Transcripts For WRC Today 20101227 : vimarsana.com

and wcomeo today on a baby it s cold outside mday morning. i m ann curry. a i m lester holt. it s not case that meredith and matt couldn t come in because of the snow, although i like that version. we re actually standing on a pile ofnow that s about to be plowed. did you ve trouble getting in this morning? i was onlabout a mile away. i was waiting for a ride that couldn t get thrgh. they have got moundall over midtown manhattan. you get in okay? got in okay. gotn behind a truck. thankoodness the driver had a shovel. we re not sure how many inches from fallen in boston, but w know they re getting hit. at lea 18 inches has fallen here in manhattan. there was more than seven inches of snow in raleigh, north carolina. that town had its first wte christmas in history. we re getting little eak right now, but there are huge drifts up and do the east coast bause of the wind, that s csing big problem at e airports. lots and lots of flights have been canceled. many othe airports are closed right now, they say call the airline or check online. all three major metropolitan airports here in new york city are closed at least until noon. we have got this business coved all up and down the east coast. we begin this morning with jeff rossen who s standing by i thk just a few blocks from us this mornin hey, jeff, good morning. reporter: gting out of the way of a tractor trailer. you never actually know where these trucks are actually going to slide. on some of the main avenu here in new york city, we re told actual buss are stuck in snow banks. this city i usually pretty amazing aboutlearing snow, but take a look at it it loo like a plow hasn t even been by even thoughhey have been working through the night. those snow drifts you have been mentioning, look at these police cars buried up to their tailligh. six states have already declared states of emergency. overnight no mercy,he snow kept falling and the winds kept howling, nearly 60 miles a hour. sending cars spinning. it s rrible. i m stuck here. this is really a blizzard. reporter: whiteout conditions even thunderer snow in the heart of manhattan caughon video. andisibility really dropped, that s times sare down there, and that s the aantic city boardwalk, can you see it? even more dangerous, drivers could barely see the road right in front of them. don t come out unless it s absolutely necessary. it s riculous out here. i don t think anybody can make it in this snow. reporter: in massachusetts, a snow emergency, workers pwed into the wee urs. same in philadelphia, where the mayor is urging people to stay home and took to the streets himself. our forces are out. have hundreds of pieces of equipment, they re all over this storm. we re going to keep fighting it as long as this stuff isoming down. reporter: in rare move, the nfl canceled a bigatchup in philly between the eaglesnd vikings. the reason this game has been postponed until tueay night is out of concern for publi safety, travel in d around that s the reason. reporter: in newersey, they re expecti snow so bad officials declared a state of emergency. and when the snow does stop, officials say the winds won it s blowing horizontally right now. reporr: right into oncoming traffic. 125 accidents,ne of them deadly. plows e trying to keep up, but the snow i falling too fast. just stay in your he and relax. it s very dgerous out here. reporter: a white christmas can be magic, a blizzard the day after christmas, torture. amtrack canceled jfk and laguardia all shut down entirely. 2,000 flights canceled and coting, with more already planned toda ere s about 25 to 50 people on stand by. reporter: now comes the cleanup, froboston to new york city. where the great white way needs salt. and you can see it s probay going to take a lot of salt to do it. in fact the say, forvery inch of snow that falls in new york city, it costs $1 million to clean it up. soar we have gotte13-plus inches. they expect it could go up especiallyith the snow drifting, up t 18 to 20 inches, that s a lot of moy. the only saving gra here is that it s a vacation week for a lot of people. not us, lester, and a lot of the schools are out. so at least we have that and the kids can enjoy t beautiful snow out here. mikeeidel is about 200 miles up the coast in massachusetts. just outside boston. ke good morning to you. reporter: and good morning, lester. we re still in the thick of it here in southern newengland. blizzard warnings in portland until at least 5:00 p.m. we re still getting wind gusts as high as0 miles an hour. logan is still closed, snow and blowing snow, 50-mile-per-hour wind gus. out on the ca, it has been a horrible afternoon andvening and overnight. we hav got at ast 30,000 customers without power. wind gusts as high as 80 miles an hour. but it s changed from snow to rain. once the storm goes by nantucket in a few hours, it will change back to snow. in theext few hours, it s impossible with the snow drifti. they will get the trains rolling between new york and boon. i don t know if m pile is higher than your but i m going to try to mount this one. all nightlong, all you hear is pls, plows and more plows. and there you go, mountains of ow and more on the way, three to fiveore inches today. your mound is urss being cut down to size as we speak by a tractor, but nice climbing there. mike seidel, thanks. we should have done that live on television. anyway, how long will this blizzard last? we have al rer tracking t storm. gd morning, guy and of cose depending owhere you are, that s when ts will be ending here in e northeast. philadelphia has picked up almost 12 inches, cape may, new jersey. lo at these averages, these e the seasonal averages, philadelphia has alreadyome ry close to their seasonal average. capeay has beaten their seasonal average. new york city is more than halfway to what we normally get for an entire seaso and boston picking up aost a quarter of cold down in florida. i should have sent my sister a sweater itead of a watch. it is coldout there for us this morning. bundle up and get ready for a lot of wind. we could see wind gusts today up to50 miles per hour. that s goi to take our windchill values and put them in the mid-20s as we rise t only 30 to 34 degrees. still windy tomorrow, though not as gty, the high37. expect more sunshine. midweek sunshine, the high 41. thursday 44 with a partly sunny sky and by friday, new year s day, 40s and 50s. and that s your latest weather. wel have much me on the blizrd and it s impact on the start of the workweek. but firsthis is today on nbc. coming up, t body of a model found inse the home of a beer tycn. you know how ieel freedom is mine and i know h i feel and this whole world is a new world and a bold world for me and i m feeling good it s a new day [ jennifer ] weight watchers new pointsplus. because it wks. 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[ male aouncer ] it s a new year. so, ask your doctor about chantix. and fi out how you could save money your prescription go to chantix.com to lrn more and get terms and conditions. good mornin it s 7:26on this monday, decber 27th, 2010 is the year, course. i m pat lawson muse. in the news r today be sure to call your airline if you plan to travel by air today. there are a number of delayed andancelled flights at local aports. this was the scene is morning at reagan national. tralers at dulles and bwi are dealing with similar circumstances. a look at your cplete weather and traffic comg up next. the sun is rising and it s peeking through sme morning clouds. welcome back. meteorologst veronica johnson here. let s take a look outside where we do have some temperatures that re starting out in the 20s to around degrees. georgetown at 30, colesville at 28. 30 to 34 your hightemperature with windclls in the mid-s, warming uphis week. thanks. the capital beltway is doing fine rit now. he s the pace head towards the wlson bridge. 210 itself northbound we had an accident just beyond swan creek. left le blocked new york city big delays. pack to you, > 7:30 now on this monday morning, the 27 of december 2010. yore looking at conditions in natick, massachusett here in new york city, crews have been workingo clear broaay all night long. inside studio 1a, i m lester holt along with ann curry. thank you for being here, by thway, i m glad you made it in. we have aot of other stories to talk about this morning, including mystery in missouri. a 27-year-old woman, a aspiring model has been found deadn the home o a beer tycoon. his names august busch iv. plu why some s your cell phone cou be threatening the pristine habat of giraffes and other animals. peter axander is in new jersey for us this morning. reporter: to giv you a better sense of exactly what droirs a dealing with, we got out on the roads right no wee strappedn and bringing the camera out the snow roof tonight. you can get a sense of what it looks like outside right now. houses and cs parazed. they are totally buried by snow. the luxury for the people here is thathis main road is safe to dre, a pw going through here within the last 15 minutes, but a lot of these side streets are really impassable. snow up to your waist in some places, driving through parts of new yo and new jersey in the last several hours, we he seen cars abandon at intersections. that not always the case, there s som people where people physically had to sleep in the cars overnig including parts of i-95 in new rsey. one family trying to return home from a weing, the entire family of five including an infant stuck in that car. thsame situation for the buss aswell, from whington, d.c. all the wayo boston. most bus carers have canceled their service. i can spe from personal experience aboutthis, lester, last night we did nightly news for you at laguardia. it should take 30inutes for to us get home. instead took three hour we ourselves wer stuck in two drif for an hour each. there were a couple of people who were out enjoyinthe snow who got behind and pushed us t. but ev when the temperatures warm up, and the snow melts the problem will the begin again, because when the sw melts and then freezes overnight, it will cause black ice. we all were coming very late this morning. i think got in about 6:20. and they re like, that s the last o them. they rall here. it s good ifou don t have to, to stay home anday safe. al roker did make it n he s outside in it. whatre you find ing. we have got all these nice fos and the skies are starting to brighten a little bit. let me show you what i had to do get in this morning. normally we and right here an afternoon withighs around frzing, but feeling much, much colder because of the ind. in fact gusty conditions expected throughout the day toda gusts up to 45 and 50 miles per hour. that will put r windchill readings in the d-20s, what it will feel likewhen you step outside. 41 for wednesday, 44 on thursday next big storm system wi bring us rain on new year s day,o new year eve not bad with highs in the 40s that day and temperaturedropping to the 30s. and that s your latest weather. all right, al, thanks. and we ll hav much more about the storm throughout the morning. ut for now, the death of an aspirie ing young model. hn yang has the story. reporter: a seemingly hlthy 27-year-old woman suddenlydied, it where she died. she was the home of heir boyfriend, augus busch iv. the former chairman of anheuser-busch and the great, great grandson of the fnder of e brewery. adrian nicole martinas on her way up. verything seemed to be coming together in her life. reporter: but her le came to a mysterious end in a wealthy st. louis suburb what s the problem? ts girl is not waking up, we can t get h to ishe breaing? we don t know. it s dark back there, i m going to get a light and try to see. we a rorter: at 46, he s the heir and ceo to the former heiserusch dynay, wch was sold in 2008 ending 106 years of family control. according to lice, thereere no apparent signs of trauma or other indications of cause of death. in a case like this when you see no evidence of trauma to the victim s body, you have to consider some type of natural cause or perhaps some type of overdose. reporter: according to her ex-husband, she had a rare heart condition. friendsay martin was not drug user. to make any type o criminal ca out of this, it s going to ha to be her cause of dea and who may have had some responsibility for that death. reporter: in astatement, busch s lawyers said the was absolutely no indation of any suspicus circumstances in what he called the tragic, untimely death of a young person, a very nice young person in fact. in his 20s, busch had someun ins with the law. we are lookingt someone who s a known playboy, who has a daredevil past. reporter: in 19, he s accused of trying to run down two detectivesuring a police chase. s passenger, a 22-year-old woman was killed. police found him at his home six hours later disoriented and with a fractured skull. no charges were ever filed. from an investigator point of view, law enforceme is going to want to know where she died, what time she died. wh was the condition of her bodyt the time of death. the questions with the autopsy and the toxicology, that wil determine whether or not case will be filed. reporter: tse toxicology reports could take fouro six weeks to come back and it won t be unt then that officials will make an official determination of the cause of death. ann? john yang, this morning. john,thanks. julie macintosh is aormer writer for the new york times and wrote the book, dethroning the king. julie, good morning. while writing your book, you learned a lot about august busch iv. how would you characterize him? i would say that he is a little b of a tortured soul. he has spe his whole life trying to live downhose two altercations, ru ins with the law in his 20s and he has never really been able to. he has had a very difficult relationship with his father. august busch, iii and they have had antagonistic relationship their whole lives and it was someing that undermined his job as a ceo and has me his li very trying at points. now comes word ofhe mysterious death of adrian martin what do you make of that and so why do you think the police report was held for daysfter her death? i have spent a good amount of time in st. louis both writi the book and since it s been published and the busch family wields a lot of power in the city of st. louis and people were suscious when he had the highpeed chase with ps, they were suspicious that t police took so long to release a lot of detail and he got off in the jury trial. so i chatted with a few people in st. louis in this g around and theyhink there s a littl bit of not only complicity by the cops, but they treat the busch fily a little bit more gently anhey might treat others n this vein, t family has been incredibly philanthropic. people feel very strongly about the busch family and aren many ways very positive about them. as john yang just ported, we re waiti for the toxicology rerts that may indicate the cause of adrian s death. could you tell usort of what the risks are for august busch? inther words could this affect his position, for example as a member of the boar of directors of the company? right. i would y that s the clearest major issue going forward. he s not the ceo of the company anymore for certain, but he is a board member o anheuser-busch, he s actuallyhe onlyold over from the o company. ether he s charged with anything or not, whether this becomes a legal issue, the board may have to make a determition whether this situation is sothing they feel comfortable wi. julie mantosh. thanks for getting up early and talking to us about ts this morning. coming up next, wildlife wipeout. plus muchore on this fice winter storm that s stnded thousands of holiday travers. but first these messages. at red lobster? or maybe skewers of tender, woogrilled shrimp. or your choice of shrimp paired with wood-grilled chicken. all served wh unlimited, freshly-baked cheddar bay biscuits. seafood lunches starting at just $6.99 that fit intoour budget and your lunch hour only at red lobster. i d get this tigness in my chest. so i went back to my doctor again. we chose symbicort to hp control my asthma symptoms all day and ght. 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[ male announcr ] it s here. the all-new evy cruze. msn autos called it the class of its class right now. b that s not the only story. it s got turn-by-turnavigation, ontar, an availae six-speed automatic transmission, remote keylessntry, and 10 airags. it s a big story for a compact car. the all-w chevrolet cruze. get ud to more. vy well-qualified lessees can get a low-mileageease on a 2011 chevrolet cruze ls f around $159 a month. call f details. we re ba at 7:44, and one of the last pristin vironments on earth that could be in grave danger. nbc chief foreign continue richard engel recently travelled to tanzania where a controversial project has conservationists up in ms. it is anmportant story and coervationists are very worried about it. the environmentalists say they know exactly what the impact will be if the governmen of tanzania goes ahead with its plan to build road right through the saranget. the name means endless plains and it no wonder why. the 5,700 square mile national park in northern tanzania is widely believed to be one of the only remaining place whe is the world looks ast did a million years ago. with t ton hippos yawning confidently, too big f any predator grateful giraffes, zras with their plump bellies, a lions, the kings as they re called here. but this eden of biovdiversitis in danger. consertionists say the road which has strg political suort in this poor country is a scandalously bad idea. we s off in a four by four ep on the tras and dirt road that could soon become a 33-mile, two-lane highway. our first impression, zebras, ldebeests and others now there s just a few trails used mostly by tourists and park rangers here, but you have to drive very slowly so you don t hit the wildlife. imagine a thoroughfare thugh here. zebras jumped out of th way, lions environmentalists say the ro could even stop the greamigration of animal thousands wildebeests on the open plains, it s the greatest gration of land mammalsn earth anit is breathtaking. you n hear the orting, feel the hooves pounding the earth like a tremor. t not if the road cuts them off from food. printon university professor andrew dobson was onef 27 renowned environmentsalists to make an appeal not to build the road. you get a reduction in the wildlife. in this area it could be asuch as 50%, 70% of decline i species su as the wiebeests. not far from the morw river, we found the government has alreadstarted making preparations. these stones have already been sunk into the groun concrete markers tohow contractors where this road i supposed to go there are markers in place nely every mile. what about those trees? they haveo be knocked down? yes, they have to cutown where there is a direction of ads. reporter: so this will all be cleared? yes. reporter: this is an undiurbed ecosystem, trucks could introduce foreign plants and chang the environment. we found a ten-ton truck that had tried to cut through the sareng sarengi but got stuck. another concern of courses poaching. it s long been a problem in this area, but the road would make it mu easier, poachers couldust come , make a kill and drive away. so why build the road the reason, is pbably in your pocket. cell phones. the lake victoria region in central afra is rich in rare earth tals that are essenti for cell phones and hybridar batteries. china is buying them as fast as it can and tannia want toss supply. the shortt route to move the minerals from lake victoria t the coast is through the serengeti. on a bloon ride over the vast plains, floatg over gazelles and vultures, touristsold us they re horrified. total disgust. i don t aee with it atsoever. totally inappropriate. reporter: a road that could bring prosperityo a poor tion, but also irreversibly change and perhaps destroy one of nature s greatest easures. there is an alternative to build the road tha would go south of the serengeti. buthe government argues it wouldn t be profitable and they could lose potential business if they had a road that went south of the park instead of rig through it. moren theassive east coast blizzard that has dumped more than 30 incs on some spots, butirst these messages. guy: hey. son: hey mom! wife: what a you doing? what is that? what is this? guy: it s a special pasti invented to replace socks. we re dipping our feet in it. wife: why? guy: becse we can t find socks that shape to our feet. we re sick of it! son: sick of it! wife: that s really stupid. guy: that s the future. announcer: hanes makes better-fitting socks the whole familyill love. guaranteedor your money back. excuse me, what is that oh, i m a fidelity cuomer. okay, t what does it do? well, it getse the tools and research i need to help me make inford decisions. with fidelity, can invest in stocks, bonds, all at a great price. wow. yeah, wow. [ male announcer fidelity investments. turn here. just ahead this morning, we re going to be talking about thoseight american tousts killed in a school bus crash in egypt. plus the latest on the blizzard o 2010, including al s track of the storm. this is not a prescription. this is chris. whoas questions about which beveres might interact with his blood pressure medication. so he turns to the team of experts at walgreens.com s n pharmacy chat to get immediate answers. and now, thanks to the new pharmacy chat from walgreencom, cis has everything he needs. except milk. expertise find it everhere there s a walgreens and at walgreens.com. what i didefore gps. gps: turneft ahead. woman: actually, i got lost a lot. now i just follow the steps, and i can get anhere i want to go. turbotax lets me do my taxes the same way. its unique gps feature gues me step-by-step. searching over 350 deducons. so i get everything i deserv which helps me kw it s done right. and gets me rit to my maximum refu, guaranteed an: try turbotax online now. you don t pay unless you re satisfd with theesults. losing weight clickedor us when we realized we could weight watchers online together. it was easy, it was fleble andt worked. ok i ve got ground turkey, i ve got bell peppers so he d plug it into the recipe builder and it just pulls up tons of recipe options. laa s very competitive, whenever i was beating her in weighloss numbers i always was winning in percente. i am a little competitive. togher we lost 162 pounds. i don t know if y ve noticed, but look at this guy. 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[ male announcer ] for a limited time, get 0%pr financing on select new corollas, mrys & tundras. plus, every new toyota comes wi toyota care, featuring complimentary maintenance plan with roadside assistance. this legendary event only hpens once a year. don t miss o on the amazing deals at toyotathon hurry in today. good mornin thetime now is 7:56 on this monday, december 27th. i m p lawson muse. in the ne for today, the blizzardhat hit the northeast is causing major traffic problems, trel problems this morning. there are a number of delayed and canlled flights at local airports. we saw several people sleepi on benches at reagan national. travelers at dulles and bwi are dealing with similar delays. check with yr airlines. we ll have the latest on weher and traffic next. get ready for a blustey nday. we ll get a little sunshine, mid-20s for windchill temperatus today. hen 50s by the end othe week. right now we ve got 28 degrees. capitol hil 27 new carrollton, la plata 28 and burke at 26 degrees. factor in the wind d we re in the teens now. mid-20s for a feel-like factor later today. a little bit of sunshine, more of it tomoow. still windy, not as gusty. by thursday. we ll partly sunny. and i think that wel be dry at the stke of midght, but 40s to 50s the begning of next year. pat. all right. well, as f as the roads are concerned around the region we re in great shape. the earlier accident 66 east has been cleared out of virginia. 95 at speed, noroblems out of fredericksburg up to springfield. and the capitaleltway is aso in great shape. those headlights are leaving 270 headed down towar ton s so it s certainly the hour to hop out a go shopping. back to you, pat. join us bright and early tomorrow morning at 4:30. ll have all the da s latest news, weather and t 8:00 a.m. this morning on a monday, decembe 27, 2010 a we re waking u to a picture here of philadelph, where people like people all across th northeast are waking upnto the effts of the storm. roads are impassable, airports are shut down. and three n york city city airports are now closed until 4:00his afternoon. they have made it until 4:00. there you go. that s news th s breaking. but nevertless, people did make it downo the plaz we re lookinat the truly committed this morning. any of you folks stuck here? meantime time i m ann curry with lter holt and al roker. good morning guys. did you guys have good christmases? really nice. it was a great christmas i think for people in raleig north carolina. they got their first wte christmas ever. how was yr christmas? my christmas was terrific. i wod have been fine with a white christma on christmas, no the day after. mntime coming up this morning, it s holiday story. a horrible tragedy in egypt. tour busses carrying a group of americans and eig were killed when this bus was i a collision. we re going to talk to a michigan man who survived. his wife was iured. she s been air lifted to cairo. also thi morning talking about dealing with death. a lot of people now looking to the new year, the want to fix thr finances, but an expert this morning has com up with a way to pay off everything you owe once and for all. and he says tha basically clearing your debt is t best investment you can make. but, let s begin this half hour with more onhat winter storm thateen gripping the east coast and we have got the weather annel s mike seide who s innati, massachusetts with more on t story. y, mike. reporter: good morning, n, wee out here on route 9 in natick. about 20 miles west of boston. weave had about a foot of snow and the snow is bking now now it s the wis. we have had pow outages and minor damage, they had wind gustout there clock at 80 miles an hour. logan airport isfficially open, but nothing s moving. out her on route 9, you get a sense of how many sno has been led up. about an hour ago, saw a convoy of nine plows coming up the road these gust winds, as high as 40 to 45 miles an ho will continue, that will blow drifts of snow around. we re expecting sever more inches of snow here. again, travel is not recommended, many things are closed today, schools are alrey osed, that sasing up on the rushhour. the long-term tlook, a pattern changethis storm is going to change the overa cold weather we re going t see for the peace three or four weeks. and as we get into new right he we ve got some very low temperares and winds that are only going to pickingp throughout the day today. windchill readings now in the teens. we ll see those value into the mid-20s by the afternoon with a gh temperature of about 33 to 34 degrees. a strongorthwest wind today as well as tomorrow, just not quite as gusty. a high that wll be up to 37 degre tomorrow. 41 by wednesday. look for a warming trend through the end of the workweek and for the beginning of the ar. we ll be in the 50s. and that pleas that s your latest weather. a by the way, we want to say thawe want perspective from peoplin the midwest. we re fromhe midwest. there you go. we have a ver serious story comi up this morning about the tragic end of a liday trip of a lifetime. eight american tourists we killed in a bus crashn egypt. we re going to hear from one of the survivors cong up right after this. ain we re or i m so done with that i found a new le a natural true love that comes from a little green leaf zero-calorie, guilt-free no aificiality my skinny jeans zipped in relief its name is trua i had no idea no more sprinkling myoffee with grief [ anuncer ] truvia. honestly sweet. how about a coastal soup and illed shrimp salad combination at red lobsr? 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[ ship horn blows ] back now at 8: 11 with a tric didn t in egypt. eight amerins were killed when a tour bus collided with a tru in souern egypt. nbc s martin fletcher has the latest martin, good morning. reporter: lester, good morning. while driving in the dark in egypt is always a risky business, st drivers, poor roads, almost n traffic police and most of the heavy traffic is in areas used by tourists. all that s lt of a crushed bus, the whole right-hand side torn away. this is where the eight dead americans an most of the 21 injured were sitting. barbara from detroit, michigan got off lightly and soid her husband bob, their firsteeting since the ash. sharing ws of their friends. we blessed to be alive. it happened so quickly, we re justaying there and all of a sudden there was this tremendous, tremendous cra and just trauma, just noise and screaming. it was horrible. it was really hoible. reporter: it wasark befor dawn sunday. 116 americ tourists set o in the busses. ny were lying back trying to slee on a narrow road through the sand, the first bus deswiped a trucparked halfway on to the road yptian truck drivers often sleep in their trucks. they had been traveling between two worldenowned tourism sights. they are connected by a road which is like many roads in egypt, somewhere between barely tolerable anin an appalling state. it s the thi tourist crash in egypt inhree months. in total 22 foreign tourts killed. reporter: families in america were informed sunday, but the names of their hometowns has not yet en released. in e second, their loved ones were rippedway so it s very hard. reporter: many of the tourists will connue their vation. the next stop on the nile has been called the greatest open air museum in the world, but the trip of a lifetime has beco a nightmare too. marn fletcher in ldon for us bob gelste survived the crh. bob, we re glad you re safe, i know you and your wife were separated. she s injured and taken to cairo. you re tre now, have you seen her d how is she? she s fine. i saw hethis morning. the doctor has released he the one that did the c.a.t. scan on her and now she s waiting to here from t doctor on the injues to her legs. and you guys were on the bus how long when is happened? we got ont 5:00 a.m and we stopped at the police station to pick up a police escort and we were probably 15 mes out into the sahara, it was probably about 6:00 when the accident happened. a what do you remember about the accident? i was trying to sleep at the time and i could remember hearing just the noise of the tires onhe road. and then just like the big bang and getting showered with glass and thenhe bus spinnin around and so i took my i h eye shades on and could see the side of the bus w gone and i felt to see if i was bleeding and i h some blood coming from my mouth and my chin and i asked wife if she was okay and she said she was, but i could see she had some facial cuts. the was a lotf crying and stuflike that. but you were obviously able to move as were a couple of others and you, i understand, administer aid and tried to free somof those people who were apped? yeah, a couple of us weren t really injur and we were able to get out. most of the people were trapped like accordionsnd trapped with other people. was this the same bus you had been traveling thrghout egypt with prior to th? yes. it was theame group. we had de a pretriwith them also for a week in israel. so all the people that h done the trip to israel wer on the same bus. so we h gotten to know the people over the two weeks, some of them pretty good. were you ae to call home rather quicklyo ale them to what had happened? ye there was a fellow right at the site who had a cell phonehat rked so i was able to call my son and let him know and he called m sister and let myom know and barbara s brothers. and as soon as your fe is able, do you planoontinue the trip or is the plan now to go home to detroit? as soon as she sreleased, we ll try to get a flight out as soon as possible. wre glad you both okay and thank yo for sharinghe story with us, we do appreciat it. okay, thank you. wel take a break and we re back with more rht after this. keep you awake. sleep is here, on the wings of lunesta. and if you wake up often in the middle the night. rest is here, on the wings of lunea. lunesta helps yofall asleep and stay asleep, so you can wake up eling rested. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate machinery until u feel fully awake. waing, eating, driving, or engaging in other activitie while leep, without remembering it the nt day, have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include agessiveness, agitation, hallucinatns or confusion. in depress patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occu alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions, ch as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and m be fatal. side effects m include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morng drowsiness. ask youroctor if lunesta is right for you. get lunesta for a $0 co-pay lunesta.com. sleewell, on the wings of lunesta. you know how i feel i feel likjennifer hudson but with new arms, new legs, and this smile. freedom is ne and i know how i feel i m lovinweight watchers new pointsplus prram and the edge it s giving me. s a new dawn, a new day i ve got even more control now and i m feelingood go on, join for free. weight watchers new potsplus. because it works. weight watchers new potsplus. wabout readingl and put it here. introducing nookcolor. experice books, magazines, newspapers and children s books likeever before. nocolor by barnes & noble. seven years ago, i had this idea. to make baby food the way ms would. happybaby striveto make the best organic baby food. in ausiness like ours, personal connections are so important we use our american exess open gold card to further those conntions. last year we took dozens of trs using membership rewards points to et with the farmers that grow our sweet potatoe and merchants that sell o product. we ve gone from being in 5 stores to 7,500. booming is using pnts to make connections that grow ur business. and she looks like. a mchstick. and she s obviously never dieted, or ever eaten anything. 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[ female announcer ] sound familiar? then try the sl-fast 3-2-1 plan. 3 snacks, 2 shakes or meal bars, and 1 balanced meal. clinically proven. ridicously simple. slim-fast. who has time to slim slowly? back nowt 8: 20. this morning on today s money, the post christmas topic, eliminating debt. when you add up the credit cards, mortge and car payments, america isn debt his newestook is called ebt free for li the finish rich plan for financial freedom. david, good morning. your best iestment advic for america this morning as we head into the new yr so simple. pay down your de. instead of focusing onutting money in stocks or bonds or gold or silver, the bt investment i can give you in 2011 granteed is to pay down your debt. i would rather have you pay your debt down. what about so called good debt. debt le the old days clege those kinds of loans. we were told that mortgag loans was good debt and now people areosing their homes and c t pay back their colge loans. debt is debt and if you can t afford to pay it back oyou pay it back over 25 or 30 years you re always broke. if your goal is, i don t want to work forever, he s a simple plan, pay the debt dow faster. we have a plan for you to do that. if people follow this plan, they can be dt free on average of 15 years faster, they ll safe at least $30,000 in the process. how do you get start. super simple. if you want to lose weight in the new year, what s the first thing you do? you get on the sle, you look down and y cry. debt is the same way. a lot of aricans are in complete denial. we start with our families attacking how much debt d we really have. you ve got too get on this and you ve got to tell t truth. we start with cret card debt. you first look at how many credit cards do we really have? you re married, you ve got to take your ouse, your children. u total the numr of credit cards up, yourite down the amount of debt. you look at the actual interest payments and then your minimum payment. it shocks man families. when we do money make overs on tv shs. they say david, this person s got $20,000 in bt. when they go ove their homes and they pull off their documents out, they usually $10,000 to $15,00 more than they told the producer. it starts by looking at what you really ve. you lk at it as a worksheet. make ias simple as possible for us. you got a little worksheet that you can use. you start by writing all you debt out. first you put the accoun the name ofit, the balan, the monthlknown payment and the due date. then you divide the minimum payment by thebalance. so in this ca, $500 divided by $50 this person can be out of credit cd debt with that card in ten payments. with this credit card down he, itould take them 39 payments. so we call this debt stacking. what this means that weant you to with this mathematical formula, pay off your smallt credit cards first. all debt cane expensive, small credit cds with over the limit fees, late fees can actlly add up to higr debts than higher credit car. this nex one is counter intuitive. because pple have often been told, pay off the credit card with the highe interest rate. and i disagree. because agn, we want you to reduce the amount ofredit cards that you have. have seen peopl where maybe they have got a car that could acally be paid back in six months, get. minimum payments on everything, get rid of it. fewer debts better, fewer dts more freedom. families fht over bills, you rece the debts, youave less figh. is book is called debt free folife. you re back tomorrow with more on howeople can get cret card comnies to lower their interest rates. but now here s lester. just ahead, the latest on the winter storm that has people snowed in up d down the east coast. bufirst we want to look at re of the most compelling images of 2010. and remember you can vote for your favorites todayshow.com. 8:26 is your time now, 28 grows. not much sw but blustery out there today. good morning, m eun yang. it is monday, december 27th, 2010. topping your news for today, for those looking to hop on amtrak you, mig want to think again. amtrak has reopened limited service between boston and new york. they havelso cancelled trns between richmond and newport news. as of ght now, service between d.c. and new york has not been affected. we ll take break down. veronica johnson will let you know if more snow is in the foreca hold firm on the steeng wheel today, it s gusty right now and we ll see gusts go even higher by later this afternoon. 9 the temperature right now in the district. green belt at 27, yourigh today about 34 degrees with windchill readings in the mid-20s. ashley. wel, on the outer loop of the capital beltway just prior to 95 and college park we have reports of plywood in the left side of the roaay. tw left lanes blocked, no delay. back to you, eun ashley, thanks so much. more news, weather and traffic coming up in 25 minutes. for now, it s back to the today show whe it is very snowy. 8:30 now on a monday morning, the 27th of december, 2010. a winter wonderland across much of the east. we re a ttle frozen over here. we have t plaza cam tt kind of says it all. you re looking live at the conditions here in midtown manhattan. that s over by columbus circle just on the evething of central park. a few flurries rht now, but it certainly hasn t stopped folks frometting out and about and enjoying this beautiful site and gathering he at rockefeller plaza. outside onhe plaza, i m lesr holt along with ann curry and al roker. there one grantee when you come visit us on a bad weather day,nd that is every single one of you is going to be on television. also coming up thismorning, call it the school of rock with a classal twist. we re talking about one family and what they re doing to inspire children to py music in a brand-new way. it s all about the musician a lot of us did a lot of overeating over the holay and a lot of us are making new year s resolutions to lose weight and get fit. does drinking a daily glass of wine lower your cholesterol? and is there such a thing as sea salt? is it better than regular salt? we ll find out in a little bit. a lot o people have airplanes th would prefer to be on right now. the winter stormas made air travel a mess. eric fisher is ataguardia airport toell us more about the situation there. reporter: it pretty festive at rockefeller plaza, it s not so fest tiff here at laguardia airport. we have a lgot a number of folk sleeng in the terminal. it is very peaceful, a lonely meteorologist today because no one has been coming in. st word, 4:00, that s when the airports are going to be opening up. we re going to be talking about a 4:00 reopen for lagrdia, jfk and for newark. but that is tentative. i would definitely call ahead if i was flyg today and definily show up early for your flight as well. the lonely meteorologist. anks, eric, it was really nice of y right here we will be warming up at the end of the week and for the bginning of the year too, but we ve got a rough day to get through here with tempatures only getting up to 33 to 34. very gusty winds throughoutthe day today. we lhave gusts up to 45 and 50 miles per hour. that cou cause some troubles across the area. then tomorrow still windy, ju not quite as high the gusts. 37 thehigh. 44 by thursd. talking about upper 40s to 50s beginning of the new year. and on a day like today, you want to eck the weather channel three, four, five, six times a day. never turn it off, just stay on it all day. especially on a day like today. love that hat by the way. very dapper. meantime l s say hello to a figure skating sensation, his name is michael white. he s a three-time national champion good morning and welcome here. he s supposed to ben the ice this morning. he drove ninhours for a three hours drive. you re such a good sport. you re even willing to skaten that ice. but it s reall not fit under this weather. heould put snowsho on. i showed up and i was ready to go this morni and i looked out on the ice and there s snow blowing every which direction. they re sholing trying to get the snow off. it s not gng to happen. but an adventure to say the least. you veot this big show, peggy phlepeg peggy flming is part of this? it will be on juary 9 from 4:00 t 6:00 on the east coast. it is a fantastic show and has evan who s our crent olympic championship in e united states. we have the music of lone star as well. they perform le on stage while we re on the ice doing our thing. i skad to a piece called already there which is a piece that i skated when i was on the smucker s live on ice tour. do youindoming up here? there she is. you re trying to help bring more people into the sport? yes. that s pretty cool. started the michael weis foundation, it very exnsive toigure skate. i started ts foundation to help up and coming athletes. we support them with scholarships a we put on a show eac other. our nation thank you so much, michael weisz. coming up, kids giving the classics a rock n roll makeoverbut first, this is today on nbc. we re back now at 8:38 wit the perfect bnd of classical instruments with a flare of rock n ro. it s giving kids acrosshe country a whole new appreciation for music. reporter: brian martin s been hitting the strings before school and after. a violinist since the fourth gre, the classical kid is about to get a rock n roll keover. iaw mark woo with a group of high school studentsbout seve years ago and when i saw it, we were at a convenon, my husbanjust looked at us and said you re doin this, an t you? and i said oh, s. let meet ts number down. reporter: maria wrote the music department at- she hired electrifyour strings. we dropping the atom bom torrow night and i want ito project a blow torch. reporter: working with the studts for two days, mark a sonlijah provide a seminar for rock s edge performance. it helps them connect in a deep way with music, it s ally about not just playing the notes, but thinking about what you re trying to say in that music. reporter: howo things change when mark dame into the picture? the songs are crazy, they re really good. reporter: did you know that the violin could sou like that? y guys are on a level three of ten, we must reach ten. left, righ left right. reporter: for students tuned in to hitting precise notes, woodncourages the kids toward self-expression. no easy task in the adoleent world. do your kids become better musicia musicis. oh, definitely. how have theyhanged before d after? the level of confidence tt they get. born to be wild eporter: what s it like working with yourwo parents like this? is very interesting. reporter: laura kay and mark woods have a hard re musical pedestri pedigree. they their return to the high school stage is a vital gig in their touring fe. we need toinspire re artists musicians, business people to come into schoo and inspire kids of the next generation so we rlly are particating and being responsibleo i think the best investment that we havin our future is these kids reporter: as any performer knows, the hour of practice pay off in front of a live audience. here at oak hill, more than 500 people have lined up to get a charge out of their own electrical charged high hool orchestra. are you excited about tonight? just a ttle bit. hey hey hey reporter: is this a once in a lifetime memory? i don t think they ll ever forget that they played live concerwith these rock stars. i think it s going to be enriching fothem forever. it was awesome. it was a gre experience. reporter: for today, a robach in cincinnati. still ahead, the problems left behind in the wake of the blizzard of 2010, butirst this is today on nbc. back now at 8:45 with thi rning s american story wit bob dodson. it comes from ruville, illinois where people are celebratin 55 reasons to be thankful this holiday season. that s the number o yearshe doctor has been looking after his neighbors charging what a lot of folks say a poorup of coffee. reporr: rish vilushville, ils is the kindf place where thingsrow fast, even the squirrels. dr. russell donor has been looking after his neighbors for 55 years. in all that time, he has not taken a cation, not even a full day o. wl there s somebody on sunday that needs some help too. reporter: the morning we first t back in 83, he had been t surgerytwice, prepp a broken arm, handled two emergency cases, checked on 50 patients and delivered three babies. ooks like one ofyours, doesn t it? reporter: it was not yet 10: 30 here s meg thompson today, with her niece, piper. howld do you think he is? 35. reporter: doc was born 85 years a on a nearby farm. one of seven children. he worke nights to pay his way rough northwestern university medical school. had his heart set oneing a big city cardiolost, but decided i have to take care of my people first. reporter: everyone pays just $5 to see him. is at all? yes. reporter: 5 bucks. do doesn t toss away a tool just because it has a few years on it. that keeps costs dow ever see rotary phos anymore? reporter: the only thing modern in his practe is his medicine. most of his nursesave been with him longer than his furniture. reporr: how can you make i on $5 a patient? millions and millions of patients equently. reporter:f they can t come to him, he goes them. perhaps that s why bill bartlow is still nimble enough to play the organ at 90. his wife margie just got home from the spital. you re doing good, just kp it up. reporter:oc will go anywhere for a house call, sometimes even arriving befe emergency rvices. he once saved a boy that was broke his own back and suffered a heart attack few years ago, took some time off until paents started arriving at his house seeking medical care. it s probably gastrointerright but he does have help. halfhe people working in rushville hospital are doc donor babies. he s been doing this for 55 years. i think every stay he makes a difference to at least one person. reporte susan parks runs his office on weekends and holiys. she shows up wn i show up. reporter: for free, as does he husband rick who doc saved from a swarm of hornets. me mows his yard once a week pays it back. reporter: russell donor w in the army during world war ii the last te he took a day off, but knows exaly what he would defensive he took another. would like to go to missouri someday reporter: 58 miles away. missouri s notoo far fm here. no but it takes some time to do it. reporter: he also loves trees, doc s donated 10,000 around town. dr. donor has no children o his own, he married only briefly. t he s delivered 3,500 babies, more than rushville s population. three, two, one. reporter: tre are no statues to his kind ofevotion, just lives. i can make it all rig. reporter: because the town looks after him. for today, bob dotson, nbc news with an arican story in rushville, ilnois. wow, that s really something. making a differee every day of their life. $5 a visit. bless h hear oh, dear. that s a great story from bob dotson. we have much more still ahead this morning, how to tell if you or your spouse is actually a secret spend. ts morning on today s pets, thepy dogs, what if you coul bring t joy you share with your dog to those who need it the most. all you nd is a little training and a lot o puppy love. reporter: meetenway and his owner bess. they spend a lot of timhere at the 80th street residence, a place for people living with alzheimer s. fenway has been a trained therapy dog for 2 1/2 years. his visits brg back precious memories i had a little dog and i couldn t wait to get home every day to see her. reporter: the dog? yes. reporter: butt s not just the residents who appreciate the sit. do you notice a difference in your grandma when the dogs come? just toee her smile and pet thdogs and be like her old self and it just brings her ba. reporter: and for the therapy dog owner i geto much more than i give. when i see how happy fenway makes em, it s just the greatest feeling. h likes you. are you happy here fenway? fenway loves it here. reporter: so what doe it ta to be a therapy dog. my chihuahua trixie and decided to find ou the good dog foundion here in new york city tins owners and thei pups to be therapy dog teams. it s a team effort. it s not just your dog being a therapy dog or passing or failing the ass, it s you with your dog. reporter: over t course of foureekly sessio, you and your dog learn to obey basic commands. trie sit. reporter:dapt to wheelcha wheelchairs a walkersnd become comfoable with, well, strangers. d after working like a dog everybody here just passed the class. reporter: it was time to make our firs visit as a therapy dog team. the first of many to come. you re ne and warm, yeah. thk you for coming. that s really adorable. they are here puttic. meanwhile we should talk abo the main story of the morning has been this weatr. 18 inches in manhattan. 0 inches in nerk, new jers. 29 inches of snow in lynnhurst, new jersey. when they say blizzard, that not snow, that has to do with the wind? three hou plus of winds of over 30 miles an hourlowing and drifting snow. is it done now in philadelphia? yes it s done here inew york city. northern new england now. okay, well, much more on the storm and other news and weather coming up. 8:55 is your time now on this monday, december 27th, 010. good morning, i m n yang. opping your news for today, the washington region n breathe a sigh of elief. a massive winter storm ptty much missed us, instead slamming philadelphia,ew england and new york. just toe sure, though,oad crews work overnight to salt and sand primary and secondary streets. even though thenow mostly missed us, is causing problems at loal airports. you re looking at travelers earlier at reagan national airport and flyers are deang with the sme thing, delays and cancellations at dulles and b. if you re flying out bow sure to call your airline in advance to make sure your fight is still flying out tod. weather and traffic up next. ay with us. hold on to your hats, it s a very windy day out there and the winds are only going to pick up throughout. 30 degrs the temperature right now. prin george s county at 27. the high today3 but with a windchill of 25. very quiet thismorning all around town. we re great shape out of virginia along 95 headed in the northbound direction, it s blustery but no big delays to report. loo at that wind on that camera. all right, more news, weather and traffic in just 25 minutes. for now, back to the today show. back now wit more todayn is monday morning, decemr 27, 2010. it s a day of sveling here in the east after aajor blizzard dumps up to 30 inches of snoin some spots. and we have got se bad news fo travelers because hundreds flights have alrdy been canceled and new york s three airports will now n open until at least 4:00 thisfternoon. meantime, insidetudio 1a, i m ann curry along with lester holt and al roker. just ahead, we have got the late on the storm and it s impact nationwide. you talk about flights not leaving here,hat means flights aren t getting here. we re also going to move on and talkbout dieting questions you may have, from keeping your cholesterol in check to making sureour new year s resolutn stickshis time around. and we have got some friends in the studio. where is he now? he s been on the move. so our ceraman will he an extra mething in his stocking for ne year. he s smart to stay iide as natali pointed outearlier. a big problem for lot of marriages is credit spending, whether it s little trinkets f yourself, a credit cd your spouse knowsothing about, coming up the pitfalls that can create. let s get right tthat winter storm that s socked the east. we have got the entire east coast covere let start with jeff ssen. reporter:ow are things in that studio right now? lovely. reporter: i m sure it beautiful. almost too warm. reporter: what we have right now is the wind, what looks like tornic activity with the winds in the canyons. we re onolumbus circle which is typically one of the busiest spotsn all of manhattan. you can see there s very few cars onhe roads andeople are getting back to their roots and walking to get to work. there s ki sledding and part of the problem here and wha makes it so treacherous is tryingo get through these snow banks. it s like this all over the east coast right now witsix states in a state of emergency. overnight no mercy, the snow kept falling and the win kept howling, nearly 60 miles an hour. sending cars spinning. it s horrle. i m stuck here. this is rely a business turday. eporter: whiteout conditions th thunderernow in manhattan caughtn video. and visibility really dropped. that s times square down ere. and that s the atlantic city boardwalk. can you seeit? even more dangerous, drivers could barely see the road right in front of them. everybody needs to get off the road. n t come out unless it s absolutely necessary. i don t think anydy can make it in this ow. reporter: in massachusetts, a snow emergency. workers plowed int the wee hours, sam in philadelphia, where theayor is urging peoe to stay home and took to the streets himself. our fces are out. i mean we have hundreds of piec of equipment, huneds of personnel o all over the city. they re all over this storm. we re going to keep fighting it asong has stuff is coming down. reporter: too late f sunday night football. in a re move, the nfl canceled a big matchup in philly between the eagles and vikings. the reason this game has been postponed until tuesday night is ncern for public safety. reporte so new jersey whe they re expecting nearly a foot ofsnow, so bad, officials have declared a state of emergency. and wh the snow ends, officials say the winds won t. 12 accidents, one of them deadly. plows are trying to kp up, but the sn is falling too fast. just stay in your home and relax. you know, i an this is very dangerous out here. reporter: a white christmas can be mac, a blizzd the day afterchristmas, torturous, amak canceled service from virginia to maine. newark airport, jfk and laguara all st down entirely, cancels almost all operations i the northeast. 2,000 flights canceled with more already planned today. now comes the cleanup, from boston to new york city. where t great white way needs salt. it needs a lot of salt and this is a pricey, pricey situation for a lot of cities across the northeas here in new york city, it costs about a million dollars per inch to clean up that sn. so far we have gotten 13 plus inches, there expecting possibly 18 to 20 by the time this is all over and so you can see they re still shoveling the snow as people y to get out. 2,400 sanitation workers out all night and this morning, ann and you can see, they have barely made a dent here, even as they continue to come by, that s how much snow and it s we have on the ground. all rit, jeff, get inde, get some hot chocolate, g a jacket. i have to do some motring in right heret s been pretty windy already. the winds willontinue to irease throughout the area. we ll see some gustsp to 45, 50 miles per ur. air temperature, your high for today ju 33 to around 34. that means windchill radings will be from the teens to about 25 degrees. tomorrow mu better, theigh 37. 44 on thursday. we are looking at a warming trend for t end of the week and for the weekend, beginning the next year, a little rain on new year s day. and that kwees your latest weatr. coming upnext, yourieting questions answered right after this. man: whoa! mom just caught air. not that shel describe it that way to her ok club. she ll probably say mething like, everyone had a wonderful time. the food was gre. it was good to get away. but let s be honest. mom just caught air! now, there s a first. tell us what you ve always want to do, on facebook. [ ship horn blows ] so hurry, and use your gt card to buy the this that make all your other gif even better. the holiday season doesn t ve to end. quick, now s the te to u your gift card at walmart! th event you ve been waiting for is almost over with 30 years of gre deals, everyone s going. fabio? wow. [ male announcer ] for a limited time, get 0% apr financing on select new coroas, camrys & tundras. pl, every new toyota comes with toyota care, featuring a colimentary maintenance plan with roadside assistance. is legendary event only happenonce-a-year. don t miss out othe amazing deals at toyotathon. hurry in today. don t miss out othe amazing deals at toyotathon. activia has deliciou news for dessert lovers. often, the best part of a me is the dessert. but sometimes ter a busy day and a big dinner. my system needs some tlc. now there s something that s just right. actia dessert. rich, silky, smooth yogurt with desserty flavs like strawberry cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, and ach cobbler. and because it s tivia, it helps regulate my digestive system. mmm. works for me. activia activia dessert. no pills, no pain. how can you get in relief without taking pil around the clock? try thermacare heatwraps, r all day relief without pills. i was surprised, thermacare rked all day. you el the heat. and it relaxes and uncks the muscle. you ve got to try it. [ man ] thermacare, more effective r back pain than the mimum dose of acetaminophen, the medicine in tylenol. go to thermacare.com today for a $3 off coupon. thermacare. no pills. no in. just relief. this moing on joy s diet s.o.s., your questions answed from cutting your cholesterol to the hottest new trend in salt. joy bauer looking gd on that cover. good moing. holy smokes. you just made it in barely. let s help some good people out. rick i plantation florida is joining us via spe with a question. od morning, what s your question forjoy? i he heard that drinking a ass of wine daily wl help you i think he was saying would help cut down on t includes troll. heot a little cut off ther unfortunately, no. although drinking a glass of red wine or any other alcoholic verage for that matter does offer up som heart health benefits, itpecifically will boost the hdl. remember h for hero. but it didn t lower the bad cholesterol. that s call your ldl, and you can remember that as l for lousy. the best way to lower your cholesrol oer than medications is to follow an overall heart healthy dpit. that means you really want to nimize the saturated fat and the refined carbohydrates and you nt to exercise as much as you k and you can certainly include that daily gla of red wine a part of your heart healthy diet. if you have high triglycerides you don t want to be drinking regularly because alcol can raise your triglycides. our next questio comes from che celeste who joins us on the phone. caller: have heard a lot of people saying that sea salt is better for you than regular salt. that s a good question. it s a really good question. and it s a little t tricky to answer here s the story. depending on wt type of sea salt you buy and h much you use, the ansr is going to vary. sea saltomes in fine grain sea salt and coarse grain sea salt if yore buying fin grain sea salt. it has absolutely no advantages over regular tablesalt. if you re buying a coarse grain sea salt or kosher salt, it has larger grains compared to a fine table salt. so it has less sodium per volume. and ifyou re following aecipe and it calls for one teaspoon of salt, you can significant reduce the amount ofodium in that particular recipe. do i think it s a marketing ploy on some of these products that are out the? probably because companies kno th we automaticly think sea salt is healthier. so they re putting it on potato chips and on crackers and they re integrating it into canned goods. the bottom lines it doesn t matter what type of salt they re using, it s the amount of salt. check that nutrition panelnd make sure that it doesn t have a loof sodium and compare it to other products that are on the shelf. that s the only wayo know. celeste, thanks for your queson. and we ll talk new year resolutions next time. it s right ound the corner. joy bauer,hanks so much. five snacks to serve a your w year s eve party. but first these messages. g ones. little ones. and ones with fresh step litr inside. at s because fresh step scoopae litter with carbon is better at eliminating odors than arm & hammer super scoop. fresh st. cats know what they like. i loving weight watchers new pointsplus progra and the edget s giving me. and i m feeling good go onjoin for free. weight watchers new pointsplus. because it works. i ew for years before i quit that i needed to quit and i went online to find a way. what really excited me out chantix it s a non-nicotine pill. i didn t want nicotin to give up nicotine. while you re taking the medication, for the fir week, you can go ahead and ske. [ male announcer ] prescrtion chantix is proven to help people quit sming. when i was taking the chantix, it reduced the urge to smoke. [ male announcer ] me people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, stility, agitation, depressed md and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you note any of these symptoms or behaviors, stop taking chantix and call your dtor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depressi or other ment health problems, which couldet worse while taking chantix. if you develop rious allergic or skin reactio, stop taking cntix and see your doctor rightway as some othese can be life-threatening. don t take chantix if youe had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it dosing may be differen if you have kidney problems. until you know how chantix affects you, useaution when driving or operating chinery. common sideffects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. it feels wonderl. don t smoke. i don t smoke. [ male announcer ] it s a new ar. so, ask your dtor about chantix. and find out how you could save money on yr prescription go to chaix.com to learn more and get terms and conditio. my bliss? lips that feel quehed, restored, revived. my blistex? complete moisture. a rush of moisture li can feel. and it feels gat. discover bliss. discover blistex. still ahead, there s news of the classicairstyles that will be comg back in 2011. > also secret spending, what to do if you suspect your partner of it. healthy lifestyle? well, you should also art enjoying activia or activia light. activi for us? sure, it s for ople who want to feel good inside. when you feegood, you re more likely to get out there and enjoy life! mmm! mmm! i like this resolution. mm-h! here is the activia promise loveow you feel or your money back! activia [ male annncer ] it s here. the all-w chevy cruze. msn autos called it the class of its class right now. but that s not the only story. it s got turn-by-tn navigation, onstar, an avlable six-speed automatic transmission, remote keyless entry, and 10 r bags. it s a big story for a compact car. the all-new chevrolet cruze. g used to more. very well-qualified lessees n get a low-mileage lease on a 2011 chevrolet cruze ls for around $159 a month. cal for details. 9:26 is your time now, 28 degre. we escaped a big storm. a little dusting ovnight, but nowe re clear skies and things are looking good. veroca will have yourorecast after the news. good rning, i m eun yang. one woman is dead after a deadly fire in the ditrict. it happed in the 1700 block of s street northwest in the dupont circle neighborhood. firefighters rescued one woan but she later died at the hospital. the fire appears to be accideal and caused $50,000 worth of damage. we ll take a b a windy one out there this morning. the windsill pick up today. we could see gusts u to 45 and 50 miles per hour. that facred in with the temperatures that re very low this morning, below freezing, 26 in sterling, 30 right now in takoma park and fairf city at 26. windchill rdings now in the teens. it will feel le 25, 26 deees later this ternoon. 44 on thsday. new year s eve right now highs in the l to mid-40s with some rain new year s day. steve? we really dn t have a rush hour this mrning and right now it s still looking verygood. here we are on theeltway in silver spring with no problems all, no accidents orrin dents all along the betway. in spng field we re looking good inoth directions with nothing reported in e way to mplicate that trip. eun,ack to you. steve,thank you. ll get more news, wther and traffic in 25 mines. a white cistmas in the south that s creating a post holiday mess or a postcard. up to 30 inches of snow in some areas outside of manhattan. and tre s a great shot of a froz lens. that s at the top of the rock. at theop of the rockthe  wind and the moiste that s what happens. look at thenow on the branches of the christm tree here at rockefellerlaza. how lovely. the best thing to do on a day like today isoet a pair of cross country ski and get out there and get on the avenu or central park. don t go through the whole postcard madness thing. also ahead e have got a thorny topic, relationship and money. everybody has bout something without their spoe knowing it. but what if it goes beyond that, secret purchases or secret credit cards. also the iconic hairstyles from the past. from farrah s feathers to demi s do one bit of advice. there s only five ingredients in tasty snacks to make easy for you, courtesy, there you go of our experts. the good news that next westerntorm as it comes east will be bringing us rain here, probably on new year s day. as for whayou can expect oday, though, very gusty nditions. we ll have a high of 33. winds could gust today to 45 and 50 les per hour. that will give very low windchill readgs, in the mid-20s. tomorrow s high temperature 37, mostly sunny. it will still be wdy, just got quite as gusty. 44 degrees for thursd. here s a look at new year s eve. hig in the mid-40s with the in starting new year s dae. than and that s your latest weather. coming up, what you suld do if yr suspect your spouse is sectly spending, coming up right ter this. st over with 30 years of great dea, everyone s going. fabio wow. [ ale announcer ] for a limited me, get% apr financing on select new corollas, camr & tundras. plus, every w toyota comes with toyota care featuring a complimentar maintenance plan with roadside assistance. this legendary event only happens once-a-yr. don t miss out on the amazg deals at toyotathon. hurry in today. sleep is here, on the wgs of lunesta. and if you wake up often the middle of the night. rest is here, on theings of lunesta. lunesta helps you fall asleep and stay aslp, so you can wake up feeling rested. when taking lunest don t drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in oer activities while asleep, without remembing it the next day, have been ported. abnormalehaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of dression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allerg reactions, such as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and may be fatal. de effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. get lunesta for a $0 co-pay at lunesta.com. sleep well, on the wings ofunesta. no pills, no pain. how can you get pa relief without taking pills around the clock? try thermacare heatwraps, for all day relief without pills. i was surprised, thermacare woed all day. you feel the heat. and it relaxes and unlos the muscle. you ve got to try it. [ man ] thermacare, more effective foback pain than the maxum dose of acetaminophen, the medicine in tylenol. go to thermacare.com today for a $3 off coupon. thercare. no pills. no pa. just relief. progresso. oh y hi. can you please put my grandma onhe phone please? thanks. excuse me a sec. another person calling for her granother. shthinks it s her soup huh? i m told she s in the gaen picking herbs. she is so cute. okay i ll hold. she s holding. a? (announcer) progresso. you gotta taste this soup. with waart s end-of-the-year clearance ent, starting december 26 at 6am. get unbelievae clearance prices on select toy home decor, clothing, ndy, and seasonal items. it all starts december 26 while supplies last. it s the end-of-the-yea clearance event at walmart! [ male announcer ] not su what to take? now click on the robitussin relief finder. click on your symptoms. get the right relief. maes the cold aisle easy. the robitussin relief finder. s that simple. his morning on today s relationships, your spouse s secret spending. according to a recent survey. 80% of all married people hide bills from their spouses. so what do you do if you suspe your partner doing i or may you re the secret ender. good to see both of you this rning. good to see you. congratulions getting in on a day like this. what does this actually mean, thistudy mean? what was shocking in this survey was almost one out of two couples sd that if their spouse knew how much money they were spendg secretly, they might leave them. to me this was the ultimate wakeup call because financial infidelity is more serious than anything we hav ever talked about. couples had 18% of coupl said ty had a creditard they didn t tell anybodyabout. whathey re really fighting about is their debt. and it snteresting too, in this study, it s different what men spend andhat women spend, women more likely clothing and gifts. men cohol, music and dating sites. y know what? it s not surprising. these arehe things that the person wants but thinks that their spse would look down on or say, i don t want you t get that or i don t even understand why you get that. and the dating websites is of course about the fact that men are more likely t cheat than women, but women are doing it too. and given theact that probably everybodyoes a little bit of secret spending. ere s the point where it becomes detrimeal to a relatiship? here s the thing. it s about is this a consequenceal purchase. people fillheir gas tank, they butheir kids sock the problem is that you c fool yourlf into beeving, use denial to say this woun t matter so. what you have to do is loudly ask yourself what uld my spouse say if i said, hey, honey, i m getting how do you feel about that? if you can imagine that you probably alreadynow the answer. you probably do know t answer and if the answers a negative one and youo ahead and do it, it it s not so much abo the dollars, s about the by tray yal. what about the debt part of th? for couples today, they do fight about why did you buy this? but really wha couples are afra of is being broke often. what couples shod do is coming clean, how much debt do you actually have a good way for coupl to do this, to be very honest, pull their credit repo. because all theebt is listed and sit down oe a month and say let s not fig about what we spend, let s lookt how we make progress. because if we re shrinking our debt, wee making progress. if our debt is growing each month, we re not making ogress. it s not about what we re spendi money on, we want security. our philoshy, our plan, have we come to some sort of agreement? maybe we get a separat pot and each of you can decide how to spenit. it goes bk to being on the same page. a couple, you need to be a team. if you re separating this right now, you re noworking as a team together. u feel separate. whereas when you re working o a team, you re comingtogether. wt is their plan? do they want to have separate ts so they don t have to ask the other person, or do they feel like we really should run everything together. and if u re having trouble with this, see a therist, see a financial planner who n help you budget. thanks so much. and coming up nex on today s beauty. flashing back to be fashion forward when it comes t your hair in 2011. right after these messages. dietary supplement weight-loss pills. ooh, consult a physician if you experience rapid heartbeat, dizziness, shortns of breath. side effects may include chest in, nausea. ye. couple days of that, and i will be in a bathing suit in no time! [ emale announcer ] need a clinically proven way to lose weight now? then try the slim-fast 3-2-1 plan. 3 snacks, 2 shakes or meal bars, and 1 balanced meal. slim-fast. who has time to slim slowly? jordyn wagiven just weeks to live. then my mom saw yourt. jude commercial. i know. at st. jude children s research hospital, jordyn received our pioneeri research procedure and now jordyn has hope. .and now i m in the st. jude commercial. in it.you re the star of it. give thanks for the healthy kidin your life. and give to those who arnot. go to stjude.org or shop whever you see our magnifying glass. just joined? we want a healier lifestyle. ll, you should also start enjoying activia. for us? it s for people who want to feel good inside. when you feel good, you re more likely to get out there and enjoy life! mmm! mmm! i like th resolution. love how you feel or your money back! son: hey mom! wife: what a you doing? wh is that? what is this? guy: it s a special paste i invent to replace socks. we re dipping oufeet in it. wife: why? guy: because we can t findocks that shape to our feet. we re sick of it! son: sick of it! wife: that s really stupid. guy: that s the future. announcer:anes makes better-fitting socks the whole family will love. guaranteed, or your money ba. the event you ve been waiting or is almost over th 30 years of great deals, eryone s going. fabio? wow. [ male annouer ] r a limited time, get 0% apr finaing on select new corollas, camrys & tundras. plus, every new toyota ces with toyota care, featuring a complimentary maintenance plan with roadse assistance. this legendary event oy happens once-a-year. don t miss out on the amazing deals at toyotathon. hurry in tod. don t miss out on the amazing deals at toyotathon. [ pop ] right now at h&r blo, and you uld get it fast. just bringn your tax information. and get a refund anticipation check for up to $9,999. you pay nothing out of pocket. toet the maximum refund guaranteed. never sett for less than fast. call 1-800-hrblock. or visit hrblock.com to make anppointment. h&r block. never settle for les continues ] this morningn today s beau. hairstyles throu the decades. the more things change, the more they stay the same. lizccarthy is today s contributor and hairstylist to the stars. as we mentioned, you doee hair alys changing evolving, but still somewhat the same over the decades. the more things change the more they stay the same. there s nothi more fashiable th hair and makeup. it s you greatest cessory. t absolutely is your greatest aessory. the iconic hair dos of th 60s, 70s and 80s have reall influenced what s going to happ in 2011. let s talk about first the 60s. i think twiggie reay celebrated that look. she took over the world, this girl. yeah, the short hair do. very definitely it was a stement hair do. it was finitely, if you notice, it s vy stiff, she had no bangs. hehair was sprayed in place. it was more of a solid blond. so notice her makeup, the w that she had those eyelashes that we each one individually planted. and the very heavy eyeliner. how will this look, how will we see this evolve in 2011 a we look at our beautifulodel here larissa. it s much ster. the tip to 20 is ster hair. sh has this fringe, it s more layered, it s softer. so the hair will move. it dsn t look so frozen i place. twige looked like she h a ca of hair spray in her bac pocket. larissa looks like she used it once and threw it away. and the hair is blonder? we used the appropriate shade to go with the skin color, which is hair ru number one. in thi case we used paler skin tones, paler hai color. she ha alight olive collection. . of course farrah fawcet, charlie s angels. had th gorgeous califora glow. at look. and the feathered bangs. feathered bang again, frozen in ple, really with a round brushnd hair spray and setting lotion and everhing else to keep the hair in ace. so how is that going to influence 2011? here s kristen. here s kristen and you can see here hair is still o the face to mimic farrah s look. the difference is number one, it is more of round edge, number two, it is not so frosted looking. if you notice, there s a stroke of color on your face. basically the bld is on the tips of the hair. this does two things, number one it s more natural, number two she never have roots. number three is the look of hair color today. we have been talking about roots for years, madonna roots that were not thatattractive. this ithe kind of roots that we ll see in 2011. it adds depth and it will flatter your face a last lk at the 80s, think we think of demi s hairstyle in st. elmo s fire. te me what we re going to see. look at ts. this is great. now by the way. dana did all themakeup, but we had help from the great staff at nbc hair and makeup which iant to thank from the botto of our hearts. the difference is that before she was very hard to touch. e had so much if you put yourand in her hair, it gets stuck in her hair. right. now you see it soft, it s romantic, it s not izzy, it is believable hair. it she kind of hair, you know, tip three, your hair should be able to blow in the wind and stl look good. it ll. more natural is we always love that, lewis. and notice e chocolate brown. ma the hair color a little bit richer. ladies, i know it was btal geing in this morning. so i appreciate the effort you all made. we loved it. what a great way to srt 2011 coming up next, easy and elegant new year s eve party ti. but first this is today on this morning on oday s holiday kitchen, quick and easy party tats you can serve to yo new year s eve guests. we have got claire robinson, the author of five ingredits for elegant recipes. we re geari up for this new year, s exciting, and you ve got some easy simple ideas beginning with how we greetur guests. i always s hand them a cocktail right away. in fact you say l all ts stuff out so people can be making it themselves. it is pomegranate juice that we have made intoce cubes. the fun thing about this is that u can make it your own. i love tse flavors because it s a little bit tart and refreshing and we have all had heavy meals over the past few days. so a little bit of this. that s aually citrus vodka. and then this is a lemon simple sugar, we added lemon juice and some sugar and water equal parts, just a touch of that and then top it with seltzer. youan leave a card there so people know how to make themselves. ectly. yum. that looks beautul too. nother good tip, i m gng to let you mix, it s aittle bit of lime juice into some soy sauce some brown sugar and another four inedients. there s aittle bit of fla eak. also you cut against the grai you said. cut against the grain, because some people avoid flank steak because they find it tough. it s actually a wonderful, tender steak as long as you cut it theight way which is just against the gin like that. and you let it sit in the marinade. how long do you minade it? i let itit abouten to 15 minutes, then right onhe grill. it immediately sears. a really hot grill pan, you do it about 30 seconds per side. it ends up likthis with these beautiful marks on it. and then you roll it up? i roll it up. i cook it until it s a little bit thicker, it tes about five minutes. we havene right hind me. and peoe can dip it themselves. they can dip it or you can drizzle it over. a little bit of hini. and the you can use lemon or lime juice, whatever you ve got at that point. i noticehat y use a lot of citrus. this is the third dish with citrus. you like that? i like the citrus wit the anthen the coriande. and then a littleit of hummus. lester and nalie s reaction is any sort of guide. ople would like this on the neyear s. absolutely. the harde part about cooking is actuallyperating the equipment. this is the easiest thing in the world to make. y want toaste test the pogranate drink, you guys? i m going the give it a try. ann made it for you. these are premade. i think they will be better. we ll have some keovers with hoda and kathie lee. first your loc news and a lot of weather to talk about. good luck, everybody. go morning. the time now is 9:56 on this monday, december 27th. i m pat lawson muse. topping o news for toy, the washington region is breathing a sigh of relief. a msive winter storm pretty much misse us, instead smming places like philadelphia, new rk and new england. just to be sure ro crews worked overnight to sd and salt primary andecondary roads. even though t storm missed us, s causing big problems at local airports. you re looking at travelers earlyhis morning at reagan national. passenrs are dealing with he same thing at dulles and bwi airports. if you plan to lea today, be sure to call your airline to confirm your flight. > veronica is here with us. we ve got some sunshine. which is a good thing. we ll stay just below freezing today, but boy, that wind will be cuttin right through us. windchill temperaturesthis afernoon in the mid-20s. now, there could be some isolated slick spots in some of the secondary roadstoday, but for e afternoon, again, we ll see a high of about 34. ndchill of 25. the next couple of ys, that s the real good news, we ll be warming up. 44 degrees by thursday and into the upper 40sy friday, new year s eve. ste. the beltway rightnow, here we areright looking at th american legion bridge and montgomery county oking good. springfield, no delays nrth and southbound. back to you. hank you, steve. e ll have a full hour of news, weather and traffic on news 4 midday. news 4 midday. right now let s ptions paid forn hey,everybody. so ne to seeyou. welcome to fun had-day. hope yr holiday weekend was just amazing. mine was. hoda s was. outstandin but now its december 27th and we move on. time passes, hoda. it is one of those thng that after chrisas it s hard because you spend allof this time building up to christmas you decorate thehouse, the tree, the yard. then there is a time when you have to startundoing all that you did. sometimes you know how careful u are when you do the ee, then you start taking the tr down tear. the question is when should you take dn your christmas tree? the one out here,ig one out here, comes down on january 2n we usually put ours up right after thanksgiving and take it down right after new year s. which i think makes sense. whent s over, s over. but apparently not fo everybody. because there are people i o our neighborhood that lea some of the people leave their stuff up all year log. they don t light it, but it s up there. a santa claus in july sitting on a roof iting to get lit at chstmastime is depressing. this is what happen in our family. this is how we ll. so it wasfebruary, maybe it was march. i can t remember februar february. for some reaon we had an artificial tree and was in the basement dnstairs and it was st there. i don t know why, no one bothered to ta it down, we like it,t was feste. so someo came, ding dong at th door, my parents said, oh, my god, the tree, we didn t wan to embarra our family so we went runningfor the tree, unplugged it ran it into the storage room and shut it. then it came time r next christmas. we wento the storage room and it was already decorated. it was like and that became you didn make a trip tthe storage roomn nine months? ten monts? we just leftit. was already done. the great news is that tree we laughed because we would just turn it a little for adifferent view. what people don know is traditionally christmas trees were not brought in an deck yed until like cistmas eve. then down the 12th day of the new year. everyone s corating way before thanksgiving. people get their trees around thanksgiving day weekend. i find m doing less and less and le. that s probablbecause i m older and old and more arthritic as days go on. souch of what we do, we do for our little ones. as we get older - what s so funny, cody came home from scho of course and was just like thrilled to see the big wreath on the gate. youealize that it might not mean the same toou but it really does instill gre traditions for you kids. ilike that. i like it, too you guys i m sure got gifts that you didn t want. the question is what do you do with those gifs? what do you do? you know what i do? i just keep them. y regift. i either give them away to somebody els an mistakenl as i di to you, gave you a gif jill martin gave to me and she saw it. she goes that purse looks familiar. i w like, oh, no. she did give it tome, then you have i now. i ve since given it to somebody else. nobody likes that purse. it s like a fruitcake. the gift that just keeps givi and gives. but it i a very bizarre thing because u are given something to the spirit of the holiday, it is the spirit of ging, but what are you going to do with something you re not going to wear or e it donate it t charity. give it to somebody in need. sell it on ebay or a swap party. i thi swap parties are cool. come with the gifts you didn t love and wap out. the gift receipt that goes in the bag a good thing. there was some debate about whether or not there should be a gift receipt in the package. if you are in the spir of givingou want someone to love what you ve given them. if youdon t, you should lo them enough to get them what they d really like. what if you don t like the color? i ve gott things i like but i don t like the color i don t think anybody would mind that. you great with thank-you notes. only to you because i know you re sticky aout them so i makeure you get on i mot as good as i used to be you always, always write ank-you notes. i think we re sing in our culture so many of the lite niceties. i don t wa to be a stickler abt stuff, people are very, very busy. they say that if you open aift in frontof someone, there s no need to then write them a thank-you note becse you were able to say thank you inront of them. but sometimes do i e-mails. i know emily post and tse people say it is trrible but sometimeyou just want to let someone kn i got it,t was beautiful, thank u. i compromised with kids on that. i used to make them write to ef single person. i sa then get on the phone and ca them right now and tell them how much you areciate it. i still don t thi it is right but what are you are yougoing to do what do you thinkabout hiding purchases from your significant otr? would you do at? yes, i did that. well because you get shoes that are y outranlo and you just are a little bit embarrassed and you don t want to have a discussion about it so you just put u the them under the bed. do you ask yourself first would this be a problem? oh, beautiful shoes,honey, good for you. once they ask about how mch you spent. i don t usually talk about those things but when you get too many ings you re kind of embarrsed. you were the breadwinner in the relaonship. that s wher it gets touchy kind of feely. yosnow what i m saying? if you re one that makes the bulk of the income. you want to be able topend on what yowant. at the same time if you re in a trust relationship, so many problems in life. th say women often hide things lik clothes andhoes and accessories. guess at men hide? booze. boe and porn. no, it is it is pn. no. music. music. maybe prn your life. i thought it was porn. okay. no, it s not. we all go und we hear about people going uer the knife fo all kinds of reasons. some of them ver very legitimate. yes. but women are so crazy abo shoes that they are literally ing under the knife f predures to wear the shoes a little bit easier. i had both my feet doneecause i had 85-year-old little lady et from performing in high hes all of my life. this is unbelievable. there s one called a foot ck. it takes the fat from the midsecti. put it under the bones of the feet t provide extra padding. yuck. ust put those dr. scholl things in. foot surgery is not ve easy. not everybody can ha a dr. michael maclean. you know how some people have a long second toe what is that? anthony s got that big toe. if you have a longer weird second toe, some pele get it shortened. i don t thi anthony is going to d that. then the cinderella procedure takes mps off the join of the big toand re-aligns it to make it narrower. i had both feet done. right? and you would think that iwould have a smaller shoe now. smaller shoe size. ar t your feet bigger than they used to be if. i gained a half size with each baby but thenou d think the bunions would give you a size 15. depending on the size of those babies. no. i wear a 7 now but i wou have a 6 1/2 before the sgery. buti m notcomplaining. shall do our favorite things? i think we should. there is a very cool sweater it shall it shall i wanto show whatt looks like. britta ittany s doing it. is is adk first,this comes two price ranges. one is kind of pricey, $300, the other isind of expensive, around $. you can wrap it. it s so cozy and comfy, you can sling it over your shoulder if you want, you can ar it the other way sohe back is in the front. it s great for airplanes when you re flying an chilly. i love that. i have a million of these. they re fantastic, hoda. how much do those cost? you can get one for $60 or one r $300. we ve been talking about manners and that sort of thing. this is a ftastic e should have sent it before christmas buit is not too late. take some of those gift receip you got and get thi it is called blunders and it is interactive manners advente for children. they learn all kinds of it is for ages 5-up. they learn table manners, honesty,responsibility, school etiquette, telephone manners, respect and kindness, confident inoductions, hots and guest gifts. all things that you are so busy, parents, you are too busy to teach your own children. so get them a little ga and you, unfortunately, don t know who yo are. but maybthis is a way to solve the problem of the disability in our country. i like it. coming up, it is a very specl ambush keover monday. but thitime hodand i got to do the picking from some o our friends. people we loveery much. check out their honew looks right after this. just joined? we wana healthier lifestyle. well, you ould also start enjoying activia. for us it s for people w want to feel good inside. when you feel good, you re more likely to get out therand enjoy life! mmm! mmm! i li this resolution. love how you el or your money back! eep is here, on the wings of lunesta. and ifou wake up often in the middle of t night. rest is here, on the wings of lunesta. lunesta helps you fa asleep and stay asleep, so you can wake up feelg rested. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate macnery until you el fully awake. walking, eating, driving or engaging in other activities while asle, without remembering it the next y, have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggresveness, agitation, hallucinationsr confusion. in depressed pients, worsening of depression, inuding risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may crease these risks. allergic reactions, such as tongue throat swelling, occur rarely and may bfatal. side effects may include unplsant taste, headache, dizziness and morning owsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta right for you. get lunesta for a $0 co-pay at lesta.com. sleep we, on the wings of lunesta. [ pop ] right now at h&r bck, and you could get it fast., just bng in your tax information. and get a fund anticipation check. u pay nothing out of pocket. h&r block. never settle for less. it s that chocolate it s that whipped cream it s that caramel, and espresso you m in i must be, i must be, i must be, i must be i must be dreami [ malannouncer ] for the first time at mcdonald s your two favorite flavors togeer. new mccafé caramel mocha. well? what do you guys think? perfect. [ male announcer ] the simpl joy of sweet harmony. > today on our paza aush makeover we dyecided to ambush some of our own friends. today contribor and shilist to the stars everybody louis lici la-la-la-lla. and jill martin. hey, kids. so we hand-delered our people to you. you sure did. idon t like your tone. at all. no, they were ablutely wonderful women but colorwise and stylewi we had a lot of work do in a very short time. and jill had toet them dressed a lot of work? don t like that. they were so grateful that u gave this to them. it w really an amazing experience all right. the first is my friend, lisa st, 53 from laurel, maryland. do iot know anybodyhat loves helping other people more than she does. she works in a retirement commity. she s a single mom to her 18-year-old son mario who is just preous and she has no time for a beauty routine or shopping. she hasn highlighted her hair in nine months. she wants toook classy and not frumpy and here she is. i cann looev beliebelieve th known kathie lee fo30 ars. weere both babie tell me about your friendship. he just reached out to me. i was ill at the time and needed to have surgery anshe helped find the surgery yousurgeon f me and whic terally in turn saved my life. no more tears okay. becauset is time to have someun with louis a i. i am so excited. and thank you. she s just absolutely precious. he s what you re going to do. put on the blindfold. kathie i going to be reacting. i love this girl. bldfold on. thiss tight and unsightly. it s not abo me. thistime. all right. here is lisa s before picture. l right, lisa. come out, let see the new you. oh! ready, kath? yeah! take off your blindfold. she s over here. oh, my gosh! o oh, my gosh! la, you got to see yourself though. you ready? do you he your glasses? you don tneed them. you look so good. oh, my gosh. that hair, louis, is awesome. i love the color. thank you so mu. i ve never known you to be dark befor this is great. she expressed an interest in being rk. i wted to make her a dark that worked forher. it was dark enough that it looked to har. we found the perfect combination. debbie gave her this geat hairt. there s nothing frumpy abo you. look at her figure,your skin, everything. look at this body. she was gratel but a little bossy when we were dressing her. i want classic items. so we gave her all itemshat she can wear throughout the year from ann taylor. lisa! walk rig over there, lisa. nexup, i a wonderful wan named blair homan. she s worked at nbc for 40 years. she s now assistant to the president steve capus who s in the house. she s beenrying to color her gray. she s one of the funniest, greatest people you d met. she s got twodaughters. listen to blr s story. blair is a little mortied right nowecause you are victim number two. but you tell me you are excited. i amo excite i been waiting to do thisor a long time but hoda didn t know that. so when she askedme, it was right up my aey. you ve told m you ve had a tough year so you really deserve this. i have. my mom paed away in may and it was unexpected and so this will be something to perk me up i know hoda is so honored to give this to you. thank you. i m glad she tught of me. aryou ready to be pamred for three hours? aii am. i need it. blai is here wither posse. laura, sharon,teve capu the boss of all of us is here. we re very nervous. we want this to work. turn around. here s blair before. blair, le s see you. oh! girl, you are such a all right, guys,one, two, three, turn around, take them off! girl! oh,lord! oh, my god! this is fabulous. come hee, girl. blair is on of the pistolsn the newsroom. te us abouthe hair. you like? i love it. everyone, oh, my god. that befor picture is bad. tell us about it. okay, first of all, blair she s namic. i can t tell you anything more. her hair w colored dark. she mad it too dark. i di t like it. i added a few highlights. again, debbieave her this great haircut the bangs, slightly beveled in the ck. we want to know what steve inks. steve capus, the news president. you re always beautif, but this is great. people are ging to be stopping at your desk before they come to see me, which . perfect. looks great. maybe a little party at your desk now. we wanted to give her somethg just to amp her up for the hodays. that full outfit from talbot a s. b round of applause, guys. oking good, lking good. gorgeous! rgeous. up next, we ve narrowed down the choices. we ll show you who we pick tbe fan of the week. how do louis and jill work thei magic? first the messages. 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[ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, atation, depressed mood and suical thoughts or actions while taking or after spping chantix. if you notice any of these symptoms or behaviors, stop takinchantix and call your doctor right ay. tell ur doctor about any history of depression or other mental health prlems, which could get worse while taking chantix. if you develop serious alleic or skin reactions, stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some of these can be life-threatening. don t take chantix if you ve had a seous allergic or skin reaction to it. dosing may be different if you have kidney problems. untiyou know how chantix affects you, use caution whedriving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unual dreams. it feels wonderful. i don t smok i don t smoke. [ malennouncer ] it s a new year. so, ask your doctor about chantix. and nd out how you could save money on your prescripon go to chantix.com toearn more and get terms and conditions. it is time now to reveal our fan of e wee the series where we gve a shout out to our most devoted groupies. whois this week s big win per. aft searchinghrough countless entries we found some great k and hoda devots. drum roll, please. winners are alice jones and chelsea thomas. best friends fromsouth lake tahoe. they ve be best friends since childhood. they re now roommates but, n they are notick of each other. they also enjoy playing bingo with chela s grandma. it is no joking matter, it is pretty intense. they wch the show every day together with a c of coffee in hand. that s hysterical. they love wines-day. they love klg and hoda because, like you both, they greet every day with laughte love listening to themselves ta and ne turn down a chace to have a little vino befe lunch. they re practically oprah and gayle. they watch you every day and they litally do beauty things. its cute. thanks somuch, you gs. still to come, an entire ambush half-hour. two more wen get glamorous makeovers. plus ambush like you ve never seen it before. wel take you behind the scenes whe louis and jill answer your qutions. ice sculpture means i don t have any margin for ror. one wrong turn, d i could end up unloadg a puddle of water. ps: turn right ahead. man: i make sure i have the right guidance to get me exactly where i need to be. it she same with taxes. turbotax has a unique gps feature that gdes me step-by-step. automatically double-ches along thway and even ls me talk to a tax expert so i m neverlone. which helps me know it s done right and get to my maximum refund, aranteed. try turbotax online now. you don t pa unless you re satisfie with t results. lefver desserts, boardroom, now. thank i already have some yummy black rest cake. black forest cake? 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[ emale announcer ] with 30 delious flavors all around 10calories each. - definitely the one on the right. - yeah, are y - seriously, the clorox one. - , okay. the difference is obvious. r the whitest whites, use detergent, plus the advanced whitening foula of clorox bleach hi, y i help you? yes, i hear progressive has lots of discounts on car iurance. can i get inn that? are you a safe driver? yes. discount! do y own a home? yes. discnt! are you going to buy oine? yes! discount! isn t getting discounts great? yes! there s no dcount for agreeing with me. yeah, i got carried away. happens to me all the time. helping you save money now, that s progressive. call or click today. the winter snowaused a mess for travelers. now stranded passengers are trying to make itto their destinations. coming u on news 4 midday, we check out the late delays from air, railw and streets. ood morning, i m barbara harrison. also coming up, bargain shppers, now is your chan to cash inn great deals. we ll show you the efects on your pocketbook an how to hook up thosehigh-tech i have faln in love with making bird houses. caw caw! [ director ]what is that? that s a horrible cr here are some things that i make as little portals. honestly, i d love to do this for the rest of my life so i ve got to take care ofy heart. for me, cheerios is a good place to start. [ male announcer ] got something you ll love to kp doing? take care of your heart. yocan start with cheerios. thnatural whole grain oats can he lower cholesterol. brrrbb. makes you feel ageless. [ male annouer ] it s time. love your heart so you c do what you love. eerios. [ bob ] squak. well, i love a deal on a desner bag as much the next girl! love! i love love love! as buyer for t.j.maxx, i m always on e hunt. i check out the shows. see what s happening on the stree and i work dls directly with the designers. so when i score. you score. gie a fashionista. i ll make her a xxinista. t.j.maxx. let us mak a maxxinista out of you! hey, we re back with mo of today on this fun-y. since it is end of the year, we wanted to do a lilerec n miniscing. let s look backt some of the year s best makeovers. just nef had a makeover before. let s brinout the new monica. i think we need a broom. we found two sisters. this is big surprise foroth of them. ne, two, three. all right, let s see the new you. she has hair style that she gged them get it und control. what do you think of your wif holy mackel. oh, gosh! so fun. they spent three hours in hair and makeup, now our two friends are ready to show us their new ok.ti . and get a refund anticipatn check for up to $9,999.. you pay nothing out of poct. to get the maximum refund guarantd. ver settle for less than fast. call 1-800-hlock. or visit hrblock.com make an appointment. h&block. never settle for less. [ continues ] the moisturizer in other by washes sits on top of sk. only dove has nutriummoisture, which can nourish deep down. dove body wash with nutriummoisture. superior natural nourishment for your skin. i d get this tightness in my cht. i went back to my doctor again. we chose symbicort to help control mysthma symptoms all day and nigh [ man ] symbicort improves my lung function, starting within minutes. symbicort will not replace a reue inhaler for sudden symptoms. it is a combination of two medicin and shouldot be taken more often than prescribed. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death fromsthma problems, and children and adolescts may have an increased risk of being hospitalized or asthma problems. symbicort isot for people whose asthma is wellontrolled with long-term asthma control medicine like inhaled corticosteroids. once your asthma is wellontrolled, your doctor will decide if you can stop symbicort witut loss of contr, and prescribe a long-rm asthma control medicine. be sure to see your doctor if your asthma does not impve or gets worse. symbort is a good choice to help control my thma all day and night. [ inhales ] [ exhales ask your doct if symbicort is a good choice for yo [ male announcer ] if you can t ford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to he. takes care of 33 loads. tide stain release only handles 1 and clorox gets rid of tough stains right beforeour eyes. clorox 2. find it next to thclorox bleach. ginormous discounts with these how caexpedia save me even more on my hot?esby give unpublished rates. which means i get an even more rockin hotel, for less. where you book matrs. expedia. [ male announcer ] it s he. the all-new chevy cruze. msn autoscalled it the cls of its class right now. but that s not the only story it s g turn-by-turn navigation, onstar, an available six-speed automac transmission, remote keyless entry, and 10 air bags. it s a big story for aompact car. the all-new chevrole cruze. get used to more very well-quified lessees can get a low-mileage lease on a 2011 cheolet cruze ls for around $19 a month. call for details. once againfor a special edition of our plaza ambush makeovers. this we hoda chose two of ourfriends who agreed tbe good sports. now it is time to revealhe new looks of two more people dear to our lives. louis licari la-la-la-la-la. a today contributor and stylist tthe stars, jill rtin. what did you guys thk? we had much fun. great girls. it s soreat when people are so receptive. these ladies were so excited to be in our chairs. first up, sandra cohen. e is onef the security guards at nbc. great lady she sands right there at the ea bank elevators. she s 45 years old, born in bolivi work at nbc for the last uple yes. she loves her job. she s so friendly. people fall in lovewithher. she look at her hair. she flairons it every day. i know she h isued, we discuss all t time. she tries to look lke aady but it is hard got to got to wear that foxy guy uniform. here s how it goes. hoda com through here every day, then tell me about what you think her. well, she is wonderful. she always have aeautiful smil you told me you re just so honored that she nominated you. yes. you couldn telieve it. you know? when she remembers . what you hope to look like? ooh beautifu and spectacular. ooh. all right, well we are going to take you from security guard to sizzling. are you ready? oh, yes! i can t wait. i m so excited. i m so excited, too. she s darling. we lovesan dra. her daughter, carla, is there. keep your blindfold on. here s sandra oh, girl! oh hello hello hello! come here come here cme here! you ready, carla? take off your blindld, check out your om. oh, my gosh! mom, you look so beautiful. ready? right here, gir turn around. oh, my god! hello, sexy. hello, sexy. i really look hot. woo! louis,ell us about the hair. he first thing i did is she made her hair dark. she already had dark hair. darker than dark. i wanted to soften it. look at how much younger and prtier. soft soft. then this great layed haircut whh kes the hair off her face because she has more hair than five women. the outfit is ot! we had so mu fun with her. that uniform do not fit her personality. she saw the leopard o the rack she said that is what i want! just simple black look, then the jacket from talbot s. if you guys ever come to 30 ro to visit, you ll see sandra, east bank elevators. big round of applause for sandra. join yo daughter right there. . our second lady is 55, born in poland. now lives in pennsylnia. she has worked in housekeeping for 31 years an recently switched from the nit shift to the day shift he at nbc. she used to color her hair but nothing more. pays no attenon to fashion and wears only coer-up. she s the single mom of four kids. you ve known kathie for two years. how excited are youhat she chose this for you? vy excited. i lo kathie, she s no ice. what do you want to look like after this makeover? i want to look a little younger. a little younger, a little hotter. are you readyo get r of that gr hair? oh, yes. i am ready. we are going t pamper you for three hours. you ready? yes, i m ready. she s orable. she s re with her on, mark, 18 let s take one last look. bring the new one out. oh, my go takeff yr blindfolds, you guys. oh, my gosh! wow! she s gorgeou turn around. take a look at yourself. oh, my! that s u, looking good, hottie. you look beautiful. this ju goes to show you wash away the gray, you wash away the years. she s at least ten years younger. is great sppy haircut by debbie, a little bit of makeup. it is soft, it is natural. oh,y goodness. jill! iouldn t help myself. this is one of all-time favorites becae she was in thathite t-shirt and those pas. i id i can do sometng with this body. we gave her this leatherjacket. great black pas from talbot s. now you have all the classic items toe hot all the tim come op out, sandra. you both look hot, hot, hot! we go behind the scenes of ambush, rit after this. [ female announcer ] these are the crescents u love on a holiday. anthese are the ones you ll love on a friday. pillsbury crescent pizza pocts. with just a few ingredient you have an easy to makdinner. they re crescents for the othe364. try em tonight. with cinnabon cnamon have such a sweet and delicious aroma that my family can wait to get their hands on th. enjoy cinnabon cinnamon. now in all pillsbury cinnamon ros. if you re a fan of our ambush makeover s, you may have asked yourself how they get that done in just a few hrs. it takes a tam of true professionals to get it all together. whoants a makeover? you want a makeover? you wa a keover? you want a makver? all right, it s 7:00 a.m. we re here on t plaza and it is time for us to pick our victims. jill, let s goet them. the crowd is waiting. what do w look for? certain candidates, well, ha it in the bag. cry storie wild signs, deerate pleas. we have seen it all over the years. well why do you want a makeer? along with the hp of our oducer, louis and pluck two lucky ladies out othe crowd whoruly deserve a whole new start. all right, is time for the rules now to set the record straight because tre have been so many misconceptions overhe years and so many questions one we relways asked do we ever use pltic surgery. thenswer is a big no we only have three hours! number two, we are always asked a these women planted or do we justick them randomly. we pick them randomly. three, do the wom really see temselves live for the first time on the air. the answer is yes. look at wat we do. cover every mirror with these sheets so ty can t see themselves during the three-hour process. now thatou know the rules, it is time to see how this all go down. tell me why ou think you deserve a makeover. there will be a full-length rror right here so y ll turn around and see yourself because we don t let you dpiz look at yourselves during the makeover. reporter: then the magic begins. it is 7:35a.m. and we areere in ambush headquarters. le me show you arou. hair and makeuphere louis and his team are. here is the big wardrobe room. weare ready to go from frumpy to fabulous. first up new outfits. do you like dresses or more comfortable in two pieces? wery on a bunch of different things that like an she likes. afte going through racks and rackof clothing where we have every size, it is time for louis take over. what we re going to do is make h skin color come alive. we re ready. let go! as the women get dressed the mirrors are stl covered so t makeoverees have no idea what they are about to see. i m nervous. after a few final crimps, a few nervous laughs and three hours of pampering, it is time for the big reveal. ll right! woo! wow betiful! oh, my god! look at that xy haircut. oh, my god. wow! two more succs stories, and the taransformations continue well after our amshes leave 30 rock. we are constantly getting letters from makeoverees telng us how we really changed their life head to the plaza friday mornings. who knows? you might be our next victim i mean- makeover maven. maybe we could do it for everybody. up next, louis and jill answer yr questions. but first, this is today nbc. [ female annncer ] why settle for plain bread when you can have pillsbury ands! flaky layers biscuits? thwarm, light delicate layers are like nothing else. add a layer of excitement to younext meal. and these are the ones you ll love a friday. pillsbury crescent pizzaockets. with just a few ingrednts, you have an easy toake dinner. they re crescents for the other 364. y them tonight. now it is time for our fabulous ambush am to answer so of the facebook n questions. today contributo. louis cari la-la-la-la-la and jill martin. n when. pele on our facebook page are asking for makeovers, they write louis licari la-la-la-la-la. here s one queson do you have an entire closet filled with clothing ready to choose from or do you rush out and schlepp anbring things over people ask me this all the me. we actually have three huge bush closets and i have tons of clothing for every size and shap no matter who we pick the morning i always have something. we have two people there ryan and nicole and jeannine sometimes an they hem and they putverything together so it is really a scramble. you change that up all the time. right? with new things and new friends and fresh every couple of weeks i ll go a different store and bring things inn the morning. i m always schlepping with ba though. here sone for louis. do you knowthe hair color you will use immediately or do you go up to th woman and s, what cor would you want? do you choose o or they? when i look at them i immediately have a pictur i can sort of say this is going to work. but in the course ofhat peod, i do have a conversation wi the lady to make sure that i m not going to to anything that what if they say i just don t want to be brunette b you say brunette. from there always a compromise. people are here they want to be made over, they wa to become a star. have you ever walk up to someone who didn t rely want on and wasn t even tere for th and went, why are you pickin me? that happens sometimes. u walk up o to omeone. and thehusband will say why do you think sheeeds a makeover? there balance in how you phrase it. a lot of tim we phrase it celebrity stylist louis licari will do it and that s how it seems sa. jill sellsit, too. it is just the iea somebody is going to be doing for you that you ve never done fo yourself. it is the chance of a fetime. it really is. it change s people s lives. does it beyond the day? i know one ofur facebook questions is do you follow up with makeovers do tey usually keep up their new look or go back to the old ways? ihink to an extent they ll ep some of it. willhey keep it up perfectly, if you live in ohio it is a matters of expense. but who s available, who s accessible. how d they mat the color? i give them the formula you do? yes. louis licari la-la-la-la-la i know it is hard to pick a favoriteut what are your favorite makeovers? it was hard. i have pam. you ll remembepam and josie? little jos that reacted and i thinkwe have some of e video he when sh started hysterical crying. i loved her. because she actuallywanted this oo much. m didn t want it at firstnd josie helped convince her. sobbing. that was the best soap opera in town. was that your favorite as well. i loved her obviously. nicole sellers, she w just entering into e professnal world and she looked like a college student. her frnds she was going out lookin for a job. beforewe go on, i want to bring out these three ladies. you three, comeon. the whole team. whoer is here. it takes a village. come on. comeon, uys. coming up tomorrow, we go behi the scenes of everyone has a story. ho to add sparkle to in your new yr wardrobe.