you. talk to your doctor about prescription treatment options. and make this time, your time. let s go to last night s highlights. there s mom and dad cleaning up. and there s the meatloaf. yuck. look what sometimes happens with the ordinary bag. it slips, oh, bingo, it falls in. mom was mad. mom should have used glad forceflex with the new stretchable drawstring that grips the can and stays in place. plus, it has the stretchable strength of forceflex. that s all today for glad tv. both: don t get mad get glad! that s all today for glad tv. the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful announcer: nothing melts away the cold like a delicious, hot bowl of campbell s chicken noodle soup. let it snow, let it snow 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. with cthe way aleve sometimes can. that s one reason why doctors recommend the medicine in tylenol arthritis more than any other pain reliever. by changing her medicare prescription plan. all we had to do was go to cvs.com and use the free savings calculator. we learned that changing your medicare part d plan could save an average of $612. woman: we just entered my prescriptions, and it compared plans for us. it was easy to find the right plan for the prescriptions i need. your cvs pharmacist can help, too. come in today, or go to cvs.com before december 31st to find the best plan for you at cvs/pharmacy. this morning, getting over your fear of decorating, want to spruce up your living room or find the perfect rug? but you ve got no clue? all you need is basic rules that every designer should follow. elaine griffin is interior designer and author of design rules the insider s guide to becoming your own decorator. which would then put you out of business. no. because the truth is very few people actually use a decorator. so this is a book to help them do that. it s filled with practical, professional insider-only tips. it s a compilation of everything that i ve learned that professionals know on the job training and in school. so do s and don t s. a big mistake a lot of us make hanging art. when you hang art, the sofa is the star of your living room, so whatever you put above it needs to be proportionate to it. this would be so much better if we had another one there. the rule is you want to fill two-thirds of the space. mona lisa. two-thirds of the space with art, look how much better this looks, this looks, if you only do that, you could do this. you could do multiples? make a bigger grouping. here we go. this is a do? a-plus. very nice. all right next, no you. curtains, another place we make mistakes. my prime on a mission, al, to eliminate low-hung curtains in america. i hate when that happens. this room looks absolutely fabulous, but i have to take a one-point debucks because why? because these are hung too low. if you re snow white and the seven dwarfs. why? look how much better this looks when you hang them high? you re elongating your ceiling. and so it makes your room look taller, up, up and away. if you had hung your curtains on the trim, look how horrible that looks. especially that blue line. next up, consoles. i would call this a table. a type of table, console means it s very narrow. they re super, super useful. they can multi-task. but you never want to leave this naked. could you just call it a long table? no. you never want to leave this naked. because you can see the plug? no, let s see our next slide. i m going to show you how to do it right. doesn t that look better? much better. this picture is balanced. we have a design, this takes up two thirds of the space. there you go. if you just had curtains in here it would be the perfect room. this is symmetrical. this is great. we filled this space so it s not naked. this is, this is an 11. it looks great. it s a 12 now. let s go to furniture. big mistake. this is too matchy-matchy. matchy-matchy? don t want to do it in any room of your house. people go, they get the five-piece bedroom sets. we have moved. it s worked for hundreds of years. now we want the effect of having gone boutique shopping. you might have run into the mall and gotten this entire room at one store, but we want it to look eclectic so it looks like you went shopping at a little store here, a little store here. it should complement, but not match everything. so that s the right way. now rugs, okay? let s look at the don t. what s wrong with that? i m wearing a shrunken jacket. shrunken jackets are great. shrunken rugs are not. so instead of having, i have seen them let s go to the do photo real quick. see? all the furniture you re sitting here, you re sitting here. this is, it s defining the area. not let s go back to the other one we can t go back. we can t go back, we re only going forward. and see we just broke the rules. i ve seen them this small, it s a wee rug and it s a no. coffee and end tables. this is important, because you there s a lot going on there. i got a headache just looking at it. the sofa is the star and everything else needs to be pro potionate to . smaller. so the table s too high? way too tall. you could eat dinner on this table. it s supposed to be a coffee table. you go down. let s look at the right way. crazy about this. this is a four-star room. note the curtains are hung high and the table the rug anchors the seating group. and everybody is sitting. this is from better homes and gardens and it looks amazings. fantastic. i learned so much, no matchy-matchy. point, click and buy, we ve got the best online gifts in time for your matchy-matchy christmas. [ inhales ] [ sighs ] that is the power of pine-sol, baby. alright, best buy. [ male announcer ] last minute is no problem. at best buy you can get this 10-megapixel insignia camera. the new harry potter on blu-ray. the latest video games like tony hawk ride rated e10+. all of the 2010 ea sports titles rated e to t. or a gift card good for anything. the best gifts come from best buy. and added a little fiber? sweet! sweet! (together) sweet! (announcer) now for the first time, a gram of healthy fiber in every packet. sweet! (announcer) splenda® with fiber. this morning on today s holiday gift guide tips for online shopping. there are 11 days left until christmas. and whether you re looking for pa partridge in a pear tree or five golden rings, there s still time to find the perfect online gift. you ve got tips first ever all for us to shop online to make it easier? this is what we pride ourselves on. five rules to stick to. one, look for inspiration everywhere. movies, magazines, you re bound to be able to find it on the worldwide web. you re going to save a lot of time. two comparison shop. eel get the best price for sure. third, you want to repackage. have things shipped to you and then you want to add a bow or a box. you can make something look really fancy. check shipping rates. and then buy in bulk. prices are so good this season. so build up a catch of presents you re never in want of a last-minute gift again. a lot of great ideas here. speaking of finding inspiration everywhere. the first one is affordable art. tell us about this? it s a site called 20by200.com. they do all of these higher-edition prints. it s a great way to make something that s really intimidating accessible for everyone. $50, really beautiful. do they come framed? no, but go to target, add a frame. it looks like really expensive art. the next one, classic books, these are beautifully-bound. by penguin books? yes. it s kind of ironic. books so are so great to give. this will look gorgeous on your book kais, too. paint by art, this is personalized? yes, they turn it into a paint by numbers canvas. easy one, two, three, art. it s a great heirloom. to give you an idea, this is the picture of the two, you and your boyfriend re. and this, you start completing the paint by number. it s amazing, you c order it now and get it in time for christmas. okay. jewelry now and this is repackaging? all from forever 21. these bracelets, $6.80, tie a ribbon around them and they look like they cost luns of dollars. these are very popular, the schleck toys. they re very cute. just really great. almost anywhere. they re carefully rendered, really beautiful. monogrammed pendants. this is a huge marketplace for designers to sell their wares. the other great thing about buying online, is things can be customized. all the letters of the alphabet. $15, seems really personal. a wax seal, it s really clever. and these luggage tags, also personal and useful. you can never have enough luggage tags. not the sort of thing you re going to buy for yourself. they re not going it fall off like those pieces of paper. this watch is buy by timex. great for travel or sports. now, everybody loves makeup and beauty products. it s always a great charities are getting hit hard this year. so it s great to give a gift that gives back. like this kiehl s cream that funds a charity. aluis, thanks so much. we appreciate it. and for more again on these products, check our website, tod todayshow.com. coming up, great finger food this morning on today s holiday kitchen, holiday finger foods, whether you re throwing a cocktail party for 40 people or watching an afternoon football game, you need some quick snacks to keep your company happy. and sandra lee has some great ideas this morning. her new book is called cocktail time. my first time on the today show, i was with you and you sted one of my berry cobbler. and my cookbook went to number five on the bestseller list. let s see what we ll do when it comes to hors d oeuvres, because you saw this is the best-ever meatball recipes. my red pepper meatballs. parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. whenever you re having a cocktail party it s less expensive to do that and easier to create the food, everythg here takes about 15 to 20 minutes than it is to throw a big, sit-down dinner. this is just italian seasoning, bread crumbs, eggs, parmesan cheese. everything you have in your pantry. we stir that up. now, after this is stirred up, you want to roll these into bite-sized meatballs, here s a trick, what i want you to do. a little bit of milk goes in there. that s an egg wash right up here. okay? now the egg wash, what you re going to do, there s a little bit of water in here along with one egg. you re going to put your meatball, which i ve rolled out. roll it around and put it inside of your bread crumbs, a little bit more bread crumbs and that goes into some hot oil. and if you use a slotted spoon, it s simple to do. and they under up here. and that s olive oil, i hope? no, canola oil. there s not a lot of difference between the two, but this is half the price. now once you saute them just to get them crispy, they go back into the oven. you do have to fry them, you have to bake them for health reasons? if you want to, you can bake them. 425 degrees. these are my asiago and ham pinwheels. easy to make. some puff pastry, you buy is frozen. yours is right over there. we ll have a little contest. in there is some apricot jam or preserves and some dijon mustard. that s a good mix. this is going to gonto the oven, once you get these done for only ten, 15 minutes. so we have these things, by the way, you could use anything you wanted. if you have raspberry or strawberry jam. these are dried currants, like little raisins. and ham. and this can be lunchmeat ham. anything like prosciutto. and then you re going to do some cheese. asiago cheese. you roll that up. roll that up. see, this is fast. and then slice it and put these in the oven and that s it. and that s how we end up. we end up with these, they look fantastic. and we ve 9:56 is our time right now, stilsome high fog out there, 36 degrees right now in the nation s capital. i m joe kre we have the forecast coming up. met throw is getting some help from the federal government. $150,000 have been approved for upgrades. the upgrades include fixing the trackignaling system and replacing the oldest of the rail cars. this is the first year metro has received dedicated federal funding. last year congress authorized $1.5 billion for the system to be paid out over the next decades and that money will be matched dollar for dollar by d.c., maryland and virginia. let s see what the fog is doing out there. it continues to dissipate tabd ice we had earlier is already melting off. now temperatures are nearly 40 degrees. it will climb nearly 10 degrees by this afternoon. temperatures in the upper 30s this afternoon. partly to mostly cloudy on tuesday, then a front coming through will jerry, how s the traffic. tom, things looking a little better on the iner loop of the belt way. it s cleared. hower we re still looking at some heavy traffic coming up. there s a raitt zpentd as you make your tlip down to rockville, authorities working as quickly as they can 20 get it out of the roadway, in the meantime, look out for a little bit of slowdown there. it is the payment plan that s making a c crank that song, baby. bigger, more. is it you? no. that is beautiful. this is my dear, dear friend nancy la mott. yesterday was the 14th anniversary of her death. the greatest interpreter for me of the american song book. miss her all the tile. she spent a great deal of the last year of her life at my house recovering from all the chemo that she was going through. i was in love with her talent and i fell in love with her as a human being. i remember when you introduced me to her music. i m sure it s on itunes. yes. this is available. my writing partner here at everyone has a story wrote that song and it s just this album is called just in time for christmas. here s the name just so you remember. it s nancy la mott. there s the carpenters, nancy lamott and then kathy matataeo good news. so how was the weekend? the weekend was good. how about yours? i had a great weekend. that s what i hear. stop. so i went to go see the alvin aley s dancers. you can t believe they do what they do. it was amazing. and then i went to see snl. they do a rehearsal before the actual show. the highest rated snl last night s was of the season. and it was hosted by taylor lautner, the kid from new moon. anyway, adorable, cute. he was here la weest week. and he was as so cute an he doing all the flips. she is drags these hosts in and out. she s amazing. how was your weekend? it was good. i waited for everybody knows that regis had a hip replacement, and he was in the hospital recuperating, but now he s back at his home near us, so frank and i took over a big gift. he s in a new house and joy answers the door looking like stop it. the home was beautiful. and then re echlrege comes on h little cane. and he s on the mend because he s cranky. i love you, rregep. it was great. we ll save tiger because we have a great interview we ll share with you, but my son has never been so excited as when i called. we went to a screening of avatar the other day. this is a movie we were not interested in seeing. it s touted as a sci-fi war and thr3d, like three things i not at interested in. and i remember putting on those glasses and thinking it s not going to be for me. two hours and 45 minute, you don t want to blink. it s amazing. so much more than what it s being touted as. it s truly a love story in the best sense of the word. it s about the ecology in the best sense of the word. and it s deeply spiritual. deeply speiritual on so much different levels. i called cody and i said i just saw avatar. he s got his last tuesday on tuesday and i thought he would get on a men and come home. many things are absolutely worth waiting for. he couldn t make the film he wanted at the time because technology didn t exist. so what did the man do? he waited. no, he made the technology. spentillions of dollars. he s sitting there. oh, i m sorry, was he listening to snus we are so looking forward to talking to him. it s very much a woman s picture. don t let the trailer you see tall blue people and you think i don t know if i d be interested in that. truss us when you say you will be interested. especially her. adorable. and that s the other thing is the women in this are so important. they re not just play things. they re not you got to see it. on to tiger woods. okay. so there s a lot to talk about. there s one advertiser at accenture that dropped tiger and a couple more backing away. and nike is standing by him. and so is tauger, the watches. so they re kind of split. but what s interesting is we had another one of the women who said she was with tiger. her name is cori rist. and she spoke today. it was interesting to hear her, she sat down with natalie and she seemed just very upset about what she had done, her role in it. the role she played in it, right. which is refreshing, i got to say. it didn t show more than when she actually did this interview and she got emotional, so let s listen to that. i m very ashamed of this and i have to set an example for my son that i made a mistake. has this been hard for you and your son? yeah. how? i mean, what is your son hearing? horrible things. i m sorry. you know, he has to face a lot of he of consequences from this and i ve had to explain to him the mistakes that i ve made. she acknowledges that it was her fault. i mean, of course it s his fault, too, but she takes responsibility for that. she s the first one so far that i have felt not sorry for, but compassion in the sense that you could get caught up in it and i think the reason we re seeing her fall apart is because she loves something more than herself, and that s her child. and when you think you might be the reason that your son loses respect for her, i don t know how old her son is, but i would be on the floor in a fetal position. it s one thing to let yourself down. but to let your clern down is devastating. i wonder because now we re seeing all these women come one after the next. the story started shifting to more of the advertisers, is he going to play anymore. if he stays out of golf for a while are and they re already saying that ratings are already taking a hit frank loves golf and he says i don t really love it when tiger s not there. but it will be interesting to see if he stays away and biggest come back of all time will be if he comes back and if he is the old tiger on the green. the biggest come back would have been michael jackson and it didn t get to happen because of what happened. but i think this would be a huge rise. but this would be huge. the difference is le be the same tiger as he used to be. everyone will be watching. we wish everybody in this ugly, ugly sordid affair the best. i mean, really. you know what, there is redemption in this world. and everybody s worth saving and we send out our best wishes to everyone. and we want to make everyone feel between so we want to give away some free things. and joe will be sitting here, we figured there s donny deutsche who is great, but then there s joe, who is really like every man. so once in a while, i don t know why, he s going to just pipe up. he s got a mike organization we forgot today. so far he s great. we have tivo hds. if you go klg and hoda.com, the key word is tivo for me. it s a sweepstakes. you sign up and five people will win. free tivos? and one year of service. ma merry christmas, people. and, joe, thanks so much. you were great. coming up next, oscar winning director james cameron tells us why it was worth waiting 15 years for his newest project. more about avatar right after this. he s the man behind many blockbusters including aliens, terminator, and the highest grossing movie of all time, titanic, which won 11 academy awards. now james cameron has brought the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller/love story to the table. take take look. good to have you. they re fully mature on the delight out, so the program seemed to work really well. great muscle tone. it will take us a few hours to get them to can top, but you can take them out tomorrow. there s yours. welcome, welcome, james cameron. congratulations. what a pleasure. i have to tell you, when we first sat in the seats to watch this film with the glasses and what we heard about the sci-fi amend the wand the war, it didn seem like our kind of movie. it was riveting.mend and the wam like our kind of movie. it was riveting.end and the war like our kind of movie. it was riveting.and the war, ite our kind of movie. it was riveting. . we re in the minority, though. most people do. i usually don t like 3d. this time i tried it up a kell of times to see if what you miss so much if you take those glasses off. tell tell us about the journey of making this film. are you like the octo mom? four and a half years to make and i d written it ten years before, but we didn t feel that we could actually make it that the point. had to wait for the cg technique to improve. spent two years on the design with a big team of artists designing this world, all the characters that you saw in the clip. and i just feel like there s a grand piano has been lifted off my shoulders. a couple of them. when you were picking actors to play the tall blue folk, how did you pick them? i write the characters so when i see somebody that aligns with the character and gives it great life, then i just i cast him. it wasn t based on could they be a good actor as a tall blue person. we made the blue people look like the actors, did it the other way around. it s a full phlegm-fledged performance. and you so fall in love with this tribe and what seems so foreign becomes the most pure and how we re all interconnected and i love the spirituality part that you brought in. you get that. i get because it s so missing in so many films today. and i think people are desperate for some sort of spiritual awake anything. i m not saying a certain religion, but it s not religious, but it connects you back to things that you feel and you can t even speak about. were you worried about it being sort of billed as a sci-fi thriller for guys? it sort of looks like way in the teaser, trailers. i don t think that we ve been able to convey all of the emotions of the story the way people are saying to me when they come outf the movie, they say i cried three times. one guy said, well that s what the dark glasses are for so your girlfriend doesn t see you cry. he missed the point. your girlfriend wants to see you guy, let her know you re real. that s right. what about the buildup because it s been so many years in the making. it cost so much hone. t . i m relaxed because all the decisions are made. i only worry about the decisions that stand before me, not the ones in the rear view. now it s out there and it s in the thanes of fate. it was really secretive and there was so many conjecture. the technology, what makes it different? we did the 3d thing, and you won t get eye strain. you re really for get that you re watching a 3d movie. until you take them off. exactly. and the other thing was perfecting the technique of getting the emotions in to these computer generated characters. so nothing was shot out on scene anywhere? part of it was. 30% of the movie was shot live action. sam worthington is so good in it. and the rest is computer generated, but performed by actorses. that s the key. you see the power of zoe s performance and you feel the power. all the women in this is awesome. we wish you such luck. he s still king of the world. you ll know that when you see arre avatar. coming up next, money saving solutions. we re back with the best ways to spend $100. and today it s all about packing for the holidays. between shopping, shipping, decorating and celebrating, who has time to think about hitting the road to visit mily and friends? jill martin is back with affordable ideas that will have you zipping your suitcase in no time. are you sure? i always like to show you a great wrap. this one is victoria secret, $39. this is great. do you wear this on the plane? you can wear this as blanket. and it s great for all things. this this i actually brought my clothing in, so it was the real deal. this is for traveling. two for $6.99. just put your things in and then roll it up and it becomes flat. it does keep your clothing fine. this had came out of it and you can condense everything for the suitcase. and you need shoes. these are in all the different colors. they re ballet flats. tse are adorable. my casual flip-flops. they come in all different persons and colors. very comfortable to walk in. these are $19 for during the day. are where are we going, to t beach? to the beach. and these are great foldable hats. and then these, under $100, these are fancy flip-flops. you don t have to wear heels when you re on vacation. this i live in, $89, but no wrinkle button down. you don t have to iron it. abo abo about. it s soft. why don t people just make that kind and forget the other? brooks brothers came up with this. this is fabulousof panties. i like to pack everything fresh. that s cute. at six margarita as day, you have no idea where your panties are.as day, you have no idea where your panties are.s day, you have no idea where your panties are.a day, you have no idea where your panties are. this is all airplane approved, two ounces a under by ted begin so that available at take your get and these are sheets that you rub on your hair to get the frizz away. it really works. and i m all about setting the mood on vacation. you can smell these. these are from all different, either places that you ve been or want to go. so this is so great to set the mood in your room. it makes such a nice atmosphere. and tiny. we love tiny. this is from bliss. youcan feel this for wind burn, sunburn. instead of brushing your teeth, you you put that on your tongue and it freshens your breath. and then this i love. air bands in a ball. oh, my gosh. that s genius. a sport sack, a travel battery great stuff. sorry. we talked on and on. and coming up next, mary it s been a tough morning on the roads because of heavy fog and patchy ice. we ll take a look at some of the problems that it s caused. some good news and bad. good morning, i m joe krebs, also coming up on news4 midday, a sure way to keep your kids nice not naughty, have santa give them a call. we ll tell you how to do that, news4 midday begins at 11:00 i ve had asthma for 12 years. 6 years. i ve had asthma forever. i never knew why my asthma symptoms kept coming back. .kept coming back. .or that i could help prevent them in the first place. the problem was that my controller medicine. .was treating only 1 main cause of asthma symptoms. but there are 2. airway constriction. and inflammation. unlike most controllers, advair treats both main causes. advair treats both main causes. and that helps prevent symptoms in the first place. (announcer) advair contains salmeterol. salmeterol may increase the chance of asthma-related death. so advair is not for asthma that s well controlled on another controller medicine. advair will not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. .and should not be taken more than twice a day. talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of advair. if you take advair, see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. if you re still having symptoms. .ask your doctor how to help prevent them with advair. (announcer) get your first prescription free and save on refills. advair. now you know. we re back on this monday with more of today and a fabulous actress, mary steenburgen. mary stars in a film about a couple that finds themselves in a witness protection program in wyoming and they re treated to a few lessons of love and life. do you hunt? just no pbargains. actually i m a method of p.e.t.a. so am i, except mine is people for eating tasty animals. that is so bad. don t write me. it s just a movie. just a character you play. you had to learn in this movie how to really shoot a gun, didn t you you? i did. i d had a little bit of rifle training when i was about nine from my uncle who got disgusted with me when i wouldn t shoot at the birds. so he gave up on me. and you wanted to make sure you did it right because some of your relatives might be watching. i felt like this might be the one movie where a lot of my family might be proud of me finally. so, no, it was actually, you know i wanted to do right by her and it was fun and i ended up being a pretty decent shot. there was other stuff you re doing, too, i guess you learned how to ride. i knew how to ride, but i practiced up on it a little bit. any excuse to do that. you work with sam elliott. he just shows up and you love him. and so you re a couple that s been married a long time and been through some stuff. it s actually a darling premise. you kind of know what s going to happen, but you love the journey of watching it happen. tell us about this character of yours. well, she s just a real, you know, person that lives out west and she lives in a tiny up to. she s been married to the same guy forever. they ve had their ups and their downs. and this couple from new york comes into our lives and we do this periodically. we have people this trouble that need to hide out. last time it wases a mafia guy from new jersey. right. and so i m quite fascinated by them because they re so different from my world, but i m not at all no interested in going to new york. but she s a very plain spoken person and it was fun. it had to be about. it was great to chop wooded with hugh grant and i m chopping away and he can t chop one piece. that s good acting because could you tell he couldn t chop at all. well, i think he really couldn t. . he and i on the first day had this weird relationship where they had been shooting a little, it s my first today, i take con look at him and we start the scene and gone, we re both laughing. and i came home that day and i said to ted i actually think i might be fired for the first time in my career because i was so disruptive. he s really fun. brilliant. and they re amazing together. the two have so much chemistry. you shot this in new mexico, right? part of it was in is an take fay and part of it was in a town so small that there were more of us than there were of them. for the first time you had to sleep in your trailer. we camped in the high school parking lot and i taught them who you to play running charades, which is a game i love in the gym. running charades? oh, my god, it s the moste a addictive game in the world. see, there s the secret life of mary steenburgen. does chelsea clinton get married to your house? no, and please don t come up my driveway. we read something last summer and yeah, and no one was interested. she didn t get married there, she got married in california. our oldest dauger, kate. and it was it was a gorgeous wedding about. we love you and the movie is so much fun. it starts bring. coming up next, a woman who spent most of her life overweight shares her incredible success story after this. it is file if time if the joy fit club s newest member. she lost 110 pounds. here s her story.ile if time ify ficlub s newest member. she lost 110 pounds. here s her story.time if the jo club s newest member. she lost 110 pounds. here s her story. i weighed 240 pounds at my heaviest. during my childhood and high school year, i was always above the average weight of my peers. when my husband and i began dating, we dined out often. we even created a list of every restaurant we ate at and made our way through the alphabet from a to z. when my husban decided to go back to school, i was home with my daughter and we ate fast food at least three nights out of the week totaling thousands of calories in any given meal. even worse, i began to snack on junk food multiple times throughout the day. as funny as it may sound, i felt like the calories aunts the food i at eflt when in one was around didn t count. afraid of what others might think of me, i stopped going out with friends. all my time was spepts at home. i didn t like it get dressed up since i had nothing to wear. but the tame my husband graduated, i was pushing a size 24. in the summer of 2007, my family and i went on vacation. for the first time since gaining weight, i was in some of the family photos. once i had the photos developed, i finally saw myself. that was the moment i decided to gain control and lose the weight. i stayed true to my promise, lost the weight by my 29th birthd and did it in six months. good for her. she decided. we re here with joy bower who will help us visualize how much weight she has lost. another beautiful story right in time for the holidays. she s something. and obviously there were many ropes why she put on the weight, but the one standout if me were her diers. like a lot of people, she ate fast food all the time. the crispy fried chicken sandwich, by the way when you hear crispy, it is code grease anything. this is over 1600 calories right here. this is packed. but the real kicker is had this plate over here. these are the anybody he wil ni night after night off her daughter s plate. look how this adds up at the end of the month. she s taking in ,300 calories just off her daughter s plate. that s a great visual. because people all the time snack off of someone else s plate. so many people can relate to this. so here is she before she lost the weight. come join the joy fit club. she is a knockout. wow. you re gorgeous. so did you are just get rid of tax food all together? all together, yes. i did the cookie diet and so no fast food. for two years she has not eaten any of this. how long did it take you you? six months. and then you also inspired your own mom, right? yes. who happens to be standing right there. how much did you lose? i lost 50. so did you you see the difference in your daughter or did you just and that encouraged you? exactly. because when she started, you re insane, you can t do this. and when it started dropping off, i thought she can. and it can be done. and the buddy system works so well for so many people. and on which times a family can be overweight because of all the it s not just one person, it s everyone because they re all eating the same stuff. bad habits end, good habits are contagious. honestly, i did, i went to a cookie diet.com and he has a plan. i just followed what he said. ate the cookies. and i was so determined. it was easy. and exercise, too? very minimal because you re only taking in 800 to 900 calorie as day, so you re maintaining with the exercise. are you exercising now? i did. i run the treadmill. look at that body, she s exercising. good for you you. are you still on the cookie thing is this. i use to maintain, but i eat a little more now throughout the day. i m not as strict, but, yes. you look awesome. congrats to mom, too. if you know somebody who should be considered, logon to our website. up next, more tiger news. i m associatisorry, we have to. we re back with today s buzz. from the ever evolving tiger woods story to this season s hottest movie previews, andy cohen is here with the scoop. hello, ladies. you re? sleepless, i love it. because we don t feel bloated today. so more of tiger. tell us about the sponsors. one just dropped out. we have gillette who is putting the ads on the shelf for now. and then i think there are some others who are looking hard at their contracts take oday to se what kind of morality clauses they have. and some are truly standing by them like nike. some are standing by and we ll see then if they wait this out, ride it out, and what happens. but if he s not playing, wouldn t it make sense that you wouldn t have him in all kinds of ads? it would, but maybe you say we ll take a pause on our contract and then bring it back in six months when he comes back. so will we see more and more girls? we had another girl on today. we re up to 16. we re up to 16. it keeps going and going. and every day i think it s going to continue. from just your opinion, but do you think he will rebound from thi i think he has to i know he released a thing on his website saying i m sorry. and he called it infidelity. he needs to sit down with one of you and start crying or oprah or someone. it won t be us, but whatever. what about his wife? doesn t it have to start there? yes, he does. don t yell at me. i feel like i m getting a little something from you about. no no. he has a lot of work to do. but do you know who watches golf? men. so i think he can get through this and say i m doing a lot of work on my relationship and then in six or eight months, can t he have a comeback? of course he can. everyone can. i think this one of his statements he said we would ask for compassion. and i thought that s an interesting thing to ask for. and i think people want to be compassionate. men say he made a mistake and we look at it and say he made 16 mistakes. would you two buy a month pro duct that tiger was endorsing if you saw an ad in three months? i don t usually buy products because of the person. i don t usually. my husband s not interested in watching golf unss he s playing in the tournament and he loves golf. he said tiger brir brings an excitement to the game. and he s four tournaments away from beating jack nicholas all-time world record. okay. what else. jon gosselin? an early christmas present for all of us. we re not going to see him giving interview foos while. he s been barred. he violated his contract with tlc and they took him to court over it because this entire press tour that he did promoting nothing has come back to bite him in the butt. he was violating his contract with tlc. so he gets paid for these appearanc appearances? no. he s been paid for some club appearances and some syndicated shows do pay for interviews. i saw an interview with brash b barbara walters and she said kate gosselin will an huge media star and she said that he is i think the word she used was schlub about. i think he would be smart to go back and be an i.t. guy. he s not going to be happy doing that. we have about a minute, but big movies out. avatar. did you see it yet? i haven t seen it. i m dying to. unbelievable. did you hear about the morgans? we saw that, too, a lot of fun. but you know what s great? nine. nine nine is unbelievable. is there a song in nine? tons more. it s complicated. did you like it s complicated? i loved it. i love meryl streep in anything. and alec baldwin, he shows his stomach. he shows the butt, too. but the stomach is like very jarring, don t you think? do you remember? the butt is fairly jarring, too. and i m really tonight s the premiere of did you hear about the morgans. we just had mary on. it s fun. it s a good time. what about andy. nice talking to you. we ll have more of today on nbc.iñ oñiñ we re so proud to say today s toy drive has surpassed the $25 million mark and not only do we like to make sure the kids get toy, we like to make sure they get books, as well. a literacy organization is working to spread the joy and excitement of reading. pam allen is a member and we welcome you. so what are we giving away today? the extraordinary james patterson giving away thousands of books to children across the city today in honor of your toy drive. fantastic. today is the debut of witch and wizard, his latest book. and that s for teens? teens. and santa kid is one of the books being given way. and he wants all kids to have access to books. that is his mission, his vision, and that i think is entirely possible. that s such a great gift. it s a wonderful pook about the magic of the holidays. but we think toys at christmas, but for james patterson especially, i think his mission being all kids deserve the right to read. books live forever. toys break down. thank you so much. have a lovely holiday. we still need your help to make the holidays brighter for as many children as possible. you can donate it right here on our plaza or on oig line oig. tomorrow we ll try out an odd job. you don t want to miss it. have a great day, everybody.