Transcripts For WRC Today 20100813 : vimarsana.com

and good morning. welcome to today on a friday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. this is the fourth straight day storms have pounded floiowa. ames has been hard hit, flooding so severe there the city has been forced to shut down its water supply to about 56,000 people. we ll have a live report from the scene straight ahead. also ahead an nbc news exclusive. general david petraeus spoke with nbc s david gregory overnight. his first interview since taking command of u.s. and nato forces in afghanistan. he is onboard with president obama s july 2011 date to begin pulling traps out of the region or is he not? we ll get a live report from kabul just ahead. also ahead, lindsay lohan is only 24 years old. she s had more than her share of trouble with the law and addiction. right now she s in rehab for the fourth time. this time it s been ordered by the court after she served a couple of weeks in jail. how did her once promising young life seem to unravel? was there anyone in her family who could have prevented it? coming up we re going to talk exclusively to her mom, dina lohan. one of music s hottest new stars ke$ha takes over for a concert. let us start with a check of the top stories. ann is off this morning. natalie morales is over at the news desk with all of the headlines. good morning. good morning to you, matt and meredith. good morning, everyone. more rain, more problems expected today in iowa where it has been raining and flooding in some places for days now. nbc s ron allen is in iowa. ron, good morning. reporter: good morning to you, natalie. this is typical of what you see in some towns in this part of the state, all these homes behind me are evacuated. the rest have been gone for several days now. the good news is the water is, in fact, receding. it s still three or four feet deep in some places in this neighborhood and in others and of course the forecast does call for more rain. the problem with that, all of that water has no place to go. for three days heavy rain and thunderstorms have caused widespread flooding across iowa. washing out roads and closing businesses. in ames, record flooding caused water pipes to break thursday. the city had to shut down the water supply leaving 56,000 people without drinking water. thank you. reporter: residents will have to rely on bottled water until the system is repaired. that could take days. in altuna, water was moving so fast, it swept three cars right off the road and into a creek. 11 people were trapped under water. a 16-year-old girl did not survive. this woman had to wade into four feet of water to save the few items that didn t get soaked. it s a theme that s played out in homes across iowa. flooding shut down iowa state university. water rushed through the school coliseum from parking lots to stairwells to the basketball court. but people still found a way to get around. some even used the unexpected pond on campus for a little summer fun. well, the situation out here is a little bit more serious than that. it could be three or four more days, the residents tell me, before they think they ll be able to get back and see what they can salvage in the basements of their homes. a pretty grim situation for now, natalie. they do need a break there. ron allen in colfax, iowa. u.s. combat operations are winding down in iraq. richard engel got an update from the commanding general in iraq. richard, good morning. reporter: good morning, natalie. general odierno says he is confident for the withdrawal of american combat troops this month but it will take years to know if the iraq war overall has been a success. i think if we get this right, overall stability will improve in the region, meaning it will translate to the united states. reporter: but it s still an open question. it is. reporter: if we don t get it right, then it was not worth it. is that what i m saying is the result we ll know in three to five years is what i ve always said. reporter: three to five years from now to know if the iraq war brought more stability to the middle east. american commanders here say they are optimistic but are clearly being cautious in their assessment. natalie? richard engel reporting live for us. southwest airlines is defending its policy on unaccompanied minors after three jacksonville children bought plane tickets to nashville and flew there without their parents knowing. the three are 15, 13, and 11 years old. they say know one at the southwest airlines counter questioned them or even asked for i.d. they say no policies were broken. the company by someone over the age of 12 can fly. i m sure a lot of questions being asked today, though, about that. in trouble. they paid cash. babysitting money. pooled it together. crafty little devils. anyway, natalie, thanks very much. let s get a check of the weather from mr. roker. how is the weekend looking? pretty good for us good morning. we have rain-soaked roads on friday morning and we have accidentses a result. around the region passing showers, mostly light. but there s one heavy downpour near colonial beach in the northern neck of virginia drifting to the west. we ll dry out with sun back, highs in the mid 80 s tomorrow, mid 80s. sunday and monday, highs mid and upper 80s with a chance of and that s your latest weather. meredith? al, thank you. according to the latest nbc news/ wall street journal poll, seven out of ten americans believe the war in afghanistan will not end successfully. the u.s. effort there is now being led by general david petraeus. he sat down with meet the press moderator david gregory for his first interview since taking command. david gregory is in kabul this morning. david, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, meredith. and the public s frustration with the war is really principally on the mind of general petraeus as he works this strategy. he knows that they have to demonstrate some progress here if the public is to be brought around, if he is to deal with this deadline question in a meaningful way. what is that withdrawal time line? july of next year is when u.s. troops are supposed to begin to transition out of the country. well, is that the beginning of the exit strategy? my time with general petraeus leads me to believe there will be some push back on that and in our interview general petraeus made clear he doesn t know what will happen next july. listen. could you reach that point and say i know that the process is supposed to begin, but my assessment as the commander here is that it can cannot begin now? certainly, yeah. again, the president and i sat down in the oval office and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice where i understand the mission that s been assigned. we have recommended the strategy and the resources that are required for that strategy. and as there are changes in any of that, that s obviously how we communicate that to him, recognizing that he has some h issues with which he has to deal that we don t have to worry about, but that s real life. and, again, that was the process that we worked through last fall. reporter: the president had to deal with the politics of the war which are increasingly sour back home. but what s important here, meredith, conditions based, not a firm deadline in general petraeus mind, and this is going to be very interesting in terms of how this plays out over time. he appears to be trying to do what dein iraq which is try to slow that washington clock down. i was going to say, i wonder how his comments will play here when 58% of the people in our poll are very negative about the war. reporter: well, what he will acknowledge is just that, that there is so much negativity and that he simply needs the space to demonstrate some progress and that progress is really the best answer to the public s frustration. you do have to wonder, though, even different from the surge in iraq, this is a war that is 9 years old, that is confusing, that is frustrating, confounding on so many levels. does general petraeus, as highly regarded as he is, have enough time politically to execute on the strategy he thinks will work? i know you also asked him about the wiki leak on the afghan war. apparently that website will release another 15,000 documents. what does he say, the general, about potential damage? reporter: it s the first time that he s made his comments known. he does not know the content of this new document that s supposed to be on wikileaks but he does know and did say in the interview how damaging that initial was. they re learning more and more about who was compromised and this comes at a time of just critical importance. battlefield intelligence, the general told me, is so vitally important right now when you have such a lack of faith in the central government and the u.s. and coalition forces are about to launch a major operation in the toughest part of the kcounty which is down south in kandahar in the fall. for them to be losing those intelligence assets is a real blow. before you go, does he acknowledge things are not going as well as he had hoped in afghanistan, or does he say he seems some light at the end of the tunnel now that he s there? reporter: you know, i think both. i think he s clear eyes there s a results problem here. he s a realist. he always says that whether we re winning or losing. he doesn t like to get caught in one of those but, look, i think we re winning from the point of view there is some sign of progress and that s what we have to build on, there is momentum that can t be denied. i think he recognizes they re not quite there yet. david, we look forward to seeing your full interview with general petraeus on meet the press this sunday. thank you so much for joining us. reporter: thanks, meredith. it is 7:11. here is matt. federal investigators have wrapped up their work at the site of monday s dead ly plane crash in alaska that killed five people including former senator ted stevens. we re going to be talking to his youngest daughter in a moment. first nbc s michelle co-zin si kosinski has the latest. reporter: they want to talk to the four survivors recovering at the hospital. two of them had conditions upgraded. here in alaska with so many communities reachable only by air, flight is a way of life. so is extremely changeable weather and so are accidents. in alaska nature is a giant and where the skies positively buzz with tiny planes, the jagged peaks shrouded in clouds are a constant caution. but this crash has shaken the best of them. two legends died and both had been in crashes before. senator ted stevens, a fphoto taken the day before this disaster, was working to improve air safety. he survived a 1978 accident that killed his wife and four others. reportedly he talked about having a premonition his life would end this way. and the pilot, terry smith, whom every pilot here seems to have known, was named a legend by alaska air. he flew 28 years for them. his name graces this 737 in a museum. so how did this happen? what i saw was he probably got confused in the bad weather and he probably applied full power and started climbing and tried to outclimb all the mountains. reporter: in october terry smith and his wife had to crash land a piper can cub while on vacation in new zealand. but here treacherous weather and small aircraft are a way of life. the plane is described as his pickup truck. we do a different type of flying than when they bring pilots up in the states. this is what we have to do. we don t have instruments on both ends. we re not flying from an airport to another airport. we re flying from an airport out to nowhere. reporter: where one seems to take off or land every few seconds, planes have the right of way on roads. about one in 60 alaskans has their own airplane and the rest of americans is one in 820. this state has accounted for more than a third of all crashes. this tragedy resonates. senator stevens hometown, his neighbors expressed the great loss. a very giving yet unforgiving kind of land and ted knew that and that was part of what he loved about alaska. reporter: stevens pushed to have better safety equipment installed in airplanes. that will be one more part of his legacy, but that equipment was not installed in this plane. the public viewing will be tuesday and his funeral wednesday. matt? michelle, thanks very much. michelle kosinski in alaska this morning. lilly stevens becker is the youngest of senator stevens six children, his only child with his second wife katherine. good morning to you. good morning. my condolences. i know you and your five siblings and senator stevens 11 grandchildren will be in alaska soon. it will be a very difficult reunion. yes. we re all here now and we re spending time together. how did you find out about the crash? i was with my husband and with his sister and her family and my mother called me and i took the next plane to alaska and managed to get here. your mother, katherine, is senator stevens widow. i understand she was overseas when she got the news. how is she doing? no, i was the one who was overseas, but my mother is doing well under the circumstances and the support of all of our friends from around the state, the country and the world is really meaning everything to us right now. lily, i think back in 1978, your dad survived a plane crash that claimed the life of his first wife and here this other crash. did your father ever talk to you about concerns of flying in alaska specifically? as you know, he was a pilot. he flew in world war ii in china. he loves flying. he got certified to fly float planes just a few years ago and he had no concerns about flying in alaska, but he was concerned about making planes as safe as possible. 86 years old and yet everybody who has commented about your dad has talked about his spirit, his energy, his love of life. yeah, it sounds strange but i honestly believe he was in the prime of his life at 86. he was so energetic and he was constantly making plans for the future. spending time with family and working on projects that were really dear to him after his life in the senate. official tributes have been pouring in. the president, i know, has commented about your dad. but i m curious if you could talk to me a little bit about the tributes of the people there who called him senator ted or uncle ted. what have those meant to you and your family? they ve meant so much. dad surfed for over 40 years in the senate and served the state even longer than that. we shared him with alaska. alaska s a small state and we re like a big family here. it s like hearing stories from family about how much he meant to them. it s the best. you shared with us a photo of you and your dad dancing at your wedding. i know it s one of your fondest memories. how do you want your dad to be remembered? oh, i would love him to be remembered as a kind and honest man who was very humble and he was, you know, right now he would be unhappy that this was all about him because there are so many other families who are grieving, too, our good friends. i would also be remiss if i department mention the immense rescue effort that went on both civilian and military, and it s just astounding the bravery that will come out is overwhelming. lily stevens becker, our condolences to you and your entire family. thank you. and thank you for joining us. it s now 18 after the hour. here is meredith. and now to the latest twist in the jetblue saga and the now famous flight attendant. steven slater s story is not what it seems. nbc s jeff rossen is here. reporter: good to see you. america loves this guy but now some passengers on that plane say, hang on, before you hold him up as a hero he was the problem. they say he was rude and angry the entire flight. even as passengers hold to his story, steven slater stayed home and stayed humble. thank you all so much. it s been amazing the support and the love and everything that s been given to me by community and friends. reporter: his story hit a chord, mistreated by a rude passenger. he snapped, deploying the plane s emergency chute at the gate. but now some passengers are telling a different story that slater himself was offbeat and angry even before take yoof in pittsburgh. it was obvious that he was disgruntled and that he was taking it out on individuals. reporter: warren was onboard in seat 2-a. his behavior throughout the whole flight was a little bit erratic. he was walking up and down the aisles slamming the overhead bins. he was slamming the refrigerator door and the ice and whatever they have up there. he was slamming that as well. reporter: she says slater was splang about passengers out in the open and refused to help her with a coffee spill. i pointed to him and showed him where the coffee was and he said, not right now, honey. reporter: and there s another problem the investigators say they still can t find anyone to corroborate slater s story about his confrontation with a rude passenger over that carry-on luggage. even jetblue executives are stumped. in a memo the number two in charge wrote to his employees, it s difficult to know with certainty what really happened. thursday slater s lawyer defended his client s 20-year record in the air including that final flight. stevens did his job effectively and appropriately. reporter: slater s boyfriend chimed in, too. do you believe the passengers who say he was rude to them? that s something i have no comment about that. the only thing i m going to say is steven absolutely adores flying. reporter: an act of defiance that seems more clear has more of a mystery of jetblue 1052. if convicted slater could face seven years in prison. we should mention he s pled not guilty. by the way, meredith, he says he still wants to be a flight attendant with jetblue. doesn t seem likely though. i don t know about that, jeff. thank you so much. and just ahead, what was jail like for lindsay lohan and can she turn her life around when she gets out of rehab? her mother speaks out in an exclusive live interview. just ahead, kelly anthony would have turned 5 this week while her mother sits in jail awaiting trial for her murder. are casey anthony s parents still standing behind her? i had this chronic, deep ache all over it was a mystery to me. i found out that connected to our muscles are nerves that send messages through the body. my doctor diagnosed it as fibromyalgia, thought to be the result of overactive nerves that cause chronic, widespread pain. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i learned lyrica can provide significant relief from fibromyalgia pain. and with less pain, i can do more of what matters to me. 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[ male announcer ] chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy. with a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably not that it always has to. good morning. 7:26 on this friday, august 13th. aaron gilchrist. breaking news on the roads. let s get to ashley linder and the news4 traffic network. live to chopper 4, looking at the major accident on the 270 headed northbound after democracy after you peel off the beltway. off to the far left to get by, single file over on the left shoulder. delays are adding up and it s heavy coming from the american legion bridge to the issue itself. once you get there you re in good shape. 59 southbound a major accident, medevac on the scene. heavy from woodbridge to get beyond that issue. back to you, aaron. thank you. a check on the forecast after the break. stay with pus. good morning. scattered light rain across much of the region this morning. a couple of areas we re getting heavier downpours very slow moving, heavy downpour near colleenial beach and the northern neck. elsewhere, scattered light rain. this should taper off and in this afternoon. highs in the mid 80s. good weather for the game at fedex field. humid sunday, monday. at chance for storms each day. ahead on news4 midday, party planning series continues with the most don t stop 7:30 on this friday morning. a great crowd jamming the plaza, getting ready to see ke$ha, one of the biggest of the year live in concert. i m meredith vieira alongside matt lauer. an exclusive live interview with dina lohan, lindsay lohan s mother. this is the first time she s spoken out since her daughter s two weeks in jail. what was that like for lindsay and how is her court-ordered rehab going? we ll talk to dina lohan straight ahead. new details in the casey anthony case, the florida mother charged with murder her daughter caylee who would have turned 5 this past sunday. her grandparents are still grieving, still looking for justice for caylee. coming up, we ll talk to them exclusively as well. plus, how do three children from florida 11, 13, and 15 buy airline tickets without i.d.s or their parents consent, jump on a plane and fly to nashville without anyone questioning them? we ll have more on that story in just a little bit. but we re going to begin this half hour with the troubled life of lindsay lohan, just 24 years old, already been in jail twice and now she s in rehab for a fourth time. so how did it get to this point? we will talk exclusively to her mom, dina lohan in a moment. but first, her daughter s story. he did it. you and you pack your bags. gone are the days when lindsay lohan s biggest punishment was summer camp detention. that s 90 days in jail. now the courtroom is where she s getting most of her screen time. lohan completed 14 days in jail for a probation violation on a 2007 drunk driving conviction. the former teen queen is completing a 90-day stay in drug and alcohol rehab. but what will be waiting for her on the other side? our experience working with lindsay lohan on her maxim cover was positive. maxim magazine asked her to be the cover. the lindsay lohan that showed up was happy, she was on time, happy to be at work. can the actress, star of hit movies like freaky friday you re ruining my life. and confessions of a teenage drama queen. i m from new york. take the drama out of her real life and get back to the business of selling movie tickets and, more importantly, should she? take the personal time off. you need it. her publicist has been advising high-profile clients for years. i think she needs to go away. i think she needs to go away and be missed. but what might be hard to miss is lindsay s next film project inferno on linda lovelace, the infamous porn star. to carry a movie like that, to play a porn star, i m not quite sure that i would have taken that big a leap. possibly a smart leap, lohan is appearing in machette. maybe machete is the start in action pictures. she would be great. she s tough. she s seen some stuff. however, as of now lohan does not appear in the movie s official trailer. is it difficult for lindsay lohan? yes. difficult for a lot of people in america right now. hopefully she has the kind of difficulty that she can can put behind her. this is a chance, an opportunity for positive change. dina lohan joins us exclusively. dina, good morning. nice to see you. an awful lot has happened in lindsay s life over the last couple of months. let s kind of get to it. a couple of weeks in jail, what was it like for her? actually, the judge is now being recused. we have a new judge on the case. i don t know if you know that. it just happened two days ago. so i think she went overboard and played serious hardball with lindsay. you don t think she deserved time in jail? not for this particular offense. she violated actually didn t violate she was supposed to be she was in for just missing a couple of classes that she made up and she was working at the time. so the judge went overboard and put her in serious lockdown for two weeks. what did she tell you about that time in jail? i actually visited her behind glass, and lindsay missed driving classes that she had made up when she went to court and now the judge is being taken off the case and it s a really serious offense for a judge. she went against the district attorney. was she given special treatment in jail? absolutely not. there are some reports other inmates were locked down, that other inmates were locked down as she was transferred. actually that s a safety precaution. it s not just lindsay but other inmates they do that. it s just pre toe kotocol in th. she is in court-ordered rehab. there is a report this morning that may end early. because the judge was recused herself or she would have been she wept against the district attorney s advice. so might it be a shorter time in rehab? yeah, it will be. when do you expect her to get out? i m not going to speak i m not going to speak for the attorneys. soon. have you been able to visit her in rehab? yes. and what are her spirits like? she s great. she s been through a lot. the judge played hardball. lindsay was in with alleged murder e murderers and she s become friends with a lot of them. lindsay s rolled with the punches and she s doing wonderfully. you keep saying the judge played hardball and there s a whole side story to that. well, she is fired basically. but i think a lot of people out there, dina, think that at some point lindsay had this coming to her, that it was probably even a good thing to get her behind bars for a slightly longer time than the first time and get her back into rehab for her own good. i think that s all propaganda and what people are reading and, you know, as you know you re in the business of entertainment, so i think a lot of it is preorchestrated and you re reading things that are not facts. it s not based on facts. this is the fourth time that she no, actually not. how many times has she been in rehab? in 2007 she was incarcerated for well, it was only 22 hours. i m talking about rehab. right. how many times has she been in rehab? two. two times? okay. my notes had four. i don t know where you re reading let s say it s two. clearly rehab the first time then did not work. well, i actually put her in rehab. and when you say not worked or works, i don t know where you re getting those i m just saying when i put her in at 19 years old in los angeles and with a young girl and got in trouble and i m certainly not condoning drinking and driving and what she did, but she is still paying a price from 2007 to now. it s the same offense so it s nothing nothing has changed. she said in 2007 in an interview it is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because i am addicted to alcohol and drugs. that was three years. she was 19. she s 24 now. has she changed? yes. has she changed? yes. she s grown up considerably. do you think she is capable of going through rehab this time, no matter how long it lasts and coming out a changed person able to handle her surroundings? absolutely. what gives you that confidence? age. just living life and growing up. you know this is coming and you ve heard this before, there is this feeling with a lot of people that the people closest to lindsay, and i mean you which people? you and your ex-husband are you talking about a source or family? you and her friends have done nothing to help her turn her life around. that s absolutely not true and it s just propaganda and what people are reading. you know, i have four children not just one and i love them all equally. i haven t been with my ex-husband in 15 years. that s a whole other dynamic i m not going to get into. but you re seeing it from reading what you read. i think the public and the people let s forget what s been printed. just tell me from your point of view. what would you like to know? do you think you have been there for lindsay, and talk about your ex-husband, too. he s been a parent for a certain period of her life. a parent or a parent? a parent. actually neither. okay. have either of you done what you think you could have done to help her along through some very difficult times and prevent her from getting into the situations she s found herself in? when you re a parent of younger children you have to let them go a little bit. when she went out to los angeles when she was 19, you know, i had to let her go. without failure, there s no success. he was there in close proximity but you can t make your child not go out and go to a club and not get behind the wheel of a car. and i don t condone any of that behavior. and i put her in the first rehab without court order and no one knows the facts. i don t speak about lindsay and when she does sit down and she will do an interview and she s brilliant and she will tell other children to try to help them from falling and getting up. why do you think she s made some of the choices she has in her life? why has it been so difficult to her or for her? have you been able to kind of put that in perspective? i don t know what s so difficult. i think every child goes through a lot of different things. my son just graduated assume cum laude from college. there was a lot going on at college. i don t really know lindsay, her life is magnified so she is under a microscope and she has you know, she has to really i raised my children to be normal and when they go out and lindsay doesn t realize she does have people watching her and she does have a lot of media surrounding her. she can t even go to starbucks without 12 cars following us. it s a little bizarre. and i think tabloids are daily and they follow these kids and it s not fair and in the old days like julia roberts and those girls didn t really have someone following them and their relationships and cheating on this one and it wasn t as magnified and now i think it s become with the internet and everything else it s become so much more profound to them and their lives that they can t r l really live. i m going to agree with you that a lot of it is purely stuff that s written in tabloids. i get that. but other things in her life she has simply done. she has gotten into trouble with the law. you can t blame it all on the tabloids. she s made some wrong choices. she is still paying the price from 2007 and the judge on her case played hardball and now the judge recused herself or she would have been fired and that will come out in the next week. i don t want to talk about that right now. so we have a new judge and it was just a little much for her. you know, we ve done case studies on other cases of the same dynamics as lindsay and she just got really hardballed. so in terms of parenting between you and michael, and you say he wasn t a parent or a paren you don t think the stage mom isn t justified? i don t know what stage mom is. i grew up in new york. i was an entertainer. my mother was on the radio so we go back in nose what i ve done. i ve chosen not to do that. my kids are now telling me to do that. as far as my ex, i don t really i haven t seen him in 15 years. i have criminal stayaways. i believe he goes to court on wednesday for his fiancee, another abusive charge against him. so, you know, he doesn t speak to us. he doesn t speak to lindsay. he doesn t speak to my other children. you mention you have other children. you have three other children. ali is how old? 16? 16. i think on her website it says future superstar. no, that s not her website. that s somebody else say iing that. i don t know where you got that from. she doesn t have a website. if you look at her and your other kids and they say, i d like to go into show business in some way, i d like to go out to hollywood, would you stop them now? you know, i wouldn t stop i m producing a film my son michael will be starring in. he s a lacrosse player and an actor. he s in finance but he wants to be an actor as well. i wouldn t stop my children from doing anything they want to do. it s not like i m pushing them. they re pushing me to help them. any temptation when lindsay gets out of rehab to grab her and get her out of hollywood and get her isolated? she ll be coming back to new york. los angeles is a little california is a wonderful state but in that world it s different there. it s a different game you play there. the court system and everything is a little different. we will keep posted on the developments. dina lohan, thanks for being here this morning. i appreciate it. 7:44. she s sticking around, more to talk about later. right now let s get a check of the weather from al. long the fauquier and loudoun county line. we do have wet roads and streets so watch out. we ve got reports of fender bender accidents around. it s in the 70s now. highs in the mid 80s as we dry out this afternoon, tonight and into tomorrow. matt? up next, what you can do to avoid paying hidden fees on your next flight. i was driving in northern california. my son was asleep. i really didn t see it coming. i didn t realize i was drifting into the other lane. [ kim ] i was literally falling asleep at the wheel. it got my attention, telling me that i wasn t paying attention. the car hit the brakes faster than i could. i had no idea the guy in front of me had stopped short. but my car did. my car did. thankfully, my mercedes did. [ male announcer ] a world you can t predict. demands a car you can trust. the e-class. the best or nothing. that is what drives us. you re the best. i thought you would like it. (announcer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you care. i love you mom. i love you too. choosey moms, choose jif. morning! mor-ning? i m your genie. you re wishing for a deliciously, nutritious fiber cereal. i am. well, you don t want that one. new kellogg s fiber plus cereal®. the delicious taste of berries, plus yogurty clusters, plus 40% of your daily fiber. plus wait for it. antioxidants! so, two more wishes. mmmm. maybe later, then. 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[ female announcer ] and save up to $15 off your refills. go to nasonex.com for details, terms and conditions. but it s also rich in powerful nutrients that help cleanse and purify your body. cranberries are the ninja fruit. wh-wh-whoa! ocean spray tastes good, good for you. announcer: today s consume certificate brought to you by bank of america. this morning on today s consumer hidden airline fees. the final stretch of the summer vacation season is in high gear and a lot of airline passengers are suffering from sticker shock when it comes to ticket prices. nbc s tom costello covers aviation and he is at reagan national airport this morning. tom, good morning to you. reporter: hi, meredith. good morning. you know the airlines say if you look at just the base fare, airline tickets are actually cheaper today than they were ten years ago, but ten years ago we weren t paying extra for luggage fees and today those fees are often just the beginning. outside the airport terminal in atlanta ken schaefer decided he had just one option i m not sure i could take this quilt. reporter: to throw the contents of his suitcase into the trash. i m not carrying all those. i like to read. reporter: it was cheaper, he says, than paying the extra $64 the airline wanted to check his oversized bag to omaha. i could have paid $65 and known thrown anything away but i wasn t willing to pay $65 when the ticket cost $160 to begin with. it s ridiculous. so this suitcase is gone. reporter: just down the curb the five members of the pleasant family managed to get everything into just two bags for their flight to cleveland. 25 bucks per bag but that meant 2-year-old james had to strap on a back pack. he carries his own bag because it s free. if he checks it, it s 25 bucks. reporter: americans are finding they have to fly light and go without if they want to avoid paying all the extra fees that come with air travel these days. baggage fees that r$15 to $25 pr bag. fees to book your flight by phone. fees to board early. fees for leg room or an aisle seat, fees to change reservations. those can go as high as $150. and your families in particular need to be careful about how much baggage they re checking, making sure it s not over the limit in order to not have a budget buster at the airline ticket counter. reporter: the airlines insist the $8 billion they earned in fees last year are finally helping them turn a profit after ten years of losses. and here s the key, if you don t check a bag, you re not paying anything more. if you don t board an airplane, you re not paying anything more. if you don t care where your sit onboard an airplane, you re not paying anything more. you re actually paying less. reporter: but congress and a lot of travelers complain it s not always easy to anticipate the fees before you head to the airport. back in atlanta ken schaefer had had enough. i m not going to do that. i m just not. i m not going to be held captive. reporter: southwest airlines doesn t charge to check your bag. by the way, some advice if you re going to fly, check in online. check your bags in online. that s cheaper than bringing them to the airport. meredith, back to you. tom costello, thank you very much. just ahead, move over 20-somethings. we ll talk about the message it s sending to women. plus, one of pop music s rising young stars ke$ha in concert. 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[ indistinct shouting ] what s in your wallet? the smell of freshly juiced wheat grass and hand pressed shirts. whatever scents fill your household, purina tidy cats scoop helps neutralize odors in multiple cat homes. purina tidy cats scoop. keep your home smelling like home. it s doing season. when we grab a little spare time and get after it. the home depot has all the right prices and all the know-how to start making things happen, less with our wallets, and more with our own two hands. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. right now, estate oak laminate s at the new lower price of just 87 cents per square foot. cool start this morning, as we look live over the nation s capital. light rain in some parts of the area. good morning, i m aaron gilchri gilchrist. 7:56 on friday, august 13th. break news out on the roads. let go straight to ashley linder and the news4 traffic network with the details on that. good morning to you. we have a major accident in the way of a jackknifed tractor-trailer on the northbound trip of the 270 spurs as you approach democracy boulevard. the split, the brake lights, jammed up. we do approach this issue, here s where the delays begin as you make your approach coming from the american legion. jammed up from the dulles toll road. 95 headed in the southbound direction, a big problem, the issue there was a major accident with medevac and it shut down 95 south so it s jammed as you leave woodbridge. back to you. weather is coming up next. stay with us. good morning, i m meteorologist tom kiernan. ar roads a roads a streets are wet from th rain this morn napg has contributed to the accident around the region. look at radar now, blues and greens, that s where we re getting light rain. the little pockets of yellow, one near warrenton and fauquier county a moderate shower. moderate showers drifted off of the tidal potomac and moves inland not northern neck of virginia. elsewhere, light rain in montgomery, prince georges county, fairfax counties, scattered drizzle and sprinkles there. highs today into the mid 80s. feel the sun back this afternoon after the rain tapers off and in. tomorrow, saturday afternoon, mid 80s and lower humidity, partly cloudy. and on sunday, and again on monday, more humid, highs in the mid and upper 80s. a chance for passing showers and thunderstorms, mainly during afternoon on sunday and monday. thank you, ahead on news4 midday, our party your love your love is my drug yes, your love is my drug we re back now at 8:00 on friday morning, the 13th day of august, 2010. that makes it friday the 13th. if you look at our plaza, lucky enough from pop star ke$ha coming up in our next half hour. this is one of those days where we re out on the plaza and most of the people here don t know who we are. but that s okay. we re happy to have you. i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira and al roker and ke$ha has drawn a big crowd. she s under 40 but you look at the pages of fashion magazines these days and a lot of the fashion magazines all feature actresses over the age of 40. the new it girls. have we turned the page on this new success culture? i say, yes, and not a moment too soon. on a much more serious note, the latest on the casey anthony case. casey anthony is awaiting trial for the murder of her daughter, caylee, who would have turned 5 years old last weekend. so why are casey anthony s parents not talking what do they say is the very good reason for doing that? they will speak out exclusively here coming up in this half hour. ke$ha will take to our stage in about half an hour. right now let s go inside. ann is off today. natalie has the headlines. good morning again. good morning, matt, meredith and al. good morning to you. heavy rain is expected this weekend in iowa where people are still cleaning up from flooding there early this week. the flooding caused water mains to burst in ames, iowa, leaving the college town without safe tap water. officials hope to have it restored by early next week. the federal judge who overturned california s proposition 8 ruled thursday that same sex marriages can resume in the state next wednesday. opponents, though, quickly filed new papers trying to block the marriages. good morning to you, mara. reporter: good morning, natalie. gay marriage advocates welcome the news that same sex weddings will assume resume again in california but the six-day delay was a disappointment for some couples who had hoped the judge might allow marriage immediately. longtime partners floyd and tim spent thursday at city hall waiting for a marriage license only to find out they ll have to wait a little longer. we ve been here for two hours this morning and we ve watched so many people walk in and get married in front of us. it s so in your face that once again, no, you can t. reporter: at least not yet. in a decision released thursday, judge walker announced a stay on gay marriage will be lifted but not until next wednesday. the reason the judge delayed implementing its own decision to stay was he felt it was fundamentally fair to give the opponents of same sex marriage a chance to go to the court of appeals and ask them to extend the stay. reporter: proposition 8 was overturned, the initiative banning gay marriage, calling it unconstitutional, upsetting many who voted for proposition 8. it s voting a farce. if one man can overturn the vote of the people. reporter: now opponents of gay people are vowing to push the case all the way to the supreme court. now legal experts say it s unlikely that opponents of gay marriage will be successful in extending the stay in the next six days but there are several other issues they can take to the supreme court to try to keep gay marriage from continuing in this state. natalie? thank you. the jury in the rod blagojevich trial has today off and returns to court on monday. on thursday the jury told the judge despite two weeks of deliberations it had reached decisions on only 2 of 24 felony counts. the former i willinois governor charged with trying to profit from his power to fill president obama s former u.s. senate seat. and this one is on uncle sam because of the weak economy, all u.s. national parks are waiving entrance fee this is saturday and sunday. those fees usually run up to $25. they will still have to pay for camping and lodging. still a great weekend to get out and travel and see your national parks. 8:04 right now. let s now go back outside to meredith and matt. it was raining where i live. perfect for good morning. here we ve had scattered light rain on this friday morning which has contributed to accidents around the region with the wet roads and streets, and is it going to stay a bit wet for the next few hours. rain activity s beginning to break up a lot more. we still have some light to moderate shows northern neck of virginia and central virginia piedmont, northern fauquier loud loudloud louden county. lower humidity tom more ke$ha fans. matt? al, thank you very much. when we come back, fabulous over 40. more are grisi igracing the cov fashion magazines. ke$ha in concert in half an hour. ale announcer ] how do you know when something s good? when something s safe? you talk to these guys. they go through every car and truck we make with a big fat red pencil. because they know a family s going to be inside. a teenager. a guy on the way to the job. the engineers of chevrolet. just another reason why we can offer a 5-year 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. and another reason why a chevy s a chevy. 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[ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft. enjoy the go. announcer: today s woman is brought to you by neutrogena cosmetics. recommended most by dermatologists. this morning on today s woman over 40 and all the rage. you may have noticed a bit of a trend if you browse the magazine stands recently. actresses who said good-bye to their 20s long ago are now dominating the covers. fall fashion covers this year make over 40 look fabulous. there s harper s bazaar with jennifer aniston, age 41. halle berry, age 43. and julia roberts, age 42. so how is it that hollywood s more seasoned actresses are fall s new it girls? you re going to get a broader audience if you pick somebody who is older. miley cyrus on the cover you can tell you about 300,000 people who wouldn t even pick it up. now if you put julia roberts on the cover, it has just more appeal and more gravitas. magazine sales are down from last year and hollywood is following the same success formula. women over 40, they ve got some life experience. you can t base that and i think audiences can always see it when somebody is contrived or fake. if you have an actor or actress in their 20s, they just don t have that life experience. they can t bring that to these roles. sandra bullock has thrown her weight around to the tune of $56 million. that s her income in the last year thanks to the huge success of the blind side and the proposal. sandra bullock is hollywood s highest paid. jennifer aniston stars as a 40-year-old single mom in the switch. some say the over 40 formula is a welcome trend. youth rules of hollywood and it was actresses. it seemed like once they hit 30 they were like nonexistent in hollywood and they couldn t get a callback. now it s kind of cool to see that hollywood is finally catching up and realizing that women over 40 have a lot to offer. magazines like the silver screen now happily embrace the idea older is wiser and it s bankable, too. is it a positive trend to have older women on the cover? you bet. it s the greatest thing that s ever happened to america and maybe now we can get over our obsession with you. that s the way the world is and it s great. laura is a marketing and branding strategist and averil is from harper s bazaar. good morning to both of you. let me start with you. the september issue is the most important issue for fashion magazines. why do you think we re seeing all of these actresses over the age of 40 on the covers? well, i think it does come down to dollars and cents. the biggest ad revenue, of course. a lot of those pages are ads and we want to appeal to the broadest audience who has money in this market? the older woman has a lot more money than the younger woman who doesn t have money to spell. they do want to make the best case to the most people who have the most money. it s about the buck not showcasing older women and saying, look, america well, yes. there s a combination and it does come down to dollars and cents. i think the economy it s worth it to realize what do women really want? has our culture grown up and embraced aging? they are great examples of it and kconsumers can relate to tht and love them. you put jennifer aniston on the cover, did you do that to send some message to your audience out there? did you do it because she s a hot star? we did it because she s a hot, fabulous, chic woman. interesting to note that, yes, the big fashion magazines in the september issue have women who are over 40. but we ve watched these women who have appeared on lots of fashion magazines age so gracely from their 20s, 30s, 40s. the fact they re still on the cover at 40 is a fabulous message. would we still be putting people in their 20s on the front cover of our magazine? absolutely. it s fabulous every age moment. we cover that a lot and i think it s a wonderful message that we are sending that you can age gracefully and gorgeously. and i take issue with this a little bit. if you want to send the message then the rest of the year you put on a lot more models who are 40, 50, 60, not just this group we ve all grown up with to begin well, they are stars and the models in general in the magazines tend to be young but we are a celebrity obsessed society. you see fewer models on the cover. we re interested in stars and celebrities and time tested stars. there s also a lack of really exciting young 20-somethings to talk about. a lot of them are the lindsay lohans and the snookis that don t have as much to talk about or show for themselves. all right. hopefully these covers will do well. ladies, thank you so much for joining us this morning. appreciate it. still ahead, ke$ha live in concert on the plaza. when i was seventeen i was not good to my skin. long summer days, and not enough sleep. what i wouldn t do for a do-over. 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(announcer) to get one month free, plus more tips and recipes, visit boniva.com or call 1-800-4-boniva. that s why we re investing one million dollars every hour. to improve our technology and your safety. it s an investment that s helped toyota earn multiple top safety pick awards for 2010 by the insurance institute for highway safety. no other brand has won more. these top safety picks, and all our new safety innovations are available at toyota.com/safety. we are back at 8:19 with the tragic murder of caylee anthony. we would have turned 5 years old this week. we will talk exclusively to caylee s grandparents. kerry, good morning. reporter: well, good morning, meredith. 24-year-old casey anthony is accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, caylee. casey, who is being held in a solitary jail cell, it s unclear whether she recognized what would have been her daughter s birthday this week, but she maintains she is wrongly accused and innocent. caylee s bedroom in her grandparents home is now a shrine and just steps away i think we watched her video i don t know how many times before caylee was born. reporter: caylee s grandmother, cindy, has left casey s bedroom much the way it was. where do you weigh in on what i think must be really troubling on the one hand you ve lost your granddaughter and on the other hand your daughter is accused of that murder. but yet there s nothing they must be saying that casey must have been so calculated that she was able to put caylee through without any any any link to her. there s no fiber. there s no hair. there s no dna. there s no fingerprints of casey s or anyone in our family. reporter: we ve always said we always wanted to find out what happened to caylee no matter where the road or the math takes us. so does that mean you have considered the possibility that your daughter killed caylee? had a casey killed caylee? i don t want to believe that she s responsible for it. i don t want to inside believe that, if that s being in defensemen or something, then maybe i m in a part of denial with that. can i see that casey panicked? maybe something happened? i can see, you know, something happening. reporter: but that sounds like you re entertaining the possibility, the prosecution is on the right track here. no, what i m entertaining the possibility is that casey may have seen something or someone else. reporter: george and cindy anthony are now potential witnesses for the prosecution. caylee had been missing for 31 days. when cindy discovered her granddaughter was not on an extended vacation with casey, she located casey s car and then called 911. it smells like there s a dead body in the car. reporter: if you could rewind the tape and go back and do this starting from that first 911 call, what you have made that call the way you did? oh, i m sure i would have not changed anything on the 911 calls. i don t think i could you can t plan that. that s something that just happened. i mean, it wasn t anything rehearsed. reporter: that 911 call will be played to the jury. the trial is set for next year and if convicted prosecutors say they plan to ask for the death penalty. meredith? kerry sanders, thank you very much. george and cindy anthony are with us exclusively. good morning to both of you. good morning. this past monday would have been caylee s fifth birthday. she would have been head iing t kindergarten in a few weeks, how did you spend your time on her birthday? what did you do that day? is. oh, just had our son and our future daughter-in-law together, a nice little dipper and cake and just talked about caylee and how much she meant to us and how much we miss her. and just reminisced and cried, tried to think of all the good things that little grirl brought into our lives every single day. you told kerry sanders you often have this feeling of casey s presence, you feel her around you. at a court hearing last month you said you still think caylee s alive despite the fact that bones of hers were identified through dna. you just gave that sigh when i said that. it s, you know, i m not i m not certain of all the forensic evidence. there s a lot that doesn t make sense to me. there s nothing i have not been able to find anything in it that actually proves that it s caylee s and i ve had other people looking at it as well, too. to not believe is too painful or are you suggesting there s been some cover-up? i don t know. i don t know. a lot of stuff just doesn t make sense to me. i want to talk about the 911 call we just heard because that will be admitted into evidence at your daughter s trial. when you listen to that two years later it is so visceral and so real. you really sound like a mother who knows that something is it terribly wrong, who believes her daughter is involved. at that moment when i made the call, i was i was hysterical. i was panic-stricken and i had already attempted twice to get the authorities to come and speak with casey. and that car was part of our day since 3:00 in the afternoon. and, i don t know. i don t know why i said what i said, but all i know is i have did you say it because you believed it in the moment that you smelled a dead body, what would have been a dead body? no, because i never i never thought that from the beginning. that was never my instinct when i smelled it. and knowing what i know now, i probably would have never even made that statement. but i can t go back because at that point i had no knowledge of what i do now. do you still have total faith in your daughter, george? you know, everyone has to look back. the last two years go back to the beginning. a lot of people sort of forget how this all started, how it s all involved and how it s taken place. i m going to stand behind casey because, number one, i m her father. i want to find out what happened to caylee. i do. that s what i want to find out. so does cindy. i mean, i just can t throw my hands up or just be done with my daughter. i can t do that. i wouldn t do that to my family. i can t do that to my family, to my daughter. i appreciate you coming out. i know the trial is next year. our best it to both of you. thank you so much. george and cindy anthon 8:26 is your time now. 72 degrees. came skies after severe storms went through our area yesterday. tom will have the forecast after the news. good morning, i m eun yang. in the news4 today, thousands of residents are still in the dark after the storm. most in montgomery and the district. more than 37,000 customers without electricity. more than 1,000 customers still have no power. although most of those are in the baltimore area. and over in northern virginia. dominion working to restore electricity to more than 1300 customers. we ll take a blareak and have t latest on the forecast good morning. a mild and damp friday morning. scattered showers from the northern neck of virginia v. perhaps the northern blue ridge getting a few shower. elsewhere around washington a few sprinkles. high in the low to mid 80s. by mid aftnoon may season back. tomorrow partly cloudy. how s the traffic? good news, the earlier jackknifed tractor-trailer on 270 pur has been cleared. elsewhere, along 270 southbound, painfully slow leaving father hurley. back to you. thank you. ahead on news4 midday, our party planning series continues with what may be the most important part, the food. 8:30 now on this friday morning, the 13th of august, 2010. our crowd is getting ready to rock into their weekend with pop culture superstar ke$ha. she is going to take our concert stage in just a few minutes. and we re talking about a wild concert here, the last two pretty crazy. and somebody here really in the spirit. check out natalie s necklace. oh, yeah. also coming up, later on more of our exclusive interview with dina lohan, lindsay lohan s mom. in the middle of 90 days of court ordered rehab. what s the future looking like? we ll talk more to dina lohan in just a couple of minutes. we ll talk about summer camps. a lot of us don t send our kids to a summer camp where they can solve a cold-blooded murder, right? there is a new csi camp you ll have to see. the amazing experiences these kids are having and really good, i think, that they re learning there as well. yeah, but then they come back and say to their parents, we know how to make the perfect crime. remember susan boyle here on today last month to find an unknown singer to perform a duet with her. she has made her pick, a young lady named amber from new york. silent night holy night all is calm all is bright round yon virgin mother and child wow. pretty good acoustics. the mother of three will now be flown to london to sing alongside miss boyle on her next album. pretty cool. and we ll see both susan and amber on an upcoming special later this fall right here on nbc. right here on nbc. right here on nbc. that s surprising. wow. who knew that it would be on nbc. mr. roker has a check good morning. cloudy and in the 70s on this friday morning. we have slow moving showers, slowly drifting to the west. right now have some shows and a heavier downpour western sections of the northern neck, king george county and northern blue ridge, right along the warren and clark county border there with loudoun county and fauquier county. elsewhere sprinkles this morning. might get sun back this afternoon. highs mid 80s. partly cloudy, that s your latest weather. you can get your weather on cable or the new and improved weather.com online. the social networking sites that let you check in with your cell phone let your friends know where our is called foursquare. our series of badges on may 14th we ve had more than 11,000 check-ins. one of the toughest earned, the roker badge. you have to check in three times before 6:00 a.m. only 20 people have gotten that. there s a chance to win secret rewards so if you re around make sure you check in studio 1-a to check in on foursquare. you go to todayshow.com and find out more about foursquare. the roker badge. what makes it so tough? you have to check in three times before 6:00 a.m. all right, al. coming up, who is coming up live in concert, folks? ke$ha! we ve got her. we are back now at 8:37. for a lot of people summer camp brings to mind campfires and sing-alongs. for a select group it means a chance to solve a murder case. amy robach is here to explain that. explain away. i will. good morning, matt. we caught up with the kids at stockton csi, based on the popular television series. budding forensic scientists take part in a mock crime scene investigation and go on the hunt for a killer. in the quiet town of pomona, new jersey, the unthinkable happened. a cold-blooded murder. but the police weren t called nor was the fbi. it s up to this group of teenaged campers to get to the bottom of it. we ve had murder weapons. the murder is part of sto stockton csi, a summer camp for teens interested in forensic science and, of course, crime shows. it s obviously interesting to learn about this stuff and do something in law enforcement. the difference between charging someone with murder and charging someone with aggravated manslaughter. reporter: not exactly your typical summer camp experience. today s case involved a lover scorned and a decomposing body. the evidence, as always, a secret. reporter: i got a sneak peek at the crime scene before the first responders arrived, an opportunity i didn t take lightly. ready for the evidence. you don t see that every day. teams of investigators arrived on the scene from videographers to forensic experts. but after hours of gathering evidence, they still hadn t even found the body yet. do you think there s a body h e here? no. i don t see anywhere a dead body could be hidden right now. reporter: then, finally, a break in the case. dead body, isn t it? everybody back away. reporter: joshua and christine are the directors of stockton csi. we try to keep it interesting for them. we try to make it challenging. we try to make it so that they re really solving mysteries. reporter: and like any good tv crime drama, the kids prepare their case for trial. do you have suspects? i think that will found out about billy, strangled him. gina came down to meet billy, panicked and killed him. very confusing. reporter: as evidence mounted, one thing became clear. police work wasn t all fun and games. we found over 60 pieces of evidence and you have to log every single one. so much paperwork. so much paperwork. reporter: during their stay campers meet with experts in the field to learn about different careers in law enforcement so it s not only about having fun but also helping the kids make informed decisions about their future. they go to a jail. they go to a jail and a lot of them they said it s such an experience for them they actually start crying because it s just so powerful to be there and see these prisoners and realize the impact of crime and just what goes into enforcing the law. and the killer in this particular mock crime, did he or she get convicted? she was convicted. they did have the right killer. gina. it was gina. it was a crime of passion. okay. good to know. amy robach, thanks. up next, ke$ha live in concert on the plaza. for constipation relief. nothing works better than miralax. it s the one. the one recommended by more doctors. only miralax is clinically proven to relieve constipation with no harsh side effects. miralax is the only one. restore your body s natural rhythm with miralax. announcer: the toyota concert series on today brought to you by toyota. it help the number one spot on the billboard hot 100 for nine weeks turning her into a household name. performing the smash hit tik tok, ladies and gentlemen, ke$ha. wake up in the morning feeling like p. diddy grab my glasses, i m out the door i m going to hit this city before i leave, brush my teeth with a bought of jack cause when i leave for the night i ain t coming back i m talking pedicure on our toes, toes trying on all our clothes, clothes boys blowing up our phones, phones drop-topping, playing our favorite cds pulling up to the parti trying to get a little bit tipsy don t stop make it pop deejay, blow my speakers up tonight i mma fight till we see the sun light ticktock on the clock but the party don t stop, no don t stop, make it pop deejay, blow my speakers up tonight, i mma fight till we see the sun light ticktock on the clock but the party don t stop ain t got a care in the world but got plenty of beer ain t got no money in my pocket but i m already here and now the dudes are lining up cause they hear we got swagger but we can kick them to the curb unless they look like mick jagger i m talking about everybody getting krung, krung boys trying to touch my junk, junk gonna smack him if he getting too drunk now we go out until they kick us out or the police shut us down, down police shut us down, down don t stop make it pop deejay blow my speak eers up tonight i mma fight till we see the sun light ticktock on the clock but the party don t stop, no don t stop, make it pop deejay, blow my speakers up tonight i mma fight till we see the sun light ticktock on the clock but the party don t stop, no good morning, new york city. you guys look fantastic. put your hands up. you build me up you break me down my heart, it pounds yeah, you got me put your hands up put your hands up put your hands up because now the party don t start till i walk in don t stop, make it pop deejay, blow my speakers up tonight i mma fight till we see the sun light ticktock on the clock the party don t stop don t stop make it pop deejay, blow the speaker up the party don t stop, no ke$ha, thanks. there s more music straight ahead. first this is today on nbc. don t stop, make it pop ke$ha got her big break on flo rider s hit round and round. she has two number one hits. good morning. good to have you here. i m so excited. are you? good. welcome. let s go through a couple of things i have to ask you about. your name is now spelled with a dollar sign not an s. what s the message there? well, it was a bad tattoo and ironic i wrote the record so making it a pity party i thought i d turn it into an ironic statement. you talk about the fact you were not born with a silver spoon in your mouth. no. quite the opposite. at one stage i heard your mother said to you something like if you want something, go out and take it. yeah. so this could have turned out differently. i think she meant be ambitious. embrace things. embrace things. that s what i ve done. i wanted to do this. i will stop at nothing. you didn t stop at anything. what s the story about you and prince? my homeboy prince. well, i really wanted him to write a song with me. i think he s one of the greatest in the business of my time. i thought i would just take him a demo. but yet he has a wall around his house. right. so i just let myself in, no big deal. that s called breaking and entering in a lot of states. right. did he contact you? not yet. no? not yet. so, in other words, if prince is watching hit me up. okay. let me ask you a little bit about plans for touring. you re obviously on the road with rihanna. what s that like? it s amazing. we just played the garden last night. how was it? incredible. it was definitely a landmark in my career. it was terrifying. do you have any plans to make a next album? i know it s hard when you release one album, people are already saying, what s next? are you worrying about the sophomore jinx? no, i m not worried about anything. this is fun. my favorite tidbit was when tik tok went to number one for nine weeks on the charts, only female recording artist who went longer than that was ten weeks, and that was debbie boone with you light up my life. i never thought i would mention your name and debbie boone in the same sentence. totally. what are you going to sing next? my new single called take it off. ladies and gentlemen, ke$ha. there s a place downtown where the fraex all come around looking for something wild and now we re looking like m pimps in my gold trans am got a water bottle full of whiskey in my handbag got my drunk text on i ll refwret it in the morning but tonight i don t give a there s a place downtown where the frex all come around it s a hole in the wall and they turn me on when they take it off they go hard core and there s glitter on the floor and they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off everybody take it off lose your mind lose it now lose your clothes in the crowd we re delirious tear it down till the sun comes back around now we re getting so smashed knocking over trash cans eurbody breaking bottles it s a filthy hot mess gonna get faded i m not the designated driver so i don t give a i don t give a there s a place downtown where the freaks all come around it s a hole in the wall it s a dirty free-for-all and they take it off when they take it off everybody take it off there s a place i know where they go hard core and there s glitter on the floor and they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off everybody take it off everybody take it off everybody take it off right now take it off right now take it off right now take it off right now take it off right now take it off right now take it off everybody take it off there s a place downtown where the freaks come around it s a hole in the wall it s a dirty free-for-all and they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off everybody take it off there s a place i know if you re looking for the show where they go hard core and there s glitter on the floor and they turn me on when they take it off when they take it off everybody take it off ke$ha will be back with more music on a friday morning. 8:56 is your time. 71 degrees. a nice, cool start to your morning here on try after severe storms blew through our area. tom will have the forecast after the news. good morning i m eun yang. crews across our area have a soggy start today as they clean up from yesterday s early morning storm. heavy wind and rain knocked down several trees in our area. one fell into an apartment complex in the gaithersburg area in montgomery county. officials deemed the building condemned, in fear of structural damage. the area also has this power. crews hope to restore electricity to homes, businesses and traffic signals by the end of the day. we ll take a quick break. tom s back with the weather and [ dog barking ] mom! breakfast? in this house? in the morning i can use all the help i can get. that s why i love nutella, a delicious hazelnut spread that s perfect on multigrain toast and even whole-wheat waffles. it s a quick and easy way to give my family a breakfast they ll want to eat. and nutella is made with simple, quality ingredients, like hazelnuts, skim milk and a hint of cocoa. they love the taste and i feel good that they re ready to tackle the day. nutella. breakfast never tasted this good. good morning. temperatures are in the 70s and we have a cloud cover that is producing some scattered showers. one area of steady rain in the northern neck of virginia v. and northern blue ridge. later today we might seeñi sun breaking out. highs reaching low 80s. tomorrow mid 80s, partly cloudy, hess humid. might get storms sunday and a little bit warmer. let s check traffic. one on the inner loop 270 spur before democracy boulevard, that tractor-trailer has been cleared. delays cleared out on the approach to it. 95 headed southbound the medevac emergency has been cleared, but damage down heavy as you leave springfield area. thank you. we re hope you plan a party on news4 midday. our series continues with what may be the most important part, the food. how to prepare dishes that will wow your guests at 11:00. that s what i m talking about we re back with more of today on a monday morning i m sorry, friday morning, the 13th day of august, 2010. a very lucky day for the people on our plaza this morning, just been treated to a great show by pop star ke$ha. and if you re just tuning in, there s more music to come a little later on. out on the plaza i m matt lauer along with al roker. and coming up in this half hour, more with dina lohan, the mom of lindsay lohan who is now serving a 90-day court-ordered stint in rehab. she is also going to appear on the cover of maxim magazine and in a controversial new movie. we ll talk to dina lohan about that and some other things in just a couple of minutes. you have young kids and i do, too, three kids under the age of 16, buy plane tickets, bypass security without showing i.d., hop on a flight from florida to tennessee all without their parents having any clue. it doesn t seem like it should happen. it really doesn t. so did the airline do anything wrong by letting them fly? we ll take a look at that. and then later if you want to take advantage of some historically rock bottom mortgage rates, we re going to show you some open houses from texas to michigan, from north carolina starting in the $200,000 range. we have a lot to get to. let s go inside. ann is a little bit off today, taking time off. a little bit off? natalie is over at the news desk. i m a little bit off today, also, natalie. i know you said it was mon y monday. good morning to you, matt and al. more rain and more problems expected today in iowa where days of heavy rain have left many places flooded. in ames, iowa, the city s water supply had to be shut down after water pipes broke. it may be days before service is restored. the suspect in the series of deadly stabbings is behind bars in georgia. elias abuelazam has one charge and more are expected. a bill aimed at strengthening security along the mexican border, the money will pay for new border patrol agents. supporters of same-sex marriage were celebrating on thursday. opponents have asked an eye peels court to stop a judge s order that would allow same sex weddings to resume next week in california. russia s nuclear agency says it will begin loading fuel into the first nuclear power plant next week beginning the startup process. the plant was built with russian help. the u.s. had asked russia to delay the startup until they convinced iran it is not developing nuclear weapons. southwest airlines is defending its policy on unaccompanied minors after three jacksonville children all under the age of 16 bought plane tickets to nashville and flew there without their parents knowing. it all began when 15-year-old bridget brown saved babysitting money and asked a friend if he wanted to fly somewhere. he said nashville, tennessee. so that s where we went. reporter: just like that bobby nolan, bridget and her brother were in a cab and on their way. i just wanted to fly and had the money. the three youngsters arrived at the airport ticket counter without their parents ever knowing. no one at the airport even asked why they were traveling alone. they told us how much it would be and then we paid it and then you put the little flight things on our bags and said you d better run because you might miss your flight. this trio of travelers said no one ever asked them to show i.d. at airport security. all right. you re all set. we just took the stuff out of our pockets and they didn t say nothing. reporter: the kids traveled from jacksonville to nashville on southwest and the airline says according to their policy they did nothing wrong. an 11-year-old is allowed to fly with anyone who is 12 years or older but the young travelers trip was short-lived. they didn t realized where they wanted to go, the dollywood theme park was still a four-hour drive from nashville. so later that evening bobby called his father to tell him he wasn t at a friend s house. he called, we re in nashville and ready to come home. the three youngsters did arrive safely back in jacksonville that evening and southwest has since reimbursed them for the airfare. it is now four minutes past the hour. another check of the weather from mr. roker. all right, thanks, natalie. we have ke$ good morning. we this morning have had passing light showers around the washington metro area but steadier downpours in the northern neck of virginia very slowly moving off to the west. also right in northern fauquier county and western louden as well, they ve had steady rain there. and as the day progresses, much of this should end. highs should reach low 80s, maybe sun coming out. partly cloudy tomorrow. storms sunday. ke$ha still taking care of her fans over there. just really doing a nice job. that s awfully nice. all right. now let s go back inside to matt. all right, al. thank you very much. actress lindsay lohan is in her 12th day of a court ordered alcohol and drug rehabilitation program after spending nearly two weeks in jail for a probation violation. her another, dina lohan, is now speak i speaking out about how her daughter is doing and what s next for lindsay. dina, good morning. anks for sticking around. i appreciate it. let me start this with something we talked about in the first interview and that was lindsay s time in rehab. i said this was her fourth stint. this is not a gotcha moment. you said it s her second stint. i went back and looked and i want to talk and make sure we re on the same page. january 2007 she went to a place called wonder land. that was not court ordered. no, i m not saying court ordered. i m saying her times in rehab. initially you said court ordered. i meant this is her fourth time in rehab. correct? well, i have wonder land in 2007 the first wasn t court ordered. actually she was 19. right. and i put her in there and that was the original dui, which she is still paying a price for. she went in 2007. that was court ordered. she went in utah. that was court ordered as well. and now ucla medical center. this is the fourth time she s been in some kind of rehab. the only reason i bring it up, that s a lot of times to be in and out without some sort of success. i wouldn t know what do you mean by success? avoiding having to go back. right, but when it s court ordered it s not your judgment call. it s the court s so she is back and she s doing wonderfully there. the judge was recused from the case. the last one just break yesterday. you said to me earlier, you said because of that, that legal situation involving the judge, she may actually get out of rehab this time earlier than has been reported. and it struck me there is a case against the state of california. it struck me because i m wondering as her mom has there been a time in lindsay s life recently or the further past where you have been worried, seriously worried about her health initially i put her in. oh, gosh, why would you say something as horrible as that? if she goes down a certain road, we ve seen a lot go down that road. i m not going to go down the road i don t foresee. i put her in rehab in 2007. she s 24 now. she s grown up considerably in a town that is very you know, her life is magnified more than your children or my other three children. i have four. so, you know, it s been very difficult with the tabloids and how she can t even go to starbucks without someone following her and if you see a picture of her out, they show the same picture for three weeks in a magazine. the reason i ask the question, dina, if i were in rehab right now, my mother should say i want him to stay there as long as it takes, as long as possible to make sure when he comes out, in this case your daughter, she comes out, she is better. you know, certainly, of course someone goes to rehab to rehabilitate themselves, but right you re looking at it from what you re reading and when you meet lindsay i think you have met her yes. it s a completely different dynamic than you re reading. so when you meet her and you see my child, and, like i said, i have four children, not just lindsay, it s blown out of proportion. you talk about some of the choices and some of them you say have been blown out of proportion by the tabloid. she s made some smaller choices recently that may seem inconsequential at the time. she showed up at her hearing in court are you going to talk about the nail poll snish. as a mom, that s a choice. that wasn t a choice. what was it? she didn t even think. we thought when she was going to court that day, we thought she was going to be let off and everything was over. we were blind sided and when she went to court, now the judge is not even on the case anymore because she went overboard. that whole dynamic was you talked about my children and i do have three children. very young. how old are they? 9, 6, and 3. we ll see. you talk to me in five years. and i hope things are okay. girls? boy, girl, boy. if they were under scrutiny as lindsay has been under scrutiny, i would want to make sure that they made the kind of choices that told the world we take this situation seriously. and that choice raised some questions. sure, and you can tell your children whatever you want to tell them but lindsay s world where she was kuwaitering, and you lose power and control which you want to do for your child. you ve within trying to walk a fine line. i don t know where you went to school but my son graduated summe cum laude from ithaca. it s a whole other world when you re allowed to live your life in experiencing with failure and success and comes through and that s where we re at right now. she s already through it. she is going to make you need to meet her. i have met her. she ll make many movies. and is that what you want for her? i want what she wants. get her to new york and get her out of the spotlight once she s out of rehab. what do you want to see i think lippndsay is out tha have spotlight. i think she s grown and learned considerably and certainly made mistakes as we all have done in our younger years and i think we re going to be okay and lindsay right now is focusing on charity and helping save the next victim of tabloids. so we ve been in this business a long time. we ve learned. legally she s old enough to make all her own decisions. there s no question about that. as her mom, though, when she gets out of rehab this time, do you plan on being more hands-on? i ve always been hand-on. i m not accusing you i don t know where that came from. are you going to try and grab her and embrace her and hold her close? i always have had a relationship with all my children so i ve always been there and you may read or believe something i don t know where that came from. i ve always been there for my children. i m a single mom. i ve been a single mom for the past 15 years. i have criminal orders of protection against my ex and he s not been a part of our lives and i m a mom. does lindsay know you re here this morning? yes, she does. she says hello, by the way. i don t know now. we ll see. i ll see if she likes you. i m kidding. do you think there s anything she would like to have communicated? she ll say that for herself. i don t speak for my children. lindsay s a brilliant woman and she will do an interview when she comes out. i ve taught her to be very honest and open and make your own judgments. dina lohan, thank you for sticking around. i appreciate it. nice to see you. and we ll be back with much more including mortgage rates at record lows. some great homes for sale all across the kcountry courtesy of barbara corcoran. hey i m donkey settin sail far far away from far far away. we re out here in the caribbean. soakin up some sun. woohoo shrek s got some moves. hi five boys, it s sushi time. i m donkey, feeling the ocean breeze on my hooves, gettin my vacation on donkey style. why aren t you? rheumatoid arthritis going? they re discovering the first self-injectable ra medicine you take just once a month. it s simponi™, and taken with methotrexate, it helps relieve the pain, stiffness, and swelling of ra with one dose a month. visit 4simponi.com to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi™ can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi™, your doctor should test you for tb and assess your risk of infections, including fungal infections and hepatitis b. ask your doctor if you ve been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you re prone to infections, or develop symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start simponi™ if you have an infection. 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[ male announcer ] hidden valley ranch. 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. this morning on today s real estate fabulous homes for sale starting in the $200,000 range from the ultra modern green home to a log home in the scenic woods. barbara corcoran has found some open houses to suit many tastes. good to see you. nice to see you, too, al. we go to austin, texas, such a terrific city. a unique home for $289,900. you take a look at this home, you re going to think you jumped in a time machine and traveled forward in time. it is super modern. there s not an inch of space wasted in this home. it s tiny. wait until you see the inside. six minutes from downtown. ten minutes to the airport. there s the big pool and hot tub with fountain sprayers. those are little chairs, the yellow things are nice chairs to sit on. everything there s a hot tub there. you have to like this kind of a home. the type of home there s not a better specimen in the usa. it s modern from the top to bottom. a lot of upgrades you can t see here. a tankless hot water heater, low flow toilet, european fixtures, energy efficient windows. it s ecologically correct? perfect. you save a lot of money heating this home. the pool is a salt water pool. does that save you money? it saves you a lot of money because you don t have to dump chemicals into it. it s easy to maintain and makes it cheaper. we found an interesting home in jamaica, not the island, but vermont. this one just under $550,000. it s like two names that just don t go together but i looked that up. what an odd name and jamaica means beaver and we know there are a lot of beavers in vermont. this is a lot home at the end of a private drive, just a short drive to stratton mountain ski area. it has that beautiful deck outside. another one in the back. if you like knotty pine you will love the inside. if you don t like it, you re not going to like it at all. there s that giant living room. i love the field stone firepl e fireplace. kick your feet up. it s got a 12 foot 12 inch wide floors throughout the entire place all radiated heating, a radiated mud room perfect coming in out of the snow or a hike, the kitchen, more knotty pine. you have to love wood. and i m going to tell you usually an all-wood home doesn t sell well. if you put it in a place like vermont that says old-world charm it s what people imagine. it s a home that s going to fly off the shelf. it s a loft area. the master bedroom. this is a perfect conditioned home. i would get rid of that bed spread, of course. $499,000 for this one. this is an unusual home as well. i think today we have such a smorgasbord of homes. that s a traditional home perfectly proportioned, very welcoming. who wouldn t like that house? it also has a charming downtown that is within almost jogging distance from the house. that s the backyard. beautiful furniture out there as well. you caught that and the living room has 18-foot ceilings. you can get a sense of it there. that kitchen, i think, is crying out for color but it s brand-new, everything is top of the line in that kitchen. there are i can t say this word. i don t know why i try to say this. a giant window out back that actually enters right through those doors the whole pool area. a beautiful home. to grand haven, michigan, the most expensive home we re going to see today but it got a lot of bells and whistles. it has every bell and whistle you could imagine. a sloping metal roof that eliminates the snow buildup in the very cold climate of michigan. there you have it there. quite unusual. if you see on that left-hand side the ceilings in that section of the house, 17 feet tall. it has maple hardwood floors. it has a fireplace that s so efficient you can heat the entire house with the one electric log. that sounds unbelievable but it s true. i checked it out. there s that dining area there. notice all the windows. there s great lighting and added lighting on the cabinet. i think that s a nice effect in the kitchen. and kentucky not too far from ft. knox but you don t have to break in to afford it $229,000. litchfield is less than an hour from ft. knox if you want to place it in your mind. it s a rambling home and it sits on a very high rise that overlooks beautiful kentucky fields and right across the street they breed quarter horses. no other house as far as you could see. a beautiful setting. there s the backyard. and look, two trees. they have one chair. they need some new patio furniture back there. the brick fireplace there. everything about this house, the way it s decorated is formal. those plants on the top have to go. if you can eliminate that, that is one beautiful kitchen to look down on. coming up, two lucky ladies get an instant ambush style makeover. we ll show you the results. and one more song from ke$ha. 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. they re oven-baked flatbread crisps. with the tastes of sea salt and olive oil. or sprinkled with italian herbs. townhouse flatbread crisps. they re perfect for snack time, party time, any time. new townhouse flatbread crisps. the everyday cracker with the specially-crafted taste. hey, you guys. want to try activia s great new taste? new townhouse flatbread crisps. isn t this the yogurt that, you know. helps regulate your digestive system. trust me. it is beyond tasty. mmm. this is really good! new best tasting activia ever! taste it, love it, or it s free! it s beneful incredibites. ever seen anything like it? me neither. it s just the way you like it with carbohydrates for energy and protein for muscles. 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[ ma announcer ] old el paso super stuffers. 33 larger shells. feed your fiesta. coming up, teaching your kids to be smart spenders. and one more song from ke$ha. a meal is the dessert. f but sometimes after a busy day and a heavy greasy dinner. my system needs some tlc. now there is something new. introducing activia dessert. rich, silky, smooth yogurt with desserty flavors like strawberry cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, and peach cobbler. and because it s activia, it helps regulate my digestive system. mmm. works for me. activia new activia dessert. with shout color catcher, now you don t have to. now i can wash my husband s work shirt, my red dress, and. my daughter s favorite tee. all in one load. shout color catcher absorbs the colors that run. the proof is on the sheet. shout color catcher. visit shoutoffers.com for special offers. 9:26 your time. 72 degrees. calm sky after severe storms yesterday. tom will the forecast in a moment. good morning, i m eun yang. friday august 13, 2010. thousands of residents waking up to dark homes this morning after yesterday s severe storms. most remaining outages in montgomery county and the district. more than 37,000 customers without electricity. pge says more than 1,000 customers have no power though most in the baltimore area. in northern virginia, dominion working to restore electricity to 900 customers. we ll take a break. we ll look at the forecast and good morning, cloudy and cool on friday morning. low and mid-70s. radar showing light rain from king george, culpepper, spotsylvania, fauquier and loudoun countys. today maybe sun back. partly cloudy. how s the traffic? very slow. outer loop near the beltway near new hampshire getting past an accident from college park to silver spring. over to springfield right now, still heavy south of springfield. the earlier accident dale city is gone. back to you. ahead on mnews4 midday. our party planning series continues with the food. how to prepare dishes that will wow your guests at trying to make it up to you and it feels like tonight daughtry, just love him, the band will be here to our plaza next friday morning on today and the following friday on our blockbuster summer concert series katy perry to the stage, two weeks from today. people will be lining up starting tomorrow. he s right. but wait. the fun is not over yet. that s right. we ve got one more song from ke$ha who has been rocking on the plaza all morning long. wow. a village thing working here. meanwhile, also coming up in this half hour, teaching your kids the value of a dollar. never too early to start this morning. we re going to get some advice from the experts about what you can do every day whether you re hitting the mall or the atm to show your children how to spend smartly and save when needed. all right. and then from killer muscle cramps to maybe a burn from the curling iron, we ve all had our hits with the curling iron, well, you don t have to run out to the drugstore every time you have an ailment. this morning some fast fixes of items you may have lying around the house. meantime, the girls are here. amy robach, jenna wolfe, our weekend team is here. what do you have going on? well, we are going to head out on vacation with the president and the first family as they spend a couple of days along florida s guchl coast in the troubled region. also some new credit card rules will take effect this weekend that could have you paying more, surprise, surprise. we ll tell you exactly which fees to look out for. then the phenomenon surrounding eat, pray, love, was a successful book and now a highly successful film, whether it s a good idea for women to just up and leave their conventional lives in order to find passion. you know what, it is, i think, it may be perhaps. anyone onboard? also where is mommy? right. her name is hope and she was born with rear leg deformities but take a look at her now. we ll tell you how it s ground breaking medical procedure changed her life. we ll have all of that and more when we see this weekend on today. thank you. and al has a check of the weather for us. good morning. scatrd light rain across northern virginia and a few sprinkles in maryland, getting rain king george, stafford, prince william, spotsylvania, fauquier, frederick county, maryland and howard county. later today we might have sun breaking out but otherwise cloudy. highs reaching low 80s. tomorrow, partly cloudy. less humid. highs mid 80s. could get more humidity back sunday and and you know, i was watching ke$ha. could have easily done that. did you see that? we could have been in ke$ha s group. dream weaver the head wear and the gold shorts. i have those. from russell crowe, right? exactly. coming up, making sense of dollars and cents when it comes to your kids. we ll have that after this. 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[ female announcer ] kellogg s® wants to make kids happy one tummy at a time. because 9 out of 10 kids don t get the fiber they need, that s why froot loops® and apple jacks® have 3 grams of fiber in every yummy bowl. they re the cereals your kids love and the fiber their tummies love. which makes for a whole lotta happy. froot loops® and apple jacks, an oh-so-good source of fiber. kellogg s® makes fiber fun. announcer: today s consumer is brought to you by bank of america. this morning on today s consumer helping your kids become smart spenders. with the back-to-school shopping season in full swing it s a good time to give your kids a lesson in finance whether they re heading off to kindergarten or high school. some tips from a couple of moms who just happen to be experts. michelle is a parenting expert, carmen wong ullrich helps us on today s money 911. good morning. michelle, you think you just start right from the beginning. you start from the get-go. three to five is when we know kids are going to determine whether they are spenders or savers. attitudes are starting in. so that s when you begin with a piggy bank or just one thing or you set the limits. we wait too late is the big thing and then we decide, well, now he s going to be a good little consumer. they are taught not born. right. 3 is great. i have a 3-year-old. what a surprise. so what are you doing to help her get started? here is is what i do. when you re that young, of course, she doesn t necessarily understand the difference. it s very abstract. what i do, go to a vending machine and you have two quarters. you can have this one costs one quarter. this one costs two quarters. what do you want to do? she makes the decision, the choice, she can get two of those or one of those. afterwards she ll say, mommy, can i please have another one? quarters are gone. it s all about knowing where the limits are that what you have determines how much you can buy but there s a limit to how much money, how many quarters are coming out of mommy. and you also say, michelle, that the little ones learn by who they are watching by example. so, mommy, watch out for i m going to have it now. i m going to go buy. you change your words to i m going to look for the sale or i m going to wait. we make sure, just a little footnote, that we give coins only after chirp we know will not swallow them and put them in their mouths. absolutely. carmen, there s also we don t like to say no but there s a good alternative is need versus want. absolutely. going back to school time when you have to go shopping for bulk things, a great time to teach them the difference between need and want. for example, you can go through their drawers, go through the closet and see what they need. let s say they need five pairs of jeans for school. one of them has holes in it. you need another pair of jeans. now they re going to say, but i want this pair of jeans, like a designer pair. that s different. you want that pair. and make them learn they pay a premium for getting something they want as opposed to something they need. it s a big difference. michelle, you say hit the pause button. hit the pause button. i m not giving them too much too soon. the whole goal in life is our children are the now generation they want it immediately so you tell them, hey, we re going to wait at least 24 hours or let s think about it and let s wait later. if they create that lift based on the needs and the wants, that s the gold mine because it makes them prioritized, at the top of the list is what you need most and then the next thing is even little critters can make a list because they cut and paste the penny saver ads and put them in the stack. they walk into the store with it. the saving and spending, it s a lot different when it s their money. what about chores versus allowance? here s the thing. you can have the allowance and chores. i don t know if you agree with this but if you re going to give an allowance, they do have responsibilities in the house and it should somehow be tied to that but they need to understand that the allowance doesn t all go just to buy the toys and the gadgets and the things that they want as opposed to also saving and giving to charity. i think that s very important. i agree with you. i m a big thing on the only concern on the red flag on the allowance with the chores is pretty soon the kid will only do the chores how much do i get like as the mother, i m not getting paid for doing the dishes. so the goal of the allowance is to learn to save or to share or to spend, so you figure out i think that s the core thing is. if you tie the two together, you can have a real thing called arguing most of the time. a lot of great advice. more tips on our website, todayshow.com. thanks so much. my mom said, why can t we get a dish washer? we already have six. there you go. coming up next, some fast fixes for what ails you. 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. i hear hot babysitter a lot. hi. my sienna is great. . . m jeans. miss, there s a diaper bag on your roof. please. 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[ sighs ] [ male announcer ] listerine®. clean deeper. get healthier.™ and for a deeper clean and brighter teeth, try advanced listerine with tartar protection. 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. this morning on today s health everyday ailments from minor burns to muscle cramps. you don t always have to run to the drugstore for relief. nicole beland is the executive editor of cosmopolitan magazine. these home remedies can can be as effective? i wouldn t say just as effective as something you buy in the pharmacy but if you re in a pinch and you don t have the right thing they can work. for face and beauty problems, which a lot of people have pimples so in order when you start to feel it coming out, something that you can do, you can actually use a spoon. you put a warm suppress on it and it will help the inflammation go down. that is true. but a spoon is better because you run the spoon under hot water and it will retain the heat longer and a wash cloth is likely to harbor bacteria. the spoon is nice and santoitas. hold it for a minute or so. and allow the pimple to come out a little sooner, right? some place to go. okay. all right. yuck. next, burns. a lot of us have dealt with the curling iron burn and one thing you can do is use honey. what does honey do? an anti-bacterial and an anti-inflammatory. my grandmother told this to me when i was 12 and it works. you dab a little bit on there. if you don t have neosporin and hand. you have three doctors confirm a lot of this. every single one of these sounds crazy but they are effective. all right. now cracked or dry lips, you have a remedy here. butter or some olive oil. you re at dinner, have dry, cracked lips, you don t have any chapstick, put olive oil on your lips and use your napkin to wipe it off because it s going to be really greasy. the margarine and olive oil will help them stay nice and moist. if you re in a bad breath situation at that restaurant as well, something you should do bad breath could be signify you re dehydrated, right? it s usually caused by dehydration. your saliva if you re not hydrated you ll have less saliva and it won t be flushing the bacteria out of your mouth. i know, level. just chug two glasses of water. if there s a little bit of parsley on your dinner plate, chew that. it releases essential oils that will freshen your breath or order a mohito that has peppermint in it. that s more like it. it will freshen your breath, too. for pain and discomfort, a banana can help with splinters. this is my favorite. if you have a splinter and you don t have tweezers, take a tiny bit of banana peel a really ripe banana peel, and you put it over the splinter and then you can secure it with a bandage and enzymes in the banana will slowly pull that splinter up. the only thing is you have to be in a situation are where you don t mind having this weird little banana peel stuck to your finger. that could be interesting. now for killer cramps, a lot of women experience it. a little hot water and a compress. heat is great for cramps. it helps to relax the muscle. you can take a wet wash cloth, throw it in a bowl, put it in the microwave, get a warm and apply it directly to your skin and basically instant hot water bottle. it will help your cramps go away. for the athletes with muscles being sore or cramping, pickle juice. pickle juice. how does that yuck? do you have to drink it? this is something athletes have been using for decades. you can go ahead and pick it up like a glass. oh, my gosh. you are brave. it s good. not bad. that was awesome. a very small study said, yes, drinking half a cup of pickle juice will help ward off cramps. nicole, great tips. thanks so much. and coming back one more song from ke$ha. don t stop coming up with hoda and kathie lee, an instant ambush makeover. first, one more song from pop sensation ke$ha singing her hit your love is my drug. new york, this is a song about love. a celebration of every kind of love. i think i might need some rehab or maybe just need some sleep i got a sick obsession i m seeing it in my dreams i m looking down every an lley i m making those desperate calls i m staying up all night hoping hit my head against the walls what you ve got, boy, is hard to find i think about it all the time i m all strung up my heart is fried i just can t get you off my mind because your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love i said, your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love won t listen to any advice mom s telling me i should think twice but left to my own devices i m addicted it s a crisis my friend think i ve gone crazy my judgment is getting kind of hazy my status is going to be affected if i keep it up like a lovesick crack head what you ve got, boy, is hard to find i think about it all the time i m all strung out my heart is fried i just can t get you off my mind because your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love i said your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love i don t care what people say the rush is worth the price i pay i get so high when you re with me but crash and crave you when you are away so i got a question do you want to have a summer party in my basement do i make your heart beat like an 808 drum is my love your drug your drug, your drug your drug new york because your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love i said your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love i said your love, your love, your love is my drug your love, your love, your love hey i like your beard [ 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. [ 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. welcome back. as we take a live look out over at the jefferson memorial this morning. cloudy skies around the area. tom will have the details in the forecast in a second. first, good morning. 9:57 on friday, august 13th, 2010. i m aaron gilchrist. in the news4 today, crews are struggling to clean up after yesterday s storms. heavy wind and rain knocked down several trees in our ñ9 one large tree fell in the apartment building in the gaithersburg area. half a dozen people suffered minor injuries while several others were displaced. thousands of people remain without power. crews hope to restore electricity to homes, business and traffic lights by the end of the day. let s see what the weather will shape up today. good weather for the cleanup that continues. and it will continue into the weekend as well. scattered, light rain across northern virginia and parts of maryland. no rain in washington. cloudy sky, might have sun this afternoon. otherwise, cloudy the rest of the day. highs may reach low 80s. mid 80s tomorrow, partly cloudy, storms on sunday. steve? problems on the inde& loop f the beltway approaching the bridge. you can see the representation, inner loop heading towards virginia for an accident in the right lane. over the beltway in maryland, heavy and slow. after the accident on the shoulder. ahead on news4 midday our party planning series continues with what is the most important part from nbc news in the today with kathie lee gifford and hoda kotb. from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. hey, everybody. it is friday, dry day, august 13th, but not today. friday the 13th. because it s a superstition. we know it s friday the 13th and we should be careful of things. if you happen to be that kind of person. if you ve ever went to a hotel and you look for the 13th floor, often they skip it or in the airplane they skip it. when you get on the plane, 12 and then 14. you re still in the 13th row. this is called a blushing bride, not the least bit superstition. blushing lady. there aren t very many blushed brides anymore. if you have this at the crack of dawn on friday the 13th, it s a little late for us but we ll see. okay. oh, that s good. not my thing. i don t like liquor, believe it or not. my kids are sitting over there going, really? since when? some historians have something to say about the whole friday the 13th thing. what do they have to say? they peg it to the 13 people at the last supper, but that was actually thursday night. maybe it went into friday. which is called good friday, because something good happened that day. it s all screwed up. i m not superstitious. i m a little superstitious, i don t like the black cat randomly around me. because you heard of it? i don t want to bring on anything that might not be great. if there s a ladder, i won t walk under it, ever. just because why wa. i ll be careful. i m careful about why would you bring on anything that may possibly bring you trouble? why? why do you think it would is the question? everybody says so, i m and the not going to risk it. who is everybody? people. it goes back to your egyptian origins. what does that have to do with anything? you re all screwed up because of that. you see what i deal with. if you re applying for a job and your prospective boss takes you to lunch, the question is what should you order to drink? it seems like a no-brainer. order a soft drink or iced tea. so the boss orders a let s pretend he orders a merlot, and the waiter says what would you like? should you order like he or she does because it blends in or should not? according to the survey you should never, ever order alcohol period when you re on any kind of job interview. i would have never been hired in the 44 years i ve been in this business. they had a bunch of observers watching the table, and they say it gives a bad message. i do think and i believe this on a date nor a job interview, anything you need to know about somebody you re going to learn at that lunch table, anything. right. anything and everything you learn. manners, how they treat people. by the second or third or fourth drink. to have a glass of wine with somebody? if you know you re hired for a job i don t know. i wouldn t do it. i wouldn t order the wine. it depends on the job. that s just me. skwus excuse me for one seco. i d never do it. all right. the big movie out there is eat, pray, love it opens tonight with julia roberts based on a huge, hook bouge book. a monster book. i started to read it and didn t. i was reading it at a time in my life where it rang true, but i didn t read it. a lot of people love it had and related to it and a lot of people didn t. he s going to be on later with the final installment of the movie reviews, and you want to give us a little taste what you thought of if? a little taste? this is my family. the family, okay. you want to introduce them? this is cassidy my two nieces christy and jes. your nieces are quite a bit older than you are, aren t they? a little bit, yeah. it s a little weird situation. i am one year younger than their father. it s worked out, hasn t it, ladies? we all get along pretty well, right? what are they going to say? it is cody s last day. he has to go back and get an actual education. a lot of people are heart-broken, none more than bobbie. she s been we have to get a shot of bobbie. oh, yes. bobbie s been she s in her cougar outfit today in honor of cody. were there any sparks flying? sparks are all over the place. it s a hot studio, baby. cody is up later. here s some signs if you want to look that you re get married, speaking of cody and bobbie, here s the signs. it just seems to fit. so if okay. here s some of the signs that you are going to gets married. if you are younger than 40, you have an 86% chance of getting hitched. that means if you re older than 40 you don t. i guess so. i don t like these stats at all. you ve already been married, and there s another good one for you. if you ve been through a divorce, you have a 75% chance of remarrying. it doesn t matter how old you are, right? there you go. would you want to get married against, hoda? yes, yes, i would. ir i think i m better with someone than i am by myself. i don t know how you could be better. i ve only known you since you were divorced, and you re about as good as you get. let s give it up for hoda woman. i m waiting for the next thing. do you know what the top ten overplayed wedding songs are? we ll give you three because there are too many. this one etta james. at last these are overplayed. another one is this one, i only have eyes for you. that s like the really, really original one. the flamingos. the whole thing drives me crazy. the other most overplayed wedding song is you look wonderful tonight. i m sorry. i love that. it s about a drunk guy going out to dinner with going out to hear some music that night. it s beautiful. wonderful. let s go through our favorites. what is your favorite? favorite wedding song. everyone has a moment that changes their life and ththe then great song. it s classic. what about yours, hoda? my favorite wedding song by van morrison and it s called someone like you. wait, hold on. someone like you making me satisfied someone exactly like you is that song rocks. the overplayed ones. i really can t stand this one. we ve only just begun the sister sledge. look around. look who you re already r relatives with. i don t like that. we are family. this is my most hated song. hit it. everyone has a moment that changes their life and then it suddenly some people have taste and symptom people don t. hope you re getting married and you get happy because one out of two marriages end in divorce. there is good news. 76% chance you ll get married again. here s the other thing. if you re dating someone and you want to break up with them, i actually dislike this very much, but there is actually a service out there where you will call this person, and he will break up with your girl frienfriend o boyfriend for you. it s terrible. they tell you the real reasons why. your breath stinks, you don t clean up after yourself. if some stranger told me why my boyfriend was breaking up with me, that would be the end. that s disgusting. you should do that in person and be hohn eps. it s so hard for people to be honest. you don t want to hurt someone s feelings. i get it. they re going to make the same mistake and not brush their teeth. they need to be told these things. bobbi se in the house. were in sex in the city when he broke up with her on a post-it note. i m feeling very cougarish today. cody is the leaving for the next nine months. we re all going fob very sad. it s all about eyebrows this week, and they not only frame the face but are big on the fall runways. this is vanity mark with seven different colors which means from the blondest blondes to the darkest hair, you will find a color and eye pencil that matches you, because that s a big faux pas. anastasia offers these pencils, five in a pick. not just to blent in your color but put beaby powder on and the you know where to puck. last but not least is cargo s eyeliner. one end shapes your brow underneath so you have the perfect arch, and the other end is the little dash of highlight glitter you put right here. is that what you do? she did mine one time. spectacular. thank you. end of the minute. everything is online. thank you. love you, honey. hi, sarah. we re talking about the most annoying songs at wedding, electric slide and stroking. they re talking about the song you dance to, the chicken dance. enough already. electric slide might be the worse. she s a scene-stealer in the upcoming flick. we ll catch up with kieran culkin. look how excited he looks. thrilled. i can t hold her hand on the bus. or be there to show everyone how great she is. but what i can do is give her everything she needs to be excited for school, while staying in my budget. that s why i go to walmart. she has everything she needs. and then some. [ female announcer ] walmart has low prices on not just a few things, but everything on their back-to-school list. guaranteed. save money. live better. walmart. yes! look, they fit! oh my gosh, are those the jeans from last year? how d you do it? simple stuff. eating right.whole grain. whole grain? [ female announcer ] people who eat more whole grain tend to have healthier body weights. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains and 110 lightly sweetened calories. more grains. less you! multigrain cheerios. 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. [ 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. nutri-grain can help you as a favorite in the indie film circuit he got a golden globe nomination for his portrayal of a rebellion teen. now he s moving to the mainstream. he s played the roommate of the hero in the new film scott pilgrim versus the world. let s take a look. if she s really the girl of her dreams, then you have to let her know. you have to overcome any and all obstacles that lie in your path. you can do it. be with her. it s your destiny. plus, i need you to move out. what? nice to see you. nice to see you. what was it about this script that you likeliked? it took forever to read because it s adapted from a comic book. the whole movie is very, very visual. it s kind of hard to grasp in words. i ve actually had a tough time explaining it in words. you re not alone. anna and jason said you ve never seen anything like this before. we ve been talking about it. people are going to sbimitate ts movie for years whether it s a hit or not. do you enjoy the comic books to join this sort of movie? i m not that big into comic books. i m really into this movie. i ve been geek out about this movie. why? you get a taste of it right there. i see. you didn t have to do any of the actual fight scenes, because you played his very bright, always solving the problems gay roommate, right? that s true. did he like to fight? no, he would rather see people get beat up. he prefers watching his friends get beat up. when you re not shooting the film, an article talked about how you have a real love for nintendo. that is your thing. this is true. i was up until 5:00 in the morning playing anyone tends doe. nintendo? what s the points? what s the points? you play a game. i haven t played a game in 40 years. little banana gram. i don t know what that is, but that makes me want to give you a hug. i m sorry. i ll give you a chance for that. come on. i m sorry. it s so much fun. but it s a generational thing. he s ignoring me. are all the people i ll look into it. this movie? yes, i think very much. why? why? it s something you haven t seen before. it s crazy and ridiculous. there s so much going on in this movie, it s nuts. i have geeked out about it. i m seeing it for a sixth time next week, and i m looking forward to it. i keep finding new things about it. shawn of the dead. how could i miss that? banana grams. i m not into this kind of thing. i want to see it. have you seen it? no, i haven t. my son saw it and is going to review it later sxland liked it very much. they don t think think movie is targeted toward me, but i really liked it. after the tenth person that said maybe it is actually targeted for you. maybe you don t know it yet. a lot of people will find out. did you give him the big blush? he got the heave ho. he s got to go play nintendo. scott pilgrim versus the world. it opens today. finding time to unwind with the simple things in life up next. like banana grams. [ female announcer ] we all want to stay active. but even in your 30s bones begin to change calcium and vitamin d help keep your bones strong. yoplait has calcium and vitamin d in every cup. keep your bones strong, with yoplait. [ dog panting ] [ dog sniffs ] [ cat meows ] [ cat meows ] [ male announcer ] cats everywhere are using fresh step with carbon because it doesn t just mask odors, it eliminates them. so don t be surprised if your cat needs help finding her litter box. fresh step, the only clay litter with carbon. it s paw-activated, to eliminate odors. so it s almost like not having a litter box. 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[ male announcer ] old el paso. a special blend of seasoning for especially delicious tacos. feed your fiesta. remember the seinfeld end so he had where george s dad would get stressed out he d throw his hands up and go serenity now! we re going to relax with teary, i m stressed out about saying her name. she s senior editor of whole living magazine. how are you, doll? you ve got good things to help us out starting with candle. until my newest favorite comes out in the fall. right now on the market this stuff. this smells beautiful. it s a beautiful candle. people love to have aroma as a way to relax. you can t always travel. these are good alternatives. take a whiff of that. you can smell it and rub it on your temples or whatever. it can change your brain chemistry to help you relax a little bit. you totally believe in all that, right? i believe in it. research shows. lavender essential oil you can pick up. it actually has been proven to reduce stress in your brain and body. so it does work. it does work. is it because it reminds us of it s not memory. it s chemical. you need the real plant essential oil. s in cool. this rescue remedy is a great thing to have in your purse when you re stressed out and can t escape and you re in a stressful moment like on national tv. is it a breath thing? yes. or gum. it brings your nerves down in a second. it doesn t make you sleepy. a great thing to have on hand. this is the fun stuff. this i love. go ahead. the tingler you put up and down on your head. come on. you could die right now. you look really good to me. it feels great. simple pleasures. here s another thing to do to create a sanctuary in your home. a white noise machine. we have water fall, raise, whatever your pleasure, summer nights. that seems spooky to me. babies like that because it remindzs them of the womb with their mother. it can help you relax. these are two of my favorite things. you need two. i m going to show you what they re like. you lay on the ground, and you put these on either side of your spine roll on them. oh, my god. i love it. they target muscles in your upper and lower back. these are like ten bucks. we have less than a minute. she s scratching up. veshgs very nice. just for fun, simple. here we have these. they re called foot wakers. they have nubs on them. they get into the fas ya cia onr feet and get you a full you step on them when you brush your teeth. they feel fantastic. we have more stuff but we re almost out of time. omega 3s to improve your mood and tea to help you relax. we ll be back with ambush makeovers after this. special k protein shakes a truly great-tasting breakfast shake. with 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, it s the creamy, delicious way to satisfy. your hunger to help you lose weight. so you can kick the tin can habit. try special k protein shakes today. hey, little dude. dinner s my middle name. how bout some hamburger helper? oh, my, but your mouth is gonna love it. plus now you get three box tops for your kids school. now this is the deal of the day. hamburger helper. one pound. one pan. one tasty meal and bonus box tops. another powerful storm moves through the area, knocking down hundreds of trees and leaving thousands in the dark. how long will it take to clean it all up in we ll tell you. good morning, i m barbara harrison. tips on planning the perfect party. sandy hoffman. a health alert involving a popular painkiller. news4 midday starts we re back on this dry day with more of today and the results of the ambush makeover. working the magic on two lucky ladies. and us weekly kw and toda showed contributor jill martin. so you scoured the plaza and found two gems. it was a little springily, and we did it rather quickly. they were terrific to begin with, and we hopefully and i think we really did make them much more beautiful. i have a feeling you re right. our first lucky later is jackie, 48 years old from pennsylvania. she s been married to her husband david for 25 years sxr three boys together. she spends a lot of time looking after kids, one who has diabetes. her husband said it s time for her to finally do something for herself. congratulations. i know your 25th anniversary is coming up, a big day. you really want this. tell us why. i ve been really busy raising three boys and my middle son is a type 1 diabetic, and i m just i work in my husband s practice, and i haven t taken time for myself. with the anniversary coming up, i m psyched to get this. you re super mom, so she deserves this? absolutely. she s working hard and we re looking forward to a treat like this. are you ready to go? i m ready. we have jackie s husband, david, over there with his blindfold on. keep your blind fiefold on. here s the before picture. let s see the new you. simply irresistible. are you ready, husband david? take off that blindfold. wow! look at him light up. you look great. i m ready. oh, my god. awesome. no wonder those people come to you. it s adorable. tell us about the hair, louis. first of all, she had hair that was very fine. so jennifer gave her a more appropriate haircut for her hair texture and made her hair wider on the side which emphasized the shape of the face. i softened her hair color, which is the contrast between the skin color and hair color was too deep. it is beautiful and gorgeous. it looks like it s hers and not mine, and that s the key to great-looking hair. look at david. david, tell us what you think. she looks great, wonderful. when is the 25th anniversary. in about a week. perfect. don t sleep. keep your hair and make up like this. she wanted a special dress for their 25th anniversary. this is available at macy s. she s a classic pear shape, so this accentuates her waist with this beautiful dress. congratulations. what do you think, jackie? i love it. go join your husband. a big round aftof appear plause there. she is 34 from wisconsin. she hasn t changed her hair in almost ten years and is ready to kick off the school year with a brand-new look. listen to her story. we usually say this for 5-year-olds, but you actually want a new back-to-school look? i do want a new, fresh back-to-school look and a new look for my husband. a hot teacher. everyone loves that. i know you ve been friends for over a decade, and you say she deserves this? greta is a huge fan, and i think this is a dream come true for her. are you ready for three hours of pampering? i am. thank you. she has her blindfold on. look at greta. now bring out the new greta. wow, wow, wow. oh, my goodness. take a look and get a look at her. oh, that s a good friend. you look beautiful. you re going to like what you see. you are. it s the hair. i know. you got to touch it. do you like? i do. it s adorable. that looks great. so what did you do, louis? the first thing is greta has beautiful hair, no. one. i warmed up her chin. she had highlights done well bishgs the way. i warmed them up. it worked better with her skin tone. evened out her skin complexion, and then jennifer lawrence gave her a simple haircut with a little more bounce. it looks better with her whole body size. just darling. just gorgeous. the outfit is precious. great for back to school. it s available at tjmaxx. you can just throw on a blazer. what do you think? i love it. it s a new look. how about the jewelry? h & m. well-done. jill, as always, nobody does it better. don t forget, for the rest of the summer they scour the plaza on thursdays so stop by if you want a whole new look. tips for keeping your college kids out of debt. important. first these messages. how about their parent science. yes, that too. e. yes, that too. [ announcer ] how do you plus up breakfast? 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. guys remember, and a delicious we re a solar system.ch. mars is down.and. um, it s only 10am. who hasn t had their jimmy dean breakfast this morning? mmmm! now lets orbit i feel awesome. you re all awesome. jimmy dean breakfast sandwiches, fight the morning fade. why do women like you love activia light? sometimes i have no choice but to eat on the run and to eat whatever happens to be around. heavy greasy food that s hard on my diet and my digestive system. so i eat activia light every day. activia light, with bifidus regularis, helps regulate your digestive system in two weeks. mmmm. activia light is not light on taste! and with only 70 calories activia light helps make it easier to watch my weight. it helps me feel good and look good too! activia colorstay ultimate™ liquid lipstick. i don t kiss and tell. has a built-in topcoat that keeps your lips perfect past midnight. with a single application in 20 comfortable shades. these lips are sealed. revlon colorstay ultimate™ liquid lipstick. family trees. circles of friends. backyards are one size fits all. and just like we mix and mingle. so do the delicious tastes and textures in every handful of chex mix. we re made to mix. if your kid she his head of to college, most college seniors graduate with $4,000 in credit card debt. if you re lucky. you want to have a chat about spending and budgets. this is author of you re so money: live rich even when you re not. so nice to see you again. there s a lot of debt you have from just the tuition and things, but i didn t know credit card debt was so high. it s one of the biggest financial traps. every college student is graduating with an average four different credit cards in her wallet. why are we giving kids that many cards. we used to. the banking industry was more lenient, but now there s a new law to protect college student that says you cannot give a credit card to anyone under the age of 21 unless he or she has a job with sufficient income or gets a cosigner, which could be a parent. a lot of students are eligible for cate card. the banks can t be too pleased about that, huh? if you get your child a credit card, how do you make sure that they don t spend wildly? if you get a credit card and she s under 21, you have to cosign. caution, don t be a cosigner, because that means if your child racks up debt or misses payments, those stains on her credit report will also be on your credit report. it will hurt your credit score. if your child is proven to be responsible with a debit card, start with a debit card and checking account and cash. you can always add money to it. narz no need to get a credit card, especially if mom and dad and the child are in conversations and they re weawa of the budget. you can see what they re spending it on as well. you can track it online. well, can t. one of the things that is a financial trap is when you don t graduate when you re supposed to, so you end up going another year. another semester and a another year. we think college is four years. actually, 50% of students, full-time students, not part-time, full-time students graduate in four years and the rest take five years and six years. this is public schools and private schools. you have to talk about goals and make sure they re taking enough credits and talking to their school counselor. if they re behind tashgs the classes at the community college during the summer where it s cheaper, transfer the credits so that you re not graduating five years later. is that because the job market is so tough out there they think they might as well stay in school? that s one of the reasons. it s tough to graduate on time if you have a double-major, if you study abroad, that adds a semester. it s not because they re lazy or because they re so indecisive. it s tough. there are a lot of requirements to graduate these days. if you don t keep track, you realize you had ten more credits. how long did it take you? four sxl a little bit. i took seven classes almost every smes to her graduate in four years and study broad. otherwise, it would have taken five. that s why i quit. so i didn t have to deal with it. that s another solution. identity theft is go that happens on college campuses. nare huge magnets for identity thieves. if you have electronic devices, computers, laptops, cell phones, get them password protected. do not give your social security number, bank number, credit card number to anyone. that s for dauladults as wel. yes. from hoss tess twing i didn t say and mac and cheese, how to clone your favorite foods at home right after this. well, kids need to eat well.o and eating well means getting enough whole grain and calcium. and general mills big g kid cereals can help. did you know it s the only leading line of kid cereals with at least 8 grams of whole grain and a good source of calcium? cereals they already love, like lucky charms and cinnamon toast crunch. give your kids more of what they need to be their best. grow up strong. with big g kid cereals. let s raise a glass to cookies just out of the oven. to the morning bowl of cereal. and to lactaid® milk. easy to digest and with all the calcium and vitamin d of regular milk. [ female announcer ] lactaid®. the original lactose-free milk. and i feel like. [ female announcer ] kellogg s® wants to make kids happy one tummy at a time. because 9 out of 10 kids don t get the fiber they need, that s why froot loops® and apple jacks® have 3 grams of fiber in every yummy bowl. they re the cereals your kids love and the fiber their tummies love. which makes for a whole lotta happy. froot loops® and apple jacks, an oh-so-good source of fiber. kellogg s® makes fiber fun. time for today s kitchen. you can do this. he s the author of top res piece unlocked. apparently he s a big hurry. all new american brand name foods. welcome. start with the twinkies. it s 80 years old this year. it s an old snack cake, but you can make it at home. you can get these twinkie shaped pans. they re expensive. you don t have to do that. you can make the molds from the cake from scratch. you ll foil and fold it over twice and pop a spice bottle into the middle and close the ends. when you take it out, put it in a backing pking pan and it s ma pancake mix with egg whites and water. put it in and bake it up. you have twinkies. let s fill them. take an unfilled twinkie and cut the top off so its flat. the top becomes the bottom like this. cut it. that s actually the bottom of your twinkie. i gotcha. you got it? chopsticks work great for this. you cut yours in half? where did you cut it? i did it right? yeah. perfect. a little bit off the top. awesome. that s perfect. perfect. take chopsticks now, and put three holes in the bottom. i put one in the side. your filling will squirt out of the side. did you screw it up? carve out a little cavity. i put put it in there. you squirt it in. it s marshmallow cream, shortening, a little water with salt dissolved in it and some vanilla. is this looks good. that s your middle, right? how are you doing over there? oh, yeah. you keep mama happy doing a good time. now do i put the top back on? we only have one minute. we have to do a taste test. that s how you fill it. you have to eat. put on blindfolds. no. i didn t look, hint, hint. here comes a something, that s not the real one and what am i? chopped liver. you want to try? yes. your eyes are open? i know. so you can t tell. i gave you the same one. the second one is real. the second one was fake. a cookie, a cookie. pick one of each. this is my favorite thing to do. try these cookies. these are clones of famous amos chocolate chip cookies. make them from scratch. this one here is the real one, that one is the fake one. no, it isn t. mac and cheese. mac and cheese. stouffers mac and cheese. want some? yeah. how about this one? this is good. one of them is fake and one is real. real. you make the frozen and bake it. fake. real. you got that one. thank you, honey. it s easy to make it at home. code kwi gifford will share his picks, and this is today on nbc. we re back with the weekend movie preview with cody gifford. this is his last one before he heads back to campus. you saw three movies. a couple hits and a miss? we start off with scott pilgrim versus the world. it s about a young guy that s a weak ling, doesn t have confidence. more like indie punk rock. he s not a loner and needs confidence. he comes across the girl of her dreams but he has to defeat the seven evil exes. why i think this film will do well, i think that the video graphic style they shot it in has all the elements of pop k t culture infused into the frame. sometimes it looks like a comic book. it s like a video game, but what s so interesting is that it s a comment on adolescent relationships. it s all about youthful obsession, how it heart hurts u the other people. it channels it through a medium kids understand, which is our consul culture. they say it s like no movie we ve seen. do you agree with that? yes. eat pray love was a huge book. did you groove on it? it s a true story about the woman who seemingly has everybody. she has a good life, married. one day she decides her life isn t going in the right direction and gets a divorce and goes to italy, india and bali to learn how to indulge, pray and learn how to romance. sounds a little narcissistic. it is. it s kind of hard to invest emotionally in a character that is kind of selfish. we need to stay that word more often. julia roberts, we like her. you pull for her. i think that i m not going to say this movie is brilliant, because it s not. a lot of people are dealing with insecurities and anxiety about their own life find this therapeutic. the director, creator of glee did it. it s more than a feel good but not art cinema. the expendables is next. sylvester stallone was the writer and director. you get what you pay for it. mickey rourke and they give it to the guys with acting chops. we have enjoyed having you on this show for this summer. thank you. i love you, hoda. i love you. i love you too sometimes. first you wanted to write these for the website. i wanted to contribute to the website. was it okay, honey? the first time, mine, i was like oh, my god. cameras and lights but now i m happy with it. we love you. have a great new semester and don t spend too much money. have a wonderful weekend, everybody, okay? we will see you again on monday. another fun day, hoda. fun day. another fun day, hoda. fun day. and frank s birthday. captions by vitac www.vitac.com