Transcripts For WRC Today 20100530 : vimarsana.com

good morning, everyone. welcome to today on a sunday. i m lester holt. i m jenna wolfe for three days bp dumped heavy mud an effort to stop the leak. we thought we saw a change in color. mostly looking at oil still coming out. on saturday president obama called this latest failure as enraging as it is heartbreak. officials estimate between 40 and 80 million gallons of oil have spilled into the gulf. sarah ferguson is back in the uk, a week after being caught on tape selling access to her ex-husband prince andrew and this week she will face the queen of daytime, oprah. we ll get more on the homecoming and why she chose to speak out. a bit later on, don t let his age fool you, he may be only 11 he s already won an emmy and catching hollywood s attention. wree meet the critic who has faced down actors and producers alike. he s very smart. i smoke to him upstairs and i sounded like and i die oat. he is so well spoken. he s a wonderful kid. we ll have fun with that. let s get the latest on the effort to cap the oil leak deep beneath the gulf of mexico. another huge disappointment. our chef environmental correspondent ann thompson flu high above the oil yesterday. she joins us now. reporter: good morning. from the white house to the boat slips here in venice marina there s great frustration over the fact that the top kill failed. top kill is the technique where they punched heavy drilling mud and junk using that infamous junk shot technique, through rubber balls and shredded tires and golf balls, they put it in the well to stop the flow of the oil. it didn t work. so this morning it looks increasingly like this well will gush well into the summer. after four days of heavy mud and junk shots to plug the well 5,000 feet deep top kill didn t produce the results the world wanted. we ve been unable to overcome the flow from the well so we now believe it s time to move on. reporter: what s next? bp will cut off a piece of the leaking pipe and place a small containment dome on the. in another attempt to keep this disaster from getting any worse. it should be able to capture most of the oil. this job should take approximately four days but it could take longer. reporter: four times a week doug get as bird s eye of bp s oil spill. you can see some sheen here. reporter: and the clean up effort. the bill so far $940 million and growing along with the damage. louisiana s few beaches are being cleaned but bp s chief operating officer concedes the company must do much better in the oil soaked marshes. we re putting a lot more of the control, a lot more of the authority and people much closer to where action is. reporter: bp is under attack and settles. he s received death threats. and bp is being blasted for bussing in workers for president obama s visit to grand isle. that was to minimize the impact. it s frustrating that people say those things. reporter: as this drags on, bp s credibility problems grow. after having vast l underestimated the size of the spill and the almost daily resetting. top kill timeline many wonder if bp is telling the truth about anything. this is now our thing we do. we re not used to having the world focused on what we do and it s not what we re good at. reporter: can you tell me you are telling the truth? we are. i m involved in this operation and i can tell you we re trying to be as open and as transparent as we can be. reporter: now, if there is any good news to report this morning, lester, it is that the relief well, the ultimate solution here is running ahead of schedule. the schedule i m being told is running ten days ahead of schedule. they were initially talking mid-summer. what do they figure is a reasonable timeline now? reporter: well, the absolutely best case scenario, and that is everything goes perfectly the relief well would be done by early august. you got to remember, lester, on tuesday hurricane season starts so every time there is a threat of a tropical storm or hurricane they are going to have to move people out from the spill site back to land for safety reasons and that could further delay this. so, best case scenario, early august. if we have hurricanes, if we have storms, that could extend it a month or two beyond that. there s nothing easy about any of this. ann thompson in louisiana for us. here s jenna. the president spend his memorial day weekend in chicago he said the top kill failure was enraging as it is heartbreaking. this as his administration s response to the oil spill faces continued scrutiny. david gregory is moderator of meet the press. good morning. reporter: good morning. interesting to watch how events played out yesterday. bp came out in a news conference and said top kill hasn t worked. we made the decision to try a new approach, then the president puts out a statement and he basically says rear admiral landry directed bp to launch a new procedure giving the impression the government is in charge and calling the shots. are we seeing the perception game at work? reporter: i think so. it s obvious that the white house wants to be as in control as possible and be perceived as running this operation. indeed the government has a lot of sway here. but the government can t exactly call the shots. it can direct the company but it s the company that has the expertise. i mean that may be really uncomfortable for people that don t under but the government doesn t that have expertise to be down at 5,000 feet under the water and direct how they plug this leak. they can put the pressure on the oil company but can t do it. it s quite certain here bp has said well this didn t work we can do this. and then here maybe all alternative. there s lots of questions about whether they are stalling, whether anything can be done until a relief well is in place but i think this is where we are. the president says in that statement it s as enraging as it is heartbreaking. he went to the gulf region last week. he empathized with those who live there. he s getting criticism. is he struggling to find the right tone? reporter: i think he is struggling. i think the white house is struggling and it s just a hard situation. it s not exactly clear what ought to be done. i mean, the politics of this is one thing. you can sit around and argue about whether the president gets it, whether he s connected enough to the american people, to those gulf coast residents who are frustrated. he certainly seems pretty frustrated and angry about all of this. but the administration has to think many layers deep on this. the first thing is plugging the leak and then there s all the accountability and the clean up and the coordination and then how you prevent a disaster from happening again. this has to unfold in stages. everybody understands nobody will look good unless this hole gets plugged. ninthing quote, david brinkley said the president needs a bull horn referring to when george w. bush was on the pile of rubble. he said the initial white house reaction has been a lot of lawyering up. i know the white house would disagree but is the white house concerned that that kind of criticism is beginning to mount he s actually being compared to president bush s hanlibe handli crises? reporter: there s differences. there s no bull horn moment to be had insofar as the president doesn t have a retaliation option here. you can get mad at bp and there s lots of things you can do to beat down the line or to the industry but there s no villain to strike here. that s the difficulty. there s only so tch government can do. you re in 5,000 feet of water. a company that has all the expertise of plugging the leak is frankly going out at an ad hoc way. there s lots of time for accountability and recrimination. at this point you want to manage an unfolding disaster. nobody looks good. i think the best, in the view of the white house is, the best the president can do is convey anger and be as organized as possible to try to keep the pressure on bp. david gregory we ll see you a bit later on meet the press. thanks very much. now i promise here s jenna. i m going to toss it over to pert alexander for a check of this morning s other top stories. good morning. we begin out west where good morning. i m meteorologist kim martucci. 74 degrees is where we are at right now. this is six degrees warmer than where we were at this time yesterday morning, and the winds are calm. a warm one is in the works, but we don t have to worry about showers and thunderstorms. we re going to put that thought to rest. instead, we re going to focus on some hot weather moving in, some upper 80s. you can see the 89 for warrenton and frederick. right here in the district, 88. little closer to the water, we ll be in the mid-80s today with lots of sunshine. now we ll send you back to scott in new york city. that s a look at your l. jenna, back to you. dennis hopper was a lot of things in hollywood, an actor, director, even an art collector but most of all he was known as hollywood s bad boy a character he spent his life perfecting. on saturday dennis hopper died at the age of 74 after a long battle with prostate cancer. we look back at his remarkable and at times controversial career. reporter: he was a motorcycle riding pot smoking hero of the counter culture, compliments to dennis hopper whose life was anything but an easy ride. born to be wild reporter: it was that iconic film that rocked him to stardom, entrenching him in the role of social outcast. whether in the jungles of vietnam or freeways of los angeles. hollywood always admired its bad boys, whether dennis hop engineer or jack nicoleson or robert evans. he certainly falls into that category. reporter: hopper s hero was another bad boy, james dean. he appeared with dean twice in rebel without a cause and giant. while dean was brooding, hopper was brass and defiant, a at any rate that landed him as many roles as it lost him. and he was brilliant creative guy who tended to be his own worst enemy. that s the key. reporter: born in 1936 in kansas a farm boy he saw his first movie at age 5. he was creative early. with art and photography soon become a passion. hopper s personal life was painted with torment. marriage after marriage and then there were the drugs. alcohol and drugs caused me to get bombed. i went insane, hearing voice, some classic stuff. he was essentially out of control and it create ad lot of problems for himself. reporter: it earned him a reputation for being stubborn and uncooperative yet his performances rarely disappoint. wish i could thereabout. reporter: he was nominated twice for an oscar but it wasn t until this march that hopper finally got his star on the hollywood walk of fame. this has been my home and schooling and i love all of you. reporter: he lived and died in two worlds as much a pariah as wonder boy. as much as a genius as a madman, all the makings of a true hollywood cult figure. and we re back after this. it s been one week since the royal scandal broke of sarah ferguson offering to sell access to her ex-husband prince andrew. the duchess of york returned home to britain yesterday and will appear oprah this week. robert, how are you? good morning. so fergie did say in a statement it s true my financial situation is under stress however that. excuse for a serious lapse in judgment. you ve known sarah ferguson for 15 years now. would you describe this as a lapse in judgment what she did? the problem with this story it seems that this is a bit of modus operandi, not one occasion. the reason why the story was important is because a real businessman had been contacted before this whole investigation was set up. i don t think this is one time only. it appears she has made a genuine error and everyone makes mistakes and we should probably move on at this moment. but at the same time there s a serious question about her finances. she s admitted privately to be at least $2 million in debt. that s a lot of money owing. what s been the reaction from britain and the people over there the people in britain are fairly forgiving. they ve had their fill of fergie over the years. she was unfairly criticized about her weight. she s had a rough ride from the british people over the years and the british press. she always seems to bounce back. she s back in britain this weekend where she s having a meeting with prince andrew. we just have to wait and see what happens. she promised to introduce this so-called businessman to prince andrew. look after me he ll look aufr. i can open up any door you want. could she open any door? i think to be fair to prince andrew, though he does a very good job, he s the special representative of trade and uk investment, he gets around pep flies around the world meet very influential people. can he open every single door? it s a claim too far. clearly if we believe prince andrew had no idea the whole scheme would have come crashing down. . scotland yard isn t planning a criminal investigation because no criminal law was broken. is embarrassment enough of a punishment for her do you believe at this point? i think so. i don t think we should be looking to persecute the woman. obviously there could be imcomplications with the british tax office because she did accept $40,000 in cash. that money has been returned to news in the world and my editor decided to donate all that known buy an ultrasound piece of equipment for helping young children. so there s some good coming out of this. we thank you so much for joining us. we ll be back right after this. still to come on today, natalie holloway her disappearance captivated the nation. now she s been missing for five years. her mother speaks out exclusively about her daughter and the fine line between hope and moving on. but first these messages. back to news 4 today. a live picture now. you re looking at the pentagon where motorcycles are gathering for a huge celebration today and rally for rolling thunder. we ll tell you about that in a second. first, 8:26 on this may 30th, i m aaron gilchrist. in the news for today, the amber alert triggered by dramatic voideo from a target hs been resolved. the family was moving to florida and stopped in virginia. the teen told police she didn t want to move. so family members forced her back into the van. police are searching for the man who attacked a girl near a metro station. he followed the 15-year-old as she left the greenbelt station friday evening and sexually assaulted her. the victim described her attacker as a heavy set hispanic man in his 30s. he had a dark reddish complexion and a tattoo of a snake on his left arm. live pictures here again from the actually, we ll tell but this rolling thunder rally coming up today. motorcycles gathering here outside the district to honor military men and women. rolling thunder holds its annual memorial day rally this weekend. you see them gathering there in the pentagon parking lot already in the thousands of them. they ll leave there about noon today and get to the lincoln memorial around 12:30. virginia congressman randy forbes will lead that way. weather up next. good morning. we have a warm weather trend as we head through the memorial day weekend. together highs today will reach into the upper 80s. and tomorrow we re looking at a high of 92 on the memorial day holiday. it is 74 right now. we have 73 in frederick. martinsburg is 66. it is 70 in la plata. this afternoon mostly sunny. no raindrops chasing awe long. that high of 88 is going to feel mighty toasty, especially with the humidity. back to aaron. thank you, kim. a full hour of local news and weather coming your way at 9:00. now back to the today show in new york. hi. welcome back to today on this sunday morning. may 30, 2010. a very excitable crowd on the plaza. having some fun with us this morning. we thank them for spending part of their holiday weekend with us. so nice to have everyone here. i m jenna wolfe with lester holt. it is memorial day weekend. got to work today and tomorrow. i don t need an unofficial start of summer when to kick back. you do it whenever you feel like it. this guy kicks back 365. i get a day off in august. we have a lot coming up. in fact we ll start on a serious note. five years since natalie holloway vanished on a trip to aruba with friend. a high cool graduation trip. her disappearance dominated headlines in 05. this morning we ll take a look back at the investigation, where we are now five years later with an exclusive chat with her mother beth who is with us. we ll switch gears a little bit, the summer movie season is here and the block busters are all out like toy story 3 or the a-team. coming up we re not only going to get the scoop on all of them, we ll get the scoop on all of them from a very unlikely source. he s only 11 years old this guy, too cool for school but an emmy winning movie critic. even roger ebert said this kid has a future. great story. then we ll look at ways to save money with coupons. you hear about people saving money. we meet the coupon mom who takes it to a different level. first, a beautiful weekend here in new york. let good morning. i m meteorologist kim martucci. high temperatures today will be rather warm compared to yesterday. 88 is the goal inside the beltway. martinsburg, 86. annapolis, 87. 89 in warrenton. if you re headed to the coast, ocean city is looking good as well. mostly sunny, 85. tomorrow will be 88. 65 is the water temperature. out on the bay, look for waves to be a foot or less, and the water temperature there 69. now we ll send you back to new york city. well. look for clouds and showers moving back into seattle and portland. that s a look at your weather. lester? five years ago alabama teenager natalie holloway went to aruba on a school trip with some friends and never returned. her story became every parents worst nightmare. her mother beth is whether us on this somber anniversary. we ll tubing her in a moment. first we get the latest on the story. reporter: it is hard to believe that five years have passed since relentless searchers spanned across this tiny windswept island vowing to reach every inch it. i m not leaving aruba without her. reporter: and still not a single trace of what happened to natalie holloway. excruciating for her family. it s going to be hard. reporter: on that warm last night of may 2005, natalie holloway and her friends celebrated at this local bar set to fly home in a matter of hours. but she left with a douutch boy paul van der sloot and his two friends. the boys took different stories. joran told investigators he left natalie holloway there asleep and went home. days would pass before police searched their homes or car. volunteer searchers tried everything from ground penetr e penetrating radar to rods. the boys were arrested, released, arrested and finally the case against them dropped. in the years followed, paul van der sloot has continued to give wildly differing accounts of what he says really happened. he has tearfully insisted he left natalie holloway on that beach and was caught on hidden camera telling a close friend she had a seizure and died on the beach. a friend helped put her body in the water. later he said it was at that lie. at one point he tried to get into the human trafficking business in thailand and told one reporter sold her to a man on the beach for $10,000. but in his latest crying version he claims natalie holloway fell off a balcony while dancing at a party that night. prosecutors call that completely unbelievable. and tell us they have no more leads. it seems the one thing anyone can say for sure now is that no one can say what happened to natalie holloway, a case murky with questions, but far from forgotten. beth holloway joins us. do you approach this date with a sense much dread? not that a specific date marks an event as far as i m concerned. i feel as if, you know, every day, you know, i make it my life s work every day to represent natalie holloway, to speak on behalf of her. i try not to get caught up in a specific mark. do you find yourself every day going over it, trying to think what did we miss, what clue could we still pursue? is there something more that could be done you know, when i look back on it, i feel like there, every step that want we took there was no stone unturned. we really, just really we did our due diligence and stayed with it and worked tirelessly to pursue every avenue. five years, it s hard to imagine that it s been that long. but i still feel that there is a potential for information, the real information to come. so, i mean i still have hope that at some point we ll have. the suspects were arrested, released, re-arrested. myriad claims he s made. when you listen to things he s said have you formed your own theory to what you think has happened to your daughter? no, i haven t. and we really try not to speculate. we go back to the known facts. what has been so interesting is over this five year period, paul van der sloot has always placed himself as the last person seeing natalie alive, whether it was the latest account of the balcony or swamp or the one before that with selling her alive and the one before that disposing her body toings. each time now he always places him with her. that s our one continuous thread. one of those theories where you say that s probably the truth? no. talk about the fine line between hope and acceptance of reality? the fine line for me between hope and acceptance of reality when this happened to natalie, my life was defined. i had two children, a marriage and a job. after her disappearance i lost everything. i lost that life. i lost those elements that defined my life. what i had to begin to do was to redefine my life. tragedy crates an opportunity to make a difference. i decided to make it my life s work and my hope now is that the education of others, i m about to launch the natalie holloway resource center, partnering with a new company, may day 360. so i look at the things now that are defining my life, that are redefining my life nuclear weapon continue to speak about young women and travel and all the things now that you ve become aware of. absolutely. i still do the presentations to high school and college students, and when i present to the students, before, you know, i could give them the personal safety and travel safety of messages but i really didn t feel like i had anything tangible to equip themselves with if something tragic should happen. when i go back, i go back to five years today and i found myself as a parent driving home on an out of state vacation, getting the call that all mothers and fathers dread from the moment children are born that my daughter is missing in a foreign country. i brought something that hits home of what happens. when i received that call i began to make 926 calls. these are the phone bills. this is my phone bill. a little over $5,000 phone bill in trying to find out who was in charge and who can help the family. and now with my new company may day 360, that s what we are. we are a global security assistance company. the natalie holloway resource center, the help that we can give families. so, i feel as if i know from my personal experience what happened and the challenges you ll face. you have been through an incredible journey and i know it s not over. difficult to reach this anniversary. beth, sthu beth, thank you so much. we ll take a break. we ll be back with more after this. 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[ female announcer ] when the more options you have,ght, the more likely you are to stay on track. that s why there are 9 delicious kinds of special k® cereal. because every girl could use a little variety. special k®, now in 9 delicious flavors. the summer he movie season is here. if you re trying to decide what films to watch, follow the viewers in upstate new york. many have turned to an unlikely source, an 11-year-old movie critic. robin hoodro robin hood . he is lights, camera jackson aka jackson murphy. he joins with us the summer movie blockbuster . good morning. good morning. before we get into all this, you re so much fun. i ve been shoohaving so much pu. i ve loved movies all my life. my father and i pitched the idea to a television station. i started for the local radio disney station. i pitched to it the tv station. i ve just been going from there. what makes a good movie and what makes a bad movie? a good story the up need a good story for a good family film. characters. memorable scene. goat script. a bad movie? bad movie, terrible story. so many films these days, they have characters that just get hit in the private parts. it s not funny people. it s not funny. i don t get why some kids think it s funny. not good quality entertainment. some of the older films even from a decade ago. let s get into some of these movies. i want to start with the a-team. it used to be a tv series. yes. it s got bradley cooper. looks like a good, fun action film. iron man 2 was good. i a saw prince of persia. how about karate kid accoun. jackie chance, i hated it back in january. while we re doing all this, roger ebert did a shout out to you on twitter. he s one of your mentor, heroes? yes. i started watching the show and sadly he had his operation and stuff. but this was so nice of him to do that. he s been one of my idols along with regis philbin all these years. to see that it was great? fantastic. you are too young to see rated r movies but it hasn t stopped you from getting enough acclaim that you won an emmy. it was shocking. very surprising. there s the picture. but i was very honored. you don t like that picture it is a great picture but there it is again. so, yeah, i was very blessed v-honored to have the award. let s get back to the movies. the third installment of toy story. oh, my goodness. good. the toy story films are classic family films. this one looks like it could be great, 3-d all new character, ken and barbie. toy story 3 could be one of the biggest grossing films and the best the year. do you stay away from cartoons. can adults like animated films if they have good quality stories which most of the movies have. they have jokes and entertainment that want kids and adults can enjoy. why are you so good at this? i don t know. it s great. do you remember the first movie you ever saw? first movie i ever saw? i was in my mother s womb when i saw mulan back in 1998. which you remember. at the drive ins i saw tarzan first movie i saw on a big screen either in theaters or at the drive ins. drive ins. i don t even remember drive ins. there s 800 left in the country. there s several where i live. i love going to the drive ins. mostly the pixar movies i like to see. what movie would you recommend don t seep it once, go see it seven, eight times. so many classic pixar films. do you love that the pixars his classics. not the black and whites. some of those classics, the pixars. shrek. i was disappointed by the third one. this one was a great ending to the series. do you love what you do i do. do you want to do this when you grow up i want to do something like this when i grow up. talk show host. i like regis philbin and the other talk shows and do my critic job hopefully balance it out. i want to do something. as we mentioned lester never calls in sick, if he ever does would you come back and join me again for a full hour? yes, i would. you re so fun to be with. how good was jackson? he was great. you were wonderful. thank you very, very much. check out his blog or something because maybe he ll analyze this. we ll be right back after this. thank you so much. here s how it works. you submit ideas. you vote for ideas, that you like the best. and each month, the ideas with the most votes get a pepsi refresh grant. the pepsi refresh project. it s happening now at refresheverything.com for only $2.50, get a western egg white muffin melt, made-to-your-order, and add a 16-oz. cup. of freshly brewed seattle s best coffee. try the new $2.50 breakfast combo at subway. this morning on today s consumer, extreme couponing,ing saving money on grocery ss not a luxury but a necessity. we have a slightly different take on couponing and some new and high-tech ways to save big. good morning. coupon clipping is way up. 30% this year. i got to admit i m not a coupon clipper but after a recent shopping trip with an expert i may just become a coupon convert. it s a familiar sight in your home? coupons come in and coupons go out. stop! wait until you here what stefanie nelson, aka the coupon mom has to say before you toss one more coupon into the waste bin. you should know your grocery store website like the back of your hand. in that one location, you ll find the store circular, online coupon, automatic savings programs, downloadable apps for your cell phone, but if you re anything like me, you need to see interest action. out of the house into the stores. your willing to take me shopping absolutely. let s save a ton of money. armed with the same shopping list our challenge prove to us that it s worth our time to use coupons. first up our local cvs pharmacy. she s already starting. who knew drug stores had coupons. this is the true test. all right, let s see how you did. okay. i think i m going to fail. let s see. my total 83.01. the coupon mom, $1. paid 83 you paid 1. we need a lesson. i m sticking with you. the next stop, shop rite for family groceries. some coupons are free. i ll get four. four absolutely free. a little dose of high-tech. click save to card. now it s on my loyalty card. i can bit. it will take it right off at the register. that s so hi-tech and so easy. san josy. finally the tale of the tape. you mean you went from $83 to $1.12 for all of this? that include tax. that s about strategic shopping. if you put the sales with the coupons it s possible to get free groceries. this is totally crazy. i don t want to be behind you but i m impressed. that seems too good to be true, all those groceries for a buck? it was stuff you could use. if you work the system can you really come out ahead. she must do this all the time she spend 80% of her time to get coupons out of her papers. she uses saving cards. you got to be organized. and you got to bring them with you to the supermarket. this is takenable. about 30 minutes a week. better than a part time job. thanks very much for that. we ll be right back. let s go back down to washington. david gregory is back to tell us what s coming up on meet the press this morning. reporter: all the breaking developments out of the gulf coast, the latest effort to stop nsaive leak has failed. we ll ask bp managing director and white house energy adviser carol browner. and then we debate arizona s immigration law. plus our political roundtable. all coming up this morning on meet the press. thanks. that will do it for us on a sunday. our thanks to peter alexander and scott williams. next weekend kate gosselin will talk about her latest adventure on television. and my sit down interview with carole burnett. so long, everybody and thanks for watching. a teenager reported as kidnapped has been found alive. this dramatic video showing the teen taken against her will. it triggered an amber alert. now the family says it was all a misunderstanding. a man sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl near a popular metro station. now police need your help catching a predator. welcome back to news 4 today. i m aaron gilchrist. i m kimberly suiters. all the news is just ahead. first a check of our forecast is meteorologist kim martucci. she s in for chuck bell this memorial day weekend. good morning. it s a good weekend. good morning. temperatures warming up. we have the sunshine to go along with it. let s get started and take a look around. we have temperatures already into the 70s as we take a look. there s the jeff.