Transcripts For WRC Today 20100804 : vimarsana.com

ready to open up about her extraordinary feet today, wednesday, august 4th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. this could be good news happening a mile underneath the gulf. bp said the mud it is pumping into the busted well is holding the oil down. it was injected into the well for about eight hours straight and then it came to an end overnight. the system now being monitored to make sure there are no sudden spikes in pressure. it may be enough to seal off that well even before those relief wells permanently fix the problem in a couple of weeks. we ll have more on that in just a couple of minutes. also ahead, every parent says they would never do it and yet it is happening more and more children left alone in hot cars. it s happened more in the first six months of this year than ever before in the same time period. coming up today investigates what s behind that rise and why automakers aren t using a simple, inexpensive device they have right now that could prevent further tragedy. it s a very emotional story. also, going to take a big turn three weeks after they announced their surprise engagement, bristol palin says her wedding to levi johnston is off. so what s behind the sudden breakup this time? all the details coming up. but we re going to begin with that breaking news bp announcing this morning the static kill to plug up the broken oil well is working. anne thompson is in venice, louisiana, with the very latest. good morning, anne. reporter: good morning, meredith. bp calls this a significant milestone. after eight hours of pumping heavy mud into the drilling well, it says the well is in a static condition. this is the first in a two-step process to permanently shut in the macondo well. though the process is controlled from the q-4,000 rig on the is your fas of the atlantic site, all the action happens a mile below. we re extremely focused at this point on making sure we execute the static kill as best we can. reporter: here is how the static kill works. crews pump mud down into the gulf floor, it travels through a manifold, up the choke line, into the blow-out preventer, and then down into the well pipe. the mud weighs more than the oil so it should force the crude back down to its reservoir. national incident commander thad allen calls it the ultimate diagnostic test. any failure that we re not aware of right now. reporter: the static kill procedure should stabilize the pressure inside the well and improve the chances of the second and ultimate step, the relief well, of being successful. you d have the pressure under control and then when you intersect it with the relief well there s less risk involved when the pressure is already under control. reporter: work on finishing the first relief well is stopped until the static kill is completed. crews hope to start on the final phase of the well thursday. now no matter what happens with the static kill, the national incident commander, retired admiral thad allen, says he won t consider this well permanently shut in until the relief well puts a cement plug at the bottom of the problem well and that s expected to happen in mid-august. matt? carol browner for energy and climate change, good morning. nice to see you. good morning, matt. i try not to get ahead of myself after the ordeal that s taken place in the gulf, but it does appear there s good news to report this morning. according to bp the static kill operation is going well. give me the latest. there is good news. there are two points of good news. one, the static kill is going well. we remain focused on the relief well. that is the way to permanently kill this. we have some important information in the last 24 hours that give us a lot of hope that relief well will go well and it should happen in the next couple of weeks. in the meantime no oil is leaking. i think it s also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment and more than three-quarters of the oil is gone. the vast majority of the oil is gone. it was captured. it was skimmed. it it was burned. it was contained. mother nature did her part. and that s good news. we may still see some tar balls coming up onshore. we ll remain vigilant in cleaning those. we re going to continue to work with the people of the gulf coast communities to make sure they re made whole and that bp is held accountable. you re talking about your scientists and this is basically referring to something in the new york times this morning saying noaa is set to release a report today saying 76% of the oil has been captured. i don t want to be pessimistic but noaa was also the group that grossly underestimated the size of the leak in the first place. can we trust their numbers? well, this is a panel of scientists who issued this report. it s both government scientists and academics are looking at all of the information and, you know, it s an initial assessment. we ll continue to get information. but we think it s very encouraging that the vast majority of the oil was contained, was cleaned up. as i said, mother nature did its part, too. i m not trying to be a glass half empty person but if 76% has been taken care of that leaves roughly 25% that is still out there in the gulf. where is it? how big a risk do you think it poses? well, it s continuing to break down. the ocean will break it down. the waves, the tides will break it down. some of it may come ashore. some will become small microorganisms and disappear into the gulf. we don t know how much will come ashore but we will make sure it it is cleaned up. i think it is fair to say we ve turned an important corner here for the people of the gulf. good news for fishermen down in the gulf, some fishing grounds are reopening. questions are already being asked about the safety of the product of those fisheries. how confident are you that the seafood coming out of that region is safe to eat? we do not reopen the fisheries until we are quite confident of the safety. i ll be traveling to florida later today. i look forward to eating florida seafood. we ll continue to open fisheries as the scientists tell us it is safe and we are making real progress in that respect. are you concerned about the fact some of the fish from that region may have ingested some of the oil or even some of the dispersant and we may not know the effect of that for some time period? you re right. we have to continue to study the use of dispersants. obviously it was a difficult decision. you have the hugely toxic oil in the ocean. the decision was made to use dispersants and then the epa has continued to study and monitor that. right now we don t see abnormally high toxicity limits but we ll continue to be vigilant. in the meantime, we will ensure that only safe seafood is sold and we feel quite confident that more fisheries will open in the coming days and weeks. and let me go back to something you said earlier in the interview, miss browner, and that is your focus remains on those relief wells. give me the latest on those. how are the updates going? they re going very well. as you remember, matt, we directed two of them be dug in case there was a problem with the first one. the first one is close to being done. we anticipate it could be done the next 10 to 14 days. the static kill, the last 24 hours, gave us valuable information. what we want to do is make sure this thing is absolutely killed and that s what the relief well will do. carol browner, a special adviser to president obama. miss browner, thanks for your time this morning. i appreciate it. thank you. and now here s meredith. matt, thank you. this morning shocking new details on what caused a connecticut man to go on a shooting rampage at work killing eight co-workers before turning the gun on himself. nbc s peter alexander is in manchester, connecticut, with the latest. peter, good morning. reporter: meredith, good morning to you. this is an awful one, the staggering death toll stands at nine including the shooter with one person still hospitalized. this morning we re learning new details about the final moments before that shooting where company officials say they called omar thornton into an office and showed him a video that they say showed him stealing from a company truck. then, just moments later, he opened fire for what was the worst work place mass murder in the state s history. this small connecticut community is in mourning, still stunned by its devastating loss. it s just shocking. it s still shocking. it s unbelievable. reporter: the shooting began shortly after 7:00 tuesday morning here at hartford distributors, a family owned beer and wine wholesaler. the company s ceo tells nbc news 34-year-old omar thornton was called into a room for a disciplinary hearing with managers and calmly watched video that even union officials say showed him stealing from a company truck. at the conclusion of that interview, we re told he was given an option to either resign or be terminated. reporter: the ceo says thornton signed a resignation paper and was then escorted from the room asking for a drink of water before police say he pulled out a handgun and calmly opened fire. as cold as ice, said one victim. it couldn t have happened at a worst time of day. you had the third staff coming on. the sales staff there. reporter: thornton hired two years ago saved the last shot for himself. there are no winners here. you have nine families that are grieving. reporter: joanne hannah said her daughter dated thornton for eight years and says he called his mother during tuesday s rampage. he called her and told his mother he shot five people and was basically saying i love everybody and good-bye. reporter: hannah says thornton told her daughter complained to his supervisors about being racially harassed at work. the company s ceo adamantly denied those allegations and the union says there s no record of any complaints from thornton. my daughter s just as shocked as everybody right now. she did not see anything like this. she knew he had a breaking point. i m trying not to cry. it s just shocking especially omar. i didn t know there was a problem. reporter: among the victims, victor james, a grandfather of four who would have turned 60 this month and was planning to retire after 30 years as a driver. it was the loss of a dear friend of 40 years and i was shocked, angered, a family man, a good friend, a good husband, and a good father. reporter: and overnight we heard from another driver at the company who told nbc news we are not racists. we re a bunch of hard working guys that work for a good company. meredith, he said none of us deserves this. all right, peter alexander, thank you very much. let us get a check of the rest of the morning s top stories. cnbc s carl quintanilla is in for ann. carl, good to see you again. good morning, everybody. conflicting reports this morning about a possible scare for iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. an attacker was taken into custody after throwing some kind of explosive at a convoy in iran. iranian tv, though, denies there was an attack. at least 15 people are dead in a car bombing in iraq. the blast outside of baghdad wounded at least 60 others. tempers flared in lebanon. the most serious battle between the two countries in four years. today a legal challenges is expe expected to be filed after a controversial vote bay new york city panel that cleared the way tuesday for a mosque to be built near ground zero. opponents say the mosque would disrespect the memory of those killed on 9/11. a new government report finds more than 72 million american adults are obese, up by more than 2 million in two years. it finds 30% or more of people in nine states are considered obese. it s the latest report to call obesity a major public health threat to the u.s. there s been another deadly attack on kindergarten students in china where a man with a knife killed three children and a teacher. about 20 other people were wounded. in russia firefighters are battling hundreds of new wildfires amid the worst heat wave on record there. the fires have killed at least 48 people. and a big wildfire in sevcentra oregon has burned more than 2,600 acres, some nearby homes were evacuated. that fire about 20% contained. it s now 7:13. back to matt, meredith and al. between the fires and the floods, nature s fury this week, unbelievable. mother nature. tough out there, mr. roker. that s right. and here we have this dangerous, danger good wednesday morning. i m news 4 meteorologist chuck bell. we had a round of thunderstorms early this morning. they are all gone now. some rain south of town. temperatures are in the steamy middle and upper 70s already. we ll get a little sunshine late they are morning and that will put temperatures in the low to mid-90s. more thunderstorms likely by later on this afternoon especially tout the west and south of washington. be on the lookout for more storms today and more storms tomorrow. and that s your latest weather. matt? thanks very much. searchers in arizona are desperately looking for a 2-year-old boy who apparently wandered into the desert alone while his mother was taking a nap. nbc s lee cowan is in dewy, arizona. lee, good morning to you. reporter: sheriff s deputies are trying to figure out how far a 2-year-old could have traveled in the desert wearing only his pajamas and his diaper. he s been missing since monday. investigators fear that time is running out. emmitt trapp is hardly a match for arizona s high desert. but that is exactly where rescuers believe this 2-year-old is this morning, battling the elements, the wildlife, dehydration, and more. there are apparently a couple of wells and mine shafts in the area. we re dropping cameras where we need to. reporter: his family says emmett wandered off barefoot following the dog while his mother took a nap. the dog returned. emmett did not. since then helicopters using infrared have been looking for body heat, just enough to set emmett apart from the rest of the rugged terrain. on the ground, searchers are on horseback, bloodhounds have their nose to the trail. and four-wheel drives are fanning out like ants. so far not a single sign or a single sound. the 2-year-old we would expect to cry out for help or cry for mom or cry for food because he has a soiled diaper. there s just been no sounds we ve heard and nothing sound wise that we ve found to help us find him. reporter: neighbors, not close in this desert landscape, but close enough to worry that one of their own may be on his own. this is our neighborhood. this is our community and these are our babies. all of them are ours. reporter: emmett is the second 2-year-old to disappear in this arizona county in the last ten days. sylar newton vanished from a campground last month. investigators say the two cases are not connected. sylar is a criminal case, they say, while emmett, they believe, is a tragic accident. nevertheless, though, matt, investigators local and with the fbi are checking with registered sex offenders in the area just in case. an all-out search will continue again today. again, the clock doesn t appear to be on emmett s side. lee cowan in arizona for us this morning. lee, thank you very much. it s 17 after the hour. once again here is meredith. president obama celebrates his 49th birthday today but his wife and his daughters will not be around to help him blow out the candles on his birthday cake. nbc s norah o donnell will explain why. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, meredith. you could say the first lady is saying adios to president obama on his 49th birthday. we just got pictures of the first lady and daughter sasha arriving in spain because they re going to be visiting one of the world s most exclusive resorts. spain is known for its flamingo, bullfighting, what the country has to offer first lady michelle obama and her youngest daughter, 9-year-old sasha. the white house calls it a private mother/daughter trip with friends, a four-day visit to marbella. it attracts the rich and famous, professional footballers, tv stars. reporter: the obamas have reportedly booked dozens of rooms at spain s most exclusive hotel, a ritz-carlton resort, the five-star hotel boasts five restaurants, a spa and three 18-hole golf courses and the rooms are not cheap. the price of rooms at the ritz-carlton is going to keep the riffraff out. they range from about $250 a night to about $6,500 a night. reporter: the hefty price tag for the trip is raising questions about whether taxpayers will have to foot the bill. it s a private trip. it is being paid for that way. reporter: mrs. obama will also make an official visit to spain s king juan carlos and queen sophia. overseas trips for first ladies are not rare. in fact, last year the first family visited russia, italy, and africa. and mrs. clinton once took daughter chelsea on a whirlwind trip to africa. mrs. obama going to the resort might generate some negative criticism because of the fact the resort where she ll be staying is rather lavish during times when the economy is not very good and many people are looking for work. reporter: and while mrs. obama is jet setting overseas, the president is is home alone making a trip to chicago on his birthday. all right, guys. of course he will miss them. they ll be all back together soon. reporter: the whole family won t be back together again until late august when they vacation in martha s vineyard. malia going away for camp, which she s never done before, s old stomping grounds in g t s chicago where he s heading today. he has some big fund-raisers there tomorrow. meredith? all right, norah o donnell, thank you very much and happy birthday, mr. president. just ahead, talk about thinking on your feet. a woman tied to her bed by an armed robber sends out an s.o.s. with her toes. she ll tell us all about it in a live interview. still ahead, a near mishap with the rings and a first dance. more details on chelsea clinton s wedding. 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. 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[ male announcer ] have a heart to heart with your doctor about your risk. and about lipitor. good morning to you. 7:26 on this wednesday. 4th day of august, 2010. in the news for today one person is dead after a bad accident in fairfax county overnight. this happened on compton road in the clifton area. the driver of this car crashed into a tree and was killed. we ll take a break and take a we llimagine if it were thisa easy to spot the good guys. you know, the guys who always do a super job. well, it is. just go to the verizon® yellow pages. and look for a business with the superguarantee® shield. you ll get the job done right, or we ll step in and help to make it right. so, protect yourself with the superguarantee® from supermedia. on its way the new verizon® yellow pages with larger, easier to read print. good morning. it is a steamy start today. temperatures in the mid-to-upper 70s across the area. still some lingering showers on i-95 south of town down into portions of southern maryland as well. more rain chances later today so don t stray too far from that umbrella. high today 93. on the inner loop we re jammed. springfield to 66 along the way a broken down truck near braddock road just cleared out. i-270 lanes open but loaded from germantown down to the split. sunscreen isn t the only protection you need from the sun for your children. a 7:30 on this wednesday morning, august 4th, 2010. as we check out the view from the top of the rock, 17 stories above our home on rockefeller plaza. we have a group lined up outside our window on the world. august what? 4th. it s my new england accent coming out. august 4. inside studio 1-a i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. do you think you could type with your toes? if i was given a lot of time maybe, slowly. you ll meet a woman who saved her own life by doing that after she was tied up by an armed intruder. her incredible story just ahead. also, the disturbing rise from the number of children who have died after being accidentally left in a very hot car. coming up, one mother who made that fatal mistake will speak out. and today investigates why technology that could prevent similar tragedies is not being used. and then we ll take a big turn. we ll have exclusive new details on what went down on chelsea clinton s weekend wedding and why bristol has called off her wedding with levi johnston. a woman who used her feet to free herself from an armed robber. reporter: in this atlanta home, 39-year-old amy windham endured some of the most frightening hours of her life. after midnight tuesday morning, she woke up and found an armed burglar inside her bedroom with no one to help her. a guy entered my room. he had a gun. we struggled for some amount of time. he hit me on the head with the gun. reporter: fearing for her safety, she initially wanted her face concealed when she spoke out hours after the ordeal. she says the burglar took shoelaces and tied her hands to the head board. for an hour the suspect held her at gunpoint. he stole electronics and escaped with her car. and then i started yelling for help and trying to struggle to get myself free but the way he had tied my wrists with shoestrings, it just was tightening it was tightening around my wrist. reporter: hands tied, she turned to her toes. and then around, i guess, 4:15 or so, i realized that he had left my laptop at the foot of my bed. reporter: after her cries for help went unanswered, windom took her laptop s political cord and regged it in between her toes so she could reach the keyboard typing a message asking for help. luckily her boyfriend was on line. call 911 police, she wrote. i m home tried to bed typing with toes. online now, boyfriend applied. police quickly arrived and freed her. we don t know how this could have ended or exactly when it would have ended. i don t have the world s prettiest feet but i think i ll keep them. they came in pretty handy. reporter: it gives new meaning for being quit on your feet. for nbc, i m thanh truong. good morning, meredith. as thanh reported, you wanted to keep your identity under wraps. why did you decide to come forward now? i think at some point you just kind of want to come out of the shadows and just tell your story in the hopes that it might give someone, you know, some additional courage in a similar situation. i know you re also hoping that they find this guy. he did give you a big whack on the head with his gun. how are you doing this morning? all things considered, i m doing very well, thank you. i want to go back to tuesday morning after this stranger gets into your apartment. he hits you on the head with a gun, ties your wrists to the top of the bed and ransacks the home. eventually he leaves. you spend the next few hours screaming and trying to get yourself freed, neither of which is successful. then around 4:15 you realize the laptop is sitting at the end of the bed. what went through your mind when you realized it was there? well, i thought, i ve got nothing to lose so i ll give this a shot and i pulled the laptop over and propped it up on top of the down comforter at such an angle i could see both the keys and the screen and then i just figured out how to type with my toes and i learned very quickly my big toes weren t going to work and so i then reached over with my left foot and got the end of the power cord in between my left toes so i could use that as a tool to hit the keys while i used my right toe as a mouse sort of device. incredible calm thinking. i know you have the computer with you. can you demonstrate for us how you got your toes to do this? sure. sure. so it took a little while to work it out, but i used, again, the right toe on the touch pad to move the mouse around and then i could right or left click with the right toe and then i used, again, my left foot to clamp down on the power cord and hit the various keys to type out the messages. and i know that at first you went to a 911 website. that didn t work out. at around 5:00 you e-mail your boyfriend, john. you ve been going out since november and every morning you e-mail each other. he doesn t respond immediately to the e-mail so you start instant messaging him. i want to read some of those. 5:06 you type, help. read e-mail. 5:07. he types, what e-mail? 5:08. call 911 police. i m home tied to bed. typing with toes. i m amazed by how quickly you re typing these messages and with very few errors which speaks to how calm you are and deliberate to get out the right message to john. john, when you started seeing these, what was your first reaction? i didn t want to believe it. i was thinking it had to be a joke. she s a very serious person and i knew this wasn t something to make light of. i immediately did what she asked and called the police. i know you called 911. how did you explain why you were talking to them as opposed to her? yeah, that was a bit of suspicion there for a while. they were kind of curious why i was calling and i had to describe to them exactly what was happening sadly. yeah, i just told them, you know, she is typing with her toes while she is tied up. you need to get over there. amy, i understand that at one point this burglar in your home or robber in your home was going to take the laptop and you convinced him not to because you said it had a tracking device in it which is why he left it behind. how did you maintain your calm through all this? as i said before, it had to be frightening. it was very frightening. at the time i wasn t actually thinking about the laptop being my tool to get out of the situation and help me get rescued. i was looking at my work laptop and thinking how much i was on there i department want to lose and so i told him that s an at&t laptop. i wouldn t take it if i were you. it s got a tracking device. it saved you. are you surprised in retrospect how calm amy remained and how clever she was, really? no, this is just another example of how l coo, collected, and calculating, really she impresses me a lot. no, i m not surprised how she figured this out and made the best of what she has. not at all. thinks on her feet and with her feet. i know you told our producer your only regret is your pedicure wasn t better. go out and get a fancy one. thanks. i ll get that touched up. amy windom, thank you very much. glad you re okay. thanks a lot, meredith. we have a group here, trio ing right here in washington on news 4 meteorologist chuck bell plenty of clouds outside this morning. ate steamy start indeed. temperatures in the upper 70s here in washington. 79 degrees. 75 in fairfax and montgomery county. 76 in prince george s county. here s a look at the radar. most of the rain right now is down to the south of washington, down up towards dale city and fredericksburg and southern maryland. more rain chances coming up later today with temperatures reaching in the low and mid-90s. and that s your latest weather. don t forget you can get your weather any time of the day or night, the new and improved weather.com on line. coming up, how you can tame your nightmares like in the movie inception. a simple device that could save the life of a child left in a hot car. why aren t automakers using it? 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[ female announcer ] wake up to black silk fr folgers. bold flavor. exceptionally smooth. and get this year s colors up on the wall.this year. let s get better prices. and better paint. let s break out the drop cloths, rollers, brushes, and tape. let s start small. then go big. no matter what the budget. and when we re done, let s take a bow. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. behr premium plus ultra. the only interior paint and primer in one that s rated number one. we re back now. on today investigates a deadly mistake that is made far too often children left in cars on extremely hot days. jeff rossen has uncovered information on this and he joins us this morning. hi, jeff. reporter: good morning to you. as parents we ve heard about these warnings for years. never leave your child alone in a car. it seems obvious but yet it keeps on happening especially during heat waves like much of the country is seeing now. so far this year a record number of children have already died compared to the first six months of any other year in history. there is inexpensive, simple technology out there to help prevent these accidents, save these kids lives. why aren t automakers using it and why isn t the government doing more? any parent would swear they d never do it. forget their baby in a steaming hot car. a 2-year-old girl was left to die in a scorching hot minivan. reporter: every summer new case after new case by the time the father realized she was still there in the car, it was too late to save her life. reporter: let s say it s an 85-degree day outside, how long would it take for a child to die in a car? is. a child can die in as little as 15 minutes. reporter: jeanette fenl says since the government required children to sit in rear facing car seats in the back, hot car deaths have spiked 800%. when the babies are rear facing that car seat doesn t look any different if it s empty or occupied. reporter: and for a tired, overworked parent, that small mistake can mean disaster. my world was shattering right there on the asphalt. reporter: stephanie is a working mom who had two little kids, 6-year-old mckenzie, and 5-month-old gannon. one day last summer after an all-nighter breast-feeding gannon, stephanie loaded the kids in the car. she was exhausted driving them to daycare on the way to work. stephanie dropped her oldest one off no problem and was supposed to drop gannon off next. my mind went on autopilot and i thought i dropped gannon off. i saw it. i saw the memory of me dropping gannon off. and in reality, i never dropped him off. my brain failed me. it fell back on my old routine of going to work. reporter: stephanie drove to her office, locked the car and went inside oblivious to reality that gannon was still sleeping in the back seat. you were at work all day 8 1/2 hours and he s in the car. mm-hmm. reporter: you come back out to the car and what did you see? i got in my car and i put my purse down and when i looked back i saw gannon in the rear-view mirror. reporter: was he moving? uh-uh. reporter: her 5-month-old baby was gone. a lot of parents watching this right now i m sure feel awful for you but also say this would never happen to me, i would never forget my child in a car like you did. what do you say to them? is. that they re being a little too self-assured. i was educated. i knew about parents leaving their kids in the car. reporter: and yet it still happened. and yet it still happened. reporter: still, the government says education is the answer, not technology. even as babies continue to die. in most cars there are warnings for leaving your keys in the ignition, if you leave the headlights on, but there are no warnings about a child in the car. so what are we saying? it is it more important we don t have a dead car battery than a dead baby? reporter: carmakers have developed warning systems that would sound an alarm if you left your baby in the car seat. nearly ten years ago gm showed off a radar sensor that could detect a breathing infant in the back seat. gm never sold it saying the system was not reliable enough. unique sensors reporter: volvo created another sensor but never sold it because of liability reasons. now nasa has a solution. engineers who work on the space shuttle have developed a car seat sensor that detects the baby s weight and will sound a key chain alarm if you walk away. chris edwards is one of the inventors. you just place the sensor under the cushion in the car seat right under the baby s bottom and that s all you do. reporter: i m a dad and was curious if it really worked. i recruited my 5-month-old daughter, sloan, to sit in. so i m a forgetful parent, i left the daughter in the car, i m going to close the door. the air conditioning is on for this demonstration. how does this work? walk away from the car and the alarm will go off. how far do i have to go? 30 to 50 feet. reporter: we kept walking and within 30 seconds there it goes. there it goes. reporter: that didn t take long at all. lets you know she s still in there. reporter: we re close enough to the car where it s still good. in a real-life situation, this could have saved her life. so how much would this be installed in vehicles? less than $50. reporter: is that technology ready to go? it s ready to go right now. reporter: there are similar systems on the market right now so why hasn t the government required them in cars? we came here to washington for hours but the department of transportation declined our requests for an interview and the group representing the automakers wouldn t speak either. instead a division of the department of transportation sent us this e-mail saying it s looking into ways to keep children from suffering this horrible fate. we encourage parents to remain vigilant. caregiver supervision will always be the most effective way to protect children from the dangers of an unattended vehicle. they don t want to add the technology it would take to save these lives. some would say not enough kids die. we work on bigger problems. reporter: but for the parents who have lost kids in hot cars, there is no bigger problem. do you feel like a warning system in the car would have saved your son? i know that it would have brought me out of whatever i was in. there s no doubt that it would have saved his life. reporter: in florida where stephanie lives, leaving her child alone in a car whether on a cold day or a hot day by accident or on purpose is a crime in that state with a mandatory punishment. she is now serving a five-year probation sentence. matt, there is actually, the experts say, something you can do at home right now, starting right now, today, if you want even without technology, your briefcase, anything you use, your cell phone. instead of putting it in the front seat, put it in the back seat. that way you have to come back here to get your briefcase and see the child. why doesn t someone in congress propose that technology you talked about? reporter: it s a good question. the safety experts are trying to get language into a new transportation bill next year. in fact, they say, air bag standards, five times more kids die sitting in hot cars than they do from air bags and there are regulations for that not this. compelling report. thank you very much. we ll be back after this. well, are you going to pick it or not? 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[ 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. 7:56 is our time right now. 76 degrees outside. cloudy skies as well around the region. good morning i m joe krebs on this wednesday the 4th day of august 2010. in the news4 today , metro riders are looking out for problems with their smartrip cards. metro says a new computer system takes longer for sensors to tread card. the problem occurred yesterday afternoon and the agency is investigating whether its new afternoon peak of the peak fee had anything to do with causing those problems. they also say they are exploring ways to speed up this new system. we ll take a break now and come back and take a look in the 70s already. even though we had rain overnight it didn t cool things off at all. very steamy start today. over to jerry for traffic. we ll head out and take a live look. plenty of rush hour. earlier accident on the capital beltway at the bw parkway. in from the west along interstate 66 an accident near route 50 and fair objection. up from central tok kenilworth f a slow. sunscreen is not the only thing you need for children. a look how to shield their 8:00 now on a wednesday morning. it s the 4th day of august, 2010. a little overcast here in new york city but nice and warm and a nice crowd gathered. we thank you for stopping by. by the way, this coming friday another great summer concert. train rolls into the plaza in our 8:30 half hour. if you are in the area. meanwhile on the plaza i m matt lauer alongside meredith vieira and al roker. i do for chelsea, i don t for bristol. a three-week engagement and she has broken it off. you ll find why she did it, the final straw in that relati relationship. and what happened in chelsea clinton s ultra secret wedding that included a first dance that s being described as sultry. sexy and sultry. we ll tell you more about that. have you seen inception ? i want to see it. have you seen it? want to go together? apparently it s all about manipulating dreams. is it fact or fiction? coming up, how you can actually control your dreams to make them more what you want them to be. that is a fact. you can do that. yes, you can. i heard that woman. you question her? my gosh. my dream is standing next to you. and going to see inception. exactly. would you let your kids eat 13 waffles for breakfast? sure. no, you wouldn t. well, you would be surprised at the amount of fat that s in some popular fast food meals. some healthier options later. such a kiljoy, that guy. let s go inside. carl quintanilla is standing by. ann is off this week. carl, good morning. matt, meredith and al, good morning. bp says the static kill is working. on tuesday the oil 0 company pumped heavy mud down the thrown of that blownout well that s been leak iing in the gulf of mexico. and much to everyone s relief the mud is holding the oil down. the administration s point man on the spill says he still expects bp to complete two relief wells. an apparent scare this morning for iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. there are reports someone threw some kind of explosive at his convoy in western iran as he was about to give a speech causing concerns among his security forces. iranian tv is denying there was an attack. nine people are dead, two others injured in manchester, connecticut, in the nation s deadliest shooting rampage since those ft. hood shootings last november. police say 34-year-old omar thornton, ts driver for a beer distributor near hartford, shot and killed himself tuesday after opening fire on his co-workers. he had reportedly been asked to resign from his job or being fired after a videotape apparently showed him stealing beer. thornton s mother says he claimed racial harassment pushed him over the edge. both the company and the teamsters union says he never filed a complaint. overseas markets mostly lower this morning. cnbc s trish regan is at the new york stock exchange. trish, earnings today. earnings for investors, carl. something else is going on. we re seeing this tug of war between what we re seeing on the earnings front, a lot of which is looking relatively good and then what we re seeing in terms of the economic data, most of which is looking pretty poor. investors are gearing up for friday s big report, that s the jobs report due out, and we re seeing a series of mini jobs reports prefacing that. one example today, a report showing layoffs increased 6% in the latest month, so not necessarily the greatest omen there for friday. that s going to be an important number. thanks, trish. president obama turns 49 today. he is celebrating the day without his family. but he won t be alone. the president flies to chicago this evening for a birthday dinner with friends, the first lady and younger daughter sasha are on spain s southern mediterranean coast for a vacation with a longtime family friend. the other daughter, malia, is at summer camp. it is 8:04. back to meredith and matt. all right. mr. good morning. what s going to be happening around the washington area today is we re all going to be sitting in steamy heat out there this afternoon. temperatures are in the upper 70s to near 80 degrees. the morning rain showers did not cool us off they just left a steamy layer right down here on the ground. couple of showers left south of town. more chances for rain coming in later this afternoon. keep your umbrellas handy don t be fooled by late morning sunshine. chance for strong to severe storms for tomorrow but dry for the weekend. and a couple of teenagers just got married. what s your name? ersel and bob from oregon. and now to another teenager. i found lenny over here not where he normally stands asking me a lot of questions about chelsea clinton s wedding, been dying to know everything about the near disaster with the ring, the surprising first dance of the couple. all of that coming up. first the bombshell that caused crystal crystal? bristol palin to call off her wedding. announcer: naturals from purina cat chow. delicious, real ingredients with no artificial flavors or preservatives. naturals from purina cat chow. share a better life. 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. 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[ male announcer ] if you cannot afford your medication, have you tried honey bunches of oats with real strawberries? wow. it s seriously strawberry. they re everywhere. it s in the bunches, on the flakes, even real strawberries in the mix. can i have some more? honey bunches of oats with real strawberries. it s delicious. nobody does it quite like us. swipe your card please. excuse me.? this belongs to you. o.um.thank you. excuse me. this is yours. thank you! you re welcome. with chase freedom you can get a total of 5% cash back in your pocket. fun money from freedom. this is yours! thank you! what? that s 5% cash back in quarterly bonus categories all year long. does your card do this? sign up for this quarter s bonus today. chase what matters. go to chase.com/freedom. we are back now are exclusive new details on chelsea clinton s wedding and why bristol palin s engagement to levi johnston is kaput. sandra, good morning. nice to see you. thank you. three weeks ago it looked like everything was good. they had a reconciliation. what happened? it went sour that night. bristol said it was a very emotional day. she was at work getting a lot of congratulations. it had been on the today show. she got home from work and they were hanging out and levi said, by the way, there s a chance i could have fathered another baby. she said she sat on the couch crying and he it did nothing to comfort her. said, yeah, it sucks, and left. just, by the way, i may have matter of fact, that s how it came up? no, i need to sit you down, i need to talk to you about something important it to our future? just matter of fact. she said they were hanging out and he dropped this ysteric. he did nothing to comfort her. she felt trapped. he waited until she announced it to the world. he may have been dishonest with her about a trip he took. a lot has gone on in the year and a half they have been estranged so bristol is a very smart young woman and she had her antenna up for actions speak louder than words and she wanted levi to prove that he had changed,hat he wasn t going to be warring with her mother anymore, that he was going to be truthful, he was going to be there for her son. he told her he was going to hollywood to watch a hunting show, and then she found out he was, in fact, planning to film this music video that is a parody of his relationship with sarah palin. which is not going to go over well with the family. there have already been family tensions there. would you go out on a limb and say this is probably the final straw or is there a chance this could be settled again? even three weeks after she was still sobbing, emotional on the phone. it really sounded like this was it. all right. let s move on to a happier event and that is the wedding of chelsea clinton. it happened this last weekend. you have new details in the magazine this week including something about some lighter moments at that ceremony. you know, we re really proud of that package. it takes you right inside the wedding like you were there. for all the secrecy and everybody really careful to respect chelsea s privacy, people couldn t help themselves afterwards but gush about the beautiful moments, the funny moments, chelsea dropped the ring during the ceremony. she and marc did this choreographed sexy tango described as sexy and sultry, the first dance. it was a wedding gift, a secret wedding gift from one of their friends, man and wife gave them dance lessons with dancing with the stars maxim who choreographed this sexy-like tango. must have surprised the guests. surprised the parents. i m told bill and hillary just stood there beaming and that everybody loved it. we understand that bill clinton, the former president, made a promise to chelsea before the wedding and kept it. he was going to lose some weight. he jokes that she wanted him to look good walking down the aisle but his daughter is very concerned about his health. he went on a vegetarian, no dairy diet, took a lot of walks and dropped 20 pounds. and i want to also talk about a great photo of three generations you have. hillary rodham clinton with her 91-year-old mother, dorothy rodham and, of course, the bride. it really was a family affair. it s a breathtaking image of the three generations and, in fact, we re told 91-year-old grandma rodham was actually at most of the wedding planning meetin meetings. she took a very active hand with the bride and the mother and father. you know what, good for them. it s nice and i think we heard all the details now or is there more to come? we had more than we could fit so check people.com. all right. sandra, thank you very much. good to have you back. and up next, how you can be like leo in the hit movie inception and actually control your dreams and nightmares. plus, bravo s newest batch of real housewives including white house party crasher michaele salahi. good morning! 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[ male announcer ] and this is our cheese. kraft singles. american cheese. only one nation could create it. and that nation is.america. kraft singles. the american cheese. the hit movie inception has people talking about dreams. what if you could control the m images you see when you go to sleep? according to sleep experts you may have more say over your dreams and your nightmares than you think. reporter: in the box office smash inception a highly skilled thief invades people s dreams. you create the world of the dream. you bring the subject into that dream and they fill it with their subconscious. reporter: controlling dreams isn t just box office fantasy. 9-year-old new yorker mark sutter learned to do just that after suffering the same nightmare for a year and a half. someone was chasing me and trying to kill me like during my dreams. reporter: mark asked his parents diane and rob for help when the lack of sleep affected his schoolwork. he panicked right before it was time to go to sleep. i was scared and sometimes i would wake up sweating, screaming. reporter: mark went to see dr. shelby harris who runs the behavioral sleep medicine program. she believes it s possible to n influence your dreams. eessentially it s a way of giving yourself control over the nightmares you re having. reporter: dr. harris uses imagery rehearsal therapy or irt. until now it s been used mostly with adults suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder a. recent study shows it also works with children. i teach people to take the nightmare they have and change it any way they want and then you imagine that changed dream in your head and you picture it. and i usually have patients do it twice a day, once in the morning and once right before bed. i made the guy chocolate and bunnies and i made us eat him. so that s how i got over it. reporter: not just thinking but seeing the person chasing him, seeing the person turn to chocolate and then eating the person. that s what actually helped him. i haven t had had a nightmare since. reporter: dr. harris says there s no harm in trying the technique yourself. the nightmare could be over. a psychiatrist and author of the book side-by-side. dr. sophy, thank you. when do you decide when your child needs help? 50%, though, will have nightmare that is do interfere with their ability to function the next day like, as you saw in the video, the ability to really not really be able to stay awake, not be able to function in school, your appetite changes, your concentration changes. you ll see it spilling into the next day. so it isn t the number of nightmares you might have but how they impact your life? exactly. i was fascinated by that little boy using imagery rehearsal therapy and it rid him of the nightmare. have you seen similar results? absolutely. you take that dream. you recall it the next day and replace it with a positive ending, a more controlled ending, and that gives that child that mastery and that ability to feel like, oh, i nknw the outcome. they have less anxiety. they go to sleep and then when that comes up, it s a more positive outcome, less provoking. are there things parents can do during the day that will help prevent a child from having nightmares when they go to sleep? there s a lot that parents can do. you really want to think of it this way. you want to decompress your brain. take the pressure and take it down. having them talk about their day, making sure their day is structured, that they re eating well, sleeping well, if you canning well. you don t want a hypoglycemic child not eating. decompress your child. have them talk and go to sleep caulkly. if something is bothering they will, have them discuss it and maybe work it out before they go to bed. how was your day at school? i got bullied or somebody talked to me bad. important to teach them good sleeping habits. good sleeping is positive on your child and on you as a family. you have to sleep at the right time. you should sleep for the right amount of time. a quiet time before you go to bed. decompress your household. you have tips for kids suffering for nightmares. keep a log when the nightmares occur. is there usually a pattern? you see your child having more than the average, a couple a month, have your child give you their take of the dream, write that down. look at what happened in the day, what happened before they wept to sleep. are they going through a breakup of a marriage, the loss of a parent, a traumatic event that will cause anxiety. you ll see a pattern directly related to the nightmare. you tell parents they need to be prepared. what do you mean by prepared? prepared means being able to be within earshot of your child. be aware that your child may have these even if they ve never had them. you know that they possibly could. so you want to be able to hear your child. have a monitor available. train your child care giver or nanny to be open and honest and to let them know what s going to happen and how to handle it. people get scared. we re adults but we still get scared. which brings us to the last tip, to provide comfort. support, comfort, reassurance and never tell your child what they dreamt was a bad thing. have them feel free to tell you what it is because that s also releasing that pressure. forget about the nightmares, if i want a dream having drinks on a beach, can i create that scenario and then make sure i have it? you need to be able to have a dream that has been difficult for you to work with. so maybe instead of being chased down the street you re chasing matt down the beach for a mhai thai. chasing matt? there are certain nightmares to avoid. and now here s matt. we re out here on the plaza with the cast members of the real housewives of d.c. on bravo. michaele salahi, catherine ommanney, lynda erkiletian, mary schmidt amons. is this going to be like the other real housewives where in three minutes you re at each other s throats? it s going to be exciting. there will be some drama. drama is going to be different. do you get along? for the most part even though we have some differences that are entertaining, you ll see five women with really interesting lives in the backdrop of politics and all the excitement and uniqueness in d.c. there must be something about washington that sort of lends itself to this show, right? it s the wallpaper of our social scene. the wallpaper, wow. it s the wallpaper. you see i have my talking points. you ll see us talking about politics. look out. you all get along, because i ve heard some rumors. there may be a little jealousy about some of the attention that has been paid to the salahis concerning the whole white house party crashing thing. jealousy feeds into it. you take the fifth? that s the first time you ve pled the fifth. you talk talk at the same time. i know. how much will cover that episode that happened with the state diner? that s one night of many. is that the peak of the season? so many great nights you ll see. are you guys prepared for the fact you re going to have this spotlight on you and that can be not just a good thing but it can be a negative thing and it can affect your family. our kids are right behind you. various children are right back there. al s question is a good one for you, mary. are you prepared for the attention? i don t know how you prepare yourself for this. we re all together. we re all working together. i have great kids. they re all secure and we re all excited and we ve had a blast. what s going to be weird is having the nation react to things you did months ago during production, right? almost a year ago. we re going on a year. it s been a long time. wow. it s been 18 months for me. after the editors get ahold of this that s what makes you nervous because it s up to them now. anyway, we should mention that real housewives of d.c. premieres tomorrow night on bravo. that s at 9:00, 8:00 central time. you are here with us in the fourth hour tomorrow. nice to meet you both. 8:26 is your time. 77 degrees. strong storms early this morning. will we get more rain? good morning i m eun yang. in the news for today the largest free health clinic to ever come to the district will be healed today. 1,000 volunteers including doctors and nurses will treat uninsured patients at the washington convention center. they will test for hiv and heart disease. doctors will treat injuries and infections and offer checkups. doors open at 11:00 a.m. and close at 7:00. if you don t have an appointment walk-ins are welcome. get there good morning. temperatures in the middle and upper 70s. reach into the upper 80s and low to mid-90s by early this afternoon. 60% chance you ll get rained on again later on today. we ll look forward to that after this morning let s head out and take a look and see how we re doing. 66 jammed. late accident 66 eastbound at 28. police are on the scene. and 301 northbound at point of ridge jammed because of an accident 301 northbound, the overturned car mitchellville 8:30 now on this wednesday morning, august 4th, 2010. these folks are not bothered by the threatening forecast. a few rain drops are in the future. come friday it will be drops of jupiter on the plaza with a band train here for a live concert. i love train. great. just ahead, making wiser choices at your favorite fast food joint. david is back, the guy behind the eat this not that idea. get this, he has found a burger from a fast food restaurant that has the fat equivalent of 11 cans of chili. have a nice lunch. some diet busting in a couple of minutes. all right. also ahead, the touching story of walter the puppy, a dog left abandoned, close to death. thanks to two families and a website and help from around the world he is now thriving. he is in our studio as i speak. see how sweet he is. i m a sucker for any dog story. and then . i m news 4 meteorologist chuck bell and we have a very humid wednesday under way here in the nation s capital. a round of thunderstorms early this morning and a chance for more storms later today. temperatures are in the middle and upper 70s. here s a look at doppler. few showers in northern neck and st. mary s county. more showers and storms likely this afternoon, 60% chance you ll need the umbrella. today s high mid-to-upper to 90s. cooler for the weekend. and don t forget you can check your weather weather channel on cable or the new and improved weather.com online. i want to introduce to you jason and adam. they won the contest the ultimate summer job. and their goal wasthings, to be today show. this is as close as you re going to get. read this. al, thank you so much. always great to see you. fast foodfiascoes. some healthier alternatives. [ male announcer ] need a better way to save for the things you want? meet pnc virtual wallet. it comes with a wish list, that helps you set aside money for the stuff that really matters. just put the things you want on your wish list. and contribute money when you feel like it. then, watch as you get closer to getting what you want. wish list is built to make saving a whole lot more fun. experience all the ways virtual wallet can help you save at pncvirtualwallet.com. pnc. for the achiever in us all. this morning on eat this, not that avoiding a fast food fiasco. it can be a challenge to eat healthy if you re grabbing a quick meal on got or on a road trip with your kids. eat this, not that author david zinczenko knows how to do it. he s also the editor in chief of men s health magazine. welcome back. good to see you. good to see you, matt. you take a popular meal from a chain restaurant, you talk about what s in it. most of the time we re talking fat and calories and sodium. then you show what the equivalent is and you give us a healthier alternative. right. and fast food requires fast decisions so what we re going to do is show you how eat this, not that can help you lose two pounds a week eating your favorite foods and not dieting if you make smart swaps. let s start at breakfast and we re picking on mcdonald s to start off. the big breakfast with large biscuit, hotcakes, margarine and syrup. when they say big breakfast, you know it s going to be a lot of stuff in it. i don t know if it s bre breakfast or a last supper because what happens here you end up starting your day with 1,500 calories. you ve got an entire day s worth of sodium, an entire day s worth of saturated fat, 21 grams, and it ends up being the calorie equivalent of these 13 chocolate chip waffles from eggo. you say the alternative and healthier alternative is to go with the egg mcmuffin and the hash brown. you know what, david, this does not equal this for someone who is hungry. but it s still 450 calories. you get a flavor boost with the egg mcmuffin from the cheese, a nice set of protein with the egg and the ham and then you have a little indulgence with the hash browns. there s 12 grams of fat in here which is what is in that one biscuit over there. let s move over to kfc and crispy chicken meal with macaroni and cheese. you sit down and thinking you re doing something healthy, you re crazy. half a chicken with a whole lot of fat and chris pi is restaurant speak for like we did something terrible to your chicken. i mean right here this has the mac and cheese, the potato wedges, the biscuit is thrown in like a hand grenade at the end. this is 5,000 milligrams of sodium, almost three days worth. it is the fat equivalent of these chocolate doughnuts, 29 of them. if you re at kfc be a want to eat there, what you should get instead is the two honey barbecue snackers with mashed potatoes and gravy. and you ll save 1,000 calories. let s move on to domino s. this is the chicken carbonara bread bowl pasta. what s the problem here? this is the fat sponge that ate america. this is 1,500 calories right there. it has an entire day s worth of sodium and saturated fat and it would be like having 10 1/2 serving of funions. they re very good. i had them. i might try them. now there are 138 of them. so if you go to domino s, the much better thing is these three flakes of pizza, save 1,000 calories and you have grilled chicken on it, green peppers, grated parmesan cheese. it s delicious. let s move on to burger king. burger king large triple whopper with cheese value meal with fries. you might get a value. you don t value your health. henry the viii? this is a value meal for your cardiologist. this is 1,800 calories right there. you have a full day s worth of sodium, 2,400 milligrams of it, and it s the saturated fat equivalent of 11 cups of chili. oh, cups. i said cans. there are two serves in each can. healthier alternative? the whopper jr. you get some nice chicken fries. again, you re saving 1,000 calories. those look awful. you do this every three days and you lose a pound. that s the two pounds a week. finally we are going to talk about quiznos tuna melt large with che toes. look at the sodium. i know. i think they call it quiznos because it s a puzzle figuring out if it s healthy. they take the pork tuna from the sea and put it into a sea of mayonnaise and cheese. you ve got 1,900 calories here. 2,230 milligrams of sodium. a full day s worth. that s 1,760 calories. or eat an entire bag of chewy chips ahoy cookies. or get two road house steak sammies. it gives you 13 grams of protein which is great and you re saving 1,300 calories. and we have fun at these chains expense. the idea is if you listen to you and do these healthier alternatives you can still eat your favorite foods, not worry about dieting and go to all these places. people just don t realize how many calories are in the poodz. david zinczenko, thanks very much. up next, people from all around the world come together to save walter the puppy. a touching story. how much is that doggie in the window back at 8:43 in today s pets a puppy who warmed hearts across the globe. our resident animal lover jill rappaport with the very touching story. good morning. this is a great one. this is incredible. this is the ultimate example, meredith, of the healing power of love. this is an abandoned, abused puppy with no hope left. his will was stronger than his injuries. it was easter sunday and little did alex darcy know that on that day an abandoned puppy named walter would change his life forever. a car had driven up and de s deposited him on the sidewalk and then sped away. reporter: threw him out of the car? shoveled him out and then took off. reporter: and he had no fur at that point. he was basically a scab and his feet were abnormally huge and he just looked really messed up. i didn t think there was any chance of him making it. reporter: the prognosis for walter was grim. he had suffered severe animal cruelty when he was tossed out of a car and virtually left to die. you were going to try to save this dorg at any cost, correct? we were going to put ourselves heavily in debt. reporter: with the medical bills climbing, alex reached out to friends for assistance. together they started a little blog called help save walter. once we made a facebook page, once we started this blog, his health kind of his spirit, i should say, turned around kind of overnight. still bewilders me how this all kind of became what it has, but it s wonderful. reporter: not only was little walter now on the road to recovery but the outpouring of love and support for this puppy was emotionally and financially overwhelming. this little blog literally exploded around the world. thousands of people opening up their hearts, opening up their wallets, thousands of dollars all of a sudden poured in to save walter. yeah, yeah. it s the warm feeling from people. receiving e-mails from new zealand and australia and italy and, you know, people were sending pictures of their dogs and sharing stories about rescues they have been a part of. reporter: walter has left such an indelible mark on so many people. we are so touched by how the world has reached out. i mean, i feel like he could really be an ambassador for the breed. reporter: for pit bulls. it s a pit bull. here in brooklyn, the staff that saved walter couldn t be happier about his recovery. you re a good boy. reporter: not only has walter doubled in weight 36 pounds. reporter: but his coat has been restored. he s a miracle. he was at death s door and he s back and wagging his tail. it s amazing to think anything bad ever happened to him, that anybody was ever cruel to him because all he gives is love. he s not afraid of anybody. he s not he doesn t shy away from anybody. right on cue. reporter: that was perfect. he doesn t shy away. here he is. i think he understands what he went through. i think he expresses his gratitude all the time. and walter is here along with his co-owners. good morning to you both. good morning. i can t believe that is the same dog from three months ago. amazing. it s an amazing story. is he back to 100% at this point, alex? i mean, yeah, he s completely healed. he was just cleared of all his last skin scrapeings. he has no signs. it s all moving forward now. you co-own him for financial reasons and time constraints, right? we both love him. love him so much. we really went through something with him as friends and just xwref yeah. thousands of people love him. when you put out that blog, i don t think you expected the response you got. no, not at all. realistically we were hoping to reach out to close friends and family that lived out of town and just kind of get a little bit of help, let people know his story and it was overwhelm overnight. people all over the world are still inquiring. they want updates constantly. updates, new photos, new videos. quite a celebrity. what does that say to you, do you think? there s a lot of people out there that are animal lovers and there s a lot of cruelty towards animals and i think this story has kind of reached so many people that i think hope play it ll just help. and i know you re going to use some of the extra money to donate. we raised quite a bit of money. it was kind of overwhelming. we ve put aside money to give to the aspca. we re also starting a nonprofit at the hospital that he was treated at in walter s name to help other animals that are abused and neglected. that is fantastic. thanks for the story. walter, we love you. named after walter matthau because he bore a striking resemblance. all the wrinkles. trying to decide what to make for dinner, walt letter have a bone. some light summer meals that are sure to please. announcer: today s kitchen is brought to you by kraft singles, the american cheese. and this morning on today s kitchen we re going back to basics. nigella lawson has brought along simple summer salad. her new book is nigella fresh, a collection of recipes. nice to have you back, domestic goddess. this is about no fuss, right? still, you want to have fun with flavors. fun with flavor. and most people at some time in the week they have a little left over chicken in the refrigerator. i hate waste. i adore chicken and ways to cook it. i think sometimes it s nice to add a little how do you spell that? too many consonants and not enough vowels. there s an english recipe, the queen s silver jubilee. it had mango chutney and apricot reserves, a heavy recipe. this is my more modern take because now we can get fresh mangos. white or dark meat, does it matter? it never matters. what s in your fridge. that s the way i cook. what s in my fridge. take a little mango, add it to that. some lime juice. that varies the taste, right? some people like more, other people a little less. i think the reality is also mango and limes sometimes have very little juice. a little parsley in there. or is that cilantro? just because i m keeping in that pallet. chopped red chillies very much to taste and a few scallions. i was going to use the little spoons but you ve done that already. your own home doing leftovers here. you can add some shredded lettuce to it or a little cup. updated jubilee chicken. next we re going to do an update on chick ep caesar but you don t use anchovies or croutons. i don t. i don t mind it if others do. i was in a food court in l.a. and on the menu something called caesar cleopatra i thought was witty. you stole it. i always credit it. the white flesh is cleopatra on the caesar so here we are. we have some got it. we have a collection of hmm over across the room. what s this, egg? it s a raw egg. olive oil, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce. and you could crush up an anchovy. i do. a what? some parmesan. okay. use your fingers again. now we ve also got a little bit of jubilee chicken in there as well which is good. i wiped. you wiped, okay. now you have the chicken on that. we have two more to get to. that s how nice that looks right up here. if you provided me with some roller skates i could have been really fast. i m sorry. next we have chicken salad with spinach and bacon. you can use pancetta? you can but most of us have bacon in the fridge. you can use anything you want. this is the way i like it. spinach or any salad leaf you like, some shredded chicken and then i don t make it by using the oil, oil in the pan before i cook my bacon and then i make a dressing by putting vinegar into the bacon fat. and swish that around. how can that be a bad thing? swish it around. i have the feeling we re going to see the hands again, right? well. it s hot. be careful with that. happened tossed. i leave that there. finished product. would you like more bacon dressing? drink it? wouldn t that be nice? chicken, almonds and parsley. just three simple recipes and look how elegant. this was inspired by a hunger fueled rage in your own kitchen, right? i had an open pact of almonds, looking at the counter, a bit of parsley, you know what? actually parsley anytime that happens, you duck. that s a hunger fueled rage. that really is someone wants that bacon juice. what did you put on it for a dressing? lemon juice and olive oil and salt. i don t like the stuff that looks like you could be cleaning up the bathroom with it. what do you do this? bung it in. domestic goddess nigella lawson. 8:55 is your time. 78 degrees. cloudy sky. another hot day. will we get more rain today? i m eun yang. in the news for today, metro is looking out for problems with your smartrip card. it takes longer for sensors to read the car. the problem happened during the afternoon rush. the agency is investigating whether its new afternoon peak of the peak fare had anything to go the problems. they also say they are exploring ways to speed up the new system. we ll take a break now and have your weather and traffic w [ male announcer ] looking for a complete picture of your money? meet pnc virtual wallet. it comes with a money bar that shows what s scheduled to go out, what you ve put aside. and how much you really have available, right now to spend on the things you want. and you can free up money with a simple slide. it s built to help make your financial life a whole lot easier. experience everything virtual wallet has to offer at pncvirtualwallet.com. pnc. for the achiever in us all. good morning. temperatures are getting close to 80 degrees already and plenty of humidity out there as well. be ready for a steamy day in the great outdoors. check on radar shows most of the morning showers are gone. don t stray too far from your umbrella. another chance for showers and storms this afternoon. today s high 93. tomorrow s high 95 but cooler this weekend. typically heavy and slow, the outer loop from about river road across the american legion bridge, all volcano lanes blocked just the usual volume down tysons corner. quick check elsewhere. 395 heavy and slow to the 14th street bridge. no hangups just construction. sunscreen isn t the only protection your kids need from the sun. we ll take a closer look at how to shield their eyes from dangerous uv rays. we re back now with more of today on a wednesday morning, the 4th day of august, 2010. the skies are clearing here in new york city which means it s also getting a little warmer and a little more humid but we want to say thank you to these people for sticking with us all morning long. we appreciate that. there s lenny out on the plaza. i m matt lauer along with natalie morales, tamron hall, and al roker. and can we have a collective aah for tamron who is suffering from a bad cold. how did you get that or you don t know? i was flying in from san diego and i used hand sanitizer, i had a mask, and i still got the guy next to me, the one guy on the plane coughing. his name is beat him up. thank you, guys. it s wednesday. we have money 911. we re answering a lot of great questions. our panel sharon epperson, jean chatzky and dylan ratigan, declaring bankruptcy for your business or your personal finances to the best retirement accounts if your company doesn t offer a 401(k). our gang of three here to answer the questions. all right. we talk about it a lot on the show, the obesity epidemic and now a cdc report that really is alarming. you ll see the statistics. up to 72 million americans are now categorized as obese. that s a rise of 2.5 million people from a couple of years ago. so are you considered obese? we ll give you a breakdown. you may be shocked. and then speaking of i was shocked, it s off again. bristol palin. you were shocked? i thought it was love. actually al made fun of me because i really thought it was a romeo/juliet. turns out it s a bust. apparently levi johnston offended bristol palin. she s called the whole thing off. we have details on exactly what went wrong and she s reportedly back home with her mom. this may be it. also, just when you thought you knew everything about chelsea clinton s wedding there are new details. there s more? there s more, ladies and gentlemen. we have more scoop on that wedding. more scoop than you can fill your tummy with. good to know. let s go inside. carl quintanilla is filling in for ann. good morning. good morning, matt. good morning, everybody. what bp is calling the gulf of mexico milestone, the company says the broken well appears to have reached a static condition after heavy mud was pumped into the well. it s the first indication the so-called static kill may be working. the new assessment found that about 75% of the oil has either been captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down in the gulf. in manchester, connecticut, shock and disbelief after an employee shot and killed eight people at a beer distributing company before killing himself. one survivor said the shooter was as cold as ice when he opened fire. at least 15 people are dead in a car bombing in iraq. the blast outside of baghdad wounded at least 60 others. today a legal challenge expected to be filed following a controversial vote by a new york city panel that cleared the way tuesday for a mosque to be built near ground zero. opponents say the mosque would disrespect the memory of those killed on 9/11. the pentagon says it s sending six helicopters from afghanistan to help ferry relief supplies or refugees in flood ravaged pakistan. pakistan publicly resists any u.s. military presence inside the country. but it is accepting humanitarian help with the death toll over 1,500 and whole villages under surging floodwaters. there s been another horrible attack on kindergarten students in china where a man with a knife killed three children and a teacher. about 20 other people were wounded. a big wildfire in central oregon has burned more than 2,600 acres. some nearby homes were evacuated. that fire is about 20% contained. some new baby pictures from the philadelphia zoo where one newborn, a 2-week-old jury after is standing head and shoulders above the rest. it s the first giraffe to be born at the zoo in years. by the way, it s a girl. good news for all the boy giraffes at the zoo. carl, do you know what s worse than a giraffe with a sore throat? good morning, everyone. i m news 4 meteorologist chuck bell. we re getting a little bit of sunshine into the area after a round of showers and thunderstorms early this morning. temperatures are near 80 degrees now in nearly every neighborhood. 79 at national airport. 79 at falls church and alexandria. most of the rain is gone. another chance for showers and thunderstorms later on this afternoon. it s going to be a hot and steamy one, today s high 93. somebody call 911 this morning on today s money 911 advice for your financials. jean chatzky, the author of money 911, dylan ratigan the host of the dylan ratigan show on msnbc, and sharon epperson, cnbc s financial correspondent. we have tamron hall outside fielding questions and infecting the crowd. so good morning, everybody. are you all ready? ready to go. we have melissa standing by on the phone in utah. good morning, melissa. what s your question? caller: well, my husband and i are 2 1/2 years into owning our own business and we ve been unable to break even. our loan company is coming back to us telling us we have to sell or liquidate and if that happens we re not going to be able to get the full amount owed. so i m wondering if we re still going to be responsible for that remaining amount and we would then have to declare bankruptcy. if we declare bankruptcy with a business, is that going to affect our home? my husband still has a full-time job and we are able to cover all of our home expenses. jean? melissa, how did you set the business up? what is the structure? is it a corporation, an llc? it s an scorp. in that case it depends on the type of bankruptcy you file whether or not it actually affects your personal belongings the time to talk to a bankruptcy lawyer is right now before you go any further and you may want to go back to talk to the sba as well because they have counselings on staff who can walk people through this. the unfortunate thing about starting a business, and we applaud people who start businesses that s what drives this economy absolutely. a certain percentage of them, a large percentage of them fail within the first couple of years. but you should be able to protect what s yours to keep that home as long as you file the right kind of bankruptcy. and congratulations on making an attempt. i d be interested at some point to hear the problems you re trying to solve. i think it s important when a business fails to then share what you ve learned in the process of trying to cultivate that business with other people who may also be trying to solve that problem. because there are so many business that is are fail and the one thing you want to be able to do when you re looking at that bankrupt attorney is talk to several people, not just someone who is going to try to take your money and try to solve this problem really quickly. go through a couple of people to make sure you get the right advice. we have an e-mail now sent in by kendra. she asked, i m a 23-year-old and i just earned my registered nurse license. i don t have a 401(k) plan through my present employer. what are the best types of plans i can enroll in to save for retirement and how much money should i be putting in each month? jean, why don t you start with this? the important thing for kendra is to just do something, right, because she has the opportunity through a roth i.r.a., through a traditional i.r.a. to put some money aside. you want to do it on an automatic basis so that every month the reason 401(k)s work, people don t understand this but the reason they work you take the money out of the paycheck before you have the opportunity to spend it. and automating can be done with regular savings as well. no one wants to really go into a money market account now. they think they re not going to make a lot of money. if you re not building up liquid savings to have pay yourself. pay yourself first. and start with 5% or 10%. the only thing i would add to that is make sure you are incredibly diversified as you can. that doesn t mean a bunch of different stocks. that means owning things that are not stocks. owning things that are things, owning commodities, having exposure, also protection from the possibility that interest rates could go up, that there are a variety of different things that could happen but mog more important than the diversity and also at your age make sure you re making decisions not just about your savings but about your career that are giving you more options. don t think so much about does this job pay me more or does this job pay me more at 23. whatever job it is at 23 it doesn t pay that well. you learn the most and get the most opportunities down the line. ellen from framingham, massachusetts. good morning, ellen. what s your question? caller: my mother has just sold her house after 52 years and is moving into an assisted living. my question is, where is the best place for her to invest or save the money from the sale of the house? the assisted living is very expensive and she ll need the funds to live off of. some of the money can go into a bank account but the rates are so low to survive on. what are your suggestions for a woman in her 80s? sharon? you don t want to put all your money into a bank account. that is the right idea. i d say first start with having that money in some type of liquid account, a money market account, a high-yielding savings account, at least three to six months worth of covering those expenses. you don t want to invest that money you re going to need for those expenses. the next chunk of money i would put into cds. ladder your cds. what do i mean by that? buy a bunch of cds, different maturities, and will have different interest rates. two-year cd will have a better interest rate than a three-month cd but have a ladder of them and then you can spread out the interest rates and keep your cash flow going. also short-term bond fund is a good thing to have to make sure you have a little bit more interest that you re going to be able to get. short-term bond fund is a good way to go but watch the expenses. watch the expense ratio. keep it low. we wish you well with your mom, too. now let s head outside. tamron hall has a question from the crowd. sharon is in new york celebrating her 25th anniversary with her nice husband over there. how many years? 25. 25. all right. and what s your question? i would like to know will home rates remain stable for people seeking to refinance? i m going to look into my crystal ball for you you do that. home loan rates right now are unbelievable. if you have the opportunity to refinance, you should do it and you don t worry about if they re going to go lower because eventually they re going to go higher. so if you have the opportunity to grab this cash, grab this once-in-a-lifetime literally opportunity you don t think it s ever going to be this low. in your life it s going to be a process. i m going to wait until it goes down. by the time you actually refinance and close and do all that, it could be several months down the road so keep in mind if you can do it right now, try to do it. make sure it s the right thing for you to do and make sure you can afford to do it. the last thing i ll say, remember, we have and are still living through a housing crisis in this country. housing is at the wrong price still because money was invented to pump into the housing market and it creates distorted prices. the government is trying to ease the adjustment out of that by deliberately keeping those rates as low as they can. so the one thing i will say to you is for as long as the government feels they can keep rates low because they think it s helping to keep them in their jobs and this economy functional, they will keep those rates low. there will be a point, though, at which rates will have to come up in order to attract capital back into our country. it s a great time. it s a great time to refinance. thanks so much. you can watch the dylan ratigan show almost got through the whole segment without screwing up his name weekdays at msnbc 4:00 p.m. eastern. don t forget he has questions for our experts. go to todayshow.com. up next, the rise of obesity in america. are you considered obese? you might be surprised. and brinstol palin calls off he second engagement to levi johnston. shocking. so what happened this time? mmmmmm. mmmmmm. wow! you have got to be kidding me. 80 calories? light & fit has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand. light & fit. irresistible taste. fewer calories. i love light & fit. long summer days, and not enough sleep. what i wouldn t do for a do-over. 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[ female announcer ] especially when it comes to charmin ultra soft. its ultra soft design is soft and absorbent. it has so much absorbency, you can use 7 sheets versus 28 of the leading value brand. so your family can get more out of less. mom s never gonna believe this one. [ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft. enjoy the go. it s harder my doto build bone densityge. with calcium and vitamin d alone. he recommends citracal plus bone density builder. the only calcium supplement with genistein found in nature in soy and proven to significantly build bone density. citracal. there s a land that i see, where the children are free. come with me, take my hand, and we ll live. .in a land where the river runs free. .in a land to a shining sea. and you and me are free to be you and me. this morning on today s health obesity on the rise. the cdc released a shocking new report showing more than 72 million adults in the u.s. are now obese. that is one-third of all americans. so why is this happening and what can we do to slow the epidemic? the director of comprehensive weight loss program at new york s presbyterian cornell hospital, good morning to you. good morning. i mean, i m sure just reading these numbers from the cdc report probably no shock to you with your work, but it took a look at the nation s obesity rate by state and it found that in every state over 15% of adults are obese and in nine states that number is over 30% of adults. what stands out for you when you take a look at these results? that the numbers it continue to increase. 2.5 million americans more than the last time we looked at this are now obese. and that s a trend that has continued. it looked like it was beginning to abate but it is not abating. and the problem with obesity is that it costs a lot to treat people who are obese. it costs us health care dollars to treat obesity. and speaking to these results, though, i mean, they may not even be an accurate true picture because this is done by a phone survey of some 400,000 americans, as i understand. so people aren t necessarily as reliable when it comes to defining whether or not they re obese or not, is that right? that s right. we know these phone surveys are an underestimate of the fum of people who are actually obese. in general, it s about 7% to 10% more who are obese because people say that they re taller and they weigh less but the important point is that we re getting heavier. all of the trends that have an impact on weight are going in the wrong direction and that is up. why is that increase happening? what is the reasoning behind that? there are a number of factors. it s not just that we re eating too much and we re not exercising enough, although that s clearly a part of the pictu picture. but there are many subtle things that are going on that affect metabolism. for example, we no longer have to control the temperature of our bodies. we have air conditioning and heating systems to do it. there are medicines that cause people to gain weight. and there are many other factors. they re all compounding on the problem which has made us a very obese population. you take a look at that map, though, i think what really is most striking is that nine states where over 30% of the adults are obese, i mean, you see it s all for the most part the midwest, south of the country. what does this indicate to you? that s also known as the stroke belt. where people are very likely to have heart attacks and strokes. so we know that obesity is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. we know that the tendency to people in that area, the way they eat, they don t mind in some cases being overweight, culturally it isn t bad to be a big person. again, all of the factors are going in the wrong direction and that s added to our body s tendency to allow weight to go up. anyone who has ever tried to lose weight will let you know it s a one-way trip. your body lets you go up very easily. it doesn t want to let you go back down again. and you talked about how this is having a tremendous impact already on our very overstretched health care system. we talk about people who are obese, they re paying over $1,400 more a year for health care. so what is the impact on the nation at large? this is obviously having a tremendous impact on health care costs. and a good way to reduce health care costs would be to reduce obesity. for example, if we could get people to lose just 12 pounds, just 12 pounds, you would reduce the risk of developing diabetes by 60%. not just for a year or two years but for more than ten years. i m sure people who are frustrated with trying to lose weight, it really is an uphill battle half the time. it is an uphill battle but it can be done. even small amounts of weight loss are a success. so people often achieve 10, 15-pound weight loss but they give up because they think it s not enough. it s not what they ve seen people lose in a tv show. but it s worth doing. any weight loss is valuable weight loss. and it s going to be good for your body. that much better. thank you so much for being here. appreciate it. coming up next, the bristol palin bombshell. why she called off her engagement. also, exclusive new details inside chelsea clinton s wedding. then the best high-tech gadgets for your back-to-school kids. activia is better than ever! hey, you guys. want to try activia s great new taste? today is your tasty lucky day! sure, why not? isn t this the yogurt that, you know. helps regulate your digestive system. ooh, i think i ll pass. no, no, no! trust me. it is beyond tasty. okay! mmm! wow! i can t believe it, i love it! mmm, this is really good! new best tasting activia ever! taste it, love it, or it s free! activia to create a technologically advanced clog-buster and pipe-wall cleaner. liquid plumr foaming pipe snake. unleash the power of the plumr. why go one more round ? you don t need a rematch, but a rethink. with lunesta. lunesta is thought to interact with gaba receptors associated with sleep. lunesta helps you get the restful sleep you need. lunesta has some risk of dependency. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving or engaging in other activities while asleep without remembering it the next day have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. stop fighting with your sleep. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. get lunesta for a co-pay as low as zero dollars at lunesta.com discover a restful lunesta night. bristol palin and levi johnston are no longer engaged even though it s only been a few weeks since we learned about the engagement. according to exclusive details in people magazine bristol called the whole thing off after what she said was the last straw. that s right. as you remember three weeks ago when they announced their secret engagement they did it with us weekly magazine. went exclusively to them, posed with pictures of tripp. l levi told bristol, though, he may have fathered a baby with his ex. so that was the reason she said can t do it anymore. bristol broke up with him a week later after she found out levi went to hollywood to shoot a video making f of her family, lied about the trip. they announce it in one magazine and they break up in another. well, yeah. and of course their big criticism of johnston is he wants fame at any expense, right? that s what bristol says, he wants to be famous. i thought it was love. really? i don t care. you can tweet me, facebook me, i don t care. i thought it was love. you were being positive. i thought he saw the light all that glitters isn t gold. apparently he s full of it. some will never change. on a nice note the clinton wedding we re learning a bit more. apparently there was a great tango dance. it was very sexy and sultry for the first dance between chelsea and marc mezvinsky. also a great picture from the clinton wedding as well with the mothers, the three generations. mrs. clinton s mother, is it dorothy? actually helped with the wedding. thank you! phew! [ ernie ] we make our cookies the way only keebler elves can: with a little something extra. so every bite can be uncommonly good. you need listerine® whitening vibrant white™ rinse. the mouthwash that gets teeth four times whiter than the leading toothpaste. and kills bad breath germs. listerine® whitening vibrant white™. 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. . if you haven t stepped outside yet it s 9 degrees and very muggy out there. your weather forecast in just a moment. good morning it s the 9:26 on this wednesday, august 4, 2010. i m kimberly suiters. in the news for today the largest free health clinic to come to the district will start less than two hours. 1,000 volunteers including doctors and nurses will treat uninsured patients at the washington convention center. they will test for hiv, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. doctors will treat injuries and infections and offer checkups. the doors open at 11:00 this morning and close at 7:00 tonight. walk ins are welcomed but organizers recommend you get there early. your weather and traffic are coming good morning. temperatures are getting close to 80 degrees in many neighborhoods already. waldorf and laplatt gentleman 80 degrees. 82 in frederick county, maryland. 79 in winchester and annapolis. most of our morning showers are gone but a chance for more storms later on this afternoon. check on too of the beltway at the american legion bridge. fire department now arriving to an accident which has already been cleared. very good news. very quick work. let s head over to 395 loaded up by the pentagon to and across the 14th street bridge. 9:28. we ll send you back to the today show. another update in about 25 minutes. we ll see you then. you are the greatest thing about me this time it is forever no one else could do it better just love them. their hits just keep on coming for the san francisco born band train. they re back with a big hit. they re taking over our summer concert stage this friday, so you re going to want to be here. a week from friday one of the hit makers keisha will be performing live. superstar katy perry wrapping it up for us. so mark your calendars, come on down. it has been one hot, wild summer. a great lineup. huge. incredible, incredible concerts this season. they keep coming. there s no other concerts really on a friday. take a look at this sign. do you see anything wrong with it? let s take a look. if i could read it. yeah, okay. i think the apos trop apostroph the wrong spot. we re having a vision test. the next one beef stake tomatoes. i feel it s jay leno. a guy who has made it his mission to fix typos. these guys are going to fix typos one sign at a time all across the country. if you don t want them to come after you, you ll want to get some of the high-tech gadgets for kids before they head to school. they make them smarter so they don t sell beef stakes. they re going to help the students in your lives make it easier and a cool alarm clock so you don t have to shake your kid or douse them with water. douse them with water? i guess we know what happened to tamron when she was growing up. nothing like the love of the mother. delivers an electric shock. you do take good care of your puppies, though, right? i try, i try. in today s kitchen if you re looking for new ideas for dinner, three easy ways to spice up your chicken, beef or fish. do you like cajun? oh, yeah. these are cajun marinades. love them. first, though, al loving that slice. a check of the and a good morning to you i m news4 today meteorologist chuck bell. we have a very pleasant albeit humid morning here in washington. temperatures are in the upper 70s to 23450er8 degrees at this point in time. here s a check of the radar. over the last hour a couple of lone some showers rolling into the west virginia mountains out to the shenandoah valley. most of our earlier thunderstorms are long gone. have a chance for more showers and storms coming up later on this afternoon. today s high 93. teams high 95. latest weather. you don t even want to know what you missed. a comedy routine like no other from al roker. up next, can you spot them? the man on the crusade to fix the typos on every sign in america. from capital one, we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned an l.a. getaway twice as fast. we get double miles every time we use our card. no matter what we re buying. and since double miles add up quick. romans! get em! 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[ laughs ] i tell my husband the more time i spend in it, the less stressed i feel. and the fewer headaches i get. honey, mommy s having a timeout, ok? [ male announcer ] meet the family and the toyota sienna on youtube. have you ever driven by a restaurant or gas station and you notice a typo? you probably just kept driving by, right? not these guys. jeff deck and benjamin made it a mission to hunt down the errors. they re the authors of the great typo hunt. two friends changing the world one correction at a time. good morning. great to be here. what made you decide to do this? i wanted to change the world in some small way and i had to ask myself, what am i actually good at? what s my own superpower? the answer i came up with was editing. i worked as an editor. i could spot a typo at 100 yards. and how did you get dragged along? well, he wanted some road companions. the first rule is always hunt with a buddy. so he called me up. i remember him mentioning the road trip. i didn t really process the typo until we were on the road. in fact, as a superhero, that you would be if you re batman you would be robin in the typo world. let s get started. you found a total of 437 typos. some of them you actually a lot of them you fixed. a little over 50%. there were some we just couldn t get to or couldn t convince people we needed to fix. a lot of them we actually did meet with success. you have a typo you found in pennsylvania, a big old spelling error. take a look. beefstake tomatoes. that one was unfortunate because they had the wrong steak there, like a stake like a wooden stake instead of meat steak. i saw a bigger version of the same error up in the front window. sometimes it s an uphill battle. now it looks like beef tomatoes. apostrophes a big problem. we were driving by crossing the border into arizona from new mexico and bring your camera s. that does not belong. it is as big as my head, so we had to swerve off the road, dodged some cacti and took that apostrophe out. that was later on. had to wrestle that cacti to the ground. here is a diner in maryland. one d too many in pudding. not enough. this illustrates having different tools in the typo correction kit. you never know when something like chalk is going to be used. is this like your utility belt? yeah. took care of that one immediately. there s a store selling sweatshirts. they had a problem, right, jeff? this is in myrtle beach, south carolina. benjamin was sick at the time so i went out and did some it typo hunting alone and came across this one. convinced the store owner to get up on the ladder and fix that one. i held the ladder. that was my support role. very nice. and in las vegas, they went apostrophe crazy. once again the apostrophe stuck in plural words. we bought an array of sharpies. this was the moment the brown sharpie had a chance to shine. and boom. there you go. you fixed it up. it disappeared. thank you so much. you have your kit and one for you, typo correction kit for your very own. very nice. i will use this wisely because it s a power not to be used for evil. gentlemen, thank you. the great typo hunt, two friends changing the world one correction at a time. thanks so much. you can go on your own typo hunt at todayshow.com. up next, you wouldn t meet these guys if you didn t have these gadgets. it s all in the pepperation. we hand-season fresh, never-frozen usda choice beef and cook to order. new handmade burgers with fries starting at just $5.99. like the rojo burger, drenched in rich, smoky hickory sauce. for a little more, enjoy the new avocado burger, or the ultimate stacked, with twice the meat and cheese. wrap your hands around the perfect burger with fries. starting at just $5.99, right now. only at chili s. introducing total plus omega-3 honey almond flax cereal. all the nutrition of total, plus 10% daily value omega-3 ala, and a delicious honey almond crunch. new total plus omega-3. and a delicious honey almond crunch. mmmmmm. mmmmmm. wow! you have got to be kidding me. 80 calories? light & fit has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand. light & fit. irresistible taste. fewer calories. i love light & fit. new aveeno positively radiant tinted moisturizers, with scientifically proven soy complex and natural minerals give you sheer coverage instantly, then go on, to even skin tone in four weeks. new aveeno tinted moisturizers. moh-ohm. -do you have your lunch? -yes. and you know where your classroom is? uh huh. mom, i can walk from here. what about your. mom, i got it. 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[ female announcer ] lactaid®. the original lactose-free milk. this morning on today s tech back-to-school gadgets from elementary school to high school, even college, high-tech mommy is here with cool tools for your kids so that they can rule at school. good morning. good to see you. thank you for having me. you have some great things. i want to get to the list. you started out with elementary school. the elementary kids are learning how to tell time. this teaches them. it s called the tell me clock. my favorite part is that it turns green when it s okay to go into mommy and daddy s room. the 10-year-old comes in at 5:00 a.m. no more. it turns green. that means go. and what age group? i know it s elementary. the 2-year-old in my house likes it, too. this is a board that you write on with addition, subtraction and push the button and it erases so you want to get the repetitive motion of learning, writing upside-down is hard. with this you don t have to do paper. it has a travel case and is lightweight. and $350 laptop. it s the asis net pal and these are partnered they partnered with disin the not only for the exterior but all of the software as well so you don t need to worry about safety features. it has its own browser, all kid friendly, and make sure your children are doing appropriate things with their computer. that is great. and when it s lunch time, there s even a gadget to help out with that. a high-tech designed lunch box called the good bin. you use about $190 worth of plastic bags throughout a year especially in my house with four kids. really? forget about it. you have the good bin. you can wash it and design it. it s a great design lunch box. if it s too big, you said, no, it should fit into a back pack and be fine. you have to get kids up somehow. this is an alien alarm clock. if you want the alarm to stop, you have to shoot it. so that would get you out of bed and for a ram shung shus boy that would knock you out. you talk to it. now are we moving up into a higher grade level? this isn t elementary anymore, right? now we re middle school, high school. you talk to your alarm clock now, what time you want it to get up and stop talking. you go stop and then it snoozes. these are net book. this is the hot category on ebay right now. people are wanting cool designed, low priced, that is what you get. these are under three pounds. this is the athena. they come with these cool bags and it s a net book. three pounds and it has cool style. what is the price on this? this is about $600. you can find them starting at about $400 depending on what you want. this is high school/middle school age group there? exactly. and now i assume we re moving up to the college level. yes. if you want to see your kids my 4-year-old is far from college but i want to see his face every day, right? and if he wants me to pay his phone bill, then we re going to get something called face time on the iphone 4 which means i can actually see his face when i m talk iing to him. i can see in his eyes. when your 4-year-old gets to college there will be much cooler things. the face time is what it s all about. hit one button and i can look into his eyes. al roker made the point when we were kids in college our parents couldn t see us. does this put a little too much technology in the relationship? i want to see the eyes. this is called the he cecho gps personal locator so kids don t get lost on campus. you hold down the button, number one so they don t get lost on campus? as you re leaving your room, your dorm room, hold down number one. it remembers that location. you go off to class. where is my dorm room, it points you. you re scaring me. i don t know if i want to send my kid to college if he can t find his way back to a dorm room. what if he s in a new city. we re staying at home. if you can t make it to the dorm room, you re staying home. this is an alarm clock with wi-fi and different apps on it. you can touch the screen to get weather, netflix. it gets kids out of bed. this is awesome. and you said you could even get netflix on it. if your roommate is doing something questionable you don t want to pay attention to, start watching netflix. and then the max book pro. and you can get a free ipod touch with your pro, for about $1,000. foldable bikes f. you re going to school in a city, you don t want to leave your bike out, this is it collapses to the small size. pretty cool. you don t need to leave it out. everything is great except for the gps thing. the kid getting lost concerns me. thank you very much. up next, adding some raging cajun kick to your next dinner party. 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[ female announcer ] wisk is about to change the way you look at stains forever. discover the power of our stain spectrum technology in the new red bottle of wisk. coming august 2010. this morning spicing up tonight s dinner with some cajun flavor. the restaurant out of chicago, one of carl s favorites, he has three great marinades for steak, chicken and fish. i m one of those people i any they ever far enough in evaporates to make the marinade, but you can actually do a marinade and just let it sit for 15 minutes. 15 minutes to get a little extra flavor which really, really works. here with the flank steak, we like to heat the oil on this one. and then i want to you help me out. okay. and cajun is very easy. we have some rosemary, thyme and chillies. dump it into the oil? it s already hot. why do you heat the oil? then it activates the no, she put the roasted garlic in. it activates the herbs and kind of wakes them up. it s really nice. then we mix that around a little bit and then we would let this cool, okay, and when it s cool, then we would just take it, marinade the meat. i like to keep some separate and when we re serving just drizzle a little bit over that. rosemary, jalapenos and thyme. a little bit of creole seasoning or cajun seasoning and we can finish with that. before i cook that the bam. exactly. originated the bam. whenever we do chicken thighs, some olive oil, lemon juice, kind of make the marinade. we have a bigger one with this, i like to marinade it and then i like to save some more and then after i grill it, dip it right back in there. throw some onions in there, also some oregano and parsley, salt and pepper. and how long do you let it then sit with the chicken thighs? can you let it sit too long? it starts cooking. i like anywhere from an hour to like half like six hours is perfect. and the garlic goes in there, too. can you do it without the garlic or is that a must have? listen, i always say, your kitchen, your rules. hey, jimmy. the difference here is you have the lemon juice. and then we take a little bit over here. we would soak this. once we pull them right off the grill, dip them right back in the marinade again. the same with the fish? we do white wine and olive oil, basil, oregano and parsley. just kind of mix that up. a pinch. perfect. and put the herbs in there. did you it on tuna. we re out of time. jimmy, good to have you here. come on back. thanks so much. up next, actress > it is super sticky outside at 81 degrees right now. good morning everyone i m suit. it s 9:56. if you have a metro smartrip card pay attention how you use it. some trouble with those cards caused overcrowding. the new computer system can take longer to read the sensor. instead of swiping your smartrip card hold it over the sensor for several seconds. metro said it s looking into tissue. time to check in with the meteorologist chuck bell. the rain did nothing to cool us down. it hurt us. it hurt us cause. the only way to get the humidity any higher was make it rain this morning and that s exactly what happened. now it s super steamy out there. everyone coming in from the parking lot is wiping a bead of sweat off their brow and temperatures are in the upper 70s to near 80. it s humid. no rain showers left from our thunderstorms early this morning but we have another chance for thunderstorms firing up later on this afternoon so keep a weather eye to the sky. not expecting much severe weather today. still loaded up on 270 spup. no incidents. left involve from the earlier accident at the american legion bridge. one more stop in from the west along interstate 66, lanes are open at an earlier accident that was there is no more. good news. sunscreen is not the only protection you ll need to protect your kids from the sun. a closer hi, everybody, it s winesday, on this 4th, 2010, o president s 49th birthday he s only 49. august is a big month for birthdays around here. huge, huge, i can barely afford august, you know what i mean? today we re going to celebrate sunny s birthday. we re going to go back to the theater and watch the bachelorette. it s been extended, and it s supposed to be hysterical. we ll let you know about that tomorrow. your birthday is coming up soon. and so is yours. i m not having any more. there is something interesting going on in new york city. it s called entrepreneurialism. yes. now there is a guy who is top-secret. known only as ronnie. yes. he makes incredible that s the back of ronnie s head. he makes incredible grilled cheese sandwiches and sells them on the black market, kind of. i love them. he said it s kind of like a drug deal. peel text him and say, i need the gouda. he shows up on the corner and he hands them the sandwich. they hand him cash. it s $5 to $7. depending on the kind of cheese you use. but ronnie s afraid that the health department is going to bust you. what are you doing that the health department is going to get you? this is unlicensed food establishment. but otherwise, it s nice and clean, there s no absolutely. we know, we hope your voice is distorted. and we pray we don t show you on camera, because we don t want you to get arrested. but the way ronnie makes the grilled cheese, he doesn t make it the normal way. he does a regular grilled cheese and he does something in secret. he wraps it in foil and puts it in the oven on 500. so it gets crispy. that s your secret? yes, it is, $5 to $7. please don t show his face, you doan want ronnie going to prison. now back up like that, just keep going. good, good. wait a minute, come back for the money. wait, wait. okay. back up. is this like a crime? back away, we got to try these. what kind of cheese did you use on these? one is american with bacon and the other is cheddar with jalapeno. i think i got the cheddar. i can t have the jalapenos. can you have jalapenos. i can have jalapenos. i m not even supposed to have bread. are these jalapenos krasy-hot? meet yum hot. i haven t had bread since thanksgiving. oh, my gosh.dium hot. i haven t had bread since thanksgiving. oh, my gosh. we re breaking the law. that s so good. ron? delicious! so delicious, we wish the best of luck with your business. no, we don t, because we don t like people who are breaking the law. i really like ronnie. i want ronnie to do so well, he can open up an honest establishment. but what makes it fun is you get it secretly on the corner, that s what makes it exciting. he it s probably an all-cash business. we wish you good luck, ronnie. we really do. don t turn around. and don t turn the lights on for him. he didn t give it to us, we paid him. all right. thanks, ronnie. this brings us to our next topic, which is very important. the obesity rate is up, big-time, thanks to ronnie. apparently they went through all the different states and figured out which states had the most obese people and which states had the least obese. most obese is mississippi. yeah. but this is interesting. because people actually called in, i mean they called people and asked them about their weight and height and stuff. so it s really based on how honest you were, too. would you be? no. i mean, who is? that s right. they say the healthiest places colorado, doesn t surprise me. and d.c. which did surprise me a little bit. let me think about all the parks that are in d.c. and the bike paths and people are very active. or maybe they just lie more. what a surprise more, they lie more in washington, fancy that. you know i m going to wipe my hands on the don t, don t! i am. i need something. what? we should tell what the man-kini is. that s fine. here s okay with the man-kini. these are supposed to be derriere-lifting undergarments. you re holding the one for men called a maniki. you put your cheeks in the back. i want jerry stop picking on jerry. would you slip this on, honey? leave jerry alone. don t give that one to jerry. he says, put the other one on. i like how you say to jerry jerry said, you put the other one on. jerry is a kinky guy, we love him. you tell me if these tiny little spindly straps can hold up someone s backside. yours, not mine. anyway, they re supposed to lift. and they re $29.95 at maniki fashions.com. thank you, sweetheart. you know who else has a big business going on. i think hers is legal and hopefully she s going to declare her taxes, madonna and her daughter, lourdes. a new line of clothing inspired by her daughter, she s 13. all kind of cool fashions. we have molly hamillstein. and logan. hi, kids. you guys are modeling them for us. you guys like madonna? yes. what s your favorite madonna song? material girl of course. do you really like her music? uh-huh. and what do you guys think of lourdes, her daughter? a good fashionista. what year were you girls born? how old are you guys, ten? we were born in 1989. 89, really? 1990. confessions on the dance floor, one of her new cds, it s really good. these are clothes that are a throw-back to madonna, only available at macy s, thank you, ladies, you look really cute. you know that was kind of a cool story. you know how i don t love technology. but in this case, you wish you would have. this woman in atlanta was in her apartment and somebody broke in and started robbing her, okay? they tied her wrist together to the top of the bedboard and started stealing stuff, hit her with a gun and everything. the guy was about to take her computer and she said, you don t want to take that computer because there s a tracking device, and we ll find you. so he left the computer. there she was, tied up, scared, and trying to figure out how she could reach the computer with her feet. she was trying to type with her toes and that wasn t easy. so she took the power cable in between her toes and started typing to her boyfriend who she met online and he got the cops to come over and get her. and what do you think of that? that is such a modern story in so many ways it s disturbing. i know, right. the boyfriend she met online comes over? but it saved her. you should get more techie, in case something happens to you, you could use your toes to go online and get a date. one or the other. yes, hoda. anyway, what else do we have going on? we got sarah going on. we re asking people if they would wear their undergarments to lift their derriere. elaine wrote, nothing wrong with a booty bra. a booty bra. and gretchen wrote, no, and deprive the world of my flat, saggy bum. and kathy wrote if there was an undergarment that would lift everything up, i would live in it. i don t know if that would work. we haven t tried it, so we don t know. i m too busy wearing i got home so late last night. that i promised america that i would wear this thing a half an hour every week. i got right you wore it again? is there another picture? yeah, we have a picture. you stopped that s the old one. that s not the one i m waiting for. that was the only picture. there was some fans you stopped on the plaza, there were two teachers from south carolina, dale and amy that you posed with. and nobody believes that it was actually you because they had been at the wax museum before. it was hanging up in the south carolina school now, you re in an elementary school. i just got a letter from somebody who said, look at this picture, this was taken by somebody you didn t even know it at the time. you came along and said, would you like me to take that for you? you took the picture and it was somebody that knew me and said please tell your co-host, coda, that she was the nicest woman they ever met. is that sweet? that s sweet. thank you, sarah. up next, working mother of three, marcia gay hardin on why she s become a royal pain. thank you! phew! 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[ female announcer ] splenda®. america s favorite no calorie sweetener. we re looking sweet.. get on your feet. yeah! we got the beat. this year for back to school show your true spirit with a look that s most likely to be you! we got the beat! there s smart and there s kmart smart. 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. it s simple; at pso, we set out tot your dog to discover the science inle. some of nature s best ingredients. we created purina one with smartblend. new, delicious shredded morsels and crunchy bites, with real meat, wholesome grains and antioxidants, for strong muscles, vital energy, a healthy immune system, and a real difference in your dog. purina one improved with smartblend. discover what one can do. she s got an oscar and a tony under her belt, why not head to the beach? absolutely. that s just ha actress marcia gay hardin has done by starting in usa network s royal pain set on toney long island. dr. lawson is only one doctor. you can only help one person at a time. we re helping people now. is it better to help a few people now rather than help many in a couple of years when hampton s heritage opens the clinic? you mean if it opens the clinic. i read your proposal, you can use that money for anything you want. i want a community clinic. and marcia gay hardin gets what she wants. this is a hot ticket, this show, it really took off. it s fantastic. it s starting the second season, usa second season and we have so many viewers and i think you have to hand it to mark freston, he s the mcgyver of doctors, he can do a tracheotomy with a wine corkscrew. he s a super nice guy and the show has such a great feel, great cast, great crew. how does your character play? is that correctsnarky. i get what i want and i want what i get. she s running the hampton s heritage hospital. she doesn t want to see the power go away to a clinic. so the fight is about her keeping control of the purse strings. and ha doesn t oscar-winning, tony-winning actress see in a project that s going to be on cable when she s probably being offered meaty, meaty movie roles, too. og, we re not doing it today. but surely you re in demand what was it about the story and the way it was written that appealed to you? many things. first of all, that it takes place in new york as well. i m a mom, i ve got three kids, so it s nice to be abe to come home at the end of the day. i love that on cable you can play characters a little more complicated. in this case, she was snarky and not nice, i love that. and now they re going behind the scenes and making her a little bit different, a little bit homeyer. in the hamptons they re shooting it on site there. not in a bathing suit. maybe one of those bras. but you have to see yourself. you were fondling it for hours after you finished talking about it. a lot of sexual frustration going on there, your no idea. but anyhow we saw you in god of carnage . would you ever consider going back to something we are going to do is it in california. knock wood, we re going to do it in california. the original cast. the original cast for two months in california. jeff daniels, james gandolfini and hope for some reason, your cast just rang a bell i think with sh. i think there s something about seeing james gandolfini beaten up on a couch by me. it s just brilliant. and i was reading something about, you and your daughter, a project you guys have going with the eyes, right? you can you believe it s back-to-school time? august is back-to-school time. it sort of hits me with a bit of a shock. one of the things i ve done for back to school is i ve teamed up with bausch & lomb, as back to school campaign. we re encouraging parents to take their kids to the doctor to make sure they have proper eye care. one things that is not widely known is kids who wear glasses at school, they won t wear them, their performance goes down in academics and threat iciathleti proper eye care. and there s the seeing eye-to-icon test. this is one thing that we try to work on all the time. seeing eye to eye, parents can write a story of their own, they can win $5,000 for a scholarship. and go to the american music awards. how do you, how do you do that? where do you go, is there a website? it s facebook.com/softlens. my daughter is starting on those next week. disposables? mother s best friend. you don t have to worry about the cleaning, it s fantastic. marcia, and you can see her all the time. royal pain is tomorrow night and every thursday night at 10:00 p.m., 9:00 central on usa. the grown-up s guide to birth control right after this. hey guys, i got some more savings for ya, and this one i m taking to the house. the ice cream man is here! breyers all natural grasshopper pie. walmart s the only place you can get it. they love it when i take my work home with me. [ shaniya ] daddy i want more ice cream. now with nutriummoisture. adding nourishment to freshness. so you can revitalize your mind and nourish your skin. dove go fresh with nutriummoisture. fresh at its best. dove go fresh with nutriummoisture. vegetables are naturally low in calories. v8 juice gives you 3 of your 5 daily servings. it s a tasty, nutritious way to make is number go up. and help this one go down. v8. what s your number? 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. he you think of birth control education, the first thing that probably comes to mind is not middle age. but it s women over 40 who have a higher proportion of unintended pregnancies than women in their 30s. so we thought it was time to bring up the grown-up s guide do birth control. married or single. all in this month s ladies home journal. where julie bain is the creative director. so whether you re 15 or 50, the best form of birth control is always the condom, is that right? well, you need to combine it. but i think especially for women our age, if you re like if you re divorced and you re dating again? you ve got to refamiliarize yourself with the condom. it s your best friend. it s the only form of birth control that protects against stds. so even post-menopausal women who know that they re not going to get pregnant need to use them because you re still going to get is that the highest number of women actually getting stds these days, in record numbers? it s very high numbers. i mean hpv virus is very high. and there yes. herpes, absolutely. when you ve been married for sometime and you don t want to get pregnant, some women are on the pill. i mean are there any other forms of protection you need to take? when you look at the numbers, i m sorry, but if half the people are cheating in this country, it s scary out there. and i think women need to be aware of the fact that as they get older, they need to realize that they can get pregnant. in their 40s, they think i m done having a family, can t get pregnant. that s not true. you have to take a woman s personal considerations into play when you re thinking about birth control. that will help them dictate which choice they want to make. we have a variety of choices. what should we talk about first? well i want to mention that the pill, talking about the peri menopause, birth control pills can help you through the transition, there are benefits, it can help with hot flashes and help with dryness and things like that. so i know a lot of women who have, who have used the pill to kind of get through penri menopause. they ask you immediately when you re on the pill and tell you immediately to get off the pill if you re diagnosed with breast cancer. it s very important for a woman to say to her doctor, whether or not she has a personal history of breast cancer. she may opt to do something that s nonhormonal. so it s there s contraindications, a pill can be great for women in their 40s. what about the iud? everyone said forget that, never use that again. that surprised me. i learned that in many other countries, it s the most popular form of birth control. it hasn t really caught on in this country because there was some bad pr. it s quite effective, it lasts for a long time. the copper one has no hormones. there are two on the market. one does contain hormones which is good for five years and the other which can be kept for ten years. they re great, but in the right patient. i am somewhat guarded about recommending it for my younger patients. in the back of my mind, is the concern, will there be potentially infertility down the road, but for a woman who is done with child-bearing and doesn t have issues with irregularity, bad cramping, the iud is great. what about the sponge? the sponge is back. remember the sponge-worthy episode of seinfeld ? absolutely. if you re dating and not having sex regularly. can you go to the drug store, it s disposable, can you leave it in for 30 hours. it s pretty easy. if you use it correctly, it has a pretty good effectiveness. it does not protect against stds, and i think that s real important. i think dating needs to be defined, dating in a monogamous relationship. get over your squeamishness, buy them, put them in their bedside stand. people are much more accepting of using condoms now. what about the ring? this is a great product and people are becoming more familiar with it the nuvo ring is a hormonal form of birth control. much like the patch or birth control pills and it s great for people who are not terribly compliant and have a tough time remembering to take the pill. this skinny little ring is inserted we re, we re about to go, we re about to go to commercial without anything, so thank you, ladies. this is fascinating. thank you. we ll be back after this. 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! 100% natural nuts and granola in bite sized clusters. it s a little bit of nature. a little bit better. and nature approves. granola nut clusters from nature valley. free health care being offered to more than 1,000 people today in the district. coming up on news 4 midday we ll have a live report from the convention center with dozens of doctors are standing by. also coming up the dangers of sunlight to your child s eyesight. uv radiation can cause 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. we re back on this wednesday with more of today, and it s time to play who knew. the topic today is famous topics. she s ready to hand out $100 to get the questions right, and to those who don t, they get kathie lee s cd. here with me is poe fesor 6 english and fordham university. this is a mother-daughter team from louisiana, texas. try to finish this often-repeated presidential quote ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. you re good. yes, indeed. terrific quote. that one is from john f. kennedy inaugural address in 1961. it s a funny thing about inaugural addresses. without a take-away line. they slide off into the ether very quickly, out of memory. but this was one of the all-time great take-away lines, right up there with franklin roosevelt s we have nothing to fear but fear itself. this lovely couple is from ohio, which famous athlete said the following inspirational quote it ain t over until it s over? i ll give it to the guy. yogi berra. there you go. best, best quotes ever. yogi berra had the best quotes ever. he was the catcher for the new york yankees, during the 1940s and 50s. a great ball player. a free swinger. not only at plate, but also with the english language, we ll always remember him for that. even though he did say, more recently, he said, i didn t say most of what i said. i love it. back across to kathie. this lovely couple is celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, they re from south carolina. the quote, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. is the opening line for which charles dickens novel? i ll let my husband answer. a tale of two cities. he s so smart. yes, he is smart. we re batting 1,000. we re doing well. a tale of two cities. that question is a little bit harder. because the line has become disconnected from the novel. the 12 words are the first 12 of a sentence that runs 119 words and takes up the entire first paragraph of the tale of two cities. dickens was paid by the word. can you imagine what an editor today would do with that it. maybe he might do something like what herman melville did in moby dick his first sentence is three words call m me ishmael. time is money is a phrase often repeated. who said it first? i m going to go with benjamin franklin. that means you got it right. geniuses! they re geniuses at the msnbc digital cafe. the benjamin franklin was an inventor as well as a quote meister. he s responsible for the bifocals i ll be wearing in a couple of years. he was a one-man quotation factory. he wrote them, printed them, sold them, made a lot of money, which led to another one of his quotations, there s nothing certain but death and taxes. back across to kathie. visiting from california, these lovely ladies, all right which alien creature said do or do not, there is no try. alf, e.t., yoda, or none of the above. c, yoda. golly day! yeah, baby. i got to say, len, this is pretty unprecedented. they re batting 1,000, all right. so yoda, that s a yoda quote. with yoda, you can, you can usually tell when it s yoda talking, because backwards run the sentences. but also on the extra-terrestrial quotation hit parade is e.t. phone home i m not sure if mr. spock from star trek quotes, but his classic greeting, live long and prosper. and there s also the oldie but goodie from the twilight zone to serve men. which turns out to be the title of a cookbook. what don t you know, len? you re very smart. back across to kathie. which comedian said 80% of success is just showing up? chevy chase, mel brooks, peter sellers or woody allen. i could be the only one to get this wrong. what do you think? i m going to guess. b. yes! we just gave away $500 so far. woody allen. i take full responsibility for this success. woody allen has been making a movie a year for about 40 years now. so it s easy to forget how he got started. which was as a gag writer and a stand-up comedian. who had a very interesting favorite topic, death. as in the i m not frightened of death, i just don t want to be there when it happens. let s go back across to kathie. a family from massachusetts visiting. which children s author wrote the following line a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men ? we re going to guess. and we re going to go with b, dr. seuss. [ buzzer ] ooh! you know what? somebody has got to get the cd. it s a prize, anyway. roald dal is great fun. i loved charlie and the chocolate factory, his writing comes from a very dark place. unlike dr. seuss, who is mostly sunshine and light. he had an unhappy childhood with cruel and absent adults. a lot of his books have children taking terrible revenge against villainous grown-ups. thank you, we gave away a lot of dough. coming up next, life before, during and after divorce, you are not alone. right after this. rm, fresh-baked strawberry toaster strudel. [ music ] see the difference? pillsbury toaster strudel, the one kids want to eat. 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 [ 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! 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[ 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. you buy the white dress, you say i do and you think it s going to last forever. because they tell you it s going to. but sometimes it just doesn t. sometimes what you thought it was a fairy tale romance turns into a dreadful divorce, which can be one of the most difficult and heart-wrenching experiences of your life. marcia sheryl is the author of divorce victory.com. and ladies health magazine. you ended up homeless and broke and just down and out. i did. from opening a business with my ex-husband, i was in the handbag business and we owned it togetherth and from the pages of vogue and elle and town and country, being homeless was a shocker to me. we lived together in a war zone for two years. war of the roses, exactly. what victory over divorce, what i m trying to show is you can be even happier. you can be double that kind of happiness. but it is kind of hard to prepare for something like this, michelle? it s scary. you never see it coming and even if you thought you did, you re thinking i m doing allky to preserve the situation, to keep it from happening. so when it does happen, you really have to take care of yourself. because you can easily fall apart. it s funny. sometimes it s not the big things that are so painful, it s the little tiny things. you mean like getting cleaned out of a certain bank account or something like that. when you re dividing things, sometimes people take things just to hurt you. because they know you love it. like an oil painting i had done of my daughter. the hardest part for most divorces is the threat that you re going to lose your chirmd. and you re not, but you think i take prozac, you sleep late. you re a workaholic, so am i. and you ll be made out to be like an unfit mother. or the alec baldwin case, the parental alienation case, which has been debunked. i was homeless and i m back doing my own handbag line now. so you can overcome it. but when you re in it it is so terrifying and so scary. and so many women have thought of suicide. and if they didn t have their children, i don t know if they d have the will to go on. what s the way to get out of the weeds when you ve just gone through a divorce and things aren t looking great for you? the first thing you should do is work on healing, a lot of people are wary of going to get counseling or therapy. but go see somebody. there s low-costs. and see someone. rely on a really good friend. not the one that s going to throw it in your face, but someone who has been supportive. and work on creating a new i d city for yourself. you ve been tied to someone else for so long, you don t have your goals or vision for your life. you need to recreate those things. there s nothing wrong with doing things on the outside. getting yourself a makeover, making over your space, creating all the things that you ever may have wanted to do, but didn t do. even with your own career. this can be an opportunity to try something you ve always wanted to try, but you always felt your role was a different role as a wife. you shouldn t blame yourself. i think there s a lot of self-blame that goes on. you spend a lot of time analyzing what we ve done wrong. we beat ourselves up so badly. we have the man who walks away with the 20-year-old secretary, what do you do? and you go to court and the judge says get a job and you haven t worked in 20 years. or get a job and you were a graphic designer 20 years before technology. and it s really about empowering yourself. it s about thinking what is the thing that i always wanted to do? you have, look at it as an opportunity. and the second life is the best life. oh, my god. i like her. thanks so much. up next, nigella s kitchen. i wish you had smell-a-vision. it s unbelievable. enjoy yoplait whips two delicious ways. 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. 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. artificial colors don t rain nourishment down from the sky. and kids don t jump into pools of high-fructose corn syrup. or play in fountains of sugar on a hot summer day. water is the pure choice. for your mind and body. so drink better, live better. embrace the pure life. nestle pure life. time for today s kitchen we re getting salty with the british diva herself, nigella lawson. she s an author of many books, but nigella fresh is the latest collection of some of her most popular recipes and she has another one coming out later. very busy you are. i like being busy, because in a sense i m being busy doing what i like, which is cooking, eating, writing. it s what i love. this is kathie lee s favorite recipes of all time. she s adding crab meat to it. i can t wait. tell us about it. it s a seafood pasta, which i think is so summery. but you know, when it s summer, you don t necessarily want to be spending a lot of time over a stove. so the great thing about this is you re not really cooking. you ve got the pasta there. this, i use a pestle and mortar. but you can use a bowl and grater. this is garlic. put some chilies in. give it a little spice. but stand well back. it makes a horrible noise, i apologize. it s like a persistent headache. get your frustrations out. it s a great thing to do, you know? therapy. certain people you may have been annoyed with at work. they shall remain nameless. then we ve done that. we have. so now we can add the crab meat. what kind of crab meat do you like to use? in england we can get the brown meat as well. and it s more economical. but like maryland blue crab. the crab meat you get in the states is so wonderful. what s that you poured in there? lemon zest and juice. i think it has to be summery, summery. and virgin olive oil. you want to do that while you pour or you can do it all? no. you woman can do it all. you look like you train properly. in the kitchen. a lot of heavy lifting i do. i m going to require you to do some. because if i put this pasta here. i might ask you, are you strong enough to lift this. oh, come on now. that is very good. what kind of pasta do you use? i like linguini. some arugula, some watercress. i love the big bowl. this is fruiti de mari. you want to ut p your clams and things in it. the second thing mussels, very good. garlic and chili, i ve thrown in the mussels and throw in the sherry. and two or three minutes and they will be cooked. and the sherry or the liquor from the mussels crease the sauce for the pasta. this reminds me of my friends in italy. we have to try them and get involved here. little happy clams. i like the yellow of the mussels. you can use the mussels with tweezers to get the other mussels out. how did you know that? that works. it s going to be awesome. get involved. nigella you re working on another book that s coming out, right? i just put it to bed. so we ll be waiting for it in the fall? i ll be back here. she s never going to get out of there. everybody is going to be eating it and it s all plumped. it s clumped. thanks so much. we ll be back with more of today on nbc. hoda and i are going crazy over this. the nigella lawson pasta crab mussel thing. it s awesome. what s up, sarah? we ve got a lot of serious commentary today, maybe because of the topics we covered on birth control and divorce because it s a little heavier stuff. we still want the fans to send in their what? pictures to hoda and kathie lee, at klg & hoda.com. the typical ones, hoda looks great. those are typical? there was a prisoner. they get facebook time. there s a knew group of housewives, the real housewives of washington, d.c. they re going do drop their dishtowels to visit with us. that s what it says. what kids and parents need to know about college. everyone has a story, my friend flo lazy is going to sing being strong. a mom is coming on with her little baby, who has a heart situation. but it s just shocks the mother, how strong she s become through the situation. we all need something like that in our life. have an awesome wines-day, we ll see you tomorrow. ñq