Transcripts For WRC Today 20100720 : vimarsana.com

just quit the case which means she could be going it alone today, tuesday, july 20th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and welcome to today on this tuesday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. with lawyer once again leaking out of the busted pipe, the government is telling bp it can keep the cap in place by now but should be ready to open it immediatefully there s a sudden pressure change that s detected. engineers have determined the seep detected over the weekend is not related to the ongoing integrity test. also ahead, something we re going to cover later in the show, have you ever heard of hoarding? it s a disorder where people have the compulsion to collect objects. one couple has 260 cats living with them inside their home. just stop and think about that. coming up we ll learn more about this troubling disorder from a woman who has suffered with it for years. plus, if you re monot one o the 66 million americans who care for their aging parents, chances are you will be. there is a big mistake most of them are making. let s begin on this tuesday morning with the oil and gas leak. nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent ann te thompson s in venice, louisiana, with the latest. anne, good morning. reporter: good morning, matt. the cap and this well are not passing the test with flying colors. there are some problems but none serious enough for officials to want to open that cap and have oil flowing into the gulf again. for three months these are the sights that have sickened gulf coast residents and the nation. oil polluting some of the most unique coastline and beautiful beaches in the world. the out-of-control well that spewed the oil remains te temporarily capped on the gulf floor, but there are signs of trouble. nearly two miles from the well head there is seepage of oil and gas on the ocean floor, but officials don t believe it s connected to the latest test. i think there is some natural seepage out there both of oil and natural gas and the question is trying to separate what we are seeing from what would be normally expected out there. reporter: there is also a leak at the bottom of the new sealing cap and bubbles at the base of the blow-out preventer. bp and the government say none of these issues point to serious trouble. i think with this extensive monitoring we have going, we re in good position to not have a catastrophic event. reporter: the pressure level inside the cap now reads 6,811 pounds per square inch, lower than what government scientists hoped, but they are encouraged by the slow and steady increase. if we thought that the pressurization test itself potentially did damage to the sea floor, obviously we would stop that immediately. reporter: onshore in many places the damage is already done. t.j t.j.goss scooter shop is a favorite in orange beach, alabama, when there are tourists. his business is down 80%. it s out of our hands. what do we do? what do we do? we re sick. we re sick to our stomachs. reporter: now bp has yet another idea to stop the flow of oil, something called a static kill which is basically top kill part two where they say they would pump heavy drilling mud through the blow-out preventer. they think it has a better chance of working this time because the cap is on the well. however, they do not have approval from the government to try this just yet. matt? all right, anne thompson in louisiana this morning. anne, thanks so much. it s four minutes after the hour. here s meredith. matt, thank you. now to washington. the senate is expected to extend unemployment benefits to thousands of unemployed americans today after president obama blasted republicans on monday for blocking the bill. nbc s savannah guthrie is at the white house. savannah, good morning. reporter: good morning, meredith. the white house feels it has a real political winner here championing benefits for the jobless at a time when unemployment has dragged the president and his party down in the polls. accompanied by three out-of-work americans, the president tried to shame republicans into extending unemployment benefits. the same people who didn t have any problems spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest americans are now saying we shouldn t offer relief to middle class americans like jim or leslie or denise who really need help. reporter: republicans say they support unemployment benefits but not unless they re paid for with spending cuts and won t add to the deficit. we re all questioning when are we going to get serious about the debt? we recently passed a $13 trillion coupumulative budget threshold. when are we going to get serious about this? this administration has been on an incredible spending spree. reporter: but today s vote, the fourth, may be the charm for democrats with the replacement for the late west virginia senator robert byrd being sworn in later today, they have the votes they need. highlighting the issue, the white house hopes to drive a wedge between republicans and the jobless. it s time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to washington politics. reporter: persistent unemployment has dogged the president and his party in the  polls. democrats had hoped the economy would heal more quickly and over time the public would warm to huge reforms in health care and to wall street but analysts now say democrats are in serious danger of losing control of the house and perhaps the senate. time is running out on the democrats. they re starting to panic. they can see november. they can also see losing their majority in the house and maybe the senate, too. reporter: well, the vote expected later today is going to pass. they have two republicans and that new west virginia senator to put democrats over the threshold. mat senate. all right, savannah. thank you very much. former republican speaker of the house, newt gingrich, is a fox news contributor and author of the new book to save america: stopping obama s secular nuclear machine. good to see you again. matt, good to see you. let me ask you to help me on the math what savannah talked about, what the president talked about yesterday, has some republicans coming out saying we re not in favor of extending these unemployment benefits that carry a price tag of about $33 billion unless there are offsetting cuts in spending. they are the same republicans, newt, who didn t ask for those offsetting cuts when they wanted to make permanent the bush tax cuts with a price tag of over half a trillion dollars. is it funny math? i don t think so. the second biggest concern of the american people after jobs is deficit spending and the fact this president has been like a teenager with a credit card who has run up if he serves eight years under current plans he will double the national debt. he ll borrow more than every previous president combined. the average american is beginning to respond with great concern about that amount of debt. but traditionally speaking when you cut taxes, don t deficits go up as well? only in the short run. that s the other difference. we proved with reagan, with the three-year tax cuts in the 1980s, we proved again with the contract with america, the first tax cut in 16 years that, in fact, job creating principles of cutting taxes are far better than job killing principles of big government and regulation. if you look at rick perry, the governor of texas, i think it was in 2007, texas created more jobs than the other 49 states combined. and the reason was simple. it s a much lower tax, much lower regulation state in which people found it more convenient and easier to start a business, invest in a company or create a job. let s talk about cutting the deficit here. you said you re thinking more seriously now than ever about running for president. let s say i make you president right now. congratulations. and i give you what a lot of people are predicting a republican-controlled house and senate. that means you ve got to make some really tough choices in terms of cutting this deficit. what are you willing to say? name it by name that you would be willing to cut right now to cut deficits. first of all, you just create add nightmare for virtually every democrat watching the show, so i apologize to them. to work out your scenario, in the four years i was speaker of the house, the average rate of increase was 2.9% a year including all the entitlements, the lowest rate of increase since calvin coolidge. we did it by carefully setting priorities. so we doubled, for example, investment in national health research at the national institutes of health while we were being very tough on other spending. i would start and i d go through this budget pretty dramatically and i would eliminate a great deal of federal bureaucracy. i would reform unemployment compensation. i would reform workers comp at the state level. i would have a very pro jobs, very pro savings, very pro take-home pay policy. when we reformed welfare, 65% of people on welfare went to work or went to school and we saved billions and billions of dollars. that s how we managed to balance the budget. would you take social security and medicare on? well, first of all, we ve proven at the center for health transformation with a book called stop paying the crooks that there s between $70 billion and $120 billion paid to crooks in medicaid that comes out to $700 billion to a trillion in savings over the next decade by not paying crooks in the health care system. the loss of both the house and the senate, how likely is it in your opinion? about 50/50. it gets worse every month partly because what you just showed was the president s very shallow politics, assuming the americans are dumb enough to follow the latest headlines and don t realize this is a job killing administration and a job killing democratic congress and that s why those people are unemployed. newt gingrich, good to see you. thanks for your time this morning. and now let s get a check of the rest of the headlines with ann curry. hey, meredith and matt. good morning, everybody. we begin with more news from afghanistan where the united states is set to begin withdrawing troops next year. the u.s. is reaffirming its support for afghanistan in a conference. the chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell is in kabul. reporter: hillary clinton acknowledged today there is growing international opposition to the war here. but she pledged the u.s. will stand by afghanistan even as u.s. troops begin to withdraw next july. with kabul locked down and under threat of attack more than 70 foreign ministers gathered for the largest meeting ever held here. even as criticism mounts over the war strategy and over rampant corruption in the karzai government. citizens of many nations represented here including my own wonder whether success is even possible. and, if so, whether we all have the commitment to achieve it. well, we will answer these questions with our actions. reporter: karzai s timetable to take over all security for his country in four years. the after gap national security forces will be responsible for all military and enforcement operations throughout our country by 2013. reporter: the military and police face serious challenges and karzai s government negotiators with the taliban, women fear they will once again lose their rights. so today clinton met separately with afghan women promising they will not be left out. we want to continue to support afghanistan, the afghan people, and particularly women and women s interests and rights. reporter: and one of the trickiest issues here is how and even whether to negotiate with the taliban. today there are reports that the white house is considering a policy shift to at least go ahead and bless secret negotiations with senior taliban leaders by third parties. ann? thank you so much. the senate judiciary committee is expected to approve elena kagan and send her nomination on to the full senate. confirmations begin today hearings begin today, rather, for retired air force general james clapper, nominated to become the new director of national intelligence. a powerful storm tore through a fair ground in kentucky monday forcing hundreds of people to flee. three people were hurt. and ten people who were indicted monday after a daring heist in sweden last year that was caught on tape are accused of using a helicopter to break into a security company and then using explosives and a power saw to make off with more than $5 million. the money has not since been found. it is now 7:14. let s go back to meredith, matt, and in for al this morning stephanie. al is on assignment. stephanie abrams, al s partner in crime. let s talk about the weather. good morning. a little less humid this morning. temperatures around the region are in the low 70s to near 70 degrees. radar showing light rain in the panhandle of west virginia, moving into alleghany county. temperature 77 in washington, near 70 in the suburbs and rural areas. highs low to mid-90s. there s a chance of passing isolated shower between 4:00 and 8:00 p.m. more the same tomorrow. real estate manger hot on thursday and friday. high both days mid-90s. over to you. stephanie, thank you so much. britain s prime minister david cameron makes his white house debut today. among the topics he will talk to president obama about, the growing controversy surrounding bp s possible role in last year s release of the pan am flight 103 bomber. justice correspondent pete williams is in washington with more for us. good morning, pete. reporter: in fact, the british government is under growing pressure to reopen the lockerbie case. senators from the new york area are pushing forward, so is the u.s. state department, but there s nothing to indicate that that s actually going to happen. britain s new prime minister, david cameron, is leaving no doubt that he thinks it was a mistake for officials in scotland which has its own separate justice system to have released abdel basset ali al megrahi from jail last year. he was serving a life sentence for bombing a pan am flight that crashed in scotland in 1988 killing 270 people including 189 americans. he was allowed to return to libya after a doctor said he had cancer and only three months to live. but nearly a year later he is very much alive. i thought the decision to release al megrahi was completely and utterly wrong. he was convicted of being the biggest mass murderer in british history. i saw no case whatsoever for releasing him from prison. reporter: secretary of state hillary clinton traveling in pakistan said the u.s. is now encouraging scotland to review its decision, but a spokesman for the scottish government tells nbc news it has no such plans because there s no new information to justify reopening the case. scotland also says bp, which was eager to get trade agreements with libya, played no role whatsoever in the decision to release al megrahi. but some u.s. senators insist that question should be examined further. we want to make sure they didn t improperly push the british government to allow the release of the terrorists in exchange for drilling oil off the coast of libya. reporter: and relatives of some of those killed in the terrorist attacks say they s failed from the beginning toon push hard enough on the british. and president obama should have picked up the phone and said he cannot be released. this will hinder our relationship and he would have not been released. reporter: prime minister cameron will also meet today with congressional leaders and four new york-area senators. they ll all urge him to press scotland to reopen the case but the lockerbie bomber remains safely in libya. meredith? pete williams, thank you. it is 7:17. once again here is matt. sarah palin is wading into the controversy surrounding a proposed mosque near the world trade center site. and it s the language she used on twitter to express her opinion that s getting the most attention. nbc s peter alexander is in lower manhattan. peter, good morning to you. reporter: matt, good morning to you. this is what the battle is all about. a proposed 13-story building to go right here with a gym and auditorium and a mosque. but as we spin the camera around, let me show you what the problem for many people is. it s the proximity to what many americans view as sacred ground at ground zero, just blocks away. add sarah palin to the mix, and it s a full-blown controversy. she is america s self-proclaimed mama grizzly and now sarah palin is dipping her paws into another polarizing debate criticizing a proposal to build a mosque nerp the world trade center site in new york city. palin tweeted peace seeking muslims, please understand ground zero mosque is stabs hearts.ovocation. ease reject it in interest of healing. this latest controversy has unleashed a wave of strong opinions from visitors. she does not need to be saying anything about anything that s over here. she doesn t even live over here. it s her personal opinion. i don t think she s speaking for, you know, speaking for new york or for alaska or for america. i think she is speaking out of her own opinions. reporter: developers of the planned $100 million community center and mosque have this response. i wish she would pick up the phone and come down and say hello to us. where we are today is all about healing. it is all about building bridges. it is all about outreach. it is all about reaching out to the communities to let them know that there is a moderate muslim, that there is a voice for the moderate muslim. reporter: the former vice presidential candidate is herself coming under fire for both her substance and style. palin tweeted ground zero mosque supporters, doesn t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours, throughout the heartland? peaceful muslims, please refeud yate. but, of course, refeud yate isn t an actual word, more like a blend of two words with similar meanings. bloggers quickly pounced. if republicans can demand that immigrants speak english, can t we demand same for sarah palin? for what it s worth, palin has refudiated before. they could refudiate what it is this group is saying. reporter: the former alaska governor isn t the first politician to get creative with with words. they misunderestimated what our campaign is about. reporter: as she reminded followers in what is another tweet, refudiate, misunderestimate, wee-wee d up, english is a living language. shakespeare liked to coin new words, too. got to celebrate it. sarah palin will have plenty of time coining new words. the scheduled groundbreaking of the site is still years away. all right. peter alexander in lower manhattan for us this morning. peter, thank you very much. just ahead, lindsay lohan s new lawyer reportedly quits. will anyone be representing her at a hearing today before she heads off to jail? live with a report on that. just ahead, could you imagine living in a home with 260 cats? we ll go inside the shocking world of animal hoarding and talk to a woman who suffered from that disorder. plus, the bitter custody battle between mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend heads back to court today. will those tapes make any difference? for something more nutritious to eat? i was! well, you could enjoy the taste of decadent dark chocolate, the crunch of almonds, plus 35% of your daily fiber. plus antioxidants in a kellogg s fiber plus bar. mmmm. right then. two more wishes? i m good. oh. back to the lamp then. see ya! [ female announcer ] kellogg s fiber plus bars. you couldn t wish for more. with fries, starting at just $5.99. like the rojo burger. for a little more, enjoy the new avocado burger. the perfect burger with fries, starting at just $5.99. and now get chili s to-go with new online ordering. no pills, no pain. how can you get pain relief without taking pills around the clock? try thermacare heatwraps, for all day relief without pills. i was surprised, thermacare worked all day. you feel the heat. and it relaxes and unlocks the muscle. you ve got to try it. [ man ] thermacare, more effective for back pain than the maximum dose of acetaminophen, the medicine in tylenol. go to thermacare.com today for a $3 off coupon. thermacare. no pills. no pain. just relief. thermacare. fancy feast created a wayhat to celebrate any moment. fancy feast appetizers. simple high quality ingredients like wild alaskan salmon, white meat chicken, or seabass and shrimp in a delicate broth, prepared without by-products or fillers. fancy feast appetizers. celebrate the moment. it s 7:26 on this tuesday, july 20, 2010, i m kimberly suiters. we re following breaking news in maryland. a fire at a lumper yard in wo s woodsboro, board of frederick. there s extensive damage to the building. this is on main street in woodsboro. no reports of any injuries and no word yet on what may have cause this fire. we re going check your weather and tr good morning. i m meteorologist tom kierein. temperatures around the region low to mid-70s, highs mid-90s and still quite humid. could get some passing storms 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. more tomorrow. still hot on thursday and friday. how is the traffic now, jerry? 395 delays begin at the beltway to the new lane configuration at the 14th street bridge. the rush hour wining down although we have signal problems georgia avenue just inside the beltway in silver spring. coming up this morning on news 4 midday laser hair removal is 7:30 now on a tuesday morning, the 20th of july, 2010. 41 years after man first walked on the moon, these folks have stepped on the rockefeller plaza. one small step for man. we re going to head outside. cheapening something that was so significant. that s what we do around here. ib side studio 1a i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira. the troubled actress is set to begin serving 90 days in jail. how is she feeling about it? coming up, what she had to say on twitter. plus the latest why her new high-profile lawyer robert shapiro has reportedly quit. also ahead, an unsettling disorder, animal hoarding. could you imagine living with more than 250 cats in your home? in a moment. the shocking story of a couple who did just that and we ll talk to a woman who is currently being treated for the disorder. plus, mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend take their bitter custody battle to court. let s begin with the day that lindsay lohan has feared for some time. she is scheduled to surrender for the start of her 90-day jail sentence. there are reports her newest attorney, robert shapiro, will not be with her. lee cowan has the latest. good morning to you. reporter: well, good morning, matt. yeah, it s true robert shapiro has, in fact, quit, that would be the second attorney in as many weeks to leave lohan s side. robert shapiro of o.j. simpson fame, has said he would accept the case but only if she agreed to abide by the terms of her probation which includes jail time. jail time, some say, is something lindsay lohan is finding increasingly impossible to accept. since her last court appearance, aside from a few public outings, lindsay lohan has largely stayed off the tabloid radar even checking herself into a drug rehab facility where some say the waiting is wreaking havoc on her nerms nerves. she s had trouble eating, sleeping, she s been crying a report. reporter: people magazine reports she s a fidgety mess. the reality of jailhouse food and jailhouse bedding is now start to go set in. even her tweets sound different. the only bookings that i m familiar with are disney films, she wrote last night. i never thought i d be booking into jail. she s sort of been in denial about it right after she was sentenced. now she s thinking to herself, what is it going to be like in the cell by myself alone with not many things to do? reporter: one possible strategy for limiting her jail time was getting her in rehab first. the sober living iffacility she preemptively checked herself into last week was the one robert shapiro opened himself after his son brent died of a drug overdose. but while the rehab may improve lohan s image with the court, it may not convince the judge to postpone jail time. most people feel like while it s a good thing she went into this sober living house, i think most people also think that it s too little too late and that s probably what the judge is going to think as well. reporter: it s not that rehab isn t part of lohan s sentence, it is. in fact, the judge ordered her to complete three months of in-patient care but only after jail. the only fear i have is that by going to jail first, she ll be hardened and won t be open to the treatment process and the fact the judge has only mandated three months when lindsay needs at least a year. reporter: now, matt, that is a live picture you re looking at of the jail in linwood, california, where lindsay lohan is expected to report later on today to be taken into custody there. the reality is no one really expects her to do some three months there. the reality is most people think she ll probably do more like three weeks but, again, this is something most say she could have avoided had she just followed the terms of her original probation. matt? lee cowan, thank you very much. a former district attorney and former judge, dr. julie holland is a psychiatrist and author of weekends at bellevue. good morning to both of you. good morning. let me start with you, first of all. rehab, sober living facility, what s the difference? and if you re the judge, and you are, do you want to take her out of that to make her go serve 90 days in jail? i tell you, i absolutely would take her out of it and i believe the judge will do just that. sober living is not a rehab facility and what you have is a woman who has been in rehab three to four times and gets arrested almost immediately after coming out. it s time to serve the sentence. this report robert shapiro may have decided, no, thank you, i don t want to be a part of this case, just as i would imagine justice is supposed to be blind to the person representing you in court but does all this turmoil impact her case in some way? i don t think it does. i think the judge has made a decision she violated probation. the judge has bent over backwards to give her every opportunity. she has given her an alcohol education program that she lied about. she didn t go to. she goes to cannes, she parties. any judge would have put her in jail long before this. so enter robert shapiro, a guy with a great pedigree, but the bottom line is, it s about her pedigree and lack of respect for the court. it s time for her to go to jail irrespective of the change in lawyers. to go to jail for how long? prosecutors have asked for 30 days. the judge gave her 90 days. i think a lot of people raised their eyebrows at that. in reality, how much time is she going to spend behind bars? it s los angeles and there is no truth in sentencing and that s why people are skeptical. so three weeks. three weeks at the most. all right. doctor holland, this is a troubled young lady. there have been numerous reports of her trouble with alcohol in the past. over the last several months according to published reports she has been on several prescription drugs including zoloft. if these had been prescribed for legitimate reasons, will she be allowed to continue taking them behind bars? you know, typically the prisons decide what the patient can or cannot take. and my assumes is they re not going to be okay with her taking addictive medications like stimulants and opiates. whether they decide to let her continue with antidepressants, i think she ll have to see a psychologist there and they ll make the determination. people magazine is reporting she is extremely fidgety and nervous, my first reaction is, good. you want her to be nervous about this. it s supposed to be a deterrent so it avoids bad behavior in the future, isn t that right? well, you know, this in some ways really is just what she needs. she needs to be she needs a time-out. she needs to be pulled away from the attention and the gawking and the enabling. she needs to be with herself and have some time to really be present and cautious and self-reflecting and figure out what s going on in her life and where she can take it from here. i think in some ways the judge and other people are trying to help her. however, you know i really think that treatment is better than incarceration and, you know, what will be best for her is to have a good psychotherapist and psychiatrist. i don t know that lawyers and prison guards are going to do much to help her change her behavior. before i let jeanine jump on you, i ve always heard addicts can t be cured unless they re ready to help themselves. if a court orders you into rehab and a court orders you to jail, is that the same thing? it really isn t the same thing. you re right. she has got to want to make changes in her behavior. she needs intensive psychotherapy, family therapy, new ways of behaving and coping. she s not going to get that sitting alone in a jail cell. at least what she ll get is some time to self-reflect and i think she needs it. the court system didn t pick lindsay lohan and say, look, this is a woman with an alcohol problem, let s get her into rehab. she had blood alcohol 0.48, under the influence of cocaine, reckless driving, commandeering someone else s car. this is not about alcoholism and whether she should get treatment. it s about a woman who gets drunk and gets into a car and puts all of our lives in danger, who snubs her nose at the criminal justice system and says the rules don t apply to me the way they apply to everyone else. if she gets rehab, that s great. the bottom line is she s a criminal. she s been convicted. she s been given a break. it s time to go to jail. jeanine pirro. let s get a check of good morning. here the humidity is a little bit lower on this tuesday morning and radar is showing a little shower activity in the panhandle of west virginia and into western maryland at this hour and moving in now into southern pennsylvania. that will stay to north of the metro area. right now temperature 77 in washington, 70 in the suburbs and rural areas. high today reaching low and mid-90s and could get some passing thunderstorms 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. more of the same tomorrow, a little less humid but hot thursday and frida and for your weather needs 24 hours a day, go to weather.com. matt, over to you. stephanie, thank you very much. up next inside the shocking world of people who hoard not objects but animals. one couple owned more than 250 cats. [ female announcer ] fact. when pain keeps you up, nothing is proven to help you fall asleep faster than advil pm liqui-gels. rushing real liquid relief to ease you to sleep fast. for nighttime pain, make advil pm your #1 choice. [ female announcer ] nutri-grain one good decision. .can lead to another. .made with real fruit and now with more of the whole grains your body needs. nutri-grain can help you eat better all y. they used to spend hours on the couch, 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. back at 7:42. what happens when the desire to rescue animals becomes more of a compulsion than a good deed? how many cats would be too many? five? ten? how about 260? a special series premiering this week on animal planet takes viewers inside the world of animal hoarding. they mean more to me than any human could. in six months, maybe not even that long, you ll see my name in the obituary because i can t live like this. i m not going to be able to keep doing this. you spend more time with the dogs than you do with your grandkids. if i had to choose between my animals and my husband, i would pick the animals. my cats are healthy and content with their life. i don t know how you can come home every single night and say this is my clean room. i would lose my wife. i would lose my house. i would lose everything if i went to jail over this. i think you have 150 too many cats. i don t have any desire to give up any of my animals. you don t care about yourself and i m afraid you re going to die. robin, who was in that piece, is a recovering animal hoarder. dr. karen cassidy is a clinical sipsychologist specializing in hoard i hoarding and has been part of robin s treatment team. doctor and robin, good morning to you. i think people are going to look that, robin, and say, first of all, not only why but how? how do you live with so many pets inside your home? how do you explain that? for me it s probably an issue of coming from a large family and so there was always chaos and, you know, disruption everywhere in our home when we were growing up. so the animals to me were part of that. they re part of the family to me. when people rescue animals, often you hear others say what a great thing you re doing. aren t you a wonderful person? is it a situation where you develop a need for that positive reinforcement and that s why you just keep going? partly. partly it is. for me and i m sure a lot of other animal hoarders it comes down to an issue of feeling needed, wanted, loved. sometimes there are situation that is go on in your life that you don t feel you re getting that from your human companions. and yet when it gets out of hand, did you have a turning point? did you have a moment where you looked around the house and said, wait a second, this is no longer a good thing? no, i didn t. i didn t until the show came in and i realized at that point. so they were tipped off to you by someone else. by me. by you. so you went and said to them i have x number no, no, when i contacted the show, i thought it was going to be a different vein. i thought it was going to show me in a different light that, wow, i am this wonderful person who can handle all of this. and it turned into a different situation for me. dr. cassidy, where do you start with someone like robin? how do you point out this has crossed a line? the difficulty for all animal hoarders they have wonderful intentions. they are wonderful people and it s gone awry. and you want to help them understand that there s a big gap between their intention to love these animals and their ability to fulfill that love. and to help point out in a gentle way that actually they re harming the animals and they re harming their human relationships. you can t go into a home like robin s home or that gentleman in the piece and clear the pets out. you just can t say, okay, all of these animals are gone. so how do you start? is it a one step at a time program? well, you start one step at a time. the first thing is to help the person understand how actually they are harmful to the animals and harmful to their family relationships and it shows them the avenue to really care and love these animals is to adopt them out and to have a small reasonable number that they really can care for well. robin, when you hear, and you ve heard about this, this couple that was living with 260 cats, now you shake your head. so you can t imagine prior to contacting this show that you could have ever gotten that far down the road with something like this. no, i would not have been allowed to. my family would have put a stop to it way before that would have happened. can you imagine the stench? oh, i know. we like cats but imagine walking into a home where there are 260 cats living. not even just that. it s like there s no surface for human contact. there s no safety for your food. there s no way to make a meal and not be sure there s going to be something in it other than what s supposed to be in there. you mentioned your family a second ago. what was their reaction when you were getting up in numbers with the pets you had? you had 20? 15, 16, your family was still okay with it? no, but i m a stubborn animal rescuer, if you want to call it that and you saw in the piece they asked me would i get rid of the animals or my husband first and my logic was if my husband was thrown out or left, he could handle himself but my animals needed me. dr. cassidy, do people like robin, even as she is recovering, often have setbacks much like an alcoholic would? right. unfortunately without treatment, 100% of animal hoarders relapse. and it s necessary to get treatment, to not just bring them to the attention of the criminal system but to understand they re people with needs. most hoarders have been through traumatic life disorders, initiated or exacerbated their hoarding issues. robin, you brought in a new dog recently, didn t you. yes, for four days. and? he was brought in with the intention of finding him a home and we did. it happened. he s gone to, i hope, a loving home. so what s your goal? how many pets? the ones we have now. which is what number? we have four cats and three dogs. and that would be fine, cap it at that? yeah. i m okay. good. and i appreciate you sharing your story. i know it can t be all that e e easy. no. robin, thanks very much. thank you very much to you as well. > and animal hoarding premieres on animal planet tomorrow night. just to get out of bed. then.well, i have to keep winding myself up to deal with the sadness, the loss of interest, the trouble concentrating, the lack of energy. [ male announcer ] if depression is taking so much out of you, ask your doctor about pristiq®. pristiq is a prescription medicine proven to treat depression. pristiq is thought to work by affecting the levels of two chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, teens and young adults. pristiq is not approved for children under 18. do not take pristiq with maois. taking pristiq with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. tell your doctor about all your medications, including those for migraine, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. pristiq may cause or worsen high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or glaucoma. tell your doctor if you have heart disease or before you reduce or stop taking pristiq. side effects may include nausea, dizziness and sweating. for me, pristiq is a key in helping to treat my depression. ask your doctor about pristiq. as a juicy flame-grilled cheeseburger on a delicious bun. and when you get it all at walmart s guaranteed unbeatable prices it somehow tastes even better. save money. live better. walmart. it s like a fusion of lusciouse strawberries and bananas. it somehow tastes even better. blended with creamy, yummy yogurt in a refreshing explosion of wild berries that reverberates off my taste buds. then crescendos with a flavor that tastes as good as it sounds. [ male announcer ] new real fruit smoothies from mccafé. just $2.29. mmm. [ male announcer ] the simple joy of real fruit smoothies. encore? and my car was worn out, so we got the 97 camry. when i was 16, i got the camry, and i drove it for nine years. then when i turned 16, i was passed down the camry. i was like, yes! [ man] and then we just got a camry hybrid. it s just such a perfect, practical car. [ boy ] i m hoping to probably get the new camry hybrid. [ laughter ] [ male announcer ] share your toyota story on facebook.com/toyota. up next, what most americans who care for their aging parents are doing wrong. also ahead, the latest on the custody battle between mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend. an. winning at losing on weight watchers. i have never been this size in my adult life. so it s a special place, for me. win i m so comfortable in my jeans. i love the progress. it makes me love myself that much more. i win. and you can too. [ female announcer ] if you join right now, you can join for a dollar. hurry, offer ends august 7th. weight watchers. because it works. so i couldn t always do what i wanted to do. but five minutes ago, i took symbicort, and symbicort is already helping significantly improve my lung function. so, today, i ve noticed a significant difference in my breathing. and i m doing more of what i want to do. so we re clear it doesn t replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. my doctor said symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. my copd often meant i had to wait to do what i wanted to do. now i take symbicort, and it s significantly improves my lung function, starting within five minutes. symbicort has made a significant difference in my breathing. now more of my want-tos are can-dos. as your doctor about symbicort today. i got my first prescription free. call or go online to learn more. [ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. [ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, i m from the gulf coast. my family spends a lot of time here. i have a personal interest in ensuring that we get this job done right. i m keith seilhan. i m in charge of bp s clean up on the gulf coast. bp s taken full responsibility for the clean up, and that includes keeping you informed. over 25,000 people are included in the clean up operation. our crews are cleaning the gulf beaches 24/7. we re going to be here as long as it takes to make this right. i can take one airline out. and another home. so with more flight options, i can find the combination that gets me there and back quickest. where you book matters. expedia. we get double miles on every purchase. echo! so we earned a trip to the grand canyon twice as fast. uh-oh. we get double miles every time we use our card. i ll take these. no matter what we re buying. plus the damages. and since double miles add up quick, we can bring the whole gang. it s hard to beat double miles. no, we ride them! [ male announcer ] introducing the venture card from capital one, with double miles on every purchase every day. go to capitalone.com. what s in your wallet? oh, that s the spot! 7:55 right. 78 degrees. a bit hazy, touch less humid. tom has your week long weather forecast in just a moment. good morning, everyone, it is tuesday, july 20, 2010. police in california are now searching for two men who gunned down a computer engineer from northern virginia. 45-year-old man traveled to northern california to interview for a job with google. the night before his interview, police say two men robbed him and shot him in oakland. he leaves behind a wife and three children. today s maryland court of appeals will hear arguments about plans for a casino at anne arundel mall should be on the ballot. opponents are appealing last month s decision. a judge ruled the effort to block the casino through a public vote on the matter would violate the state constitution. your weather and traffic with. good morning. i m meteorologist tom kierein. temperatures are in the 70s to near 80s. highs mid-90s. chance of a passing evening thunder shower. less humid on thursday and friday. police dealing with an accident at the inner loop at route 50. right side blocked. delays as you leave springfield. still having traffic light issues in silver spring. jammed out of wheaton. coming up this morning, midday laser hair removal is i m done with all these lists. and driving all over town. i want one list. for one store. [ female announcer ] at safeway, you get it all. great quality and great prices. so you just need a safeway list. [ male announcer ] with thousands of everyday low prices you ll save all over the store. [ female announcer ] with club card specials like breyers ice cream just $1.99 and safeway hot dog or hamburger buns only 89 cents. [ male announcer ] quality and low prices. so there s one stop for everything. [ female announcer ] at safeway, that s our promise. that s ingredients for life. 8:00 now on this tuesday morning, the 20th day of july, 2010. right around 78 degrees on the plaza, but we are heading into the 90s later this afternoon. not a bad day. some serious sunscreen. alongside matt lauer, more drama for mel gibson and the mother of his youngest child. their custody case heads to court today and a sixth audio tape has surfaced. we ll have the latest on all of that just ahead. also ahead, if you are one of the 66 million americans who is now caring for your elderly parents, well, obviously you re in good company but you may be doing something wrong. in fact, some people think most of the people caring for their eld elderly parents are making a major mistake. we re going to tell you what that is and give you some inters in just a little while. okay. joy bauer will answer your questions from everything how to calm a major food craving to lunch meat and how off actually you should be eating it. before we go any further let s go inside. ann is standing by at the news desk with a look at all the headlines. good morning once again, everybody. in the news the millions of unemployed americans who have used up their state benefits could be getting some relief soon. the senate is expected to approve extending federal benefits today and send it to the house. the extension would give people $309 a week on average. as the votes from west virginia democrat goodwin takes over the late robert byrd s seat today, to overcome a filibuster by republicans who have been arguing the benefits should be paid for with spending cuts. with the cap on that ruptured gulf oil well holding now for a fifth day on monday, bp is now considering making a temporary fix, something more permanent. bp says that it s considering what it s calling a static kill, pumping a heavy amount of mud through the top of the new cap to seal the well. the government is urging caution so far on that idea. today the u.s. joined other nations in endorsing a plan by afghanistan s president to have his nation take charge of its own security by 2014. that is three years after president obama s deadline for the start of u.s. troop withdrawal. for the first time a gel has been shown to be effective in blocking the aids virus in women. the vaginal gel containing an antiviral drug cut the infection by 39% according to a study conducted in south africa. scientists are saying this finding is groundbreaking and a game changer. researchers are saying they re confident the gel can be improved before it is made available. overseas markets are mostly high higher this morning. cnbc s erin burnett is at the new york stock exchange. erin, some real earnings jitters today. after an up monday investors here at least are a bit nervous and part of that is because of ibm. it s a huge tech company. earnings were a little bit short of what investors were looking for and that is setting a little bit of a negative tone this morning. it s not all bad news and it s a sign government stimulus has worked in many places. whirlpool which, as you know, makes maytag and kitchenaide appliances, says thanks to federal rebates for efficient appliances results are way better than anyone had looked for. there are good news news spots out there. will the good or bad win out? we re going to get housing data. we ve seen a lot of weakness there and earnings from apple. how the ipad does and goldman sachs and whether the bulls or bears win today. and finally now broadway stars were shining at the white house last night during the celebration of show tunes. president obama praised musicals as an optimistic art form that calls on us to see the best in ourselves and the world around us. there you go. it is now 8:03. back outside to matt and meredith. remember the man from seinfeld ? absolutely. based on good morning. at this hour radar is picking up a couple of showers in west virginia. another one exiting allegheany county moving into pennsylvania. his today mid-90s. chance of a passing thunderstorm between 4:00 and 8:00 p.m. more of the same tomorrow. less humid on thursday and friday but still hot. both days highs reaching the mid-90s and maybe hotter saturday. matt, over to you. all right, stephanie. when we come back, the ongoing custody battle between mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend heading back to court. how will those tapes we ve all heard factor in? we ll talk about that after these messages. you know what, this looks just like the tree house i built with my dad. (girl) really? yeah. there you go. okay, i m gonna work on the roof. dad, i ll be right back! (announcer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you care. you made that for me? well you re making this for me. (announcer) choosey moms, and dads, choose jif. summer ain t summer without popsicle pops. ben & jerry: my two best friends. what would i do for a klondike bar? you don t wanna know. i am so happy right now. just so happy. pop-tarts®! i ll have a frosted strawberry. as an ice cream sandwich. chocolate fudge. on a stick please! ( crunch ) with the endless possibilities of kellogg s® pop-tarts, it s sure to be a picture perfect summer. pop-tarts®. made for fun. sometimes life can be, well, a little uncomfortable, but when it s hard or hurts to go to the bathroom, there s dulcolax stool softener. dulcolax stool softener doesn t make you go. it just makes it easier to go. dulcolax stool softener. make yourself comfortable. we are back at 8:08. a family court hearing is scheduled today in the ongoing battle between mel gibb sob and his ex-girlfriend oksana grigorieva. the two are in the middle of a vicious custody dispute over their 8-month-old daughter. kristen welker is in los angeles with more. good morning, kristen. reporter: good morning, meredith. well, that custody hearing is set to take place at this downtown courthouse earlier today, later on today. in the meantime, radaronline.com has given nbc news a preview of tape six. now we have not been able to independently confirm the authenticity of this tape, but we have had an expert look at previous tapes for signs of possible tampering and he found none. but this latest installment shows just how bitter this custody battle really is. i m just saving my child s life because you are a monster! that s all. you re a monster! reporter: in the latest radaronline reporting, the woman reporting to be oksana grigorieva is clearly fighting for custody of the child she has with gibson. on the same day lawyers for gibson and grigorieva are due in family court, nothing fires up both parties as much as the discussion both share, their 8-month-old daughter. you have my child and she doesn t need a gold digging [ bleep ] russian [ bleep ]. you re acting as a crazy man right now, and you have been for many, many months, and you hit me and you hit her while she was in my hands. reporter: grigorieva has turned over the tapes to authorities and she has told l.a. county officials that gibson hit her while she was holding her daughter back in january. radaronline recently release this had photo claiming it shows grigorieva with damaged front teeth hours after. some dental experts say the picture is inconsistent with her allegations she was hit in the face. the main thing i m looking at is the trauma to the face. there are no cuts, no swelling of the lip because it s pretty instantaneous when there s that type of trauma. reporter: some in the gibson camp have reportedly said the questions surrounding the authenticity of the photos cast a cloud over grigorieva s entire story. they ve also questioned whether grigorieva altered the tapes. but legal analysts suggest that s blaming the victim. it s too soon for the tables to turn against oksana, a potential victim of domestic violence, who made this tape in theory to get help for herself. reporter: it seems likely grigorieva knew she was being taped and gibson didn t. still, if it is discovered grigorieva faked allegations of abuse, she could face legal troubles of her own. for now, though, the most pressing legal issue is focused on who will end up raising little lucia. now it s still not clear grigorieva and gibson will appear in court later today. in the meantime, l.a. county officials continue to probe those allegations of abuse but still no charges have been filed against gibson. meredith, back to you. kristen welker, thank you very much. dan abrams is nbc s chief legal analyst. good morning, dan. radar on line has released what seems to be one tape they ve cut up and they re releasing installments of it. is any admissible in a court of law? maybe. the question is, was it even legal for her to make the tape? california is a two-party consent state. if she made it and he didn t know it was being made, which seems pretty clear, then she would have had to have believed that she was in imminent danger, that she was doing it to prevent violence to a child. she d need a specific reason that she was making this tape without his consent to make it to even avoid criminal liability. then the question would be admissibility. but i think if she passes the first test, it likely would come in certainly in a custody battle. she said something in the latest recording, we hear her saying, quote, you hit me and you hit her while she was in my hands. her obviously meaning the baby. that sounds like someone who is under a lot of duress there. absolutely. the question becomes, is that why she made the tape? meaning, if she made the tape effectively to get more money in a custody battle, then that s probably not going to allow her to introduce it. it could lead her to face criminal charges, et cetera. how do you determine that? is there anything that would suggest that it s extortion? it s always tough. it seems the gibson camp is now essentially claiming that this is extortion. her ka camp is going to claim this was totally legitimate, totally aboveboard, that this was a tape made because she feared for her safety. and i think you re right. based on what you hear on that tape she s going to have at least a very legitimate argument that she made it out of fear. and the fact when she said on that tape that he had struck her and he did not deny it, in fact, i believe he said you deserved it and certainly did not deny the fact that he had struck the baby when she just said that as well, that can t work to help him. well, that s right. so let s even assume for a moment that no criminal charges are filed against mel gibson in connection with this. it could be in his custody battle. you look at the best interests of a child in a custody battle. the minute there s an allegation not just of striking a parent but of striking a child, that s a really big deal in assessing who should get custody. meanwhile, if the tape, the indication is it s not authentic, if they decide it s not authentic or the picture of her with the broken teeth is something that s doctored, could she be in real legal trouble? i don t think it depends on who she gave it to. let s say she submitted a picture of herself to the media and it isn t totally authentic. that s not going to get her in legal trouble. if, on the other hand, she is lying to the authorities and giving the authorities doctored photos and doctored tapes. but, again, let s be krrl with regard to the tapes. it clearly was edited. radar on line clearly edited it putting it out in six parts. that doesn t mean it s not authentic. the concern, when i hear the word doctored, i think of someone literally taking words that weren t said and moving them around, moving questions, et cetera. that s significant. if there are literally chunks here that actually happened as we heard them, and let s say there was stuff that was taken out, well, that doesn t necessarily mean it won t be admitted. what it could mean, though, is that the court will say we need the whole tape. we want to hear everything here. you can t just give us parts of it. and then a ruling would be made as to admissibility. meanwhile, his soon-to-be ex-wife, robin, with whom he was with 28 years, i believe, reportedly gave a statement to the courts saying he was a good husband. he never abused her. how would that play into a custody case? it s relative to a witness. just because he didn t strike his ex-wife doesn t mean that her allegations in this case aren t true. it s like in any case where you bring in effectively a kashg it ter witness. now when it comes, again, to custody, character witnesses are more important than they might be otherwise because a judge is really trying to make a broad determination of what s right here. what s going to be the best interests of this child. and so a parent, a mother who has brought up children with mel gibson would be a relevant witness. dan abrams, thank you so much. and up next, what you could be doing very wrong if you care for your aging parents. 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. it s a satisfying way to help you manage your weight. [ instrumental: uphey, max. [ announcer ] your dog s one of a kind. and now, you have the power. [ giggling ] to help significantly extend his healthy years. a groundbreaking 14-year study by purina. proves that puppy chow, then dog chow nutrition, fed properly over a lifetime, can help extend his lovable antics. up to 1.8 healthy years. [ barks ] long live your buddy. oh, max! long live your dog. purina puppy chow and purina dog chow. over a thousand people a day are switching to chevy. they like that vehicles like the 2010 malibu, traverse and silverado half-ton have each been named a consumers digest best buy. they like that chevy backs the quality with a one-hundred-thousand mile powertrain warranty. they re not just trading in, they re trading up. qualified lessees now get a low mileage lease on this malibu ls for around one ninety-nine a month. call for details. the switch begins at chevydealer.com. [trumpet playing reveille throughout] reviving the economy means reinventing the way we do business. here s to the owners showing us the way. [trumpet playing reveille fades to silence] 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. this morning on forever young role reversal. caring for your aging parent. roughly 66 million people are now family caregivers, a division that comes with plenty of stress and sadness. a psychologist and author of i m okay, you re my parent dale atkins, a primary caregiver for her parent. good morning to you both. you said, dale, this affects millions of people. on the surface seems like a real role reversal. the child becoming the parent. your parent is still your parent. your parent is always your parent. so how do you take on this role of caregiver while allowing your parents to maintain their dignity and their independence? it s very important challenge and one that does have a lot of stress with it and so many caregivers become unaware how important it is to take care of themselves in the process. what you need to do is really try to understand where your parents are, what s important to them, and what they would like. and you have these conversations before they re in a position where they can t communicate? oh, you do. you have to. there are so many things that are important to talk about but really understand what you need, also, because it s not just a role reversal because your parents are always your parents. even if you re doing the most primary care giving but you have a compassion for them and empathy for them and try to remember where they are, what their needs are and what your needs are. your dad is 86. your mom is 83. right. last year you live in virginia. you moved into the family home in arizona because they re in an assisted living facility close by and you are the primary caregiv caregiver. what has this past year been like for you making that kind of a change in your life and for your parents? it s been a huge change. i proved across the country. i changed my working situation. i left my support system back east. so it s been quite a journey for me and for my parents it s been a lot of change, too. they lived in their home almost 30 years so they moved from this nice big home to a much smaller apartment. they ve had trouble with the dog adjusting to the transition as well. so, dale, what advice would you give somebody like amy in terms of managing care giving without losing a sense of themselves? you have to take care of yourself for sure and get a team of people you can rely on so you re not doing this alone and be sure to talk about the kinds of issues that most people don t want to talk about that have to do with care and with eldercare, older care, end of life issues, financial issues, anything having to do with what you need to know, who their medical team is and you re there so you probably know but a lot of people who aren t there don t know and to have conversations that sometimes are very difficult but caring for yourself is one of the most important things to do and whatever that means, to understand that the aging process takes time and sometimes it seems like it drags on and sometimes it happens overnight so that you have to be aware that there s always change. this whole world is about change to get the support you need from online support groups. i know aarp has one that s quite wonderful. family caregivers association has one. you get information and you also get support. there s also the sibling component. you have three other sisters, but you were the primary caregiver even though one of them lives close by and that s a struggle with families and oftentimes can break families apart. that s true. we need to work together as a family to do what each of us is capable of doing, what we have time for. my sisters have extenuating circumstances. they backed me up when they can and even do long distance research online for me sometimes. my sister orders the medications for my parents. that s something she can handle while she s working and has a daughter to raise. so we really try to be a family team. and one day at a time. we re out of time, dale atkins and amy, good luck to you. and now here s matt. thank you. it s 8:23. let s head down to washington and check in with mr. willard sco scott. everybody should blow out birthday candles and we have some to blow out today. 100 years old today, clifton, new jersey, frank scancarella. and we have selma vonnoh out of chattanoo chattanooga, tennessee. worked out of the munitions plant to help defeat the nazis. and we have verda vanalstine of cobleskill, new york. 103 years old today. wish her a happy birthday. also goes to play the stock market and has fun doing it and loves ballroom dancing. you can t beat that. take a look at george. good old george gordon of lauderhill, florida, 100 years old today. played baseball when he was just a kid. happing greenberg was on the same team. and he says kosher hot dogs has kept him living 100 years. can t beat that. and ferne austin of laingsburg, michigan. lives on her own and says she has a sweet tooth for m&ms. and who doesn t? and finally virgie jarrett from alexander, louisiana. a proud member of the alpha delta kappa sorority. keeps busy going to lunch. i ve been doing that almost 100 years. that said, that s all. back to new york. hey, willard, thank you so much. while those people enjoy their birthday, someone else enjoying a birthday today. who might that be? it is our executive producer jim belle having a birthday today, busy at work in the control room. they re bringing in the cake. we wanted to sing to you but we re not allowed. we wanted to light the candles but we re not allowed. upside-down every morning in the control room. a big smooch. we love you, jim. thank you. happy birthday. hey, kathie lee and hoda? yeah? if you had any guts at all you d put that right in his face. they came close. came a little close there. 8:26 is your time. 81 degrees. the rains came last night but no cool down in sight. tom will have your forecast after the news. good morning, i m eun yang. vre is expanding its new express train service one day after it started. the new service from fredericksburg to union station ran its inaugural trip yesterday. it was so popular it was completely full by third stop and 100 passengers were turned away. today vre added another car to that train which meant nearly additional 150 seats. more cars could be added in the future if there s a demand. the new express train she was a 20 minutes off the trip between fredericksburg and union [ male announcer ] progress. progress is saving tax payers millions of dollars, with the help of visa digital currency. which lets troy reiners, manager of nebraska s child support payment center, put money into pre-paid visa accounts for just a penny. instead of mailing out checks for 59 cents each. now that s progress. visa. currency of progress. good morning. here s your 4-day forecast for this tuesday. highs reaching low to mid-90s. forms in the p.m. how is the traffic? slower than yesterday. on 395 to the 14th street bridge, checking to make sure we didn t have an accident. new lane configuration. quick check elsewhere, heavy traffic along new york of a to the 3rd street tunnel. coming up this morning on news 4 8:30 now on a tuesday morning. it s the 20th day of july, 2010. smiling faces and warm temperatures. a good combination out on the plaza. and we re joining these nice people. i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira and ann curry who is kissing babies and running for office over here. and coming up in this half hour you re saying cabbage, move over. that s what you think of when you think of irish foods. the most popular is dish. today we re cooking up crabs and a seafood coleslaw on the menu. delicious recipes just ahead. we love him. the coleslaw includes sea weed. a lot of people love it. what about your people? my people eat mcdonald s and daniel silva is here, out with his tept novel featuring the spy/art in the rembrandt affair. he has done something outrageous. take him to task. also coming up, we have some diet questions people good morning. at 8:30 in the morning we have 80 degrees at are national airport. i m meteorologist tom kierein. we still have the humidity with us and be with us through the rest of the day as the temperatures climb to low to mid-90s. 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. could get a passing thunderstorm and remaining humid tonight and tomorrow as well. could get a late afternoon or early evening thunderstorm tomorrow. less humid on thursday and friday but still hot, highs in the 90s both days. over the weekend could get storms on saturday and sunday. for your birthday forecast 24 hours a day, all you have to do is logon to weather.com. meredith, over to you. stephanie, thank you very much. and still ahead, great activities to keep your kids occupied this summer. we re back at 8:35. this morning on today s hot summer reads the return much of master assassin in the rembrandt affair. he is drawn into a web of intrigue when a portrait by the dutch master rembrandt is stolen. daniel silva is the author. he s also married to today national correspondent. good morning. you have gone too far. what have i done now? i have three distinct problems with this book. one, you have defiled the art world. two, you have broken a long-standing personal principle and, three, you have threatened your marriage. how do you plead? not guilty. not guilty? where do you want to start? defile the art world. you have made up out of thin air a masterpiece by the artist rembrandt. it doesn t exist. it does not exist, but i have to give myself some latitude so that we should help our listeners. there is a portrait of rembrandt s mistress, a woman who was with him in amsterdam. and i created a fictitious portrait of a mistress. this is a master. this is a master. you don t just go around creating artwork. i didn t just go around creating artwork. i spent a long time looking at and studying all the paintings that he did during that period. i took a real a portrait does not exist, correct? it does not exist but a picture very similar to it does. and i needed a clean provenance. thank you for explaining it. i had to help you with that one. i m sorry. how does it fit into the plot, this portrait of a young woman? it connects a terrible deed that was done to a family during the holocaust in holland, and it is a conspiracy of evil stretching back to the darkest chapter of the second world war to one of the gravest threats facing the world today. i bet you can that s well put. that s good. can you figure that one out? yes, i can figure that one out. let me go to the second thing that bothers me, you broke a long-standing principle. you said you don t know how a book is going to end until you write it because you like it to unfold. you knew how this book would end. i did it backwards. i knew how it was going to end. i had no idea, and i mean no idea, how to get there. my wife and i would take our children to europe to research hopping from art museum to art museum and tough cities like paris and geneva. it was drudgery. but we would ride around on trains and sit there and jamie is my primary editor, my sounding board. the four of us would sit there on eternal train rides thrashing out this plot, how is this all going to fit together? but i still there s points in every book where you re lying on the floor in tears with all your junk around you and i finally got there. it s a book about greed. it is. plain and simple. and your villain in this book was inspired by someone who became quite a villain in real life over the last year or so. his name is bernard madoff, and i was fascinated by the fact that bernie madoff was a pillar of a man respected by everyone, the person you wanted to give your money to. he gave away millions to charity through his charitable foundation. and underneath it all, he was a thief. a criminal. one of the biggest thieves in history, arguably, and so that dichotomy, that split, how a person can go through life like that behind a great fortune there s a great crime. he served as the inspiration for my have i lynn t. called st. martin by a lot of people who love him. and finally, you have threatened your marriage with this book. you admit, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he admits that in writing his heroine in this book, a woman by the name of zoe reid, that you fell in love with her. i did. a she s a work of fiction, like your rembrandt. not to me, though. to me she is a part of our family for six months to a year. she is a hotshot british investigative reporter. she makes mincemeat out of corrupt businessmen. but zoe has a secret of her own that she s keeping from her colleagues. but you fell in love with her in the literary sense then? well, you know, these characters do take on a life of their own. they inhabit my world. they live with us in our hope. they really are there and we all fell in love with zoe, not just me. it s a platonic love, trust me. because jamie called me last week. i know. i know. not a good thing for you. i ve had to retain counsel myself on this one. i think we re going to pull through it. it s a work of fiction. tenth in the series the rembrandt affair. good to see you and your continued success. always a pleasure. a meal you might not expect from the emerald isle. 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. announcer: today s kitchen is brought to you by capri sun. i can respect that. this morning on today s kitchen back to basics to the emerald isle. the land of meat and potatoes has far more to offer than you may think. the author of the country cooking of ireland, good morning to you. good morning. before i went to ireland with al for the today show, i just assumed it was all meat and potatoes but the irish love their fish. it s very popular. they have 3,500 miles roughly of coastline on the islands so there s anything you can imagine, any kind of north atlantic fish, shellfish, lobsters, crab, of course. and that s what we re cooking up. this is a man named ivan allen, a farmer, and he liked to prepare crab this way. there used to be crabs where the lobster men would say we have these crabs and can t sell them for as much and he d make it like this. he went on to become the most important famous restaurant in the south of ireland. so what kind of crab are you using in this recipe today? we have what they use is spider crab, the guys with the really long legs. these just regular, good quality, lump crab meat. what we re going to do, start mixing the crab meat with bread crumbs. i have more bread crumbs here with butter. you like to make your own, right? oh, yeah. and they re very easy to make. we re going to toast these, get them nice and but theory. irish butter is the best in the world and luckily you can buy it here. why is that? it just is. the dairy products are so good. the grass is so rich there and nutrient rich. so i have my crab and my bread crumbs. everything else here, tomato relish which comes from the restaurant, a little mustard, vinegar, butter. mustard is a little hard to get out. a little vinegar, a little butter. and this is white sauce, simple, made with cream, butter and flour, all of those good noncal orric things. bread crumbs that are but t theory. mix this all together. a little salt, a pinch of salt, as they say. a little pepper. so it s to taste? exactly. pretend it s all mixed, blah, blah. into the dish here, we ll do this. into this dish. we re going to put it in the oven. for how long? about 20 minutes. you can also put these, you say, into dried crab shells. the shells. cleaned, dried shells. absolutely. now you put a little bit of the bread crumb on top as well. all of these nice bread crumbs on top of that. and we re going to get them nice and golden brown. what s the trick? i never do that. you trim the crust off the bread and you want the bread a little bit dry, a day or two old. put it in a food processor, get crumbs like that, melt the butter and you have those nice buttered bread crumbs. and we thought with the crab, nice to have a little coleslaw. this is unusual because it has sea weed or sea vegetables they prefer to call it. now dulce is irish? it comes from ireland. they ve eaten sea weed for many years, many centuries. the first was from st. columbia. that s pungent. when you soak it, chop it up, add it to the cabbage. you can t eat it the way i just ate it? no. i should have warned you. i thought it would be fun to see what happens. the dressing is great. it s mayonnaise and apple juice mixed together and it makes a wonderful dressing for coleslaw, a little unusual. that s really good. that goes well with the crab. great lunch dish or you can serve this as an appetizer. and then to wash it all down. that s the most important part. a good irish beer. why does this go good with crab? crab meat and beer, why do they go good together? come on. i don t know. i don t know. classic combination. i have sea weed stuck in my teeth. i m terribly sorry. that looks very good. the book is absolutely gorgeous. whether you re a cook or not you learn so much reading about the irish heritage. it s called country cooking of ireland with chef colman andrews. we re back now at 8:48 with the overwhelming response to a story that first aired on nbc nightly news over this past weekend. it s about some of the innocent victims of the disaster in the gulf, the animals, and how many of you are stepping up to give them loving homes. here s michelle kosinski. reporter: they almost do speak for themselves, the puppies looking for their playmates, the soulful eyes of faithful friends more accustomed to beds than cages. there s frisky alex, shy meadow she came in with her two puppies. reporter: and big benny. that s okay, benny. there s somebody out there that wants you. reporter: it all started in may, hundreds of owners started heart wrenchingly handing over their pets. i just keep thinking that it s going to end soon, and it just doesn t. reporter: well, now something has changed thanks to you, our viewers, who saw these faces in the story we aired on nbc news saturday. and the phones started ringing. full of second chances. the chihauhau s name is lucky. reporter: now lucky really is. meadow was terrified, now headed home with a new best friend. she looked sad, like she need add home, she needed someone to love her, like she missed her family. reporter: by far the biggest crowd pleasers have been these little puff balls, purebred maltese puppies brought in only days old with their mother. now, though, they ve been getting dozens of calls to adopt them from as far away as massachusetts. and benny, 130 pounds of sweetness, yes, now someone really does want him. ten people, in fact, a waiting list for the dog who had to be downsized out of his owner s apartment. an outpouring from around the country making all the difference to the huge hearts and little bodies. he s going to be well taken care of and i know he s a handful but we can handle it. reporter: for today, michelle kosinski, violet, louisiana. how can you resist? it s impossible, but we re happy our viewers have big hearts. we appreciate that. absolutely. and mao to one extremely opinionated guy this guy doesn t just spout ideas from his bar stool, he gets hurt in a big way. here s nbc s mike leonard. reporter: doing a story on 74-year-old gary boyd is a risky endeavor. identify the problem. reporter: well, what if i made a mistake? well, well, well. reporter: might that spur a letter to my boss complaining i messed up his scottsdale, arizona, home, that i didn t take more pictures of the replicas in the pool, that i never took a bite of the clam dip he made just for that? you have to be brief. reporter: sorry. g gary h. boyd, coast guard veteran, retired texaco executive, married to olga, four sons, three grandchildren, friendly guy, laughs a lot. used to have a habit of pocketing motel keys. took a 33 on the same golf hole he had previously scored a hole in one. his take on the golfing disasser? 15 balls in the lake. i was on the green and two-putted for a 33. reporter: gary is good at summing things up concisely. yep. reporter: which is why i m probably the king. reporter: getting letters published to magazines and newspapers all over the country. a hobby started ten years ago after his retirement from texaco. why did you start writing letters to the editor? because i was bored. reporter: and how many of your letters to the editor have you published? 561 as of today. reporter: major magazines, national newspapers, local newspapers, a lot of opinions. somehow gary has figured out the entry code in 200 words or less and now he s made a name for himself certainly at the arizona republic where editorial page editor phil boas has come to recognize the work before the name. you re going, this is good. this is good. this is gary boyd. which means i don t know if i can run him because we may have just run him five days ago. reporter: do you write every day? yes. reporter: more than one topic? yes. reporter: its prose is civil. its technique i write it out and then he reread it and then i rewrite it and then i reread it and then i rewrite it. reporter: a simple formula that has paid off 561 times so far. when will 562 happen? that s a great question. i don t know. reporter: well, that was a monday and now it s tuesday and here he is again, published letter number 562 for gary boyd. he s prolific. you know, whe he first started i thought, oh, i wonder how long it will last. reporter: a decade later, dysfunction has seized america, gary h. boyd. is the thrill gone? of what, writing this stuff? reporter: yeah. no. hell no. reporter: for today, mike leonard, nbc news, scottsdale, a arizona. i believe gary boyd wrote me a letter and kind of told me about his prolific letters to the editor campaign there and i think that s why we ended up doing that. that s a great story. a man of few words unless he s writing them. have you written a letter to the editor? i have never done that. have you guys done it? no, i haven t. a long time ago, yeah. about what? i don t know. ranting and raving about something. going to go through their files to find it. he now has 566 letters in print so he keeps churning them out. keep going, gary. i love the wife wondering how long this would last, one of those silly hobbies a decade later. write it, reread it, rewrite it. we should get a second chance on this show. exactly. just ahead, we ll teach you some sneaky ways to save. i just reread it. only on today, the incredible lady gaga. then enrique turned up the heat. this friday john mayer. the toy ota summer concert seris on today. 8:55 is your time. 82 degrees. another steamy day in the nation s capital, how hot will it get today? tom will have your forecast after the news. good morning everyone, i m eun yang. maryland s court of appeals will hear arguments about whether plans for a casino at anne arundel mall should be on the ballot this fall. opponents are appealing last month s decision by an anne arundel county circuit judge. the judge ruled their effort to block the casino through a vote on the matter violates the state constitution. we ll take good morning. mimts ker i m meteorologist tom kierein. highs in the 90s all weekend. chance of late evening thunderstorms. less humid for thursday and friday. quite hot on saturday with highs in thor 90s, could get afternoon storms. storms possible sunday too. how is the traffic 395, a broken down tractor-trailer in springfield and it is crawling from the beltway all the way to the 14th street bridge with the new lane configuration. outer loop is jammed, connecticut avenue, georgia avenue, traffic lights are still a problem in silver spring. coming up this morning on midday news 4, i m going to soak up the sun the 20th day of july, 2010, hot, steamy day here in new york city. but a nice crowd of peopl gathered on rockefeller plaza. we re happy they joined us and happy to come on out and say hi. i m matt lauer along with msnbc s tamron hall. it s nice to have you here. nice to be here. nice crowd. good to see you. coming up, the troubled actress lindsay lohan expected to go to jail today for a 90-day sentence and all kinds of questions in this one including will she serve that full sentence? who will represent her in court? we re going to have much more on this in just a couple of minutes. a lot of drama there and in another los angeles courtroom. a judge will hear both sides in that bitter custody dispute between mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend. we ll hear a new part of a recording that allegedly features gibson once again in an ugly rage. there are those coming to his defense so we ll listen to what his friends and others have to say about that and far from l.a. and hollywood we ll talk about health and nutrition. a lot of questions being answered by joy bauer regarding pregnancy cravings. do women really crave pickles? i was always curious about that, ice cream and pickles. we ll talk about a healthy protein option, some tasty treats there. and also your bottom line. certain negotiating tactics and doing your homework can really pay off on your bottom line from your car loan to your credit cards. we ll show you how to save yourself some very big bucks. love that segment. first let s go inside. ann curry is standing by with a check of all the headlines. good morning once again, everybody. that new cap on that blownout well in the gulf is still holding up and bp is now talking about using it to permanently seal the well. the upgraded technique called the static kill would pump heavy mud through the new cap that has contained the oil since last thursday but the government has been urging caution in this approach, worried about potential leaks. for the first time since becoming prime minister in may, britain s david cameron is meeting with the president in the white house and today s agenda will include discussions about the projected cost of the bp oil spill as well as the timetable for withdrawal of british troops in afghanistan. at a conference in kabul today the u.s. and other countries agree that afghanistan should be in charge of its own security by 2014. that is three years after the scheduled start of u.s. troop withdrawals. meantime, secretary of state hillary clinton also told a woman s group that if any future government of afghanistan includes the taliban, the rights of women must be safeguarded. a powerful storm tore through the fair ground in central kentucky on monday forcing hundreds of people to flee. three were hurt and forecasters say more stormy weather is possible in central kentucky over the next few days. today actress lindsay lohan begins her 90-day jail term for violating probation. lee cowan joins us with more. lee, good morning. reporter: morning, ann. yeah, lindsay lohan has spent some time in the jail she s expected to go to today. but it was only for 84 minutes back in 2007. this time she s facing 90 days in that same jail and while that s likely to be reduced, the thought of any time, some say, for lindsay lohan, for her it s seemingly impossible. since her last court appearance, aside from a few public outings, lindsay lohan has largely stayed off the tabloid radar, even checking herself into a drug rehab facility where some say the waiting is wreaking havoc on her nerves. she has had trouble sleeping, trouble eating, she s been crying a lot. reporter: people magazine reports she s a fidgety mess. the reality of isolation and jailhouse food, jailhouse bedding, is now starting to set in. even her tweets sound different. the only bookings that i m familiar with are disney films, she wrote last night. never thought i d be booking into jail. she is sort of in denial about it right after she was sentenced, but now she s really thinking to herself, what is it going to be like in this cell by myself alone with not many things to do? reporter: one possible strategy for limiting her jail time was getting her in rehab first. the sober living facility lohan preemptively checked herself into last week was the one robert shapiro opened himself after his son brent died of a drug overdose. it s not that rehab isn t part of lohan s sevntence, it is. in fact, the judge ordered her to complete three months of in-patient care but only after jail. the only fear i have is that by going to jail first, she ll be hardened and won t be open to the treatment process and the judge has only mandated three months when lindsay needs clearly at least a year. reporter: as for that jail time, most agree she won t do a anywhere near the 90 days. it will probably be more like three weeks. instead, if that s the case, she would be out in time for her first movie premiere in september. lee, thank you so much. listen to this. a texas teenager is giving back to a children s hospital that treated him for free when he was a child. before he went to college he vowed he would raise a million dollars for texas scottish wright hospital for children in dallas. now after eight years of fund-raising golf tournaments, he has done it and with good morning. we have temperatures now climbing into the 80s, radar showing a shower that crossed washington county in the last hour now, just moving into northern frederick county along the mason-dixon line. temperature 82 in washington. we ll see it continue to limb in the low to mid-90s. 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. could see another passing thunderstorm. a little bit less humid on thursday an friday, but it looks like it will stay hot. tamron, over to you. all right, stephanie, thank you. now more on the child custody dispute between mel gibson and his ex-girlfriend, oksana grigorieva. the couple have an 8-month-old daughter. it just seems to keep getting uglier. another recording has surfaced that alleged ly features gibson in a violent tirade once again. be in s kristen welker has the latest. reporter: good morning, tamron. that custody hearing is set to take place at this downtown courthouse later on today. in the meantime, radaronline.com has given nbc news a preview of tape six. now we have not been able to independently confirm the authenticity of the tape, but we have had an expert look at previous tapes for signs of possible tampering, and he found none. this latest installment shows just how bitter this custody battle really is. i m just saving my child s life because you are a monster! that s all. you re a monster! reporter: in the latest radaronline recording the woman purported to be oksana grigorieva is clearly fighting for custody of the child she had with gibson. on the same day lawyers for gibson and grigorieva are due in family court, nothing seems to fire up both parties on the recording as much as discussion about the one thing they both still share, their 8-month-old daughter, lucia. you have my child and she doesn t need a gold digging [ bleep ] russian [ bleep ]. you re acting as a crazy man right now, and you have been for many, many months, and you hit me and you hit her while she was in my hands. reporter: grigorieva has turned over the tape to authorities, and she s told l.a. county officials that gibson hit her while she was holding their daughter back in january. radaronline recently release this had photo claiming it shows grigorieva with damaged front teeth in the hours after the alleged incident. but some dental experts now say the picture is inconsistent with her allegations that she was hit in the face. the main thing that i m looking at is the lack of trauma to the face, to the lip, to the gum. no cuts. no real bleeding. no swelling of the lip because it s pretty instantaneous when there s that type of a trauma. reporter: some in the gibson camp have reportedly said the questions surrounding the authenticity of the photos cast a cloud over grigorieva s entire story. they ve also questioned whether grigorieva altered the tapes. but legal analysts suggest that s blaming the victim. it s too soon for the tables to turn against oksana, a potential victim of domestic violence, who made this tape in theory to get help for herself. reporter: it seems likely grigorieva knew she was being taped and gibson didn t. still, if it is discovered that grigorieva somehow faked allegations of abuse, she could face legal troubles of her own. for now, though, the most pressing legal issue is focused on who will end up raising little lucia. it is still unclear if grigorieva and gibson will show up for this court date today. in the meantime, l.a. county officials continue to investigate those allegations of abuse. at this point no charges have been filed. tamron? kristen welker, thank you. up next, answers to your nutrition questions from pregnancy cravings to balancing your diet. joy bauer has the skinny. and later, we ll check out some great activities to keep your kids entertained this summer whether they re stuck indoors or are roaming around the backyard. , 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. [ female announcer ] only roc® retinol correxion deep wrinkle night cream is clinically proven to give 10 years back to the look of skin. diminishing the look of even deep wrinkles. 10 years? i ll take that! [ female announcer ] roc® we keep our promises. because new chips ahoy made with reese s peanut butter cups are here. our real chocolate chips. and reese s peanut butter cups. crammed into one exciting new cookie. so now, more than ever, there s a lotta joy in chips ahoy! oh. so now,hee!e than ever, [ giggles ] [ male announcer ] the foaming power of antibacterial scrubbing bubbles bathroom cleaner. it expands into those hard-to-reach places. [ fizzing ] you can even hear it working on dirt, grime, and soap scum, so it s already starting to clean by the time you pick up a sponge. scrubbing bubbles foaming bathroom cleaner. we work hard so you don t have to! [ blows ] and to cover your shower more completely, try mega shower foamer. whoa! [ female announcer ] sc johnson. a family company. morning! mor-ning? i m your genie. you re wishing for a deliciously, nutritious fiber cereal. i am. well, you don t want that one. new kellogg s fiber plus cereal®. the delicious taste of berries, plus yogurty clusters, plus 40% of your daily fiber. plus wait for it. antioxidants! so, two more wishes. mmmm. maybe later, then. [ female announcer ] new kellogg s fiber plus cereal®. positively delicious. we asked real people to film themselves taking the activia 14-day challenge. hi. my name is toni. they say that as you get older your system gets more sluggish. i m a skeptic. however, this stuff tastes pretty good. really good. yeah, i like the way i feel. it s not a gimmick. it really, truly works. i would highly recommend it to anyone else to take this challenge. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. [ puppy ] oh yeah, time for a little me time. perfect paws. a little rub. bit of a trim. looking sexy! [ female announcer ] when you demand the very best. [ puppy ] oh yeah, it s a dog s life! [ female announcer ] .you have to try cottonelle ultra toilet paper. [ puppy ] come to papa. [ female announcer ] it s the ultimate way to be kind to your behind. [ puppy ] i m in the lap of luxury. this morning on joy s diet s.o.s. getting the proper amount of foods, fruits and vegetables can be tricky. we have joy bauer here to answer some of our questions. good morning, joy. good morning, ann. our first question comes from laura. she s in atlanta joining us on skype. what s your question? hi. my question is what are some healthy options for pregnant women who are challenged with nausea and aversions to certain foods like vegetables and poultry? now that i m pregnant i m craving fats, carbs and sugar when normally i would have a very clean diet. you are not alone. no kidding, laura. this is really pretty common. and you have to wonder why is it why is it that pregnant women crave these items? also you re nauseous. the good news is as horrible as you feel right now, the pregnancy nausea and the aversions typically dissipate about week 10 to 15 but you re in survival mode so you have to sort of go with whatever makes you feel good. here are a few tricks to get in some healthier foods. they worked for me and hopefully they re going to work for you as well. try some of the chilled juicy sweet fruits. they re soothing and they go down easier and it s a great time now to get them, things like pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, anything cold and juicy. also, any kind of the pops, ice pops that have full fruit in them. you can pick them up in the grocery store or you can make them yourself if you re motivated. pop them in a blender with whole fruit pure aed with 100% fruit juice and put them in the freezer. you like the starchy carbs so let s switch you over to those you can nibble on, whole grain cereal, rice cakes whether they re plain or flavored and whole grain crackers. and another thing you may want to try are beans and lentils because it has that starchy, velvety consistency. they have a lot of nutrients that vegetables have that you re not eating now and have protein, you need more of when you re pregna pregnant. and you can try a lot of these things. lastly, don t give up on vegetables. try them pure aed. mashed sweet potatoes go down easier. maybe try juicing carrots and beets because they are sweet juices and ginger you may want to try because it can alleviate an upset stomach. you can chew on ginger candy or make some ginger tea and in terms of prenatal if you re taking it in the morning now, push it to the end of the day because i think it s going to be easier on your stomach. you look wonderful, by the way. my suggestion is have your husband do the cooking in the house. good luck. susan woods in pennsylvania is on the telephone. hey, susan. km hi. how are you, ann and joy? thank you for taking my question. you bet. caller: what filling but low calorie foods can you eat to stave off your hunger pangs while prepping and cooking dinner. good question. sips you re cooking dinner and it s right around the corner, first two nonfood strategies, so simple, pop a piece of gum in your mouth. sugarless gum is not going to take the edge off your hunger but will keep your mouth busy and it s going to prevent from you sampling that dinner recipe over and over and over again. the second thing is sip an interesting low-calorie beverage. whatever is your favorite, or you can brew a couple of interesting teas, berry blends, pomegranate, and pour it over a glass of ice and have deliciously unsweetened iced tea. i like to do things with a cup of coffee, either decaf or regular, a few shakes of nutmeg or cinnamon or unsweetened cocoa brings it to a whole new level f. drinks or gum don t do the trick and you have to eat, nonstarchy vegetables are your best bet. anything goes. anything you have in the fridge, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, green beans, or double up on whatever vegetable you re using in the dinner recipe. i hope that helps. thanks a lot, susan. we have laura dugan in illinois and she writes, you often talk about eating a lean protein like turkey or chicken. what are your thoughts about lunch meat? lunch meat falls under the umbrella category of processed meats, and you don t want to be eating processed meats a lot because it has salt and preservatives like nitrates. i appreciate how convenient they are. when you go to the grocery store there are great brands out now that are nitrate free, like applegate farm, who are mel natural choice, wilshire farm. ask questions. see if the deli counter carries these brands, buy them for your home and also a lot of the deli counters will in house oven roast their own meats and then it s perfectly fine to enjoy them and choose the leaner cuts. chicken, turkey, lean ham and lean roast beef. you definitely want to avoid the salami, the bologna and hot dogs. joy bauer, thanks a lot and thanks to everyone for their questions. still to come here on today some sneaky ways to save big bucks. how to negotiate the best deals on cars, credit cards, travel, and even your rent. winning at losing on weight watchers. i have never been this size in my adult life. so it s a special place, for me. win i m so comfortable in my jeans. i love the progress. it makes me love myself that much more. i win. and you can too. [ female announcer ] if you join right now, you can join for a dollar. hurry, offer ends august 7th. weight watchers. because it works. how do i know if i m getting a good deal? you should talk to the specialist. the specialist? he compares rates side by side. you could save hundreds. it s easy. great. okay, pickles! do your thing. [ bell rings ] that s amazing! i trained him myself. i meant the. okay. same coverage, more savings. now, that s progressive. call or click today. [ female announcer ] start your morning. hey. what are you doing up? i thought i d take a drive before work. want to come? [ female announcer ] or make his day. yeah. [ female announcer ] maxwell house gives you a rich, full-flavored cup of coffee, so you can be good to the last drop. imagine that kind of vitality. in your skin. [ female announcer ] new from aveeno: ageless vitality. bio-minerals and active naturals formulas for improved firmness, texture, wrinkles and spots. new ageless vitality. save $20 at aveeno.com. to create a technologically advanced clog-buster and pipe-wall cleaner. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. unleash the power of the plumr. we asked real people to film themselves taking the activia 14-day challenge. hi. my name is toni. they say that as you get older your system gets more sluggish. i m a skeptic. however, this stuff tastes pretty good. really good. yeah, i like the way i feel. it s not a gimmick. it really, truly works. i would highly recommend it to anyone else to take this challenge. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. da da-da, da, da, da-da da-da, da, da, da da, da, da-da-da, da, da-da-da, da, da-da [ female announcer ] there s a place called hidden valley where kids not only eat their vegetables, they can t get enough. hidden valley ranch. makes vegetables delectable. discover four more ways to make vegetables delectable with farmhouse originals from hidden valley. we ve got a real hero on the plaza. he is 27-year-old matson, just launched a 3,700-mile cross-country bike ride from santa monica all the way here to new york city. you just finished, nels, just this morning a few hours ago, just got here, and you re doing it for a really wonderful cause for the children s heart foundation, basically focusing on congenital defects. why that? i am focused on that because i was born with a congenital heart defect and i want to spread awareness and also research for congenital heart defects. and you ve raised thousands of dollars doing this. we ve raised almost $25,000 but we re not done yet. we definitely want to continue that s a long ride. reporter: also when you were riding your 4,000-mile journey, kids would join us in different cities, give you that inspiration to keep going. yeah, they would. look at that. . he s moving. that s ben in chicago. what s the biggest message you want to tell people about that? and by the way, the kid is right hyped us. is this ben here? this is camden from fi philadelphia. camden from philadelphia, did you ride a bike? did you ride some bikes, too? he s shy. i m sorry. he was shouting earlier. what s another message you want people to know about in terms of this malady? i want people to know 1 in 100 kids are affected so it s every 15 minutes a kid is born with a congenital heart defect and many are very severe. well, you re proof it doesn t have to stop your life and you can go on and do inspiring things. i m actually one of the lucky ones. you are. it s great to meet you. for those of us who have lactose intolerance, let s raise a glass to cookies just out of the oven. to the morning bowl of cereal. and to lactaid® milk. easy to digest and with all the calcium and vitamin d of regular milk. [ female announcer ] lactaid®. the original lactose-free milk. 9:26 is your time now. 82 degrees. a hot and humid nay in the nation s capital. good morning, i m eun yang. in news4 today police in prince george s county believe they know the person responsible for two double murders last year. the 27-year-old man killed two mothers and their daughters in largo. the suspect is already in custody on unrelated federal gun charges. he could be indicted next week. we ll take a quick break and appreciate the easy days, are what keep me coming back for more. and the customer says, on the carpet. i m thinking, what? gonna be difficult. don t tell me about a dog. an exploding crockpot, free-ranging house chickens. call a day s work. call 1-800-steemer good morning. i m tom kierein. radar is showing a shower moving across frederick, maryland, should be moving into carroll county the next 15 minutes or so. partly cloudy skies. low 80s. now 82 in washington. highs today in the low and mid-90s. rather humid. we could get a passing thunderstorm 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. looks like the same thing tomorrow. then little less humid thursday and friday but remaining hot with highs in the mid-90s. get to up the 90s saturday, storms sunday. how is the traffic? some rush hour still to go. american lightning bridge,ing right side outer loop still slow. heading down to the dulles toll road lanes open. inner loop okay. still loaded up 395 to and across 14th street bridge. delays begin inside the capital beltway. coming up at news 4 midday laser hair removal is popular only in my dreams as real as it may seem it was only in my dreams debbie gibson sing iing her breakthrough 1998 hit only in my dreams. we ll find out what she s up to now when she stops by with kathie lee in just a little while. and i m ann curry alongside msnbc s tamron hall in this morning for natalie. coming up in this half hour, school is out for summer and the kids are all right as long as they re kept entertained. whether it s too hot to go inside or too nice to go in, we have some bubbles and some big backyard safaris to get to this morning to avoid that whiny, i m bored, chorus. i want to play. and on today s money the secrets to saving big bucks on everything from your rent to your car, credit cards, and perhaps even your next vacation. it s all about learning to bargain for the best deal and we re going to have tips. and whether you are a kid or grown-up, who doesn t like a cupcake? well, the little sweet treats are all the rage these days. they re kind of a comfort food. we re going to show you how you can whip up two favorite frostings in five minutes. that s the problem, making the cake seems simple enough but how do you make a great frosting? we re going to show you how. but first, guess who s here good morning. it s a warm and humid tuesday under way here in the washington metro area and radar scanning the sky picking up a shower that s just crossing into carroll county from the west out of frederick county in northern maryland. temperatures around the region are in the low 80s generally across the entire region. 82 in washington. highs should make it in throw to mid-90s by early to mid-afternoon. we have a chance for a passing thunderstorm 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. more tomorrow. less humid and still hot thursday and fri still warm but it s july. what are you going to do? it s supposed to happen in july. exactly. thanks so much. and up next from your credit card bills to your rent, the secrets of negotiating. i m a skeptic. however, this stuff tastes pretty good. really good. yeah, i like the way i feel. it s not a gimmick. it really, truly works. i would highly recommend it to anyone else to take this challenge. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. no pills, no pain. how can you get pain relief without taking pills around the clock? try thermacare heatwraps, for all day relief without pills. i was surprised, thermacare worked all day. you feel the heat. and it relaxes and unlocks the muscle. you ve got to try it. [ man ] thermacare, more effective for back pain than the maximum dose of acetaminophen, the medicine in tylenol. go to thermacare.com today for a $3 off coupon. thermacare. no pills. no pain. just relief. thermacare. have you tried honey bunches of oats yet? every spoonful is a little different. mmm. they got three kinds of flakes. this is delicious. it s the perfect combination of sweet and crispy. i love it. this is so good. this is great. the magic s in the mix. [ children shouting ] come on, kiddo, let s go. [ laughs ] hold on a second. come on up here where your brothers sit. [ birds chirping ] wow! did i ever tell you what it was like growing up with four sisters? that sounds fun. yeah.fun for them! [ male announcer ] chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy. with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably not that it always has to. but even in your 30s bones begin to change calcium and vitamin d help keep your bones strong. yoplait has calcium and vitamin d in every cup. keep your bones strong, with yoplait. this morning on today s money sneaky ways to save whether you re looking to dump your clunker for a new car or fight for a lower interest rate on your credit card bill, learning what to ask for and how to bargain could save you a fortune and carmen wong-ulrich. good morning, ladies. so i ll start with you because a lot of this is about having the courage to just ask. why do you think women have such a hard time with this? it s that worry i m going to seem pushy. or they re going to say no? you have to be confident, persistent and polite. you can be friendly. that sounds easy enough. it is easy and you re leaving so much money on the table if you don t try to negotiate. it s worth the money to try to build that confidence and go in strong. we look at a couple of categories and we start off with a car be a there s research that says women pay more for vehicles, that we have higher interest rates. how do we sneak in and save money? the thought of going to a dealership and actually haggling on the dealer floor with the dealer gives us a stomach ache. we don t want to do this sort of thing. here is the trick to do, do your d pit dealers against each re ke other without them really knowing and pick a dealership that gets you the price you want, print that paper out, that agreed upon price, then go to the dealership and of course you have to make sure to negotiate the price of the car and the financing separately. now is that time consuming because you are going back and forth? it s worth it. if you can get another $1,500 off a car it is worth every little bit. you say, okay, get me a great rate. you can get that rate but if they jack up the price, you ve saved nothing. and so what about some of the incentives and things like that they offer? you want to get your established price and then negotiate? and then work on the loan rate and incentives. let s look at credit cards. this is an important one this time in our economy. it s very significant. what do you suggest? listen, they re not budging very much on credit card rates. the average rate is 16%. instead of taking down your rate they ll give you half of your interest back for a year in order to keep you as a customer. there are other wiggle room ways to negotiate down. the real key here is two things. one, you have to have fantastic credit and, of course, if you pay off your card sooner, there s your interest rate deduction. listen, europe not going to pay as much interests that way. you save so much paying it off early. th them and they say no.le a keep trying. be persistent. you never know who you re going to get on the other end of the phone. we ve had people who got it the first time or they call a different day. use credit card companies? absolutely. i have another card offer here. absolutely. if you have a credit score 747 or better you have a lot of leverage. rents, everyone is negotiating. this is a big time for re renters nationwide. is this a trend? most markets rents are much lower and what you can do here is you can bundle up your leases you can stay put for several years, i had a friend who negotiated a one-year lease and got one month free because he s a great tenant. go to craigslist.org, compare your rent. if other people are paying less, go to your landlord. this is only fair and reasonable. if you get just $50 off a month, that s $600 a year. if the rental person is not willing to negotiate on the rent tting the place painted or aske to freshen up the kitchen? definitely. or tell them you want less of a security deposit. keep asking. be persistent and see what you can get. they re either going to hang up or do what you want. if you have great credit again, great credit saves you a lot of money. they want a great tenant who is dependable and if you could take out the garbage or something like that, they ll give you a discount. jill, you did a little study here. you called about 20 different hotels and what happened? we did a great study at red book. 12 of them gave us instant room rate cuts just by asking. just for calling. $40 to $400. what did they say? did you say, i got a better rate? listen, i m hearing nobody is paying full room rates, can you do better on this price? $40 to $400. that s your spending money on vacation right there. i negotiate everything. i just don t believe in paying retail. part of it is, visualize that money in your pocket. imagine having that $400 in front of you. that could give you confidence to be able to talk to them and feel comfortable saying, i know you can do better. and what about the internet? use the web as your tool to basically see what everyone else is paying. check for the lowest rate on hotels. call up the manager and ask and say, you know what, i see this is going for that. can you match it? the longer you stay, of course, you have me ready to go, real charge! thank you both. great advice. thanks, tamron. keeping kids busy all summer long with fun stuff. the hottest toys. superstar and mom, martina mcbride and sunny d love to see kids spirits shine. sunny taste. sunny spirit. sunny d. brings out the best in kids. sunny d 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. blue shirt: great. well, with every laptop, you get a geek so. take your pick. mom: look at all these fabulous geeks! there are so many! look at this one! it helps you video chat with mom! son: bingo! mom: look at this one. you can video chat with me, honey. son: mom, go get the car. mom: he s in such a hurry to learn. vo: buy any laptop and get geek squad support for six months. online. on the phone, or in-store. we asked real people to film themselves taking the activia 14-day challenge. hi. my name is toni. they say that as you get older your system gets more sluggish. i m a skeptic. however, this stuff tastes pretty good. really good. yeah, i like the way i feel. it s not a gimmick. it really, truly works. i would highly recommend it to anyone else to take this challenge. help regulate your digestive system. take the activia challenge. it works or it s free. aveeno hair shines in real life. new aveeno nourish plus shine with active naturals wheat smooths damaged cuticles for 75% more shine in one use. real shine, for real life. yours. [ female announcer ] new aveeno nourish plus shine. hey, little dude. dinner s my middle name. how bout some hamburger helper? oh, my, but your mouth is gonna love it. and your wallet s gonna be pretty happy, too. now this is the deal of the day. hamburger helper.one pound, one pan, one tasty meal. this morning on today s family summer fun and games your kids can enjoy inside or outside. stephanie oppenheim is here with some activities that will keep your kids happy and occupied all summer long. stephanie, good morning to you. hi. and pretty weather, some days are great, you want to send them outside, an outside safari. the trick is to have your kids want to go outside. hi, harper. come here, sweetie. harper has been helping us. you can have a safari in your backyard or in the park or at the beach and having some props for them to look at things is great. this is the creature keeper and you can put a bug safely inside. you can look at it at the top or the bottom part. it s kind of glued on there. but then we can do this one. it s just a toy. now this is a big, superduper magnifier. you can touch that one. you can hold it. it s not real. you can use it for real things. that s really good. if you re having trouble reading the newspaper. look at ann. it makes things look really big. it s not glued on. that one is not glued on. you re absolutely right. some kids really like playing safari. they can put a vest on. and what they find and what you find outside, harmer, you can use it to you can basically make notes and everything about what you found. what i like to do is for kids to come inside for younger kids like harper, you can take dictation about what they found or for older kids can write their own stories. these come with stickers. if you re techie and go online and make a digital book about your safari together. that sounds fun. or a little science and art here, you can use little flowers that you find along your travels together. lovely craft to do with your kids. stephanie, we have another question from harper. aren t we going to do painting? painting is so much fun outside, you re right. what they love, also, is this new pirate table from little tykes. if you have older toddlers or preschoolers this keeps them well occupied. henry is here. henry and his dad are helping out. you can help them play. harper and henry were very busy filling this up before. what is it about water tables? they are so much fun for kids to explore. go, henry. i also love bubbles. harper, i thought you loved the bubbles and now you re running away. harper is the daughter of a member of our staff, ed, but she wants a hug. which is always good. i love bubbles for any age. these are dip sticks and they are about $10. if you have older kids like we do, this is the perfect thing for a family event. now watch. here we go. here we go. look at this, harper, whoa. harper really liked this before. bubbles are rocking. and they are really super big. oh, no. did it get in your face? just don t do it over children. away from children. this looks like a lot of fun. we grew up with styrofoam planes. this is on steroids, right. this is the titan and this is from air hogs from spin master. we put it to the test and it flies 45 feet. no batteries? no batteries, also a plus. a lot of airplanes have a lot of battery requirements. here we go. whoa i hit my head. are you okay? we re all good. the good thing it hit my head. there we go. there we go. crash landed. okay. that s fun. actually my teenager would like that. outdoor crafts that are messy, no one cares whether the grass gets dirty, tie dye kits, this is by alex. this is a new line for tweens and teens, project runway. good job, harper. lots of fun, silk screening in here as well. indoors, you need to have crafts to keep them busy for a while for video games. this is a new kit from creativity for kids. it comes with five robots. look at that. look how cute they are. you can make your own robots? you make your own. oh, are you okay? are you okay, henry? that s good. that was funny. that was funny, huh? okay. having indoor games to play, twister hoopla, and i was a little skeptical but our testers loved it, you have to go blue to blue on our shoulder so you have to toss it. lego games. all right. stephanie oppenheim, thank you so much. it s been a little crazy but it s been fun. harper, henry, good job. good job, dad. maybe you want to stick around and talk about vanilla or chocolate. we re talking about cupcakes, baby. two creamy cupcake frostings in five minutes, they say, or less. katherine. they gave up their careers in fashion and finance to open up a georgetown cupcake place. well, it s called georgetown p cupcake in washington, d.c. the bakery became an overnight sensation and now not only do they have a successful bake shot but she is hot chefs are the stars of the tlc show d.c. cupcakes. sophie and katherine are with us today. good to see you. good morning. i ve never been so happy to see two guests in my life. you guys have delicious cupcakes. it s an overnight sensation. what a risk it was, sophie. yeah, it was scary to quit our jobs for something unknown but katherine and i love baking. we did it growing up. it was a huge part of our childhood and we always wanted to open a bakery one day. what if? what if? if we don t do it now, we ll never do it. we took the plunge. took the leap of faith. ating people away.nd you re e people are coming in from all over the country. they come in and experience what it s like to be there. we re going to experience a day in the life. you have two easy frosting recipes and the first one is a chocolate gonoche. melted chocolate and heavy cream. it s chocolate and heavy cream. that s what it is. two ingredients. you can t get much more than that. pour a cup of heavy cream into two cups of chocolate chips and mix it up on medium heat and stir it until it s well mixed and a nice glossy, shiny mixture here. patience pays off, keeping the temperature low and wait it out, don t rush it? keep stirring until you get a nice glossy chocolate like this. this is so great. all you have to do is dip your cupcakes in and you have your frosting. how long does it take for it to set? it only takes a minute or two and you can pour this on your ice cream, that s what i do. or just straight into my mouth. katherine, this is a popular frosting. we make over 500 pounds of this cream cheese frosting at our cupcake shop every day. about two more pounds for me. so simple. all it takes is half a stick of unsalted butter, six ounces of cream cheese, low-fat cream cheese if you want, and then a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract and then you re just going to put in four cups of sifted confectioner s sugar. i hear ann is peeking through. this is so delicious. we saw you peeking through. starting to feel sorry for you. and it smells so good. only five ingredients. it s so easy. you know what you can do? zest fresh lemon in here. a lemon cream cheese frosting and you put it into the bag and i m going to teach you. the quicker we decorate, the quicker we can eat. come on over here. you have a signature swirl. we do. all of our cupcakes sort of look the same but you just start by holding the top of the bag and you re going to put a little pressure on the bottom and then i ll do one and you push pressure around in a circle and then down at the end. beautiful. perfect. so push pressure down and all the way around. you ve got it. look at that. go ahead. you can put it in a squeeze bottle. lovely. katherine and sophie, thank you. which one can i eat? any of them. thank you so much. congratulations. you rock. really yummy. to me that looks so easy. i love that. finally, we have hoda and kathie lee talking with debbie gibson about how to unplug your family without causing world war iii. i say eat a cupcake. [ man ] my perfect summer is grilling up a masterpiece. daily. [ woman ] my perfect summer is having everyone over. and having money leftover. [ female announcer ] safeway lets you have it all. with thousands of everyday low prices you can always count on. and even more great deals when you use your club card. like breyers ice cream and popsicle novelties just $1.99. and safeway hot dog or hamburger buns, just 89 cents. [ man ] my perfect summer. [ woman ] perfectly priced. [ female announcer ] at safeway, that s our promise. that s ingredients for life. the 9:56 is your time. 84 degrees. hot and steamy out there in the nation s capital. tom will have your forecast after the news. good morning i m eun yang. loudoun county supervisors are thinking about christmas in july. hard to believe. they will make a final decision today on whether or not holiday displays should be allowed outside of the courthouse. the debate began last fall as a committee announced no holiday displays would be permitted on the lawn. the ruling was overturned. a final vote on the ban will take place tonight. hard to think about winter when it s 90 degrees outside. sing jingle bells. we have another day of extreme heat coming in. we ll see it in the mid-90s by mid-afternoon. right now low to mid-80s. we have a chance for passing thunder shower giving us some brief relief between 4:00 and 8:00 p.m. tomorrow hot and afternoon and evening thunderstorms. lower humidity moving in at least temporarily for thursday and part of friday. highs in the mid-90s, hot boston those days. hot on saturday maybe some storms. jerry, how is the traffic? on i-66 they just moved the camera, had an accident on 66 eastbound evident of 234. looks like it will be over to the shoulder. the lanes should re-open. heading downtown, still loaded up on 395. you should find the lanes open as you head to and across the 14th street bridge. coming up this morning on news 4 midday laser hair removal is growing in popularity but there are risks, everything you need to know about the from nbc news, this is today with kathie lee gifford and hoda kotb. live from studio 1 as d in rockefeller plaza. it may be tuesday, but around here it s booze day and moon day. apparently it s the day the man first walked on the moon in 1969. in case you need a history lesson, this is the daily neil arm stroj placed one foot sxsd what? one step for man one small step for man, one giant leap for man kind. something like that. it s an important day because our xex if i have producer jim bell has a birthday today. most importantly. we delivered a cake to him especially and tried to deliver it. we were egging us on to drop it there and put it where we shouldn t. we gave him a smooch. then came on the egging on of cake throwing. does anyone have any idea how old mr. bell is today? i m going to guess. he s a boy wonder. i was really going to do it. you were going to do it. everybody obeys matt around here. matt said we were chicken and had no guts. no guts, he said. let s see if we have guts on his birth da whether it comes around. anybody know when matt s birthday is? it s december 30th? good. we ll be on vacation. forget it. it s bad day for lindsay lohan or maybe a good day for her depending on how you look at it because it might end up actually putting her on the road to recovery. today she goes to prison, and there are reports that she s antsy and nervous, bigt her fing biting her fingernails and freaking out. she s no longer with mr mr. shapiro. it s unclear whether he said see you later or she did. according to him before, he said you have to listen to what i say, or i won t work with you. you have to go into the rehab facility. which she did. this continues on. some people say she will do probably about 25% of the time actually. there s another debate going on about her and her addiction to alcohol/whatever. they say should she be treated or should she be thrown in prison? should they treat the illness or should she pay in jail? what do you think? i think both. she has defied the law. you know how i am about that sort of thing. she s defied the law several times now, and i think the law stands for nothing unless we keep the law and encourage people to do their time. do your time and the crime. i think she also needs to get she s had help and gone into rehab several times. it hasn t worked. but jail doesn t always change you either. i don t think you could say that paris hilton has changed much since she went to jail, do you? no. i don t see any huge change, but i don t know. maybe this will be her wake-up call. nothing else has worked, hoda. i honestly think we re going to we re going to see i m terrified it will be a heath ledger kind of headline someday. and all the way who said we told you so, didn t help her at the time. if i knew her, i d try to help her. i think she s afraid not to be on the pills for pain or whatever she takes, she s afraid not to have cigarettes because she smokes a lot and she s locked in a small cell for her own safety s sake. i mean, there are concerns, i guess, if you re her. what do you think? i think, look, i mean, she was caught driving while intoxicated. she could have killed somebody. if she hit someone and killed someone, everyone would say how did this happen. she didn t hit anybody or kill anybody, but she s supposed to do the 90 days. next time out she could. can we talk about an issue i m having? today it s my hair, or what? it s not a hair issue. i have ants in my apartment. how many times have i told you you need to get a new apartment, hoda? i ve tried raid all over everything. my whole apartment reeks like it. what do you do? you shouldn t breathe those fumes. i woke up, and guess what was there? ants like this, hey, this morning. i sprayed yesterday. bug science. just ants. but ants lead to bedbugs. it s like marijuana. it was a little stupid joke. on my twitter page i said how do you get ants out of your house. you cannot believe what people say? parsley, apparently stuffing parsley in the holes they might come out of. some lady said cinnamon works. do you know what your apartment will smell like with the raid and cinnamon and parsley. simon in tila cinnamon in th they are and that should do the tricks, parsley flakes and then they say powder or corn starch chokes them. i think you need a new apartment, hoda. you re not a destitute woman, right? i m interested in the way they get them. t terro base are the thoij that works most people say. bounce sheets. mel gibson is sitting at home waiting to hear about him e.s to know what we think about him. people have ants in their apartments, and this is more relevant to them. i will try the parsley, cinnamon and the rest of it. why don t you try what i suggested? move! i know. i m working on that. what do we do about mel? it just keeping filing on. i m starting to get numb. the more tapes i hear, i go here goes that again. i m starting to get confused. one is worse than the next, but i tune them out. she calculated this and set about to tape him and egged him on about certain things to get certain reactions? do you think she had any part in all of this? i think by the looks of it it sounded like she was planning on taping him, obviously. think about this. let s say someone egged you on, whatever, pushed all the worst buttons. every day of my life. would any of that stuff that mel gibson said ever come out your mouth even if you chugged ail bottle of vodka? who cares? i m just saying on your worst day if everyone pushed all your buttons, would any of those things come out? i don t know, because that s never happened to me. i think what you believe is what comes out during times like that. we just hide it better whether we re sober. let s listen to the latest rant. why not. okay. i m just saving my child s life because you are a monster. that s all, you re a monster. you have my child and she doesn t need a gold digging [ bleep ] russian [ bleep ]. you re acting as a crazy man right now. and you have been for many, many months and you hit me and you hit her while she was in my hands. okay. it s hard to i m really upset now that the fcc got rid of the bleeping thing. now we re going to hear all of it and all of its glory, right? you can t intentionally put it on. if it s a live slip, it s okay f. it s a planned thing like that, we have to bleep it. let s go to the next thing. do you know that ants rip off the other ants heads. we were with joan rivers yesterday. we can t talk about it until later. she s been reading a book about ants. she said they decapitate the other ant and take the head back to the queen ant. that s what they do. that s what she wrote a whole book on apparently. hoda woman. it s a slow news week. we can talk about ants or mel. i guarantee everyone has the same we know what we need to do. remember i talked about the spanx yesterday. they re not spanx. they re called hug meez, m-e-e-z. go to vestiny.com. someone suggested a great show idea. we should do a whole area of that. that s a good idea. i don t think it s enough. vestiny.net. they have a phone number and your picture on there now. they armed themselves and they re ready for you or order via e-mail from the website. the young lady that started spanx is unhappy with us. she s the anti-spanx one. i just feel like i found something i like better. she got in touch and said they have new stuff that i need to try out. really? i started a spanx war. real quick, these are shoes called bangles, and the good thing is you can buy a pair of shoes like then, and if you want to mix it up for another outfit you just take this thing off, and it comes right out. okay? then you can put in another one. slide it right in. very simple. the same thing with these little ones. what are they called? they re called bandals. you can change them up. 34.99 for the base and buy the strappies for 11 oot 11.99. what would you be most terrified of going to jail for 90 days. no one will see you. it would be terrible. i d have to have a baseball cap. what would you be? not being able to pluck. no plucking. oh, no. god! jim gaines. is he in there? why is that picture living? that was third grade. it was a bad okay. okay. up next, it s not only in her dreams anymore. debbie gibson tells us why she s flying high after this. maybe it s cooking over an open flame. or the juicy beef franks on a delicious bun fixed up just the way you like them. well, whatever it is, you can enjoy more of it with walmart s guaranteed unbeatable prices on all your cookout favorites. save money. live better. walmart. whoa! do you know what our favorite part of shooting hoops is? 3.2.1. overtime! we re the kids in america oh, oh, oh takes care of 33 loads. tide stain release only handles 11. and clorox 2 gets rid of tough stains right before your eyes. clorox 2. find it next to the clorox bleach. why do women like you love activia light?eyes. sometimes i have no choice but to eat heavy greasy food that s hard on my diet. and my digestive system. so i eat activia light every day. it helps me feel good and look good too! activia! ¿qué si usamos tacos s grandes? [ ma announcer ] old el paso super stuffers. 33 larger shells. feed your fiesta. 33 larger shells. i m chef michael, and i love to delight bailey s senses.too. don t i? [ barks ] because i think food speaks a language of love. that s what inspired me to rethink dry dog food. [ female announcer ] chef michael s canine creations. [ chef michael ] mmm. tender shredded pieces made with real meat. and crunchy garnishes to enhance the mealtime experience. yes, bailey just for you. [ barks ] [ female announcer ] chef inspired, dog desired. chef michael s canine creations. until this day debbie gibson holds the world s record as the young person ever to write, produce and perform a number one single. did you know that, hoda? i knew that. she was an 80s pop star, a teen idol, a broadway show girl and a musical mentor and a mother, mother nature that is. hey, debbie. good to see you. we notice it s not deborah gibson. you gave up? i just gave up. i created this brand and went back to deborah. the name belongs to the people really, and the people are comfortable calling me debbie so i m going with it. now you work in this fabulous new show as mother nature, but most of the people are foreigners from all overed world? yes. ethiopia, mongolia, russia. there s a ballet troup from china. it s like a front row scene in olympics. call me that and keep it simple. this is circumstance deseo lee and this is surf dreams is an american company neil goldberg created. it s a more family friendsly affordable thee at cal experience. $35. you have to be in shape to do this kind of deal, right? unfortunately, they won t let me do that right there, even though i really want to. you have pink and her ribbon catastrophes and stuff. we want to keep you intact to sing. so you sing how many songs? on and off for 40 minutes throughout the show. i weave in and out of the different scenes, but he lets me kind of really use like a more kind of exotic body language with this. i said it s not your mother s mother nature. it s definitely because i m the liaison between the audience and what s going on on stage, ii want to use my more pop persona. we re saying everything but you singing. i haven t done a show yet. i ve not been with the company before, so i m rehearsing this week for the first time and open next week. you are staying in terrific shape. who is helping you out? who is helping you? i have a rock star anti-aging doctor fwroiboyfriend. he s so cute. i was showing them pictures. how did you find that so quickly? that s how we are. he s a southern gentleman. stands every time i get up from the table. come on. two and a half years you ve been with him. you ve lost how much weight? 15 to 20 pounds all with the eating thing. it s all about the peting. you can object that elliptical all day long. what did you cut out and change? it s the oldest thing. a lot of starch and sugar cut. xhoalcohol? i didn t order my first glass of wine until a year ago. i was the opposite of teen stars now. i didn t want to screw up my career, and about a yearing a took year ago i took to red wine. you tramp. i know. now i have to have it in moderation. let s talk about what s happening with lindsay lohan. what do you think about what you are watching with her? gosh, you know, i don t know, and i just feel like i m glad i didn t grow up as a teen sfta in this day and age because the scrutiny is insane with the internet. i think celebrities have a weird addiction to be in the media for any reason. the sad part is she s a good ak stress and all the antics upstage her talent which breaks my heart. i wish she would get back to the skills and basics. she has to change her friends, too. her family, i think, needs to kind of really rally. i m lucky. my mom is here today. she s managed all these years. i don t think i ve been with you when your mother s isn t there. if i m in new york, mom s around. she wasn t always very popular with people, but she protected me. every teen star needs that one person to do that. i don t know that she has that. i don t know. good advice. debbie, deborah three aul three of us. i m seeking therapy for my multiple personalities. great to see you. jungle fantasy runs until september 1th at the mgm grand in connecticut. symptoms that beg for medical attention. tune in for this one. ants. look, they fit! oh my gosh, are those the jeans from last year? how d you do it? simple stuff. eating right.whole grain. whole grain? [ female announcer ] people who eat more whole grain tend to have healthier body weights. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains and 110 lightly sweetened calories. more grains. less you! multigrain cheerios. co-exist by cannon microfiber ssheets are just $9.99.h the kmart back to campus sale. cannon bath towels are just $3.99. and this ready-for-campus, co-exist by cannon futon is just $99.99. [ mr. bluelight ] there s smart and there s kmart smart. in the fridge it s a light and fluffy mousse. .but put it in the freezer. and. .voila! yoplait whips becomes a luscious frozen treat. yoplait whips, it is so good. [ female announcer ] nutri-grain one good decision. .can lead to another. .made with real fruit and now with more of the whole grains your body needs. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. we re back talking about strange symptoms you may feel and what they may mean. when you notice an unusual rash or feel a strange pain, it s easy to jump for the worst-case scenario. we re here to tell you when to relax and whether to react quickly. amy is the health director at woman s day magazine and we re happy to have you here. people have a lot of things to be concerned about. a lot of women are concerned with hair loss. you look in the shower drain. it s normal to lose 100 hairs a day, he is special fli you go through a hormonal change. what s your points? if you had a baby, miscarriage or going on and off birth control pills. now, if you re worried that you re not able to tell how much is too much do the pull test. take a small patch and pull gently and if more than five hairs that have the root on them come out. if nothing comes out it s better. more than five hairs have the root on them, that means you could have an iron deficiency, a zinc deficiency, so you should call your doctor. they will test your blood. what about fingernails, discolored fingernails? white spots, it s almost always the result of impact. you might not remember it. it s like a bruising? maybe like slammed your hand against a door, and it doesn t show up until a couple weeks later. if you see a black or bluish line going from a cuticle to your fingertip could be melanoma. right up through the middle? black or bluish, a vertical line g-to the dermatologist right away for that because melanoma is deadly but if caught early it s curable. you could have fungus on your nails if they re yellow or peely or sore rye sis, a skin condition on your nails, too. you feel numb or tingling in your feet or hands, and you just don t know why. it s usually a reaction to a change in temperature, something called if gu from being hot outside to a freezing air-conditioning or being in the pool or wintertime when it s really cold outside, that s when it s normal. if it s not in relation to cold, you could have a pinched nerve in your neck or back, especially if the tingling travels. you could see your internist, and if she can t treat it she s send to a rehabilitation doctor. it can rarely be a sign of a heart attack, but usually if it s accompanied by another heart attack symptom like tightness in your chest, fatigue and shortness of breath. don t men have the left arm thing? you can get numb, so if you have that, you should think do i have these other symptoms of a heart attack. hoda saved this for me. whether your urine changes colors. what you eat shows up in your pee basically. it s unseemly whether a doctor of your stature says pee. it shows up if you eat beets or asparagus. don t panic. they re so good for you, but don t panic. there can be many colors and shapes. if it s really dark tan or dark brown, that means you re dehydrated. thank you. this means bye-bye. we ll be back after this. get ready for a revolution. the new pantene. frizzy to smooth system. medium to thick hair absorbs up to 40% more moisture. so we customized a pro-v system that in test, outlasts the frizz point. the results? smooth stays into the second day. put it to the test. frizzy to smooth from new pantene. healthy makes it happen. the pantene re-invention is here. introducing the new pantene custom solutions. with options for your unique hair structure. thick, fine, curly or color. to make the hair you love, last and last. put it to the test. find your new pantene. summer ain t summer without popsicle pops. ben & jerry: my two best friends. what would i do for a klondike bar? you don t wanna know. i am so happy right now. just so happy. to bring art to the people. without my health i wouldn t be able to do anything. [ male announcer ] to keep doing what you love, keep your heart healthy. cheerios can help. the whole grain oats can help lower cholesterol. it s simple; love your heart so you can do what you love. ing right now in be loudoun county leaders are trying to decide whether to ban christmas displays at county buildings. coming up at news 4 midday are lawmakers trying to take the cheer out of the season or prevent unwanted scenes. also find occupant who this girl grew up to be. the irchltsz we re back on this tuesday. no booze day today, but with more of today and a challenge to send any family to the edge, especially if you have a teen in your house. on average 8 to 18 years old dedicate more than 7 hours a day to entertainment media which includes texting. imagine how much extra time your family would have if everyone completely unplugged? we put one san diego family to the test for an entire day. the very brave family turned off everything but the microwave. my e-mail and text. those would all be going crazy. i have an iphone 3g with my zebra case. it s like my child and always in my pocket. i m going to be out of the loop by tomorrow. i m not going to know what happened. it s devastating. this last phone bill, she s doi doing 5,000 texts. i wouldn t say addicted. i would say it s a choice of life to be on my phone as much as i am. we ll kill each other if we just sit in the house. we have to do something. we re going to go turn into a family day. we re going to be more conversation driven. i want to go home and watch tv and have my cell back. i haven t checked the e-mail once. what s your favorite? i have a three. tonight when it starts to get dark what are re going to do. it was fine up until now. now i want that on, i want that on, and i want to check my phone. i m going to read. that was a little harder than i thought it would be. i think it was fun family time. that wasn t as fun for some members of the family. the nettles family is home in san diego today and also with us is tony schwartz. hi, everybody. hi to you, tony. taylor, are you and maddy out there. what on earth are you texting all day long? hopefully you have free texting, right? we have unlimited. that s good. i don t know. we talk about anything, really. we plan something to do the next day or just talk. did you discover during your day off texting that it was actually harder or easier than you thought it was going to be? oh, it was really hard. i was really bored, and i wanted to go home. greg, did you notice any family bonding that happened during this day? you can t bond with a miserable teenager. maybe there was something. no. it was fun. we had a good day. i think by about three-quarters of the way through the day, though, taylor was done. she wanted her phone back, but we had a good time. i think, tony, the stats are crazy. she said 35,000 text messages in a month. is that normal for teens? kids are on average two hours a day texting, and it s about oon na form of communication is one step above a gorilla that grunts. it s in little tiny pieces at great expense to kind of any real sort of communication. it s not that i think there s anything wrong with texting. it s become so dominating. it s a moderation issue. zulg absolutely. we re training add at this point. we re training kids not to pay attention. or be able to hold a conversation in a normal setting. it s also incredibly rude, you know. maddy and taylor, do you take your phones into restaurants and sit there when you re trying to have dinner and just text each other? we don t. we re not allowed to use you re phones during dinner. that s a good thing. you set limits. that s true of only 3 out of 10 families. 7 out of 10 families the parents don t set limits, and when they set limits the kids use that technology way, way less. what s happened is people have lost chroontrol of their lives because these texting, tweeting, facebooki facebooking, they re addictive. they re a hot stimulus. they re not unlike a hot cup cake sitting in front of you fragrant out of the oven. if you don t find a way to move your attention away from them, you re consumed by them. mom, how will you get your girls to cut down on all of this texting? we re talking about having one day that we re going to completely unplug, sundays is going to be family day. really? uh-huh. look how thrilled the girls are. the girls are not thrilled, but i hope over time they like it. it s easier in the winter months, because in the fall the kids go back to school. they can t text. do you text during school, too? no, absolutely not. they re not supposed to. tell the truth. in the lavatory. was it different communicating? i notice with a lot of kids who text, having normal conversations doesn t come as easy. what did you notice with your girls? you know, they were more looking at us. they weren t looking down. they were looking at us whether they were talking. they weren t looking at their phones. what was the upside of it for you? you know, i think we played a board game at end of the game, and i think that s the first time we ve played a board game in a long time and actually talked and conversed with each other. we had a really good time with it. so it s something that we get into a habit of when we get home we go to our computers and cell phones and do our own thing. it was really good to come together and do something together. we talked more, and it was really nice. what we re trying to do what we were trying to do with the energy project is to teach people how to take back chrome of their lives, not to turn over their lives to technology. you lose in this kind of situation if you lose subtlety and communication. that s what we re trying to teach. we could talk for a whole hour about it. thanks notals family out there. up next, using your dna to create very person art right after this. pop-tarts®! i ll have a frosted strawberry. as an ice cream sandwich. chocolate fudge. on a stick please! ( crunch ) with the endless possibilities of kellogg s® pop-tarts, it s sure to be a picture perfect summer. pop-tarts®. made for fun. 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. as a juicy flame-grilled cheeseburger on a delicious bun. and when you get it all at walmart s guaranteed unbeatable prices it somehow tastes even better. save money. live better. walmart. guys remember, it we re a solar system.etter. mars is down.and. um, it s only 10am. who hasn t had their jimmy dean breakfast this morning? mmmm! now lets orbit i feel awesome. you re all awesome. jimmy dean breakfast sandwiches, fight the morning fade. ever seen anything likeme neither. it s new beneful incredibites. uh-huh! it s just the way you like it made with wholesome grains, real beef, even carrots and peas. you love the smaller-size, easy-to-chew kibbles, and i love the carbohydrates for energy and protein for muscles. whoa! wait for me! ha-ha. you only think you re getting spoiled. [ woman announcing ] new beneful incredibites. another healthful, flavorful beneful. how d you do that? do what? you made it taste like chocolate. it has 35% of your daily value of fiber. tasty fiber, that s a good one! ok, umm.read her mind. [ male announcer ] fiber one chewy bars. if you re looking to turn your ordinary room into an extraordinary space, it may mean adding a little bit of your yourself, and we mean that literally. here to explain is designer candice olson. she s a judge on designer star as well as devine design. you have such an interesting segment. you make an art piece uniquely yours, right? there s this whole trend towards authenticity and having your house reflect truly who you are, and what better way to do than through art that is personalized, customized but it doesn t need to be super expensive like a custom art piece people would traditionally think of. it would cost $200 get your own dna. turning your dna into art? yes. i can t wait to do this. there s many ways of getting your dna, but this company, dna 11 will send you this handy kit. inside that kit is what you need. anything that looks like that makes me nervous. kathie lee, may i? what are we swabbing? your cheek. we are making art. i bet you didn t realize this. i m so glad i had my teeth cleaned yesterday. so was can das. you send this off to dna 11. they have a transfer method of doing it. then they take your dna and they transfer it into a genetic code that becomes artwork. they send you a proof. you can pick your colors and formats. look at this. this is not my dna. it looks like it is. it does, it does. this says tall, blonde, blue-eyed. the great thing is nobody has this in the entire world. this is truly you. okay. it s a beautiful, modern piece of art. same company does fingerprint art. these people are strange, aren t they? a little. maybe we should give a shout-out to lindsay lohan, because she might want a way to decorate her cell. i thought of her. that was bad. dna 11 sends you this ink pad. that s why i thought of lindsay. she s already done that. look it. i m sure she s going to take that fingerprint, send it off to dna 11. you turn it into the artwork behind us? this same sort of idea where they send you a proochlt you can pick your colors, pick your format. what i likeis you can do a family portrait. that s getting strange. all right. this is they re running out of ideas over there at hdtv. you know what i m saying? this is frame wallpaper from a company called this is interesting. what it does is it creates this kind of prefabricated gallery, an organized gallery. the sky s the limit here. she has little notes, pictures. think of kids rooms. you could have a hanna room. you could have a shrine to her little niece. what do you do with all this? you made this? what did you do? this is the wallpaper. and it s kind of this random format, so double-sided tape. what do you do with all this? i love it. this is fun with kids in a playroom or something. it s adorable. teenager s room, jonas brothers, justin bieber, zac efr efron. in my day it was beethoven. if you wanted the clean classic look, black and while photography, get the forecasts oft fridge and you can have this rotating. think of it for like a guest bedroom, powder room where people come and visit a lot. you can ask people to you don t want people leaving pictures light that. all right. you could customize. phone numbers on the bathroom call. for a really good time. last but not least, pet portraits. uh-oh. they re part of the family. boyfriends and went with me, but my jack russell has always stayed there. you send off a picture. look at this one down here. they transform is into various types of art, of modern art. surre surreal, andy warhol style. we like most of it. it s great. from your walls, you don t want to know what s on your floors, ants maybe? that s right after this. have the white smile you want with the rembrandt 2 hour whitening kit. proven to visibly whiten teeth in just 2 hours! rembrandt is a name that i trust. my teeth are whiter. can you see? i am so confident when my smile is white. there s nothing that can stop me. move aside, here i come! [ male announcer ] save up to $8 off rembrandt products at 1rembrandt.com. .into a free year s supply? be one of thousands to win free honey nut cheerios for an entire year. its great taste helps make lowering cholesterol a non-challenge. just see specially marked boxes for details. takes care of 33 loads. tide stain release only handles 11. and clorox 2 gets rid of tough stains right before your eyes. clorox 2. find it next to the clorox bleach. co-exist by cannon microfiber ssheets are just $9.99.h the kmart back to campus sale. right before your eyes. cannon bath towels are just $3.99. and this ready-for-campus, co-exist by cannon futon is just $99.99. [ mr. bluelight ] there s smart and there s kmart smart. why do women like you love activia light? sometimes i have no choice but to eat heavy greasy food that s hard on my diet. and my digestive system. so i eat activia light every day. it helps me feel good and look good too! activia! with summer in full swing, your dog is spendsing more time in the great outdoors, which is great for her or him, but what she brings in may not be great for you. dr. laura janna is a dog loving pediatrician. she s here to tell us how to minimize the dog germs throughout the house. welcome to you. we love our lie saysol. whether a dog is outside, you think the dog will track in all the icky stuff on its paws and that s part of the problem? what we see we worry about the most. you see the paw prints and think it s what they swabbed the dogs it s not their paws but fur that came out germier. their tail is really the germiest part. what do you do? the tail and coat. it really comes back to washing your hands. if you re aware of the fact that there are germs on your pet s fur, then you wash it off after. not just a quick rinse but soap and water. every time they go outside? again, any about what s on their coats. it s not only germs on their coats. you get into allergens. a lot of people have pet allergies, but dogs can track in allergens on their fur that aren t just dog related. pollen, spores. nobody is washing their dogs every day. what are other things we can do? washing your dog does help. as a physician i would tell you the best thing to do is get rid of allergens, you ll get rid of the dog. nobody wants to hear about that. there are dogs that are supposedly high powe allergypo-? length of fur doesn t predict that. look around your home. keep a dog out of the bedroom. it makes a big difference. people sleep with their dogs. i know they do, and that s a big allergen exposure. what about this dog right here? this dog has longer fur. it may not be more allergic, but you re exposed to germs and allergens. i would wash my hands. think of all the surfaces your dogs are exposing to you in your home. be more aggressive about cleaning your house home, cleaning hard surfaces and the disinfecting wipes. many people let their dogs kiss them, but they re really licking them. that s why the licking dog is further way. the problem is have you ever seen what dogs do after other dogs do their thing. they check it out to see if it s better than theirs or something. i don t know. kathie lee i get asked whether or not we should let pets lick our children, that s lying say 2-year-olds shouldn t pick their nose. it s a nice idea but it s not realistic. if a dog licks your face, how bad is it? i personally recommend trying to limit that sort of germ exposure, and when they lick the rest of you, you wash your hands and clean off the areas. i wonder if the dogs want to clean themselves off after we pet them. has anybody thought about that, you know? thank you. thanks a lot. thanks for bringing your pets in. thank you, everybody. we ll be back with more of today on nbc. i m done with all these lists. and driving all over town. i want one list. for one store. [ female announcer ] at safeway, you get it all. great quality and great prices. so you just need a safeway list. [ male announcer ] with thousands of everyday low prices you ll save all over the store. [ female announcer ] with club card specials like breyers ice cream just $1.99 and safeway hot dog or hamburger buns only 89 cents. [ male announcer ] quality and low prices. so there s one stop for everything. [ female announcer ] at safeway, that s our promise. that s ingredients for life. 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. ilts are it s time for miss sarah haines. are you just sitting there talking to people on facebook? i m chatting usually about you. we have a lot of suggestions for ant problem. kelly says bay leaves and troy says dawn dishwashing liquid and amy says cinnamon and laura says win decks. i tried windex. and connie says step on them, all of them. thank you, connie. i like connie. i say move. tomorrow we have city sense. we get to compete and you get to learn about the best and worst fooding at the ballpark. have a great day, everybody. have a great booze day, everybody. have a great booze day, everybody. bye. captions by vitac www.vitac.com