Transcripts For WRC Today 20100715 : vimarsana.com

edited. what does our expert think? we ll tell you today, what does our expert think? we ll tell you today, thursday, july 15th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this thursday morning, i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. this morning bp is dealing with yet another setback. we don t know just how big it is. but another setback at the site of that devastating oil leak in the gulf of mexico. shorting after getting the green light to go ahead with tests on a new tighter fitting cap those tests had to be put off yet again because of an isolated leak in the equipment. we re going to get the latest on that in a live report. we re also going to talk about that startling allegation being leveled against bp that the company successfully pressured the british government to release the pan am bomber, the only man connected in the terror attack that killed 270 people, including 189 americans, in exchange for a $900 million oil deal with libya. this morning, two senators are calling for an immediate investigation, and they will speak out. also ahead, a popular and extremely dangerous prank that s being pulled by a growing number of teenagers. coming up, an honor student sent to jail for setting off what are called bottle bombs. we ll deliver a warning to parents and teenagers about the dangers and consequences of those actions. scary stuff. plus the fallout from wednesday s surprising news that bristol palin and levi johnson are engaged. why do they say they want to get married in just a few short weeks? and will sarah palin show up at their wedding? but we want to begin on this thursday morning with some new problems facing bp this morning. we ve got two reports, beginning in the gulf with nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson. anne, good morning. good morning, matt. bp never even got a chance to start this test. last night, as it was doing preparations, it found the leak, and we ve been told all along that this would be a very slow and deliberate process, because there are concerns that when bp did the top kill procedure, that s the procedure where it sent thousands of gallons of mud down into the well to try to kill it, it may have actually weakened the well, causing some unknown fissures beneath the sea floor. as an anxious nation waited for the complicated test to begin, crews found a leak in one of the lines. robotic vehicles worked overnight to repair it. bp wants to close each of the five outlets on the cap and blowout preventer to stop the rush of oil. at each step, scientists will get a clue about the condition of the well. making sure there are no leaks based on key readings of pressure levels. the pressure readings stay low, that will tell us that the oil is probably going someplace else, and we need to consider the fact we may have a breach. reporter: the tests got the green light after a 24-hour delay requested by the government. its scientists wanted to make sure the tests would not make the situation worse. in other words, this is a first, do no harm to the well. reporter: the risk is substantial. you would have a situation where you have an enormous amount of pressure coming to a halt immediately, very much like a train running into a brick wall. and that would send a shock wave down the well bore, which could cause problems anywhere from the surface of the wellbore to deep in the well. reporter: but if it works, if they can shut the well, the rewards are enormous. finally stopping the flow of crude that has washed ashore in five states. the cap was designed to contain oil, and send it to ships on the surface while relief wells are drilled. actually shutting down the well, bp says, was long an unspoken possibility. we actually have always had in mind that if we put the capping stack in place that we might have the opportunity to shut in the well. but, we had to continue to do a lot of the analysis that we did to give ourselves confidence. reporter: well, that confidence has been rocked this morning. rovs, those remote operated vehicles, worked overnight to repair that leak. if they can get it solved and start those tests, the tests could run for as long as 48 hours, and then bp and government officials will look at the results, and decide what steps to take next. matt? all right, anne, thank you very much. that s anne thompson down in louisiana for us this morning. it s now five after the hour. once again here s meredith. matt, thank you. that leaking oil is not the only problem facing bp this morning. there are also serious questions about whether the company played a role in last year s release of the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of pan am flight 103. nbc s chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell is in washington with details. good morning, andrea. reporter: good morning, meredith. yes, there are new questions today about whether bp pressured the british government to release the lockerbie bomber in exchange for a $900 million oil deal with libya. the outrage over the hero s welcome last year in libya for the only man convicted of the pan am 103 bombing. abdel basset al megrahi. a bombing that killed 270 people in 1988, including 189 americans. many were students at syracuse university. megrahi was left free because libyan doctors said he only had three months to live, advanced prostate cancer. now a year later he is still alive and thriving, and bp is being accused of pressuring the british government for his release in exchange for an oil deal with libya. u.s. lawmakers are outraged. if bp is found to have gained access to libyan oil reserves by using a mass murderer as a bargaining chip, then make no mistake, any money it makes off of that oil is blood money, pure and simple. reporter: secretary of state hillary clinton was asked about the tradeoff. i ve received a letter. reporter: she said she d look into it. but her spokesman suggested there is not much the u.s. can do. there are some practical questions of exactly what they would be asking us to do, and what would be our ability to to inquire as to, you know, any conversation that might alleged to have taken place between a private company, a government, and another devolved government. reporter: bp acknowledges that it did talk to the british government in 2007 about what bp calls, quote, the slow progress of the prisoner transfer agreement. and that a delay could have, quote, a negative impact on british commercial interests. including its oil exploration. and that certainly raises more questions than it answers. meredith? absolutely. andrea mitchell, thank you very much. new york senators chuck schumer and kirsten gillebrand have called on the state department to launch an investigation. senators, good morning to you both. good morning. senator schumer if i could start with you. the fact that bp may have been involved in the release of the pan am bomber, lobbied for the release of the pam am bomber is not really news. that s been discussed in past months. so why are you launching the investigation now? well, the revelation that the official reason that this terrorist was released, because he had three months to live, has now been shattered by the very doctor who said he s going to live ten years. and this is just, the whole thing, has deep circumstantial evidence that points to the fact that there was a tradeoff. release the terrorist in exchange for an oil contract. that is a horrible slap in the face to the families. i knew one of the young men, a young man from syracuse university, i knew his family, who died in this flight. but it also says that our war on terrorism, here s one of the worst terrorists of the last century, can be traded off for blood money. senator gillebrand, the british government has already declined a request to review the decision to release megrahi and as andrea mitchell pointed out in her piece, the state department says there isn t much they can do about this, so what do you hope to accomplish? well, two things. we want the uk to reopen an investigation. the earlier investigation that was done by scotland, even said they were extremely concerned with some of the facts underlying this release. they did not think there was a lot of clarity for the reasons given for the release and they were asked to visit the terrorist in prison. hasn t the uk already said that they will not do that? right, we re now asking them to reconsider that decision. we would like them to do a further investigation, in light of the fact that this terrorist is still alive after eleven months. that s new evidence when they said he was going to be dead within three. and how do you come out and say he ll live ten years is very serious and grave concerns. the second thing we re asking is we want a moratorium on drilling off the libyan coast. we do not think bp should be allowed to drill until we have resolution of this issue. do we have any power to make that happen, a moratorium on drilling? well, we are calling the uk government to assist us in this. and we want them to do that review. and we are very good allies with the uk government, and hopefully we will be able to be persuasive in getting more light and clarity and the truth as to what happened here. i think, meredith, the only pressure we have is public pressure. gut this is so outrageous, so beyond the pale, and they are a freely elected government, that i think if public pressure mounts, they will be forced to do something. this has to this just has to turn the stomach of every citizen of the uk and of scotland. when most people look at bp these days they think of what s happening down in the golf, the oil problem going on for 87 days, and even if we contain the oil within the next few weeks or months people there are going to be dealing with this for years to come. i guess my question to you is are we diverting our focus from that by trying to investigate something that happened, you know, in the british isles? yeah, i think we can do two things at once here, meredith. and i think but it also shows, you know, bp has had a series of charges of not behaving properly. whether it s in the gulf, whether it s here, whether it s in previous exploration, that it calls into question how the company performed in general, and what its general ethical compass was. the letter that you sent to secretary clinton, you write, evidence in the deepwater horizon disaster seems to suggest that bp put profit ahead of people. are you worried that they re not going to fulfill their obligation tolls pay the people in the gulf what is their due rights? we re going to do everything we can to assure that bp pays all the costs for the cleanup. not just the cleanup, but also all the costs to the businesses and families, and all of the interests in the region. and we re going to do everything we can do to make sure that they do pay those full costs. but this, again, goes to character. that s why these two issues are both incredibly relevant. you know, what is the character of this company? are they putting profits before people? all right, senators chuck schumer and kerstin gillibrand. thanks, meredith. let s get a check of the top stories. for that we ll swing over to ann at the news desk. good morning, everybody. we begin with a warning today from a group linked to al qaeda. the leader of the group which claimed responsibility for sunday s bombings in uganda is now threatening further attacks. he also said the bombings are revenge for uganda s deployment of peacekeepers in somalia. sunday s attack killed 76 people, including one american. former vice president dick cheney is recovering now at a north virginia hospital after undergoing major heart surgery. today national correspondent jamie gangel joins us with more on this story. jamie, good morning. good morning, ann. the surgery was to implant a mechanical heart assist device, called an l-vat and it was done because former vice president cheney was suffering from late-stage congestive heart failure. as we all know, mr. cheney has been battling serious coronary disease for 30 years. he s had five heart attacks. the first one he was just 37 years old. the most recent, in february. and i m told a few weeks ago, his doctors told him that the surgery had to be done to save his life. this device is a mechanical pump that works with a patient s heart. it is cutting-edge technology, and while in the past it was used as a bridge to a heart transplant, now more and more patients are able to use these mechanical pumps for years as an alternative to a transplant. so it really is a life saver. the good news is, while this was major surgery, and doctors say the former vice president is doing very well, he is still in the icu, but i m told he is up. he s starting to walk around. he s been watching the news, baseball, and some old john wayne movies. ann? all right. jamie gangel who first broke the story. thanks so much for your reporting this morning. federal health experts voted on wednesday to keep the diabetes drug avandia on the market but with restrictions because it increases the risk of heart attacks. the final decision is up to the fda. overseas markets are mostly lower this morning. cnbc s trish regan is at the new york stock exchange where the focus today is on jobs and earnings. trish? yeah, we re still in the swing of things here, ann, for earnings. so investors will be paying very close attention to that. a little bit of good news this morning, that they re getting in the way of jpmorgan, which had a very positive earnings report. so that s lending a little bit of confidence to things right now. but still, people are concerned about jobs. you had the fed releasing its fomc minutes, and basically what they said from the latest meeting, what they said was that the fed s concerned about growth. it could take five, six years before we really start to see some significant growth in this economy. that unemployment could remain high for the foreseeable future, ann. all right, on that sobering note, trish regan, thank you so much. people in parts of the upper midwest are assessing the damage there some severe weather that tore through the area on wednesday. there were at least 10 reports of tornadoes in minnesota, and wisconsin, including one near canyon falls, minnesota. and roy rogers stuffed and mounted horse trigger sold at auction on wednesday in new york. a nebraska cable tv network ponied up more than $266,000 for trigger. that s not horsing around. it is now 7:14. let s now go back to meredith, matt and al. i know you wanted it, al. yeah. good thursday morning. i m news4 meteorologist chuck bell. plenty of haze outside this morning. a touch of sumer humidity as well. temperatures are in the low to mid-70s, 77 here in washington. 73 fairfax. 70 degrees now in northern montgomery county. forecast for today, plenty of sunshine, but, man oh man, is it going to get toasty warm. highs near 95 today. near 9 pa again tomorrow with extra humidity. have a good one. that s your latest weather. matt? all right, al, thank you very much. the teenage fugitive dubbed the barefoot bandit remains in a miami jail this morning following his first u.s. court appearance tied to his alleged string of crimes in at least eight states. nbc s peter alexander is in miami with the latest on this. peter, good morning. matt, good morning to you. we were in that courtroom wednesday when colton harris-moore arrived. not barefoot but wearing jail issued white socks and plastic sandals. the 19-year-old fugitive will have to wait at least one more day to find out when a judge will send him back to seattle, and whether he can be released on bond. the so-called barefoot bandit is cooling his heels here in this miami jail for at least another day. on tuesday, he was paraded to a bahamian court. wednesday it was u.s. federal court, where colton harris-moore in his jumpsuit told the judge his mother hired an attorney for him, but said he hasn t talked to the laureate, and doesn t even know his name. i d have to speak with my mom first, he said. late wednesday, nbc news learned that harris-moore told his federal public defender that he now wants to be represented by seattle attorney john henry brown, who spoke to matt earlier this week. i think there s proof on some of these that is quite clear, and then there are some other alleged crimes that we don t know that he s really involved in at all. reporter: court documents show harris-moore faces federal prosecution for unlawfully transporting a stolen aircraft from idaho to washington in the fall of 2009. barefoot prints were found at both the airports and the crash site. us is pebted of a two-year crime spree across at least eight states harris-moore could face a harsh sentence. nobody s going to want to give this kid a discount because he s 19 and has that boy next door look to him. once you see the types of things he s been accused of, it s hard to conceive of him not being severely punished. reporter: but the young outlaw isn t accused of any violent crimes. and some suggest what this troubled teen really needs is help. this is the perfect opportunity for him to examine his life, and get the psychiatric care that he deserves. reporter: back in washington state, harris-moore s mother, who authorities have long suggested is at least partly to blame for his behavior, is facing growing scorn from neighbors who suspect she s trying to profit from her son s story. the fact that we glorify what he s done as some sort of, you know, folk hero or whatever you want to call him. he s nothing more than a thief. reporter: back in the bahamas on exclusive harbor island, one of harris-moore s alleged victims is just trying to break even. the fbi said, told the bahamian police to stop him at any cost. the cost to this boat is about $300,000. reporter: his sports fishing boat was shot up by bahamian authorities when they stopped harris-moore s final effort to escape. he tells nbc news that boat, bullet holes and all, is now for sale on ebay. certainly was a nice boat. we spoke to the lawyer representing colton harris-moore s mother who says that she, pam koehler, is now going into see clugs. he said that harris-moore hasn t spoken to his mom yet. he also hasn t spoken to his new lawyer directly. peter alexander in miami this morning. thanks a lot. it s now 19 after the hour. once again here s meredith. matt, thank you. one day after the stunning news that bristol palin and levi johnston are engaged, we re learning more about their plans for a wedding and sarah palin s reaction to it all. nbc s norah o donnell is in washington with more. good morning, norah. good morning, meredith. bristol palin says she s praying her mother will want to attend her wedding. but bristol, remember, chose to break the news to us weekly first and sarah palin so far has only put out a very terse statement. not welcoming the news, only saying that she wants what s best for her children. bristol palin and levi johnston now claim they are meant to be together. but the surprising news of their engagement is raising a lot of questions. like, why they want to get married so quickly, and whether sarah palin approves. sarah has not given their blessing to this wedding. we asked levi did you ask for bristol s hand? and he said no. i know that if i had, sarah and todd would have said no. reporter: todd and sarah palin s statement about the ebb gaugement was lukewarm at best saying they pray bristol and levi s relationship would mature for the benefit of their son tripp. bristol is just 19 years old. levi, 20. but already they tell us weekly we definitely want more kids. they ve been engaged just two weeks, and want to marry in the next month. but insist bristol is not pregnant. but she says no, she s practicing abstinence, they don t want to have sex before marriage, so she s not pregnant. reporter: already they are dreaming of an unusual summer wedding outside. bristol definitely has some interesting ideas for her wedding. she wants to wear a carolina herary ra gown like the one she wore in harper s bazaar but this time in white. she would like levi to wear camo vest. sarah palin has made no secret of her disgust with levi calling him a liar. i hear he goes by ricky hollywood now. reporter: levi recently apologized for his behavior. but what does this latest bombshell mean for sarah palin? there are increasing signs that sarah palin is serious and wants to be taken seriously. this closes up a messy family matter, and gives her the chance to show grace and forgiveness. reporter: now, sarah palin won t say if she will attend the wedding. and she won t comment. she calls it a personal and private matter. but the fact is, her teenage daughter asked for, and invited us weekly to make this a very public issue. and us weekly even admits that they paid for the photo shoot. meredith? norah o donnell, thank you very much. just this morning us weekly magazine has released new video of their interview with bristol palin and levi johnston talking about that proposal. and they shared it with us. take a look. he proposed, let s see. i came home from work one day, and there was tons of flowers all over my room. there was the flowers like rose petals in the shape of a heart on my bed. with a box and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. there was no hesitation at all. is your face getting red? i really haven t i wasn t there for tripp and bristol. and now i am, and it feels great. i love them both very much, and you know, as a father, i can t explain it all. i missed out on a lot of his life and i can t get that back. probably just seeing him crawl and walking for the first time, his first words, you know, i missed all that. but, more importantly, i guess now is i m here now, and i m going to make it right. whenever we re even just like in a car driving together, it s like all just feels right. or just watching tv together. when we took tripp fishing the other day, it just feels right to be a family. well, they look happy. i guess. fingers crossed. best wishes. just ahead the tale of the mel gibson tapes and the fourth new recording surfaces. how do we actually know they are authentic? one of the country s leading audio experts will weigh in. first this is today on nbc. coming up, today investigates bottle bombs. sending some to jail good morning to you. 7:26 on this,000 the 15th day of july, 2010. i m joe krebs. in the news4 today a construction worker is dead, after a bizarre and horrible accident in prince georges county. caught between two dump trucks on pennsylvania avenue, near the beltway overnight. about the victim worked for a paving contractor. we ll take a break now and come back and look at our weather forecast. we ll check out th good morning. temperatures are now in the mid-70s around much of the area. headed for highs in the low to mid 90s. tomorrow s highs in the mid to perhaps even upper 90s. a lot more humidity and heat index val use up over 100 grows. only a slight chance of a few passing showers over the weekend. chuck, let s take a look on the interloop of the beltway heavy and low but better than 24 hours ago between springfield and i-66. the good news is, all lanes are open. top side of the capital beltway, outer loop at new hampshire heads up, broken down vehicle squeezing the far right lane, the exit for new hampshire avenue. the race for governor of maryland is rematch of 2006. this time rules reverses. the current governor will joi 7:30 now on a thursday morning. the 15th of july, 2010. nice view in the distance, the statue of liberty. lady liberty, the new york harbor, as taken from the top of the rock above our theater in rockefeller center. that was a nice, warm, muggy day here in manhattan. we ll go outside to say hi to those people in just a little while. the music, by the way, is our way of reminding you that grammy winner will be here for a live concert tomorrow morning in our 8:30 half hour. inside studio 1a i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira. and coming up, they re shocking, their offensive, but are they the real thing? there are reports that mel gibson s camp now claims to have proof that those much talked about audio recordings we ve been hearing so much of were edited or altered. we ll have an expert on audio listen to them. we did that. we re going to tell you what that expert thinks straight ahead. also ahead, you search bottle bomb on the internet and thousands of videos will pop up. while it might seem like a harmless prank it could land your teen in the hospital or even behind bars. coming up several teens share their cautionary tales. plus the dirty little secret of parenthood. why even though they love them with all their hearts, raising kids can make some parents very unhappy. but let us begin this half hour with the fourth mel gibson tape that s been released. we should warn you it contains more harsh language. the question is how authentic is this tape and the others that preceded it. nbc s jeff rossen has been looking into that. jeff, good morning to you. hey, matt, good morning to you. everyone talking about these tapes, it seems, not only how offensive they are with racist sexual rants, but also how real they seem. why is her voice so clear while his isn t? are the tapes evidence? this morning we go to one of the country s leading audio experts for answers as that new tape number four is released. how dare you! how [ bleep ] dare you! reporter: in the new tape, the man radar online says is mel gibson is on a tear, again. this time telling the mother of his child oksana greg or yefva he deserves sex you ll favors. i deserve to be [ bleep ] first the [ bleep ] jacuzzi. i ll tear i ll burn the house down. but [ bleep ] first. reporter: while mel gibson hasn t denied it s him on the tapes this morning tmz reports his lawyers claim the recordings were altered. paul ginsberg is a forensic audio analysts who s examined thousands of tapes for the fbi and cia. you need medication. [ bleep ] up side the head. reporter: he analyzed the tapes for us and disagrees with the gibson camp. saying the recordings are the real deal. does this sound authentic to you? it does. what kind of man is that? hitting a woman when she s holding a child in her hands? breaking her teeth twice in the face. what kind of man is that? oh, you re all angry now. you re going to get to it. you know what? [ bleep ] deserved it. reporter: what strikes me listening to this is how clear she is. and that s what seems weird. he has that phone quality and she sounds so clear, why? well, because he is the remote party, that is he is far away coming over a little speaker phone, whereas she s talking in to this equivalent of a broadcast microphone. reporter: a broadcast microphone, something oksana knows well. as a professional singer and songwriter. you wanted the number of my therapist? don t you ever speak to him! find your own therapist. cause you ve got problems, more than me. you re not a [ bleep ] to push my buttons and it is not going to work with us. reporter: does it sound to you like this was edited at all, where he was made to sound worse? she edited her own worse later to make herself sound better? no. his voice is continuous in tone, and her voice is continuous in tone, level amount of distortion, and there s no evidence of any editing or erasures. i have examined this in minute detail down to the 10,000th of a cycle. reporter: authorities in california have opened an investigation into mel gibson. now the website tmz reports oksana s son, whose father is former james bond star timothy dalton, has witnessed some of the heated blowups. as oksana s dentist may testify, too, about her broken teeth, allegedly at the hands of mel gibson. how dare you act like such a [ bleep ] when i m being so [ bleep ] nice. i did not blame you. you said i was mean. reporter: you listen to the tapes, the male face is breathing heavy, agitated, cursing. she is incredibly calm, cool, collected, almost babying him. what do you make of that? well, it s confirmation that the recording is being done on her end. she is controlling the situation. she s controlling her voice. she s controlling the recorder. reporter: in a new website report out this morning, mel gibson s lawyers say they can provide concrete forensic evidence that the tapes are doctored. but still no word, matt, on what that evidence is. we should mention, we tried reaching out to mel gibson and his people again, but so far no response. all right, jeff rossen. jeff, thanks very much. dan abrams is nbc s chief legal analyst. dan, good morning to you. good morning, matt. the only word that comes to mind for me is not exactly a legal term, it s oui. what do you think of this? even if they let s even assume for a moment that they were, quote, doctored, in some way. that matters legally. but it still doesn t change the fact that he may have uttered many of these words. i mean, just to simply say they were doctored is not to say it s not true. it never happened. however, if you go into a court with tapes you claim to be legitimate and it turns out you ve altered them or doctored them you shoot yourself in the foot. absolutely, as a legal matter, of course it matters. if there s any, quote, doctoring. but remember, editing is different from doctoring. meaning, let s assume take out boring parts. assuming she has hours and hours of tapes and she s cut it up. but in a legal sense can these tapes be admissible in a court of law, either in a criminal case if there s assault here or in a custody hearing which, apparently, they re just about to enter? probably. california is one of these states where is called the two-party consent state. means generally you need both parties to agree to make an audiotape like this legal to make. but there are exceptions. there are exceptions, for example, if someone fears violence. if, in fact, it turns out, and he does not deny it in this tape, that he hit her while the child was in her arms, in a custody case that s a big deal. she could absolutely argue that s the reason that there s an exception here. that s the reason that the general rule doesn t apply here, and that s what could ultimately make it admissible. and that s going to be crucial here. i mean, when you talk about this investigation, the authorities may take evidence, bring it to the d.a., say to the d.a., look, we ve got him. look at this, listen to this. the d.a. could say, yep, i hear you, i see this, but we may not believe that that ultimately will be admissible. i don t think that will be the case. but we ll see. audio evidence, for example, these tapes, when combined with possible physical evidence, if there is a dentist who treated this woman for broken veneers or veneers that fell off, and pictures of her teeth are presented, i mean, are we moving in the direction here of possible criminal charges? possible, yeah. one of the big questions, though, the very thing people are talking about is whether she really wants criminal charges pursued here. we re sort of assuming that. the authorities could move forward without her cooperation, even if they wanted to. but in this kind of case, they would need her cooperation in the criminal investigation. she could be using it to try to say, look, i want to resolve custody. i want to resolve our divorce proceedings. she could be using this potentially as ammunition in that regard. what surprises me a little bit, dan, and maybe it s just because we re so used to the pr spin that takes place around any case like this, but we have not really heard much from mel gibson s side, or his lawyers. here there is this daily flood of horrible audiotapes, and yet we ve only heard that they may release a statement at the end of the week. are you surprised they re not out there more pro-actively? no. i think they want to see everything first. meaning, this is probably just one, quote, series of tapes. and this website has decided to release them piece by piece, and as a result, mel gibson, the world, we, react to it piece by piece. i think it s very smart of mel gibson s team to wait, see what is out. imagine them making some sweeping statement that blank never happened. and getting blindsided by another tape. reporter: exactly and then the next day a new tape comes out that disproves everything they just said. they have to wait. they have to be careful. but this is really bad news for mel gibson in any regard. put aside custody. the potential criminal investigation, serious stuff. dan abrams. as always, appreciate it. 7:39. let s get a check of good thursday morning. i m news4 meteorologist chuck bell. the weekend getting ever so close now. temperatures are in the mid-70s in most of the suburbs, upper 70s around town. a few spots hanging back in the upper 60s like culpepper, charlottesville and stantonville, virginia. most everybody will be well over the 90 degree mark for highs this afternoon. 95 around town. sun goes down 8:32 this evening. heat and humidity for tomorrow. and don t forget you can check your weather any time of the day or night on weather channel on cable, and the brand-new weather.com online. matt? all right, al, got it. thanks very much. up next, a warning to parents and teens about a popular teen prank known as bottle bombs. it s not a laughing matter. we ll talk about it right after this. @q pw,c @$p?p? we re back at 7:44 and this morning on today investigates a new kind of teen prank that could land kids in jail, or even worse. today national correspondent natalie morales is here with details. natalie, good morning to you. good morning to you, meredith. yes, my neighborhood actually recently got a warning about this prank, as have a lot of neighborhoods across the country. they re called bottle bombs. devices that kids make at home, then set off as jokes. but as you re about to see, the consequences are anything but funny. they start as simple teen mischief. easy to make devices called bottle bombs. all kids need are some common household cleaners, mixed in a plastic bottle, and voila. bottle bombs are now so popular teens have posted thousands of videos online showing how to make them and blow them up for fun. to a teenage boy, that s very appealing. simple, easy, and big, big aftereffect. reporter: so big it destroyed your life? definitely. reporter: san diego last spring, he was graduating high school at the top of his class. an honor student, mvp football player, and going to college with an rotc scholarship. that s when he discovered bottle bombs on youtube. and thought they d make a harmless senior prank. the video i saw, it was basically a video to sequentially show you how to do it. and based on what you saw, did you see how dangerous they could be? the videos were done right in public. my perception was it wasn t too dangerous. reporter: hoping for some laughs, elsburg set off some bottle bombs in school trash cans. but the reaction was no joke. immediately police and fire were called in, and the school went into lockdown. though no one was hurt, elsburg was arrested, and charged with multiple counts of felony bombmaking. this straight-a student with no record would spend the next five days in jail. i really didn t think it was that bad. reporter: to be booked as a criminal in county jail. it s still a hard thing for you to live up to? it s a painful price authorities say more and more teens are paying. across the country, bottle bomb pranks are on the rise. but in a post-9/11 world, no one is laughing. teenage mischief turn nothing felony charges. reporter: in austin, texas, high school senior luke mallet and four friends from this christian prep school were arrested as felons after leaving bottle bombs at teachers homes as a joke. ann arbor, michigan, 17-year-old dwayne cochran was caught on surveillance tape pulling a bottle bomb prank at a local gas station. he was sentenced to a year in jail. the felony charge would be the same as if we were to catch a terrorist with a bomb. reporter: massachusetts bomb investigator paul horgan say most kids think these devices are safe because there s no fire. but when the ingredients are mixed in a bottle and sealed, they create a high pressure explosion of acid and shrapnel. let me see it. reporter: that can go off when you least expect it. just the slightest movement can trigger the reaction that cause it to blow up in someone s hand and cause injury. reporter: watch what happens in this demonstration when horgan puts a bottle bomb in a mailbox. it s a common teen prank. but in less than a minute. imagine if you were there getting your mail. that would have been pretty disastrous, right? oh, yeah, sure. the whole mailbox would have hit you in the face first of all. the laud bang would have done damage to your ears and then the chemicals coming out of there into your face, burning your skin and causing potential blindness. reporter: 15-year-old jaren richard nearly lost his sight. the massachusetts teen was making a bottle bomb when it blew up without warning, spraying burning chemicals into his eyes. got like white, shadowy, and just like everyone was like help him, help him. reporter: sergeant horgan says he was lucky. these caps that you see on the top. that cap could blow off and become a projectile. if it hits you in the right spot, it could kill you. reporter: consequences elsburg never thought of. in the end a plea deal kept him out of prison but this star student still faces years of probation and a future on hold. your college scholarship was taken away, you lost your acceptance to college. so what is the lesson for kids who may think, oh, this is just a harmless prank, i m not going to hurt anyone, i m not going to do anything bad. reporter: the lesson is simple, don t do it. learn from me. you have to know, it s not a joke. very, very tough lesson. he is now at summer school. he hopes to go to college in the fall. his parents say they had no idea he was playing with bottle bombs, and they hope that other families talk to their kids about the dangers and the serious legal consequences, meredith. yeah, kids listen to him. natalie, thank you very much. still to come, is there such a thing as male menopause? n@b@c@t@v@sús@3 3 3 just ahead, love your kids but hate your life? why becoming a mother and father may not lead to happiness. i m right now 7:55. close to 7:56. 75 gldegrees out there. hazy humidity on thursday, 15th of july. good morning, i m joe krebs. in the news4 today, nba player and prince georges county native delonte west is expected to plead guilty to weapon charges. he was carrying two loaded handguns, loaded shotgun and knife while speeding on a motorcycle on the beltway in prince georges county last september. police are looking for suspects after a young man was guns down in northeast washington. the shooting happened on a playground outside the wre recreation center. this is the second murder to occur outside the rec center in the last two weeks. good morning, everyone. temperaturesnoti temperaturesnoti temperaturesnotices in the 70s in nearly every neighborhood. 78 in fairfax, arlington. 77 degrees in bethesda and germantown. forecast for today, plenty of sunshine, heat and humidity. jerry, highs in the mid to low 9 o s. on the top side of the capp beltway, broken down vehicle outer loop over new hampshire avenue squeezing the right exit lane that takes you over to new hampshire avenue. heads up for that. other than that, routine, that is to say, loaded up 395, most of the way now from shur lington to the 14th street bridge. the race for governor of maryland rematch of 2006 about this time roams reverses. the current government, martin o malley, will join us live on news4 midday to talk about his 8:00 now on this thursday morning. july 15th, 2010. we welcome the crowd on the plaza this morning. come back tomorrow and you ll be treated to a special concert from enrique iglesias. meanwhile outside on the plaza i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. thank you very much. ahead in this half hour, i love my children, i hate my life. that is the provocative title of a new article detailing why many parents feel so stressed out and miserable. so, have the pressures of modern parenting become too much to bear? we re going to have more on that coming up. can both of those things really be true? can you love your children and hate your life when your kids are such a big part of your life? because you get caught up in the minutia of it and you can t stand all the things you have to do. some of the things around you also ahead here s a question i m sure you ponder all the time, do men go through menopause? it got warm out here all of a sudden. and if we do go through menopause, what are the symptoms, and when does it start? we re going to get some answers on that from dr. nancy synderman coming up. and you know, for years, we have our crew has been chowing down on some of the gourmet grub that celebrity chefs who come through make here on the program. guess what, some of our crew have picked up some great tips on this, and they are cooking fools. look at them. three guys face off for the title of today s top crew chef, live on the plaza. look out. one of them brought along home made wine. that s right. and it s chunky. ew. but first we re going to get a check of the top stories from ann curry, who actually said she wanted some of that wine. thanks a lot, meredith. let s get to something serious this morning. good morning once again. in the news, bp is still heying groundwork this morning for a test of that new containment cap over its leaking oil well in the gulf. the worry now is whether the well can handle the increased pressure. once the valves on the cap are closed. but first the company is having to deal with a leak in the line attached to one of the valves. today the u.s. surgeon general dr. regina benjamin is studying the impact or watching studies rather of the oil spill s impact on the mental and physical health of people in alabama. dr. benjamin once ran a free community clinic in that area. president obama s heading to michigan today, a state where the unemployment rate now tops 13%. nbc s chief white house correspondent chuck todd joins us now from grand rapids. and chuck, what s the president s message there today? reporter: well, it s becoming a familiar scene, ann. the president going out on the road, touting something that has to do with the economic stimulus. in this case, it s about money from that $800 billion government stimulus that s been used to jump-start a car battery industry. and he in holland michigan, just outside of grand rapids, the president s going to be there for this ground breaking. he s done it last week. you re going to see him do this a lot. he s trying to essentially still trying to sell the recovery and sell the public that while the economy is not doing so hot, it will take time, and that he s got the right prescription. by the way, ann, later today i ll be interviewing the president about the problems with the economy, and some other political issues, and you ll see that on nightly news tonight and the today show tomorrow morning. all right, chuck todd, thanks so much. a girl abducted from her california foster parents almost seven years ago is back in los angeles this morning. police say the unidentified girl was abducted by three aunts when she was just a baby. she was found wednesday in a phoenix home hidden under a pile of clothing. officials say a huge brushfire on the grounds of the idaho national laboratory, a nuclear research complex, is now about 50% contained. they don t know how it started, but say the fire has not threatened any storage areas for nuclear materials. three firefighters were injured on wednesday, as fire and explosions destroyed a block of buildings in los angeles. the fire started at a metal recycling plant and showered firefighters with hot, jagged pieces of metal. and a specialist will visit the world trader site in new york city today to examine the remains of a wooden ship unearthed by construction workers on tuesday. archaeologists are already on the site and they believe this ship dates back to the 1700s. it is now 8:04. let s go back outside. that s really cool stuff, ann. very cool stuff. all right. what s the matter? nothing. you weren t paying attention. i wasn t. good thursday morning. i m news4 meteorologist chuck bell. we re off to a sunny and hazy start in washington. temperatures are already close to 80 degrees this morning. still 73 in manassas, 74 wind chester. 79 in district heights. 78 in maryland. our forecast for today, going to be a steamy one. high temperatures this afternoon up into the low and mid 90s. mid to perhaps even upper 90s tomorrow. slightly cooler for the weekend. just married. what s your name? stacy. and jamie. that s the last word you ll ever get in. now back to matt. all right, al, thanks very much. still ahead, what you can do now sins like smoking, drinking, and eating too much junk food. but up next, do you love your kids but sometimes hate parenting? how to deal with those unhappy thoughts that creep up from time to time. we ll talk about that right after this. this is our pool. our fireworks. and our slip and slide. you have your idea of summer fun, and we have ours. now during the summer event get an exceptionally engineered e-class for 1.9 percent apr or lease one for $689 a month. that s why neutrogena® created new spectrum plus with helioplex 360. for the most best lotion protection against skin burning, aging, and deeper damage called oxidative damage. spectrum plus. neutrogena®. we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned an l.a. getaway twice as fast. we get double miles every time we use our card. no matter what we re buying. and since double miles add up quick. romans! get em! 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[ female announcer ] discover the power of aveeno positively radiant. with total soy, it s clinically proven to visibly reduce past damage while advanced spf 30 helps prevent future damage. aveeno positively radiant. back at now at 8:10 this morning on today s family why some parents hate parenting. it s not that you don t love your kids, it s all those other things that come along with the job. tiny toes, little smiles, heartwarming laughter. the simple joys of parenthood, images proving that being a mom or dad must make you happy. you want to throw up? okay. you want to relate to him? no more! reporter: or maybe not. studies show that a bundle of joy might not bring the happiness many parents expect to feel. in a 2004 survey of 900 working women, a majority ranked napping, preparing food, and housework as substantially more pleasurable than child care. last year the journal of happiness published a study which found that the effects of children on the life satisfaction of married individuals is small, often negative, and never statistically significant. this sentiment of discontent is broadly echoed by mothers on the web, at urbanbaby.com, a post reads, i swear, i feel like i m surrounded by women who were once smart and interesting. but have become zombies who only talk about soccer and coupons. reporter: at happyhourmom.com another writes i m sad to admit that being a stay at home mom doesn t complete me. reporter: stephanie taylor, the author of sippy cups are not for chardonnay and a mom of three believes that motherhood with be weighed down by unreasonable expectations. i think the problem is how you go in to parenting with these high expectations it s supposed to be fun every minute of the day. and it s such a rude awakening. getting those kids dressed in the morning can sometimes be an extremely tedious experience. unlike other jobs, you don t ever really punch out. reporter: in fact, 71% of moms say they crave more time for themselves. but at the same time, 85% think they don t spend enough time with their kids. you can love your kids, and dislike parenting at the same time. reporter: so what makes it all worth it? these little moments that are transcended. you know, when my little 2-year-old puts her arms around my neck, and says i love you, mommy, there s nothing like that feeling. jennifer, contributing editor for new york magazine and the single woman of a 3 1/2-year-old boy wrote this cover story called i love my children, i hate my life. i m not single. oh, i m sorry. i m so sorry to you and your husband. we just yeah. okay, well married, very happily married. here along with today contributor and psychiatrist gail salt. good morning to you both miss married lady. we re partners. that s probably what the confusion was. we are together. but you are a parent. i m a parent and there are two of us raising the kids. and what i actually knew about this body of data before i became a parent and i thought, you know what, i d like to write about this, but it would be way more interesting to write about it once i actually had instincts about it. so after i had my kid i thought, okay time to do it? yes. reading the article there is a quote possibility that parents don t much enjoy parenting because the experience of raising children has fundamentally changed. yeah. in what way has it changed for your generation? yeah, there are a couple of things. and, look, every generation has discovered the difficulties of parenting. i don t want to act like i ve discovered something new and amazing. but a couple of things. first of all, the kind of child-centered universe that we live in now. i think that that makes things different. where i think that, you know, living on the other side of the economic divide is so striking to parents, that this aggressive kind of cultivation that we do of our children is a lot of work, and creates a lot of needless stress, i would say. so that s why you i think it s a contributor. if you have to make every moment a teachable moment, i think that that s, you know. the other thing, this is a generation child rearing, when there s a distinct difference between the before and the after it turns out that people tend to be less happy, at least in your relationships, once the kid comes along. gail, what is it we want everything to be perfect, because there are all these how-to books out there? absolutely. parenting has become a competitive sport. and in the fact that we are such individualistic nation of wanting to be perfect, and it s all about me, to a degree, we forget that ambivalence is part of parenting. part of loving. part of everything that s valuable in your life, you feel some ambivalence about. that is normal. it is okay. and frankly every mother before, every mother now, and every mother going forward will feel somewhat ambivalently about her child, about the parenting experience, and if we could accept that talk about it? talk about it, therefore not have to feel so guilty about it or suppress it so much that we act out on it, like stuff it down. yeah, happy, happy, until we explode. then we ll be in better shape. there s a difference between the day-to-day minutia of parenting and the overall experience. oh, yeah, absolutely. and that s, i think one of the things that the studies, it might be deceptive about the studies, right. that, yes, your mood as a parent, i mean, as a moment-to-moment matter might not be as good as a single person, or a nonparent who has kind of, you know, free-wheeling social life and all these things. but, i think the question is, if you think of happiness not as being about sort of, you know, your moment-to-moment state, but, how rewarding are things and whether they give you a sense of purpose, thern parents do well. i mean in studies and it s a different way to look at it. part of the problem with it, happiness doesn t happen by definition. people who study this try to come up with definitions. but happy, looking back, happy in the moment, happy about something in the future, these are different, and fulfillment and feeling whole and all these are different definitions that you do get. i m happy because my kids are almost all out of the house. i hear that a lot. does male menopause exist? we re going to ask dr. synderman right after this. there you go. okay, i m gonna work on the roof. dad, i ll be right back! 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[ female announcer ] one a day women s. vegetables are naturally low in calories. v8 juice gives you 3 of your 5 daily servings. it s a tasty, nutritious way to make this number go up. and help this one go down. v8. what s your number? we are back now at 8:20. this morning on today s health, male menopause. according to researchers, it s not just women who have to worry about that ticking biological clock. here s nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy synderman. reporter: when most of us think of menopause, we think of hot flashes, night sweats, moodiness, and, of course, women. but can men go through menopause, too? you can call it the male biological clock. and women age and as men age, same things happen. fertility levels go down, hormone levels go down, and genetic consequences go up when you have children. reporter: while some women experience symptoms from lower estrogen levels as they age, doctors say that men have a gradual decrease of testosterone, which is also known as andropause. dr. harry fish is a chemical professor of urology at weill cornell medical college. he says the male biological clock has two major culprits, age and body fat. the bigger the belly, the lower the testosterone level. the reason is men make testosterone from the testicles but it s broken down in the fat cells of the body. reporter: so we decided to put the theory to an unscientific test, choosing two random men and checking their testosterone. patient 1, a 26-year-old fit male who weighs 158 pounds. patient 2, a 42-year-old overweight male who weighs 228 pounds. doctor fish conducted blood tests on both men to determine their testosterone levels. the results, as expected. patient 1 had an average testosterone level, and patient 2 had an extremely low level. today we really compared somebody who is young, fit, doesn t have a big belly, exercises a lot, has a high sex drive, compared to somebody in their 40s, who in this particular situation has a lower testosterone, a bigger belly, is tired, lower sex drive, and also has trouble having children. reporter: so when does the male biological clock start ticking? after age 30. testosterone levels begin to decline about 1% per year. reporter: and that s a normal part of the aging process. the boys are back in town nancy, good morning. nice to see you. hi, matt. i guess this idea of lowering testosterone levels or lessening, but are we really something that can be called technically menopause or andropause? i think technically the answer is yes. but it goes to the core question is it biologically significant? i think the answer is yes. is it being overdiagnosed and overprescribed, i think the answer is yes. would you say when we talk about menopause in women we re talking about something more physiological and when we talk about men we re talking about something perhaps a little more on the emotional side? probably a little bit. we know that menopause is defined. women are born with a certain number of eggs. during menopause fertility decreases, it is a natural part of life, and it signals the end of fertility. but men make sperm continually all through life. that s why tony randall could have a baby well into his 70s. father a child. that s right. well, yeah, he fathered, he had this baby. right, exactly. so it redefines it somewhat. do those hormone levels drop in middle age? the answer is yes. and men will describe certain symptoms accordingly. and some of those symptoms, changes in sexual function, insomnia, sleep disturbances, increased body fat, reduced muscle and bone density, depression, trouble with concentration. those all go towards low testosterone levels but a lot of guys are going to look at that and go wait a minute, i m not fat, i m 50, i have a lot of those things which i think goes to the core that this is part of the aging process. the problem is, guys don t like it. and when you say that men can actually slow down the onset of male menopause, is that by keepg your weight in check and being physically active? right. you know the best course, thing to do, is exercise. because when you exercise, it s not only good for your sleep and your brain but obviously increases your muscle mass. the biggest culprit, really, is that belly fat. if you have a number of the symptoms we ran through a second ago there is a medical course you can have testosterone treatment? here s the reality of what you can get and here s my buyer beware. can you get testing. and, in fact, this kind of works. giving prescriptions, and diagnosing this problem has increased 400% since 99. this is a big market. it is not a is it because of financial oh, it s a heyday. so this is out-of-pocket payment but men will do that if it s going to increase their sex drive, decrease down their fat, increase their muscle mass, and frankly make them seem more virile. does it work? it can. but here sed downside. it can increase problems with prostate problems. it can increase problems with muscle mass in a weird way. and we don t know if it s safe for your heart. so honest to god, buyer beware. you have to be smart about this. good 8:26 is your time now. 78 degrees. very humid out there. another hot day in store for you. chuck will the forecast after the news. good morning, i m eun yang. in the news4 today, a construction worker is dead, after a bizarre accident overnight in prince georges county. he was caught between two dump trucks on pennsylvania avenue near the beltway in forestville. the victim worked for a paving subcontractor. we ll take a break and have weather and traffic when we come back. stay with pus. good morning, everybody. temperatures are on their way out of the 70s and into the 80s very soon now, already 79 degrees in frederick, maryland. 79 downtown washington. 8 in la plata maryland. sunshine, heat, humidity, highs in the low to mid 90s. problems around the capp beltway an accident just happened right off the northbound gw parkway. i think we re going to have more equipment. right now stay far to the left, leaving virginia headed from tyson s corner toward i-270. the race for governor maryland is a rematch of 2006. this time roles are reversed. the current government, martin o malley, will join us live on we re back now, 8:30 on a thursday morning. the 15th day of july, 2010. it s kind of a, i don t know, overcast morning here. 77 degrees. a nice crowd of people gathered on our plaza. we re going to heat things up tomorrow considerably when enrique iglesias joins us for our summer concert series, our 8:30 half hour. if you re in the neighborhood, come on down and check out. meanwhile, out here on the plaza, matt lauer, along with meredith vieira, al roker, ann curry and natalie morales. you guys have heard about these new running sneakers? some of us are wearing them right now. you and me. yes, i m wearing them. and then there s these other sneakers that are very popular, the kind of nonsneaker sneaker like you re walking in bare feet. the companies claim they can help you get in shape without even going to the gym, just by walking in them. we re going to find out more about that in just a couple of minutes. also we know that our crew loves to eat, obviously. and to drink. but do you know that some of them can also cook? oh, yeah. this morning three guys who normally toil behind the scenes step in front of the cameras for the first-ever today crew cookoff. one of the best chefs ever will judge this, dan you ll boulud. that has got to be intimidating, daniel boulud judging the foot. antoine has a little bit of an advantage because he s french. ooh-la-la. mark yeager brings his own wine. also this morning, when it comes to people asking when you why younger, you drank too much beer, you smoked maybe, maybe you re out in the sun too much, you know, can you actually make up for the sins of your youth? we re going to be talking to an expert about that and you might be surprised how self-healing the body is. good thursday morning, everybody. temperatures in the high 70s already. we re looking for sunshine and humidity-filled afternoon today. uv index in the high range, don t forget sunblock in your outside for a long period of time. highs today, low to mid 0s. top top s 90s. we ll get cooler weather, high in the low 90s but a slaet chance for passing shower saturday and sunday. and don t forget if you want to check your weather any time of the day or night go to the weather channel or check out the brand-new, redesigned weather.com online. oh, yes, cool stuff. coming up, do the sneakers really work? you ve grotto jam. oh! but first this is today on [ male announcer ] progress. progress for new york city cab drivers, like ossman ali is being able to carry people, who aren t carrying cash. meaning more convenience for passengers, and more business for cab drivers. all thanks to the ease and freedom of visa digital currency. now that s progress. visa. currency of progress. can you really get your body in shape by changing the sneakers you wear? well these new toning sneakers are all the rage. but do they actually deliver results? here s nbc s peter alexander. reporter: from fashion to sport, athletic shoes have exploded into a $12 billion a year industry. footwear makers looking to capitalize on our insatiable appetite for the best new pair. better legs and a better butt with every step. reporter: the latest trend is nearly impossible to miss, toning shoes with those oversized, curved soles. promising to help you tone muscles, burn more calories, and improve your posture. it s a $325 million business just this year alone. reporter: and it s exploding. with sales expected to top $1 billion next year. everything from running shoes to sandals, with 9 brands already in the game from reebok to sketchers. the claims, get in shape without setting foot in a gym. the primary market, women? accounting for 90% of sales. like jen white. if you can get a workout by just walking around doing errands, then that s fantastic. it s like the miracle shoe. reporter: the gist is they do the workout for you. that s what they say. reporter: so, do they work? to really build up muscle mass, you need to put it in tension that far exceed anything that s going to be produced by wearing these shoes. everybody looking for a magic bullet, unfortunately, it s not. you re better off eating one less extra cookie in the course of the day than iesting in a shoe like this and thinking it s going to give you significant results. reporter: still, millions of women are giving it a shot. it s worth a try. reporter: toning shoes aren t the only recent footwear fad hitting the streets. here, less is more. with these adventure athletes seeking the closest thing to going barefoot. it s more fun, you re less likely to get injured, and you get great looks from passersby. reporter: this minimalist movement is growing, thanks to the book born to run, that trumpets the virtues of running with no shoes at all. you look around at runners with shoes on and what to say to them, what? you d be able to remove that knee brace if you would just try something radical like barefoot running. reporter: in new york city s central park, i gave it a try. i feel like i m going to feel this. my feet didn t hurt at all, but i m still feeling my calfs burn. as for those toning shoes, the debate is on. but for now, they re clearly picking up speed. if it gets people walking in a very sedentary and very overweight copulation, that s some up side there. if it gets people interested in going out and moving, that s good. reporter: for today, peter alexander, nbc news, new york. we showed you a little bit earlier, we re all wearing different versions of these. al, you ve got the separate toe little barefoot model. how do they feel? it s a little weird getting used to. i think on the weekends around the house i might wear them. you ve been running a lot lately. would you run in those? i don t think so. my knee surgeon said he wants me to have a lot of support. these are the ones you could feel off of. you feel like you re drunk. but if you were drunk you might be stable. so there you go. reverse psychology. exactly. you ve got those minimal shoes on. yeah, these are actually for running. they re very, very light so they don t you don t have to pick up a lot when you re running with them. i would give these a try. they ve got the stability on the sides. but they don t have the same amount of support if you have knee problems. you said you re going to try yours today? i m a runner. al s been running. i think i m going to try these today. i think the key with these though is not to go long distance. you need to condition your body to finally get to the point where you can eventually run i m not going to do these. i would wear those for a short run like to run from here to the cooking stand over there. where we re going to go in just a second as the today show crew takes part in a cooking competition. judged by none other than daniel boulud. we ll get to that. but first this is today on nbc. this morning on today s kitchen, today s crew cookoff. three of them are going to show us what they have learned, competing for the title of the today crew s top chef. our chefs are overnight stage hand dave. cameraman bob. and stage hand. very nice all three of you here to join us chef daniel boulud of the famed daniel restaurant here in new york. daniel, thank you for doing this. all right we re going to get the competition going, all right? we re going to start with dave, our overnight stage hand. you are making what? i m cooking tomato, fennel, onion, garlic, salt, pepper. this is fish you might have caught? yes, this is very local fish. a lot around this area. and really this is a great summertime thing, because it can be done even on the barbecue or the oven. i m just going to get started with this. do a little fennel, do a little onion. do a little tomato. very simple. very fresh ingredients. little fresh herbs. excellent. little butter. put a little bit on there. lemon slice, little olive oil. go salt, pepper. give it a wrap. drop of lemon juice. okay. and then how long do you cook it for? we re going to cook this at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes either in the barbecue or the oven. all right. seal it up. open it up looks beautiful. now how would you rate this recipe? i would rate this recipe very high. you can use this recipe with any type of fish. all right. we open it up. beautiful. all right. let s go to our judges. daniel. you going to take it all right. you try that one. then we ll get his decision later on. all right. let s go to bob yeager. around here we call him rope. we don t know why. he s the funniest guy on the entire show. nice to have you by. nice to be here. you actually got this recipe, a version from martha stewart. i saw her making it one day with shrimp. my family didn t like shrimp. i made it with chicken. you re making chicken and past ka with beer. no, only wine. you re making a recipe without beer? i know. started with onions, cold pan. cooked in a cold pan. then i did that with some garlic, a little thyme and oregano and hot peppers and then i added chicken. okay. then i put a little tomato paste in. michael lomonaco said put it in. throwing all the big names in here. you hear that? he s trying to sway the judges. unfortunately he s not a french chef. after this cooks for awhile, you dump in a can of tomatoes. hope you re enjoying this. put it in the pan. then add mushrooms, i put a little more oregano, a little more thyme. they like this recipe? their favorite recipe. put a little wine in there. is that your homemade one? this is not. how long do you cook this? for about an hour or so. you can cook it longer. you serve it with penne, correct? correct. i think it goes well with chicken, the right size. you have homemade wine? homemade wine. a chianti which you re going to try and a cabernet. it s good. thank you. thank you. all right, rope. daniel you re going to taste this. we re chowing down. don t worry. one of our stage manager and stage hands. antoine you re doing a french dish, something native. a cassouillet. it normally takes a long time to prepare. we re doing a quick and easy version. we re going to start with the bacon, we rendered that. now we re going to add to that, now going to take some sweet sauces, some andouille sausage, sweet pork and duck breast. throw that right in the pan. we stir that together. normally you re going to let this cook for 10 to 15 minutes depending on how much you have. right. now to this we re now going to add our, we have mushrooms. we re going to add onions. a bouquet garni, which is rosemary, thyme i love it when you speak french. and oregano. and then a little garlic. we get that all in there, give that a nice little gentle stir. you ll cook that again for just a few minutes, and the piece de resistance, a summer ale to this. which has got a little lemon flavor to it. we throw that in there for our juice. give that a little start, which would normally cook now, you know, 20 minutes or so. then to that we re going to now add our cannellini beans. those are just canned beans? you drain them and strain them. that s all you do. and at the very end, what we would do, once it s all cooked, you just add, throw in your spinach, and you don t worry about that it s going to take a lot of room because it will wilt down as you re serving it. squeeze a half a lemon into it, and serve it with serve it with a toasted bread with a little cheese and tomato. oh, man! walk away. walk away. lemon in your eye, matt. i ve got to tell you these three gentlemen did such a great job doing a cooking segment for goodness sake. which one is your favorite? have you tasted the others? i have not. how about you we ll find out later what you think of the others. first i ll get to what you think, daniel. you tasted every single one of them. absolutely. and i think i was absolutely amazed by the fish. the flavor no doubt. but i would have to finish it with a little more olive oil. i think it was very interesting the technique of the papillot to get all the flavors into that. but it s very dangerous, also, because he could overcook. right, okay. okay, okay, okay. but that s good. so the flavor is wonderful, dave. great combination of herbs and the tomato. the pasta from rob, very interesting, putting honey inside instead of sugar to sweeten the tomatoes. he has also interestingly enough a little get of vinegar. the chicken, i would have to add a little bit more tomato sauce would help a little bit more. but it is delicious, the seasoning is fantastic. the hot pepper inside is very good, too. how about the wine? the wine amazing. i m very impressed. that s homemade wine. that s homemade wine. for sure. now for antonio, what are your thoughts? you were chowing down. i said how did he come up with this by himself? and i learned that he was inspired by jacques pepin. i am amazingly impressed by all the flavor inside. the boost of flavor. it s a very meaty dish. this is better than jacques can do. whoa. oh. whoa. wow. i m impressed. okay so which one of these three do you think is the best of the three? for today. well, for today, for me, the most aggressive in flavor, in soul, and certainly in complexity is the cassoullet. oh. good job. thank you. come on, guys. thank you. but i have a consolation prize. they are all invited in my kitchen, at daniel s. all right. and for dave and rob, they will be they will have a meal cooked by me and by antoine because he won. that s included. whoa. bob, antoine, dave. congratulations. thank you. i ll never forget the date i read a book it was constageious this morning on today s hot summer reads, a novel that lends majesty to the olympics with romance and intrigue. the list remembered is the latest author. takes place in berlin, 1936. germany has risen from the ashes of a depression and is hosting the olympics under the rule of adolf hitler. a young american swimmer falls in love with a handsome german student but can their love survive what lies ahead. frank, good to see you. nice to see you. i have followed your career for a very long time. i believe this was the first time you ve done romance like this. are you a chick writer now? i m hoping to move into that territory. you re going to start hanging out with jackie collins? yeah, it s sort of fun being a woman for a change. did you have any trouble getting into terms of a woman s voice in terms of writing in a woman s voice? people talk about every bad sitcom is we don t understand them, they don t understand us. really, i ve known a lot of women in my life, and inhabiting the mind and body of a 20th century woman was in many respects easier than, say, trying to get inside the mind of a 1930s german man. who was my other hero. in the book. yeah. and so, yeah, it was fun being a woman. from what i understand you realized that a novel had never been set against the backdrop of the olympics, and so that was an interesting take for you. but why 1936. why those olympics? first of all, it s amazing because, you know, a love story, you want to bring people together from different places. you don t want the boy next door and the girl next door. that s love but it s not a love story. so it s great having the olympics. and the 36 olympics are classic. and all the more so, that i knew a couple of people who were very prominent, first of all, the great and notorious film director who filmed olympia there and then eleanor holmes who had the 1932 games and was thrown out of the olympics for being naughty. interestingly you take those real-life characters that you just mentioned and you weave them into this fictional plot. the protagonist of your story is an elderly woman, sydney, who decides as her health is failing, to share some of the secrets of her life. yeah. not only the love story, but what turns out to be because of the love story, some rather amazing things happened to her. and she s trying to tell her son about that before she dies. so on the one hand, it s this bliss, remembered but it s also things that she thinks she better pass on before she goes. how does this all-american girl come to terms with falling in love with this young german at a time where nazi germany was rising? did she not see the ramifications of that? she saw it, but 1936 was kind of a lever year. you read the contrary accounts, people are still prepared to give germany a little bit of a benefit of the doubt. and particularly for the young man that she falls in love with. he s been through the war. people didn t like him. it s been chaos. there s been poverty. and all of a sudden, he sees this wonderful dream, this showcase city, and he s thinking, this is the germany that i c love, and i can love it with this 8:55 is your time. 80 degrees. a hot and humid day in store for you. chuck bell will and the forecast after the news. good morning, i m eun yang. in the news4 today, nba player and prince georges county nate indelonte west is expected to plead guilty to weapon charges. he was carrying two loaded handguns, a loaded shotgun and knife while speeding on a motorcycle on the beltway in prince georges county last september. police are looking for suspects after a young man was gunned down outside a rec center in northwest washington. that shooting happened last night on a playground outside the watts branch recreation center. we ll take a break and have good morning, everyone. four-day forecast is a hot and steamy one. today, highs in the low to mid 9 o s. tomorrow, upper 90s. showers into the weekend. chuck, the interloop of the beltway the accident we told you about, just at the exit from the gw parkway, over to the shoulder, the lanes are open. traffic slow as you head north from tyson s corner. activity out of the roadway. one more stop, outer loop of the beltway, slow from i-59 to georgia but lanes are open. the race for governor of maryland is a rematch of 2006. this time roles are reversed. the current government, martin o malley, will join us live on we re back now with more of today on a thursday morning. it s the 15th day of july, 2010. and we re out on the plaza on a day that s kind of a dryup day here in new york. we had a lot of rain in the area sterday. temperature into the 80s, and people doing a little sightseeing, including a stop by the today show for all these people. we thank them for that. i m matt lauer along with al roker and natalie morales. and a question a lot of people are asking, natalie, is bristol palin going to get married in the next couple of weeks? us weekly saying they polled them, as shown yesterday on our show, they went public with us weekly first, and says they re going to get married very, very quickly, within the next couple of weeks, and so the question now that people are asking is, first of all, sarah palin s reaction as she found out the news through a magazine and will she be attending the wedding and how is all of this going down on the home front. we re going to find out a little bit more. another thing people are talking about, these recordings from mel gibson. we re going to let you listen to the fourth in a series of tapes allegedly of the oscar winner letting loose against his former girlfriend who s claiming this morning he s even pulled a handgun on her during one of the arguments. but are the tapes authentic? have they been doctored? we re going to hear what one expert s opinion is. then we all know who we were maybe when we were a little younger, maybe there was a little bit too much of the drive-through. a little bit too much of the bending of the elbow or the smoking of the cigarettes. well if you re worried that all these bad habits have done bad things to your body, we re going to give you some advice on how you can have a fresh start. and it s not too late. so you can turn back the clock on some of the things, the damage you ve done from the past? except for our director joe michaels, most other people can. too late? too late for joe. before we go any further let s go inside, ann is standing by at the news desk. ann, good morning again. good morning once again to all of you. in the news this morning, a little good news from the gulf where now bp says it has repeered a leaking hose and expects to start testing a new containment cap on the ruptured well. the cap is designed to recover most of the oil. now the question is, will the damaged well be able to handle the increased pressure? it is now up to the fda to decide whether to follow a recommendation from federal health experts who decided on wednesday to keep the diabetes drug avandia on the market, but with restrictions due to the risk of increased heart attacks. ? former vice president dick cheney is recovering from major heart surgery at a northern virginia hospital. doctors say that cheney is doing very well after installing a small pump to assist his heart, and also save his life. the number of home foreclosures this year could top the 1 million mark. that according to a firm that tracks that kind of data and that is ten times the number of foesh collar yours in a typical year. a violent storm system brought funnel clouds to the midwest on thursday. there were at least ten reports of tornadoes in minnesota and wisconsin where power lines and trees were knocked down. there were also storms in the east and northeast and flooding in parts of delaware. and you ve got to see this amazing story to believe it. a man who was left paralyzed, was a paraplegic, by a motorcycle accident five years ago, he got bionic legs that were developed by a new zealand company, and you see him here now shaking hands, wearing the bionic legs with the country s prime minister. it is now three minutes past the hour. let s go back outside to matt. that was amazing stuff, ann. thank you very much. let s get a check of the weather now from mr. roker. thank you, mr. lauer. birthday girl here. what s your name? good thursday morning. temperatures are climbing into the 80s already here in the early morning hours of a thursday. 82 at national airport. 81 in falls church and manassas. 82 frederick, maryland. a steam bath out there today. temperatures in the low and mid 90s. take the sunblock, take shade breaks and drink extra water. hot somewhere more humid tomorrow. cooler over the one with a chance of passing shower or thunder shower. and that s your latest weather. natalie? al, thank you. just a day after that surprising news that bristol palin and levi johnston are engaged, we are now learning more about their wedding plans. and sarah palin s reaction to all of this. nbc s norah o donnell is in washington. norah, good morning. good morning, natalie. bristol palin says she s praying her mother will want to attend her wedding. but bristol, remember, chose to break the news to us weekly first and sarah palin so far has only put out a very terse statement. not saying that she blesses this wedding but just that she wants the best for her children. bristol palin and levi johnston now claim they are meant to be together. but the surprising news of their engagement is raising a lot of questions. like, why they want to get married so quickly, and whether sarah palin approves. sarah and todd palin have not given their blessing to this wedding. we asked levi did you ask for bristol s hand? and he said no. i know that if i had, sarah and todd would have said no. reporter: todd and sarah palin s statement about the engagement was lukewarm at best saying they pray bristol and levi s relationship would mature for the benefit of their son tripp. bristol is just 19 years old. levi, 20. but already they tell us weekly we definitely want more kids. they ve been engaged just two weeks, and want to marry in the next month. but insist bristol is not pregnant. but she says no, she s practicing abstinence, they don t want to have sex before marriage, so she s not pregnant. reporter: already they are dreaming of an unusual summer wedding outside. bristol definitely has some interesting ideas for her wedding. she wants to wear a carolina herrera gown like the one she wore in harper s bazaar but this time in white. she would like lee very and little tripp to wear camo vests. sarah palin has made no secret of her disgust with levi branding him a liar and calling the nude playgirl photo shoot a desperate need for attention. i hear he goes by ricky hollywood now. reporter: levi recently apologized for his behavior. but what does this latest bombshell mean for sarah palin? there are increasing signs that sarah palin is serious and wants to be taken seriously. this closes up a messy family matter, and gives her the chance to show grace and forgiveness. reporter: and just this morning us weekly magazine has released new video of their interview with bristol palin and levi johnston talking about the proposal. and they shared it with us. take a look. he proposed, let s see. i came home from work one day, and there was tons of flowers all over my room. there was the flowers like rose petals in the shape of a heart on my bed. with a box and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. there was no hesitation at all. is your face getting red? i really haven t i wasn t there for tripp and bristol. and now i am, and it feels great. i love them both very much, and you know, as a father, i can t explain it all. i missed out on a lot of his life and i can t get that back. probably just seeing him crawl and walking for the first time, his first words, you know, i missed all that. but, more importantly, i guess now is i m here now, and i m going to make it right. whenever we re even just like in a car driving together, it s like all just feels right. or just watching tv together. when we took tripp fishing the other day, it just feels right to be a family. well, it s not clear if sarah palin feels like it s right. she s not said if she s going to attend the wedding, and she won t comment. she called this a personal and private matter. but the fact is, her teenage daughter asked for and invited us weekly to make this a very public issue. us weekly even admits they paid for the photo shoot. natalie? hmm. all right, norah o donnell in washington. thanks so much, norah. and now here s al. all right, thanks natalie. now to the tale of the tapes and the fourth recording, allegedly, from actor mel gibson. threatening his former girlfriend with even more violence. but have these tapes been altered? nbc s jeff rossen is here with that. al, good morning to you. everyone is talking about these tapes. not only about how offensive they are with racist sexual rants, but also how real they seem. why is her voice so clear while his isn t? are they edited? this morning we go to one of the country s leading audio experts for answers to that question as that new tape number four is released. how dare you! how [ bleep ] dare you! reporter: in the new tape, the man radar online says is mel gibson is on a tear, again. this time telling the mother of his child oksana grigorieva he deserves sexual favors. i deserve to be [ bleep ] first the [ bleep ] jacuzzi. i ll tear i ll burn the house down. but [ bleep ] first. reporter: while mel gibson hasn t denied it s him on the tapes this morning tmz reports his lawyers claim the recordings were altered. paul ginsberg is a forensic audio analysts who s examined thousands of tapes for the fbi and cia. you need medication. [ bleep ] up side the head. reporter: he analyzed the tapes for us and disagrees with the gibson camp. saying the recordings are the real deal. does this sound authentic to you? it does. what kind of man is that? hitting a woman when she s holding a child in her hands? breaking her teeth twice in the face. what kind of man is that? oh, you re all angry now. you re going to get to it. you know what? [ bleep ] deserved it. reporter: what strikes me listening to this is how clear she is. and that s what seems weird. he has that phone quality and she sounds so clear, why? well, because he is the remote party, that is he is far away coming over a little speaker phone, whereas she s talking in to this equivalent of a broadcast microphone. reporter: a broadcast microphone, something oksana knows well. as a professional singer and songwriter. you wanted the number of my therapist? don t you ever speak to him! find your own therapist. cause you ve got problems, more than me. you re not a [ bleep ] to push my buttons and it is not going to work with us. reporter: does it sound to you like this was edited at all, where he was made to sound worse? she edited her own voice later to make herself sound better? no. his voice is continuous in tone, and her voice is continuous in tone, level amount of distortion, and there s no evidence of any editing or erasures. i have examined this in minute detail down to the 10,000th of a cycle. reporter: authorities in california have opened an investigation into mel gibson. now the website tmz reports oksana s son, whose father is former james bond star timothy dalton, has witnessed some of the heated blowups. as oksana s dentist may testify, too, about her broken teeth, allegedly at the hands of mel gibson. how dare you act like such a [ bleep ] when i m being so [ bleep ] nice. i did not blame you. you said i was mean. reporter: you listen to the tapes, the male face is breathing heavy, agitated, cursing. she is incredibly calm, cool, collected, almost babying him. what do you make of that? well, it s confirmation that the recording is being done on her end. she is controlling the situation. she s controlling her voice. she s controlling the recorder. reporter: in the new tmz report out this morning, gibson s lawyers say they can provide concrete forensic evidence that the tapes are doctored. but still no word on what that evidence is. we should mention we tried reaching out to mel gibson and his people. so far, no response. jeff, i m sure we ll hear more about it. oh, yeah. thanks a lot. coming up, unplugging from your gadgets to stay plugged in to your family. but up next, how to prevent your past health sins from coming back to haunt you. first these messages. that was a rough time. my doctor told me i should ve been doing more for my high cholesterol. you should ve listened. you re right. now i m eating healthier and i trust my heart to lipitor. [ male announcer ] when diet and exercise are not enough, adding lipitor may help. lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in patients who have heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. lipitor is backed by over 18 years of research. lipitor is not for everyone. including people with liver problems and women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications, or if you have any muscle pain or weakness. this may be a sign of a rare but serious side effect. my dad learned the hard way. but you may be able to do something. [ male announcer ] have a heart to heart with your doctor about your risk. and about lipitor. [ female announcer ] kids who don t eat breakfast may not be getting the nutrition they need to keep their bodies strong. a nutritious start to the day is essential. that s why carnation instant breakfast essentials supplies the nutrients of a balanced breakfast. so kids get the protein and calcium they need to help build strong muscles and healthy bones. carnation instant breakfast essentials. good nutrition from the start. and they can without even trying. caprisun 100% juice is a full serving of fruit and no added sugar. so your kids get 100% goodness in the pouch they love. caprisun 100% juice. i can respect that. it s all that people notice. i didn t even think that was possible. [ woman ] i know, but there it is. [ sniffing ] febreze you plug in to the wall. [ male announcer ] from febreze comes noticeables. freshness you ll notice or your money back. this morning on today s health, the truth about your past health habits. some of you may have yo-yo dieted for years, maybe even smoked or trank too much in college or you may be wondering what effect all of this may have on your body. some insight and advice on how to get a fresh start from our today contributor from health magazine. dr. raj. good morning. good morning. you have some good news. our bodies heal themselves. sure, there are things we can do. this is why it s important to really talk to your doctor about your past sins. i know it can be hard. you may think you re going to be criticized but your doctor can really help guide you to make a fresh start and do things to make up for what you did in the past. for example we talked about drinking too much. you can drink binge drinking is a real serious issue. sure. but if you still drank too much in college can your body heal itself? it can. let s talk about what binge drinking can do. it can really affect the brain cells. that can cause long-term memory issues, problems with decision making. so the college kids out there doing this, they may really be causing long-term damage. but there are things you can do about it. of course drinking affects your liver, as well. liver disease, liver cancer. affects your risk for many types of cancers. livers are regenerative. they regenerate so much of their bod problems in terms of becoming healthy. sure. absolutely. now if you have very severe liver disease it s more difficult to do that. if you catch it earlier you can do things to help regenerate your liver, talk to your doctor about that. there are vitamin supplements you can take. if you do have liver disease you need to be very careful about protein in your diet, making sure you have enough nutrition. vitamin b can and to get a fresh start you say aerobic exercise really helps you? that can help with the brain function that may have suffered some damage. and you know, if you haven t suffered any liver disease then you can still drink but you need to keep it in moderation. just one drink a day. we ve all been told not to eat junk food but some of us have eaten way too much of it. sure. especially children and teenagers. you know, we tend to not be as healthy as we should. junk food has a lot of saturated fats. sweet junk food has a lot of trans fats. these can really up your risk of heart disease. once in awhile is okay but you really need to limit it. so if you ve been a fast food addict, what s your solution now? well the solution now is obviously to change your habits. and you know, you have to do that gradually. if you re used to eating junk food seven days a week, you can t expect to go to a very strict diet right away. because it s just not realistic and sustainable. but to reduce the amount of junk food in your diet you do need to be screened for cholesterol, heart disease, and exercise again. tips. going to hear me say that if you re going to say that for all these tips. how much exercise? we re talking about at least 30 minutes three to five times a week. and we re talking about intense aerobic exercise. you want to break into a sweat. extreme dieting people, look, i think a lot of our viewers are probably going to identify with this one, they ve been up and down in terms of the scales, do you mean just sort of the idea that you re gaining and losing or do you mean people who sort of go on these sort of don t eat anything kind of diets. i m talking about both. both yo yo dieting and extreme rapid weight loss can be dangerous for your health. it can increase the risk of gallstones. increase your risk of heart disease. even if you lost weight, it can put a real stress on your heart. and certainly it really affects the way you met on liez food. the way you listen to your body. those get really messed up when you do that kind of dieting and can make it harder to lose weight in the future. what s your best advice? two things. one is, you may still be battling with weight issues but you really need to lose weight gradually. about a pound a week is what you should be aiming for. in terms of the diseases you may have increased your risk for, you should be screened for things like gallstones, heart disease. exercise is a way to help lose weight but more gradually. and also managing your stress. because stress is one reason why people do tend to binge. they sort of extreme diet and then they binge. if you can get control of your stress you may not be so likely. a lot of people have spent too much time in the sun, maybe even in tanning beds. right. and their skin is damaged. how much can you fix yourself after that? well, one thing we should point out is, it is true that when you re young, the skin the sun exposure you get is cumulati cumulative. so we do have to be careful but it s never too late. so you need to be pro-active and start using sun screen and use it properly. many of us do not use it the correct way. you need to use about a shot glass full of sun screen. reapply every two hours, sooner if you get wet. and checking yourself frequently for moles but also going to the dermatologist. we really have to talk about smoking. i m sorry i didn t leave you much time for that. what can you do if you smoked a lot before? right. it s never too late to quit. that s very important. smoking i don t have time to list the amount of diseases. there s so many it increases your risk for. the longer you quit the less that increased risk is. you really can help yourself by quitting and talk to your doctor about managing. thank you so much. we ll put more of this information on our website so people can be helped. coming up coming up next, disconnecting dinner to stay connected to your family. and later he s an actor, director, not to mention barbra streisand s husband. we ve got james brolin stopping by. what i wouldn t do for a do-over. [ female announcer ] new neutrogena® clinical skincare. exclusive ion2 complex combined with activating cream helps restore collagen depleted skin. neutrogena clinical skincare is clinically tested to undo the look of a year s worth of skin aging in just 4 weeks. do-overs do exist. [ female announcer ] new clinical skincare. neutrogena. #1 dermatologist recommended brand. [ female announcer ] new clinical skincare. 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 my mom s on her way over. this chair smells. we gotta wash this thing, now. wash it?! 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[ sniffs ] whoa. febreze. it s a breath of fresh air. if you like to lounge around, we ve got some stylish ideas on how to look good and feel good. plus barbecue dish taking center stage. gourmet potato salad. baby. your local news and weather. younger in 14 days. introducing anew emulsions. another breakthrough from avon. high intensity emulsion, works super fast. you ll see the change no matter what your age. look up to 5 years younger in 14 days. anew emulsions by avon. there s one for your age. want it? get it. call 1-800-for-avon or visit avon.com to find a representative today. thanks, skyler. let s go to last night s highlights. there s mom and dad cleaning up. and there s the meatloaf. yuck. look what sometimes happens with the ordinary bag. it slips. oh, bingo, falls in. mom was mad. mom should have used glad forceflex with the stretchable drawstring that grips the can and stays in place. plus, it has the stretchable strength of forceflex. that s all today for glad tv. [ both ] don t get mad get glad! it s all in the pepperation. we hand-season fresh, never-frozen usda choice beef and cook to order. new handmade burgers with fries starting at just $5.99. like the rojo burger, drenched in rich, smoky hickory sauce. for a little more, enjoy the new avocado burger, or the ultimate stacked, with twice the meat and cheese. wrap your hands around the perfect burger with fries. starting at just $5.99, right now. only at chili s. now i know freedom is all that i need [ female announcer ] ladies, raise your spoons. now there s nothing left standing between you and a satisfying breakfast. introducing special k low-fat granola. with 50% less fat than the leading granola and 5 grams of fiber per serving, it s a satisfying way to help you manage your weight. special k low-fat granola a taste of freedom. 9:26 is your time. 82 degrees. after a bunch of rainy days are we going to get sunshine? good morning. i m eun yang. nba play somewhere prince georges county native delonte west is expected to plead guilty to weapon charges. he arrived in court moments ago. west was carrying loaded guns and a knife while speeding on a motorcycle on the beltway last year. metro says some of the broken escalators at the dupont circle station will not work again until the end of the month. a smoke alarm caused the escalators to go out of service monday. that forced customers to walk up and down 120 steps. right now the 19th and q. street exits have one escalator working in the up direction. metro hopes the q street side will be working by the end of the week. we ll take a break. imagine if it were this easy to spot the good guys. you know, the guys who always do a super job. well, it is. just go to the verizon® yellow pages. and look for a business with the superguarantee® shield. you ll get the job done right, or we ll step in and help to make it right. so, protect yourself with the superguarantee® from supermedia. on its way the new verizon® yellow pages with larger, easier to read print. good morning, temperatures climbing into the mid 80s. heading for the mid-90s. cooler over the weather. interloop of the capital beltway heavy and slow to the american legion bridge due to the accident which is now gone. one more stop, 270 southbound, no issues. lanes open friend frederick down to the split. thank you. coming up on news4 med day maryland governor martin o malley will join us live in the studio to discuss the race against former governor robert ehrlich at baby you like it the way you move on the floor baby you like come on and give me some more oh, yes i like it scream like never before i like it i like it that s enrique iglesias, i like it. you obviously like it. he be live in our summer concert series tomorrow, here on today. man candy. meantime, moving on i m not blushing at all. but he s man candy. there s new information now about so many people using their cell phones and their iphones around their children. and so the question do you guys do that? for example no, we have a heard rule no phone answering, no cell phones, no blackberries. that s unusual because a lot of people are using them. there s a lot of questions about whether or not it s making children not have the right social interaction, social skills. well, one of the major problems is that some of these children, their their communication skills because one of the best ways to encourage your child to be really smart in school and to be able to be speaking and social. is for you to be talking to them. anyway, we re going to get ahead to sort of ways you might be able, and why it s so hard, you know especially around the dinner table. speaking of the dinner table we re going to show you a new take on an old stand bi. homemade potato salad. it s a little sweet, a little savory. and it s going to steal the show at your next backyard barbecue. some sweet potatoes. that s right. it s grilled and got a great flavor. also today s style. i know we all like to lounge around and put on more casual clothes when the show is over. but if you don t want to look like a slob we re going to check out some of the most stylish lounge wear that is comfortable but chic. i wish i could wear that kind good morning. it s a very toasty, warm thursday already here in the washington area. 82 downtown. 81 degrees now in vienna, virginia. 82 manassas. 80 in wind chester and front royal. 75 martinsburg, west virginia. kyle air in the mountains but that s it. it s going to be a sizzler today. temperatures up in low and mid 90s. extra humidity on the way for tomorrow. could put heat index values over 100 degrees. slightly cooler with a passing shower possible over the weekend. and that s your latest weather. all right, al, thanks. coming up, show you why parents should disconnect to reconnect with their children. even better nutrition high in vitamins d, e, and b12. a good source of vitamin a and b2. plus omega 3 s. and, 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. but there s one important ingredient that hasn t changed: better taste. better taste. better taste. yum! [ female announcer ] eggland s best. better taste and now even better nutrition make the better egg. hey, here s a good call: new whole grain helper. try some! mmmm. honey mustard chicken. with 100% whole grain rice. hey, can you catch? no, sir, i cannot. new whole grain helper. one pound. one pan. one whole grain meal. yep. but that s just the start. we have a great loyalty program. i m listening. stick with us, and you keep earning bigger discounts and benefits like accident forgiveness. plus, it s free. wow! great. now let s get you initiated into the program. what is that? watch. here you go automatically enrolled. painless, right? totally painless. rewarding loyalty. now, that s progressive. call or click today. 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. award winning body wash. tone enriching ribbons. two separate ribbons. the white cleanses. the gold moisturizes with a touch of mineral shimmer to enhance skin s tone. olay tone enriching bodywash. for skin that shimmers. so why use the same hand towel over and over, instead of a clean, fresh one every time? new kleenex® brand hand towels. a clean, fresh towel every time. do you know the three things that can get us together at the same time? um, yeah, soup salad and (together): and breadsticks! vo: the unlimited homemade soup, fresh salad, and warm breadsticks lunch. enjoy all you want for just $6.95 at olive garden. time for more? (together): always. so you think you can t live without checking your messages and your e-mails every few minutes? think about this. staying plugged in to all your gadgets can actually do harm to your kids development. more now from nbc s kevin tibbles. reporter: meal time at this house is a family affair. but uninvited guests often beckon with beeps or a bell. liberating and confining at the same time. reporter: mryra is a language therapist, ryan a chef. both juggling the demands of a 24/7 world. but does staying connected disconnect you from your kids? it s kind of annoying at times. teenagers are not going to complain as much. they are more likely to be sarcastic and bitter. but the children are very sensitive about this subject. reporter: and the kids, especially 4-year-old gabriel, know when they aren t getting 100%. he s the first one to look at you and go, hey, huh un. you were talking to me. reporter: what many parents don t realize is that too much time spent on this could diminish a young child s intellectual development. between 0 and 3, language is the medium which really stimulates your baby s brain. so, in that age range, if you re not talking to them, it could have significant impacts on their language development, how they do in school. reporter: the solution, experts say control the device, or it will control you. don t text at meals, or while reading to your child. create a cell phone free zone in the home. and limit usage. ask yourself, does this text really need to be answered right now? the technology is very liberating because we have the flexibility to be at home, and be with our children, but it also is a kind of curse, because we don t give each other our full attention. reporter: the family now say they either try to mute their devices or leave them in the car to help ensure some time spent with the kids is quality time. for today, kevin tibbles, nbc news, south elgin, illinois. that is so important. so important. exactly right. and being someone who is completely addicted, i think, i mean, i m so addicted to my to my pda and all that stuff i have to say there is no middle ground. you re either really wired in and you re go doing stuff. or you completely stop. there s no having it around i think the middle ground is setting those rules for yourself, you know there s specific times, dinner time, perfect example, you put it aside, work is over and specific time and that s it. you pick it up before you go to bed. that s why i like being on the plane. because, you know you re cut off. none of that stuff. yeah. actually what you re saying is it s not only good for your kids, it s good for you. and you can actually you know, we sort of think we live such a wide plane if you can get my description, but when you are able to unplug you can go deep. and it s really much more relaxing. anyway, so wedy gres. there s much more coming up. from deep to shallow, from frumpy to fashionable. how to stay comfy and in style at the same time. [ female announcer ] your hands are only as clean as the towel used to dry them. so why use the same hand towel over and over, instead of a clean, fresh one every time? new kleenex® brand hand towels. a clean, fresh towel every time. a loaf of bread, some butter, a packet of hidden valley ranch, and i get what might be the best thing since sliced bread. ranch bread. [ male announcer ] hidden valley ranch. mix it up. they used to spend hours on the hiddencouch,y ranch. watching t.v., playing video games. and with all you hear about childhood obesity, i was concerned. now i take a more active role in their health like insisting on lots of play time and making sure they eat right. like when i make burgers i use lean jennie-o ground turkey. i m proud i got them off the couch. well, sort of. anncr: be well. with all the great tasting ways to eat lighter. only from jennie-o. 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. [ buzz! ] 1. 2. 3.lift! ha-ha ha ha ha! [ slam! ] [ ding! ] [ chirp! ] [ stomp! stomp! stomp! stomp! ] [ beep! crank! ] [ pop! pop! pop! ] [ ding! ] [ ding! ] [ clank! fizz! clink! ] it s. time! [ click! click! click! click! ] shh! [ girl ] it s on! [ female announcer ] walmart and p&g present the jensen project, july 16th, 8/7 central on nbc. family movie night is back. make yours complete with all of this for just $9. save money. live better. walmart. this morning on bobbi s style buzz, your young wear. you don t have to sacrifice fashion for comfort. bobbie thomas from bobbie.com is here with modern basics to update your laidback look. good morning. good morning. this is a segment right up my alley. the minute i m done here i put on my lounge wear or workout clothes. you can be stylish about it. you walk around the building in your workout wear and you look really stylish. thank you very much. meanwhile you re wearing what is not really workout wear, but this is a very stylish way to wear very casual lounge wear type clothes. yeah, this is what i really like, designers are using stretchy fabrics that you normally think are for your sweats. it s like jersey. that jersey fabric. doesn t wrinkle which is great. exactly. i think sometimes when you walk into a store, really, where would i wear that? you can wear it with a pencil skirt to work or on the weekend with just a pair of leggings. it s very elegant. you wouldn t even know that it s sweatsuit material until you look at it and touch it. exactly. the one thing, i was inspired to do this segment because i feel like we invest so much money in our work wardrobe or special occasions. i think it s really important, you should wear comfortable clothes often. but cost per wear is really a good idea to invest in something that doesn t cost a lot that you can look more put together. okay. so let s get to some of the looks that you brought for us today. the first is very chic look. but of course, always very comfortable. yes. and let s bring out our model julie and tell us how she s able to get this look. really all about the layers. yeah, you know, long and loose. in the summer it s hot. you don t want anything too tight sometimes. i love that it has the flow and the femininity. that kind of gives you an elegance. you could be in pajamas, curled up on the couch at home, or you could go run errands, shopping, meet your girlfriends for lunch. this is kind of a nice way to think about the long, loose layers. those look amazing on her. if she turns to the side. you see with stitching on the side, it gives you this more flattering, long, slimming look. a little slimming effect. gives you the nice tuxedo line and got nice femininity. this hoodie by the way is beautiful. it s gorgeous. it s got this great, from the side and the lining all the way in it. it s stitched in. a nice illusion effect. it s absolutely gorgeous. thank you so much, julie. you look very chic. now of course, you know, i m an avid runner. i know you brought something that really is going to be just for me. for you. let s bring out tisha wearing the sporty look. this is by under armour. that s all the rage right now. you see stars like halle berry and carrie underwood wearing all of this. and what s great, $29 for the shorts, $19.99 for the tank. it s bright colors. and this, what she has is a hoodie buddy. how cute. these are actually ear buds in the strings so you can listen to music. it s sort of like, you know, all mixed in, the technology and the trend. you pull it out. she s working it. yes, very good. and then right there you can put the ear buds without having all the strings hanging out while you run. great. i knock the things out of my ears when i m running. very nice, tisha. looking great. it s all about, as she walks away, think about pop of color and make it look more fun and fresh while you are running those extra errands. absolutely. go straight from the gym off you go to buy some groceries. next we have nancy, wearing a preppy look. nancy looks great in anything she wears. if you re going to be in cutoff sweats swfr, nantucket or wherever you re vacationing, put a button-down shirt to it and that s going to help polish the look a little bit so you can go and have lunch with the family without feeling like you just stepped out of bed. this is about the contrast. this is urban outfitters. very affordable. the shorts are by made well. the converse all-stars. very classic look that s comfortable. that s perfect. all right, thank you so much, nancy. and then trendy and comfort is our next look, trendy really is our next category. and low the of us don t put comfort together when it comes to trendy. these pants are pants that are all the rage. although i m not sure that a lot of people really know how to pull off the look, the harem pants. i get so many questions from viewers about certain trends. the harem hant has been a big one. how do i really pull this off? these are from h&m, $5. what? $5. pants you can afford. you can afford to just try it. if not, wear it to bed as pajamas. are there certain body types it s more about what you put with it. you notice that michelle s got this crop sort of top on. what you don t want is a shirt that s so long that s going to make you look big all over. if you show the waistband and kind of the harem pant, this is a flattering style for most body types. if you put a pair of heels on and a blazer with this, this can go out to dinner and look kind of dressy. i think it looks fantastic on her but i m not sure it s made for me. i need convincing. i wanted to show you how to put it together for $5 if you want to experiment with new silhouettes. that s the key to updating your basics. because a t-shirt kind of goes, there s always going to be a t shirtd in style. but a different cut is something to play around with. let s bring all our models back out one last time. great job, ladies. now my lounge wear can be comfortable. bobbie thomas, thank you so much. coming up next, this spud s for you. a new take on potato salad. 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 in today s kitchen, it s not your grandma s potato salad. although that was pretty good. this morning we ve got a sweet and savory take on the classic barbecue favorite. here to show us, instructor at the stratford university culinary art school. chef rock, good to see you. good to see you, also. potato salad. this is a good way to stretch the backyard barbecue budget. it s a great way to stretch the budget and incorporate some different flavors. we re going to switch it up a little bit. how are we switching this up? we have the potatoes and the sweet totos. great body like you said. it s cheap. it s inexpensive. potatoes are recession proof. a little olive oil, healthy. a little salt. mayor bloomberg doesn t mind. a little pepper. for those of you who don t know, mayor bloomberg, is trying to cut down on salt. he can fine me, i don t live here, right? oh, chef rock, throwing down on the mayor! i love the mayor, sorry. so we re going to put those right on the grill. nice, low heat, maybe about 15 or 15 minutes until they re fork tender but you don t want to mash them. still firm but soft. exactly. we can t have the mashed potatoes. if you re an avid griller, you can use some charcoal. but this works well, too. great flavor. all right. so we come on over. cook them on both sides about 15 minutes? about 15 minutes total. 7 2345e6, 8 minutes. again, so it s not mushy. are you helping me here? sure, absolutely. i know you can cook. i m either helping you or hurting you. can you make the sauce right there? grainy mustard. garlic, cajun spice. give it a nice little kick, some sweetness. a little different. whisk this together? yes. you re doing great. i should just step out of the way. no, no. i m making potato salad with al roker life is great. it s not over yet, chef. okay. hold up, right. so we have some here. we re going to add our mix. your mix there. am i going to pour this in there? yes, sir. okay. a little diced red potatoes, scallions, little parsley, fresh herbs. make it versatile. the kids can do this after the grilling is done, it s healthy. it s fresh. going to mix that up. i didn t know sorry, didn t mean to put you to work. that s okay. i like it. and that s it. and it s really colorful, too. very colorful. a little salt to taste, again. and that brings out the flavor. this is something the kids can help with. everything, except for the grilling, it s low fat. high in energy. sweet totos are ann and natalie will be coming in here shortly. good, good, good. sweet potatoes are like nature s energy drink. hi. a cup of coffee with this. hi. great. oh, gosh. that looks great. oh, hey. my own. the potatoes. i saw you turning. is there good? yeah, so good. they re not ready. these are amazing. is that good? it s good. chef rock harper. thank you so much. todayshow.com. coming up we re going to tell you how to get your romantic groove back after babies. that s right. we ve got hoda and willie geist here and also director and actor james brolin. so all that s coming up in just a few moments after your local news. 9:56 is your time on this thursday, july 15th, 2010. good morning, everyone, i m eun yang. in the news4 today, on instructi construct worker is dead in prince georges county. caught between two dump trucks on pennsylvania avenue near the beltway. he was standing on the sidestep of the truck. another truck backed newspaper the truck and he was crushed by a door. the victim worked for a paving subcontractor. turning to the forecast, meteorologist chuck bell joins us in the studio. more of the same after the rains? the humidity albeit a slightly lower amount of humidity than yesterday, is still awfully summer-like. temperatures climbing fast with a strong july sunshine streaming into a hazy sky. 82 in washington right now. 81 in fairfax. 79 degrees still in damascus, maryland and annapolis. forecast filled with sunshine, heat, humidity. highs today low to mid 90s. mid to upper 90s tomorrow, heat indexes over 100 degrees. maybe a passing shower each day over the weekend. let s take a look, the interloop of the beltway, springfield, the outer loop is quite slow. an accident out of looper of the beltway backed up to 95 interchange. southbound 95 from the beltway. the right lane is closed. coming up on news4 midday, martin o malley will join us live in the studio to discuss captions paid for by nbc-universal television from nbc news, this is today with kathie lee gifford and hoda kotb. live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. it s thursday, july 15th, 2010. billy geist is here helping me out why kathie lee takes this week off. this is your final your swan song today. this is the final voyage together, and we re ghg out in style. funnel cakes. we like to pile the desk up with things. we re celebrating state fairs and carnivals today. i went to the minnesota state fair a couple of weeks ago at the republican convention. i went out to check it out. you should have seen the stuff they had. everything is on a stick. a porked chop on a stick. how about fried oreos on a stick? your mouth is open. i like when we freeze it right the there. first it was the toe. they had spam deep fried. they were like little spam tenders, and people were eating them like it was totally normal. chocolate-covered bacon. we ve had that on the show. i love the deep fried twinkies or oreos. you you re in fine shape. those are definitely for me. people have asked us, because we are sly and we introduced pills on our show that we didn t reveal the whole story behind them. there s called drinkwel. apparently before you imbibe you pop one and it helps in the hangover department. do you and kathie lee take down the pills before the show? careful. they say they work. they strengthen your liver or something like that. they re supposed to. again, we have another day with mel gibson. i can t take it anymore. these tapes keep coming out. the first day i was completely and totally shocked. this is like someone yelling at you and you stop hearing him. although it s rat chetting up in terms of i think some yesterday might have started to tune out a little bit. the ones today you can t really tune out, because they re not just violent but bizarre. we have a clip of one of them. i think we do. i deserve to be [ bleep ] first before the [ bleep ] jacuzzi. i ll burn the [ bleep ] house first but [ bleep ] me first. burning down the house afterwards is once i have not heard before. that is bizarre. the whole thing is we were talking about this yesterday. an 18-year-old who had his heartbroken for the first time, you don t expect that kind of rant, but it wouldn t be as surprising as a man in his 50s with lots of kids who has lived a life. that s what i keep going back to. he was married for almost 30 years and has a bunch kids. maybe after 30 years this is his first hot, steamy romance and got his heartbroken or something and he s clearly not handling it well. a lot of times especially when you re a teenager sometimes your boyfriend can verbally abuse you, and a lot of girls think it s okay. if your boyfriend berates you or says you re fat, a lot of girls take it. this is a teachable moment where when you see a big hollywood celebrity screaming like that that s not okay. right. it s also a lesson don t take everyone at face value. celebrities, i mean, because there s something else. not always like this, but there s always something deeper to a person. you thought there was enough, and then you turned on the first page of the post it talks how ralfing mel pointed gun at me. she said he kept a gun in the house and waved it at her. we talked about the discrepancies. she sounded like she was on a broadcast microphone. i think some people are looking into that a little bit. some people question the authenticity of the tape. i ve heard former fbi analysts say it sounds good to me. they said the quality of her face was broadcast quality, which meant either she had a different mike or something like that. but his tonality seemed similar throughout. we ve been surprised we hadn t heard anything from his camp all week. they feel that the tapes have been doctored in some way. they have proof they said of that. they say they have proof. it will be interesting to see what that is. bristol palin and levi johnston engagement where sarah palin had no idea it was happening. do you believe that? i think she didn t know only because when you see them on videotape and when you listen to sarah palin s reaction to it, it sounded a little curt. reading what he said and listening to what he said is two different things. you read what they say, and that s one thing, but us weekly released audiotape, an interview with levi and bristol. listen to that. he proposed. i came home from work one day, and there was tons of flowers all over my room and there were flowers, like rose petals in the shape of a heart on my bed. it was a box, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. there was no hesitation at all. is his face getting red? i really haven t i wasn t there for trip and bristol. now i am, and it feels great. i love them both very much, and you know, as a father i can t explain i ve missed out on a lot of his life, and i can t get that back. probably see him crawl or walking for the first time, his first word, i missed all that, but more importantly i guess now is i m here now and i m going to make it right. wherever we re even just in a car driving together, it s like it feels right or just watching tv together or took trip the fishing the other day. it just feels right to be a family. is it over yet? are they still talking? dear lord. make it stop. that s a good corn dog, by the way. the cotton candy is killer. every week wee do this thing, okay or not okay. this week s okay not okay is is it okay to show your tan lines? okay. okay. now, i say you re good with it. careful now. of course, it s okay. have you seen me lately? i m the poster child for tan lines. i would say that s not the conventional view of tan lines. most people would say you have a uniform i don t have to worry about it. i m not a tan part of person. i m a fiery, burning kind of person. i don t know. it looks a little wrong. maybe take the strap down a little bit. kathie lee says do it. she said i think it spoils a person s overall look, but hoda s addicted to them. i m not addicted. i have the same bathing suit. is it really that basic? it s as basic as that. i think yours are better than the girls we see here. nau for that. we re going to play carnival trivia. here we go. what was cotton candy originally called? here are the choices. puff stuff, floss, should go gar spin and tooth candy. what do you go with? sugar spin, because it s made in the vat that spins around. i m going with fairy floss, because it was a long time ago. look at you. well-done. i was right! i love winning. it s so sad. you do the next one. the next one is the 1904 world s fair in st. louis introduced and popularized which of the following items? a, the parachute, b the ice-cream cone, c, the hand grenade or d the conveyor belt. that s quite a variety of choices. i m going with 1904 the parachute. i think they had ice cream in 1904. i don t think it was the hand grenade or the conveyor belt. ice-cream cone. don t you love winning! can you imagine living without it? it must have been terrible. the popular fried carnival dessert known as the funnel cake was introduced in what year? b, 1904. i ll go with 1800. wow, you are good. two to one. we have to get another one. before we go 2 to 1. i already won. i cut it off when you take the lead? yes. it is your last day and we love that song we ve been playing for you. we thought the song isn t enough. we need a little video accompaniment to this song. let s hit it for willie. wait, where s the song? this is the song? okay. you want some explanation here. no, i want to enjoy. it s you and tucker carlson. it is. that s me on the left. people get confused. you re criticizing my dancing. look at tucker. tucker is bad. it s good to dance next to tucker if you re going to dance. see how you work it out there? just stop. i can go counterclockwise. willie, willie won t go home. he wants to stay. hey, sarah. i see willie totally abuse the cabbage patch in that. it s still the same move, just a different directions. it worked in the early 9 0s. we asked fans if it affects mel gibson and his art. i still love him. loif him as an actor. we have a mixed fan base. they re both ways. thank you. the guy who rode into primetime two wheems to become the coolest doctor on tv has something brand new in the works. james brolin is here to tell us all about it. he is considered one of the hottest guys to ever hit primetime, and for most of his life james brolin has been on the hollywood scene. this time he s taking a role behind the scenes as executive producer on the latest project called standing ovation. it s a movie you will like because the whole family can see it. jim, welcome. this is the hot genre. we have glee that s popping. it wasn t an accident when high school musical came out and turned so much money. we realized that the ticket buyers were not high school kids. we said let s make a movie for this audience. everybody in this is between 5 and 14. now, we actually broke in the middle of shooting and went back and some of the girls were growing up real quick. no. yeah. i love you don t have 23-year-olds, which is the case often, playing teenagers. that s right. there s always that state law problem where you need teachers and you need the parents there, which we got so much cooperation. in fact, some of the kids that as if a kid had a unique personality, we d throw away the script and go, what s so great about it and rewrite it that day or for that week and do what they were, you know. therefore, the parents got more involved and we got investors. we started this on tin money. really? yeah. i hear it s getting rave reviews from one tough critic, namely your wife, barbra streisand. all along, she was going i don t know what you re doing. you re wasting a lot of people s money here. she was the best audience. i took here to the premiere on saturday. she got all the jokes and everything. was she watching it along the way, jim? was she privy as the bits and pieces were coming together? she s been so busy with this book coming out of hers. she had two photographers doing a lot of the work on the book, and then she ended up throwing all those away and becoming a photographer herself. oh, wow. now, this last day she was down to color correction. oh, my you know. that s her history. what does your son think of this? he was the same way. he s so excited. you know what s important? we haven t gotten any reviews yet because they all kind of come out friday, but we get kids reviews on the internet. we ve gotten over 4 million hits in the last six days on the internet. kids message constantly. adults don t have this coconut telegraph that the kids do. it s helping us a lot. what separates this from the glees and high school musicals ? the age. i don t know of another what s the name of the play? billy elliott. i don t know of another picture that s had this much music in it. we re like chicago. there s 20 songs and 16 dance numbers and we threaded it with a story that hooks you in 20 minutes. in 20 minutes i can tell everybody loves these kids. we can t wait to see it. thank you for visiting us. thank you. standing ovation opens in theaters this friday. up next, how to get your sexy back after the baby right after this. you ve got a great job, a good home and a wonderful new addition to the family. once you bring home the baby, you don t know how to get your six sexy back. logan knows how. she s a sexologist and sex educator and married mother of two. a lot of sex in the title. someone said it s about just feeling good. we saw bethany frankel, and she was pregnant for a second and then it seemed like the weight came off like that. you d look at her and think wow, it would feel easy to get your sexy back if you were here. 99.9% of women struggle with getting their body back. it s important to remember not all of us are like celebrities. we don t have the access to huge diets and trainers and plastic surgeons. we don t have access like that. you have new priorities. your body is going to be different, and you will get past it. it s so true. my wife will look in the us weekly magazine. she lost her weight in five minutes. that s her job to look good. and air brushed. don t forget air brushing. is it a physiological thing for a woman? is she physically not interested in sex or a self-image thing? it s both. i think the doctors give us the okay at six weeks to go back and have sex, but it s scary. there s the thought of pain and discomfort and anxiety and you re just exhausted. it s not just i stayed up all night feeding the baby it s 24 hours a day 7 days a week, you are on call. you hear every breath, cough and movement. that s hard to explain to your partner whether they don t understand. if you are that tired, should you suck it up and say, it s going to be better for my marriage long term, it s not going to take all that long? that s romantic. sometimes you just have to, don t you think? sometimes it s like that. it s certainly important to get back in the mood and remember what sex is like, not before six weeks, not before you get the okay. it might be a couple weeks later. it s about redefining what inmate see is. maybe not through the official act of sex right away, and communicate with your partner and tell him what s going on in your body so that the father doesn t think that it s an issue with him, because it s not. it s the baby. it s a sensitive issue for men, too. you want to be respectful of your wife and everything she s been through physically. how should the man approach it? to be honest and say, listen, i m confused about this as well. i feel like i m being replaced, because often men feel they ve been replaced, the baby is now your wife s new partner and all the love and attention goes there. it s going to be like that in the beginning, especially if a woman is breast feeding, too. the connection is there. breasts are not a man s anymore. they re now a baby s. it s about being honest and saying i m feeling uncomfortable. let s talk about it. other than getting your body back in shape and getting rest, what else can a woman do to get her sexy back? the first thing we should do is take time for ourselves. we become so consumed with having this baby we forget even an hour away to be a grown-up, to read a magazine, read a book, get out of that motherhood mindset is important. remember you re a person sxnt just a mother. my wife and i have a 1-year-old. we set date night. saturday we re getting a sitter regardless. you have to go out and feel like a grown-up. does there come a moment where we see it s a problem now? it s six months or nine months? you could suffer through postpartum. when you go for help? there s a roller coaster of emotions. baby blues are really common. it s important you re not ashamed to get help if you re concerned with hurting yourself or a baby. those are extreme cases, and you d want to seek some kind of help. having the roller coaster is really normal, but communication is key. on times we forget we expect our partner to know what we re thinking, and they can t. hoda said let s get it over with. sometimes it happens like that. logan, thank you, honey. still to come, why you never want to run out of the household tape again. this is important. finally, what this show is famous for. wine tasting after your local news. @@ coming up on news4 midday, martin o malley will join us live in the studio to discuss his race against former governor robert ehrlich. also, nba player delonte west is in prince georges county courtroom. coming up on news4 midday a live report on his plea hearing taking place this morning. west is facing weapons we re back with more of kwlt today. willie geist has been helping us out. it s been a lot of fun. it s time to talk tape, not mel gibson s tape. we re talking about household tape, hoda. laura sidney shows you all of the uses. lauren always has great terrific ideas. it s all about tape, right? it is. all those little problems in life give me gray hair. i wanted to find all wonderful uses for things you have. it doesn t cost a lot of money. on this show there s never leftover alcohol, but in your house, willie, speak the truth, there might be. what you need to do is take a spoon, handle first, a silver spoon, put it into the leftover champagne if you could both please do it, and then put the scotch tape around the spoon so it s air tight. it keeping the fizz in the champagne. it causes a chemical reaction. you still have the fizz. how long will it last? it won t last the night. use it in the morning. like it better than the stopper? i do, willie man. this is a good one. if you have traveled with jewelry and we all have, at the end of the traveling thing, he mean are in a ziploc bag and sort of in a knot. i cannot get you an ontime departure but jewelry that doesn t tangle. you take anything you have. place it together and a little bit of tape as we can see here will just keep it from not tangling. that s it? it s like duh, but it works. what about for earrings? the same deal? absolutely. the hooks can get caught as well. tape it. it takes two seconds. willie man is so interested. does it hurt the jewelry at all? it doesn t hurt the jewelry. unless it s cheap and it takes off the faux silver. don t use harsh tape. scotch tape is fine. okay. let s go to the flower department. if you re a woman, but willie, i m including you, no sagging including flower. if you do this trick to the vase. i put scotch tape on it, and do it, too. make a tic tac board on the top of your wide vase. this i liken to a push-up bra for flowers. it will cause your flowers not to sag. i can t see. i have glasses in my bag. shall i get them? they re for willie man. you have all these mini compartments but you have a map of how to do your arrangement but will cause the flower top not to sag. stick it into the teeny compartments and your arrangements look great. make sure to cut your flowers so it hides this road map. there you have it. no sagging. i like that. i wish i could do it in other areas. stop it. get down here. all right. this is a trick that s fantastic. it s wonderful to show your kids if you want your children to go to sleep, you say mommy has this magic powers or daddy. i ll show you this. balloon that is not filled all the way up. then you take a needle, put the needle at the vortex i had to learn that word. the vortex of the cross. make sure it s flat, and then you show your child. look. we trust you, lauren. the needle goes right in, and it will not pop. get out of here. and your kid is going, okay, i m going to sleep. that s gee yus. it works for bar tricks, also. i ve made a lot of money doing this. it s great. okay. we re going to put this down in case. this i love. you have leftovers. the most frustrating thing is you re cursing when you re finding saran-wrap. put tape sticky side up around two fingers as if it s a bands aid. fingers. doing, willie man? you re helping. tap, tap, tap on the edge of the wrap, and you can find the edge magically. look. tap, tap, tap. i was trying, but nothing is happening. tap, tap, tap. willie man, i want you to get this one. magically it appears with no cursing or frustration. it does work. while willie man is figuring it out there it is. i can do that one. thank you. real quick, lauren wants to show us her toes. in order to wear high heels is and have your feet comfortable tape together your third and fourth toe. it aligns the muscle so the ball of the foot is more steady. norm aly i can t wear high heels. third and fourth. don t do the first toe. when you re wearing heels, willie his first toe is narly. coming up next, the challenge of the wine region. thank you, honey. we ll be back right after this. time to quench this thirstday with a challenge. napa versus sonoma valley, and i m only too happy to fill kathie lee s shoes. you know ray isles. how are you? this is going to be fun and terrific. kathie lee is going to be bummed about missing the segment. she doesn t like when you re here and she s not. napa versus sonoma is a duel. there s a mountain range between the two of them. napa thinks they re better, and sonoma says we re better than you. they re both great wine regions. what we ll today is find out for good, for once, forever which one is better. we have one from each of the two regions. i m not telling you which. each of you taste these two wines and pick your favorite. thwhat kind is this? shachardonnay. every wine on this table is good. these are all really nice wines. i like the red one. i look the blue. the red is the napa valley chardonnay from robert modavi. the blue is the sonoma coast chardonnay. that s one vote each. this is neck and neck. this is rose. we try to pick wines that are great for summer as well, so we have dry roses, one is a pinot rose from sonoma and one being a cabernet. they use completely different grapes in each region? they do both. chardonnay grows well in either one, but napa is as that. tell me which one you prefer. is the blue dot the same or did you mix it up? i might have mixed it up. don t try and game the game. look at the colors. you can figure that out. what do you mean? the tension is rising. we have suspense here. the votes are going to come in. that s sweeter. which do you prefer? i think i prefer the lighter, the one with the blue dot. i m with hoda on that one. sonoma takes this round. the blue dot is from la chema winy and red dot is i m winery. both are nice with a chill, but sonoma gets two votes. this is napa s chance now. they may come back. this is the napa area. this is pinot noir. tell us the different between the two regions? napa valley is warmer than sonoma in general. you get darker fruit flavors and sonoma is more crisp and zingy. in theory you could figure out which is which by tasting them, but one thing it tells you is do you like wines that are zesty and zippy and light and fresh and do you like wines that are richer and darker. nap is like the hertsz versus avis thing. sonoma tries harder. sonoma is the underdog here? the underdog is ahead. try these two. okay. okay. you re going to get that berry, cherry flavors. one has a little more structure to it, and one is sweeter and richer. i like the blue. i like the blue. the blue is napa. we better start over. let s go to the top. our tiebreaking situation is you re going to taste. you have to close your eyes. okay. gotcha. don t look. just feed me. you know what the answer is going to be on this one? she s going to forget by the time okay. taste that one. you don t know you would be blind tasting. i like that one. blue, napa. napa won by one vote in a tiebreak situation. ray, thank you, thank you. coming up, what to do when you get unsoliciting parenting device. we go head to head in a carnival competition, and i hear hoda gets really, really ugly. you said you re good at this game. it s right after this. so we asked our facebook fans about getting and giving unsolicited parents advice, and you had a lot to say. quelly writes i was in a grocery store when my daughter rs maybe two. she was trying to glab glass things off the shelves and wouldn t take for an answer so i slapped her hand lightly. a woman came over and tried to tell me for it. toild her to back off or she would be next. this show is called whatever and they re here to weigh in. why do people feel the need to step in and give parenting advice to strangers? sometimes there are real reasons. my friend was on the subway the other day, and the little girl was licking the pole up and down. but germs are healthy. what did she say? she was just she didn t say anything? because the reaction that some people will give, even if you re right they don t want to hear it. you don t want to get screamed at. typically i don t judge another parent s behavior because i m a parent. it would be nicer if we can work together through the difficult moments that happen, such as this one that you just spoke about. but there have been times in the park in new york city where i ve seen a parent walking eight feet ahead of a two-year-old, and i have thought at that moment to snatch the two-year-old for a second to prove a point. i haven t done it. that s kin of aggressive. i feel like that s a security issue. is that the line? if there is an issue of safety, security or something? i think so. on the other hand if someone criticizes you if they criticize you because your child is screaming, i don t have a children, but i would say i can t hear you. that s so good. yeah. the one my wife got along was these baby slings when the baby is young. you can put them in over the shoulderer slings and not everybody approves of those. we re sitting in an outside restaurant and a woman said is your baby breathing? she said have said, no. at that moment your wife dair there s a lot of things to say. this is a dead baby. she s not breathing. thank you so much. i was going to finish dinner. what if you see a child spanked or slapped, and it stops everybody in the drugstore. they ll look and see what s going on. real abuse or the mother grab? sometimes it s not the mother grab. sometimes it s a harder smack. at what point do you jump in? i m afraid sometimes that if you jump in in public, they take that kid and hit it a lot harder when you re not looking because you make them more angry than they already are. real abuse, you call the cops. sometimes you see a kid who is having a total meltdown in a public place or in a store, and i just feel compassion toward the mother because what parent hasn t experienced that? instead of judging what s going on, i prefer to look at the mother and have eye contact and say, i m so sorry. i ve been there. sometimes i ve looked at the kid and felt bad for the kid because of the mother. sometimes we don t know the circumstances. some kids are autistic and things you don t know walking up to them in a drugstore, right? absolutely. is there a threshold for stepping in? i never jump in in a negative fashion, if i can avoid it. i mean, i d much rather act from a place of compassion because as a mother, we could never get it all right, and we can never control every ounce of our child s behavior and sometimes those bad moments happen in public places. it s just that way. thanks, guys, and thanks for coming on the show. thanks for having us. check us out on hallmark in the fall. you re big and important. carnival competition is all in honor of your summer state fair in your part of the world, we re going head to head in a challenge. we ve asked sarah to referee the events. willie is known for cheating. it a ply to you only. we ve skeeball. so the games begin. we go 30 seconds per deal. all right. you go first. you ready? i m the master of this. in the jersey shore in the late 80s. if you hung out there, you know about me and skeeball. is it time to move on? i won so many free tickets, plastic spider rings. i m trying. not yet, not yet. now we can. this is not regulation. this is not regulation. come on. let s move on. did you see i got no, i m not. this one we have excuse me. football, football. this is not in the tradition of the competition. come on. i got one. this is the most ridiculous game. you really are a cheater. she s upping the odds. it s like the lottery, willie. go with it. i want to win fair and square. maybe. oh, look. hold on. let s go. what s this one? get it through the hole. you got to get this one. come on. he s going faster. oh. oh. but there s no room in there. yes. keep going, keep going. oh, sorry. you re cheating. we re not cheating. what s the verdict? i think hoda won. willie, thank you so much. had fun. had fun this week. i had fun. we ll have claire danes tomorrow and ambush makeovers and chuck knight. bye-bye. and chuck knight. bye-bye. have a great day. captions by vitac www.vitac.com ñ