Transcripts For WRC Today 20100701 : vimarsana.com

scrutiny in the 7-year-old s mysterious disappearance today, thursday, july 1st, mysterious disappearance today, thursday, july 1st, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on a thursday morning, i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. the texas coast may have avoided a direct hit by alex, but this morning forecasters are warning of the potential of a lot more tornadoes, dangerous flooding, as that storm now moves inland. alex made landfall late wednesday night about 100 miles south of brownsville as a category 2 with winds over 100 miles per hour. the strongest hurricane in the atlantic since 1966. where is it headed now? how much rain could folks in texas expect? we ll have much more straight ahead. also ahead, new details in the case of those alleged russian spies and their secret lives here in the u.s., including 28-year-old anna chapman, and the unsuspecting contact she was apparently making while posing as a new york party girl. plus three simple things you can learn from cheap skates that could potentially save you thousands of dollars a year. but we re going to begin with alex slamming ashore, spawning tornadoes in texas, and pushing oil from that leak in the gulf further inland. we have three reports beginning with the weather channel s stephanie abrams. she is in south padre island for us in texas. good morning to you, stephanie. good morning, meredith. the causeway bridge had the highest wind gust of 66 miles per hour in this vicinity. it s still closed. texas d.o.t. will be inspecting that bridge between 6:00 and 7:00 this morning. they expect it to open just after they inspect it. they don t think there will be any issues. texas d.o.t. also has 340 people out looking for flooding and debris on the roads, and speaking of flooding, highway 100 was impassable during the storm, but fortunately, the floodwaters have receded. we have our next high tide at 8:40 this morning. so we could see more washover. early this morning. meredith what we re hoping is that some of that water that is coming up will take away some of this debris. mounds of it littering the beaches as far as the eye can see. stephanie, you know that alex has been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane. is there concern that it could possibly regain strength? absolutely not. because what it needs is that warm water in order for itself to strengthen. but now that it s over land, and it s raining itself out, it brought record rainfall. the wettest june day in both mcallen and also brownsville. four to six inches widespread. up to ten inches estimated. and meredith, we are still under a flood watch here as we could see another four to six inches in this area through the afternoon hours. all right. keep us posted, i m sure. stephanie abrams, thank you very much. al s upstairs with more on the storm. we re getting all that rain. where is it headed next? it is moving on inland in to mexico. it is about 160 miles south of brownsville, texas. just barely a category 1 storm with 80-mile-per-hour winds. moving west, picking up steam, moving west at 12 miles per hour. as stephanie mentioned, they re under a flood watch. we ve got coastal flood warnings from central texas all the way to galveston. we ve got coastal flood advisories into louisiana, and flood watches, as well, into parts of southern mississippi. here s what we expect as far as the rainfall is concerned. over the next 24 hours, anywhere from 5 to 7 inches of rain from corpus christi to galveston. elsewhere, we re basically looking at about 3 to 5 inches of rain, so that s why we have the flood watches up, ground s already saturated. the rain has nowhere to go. again, we can t rule out the threat, still, of an isolated tornado or two, especially later on this afternoon. matt? all right, al, thanks very much. we ll see you again in a couple of minutes. the dozens of oil cleanup vessels sidelined by the ripple effects from the storm are expected to get back to work today, as the disaster in the gulf is expected to surpass the 140 million gallon mark. nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson is in venice, louisiana. anne, good morning to you. good morning, matt. well, they re going to try to get back to work together but things don t look very good for that, as the storm has already cost cleanup workers here two days of efforts. and it looks like it could cost them a lot more. as one coast guard official said, we are being held hostage by the weather. yesterday, they had to pull in all 510 skimmers off the waters because the seas are just too rough to get any kind of work done. and then, out at the spill site a lightning strike shut down the discoverer enterprise, one of the ships that collects oil. about 15,000 barrels a day. a lightning strike shut down that ship for about three hours. now, there is a little good news here. the epa announced its results of its first round of tests of dispersants, and it tasted eight kinds of dispersants, and it found that they were all equally toxic, but, they were all equally less toxic than the oil. including the controversial core exit 9500 which is what bp has used throughout the crisis, spraying about 1 million gallons to break up the oil. again, we are under a coastal flood watch here. rain is expected all day and that s going to hamper the cleanup effort. matt? all right, anne thompson. thank you very much from venice, louisiana. it s now six minutes after the hour. once again, here s meredith. 34ris in portland, oregon, are reopening an investigation into a massage therapist s claims that former vice president al gore made unwanted sexual advances toward her during a massage four years ago. nbc s peter alexander has the latest. peter, good morning. meredith, good morning to you. police will not say why they have reopened this case from an alleged incident that had said to have taken place in 2006. in the past, they said there was not enough evidence to move forward. so important to note right now, no charges have been filed against the former vice president. his spokesperson told nbc news late wednesday mr. gore unequivocally and emphatically denies the accusation. this is the woman making the explosive allegations, 54-year-old molly haggerty, speaking out in the national enquirer. haggerty claims former vice president al gore made unwanted sexual advances during a massage appointment at this upscale portland, oregon, hotel, on october 24th, 2006. gore was in portland to deliver a speech on climate change. portland police say haggerty canceled several appointments with detectives in 2006. but three years later, in january 2009, she finally came forward to police, speaking in an interview that was recorded on tape. again, he approached me and he grabbed me, and gave me a big tongue kiss. reporter: in the 73-page, 2009 police report, the alleged victim claims gore pinned her down on a bed. she told authorities she feared there would be consequences if she didn t cooperate. i finally told him, i said, you re being a crazed sex poodle, hoping that he d realize how weird he was going, yet he persisted. reporter: three months after the alleged incident, hagerty s lawyer told police his client wouldn t pursue the case. and instead wanted to file a civil suit. in this enquirer hagerty is photographed with what she claims is evidence in the case, clothing she says she wore the night in question. a spokeswoman for the former vice president tells nbc news, further investigation into this matter will only benefit mr. gore. the gores cannot comment on every defamatory, millions leading and inaccurate story generated by tabloids. mr. gore unequivocally and emphatically denied this accusation when he first learned of its existence three years ago. he stands by that denial. it s another unlikely headline for one of america s most famous families. following al and tipper gore s announcement last month that they were separating after 40 years of marriage. the national enquirer recently reported that hagerty s lawyer was offering to sell her story for $1 million. but late wednesday night the tabloid told nbc news, while it practices checkbook journalism, the enquirer could not confirm or deny if any money changed hands for molly hagerty s story. also important to note that nbc news tried without success to reach molly hagerty. once again, no charges have been filed against the former vice president, al gore, and police in portland will not, meredith, elaborate on exactly why they have reopened this investigation. all right, peter alexander, thank you very much. dan abrams is nbc s chief legal analyst. dan, good morning to you. good morning, meredith. so this alleged attack occurred in 2006. she goes to police and you heard her report there in 2009, they close the case, they say they have insufficient evidence. so why now reopen it? it s hard to figure out exactly what they might have now. meaning in this type of case, it s corroborating evidence that becomes the key. which is what did she tell other people at the time? what else does she have that could back up her claim? and based on the very specifics of this allegation, the police report, it s hard to imagine what she has that s new, or what they ve seen that s new. but do you think it s triggered by the national enquirer piece that came out yesterday? sure. when they talk about the pants that she supposedly has that might have a stain on them and a friend she called right afterwards? yeah, i would think that that is why they re reopening this. but, again, based on this type of allegation, even if they have that sort of evidence, you would think, a, they might have had it in 2009, right? when they re questioning her, what do you have to back this up, et cetera? it s just hard to believe that now they have more evidence. remember, the longer you get away from the time something happened, the harder a case is, both to investigate and prove. memories fade. evidence disappears. et cetera. so you generally, it makes it harder, as you get further away from the time. in the paper, the enquirer will not say whether or not they paid her for her story but they did say in the past the lawyer offered to sell the story for $1 million. how much will that possibly hurt her credibility, if that is, in fact, the case? a lot. the fact that there s discussion of the civil lawsuit, instead of criminal. the fact that back in 2006. right. allegations, allegations of payoffs, et cetera, that hurts her credibility a lot. both, i think, with the investigators, and in the court of public opinion. and the fact that she didn t speak to the investigators until 2009, is that common in a sexual assault case? it can be, yes. people can be reluctant to come forward in sexual assault cases. but, the combination of the fact that she waited until 2009, the fact that the authorities then felt that they had insufficient evidence at that time, and now this reopening of the case, does lead you to have questions as to why? what is it that they think they might have that would lead them to reopen this case? now, again, reopening an investigation, let s not overstate that. that doesn t necessarily mean that they re looking at the whole case again, and that they think that there could be something that happened. it literally could be something very procedural where they say look, we ve seen some new things we haven t seen before, as a relt we re going to take another look at it. but i think it s likely that this investigation is going to open and close without any charges again. all right, dan abrams, thank you very much. all right. and you re going to be back in our next half hour to talk about the kyron horman case as well. let s get a check of the rest of the top stories. ann curry is back at her post at the news desk. good morning to you. missed you. great to be back. good morning. high pressure circulating over michigan right now is pumping a fresh northwest breeze, like it did yesterday, continuing to bring us lower humidity and cooler temperatures in place today and into tomorrow. right now, 65 in washington. low 60s prince georges count pi. near 60 montgomery, arlington, fair fex. 50s to the west. 40s in the mountains, highs near 80, sunshine, low humidity. hotter saturday, more humid and and that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. the so-called tanning tax, one of the provisions in the new federal health care law, goes into effect today. while it could generate some $2.7 billion in the next ten years, it has some tanning salon users seeing red. nbc s kelly o donnell is on capitol hill with more on that. kelly, good morning to you. good morning, matt. most people have never even heard of this tax. it was just a tiny section in that more than 1,000-page health care reform law. but if you visit an indoor tanning salon, you ll pay it. starting today, you ll spend more it s completely unfair. reporter: to spend those five or ten minutes under the lamps. personally, i don t believe in taxing behavior. reporter: but that is the idea. living in the bronze age, an obsession with the perfect tan. for sun lovers. real, and fictional. who feel the burn all the while knowing skin cancer is on the rise. but you need sunblock down here. no, you gotta use oil. reporter: while you can t put a tax on the sun, the so-called safe bake is another story. 28 million tanning salon customers must now fork over an extra 10% because the government says indoor tanning drives up medical costs. i don t think it s going to discourage people from doing it. yeah, of course, i m worried about losing business. reporter: about 19,000 tanning salon owners are now required to raise prices under the health care reform law. much like taxes on cigarettes are intended to curb smoking. advocates say the 10% tax could reduce indoor tanning. here s a behavior that directly raises the cost of health care by increasing skin cancer. so it s appropriate that perhaps some of that cost is offset by this tax. reporter: and there s a new public service campaign, aimed at young women. doctors say the deadliest skin cancer, melanoma, is up sharply in women under 30. when jamie was a teenager, she would spend her lunch hours going to the tanning salons. reporter: some customers say they accept the health risks, and don t want the tax. they can also go to the extreme and have police on the beaches walking by and making sure you have your suntan lotion on and make sure it s spf 30 so you don t get skin cancer. reporter: and the tanning association say they want people to see this as a women s issue, because most customers, and even most salon owners, are women, so they d be hit harder with the tax. but backers here in congress say that extra money will help defray the cost of new services and new programs in the health care reform law. matt? all right, kelly o donnell on capitol hill. kelly, thanks very much. just ahead, why is kyron horman s stepmother hired a prominent defense attorney? we ll have new details on that and the 911 calls placed from inside the horman home. i was going to say, i was thrilled when i saw that video of you at fenway park the other day with your son jack. i have to say, first of all thanks to the red sox people. they could not have been nicer. i wanted my son, we re baseball fans. may not be red sox fans, but i wanted him to see one of the great parks in all of baseball. the seats were terrible, though. every time big papi used the rosin bag, i got covered in the dust. how do you, a yankee fan, get those seats? and i, a red sox fan, am way up in the bleachers? i made a very smart call. one very smart call. we can talk after the show. all right, we will. just ahead, new details on the femme fatale in the russian spy case. 28-year-old anna chapman and her lavish lifestyle. plus what it s like to raise an 18-month-old girl. cone on, kiddo, let s go. hold on a second. come on up here, where your brothers sit. wow! chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy, with a 100,000 mile, powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably - not that it always has to. now, get 0% apr for 60 months on a 2010 traverse with an average finance savings of around fifty four hundred dollars. see your local chevy dealer. 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[ female announcer ] depression hurts. cymbalta can help. with many symptoms of depression. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens, you have unusual changes in behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. ask your doctor about cymbalta. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. depression hurts. cymbalta can help. 7:26 is our time 63 degrees. good morning, i m joe krebs, thursday 1st day of july. one person is dead after an accident in the 4900 block of cherry hill road and college park. two vehicles collided head-on on a curve, a truck burst into flames upon impact. three other people were seriously injured. a stretch of cherry hill road was closed for several hours and opens up two hours ago. we are going to take a break and come back and look at weather and traffic. [ male announcer ] your tv is starting to feel nervous. it heard what happened to the vcr and the cassette player. and the answering machine. it knows what happens to obsolete technology around here. what you need to help your tv understand is it s not the one that s obsolete. it s the cable technology that s obsolete and fios is the one making it obsolete. it s time for fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities visit verizon.com/fios. at 800-974-6006 tty/v. good morning, low humidity with us. fresh and cool start 1st day of july. temperatures mid 60 in washington. near 60 in the suburbs. many rural areas in the 50s. highs here 80s with sun. low humidity in place saturday, warmer. hot somewhere more humid for the further of july. take a live look. interloop of the bellway jammed. earlier accident on 66 at the belt away has been cleared. but there may be another issue. we re checking on that. 270 slowdown near rockville. get your holiday weekend started with news4 day, tune in 7:30 now on a thursday morning. it s the 1st of july, 2010. about 64 degrees. big change from earlier in the week. we are going to heat things up tomorrow when maroon 5 takes to our summer concert stage for a live show in the 8:30 half hour. if you re here, come on down. it will be a great show. inside studio 1a i m matt lauer alongside meredith vieira. just ahead an important warning for parents as we enter a long holiday weekend. that s right. 70 children have drowned since memorial day alone. and with a lot of families getting ready to head to pools and beaches for the fourth, there s a new safety campaign you need to know about. also ahead, she s accused russian spy living as a party girl here in new york city. a case that has catapulted anna chapman into an internet sensation. we re going to get the latest on her arrest and that kind of wild story just ahead. totally wild. plus women can now have children much later in life, even after menopause. but just how safe is it for both mother and child? we re going to delve into that coming up. and also hear from the world s oldest mom, who is raising her first child at the age of 71. all right. let s begin this half hour with serious news. terri horman, stepmother of 7-year-old kyron horman and the last family member to see him before his disappearance, has now reportedly hired a prominent defense attorney. miguel almaguer is in portland, oregon, with the latest on this. miguel, good morning to you. matt, good morning. terri horman hasn t made any public statements, and while she s under increased scrutiny, a high profile attorney has confirmed to a local newspaper he is representing the stepmother. although he offered no comment, prominent criminal defense attorney steven house was seen in a car with terri horman and over an hour later, captured driving away. the road that leads to the home terri shired with kyron, the missing 7-year-old, is both secluded and private. much like the situation the stepmother now finds herself in. kyron s father kaine has filed for divorce and moved their 1-year-old daughter out of their home. this as detectives are said to have given terri at least two polygraph tests as terri was pressured by both family and investigators, people magazine was inside kyron s home just before his father and stepmother split. an atmosphere of both angst and anger. when terri walked in to the room, and into the house, the father, he was still continuing the interview, and they really did not speak and so the reporter could feel that, you know, maybe something, you know, was wrong. reporter: something was also wrong after the people magazine interview. on saturday, the day kaine horman and his daughter moved out, two 911 calls were made from the horman home. although investigators refuse to release details, we now know the first call was for a physical threat, and the second made hours later, was for a custody issue. terri horman, who helped raise kyron, may not be speaking publicly, but criminal profilers say the new family dynamic speaks volumes. here we see a husband and wife split apart, a man running out the door with the child. he really believes at this point that his wife is involved with the disappearance of his son. reporter: detectives have never named terri horman as a suspect in this case. but investigators put her picture with kyron s on a flyer distributed to generate new leads. and now it appears a step mom who once stood in between kyron s biological parents is now clearly on the outside. we believe her father and her mom, they re at home with her, and some friends will come to see her. but she s pretty much isolated. her husband has left. she doesn t have a daughter. someone she loves very much. and she s right now, essentially by herself. reporter: terri horman may be alone, but this morning, she s in the middle of widespread speculation. david house has represented an nba basketball player in the past, and also taken on previous clients before, and while he s highly regarded in this area, neither he or terri horman are speaking this morning. matt? all right, miguel almaguer in portland for us this morning. miguel, thanks very much. dan abrams back now. he s our chief legal analyst. dan, good morning again. we should say right off the bat, just because someone hires an attorney, a defense attorney, especially considering she s been asked to take polygraphs, she was the last family member to see this young boy before his disappearance, that s not an admission of guilt. she should have had a lawyer a long time ago. i mean the fact that she s just getting a lawyer now to me is surprising. put the fact that she s allegedly taken polygraph tests, the fact that people are talking about her as a possible suspect, her father has even said he thought there was a 50/50 chance she d be arrested, of course she needs a lawyer. here s one thing that we, you know, we have to talk about. a restraining order against her has been granted in this case. you don t go to kmart to get a restraining order, you go to a judge. so the judge had to have probable cause to issue that? it means that there s something else out there that we as the public don t know yet. that the husband knows about. that the court knows about. and that s led this court to say, not only does she have to stay away from him, but she can t be near their child, as well. and i think that s really important to think about. although doesn t necessarily mean she ll get arrested in connection with this case. there s something else we don t know. this young boy, kyron, has been missing for about a month now. so obviously the stress level within that family has got to be huge, as it would be in any family. so, does it strike you, when the person from people magazine, who was in that home, couple of days before the divorce filing, says there was obvious tension, should are is it possible we read too much into that? look, we also know that there were 911 calls made from the house on saturday. a couple days this is a tense situation between a husband and a wife. that s right. there s no question that there s tension in the household. but, again, the restraining order, i think, adds something to that. so it s not just husband angry at wife. husband worried about wife. it s literally something where there s a concern for the physical safety of their child. right. again, the division in this family, the unified front, has been broken. whether it s been broken by the police investigators or something else, the investigators now use that to their advantage, don t they? oh, no question. and i think that it s likely the investigators are giving the family more, or as much information, as they re giving back. because, remember, it s the investigators who are going to determine what happened here. the family may have a thought about it, a position on it, a feeling about it. but ultimately the investigators are going to be the one who make the decision, do we move forward with an arrest? so if, in fact, she has hired, terri horman has hired this prominent defense attorney steven house, he s a guy on his website i think it says he s a champion of unpopular causes, what does he have to do first in this case? first of all it cuts both ways when you hire a high profile lawyer like that. on the one hand it s someone who knows how to deal with the media attention, et cetera, on the other hand you get sort of lumped in with other clients that this person has had. some of them, as you point out, unpopular. some of them portland trail blazers, et cetera. but one of the most important things i think he wants to do is try not to get her vilified in the court of public opinion. so he s going to focus a lot on what information is released. what information isn t released. trying to figure out exactly what the investigators have, because he doesn t want to be blindsided on this. but he also wants to make sure that the community doesn t start galvanizing together against her at this early time. all right, dan, thanks, as always. appreciate it. it s 7:38. let s get a check of the weather now from al. thank you very much, mr. lawymr. mr. lauer. got some nice friends here. where are you from? ohio. what part? columbus. all right, very nice, all right. let s check your weather, shall we, see what we ve got going on? afternoon temperatures looking pretty good. 80s and 90s down through florida. we ve got cooler conditions along the gulf because of the rain, with of course, alex. 90s to 100s southwest into the plains. risk of strong storms there in the central plains. clouds in the pacific northwest. showers in extreme northern new england, and of course with alex moving onshore into mexico, we ve got wet weather all along the gulf coast. and don t forget, whether you got a hurricane out there or anything, check your weather any time of the day or night, weather channel on cable, weather.com online. meredith? al, thank you. and now to new details in that alleged russian spy scandal. nine of the suspects are scheduled to appear in court today, as we learn more about the people arrested in the case. nbc s andrea mitchell has the latest. good morning, andrea. reporter: good morning, meredith. intelligence experts are hard-pressed here to figure out just what the russians were thinking. sending ten suspected spies to live under deep cover here, looking like average americans, all except one, anna chapman, who was anything but average. she was a new york party girl, and now an internet sensation. 28-year-old anna chapman, seductive, describing herself as the founder of an online real estate firm. i watched this business purely because i wanted to help someone. reporter: the fbi says chapman was actually working for russian intelligence. at a starbucks in midtown manhattan or a barnes & noble downtown setting up a closed wireless network on her laptop to pass messages to her handler in a minivan outside. here s chapman promoting herself in a video for a business conference. i think the most challenging part of my life, really started when i quit all my jobs, really cut all my salaries, and really did something i wanted to do. reporter: the fbi says chapman and the others used invisible ink, secret codes, blending in, and in chapman s case, living the manhattan high life. i want reporter: russian agents buried thousands of dollars in cash upstate to finance their cover stories. that s a lot of money to be handing out, you know. that caught my eye because that means that they expected something from it. but there s no evidence that they got very much. reporter: no couple appeared more all-american than two of the other suspects, richard and cynthia murphy, seen here in their new jersey backyard. 13-year-old blake played with their kids. i was totally surprised. it s out of anyone on the block, they would be the last people that you d expect. reporter: wednesday the mailman made his normal drop at the murphy house. neighbors are still amazed. i mean, it was nothing that was like suspicious or anything that was odd. reporter: and what about the unwitting americans the accused spies were allegedly cultivating for information? some of them may have already been contacted. some of them may have picked up the paper this morning and said, oh, my gosh, that s the guy i play tennis with every tuesday. reporter: today anna chapman remains in solitary confine month in a brooklyn jail, denied bail. her court-appointed lawyer is considering an appeal. the nine other suspects, though, will have bond hearings today in federal courts from manhattan to boston, alexandria, virginia, and seattle, washington. meredith? all right, andrea mitchell, thank you very much. and up next, the startling rise in the number of drownings. 70 in the last month alone. summer safety warning to parents right after this. 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[ female announcer ] there s a full serving of vegetables in every bowl of chef boyardee big beef ravioli. shh. we re a fan of simple ingredients. so we seeded that into something much bigger. the home farming movement. join us at triscuit.com/homefarming. hurry in and load up on great savings during the petsmart h of july sale! for four-days only, save up to 50% on select items. from toys to food and treats. friday through monday only at petsmart. we love to see healthy, happy pets. what had happened in central harlem was failure became the norm. the schools were lousy. the healthcare was lousy. gangs were prevalent. violence was all over. families were falling apart. you can t raise children in a community like that. people had been talking about things, but not doing anything. hi, mr. canada. how are you? i m doing great, how bout you? right here on 119th street. if we could fix this block, then we could fix the next block, then we could fix the next block. we promised parents, if your child stays with us, i guarantee you that child is going to graduate from college. failure is simply not an option. the sixty.the seventy. the eighty. the ninety-seven blocks which ends up being 10,000 children. we start with children from birth, and stay with those children until they graduate. if you really want to have an impact that is large, you will get there going one step at a time. there is no act that is too small to make a difference. no matter what you want to do, members project from american express can help you take the first step. vote, volunteer or donate at membersproject.com. back now at 7:45 with an urgent warning for parents. as we head into the july fourth weekend, there are alarming new figures on just how many children have already drowned this summer. nbc s tom costello is at a public pool in washington, d.c. with details. tom, good morning to you. hi, meredith, good morning. hard to believe, but just in the last month, more than five dozen children nationwide have already died in drownings. and every one is a case study in how a fun day at the pool can quickly turn into tragedy. expert swimmers aren t supposed to drown in swimming pools. that is fast. reporter: but 12-year-old brennan, on june 5th, he won five events in a colorado swim meet, and qualified for the all-stars meet. at a birthday pool party the next day, life guards pulled his body from the shallow end. he drowned in four feet of water. within a half hour s time, he went from being an excellent swimmer to being pulled from the bottom of the swimming pool. reporter: investigators still don t know how or why he died. and unfortunately, his is not an isolated story. across the country, just since memorial day, there have been 70 drownings involving children, and another 80 near drownings. now, for the first time, the consumer product safety commission, the red cross and ymca are teaming up for an urgent summertime pool message. you can never know which pool safety tip will save a life. until it does. reporter: the numbers are striking. every year, 300 children younger than 5 drown in pools and spas. more than 3,000 end up in emergency rooms. drowning is the leading cause of death for children 6 and under. and those drownings are preventable. reporter: experts say pool safety is about the basics. life rings and floats should be nearby. never leave a child unattended. fence off private pools to keep kids out. keep kids away from pool drains and pipes. use floating alarms to sound a warning should a child fall in. and in public pools no please. reporter: cpr-trained life guards should never lose focus. from top to bottom of that water is our number one priority, to keep you safe. reporter: while drennan s death is still under investigation, vigilance, say his parents, is everyone s job. and life guards have a special responsibility. life guarding is not a summer job. it s a serious, serious job. life-saving job. and to be aware of what s going on in that pool. reporter: there is some good news. since congress started requiring these new drain covers to go over drains at pools, there hasn t been a single case of a child being trapped by a drain, being held down. prior to that law, quite a few children were drowning or being injured. lastly it s not just pools and spas. meredith, here in washington, in just the last year, eight people have died in the potomac river. back to you. all right, tom costello, thank you very much. and just ahead, joran van der sloot indicted for trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from natalee holloway s mother. we ll get the very latest. maybe about remodeling your kitchen with all new ge profile appliances isn t just how great it will look when you re finished, it s the $1,000 rebate you can receive, which you could use to buy something new in your life, or put it right in the bank. remodel and renew with a rebate of up to $1,000 when you buy select ge profile appliances. hi, jay bush and duke here to introduce new bush s black bean fiesta..whoa. you can t tell everyone about new black bean fiesta. but it s perfectly cooked black beans, in a zesty south of the border chipotle sauce with red and green peppers, onion, and crisp corn. a bold new taste. i know. but i want people to think i m a great cook. so hide. delicious! can i have your recipe? your secret is safe with me. hello. new bush s black bean fiesta. and try new texas ranchero, along with our other grillin beans flavors. welcome back. yeah. you ve been out for awhile. i was on a shoot yesterday, actually, the day before. you know, i was gone for aheil. you know what i did? i unplugged for 12 days. no twitter, no nothing? nothing. you know what? you start to shake. and then after a few days, you start to really relax. i mean, it reminded me of what life was once like. did you realize after that you really don t need that stuff? no i realized i do need it. it s like coffee. you don t want to drink so much that you need it. or bourbon. anyway. so. i recommend it. we ll be back. great to be with all you guys. coming up, the oldest mother who gave birth to her first child at 70. 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[ male announcer ] remove three times more soap scum per swipe with the new mr. clean magic eraser bath scrubber. 7:56 is our time now. 65 delightful degrees out there. beautiful, bright sunshine, low humidity. we ll have a look at the forecast coming up in a moment. good morning, i m joe krebs on this very 1st day of july, 2010. in the news4 today a crime alert. a thief has gotten is hands on police gar. tis happened in the brookville, maryland yesterday morning. montgomery county police said someone broke into the car took a rifle, load guns, two sets of handcuffs, two police badges and a baton. there s a $1,000 cash reward for information leading to an arrest or indictment in this case. we ll take a break and come back and look at our weather and traffic after this. . we approach the 8:00 hour, low humidity in place. now 68 in washington. we re in the mid-60s in the suburbs. rurals areas climing out of the 50 noose the 60s. highs near 8 on more humidity on friday. hotter saturday. fourth of july, low 9 o., humid. good weather for the fireworks display sun. take a look along 395, i-66, typical rush hour so far this morning on king street, near the metro station there, word of a water main break. be careful. maryland looking pretty good. pretty heavy prince georges county side of the beltway. get your holiday weekend started with news4 today. tune in tomorrow morning 4:30 for the day s news, weather and traffic. 8:00 now on this thursday morning. 1st day of july, 2010. that is the view from the top of the rockefeller plaza. what a gorgeous day here in new york. all of our friends who have come here and gathered on the plaza, gearing up for that long, holiday weekend. today we have just the king to thick off your celebration. a live summer concert on the plaza from grammy winners maroon 5. next friday we ll have lady gaga, bringing her larger than life show to our summer concert series. i m meredith vieira with matt lauer and al roker. how old is too old to have a baby? you think for a woman? i was an old father. my first child, i was 43, around there. but i mean, there s a woman, we re going to actually meet, who had her first child at the age of 70. wow. women are having children later and later in life. but we re also going to take a look in this half hour at some of the medical and ethical issues involved when women start having children after menopause. on a different topic, we re going to meet some real cheap skates. and we mean that in the most flattering way. absolutely. in fact we re going to show you how you can learn about living a happy life on a lot less than you think you need. all right. first let s get a check of the top stories. ann curry is back at her post. hey, meredith, thank you so much. good morning once again, v. there is some good news to report about hurricane alex. it s now losing strength, and it s downgraded to a tropical storm. after coming ashore last night south of the texas/mexico border. still some heavy rain and high winds are expected today. there are reports that at least 13 people have been killed in mexico when it was still a category 2 hurricane. and although south texas was spared a direct hit, flooding, power outages, and at least two tornadoes are being reported there. president obama launches a push for immigration reform today with a speech emphasizing the federal government s responsibility to secure borders. and the need for illegal immigrants to own up to their actions so they can begin the process of becoming citizens. supporters of supreme court nominee elena kagan to be confirmed next month by the full senate. she wrapped up her testimony on wednesday before the senate judiciary committee. nine people arrested last weekend as part of an alleged russian spy ring in the u.s. face bail hearings today. on monday, a judge denied bail for another suspect, 28-year-old anna chapman. a new indictment wednesday means cases against joran van der sloot are moving forward on two continents. nbc s michelle kosinski is in lima, peru, with more on this story. michelle, good morning. reporter: good morning, ann. the judge here has just given the first real sense of how long joran van der sloot will have to wait in prison in his solitary cell for his murder trial. four to six months, and that s at least. so we re seeing this case progress, as well as the one against him in the u.s. on the same day joran van der sloot appealed a judge s decision said his confession to murder will stand in peru. he was indicted in the u.s. on federal extortion charges. that s for allegedly trying to get a quarter of a million dollars out of natalee holloway s mother, in exchange for the location of her daughter s remains in aruba. information the feds say was bogus. this day was also the somber, emotional one-month memorial for stephany flores. the young business student joran is accused of viciously beating to death in his hotel room here after they played poker together. an especially trying day for stephany s family. her father had to give a statement before the judge as part of the investigation. translator: just now i am starting to really feel the absence of my daughter, a month later, and today was very hard. we want the judicial process to move forward in the most transparent way, and with the full weight of the law. reporter: officials here say it appears joran van der sloot has now agreed to do a sit-down interview with a dutch tv station. that s expected to happen soon, and his dutch attorney is also expected to come here to help with his case. ann? all right, michelle kosinski this morning. michelle, thanks. and on a much lighter note you might just want to see this next story. hollywood legend kirk douglas, now 93 years old, cut the ribbon on wednesday with his wife ann at a los angeles play ground renovated by his foundation, which restored some 400 playgrounds. you can see it brought out the kid in everyone. now let s go back outside to two other kids. he looked great. i know, didn t good morning. bright sun, blue sky on the 1st day i july 2010. at this hour temperatures are in the mid and upper 60s now, after a chilly start in the 40s and 50s around the region. now 62348 washington. highs should make it around 80 with low humidity and lots of sun and more of the same friday. hotter saturday, but still not very humid. and a little more humid on sunday, but not oppressive. should be hot in the afternoon, low 90s for the fourth of july. good weather for the fireworks display sunday evening. and that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. still to come on a thursday morning, the man who actually lost his face to cancer, and the woman who stood by him, share their touching story. but up next, how old is too old to have a child? we ll meet the world s oldest mom. 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[ female announcer ] maybe the biggest surprise about remodeling your kitchen with all new ge profile appliances isn t just how great it will look when you re finished, it s the $1,000 rebate you can receive, which you could use to buy something new in your life, or put it right in the bank. remodel and renew with a rebate of up to $1,000 when you buy select ge profile appliances. back at 8:09 with the world s oldest mom. it used to be that a woman s child-bearing years were over when she hit menopause. now thanks to science that s all changing. nbc maura schiavo-campo has details. reporter: good morning, meredith. advances in fertility treatment have made it possible for women to get pregnant later and later in life. and in india, where there is an enormous stigma attached to not having children, some women are taking it to the furthest extreme. raji is old enough to be a great-grandmother. born during the great depression, she s lived in this small indian farming village her whole life. but remarkably, this old woman is a new mom. she gave birth at 70, making her the world s oldest mother. now, 71, she spends her days caring for 18-month-old namine, even breast-feeding. what made you want to have a child so late? translator: i would have wanted a child, even if i was 100 years old. seeing others with their children, i wanted one, too. reporter: the baby was conceived through ivf here at the national fertility center a few hours drive from new delhi. this small, nondescript clinic is fast becoming ground zero for old women who want a baby. translator: i did this because people used to mock us. reporter: pressure on childless couples in india can be enormous. after trying to have a child for decades, 66 yield bateri and her husband came to the clinic for help. she got pregnant on the third ivf attempt and in may got her life s greatest wish, three times over. making her the oldest woman ever to have triplets. i was very happy when i held them. i felt so happy inside. translator: she cried with happiness. reporter: the babies, two boys and a girl, were born severely underweight at just 26 weeks. the smallest, just 1.7 pounds. the clinic says in the last few years they ve helped more than 65 women over the age of 50 have children. is any age too old? no. if you are healthy, the age doesn t matter. reporter: but it s not just happening here in india. all over the world, women are deciding that it s never too late to become a mom. in britain, elizabeth became the oldest first-time mom at 66. in 2006, spanish woman maria deladda gave birth to twins at 66. that same year in california, 62-year-old great grandmother janice wolf had her 12th child. here in the u.s., there s no official age cutoff for ivf but many doctors just won t do it past menopause, saying pregnancy late in life carries health risks for the mother, and the babies. we didn t evolve to have kids in our 50s and 60s, and some would say god didn t design us to have kids in our 50s and 60s. through science we can push the envelope somewhat with women in their 40s. but the 50s and 60s create other problems that we need to keep in mind. reporter: tragically, bateri has learned that firsthand. while two of her babies are growing and healthy, her smallest child died last week, less than a month old. just too small and too weak to survive. 71-year-old raji also isn t well. suffering from what she believes are postoperative complications after her cesarean. though the doctor claims her illness is unrelated to the surgery. translator: i ve been very weak. i m on medication. reporter: still, she has no regrets. she will not die a barren woman. translator: i m at peace and i m happy. reporter: peace and happiness finally found, after giving birth to a baby, and a lifelong dream. now, aside from health considerations, there s also the concern that older mothers don t have long to live. the spanish woman who gave birth at 66, she died just three years later. but the doctor at the indian fertility clinic said that doesn t concern him at all, and for who cares for the children once the parents are gone is not his responsibility. all right, thank you very much. dr. nancy synderman is nbc s chief medical editor. good morning, nancy. hi, meredith. not my clinic, not my problem goes to the real, moral aspect of this entire issue. and there is an ethical issue here. there s a cultural aspect and there s a moral aspect. and i think at the end of the day we have to say just because you can move science forward, should you move science forward? we know in some cultures, these indian women, to be barren as one of the women mentioned, means you don t have a place in society. as a woman you don t have your self-worth. but if that technology can work in an outlying clinic in india, it is science that can be applied in any country around the world, and the safeguards and guidelines are, frankly, rather squishy. how is it physically possible for these women to get pregnant? you pump them up with hormones. you take a younger woman s egg. so it s never their egg. at the age of 70 i would doubt it. because they really are shrivelled up old eggs. you get a young person s egg. maybe it s a 15-year-old on the street who you paid for eggs and you harvest the eggs. and then you can take an elderly person s sperm, because men create sperm every few weeks. you fertilize that egg and then you implant it in mom, but you keep her pumped up with hormones to allow the pregnancy to continue. however you notice those babies were born prematurely. 26 weeks. going to term for a 70-year-old, that s a feat in itself. so what are the medical risks, besides premature birth? if you look at mom, you look at all the problems that go with old age, high blood pressure problems, strain on the heart and lungs. you re carrying extra weight, so strain on legs. premature birth, spontaneous abortion. really common. and then bleeding and healing afterwards. that is just the beginning laundry list that you re looking at. so what happens to the body after menopause that makes it so risky for this kind of if you look at how we are as human beings. we start menstruating in our teen years to prepare our bodies to get pregnant. and we enter menopause the time for fertility is done and then we pass into our senior years. and that s just a natural ebb and flow in life. you re supposed to depart this world and leave space for someone else. the problem is, when you try to fool mother nature, and you try to increase pregnancy in older people, there s a risk to mom. a risk to baby. and then that moral, ethical issue. when you die, who is going to take care of that baby. you know we hear this all the time and this is one of those times i can just say, life is not fair. men make sperm up to the day they drop dead. you and i are born with the eggs we have, and they die over life. the thing is at the end of the day you have to say this, do you want a parent, or do you want to pop a baby out through the birth candle? those are two very, very different questions. and popping a baby out and bringing life to another human being is not the same thing as parenting. bottom line, how old is too old? i think the really ethical clinics around this country will really talk very, very candidly to a woman in her early 50s. and really 50-ish is really the cutoff. so it s not the end of the beginning of menopause then, in your mind. if you re still menstruating in your 50s. this is where you have to sit down and talk to the good clinics where they have social workers, psychiatrists, fertility doctors. it s not just about the hormones and the eggs. it s about the bigger, broader question. and the good places, if they realize that a woman is not mentally fit, or this is some kind of gymnastics or a chance to get a guinness book of world records, they will not do this. this is where good doctors say to women, thank you very much for coming in today, but we re not going to proceed. and that takes guts. the doctor in this piece, who is in india, he crosses so many moral and ethical boundaries for me, but the problem is, when there are rogue doctors like this and rogue clinics everywhere, the science can lead the way, and a moral and ethical being barren but the technology is there. which means people around the country will do it. people around the world will do it. dr. nancy synderman, thank you so much. up next, what those cheapskates next door can teach you about saving thousands of dollars every year. right after this. there s so many ways to love ya i mean like, oh, my gosh i m so in love make me wanna say oh-oh oh-oh oh-oh-oh [ horn honks ] [ tires squeal ] oprah: join me and liberty mutual insurance. drive responsibly. take the pledge. it s laughs over a coastal soup and grilled shrimp salad. catching up over wood-grilled shrimp and chicken. and with lunches starting at just $6.99. it s an hour you wouldn t trade for anything. that s what s gonna happen here. because you re tasty with toasty whole grain. [ crunch ] wheat thins. toasted. whole grain. crunch. the crunch is calling. a car they can count on. a car that keeps going, when others might quit. a car that stands strong. when you need it most. and expects to handle the unexpected. at chevrolet, we created a team of red x engineers who are obsessed with quality. red x torture tests every car down to the smallest detail. because everyone deserves excellence. because everyone deserves excellence. only aveeno daily moisturizing lotion has an active naturals oat formula proven to improve skin s health in one day, with significant improvement in 2 weeks. save $10 on all your aveeno favorites at aveeno.com. save $10 [ female announcer ] whenrites 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. we re back now at 8:21. this morning on today s money the surprising secrets of the cheapskate lifestyle. cheapskates may look like everybody else, but behind closed doors, there s one thing that stands out. they live below their means. whether they have six figure incomes or qualify for public assistance, they spend a fraction of what most americans spend. jeff yeager is the author of the new book the cheapskate next door: the surprising secrets of americans living happily below thy means. jeff, welcome back. good morning, matt. summertime and the living is cheap and easy. i know you love that saying. is that the definition of a cheapskate in your opinion? someone who lives below their means? it certainly is. and you know, i don t use the term in the pejorative sense. these are people who are leading a virtuous life. they re happier because they spend considerably less than they earn. as a matter of fact for most of my life the cheapskate label has been a derogatory term. you re saying we should emulate these people. we have entered the age of thrift and frugality. you gave out a questionnaire. you talked to some of these people in your travels. you found that cheapskates on average buy smaller, more affordable homes than the typical american. so are they weighing efficiency and affordability against comfort? and against rice. and they ve been doing this all along. that s why they re not hurt by the burst of the housing bubble. on average they figured out what they could borrow for a home and spent only about 75% of that. these guys did not get caught up in the crazy mortgages? they re not losing sleep at night. and you also found that something like 65% of cheapskates plan to pay off their mortgages early, or already have? actually 85%. i need my glasses. six looked like an eight. i ve got to pay for better glasses. the dollar store has them. so they re paying off their mortgages earlier. absolutely. and they re not only getting out of the financial burden of that, they re alleviating the stress of that. and that s the key. that s the key to their lives is they re happier because of it. when cheapskates, you felt, pay less for the typical american family on food. on clothing. recreation. far less dining out. i m curious, do you ever feel that the children of cheapskates might be cheated? i think the children are benefited. why? these are parents who are teaching their kids at a young age about the role that money should play in their life. and that it should be a less important part of their life. they re leaving lives largely of the 1970s. this is your second book about cheapskates. let me go through some of these other facts. 75% less on clothing. that fact i mentioned before. they save an average of $3,000 per year by eating meals at home as opposed to restaurants. and they spend 40% less per person per year on groceries. we re talking about couponing. what are we doing? half are couponeers. half simply shop the best of the best store specials and cook from scratch. it s all about quality of life. they re enjoying more time with their families at home, because they re spending less eating out. so it s a noble calling, according to you. and here s something that surprised me, i have to say. cheapskates give nearly 5% of their annual income to charities. and i m wondering how that compares to the rest of people. it s twice the national average. and i think it makes sense because of the cheapskates i polled, nine out of ten said, you know, this isn t about the money. this is about something bigger in life. a religious belief. environmentalism. it s not about the money at all. and some food for thought. you found the divorce rate among married cheapskates polled about half that of the national average. now you could say they re too cheap to get a divorce. exactly. but that s not the case. these are people who talk about money in their marriage, whether they agree with their spouse about it or not and they stress out less about debt and money in general. let s give a couple of tips for people how you can save money and not really change your lifestyle. you say order tap water in restaurants. if the average american family ordered just tap water with dining out they would save $800 a year. that s a college fund. drive a car with a manual transmission. older model manual transmission you ll save about $30,000 over the course of your driving life sometime in fuel efficiency and cost to cars and repairs. and you want to dry your clothes, do it on a clothesline. many garments last 50% longer if you dry them on the line. and they smell better. jeff yeager, thanks very much. say cheese, matt. just ahead, mark bittman, secrets to the fourth of july cookout. bright sunshine and cooler air awaits you outdoors today. take a look at your forecast in a moment. first, good morning. 8:26 on this monday, july 1st, 2010. i m aaron gilchrist. this morning, a 16-year-old recoving after he was shot in the face. the victim was in the 900 block of marcy avenue when hit. he is expected to survive. police haven t said whether they have suspects right now. weather and traffic next. stay with us. good morning, i m tom kiernan. four-day forecast, highs near 8 oh low humidity, lots of sun, more of the same tomorrow. hotter saturday. more humid sunday, fourth of july and hotter. good weather for the fourth of july fireworks display sunday evening. how s the traffic? connecticut avenue, jammed from the capital beltway to a point right at chevy chase circle. police had been holding up all traffic but it looks like they ve just released it. there was some police activity. traffic is moving but backed up northbound and southbound. aaron? thank you, jerry. get your holiday weekend started with news4 today, tune in when you wake up tomorrow morning at 4:30 for the news, weather and traffic. back to new york and more of today. that s my wish. i think it might be more fun if we did all of this with you. so let s break this down so you know who we are. yes, it s true we met at a bar. i gave him my number 8:30 now on a thursday morning. it s the 1st day of july, 2010. the search is on for her 11th today show wedding couple. alex or alexis and david from texas. they sent us their entry on facebook. they re hoping it s going to be them. to enter all you have to do is head to our web site, todayshow.com. or go to a special web page facebook.com/todayshow. keep in mind the deadline is next friday. that s the 9th of july. hmm. meanwhile, just ahead, the oscar winning film slum dog millionaire that we loved here at today. now he s one of the stars of a highly anticipated new fantasy film the last air bender and this time he s the villain. he s conflicted as a villain. but he is the villain. we ll talk to him. doesn t look like a villain. no. got it. and a guy who just doesn t act but he lives grilling and cooking. mr. mark bittman is here. with some easy grilling tips just in time for our july fourth backyard barbecue. he just had a terrific article in the times telling you how to grill 101 things. wait until you see some of the things he s grilling. i m looking at the hot dogs. hot dogs with bacon. oh! bacon. bacon, bacon, bacon. hey, by the way, i just want to note, to remind everybody that maroon 5 is here on friday. you know, they re kind of a well they re still hip and happening. probably too much for us. we re going to make our show a little cooler. before we get to anything else can we say hello to the members of the u.s. national lacrosse team and their coach? they re gearing up for this month s world championships in manchester, england. kevin, max, and matt are here with their coach mike pressler. guys, good morning to all of you. good morning. let s talk about this. the dominant team in the world for a long time. all right? i think you haven t lost a game since 1978 until 2006. what are you guys going to do to bring home the championship? well, it s been a four-year plan for us, so very disappointed we were losing the gold to the canadians. we kind of revamped our entire program and schedule and our goal is to go to manchester and bring back the gold for the u.s. kevin you played in the last two world championships. you re the veteran on the team. how are you going to advise these younger guys in terms of what they should do on this journey? we re going to get back to basics, back to the fundamentals. and we re going in as the underdogs this time around. so, you know, for us it s going to be just, you know, getting back to the simple things. meantime, coach, you are one, let me get this right, you are one of the most successful collegiate lacrosse coaches over the last 20 years. that is pretty imesive. and you ve served as assistant coach of the national team in 2002. what do you think your chances are this year? it s going to be very difficult. we like our team a lot you just saying that or really? really. and our goal is to go to manchester and win the gold, and bring it back to the u.s. and we like our team. great group of veterans. great group of youths. and very, very determined bunch. looking forward to training camp on monday the 5th. and going up to play the all-stars on thursday on tv. so, it s an exciting week for us and then we leave a week from monday, july 12th, for manchester. it s a tough game but it is such a great game to watch. it really is. good luck. we wish you the best. thank you. thank you. we brought something for you guys. it s a little going away gift from us. oh. that s adorable. these are great. oh, i have one, too? thank you very much. i got al s here. wow. used to play. that s true, isn t it? good luck. thank you. a beautiful start to this month of july. good morning, i m meteorologist tom kiernan. we ve got the beautiful blue sky, low humidity still in place, and temperatures in the comfort zone, upper 60s to around 70 now. reaching near 80 by early to midafternoon. lots of sun, low humidity. again, tomorrow low 80s, hotter saturday but still not a lot of humidity. and a little more humid sunday, but not sweltering. but hot for in the low 9 o s for the fourth of july. good weather for fireworks sunday night. and don t forget no matter what time of the day or night you need your weather you can check it out on cable or get weather.com online. everybody okay? i m fine. we re going to be careful. sorry about that. oh. am i afraid of thunder? that s right. thunder. all right. up next, mark bittman shares some fast and fabulous grilling recipes for the fourth of july. the gas prices are going down, they go back up again. we know saving money is important. this summer, shop with your giant card and save on shell fuel. earn one point for every dollar you spend. every 100 points earned gets you another 10 cents off per gallon. the more you spend, the more you save. i m saving money at the store, i m saving money at the pump, and that works for me. more savings every time you shop, only with your giant card. [ deb ] people don t just come to ge capital for money. they come to us for help. at ge capital, we ve been financing taylor guitars for over eight years, helping them build a strong dealer network. bringing music to people. i like that. [ bob ] i didn t know you could play. i didn t either. this morning on how to cook everything today we re talking about some grilling recipes just in time for your fourth of july holiday. new york times columnist mark bittman is the author of how to cook everything. mark, good morning. good morning. happy holidays. you re preaching to the choir here. i think just about everything is better on the grill. people always want ideas for grilling. which is why the story s been so popular. hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, we all know about that. you ve got some unusual things here. you re starting off with grilled guacamole. you put the avocado on the grill? cut it in half. grill it just until it softens up a little bit. don t use super, super ripe avocados here and scoop it out. grill onion first so you can get some nice, smoky grilled onions. and the usual, tomatoes, garlic, salt, cumin. you ve got this more over a griddle grill. could you do this on an open flame grill, as well? absolutely. that s actually better. we re trying to conserve space here. okay. artichokes, a lot of people think they re hard to cook, hard to eat. these are great. you have to par boil or microwave them a little bit first. five or ten minutes so they become at least half cooked. and then now you ve got a sort of soft, half-cooked artichoke and it s very easy to take out the choke. and you just do that with a spoon. okay. then what do you rub a little olive oil or butter on them? you oil them and then you grill them. the great thing is, i m not going to finish this. that s okay. the great thing is you then grill some onions that s a lemon. thank you. look at that. and the juices come right out and now you have this smoky lehman juice. because you could also just cut the lemon in half and do that. this is really great. if it s warm you get more juice out. okay, fine. i m not doubting you. and look at that. how nice. all right. grilled coleslaw. okay. you re absolutely going to put the vegetables on the grill. again are you looking for color or are you looking for flavor? you re looking for both. you get a little char on there. some nice, dark color on your cabbage and carrots and stuff. chop it up in the food processor. mayonnaise with vinegar when you re talking about artichokes and cabbage, you don t want to cook them too long on the grill. the artichokes we want tender. these you want to remain a little of their crunchiness. so you want to char them a bit, and sear them. typical mayonnaise? with a little you wait until this cools down. you don t put the mayonnaise on something warm. right, right. clams on the half shell? clams casino or whatever. the easiest way to open clams, if you don t have someone who wants to do it for you, is to microwave them for half a minute or so and they will pop. i didn t know that. and this nice mixture of bread crumbs and parsley and garlic. typical thing right on top. you do this hours in advance, and then reheat them on the grill. one of the things you don t get this way, normally clams casino they kind of get that crust on the top. right. you get a little of that and you get the great smokiness, too. how we doing? timewise we re okay. good. back to things more recognized. it s nice of you to check. you re becoming a director. all right. you wrapped them in bacon, why? we wrapped why? matt. why would you wrap a hot dog in bacon? why would you not wrap a hot dog in bacon? it s just a heart attack right there. if for a penny, in for a pound. so you don t cook the hot dog before you wrap it in the bacon? the hot dog is precooked anyway. all right. and as soon as we re done here. now you re talking. those are good hot dogs. as far as i know these were invented in new haven, connecticut. the bacon wrapped hot dog. are you serious? yankee doodle. a coffee shop about the size of this piece of apparatus grilled dessert. grilled pound cake. just brush it with a little butter, i mean look at that. how could you resist? and sock chocolate sauce or fruit or fruitcom post, what could be better. all these things can be done on open fire grills as opposed to the kind you ve got here? oh, yeah. mark bittman. 101 things to put on the barbecue. appreciate it. happy fourth of july. nice to see you. we re going to be back with much more ahead on a thursday. first, this is today on nbc. know the species, know the stain. lanolin-free coat, i know it s an alpaca. walks in here, looks says hey look, it s a llama! cleaning the stain like he would a llama stain. time he s wasting. call 1-800-steemer i m from the gulf coast. my family spends a lot of time here. i have a personal interest in ensuring that we get this job done right. i m keith seilhan. i m in charge of bp s clean up on the gulf coast. bp s taken full responsibility for the clean up, and that includes keeping you informed. over 25,000 people are included in the clean up operation. our crews are cleaning the gulf beaches 24/7. we re going to be here as long as it takes to make this right. famous for his role in the oscar winning film slum dag millionaire in his latest film the last air bender he played the prince of the evil fire nation who is trying to stop the one person who can save the world. a task that proves to be easier said than done. dev, good morning. good morning. i ve missed you. i know i missed you. i missed being here. we saw you during slumdog millionaire. boy is this film different from that one? it is a complete 180 degree difference for me. characterwise, costumewise. i mean, in slumdog i played a young boy struggling in the slums, trying to find the love of his life, and in this, he s a prince of a fire nation trying to control fire. a conflicted character? yeah, he s got a bit of a dark streak to him. and he s got a lot of turmoil going on. yeah. were you searching consciously for something very different after slumwashington because of all the attention it got? everybody connects you with jamal. exactly. i remember walking down the street and everyone would be screaming slumdog, slum dog, dev. i wanted to do something to show i had some versatility as an actor. this script came along and couldn t get more different and exciting. and what a director you have. yeah. i didn t know what to expect because there s so many rumors about the guy, you know, when you re reading the papers and things and i remember getting the call from him when i was doing slumdog press and he said hey, dev, this is night. i was like in m. night shimlen? he was like, yeah. he s a real family man. it s great to be doing a film for kids and family. what i didn t know reading about this film, with all the special effects and the martial arts here, you actually have a black belt in karate. now how did that happen? yeah. it s actually called tae kwon do. a korean alternative. but i ve been training for eight years and it s crazy. my parents are here today, and they it s like all these little gifts they gave me as a kid. you know, they re coming to use in my later life and i really have to thank them for it. i m so glad i had it. i remember getting the call from night and he said do you know martial arts by any chance? i said yep, eight years worth and a black belt. possibly you got it because you were a wild kid. they were trying to rein in your nrpg? i was a bit hyper, and just about channeling the energy. i grew up watching bruce lee, and jackie chan and jet lee and all the sort of action stars, so i always aspired to be like them. so you got your chance, actually, to do a little bit of that. how are you handling all of the attention that you have gotten since slumdog? i mean you re only 20 years old. yeah, just turned 20 in april. but it s it was a bit overwhelming. because you just go out and complete security and everyone knows the name and the film you ve done. but everyone s been really nice and encouraging. it was a really uplifting experience. and you know, this is my second film, slumdog was my first. it s a real, nice confidence boost. everybody also, then, you know, with all that attention comes prying into personal life. and i know that your co-star, you ve been dating but you don t like to talk about that. that s a private thing. yes. but i also understand that your mom heard on the internet that you were engaged. i wonder what the phone call from your mom to you was like. all this time i get a call from my mom when i m working on a different country. she said so, i hear you re engaged today and you ve bought the wedding kak and so many things happening. there s a new story about her son every day. and she s telling her friends no, nothing s happened. but we always have these funny conversations. a new story. so nothing has happened? no, no. just going to clarify that? of course not, no. i want to put the camera on your parents again for a second. i said this to them out there in the hall and i wanted to say it publicly, you are such a lovely young man. being so incredibly talented and i credit mom and dad. because it s always mom and dad who do it. still when you re back at home you live at home and you re not embarrassed to say that? no, of course not. the little time i get to go back home it s nice to be humbled by those two. i put that lightly. but it s great. i hardly see them and to get a bit of mum s cooking once in awhile. it s cool. so great to see you. thank you so much. the last airbender hits theaters today. still ahead, how to create an outdoor oasis in your own backyard. brought to you by the pepsi refresh project. every time you choose pepsi you support the pepsi refresh project. back now at 8:50 with what do you care about today? we ve teamed up with pepsi and the pepsi refresh project to give away $100,000 grant to a deserving nonprofit organization. many of you logged on to our website to tell about an organization doing something great in your community. this morning we reveal our four finalists. the bay area food bank is a source of hope for people in need. and the need is great right now, in the coastal areas near the gulf of mexico. as a result of the massive oil spill, now in its 11th week. i think you can tell by the lines of people that are here, there s a lot of pain in this community. our job is to provide food for 24 counties, in southern alabama, southern mississippi and the panhandle of florida. we re on track to distribute over 13 million pounds of food this year. part of that effort includes the use of their mobile pantry. trucking food directly to communities, like this one in bayou la batre, alabama, that need it the most. it s been really hard for my husband to find a job. he had come down to be a deck hand, and that s not working out because there are so many boats that are out of the water right now. i had several people came up and said, you know, we can deal with hurricanes. but we always knew we could eat because we could always get fish or shrimp or oysters or something out of the gulf. well, that s not the case anymore. urban artworks is a program that s designed to empower you. we ve had some problems in their lives. over the past 15 years, seattle s industrial district has experienced a colorful makeover, thanks to mike perringer and urban artwork. a group providing teens in the county s court system a unique way to fulfill their community service. i come here every saturday, and i just grew into it. over 5,000 kids have passed through the program so far, creating upwards of 2500 public murals. it makes you feel special. i did that. it looks professional. i painted on the other side. i painted the top. using art as a way to improve young lives. recidivism rate is about 6%. national average is about 15% to 20%. so everybody seems to think that we re going in the right direction. mission of gateway greening is to help people grow food on underused, abandoned land. land that otherwise would either be attracting criminal activity, or trash. for the past 26 years, gateway greening has been reinvigorating st. louis, both its land, and its people. we want to keep that soil in our beds. those efforts include being partners in city seeds, an urban farm and job training program for former addicts and the underemployed. they have country boys, city boys. farmers, as they re called, are involved each step of the way, from planting the seeds to selling the harvested produce at a local farmer s market. all while earning money and learning skills for the future. how many people are employed is how we measure our success. and right now it s around 60% to 70%. it s one of the high points in my life now. project surf camp is a camp specifically designed for children with special needs. we work with children with autism. children with down s syndrome. mental retardation. each summer, campers, along with an army of volunteers, learn how to hang ten at california s murrow strand state beach. you want to go surfing with us? yeah? awesome. john taylor s mission with project surf camp is a deeply personal one. i ve had one leg all my life, and i know the therapeutic value to the water. i really wanted others to experience that. it s amazing. it s a sentiment the kids, and their families, share. i learned how to fly going on the waves. daniel has spina bifida. doctors told me daniel would never walk. as you can see, he s not only walking, but he s surfing. he even has autism. i can t believe it, he s actually having fun. he s participating in a simple activity that is bringing him pleasure, which does not happen often in his life. i think it s wonderful. oh, great. now that you know the finalsist up to you to pick the winner. although i don t know how anyone is going to choose. you can logon to our website todayshow.com by next tuesday, july 6th to vote. good luck. they re all so deserving. meanwhile just ahead. a man who lost his face to cancer is going to share a remarkable story. right after your local news. a cool 68 degrees outside as we look at the sun beaming down on the white house this morning. your forecast in a second. first, good morning. welcome back to news4 today on this thursday morning. 8:56 right now. i m aaron gilchrist. we begin with a crime alert this morning. a thief has gotten his hands on police gear stolen from an unmarked police car. this happened in the 200 block of sapling ridge lane in maryland yesterday morning. montgomery county police say someone broke into the car and took off with a rifle, four loaded guns, two sets of handcuffs, two montgomery county police badges and a baton. there s a $ 1,000 cash reward leading to arrest or indictment. weather and traffic next. hey, volley for serve. friendly competition runs on dunkin with our refreshing coolatta flavors. enjoy an icy boost today. america runs on dunkin . good morning, your four-day forecast, delightful start of july into the weekend. hotter and more humidity for the fourth of july. again, police have closed connecticut avenue, southbound, at chevy case circle, northbound blocked off at military road. continuing police activity. get your holiday weekend started with news4 today. tune in tomorrow morning 4:30 for the day s news, weather and traffic. now back to new york at 8:59. back now with more of today on a thursday morning, it s the first day of july, 2010. another beautiful day here in the northeast. we ve got cooler temperatures, lower humidity. and al has gone out on a limb and said that this fourth of july weekend is going to be a keeper here in the northeast. absolutely. folks out here from the midwest. happy around here. coming up we ve got a first of all, matt lauer along with natalie morales and al roker. coming up we ve got a remarkable story about a man who was battling a rare form of cancer. he had to make a very difficult choice, in the process he lost most of his face to the disease. his wife standing by his side the whole time. they ll be here to share their touching story exclusively just ahead. true love story, absolutely. also if you re planning on spending the holiday weekend on your patio we re going to be showing you thank you get the most out of your backyard space and also show you how we transformed one lucky couple s backyard into an outdoor oasis. also if you want to spend fourth of july out there in the back we re going to show you fun and inexpensive party accessories for you, as well. everything from beach ball sprinkler to yes, the star spangled pants. happy pants. i m wearing them under this suit now. and we re going to be heading live to texasor the latest on what s now tropical storm alex. it s been downgraded to a tropical storm. slammed ashore last night as a hurricane. strongest june hurricane in 44 years. the first hurricane of the atlantic season. we re going to tell you about the threat for more severe weather, possibility of tornadoes down in texas today. all right before we go any further. let s go inside. ann is back from some time off and a little assignment and she s back at the news desk. thanks a lot, matt. good morning once again, everybody. in the news, hurricane alex is now a tropical storm, weakening as it came ashore last night just south of the texas/mexico border. but there are some reports that it killed at least 13 people in central america, when it was still a category 2 hurricane. and it is also having an effect on texas today. the weather channel s stephanie abrams is on south padre island in texas with more on this story. stephanie, good morning. good morning, ann. our winds currently around 20 miles an hour. they gusted as high as 66 miles an hour. right now the beaches are still closed. all that s left, mounds of seaweed, as far as the eye can see. highway 100 north of town was impassable during the storm. fortunately, all the flooding has receded. but let me tell you, this storm really unloaded on us here in the southern texas. the wettest june day on record, in mcallen, also into brownsville, texas. overall, 4 to 6 inches. doppler indicated that there were some estimates up to 10 inches of rain, and, ann, today, more rain. we could see 2 to 4 inches, locally 6. and there s also still the threat for tornadoes. all right, stephanie abrams this morning. stephanie, thank you for your reporting on this. general david petraeus briefing nato earlier this morning on his plan for the war in afghanistan said the u.s. is determined to seek progress in the coming month. petraeus was confirmed unanimously by the senate on wednesday as the war s top commander. nine people accused of spying for russia face bail hearings today in u.s. courtrooms. a tenth suspect was denied bail on wednesday. last night the house approved the president s sweeping overhaul of financial regulations, intended to prevent another wall street meltdown. a senate vote is expected in a view weeks. toyota says more than a quarter of a million cars sold worldwide, including lexus sedans, have potentially faulty engines that might cause the cars to stall. the company is said to be reconsidering or considering rather a recall. and an unusual rescue this week after a fire broke out in a kitchen of a home in oregon. a man was in a nearby bathroom, and he saw thick smoke and he felt the heat and so he tried to escape by breaking through a wall to the next room. he got his body halfway through but then he got stuck inside the wall, so he called 911. rescuers got him out, and he and his family are just glad he s okay. it is now four minutes past the hour. good morning. here we ve got the blue sky with bright sunshine, the low humidity in place and temperatures now are right around 70 degrees. it s 70 in washington and continuing to climb. we should make it around 80 this afternoon with sunshine. low humidity in place tomorrow, too high near 80. hotter saturday but comfortable humidity. then, for the fourth of july, getting hotter and a little more humid with hazy sunshine, highs low 90s. should be good weather for the parades and for the fireworks displays sunday evening. and that s your latest weather. ann? all right, al, thanks. now to the story of a man who beat a rare type of cancer, and the woman who stood beside him through it all. nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy synderman is here with this story. hi, ann, this is an amazing story. had to do with donny fritz, a man who when he heard about his tumor he never imagined that life could get any worse than just the diagnosis. but for donny, it did. it was given a life or death choice that would cost him his face. so a warning this morning, some of the images you re about to see may be a little tough for some of you to watch. it was love at first sight. i looked at him, and like this. he shook his head no and then he came over, and just started that way. i was blown away. reporter: two years after meeting, sharon petrie married the love of her life, donny fritz. we laugh. but it was beautiful. i ll never forget it. and there s one way he looked at me, as we were standing up front, forever imprinted on my mind. reporter: but one year into their marriage, she knew something was wrong. under his eyes just stayed really dark all the time. and he got pale when he s normally not pale. and i don t know, he had no energy. reporter: the diagnosis, a rare and deadly form of cancer involving the midportion of his face. it s call amelioplastic carcinoma. donny was faced with a difficult choice. he could live without a face, or he could die with his face on. reporter: but for donny fritz there was only one choice. keep living, despite the consequences. during the 12-hour surgery, doctors removed part of his forehead, nose, upper palate and parts of his brain and upper lip. after three months of recovery and radiation, donny was cancer free, but survival came with a price. we felt like prisoners in our own home. he couldn t leave because he felt very uncomfortable. and you re bound by your four walls. i look terrible. i look like a monster. if i scared my own self, what am i going to do to other people? reporter: for six years, he and sharon lived a lonely, dark life. after she would go to sleep, it was this own little world. people say be careful what you pray for. i prayed for life. i thought, if this is the best life is going to give me, i have made the wrong decision. reporter: then help from an unexpected person. a former cia disguise special eyes. he covered donny a new face, and some hope. he wouldn t let me see the nose the whole time he was painting it and making sure it fit, and the eyebrows and everything. and i was just so anxious, i would try to look in sharon s eyes to see if i could see the reflection of my nose in her eyes. reporter: after years of struggling with the destruction of his face, and the social isolation, the moment that would allow him to reclaim. it was so touching, you know. that that night we went out and had dinner. i hadn t been out for dinner in how many years? just to blend in and be able to go to the store, and not be gawked at, not be treated any different. reporter: donny now had a chance to play a bigger role in the family. i wanted to see my kids grow up and get married. we have grandchildren, and i want to be around them. reporter: and for sharon, whose love remained steadfast throughout everything. i think he s beautiful. and donny and sharon fritz are here this morning exclusively. good morning to both of you. good morning. you just watched all of what has happened to you. put into a story that made it all flash one at a time so fast, and it brought you to tears to watch it. oh, it sure did. it brings back a lot of memories, you know. the pain we went through. it was a long journey. but we made it. you made it. in fact, a man who didn t feel comfortable stepping out of his house is sitting on a couch speaking live on national television. it feels good be normal again. i thought it was so interesting if you watch that. if you take just the medicine out of it for a moment you saw those early marriage pictures, and we all know being married you never know what hurdles are going to be out there. but to see this love that endured, and was able to tackle this as a couple, and then come out the other side, i mean the psychological and social ramifications of this kind of diagnosis, and this kind of surgery, the medicine ends up being a small part of the recovery. and kudos to both of them. you know, you re hearing a medical doctor speak of being impressed by your marriage, and sharon, i need to get you in on this, because you said to him, and you ve been saying to him, i understand, consistently, you are beautiful. he is so beautiful. it s not we know. when you see beauty, i mean to  me, i still see the man i saw when we walked down the aisle. i ll never get over that look when he looked over at me, and they said he was mine. that s an amazing thing. but, his beauty is, he s a giving person. a loving person. and he s a genuine person. is that what got you through this? i mean, i think there are couples listening now, people listening, who struggle with the challenges in their marriages. you know, and they have not faced this rare cancer that threatens so much. some people don t take their vows serious. i think this woman did. for better, for worse, sickness and health. did you ever doubt it? that she would? no, but i mean the first time i seen myself, the reflection it actually scared me, and when i see that image of myself, i didn t know if she would be able to look at me or my kids or grand kids or family. you know, when we see each other on the street, the first thing we do is we connect at individuals by our eyes, by our faces. it s a subconscious way of how we interact as human beings. when your face is literally gone, it s horrifying for people on the street who just sort of don t know how to approach, don t know what to say. so you have to sort of refigure out your place in society. that requires a significant amount of inner strength. for so many years he wore a mask. right. and you would go into a store or down the street, and you would see, and it s not wrong that they did it, but you would see parents pull their children away, because, what s wrong with him. it hurt then? oh, yeah, it hurts. what happens now? tell her about last night. what happened last night? last night we get in to new york, what a wonderful place this is. we walked through central park and we re walking by people and they re playing music and stuff, and you just feel normal walking. i had nobody staring at me. nobody gawking. and then we went down to times square, and had a really good time. it was what 11:30 at night, and the place was packed. it was awesome. you got your life back? oh, yeah. and that s really thanks to this person who helped you create this device that really helped you. you have anything you want to say to that person? robert baron, the man who built my prosthetic nose, dr. michael singer. this man, he built my upper palate, and for the first time this year i was able to sit at a thanksgiving table. here i m eating away and i look up and all my family is crying around. what s going on? let s dig in. he said eat, eat, quit looking at me. donny, it s great to see this. it s great. congratulations to you. there s so many things all those doctors, and to your marriage, to you, sharon, for showing us all, and you donny, showing us all what true resilience and love is. it has been hard. i mean, we ve had our ups and downs, just like everyone else does. right. this is just added to it. and there ve been days when he is set to leave. i wanted to leave. but i m not going to leave. i m sure there are some dark times. you stayed because? he s mine. i ve got the papers to prove it. you never knew sharon and donny, thank you so much for being here. thank you. thank you so much for bringing us this story. thank you. we ve got much more ahead. like those in breastmilkbis can be found in gerber good 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[ giggles ] welcome to the gerber generation. welcome to the gerber generation. we asked real people to film themselves taking the activia 14-day challenge. hi. i m emily ilic. i m going to start the activia 14-day challenge today. problems that i have are, you know, irregularity. i do have some doubts if it works. i think it s really good. um. i like the flavors. i think from being a skeptic in the beginning i do think that activia actually works. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. activia love to see kids spirits shine. superstar and mom, martina mcbride and sunnyd it works or it s free. shine on sunny taste. sunny spirit. sunny d. from the edo period to prove you can wear anything while pouring our thicker-formula bleach. no splash and whiter whites. the masterful new line of clorox plus splash-less bleach. stop it. hello? you spotted a million dollar accounting error that no one else noticed. that was pretty sweet. but you did have eight layers of sweet crunchy back up. what can i say? you re the man. or you know, the little dude. that s me. [ female announcer ] stop mid-morning hunger with kellogg s® frosted mini-wheats® cereal. an excellent source of fiber from 100% whole grain that helps you stay full, so you can stay focused. also, try chocolate little bites. so, how d the meeting go? outstanding, i wowed them with my chocolate chip center. this morning on today s home, a spectacular patio makeover. one brooklyn couple was lucky enough to have a spacious back deck, but it lacked both privacy and comfort. so bring in today contributor george oliphant from lxtv s open house and designer courtney cachet right to the rescue. this week s e-mail comes from newlyweds jillian and mark who write dear george, after our wedding in the fall, we moved into our first apartment together. the highlight its huge back deck. after a winter of emptiness it is finally ready for some attention. it has so much potential, we just don t know what to do with it. we got married in august. number one on our priority list was definitely outdoor space. it s nice having your own little plot of land. we ended up with a big one. whether it s the inside or the outside, nobody s better than my friend courtney. now we re on a deck. summer s here, baby. we re going to make this place into an urban oasis. what does the audience need to know about outdoor entertainment? that there are tons of options available for decor that s made specifically for the outdoors. like everything we have right here. everything we have here. we ve got a table that looks like wood. but it s not. i didn t know wow. and we even have an awesome chandelier for the outdoors. all right. mark, jillian, this is your new back oasis. paradise. all it what you will. oh, my god. we have fire in our backyard. there s rugs. it s contained the fire. we can grill in the backyard. the color is great, too. the white color. a chandelier outside. this is an oasis in new york city. and this is as if i have a five-star resort in my backyard. this is awesome. and george oliphant is here now with more ideas on how you can makeover your patio space. good morning, george. job well done there, as with us. thank you very much. we ve got to get out there and rescue people. absolutely. if you were to eskew our backyard area, although we have it decked out, what do people need to consider. they want to take their indoor living and move it outdoors, so they want to make a patio, a deck, make it an area that they can congregate, they can have friends over, and really take your inside and move it outside. you ve got to consider size, i imagine, and what s available to you. of course. and you re going to need a grill, or in this case we have an outdoor kitchen. an outdoor kitchen. this is a cambridge outdoor kit. they can really do anything. it s just up to your imagination and your pocketbook. the kits include everything, if you want to go to pergola and the countertop. or if you want to trim it down, i m going to go with the grill, i m not going to hard wire it. maybe i won t go with the sink. fridge is cool. really you can start off small and build on from there. continue to build. the beautiful thing about cambridge is that they re made with armortech. so it s not going to it s not going to fade. it looks like this when it s installed. 20 years down the road looks the same. something like this i imagine of this size and scale probably needs professional installation. yes, i would not recommend any do it yourselfer, not if you want to keep your marriage or your sanity. bring in a professional. can you do anything from outdoor kitchens. you can do water features. you can do planters. so you re not think outside the box. literally. let s move the party over here. once you have that set up, you ve got to have the area to relax. yeah, to chill, to hang out. bring the party out here. tell me about the furniture. this came from pottery barn. the key is, this material is sunbrella. which means it s not going to fade. it s water resistant. mold and mildew resistant. our lights are solar powered. obviously you want to have an umbrella for shade. and one of the cool things is these are decorative but they re plastic. so when you re outdoor, it s not going to break. don t have to worry about it. it s not that cheap plastic. actually this will break. don t drop that. and also nice to have a, like this is nice wicker basket, you can store everything in it and then bring it out when you have guests. brilliant. and make sure you have, this right here is the repellent, you want to make sure you re not getting pests flying around. citronella. it s a gorgeous space. gave us a lot of great ideas. george oliphant, thank you very much. we re going to keep the party going outside. we re going to tell you how you can accesser size for your fourth of july bash. and later country music superstar martina mcbride is going to join us. 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 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 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. 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[ female announcer ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi™. 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, helps regulate your digestive system in two weeks. mmmm. activia light is not light on taste! 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 over here! put your roots in reverse. with root touch-up, by nice n easy. it extends the life of your color in 10 minutes with a seamless match to any brand guaranteed! roots are outta there. with root touch-up by nice n easy. introducing total plus omega-3 honey almond flax cereal. all the nutrition of total, plus 10% daily value omega-3 ala, and a delicious honey almond crunch. new total plus omega-3. when pain keeps you up, nothing is proven to help you fall asleep faster than advil pm liqui-gels. rushing real liquid relief to ease you to sleep fast. for nighttime pain, make advil pm your #1 choice. you and your tasty whole grain. this can only end one way. [ crunch ] wheat thins. toasted. whole grain. crunch. the crunch is calling. le crunch. to film themselves coming up, accessorizing your fourth of july party. . 14-day challenge. my digestive problems are irregularity. so i m really excited to see if this really works. my husband tried this last night. he loved it. he said it s the best yogurt i ve ever brought home, so.mmm. have just started to notice a slight difference in my digestion. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. take the activia challenge. have you tried honey bunches of oats yet? every spoonful is a little different. mmm. they got three kinds of flakes. this is delicious. it s the perfect combination of sweet and crispy. i love it. this is so good. this is great. the magic s in the mix. 9:26just about now on this thursday morning. if you liked yesterday s forecast you ll like today, too. very much the same, low humidity, sunshine. welcome back to news4 today. i m aaron gilchrist. in our headlines, one person is dead after a horrific accident in the 9400 block in college park. this happened 1:30e this morning. two vehicles collided head-on, a truck burst into plames on impact. three others are injured. a stretch of cherry hill road closed for several hours. it opened two hours ago. weather and traffic next. good morning. here s your four-day forecast. highs reaching near 8 oh bright sunshine, low humidity. hotter saturday, still comfortable. getting more humid and hotter for the fourth of july. should be good weather for all of the festivities and the fireworks display sunday evening. how s the traffic now? tom, tough news for folks head south on 95 virginia. road work set up as you head south from lorden toward newington. jammed from the beltway. quick check elsewhere, accident at maryland district line. police are on the scene. get your holiday weekend started with news4 today. tune in when you wake up tomorrow 4:30 we now the grammy winning band best as maroon 5. we ll be bringing a brand of rock to our concert stage to kick off your holiday weekend in style tomorrow on today. and if that s not enough, one week later, the understated lady gaga will be singing on the plaza with a live performance not to be missed. that s lady gaga, friday, july 9th, only on today. yeah. and meanwhile in this half hour we re going to help you good morning. here we still have low humidity in place and the temperatures are now climb into the low 70s around the region with a beautiful, blue sky. we will have this delightful weather with us again tomorrow and into the first part of the holiday weekend. highs today near 80, as well as tomorrow, with sunshine. dry weather continues on the fourth of july as well, though it is going to be hotter and more humid. we should have good weather for the fireworks display sunday evening. getting hot and humid next week. and that s your latest weather. all right, al. coming up next, from patriotic party favors to outdoor games, affordable ideas to get new the holiday spirit. right after this. that s why we re investing one million dollars every hour. to improve our technology and your safety. it s an investment that s helped toyota earn multiple top safety pick awards for 2010 by the insurance institute for highway safety. no other brand has won more. these top safety picks, and all our new safety innovations are available at toyota.com/safety. no pain medicine is proven to last longer than advil. not tylenol. not aleve. nothing lasts longer than advil. pain relief that lasts. one more reason to make advil your #1 choice. stop it. hello? you spotted a million dollar accounting error that no one else noticed. that was pretty sweet. but you did have eight layers of sweet crunchy back up. what can i say? you re the man. or you know, the little dude. that s me. 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[ male announcer ] when you drink pepsi, you support the pepsi refresh project. so, this 4th of july, choose pepsi. this morning on today s kitchen, a crowd pleaser. if you want to make something a little different this year from the usual burgers and hot dogs we ve got hot chef luis from greenwich, connecticut. he s got a portuguese paella to feed your hungry guests. good morning. good morning, ann, how are you? i m great. how is a portuguese paella different from the spanish version? i knew you were going to ask that question. the difference is we don t make it as dry and as the spanish put a little bit of a crust on the bought up. the portuguese like it a little bit more moist. but it s still the same. you have the chiles, the saffron rice, lots of seafood and you can mix in some meat. you started with onions but there s garlic sliced in here. you have lots of garlic, lots of onions, you want to split them out and get a little bit of color on them. a little bit of olive oil. nice olive oil to get it going. once you have a nice, translucent look to your onions, take some nice shrimp and add it in. i ve also set up here get that one in there, get some calamari. what i ve done is i ve blanched it off a little bit so it stayed nice and tender. if you don t like calamari, can you change some of this, some of the major ingredients? you can make it as custom to your taste as you like. you can use scallops. that s the beauty. you can t go wrong. chorizo. that s the portuguese chorizo. what makes portuguese chorizo so special? it s smokier than your typical spanish chorizo. so it s cured with smoke and got lots of paprika in it and lots of flavor. looks like this? once you get to this point you want to get a little bit of liquid going to bring up the caramelization from the bottom of the pan. this is water. you can use shrimp stock, chicken stock, vegetable stock. once we get a little bit of a boil going back to the liquid, bring up all this little flavor on the bottom of the pan and we re going to add a little bit of rice here. this is the saffron rice. saffron is expensive but you don t need to use a lot of it. just want to give a little color and flavor to the dish. you don t have to use a lot of it. what i also do is add a little bit of chicken. which is just roasted, yummy chicken. brings a little more flavor to the dish. and then some fresh peas. hmm. bring the color in. that s beautiful. make it look beautiful. over here you ve got some other things. the last one that we re going to, finish off. you can see the flavors come together. everything s kind of like to the. i like to finish it off with fresh, roasted peppers. you get those out of a can? you would never get them out of a can. you would always roast them. roast them. nice and easy. you could throw them on the grill. they taste better. do you use i do. hmm. really good. fresh cilantro. again for color and flavor. let s go back here. we ve got about 30 seconds left. great. and you re going to finish the dish. we basically take some of the paella. put it in a bowl. the portuguese like to finish it with a curry. is it a hot sauce? a roasted red pepper sauce with a little bit of heat to it. this looks beautiful. look at this, you guys. this is what you do. you can serve it in a big container like this. fourth of july weekend why not serve your whole group one of these. thank you so much. nice to meet you. thank you so much. my pleasure. i think portuguese food is time to get the attention it deserves. coming up next, al s book club for kids. the day i read a book i can t remember when but one of those days i m gonna do it again this morning on al s book club for kids middle world, book one in the trilogy. 14-year-old max murphy is furious when his archaeologist parents cancel their summer vacation to go on a dig in the mayan ruins. things go from bad to worse when max discovers his parents have vanished. with the help of new friends max fights through haunting temples, changing the world along the way. john and pamela wrote middle world and we ve got our kids critics with us subpoena sabrina hernandez, spencer carl otto. we ve got ava thornton and miles newfy. how are you guys doing? and joining us live over skype is our guest critic, hattie from gilbert, arizona. hi. this is a new thing we re starting. we re bringing you, our viewer, to join our kids club. our kids club critics. good to see you guys. and great to see you guys. it s great to be here. how did you guys come up with the idea, john and pamela, of creating this book? i mean because it really is terrific. you know, i grew up in south america, and i have a lot of wild experiences traveling through the jungle. and i love the experiences max has in the book are some of the things i went through when i was a kid. really? go one of the things i really remember most was going to ancient ruins. i think my fascination with the maya came out of that experience. pamela, how did you go along for the ride? i didn t know anything about the maya until we started writing the book, and made several trips down to central america with our own children. and find out the more you find out about the maya the more you want to know. i know our book club critics want to as well. sabrina, what s your question? this question is for john. on the back of the book you describe that you had a plane crash in the junking. can you tell us about that? sure. well, fortunately nobody was hurt. it was a small twin engine plane and they were trying to land, and it was a clearing in the rain forest. and they missed the field, and they went plowing through the trees. trees going everywhere. finally hit a big tree, the plane swung around. they kind of had to patch the plane off. they took off and left us there for two weeks and finally came back for us. can you imagine that, sabrina? did that help with the contribution for the book? absolutely. particularly surviving for two weeks in the rain forest. a lot of the things that max found himself alone in the rain forest doing. that definitely help. sabrina a born journalist, asking the follow-up question. 11-year-old spencer. what s your question? well, my question is, for both of you guys. there s a wall inside of the temple that is made out of human skulls. can you tell us about that. there s actually a wall in chichen itza that s made of skulls and that s where that was that s where that came from. but skulls are very common in maya. wow. all right. now let s go on to skype, we ve got hattie from gilbert, arizona. hattie, good morning. good morning. what s your question for our authors? the characters in the book, are they based on real people? well, they are. the funny thing is because max himself. a lot of people think he s a bit nasty at the beginning. the reality is he s based on me as a child. there could be worse things. i hope just like max, i hope i did, as well. all right. hattie, thank you so much for your question. how d you enjoy the book? it was awesome. all right we re going to get our kids club critics review in just a second. 11-year-old eva, how you doing? good. so what s your question for our authors? on the last page, there s a to be continued page, and i wanted to know if you knew the ending of the book before you wrote it, or did the ending unfold as you wrote it? we know the endings of book three, not only book one and book three. it s written, the ending of book three. we know exactly where we re going with this story and it just gets more exciting, i have to tell you. and miles. hello. i just wanted to know, how how just how how wait a second. okay. how how accurate is the is the history of this book? how accurate is it? is it fiction? that s a great question. the stories themselves are really the only fictional part. all the information about the maya and what takes place in the rain forest is absolutely up to the minute. we have a professor at harvard who checks through all the facts. and it s so obvious. we want to give our kid critics rated this book on a skill of one to five. middle world gets four stars. thanks to everybody. go to todayshow.com tell us what you re reading this summer. you could be selected as our next guest critic. next book, dark life. so grab a book and read along. we ll be back with more of today after your local news and weather. er another day with beautiful sunshine and break from the extreme heat. good morning, 9:57 on this thursday morning. i m aaron gilchrist. in hur headlines, republican robert urlich looking to his old administration to find a running mate for his current quest to win back the governor s mansion in maryland. he selected mary cane. cane was his secretary of state for part of his term in office. she s most recently served as director of special projects. cane is from the county which the urlich has been focusing on because of swing voters. temperatures into the low 70s. low humidity in place. sunshine on tap for today, highs around 80. more of the same friday. hotter saturday but not humid. getting more humid on the fourth of july, and hotter, highs reaching low 90s. good weather for the festivities for the parades during the day and fireworks display on sunday evening. how s the traffic now? take a live look at this hour. earlier accident kelt worth cleared. a parking lot, leaving the capital beltway in springfield headed over because of road work over the american legion bridge. sluggish on the outer loop. travel lanes are open. we ll keep you updated. thank you. get your holiday weekend started with news4 today. tune in when you wake up at 4:30 for the news, weather and traffic. on 9:59 now, the today show is back i captions paid for by nbc-universal television hey, everybody, don t adjust your sets. we are back. this is thirsday, july 1st. hope you enjoyed the wimbledon coverage. they re dropped like flies. venus and serena sisters. who s left? nadal. i love him. once federer goes down, it s like, what s happening. we were very busy while people were playing tennis. we told you you were going to go to nantucket for a little girl s weekend. and kathie lee opened up her home, it was just such a terrific weekend for all of us. it was the two of us, christine a rare picture of christine. i think she allowed it because there s cleavage involved. what am i doing there? don t ask. that s mike kitridge. he is a fabulous guitarist and writer and singer and he s got this fantastic party pavilion place where we just well, he sang by the way, he was singing beatles songs, along with himself in harmony. it s a new thing. we can ask dave about it. it s a mike you use and it gives you three-part harmony while you re singing. it was cool. a cool family. put out a beautiful dinner for us. a blind wine tasting test. look at her. i can t even believe she s letting us. there s bobbie. that s at the kitridge s home. underneath, their daughters, they go in there and take the adult shoes and hilarity ensues. and thanks to you for a great weekend. it was relaxing. we went to the beach, we chilled out, we bonded. all is cool with all the ladies. you were at an event last night. i did. actually, the night before last. it was an event where you feed the homeless. we were trying to pack 150,000 meals in three hours. it was just it s one thing to go to an event, hoda, that raising money for the homeless, but another thing to actually get your elbows dirty and get in there and really what a wonderful feeling. it was great and it was almost like a party atmosphere, so it put you in a great mood. it reminded me of when we were on the plaza doing that for our troops. you were busy, too, one of the evenings. i was. i guess it was monday night. the second year in a row we ve hosted something called the jimmys, named our our dear friend. it s the search for the number one, the top male and female high school seniors in musical theatre and there we are with the cast. i think there s one with tommy tune was there. so tall. like 6 8 and i m wearing heels. good for you, hoda. he was the nicest guy in the world. let me tell you who won. oh, gosh. we had it on a piece of paper. darling kid. last name is selig from california and a darling girl from atlanta. alexandria payne. kyle selig. let me tell you something about your memory, which is pretty astonishing. you cut something out of the paper. paper s nowhere and you just remembered it. you just got to try. these kids, it s a huge thing. they got a $10,000 scholarship and i got the feeling that we re going to see them soon because you know what was there, a casting director from nickelodeon. so smart to get these kids real quickly. while we were away, a lot of stuff happened. larry king got on tv the other night. i guess the announcement came sooner than people thought. it was sort of, you know, it s the end of an era with larry king. quickly people talk about who s going to replace him, but for a minute, we should just take a braet and realize what a pioneer he was. when someone is at that point in their career, is it going to be pierce morgan or ryan seacrest. oh, please. you know how fast kelly ripa got in my seat. everybody s replaceable. anybody who thinks they re not is wrong. they re all talking about who s going to be the next oprah. there s not. when we were gone, too, i thought this was interesting. michael douglas, who had been divorced for many years, is going to do a new wall street movie. even after they ve been divorced for ten years, she wants a cut of the new movie that hasn t come out. she wants the royalties. 50%. what do you think about that? i it was you get half of everything you ve earned, not future earnings. there s something to do with where the trial would take place. whether it s more conducive to her wishes if it s in california or something in new york. i m not a lawyer, but she did get an estimated $45 million in their 2000 divorce. that doesn t go very far anymore. you know. well, the other big story which has been on the front of the papers, which we don t understand is the story of the russian spies. it makes me longs for the days of boris and natasha. at least we knew what they were spying about. there were this group of russians, sort of assimilated into the u.s. culture, have kids here, kids in school. and somehow, they re spying. we keep hearing about invisible ink and digging money up. but nobody has been able to report on what they re spying about. all we see are pictures of these people at picnics. oh, they like ketchup. i just feel so much safer now knowing they re all locked up, don t you? there was an article out of russia where they were like, what s going on. because some of it was found on social networking. it seemed that way to me, too. if you know exactly what has been it s not reported anywhere. it s nowhere out there. how are they going to know. so you think it s only lasting because this one girl s 28 and they say she was a babe. maybe they don t want to reveal what the secrets are because then it would tell the secrets again. aren t most of the secrets in washington, not new jersey? you know? yes. i know, it s melting it s so hot in the studio. this came from this is beach ice cream. it s called from the ice cream store. we have different ones. mine s called better than sex. i m going to try that because why wouldn t i. and you should know. that s good. really? yeah. but is it better than sex? it s close. this one s bacon. i don t want to eat it. i m sorry. this one s beer. this one s booger. i mean, please. i know. get in there. get in the green. i would not go there if you paid me. beer? people want to know what this tastes like. all right. i ll taste the booger. what the heck. i like the booger. it s just green that s all. what s it taste like, salty? no, it tastes like boogers. okay, not okay. is it okay to get married on fourth of july weekend and spoil your guest s holiday plans? the way they asked it makes it negative, but you said i said what? you said it s a perfect time to elope. it is. let everybody else have their nice weekend. you said, it s okay to invite them, but be ready for some fireworks and maybe a smaller than planned reception. i think people think, well rk people have plans. they ll be invited, but they won t come. i invited all of you to nantucket and you came. my plan did not work. okay, we have a big show. coming up, the one, the only martina mcbride. and it s everybody has a story. 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, helps regulate your digestive system in two weeks. mmmm. activia light is not light on taste! 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 doo doo doo woman: there s only one disinfecting wipe with a low streak formula. clorox disinfecting wipes. [ 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. delicious, real ingredients with no artificial flavors or preservatives. naturals from purina cat chow. share a better life. hey, when your ride looks good, you look good. check it out. armor all wipes. twin pack. just six bucks. prevents premature aging. mr. rollback needs that. he s got kids. [ imitates engine ] i m darrell, and i save people money so they can live better. [ domenic ] grew up right here. really that s about all we ever did is just work and play here. pretty well. i think up here in this area, we re, we re kinda like a novelty almost now, because there s so few of us left. but farmers are farmers we enjoy what we do and we keep doing it. and i just keep trucking, just keep going. one look at this woman can put a smile on your face. not this one. martina mccbride. she s a working mom of three daughters, has been married to the love of her life for 22 years. i remember when you got married. her most recent album debuted at the top of the charts. great to see you. you got your family visiting with you, too. i do. we went and saw mary poppins last night. they loved it. last time you were here, we talked about shine. were you surprised at how well that did? when you make an album, you never know what s going to happen. you have to let it go and it was received very well. it s a commercial now, too. not bad. to you, it s kid rock and it s t.i. i was like, hello. i don t know who t.i. is. he s a rapper. it comes out in september and he asked me to be a part of it. we sang together last year at cma music festival and he said that night he was going to right a song for us and he was true to his word and he included t.i. it was fun. it s fun to try new things. it is. asong as i m not rapping. people would pay to see that. you re also here to talk about this heart healthy campaign that we know is important to you. exactly. we all, you know, we think of taking care of our heart is something as, we ll do it some day, ten years from now. right. but it s number one heart disease, number one killer of women in america, so we need to do more to take care of our heart and teamed up with che cheerios to inspire people. there s a great contest where you write an essay, talking about the things you love to do and how you take care of your heart so you can keep doing those things. then you get to win a opportunity to hang out with me in nashville. you re trying very hard to be a good role model for your children. yeah, i have three daughters and it s important. teach them that you can make decisions every day that can help you be able to do the things you love to do and take care of yourself. even if it s french fries you love, bake them. what are your kids up to? adorable. delaney is 15, she has her learner s permit. cute husband, too. 22 years. what s the secret? so many marriages of famous couples don t seem to make it that long. we re just great partners. i got really lucky. i found the right one and he s did you kiss a few frogs before though? a couple. name names? some day. i ll save that for my book. what does he do? is he your manager? he is my sound engineer on the road. when i met him, he had a sound company in kansas. he s been very involved in the live sound for as long as as i ve known him, so when i go on the road, he runs the sound. he s my secret weapon. makes me sound good. yeah, because otherwise, you have to make really good friends with your sound guy. lighting and sound, the most important thing. thank you. good luck with everything. okay, so why is tv s rita krrc on our coach? find out why she s here with her dad. at cheez-it, we expect a lot from our cheese. - knock, knock. - who s there? interrupting cheese. interrupt - cheese! - i should have seen that one coming. you should ve, cause that was i even told you i was gonna be interrupting you. ( snickering, laughing ) morning sir. beautiful day, isn t it? we take the time for our cheese to mature. before we bake it into every delicious cracker. because at cheez-it, real cheese matters. your home is their home. but now you can build a barrier that kills bugs dead! introducing raid max bug barrier. its auto trigger lets you lay down a continuous, long-lasting barrier. like the pros do. [ ant ] i m in! i m out. raiiid?!! [ pow! ] [ male announcer ] build a barrier indoors and out. with new raid max bug barrier. works up to 12 months. [ female announcer ] sc johnson. a family company. veteran tv journalist rita cosby has not been afraid to ask the tough questions. now, in a new memoir, she takes on her most challenging interview subject ever, her own father, a world war ii veteran with a story of courage. you can t put this down once you start reading it. nice to see you. so great to be with you guys. i love the genesis of this story. it started off with a suitcase that you discovered that had some of your father s belongings in it. my mother had passed away and a opened this suitcase and it had a rusty p.o.w. tag and a arm band and a secret card with code names. then i found the card of an ex-p.o.w. i reached out to him. this started to make some sense to you because of what you had been through as a family years before. you had never told your family about this time of your life, had you? no, i built a very solid wall about my memories. i really had no intention ever of telling her the gruesome part of what was happening in 1944. unfortunately, when the treasure chest, the old beat up suitcase was opened in front of me, i softened up, i sort of lost itened i started talking about the past. one of the stories you tell is that when you finally escaped from one of the camps, you were over six-foot, 90 pounds, so thin and frail and then you zrip a moment of finding something dropped from a plane. tell thaus story. we were about two days out of the camp, sort of navigating towards where we thought america was going to be. as we were on the very road, in the middle of nowhere, suddenly, a plane appeared. cabin door opened and an object dropped out with a red ribbon. at that time, being well-trained, when something is dropped from the sky, so all of us make a dive for the ditches. after we discovered it was not a grenade, but it was a chocolate and around the chocolate, it was a message wrapped around saying, welcome. you have no problems. no german troops between where you are and our lines. so you can march where ever you want to. only 15 miles to our lines and freedom. and in my opinion, that was end of the war for me. wow. april 23th, 1945. but you thought these art facts had been destroyed by your former wife, rita s mom, so you were suddenly the evidence is right in front of you. your heart had been cold towards your father for all those years because you didn t understand where his coldness came from. and now, i understand. it s funny, i felt up until now, i didn t really have a father and i feel like now, i have the most amazing dad. now, i ve come to understand what an incredible hero he was and that he went through something amazing he s uncomfortable with that. and how could that not affect you. i ve learned what an amazing hero he is. to this day, he says he s not a hero. it s a family story. it s a story of everything. i think anybody would really get a lot out of it. i know you re traveling around the country. yes, we re doing the american heroes tribute tour. we ve got great companies helping us. laser energetics, we re raising money for the u.s.o., also, the have a heart, save a life fund. starting labor day weekend, we re going to be in dozens of cities raising money for our hero heroes. it s always quiethero.org. it s an amazing book. thanks. still to come, everyone has a story and this one s going to bring you very happy tears. plus, new foods that will make you look forward to some terrific things. .in your skin. 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[ female announcer ] new ageless vitality. save $20 at aveeno.com. that s the beauty of nature and science. to create a technologically advanced clog-buster and pipe-wall cleaner. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. unleash the power of the plumr. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. we asked real people to film themselves taking the activia 14-day challenge. i m mary ellen smith. day one of the activia 14-day challenge. my digestive problems are irregularity. so i m really excited to see if this really works. my husband tried this last night. he loved it. he said it s the best yogurt i ve ever brought home, so.mmm. have just started to notice a slight difference in my digestion. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. break news. wssc calling for mandatory water restrictions for the next four day. crews discovered a failing section of a 96-inch water main in potomac. all wssc customers are being told to stop their outside water use now. they re also supposed to limit how often they flush their toilets and avoid using back with more of today and items straight off the shelf. some of us strolled the aisles of the supermarket to pick up a chicken and others like sissy go to the fancy food show to find a goodies. it is nice. the fact of the matter is that the center of this, it s always the hottest sunday in july. you arrive and there are 2400 exhibitors and your palette does the walking. watching retailers make selections and i chose things i thought were appropriate for you two and your viewers, so what do you think i m starting with? i see some alcohol on the table. the cocktail accompaniments. nowadays, it s not just about celery in your bloody mary. you want to enjoy a tipsy stirrer. it s premade, ready to go with pickles. oninos and olives. this is from teal and farms. see, this makes it so healthy. almost like a salad. exactly. also a cheap way to get by with an that s just something, this is the today show brand. cherries, no l in. thanks so much. up next, it s a mother and daughter reunion in everyone has a story. please stay with us. wonderful song for you to hear. 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[ female announcer ] when tthe 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. we are back with our everyone has a story contest winner. she is julie blair. first, let s listen to julie s beautiful letter. my name is julie blair and my mother s name is mary. we were separated when i was 3 and i was taken to a foster home. my life was filled with much struggle, heart ache and homelessness. my mother s life was much of the same. i learned back in meeting her that she, too, had been homeless in houston. while she now has a roof over her head, i m excited to share that she s making the move from houston to dallas so we can build a better relationship as mother and daughter. she s lived in houston for roughly 30 years, so for her to make this move is one that i am so very proud of. it is wonderful to have her in my life, although it is important now for me to be able to help her change her life so that she s able to experience joy and unconditional love for probably the first time. it is time for her to receive instead of being stolen from. it is time for her to smile and enjoy life. i want her to know and believe that she has value and that she is truly loved. we re so happy to see julie is here with her beautiful mother, mary. mary, that was kind of hard for you to listen to. how long were you separated? about 25 years? yes. what made you decide, julie, to go looking for your mom? i sernled for about 11 years and i just wanted to know the answers. where i came from, what i looked like, why i looked the way i did. upon meeting your mom again, what was that moment like? i didn t well, the first time when i actually saw her, i didn t really want to because we had spoken on the phone and there were a few things that she had said and i didn t really want to chase family because i had been doing that for so long and so, the first time we met, i thought, okay, well, that s good. i ve seen you, can i go back home now. and i was done. but i stayed the few days in houston and met the rest of my biological family. and then you know, there were a distance again and then now, since 2007, 2008, roughly, we ve been building our relationship. and a lot of that has got to do with forgiveness. absolutely. i was very angry most of my life. i was rejected, abandoned, i was a throw away and much like my mom was. and so, i received a phone call on new year s eve of 2006 from my bible teacher telling me your unforgiveness is killing you and if you want to live, you ve got to deal with your issues and forgive your mother. so i spent two days in my room, crying, and i forgave my mom. i sent her a letter and went to meet her in march of 08 and she gave her life to jesus and we started a new venture together. and you ve had a stroke in the meantime rk right? yes, i did. about a month ago. how are you doing now though? fine. how is your relationship. the last year or so? it s been really unusual and different. i haven t had in so many years. did you think about her all those years, mary? yes. and there were times, i knew the age was right for her to start looking and i tried looking myself. i got in results because the records had been sealed. when you got that call from her the first time, what was your initial reaction? surprise. were you pleased or a little scared? it was totally unusual to hear from somebody i hadn t heard from in years and i was very happy. because it was close to christmas time. what a christmas present. how s it been for you over the last year or so? once you decide and make the choice to forgive someone, the things that they do are no longer a bother. and so, it s part of, it s just part of it. instead of react iing to the situation, getting frustrated, you respond and it changes you inside out and so, there are accidents, things that require additional stance, but that s part of it and when you love someone, you take the good, the bad, all of it. it doesn t matter. you re not doing it alone, either. you have your faith. absolutely. jesus. that s why we re here. we re going to take a little break and when we come back, the special song that kathie lee wrote along with david friedman. and wait until you hear her voice. and then my father, duane.iryma. i started out with my dad and my brother. [ scott ] when you have a family situation, it s just a progression. my position is at the bottom of the totem pole. since the boys came in, i ve worked my way all the way down. [ laughs ] he s teasing you when he says he s moving down the totem pole. he s just as important as he ever was. delicious, real ingredients with no artificial flavors or preservatives. naturals from purina cat chow. share a better life. to create a technologically advanced clog-buster and pipe-wall cleaner. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. unleash the power of the plumr. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. 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, helps regulate your digestive system in two weeks. mmmm. activia light is not light on taste! 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 the wonderful story of the mother and daughter reunion between julie blair and her mom. now, it s time for you to hear the song that david and i wrote just for you. please welcome broadway performer, she s spectacular, erin mackey. the song is called we can all choose to love. some people are born into sunshine others are born into rain some people experience unbounded joy while others feel nothing but pain some people are blessed with abundance others have nothing at all some people are able to reach for the stars while others aren t able to crawl yet sometimes we win and sometimes we lose the cards that we re handed we don t get to choose but there s one choice we re given from heaven above we all can choose to love we all can choose to love my mother was born into struggle life wasn t easy or fair when i came along she had nothing to give and life became too much to bear but somehow i know that she loved me she knew that i loved her too and some day we d find our way back to each other regardless of all we had been through because sometimes we re lost and sometimes we re found and sometimes we can t get our feet on the ground but there s always one thing we re all capable of we all can choose to love we all can choose to love a broken mother a broken child rescued redeemed and reconciled each of us chose what each of us could and all things have worked together for good because we remembered that all else above we all can choose to love we all can choose to love erin, so beautiful. and we will be back with more of today on nbc. appreciate the easy days, are what keep me coming back for more. and the customer says, on the carpet. i m thinking, what? gonna be difficult. don t tell me about a dog. an exploding crockpot, free-ranging house chickens. call a day s work. call 1-800-steemer we re back, honoring a very special relationship. erin mackey just performed beautifully. also with us is david friedman. now, time for our favorite part. it is. we get to give you guys something. i know you have a lot of unexpected costs, so visa has donated a $1500 gift card just for some day-to-day expenses. what did you guys think of the song? oh, i thought it was beautiful. what did you think? i thought it was incredible. we love mary. i said during a commercial break, now, mary s in a good mood, nobody do anything. i m a little afraid of mary. she happens to be darling, darling. i think you re going to be just fine as you start this whole new journey in life. we re so grateful you ve shared your story with us. you have a wonderful vacation after all that glorious singing on broadway. davey is heading off to los angeles for a whole new composing life, but will be with us every month for every has a story. david friedman has so many things in the air. all right. tomorrow, jimmy smits. make someone happy today, everybody, and we ll see you tomorrow. captions by vitac www.vitac.com