Transcripts For WRC Today 20100204 : vimarsana.com

good morning. breaking news. a new problem for toyota. the company admits there are brake problems with some of their popular prius hybrids. they say they have fixed the problem on brand new models, but what about the ones already on the rothe road? shark attack. a kite boarder killed after being swarmed by sharks off the southern coast of florida. this morning, information on the area s first fatal attack in years. and the $104 million man. that is the astonishing record price this sculpture just fetched at auction. and the race is on to identify the anonymous bidder today, thursday, february 4th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this thursday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. think you re having a bad month? try working at toyota. they ve got another design problem even as that company is already trying to deal with these accelerator issues, on some 2 million vicles ithe united states. the automaker admitted overnight in there are issues on the antilock brake system on the 2010 prius that went on sale last year. they say they corrected the problem on models sold since late january, but what about the cars sold before then, and why is the public only finding out about this issue now? we ll have much more, straight ahead. also ahead, a jailhouse video tied to last february s mysterious disappearance of 5-year-old haleigh cummings. misty cross lynn, the last person to see misty alive, is under arrest on unrelated charges. misty s parents just visited with her in jail and implored her to reveal the truth of what happened to haleigh. it was all caught on tape. that s coming up. plus, matt, more of your exclusive interview with michelle obama. we re going to talk to the first lady about how the presidency over these last 12 months has affected the obamas marriage, how she handles the critiques of her wardrobe and more. first, the black eye for toyota, an admitted design problem for brakes on the latest generation of prius hybrids. cnbc s phil lebeau covers the auto industry. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. the problems are clearly growing for toyota after recalling more than 7 million vehicles worldwide, the company now admits that it does have problems with one of its most popular cars, the prius. there are new questions this morning about the brakes on the toyota prius, an energy-saving hybrid car popular with hollywood celebrities. after more than 100 prius complaints he in the u.s., toyota has admitted for the first time that there were indeed design problems with the prius antilock brakes, but toyota says the problem has been fixed for all models sold since late january. now the u.s. and japanese governments are investigating the situation and a recall could be considered. i m concerned because i don t know if my car s going to be next. reporter: and then there are the accelerator issues, where toyota s troubles may have gone from bad to worse, with transportation secretary ray lahood briefly urging the owners of the cars to stop driving them. my advice is, if anyone owns one of these vehicles, stop driving it, take it to the toyota dealer, because they believe they have the fix for it. reporter: but soon after his appearance before a house subcommittee, lahood put on the brakes, saying he misspoke and instead told owners to drive immediately to a dealer. if you have one of these vehicles, if you re in doubt, take it to the dealership today. reporter: those toyota dealers are now frustrated. they have customers afraid to drive their cars. we ve got people fearful, you know, but in the end, i believe toyota did the right thing. reporter: toyota s problem are growing. it s recalled more than 7 million vehicles worldwide in the past four months due to unintended acceleration blamed on floor mats and sticking gas pedals, but federal investigators are still focusing on whether the dangerous accelerations are actually caused by the electronics in toyota vehicles. we ve also had complaints about the electronics. we will be investigating the electronic component that are in these cars. reporter: toyota denies the electronics in its accelerators are faulty, saying, we have found no evidence of a problem with our electronic throttle control system. toyota is not detailing the exact problem when it comes to the brakes in the prius. there are reports out of japan that the prius brakes may not work for perhaps a second when the foot is first applied to the brake pedal, but the company has not said exactly what the problem is, nor has it indicated if there will be a recall. matt? phil, i think a lot of people are sittg watching this right now, saying wait a second, if toyota says they fixed this in cars, in priuses sold since january, why are we just hearing about this now? reporter: two things, first because of the accelerator pedal problem around the world, more people are coming out of the woodwork, you re hearing more complaints. also, federal investigators are coming at toyota to come clean. if there are issues, don t just study them, tell peop, hey, there may be a design flaw. so those two things in tandem. phil lebeau, thanks for your report. it is now five minutes after the hour. here s meredith. matt, thanks. david champion is the director of automobile testing for consumer reports. david, good morning to you. good morning. let s start with this latest news about the prius and its antilock brakes. toyota, as mentioned by phil, admitted there s a design problem, they ve rectified it in the models being sold since late january. do you understand at all what this defect is about? do you know the nature of the problem? from what i ve read, it seems to be when you put your foot on the brakes to slow the vehicle down, there s a momentary sort of lapse and there s nothing there. and then after about a second, you put your foot down and the brakes work fine. so, what about all these people that have the cars that were not repaired? the priuses that have this issue? are you anticipating yet another recall? i m not sure whether it s going to be a recall or some sort of customer satisfaction program that will go out. the brakes don t actually fail. it s just this momentary, when you don t think they re going to work and then they do work. from that point of view, i don t see it as a big safety feature, but a bit scary. but you talk about customer satisfaction, already there s faltering confidence in toyota. this is not going to help. no. toyota s come under a lot of pressure recently with the floor mats, the throttle pedals, and this is mounting on to their troubles. let s talk about the throttle pedals, because that involves eight toyota models. there are so much confusion out there. what do you do if you have one of those models? what advice would you give to drivers who have one of those models? on these cars, the sticking throttle issue is very rare that it actually will sort of, you know, make t car accelerate. but if it happens, it will kill you. well, it can be very dangerous. if you look at the throttle pedals, they haven t been related to any injuries or fatalities. that s the throttle pedals. the more serious issue is the floor mats, and in 2007 and in 2009 they did offer a recall to take the floor mats out. if you have one of these vehicles with the floor mats issue in, please take those floor mats out. but if you have a vehicle with the sticking accelerator issue, these consumers are getting mixed signals. the department of transportation said yesterday, the head of the department of transportation said at one point, don t drive the car, take it to the dealer. next person said, no, no, i meant drive it to the dealership. so, do you drive it? do you leave it in the driveway until you get the call? do you take it immediately? what are you supposed to do? most of these 2.3 million vehicles will not have a problem. if you look at the accelerator pedal, it may feel a bit gritty. it may be slow to return to begin with. so, there are warning signs that it may stick. for most of the people, they re never going to see the issue, but just be aware that if the pedal starts to feel gritty or it s a bit slow to return, then take it to the dealer. toyota says they have the fix for that, involves putting a little metal rod into the brake itself i mean, the accelerator itself. do you think that will do the trick? look at what they ve done. they ve looked at the fix and given the blessing in the legal way to the fix. so, from all the recalls that we ve seen that nitsu has looked at, we ve got to assume they ve looked at it, they ve examined the issue and they think this will fix it. meanwhile, our own government is saying this may not be the pedal at all. this may have something to do with the electronics system of the car. when we look at all the complaints out there for unintended acceleration, it s still very rare on these vehicles, but once we get rid of the throttle pedal issue, the floor mat issue, then put those to one side, then look to see if there s something else in there, but the federal government has done a lot of tests in terms of putting big emf, big cell phones, magnets around it. they couldn t find anything. toyota s been working to see if they can find if there s any other electrical issue in there. it s trying to find a needle in a haystack in some ways. but you know, at same token, consumer reports did pullts recommended label from all these toyota models. why would you do that, then? well, it was a bit strange to have us recommending you go out and buy one of these vehicles when toyota had actually pulled them off sale. so, finally, david, just quickly, your opinion and the opinion of consumer reports in terms of safety and toyota, still a safe buy? they re still a safe buy. once they ve fixed all these problems, i would not have a hesitation in recommending a toyota. all right, david champion, thank you so much. thank you. and now let s check on the rest of the morning s top stories. with ann onassignment, natalie morales standing by at the news desk. good morning, nat. good morning, meredith. good morning, everyone. today, republican scott brown will be sworn in as the senator from massachusetts, officially ending the democrats supermajority in the senate. brown s presence is already having an impact. nbc s white house correspondent savannah guthrie joins us now from washington. good morning, savannah. reporter: hi, natalie. you re right, things have changed in the senate. the president met with senate democrats on wednesday and told them that s no excuse not to get things done. on friendly turf thank you, guys, thank you. reporter: but before an audience of fellow democrats worried about their own political fortunes, the president urged senators to shake off the massachusetts senate upset and step up. i would just suggest to this caucus, if anybody s searching for a lesson from massachusetts, i promise you, the answer is not to do nothing. reporter: the president told democrats they must find a way to get health care passed, but to the frustration of some, didn t lay out how it could be done. what are we going to do differently? reporter: taking questions from the audience as he did with house republicans last week. i ve got to admit, i had a little fun at that caucus. reporter: the president seemed to bend over backwards. the senator from arkansas, blanche lincoln. reporter: to praise senators in re-election battles. blanche is exactly right. reporter: and a chance to mend fences with one such democrat, majority leader harry reid, fighting for his political life in nevada, reid slammed the president for comments at a new hampshire town hall on tuesday, when he used las vegas yet again as an example of reckless spending. don t blow a bunch of cash on vegas when you re trying to save for college. reporter: the president was quick to fire off a letter of apology, writing, i hope you know that during my town hall, i wasn t saying anything negative about las vegas. i was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money, to have fun. well, today the president will have senator reid and the other democratic leaders over here at the white house hash out a legislative strategy with one fewer vote in the senate, natalie. all right, savannah guthrie at the white house for us this morning. thank you, savannah. the military is trying to find out what caused the crash of a u.s. black hawk helicopter during the night in southwestern germany. three crew members were killed. tragedy wednesday off of stewart, florida, where a 38-year-old kite boarder was killed in an attack by sharks. the man was about a quarter mile offshore. a lifeguard paddled out and saw he was encircled by sharks and carried him back to shore. he died a short time later. and a small toy landed a new york city boy in big trouble at school. the 9-year-old brought a 2-inch toy gun made by lego to school and was playing with it in the cafeteria when he was taken to the principal s office and nearly suspended. his mother says she may sue over what she calls a lack of common sense. it is now 7:12. let s turn it back over to matt, redith and al. apparently, the boy s father is a retired police officer, so he loved his lego action figures so much, he brought the thing to school and didn t think anything of it. it s different than taking a toy gun to school. this is a toy gun for a toy. toy, right. exactly. this is two inches big. anyway. natalie, thank you very much. i guess better safe than sorry, i suppose. you re here. you were in the snow in washington yesterday. yes. and we re even talking in the future about possible snow here. washington s going to be looking at a lot of snow this weekend and other parts of the mid-atlantic states. let s see where it s coming from. down in the gulf, look at this radar. i mean, a massive storm. snow up to kansas, omaha, nebraska, back into oklahoma city. we re looking at rain. this system comes out of the gulf and starts to head through the gulf into the northeast, into the mid-atlantic states. by saturday we are looking at a major snowstorm just to the south of new york city on through jersey, on into parts of washington, d.c., west virginia, anywhere from 12 to 18 inches of snow by saturday morning, up to 6 inches of snow back into indianapolis. new york just on the fringes. maybe one to three inches of snow, maybe four to five at the most. if this storm moves a little to the north, we could be seeing some of those higher elevations working their way into the no travel problems here on this thursday morning. good morning, temperatures problems around freezing in the entire region. and we will have temperatures with sunshine climb to near 40 today, increasing clouds this afternoon, cloudy tonight, mid 20s tomorrow morning, then light snow in the metro area by tomorrow afternoon. mid to heavy snow friday afternoon and saturday morning. and that s your latest weather. meredith? no, matt. i ll take it, al. thanks very much. white hou chief of staff rahm emanuel offered a new apology on wednesday, days after comments surfaced in which he used the word retarded to describe a proposal made by a group of liberal democrats. nbc s andrea mitchell has the latest on this story. andrea, good morning to you. reporr: good morning, matt. the white house chief of staff has apologized to advocates for special needs children for using the r word, but now sarah palin has reignited the controversy by demanding more than an apology. from rahm emanuel, a white house apology to tim schreiber, head of the special olympics, and other advocates for the intellectually disabled. it all started with a remark made last august during intense health care negotiations, but only recently reported. the famously blunt chief of staff called liberal democrats xletit retarded, . describing it as rahm being rahm. this is a tough day for rahm emanuel because he s not used to saying the word day after mother. reporter: but sarah palin, mother of a down syndrome child, objected to emanuel s use of the word retarded, now widely viewed as derogatory. she called for emanuel to be fired, writing on facebook, rahm s slur on all god s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities and the people who love them is unacceptable and it s heartbreaking. the white house apologized. derogatory comments that make fun of one group or pit one against the other don t do anything to further our political discourse, and for that, rahm apologized and we re looking to move forward. reporter: it was the second time in a year that the obama white house apologized to schreiber. last march it was after the president joked on the tonight show with jay leno. i bowled a 129. that s great. it was like special olympics or something. reporter: this time, schreiber and other advocates who want to move the word retarded from everyday speech issued a statement saying the r-word is polluting our language. this is a word that is incredibly damaging, not only to the 7 million people with intellectual disabilities, but also their friends, family and to all of us. analysts say the apology should be enough. it was said in a private meeting. it is a crude phrase. i think he apologizes for it, and rightly so. well, i think rahm himself would say it s unacceptable. he expresses himself in ways that people object to, and i think correctly so in this case. he s apologized, and that was the right thing for him to do, and now i think it s time to move on. reporter: now one of palin s sarah palin s usual allies, rush limbaugh, apparently used the r word on his radio show wednesday repeatedly. so far, no comment from palin about that. all right, andrea mitchell in washington. andrea, thank you very much for your report. it s now 17 minutes after the hour. once again, here s meredith. matt, thank you. motivational speaker james arthur ray is being held on $5 million bond this morning after being charged with manslaughter in connection with three deaths during a sweat lodge ceremony he led last october. nbc s miguel almaguer has the latest. reporter: james arthur ray surrendered to authorities wednesday. detectives led ray to jail after he was charged in connection with the deaths of three people. it s a sudden turn-about in fortune for the self-help superstar. do you treat yourself the way you want other people to treat you? reporter: ray parlayed his reputation as a motivational speaker into a multimillion dollar empire. speaking engagements, books, dvds, all designed to help others reach their full financial and spiritual potential. one of his most expensive and exclusive events was at a gathering known as the spiritual warrior retreat in sedona, arizona. last october, the retreat took a deadly turn for three of ray s followers. 911, what s the problem? two people aren t breathing, two with no pulse. two aren t breathing? yes. okay, is this the result of a shooting or something? no, it was a sweat lodge. a sweat lodge? yes. okay. reporter: the final phase of the spiritual retreat involved a sweat lodge ceremony, a native erican ritual where participants gathered in a specially designed tent filled with steam coming off of heated rocks. it s an intense exercise of mental and physical toughness intended to foster a spiritual journey. one of the sweat lodge survivors talked about her experience on today. i was just i was having difficulty breathing. i couldn t keep up with the chants, and there were several people leaving at that time or trying to leave. it was very, very uncomfortable at that time for me. reporter: witnesses say ray s followers were gasping for air, passing out and vomiting. kirby own and james shore passed out inside the sweat lodge and died that night at a local hospital. liz newman died a week later. in his only interview since october, ray told new york magazine, i did not know anything was different until it became apparent that there had been a terrible accident when it was completed. his attorneys call the charges unjust and predict ray will be cleared in court. he s been charged with three counts of manslaughter and faces as much as 37 years in prison. the charge of manslaughter was almost a no-brainer. it s simply you didn t intend to kill somebody, but you were reckless or negligent. sounds a lot like the facts here. reporter: now, a man who made a living teaching others to overcome their greatest obstacles is facing the biggest legal battle of his own life. for today, miguel almaguer, nbc news. and still ahead, has the obamas first year in the white house been tougher on their marriage than they expected? we re going to have much more of matt s exclusive interv how much would you pay for a bronze sculpture of a tall, skinny man walking? you? no. in london, someone paid $104 million to buy that sculpture. that is a new record. the artist himself died in 1966, and the money, aprently, is going to fund philanthropic endeavors, which is a nice thing, but no one knows who the bidder was. some think a russian collector, a middle eastern collection. by the way, the same collection, a landscape made $45 million. why did i see a hood ornament? 7:26 is your time now on this thursday, february 4, 2004. in the news for today, a difficult day at the zoo, tai shan is leaving for china. they are preparing right now. federal express is taking care of flying tai shan. the time for him to go to his new home had comment his parents are also supposed to head to china by the end of the year but the zoo is negotiating good morning, clear and cold on this thursday morning, near freezing and afternoon highs should climb near freezing, with afternoon clouds. light snow by noontime, moderate to heavy friday night and saturday tapering off. more than a foot in washington. the outer loop of the beltway between river road and the american legion bridge. the outer loop you can see. the left side is still clocked. the right lane is still jammed. you can see how the backups are developing along-270. jerry, thank you, coming up tonight on news4 at 5:00, unbreakable. medications that are supposed to 7:30 now on a thursday morning. it s the 4th day of february 2010. right around freezing out on the plaza right now, checking out the nice people who gathered, bundled up, but in a good mood. we ll see them in a couple of minutes. meanwhile, as you look through that window, that s the bald spot on the back of my head. i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira. you didn t have to look. coming up in this half hour, much more of our exclusive conversation with first lady michelle obama. she took us on a stroll around the white house and she talked about the impact her husband s job hasad on their marriage, how they managed to find quality time to spend with each other and their daughters and some other subjects like fashion. we re going to talk to her in just a little while. also ahead, another first lady with a lot to say. i m talking about jenny sanford, the wife of south carolina governor mark sanford has filed for divorce after her husband admitted to an affair with a mistress from argentina. now she s written an explosive new memoir about their troubled marriage, and in it, she says mark sanford made her remove the pledge to remain faithful from their wedding vows. just ahead, what more she has to say. plus, martha stewart and donald trump have built their own brand images, and if you re looking for work, you might want to think about taking a page from their playbooks. we ll explain that in a little while. but we re going to begin with new developments in the disappearance of haleigh cummings. natalie is here with the very latest. nat? good morning to you, meredith. well, a bounty hunter has now come forward to say he knows what to do to find haleigh cummings, this as police have released new jailhouse tapes of a phone call between misty croslin, who s the last person to see haleigh alive, and that conversation with her parents. i want out of here. reporter: misty croslin cried during a jailhouse phone call with her parents. the 18-year-old used to be married to haleigh cummings father, ronald. now they re both in jail on drug trafficking charges. police say ronald cummings was working last february when his daughter, haleigh, vanished. misty croslin was babysitting haleigh and her little brother. she told police she tucked the two kids in for bed and went to sleep in the same room. when she woke up, she claims the back door was open and haleigh was gone. there were no signs of forced entry and haleigh hasn t been seen since. i hope i don t have to be here forever. reporter: last week during a jailhouse visit, misty s father gged her to reveal the truth about haleigh. i don t understand why you didn t come forward before. the haleigh stuff has got to come to an end. it s got to, misty. whatever the truth is, it s got to come out. reporter: in an odd twist, police say misty s reply to her father s question about haleigh was not recorded by faulty jailhouse cameras. meanwhile, a los angeles bounty hunter says he knows how to find haleigh. leonard padilla wants to post bail for misty croslin. he believes if he gets her out, she will give him information about how to find haleigh. given the situation, she might be forthcoming with some information that maybe she hasn t disclosed. i think she s got some stuff that, either she s given it to law enforcement and they haven t given it up or she has information that would lead to the child s return. reporter: padilla isn t the only person who thinks misty can help find haleigh. haleigh s grandmother spoke out last week on today. i believe that whether or not she realizes it, misty is holding something that could possibly help haleigh s case. reporter: on wednesday, misty and ronald were slapped with even more new drug charges. her bond is now $1.3 million. padilla says he is willing to pay. somebody knows where the child is, and the obvious person that would be able to start the ball rolling is misty. and leonard padilla says he wants to work as an investigator for misty croslin s lawyers. we should mention, both misty croslin and ronald cummings have passed polygraph tests related to haleigh s disappearance. meredith? natalie, thank you. and now let s get a check of the weather from al. thanks a lot, guys. we ve got another big storm coming into the west. it just doesn t seem to stop. this is typical el nino season. you re seeing rain from portland down into eventually san francisco. some of this rain s going to be heavy at times, especially right around between eureka and san francisco, anywhere from two to three inches of rain. rest of the country, sunny skies along the eastern seaboard, but that big gulf coast storm is going to be causing problems, heavy rain. we ve got flood watches down for good morning, we have a mostly clear sky, temperatures are right at or a little below freezing this morning. lots of sun today getting up to a high of 40s. then a large snowstorm coming our way, could be some heavy snow by friday afternoon. maybe light snow beginning around noontime but then moderate to heavy late friday night and ending saturday afternoon. over a foot of snow is possible in the metro area, higher amounts perhaps farther west and north. that s your latest weather. and if you want to keep track of your weather all day long, go to the weather channel on cable or weather.com online. matt? al, thank you very much. now to the state of the union, not the speech, but the marriage between barack and michelle obama. this week, the first lady took me on a walk through the white house and spoke candidly about the impact life in the executive mansion has on a relationship. you know, surprisingly, here we have more time together than we ve had in years, because the pace of the campaign is just ridiculous. so, you know, he comes home he s home at 6:30 and he may stop and do a little work. we have dinner as a family. the thing that we don t get to do as much is go out and do our date nights as much, because it just causes more commotion. could you have imagined the commotion? when you came to new york, and i happen to remember that i saw the helicopters, coast guard cutters. how do you if every time you go out on a date, it s front-page news, how have you adapted? this is a nice spot. the chef is great. you know, you can do all kinds of things. and we weren t really going out kind of people. i mean, we re the kind of folks who go to the kids games and we have friends over and we watch movies, and you know, our lives are very conducive to this because we just are sort of boring anyway. so, we have movie night where barack and i will go down and watch a movie. so, we find our way. you said nobody s going to cry for me because i m living in the white house. and i m not asking you to tell me a sob story, but in general terms, is the presidency, in your opinion, tough on a marriage? it can be, but you have so much support. i mean, we were talking about this. you have, first of all, my mother lives with me. yeah. is she going to stay, by the way? she was supposed to for transition. she s happy. shh, don t jinx it. she s doing good. no, she s well. i m hopeful, because it does come in handy when you re doing an interview and kids are doing homework and somebody can still do multiplication while we re, you know. so, having another adult helps. but we haven t found this to be stressful on our family. we re not doing laundry. we re not, you know, worrying about who s going to cook the meal. i mean, there are the stresses of everyday life that they just pod on families, and a lot of that stuff is gone. now, there are broader international, national crises that are pressures, but that s outside, you know. internally, we feel pretty blessed. if i leave here today and i don t ask you some question about fashion oh, yeah. i will get kicked to the curb back in the office all right, all right. fire away. could you have ever prepared yourself, mrs. obama, for the attention no. paid to everything you wear? do you get up in the morning now, stand in front of the mirror and say what am i going to wear and what are they going to write about it? sometimes i do. sometimes i do. you know, this is another one of those efficiency things, you know, because i can t spend a lot of time thinking day to day. so you know, sometimes does someone do it for you? does someone pick out an outfit for you? i do it with people, you know. you have help. you have folks who are going to get your clothes ready, and you know, i ll figure out what i m going to wear over the course of a week or two even, so i don t have to think about. i can say tomorrow i ve got this, so this is on the rack. i m putting it on and calling it a day. so, i don t think that much about the response to it. i ve learned wear what i like, wear what s comfortable, and that really depends on the occasion. anything you ve read about, you know, a comment about an outfit? it must feel good. it s only human that it would feel good when people write nice things. anything people have written or said that you thought that s not fair, i like that dress! you know, i really turn off you know, and i do that with my husband and me. you know, i don t take in a lot of feedback in that regard because you don t want comments like that to influence who you are. youan t feed on any negative. i just sort of find a way to keep that out. and if there s any criticism that s helpful, i take it in and try to learn from it. learn from it, right. last question. is this fun? is fun even a word that can be used to describe what you re living through right now? i am having a ball. really? i really am. i mean, i love people, first of all, and i think it would be hard to be in this position if you fundamentally didn t love people. so, i come to this with a certain level of just joy in g hugging. i m a hugger. i know. you know. it took me back a little bit, but it s okay. so, my life is filled with these wonderful interactions with americans all over the country. that s what i do every day. my staff is terrific, my kids are healthy, my husband s fine. he s got a hard job, but he can handle it, you know? i m having a ball, and hopefully, i m doing some good in the process. so, you know, check back with me in a year, but right now i m doing all right. to quote another first lady, it takes a village and your mother to have a normal life in the white house. she likes the fact that mrs. robinson is there helping out with the kids. oyeah. and we want to thank mr. obama for her hospitality it was fun. up next, how to build your own personal brand to stand out from the crowd in what is a very difficult job market. what you need to be doing, right after this. back at 7:43, and this morning we re beginning a special two-day series build your brand day: how to stand out in a crowd. if you are looking for a job in today s rough economy, developing a personal brand could be the key to making yourself more marketable. no one is more brand-conscious than celebrities. just like corporate brands, celebrities are leveraging themselves and their names. let s get down to business. reporter: donald trump is an expert. the real estate mogul put his name on everything he builds and stars in his own reality show. how have you done? reporter: the result, he s world famous. domestic diva martha stewart has built her brand in publishing, broadcasting and even merchandising. and shaean diddy combs is defining a new generation as he goes from the stage to the screen to businessman, launching fashion and music ventures bearing his name. i am king. reporter: all three have created a signature brandre bra is recognizable, uniquely theirs and very profitable. so, if you are not donald, martha or diddy, how do you establish your personal brand? martin lindstrom is a brand and marketing xerlt and author of the newly updated and revised books buy-ology and brand sense. good morning to you. good morning. before we talk about establishing a brand, i want to talk about the toyota brand. after the recalls and now the recent problems with the prius brakes, what is that going to do for their brand short term and long term? it is a disaster for the brand. it s only going to get worse. the bad news is toyota knew about this years ago and forgot to tell the consumer. so now the consumer is basically saying can i trust that brand? and that s the worst thing that can happen. so, will the brand recover? absolutely. it s not the first time a recall is happening, but it would take two to three years, leaving the number one spot available for the competitors to grab. so, even after the repairs, there will be a lingering doubt in the mind of consumers? absolutely. it will take a long time before they get their trust back. let s talk about people establishing their own personal brand. why is that so important? brands have been around forever and they have managed to create trust and they have managed to create a personal relationship, and that s really what you want to do. you want to systemically control the signals you send to the world. and your opinion is that everybody can do this, not just celebrities. you say start by defining who you are and who you aren t. well, that s right. we have to be aware of the signals we re sending to the world. are you well known for always being on time? are you well known for always delivering o a promise or being fun or cool like obama, always ace on the screen? you need to know what your signals are and consistently work towards that goal. but you also say become well known for one thing, not a lot of things. this is really interesting, because at the end of the day, if you are making sure you re standing for one thing, you re controlling every signal you send, and that means people will remember you for it, rather than you sending out a flurry of different information, which really is confusing people. talking about confusing, on the one hand, you say be clear and direct on who you are. on the other hand, you say it s important to create an air of mystery. well, that s right. what i find fascinating here is that mystery at the end of the day is attracting a lot of attention. think about, you know, the harry potter book, released one minute past midnight or the ipad, released, you know, with a lot of mystery around it. how does that apply to an individual? well, you have to make sure that you tell the great stories about you, but don t tell the full story. let people be attracted to the mystery around you. that means they re going to talk about you. so they can create something greater than reality, actually. absolutely. you also say it s important to have a signature look, which you obviously do. you re always in the black. always in the black. i ve been there for ten years, and it really makes you stand out. people remember you for it. and if you think about, you know, for example, these suspenders. i think of larry king when i think about suspenders. me too. i think about michael jackson when i think about the socks or the white glove. or this one here, you re thinking about elizabeth taylor. so, those signature looks are really sensual, because people lock you into a certain look and recognize you immediately. and leave a personal mark behind. what does that mean? well, it basically means that we re giving business cards out every minute and really it s a waste of time and money. so, what i would do is to create a mark whi really stands out. such as? well, you know, here s an example. this is my business card. and what s interesting about the business card is that it has a folded corner. now, the reason why it has that is because when people came up to me and they wanted me to sign my books, speeches and stuff, you know, people had all the corn years folded in my books, and i realized, hey, that s my brand. so, i started to fold the corner on my business cards and on my letterheads. and guess what? people never forget it. but a lot of people wouldn t have a need for a business card, so what would they use? well, in reality, what they re trying to do is to find a mark they can leave behind, perhaps some advice, perhaps something which people always recognize them for. at the end of the day, what is the one thing people should remember you for as you leave them? and martin, has your research shown this really leads to people getting jobs? well, at the end of the day, there s so much competition out there. if you make sure that they remember you just 1% more than the average, guess what? you have a much bigger chance of getting that job. martin lindstrom, thank you so much. you re welcome. pleure to have you here. tomorrow we re g test martin s theory that anyone can create a personal brand by showing you what happened when in just two hours, he transformed one of our producers into an instant celebrity. but just ahead this morning, jenny sanford opens up about her troubled marriage to south carolina governor mark sanford, including how he sought her advice about his romance with a mistress. just ahead, help if you re tired of coping with all the everyday aches and pains that can drag you down. plus, the tragedy that helped shape this u.s. olympian into the person she is today. 7:55 is your time right now, good morning, everyone, we have some breaking news to report and big problems on the beltway. let s get right to jerry edwards right now. there was a serious crash within the last hour or so on the beltway, in maryland the outer loop of the beltway you re looking at delays along i-270 southbound, which begin just below germantown so a lot of extra travel time will be needed. this is the scene where the accident had been, outer loop after river road. but the activity has cleared. the national zoo is packing up the giant panda tai shan as he leaves for china this morning. the time for him to go to his new home has come. we ll t host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: did the waltons take way too long to say goodnight? mom: g night john boy. g night mary ellen. mary ellen: g night mama. g night erin. elizabeth: g night john boy. jim bob: g night grandpa. elizabeth: night ben. jim bob: elizabeth: g night jim bob. jim bob: g night everybody, grandpa: g night everybody. jim bob: g night daddy. vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. good morning, sunny and cold, highs today near 40, winter storm watch out for most of virginia including washington and most of maryland and points north and west of the already have some warning out farther south and west. but for u.s. today, lots of sun with highs near 40, but some light snow around noontime around the d.c. metro area. but getting moderate to heavy at times overnight friday night into saturday morning tapering off and ending saturday afternoon. total amounts right around washington will exceed 12 inches. there could be even more than that farther west and north. strong gusty winds farther west and north. unbreakae. medications that are supposed to making bones stronger may 8:00 now on this thursday morning, february 4th, 2010. we have a great crowd waving to loved ones back home on a great morning here in the heart of midtown manhattan. i m meredith vieira along with matt lauer and al roker. let me ask you guys a question. if your spouse said to you, you know, a few days before the wedding, let s cut out that part about being faithful in the vows, would you still go along with the marriage? only if you get the best part and worst part out you know who did decide that was okay with her, jenny sanford, the wife of the governor of south carolina. her husband said he wanted that out of the vows and she agreed. we ll talk to one of jenny sanford s friends who was in the wedding. as we know, that marriage is now over. she left him after the revelations about him cheating on her repeatedly. also ahead, the olympic games eight days away. oh, my gosh. opening ceremony a week from tonight. this morning we ll introduce you to a member of the u.s. ski team who says she owes her dream to her dad. their touching story is just ahead. plus, is a cleanse diet for you? the popular nutrition programs are not without controversy, because you have to go without a lot of things that most people eat every day. just ahead, i m going to tell you about one i tried and explore all the concerns that go along with it. okay, but first, a check of the morning s top stories from natalie morales, who is filling in for ann at the news desk. hey, natalie. good morning, again, matt, meredith and al. and good morning to you. toyota s troubles expanded this morning to include its flagship hybrid car, the prius. toyota admitted it discovered design problems with antilock brakes on the 2010 prius, which went on sale last fall. it said the flaw was corrected on its newest model sold since late january but acknowledged customers who bought the car earlier had not been informed. motivational speaker james arthur ray faces a court hearing today after his arrest wednesday on manslaughter charges. three people attending his spiritual warrior camp in arizona died last fall during a sweat lodge ceremony. a rare group shark attack off south florida wednesday claimed the life of a 38-year-old kite surfer. police in stuart, florida, say a lifeguard spotted the man surrounded by sharks about 500 yards from shore. massachusetts republican scott brown will be sworn in today to fill the senate seat held by almost 47 years by democrat ted kennedy. his election gives republicans enough votes to block bills they oppose. and now here s brian williams with a look at what s coming up tonight on nbc nightly news. natalie, thanks. coming up tonight, he s an up-and-coming, unique politician, and he s out to save what he calls his city, newark, new jersey. their dynamic mayor, cory booker, one of the grio list of 100. we ll show you arod the city. he ll show us. we ll have that and more for you tonight on nightly news. natalie, for now, back to you. thank you, brian. it is now two minutes past the hour. let s go back outside once again to matt and meredith. all right, natalie, thanks very much. it s cold. it s chilly. it s cold. yes, it is. 28 degrees. yes, it is. cold. okay, we re done! no, only kidding. got some saints fans here. yeah. who dat? and then we ve also got some canada fans here. yay! are you guys from canada or just like the wear? yeah, vancouver. are you going to be in vancouver for the olympics? yeah. all right, way to go. let s check your weather, see what s going on. bring the saints there to vancouver. nbc, the bay area, nbc. steady rain, 58 degrees in san francisco today. afternoon temperatures a little on the chilly side in new england, teens and 20s. 20s through the ains. as you look into the southwest, 70s and 60s, 70s down in southern florida. we re looking at rain working its way through the gulf coast, some heavy rain in the lower mississippi river valley. rain moves into the pacific northwest as well. sunny skies up and down the eastern seaboard, but that big gulf coast storm works its way into the northeast and we are looking at a possible nor easter with up to a foot of snow good morning, sunshine, temperatures are just now right around the freezing mark all around the region and we do have a large area under a winter storm watch that includes all of maryland, the eastern shore and most of virginia for a large winter storm arriving tomorrow. but today sunny and highs near 40. but some light snow beginning tomorrow and moderate to heavy snow from late afternoon and overnight through saturday morning. it should taper off by saturday afternoon. and over a foot is likely in washington. and our director joe michaels wanted to know, what do you call canadian bacon in canada? canadian bacon. all right, there you go! what do you call french toast in never mind matt? all right, al, thanks very much. when we come back, south carolina s first lady opens up. why did jenny sanford say that her soon-to-be ex-husband, governor mark sanford, insist on removing the vow of being faithful from their wedding vows? my baby sparkle and shine and everyone. 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[ female announcer ] beautiful moments are born in the shower. .hair and a kiss in the breeze [ female announcer ] a diamond-infused sensation in body wash. touch of sparkle cream oil body wash from nivea. touch and be touched. and freedom of thoutdoors for your indoor cat. specially formulated to promote hairball control. and healthy weight. friskies indoor wet cat food. feed the senses. if toyota gets credit for being the most fuel efficient car company in america, well, then how do you explain all this? chevy malibu, cobalt, silverado, and the all-new equinox. compare them to anyone. may the best car win. that s why nature s bounty makes. a full line of high-quality vitamins, like fish oil for heart health. go to naturesbounty.com now for a $2.00 coupon. nature s bounty. perfect for every body. to get more of the fiber you need every day, try fiberchoice. with the natural fiber found in fruits and vegetables and 33% more fiber per serving than benefiber. fiberchoice, the smart choice for the most fiber. i said, daddy, of course. he said, no, no, no. daddy doesn t count. you know, your valentine is who you want to sit by, who you get in trouble with, who you tell your secrets to, who you play with at recess. i said, well, that s daddy, too. this valentine s day, wouldn t your valentine. like to know how you feel? give them a refreshingly real card from hallmark. back now at 8:07 with new details on the troubled marriage between south carolina governor mark sanford and his wife jenny. she has filed for divorce after he admitted to having an affair with a mistress from argentina. we re going to talk to one of jenny sanford s longtime friends in just a moment. but first, here s nbc s norah o donnell. reporter: jenny sanford says she felt ugly, unwanted and dirty after learning of her husband s cheating. i ve been unfaithful to my wife. reporter: and now, for the first time, she reveals there were questions about her husband s fidelity from the very beginning of their marriage, writing in her new book, staying true, jenny san sanfo reveals her husband insisted the word faithful be removed from their wedding vows. she writes, he was worried in some odd, nagging way that he might not be able to remain true to that vow. in retrospect, i suppose i might have seen this as a sign. still, the sanfords were married for 20 years and had four children. among the revelations in the book, jenny sanford says her husband once gave her a diamond necklace for her birday and then returned it just days later. she says when she sat her four boys down to tell them their father was having an affair, her 12-year-old son, bolton, said, oh, my gosh, this is going to be worse than eliot spitzer! former governor eliot spitzer admitted to paying for sex with prostitutes, but unlike spitzer s wife, jenny sanford did not stand by her man while he confessed publicly in an extraordinary, tear-filled press conference. oddly enough, i spent the last five days of my life crying in argentina. i hurt her, i hurt you all, i hurt my wife, i hurt my boys. reporter: in painful detail, jenny says her husband even turned to her for advice about his romance and how to deal with the media. after that bizarre press conference, he called immediately and asked, how d i do? now, jenny sanford has filed for divorce and written a book she hopes is inspirational. it s about never giving up on her faith, her family and morals, but some want to know, is she giving up on politics or will she run as a candidate herself? it wouldn be at all surprising to see her interest in a political career based on the way she s acting. reporter: jenny sanford tells nbc news she s done with politics for now, but some wonder if staying true may lead to a career in politics for this clearly different kind of political spouse. for today, norah o donnell, nbc news, washington. denise is a longtime friend of jenny sanford, with us along with psychologist judith sills. good morning to you both. good morning. good morning. denise, if i can start with you. after all the public embarrassment that jenny and her family have gone through, why did she decide to write this book now? well, i think that, number one, it was very cathartic for her to to do, but secondly, during the summer she was going through it, the media put a lot of attention on her, and particularly the way she handled herself through such a public and embarrassing ordeal. and i think people wanted to know more about jenny, what made her her and how she managed herself through the whole ordeal. you encouraged her to write the book. i did. i did. i did. i said, jenny, you know what, i think this is a really great story that a lot of people will be able to take something away from. you re showing a tremendous amount of courage in what you did and you re continuing to show courage i moving forward alone with your children. youknow, in the book, jenny describes their marriage as solid, not overly romantic, but certainly strong, is the word she uses. what was yourmpression ofhat 20-year relationship? my impression was, you know, they made a terrific team, a terrific partnership. she was very instrumental in his political career. he relied on her tremendously for advice. she s a brilliant person, a brilliant business person, a great strategist. and you know, i was stunned when i found out what was going on. and yet, there were the red flags. she points out the wedding day, him not wanting that word faithful used in the vows, and she went along with that. you were in the wedding party. did she ever bring that up to you? i didn t know that until i read the manuscript. and when i talked to her about it, she said, you know, i was concerned, so i addressed it with mark. mark and i sat down, we had a long discussion about it, and at the end of the day, we both agreed that marriage vows implies fidelity. what did it say to you, the fact that he would want that word removed? it says that he was in conflict from day one and the conflict leaked. he was making a companionate friendship marriage, which can be very strong, tremendous support. in the back of his mind, he s going, am i going to go with that passion for the rest of my life? i don t think so. then he tried to tell her, then he tried to take it back. and fast forward 20 years intohe marriage, jenny discovers these e-mails between him and his mistress from argentina. she confronts him, he admits to the affair, and then he says i want to go see her one last time, and she agrees to that. why would she do that, denise? to know mark, you d have to know mark. mark is he s relentless. and when he wants something, he s not going to stop asking for it. and he can wear you down. and so, jenny was worn down. she finally said, fine, if this is the only way that you can end it, go, but you re going with a chaperone. but she believed somehow it would all work out? yes, yeah. because she was you re locked in a role for 20 years. she was his brilliant support person. what you want and need i will help you make happen. now he comes and says what i want and need is this other thing. and in his story, he s actually thinking to himself she ll understand. she understood everything else. she s a wonderful woman and i love her. and he goes to her and he says help me with this. and then in june, when it is exposed to the public, he turns to her again for her advice on how to deal with the media, and after the press conference says how did i do? right. he relied on her tremendously for just for all advice. i mean, she was his go-to person for everything. but there s the other piece, the utter self-absorption. this is all about me, my pain, my suffering. i cried for five days. help me. it s all about being in that bubble. right. so, what was her breaking point? because after that press conference, they did go into counseling, she says in the book, and finally, she realizes this is not going to work. what was it that finally said to her i have to end this? i believe her breaking point wa as they were going through the counseling, he wasn t showing the appropriate amount of remorse and emotions for what he had done to jenny and to the boys, and i think that she felt as though, you know, she gave it a shot. he wasn t going to come, you know, bring that emotion to the marriage, and felt as though he wasn t committed to it. what we know about jenny in the public was that she wasn t standing by her man when he made this public apology, admitted that he had had not just one affair, but actually, subsequently said many of them. does that show strength, judith, the fact that she because as opposed to like eliot spitzer s wife, who did stand by her man, different strokes for different folks. strong is not whether you stay in the marriage or not. strong is a woman who, despite tremendous emotional pain, can make a realistic assessment, what s really happening here, do i have a shot at this marriage, what is good for my family, what is my financial, legal, professional situation. i can think even though i am suffering. it appears that jenny could think things through, according to her values, but maybe eliot spitzer s wife was strong in exactly the same way and came to a different conclusion. all right. just very quickly, we have to go, but i wonder how the boys are doing, the four boys? oh, they re doinggreat. those children are so well mannered, grounded. they re surrounded by lots of family. they re doing great. and they have a great mother. and she a great friend in denise. thank you. judith sills, always a pleasure. thank you so much. and up next, how the u.s. olympian became the daring athlete she is today. her touching story, right after this. whoa-oh one tribe, y all, we one tribe, y all we one tribe, y all we are one people let s catch amnesia let s catch amnesia forget about all of that evil [ male announcer ] what do you care about? introducing the pepsi refresh project. we re giving away millions for ideas that move the world forward. every pepsi refreshes the world. if toyota gets credit for being the most fuel efficient car company in america, well, then how do you exain all this? chevy malibu, balt, silverado, and the all-new equinox. compare them to anyone. may the best car win. i thought we couldn t afford it, but then i went to walmart and i found the new home trends collection. i started off with rugs and pillows. and i got those for a steal. [ son ] mooom. steal as in a good price, honey. and then, it was on to my bare walls. i even got all the little extras, guilt free. tables, lamps, pillows, candles. and just like that, voila! a room i want to show off. get the new home trends collection at walmart. saveoney. live better. walmart. announcer: today s countdown to vancouver is brought to you by walmart. save money. live better. walmart. d this morning on today s countdown to vancouver, eight days to go. it takes years of sacrifice, dedication and discipline for an athlete to make it to the olympics. and by the way, that goes for their parents, as well. natalie s back with one freestyle skier s story. this is a heartwarming story. it is a great story. emily cook s bond with her father, don, has allowed her to chase her dreams in spite of some extraordinary challenges. don cook has been through it all with emily, and he ll soon watch her compete in her second olympics in vancouver. i stood up at the top for a little while with a little bit of encouragement. reporter: at the tender age of 12, her first jump. this was the moment that made emily cook who she is to the. i remember just laughing like crazy when i hit the water. reporter: she never looked back or needed much prodding thereafter. she made a public declaration when she was 13 years old. not i want to go to the olympics, but i am going to be a member of the 2002 olympic team. reporter: what did you say? i ve always been one who held the position that anything is a possibility, and all you have to do is open the door, create the opportunity and move forward. reporter: don cook has lived his whole life since helping his then little girl with olympic dreams reach them. a father-daughter team with an inseparable bond that grew stronger following a tragedy. emily s mother, anita cook, w hit head on by a drunk driver, left in an irreversible coma for two years before she died. emily was just 15 months old. sometimes i describe that period of time after the accident as the best of times and the worst of times. it just, it wasn t easy. the best of times were she was my support and she really didn t even know it sometimes. when i d see her after a day, and if it happened to be a hard day, she was all smiles and happy, and she was just my absolute love and joy. reporter: she propped you up. she propped me up, each and every day. i have no memory of her, but i have memories of all the stories that i ve been told, which is great. and there was a lot of peoe that came together when my mom passed away and made sure that i had absolutely the best possible life. and i m really thankful for that. reporter: really an olympic effort, too. yeah, really, really. and i m going thave a huge, a huge fan club of my family going into the olympics. reporter: this is emily s second olympics, though it rely should be her third. in 2002 at the age of 22, she had been named to the olympic team when, again, her life would takenother heartbreaking turn. just weeks before the games, she broke both her feet during a training event. initially, it shattered her physically and emotionally. both feet were absolutely shattered. reporter: multiple foot surgeries and three years of excruciating physical therapy would follow, but still, in those weeks right after, she would not let her team down. in salt lake city, during both the opening ceremony and aerials competition, emily sat in the stands in a wheelchair with her dad by her side, cheering on team usa. when the u.s. team walked out, i was almost afraid to glance over at her, and when i did, tears were justolling down her cheeks, and it was tough. it was a tough moment. but other than those brief moments, she had a smile on, the most perpetual smile. reporter: you propped her up. we propped each other up. reporter: somehow, all this strengthened emily s resolve to compete in the next olympics. i always pictured just walking into those opening ceremonies in torino. and i knew that absolutely nothing within my power was going to stop me from getting there. reporter: before she cod ski again, she had to learn to walk again. she did both, and with only one year to train, still qualified for the olympics. very nice jump. reporter: but a 19th-place finish left her hungry to do better. i m going into this olympics to perform my best, you know, not just to be there. so, that s kind of the difference on this one. reporter: and count on don cook to be there with his camera lens always on his daughter and the rest of the team as their unofficial photographer. what is the picture that you want most right now? pictures i love of her are with a smile ear to ear. my dad, he was my teacher. he s the person who taught me how to overcome obstacles and how to be, you know, powerful and happy in any circumstance. he s a huge part of everything that i do and i love my dad. she s a remarkable young lady. you can see the apple doesn t fall far from the tree, though. her father truly is an inspirational man as well, has made all the difference in allowing her the opportunity to be in the olympics. and emily s going to be joining us live on the set from vancouver. counting down already. getting misty-eyed. i know. what are you looking forward to most? it s my first winter olympics, so everything. everything about it is exciting to me. i ve always loved skating, so my heart is there. it s so great when the athletes come on the set and they have their medals and they re just so excited. it s really contagious. i know you re most exced about the 1:00 a.m. wake-up call, though. hey, fresh donuts. spandex is what we re most excited about. i don t. the spandex years might be well behind us. speaking of behind us. talking about burlap. exactly. but it s going to be fun. opening ceremony a week from now and we kick it off that monday from a local ski resort, which should be grt. by the way, you know who knows a lot about vancouver? mr. pierce brosnan, who s across the studio from us. shot a recent film there. we ll talk to him about that, the percy jackson movie in just a couple of minutes. he s one of my favorite actors. that s great. we ll talk to him in a second. all righty then. very excited about this movie. percy jackson ? yeah. back with a clean-shaven look, though. didn t like the other? a little too hairy. 8:26 is our time right now, we take a live look at the kennedy center right now. the temperature is 32 degrees. the d.c. zoo is packing up tai shan. he is inside the crate. i believe yocan see him there. he s gng to be put on there and put on to the panda express. the panda was on loan from china, but the time for him to go to his new home in china. his parents are supposed to go back t china at the end of the year, but the zoo is trying to get an extension of that date. good morning, sunny now, temperatures near 30, afternoon highs near 40, snow developing, first flakes around noon. moderate to heavy snow, into friday, ending saturday afternoon. unbreakable e 8:30 now on a thursday morning. it s the 4th day of february 2010. beautiful, sunny, not too bad temperaturewise here in the northeast today, but al tells us by tomorrow night we could be seeing some snow here in the northeast, depending on where you are. could be a lot or a little. that s right. we re waiting to see. here in new york, maybe one to three inches, but south of here, katy, bar the door. i shouldn t say katy meredith, bar the door. no, i don t want to bar the door. katy can bar the door. out on the plaza, matt lauer along with meredith vieira, al roker and natalie morales. what s coming up? well, we ve got pierce brosnan, we should say, as you ve never seen him before. he s here for that new movie based on the best-selling percy jackson book, and mr. brosnan s here to tell usbout that and what else he s been working on in just a bit. okay. also ahead, settle or not? a lot of singles spend years looking for mister or mrs. right. one woman came to the conclusion that it s all right to marry mr. or mrs. good enough. and mr. roker, you re talking us through the cleansing process. these detox diets are popular, but a lot of people have questions about their effectiveness and safety. i ll tell you about a plan i tried and we ll address those concerns. and you look very, very, very good. so it worked for you, right? i mean, you literally on a daily basis, you walk in and sometimes i have to do a double take to make sure it s really you. seriously. big man. you transformed your body. thank you. incredibly. let s get a check of the weather. your body oh, i m not the one who didn t know where we were going, okay? let s blame me! anyway, let s take a look, show you what s going on as far as your weather is concerned. for saturday, we re looking at sunshine and frigid conditions in new england. got a lot of wet weather along the west coast on saturday. sunny and cool through the gulf coast. then sunday, sunday, we re going to take a look and show you we reooking at sunny skies along the eastern seaboard, good morning, we have some cold weather this morning with sunshine, it s right near upper 20s to 30 degrees. highs today should climb to near 40, we have a winter storm watch, all these counties in blue covers most of virginia. the storm will arrive tomorrow, but today sunny, near 40. but we could get some light snow showers. ending saturday afrnoon. that s your latest are you okay now? aww. everybody say aww, meredith. all right, that s your latest weather. now let s head on down to ft. myers and say hi to willard scott. willie? aww. i wish you were here. it s a beautiful day. this is the prettiest day in a long time. i can see you now in your thong oh! on the beach i think we ll be leaving now. yeah. you re not supposed to bring that up, willard. happy birthday to our thousands of friends out there from smucker s, the pride of orville, ohio. take a look as the jam jar spins around. and we have hosea peeples, chicago, illinois. attributes longevity to being sharp at 110, and he loves to spend time with his family and friends. that s terrific. good health. roland robillard, ormond beach, florida. played saxophone in the 40s and 50s forusicals such as oklahoma and has a secret crush on hoda and kathie lee. well, you leave them alone because they belong to me. avanell ruth. we rehearsed it 12 times. claymont, delaware, 100 years old. helped organize her 70th class reunion, volunteers as a bookkeeper and did that until she was in her late 80s. all kinds of organization, avanell. and we have manya milman of brighton, mass, 100 years old. holocaust survivor. how about that? performed musicals and with people in the hall, the synagogue, and s is very well known in the neighborhood for her talents. happy birthday to manya. david goldberg, boca raton, florida, just across the road here. 100 years old. avid dancer. claims he would have knocked them dead on dancing with the stars. call us after the show, the producer. you can have a 100-year-old dancer on your show for free. russell and louise win tle of los gatos, california. he is 103, she is 100. they ve been married for, what is it, 83 years. and doing everything together, volunteering together. that s their secret. that s all. at s it for right now. and now back to the big apple and meredith, i think. yes, it is, willard. thank you very much. up next, pierce brosnan. we love him, don t we? yes. h we re back at 8:37. when you think of actor pierce brosnan, you may think of the dashing agent 007, james bond, or perhaps singing alongside meryl streep in mamma mia! but you have never seen him quite like you ll see him in the percy jackson movie, percy jackson & the olympians: the lightning thief. take a look. the children of these unions were half god, half human. percy. this was the first yes? we need to talk. so, did i do something wrong? where is it? whoa, whoa! how did you get up there? whoa! did that really just happen they found him. pierce brosnan, good morning. welcome back. good morning, matt. the last time you were here was mamma mia! and i would say at that time we probably said we d never seen you in a role like that before, and now you re in something that we ll explore in a second and tell people why i m saying this, but we ve never seen you do anything like this before. are you making these conscious decisions that you just want to have some fun at this time? i would say yes. i mean, i said to my agent after the bond kind of went away, i said look, i m a working actor, i ve always been a working actor, so find me the rich characters. and i grew up and i was trained as an actor to believe that i could play anything and everything. so, i m at a time in my life now where i can just go out and have fun, and this i did for my boys, dylan and paris. i mean, they read the books. my son is a ferocious reader. and my agents were over at the house one day having lunch and they mentioned percy jackson and my 13-year-old said you ve got to do it, dad. i ve read all these books. and he knew pretty much what character you would have a shot at. the character you play here is the professor. we see him in a wheelchair, and the reason is because you re hiding something. we re not going to show this here. you can t give away. no, we won t, but we can talk about it. in this movie, you are half man and half hours. i play professor bruna and thenhen percy goes into the mythological world, i show up as chiron, who was a centaur, king, really, a philosopher and a teacher. chris columbus i had worked with years ago on mrs. doubtfire, and he sent me the script and i liked it enormously, and he was also very clever, because he sent me a beautiful rendition of myself as a centaur, so i looked buff and beefy and i thought this was great. no doubts in the beginning which half would be the horse and which half would be the man? you cleared that up right off the bat? we cleared that up right off the bat. but i said this is great, i in, but then to actually physically play the role, you know, they had to cgi in my rear end. so, they do that so, you re dressed normally from the waist up, but you wear these kind of skin-tight blue tights from the waist down. yeah. it s not a good look, especially when you re out there trying to look butch let s put a shot of that up. no, don t go there. you re never going to see that. but yeah, i mean, to create a horse s ass, i had to get into the tights and i had to get on these stilts, these painter stilts. so, you know, you go out on the set and you re looking really butch, but you re on the set with 200 young guys who think they re the next brad pitt and you re in blue tights. the good thing about this is there s a series of books, so there s a potential for a line of work here. are you ready for a series of movies? well, i signed up for three and wel see wre the wind takes us. i think it has the potential and the legs to really take off. i mean, the books are really loved and chris columbus and the young people in this film are brilliant. logan and alessandra and brandon are so good. so sincere and play well. you re busy these days. you ve got a movie coming up called remember me with robert pattinson of twilight fame. he is in the middle of the white-hotspot light here. he was here, the place went crazy. it s fierce. do you offer any advice for a young actor like that? um, grace under pressure. somebody told me that little adage a long time ago. you just really have to keep your head about you, and robert, he equips himself so well in the film. he s worked really hard. he s executive producer on it. so, he s steering himself in a good direction and looking down the road as an actor, as you have to do, because you just can t sit around and wait for the phone to ring. you have to find the material, you have to go after the material, and he s done that with this film, remember me. treating it less as a star and more as a business. yeah. he s got a good head on his shoulders. pierce, it s good to see you. thanks for stopping by. percy jackson & the olympians: the lightning thief opens in theaters nationwide on february 12th, same day as the olympic opening ceremony, by the way. up next, the pros and cons of detox diets. al shares his own experiçóçóçóçó take it off, everybody take it off this morning on take it off today, using the cleanse to lose weight. opinions vary over the safety and effectiveness of so-called detox diets. well, last july, i decided to start a cleansing detoxification program with the help of registered addition melissa bohman lee. for me, it was a great way to get healthy and lose weight. based in chicago, registered dietician melissa bohman-lee opened her program a year ago. lee couples nutrition counseling with a proprietary strength training program called physioslow to motivate clients to lose weight while obtaining optimal wellbeing. nice. is it a cleanse, a diet, a detox? it s not a diet by any means. we are inundatedith toxins through our environment, through our food we eat, the water we drink. and once that builds up in our bodies, you know, we get toxic overload. so, my program, you remove the toxins before you actually start in the detoxification program, i do a gentle cleanse to prep you. now, what s the main objective to this? for everybody it s different, but it could benefit anybody. people definitely want to increase energy, decrease weight, decrease cravings or hunger and just increase overall wellbeing. after the five-day cleanse, the 28-day detoxification program includes drinking two meal replacement shake and a glass of greens per day plus one clean, lean protein meal. the idea is, when people hear this, they go, i can t do this, because you eliminate all alcohol, sugar, dairy, gluten and caffeine. when you say i ve got to give this all up at once, are you nuts? i sometimes do get that reaction, but in reality, it s not so bad, because when you do give up what i call is the big five, you are actually really, really eating, allowed to eat wholesome foods, such as organic fruits and vegetables, free-range organic poultry, coldwater fish, as long as it s wild cod, nuts, seeds, legumes. so, there s a lot of different choices. some folks may actually be skeptical about this. they say, you know, you re getting out all these food groups, you re cutting them all out. what happens to your body while you re doing this? you re really actually eating probably healthier than you ve ever eaten in your life. so, you do this, you know, for 28 days, and then it comes to an end. you end up putting these things back intoour diet or eliminating them forever some. you know, it really depends on the client. most people take what they learned during the detoxification, the 28 days, and they continue to, you know, eat the way they learned to eat during the detox. some people might try to add back. you know, this is not a diet. it s just a way of life and a way of eating. now, we should mention that melissa bohman lee s program starts at $399 and can go up to as much as $1,000, depending on the plan you choose. today s diet and nutrition editor madelyn fernstrom is with us now. madelyn, good morning. good morning, al. so, what are your concerns of a program like this? the concerns of a program like this and detox and cleansing means different things to different people. first of all, there are four pillars of dedetoxing, the lung liver, kidneys and skin. so, this provides built-in defense. now, if you want to beef that up, that can be okay, but extremes in anything, whether cutting out food groups or having digestive detox, is fraught with problems, only because extremes can lead to extreme behaviors. with the eating, part of the problem is you re cutting out so much, it takes a lot of work to make all your nutrients all your nutrient needs. now, you have the personality and temperament and the wherewithal i like being told what to do. you like being told what to eat, what you can t eat. cutting out sugar, salt, these kinds of things. alcohol, not bad. alcohol, right, not bad. but what about certain fibers? certain food groups, you lose the fiber. cutting out gluten is good because you re cutting out the cookies, but then you cut out the fiber. so that s one big negative. one big problem is when people cut out dairy. when we take a look over here and see, you know, a glass of milk or a cup of yogurt. do you need to have concentrated dairy? not really. you can make up for it with dark green vegetables, but you have to eat a lot of them, more than two cups of broccoli, cups and cups of spinach. now, you probably can do that in a day, but most people don t get enough calcium, and that s a big issue. so, if you pay attention, you can compensate for that, but you don t want to cut out food groups and then not make up for it later on. even as melissa is saying in the taped piece, you have to work hard at healthy eating. there s a lot to eat, but you have to be careful. and you also want to make sure you avoid laxatives, things like that. well, here s the thing, the body has a sensitive salt and water balance and you also have a lot of healthy bacteria in your digestive tract. when you disturb that with laxatives, you may have a mental feeling of lightness and i feel better, but you really need to talk to your doctor, because this can actually make you sick if done too often or not properly. so, there s no reason to do it, but talk to yr doctor. madelyn fernstrom, thank you so much. you re welcome. coming up next, why one this morning on today s relationships, should you settle? at some point, all single women ask, do i settle for mr. right now or keep waiting for mr. right? laurie gottlieb is the author of marry him: the case for settling for mr. good enough. lori, good morning to you. good morning. you were here a couple years ago when you wrote an article about this for the atlanta cause. but you write in your book this doesn t mean lowering your standards. you say what matters is finding the perfect partner, not the perfect person. it s not about lowering your standards, it s about maturing and having reasonable expectations. is that what you mean by mr. good enough? are we all sort of mr. or mrs. good enough? you know, i think we are. and you know, this book is really about looking at what really matters in love. so, it s about finding true love but looking for what s important in terms of long-term romantic happiness and letting go of the stuff that doesn t matter. well, to research this book, you got the advice of a lot of dating experts and then you followed it. you talked to a match-maker, a dating coach. you even went to a rabbi for help. what did you learn from these people that you didn t know? you know, i learned a lot, but mostly, the takeaway really was that i was too picky about the things that don t matter but i wasn t picky enough about the things that would matter. and so, i really started to look for the qualities that were going to matter and that were going to make me happy in the long term. you mention the word picky, because you find in your book that women tend to be pickier than men. research shows that that is the case. where were you picky where you shouldn t have been? well, you know, i was picky about kind of things like, i had a very specific idea of what my type was. and if a person didn t meet that idea that i had, then i wouldn t even give him a chance. and there s a survey in the book where women and men were asked, you know, what would be a deal-breaker for going on a second date with someone? men named three things. women named 300 things. well, you talk about not going out with somebody because his name was sheldon. and you thought, well, sheldon, he s got to be a nerd. and yet, a couple years later, i guess it was? it was a few months later. a few months later you meet another guy named sheldon and this time you went for it. what had happened in that period of time? i was working with a dating coach, and he said to me, look, lori, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. and when i passed up the first sheldon, i realized after the fact that what was i thinking? this guy would have been such a great guy to go out with, and i never even gave him a chance. and so, the second time i did give him a chance and i ended up actually with that guy. so, what do you hope the people take away from this book? i, you know, i think that they should take away that really being realistic and looking for what s important is not about giving something up but about getting so much more by finding the right mr. right. but again, you haven t specified, what should you be looking for, if it s not things like the name of the person or their height or whatever it is? what are the specifics you should look for? you have to have passion and chemistry and attraction and all of those things, but the character issues. is the person kind? do you have the same values? do you want the same things out of life? that s so much more important than whether you both like roller blading or read the same books. a lot of people will go, wait a minute, she s talking about mr. good enough. she s not married. well, you know what? i m so much closer to finding the right guy for me. mr. good enough is mr. right and i think that s what people have to remember. but how come you haven t found him yet? what do you think is the reason? i m close. oh, you are? i hope i m close. i m a lot closer than i ever was. is he in your life, mr. good enough? i ll let people read the book to find out. there s something to sell the book. lori gottlieb, thank you. our time right now is 8:55, 8:56 actually right now. the sun is out but it s still kind of cold. in the news for today, d.c. s beloved panda is leaving town this morning. tai shan is in that crate saying goodbye to the national zoo. he s getting ready to ship out the china. federal express is taking care of flying tai shan. the plane and the truck are both named the panda express. tai shan will be joining a breeding program in china. his parents are also supposed to leave by the end of the year, good morning, sunny, temperature near 30 degrees. a winter storm watch in effect for most of virginia, all of virginia, points north and west. for a big snowstorm coming here tomorrow. then some light snow by noontime tomorrow and could get moderate to heavy at times tomorrow afternoon and evening into saturday morning. should lighten up until saturday before it ends. over a foot is likely here washington. we are still jammed because of a belt way crash, but it s been cleared but the delays certainly linger with us. and one more stop along i-95 northbound in virginia. two lanes are all open but it is drawing just enough attention to keep it light. medication that s supposed to be make bones s we are back now with more of today on a thursday morning. it s the 4th day of february 2010. got some real hardy souls sticking around for a couple hours this morning, waving to the people back home on what s kind of a chilly morning, but beautiful, sunny skies. and out on the plaza, i m matt lauer along with jenna wolfe and al roker. and ann is on assignment this morning. yep. we should mention that. good to have you here. thank you. good to be here. well, it s great to have you! nice being had! good to have you again. i feel really good. let s talk about it some more. coming up, michelle obama, the first lady, recently took us on a tour at the white house. we did a little walking, a little talking. she was really candid. she talks about how the presidency impacts a relationship, a marriage. we ll have more of that coming up. did you pick up anything while you were walking through? a couple of coasters nice. things, ashtrays. was it weird that she s taller than you, looking down? she s really tall. didn t realize it until you were walking down well, i was crouching down. also ahead, treating all those aches and pains, from tennis elbow to your back. a chronic problem can really slow you down. this morning, dr. nancy snyderman s here to answer your questions and try to find some relief for those aches and problems. i know we re all past this, but withollege tuition going up, people are looking to save wherever they can. coming up, cutting costs when you visit campuses and decide where to go. we have money-saving tips for every college-bound student and their parents. send the kids fedex. or u.p.s. either one is fine with me for the kids i don t have yet. i m pretty sure that s illegal. we ll check on that. we should look into that, though. let so inside. ann s on assignment. natalie s at the news desk with the headlines. good morning to you. new concerns this morning for toyota and some of its customers. the company admitted it discovered design flaws with antilock brakes on the 2010 prius, which went on sale last fall. toyota said it has corrected the problem on models sold since late january. this could be an important day for those ten americans behind bars in haiti. nbc s michelle kosinski is in port-au-prince. michelle, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, natalie. they have spent five nights in a haitian jail, but today these american church members could get their answer. a judge may decide whether or not to let them go as well as whether they will be prosecuted for the crime of trafficking children. on rocky paths to parents front doors and at makeshift orphanages in the capital, the americans came on a mission to find and rescue children before ending up in jail. many will see and fear and put their trust in the lord, and our trust is in god. here is a group of children. reporter: a local pastor who says he met the group by chance on a bus and became their guide and gatherer tells us this was only the beginning. their group leader, laura silsby, planned to transport these 33 children to the group s new orphanage in the dominican republic, go back to idaho and return to haiti in two weeks to find up to 100 more children. he was going to take the missionaries here next. not everyone was impressed. this school they firstisited sent them away. one orphanage director didn t like these little advertisements they were showing around. to florence and her family, it really did seem like a godsend, a chance for a future. d so, florence and her family gave away three children, one of them her own, to the americans. translator: they told us they would help our children with everything, education, food, eventually a career. it was like the solution for us. reporter: in this place far from the capital, parents say the americans told them that they could see their children again, that they couldisit them in the dominican republic if they wanted to and that the children could return home. a number of friends and neighbors of the parents here told us the same thing, that many were excited, as were the children, at such an opportunity, but haiti s prime minister was far from understanding about a group that didn t follow the law. you re talking to me as if there is no people trafficking all kinds of children, as if there s no people taking children to bring them having sex withadults. reporter: for florence, even the idea of adoption was okay, as long as she could contact her child, but now says she a her family are sick with worry that e government has separated their kids from them until all this is sorted out. she says there is so, so much suffering in haiti for children. the attorney for the americans says that they were victims, duped by local people into thinking they had all the documentation they needed. natalie? michelle kosinski in port-au-prince, haiti. thank you, michelle. and one driver will think twice before taking a female impersonator to work. police said a woman placed this life-like mannequin in her passenger s seat so she could use the carpool lane on a new york state highway. well, she got caught when an officer noticed the fake friend was wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. it is now five minutes past the hour. let s get another check of the weather from mr. roker. wow, what a dummy. anyway, thanks, natalie. got niceriends here. everybody hanging out, having a good time. wow, what was what the heck is that? i m from idaho! have you always called okay! most people use a phone, but that s all right. let s check your weather. in idaho, it s hold on i m getting a fax in. let s see. we ve got a lot of wet weather coming out of this gulf coast big storm. snow up into the central plains. this storm moves out of there this morning, moves into the southeast and off the coast by early saturday morning, and that s going to be generating a lot of snow. how much? we ve got a very narrow band of about 12 to 18 inches of snow in the virginias, west virginia, on into the delmarva peninsula, including washington, d.c., just on the border of philadelphia. and the heavier snow, six to nine inches, three to six inches back through ohio, on into indiana. if this storm moves a little to the north, we could be looking that storm will be impacting our region and the heaviest impact right here in our viewing area, right now temperatures are just near freezing. but clouding up and freezing tonight and tomorrow night. snow maybe an inch an hour from 6:00 p.m. friday to 6:00 p.m. saturday. and that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. more now of our exclusive conversation with first lady michelle obama. earlier this week, she was gracious enough to take me on a tour of the white house where she opened up about everything from her wardrobe to her relationship with her husband. you know, surprisingly, here we have more time together than we ve had in years because the pace of the campaign is just ridiculous. so, you know, he comes home he s home at 6:30 and he may stop and do a little work, but we have dinner as a family. the thing that we don t get to do as much is go out and do our date nights as much because it just causes more commotion. could you have imagined the commotion? when you came to new york, i mean, i happen to remember that i saw the helicopters, coast guard cutters. so, how do you if every time you go out on a simple date, it s front-page news, how have you adapted? we make our date this is a nice spot. the chef is great, you know? you can do all kinds of things. and we weren t really going out kind of people. i mean, we re the kind of folks who go to the kids games and we have friends over and we watch movies, and you know, our lives are very conducive to this because we just are sort of boring anyway. so, we have movie night where barack and i will go down and watch a movie. so, we find our way. you said nobody should cry for me because i m living in the white house. i m not asking for you to tell me a sob story, but in general terms, is the presidency, in your opinion, tough on a marriage? it can be, but you have so much support. i mean, we were talking about this. you have first of all, my mother lives with me. yeah. is she going to stay, by the way? she was supposed to be for transition. she s happy. shh, don t jinx it. i think she s good. no, she s doing well. so, i m hopeful, because it does come in handy when you sure. you know, when you re doing an interview and kids are doing homework and somebody can still do multiplication while we re, you know. so, having another adult helps. but we haven t found this to be stressful on our family. i m not doing laundry. we re not, you know, worrying about who s going to cook the meal. i mean, there are the stresses of everyday life that are just, they just pound on families, and a lot of that stuff is gone now. there are broader international, national crises that are pressures, but that s outside, you know. internally, we feel pretty blessed. if i leave here today and i don t ask you some question about fashion oh, yeah. i will get kicked to the curb back in the office. all right, all right. fire away. could you have ever prepared yourself, mrs. obama, for the attention no. paid to everything you wear? do you get up in the morning now, stand in front of a mirror and say, what am i going to wear and what are they going to write about it? sometimes i do. sometimes i do. you know, this is another one of those efficiency things, you know, because i don t can t spend a lot of time thinking day to day, so you know, sometimes does someone do it for you? does someone pick out an outfit for you? i do it with people, you know. you have help. you have folks who are going to get your clothes ready, and you know, i ll figure out what i m going to wear over the course of a week or two even, so that i don t have to think about it. right. i can say, oh, tomorrow i ve got this, so this is on the rack. i m putting it on and calling it a day. so, i don t think that much about the response to it. i ve learned wear what i like, wear what s comfortable, and that really depends on the occasion. anything you ve read about, you know, a comment about an outfit? sure, it must feel good, it s only human that it would feel good when people write nice things. anything somebody s written or said that you ve thought that s not fair, i like that dress? you know what, i really turn off, you know, and i do that with my husband and me. i don t take in a lot of feedback in that regard because you don t want comments like that to influence who you are. you can t feed on any negative. i just sort of find a way to keep that out. and if there s a criticism that s helpful, i take it in and try to learn from it. learn from it, right. last question. is this fun? is fun even a word that can be used to describe what you re living through right now? i am having a ball. really? i really am. i mean, i love people, first of all, and i think it would be hard to be in this position if you fundamentally didn t love people. so, i come to this with a certain level ofust joy in hugging. i m a hugger. i know. i know, right? it took me back a little, said wait, we haven t met yet, but i like this. it s okay. so, my life is filled with these wonderful interactions with americans all across the country. that s what i do every day. my staff is terrific, my kids are healthy, my husband s fine. he s got a hard job, but he can handle it, you know? i m having a ball. and hopefully, i m doing some good in the process. so, you know, check back with me in a year. but right now i m doing all right. conversation with the first lady, michelle obama. up next on today, treating whatever ails you. we ll be answering your questions about common aches and pains. a little later on, kicking up your super bowl bash with some gourmet finger foods and wine, all on a budget. i said, daddy, of course. he said, no, no, no. daddy doesn t count. you know, your valentine is who you want to sit by, who you get in trouble with, who you tell your secrets to, who you play with at recess. i said, well, that s daddy, too. this valentine s day, wouldn t your valentine. like to know how you feel? give them a refreshingly real card from hallmark. go-gurt is specially made to freeze and thaw by lunch time? so kids can have their favorite yogurt in their lunch box go-gurt. freeze it. thaw it. eat it up. thaw it. lipcolor like you ve never felt before. new revlon colorburst lipstick. impossibly light feel, intensely rich color. together at last. revlon colorburst lipstick. it s love at first swipe. pediatricians trust children s tylenol. to help their fevers, aches and pains feel better. world, people. woolite isn t just for your delicates! it s for all your clothes! woolite complete has the right balance of care and cleaning, to help keep them looking like new. after all, a lady never reveals the true age of her clothes. woolite complete. 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( crowd applauds ) announcer: surprise. every manwich has a full serving of wholesome vegetables. manwich. meat your vegetables. the play s called farmer john s vegetable patch, right? exactly. announcer: today s daily dose is brought to you by yoplait for kids. a good source of calcium and vitamin d. this morning on today s daily dose, chronic aches and pains. whether it s your neck, legs or back, daily life can be uncomfortable for millions of people suffering from some common ailments. nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman is here to answer your questions about what may be going on inside your body. good morning, nancy. hey, natalie. got a lot of great questions. first up, jenny from north carolina is joining us via web cam on skype. good morning. what s your question for dr. nancy, ginny? well, dr. nancy, i have been active all my life. i currently run and do strength training two or three times a week. in the summer i play golf and cycle, and unfortunately, since being in my 50s, i have sustained planter facitis in both feet accompanied by golfer tennis elbow in both arms. i have pursued anti-inflammatories all the way to very painful cortisone injections. you know, ginny, you re sort of one of those interesting people who is a real jock and then when you get to be 50, you start to have aches and pains. the one brilliant thing you re dog is cross training, and natalie, that s really important. you have to do various things. we ve seen more injuries in people over their 50s who just do one sport. one thing. however, things like tennis elbow, which is repetitive stress, you can get that from your blackberry to doctors who do liposuction. it doesn t matter. that repetitive stress makes a different. and planter infacitis can be a problem. that s the pain in the bottom of your feet. runners get that especially. and the thing, especially over 50, is back off. maybe take a couple weeks backing off of everything and seeing what goes away. most of the time, changing the course of your training and simple things like anti-inflammatories will do the trick, but you ve got to back off. okay. thanks, ginny, for your question. next on the phone, leslie from fayetteville, north carolina. leslie, good morning. good morning. hi, leslie. caller: hi there. i was diagnosed three years ago with restless leg syndrome, and ultimately ended up having to use medication for parkinson s disease. at times, the pain is just not in my legs but also in my hands and arms and back and doesn t just occur at night. well, i m glad you brought up restless leg syndrome. you re going to ask the final question before i cut you off. what was the final question? caller: i just wanted to know, you know, is this a common sign of rls and is there something else i should be tested for regarding rls? well, first of all, before you get the diagnosis that it s rls for sure, make sure you see a neurologist, because there are other things that could be ruled off. but restless leg syndrome, a lot of people thought sinically, once they saw the first pharmaceutical ad, this is a makeup thing. not true. a huge problem, characterized by people who just can t get comfortable at night, legs can t stay in one place, feels like pins and needles, and it disrupts sleep. the parkinson s drugs have been sort of the first treatment of choice. there are medications now specifically for restless leg syndrome, but make sure it s not something else. and yes, what you re going through is very, very common. but yes, she should definitely see a docto and get that diagnosis narrowed down. it is a real entity. okay, next is an e-mail from nina in chicago. she writes, i m only 38 years old and have pain around my left hip socket why i get up from a sitting position, it is stiff and really hurts until i walk. i m too young to walk like an old lady! gosh, this sounds like me. i have the exact pain. natalie and i were saying we have this exact thing. hflexor, right some. hip flexor. i notice it when i run. or i m on a treadmill too long, it aches. that s the muscle that allows you to pick your hip up and down. however, if you already are having that pain and then you sit for a long period of time, it can hurt. the most important thing for everybody yes. especially women as they get older, you have to stretch. yes. that s what i ve been advised. stretching becomes ever more important as we get older. those aches and pains may come and go. this is, you know, you don t get to get born, die at 80 without an ache or a pain. right, right. but you have to be air ball to differentiate the minor ones from the really bad ones. but hip flexor pain, especially for people who are athletic, common. stretching and also massaging out those muscles. at the gym, getting on one of those things that you lay on. and anti-inflammatories. exactly. next we go to the web cam onc again. we have mary kay from pennsylvania. good morning, mary kay. what s your question for dr. nancy? good morning. i have pain that starts at my tailbone and it goes down the front of my thigh into my knee when i lay down at night and i m wondering if it s my sciatica and if so, what i can do abo it? let me tell you, sciatica is sort of a term for pain that radiates down the back of the leg. there are little nerves that you can see that come out of the spinal cord, and those nerves, when it s classicallyled something sciatica is that tingling or sharp shooting pain down the leg. now, degenerative back disease is sort of the umbrella for all of this. we all have these cushions between all of our vertibral bones and they get flatter and then they can push on the nerve. whether you have a stinosis, whether it s narrow or degeneration, you can see from this that the nerves that come out of those spaces get squished, and that s what causes the pain. lower back pain a huge problem. heating pad, stretching, but if it doesn t go away, you must see an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in back problems. great advice as always, dr. nancy. thank you so much. and still to come this morning on today, college savings 101. we ll help you cut costs where it counts. - ( rope snaps ) - ( piano clangs ) - ( crashes ) - glad forceflex trash bags are so strong, one bag is all you need to pick up the pieces from even your biggest disasters. - ( doorbell rings ) - where do you want the piano? for stretchable strength get glad forceflex. a hint of calla lily. beautiful moments are born in the shower. a diamond-infused sensation. touch of sparkle cream oil body wash from nivea. touch and be touched. isn t this how whole grains should taste? eating well has never been so craveable with quaker caramel baked rice snacks. two little birds wearing a couple little hats. that looks like my windshield. when i made my trip back from phoenix. yeah, that s it. depend brand. for women and men. with chili s bottomless express lunch. house-made chips and salsa and tasty soups, like new chicken and green chile. plus, our new house salad. all with unlimited refills. lunchtime is all about seconds, only at chili s. lunchtime is all about seconds, only at chili s. why do women like you love activia light? sometimes i have no choice but to eat on the run. and to eat whatever happens to be around. heavy greasy food that s hard on my diet. and my digestive system. so i eat activia light every day. activia light, with bifidus regularis is clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system. mmmm. the new taste is better than ever. and with only 70 calories activia light helps make it easier to watch my weight. it helps me feel good and look good too! activia! shakes off dry winter skin with 2 separate ribbons. the white ribbon that cleanses and the body butter ribbon that moisturizes continuously leaving skin satiny smooth. goodbye dry winter skin. still to come on today, if you re planning a college tour from w your teen, we have money-saving tips from an expert. and super snacks for the super bowl. are you going to watch? 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( sneezing ) i didn t take zicam cold remedy. but i did. can you do it by 3:00 ? yes, i can how about 2:00 ? hmm. get over your cold faster. one reason? lubriderm® contains the same nutrients naturally found in healthy skin. skin absorbs it for a clinically shown 24 hours. for skin that looks and feels truly comfortable. lubriderm®. your moisture matched. our time right now is 9:26, we have 32 degrees right here in the nation s capital. there s some beautiful bright sunshine. we have some changes on the way. d.c. s beloved panda is leaving this morning. tai shan is saying goodbye to the national zoo and shipping out to china. federal express is taking care of flying tai shan, he ll be aboard a crate in the panda express. his parents are also supposed to leave by the end of the year, but the zoo is pushing for an extension. we ll take a break and come back good morning, temperatures around the region now just getting into the l 40s and will peak with sunshine. light snow developing by noontime then moderate to heavy snow by late afternoon overnight friday into saturday morning. 6:00 p.m.riday to 6:00 a.m. saturday it could snow one inch per hour. how s to the traffic? the outer loop of the beltway just before 355, authorities dealing with that. 66 loaded up, lanes are now open, westbound 66 out in fair oaks, road work is in place. coming up tonight at news4 at 5:00, unbreakable, medications that are supposed happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you well, that, of course, is the legendary marilyn monroe, and we re going to take an exclusive look at some never-before-seen photos of the 60s icon at the prime of her life. we re going to show them to you tomorrow only here on today. meantime, we re gearing up for the super bowl. are you getting ready for some big parties? i am. it s always the food that i m a little stressed out about, because we try to be good, you know, we try to eat well, but we re so tempted about everything around us. and also, they play a game on tv. we re going to eat really poorly right now. no, just kidding. we re going to eat really well, but we ll have to work out extra hard for this. if the hoards are descending on your den, we have six dishes sure to satisfy any colts or saints fans. we even have some wine pairings. so yes, wine with these meals, coming up. cannot complain about that. no. also ahead, coping with college expenses. for many families, one of the most important parts of choosing a college is actually visiting the campus. so, you don t want to skip it just because money is tight. so, this morning, some college-saving tips. and there s almost nothing better than curling up with your kids and reading a great book to inspire a lifelong love of learning. that s why every year, today takes part in jump start s read for the record campaign, which aims to get as many adults as possible reading the same book on the same day to kids across the country. last october, vince vaughn was one of the many celebrities who joined our effort by reading to children out on the plaza. so, jump start s early education program pairs volunteers with preschool children in low-income communities, and now it is your chance to get involved. we need your help to help us pick the next read for the record book. be sure to visit todayshow.com. voting ends february 28th. and the pearson foundation, by the way, will be donating $1 to jump start for each vote. so, more reason to keep voting. do you remember your favorite book when you were younger? way to put you on the spot. i had so many. i was a nancy drew person, so i like to you were a little smarter than i was. i was into the judy bloom, beverly cleary. i did, too. tales of the fourth grade nothing. blubber ? remember that? yes. we could go on for hours. first, we ll get a check of the weather from al. al? all right, guys, let s see what s going on for our weekend. first, starting off with saturday, you ll see we ve got frigid conditions in new england. that snowstorm bringing snow mid-atlantic states. oh, man, could be a mess. we re looking at a lot of rain out west as well, mountain snows in the pacific northwest. then sunday, sunday, we re looking at sunny skies along the west coast. also look for sunshine and chilly conditions through the gulf coast, snow through througt good morning, 34 degrees in washington now, just getting above freezing around the region, we have got some sunshine and the afternoon highs should continue to climb all the way up to around 40 degrees or so. but we are in a winter storm watch throughout most of the region for a big storm coming in tomorrow. in fact the light snow may begin around noontime and then some moderate to heavy snow tomorrow afternoon. it may snow and that s your latest weather. and don t forget. now let s go to natalie. all right, thank you, al. coming up next, we re going to tell you how to save money on your college campus tours. i hired someone to make my website. five months ago. we are building a website by ourselves. announcer: there s an easier way. create your own small-business site with intuit websites. just choose a style that fits your business and customize, publish and get found in three easy steps. sweet. all from just $4.99 a month, get a 30-day free trial at intuit.com. men don t merge. the woman will sit there and wait. this is what men do. you see where i am over here? and, ka-blam, and then we re all an hour late. depend brand. for women and men. for your retirement makes sense, just stay on track. what is.? that s the guidance you get from fidelity. thanks. stay on the line! whatever your destination, fidelity has the people, guidance, and investments to help you find your way. isn t this how whole grains should taste? eating well has never been so craveable with quaker caramel baked rice snacks. you re taking the medicine doctors recommend most for joint pain. more than the medicines in tylenol or aleve. the medicine in advil is the #1 doctor recommendation for joint pain. relief doesn t get any better than this. advil. love to see kids spirits shine. superstar and mom, martina mcbride and sunnyd shine on sunny taste. sunny spirit. sunny d. trying to be big like you, dad. you re so good at keeping everyone full and focused with your fiber. but you already are great at doing that. rely? sure! you re made with fiber just like me. but best of all, you re the perfect size for smaller kids. give your little ones kellogg s® frosted mini-wheats little bites™ cereal. in chocolate and now original flavor. they re an excellent source of fiber packed in a smaller size. oh, it s original little bite. we re off to practice keeping em full and focused. yeah, we ve got big shoes to fill. this morning on today s classroom, saving money on college visits if you ve got a high schooler, you may be losing sleep over paying for that four-year education even before a decision is made. families can spend hundreds of dollars just toung campuses. katherine cohen is ceo and founder of ivy wise and has some money-saving advice for us this morning. good morning. thanks for having me. let me ask you, how important is the college tour? because if you know you re going to go to this school or that school, does it even make sense to go on a tour? well, it does. because if you r going to be there for four years, you want to get a sense of the community. i tell students, before you apply, do both the information session and the tour, because that way, you re letting the college know that you were there. and another great reason for doing it is you re showing the college what i like to call your iq your interest quotient. exactly, because a lot of colleges will track this, and if you come before you applied, that s going to help your admission. so, when is a good time to visit the school, then? well, spring break is coming up, and i think that s a great time, because it s during the school year. and oftentimes, a high school spring break is not going to coincide with the college s, so classes might be in session. you might be able to sit in on a class. and also, even if the college is on spring break at the same time, there s still students who stick around. so, it s a great way to see, you know, what the student are like. okay. so, you have a bunch of tips on how to save money if you re going to embark on this college tour extravaganza. so, the first one you say is only include colleges that are a good fit for you academically, socially and financially. right. you don t want to go on your college visits willy-nilly and just visit a bunch of schools you know nothing about or that might be too far out of reach for you. so, it s really important to do your research first, and you can work with your high school college counselor on putting together a preliminary list. make sure there s some reach schools, some target schools, some safe schools. and if you have the opportunity, visit three or four of your top schools. so, three or four is the number you re looking at, how many to basically visit? if you can visit more, great, but i would say at least three or four. okay. next you say make the campus dining hall the restaurant of choice. what do you mean by that? well, you can save money by doing this because it s a lot less expensive to eat in a school s dining hall than it is usually at the local restaurant, but it s also an opportunity to plop yourself down next to some other current students at the college and talk to them, ask them questions and see what it s really like. okay. this is interesting. you say find a graduate from your high school who now goes to that college and bunk with them. okay. i mean, i guess you save in that regard, right? you sort of get to know a little bit more about college life. right. doing an overnight at the school is probably the best way to see what it s like from the inside, and you re definitely saving money because you re not paying for a local hotel room. and if you don t do it through, you know, your high school finding a graduate, you can also call the college directly, and they oftentimes will organize the overnights for you. because i guess when you take some of these college tours, you don t always get the insight from the students perspective and the social atmosphere s perspective that you would if you just took a regular tour. so, this would be a good opportunity to do that as well, right? exactly. next up i do want to ask you this. you go on these college tours. how much time should you allow for an average college tour to be able to absorb everything you need to know? i usually tell students about half a day is sufficient, because that will give you time to do the information session, the tour and hopefully have a meal on campus. and that way, also, if you re seng another college in the same town or the same city, you might be able to do two visits in one day. okay. we were talking about this earlier. you say take advantage of information that s online, because yale university students actually put together an unconventional, quirky sort of video advertising for their school. i think we have some video of it, which is interesting, right? not many schools do this. i thought it was really fun, really smart. it s kind of like a musical. it does tell you a lot about yale. and schools, you can learn a lot through their websites. they re offering virtual tours. a lot of these colleges participate in online college fairs. you can follow a college s community on twitter or facebook. and even just reading their newspapers online is going to help you. so, there s a lot of information online. what s interesting there was it wasn t the faculty and administration putting that together, but the students themselves trying to get people to their school. exactly. all the students made thefilm, and of course, they were in the film, so that was great. what costs are there besides tuition? when people think of college, they think tuition, buts there are so many other costs that need to be factored in as well. right. parents are good for saving for the college tuition dollars, but what they forget about is the cost of applying to college. and at my company, we found that on average, families are spending about $3,500 just to apply to college. and that goes to standardized testing fees sure. standardized test prep the application itself, right? the applications themselves. and also these college tours. so you know, we do try to help families cut back and save on the visits if they can. excellent. katherine cohen, wonderful information. we appreciate you being here. thank you. thanks for having me. still ahead, whether you re for the saints or for the colts, these finger foods will score with all your guests. me sun. and now for the first time in new sun crystals, the only 100% natural sweetener made with pure cane sugar and stevia. finally, all the sweetness of nature and just 5 calories a packet. nature gave us the recipe; we just gave it a name. new sun crystals all-natural sweetener. two natural wonders. one sweet taste. 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. 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( sneezing ) i didn t take zicam cold remedy. but i did. can you do it by 3:00 ? yes, i can how about 2:00 ? hmm. get over your cold faster. ladies, raise your spoons. now there s nothing left standing between you and a satisfying breakfast. introducing special k low-fat granola. with 50% less fat than the leading granola. and 5 grams of fiber per serving, it s a satisfying way to help you manage your weight. special k low-fat granola a taste of freedom. there s a new thriller opening tomorrow set in a small ski resort, and just in time for the olympics. it s called frozen, and according to gene shalit, this one is hot stuff. good morning, and welcome to the critic s corner ? yes! as today heads for the winter olympics in vancouver, we re skiing here at ski butternut in the berkshire mountains of western massachusetts. today s movie is and i am not making this up today s movie is called frozen. the scarifying story of three care-free collegiate skiers whose lives jolt into calamity. shawn ashmore, kevin zingers and kevin s girlfriend, emma bell, after a day of skiing decide to head for one last run, but they get hung up high on the ski lift when the ground crew forgets all about them! the lift is shut down, the park closes, locked up, will not reopen until next week. hello! hey! icy night engulfed them. abandoned, aloft, alone, scared stiff, frozen stiff. i think i m getting frostbite. dangling out of sight and sound, far too far to jump. how could this happen? they wouldn t believe it if they saw it in a movie. they would if they saw this movie. making a film with just three characters must be daunting. suspended in air, yes, but writer-director adam green pulls it off. help! [ screaming ] after seeing frozen, let me tell you, i ll never get into one of those things without a cell phone, flares and a 100-foot ladder. as for the actors, they all excel, but it s the newcomer, emma bell, that i will remember. an impressive performance. and she does it all sitting down, because if she stood up, she d be scared sitless. frozen, very cool. and that s the critic s corner for today. i think i ll go and chill out now. sounds like a good idea. i thought gene had a new hair do. coming up next, we re going to heat things up in the this morning in today s kitchen, kicking up your super bowl party. there s nothing like watching the game with a drink in one hand and a spicy snack in the other, and hot chef today is edwin balanco, who came all the way from across the street from morrell s wine bar and cafe. he s going to teach us how to make some of his favorite recipes. edwin, good morning. good morning. it was a long walk. colts fan or saints fans or none of the above? you know, i m going to go with the saints. you re from cleveland, so so i don t even know what a super bowl is. we won t go there. but you have great food to cheer people up, cheer up our fans. for the colts, meatball sliders? exactly. basically, we re making a really good meatball, adding parmesan, eggs, fresh herbs, thyme and parsley. these are the ingredients right here. and you put the ricotta in with the meat, so exactly. you re mixing it in. it makes it noise and moist and tender and juicy. you don t want to overmix it. right. you just want to get it together so it s all incorporated. and these are flat meatballs. exactly. get a meatball and just flatten it. right. and you re sprinkling a little flour on top just to give it a nice crust. great. and then we re just going to add these to the pan. these are definitely people pleasers, right? yeah. you can t go wrong with cheese, meat. it s great. why sliders for the colts? is there something i don t know about? honestly, it s or is it just an easy food? it s an easy food, finger food, easy to work with. there you go. so, they re going to get brown and nice and cooked inside. and you actually put them in these pop-in little press things? you know, you can go to your favorite bakery if you want, if they make nice small rolls, you can use those. i like to do things fresh and i wouldn t expect you to bake on your super bowl sunday. right. make it easy. but what you can do is still have some nice fresh rolls. these are premade, though. just cut them to the nice size make them really round. yeah. so they look like a nice hamburger bun. great. you re going to butter the tray a little bit, put a little butter on top. bake them so they get nice golden brown. yeah, golden brown. cut them in half. we ll show you how they re served up in a minute here. let s move to the saints and you need shrimp creole, right? absolutely. flavor of new orleans here. basically, it s a mixture it s a cajun spice. we have sweet pepper, cayenne, lemon pepper. it s amazing. they ve been doing it for years. so you coat it on liket s a dry mixture. i dust it on. it s a spice, so you don t want to dominate the shrimp. you re just trying to bring out the flavor. so just a little dusting on top, a little dusting on the bottom all right. these guys look like they re almost done, right? yeah, they re ready to go. you know, to butterfly it, basically, you re just you know, you re just not cutting all the way through. you re cutting like three-quarters of the way through. and these cook fast. so you don t want it to be rubbery in text. do you put butter in there and shallots? yeah. once you re done and at this point, add some butter, some shallots parsley. exactly. that extra zing. and i like to cook the tops as well. so, let s let them cook up and serve them up with good wine as well. here we go. you don t always have to have beer. dress it up a little bit. it s a party, so you know, what more what says a party more than a sparkling wine? yeah. and what i have here is a nino franco prisecco. it s one of my favorites. can i try? of course. it s finger food, so we have to try. i walked right in. get in there. and then the sliders are served up like that? and a little red toss them with a little arugula, micro basil shrimp? that i m all over. and i love how you serve these with the touchdown platters. you have other great ideas. what is this? this is spidini. my grandmother used to make a version of these when i was a kid. it s basically sausage, sweet potatoes. you can use any store-bought sausage, cut it into nice squares, stick it on a skewer. we battered it with a little egg. and the beans look like little footballs. and the recipes are on our website, todayshow.com. thank you so much. thank you. edwin balanco from morrell s. kathie lee and hoda are next. good morning, our time right now is 9:56, 34 degrees out there, good morning, i m joe krebs. in the news4 today, in just minutes, d.c. s panda tai shan is saying goodbye to the national zoo. she is shipping out to china. he was put on a fedex truck and he will be put on a plane dubbed the panda express. they will be joining a breeding program in china. now let s get a check of our weather from meteorologist tom kiron. no more travel problems now, temperatures around the region in the mid 30s, highs today around 40, but beginning tomorrow, we ll have a major winter storm impacting most of virginia. it also includes most of washington. all of maryland, the eastern shore, up into ohio valley. heavy snow from 6:00 p.m. friday until 6:00 a.m. saturday, maybe an inch an hour, maybe a few re inches after that. jerry, how s the traffic. we are loaded up eastbound and westbound on 66. a couple of problems along the way cleared. the westbound the topside of your screen, the work zone up against the beltway. 270, germantown to the belt way, still jammed. coming up tonight on news4 at 5:00, unbreakable. medicati captions paid for by nbc-universal television hey, everybody. it s thursday. it s february 4th. uh-huh. it s a special day around here. so glad you re with us today. it cerinly is a special day. we are going to have an entire hour of our guys tell all. it s such a popular segment. yes. that we want you to reach out to us and we re going to ask these guys there they are. you are know them. our motley crew. and walter, he s there, too. walter, you can be in it. walter, too. nothing is off limits. nothing? no. are you serious? we may not ask it on the air but you feel free to go over to sara. we ll get a kick out of it. absolutely. there is news in the tiger woods department. it s been a pleasure not to have to talk about it, hasn t it? yes, it has. his treatment, whatever it is, is coming to an end soon. they re saying within the week. that s what they re saying. and there s been a sighting that his yacht, qualified privacy, ironically enough, is being it s at a particular port and it s being stocked. it s docked and stocked. we wondered if all of the women who claimed to have had an affair with tiger were out, but there was another woman yesterday who came forward. sitting next to her was gloria allred, and she, too was she a porn star? yes. oh, yes. i get confused. yes. her name is candice aren t we all? swanapool. oh, no, no, no. that s not her. no. that s nother. you ve got to be real careful when you throw the porn star thing around and get the wrong name. that s for the next story. that was the girl who was out with frank yesterday. hoda, hoda, please. that s a whole other story, please. i want to apologize to candice swanapool, one of the girls with frank. we ll explain it in a second. explain it now. we ll get back to tiger. please. so, frank gifford and candice swanapool and dotson cruz, victoria secret models were out with your husband yesterday. please explain what was going on there. i didn t know all this was going on. he was shooting a piece for next wednesday, try to find me a perfect valentine s gift but it looks like this is his perfect valentine s gift, not mine. it was supposed to take about an hour. he was gone all day long. what did he say when he got home? what was the recap of the day? he said they were really nice, really young, really tall. i said, well, how young an how tall? he said tall as me and 22 and 24. and i go, well, did you tell them about, you know, you have a son that s 20 almost? he said, he s got a girlfriend. i said, i know, but you never know how these things are going to work out. look at frank with the ladies. he said i don t want to hurt these girls feelings, but basically said they weren t his type. come on! obviously not. he goes for old, fat women. and that s good. stop it! that s good for us. stop. all right, back to tiger. let me get the girl s name right. joslyn james. her name is joslyn james, okay. she came out yesterday. first of all, she saved text messages, which i find odd. i save every one you send me. this one was dated october 1st. of this past year. right, from tiger to her, allegedly. i want to hear you read it. baby, you please me like no other has or ever will, and i m not losing that. that s what he said, according to that text. here is the interesting thing. she was at a news conference with gloria allred. there should be a class action suit. just get them all under the same legal roof. now something that riled up this woman and gloria allred was the fact that there were these golf balls being sold in canada that have images of all the different mistresses. quite the set. apparently it is. so, when they saw these, they actually had a serious beef with these golf balls. that s gloria, showing how this somehow relates to domestic violence. oh, good. let s listen to the comment. because i feel that it is wrong for a golf ball to have my picture on it, because golfers hit their golf balls with a lot of force. as a victim of violence myself, it bothered me to think that someone would be standing with a dangerous club in their hands and hitting a ball with my face on it. okay. she s got a point. she does have a point. so now it s a question of whether or not it s legal to sell them. it s legal. he can make them but it seems to me in our country, it would be illegal to sell it. and profit from it. and profit from it. now, our first amendment comes into play, whether it s a free speech thing. or whether it s parody. this is a canadian company. it s different laws. whether it s speaking to a bigger social issue. there s probably a case there. blame canada. what s interesting, too, all these women are so astonished that there were other women. there s a saying that i love. it goes like this. for the women who take other women s men, the way you get them is the way you lose them. that s what s going on. hello. the way you get them is the way you lose them. and so many of these women are like, what? they think they had an affair with a married man and they re surprised when he has someone else on the side. narcissism, how d he eat on me? right? exactly. to be continued. what do you think? i think most people do you think most people hope they get back together for the sake of their children? when though broke up? yeah, or do you think most people think she should go on and have her life? it depends on the circstances of how the thing broke up. some things can be healed and repaired and some don t. that s exactly the question they asked us at okay magazine last week. is it okay to take back your ex. and you said most often, no. i know it s tempting, but before taking back your ex, ask yourself why? did you see my cute little play on words? ex ex, why, ex, why? no, it needs a z. you said examine long and hard why you broke up in the first place and whether either of you have made the necessary changes to make it work the next time. very profound. i think so. interesting. a little boy went to school in staten island and he had a toy lego gun. we re talking like an inch. about two inches. he brought a gun to school, two-inch gun and threatened with suspension after being caught with this. he s, what, 6? 9. there are two children, the 6 or 9-year-old? 9-year-old boy. so, this kid was look at it. this is called no common sense at all. zero common sense. i ow there s a zero tolerance policy but let s have a little common sense. obviously, you cannot do any damage with that little gun. the crime the time should match the crime. come on. that s ridiculous. spokesman for the department of ed. said no tolerance policy for no guns in schools is in place but the principal use it as a teaching moment, but there are so many dumb little things. members of congress that haven t paid their bills and have done all kinds of crazy things and nobody kicks them out, but a little kid comes in innocently with that? they have these blanket rules about no guns remember no tweezers on planes? that i m sorry, you take away my tweezers, you ve got a problem. ball point pens, chopstick leftover from i don t know what. left over from what? i don t know. but these kind of things if you looked at my purse, you would be surprised at what s in there. apples, string cheese. there s lots. any of those sharp objects should be confiscated, but they get weird and rigid on those things. remember when they took away our lip gloss? yes, because it was liquid. let s talk about this as u australian banker. you ve got to do this one. i haven t seen this, though. it s a viral youtube video, that s had 1.3 million hits. apparently this banker on a live television interview, david kylie, was in the background of nude pictures. a porn sight. isn t that hilarious? it wasn t raw stuff. it was half nude, i understand, and they re very open-minded in as yustralia. no, look. it s not half nude. this guy gets in trouble. what? what happened? oh, he turned around and finally saw it and realized that the screen is in the shot. busted! anyway, he was working on the job, so to speak. someone e-mailed him and that s why he turned around like, i m in trouble? whoa! that s bad news. she is adorable. who? not e that went with frank yesterday, right? sara, what s up, cookie? talking about the little boy with the two-inch gun. donna said the school reacted absolutely ridiculous and kathy said, get real, people. i have zero tolerance with my kids, she said, but a two-hinin gun? i think that s common sense. it was probably with a lot of other lego figures. it was a police figure. brand new flavor of girl scout cookies called berry much. thank you berry munch. thank you berry munch. so clever at girl scouts. yes, they are. why can t you eat? just because i gave up sweets and bread because i m trying to lose weight. there s an awful lot of sweets and bread in the world, you know. it tastes like sugar cookies with berries in them, raisins or cranberries. these are really good. i m happy for you. one of these days we ve got to get to the study that says if you re looking for a wonderful human being you have to go different places than a local bar. can we maybe come to that tomorrow? watch tomorrow. we ll talk about where you go to find the guy of your dreams. we already have the guys of our dreams. the brain trust has gathered, you guys. we want your questions. they re ready and willing to answer any question you have. look at them. the entire show dedicated to these guys, okay? your questions start right after this. f frs. she says she s been a victim of domestic violence. probing questions of sex and romance. curtis stone, not married, actor and comedian, rick younger. it s younger, i think. i said younger. come on now. let s say it again. he is married with a son. next another funny man, chuck nice, seen every week on trutv s world dumbest. we need a new title. 12 years has been married and has two cldren that allegedly are his. finally, an be drew tree is author of decoding love and is married with a 1-year-old son. hello, ladies. we didn t get any wine and roses. you are welcome to. we ll get you some. we be waiting. ready for the first one? let s listen, boys. hi. my name is candy from nebraska and my husband comes home from a hard day of work and says i want to zone out and i really wonder what zoning out means. can i be in that zoning out? there s a way to be part of it. by leaving him alone and allowing him to zone out. we just need a little time. how much time? two days. until he says zone out is over. what is zoning out? zoning out is when you come home and you say, i have this zone and i need you out of it. women always first of all, most of the time women want to have a situation, can we talk about something, which already makes our heartbeat a little faster. we don t need that when we come home. little break from the stress. i ve got a bit of a theory. i ve got a buddy who is a bit like a cave man. he goes to his cave, which is his garage, sits down on a fold-up chair and drinks a couple of beers before he talks to his wife. courage? listen, courage. when you ve got an intense wife, you just need to prepare yourself for it. that s terrible. so, you re saying that s horrible. men should keep a hit flask in preparation for coming home? andrew. please. sweet liquor eases the pain. maybe it s the stress of the li he s just left, the office and all of that. that s right. absolutely. doesn t want to burden her with it. it s called decompression. and i used to do it when i used to have a job where it was very, very intense. it was a day job. when i would get home, i would sit in the car for about 20 minutes. really? literally, and put the seat back and put on some music and i would just sit there for 20 minutes and kind of breathe because i didn t want to walk into the house. and i knew as soon as i walked in the house it s like, hey, what s going on? how is your day? i knew that would happen. most marriages, both people work. she comes home and she really wants to get something off her chest but you need to if it ain t her bra, let s wait 20 minutes. oh, god. let s go to the next question. hi, my name is laura from tampa, florida. i have a question for the panel. guys, why do you wait so long to pull out that ring for the woman you love? i ve been dating a guy for two years. he s amazing, great connection. we have a future together. and i m just wondering, what are you waiting for? she hasn t put any pressure on him right now. she says they have a future together, right? yes. for me, i was waiting to be able to afford a ring. it s like, there is also all these rules and pressures about the ring must be this and that and the other thing. according to what she s expecting, he might be like, look, i can t afford a ring. if i can t afford a ring, i can t afford a wife. do you think he may not be interested in being married? i wasoing to say that. all the other times i was dating, what i was waiting for was a better woman to come along, to be honest. when she did, i married her. i think we have to take a good look inside. we re going to take a break. when we come back, we re headed across the street to take some questions from the crowd. stay with us. we re back with more of our special guys tell all hour, taking you across the street to the digital nbc store where our lovely sara is standing by with questi questions. i have women who are uber curious. jen from utah has a question about men in the car. i m curious about the answer. i m driving with my husband, he s always eager to tell me which way to turn, turn on your blinker or don t go so fast. my question to you is how can men be such great backseat drivers but when you re driving, they criticize you all they w t want. it s about control. tell us. remote control, feeling of helplessness. it s about not being in control. it s like slow down. i m happy to give my woman control. i might not fall asleep in the passenger seat but i m happy for someone else to driv what if she s a terrible driver? right. my wife is a terrible driver. is she? i don t mean that from a cliche stndpoint. but she is. i try to lessen the sting of her being a terrible driver by speaking like a gps device, you know, turn left. instead of just telling her what to do. why is she driving? why are you in the car with her when she s driving? i m putting on my makeup most of the time. my wife say fine driver but she s not good with directions. one time we re driving back from baltimore to new york. she s driving. we ve done this a million times, i figure. next thing i know, we re in wilmington, delaware. a nice city but not where you were going. not where i was trying to go. men have more brain space devoted to navigation whereas women look for cues. amanda has a first date question. i m wondering how do you offer to pay on the first date when you don t really want to? i like her. why should she offer? she s offering, hoping that he won t let her. what you do is you just keep waiting. don t offer. if you don t want to pay, don t. don t act like you want to pay. if you act like you want to pay, i m going to let you. does it matter? what about if you asked her? shouldn t you be the one that pays? absolutely. i m the big believer in that. i have a daughter and i will tell her, if a man asks you out, that means he has to pay. it s that simple. now, if you guys have kind of a pla tch platonic relationship, it s a first date, let s meet at a coffee shop, we re feeling each other out, fine. if a guy says i would like to take you to dinner, that is an invitation to dinner. if i invited you over to my house for dinner and i fed you and at the end of the meal, burp to leave, i said we had a lovely time, kathie lee, could i have $32.50? you would be like what is wrong with you? right. she should set the parameters. if she s asking him out i don t think she should have to pay if she asks him out. really? i don t. i think he should always pay. i m with you. but, you know what? i always come from the perspective of i wasn t always able to afford to treat. so, you have to take each situation into consideration for its own merits. i think when you can t afford to treat, you should do something that you can afford. go on a picnic. that s right. we have to go to commercial. we ll be back. you re not done yet. coming up today at midday. we have a big snowstorm headed in our direction, we have the latest on when it is expected to arrive and how much snow we are expected to get. also coming up on news4 midday, tai shan is at dulles international airport right now, getting ready for that long journey to china. the okay. we re back on this thursday with more of today of a special hour-long guys tell all edition, love, marriage and, oh, yeah, romance. we were talking during the commercial break a little bit, though, about how much andrew, why don t you talk about this for a second before we go to our e-mail? the dating world, you say, has changed more in the last ten years. that s right, since internet has exploded, facebook, e-mail, texting, it s changed in the past 10 years than probably the previous 50, old-fashioned phone call, going out on an actual date. all those things occur much less frequently. going on their social site, hanging out with a group of friends. they re texting all the time. i m a phone guy, but it s like people under a certain age, they text and e-mail so much till it becomes more a matter of how many texts and e-mails you get from someone. that s the quality of your relationship? she texted me 50 times today, she really likes me, as opposed to she texted me three times. can you actually get to know somebody? they have a study that people feel like they know this person really well, but when they meet them, they re like, that s not the person i know. whether you ve got a public profile or not they google you. and look at your facebook and do all this research and sort of have all this information on you before you ever meet them. it s tougher dating than ever. in this space, you can edit. if you don t throw the lol, you re not joking. you re right. sarcasm doesn t translate well over text. no, it doesn t. let s take an e-mail. christina from chicago, illinois. do guys really like the chase? is it important to play hard to get or do some guys give up or want the girls to be be more obvious regarding their interest? there are a lot of women who play that role. they don t call you back and you re wondering what s going on. is tt the rht way to play? it s a delicate balance. you don t want to play it so hard that the guy assumes you re not interested. but, you know, it has to be a bit of a chase. guys love the chase. let s be straight. we do. researchers have found that women that men like women who are choosey, but not choosey about them. in other words, you give the man you like the impression that he s part of the charmed circle, you ve already chosen him but give the impression that everyone else, you re very picky. do guys get bored? i think some men like to feel like they are hunters and actually channel that inner hunter. myself personally, i m more of a i like my meat already cut up in the supermarket. so i m lazy. i don t want to do the work. i m sorry. i want to know if y like me. i want to know where we stand. i think we all get the chase thing. but how can we know that after you get us you re going to want to keep us? that s our big concern. that s a good point. guys like women who like them. you can have the fine est woman and if she keeps saying no, you re going to go to the next finest woman who says yes. when you get the person when the chase is all over guys and girls have to keep each other interested. if there s nothing else interesting you, then it s gone. happily ever after has ruined all of us. the fairy tales. we get the person and the work is over. the work is just beginning. you have to keep doing the types of things. you got a person to keep a person. once you get there, be you realize it s not happily ever after. you re lucky if you get happily ever afternoon. sad, but true. so skypy. we are. jennifer, hope you re there from raleigh, north carolina. go ahead. hey, i always wondered why guys feel the need to alienate their girlfriends when they re with their friend. that s a good question. when the friends come along, the dynamic changes. yeah. i think that s a sign of maturity, when you re more interested in being cool to your boys than you are to your woman. as a married man, i spend more time with my wife than with any other person in the world. when i went to take my wife home, my family was like, don t worry about whether we like her because you see us five times a year if you re lucky. you re going to see her a whole lot. that is a sign of i m sorry. it s interesting to see how that girl works in your social circle. right. let s not throw her out and see if she sinks or swims but how she fits with your friends and if she ll fit in. a pernalityhat workforce men and women. if he s doing that, then be she needs to wait for him to grow up? he needs to grow up a little more. the reason men do that, that personality you re seeing with that guy, that is his personality. right. that s who he is. right. he s like that most of the time. you re the one who has changed him. always our fault. this is good. this is an e-mail from shelly. is it okay for a married man to take out his single co-worker for lunch all the time? signed worried wife. she should be worried. yeah. any time all the time? what about even some of the time? forget all the time. some of the time. some of the time is different than all the time. the other thing is that you can t keep as a married man, you can t keep putting yourself in the line of fire. no man can take hot coals into his bosom and his clothes not be burned. i m sorry. yeah. so, in other words, the single co-worker is a hot coal. something is going to get sizzled. something is going to get singed. is it ever okay for a married man and single woman to have wine? once in a while, but you should also invite your partner once in a while. and all the time is the problem. all the time means this guy has an ulterior motive. i told the guys, i used to go out with a co-worker all the time. and the reason we went to lunch all the time is because we would stop at my apartment on the way back to work and do it. so he wasn t married. i wasn t married. some people still think that s wrong. we re going to take another break. best lunches i ever had. we ll be back with more from sara. the cafe across the street is heating up with questions. oh, yes, it is. sara haines is holding down the fort inside the nbc experience store. you have us rolling on the ground over here. i wish we could be an audio laugh track. the next question is from sarah, clarksville, tennessee, about enbeing the center of the universe. i add ed that part on my own. go ahead. my question is how come when guys are sick, they expect the world to stop but when we re sick, they want us to go about our daily life like nothing s wrong? yes. that s a great suck it up. great question. a lot of it has to do with the differences between men and women. men don t naturally nurture. my wife had to tell me, rick, when i m sick, i want to be treated like a baby. and she understood i want ed to be treated like a baby and treated me like a baby. but you didn t understand that? even now when she s not feeling well, i ll start not treating her like a baby and i m like oh, you want to be treated like a baby. don t you see them laying there? i don t get it. we re laying there. we re hot. she s taking a nap. leave her be. but, no, she wants me to bring her stuff. so sometimes you just have to let us know. treat me like a baby! i want that. i think we ve got a question on tape that we re going to go to. let s see what our questioner has to say. hi. i m lori from missouri. i m recently divorced. my question is, why does a man think that he can carry on an affair and lead a double life and get away with it? yes. do you think that s why she s we ve been waiting for this one. do you think that s why she s recently divorced? one big problem. she uses the word think. that clearly is not going on. or if there is thinking it s not with the big brain. that s what i m saying. what is the deal with cheating? we ve told this story. she s not even talking about cheating. she s talking about maintaining a double life. it s not just that you re cheating. you have a mistress and a relationship with that woman and then a totally separate relationship with your wife. is that how better than having just sleeping around with lots of different people? no, i think it s actually worse. i think it s actually worse. the level it takes to try to lead a double life is far do you know the energy that takes? the kind of guy that can look you in the eye, tells you he loves you and sleeps next to you and goes out and does it again like governor sandford. it s hard to spot them. it s hard to spot them that s their job. it s soio paciopathic. that s why. the reason he has been able to do that, he has compartmentalized himself emotionally to a point that he has chopped himself into little bits and he gives this little bit to you and this little bit to her. and feels entitled to all of it? yes. how can you tell a player, we were asked before. that s the thing. a player creates this whole thing so that you can t tell who they are. even if you ask them, are you a player? he s like, of course i m not a player. what are you talking about? let s go back across to sara. thank you, rick. that makes me feel so much better about dating. denise from new jersey has a question about men and dating. imagine that. yes. hi, okay. i know a lot of single, attractive, successful young women, but one thing in common is we re all single. why are guys afraid to approach us? does she work at nbc? she does, right? it was like, we don t know what to tell you. i m the only one qualified to take this, by the way. these guys haven t dated for about 100 years. the problem is, good looking, young single that s a little intimidating. to walk up and make that first move, it takes a bit of courage. i think that guys are a little put off by it when chicks are super hot. come on, curtis. are you ever intimidated by gorgeous women? yeah, of course. what s the advice for women? we re sitting there at a bar with a bunch of friends. how do you give the green light? like i wish he would come over and talk to me. separate from the pack. when it s a whole bunch of you, it s like that guy who is already intimidated by one of you is quadruply intimidated by four. show some interest, throw some poeyes back, have a quick conversation. successful single woman s dilemma. men want women who are younger, less educated, less successful, in general. not always, but in general. the more successful women become, the more educated, they re older because they ve been pursuing their careers, it shrinks their dating pool. it s sad but that s just i have a friend who will not date anybody unless they re between 80 and 90 years old because she said the rest of them cheat. honestly. you know, the other thing is that women standards as well. we now have we re in this place where women are dng so well, to always wanting a man who is equal or makes more than you financially is really chopping off your possibilities with a lot of really good guy. we ve got to go to a break. we ll be back with more with our wonderful guys. i can t believe how fast it s going. time to wrap things up. a few more questions for our guys. brenda son the phone and has patient the whole hour. okay, brenda. i just started date iing aga and so far my experience back in the dating world has been very negative. i m very outspoken about my widowhood and i don t want to hide who i am and what i come with, but men seem to run from the word widow. the reason why we run we want to make sure that we are not your next victim. oh. i m joking. i m joking. oh, chuck. i m sorry. that s true, though. really? i m serious. according to how much being a widow plays into your approach. stop doing that. that shouldn t be the first thing that comes maybe she s not ready to be dating yet. maybe the grief is still there and she needs to mourn longer. picture it your wife passed away if my wife passed away? oh, no. and then just i m trying to picture. hold on. no. look you know what i mean? especially at that age. at that age of 25, there are a lot of guys who are intimidated by a lot of things that you could throw at them. perhaps dating some guys who are a little older could be a good way to get how old? a ten-year gap. get yourself out there, get your feet wet. then if you want to go back to young guys. guys are scared that you re coming with a little baggage. if you throw it out there straight away you should wait? yeah. a break-up is i chose not to be in this relationship. a widow is like, this ended abruptly. you probably you loved this guy. you still love this guy. competing with a ghost? even when you wait she s apparently ready to date because she s men are running, right? that means she s dating. the point is, it shouldn t be the first thing to come out of your mouth. right. just get to know someone first? then when they ask about other relationships, when was your last boyfriend, were you ever married? i was married i lost my husband. now we re cool. it s not a disrespect to your dearly you are going to be in so much trouble when you get home, chuck nice. you re in trouble. i m so glad you said that. i m rick younger, that s chuck nice. i think our next question is on tape. let s listen. hi. my name is generjennifer from n york city. my question r the panel is, what should a woman do if she needs her man to be more aggressive in the bedroom? tell him while y all in the heat of passion, you can tell a guy anything and he will do it, you know, whatever. choke me, he s going to do it. not that i m saying hey not that you re saying. andrew, is that true? this is strange. people are more comfortable having sex than talking about the sex they have together. isn t that the truth? if you re going to have sex, you have to be comfortable enough to communicate what you need. if you can t do that, maybe you shouldn t be having sex. or have it alone. miss america style. yes. hi, emily. hi. my question for the panel is, what do guys really mean when they say they want to take a break? okay. let me answer this one. now, these guys can probably answer it better but this is why i m single and you re married. my brother is in town right now visiting me from australia. i m taking him to the super bowl, we re going to the party, do it big time. he s very cute. i can do it with a smile on my face because i m still single. that s what s called taking a break for me. but taking a break in a relationship means that s not a good sign. romeo did not tell juliet, i want to take a break, honey, before we right. he s trying to be nice? it s a nice way of saying this is over. trying to break it off. seal did an interview and he said i don t flirt because it disrespects my wife. exactly. what do you think about that? i don t flirt in front of her because he knows that does he flirt when she s not around? it disrespects her. some flirting is unintentional flirting. you get a little we re married, we re not dead, right? i always say i m married not buried. hold on a minute. seal is married to heidi klum? you shouldn t be flirting, dude. come on. you re a lucky man. honestly he knows it, though. if you wanted to flirt, who could take you seriously? here you are, talking to some woman who is not heidi klum. so many of the really high-profile sex scandals, these guys are married to the most gorgeous women in the world. always. it s not about that. those types of decisions aren t based on how beautiful your wife is. you know what? it s like so many things, it s about power. the power of being i m sexy, i m so sexy she wants to be with me. it was a fun hour. i can t believe it s wrapped up. thank you so much. we ll be back with more of today on nbc. so, guys, thafrs the fastest hour we ve ever had. thank you so much. thank you, thank you. melissa gilbert and jennie garth. and special heart health ambush makeover, dressed in red. be strong.