Transcripts For WRC Today 20101125 : vimarsana.com

2010. welcome to a special edition of today on this thanksgiving morning. i matalie morales here in new york. lester holt is in afghanistan doing a great job. meanwhile, we have matt and meredith at macy s and al on the upper west side to give you complete coverage of this morning s parade. we ll talk to all of them in a moment. first, let s talk to lester at camp eggers. you are doing an amazing job. i m sure the troops appreciate it. reporter: thank you. the troops are lined up for dinner in the dining hall with all the trimmings. they have a message for you. what is it? happy thanksgiving! eporter: you bet. fired up troops from all branches here. they re missing their families. we ll talk to many of them as we continue over the next couple of hours. serious business. there is a war going on insurgent attacks up. last weekend, president obama and nato leaders decided 2014 would be the end of combat operations, at least for u.s. and nato forces. the afghans have to take things over for themselves. we will talk to the leader of afghan forces in afghanistan and ask what happens, if a 2014 date is realistic andow soon they can go home. thank you. weather is the rank story, set to impact most of this eastern half of the country on one of the busiest travel days the year. first, to matt and meredith, a look at macy s thanksgiving day parade. happy thanksgiving. happy thanksgiving. weather is n an issue here. al will tell you more about that. good news, you talk about inflated dreams, they will be realized. the big balloons will be flying. wind is not a problem. we have 16 giant balloon, some favorites will be there, lik snoopy and two new ones, the wimpy kid. and broadway shows are practici behind us right now, the cast of memphis and american idiot and million doar quartet and others as well. jessica simpson, kanye west and juanes. a collko collam colombian superstar. it is bound to be another great macy s thanksgiving parade. it kicks off this morning at 9:00 on nbc. we ll be checking back with you guys in a little bit. lot of folks, when it comes to holiday trel, there have been issues. while the planned protest of new screening rules at the airports fizzled ou nasty weather is a problenot only on roads from coast-to-coast, julie martin is in chicago alongside one of the nation s busiest highways. good morning to you. reporr: good morning, natalie. so far so good in chicago. there is bad weather news out there. a system bringing a wintry mix of rain, sleet and snow, making its way across the east and northwest, will make that thanksgiving trip a lot more difficult for many. for some holiday travelers, getting to thanksgiving dinner is not going to be easy. there s a real mess in the middle of the country. rain, ice and snow hit parts of the plains and upper midwest wednesday. now, that messy weather is moving across theidwest and into the northeast. aaa reports 90% of people traveling 90 miles or more this thanksgiving wil be doing so by car. for air travelers, the main concerns is slowdowns at security points. on wednesday, no major delay were reported. you can opt out. you can say no. reporter: despite a national call for travelers to opt out of tsa body scan,ost travelers seemed more interested getting home for thanksgiving. doing what i have to do to see the folks. reporter: in los angeles l.a.x. one body scan had a traveler showing up in next to nothing. i don t thi there s much place to hide anything in a bikini. reporter: and a youtube video showed a man disrobing. what ar you doing? a safety precaution reporter: and one protest showed a man showing up in t-shirt and boxers. in the event i m chosen for a full body scan and i opt out, i ll be given a pat-down. the purpose of this attire is to make the pat-down as efficient as possib. reporter: despite people s concerns, the security lines ran even faster than usual. that s the hope for the next busiest travel day. that s sunday for the return trip home. we can expect to see some snow along the great lakes. julie martin in chicago for us. thank you. we ll get al s forecast in just a moment. now, let s get a check of the other top stories. amy is here for ann, on assignment. good morning. happy thanksgiving. gd morning to you. thank you. we appreciate it. we start with the first images of yeonpyeong island since it was attacked by north korea on tuesday. joining us live from south korea, ian, can you tell us what you saw? you werene of the first reporters to gain access to the area? reporter: what s most striking, amy, when you get close to that island is how ordinary looks. when you get closer still, that s when you see the security and sense the tension and soon, see the destruction at the heart of that fishing village. we traveled on one of the first ferries since tuesday s attacks and we traveled where it sits a couple of miles from the seaboarder. the military was on high alert in the sky and at sea, checking everybody leaving our boat. the north korean shells struck right at the center ofhis small fishing village, flatteng a neighborhood of shops and homes. these houses in the heart of the village seem to have borne the brunt of the attack, about a dozen destroyed, villagers saying the attack came completely without warning. many others damages. seems incredible only two civilians died and most able to reach shelters. this 71-year-old fisherman told me he had hidden on his boat when the shells reigned in and now joining the valuation of civilians on the island. others insist on saying. the villagers knew they were on the front line and vulnerable but nobody expected this. the government here has faced severe criticism for its handling of this crisis and allowing the attacks to happen and today that culminated of the resignation of the country s defense minister, amy. ian williams, in south korea, thank you. a man who was convicted in the drowning death of his wife has returned to the u.s. his wife died while ty were scuba diving in 2003. watson, an experienced rescue diver, failedo save her. former majority leader, tom delay has been found guilty of money laundering, a sentence that can result in life in prison. he was found in laundering corporate donations into political campaign, formerly known wasne of the most powerful, known as the hammer says he expects to appeal. a new leak from wikileak could come as soon as this weekend. the 250,000 documents expected to be leaked are quote very very good morning and happy thanksgiving from all of us at storm center 4. i m meteorologist tom kierein. we ve had light rain across nohern virginia, the district, and maryland. it s drifting off to the north and east and will continue to pull away as the morning progresses. it s chilling in the upper 30s and low 40s. highs today around 50. remaining cloudy f the rest of the day. more rain likely tomorrow and a cold weekend to follow. that s your latest weather. let s head back t afghanistan, lester at camp eggers. please give the troops all our best wishes. reporter: you bet i will, al. happy thanksgiving to you. thank you. 95,000 u.s. troops are currently serving in afghanistan. with insurgent attacks up this year, this has been the bloodiest year yet. with me is lieutenant general david rodriguez, the commander of forces in afghanistan. happy thanksgiving to you. you ve been a wonderful host to us and we appreciate all you ve done. we heard a lot about 14 the last couple of months, nato leaders decided that was the end of u.s. combat operations. what does it mean to these folks. a l have stood in these lines before. this isn t their first time. no, it s not. 2014 is a light at the end of the tunnel for many that transition will be conditions-based and work with the afghan community and afghan forces tossume that goal. was that a political decion or military one? were you angen ral petraeus consulted and said, give us a realistic debate? yes. we ve been in communication going forward and how long it will take and what the objectives and our goals are. his has been an uneven battle. this past week, we learned there was a fake taliban leader negotiating with nato, was a fraud, took some money. it s embarrassing, frustrating, what does it mean from a military standpoint trying to fight this war? from a military standpoint, you have lot of ups and downs. we re having more ups than downs and moving in the right direction, making progress. it s an uneven fight. asymmetral war, everything from bombers and rockets and fighting guys with improvised explosives. how do you get the advantage over that kind of enemy? the advantage really gets done over that enemy by the great leaders you have at every level, innovative servicemen and women and a tremendous thinking organization that learns and gets better everyday. the war here, right now, we re at camp eggers, where i know the nato training is going on for afghan troops. do you worry oncehe handover takes place, this has always been a cntry of shifting alliances. you re trying to shift whurnds of years of history. do you worry things will fall back and the taliban will come in from the woodwork? i don t think so. the afghan people don t want that happen and we have to help them build enough capacity so it doesn t happen in the future. the process we re working on is all about irreversibility and we will pay attention to tha every step of the way. i met a l of people and i scratch my head, nine years of war, how do you keep the attitude? what keeps the folks doing what they do? lrn and the leadership and incredible commitment to serve their country. do you worry the country is losing some sense of relevance with this war, distracted, will move on? i don t think that at all? i don t think that of the soldiers and marines and dedicated people out here trying to make a difference. who s at home right now and cooking atour house? my family have a tradition, all get together, about 50 of them and they re eating turkey this afternoon here in pennsylvania. i know you miss them and all the folks miss their families. thanks so much for your time. happy thanksgiving. all ght. natalie, we send it back to you. thanks so much, lester. on a much lighter note, we re less than two hours from the start of the yearly tradition, macy s thanksgivg parade. in the middle of all the last minute preparations, hey, guys. hi, natalie. that is a cast warming up behind us. it is a bittersweet day for executive producers of macy s thanksgiving parade, robinall with us today, they re hanging up the top hat at the end of the parade. kind of bittersweet day for me. a nice round 10 years and pa passipas passing the scissors to my producer and she s made me look good for 10 years. you re going out with a bang today. it will look great. and t artist who designs the two balloons about halfway through the parade, two beautiful little art balloon, he came up and did a purification ceremony for us. he said, i m very worried about the weather. he said, i m calling on all the powers to make it a nice day. he did. the saki and salt. i knew you de into the saki part. you have been into this part where you think, did i css all the ts and dot all the is? last night at 3:00 i the morning, i woke up with a start, did i bring the scissors? a true story. what are you looking forward to most? you mentioned the balloons are going, kung fu panda, diary of a wimpy kid. what else do you think people will love? we had this kool-aid balloon that was spectacular and everybody loved it. and a virginia balloon based on the lady that wrote a letter t santa years before. every time you talk about it, you re like a little kid, i m looking at your face. emotionally. we re talking about american idiot rehearsing and elf . million dollar quartet. that s a great accomplishment to attract the best talent to this parade. we love it because it exposes 50 million people around the country who aren t that familiar with it. one of the reasons they love it. we got two awards from broadway for the parade based on our contributions for the broadway theater. what about all the kids that co from across the country for the opportunity to perform here. every one of those kids bring parents and grandparents. and they raise money. we don t p for anybody to come. they raise their own. it s a very high bar for these kids and remember it the rest of their lives. ten years for you and for us, and meredith the last several. who was that woman before mer dirth? there was no one ever, no one came before meredith. what will you do next thanksgiving? i will probably be in atlanta. we light our big thasgiving tree on thanksgiving and i always missed it. done it a lot of years and spent a lot of money. on television. i ve never seen it and my team is doing it tonight. literally speaking, hats off to you. you ve done a great job. congratulations. as robin puts the h on, macy s thanksgiving parade at 9:00 in the morning. we will miss robin hall. he s done a great job. we ll check back with you guys in a little bit. also ahead, catching crooks red-handed, how sites like facebook and youtube are helping police solve crimes. still to come, we ll catch up with some of the servicen and women celebrating anksgiving here at camp eggers. martha s stewart s step by step guide to the perfect thanksgiving meal aer your local news. and all through the house. whoa, that s grandma. [ grandma ] .nothing was stirring, not kara, not maya. how does she do that? magic. [ grandma ] .grandma loves you. [ both ] goodnight, grandma. [ female announcer ] be there to read them a story every night. read it to me again. [ female annouer ] hallmark recordable storybooks. this christmas, make it wonderful at your hallmark gold crown store. berry-topped, almond strudel pie? triple-chocolate-swirl brownie? [ sk sampler ] crunchy, berry, nutty, chocolatey goodness? 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[ female announcer ] life comes with headaches and that s when people reach for excedrin. excedrin starts relieving headaches faster than extra strength tylenol and advil. the deck looks great. oh, we just washed it. well, not washed, power washed. big difference. hum. big. female announcer ] excedrin. for life s headaches. 7:26 is your time now on this thursday, november 25, 2010. good morning. i m eun yang. happy thanksgiving. no word yet what caused a big fire that badly damaged a home in durwood, maryland it s ithe 19000 block of hoover drive. they say they were concerned abt water supply. everyone inside the home gotut and there was no report of injuries. we ll take a good morning. it s cloud and chilly. the color on radar is showing light rain in maryland drifting slowly to the north and east. only in the upper 30s d low 40s. high today near 50 for this thanksgiving, and cloudy the rest of the day. any rain activity ending by midday. more rain likely for friday. cold for the weekend. how s traffic, jerry. you have to be careful. the police have been dispatched for an accident. maybe an overturned car. fire crews are heading out to investigate that report. over on 95, they re looking good both ways. on nbc 4 live coverage it is 7:30 now on a third morning thanksging day november 25th, 2010, the excitement building in new york city for the macy s thanksgiving day parade. a little later on, we ll get the latest from matt, meredith and al just ahead. meanwhile the troops celebrating at camp eggers. a pretty long line, what they call the defect, a dining facility. i m lester holt. natalie, coming from afghanistan, what a great group of people here. we re so excited to have them with us. we re going to talk later about the changing attitudes of the war both back here and in the united states and how it affects the men and women fighting it overseas. thanks. meanwhile, from here, we will talk turkey, along with the sides and gravy with martha stewart. she s here all morning long, i call it my martha stewart intervention and will give us tips your family is guaranteed to love. andne of the biggest names in sports, lebron james. let s begin this half hour with an unexpected weapon against crime. social networking sites. reporter: these days, when cops want to solve a crime, they re patrolling online on soal networking sites like facebook, where real life crooks often slip u in a virtual world. one criminal in pennsylvania was caught web-handed when he logged on to his facebook account during a robbery. police arrested one of l.a. s most prolific graffiti artists aftehe posted video of his handy work on youtube. people put a lot of stuff on their cebook and myspace, other things they normally wouldn t tell you. reporter: in washington, they tracked down a fudge different after he posted on his facebook page he s in parade in cancun. he s now in jail. convicted burglar posted, i m on the run, after being released from a halfway house. he s behind bars, too and a long list of facebook friends are helping to catch criminals. ifou can get on the internet, you can get on our page and view all the people wanted. reporter: almost 900 police and sheriff offes across the country have facebook pages, an estimated 500 law enforcement offices use twitter. we have to go where the community goes and the community is online in the hundreds of millions. i d t know what that means but i m down. reporter: in florida, they can watch on the internet and the show is produced by local police and features active cases. their stepped up efforts online paid off in the arrest of this thief. he walked out of a boca store with a giant tv only to be nabbed when somebody saw the surveillance video on the boca police facebook site. social networking for cops, using ip addresses to give criminals new addresses, jail. kerry sanders, nbc news, boca raton, florida. let s get a check of the good morning. on this thanksgiving morning we ve had some scattered light showers here predawn, and now those are drifting off to the new york and east through north central maryland. there it is north and west of washington. and most of the rain is over for the day. it s chilly, 45 in washington, only near in the suburbs. rural areas upper west, 30s. a few of these sprinkles may linger today. otherwise, cloudy, near 50. tomorrow more rain likely through the midday and much colder through the weekend with sunshine back. , of course, the 84th macy s thanksgiving day parade kicks off 9:00 a.m. central park west, 77th street, along with gladys knight and so many stars and balloons, it will be amazing. thanks. hard to believe this is the 10th straight year americans have lined up for thanksging dinner in afghanistan. the war has been going on almost a decade and the tour is different and places on the homefront, compared to what you will hear on the ground. i had a chance to talk with high school stunts back in the states and a marine sargent deployed here and you get a sense how they see the war through their eyes. it was consired by most americans, a war of necessity, a direct response to september 11th, an attack on al qaeda s sa haven. on my order, the united states military has begun strikes against al qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the taliban regime in afghanistan. reporter: the country swept by a wave of patriotism, so many young men and women rushed to join the military and fight terror. in nine years, the faces of those who carry on this war hav slowly changed. in some ways, their motivation, too. i was not motivated by terr. reporter: marine sergeant casey carrara was only 16 and joined the service a not out of a sense of justice but broader dues for service to his country. i always thought there were young men and women that were doing this approximately seven years before i joined. reporter: americans broadly support men and women like sergeant casey. yet most of us have done so with little personal sacrifice. times and circumstances have also shifted our focus and resolve. the war in afghanistan was virtually a non-sue in the last election. a recent quinnipiac poll found over half of americans are convinced it s a lost cause. tough to hear when you re walking dangerous ground thousands of miles from home. i think the people athome, the ones who think about it real deep and hard, know that it is for a good cause. the things we re doing on a daily basis truly are benefitting the people of afghanistan and in the long run, it will truly make a difference. reporter: the war is costing more american lives tha ever from single and double digit death tolls in each of the first years to more than 360 this year alone. how many of you think much about the war? a couple hands. at a high school in hackensack, new jersey, i found students with understandable worries, finding a job, paying for college. i may be 60 and just finishing off paying my loans. reporter: butter ror and war are not on their list of big concerns. for their generation, grade schoolers in 2001, the next glock of voters, the war has no relevance. how s that war going? i have no idea why we re even over there, it s like we re there and hanging out. reporter: it s not just a younger generation trying to figure it out. their comments mirror polls of americans as a whole question whether we should remain involved. this was my choice. reporter: serant casey k, who will soon go home to his wife and new daughter has a message that it is worth it. i will tell them the presence of u.s. troops in afghanistan will benefit maybe not on the short term as much as the long term down the road, safety for the united states. reporter: we can tell you, we covered a lot of territory in 10 days in afghanistan. in general, morale seems to be very high. we should note honoring the troops, there are a lot of american civilians here putting theirselves on the line here in service to the military and war effort. we will have much more from camp eggers and coming up, martha start with everying you need for thanksgiving pudding and a no fail proof turkey right after this. [trumpet playing reveille throughout] let s support the small business owners getting our economy booming with the first ever small business saturday. on november 27th, shop small. it s going to be huge. [trumpet playing reveille fades to silence] back nowt 7:43. this morning on martha on today, a thanksgiving feast from start to finish, marth stewart is here. e will be hping us. i m great. you re helping me? i m helping you. put me to work i like to say, this is my martha stewart intervention, i am taking this learningome with me. hau ow to stuff a turkey and cook a turkey so it looks like a beautiful golden brown. you have a fail proof turkey here already prepared. we put the salt and pepper and sage under the skin. no long nails. we have cornbread that you can buy or you can make. you can even use cornbread mix. it s actually pretty good. i ve had it. and celery sauteedith butter and a little white wine and cornbread shchopped up and add o eggs. don t overstuff it. pack it, because it will expand and that s enough for the rear. what do you do with the wings? i ll show you. you don t have to struggle. it s a struggle to tuck them under. don t forget to put stuffing in the neck cavity. any extra stuffing, by the way, can be put in a butter dish and roasted as the same time as the turkey. people are always concerned with the stuffg b okay as long as you cook it to the rig temperature. don t put hot stuffing in a cold bird. everybody is concerned aut salmonella. if you do it this way, now is the time, if you eat this afternoon, start preparing right no here is your beautiful bird. hopelly, your bird is thawed. you like fresh. i like fresh. this is a hayne turkey, anti-biotic freeze. i m catching the wing tips. what is this? a cotton string. over the drum strips and under the little legs and tie around the parson s nose, the tail. is tt what it s called? that s the nose. not a very flattering description of the parson. tie a little bow there. tie a bow. then put this on the rack in your roasting pan. that s important to put it on the rack. turkey is important because you want to keep the bird you want to keep all those wings and stuff from flopping. this is three-fifthth of untalented butter and one bottle of a good white wine. i m liking this. this is the secret of the perfect roasted bird. dip now a piece of cotton cheesecloth. don t buy that polyester stuff at the car wash. no, no. you don t want that. dip thi into the melted butter and whitewine. this covers i have a friend who uses an old clean t-shirt for this. okay. you can use a piece of white cotton sheet, flannel sheet. put this over your bird. it covers the whole thing. put it into a 425 degree oven for one hour. one hour. you bacon standly. it takes a lot longer to cook this. that s only the start. you reduce the heat to 325. keep basting until y use up all our liquid. internal temperature, this is the greatest digital thermometer, you stick into the thickest part of the bird. we re running out of time. what s thetemperature? i take it out about 156, 60. 160. let it sit for 20 minutes. what are you doing? i ve been paying attention. we will be talking about it all morning long. coming up, theerfect greavy and the perfect everyday food. and there s snoopy ready to go with the red baron, right after this. hey, guys. printer s out of ink. just shake it. [ rattling ] [ male announcer ] need ink? staples has a low price guarantee on all the ink you need. find a lower price at another store, and we ll mat it. that was easy. [scraping] [piano keys banging] [scraping] [horns honking] with deposits in your engine, it can feel like something s holding your car back. let me guess, 16. [laughing] yeeah. that s why there s castrol gtx. with our most powerful deposit fighting ingredientver. castrol gtx exceeds the toughest new industry standard. don t let deposits hold your car back. get castrol gtx. it s more than just oil. it s liquid engineering. we break it, then we fix it. so you can start your day suy side up. that s what we re made of. ba da ba ba ba we removed the alcohol and made it less intense. it still kills bad breath germs for a whole-mouth clean. and it s never felt so good. new less intense listerine® zer™. tonight on nbc primetime special, matt talks to some of the biggest news makers of the year. in the sports world, lebron james and his decision to change teams ctainly made headlines around the world. here s a portion of their interview. he calls himself king james. and why not? at 25, he s one of the highest profile athletes in the world. his face is everywhere. still, nonef it could have prepared lebron james for the frenzy of 2010. this summer, when his contract with the clevend cavaliers ended after seven years, lebron became the most coveted player in nba history. everyone wanted him. if there were 30 of me, i would play for every team. unfortunately, you can t be that much of a diplomat, can yo boy, did you get boot. they were promisi you the world, we will name streets after you, have statutes in your honor, pretty heady stuff. i had to do what i had to do. my son, 9 years old, wrote you a letter lebron, come to new york, the capitol of the world. i don t bring him up because he s my son. you had that coming from all of the cities. how did it weigh on you? it weighed on me a lot. not just passion, but how people are about sports. they are very emotional. what an understatement. lebron announced his much anticited decision on july 8, in ane hour primetime special on espn. i will take my talents to south beach and join the miami heat. in miami, they danced in the streets. in cleveland, they exploded with anger. loser! this is what io to lebron. they seemed to make it personal with you. it can never be that personal. you know what, it had t be personal. they started burning lebron james jerseys and crossed your name off the back and wrote the name, traitor. if you let one person bother you, youill lose focus what the task is. it didn t bother me. he said lost in this outrage w the fa his espn special raised millions to helpeedy kids. to raise $3 million for the boys club to of america, hav hp provide 1,000 computers to these kids, i wouldn t change that. if i have to take a hit to shine a light on inner city kids, i ll do it every time. for more on matt s intview with lebron james and other big names of 2010, catch nbc s people of the year, tonight at 9:00, 8:00 central time? funny matt stayed seated the whole time. might have been a bit of contrast. speaking of mr. lauer, he and meredith are a little south on 34th street, gearing up for the 84th macy s thanksgiving day parade. how s it going? great. we can hear music behind us. they re rehearsing another of the broadway shows back there. everything seems to ben order, we have good weather and all the trimmings and floats and balloons. notice all the bleachers outside. 3 million people are lining the parade route this morning. 27 floats, 15 giant balloons including a couple new ones, kung fu pda and that wimpy kid will be new and most of all, santa claus is coming to town today. it s always a gray d great day when santa claus comes. you know what a lot of people will be watching day? meredith s coat. has light up a and thksgiving in vegas. that s wha it s like. i got the coat and the turkey. it s perfect. i can t wait to see it. thanks. we re back with much more on today. depression is a serious medical condition that can take so much out of you. i feel like i have to wind myself u just to get ouof bed. then.well, i have to keep winding myself up to deal with the sadness, the loss of interest, the trouble concentrating, the lack of energy. [ male announcer ] if depression is taking so much out of you, ask your doctor about pristiq®. pristiq is a prescription medicine proven to treat deession. pristiq is thought to work by affecting the levels of two chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine. tell your doctor rig away if your depression worsens you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants n increase suicidal thoughts and behavrs in children, teensnd young adults. pristiq is not approd for children under 18. do not take pristiq with maois. taking pristiq with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. tell your doctor about all your medications, including those for migraine, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. pristiq may cause or worsen high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or glaucoma. tell your doctor if you have heart disease or before you reduce or stop taking pristiq. side effects may include nausea, dizziness and sweating. for me, pristiq is a key in helping to treat my depression. ask your doctor about pristiq. it is now 7:56, a beautiful look at the naks s capital on this thanksgiving day. good morning, everyone. i m eun yang. and good morning. i m eun yang. there was a fire in durwood. flames were shooting through the house. they were concerned about the water supply. everyone did get out safely. there were no reports of injuries. weather and traffic are next. [ dad ] yeah! [ cheers and applause ] [ male announcer ] achievement getpoints for living life. rn pnc points for your credit and debit card purchases. finout me at pnc.c/getpoints. pnc. for the achiever in us all. . good morning. this thanksgiving morning starting off cloudy, damp and chilly. we ve had light rain pulling new york and east of washington. where you see the green on the rad radar, it s light rain. mid-40s in washington and right near the bay. later today high near 50 and remaining cloudy. morng sprinkles and midday sprinkles should be ending north and east of the area. tonight, cloudy. by dawn torrow, more rain. looks like rain likely through friday. much chillier for the weekend and friday. how s traffic, jerry? along the i-95 corridor in virginia, very slow traffic in dumfries. an accident involving an overturned car moved out of the roadway, catching a lot of folks by surprise. if you re going to bwi, expect delays. police wrapping up an accident off the terchange. eun? ahead this morning on nbc 4, live coverage of the 84th macy s thanksgiving day 8:00 now on this thanksgiving thursday morning, november 25th, 2010. you see a few of the seicemen and women stationed and camp eggers in afghanistan on this thanksgiving. we are thankful, of course, giving a little camera time for them to wave hello to their loved ones. hello, guys, wave hello. our crowd on rockefeller plaza as well keeping me company in the holiday spirit. now, we re giving them a little camera time this morning so i m not all alone by myself. great crowd with us here. meanwhile, outside on the plaza, i m natalie morales, meredith vieira and matt lauer are getting ready for the macy s thanksgiving day parade. as you saw there, my good friend, lester holt, is good morng. this thanksgiving morning we ve had early light rain north and east mainly of the metroary ya where you see the rain north and east. it s raing lightly there and drifting off to the north and east. elsewhere a few scattered sprinkle 30s to low 40s. in washington it s in the mid-40s. later today, mid-50s. cloudy. tomorrow, more rain likely in the midday and turning much colder saturday mo here s a fashion first. kylie actually has tings on her gloves. very nice. you can see those ringed gloved fingers on the parade route, the macy s 84th annual parade kicks off right here on nbc. natalie. we re counting down until then. thank you, al. still to come this morning, more of martha stewart. she s back with her delicious thanksgiving greatvy withoavy w lumps. 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[ male announcer ] buy any windows phone and get a second one free. so get your holiday on at at&t. the doers. the list checker-offers. the christmas morning rainmakers. we can make that day off a morning of trading up, piling high, and saving even more. doors open fridaat 5:00 a.m. see you there. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. we re lowering the cost of christm morning. get a maytag washer or dryer for you ready for this? 249ucks. that s $300 off the pair. welcome back to camp eggers on this thanksgiving morning. girls growing up here in afghanistan have fewer opportunities than boys to learn and play. i had a chance to check out a program using skateboarding  using fun, education and some sense of equality to their lives. afghanistan s girls are on a roll, at a place called skate-a-stan, new attitudes, and amping it up on skateboards. do you feel you ve started a cultural revolution? i don t feel yet but we re working on it. reporter: he brought his skateboard when he went to work he three years ago, a sport that didn t previously exist here and no gender steotypes. when i had a skateboard in the street, they wanted to try it and i had the idea. reporter: it was started with donations and it s a place of learning first, a sports facility second. many of theskids don t attend regular school. skaters must attend classes at skatistan before they can grab some air. it s really really important theyave access to education. we thought perhaps we can link it to skateboarding we re doing. reporter: 13-year-old fazili works for hand-outs onhe streets. but at skatizan, she gets a stipend doing what she loves. i really want to be a good skater, she tells us. skating got her best friend to stop begging on the streets, a natural on the skateboard and ll of spunk. reporter: how do i stand? i found she s also an oh so patient tcher. in a country where many women still wear burqas, oliver knew it could have been a non-starter, post taliban or not. we involve a prominent local woman to come and do a opening for us. he talked about how the wife of mohammed ashar was encouraged to take part in a running race. reporter: the logo, a skater atop an ak-47 has been bnd and will soon appear on skating merchandise worldwide sporting skateistan and maybe taking afghanistan s girls to new heights. by the way, i stood on my feet for that brief lesson but i ll stand on solid ground. coming up, martha stewart shares her secret for a tasty thanksgiving gravy, right after this. hey, you made your own lunch. yep! om) i m so proud of you. the bus is here, gotta go mom. okay hunny, have a great day. lookn your bag, made you sething. (annouer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you car choosey moms, choose jif. let s take the holidays by the antlers. let s roll through those doors at 5:00 a.m. and fill our sleighs to capacity. with all kinds of buzzing, roaring, and humming. with guaranteed low prices that are now even lower, there will be more than tinsel glinting around our trees. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depo we re lowering the cost of christmas morning with this 18-volt 4-piece ryobi combo kit for just 69 bucks. that s over half off. so you think santa will like these. red and green m&m s? i don t know! i never met the guy! whaaaaa! he does exist! they do exist! uhm. santa? we break it, then we fix it. so you can start your day sunny side up. that s what wee made of. ba da ba ba ba your table will be ready in 28 days. ah, we got you a booth! just relax, the doctorill be with you in 28 days. you d never wait that long. huh? so w wait days for new releases? blockbuster has hot new titles, like the kids are alright and charlie saint cloud, 28 days before netflix and redbox. rent them in store, by mail, stream on dand and on the go. blockbuster. less waiting. more watching. 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. back now at 8:18. martha stewart is working hard to give us recipes for great meals. you re cooking gravy there? eyestrain and serve. strain and serve. this is pretty much the last thing you do before you take the turkey to the table. you want piping hot gravy for mashed mo pay toes and stuffing. the turkey platter should look beautiful. we use a lot of fresh herbs, sage and rosemary. you can get these at the farmer s market, get them out of your garden, because we haven t had a really hard frost yet. what did you do? just caramelized these? i put them in a pan with butter, use lady apples aroun and then it makes it something special. i use thyme and you can put a few uncooked cranberries also on here. make sureou have cranberry r relish relishes. we have to have jelly and relish. what was your secret for keeping the gravy from getting lumpy. use flour and water or salt first and shake it up really well, whisk it into the hot drippings and add sauce and cook it and strain it. that s the secret. that s the secret. it s a real pretty color. you don t want white gravy, not necessarily and pretty and more tastier if you use all the drippings from the pan andake out all the excess fat, butter we used to baste the turkey. there, you have a really they ve gone wild. we don t want them on the floor necessarily. isn t that gorgeous? isn t that pretty? notice the skin, ispy, golden brown, the turkey is juicy to the touch. you will not have a dried out insipid looking whitish turkey you will have a golden brown. we can t wait to curt int in. martha stewart will be back with the side dishes, for a lot of people can be the most intimidating part. thanks for the wonderful work done at children s research hospital. and this morning, a new hampshire family has a big reon to give thanks. st. jude s children s research hospital helps discover a bd new treatment. it may just have in this case of 9-year-old jordon boucher. it seems like every time i walked into t living room, there was a st. jude s commercial. i lost it and got upset, saying, why can t that be my daughter. since she was diagnosed with leukemia at 15 months old, jordyn has been fighting for her life. we transferred her to the intensive care unit because she was going into cardiac arrest. reporter: although emergency care was given, there were serious doubts she would make it. but she did surve. even as a baby, she was alys a strong-willed child so her fight for life was pulling her through. reporter: that strength helped jordynrive her cancer into remission 3 1/2 years. you have a lot of check-ups, but all in all, life was getting back to normal. reporter: but sadly, her leukemia returned. her doctor came walking into the room, just the look on her ce said it all. i just looked at her and i said, it s back, isn t it? she said, i m so sorry. reporter: with few options remaining, they we referred to a leading children s cancer hospital and jordyn was back to being a desperatelyick child. she would always say to us, i just want to be a normal girl. i just want to be a normal girl. i didn t want to go back to the hospital. i was already in the hospital when i was little. i didn t want to do it again. reporter: the treatmenthe received did little to help and right around this time last year, jordan was given just weeks to live. this time, she knew what was happening. i had like three or four weeks to live. so it was either i fight it or i wait until the weeks were gone. we would talk about, you know, going over the rainbow, to the otheride and the other part of life. reporter: today, her cancer is gone. that s when jordyn s mom saw this st. jude commercial. almost like a sign that maybe we do need to check it out. reporter: so they called st. jude. in one conversation, jordyn was given a new lease on lif involving a novel transplant procedure currently only done at st. jude. part of the transplant process very new is we give the donoratural killer cells to the patient and use the donor natural killer cells to prevent the leukemia from coming back. her father was the donor and the transplant took place on a day of new beginnings, new year s day. to be able to have her get her new cells in the beginng of the new year in 2010 was another sign everything was right. reporter: ts time, jordyn has a great chance of being a normal girl. at the moment, we have no evidence jordyn has any leukemia. right now, she s cancer-free. in a couple of months if she passes our test, her long term prognosis is very high. reporter: what s jordyn s take on all of this? st. jude is the goodest hospital i have ever been to. reporter: now, a year after being told she would die, jordyn is thanking st. jude for a very special gift. for making my cancer go away. reporter: now,jordyn gives hope to others in this commercial. last year, sick with cancer, jordyn was given just six weeks to live. my mom saw a st. jude commercial. now, i m in the st. jude commercial. in it. you re t star of it. what a great story. marlo thomas is the outreach director of s jude. wt a great thanksgiving. absolutely. her family was told she had only four to eight weeks to live. she went to a leading children s hospital. what was the treatment st. jude used, only done there? we re a research center and hospitalwhat a lot of people don t know. the exciting thing is our bodies have natural killer cells and fight infection all the time, but we don t have enoug to fight cancer. we take the killer cells out of the child and put them in the lab and make them reproducso there s enough of them and put them back in th child and that s what killed that cancer for her. we just published a study in 10 children who had stage 4 cancer, all 10 zero relapse. we re not saying it s a cure for cancer but a darned great start to g from 10 to zero. i just want everyone to know they, too, will be able to do this and benefit from this, because with all our research, we will be disseminating this information. really quickly for people out shopping today, look for the labels. the st. jude. yes. our thanks for giving campaign. look for 8:26 is your time now. 42 degrees. clouds in the sky. a chilly start to your thanksgiving day. tom will have your forecast after the news. jack johnson is being accused of not cooperating with his replacement. they tell the washington post that johnson s administration has not offered letters of resignation, which are tip done near the end of an administration. johnson s spokesman said he s good morning. cloudy and chilly on this thanksgiving morning. northeastern maryland continuing to track off north and east the way of the metro area. right now 40sn the metro area. later today highs only 50. how s traffic, jerry? tom, things looking a little better along i-95 southbound, although it s still running slowly. the accident near triangle are cleared but delays near dumfries. near the american legion bridge, not bad but look out. things might be a little slick out there. eun. thanks so much. it isust about 30 minutes away now. live coverage of the 84th macy s thanksginging day 8:30 on this thanksgiving morning, the 25th of november, 2010. almost that time for the big macy s thanksgiving parade. as you can see, last minute tohes are all being put on the floats. matt and meredith on the broadway performing as well. matt and meredit and al getting under way 30 minutes from now. counting down. meanwhile on the plaza, rockefeller plaza. and everybody sticking by us this morning. outside on the plaza, natie joined by amy as well. and good morning on this thanksgiving morning. we ve had some spriles, light rain. that s moved off to the north and east. you can see the color on the radar where it continues to flal. continuing to slowly drift away. it s chilly urn the cloud ver, just around 40 degrees around much of the region. should reach 50. tomorrow more rain likely through midday. much colder saturday mornin that s your latest weather. now, back to you, natalie. thanks, al. what do you guys like? turkey or sides? coming up, we re getting help from martha stewart to show us delicious side dish recipes and much more wh the men and women staoned at camp eggers this thanksgiving as they enjoy their feast there. this is today on nbc. welcome back, everyone. having dinner in the dining hall at camp eggers on thanksgiving morning. thousands of rvicemen and women wil spend thanksgiving day away from their families. and major here is spending thanksgiving away from her family. great to sit with you. you were a stay-at-home mom and got calledp in may and came over here. your husband, travis is at home? he s at home, taking care of the babies. he was a serviceman deployed in iraq last thanksgiving. two christmases. and two wonderful children? yes. sidney andtoby. want to look at them? watch the monitor and we will pop them up on the screen. there they are. hi, boys! say hi, momma! hi, baby! wait for the camera. it will make you a little nuts. hi! give me some kiss. blow meome kiss. they re scared. how often do you get to see them? do you skype with them? i skype with them sometimes. jenny lou, jenny lou, come on, baby, look at momma. blow me some kiss. i d t know i don t think she has an earpiece. i don t think she can hear. travis, how are you doing as a single dad? how s it going for you? the first month was definitely the hardest. once we got into a routine, we ve been making it, looking forward to momma coming home. lindsey, you will get home when? sometime after the first of the year? y, in january. you will miss christma yes. reporter: what s the plan? how do you handle it? hi, guys! hi! i keep doing my job everyday and i just i enjoy the notes that they send me and a lot of my co-workers are good support for me. i think they ve got a message for you. i think the kids have been making pretty cool progress. what s the story, travis, anything you want to tell lindsey about the kids? well, yeah, actually. we ve been doing we made these shirts last night. i don t ow if you can see or hear over toby. he s getting pretty rambunctious. sidney says, momma is my hero and sidney s says, momma s boy. look at that! oh! rorter: lindsey, honest assessment, how s travis doing? he s doing a lot of things he never had to do, right? this is very true, actually. the mom appreciatio is what i call it. reporter: are you cooking turkey, travis or where are you having thanksgiving dinner? no, thankfully, i ordered ahead with my local grocery store, so we will pick that up and make that job a little easier. momma will be joining us for thanksgiving dinner. when ever we can t get ahold of her, we always bring her along to all the family even. e s been at the pool this summer with us, been in the car with us, even been to the zoo with us. the kids enjoy seeing her. that is terrific. we re so sorry yuys can t be together. we re glad we re able to facilitate this virtual thanksgiving dinner. we re eating very well at camp eggers, aren t we, lindsey? yes. reporter: say good-bye to your family. by, ge, guys. you ll celebrate all the holidays together soon in a few months. we ll take a break. first, this is today on nbc. wea(o.??# this morning on today s american story, bob dotson catches up with a man we met a decade ago. he had a brief moment of fame but decided to step out of the spotlight to do something he felt was much more important. reporter: bradens about to show these kids the small print in big dreams. when i say happy, you say friday. happy! frid! happy! friday! i say uh-oh, you say no. i love i love reporter: a decade ago when braden was not much older than they are, he had a flash of flame. please welcome i his boston pops conducting debut, braden kirchner. reporter: the 18-year-old from goose creek, south carolina, prepared for ts ment by learning to play every instrument in the orchestra. if i gave the ords and didn t play the instrument, you wouldn t take that order seriously. reporte the boy with a dream had seen an ad on the internet saying fans could conduct the boston pops if they donated big bucks. it s just money. if that can bayou the thing you wanted all your life, it s worth it. reporter: braden worked 11 jobs. standing on that stage, he tallied up wt his dream had cost. was the bill a bargain? i could buy a new car but it would rust and break down in 20 years. this is something i will always have with me. reporter: that night could have made braden kirchner a star. instead, he joined the marines, just before 9/11. the idea was never to be famous fm that, it was just to accomplish the dream. reporter: and then guide others t theirs. braden took a job teaching band at stall high school just down the road from his boyhood home. spent five weeks that first summer getting a commercial driver s license so he could bring his players to practice. my favoritist teacher! i told them it s never about the singing or off note or right key or posture,t s about you re here and you re not getting in trouble. it s showtime! some of the kids on the drumline were on the verge of droppingut of school before braden showed them how playing that kind of music could make them cool. the marine sergeant turned their band practice into a happy boot camp. they learned team work carrying his couch above their heads. on rainy day, they put down their instruments and marched in the mud. antoine rose now believes anything can be accomplished with practice. here, failure is forgiven, giving up is not. ow did he change your life? he took the word can t out of t vocabulary. there you go, there you go! who! reporter: braden kirchner taught them how to craft a note, and then their lives. what s theecret to have big dreams come true? one piece of advice, the most important is the deeper system. because that separates the winners from losers. reporter: they re also the ones that do the unexpected. the man from goose creek just became a father, but not before finishing another dream first. i went on a diet of oranges and pcorn for their weeks. reporter: preparing for a shot at the guinness book of world records, putting his body through an ordinary tnis racket 22 times in one minute. this is the guy you married, right? . yeah, yeah. reporter: we laughed. he won. big ideas oen begin in small places. for today, bob dotson, nbc news, with an american story in charleston, south carolina. we are all in awe. coming up next, som last minute side dishes for your thanksgiving feast with the help of martha stewart. first, this is today on nbc. back now at 8:49,artha stewart s ultimate thanksgiving day feast. we prepared the turkey and gravy and now time to tack them side dishes. what do you mean, we? making notes. where is your apron? she s been doing it all morning. the cook is here. i ve been making cranberry sauce and this is a little bit of vegetable oil and one bag of cranberries, it s beautiful. remember t cranberries in rockefeller center? yes. we went and scraped them all off. they re super easy. i made some last night. they will pop. here is your beautiful cooked anberry, add to that the punch of little pomegranate seeds. you did have sugar and all of that in here? a tiny bit of brown sar and little bit of salt and pepper. that is your cranberry spice. what is the difference between a sauce and relish? a f different versions. relish probably is more crunchy and like this one and the sauce is more probably a little bit more wet. what s the one that goes in a can? jelly. i love cranberry jelly. i made it myself. over here is our gorgeous table. you ve seen the turkey with this glistening skin and its crunchy. everybody will le the skin on this turkey and the cornbread stuffing is so good. you had me cook it here, that s the extra. we have roasted carrots and potatoes and put them on a cookie sheet with salt and pepper and put them in the oven. carrot is cooked separately. and you add dill. i like this, too, the nametags are little you know the little colored corns you can get at the supermarket? we spray painted them gold. the most beautiful place cards. on red onions and pears, roasted very simply, with a little bit of butter and sherry viner. yum. you make sweet potatoes with maple syrup. boil the sweet potato or roast them and put them in the foodrocessor and make them into a puree and add maple syp. instead of raw? and we have broccoli. a lot of people miss fresh vegetables. what can i do for green? green been casserole. green been ail mon din. you don t want that. you wa this. this has a little bit of roasted garlic slivers and broccoli sauteed in a little bit of olive l, a tasty, pretty, simple healthy fresh thanksgiving. and just to remind people with their turkeys, probably getting it from t oven right now, perpound, how much length of time do you leave it? about 20 minutes per pound stuffed, and 14, 16 minutes, unstuffed. remember, try to make that a gristening gorgeous turnky thke year. it works. or t-shirts, as you said. i have never seen a turkey glisten like that. it is great. martha stewart, thank you so much. i know everybody at the home appreciates the help, too. i will be taking these ideas home. let s go back to lester holt with our servicemen and women in afghanistan. lester. reporter: what a nine day, 10 day mission this has been. walking with marines in marjah and been with marines in helmand province, a terrific day getting to know these fine individuals. i m standing on something i have no idea what it is. everything in the military is initials acronyms. what is this? mwrap. what does this stand for? i don t know. something that does doesn t blow up easily. hello, missouri family. say hi to joseph and savannah. my children are in maine. anybody watching at home? yes, sir. my wife, christie and my son, and daughter, elizabeth. from maine? hi, mom. i hope they re watching. i should tell you if folks and family are watching, this will be played on todayshow.com. i want to g as many people. can you get the camera around here? there you go. get as many people as we can, they ve all come out here, a lot of them sll waiting in line to get the thanksgiving meal. it s been our honor and privilege to spend this holiday with them. we hope if we have lovednes here, you ve been ableo see them during our report here and wish all of them a safe and wonderful thanksgiving. lester, welcome. hope you get home soon very safely. to you and all the troops, cheers and thank you for all the hard wo. wish them well. we wish all of you the best. the 84th thanksgiving parade straight ahead on nbc. matt, meredith and al have been giving a sneak preview all morning long and will bring it to you live with the sneak preview of the parade route. you seacts warming up, five minutes away from the excitement of the parade. we ll see you back here tomorrow. have a wonderful thanksgiving, everyone. happyhanksgiving. 8:56 is your time now. 46 grees. a beautiful look at the capital dome. cloudy skies. the forecast is right after the news. good morning. i m eun yang. no word yet on what cause add big fire that badly damaged a home in durwood, maryland. firefighters arrived to find flames shooting through the roof and say th were concerned about water supply. everyone inside the home got out, and there are no reports of injuries. despite calls for protests the lines a moving along at the airpos in our area. they report easy going for travelers at dulles and reagan. it s that time of year. time for campbell s green bean casserole. you ll find the recipe at campbellskitchen.com. campbell s.® it s amazing you ll find the recipe at campbellskitchen.com. what soup can do.™ naturally colorful vegetables are oftea good source of vitamins, fiber, or minerals. and who brings you more natural colors than campbell s condensed soups? campbell s.® it s amazg what soup can do.™ good morning. cloudy and chilly. the morning rain has now exited off north and east of the mow trow area. most of the rain s done. and then tomorrow more rain likely. chilly, much colder saturday morning. sunny saturday. jerry, how s traffic? we re actually doing pretty well. no incidents to report on the beltway from the american legion bridge to springfield up to i-270. looking good. have a great thanksgiving. eun? jerry, you too. coming up