Transcripts For WRC Today 20100315 : vimarsana.com

touch screen, hd video, one small camera. good morning. more on the way. parts of the east coast bracing for another day of rain and high winds after a weekend of violent storms caused widespread damage, flooding and at least seven deaths. not so fast. new questions about a california man s claim that his toyota prius accelerated out of control on its own. investigators say they can t replicate the incident. so, did the driver make it all up? and inside their affair. rielle hunter, the mother of john edwards 2-year-old daughter, speaks out for the first time, and poses for some provocative fophotos. the details about her relationship with the former presidential candidate in her own words today, monday, march presidential candidate in her own words today, monday, march 15th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on a monday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. you know, those storm that is battered the east coast, really nasty. we lost four trees, we lost a door, we lost part of a fence and i think we re lucky. yeah, and the power was out everywhere. this should have had a name on it. we had hurricanes and tropical storms that came through here that didn t do as much damage as this nor easter did this weekend. nothing like this. power out from pennsylvania up into massachusetts and this morning, more rain and wind expected to compound the problems. we ll get a live report. and al will give us his forecast in just a couple of minutes. several people lost their lives. it s very tragic. ao this morning, a heartbreaking story. american couple shot to death in their car in a mexican border town near el paso, texas. their 1-year-old was found uninjured in the backseat. the latest case of violence in that country at the hands of drug cartels and the state department is now telling americans to avoid traveling to parts of mexico. we ll have the latest just ahead. also ahead this morning, former child star todd bridges joins , he played gary coleman s older brother on different strokes. there was nothing funny about his real life, filled with drug addiction and crime. todd bridges is here to talk about it. and lived through it. matt, al, ann and i answer questions we get all the time, like how do you four all hold down a job? but one of them, what time do you wake up? we ll tell you and al will walk us through his morning routine. storms right here along the east coast, nbc s michelle franzen is in hackensack, new jersey. good morning to you, michelle. reporter: good morning, matt. at least seven deaths attributed to the storm in the northeast. many of those deaths due to fallen trees in the area. behind me, evidence of damage caused when a tree sliced through this two-story home in hackensack. fortunately, no one inside was hurt. the power is still out in this neighborhood. and although the cleanup has begun all around, it could take days before this damage is clear. the damage from this torrential storm stretches from the midatlantic to new england. toppled trees, downed power lines and flooded streets and rivers. in fairfield county, connecticut, fallen trees littered neighborhood streets and many residents were told to stay inside. it sounded like a hurricane. i ve been in hurricanes before. reporter: while in wayne, new jersey, rising water forced homeowners to flee. our dreams, our family, everything, it s just ruined. reporter: beth sorrentino and other residents were rescued by boats from their neighborhoods after rivers spilled their banks. in philadelphia, some made the mistake of trying to navigate rising water on washed out roads. it didn t look that high until we got in it. it pushed our license plate up, straight up and it came over the hood and then we were done. reporter: and in massachusetts, fire crews rescued several people trapped either in cars or apartments. this is the worst it s been in a long, long time. reporter: the nor easter packed a one-two punch, heavy rain and powerful winds. at hew times, hurricane-forced gusts, churning and whipping everything in its path. this was quite a rare event. have to go all the way back to 1999 to find impacts that were as bad as they were with this system. that was hurricane floyd. reporter: at the height of the storm, more than 500,000 customers lost power in the northeast and for some, it will take days before the electricity is back on, replacing downed power lines and removing uprooted trees won t be easy. the tree behind me and some high winds, came down on the house. my initial reaction is, wow, it sounds like a car exploded. reporter: in alexandria, virginia, receding waters from the potomac left streets covered in debris. crews everywhere, now working to clear and clean up what mother nature dished out. and crews will be back out at this hackensack residence, clearing out these trunks here. this damage throughout the northeast corridor impacting also the commute on this monday morning, matt. michelle, thank you very much. michelle franzen in new jersey for us. let s head upstairs. al roker has more on this weekend s storms. hopefully, the worst is over. unfortunately, the worst is over but it s still not great. here s the problem. this is a very slow-moving low pressure system. sustained winds off atlantic city, new jersey, 20 -mile-per-hour winds, 15 miles per hour as you move off the long island coast, boston, near boston, 27-mile-per-hour winds. as you move up between boston and portland, we ve got winds, 30, 35 miles per hour. this is a slow mover. and this is the problem. this low pressure system will take its sweet time getting out of here. the wind forecast over the next 24 hours, you can see these winds still hang in there, sustained winds in the teens and 20s through tomorrow morning, early tomorrow morning. plus we ve got rain to deal with. the rain s not quite over yet. we have flood warnings, river flood warnings in pennsylvania, maryland, new jersey, on up into coastal new england. major flooding, because we haven t seen the crest yet, these are going to continue over the next two days. on the radar, you can see that rain still spreading in. rainfall amounts still from half an inch to one to two inches of rain, especially up through new england. matt? al, thank you very much. we ll get your local forecast in a couple of minutes. first to a tragic story across the u.s. eye mechani/mex. it happened across the border from el paso, texas. nbc s mark potter is in el paso with the latest. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. the killings are just south of el paso. two people were killed on the other side of that bridge behind me. the mayor of juarez tells me that the americans were chased down and assassinated minutes apart in broad daylight. police surround a white toyota in mexico saturday, the aftermath of a horrific drive-by shooting. a young american couple, u.s. consulate worker and her husband were gunned down after reportedly leaving a social event. inhe bkseat, police found their 1-year-old baby, unharmed. also targeted and shot to death, the husband of another u.s. consulate employee, apparently after he left the same event. his two children were wounded. the motive is unclear, but officials believe the gunmen belonged to a gang of hit men, all tied to drug cartels in this city that is riddled with violence. people feel more insecure than ever before, there is more violence than ever before. reporter: president obama was deeply saddened and outraged by the killings, he said, and will work tirelessly to bring their killers to justice. secretary of state hillary clinton called the murders appalling, sadly part of a growing tragedy, besetting many communities in mexico. just over the u.s. border, juarez has earned the label of the most dangerous city. seven people are found shot or tortured to death every single day. more than 450 so far this year in the region. thousands of homes there are now abandoned and businesses closed, part of an exoddus caused by the drug wars. millions of dollars sent back to mexico and that money then fuels the violence in mechanixi reporter: mexican president, felipe calderon has promised a swift investigation. the state department is warning americans about travel to certain parts of mexico and u.s. consulate officials in six towns across the border are now authorized to move their families to safer places because of the rising violence here. matt? mark potter in el paso this morning. thank you very much. it s now nine minutes after the hour. once again, here is meredith. matt, thank you. new questions over last week s runaway prius on a california highway. federal inspectors say they have not been able to replicate the problem, leading some to question whether the driver may have been making it all up. miguel almageur is in san diego with the latest. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, meredith. as investigators pour over data from that prius, jim sikes isn t talking. his attorney says he stands by his story and is not in this for fame or fortune. okay. i got highway patrol around me. doing over 90. you re over 90? yeah. hold on! reporter: james sikes told an emergency dispatcher his 2008 prius was accelerating out of control and when he applied the brakes his car wouldn t slow down. you have to be there. you really have to be there. reporter: this morning, the national highway traffic safety administration or nitsa, says they can t substantiate his claim. in their own test drive on james sikes car, when investigators accelerated and applied the brakes hard, the prius slowed, exactly as it s designed to do. government investigators say, quote, we have not been able to find anything to explain the incident, adding the system on mr. sikes prius work ed during our engineers test drive. we learned that the wear on the brake sincere not consistent with mr. sikes story. i m going to simulate a stuck throttle. reporter: like this independent test carried out by edmonds.com on another prius, investigators tried for hours to replic attachment e sikes runaway claim. have you tried to put it in neutral? i m trying to control the car. reporter: the prius probe comes as critics raise questions about driver james sikes. court documents show he filed for bankruptcy in 2008, hundreds of thousands in debt and owed close to $20,000 on his prius. although sikes says he won t sue toyota, some don t believe his story. when i started looking into it and thinking about motivations, i was just thinking about things like the balloon boy hoax. reporter: although the investigation continues, federal investigators do say the brakes on sikes car were completely worn out. a california highway patrol officer, who witnessed part of his 30-mile ride, saw sikes brake lights on and smelled brake fumes and joan claybrook, who used to head nitsa, cautions a rush to judgment. i ve seen no other entity reproduce the problem. the fact that they didn t in this case mns nothing to me. reporter: this morning, as nitsa continues their own investigation, investigators caution they may never know what happened to james sikes car. all of this as later on today here in san diego, toyota plans to hold their own press conference to reveal their own findings. meredith? miguel almageur, thank you very much. congressman darryl issa has been involved in the investigation of toyota s troubles as chairman of the oversight and government reform. good morning to you. good morning, meredith. trying to replicate what james sikes said happened to his vehicle and they couldn t do it. that raises the big question. do you think sikes is lying? i did have an engine, not an automobile engier, there on staff to look at the thoroughness of toyota and nitsa s investigation. they did note deep concerns. although i want to wait for the final report from nitsa, it appears as though this is not an example that would likely be credible in finding a new flaw in the toyota system. they actlly interviewed or looked at two vehicles. the other one was explained. i think that s important, because i know you had joan on just before, that they normally do find the problem if it s not carpet entrapment, usually it s a misunderstanding or something related to how the car actually works, as it was in the case of the es-350. let me stop you there for a second, congressman. the investigation also showed that sikes brakes was completely worn out, which would indicate he was slamming on them as he claims he was and his attorney says there s a ghost in the machine, software problem. akio toyoda, the chairman, who we hauled in front of our committee, said there could be something. they can t eliminate it. they re working with both independent organizations, toyota engineers and nitsa to see if there is. let s not rush to judgment. we re quick to haul them in for past mistakes but i think we have to be a little careful not to assume that there s something you can t find when, in fact, every major problem has that they found, they ve been able to duplicate. and we re holding them to a high standard of looking at every vehicle. that s why i had an engineer overseeing both their activities. we want to make sure nitsa is not asleep at the wheel the way we thought they were, quite frankly, for the last ten years. you ve been critical of nitsa. do you think that the federal officials are doing all that they can to keep auto drivers safe? first of all, i want to thank secretary lahood. he intervened. for the first time, there was an outside individual looking at it, simply making sure the government was doing its job. that kind of transparency important. and that s really our only role. we re not there to second guess them. we re simply there to make sure theyo through a proper process and don t allow investigations to end without a proper conclusion. and i think that s the important thing that people have to understand. nitsa, be the department of transportation are now working very hard with toyota to make sure that every complaint is looked at thoroughly. and if there is any merit to it, that there s a resolution in the way of a recall or whatever is necessary. we also have to realize that toyota has the finest engineers, probably in the world, and they re also focused on it. give them the benefit of the doubt that they re also very different than they were over the previous years in which often they knew there was a problem and they weren t aggressively fixing them. congressman darryl issa, thank you very much. you re welcome. it is 7:16. once again, here is matt. meredith, thank you. is this the week that health care overhaul passes through congress? aides to preside oba say they re confident but they don t appear to have the votes just yet. savannah guthrie ist the white house with more on this. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. we ve said it before, but this is it. the white house press secretary boldly predicted that by this time next week, health care will be the law of the land, but privately aides acknowledge this one is coming down to the wire. beginning a week democrats hope will end with the health care bill finally passed, the president s senior adviser on meet the press was optimistic. it s time to bring this to a close. and you re going to get it passed? i m confident. reporter: house democratic leaders were realistic, acknowledging at the moment they don t have the votes. no, we don t have them as of this morning. but we ve been working this thing all weekend. we ll be working it going into the week. i m also very confident that we ll get this done. reporter: to get it done, house leaders need 216 votes, wavering house democrats are waiting on a final score from the congressional budget office this week, worried about the bill s cost. other democrats are vowing to vote no, because they want tougher language outlawing federal funding of abortion. under the democrats road map for the coming week, house members will have to pass the senate s version of health care, which many don t like, then trust the senate to pass a series of fixes through a process called reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority of the senate. on sunday, senate leaders sought to reassure house democrats they won t leave them in the lurch. when nancy pelosi goes before her house democratic caucus, it will be with the solid assurance that when reconciliation comes over to the senate side, we re going to pass it. reporter: a key republican warns sunday if democrats use reconciliation, bipartisanship is over. if they do this, it s going to poison the well for anything else they would like to achieve this year or thereafter. reporter: pressed by congressional leaders, the president has delayed his trip to indonesia and australia, to be there for the last-minute negotiating and arm twisting that may be required. house speaker nancy pel oosi ha made clear she will need him. i m delighted that the president will be here for the passage of the bill. it s going to be historic. reporter: the president will be on the road o more time today, making his closing argument in strongsville, ohio. that is the home of a woman named natoma canfield, who wrote the president a letter about her skyrocketing premiums. the president read that to insurance executives. she is too sick to be there with the president, but her sister will introduce president obama today, matt. savannah, thank you very much. savannah guthrie at the white house. let s get a check of the morning s top stories. ann curry back at the news desk. missed you. good morning. thank you so much. boy, that was some storm. a car bomb exploded in iraq killing seven civilians and wounding several others as votes were being counted from last week s national elections. as the country is struggling to rid itself of violence. nouri al maliki will have enough votes to keep his job. double-checking a canadian mountainside today, making sure that everyone buried in a weekend avalanche has been account ed for. two fatalities and at least 30 people were injured. rock slide was a close call for a driver, came around the turn just as the tv crew was recording the scene. the driver, however, escaped injury. thousands gathered outside a california high school to remember chelsea king, 17-year-old murdered aost two weeks ago. the registered sex offende charged of killing her is also under investigation for the death of a 14-year-old in that area. cnbc s erin burnett is at wall street with what s new there. financial reform, connecticut senator christopher dodd will be putting forth his bill, giving more power to the fed when it comes to american consumers. some republicans say bipartisan support is a possibility. senator dodd says they ve got 60 days to make this the law of the land. traders believe this could be tougher on banks and in particular goldman sachs and morgan stanley. it wants to open direct branches in china, so far only has partnerships with chinese banks and can t benefit from deposits there. that s the big story. rival citigroup has beaten bank of america by that by several years. back to you. thank you so much. if you haven t heard, actor peter graves died sunday of an apparent heart attack, star of mission impossible and who played a bumbling pilot died after having lunch with his family. peter graves was 83 years old. it is now 7:21. back to matt, meredith and al. a gentleman with a great sense of humor. that scene in airplane one of the best ever. i think we should all get together and watch some gladiator movies just in honor of mr. grave. have you ever seen the gladiator movies? we know meredith has been in a turkish prison before. what? let s take a look and show you what s happening. in texas, a big storm system is firing up, bringing snow through albuquerque, rain in northern texas with a mixed bag of precip. rain in the northeast, quarter to half an inch of rain. that storm system will come across the gulf, causing problems today. morning. we have areas of rain moving in from the northeast heading southwest into the district of columbia and raining heavily in prince george s county and anne arundel county. raping in montgomery county about to cross the potomac into arlington and fairfax. we will have showers and temperatures in the 40s and that s your latest weather. matt? al, thank you very much. just ahead, an explosive new interview and provocative photo shoot with john edwards former mistress, rielle hunter. what she s now saying for e first time about their rela still ahead, todd bridges from different strokes to a life of drugs and crime. ll talk to him. on a lighter note, we ll answer your burning questions about our morning routine, after your local news. which makes it pretty clear whose standing out front. a consumers digest best buy two years running. chevy malibu. compare it to anyone and may the best car win. now, qualified lessees get a low mileage lease on this 2010 malibu ls for around $199 a month. call for details. see your local chevy dealer. sure. cake or pie? 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(announcer) some use hydrogenated oil. reddi-wip s uses real dairy cream. nothing s more real than reddi-wip. 48 degrees on this monday and the 15th day of march, 2010. in the news, after hours of searching a giant super market, the s.w.a.t. team could not find the armed man who wanted to rob the store. he told the manager to take him to the and the manager ran and hid in a cooler and called 911. police think the robber may have slipped out when the employees and the customers left the store. police are still looking for him. we will take a break boss: hey, those gecko ringtones you put on our website are wonderful. people love em! gecko: yeah, thank you sir. turned out nice. boss: got another one for you. anncr: at geico.com, it s easy to get a free rate quote, manage your policy, make payments or even file a claim! boss: now that s a ringtone. gecko: uh yeah.it s interesting.. certainly not the worst ringtone i ve ever heard. ringtone lyrics: a-ringedy- ding-ding-dingy-dong, ringedy-dong-ding-ding. gecko (to himself): yeah, that might be the worst. anncr: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. we are getting light skpo moderate rain in montgomery and prince georgs county. coming down regarder in prince george s county. temperatures are in the 40s around the region. 47 in washington. will stay in the 40s with a passing shower likely and tomorrow drying out. how is the traffic? checking things out in montgomery. southbound 355 at broodly boulevard will be jammed if not completely closed. word of a building fire. the fire department is pulling up right now. gw parkway one lane of traffic. another update 7:30 now on this monday morning, march 15th, 2010. more rain and wind on tap here in the northeast after violent weekend storms topple trees like this one in hackensack, new jersey. common throughout the region. al is going to tell us more about what s in store in just a bit. i m meredith vieira, alo alongside matt lauer. just ahead, the other woman in the john edwards sex scandal. that s right. rielle hunter is now speaking out for the very first time about her affair with the former presidential candidate, a guy she calls johnny. in a moment, what hunter is saying and the photo spread that accompanies that new interview. also ahead, former child star, todd bridges. even as he co-starred on the tv sitcom different strokes, bridges was suffering abuse at home. his life later spiraled into drug addiction and crime but bridges says he would not change a thing. we ll talk to him coming up. > also a new series. we re calling this one ask away today. we ll be answering the questions you ask us most often. we ll kick things off with questions about our morning routine. let s begin with rielle hunter, former mistress of john edwards. she is telling her side of the story to gq. lisa myers has more. good morning to you. good morning, matt. almost after four years of silence, rielle hunter has a great deal to say about the man she calls johnny and about elizabeth edwards. in fact, she claims that most of john edwards mistakes were because he feared the wrath of elizabeth. this is rielle hunter today. posing for gq magazines, at times provocative photo spread with children s toys and with her and john edwards daughter, 2-year-old frances quinn, telling the magazine i love johnny and i love my daughter more than anything in the world. she says john edwards was involved with other women outside his marriage before her, but their relationship, a special connection. i never hit on johnny, she says. i m not a predator. i m not a gold digger. i m not the stalker. she adds that edwards told her the first night, falling in love with you could really expletive up my plans for becoming president. hunter says she bought john edwards a secret black cell phone that looked exactly like his campaign phone. so, he could call her without drawing attention. a suspicious elizabeth found this phone and called the last number dialed. and i answered the phone and said, hey, baby. and click. she says elizabeth then confronted her husband and he confessed. i only knew about a single night, a single moment of weakness. but hunter says john edwards never told his wife it was a one-night stand. who has a cell phone for a one-night stand? hunter says she did not think john edwards should be running for president and was shocked when he decided to stay in the race after elizabeth s breast cancer returned. the campaign goes on. the campaign goes on strongly. i really viewed it as reckless. and what s interesting is that she wanted to stay in. that s the key. he wanted to get out. and she wanted to stay in. in fact, while claiming to have compassion for elizabeth, hunter charges that she emasculated her husband. most of his mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of elizabeth. he s allowed himself to be pushed into a lot of things that he wouldn t normally do because of elizabeth s story line, the wrath of elizabeth is a mighty wrath. not surprisingly, hunter vigorously disputes many of the claims of this man, edwards former aide, andrew young. they re doing battle over who owns that infamous sex tape with hunter with john edwards. john and elizabeth edwards separated a couple of months ago. hunter deflected questions about whether she now hopes for a fairy tale ending. asked to describe her current relationship with john edwards, hunter replied, private. matt? lisa myers. lisa, thank you as always. lisa depalo interviewed hunter for the issue of gq. morning, matt. let me start with andrew young. you actually worked for andrew young as a writer for a short period of time. actually, not really. he approached me to write his book but never hired me. did you ever participate in the process at all? he never hired me. you had nothing to do with that? no, but i m glad he put this out there because i m bound by confidentiality. so, you didn t share anything with both sides in this? no. how does johnny, as she refers to him, rielle refers to john edwards, feels about her doing this interview? she said he was fine with it, that he thought she should talk if she wanted to and she also claims that he never told her not to talk to the press. why do you think she is sharing the story? she goes out of her way to say, look, i m not getting paid for this. i didn t cash in on this, as some other people may have done. so, why is she talking now? i think, you know, it s been several years of peopldefining her. and what was interesting to me when we first started talking was rielle really wanted to put the whole story out there. she wanted an expansive interview. she kept saying she wanted her words to be her words, unspun, unfiltered. i think she cared very much about putting her truth out there. after talking to her, lisa, do you get the sense she truly grasps what this incident, whether it s ongoing or not, has meant to the lives of so many people? yes, but i think she is very forgiving of him in many ways. she believes that he was traumatized and that was why he handled things a certain way. traumatized by? by the situation he was in, that suddenly his life had been, you know, exposed, the reality of his life had been exposed. right. but it s interesting, because she talks about her unconditional love for him. she also talks about the relationship in the present. yeah. always. it s not like that relationship that occurred. it s the relationship that is, which raises the question, what is the relationship right now? i think the short answer is they re together, but i think it depends on how you define together. i don t know that it s a conventional together. but she talks about the fact that she loves him very much. they love each other very much. she says i do know that i love him and love is till death do us part. though when you ask her if there is going to be a fairy tale ending, be the response is, i want whatever life brings me. right, right. when i asked her, do you think you ll live happily ever after with him, she said i don t know. i don t think she ds know. you mention this unconditional love that she seems to have for him. when you pressed her, and you did, and said but he lied to a lot of people. right. do you view him as a liar? how did she respond to that? she said he doesn t lie to me. she believes that he has never lied to her and never will. and even you said, but a lot of people in this country think he s one of the most untruthful people he is. correct. it didn t seem to faze her or her feelings to him. no. she said i know him and he doesn t lie to me. on the side of elizabeth edwards, this will get people pretty upset. she says the wrath of elizabeth is a mighty wrath. does she go on to say boy, i deserve it? i deserve a portion of that wrath? no. one thing that s interesting about her, she didn t whitewash anything. what she said about elizabeth, that s what she believes. she had ample opptunity to spin that a little differently, but no, she is unapologetic. is there some remorse at all about the fact that this incident occurred during an enormously trying time in elizabeth s life as well, with her health concerns? what she said was that infidelity was something that she had a lot of judgment about before this happened and that she fell madly in love with him and that overrode any of those feel i feelings she had. she talks about a toxic relationship, the marriage between john and elizabeth. right, and he s not the first married man that, you know, talked about his wife on the first night. john, she admits, is helping her financially. yes. we know that. that s been reported. it has been. that s for child support. she s going to have to work at some point. right. does she give you any indication what she plans on doing, what she would like to do? she loves documentaries. that s how this whole the videographer thing happened. she s been a writer, an actress. i think she could do a lot of different things. she has not made a decision about that, though. you met quinn. i did. the 2-year-old daughter. they ve been living a kind of circus existence behind the cloak with paparai. is there anything normal about their lives right now? it was the strangest thing to be interview iing her with a tripod and a lens in the window, where you would constantly be closing the drapes, closing the shutters. i don t know how she lives that way and it s nonstop. is it possible by giving this interview she hopes to yes. put a pin in the balloon and let some of the hot air out so her life can go back to normal? absolutely. i think she very much wants to get on with her life and wants that s one of the reasons she wanted to answer every question. there were no conditions or nothing off limits. and i think that s part of the reason why. now, will the national enquirer say thank you, rielle, now we re going to leave? probably not. but i think that is her wish. fascinating interview. lisa depaulo, thank you for sharing it with us. thank you. it hits stands nationwide next tuesday. let s get a check of the weather with al now. thanks, matt. little on the rainy side. we ve got a cutie here. what s her name? cowen. where are you exodus? michigan. let s check your weather and see what s happening. for today, the week ahead above-normal temperatures out west with some rain, below normal through the south as storms move through, above-normal through the great lakes. midweek, northern half of the country, above normal, wet through the southeast. the northeast stays nic nice good morning. we have a wet start to this monday morning. looking at the radar and getting rain in washington and montgomery, arlington, fairfax and prince george s counties. coming down harder in southern prince georges into northern calvert heading off to the south and west out of the northeast. elsewhere with a few other showers in frederick and washington counties. perhaps a few more when the weather is bad, check your weather on cable at the weather channel or weather.com online. and it s her birthday for elizabeth with her friends spelling out her name. ask away, the questions you ask us all the time. this morning, the most popular of them all, what time do you wake up and what s your morning routine really like? 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[ jazz horns blow ] because expressive is never excessive. i guess some women are destined to wear chico s. chicka boom boom boom, yeah, yeah first of all, i resent the way i look, but anyway we re back at 7:44 this morning. which one are you? i know who i am! i m the black guy! but we do oh, my lord. this morning, we ll be kicking off a new series we call ask away today. that s all the questions we get asked by people every single day. first off, what almost everyone wants to know, above all else all else? all else. i don t know if there s so much questions. a lot of time people will go, hey, willard. we are related. al is my son exodus a previous marriage. are you always this happy? no, i m basically an ax murderer. i just killed a family of four before i came in. so the question everybody always asks is, what time do you get up? i usually get up somewhere between what i think is 2:30 and 3:00. what? i had no idea that meredith got up at 2:30. 4:10. 4:10. my answer is, you don t even want to know. i get up. i take care of my toilette, put on my running shorts and t-shirt and sneakers and come downstairs and i fire up the treadmill. then i ve got to make calls to first the weather channel. hey, sherry, how are you doing? good morning, al. find out what i m doing with the wake up with al show that starts at 6:00 am. we ve got another storm system that might impact the d.c. area. for the first weather, let s show the eastern half of the country. i think meredith has the most trouble getting up, be getting started. i think meredith might be the least natural morning person. the only reason they may be right is they ve been doing this for how long? how old are they? they ve been doing this for years. i finish on the treadmill, towel off, get a couple of ice packs. it s called 55, people. it s coming for you. i go and make nicholas lunch. leila don t want daddy making him lunch. then i ve got this green drink. it s this thing called fizio greens. it s kind of like a super powder. it looks like something like the runoff from moss that s been pureed and put into a glass. i m up so early even the weirdos aren t up. you know, they ve gone to bed. they said what s the point of being strange? there s nobody out here to see it. you see a lot of people, you know, leaving hotels or leaving apartments and clearly dressed for the festivities of the evening before. walk of shame. no, i guess i didn t realize that s what they were doing. sometimes we just go by and honk our horn to those people and wave to them. good morning, all. will i clash with mr. lauer today? good morning, everybody. we ve got another big weather week shaping up and look who s back. of course, we ll have complete team coverage tomorrow morning on wake up with al. good-bye, everybody. good-bye. good-bye. al roker studio, please. al roker, studio, please. thank you. i wake up and i m up. i m a morning person. it s a very wholesome life dls style. you cannot go out and burn the candle at both ends when you have this job. this job makes you excited to come to work, even at that hour. i m off caffeine, so i don t i m high on life. that s what i like to say. high on life and the today sho show. and that s it! that was good. one thing that jumped out at me on that whole piece, when you re on that treadmill, don t you wake your family up? no, i m in the basement. because it s like boom,oom, boom. that does put us a bit to shame. you re working out when we re sleeping and getting up. but you all lk better than me. no, no. has anybody overslept sm. i have. i have. never missed the show, but overslept. that panic and then you can never catch up for the rest of the day. you can never oversleep and miss the show because somebody has to find you. it would be bad if no one noticed. where was by the way, where was meredith? tomorrow on ask away today, what would meredith do if she didn t work here? it s a question we ask all the time. but we don t want to find out. no, no, we don t. we ll be back right after this. .so now you can get a great deal on any volkswagen. green one! oh. 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[ male announcer ] .it s a whole new volkswagen, and a whole new game. we ve got a way for you to check the status of your loan online. securely, any time, anywhere. - and that s why i love. - i love. i love being a home loan expert. so that s why we have sensodyne iso-active whitening for those that are looking for it. it comes in a canister. it starts out as a gel. now this is where the fun begins. once you start to brush with it, it micro-foams. having those small micro-bubbles really allows it to get to those hard to reach areas. it s providing a cleaner experience. the benefits for sensodyne iso-active whitening, it s going to provide protection against sensitivity. and s going to help restore teeth to their natural whiteness. [ sniffs ] morning. you got in pretty late last night. life of former child star todd bridges. after your local news. still, it was late. well. you re not gonna have to worry about that anymore. yeah, why s that? todd s a lucky man. the best part of wakin up. that s what i told him when we talked last week. .isolgers in your cup [ bella ] i love you. [ roars ] [ female announcer ] only walmart has the two-disc new moon ultimate fan edition with exclusive footage from the twilight saga: eclipse. save money. live better. walmart. combination of seven tantalizing flavors your cat craves. friskies signature blend. feed the senses. i hear hotabysitter a lot. hi. my sienna is great. it matches my style, it has great stuff for my kids, it has an available dual-view entertainment center. driving my sienna says, sure, i m a mom. but i m not running around rocking mom jeans. miss, there s a diaper bag on your roof. please. [ male announcer ] meet the family and the new sienna on youtube. toyota. with a brief look at the action on royal caribbean s new oasis of the seas. carolina diago found her thrill 9 decks above the boardwalk. meanwhile, 3-year-old axel rode his first carousel at sea. taylor from florida went surfing somewhere in the middle of the ocean. and finally, the turners and kratzes enjoyed dinner in central park. that s the news. i m stilt walker christy piper, on royal caribbean s oaoasis of the seas. why aren t you? so i couldn t always do what i wanted to do. but five minutes ago, i took symbicort, and symbicort is already helping significantly improve my lung function. so, today, i ve noticed a significant difference in my breathing. and i m doing more of what i want to do. so we re clear it doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. my doctor said symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it s significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today. i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. [ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. 48 degrees and look being at a live picture the old town alexandr alexandria. you can see the flooding of the streets. it could be a problem today. i m joe krebs and police in arlington need your help in finding a killer. they found a man suffer for example upper body trauma late last night in the 2800 block of pershing drive. he died a short time later. they have not identified the victim. a major traffic change will start and flow in both directions on 15th street between k street and massachusetts avenue all day. all four lanes had been designated for northbound traffic in the afternoon rush hour until now. they said it s not necessary anymore and could improve the traffic flow downtown. we will take a break and look at the forecast. back to work and school with the wet weather. we have rain falling in washington, prince george s county, charles, calvert and anne arundel as well as fairfax, arlington and points north and west. we will have occasional light showers and moderate showers as well and sprinkles and drizzle drying out tonight and tomorrow. how is the traffic? a tough morning. we are loaded up big time from below clarksburg to the split, but lanes are open. from the west, same story. bumper to bumper from centralville to the beltway. no beings, but everything is moving slow because of the weather. another local news u 8:00 now on a monday morning. this is the 15th day of march, 2010. also known as the ides of march. ominous skies. we ve been dealing with this kind of weather for the past three or four days now, severe storms hit this area over the weekend, leaving behind downed power lines and flooding and all kinds of headaches. i like our camera had to back up. someone ran into it. exactly. i m matt lauer out on the plaza along with meredith vieira and al roker has had a busy weekend and it continues. this is really ugly out here. yeah, and it s going to hang around about another 24 hours and finally move out. we look forward to that. coming up this half hour, the troubled life of todd bridges. he portrayed willis on different strokes. when the show ended his life spiraleded out of control, drug addiction, crime. at one point, he considered getting the police to kill him, suicide by cops, as he put it. he will open up about it all. we ll talk about a young lady who was bullied by others because of her weight. she reached over 280 pounds. she s not bullied anymore. she s lost half of her weight. we ll find out her story and how she did it, coming up. member of the joy fit club. later on, it doesn t open until later this spring but we ll get a sneak peek inside the wizarding world of harry potter at universal orlando resort and how you can win a trip to the grand opening. real snow. it looks like the real thing. it s magic! good morning to all of you, and to you this morning. utility crews in the northeast are working this morning to restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes following the big weekend storm, dumped seven inches of rain in some places and caused several deaths, many because of fallen trees. there could be more rain today from new england to new jersey where a state of emergency is in effect. the state department is warning americans to avoid nonessential travel to parts of mexico, including juarez because of surging violence there. it comes as three people with ties to the u.s. consulate were killed over the weekend. the president is deeply saddened and outraged by the murders. early results in iraq s parliamentary election show that prime minister nouri al maliki s coalition is holding a slim lead. police in ireland are investigating an alleged plot to kill a swedish cartoonist, but an american woman they ve been holding has now been released. dawna friesen is in london this morning. good morning. good morning, ann. jamie paulin-ramirez, recent convert to islam, to assassinate a cartoonist, whose drawing offended many muslims. jamie paulin-ramirez left her colorado home last september, taking her 6-year-old son with her. she was always a good kid. she was going to college, working full time. she walked out on her job with no word. reporter: then, last week, word ramirez had been arrested in ireland over an alleged plot to kill swedish cartoonist lars vilk, prophet mohammed to have a dog s body, prompting to put a bounty on his head. she met an algerian man online, whom, it s believed sheerks married. became very secretive, wouldn t give out any information about anything. reporter: it s now suspected she had links to another american woman, colleen la rose, who called herself jihad jane, charged last week over the plot to kill vilks. ramirez s mother is now worried for her grandson s safety. we need somebody to help us get that little boy back. she s taken him, put him in an environment that could get him killed. the irish police have released ramirez without charge. at this point, h family says they don t know where she and her son are, but her grandson told her on the phone not long ago that he was being taught how to shoot guns. ann? dawna friesen, thank you. best-known soccer player, david beckham, tore his left achilles on sunday. he will need surgery and may miss this summer s world cup competition as a result. it is now 8:04. let s go back outside to meredith and matt. ann, thank you very much. johnny sadett, will you go to prom with this young woman? what s your name? alex. good luck with that. he ll do it. want to get a check of the weather? yeah. it s getting windy. with mr. roker. all right. we re down here. whoa, whoa, whoa. everybody one step back. this is castle high school band from hawaii. from oahu? all right. they re a little boisterous. those macadamia nuts are kicking in. allentown, p.a., our pick city of the day. nbc 10, showers and cool. temperature about 44 degrees and, as we check your maps, you can see we ve got that storm working its way up along the northeast coast, bringing winds and rain. another system is spinning around through the southwest. that will bring snow back to albuquerque, rain into northern texas. and we ve got some showers working their way through parts of west virginia on into the northeast with gale-force winds, showers in the pacific northwest. sunny, a little warmer down in florida. that will be short lived. later on in the week, good morning on this monday morning. it is wet. we have rain falling in washington and prince george s county. arlington and fairfax. it s going to continue to pass off away from the metro area over a half hour or so. after that we may get a few sprinkles and drizzle. we are in the upper 40s it will peak near 50. that s your latest weather. matt? al, thank you very much. former child star todd bridges speaks out about a life of drug abuse and crime and how he has managed to turn things around. right after these messages. it s simponi™, and taken with methotrexate, it helps relieve the pain, stiffness, and swelling of ra with one dose a month. visit 4simponi.com to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi™ can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi™, your doctor should test you for tb and assess your risk of infections, including fungal infections and hepatitis b. ask your doctor if you ve been to a region where certain fungal inftions are common. tell your doctor if you re prone to infections, or develop symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start simponi™ if you have an infection. 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[ female announcer ] for ultimate flawless perfection, the eraser foundation, only from maybelline new york. i m ready. wore only what i was wild about. always knew what i loved, and insisted on wearing it. chicka boom boom boom i guess some women are destined to wear chico s. with hazelnuts. isn t this how calcium should taste? eating well has never been so craveable. with quaker dark chocolate mocha hazelnut cafe squares. isn t this how whole grains should taste? eating well has never been so craveable with quaker caramel baked rice snacks. you d savor exquisite specials and a fine chianti. but rome is like 4,200 miles away. thas why there s bertolli chicken florentine for two in a luscious white-wine sauce. bertolli. italy is served. back now at 8:10. for todd bridges, the role of willis on the sitcom different strokes could have led to a life of fame and fortune. instead he plunged into a life of drug abuse and crime. we ll talk to him in a moment. first, how his life spiraled out of control. it takes different strokes to move the world what you talkin bout, willis? for those who grew up watching todd bridges play gary coleman s older brother, willis, the news may have come as a shock. the then 23-year-old actor was arrested on suspicion of shooting an accused drug dealer at a south central l.a. crack house. have you ever lived in a nonblack neighborhood before? just once when our landlord in harlem painted our building right. far cry to the responsible older brother that audiences loved for eight season. there s no privacy with you around. your nose is always where it doesn t belong. my nose is right where i left it. in different strokes a white, well-meaning millionaire adopts two street-wise brothers from harlem and raises them along with his biological daughter, kimberly. the calf of different strokes has come to epitomize star tragedy. made porn to support her drug habit and died at 34 from an overdose. coleman has had his own trouble with the law and bridges decade-making charges, concealing a firearm, making a bomb threat, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. on two occasions you appeared in this court. i suspected that you were under the influence of narcotics. at his worse, he has admitted to supporting a 14-gram a day habit. never in my worst nightmare did i dream i would come here to visit you. we bet the young bridges never did either. he joins us to speak about the dangers of drug abuse. his new book killing willis. good morning. i read this book over the weekend. it is a book of an account of someone whose life was full of so much promise and also so much pain, some of it brought on by others, some of it self inflicted. yeah. you call the book killing willis. why that title? i was trying to basically destroy myself and willis is part of me and i figured it would work very well. i was trying to take out myself, part of willis and destroy everything. willis represented hope for you really. it sure did. potential. willis represented safety. when i was on the set, i was safe. i wasn t at home, going through what i would go through with my dad or which really basically became a se place for me. i m going to get to that in a minute, what happened with your dad. chapter one is titled suicide by cops, december 9, 1992, probably the lowest moment in your life. you were trying to get your life back together. a girl asked you to get drugs for her. you did. you were on your way back. yes. the police stopped you. you had been dealing drugs on and off since different strokes had gone off the air, addicted to cocaine, crack, meth, numerous run-ins with the law, spent almost a yea in jail. vowed you would never go back. you have a gun in the car. you re trying to decide what to do. tell me about that moment. that moment, it was the lowest point of my life, first of all. i really felt i was just in a frame of mind that i didn t want to live anymore. i got tired of feeling that rejection, tired of feeling that sorrow, tired of feeling that pain that i was going through and i felt that i if i just would grab the gun and turn around without even firing a shot and let the cops kill me, it would take away all the pain. then i heard this voice tell me that it wasn t the right move. that literally not to do that and give myself a second chance, to really find some kind of happiness. such a far cry from that little boy who, at 5 years old, turned to his mom and said i know what i want to do. yeah. i want to be an actor and, more than that, i want to be a star. yeah. what made you think that you had that in you? i knew exactly what i wanted to be. growing up, i ve been that preco cious kid who is outgoing, talkative and i knew at 5 years old what i wanted to do. i wanted to be in show business. i thought it was the life for me. it s funny, because show business really kept me and my mom away from the house. it kept us safe most of the time. most people didn t know while you were doing the commercials and tv shows before different strokes you re this cute kid on the air. what we don t realized is that at home your dad is physically abusing you. yeah. and mentally abusing you. yeah. that was really unfortunate as a kid growing up to where you never heard your father say he loves you. his idea of taking you somewhere was to drop you off and he would go in the bar and go drinking. everything i learned was from my mom, my brothers, my uncles. i never learned anything from my dad. the only thing i can say to his defense is that i learned how to be a hard worker from him. i would rather have had a father who told me he loved me and was a terrible worker than a father who was a great worker but never told me he loved me. he introduced you to an agent that ended up sexually abusing you. yeah. and when he told your dad shall, he told you my father took his side and said todd is lying. my mother wanted to kill him and my dad wouldn t let her. my dad stayed friends with the guy, which made it even worse. if something happened to my child first of all, i don t know how long the guy is going to survive, but the other thing is there s no way i could not take my son s side. how do you do that? how do you not really understand that your child is crying out and telling you the pain that he s going through, that this guy inflicted on him and you take his side? it was right after that, that you got the role in different strokes. yeah. it was a huge success. you begin a sexual relationship with your older co-star, dana plateau. how did that go on? the whole time different strokes lasted. but she actually came at a very pivotal point in my life where i was fighting whether or not i was homosexual or not. because you had been sexually abused by your agent? publicist. publicist, i m sorry. i didn t know what i was. and then when i experienced stuff with her, i realized i liked women and i didn t feel dirty. i didn t feel less than and i didn t feel wrong. she also introduced you to drug zpls yeah. pot and alcohol. you talk in the book one time nancy reagan was on the set for an episode promoting her just say no campaign. at that point, were you high? no, i was never high on the set ever. it was always the weekend. i was that kind of user. when nancy reagan that whole just say no didn t really work for too many people in america. certainly didn t work for you ordaina. didn t work for me. your relationship with gary coleman started out really well and disintegrated. you blame his father for that. his father made him hate himself and on top of that, made him hate everyone else around him that had a different skin color than white people. he wanted gary coleman only to have white friends and not black friends. we used to hang out together as kids. we used to put these boxes together as children and play in the boxes all the time and do different things together. the minute his father came down on the third season, it changed everything. he walked in that year with on top of some big guy s shoulders, bodyguard. everyone had to stay away. it was no longer talking to gary, talk to somebody else to get to gary. you weren t even in the finale of the series. no. in 86. do you think colemans purposely kept you out? yeah, they purposely did. that s been a known fact that they did. but like i said, the great part about it is that i ve forgiven all of them for that and even today i m willing to help gary to get out of this anger. learn how to be happy. you have no relationship with him at this point? no. i talk to him through somebody else. i go through somebody else who talks to him. after different strokes you picked up a new habit, cocaine. oh, yeah. that led to crack and then you lost most of your money in an accounting scam. you re an addict, you re broke. yeah. you become a drug dealer yourself. how fast did all of this happen? it seemed like overnight. it really seemed like that. but it s a transformation. you go from see, people, when i became a drug dealer basically it was to supply my habit because, you know, the money wasn t there to take care of the habit. i had to supply my habit. basically i was doing what scarface said, don t get high on your own supply, i was doing that. i kept my habit, kept spinning out of control, because i stayed high the whole entire time and that process just went around like a vicious circle. and everything is detailed in killing willis. it really explains how the life i led, why i led that life. killing willis, to me, is a great illustration of whatnot to do. at the same time there s a lot of redemption in there of how to redeem yourself. why do you think it was so easy to fall into that life? because i hated myself. i really hated myself. i couldn t stand who i was at that point in my life and it was a lot of things, the fact that i had been molested, the police were harassing me on a continual basis. they started harassing me at an early age. no safety net at home because my father was out of control. i had no place that was safe but on the set of different strokes. when you left that, there w no place to go? no place to be safe. you were arrested for attempted murder of another drug dealer. you sit in jail for a year. lyle menendez, who killed his mom and dad and serial rapist richard ramirez as well? yeah. he told me something interesting, if you had to do it over again, what would you do different? he was like, it wouldn t be old ladies. i was like, wow, you re going to burn, dude. they thought i was going to go down. i was really the only person who was not guilty at that time. you were acquitted and your lawyer was johnny cochran. yeah. you couldn t stay out of trouble. addicted to meth. you tried to clean up your act. leading to that day in 1992. just because you go to jail, see just because you go to jail does not mean you re going to stop using drugs if you don t get the proper help you need. you finally did get the proper help. yeah. we re running out of time. there s so much i could ask you. you ve been sober almost 17 years. 17 years, yeah. how are you doing today? doing great. i love myself and i say i love myself six days a week. the seventh day it s wishy washy. the good part is that i really don t care about the seventh day as long as i get around to the first day. you ll be back in our next hour to talk some more. differe. are you ready? he s not talking about work. i don t want to work he s not tucking in his shirt. i want to bang on the drum all day he s not checking messages every 9 seconds. i just want to bang on the drum all day and now this? i don t want to play i just want to bang on the drum all day [ fog horn blows ] parents magazine and edmunds.com called it one of the best family cars of 2009. the insurance institute for highway safety calls it a 2010 top safety pick. consumers digest has called it a best buy two years in a row. and with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. we call it.peace of mind. chevy malibu. now, qualified lessees get a low mileage lease on this 2010 malibu ls for around $199 a month. call for details. see your local chevy dealer. an embroidered tunic with touches of sequins in a sea of blue. brilliant. i guess some women are destined to wear chico s. chicka boom boom boom, yeah, yeah with hazelnuts. isn t this how calcium should taste? 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[ cellphones ringing, vibrating ] [ computer beeps ] get started at bank of america. 8:26 is your time and cloudy skies over the nation s capital. tom will have the forecast after the news. in the news for today, after four hours of searching a giant super market, the s.w.a.t. team could not find the armed man who wanted to rob the store. he told the manager to take him to the save and that manager ran and hid in the cooler and called 911. the robber may have slipped out when the employees and customers came out. they are still looking for him. we will take a quick look and will h back to the right? no, back here. how about over here? n let s go back to the left. waffling is back at dunkin donuts. for a short time only, enjoy the return of the delicious oven-toasted waffle breakfast sandwich. america runs on dunkin . yeah, but. what.. happened to the back there? well, here s the thing: this was the only sporty two-seater they had on my budget. uh-huh. and the seats go all the way back. (announcer) settling for less is not smart. what is smart is getting more car for your money at carmax. for the money you d spend on a stripped down new car, you could get a fully loaded, guaranteed-quality used car at carmax. now more than ever, the smart choice is carmax. the way car buying should be. on the radar a band of light to moderate rain moving from the northeast to the southwest. charles, calvert and saipt marys county and northern shenandoah county. late or an additional sprinkle or drizzle. blustery near 50 and how is the traffic? a live look along 66. very long stretches and a tough commute and no major accidents to report. we will head to maryland and looking better here on 270. delays begin. thank you. we will have more news, weather, and traffic in 8:30 now on this monday morning, march 15th, 2010. a rainy weekend in the northeast spilled over to the workweek, but these folks are not letting it dampen their spirits. nice crowd on a monday morning. just ahead, a college freshman who was bullied over her weight, as she joins the joy fit club she managed to lose 140 pounds. this morning, she is here to show off her remarkable new look and her dad is with her as well. it s a great story. also ahead, a great author, michael lewis is here. he wrote blindside. yeah. he set his sights on another incredible true story. this is about the people who predicted and then profited from the financial collapse that we have all lived throug it s a wonderful tale not a wonderful tale, but interesting tale. we ll be talking to michael lewis about that shortly. cool new gadgets for things like how to change how your water tastes, if you have trouble with that, or tired of pet hair all over your house. can you turn it into wine, the water? maybe if you re matt lauer, you can. i don t think so. little aggressive, don t you think? ouch! i want one of those. first, nbc s kerry sanders is at universal orlando resort, checking out an exciting new edition to universal resorts the wizarding world of harry potter. i think he s standing by the hogwart s express, right, harry? i am not in orlando. i m at hogwarts station. as a mugle i m at hogs meade s station. this harry potter is coming to life right here. of course, be if you re going to experience all of this, the first thing you need to do when you come here, of course, is go to honey duke s. i ll pick up your chocolate frog and then next door we ve got zonko s joke shop. inside zonko s joke shop, how about extendible ears or boxing telescope? all the little key word that is really have come to life here. and so many people imagine the movies, the movies that are the harry pottereries here have grossed more as a series than any other movie, 400 million books sold in 200 countries and territories. it is a remarkable phenomenon. matt, as youknow, we are here for a very extraordinary reason, aren t we? absolutely, kerry. nice job there. by the way, when that exhibit opens, when that traction opens in the spring, your child s class can actually be there for all the festivities. all you have to do to get details on how that can happen is go to our website at todayshow.com. that will be a lot of fun for some very lucky young people. all i want is the invisibility cloak. could use that. that would be fun. i look forward to going down there. that looks great. it will be fun. > warmer, certainly. the city camera is showing the potomac river running high. the alexandria waterfront is at high tide right now. we have rain falling where you see the color on radar getting rain. light to moderate. st. marys and calvert and southern prince georges and northern shenandoah valley. we could get more check your weather any time of the day or night on cable, or weather.com online. a teenager who dropped half her weight. we ll show off her brand new look. first, this is today on nbc. back at 8:36. this morning on look at me now the joy fit club, we are welcoming in our newest member, a college freshman with an emotional story. hi. i m gina. i m 18 years old and i ve been battling with my weight all my life. kids would call me fat, chubby or names like shamu. i trieded to have a good attitude, but the commts hurt my feelings. when i was 14, my mother s breast cancer returned. it was a very difficult time for our family and i relied on food as a source of comfort. a month before my 16th birthday, my mom passed away and i was at my heaviest weight of 284 pou s pounds. that was my turning point. i knew i had to do something and i didn t want to face an operating table. i went to a doctor who told me, you can eat anything you want, but you need to count your calories. he taught m to eat all over again. keeping a food log online made it easier to keep track of my calor calories. now i have gone from 284 pounds to 140 pounds. i feel so much better about myself and have a lot more confidence. i love that i can shop anywhere and buy all the fashionable clothes. i know that my mom is looking down on me and would be extremely proud of what i accomplished. and gina s father, dennis, is with us, along with today contributor and nutritionist joy bauer. good morning. good morning. how are you? i m great, thank you. looking at those pictures of your daughter, gina, hearing her talk about her journey, what was it like for you as a parent to travel that with her and see her morbidly obese? it s been quite a journey. she was so overweight. we didn t know what to do or where to go. finally, she learned to count the calories. she could eat anything she wants, but just count the calories and they ve been starting to pour off and it s been an amazing journey. she looks terrific today. it must have been frustrating in the beginning. you saw nutritionists along the way. we couldn t find anything about obese teenagers. we heard a lot about it, but there was nothing in our area. finally you found somebody that could help? we found a doctor that could help us. transition 15 pound of weight, at least, they put on as a freshman in college. most importantly, to the parents, you really have to set a solid foundation from the get go so that your kids know and are familiar with smart food choices in the campus dining hall. before they get there? yeah, because then they re going to be more apt to at least eat relatively well when they get there. try to ensure they have a mini fridge within the room, stock it with string cheese, skim milk, nonfat yogurt so when they sleep in and don t make it to the dining hall. they have something to eat? they can walk out the door well armed. there s a lot of food over here i had gina keep in the dorm room that doesn t require refrigeration and some things you can nuke in the microwave. healthy canned soups, granola bars, sugarless gum, low-fat there s a lot of treats kids can have, right? it s important. those late-night munchies are ferocious and the other kids in your dorms are eating the wrong foods. exactly. gina battled a lot of that. dennis, i know you re very proud of your daughter. i have not met her yet. i m dying to do so. she is incredible! one last look at her before losing all the weight. now let s bring gina out. my goodness! you look fantastic. believable. amazing accomplishment. how do you feel? i feel so much better. and i m like i love to go shopping with my friends. because you can buy a the cute things that you might not have been able to before? she just bought that cute dress in new york. it looks adorable. thank you. how has the transition been in college? easier than you thought it would be? it seen difficult, especially with three roommates that have a lot of junk food in the dorm and it s tempting, but my roommates and everyone has been so supportive and i ve kept a lot of those snacks in my dorm and we have a refrigerator and stuff, s your dad has been very supportive. i know your mom passed away, but her motto has been playing over and over in your head. what did she used to say? never give up, always go for it and always have hope. so, i try to live that. i m sure she s looking down at you and very happy with what she sees. right, dennis? absolutely. what advice would you give to other teens who find themselves in the situation you were in? just to decide to make the change for yourself and not try to make it for other people and know that you can do it and never give up hope and find a really good support system that will help you. and it sure worked for you with the nutritionist and the help of your dad as well, and your close friends who have been with you since you were a little kid. yep. thank you so much, dennis. welcome to the joy bauer fit club. up we are back now at 8:43. sandra bullock won the oscar for her role in the blindside written by michael lewis. now the best-selling author is tackling the latest economic meltdown. can you find an excerpt in this month s vanity fair. thanks for coming back. how are you doing? i m doing well. thanks for having me back. some go as far to say this is the book you need to read about the economic meltdown. but a lot has been written about it. it s been dissected and looked at under the micro or magnifying glass. why did you decide to tackle it? oddly, because you re right so much has been written about it, but two reasons. one is i had come in at the beginning of this story with liar s poker, about me working on wall street in the 80s and a lot of what happened, the seeds of the ka tas trocatastrophe we then. most of the books that you read about economic meltdown go into september and october of 08. your story starts and ends kind of before that. that was the other thing. i felt like there was this great untold story with these wonderful characters that just hadn t been told and it was this period from kind of the early 05 to the end of 07 when, in effect, the bombs were built and laid and the fuses were lit and by the end of 07, the story is basically over in the sense that the bad things are going to happen. it s just a question of when. you hear people say all the time about this economic meltdown, no one saw this collapse coming. well, no, there were a lot of people who saw it coming and found a way to sell short on some of these awful mortgages and cash in when things really got bad. explain it to me. well, you can almost think of the financial system leading up the crisis as having gathered itself around a giant bet. most of the financial system was betting on the subprime mortgages and actual ly only a relative handful of investors saw what was happening and made big bets against them. they shorted them, betted on the price of mortgage bonds falling. the thing thawas so curious to me is that there were so few of them. maybe the greatest bet in modern financial history to be made and it was sort of like, why did those people figure it out? what was it about them that led them to figure it out? you tackle some of these people and kind of delve into their character and their personalities. some reading it or listening to this might say, michael, these are bad people because they re as bad as the other guys because they profited off the misery of people. do you see it that way? no. when you put it that way, it sounds pretty horrible, but i don t see it that way. for a start, if more people had seen the world the way they saw the world, none of this would have happened and they were screaming to high heaven that this stuff shouldn t be these loans shouldn t be being made. in one case, they go tohe scc, the new york times, wall street journal to try to get people to pay attention. this whole question of the role of people who short things in the marketplace has been badly distorted, especially by big wall street firms. because they re made out to be cashing in. in some ways, they are a check and balance. they are the check and balance. they are the way the information gets into the marketplace. someone has to have the incentive to dig out the bad information as well as the good. and the ability to sell short something create that is incentive. you tackle a couple of these guys, michael bury who was studying to become a neurologist. he was a neurologist. didn t love medicine before he got into finance. why did he stand out for you? he was the first person to really see to see that the smartest thing he could do he was a stock market investor, an ordinary stock market investor. he couldn t invest in stocks in good conscience, because he saw what was happening in subprime mortgage market and knew it was going to affect everything. he actually starts, sets out to make a bet against the subprime mortgages. the thing that was so interesting about him, there re some deep character logical quality that is led these people to do what they did. he has aspberger syndrome but didn t know it. but in retrospect he said only someone with aspberges syndrome would bother to read subprime mortgages. he spent a lot of time alone in a room looking at data. and that set him up to see it, because he wasn t he was sort of outside the fog machine that wall street had created to disguise what was actually going on and he was looking at just the raw numbers. when you looked at just the raw numbers, they told you that, my god, there s a catastrophe in the making. a fascinating study. before i let you go, sandra bullock wins best actress oscar for her role in the blindside. did you ever dream when you sat down to tell that story years o that it would result in something like that? you know, i thought it was a wonderful story that i could only screw up. and when i was done with it, i thought some great actress could really do something with it, but she did. what she did was a miracle. i mean, it was a miracle. and she took a risk to do it. and you know, i was very proud of her. good for you as well. michael, nice to see you, as always. thanks for having me. the book is called the big short. up next, hot new items we found at the national home and housewares show. we ll fill you in on this morning on today s home, the latest and greatest innovations for your home. today contributor and host of the syndicated show house smarts took our national contributor jenna wolfe on the international home and housewares show in chicag chicago. look at this stuff. this is all new? it s called the ex. called the ex? gee, i wonder why. i feel bad for whoever s ex this is. if you don t mind, this there you go. are you okay? so, to get through this show, you have to walk through 13 miles of aisles. and who do i run into? mi miss illinois. how big a cookie are you really going to make with a rolling pin like this? is this necessary? you know what? it s good to sit on. when i was a kid it was called a clothesline. now it s called a rotary air drier. now that s going to save you some money. is it my understanding you can tell a lot about a person by what kind of vegetable they like? yes. you are an asparagus on the cusp of cucumber. i just got my vegetable card read it s the samurai umbrella. you re ready to fight the rain. wow, mr. clean, you re so buff. hi there. always wanted to challenge mr. clean to push-ups. ready? let s go. one foot. one foot. let s go. i think i won! i think i won! she sure does. jenna and lou are in chicago this morning. hey, guys. nice moves, jenna. good morning. hi, meredith. meredith, i got to tell you that before i got here, my idea of advanced kitchen ware was the microwave oven. thanks to lou over here, i have been put in my place. lou has picked out the couple cooler items, ingenious items we re going to talk about here. this first one it will save you 15,000 gallons a year in water, invented by a fourth generation plumber. go ahead and hit that button. you want me to flush? go ahead. the idea is that you get one flush for liquids and the other one hit the other button. hitting number two. exactly. we shouldn t be talking about this too early in the morning. i understand, but the beauty is a toilet like this, a dual mode is about $1,000. this is $25. you can install it in about ten minutes by slipping it right over your existing flapper. easy to install? so easi and will save you a ton of money. moving on, we saw this in the piece. i love this. this is called the ex. i wonder why. i really want to start taking these out, but i ll leave it. $69. nice little tray. great conversation piece. $69 for this knife set and $79 for this available in all different colors, which is terrific. you put this on your coffee table, lou, and nobody is going to date you. correct. when you have people over. correct. next up, the next generation of water purification, is that correct? yeah. everybody knows about these pitchers but this company, zero water, has developed one that s five times more effective and removes more of the gunk. they claim you can actually pour a little wine in wam. this is going to purify this and make it into water? into water. give it time, it will turn the wine into water. can you pour it back out and turn the water into wine? they would be millionaires if they could figure that out. you shouldn t waste good wine. that s just wrong. right, meredith? it s wrong! it s wrong! we re applauding garbage. kicker land has reated these h holograms, different fun things, $12. great for kids room and whatever. it s really nice. perfect for matt. we re going to race through this. this is all things sanitary. cell phone san advertiitizer. 50 bucks. you could probably fit matt in here if you squeezed. easy, jenna. pet expert by eureka, terrific for $149. takes care of all those 7:56 is the time. cloudy skies and is rain on the way. the forecast after the news. in the news, police need your help finding a killer. they found a man suffer for example upper body trauma in the 2800 block of pershing drive and he died a short time later. a major traffic change starts in downtown and traffic flows in both directions. they had been designated for northbound traffic but now d dot said it s not necessary and should improve the rask much of the potomac park is under water. that s a live view to the right. a a lot is under water with the potomac running high with the snowfall and the run off we had. the panhandle of west virginia and southern maryland and more later day. we will be hovering in the upper 40s with a blustery wind. the sun returning tomorrow. how is the traffic? still jammed along 66 and centerville all wait out with volume, but no accidents reported. a quick check along 270, this is the point where the back up begins. shady grove. be careful out there. we will have more news, weather, and traffic in 25 it is the 15th of march, 2010. you re looking at some of the aftermath of the series of just wild storms actually, one big storm that went through the northeast and along the east coast over the weekend. there was flooding, power outages. sadly, some deaths associated with this storm as well. a and, actually, it s not completely over here in the northeast. we ve got at least another day d al is going to be telling us more about it. this was a classic nor easter, and it did the kind of damage we usually expect from a tropical storm or worse. that s right. there have been hurricane-force wind gusts and it s not done yet. as you said, it s slowly making its way up the coast. just off the jersey shore right now. why wasn t it called a hurricane then? because it wasn t tropical sustained winds? it s a cold core pressure system. not a tropical system. look at you, you really know your stuff. not really. i just pulled that out made it up, actually. very good. it worked. matt lauer, meredith vieira, al roker and natalie morales. just ahead, much more with former child star todd bridges. he wrote a very revealing autobiography. even as he was gaining fame on that show, he was being abused at home by his dad. when the show finally ended in 1986, he tumbled in a life of drug addiction and crime. he has written a powerful new memoir, called killing willis, the name of his character on diff rent strokes. ask away today, we ll give you a look at my routine in the morning. you are unbelievable, by the way. not for that. i don t know how you get up and do that first thing in the morning. first, let s get a check of the top stories from ann curry who is over at the news desk. good morning, ann. good morning to all of you this morning and all of you this morning. in the news this morning, flooding is still a big problem in parts of the northeast, following a weekend storm that dumped more than seven inches of rain in some places. the storm is being blamed for at least eight deaths now. power is out for hundreds of thousands of homes. federal safety investigators say they are so far unable to explain or replicate the problem a california driver said he had last week with his toyota prius. james sikes said he had trouble stopping his prius and the car accelerated on its own to speeds of more than 94 miles an hour. national highway terrific safety administration says it may never know what s happened. toyota is announcing the results of its investigation today. harry reid s wife is out of the hospital this morning. landra reid suffered a broken neck, back and nose last week. she underwent surgery friday. president obama heads to ohio today to press his case for health care reform. white house press secretary robert gibbs predicts the house will pass a reform bill this week. actor peter graves died sunday of an apparent heart attack. in his career of almost 60 years, graves is best remembered as agent jim phelps on tv s mission impossible and for his film role as a pilot in airplane. peter graves was 83 years old. for the second weekend in a row alice in wonderland held the top of the box office, taking in $62 million according to early estimates. green zone was second and she s out of my league was third. a mystery in the town of somerton, arizona, when officials opened a time capsule containing memorabilia. it was supposed to contain an old bottle of brandi. when they opened it, they found the old videotapes and magazines but the brandi was gone. i ve never been in that town. that sounds like our director, joe michaels, has been there. buried in the time capsule. videotapes and magazines and a missing brandi, dead giveaway. we ve often said he has been in a time capsule his whole life. whoa! okay. all right. good luck on that the next hour. let s get a check of the weather now, mr. roker. all right. as we ve said, we ve got this storm system that will not get out of here. right now, it s along the new jersey coastline. look at some of these winds. 25-mile-per-hour winds off long island, 22 off the boston shore line. again, as we get up into portland, maine, 31 mile these are sustained winds, 31 to 32 miles per hour, very slow-moving system. wind forecast over the next 24 hours, you can see those windses especially out over nantucket, 30 miles per hour and breezy from atlantic city on up to portland. airport delays, big problems during the day today. major flooding continuing the next couple of days from virginia up through maine for river flood warnings and rainfall amounts anywhere from good morning. radar is showing a couple of bands of rin affecting the region with light rain across northern virginia and shenandoah valley. another band in north eastern maryland off to the southwest into the metro area in another hour. later on a sprinkle or drizzle with a blustery wind to 25 miles an hour. we will be near 50. and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you very much. playing older brother, willis, on the hit 70s and 80s sitcom diff rent strokes could have been a different life for todd bridges. he has written a book killing willis:from diff rent strokes to the mean streets to the life i always wanted. thank you for having me on. the physical abuse you suffered from your dad, the sexual abuse you suffered at the hands of a publicist. the fact that once the show was over, you slid into a life of drugs, addiction, cocaine and crack and eventually ended up a drug dealer when you found yourself broke as a way to get your hands on more drugs. i think people will be surprised to realize that you have actually been sober for 17 years. yeah. i think there s a perception out there, todd, and i don t know who perpettes it. it s the news media that perpetuates that. don t look at me like that. i don t mean you. but that i just got out of jail yesterday or i just got sober yesterday because they keep showing these stories over and over again of something that happened years and years ago, but they play it like it was yesterday. and the public s perception is this guy just got out of prison yesterday. it s like, you know and also their perception of me is that i m this career criminal, which i only have two cvictions in my whole entire record. what are the convictions? drug possession and carrying a gun. that s it. that was from that last time that was from 1992? yeah. when the police stopped you and you had just scored drugs for a girlfriend. yep. right when you were trying to clean up your act, too. yeah. you were addicted to meth. you re trying to clean up your act and you try to use marijuana to clean it up is not a good thing. that s not really doing it? no. you were sent to jail, to prison actually. prison, yeah. for 90 days and you made a decision after that that this time you were going to get clean and sober. how were you able to do it at that point, when you couldn t before? for me, i was sick and tired of being sick and tired. the last time i remember going to court and saying to myself, i am so done with this lifestyle. i am so done with chasing this addiction. i am so done with having not liking myself. i want to feel happiness again. i want to be excited. i want not to feel the pain anymore. and it just so happens when i went to see the judge, he had a circumstan circle with a triangle on it on his desk. he was in recovery himself. what does that signify, circle of a triangle? that s aa. so, he has somebody who had gone through it? he has somebody who had gone through addiction also. he said you re going to go to jail or go to rehab. it s your choice. i didn t want to go to jail so i was like, i better go to rehab. i got in there, i wasn t happy with it at first. i was very angry. even though you want to clean up, you really don t at the same time. once i cleaned my life up, i realized it s okay to be upset. it s okay to be angry. and it s okay to have disappointments in your life. but the great part about recovery is really learning how to have forgiveness. you should be dead. yeah, i should be. but because of god, i m still alive. and because i have a true testimony, and the testimony is that there is life after death. your co-star, dana plato from diff rent strokes had a turmoiled life and she overdosed at the age of 34. yeah. you called her three days before she died. what did you say to each other? dana, there s a program out here i can get you in. she said i don t have the problem like you do, todd. she was in denial? yeah. she died three days later. that was unfortunate. i wonder what your reaction was when you heard about corey haim, who was also a child star. i tried to help him, too. my reaction he died last week for those who may not know. what happens with child stars, someo dies, we pick up the phone and start calling one another because we are all connected somehow to one another by individuality. my phone call came fm scottie schwartz. do you remember who he was? the kid in the toy. my call came from him. he goes, hey, we lost another one. i was like, what do yomean, lost another one? i turn the tv on and saw what happened. you said you tried to intervene in his life. yeah. when and how? i trieded to get corey to basically stop taking prescription drugs and take care of his life. when was this? i did two coreys two years ago. their reality show. yeah. i stayed in contact with him and tried to get him to understand there was a way out. he wasn t ready to stop. sometimes people are ready to stop and sometimes they re not. but the thing about it is, you have to have in your mind as an addict that you re ready to stop and you want to get your life to move on. the problem is that other people perpetuate my addiction further than i do. i ve stopped it but you ve still got people who say i m addicted or people who are still making comments about it. it s true. when we re introduced we re introduced as former child star, ex-drug addict but it only carry that is with me. people don t say that about robert downey jr. they say robert downey jr., drug addict robert downey jr. is doing this great movie. no one says that about him. you write in your book, the hardest things about your recovery, you ve had to struggle to get your career back compared to actors like robert downey jr. or drew barrymore. i have to be honest about the fact that i think there is a racial divide in the industry that makes it much harder for blacks to get a second chance. and also because we get smeared by our own people, too, than just the other side. that s the reality of it. it s the truth, the ugly truth and no one wants to talk about it. it s that hidden secret you don t want to talk about, but let s be honest. let s be fair. you think that s why people keep mentioning your name and say ex-drug addict? of course. child star gets in trouble, my name comes up when everyone else has had the same problem at my age, you know. there s other child stars who have been there. why don t their names come up? or why are you not holding them responsible for their when they did something years ago? i m not saying it s racist, it s wrong. but it s happening to me. something is weird about it. by the same token, you take responsibility for the things you did. i certainly do. i do not blame anybody else. i made horrible, stupid decisions in my life. i ve done a lot of dumb things but my question is, how long are you going to make me pay for it? that s my question. you have two children, 13-year-old daughter, boea and 9-year-old son. he s an actor. do you worry about him? no, because he has two parents that love him. we play games and ride bikes together, it s always better to have a father whose there for you and tells you he loves you than a father paying the bills but is distant from you. i want you to read the last paragraph, if you will, of this book you wrote. the last paragraph? last paragraph. at this point with 16 years sobriety, we re growing up to be strong independent young people, i have six days of happiness and the seventh day is turmoil. as i fight my same inner fight with working on trying to find myself or forgive myself for my past but that s okay because i know that even the bad days don t last forever and that with god s grace and a whole lot of patience, we will get to the end we re supposed to be. what i mean by that is, you need patience for yourself but also the biggest thing is you need forgiveness for yourself. until i really forgave myself is when i could forgive all those around me and all those people that had done things to me. i forgive the guy who molested me. i forgive him. that was hard to do. i forgive him, because he did such a heinous act on me, it wasn t my fault. i understand that. i forgive my father for things he did to me but most of all i forgive me. that s the toughest thing. i want people to learn how to forgive themlves. nowadays when someone yells out at you whatchu talkin bout willis? i smile. it s the biggest catch phrase of all time. how can you really be upset about that? i hear it i just laugh. when i was broke and didn t have any money and you would say that, i probably didn t like it. i don t want to hear that. because, you know, you don t want to but now, leak i said, my life is so different today than it was even yesterday. and every day my life increasingly is getting better because i m taking responsibility and that s the thing. as long as you take responsibility for your actions, your life will change. todd bridges, thank you so much. this is my copy. i m going to take it back. you got it. the book is called killing willis . reporter: you got it. still to come, how to make one meal that will satisfy everybody in your family, even the pickiest of eaters. braces? engaged? puppies? broken? alternator? study where? fender bender? leaking where? it s kaput. kaput? [ male announcer ] life is full of unexpected expenses. twins? how much water?! ignition coil? france? both fenders? how deep?! ahhhh! [ male announcer ] be ready, build a cushion, with automatic transfers to savings. twins. [ male announcer ] get started at bank of america. rheumatoid arthritis going? they re discovering the first self-injectable ra medicine you take just once a month. it s simponi™, and taken with methotrexate, it helps relieve the pain, stiffness, and swelling of ra with one dose a month. visit 4simponcom to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi™ can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi™, your doctor should test you for tb and assess your risk of infections, including fungal infections and hepatitis b. ask your doctor if you ve been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you re prone to infections, or develop symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start simponi™ if you have an infection. [ female announcer ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi™. just one dose, once a month. hey, do you guys want to make some easter eggs? girls: yeah! okay, ready? we are going to dip on three. all: one, two, three. dip. wow, that one s pretty. ( laughter ) i m going to make mine for the easter bunny. yeah. it s the memories you make. dip in that one. that really stick. look at how beautiful. childhood is calling. we re back with one of the stars of nbc s drama trauma, centered around amy garcia, plays a tough rookie helicopter pilot. amy, good morning. good morning. good to have you here. good to be here. i have to show this. not only did i didn even start the interview yet and this is what she s giving me. how did this happen? this happened on set. uh-huh. i was doing a scene where my ex-military boyfriend gets in a fight and it was scripted that i just stand there. right. the cameras are rolling and i just got involved. i pulled one actor off of another and they loved it and they said keep doing it. and we did it 12 times and i didn t realize on the first take i broke my finger. so, by the end of those 12 takes, you were in a lot of pain, i can imagine. yes, and it was black and blue and swollen. at least with a team of first responders around you, you got immediate medical attention i would imagine. right. i started giving myself medical attention. i was like, i need a splint and if i could have some ibuprofen. you knew what you were talking about. how is this show different from other medical dramas we ve seen? it shoots in san francisco only so it s more like a film. on the embarcdadero, on the beach. it s action packed. very rare to have a medical show where you re hanging from a four-story crane inside a $2 million helicopter. it has action. such a sweet little thing when i see you here, yet your character is quite the opposite. you re an iraqi war vet, and you re tough when it comes to dealing with your co-star. yes. i love this role. i get to be, you know, smart, sexy, punch em, wear this flight suit. it s very rare for a latina to have this role where you re just this tough girl who gets to be in the boys club. good for you and congratulations. one of the few latinos in prime time. the true diversity of the cast. we love that. thank you. so nice to meet you, on the uninjured han catch an all-new episode of trauma at 9:00, 8:00 central time here on nbc. with kathie lee away, hoda welcomes a special co-host this morning. jason priestley from 90210. we ll catch up with him coming up in a bit. first, these messages. when i go for a jogpens e (woman 3) it actually happens to me when i sneeze (woman 4) it happens to me too (woman 5) sometimes it just happens (announcer) 1 in 3 women experience light bladder leakage, or. .lbl poise liners are specifically designed for lbl so they protect better than period only liners learn more at 1in3likeme.com love to see kids irits shine. superstar and mom, martina mcbride and sunnyd shine on sunny taste. sunny spirit. sunny brings out the best in kids. shine on sunny d find martina s shine cd in stores now. i make my efforts count. so i switched to the freestyle promise® program. a unique program that gives me. the support i need, free. free access to a certified diabetes educator. so i can ask about diet and the insulin i use. i got a free meter. and test strip discounts. so i can spend more on what i really want. i count on the freestyle promise® program. make it count for you! only the freestyle program gives you discounts, support, and more. enroll today. should we order panda blossom, panda moon. how about chinese at home with new wanchai ferry? you can make it in just 14 minutes mmmh, orange chicken. great. i didn t feel like going out anyway (announcer) wanchai ferry. restaurant quality chinese in your grocer s freezer let s go to last night s highlights. there s mom and dad cleaning up. and there s the meatloaf. yuck. look what sometimes happens with the ordinary bag. it slips, oh, bingo, it falls in. mom was mad. mom should have used glad forceflex withhe new stretchable drawstring that grips the can and stays in place. plus, it has the stretchable strength of forceflex. that s all today for glad tv. both: don t get mad get glad! that s all today for glad tv. 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! enjoy harry potter? oh, yeah. we ve got an inside look at universal resort s wizarding world of harry potter and kerry sanders. what are you looking at, buddy? we re inside honeyduke s. you ve read the books, scene the movies. you re all part of this. i got you some birdie botts. hope you don t going to the vomit. this is not me. this is the book. tastes like vomit. oh, he did. kids are going to love it, right? anyway, gruf read the books, you know what this is. you ll be able to walk in come down to zonko s joke shop, pick up your boxing telescope and basically the things you have experienced. doing a little math here, if you were 10 years old when the first book came out, you re 23 years old, which means you re getting ready in a couple of years to start reading the books to your kids. part of an extraordinary opportunity for kids and their teachers. ann, you know a lot about the extraordinary opportunity here. that s right, kerry. we ve got the wizarding world of harry potter that openhis is spring. for your kid s class, there could be a pretty fun detail. go to our website, todayshow.com. you may find out how your class could actually be chosen to go and see this. wonderful. that would be kind of cool. thank you to kerry sanders. thank you, kerry. is that train go iing anywhe? hogwart s express? just steam. to your imagination. you ask, we answer. inside look at our morning routine. after your local news and weather. are you ready? you taste foods you ve never tried. i want to bang on the drum all day you swim with animals you ve only seen in aquariums. and somewhere out on the high seas, you get your first water wedgie. i don t want to play i just want to bang on the drum all day [ ship horn blows ] 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! . 9:26 is the time. clouds break up overhead. tom has the forecast after the news. monday march 15th, 2010. police need your help finding a killer. a man was suffer for example upper body trauma and died a short dime later. they are not saying who the victim is. a major traffic change will start and traffic flows in both directions on 15th street between k and massachusetts avenue all day. all four lanes of 15 had been designated for northbound traffic during the aernoon rush until now. d dot said it s not necessary anymore. they believe the change should improve the traffic flow downtown. we will have the weather and the potomac river running high with the snow melt and bands of rain running across northern virginia. north eastern maryland is heading off to the southwest. we will stay cloudy the rest of the day, perhaps an additional shower or sprinkle and temperatures right now in the 40s. we will peak near 50 this afternoon. wins increasing out of the northwest and gusting to 25. how is the traffic? we will take a look along 395. very slow, but no beings reported. the outlook remains slow 95 to silver spring. more new, does it upset you that i m fat? no. slightly? no. it s never embarrassing? no. no, no. it s not like you re circus fat? yeah. oh, my gosh! actress kirstie alley has had well-documented battles with weight, as well as paparazzi and tabloids. also reviving her acting career, she will be here tomorrow on today to tell us how her efforts are going. meanwhile, just ahead, the latest in kitchen products, designed to make your life a whole lot easier. today s jenna wolfe is showing us what she found at the international home and house wares show in chicago and some of these devices are quite unusual and hopefully will make our lives easier. interesting. yeah. also ahead, the the most common question we get asked on a daily basis. for example, what time do you guys get up in the morning? we ll share our answers in a moment. i ll give you a look at my routine. and your leg. we all don t get up as early as al, i can tell you that. if you re sick of being a short order cook to match your family s different tastes this sounds familiar- you re lucky, these two sisters have a recipe that pleases the whole family. first let s check the weather. as we look ahead for today, we ll see sunshine out west, clouds in the pacific northwest, storm system moving slowly out of the northeast, bringing wet snow in new england, windy conditions as well, sunshine around the gulf. that low pressure system tomorrow in texas moves further east in the gulf. you ll look at windy and wet weather in the pacific northwest, sunny and mild in the southwest and on into southern california, sunny and cool. finallfinally in good morning. it s cloudy. light showers now across northern virginia into the panhandle of west virginia and off to the south and west. another band in north eastern maryland and eastern shore to the south and west. temperatures are still in the mid-and upper 40s and peak near 50. perhaps an additional shower. the winds will be gifting over 20 from time to time. sun returns tomorrow and and that s your latest weather. al, thank you. thank you. coming up next, the latest and greatest kitchen products coming to a store near you, right after this. i think it might be broken. or maybe it s trying to tell you something. yeah, but what could it be trying. oh, i left my 401(k) at my old job. and i left a jacket on the back of my door. but i think the line is talking about my 401(k). leave a 401(k) behind? roll it over with the company that s helping more people reach retirement than anyone else. when it comes to investing, never settle. fidelity investments. covergirl clean makeup. take off that mask. lose that heavy makeup look, and slip into lightweight coverage that really fits. clean makeup. easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. 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 a satisfying way to help you manage your weight. special k low-fat granola a taste of freedom. 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. eve how fast kids grow these days? and since 90% of bone strength is developed before adulthood. it s so important that they get enough calcium every day. that s why there s new danonino. danonino! unlike leading kids yogurts, danonino has twice the calcium of milk, ounce per ounce, with vitamin d. so it s power packed for healthy growth. and its rich creamy taste is. yummy! so they can start building strong bones today. for stronger bodies tomorrow. new danonino from dannon. power packed to help kids grow. why not? have you ever climbed a rock wall in the middle of the ocean? or tried something really wild? why not? it s all possible in the nation of why not. royal caribbean s floating nation where you are free to do anything you want. which may be nothing at all. royal caribbean international. call 1-800-royal caribbean or your professional travel agent today. this morning on today s home, great finds at the international home and housewares show in chicago, featuring exhibits from 43 different countries. today correspondent jenna wolfe is there with host of house smart, lou manfreddi. 2,300 square foot of products that i don t understand. lou, you were great. this is your background. you know this stuff. you picked out a couple of good we wanted to domesticate you. that s never going to happen. making juicers all about natural. not electric. no, all hand done. look, you put the cut oranges in there. you squeeze down. squeeze down. $24.99. this is bright colors. i love it. it s a great way to keep it natural and keep things fresh in the home. okay. great. we re going to leave that tre for one second because that was perfect. allergies is a 4.3 million kids have allergies in this country? it s amazing to me. a problem with a lot of those kids is that they can t eat the same things that their friends do. hamilton beach came out with a two-serving two bowls of ice cream, rice milk, coconut milk. if you have dairy allergies. whatever the allergies are. put the base in the freezer a few hours, put the ingredients in there. in less than six minutes, two bowls of ice cream, 30 bucks. kid goes to the ice cream store, kids with allergies walk around like this. i ve got my own thing. i ll plug it in. outdoor living and outdoor eating is the big trend. food storage. look nice when you re going there. this is from pinnacle. red set is $50. what does this do? put food in here. it will either keep it cold or warm for up to six hours. you can take it outside, do your thing? it looks really nice. nice colors. easy to keep clean. wash it there. it s not dishwasher safe but ease toy keep clean, stainless steel inside. i like this. this is cool. how many sandwiches? 45 billion sandwiches consumed every year. how many are soggy by the time you get to the place you re going? i feel like an infomercial. i know. my 13-year-old daughter hates a sandwich. put your wet food in there. flip this over. take the bread. clos it up in here. nothing gets soggy. this is a prototype. it will be under $20, available in the summer. this is the great way if you re trying to save money by not going out, especially the office or kid. your daughter can take this to school. sure. and trade it for a fruit roll-up. don t tell her that. that s what they do. i know. this, you love. i m excited about this. silicone, this is not only a trivet but it s a hot pad about $6, easy to keep clean. fun colors. beautiful colors. poacher is what you re excited about. it s this little silicone two-piece set. $7. put a little olive oil inside there. stick in the water. drop it in hot water and poach your eggs. the water is warm. slide it out. you re eating healthy and it s dishwasher safe. i can take this on the plane with me. i ll put this over here. salt and pepper, you re good to go. these are cute. fun thing, rock n roll. here is a little spatula, looks like a guitar. right. these are your sing along tongs. you never close your eyes i m not going to sing barry m manilow anymore. this is from a company that makes all recycled products, something for breast cancer awareness, to donate. great. dishwasher brushes, potato peelers. and they re fun. to make cooking in the kitchen fun all here. it may actually get me into the kitchen, which is mission accomplished, job well done. this is called a carrot peeler. you peel carrots with this. i get the sarcasm. international home and housewares shoand you displayed pretty neat products here. if you can get someone like me in the kitchen, you ve done your job. you got it. lou, thank you very much. back to you in new york. jenna and lou manfredini, thank you. a look at al s morning routine, and it is early, coming up right after this. hey bets, can i borrow a quarter? sure, still not dry? i m trying to shrink them. i lost weight and now some clothes are too big. how did you do it? simple stuff. eating right and i switched to whole grain. whole grain. [ female announcer ] people who eat more whole grain tend to have a healthier body weight. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains and 110 calories per serving. multigrain cheerios. try new chocolate cheerios with a touch of delicious chocolate taste in every bite. wellbeing. we re all striving for it. purina cat chow helps you nuture it in your cat. with a full family of excellent nutrition. and helpful resources. purina cat chow. share a better life. there s a full serving of vegetables in every manwich. announcer: surprise. every manwich has a full serving of wholesome vegetables. manwich. meat your vegetables. of wholesome vegetables. can you believe how fast kids grow these days? and since 90% of bone strength is developed before adulthood. it s so important that they get enough calcium every day. that s why there s new danoni. danonino! unlike leading kids yogurts, danonino has twice the calcium of milk, ounce per ounce, with vitamin d. so it s power packed for healthy growth. and its rich creamy taste is. yummy! so they can start building strong bones today. for stronger bodies tomorrow. new danonino from dannon. power packed to help kids grow. sir? finding everything okay? i work for a different insurance company. my auto policy s just getting a little too expensive. with progressive, you get the name your price option, so we build a policy to fit your budget. wow! the price gun. ah! wish we had this. we d just tell people what to pay. yeah, we re the only ones that do. i love your insurance! bill? tom? hey! it s an office party! the freedom to name your price. only from progressive. call or click today. natalie pops up at the end. hold on. wait for it. and there she is. i m like, hey. ask away, the questions you ask like how do you put up with ann and natalie? that s not the question. that s not the question. first up, the answer to the question i probably get asked more than all the others. right. i don t know if there s so so much questions. a lot of people go hey, willard. we are related. al is my son from a previous marriage. are you always this happy? no, basically i m an ax murderer. just killed a family of four before i came in. so, the question everybody always asks is, what time do you get up? i usually get up somewhere between what i think is 2:30 and 3:00. what? i had no idea that meredith got up at 2:30. 4:10. 4:10. my answer is you don t even want to know. i get up. i take care of my toilette. put on my running shorts and t-shirt, come downstairs and i fire up the treadmill. and i ve got to make calls to first the weather channel. hey, sherry, how are you doing? morning, al. find out what i m doing for the wake up with al show that starts at 6:00 am. and then i call our meteorologist at the today show. hi, megan. another big storm system that might impact the d.c. area. so, for the first weather, let s show the eastern half of the country. i think meredith has the most trouble getting up, getting started. i think meredith might be the least natural morning person. the only reason they may be right is that they ve been doing this job for how long? how old are they, that they ve been in this thing? so i finish up on the treadmill, towel off. i get a couple of ice packs. 55, people. it s coming for you. i go make kninicholas lunch. leila does not want daddy making lunch so i make nicky s lunch. then i ve got this green drink. it s this thing called fizio greens. it s kind of like a super powder. it looks like something like the runoff from moss and the garden that s been pureed and put into a glass. that s good eating. i m up so early even the weirdoes aren t up. you know, they ve gone to bed. what s the point of being strange? there s nobody out here to see it. you see a lot of people, you know, leaving hotels or leaving apartments clearly dressed for the festive iities of the eveni before. walk of shame? hmm. no, i guess i didn t realize that s what they were doing. sometimes we just go by and honk the horn at those people and wave to them. good morning, all. am i going to clash with mr. lauer today? good morning, everybody. we ve got another big weather weekend shaping up. and look who s back. all coming up tomorrow morning on wake up with al. good-bye, everybody. good-bye, good-bye! al roker, studio, please. al roker, studio, please. i wake up and i m up. i m a morning person. it s a very wholesome lifestyle. can you not go out and burn the candle at both ends when you have this job. this job makes you excited to come to work, even at that hour. i m off caffeine, so i don t. m high on life, that s what i like to say. high on life and the today sho show. and we re done. i m exhausted just thinking about what you do. i know, exactly. and after this broadcast, you ve got the rest of your day, which is not a slow day. i ve got a field trip i ve got to be to. yeah, be super daddy, too. at the museum of natural history. you should see under here. no, you don t want to see that. torro on today we ll find out what meredith will be doing because she will not be here at toda up next, how to please your family s picky eaters. first this is today on nbc. this morning on today s kitchen, hot chef, pleasing the entire family, even the pickiest of eaters. it s frustrating to prepare a meal only to have someone say i not eating that. sisters jewels and jill elmore are here to tackle that. their new book is called the family chef. good morning. good morning. i struggle with this every mealtime. i have a a 2-year-old and jill has a 2 1/2-year-old. you ve tested their recipes on them? every one of them. great. you re making lula kabobs, the adult variation as well as for our toddlers and infants? right. one way to do it this is really easy. we did some of these ingredients, onion, tomato paste and parsley, sirloin and spices. today we used ground sirloin but you could use lamb as well. okay. so we did that and we made grilled them? and made them into kabobs for the adults and then sort of made these little meatballs for kid. mini meatball. that s it. i m making a bulgar pilaf. kids usually go for bulgar? they do. it tastes like rice, same consistency and it s healthier, better for them. it s a great way to add nutrition to the meal. stir in some spinach. bulgar cooks pretty quickly, too, right? cooks quickly. stir in the spinach. let it finish cooking with the steam of the that you re cooking the bulgar in will cook the spinach. so it doesn t get completely too soft. exactly. back here? it gets you know, for you, i think, the bulgar can be sort of like this. if you want to chop up the spinach a little bit smaller, u can. that looks great really healthy meal, too. what do you like to serve this with? just a little tomato. we ve done something really simple because that s how we have to cook when we come home from work. we re tired. just like everybody else. exactly. this is a little cucumber sauce. is that like a yogurt base? love that. we put that on the lamb. or in this case ground sirloin. right. and these are just some onions and we put a spice called sumac to spice them up a little bit. definitely the adult version. this is the adult version. my kids, the onions, they would be like, no way. this is making it more simple for the kids? right, for kids. so, this is great because it s like a sandwich. little pita pocket. we ve made them into little meatballs. if the kids are in the kitchen, you sort of have them help make the meatballs. it s a little fun for them. and they re more likely to try it. more likely to try it. you can add a little bit of the y yogurt sauce to moisten it up. yogurt sauce, that sounds yummy. hi, guys. really quickly for the younger ones youngest set this is for a little baby. i might chop up the spinach a little smaller for this and mix this all together with the lamb th s just been cooked really well and really fine. and add a little bit of yogurt so it moistens it up for them. looks good. looks delicious, by the way. the book is called the family chef, jewels and jill elmore. we have a special guest. look who s here. i have a hunky co-host for me from 90210 are you ready for this train? the train wreck? are you ready? yes, i am. you are. we re going to have a lot of fun. jeff daniels is on. lot of terrific segments. we ve got you. jason priestley. subbing for kathie lee, who is away. have a great time. first, your local news and weather. 9:56 is area time. rain today and tom will have the forecast after the news. monday, march 15ing, 2010. a sustained off at a super mark is or, but the search for the man who triggered is-r is not. they held up the giant on route 1. he went to the store manager and demanded he open the safe. the manager ran and hid in a walk in cooler and locked the door and called police. they searched the store and found no one inside. let s check the forecast with tom here in the storm center. any sunshine. afraid not. tomorrow we should see it and on radar we have passing showers in northern virginia. another band here just passing to the south and west of washington to the southwest. moving in to baltimore towards washington. perhaps in about a half hour. another bnd of rain coming in. later on a few sprinkles and drizzle and a blustery wind and right no mid-and upper 40s and peak near 50. sun returns tomorrow. how s the traffic? 395 still backed up across the 14th street bridge. one more stop. over the american legion, but we see a delay behind the outer loops. we will check on that. more news, weather, and traffic in 25 [ male announcer ] now the best seat in the house is in your house. inact, with the fios total ticket, it can be in every room. unlike cable, only fios gives you a multi-room dvr that lets you record shows in one room and watch them in up to six other rooms. one dvr puts you in control of all your family entertainment. now you can get a multi-room dvr plus set top box free for six months when you sign up for fios tv, internet and phone. you ll get tv with twice as many very satisfied customers than cox, america s top-rated internet, and phone. get it all together for just $99.99 a month a great low price guaranteed for two years. it adds up to savings of $419 over two years. fios total ticket with a free dvr and set top box for six months makes every seat in your house the best seat. so why sit still for cable? call now. 1.877.717.fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v. this is beyond cable. this is fios. from nbc news, this is today with kathie lie lee gif. hey, this is march 15th. kathie lee is taking some time off. guess who is with me? jason priestley, from 90210 fame. just look at you. you re all grown up. well, you know, it happens. it happens. people grow up. but when they see your picture i can t believe you re pulling that out. i just want people to know at homeowalk around witthese, but some of the girls in the staff here got me to sign these in the vestibule outside and hoda, of course, grabbed one. i need mine personalized. i get asked a lot of questions when they knew you were going to be on. what s it like being you, kind of grown up? do people still come up and they talk about brandon and the whole thing? not so much anymore. i ve done so many other series since then and been in other movies and done other work. people come and talk to me about love monkey or true calling or other shows that i ve done as opposed to that show, but certainly that show was such a touchstone that people still talk to me about it. i ve got posters and everything. you never had any posters. i still think you re a hottie. now, two adorable cute hotties you have in your life. you ve got two kids. tell me ages and names. well, that s my daughter eva well, that s my wife naomi, the beautiful woman standing next to me. but the boy asleep, that s daschle. did you take to fatherhood very easily? there s dash. look at him. he s pretty cute, isn t he? look at the eyes. he s got your eyes. did fatherhood come easily to you? it did. i really like it. i highly recommend it. you do? i do. i recommend it to everybody who doesn t have kids yet. i say, you know, it s one of those things you have no frame of reference until you do it for yourself. my friends w had kids, i think they always tried to explain it to me, and i really didn t understand what they were talking about until i actually had kids myself. it really is one of those experiences that you have to do. so did you move into this do you do the whole twittering, the tweeting, the facebooking? i don t. i m not on facebook, because i anyone who wants to keep up with me, it s pretty easy. how do we do that? pick up us magazine, you know what i mean? yeah. i tweet, because i think it s an easy way to reach a lot of people and let them know what you were doing. when i was getting on the plain to come and fly here, i tweeted i was coming here to host the show with us. it was an easy way to disseminate that information. how was your flight in, by the way? if you re in the new york our surrounding areas, it rocked and rolled here. i think there were almost half a million people who lost power. the storms came so aggressively people were saying, why didn t they have a name like a hurricane? because they tore the place up? different people lost power. i know the airports were snarly. it was pretty bad. i was delayed about 2 1/2 hours. that was all the backup from the day before, because everything was canceled on saturday. the flights were just shut down, and it was bad for you. you know what? i found this cheap flight to puerto rico, i was going to spend one day in the sun and come back. i get in line a sunday, and think go, yeah, it s been delayed until tuesday. he says, no, no, tuesday, so thank you, bye-bye, move on. people started sprinting to other counters to get tickets elsewhere. i could not get a seat on a flight. i was on with a travel agent. she said, sprint to continental. i m running, they have you, the flight is going to houston. i said, where is this going? they go, texas. i called her and she said you wanted to go anywhere. i got you on a flight. i ran off that flight, i ended up getting in here close to 11:00 last night, but it was bad for the people in the northeast. the weather was really tough. and of course there in the caribbean, they don t care. nobody cares. tuesday, man. just relax, don t worry about it. we were talking about i ve got to talk about this, because it kind of got on mymev. on the front page of new york post, there s riehl, so she decided to go to gq to tell it. this is her and her child, and there s some other provocative pictures. yes. here s my question. she didn t get paid for this interview. why do you think she would do that? she s a documentarien. some of this stuff bugged me. with the toys. the stuff that bugged me so much about this is, what she says here s what she says about elizabeth. most of his mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of elizabeth. he s allowed himself to be pushed into a lot of things he wouldn t normally doing because of elizabeth s story line. the wrath of elizabeth is a mighty wrath. if you re going to tell your story, just don t trash the other woman. yeah, that s not cool. i mean, it must be hard, when you think about it, because i know you re bringing up kids. in this day and age when you re watching these people vgs tiger woods and this and that, you re trying to teach your kids to do the right thing. it s difficult. and so many people feel like it s okay to air so much dirty laundry in public these days. it s really hard to teach your kids to have a moral compass, you know, especially when everyone has a reality show. do you watch any of those? honestly, just one. what did i see on what was the one millionaire matchmaker ? it was on the airplane the other day. i was fascinated. that show is awesome. you know guilty little pleasures like that, it s kind of fascinating. i know. but these kardashians, it s like, really? a lot of people watch those. why do you think people watch those shows? i can t figure that out. i can t figure out why people are interested. the jersey shore that s a big one. that s huge. i known. but i think that i was reading an article in it was in new york times, and it was an article about the fact that the jersey shore kids are right to the time we re in, whereas the hills kids were right for the economic times we were living in, it was aspirational, everyone wanted to live in the hills, wanted all that money, but now, you know, the markets have all had the crap kicked out of them, and everyone is just trying to get by. it s all very jersey shore let s hang out and keep it close to home, and let s hang out with jay-wow. you know them, you know their names. not because i ve been watching them. busted. take a piece of chocolate. this is supposedly supposed to reduce stress. they say dark chocolate is supposed to so go ahead. let s go you ve got one, too? you re going to have to rip this out of my kung fu grip. i did have the poster and pillowcase. she had my pillowcase. doesn t that make you feel good? i also had new kids on the block so i swapped them out. i do have a fan question from amelia. this is heavy what made you stay with the sideburns so long and what made you finally shave them off? good question. very deep. you know, i was once brandon was committed to the sideburns, brandon had to stay with it. the minute i left 90210 i got rid of them. were you glad to see them go? you were done? well, you know, the sideburns had had their time framing my face. it was time i actually grew my sideburns back, back in the late 80s. it was time to i had had them for a long time. okay. we re going to talk more with this guy. we re also going to talk with jeff daniels. he is back, a agreed broadway show, gourd of carnage. look at jeff. look at him posing. we re going to talk to jeff right after this. vo: this season, your home can look like a picture in a magazine with the better homes and gardens spring line. and it s only at walmart. get unbeatable prices on the entire line of better homes and gardens furnishings. it s enough to spark anyone s imagination. the look you love costs less at walmart. vo: save money. live better. walmart. ever wonder how cheez-it bakes. so much real cheese in such small bites? baking complete! well, now you know. cheez-it. the big cheese. and the premise of broadway s god of carnage is something not uncommon, meeting other parents through your children. but in this play, the two couples are brought together, pitted against each other after the kids have a school-yard fight. jeff danie plays one of those parents. jeff is with us. how are you doing? we saw you in god of carnage. you ve played both roles, and if you haven t seen it, this is one of those run, don t walk, things because it s terrific. jim gandolfini played it a year ago. they came and said, do you want to flip roles, because jim is off doing whatever? jim and i are friends. i said, is that okay? he was very cool, very supportive. for me to kind of flip roles on broadway in the same production, it s rare. is it weird? really rare. that hardly ever happens. they do it in the west end in london occasionally, but hardly ever on broadway. as an actor, i want to do it to see if i can pull it off, but in a way it s like for the broadway history of it and for my kids, when i m 80, i can go, i played two roles. the first role started like this, you know. is it weird because you know his lines and their lines. early in the rehears always, flipped, and dylan baker who s playing alan, a cue would come up and i would twitch. the premise of this is so basic. two families are upset, because one kid hit the other kid. obviously when i heard the premise, i thought how can this turn into a broadway show? what is the magic of the four of you ontage that makes it work? yasmina wrote a wonderful comedy, andmatthew s direction is breakneck pace, so there s that. but when you have two sets of parents whose two 11-year-old boys got in a fight and the two sets of parents are there to meet and discuss to make sure this never happens again, if you ve got kids, that s a recipe for disaster. as soon as you start to criticize or parent my kid, the hair goes up, and i m going, let s talk about your kid. sure. and it really just goes from bad to worse. how do you parent? three kids. and you re from michigan, your kids are hockey players? i imagine they ve been in a couple fights and you ve been through thinks situations? yeah, i ve got two boys and a girl. the boys in particular went through travel hockey. you re in those stands with those parents, but my kids i mean, having done dumb and dumber my boys are put that in anytime you can. did i mention dumb and dumber ? i m out there and my boys are just trying to be, you know, normal guys playing hockey, and they get dumb and dumber this and you think you re cool. and i said here are the three way toss end a fight. what are the three ways? you have yourtick and you you say something, you know, nasty and just walk up. then you go from here to there, and see if you can get your fist to the back of their skull as quickly as possible. now, this is good television. and so all i m saying is the boys are going, okay, dad. so the next game, somebody dumb and dumber d them, and high pressure he got up. he had a helmet, a mask. he was all right. jeff, thank you so much. sure. and again god of carnage it s hot, high energy, it s terrific. thank you. thank you. come see us anytime. thanks. we re talking about stress after this. what is this? guy: it s a special paste i invented to replace socks. we re dipping our feet in it. wife: why? guy: because we can t find socks that shape to our feet. we re sick of it! son: sick of it! wife: that s really stupid. guy: that s the future. announcer: hanes makes better-fitting socks the whole family will love. guaranteed, or your money back. 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[ sighs ] whoo-hoo! this hair color is a washout. try nice n easy with color-blend technology. in 1 step, get a blend of 3 tones. highlights, lowlights, and shine. it makes a fresh, light-filled frame for your pretty face. nice n easy. your right color. sticking to a plan matters, espeally when it comes to your finances. that s why chase cards come with blueprint. free and only for chase customers. with finish it, you can take your balance and decide your monthly payment. or how many months you wanto take to p it off. the faster you pay it off, the more you ll save. and the more progress you ll see every month on your plan. chase what matters i have my blueprint. do you? start your plan today. chase.com/blueprint. you need listerine® whitening® vibrant white™ rinse. the mouthwash that gets teeth four times whiter than the leading toothpaste. and kills bad breath germs. listerine® whitening vibrant white™. we re back with today s woman and a lesson in how to stress less. feeling overwhelmed is no surprise when you ve got bills to pay and mouths to feed, let alone 100 other little things on your to-do list. but not all stress is bad stress. amy brightfield is here today. amy is a little stressed barks she ga-ga over this one. when i heard jason was going to be here, i thought i grew up watching 90210. hives are a direct result of stress? she s talking about you. yes, stress is a physical response you have to a special situation. it can be good stress. this is good stress. i want to be stressed by being on with jason priestley. how would you relieve that stress? take someeep breaths. that counteracts the physical response and laugh like we re doing, laughing actually counteracts a response. how about that? there are some situations that are stress much, you have to give a presentation, you want to walk in and ask for a raise. how do you manage that sort of work stress? actually, that s when stress can help you. they cause it you stress, and it actually helps you focus. sohat adrenaline starts going and it helps you focus better when you make that presentation. that s a situation when you take some breaths, make focus on your heart beating fast or imagine butterflies flying in. aisle the least stressed when eye feel almost apathetic. when i was looking for a job, i got rejected so many times, i didn t care, and the last guy hired me. i think you re over it. once you re no longer in knots. is stress cumulative sometimes in say jason has a stressful day today, and then tomorrow does it bleed into tomorrow? or does it go away? when you have long-term stress, you should act like you have a cold. treat yourself like you re sick. it is cumulative, it is a physical response, so you have to take relaxation seriously, make sure you get enough sleep. that s why a lot of people warrant to sleep in on the weekends or friday nights, i know my husband is just always beat on friday night. the stress and the going and going and going has caught up with you. finally you ve taken a moment to stop and realize the effect it s havingn you physically. is that why people drink so much on the weekends? well, and actually that s probably a bad thing to do, because actually drinking with worsen your body s reaction. one drink is okay, but a lot of alcohol really hampers your body ace ability to deal with the stress response that you re having. you know, also stress can make you filly ill. i have friends who they always have colds or are always sick. that can be a direct result of stress? when you re stressed, your body is pumping out more hormones like court i srtisol. and also it makes you achy. if you notice when you get stressed you are sometimes your shoulders go like this. so a good tip is straighten up, drop the shoulders, breathe in, make sure your posture is really good. if you re in traffic and you re really stressed because you re supposed to get there and scream, pretend, or just yell. does that relieve any stress? it s like laughing. it s something physical that sort of breaks up the breaks up the hormones going through your body. are you stressed now, amy? i feel okay. i m breathing. i m sitting up straight. i m laughing. if you come over and give me a hug, would it relieve it? oh! isn t that the cutest thing ever. and she laughed. now she s all red. look at her. we ll be back. 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[ female announcer ] there are embraces that make your heart race. embraces that speak volumes. and embraces you ll never forget. introducing venus embrace disposables, the only disposable razor with five blades completely surrounded by a ribbon of moisture. it s our closest shave for your closest moments. venus embrace. reveal the goddess in you. je weekend rain brings rising floodwaters. which areas are affected the most and when the rape is expected to stop. coming up on news 4 midday, police are looking for a killer in a popular arlington neighborhood. toyota speaks out about the prius and why they re having trouble figuring out we re back with today s buzz on this monday. the honey you see with me is not kathie lee. it s jason priestley, who s filling in while kathie lee enjoy sms vacation time. thanks for being here. thank you. andy cohen is host of bravo live. and jason called me and told me all the guys were wearing gray suits. we started talking about riehl hunter. shut it, lady. it was like watching bloggo. there was so much that was offensive to me in this article. what was the most offensive thing to you. her calling him johnny, johnny, johnny, and her saying he s found his truth, it s all good now. and let s keep pouncing on elizabeth edwards, how emasculating she is and how horrible she is is, because that will keplaying. so if she wasn t paid, why do it? that s a good question. she could have made a lot of money off a paid interview. have you ever been offered money to talk for an interview or sell photos, anything like that? no, no. well, maybe after today. i try not to do anything scandalous like that. very good. jeff was just it s hard to go out and do things, because there s people with cell phones and can tweet. it s like jeff said, everyone is a paparazzi now. now everyone s got a camera, a video camera. you re right. what about there s a new video, crazy, lady gaga and beyon beyonce. amazing telephone. the song gets in your head. 30 yrg it was barbara streisand and this is that plus 2,000. it s a bit of a jailhouse girl on girl fantasy crazy, there s some murder. people are talking about how thin lady gaga is. that s what s come out of this. there s a whole sequence where she s in a bikini and people are saying she s too thin, people are upset but how thin she is, but a great song. it was in the first 12 hours, it was downloaded by almost 1 million times. will this be one of many videos? i think it says to be continued. i think it slways to be continued with gaga. that s why we love her. do you think she can up it? every time she s out she she s wearing something weirder. can she keep it up? yes. fashion is fluid. tiger woods is in the hot seat, mocking him on all kinds of shows. southpark. let s roll the clip. i thought i could get away with whatever i wanted to. i felt that i had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. basically it s the premiere of season 14 of southpark. i like that? he likes that. i swear to god that s the real audio from the press conference. i think it is. that s fantastic. you know, the amazing thing is it s the 14th season premiere this week of southpark and they couldn t release details of the story line because they re still writing it. they remain so current and topical. for an animated show, that s next to impossible. you re right. they re so unexpected and weird and their take is so funny. i m excited. kate gosselin has been pounded on, because they say she s not taking care of her kids. now she s in people because mommy can t depend on jon. jon is wasting that stuff ain t free. that stuff costs. that s right. it definitely does. she says she s trying to provide for the family and the tabloids are following her and saying, well, she was home for a weekend and spent two hours at a tanning salon, and where were the kids? and so it s insane and hilarious. i want to know what s funny, dancing with the stars the reports are that kate is the one that s misbehaving and she s a diva. i thought it was going to be your former co-star shannon, who was running amok. what do you think, jason? i don t know. i don t know. how am i supposed to know? has shannon cleaned up her act? i don t know. see that s why he s out of the tabloids. we ve got to go. i have more questions. he doesn t know, right? keep it clean. look how we re going to check out of some of the worst drivers. special k protein shakes a truly great-tasting breakst shake. with 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, it s the creamy, delicious way to satisfy. your hunger to help you lose weight. so you can kick the tin can habit. try special k protein shakes today. 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[ female announcer ] now tide s bringing help to those affected by the recent earthquakes in haiti. by providing clean clothes and linens. you too can help by purchasing a tide vintage tee at tide.com. during february and march, all profits from tide vintage tee sales will be matched by tide up to $250,000 and donated to disaster relief in haiti. together, we can provide loads of hope. all right. with texting, tweeting and eating, it s no shock that multitasking behind the wheel has us steering clear of some pretty bad drivers out there. if you re wondering where you rank on the road, and you know who you are, you can compare yourself to the worst of the worst. the contestants on travel channel s reality ow america s worst driver. you do everything. i do it all. tell us the point. you go looking for the worst drivers in the country. we traveled around the country. the best way to see a city, we figure, is driving. by having our drivers be really bad, you get to see icons in the city two or three times as they get lost. i want to see the empire state building, there it is again. how do you get nominees? friends and families nominate. we had husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. we had twins that nominated you would think they drive the same? o. no. and went to seattle, san francisco, places like that. what city had the worst drivers in the country? the amazing thing is they re all equally bad. you would think in certain cities they would be worst, but no. different types of bad driving, but all bad. this guy s a real professional driver. professional race driver. yes, yes. no, no. men? women? careful. i m just saying i m asking a question. equally bad drivers. like it. however, women are much worse in the passenger seat just nagging. i m sorry, hoda. we ve got a little competition. why wouldn t we? we have tricycles. we are going to find today s worst driver. between me and jason? i think there s a picture of me in my race car. do they have a picture of something you raced at one point in your career? is that you? wow, cool. there s my there s one of my race cars. are there any pictures? me? i don t think so. are you qualified to race there? i don t think so. i don t want to flash anybody. are you talking smack? he doesn t know how i like to win. ladies and gentlemen, are you ready? there are eggs, don t knock anything off. and police don t hit each other. every accident will cost you a point. we re starting with 20 and working our way do yo are you ready? on your mark, get set, go. and hoda s already off-course. hold on. you ve got to put your hat on. don t hit me, don t hit me. my legs are longer. that s just not fair. oh, baby! wait. don t even wait. as they race towa the checkers flag wait, who got it. who got it? it looks like a tie. what? let s look at the eggs. i only dropped one egg. we have one egg here. i have to go to e judges. i see an egg down here. we have broken eggs. jason wins. wait. there are four eggs out here. i won! the official winner, jason. as the best of the worst, we would like to present you with today s worst driver s mistake. what do i get? hoda, you ll be riding home on a bicycle. congratulations. see what happens when you call our show? alonzo, the best of lucky your show. you re so sweet. up next, arming your kids with the skills these need to drive through life. their bodies. their brains are 75% water. their muscles are 73% water. their lungs are 80% water. want to grow a healthier, happier family? water daily. embrace the pure life. nestle pure life. ever wonder how cheez-it bakes. so much real cheese in such small bites? baking complete! well, now you know. cheez-it. the big cheese. well, now you know. vo: this season, your home can look like a picture in a magazine with the better homes and gardens spring line. and it s only at walmart. get unbeatable prices on the entire line of better homes and gardens furnishings. it s enough to spark anyone s imagination. the look you love costs less at walmart. vo: save money. live better. walmt. your kids may have mastered today s technology, but are they plugged into the social skills they need to be both happy and successful in life? elizabeth shaw is executive editor of parenting. i like that you have tips. one of we were jus talking about is how to teach your child how to se, because it s not an easy think, as some of us know. i think you showed us how to do it very well. thank you. you know i hate losing, but go on. for little kids, you can let them win a lot, pretty much through preschool. you want to model being a good loser. you can say, you beat my butt, but this was so fun, let s play again. what happens with your daughter. is she competitive? no, no, not too competitive, but you also have to teach them how to win with grace. i shook hoda s hand and congratulated her and said it was a good game, well played. exactly. let s play again, that was really fun. that s what it s all about. for older kids, they can do it, but they get focused on the prize. so you want to talk to them about, if they did lose, what was great about the game. people were cheering for you, you made a great hit. what about teach your kids to you call it be a joyner, to get involved with other kids. right. that is a skill we all need, whether you re grown together with a group of kids you may not normally choose at the playground and when you re an adult. when you re little kids, show them where their in it, a bunch of kids are on the playground, the little kid, hey, can i play? you don t want to talk to the whole group. point out the friendly-looking child, the kid who s looking and smiling, that s the kid to approach. kids like to do stuff on their own. it s not about being a joyner, so for older kids, you want to match them up with kids who are like them. a one on one playdate f they re shy, shy kids, kids do really well. what about what about fighting? it s a hard thing for kids to, you know, have a dispute, resolve it, figure it out. how do you teach kids? and at what age? if someone is being, in the case of teasing or something like that, so little kids, all about the rules. preschoolers, they know what s right and what s wrong. they re going to tell somebody. if you re that person, you ll say, wow, i m glad you came to talk to me. what if somebody was treating you that bad. that will teach them to identify empathy and want to cushion their friend from that. if you re talking to the kid being the bully, again you put the victim in their shoes. you can say, well, what if someone was calling you a bad name? how would that make you feel? you want to keep drilling that home. you say 5 years old is when certain kids should learn certain things, but when do you start drilling these kids of things with kids? i have a 4-year-old, and probably since 2 1/2. they may not get it, but you keep repeating it. you develop it according to the situation. if you have a schoolage kid and they go, somebody was getting bullied, i didn t know what to do, you break it down and give them strategies for next time. we ve got to scoot. thank you so much for the info. you re going to like this next segment. some fans want to come in and have a chat with you. we re going to give them a brush with greatness. [ male announcer ] now the best seat in the house is in your house. in fact, with the fios total ticket, it can be in every room. unlike cable, only fios gives you a multi-room dvr that lets you record shows in one room and watch them in up to six other rooms. no one will ever have to miss their favorite shows again. and now you can get a multi-room dvr plus set top box free for six months when you sign up for fios tv, internet and phone. you ll get tv with three times more very satisfied customers than comcast, america s top-rated internet, and phone. get it all together for just $99.99 a month a great low price guaranteed for two years. it adds up to savings of $419 over two years. fios total ticket is an awesome value that makes every seat in your house the best seat. so why sit still for cable? call now. 1.866.685.fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v. this is beyond cable. this is fios. all right. it s time for the moment that two people have been waiting for. we have a bunch of fans outside, all jason priestley fans, but we ll cherry pick two from the audience. grab two. who are they? you and you? we re going to run them in. run, run, we don t have much time. they are sprinting in. wrong door. here they come. they are two of your hot fans. they re going to come jogging through. come on, i love it. get in here. they re going to make it all the way in. leave your purse. giddyap. come on, come on. i love t. come on, come on. what s your name? brandy sigly. hi, brandy. and your name? i m mona. here s here. we used to watch you when we were a little younger. what questions do you have? my question was, what was the single greatest thing that you learned in your life? look at her, she s hyper ventilating. wow, i think patience. you know, when i was younger, i was very impatient, and i think that, you know, as i ve gotten older, i ve learned patience. what about you? i wanted to know, what are some of your favorite hobbies? my favorite hobby is cooking. what? actually, yeah. what do you cook? you name it, i cook it. really? . i love to cook. i do, too. what do you think? he s still hot. gorgeous. that s what we were thinking. that s what i used to look like when i was young and impatient. he has a couple gifts for you two ladies. very nice to meet you. a hug? come on. yay! thanks, guys. thank you so much. jason, you were so much fun today. thank you for helping us out. i ll take one, too. com on, girl. tomorrow we ll have some fun. stick around.