Transcripts For WRC Today 20110426 : vimarsana.com

long-lost baby photos of prince william that have just surfaced today, tuesday, april 26, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television welcome to a special edition of today on this tuesday morning. i m meredith vieira outside buckingham palace. matt lauer is in new york. nice to see you. nice to see you. a couple of things right off the bat. the crowds look much bigger behind you at the palace there. and are we to believe as we watch the business end of a horse there are we to believe this photographer just happened to find these pictures of william, diana and charles on the eve of the royal wedding? well, aren t you suspicious? my goodness. the photographer is ian turner. his agent was going through stuff, found a box full of pictures of the royal family, including these of william as a baby. what a cute baby he was. he s still a cutie, obviously. a very happy time in the lives of those three. who knew what was going to happen in their future. but we are coming up on a happy day, obviously for william, this friday. we got a clue today as to what catherine may be wearing. there are reports that the family insisted a runner be put down the aisle of westminster abbey that she will be walking down, suggesting to some she ll wear a train. and if you hear a band it s not because i have arrived. it s the changing of the guard at buckingham palace. hopefully we can bring you a little bit of that as well. meanwhile the royal watchers in london are keeping a close eye on the weather with the threat of rain in friday s forecast. still believe that s going to happen but nothing like what you re dealing with back home. there s been terrible weather here. the town of velonia, arkansas, was ravaged last night. there is flooding concern on the mississippi. we ll have more on that and kara dioguardi is coming clean about her days on american idol. in a new book she writes every moment was mentally, physically and emotionally challenging. she called it torture, her word. she ll be here to talk about that and episodes from her childhood as well, meredith. from here in london you will meet the windsors. we ll have a look at the royal family kate middleton is marrying into, matt. let s begin with the powerful, deadly storms in the u.s. the weather channel s mike seidel is in arkansas. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. you re looking at the taj from last night s storm. aluminum wrapped around a pole. spotters called it a huge wedge tornado. it s been a record-setting april for twisters so far. last night s preliminary count for the outbreak, 38. one roared through vilonia before sundown, killing four. as the massive storm system moved across the nation s midsection, a big tornado took aim at vilonia, arkansas. the path of damage, immense. reportedly stretching for 15 miles, leaving much of the town in shambles. we just held on to each other and said we loved each other and that was about it. reporter: farther northwest in johnson, a mole bile home community was flooded with water reaching five feet in places, trapping many inside. i was starting to fear for my life. the water would have got up further, we could have drifted away. reporter: arkansas s governor mike beebe declared a state of emergency with 100,000 stuck without power. the storm system blew through texas and oklahoma earlier in the day, spinning off a half dozen tornadoes outside dallas-ft. worth. while in missouri, hundreds of residents have been forced to leave their homes in poplar bluff in the face of what could be a levee break. murky water is already overflowing in places. and one person was seriously injured when his truck collided with a tree. also in tennessee, high winds toppled a steeple at the belmont highlights baptist church. it s just a building. the church is the people. reporter: meantime, people in kentucky, illinois and indiana are still cleaning up the mess from last weekend s storms. it s been a record-breaking month for severe weather with 5, 400 reports of twisters, hail and wind damage in april. on average, only 3300 severe weather reports are tallied in april nationwide. and before we get to the month of may which on average produces more tornadoes than any month of the year, many of us will have to deal with more severe weather, tornadoes and flooding during the first part of this week. matt? mike seidel in arkansas this morning. thank you very much. we have been hearing a lot about storm systems like this one. al roker is upstairs with more details. good morning, al. good morning, matt. we have more to talk about. we have a cold front, warm air, severe thunderstorm watches through parts of southern louisiana. top of this, you have a strong jet stream coming in, upper level energy firing off storms. for today, we have another strong risk of storms in northeastern texas all the way into western tennessee. we also have a slight risk from lufkin, texas, to binghamton, new york. tornadoes, thunderstorms. we have a big problem for our friends in arkansas and parts of western tennessee. plus, we have a lot of rain. some areas picking up three to five inches of rain. when you add that on top of the rainfall we have already seen, st. louis, almost 200% more than normal. springfield, 205%. indianapolis, 220%. that s why we have flash flood watches and warnings from texas all the way to cleveland, ohio. we ve got more in store right on into the middle of the week. matt? al, thank you very much. we ll get the local forecast in a little while. we turn now to syria where a government crackdown against demonstrators led the state department to warn americans. there is fierce new fighting in libya as well. nbc s chief foreign correspondent richard engel is in benghazi with details on that. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. another crisis in the middle east and another warning from the state department. the state department is urging americans to deferral travel tr syria and encouraging those already there to leave the country while commercial transport is available arguing the situation for foreigners is unpredictable and potentially dangerous, especially since the government is blaming unrest in syria on outsiders. it s an ominous new phase of syria s crackdown on opposition. in an escalation, the government sent tanks and soldiers to the southern city of dura which has been at the centerer of the uprising against the government. witnesses claim two dozen people were killed. as 4,000 to 6,000 troops moved in, soldiers cut power and phones and searched houses. some protesters threw what looked like cans at the tanks. it s a risky move. the egyptian army refused to fire on its people. so did the army in tunisia. both regimes fell. so far the syrianle military appears to be staying loyal. syria says it sent in the troops to stop a takeover by an islamic militant group and claims the people asked to be, quote, liberated from terrorists. amateur video shows it s the government terrorizing the syrian opposition. one man lifts his shirt to show he s unarmed. then appears to dive to the ground as shots ring out. the message the government is sending to people is it s not going to be lenient and will not tolerate more protests. it will use all force possible regardless of international pressure or outrage inside syria. reporter: a crackdown that s so far prompted little international condemnation and almost none from other arab states. but the syrian regime isn t the only one in the region under threat. u.s. officials say the nato bombing of gadhafi s compound in tripoli monday was not an assassination attempt. nato officials say it targeted a command and control site, but if gadhafi had been in the complex at the time he would have been a legitimate target. it is a fine line, a line libyan officials don t accept. they say the attack was a deliberate attempt to kill gadhafi who later appeared on state television. the white house has said it is considering targeted sanctions against senior syrian officials, including freezing their assets. matt? richard engel reporting from benghazi in libya. thank you very much. let s get a check on the top stories of the morning. ann is at the news desk with those. good morning. good morning. former president jimmy carter arrived in pyongyang, north korea this morning to revive nuclear talks and discuss sweeping food shortages. he also hopes to meet with leader kim jong il. ron paul is in and haley basher e er barbsour is out. he says he doesn t have the fire in the belly for the job. nato killed the second most wanted man in afghanistan. he died in an air strike this month. more than 50% of egyptians want to dissolve the peace treaty with israel according to to a poll. the landmark treaty ended more than 30 years of war between egypt and israel and has kept relations relatively stable. now to wall street where melissa lee is at the stock exchange. good morning. good morning. all eyes on the federal reserve. the two-day policy meeting begins today. no change expected to interest rates but the focus will be on ben bernanke s first press conference after the meeting tomorrow in which he ll take questions as an effort to be more transparent. traders will use the opportunity to get details on how and when the bond purchasing program will end. meantime, until then, ann, stocks likely on hold. all right. melissa lee, thank you very much for the warning on that one. a federal judge ordered the national football league to end the lockout, scoring points for players in the fight to divide more than $9 billion of annual revenue with team owners. playerers argued the lockout called harm to their careers. the nfl is pushing to appeal the ruling and reinstate the lockout. zachary perez said he survived iraq but almost died on the dallas north tollway. an unlicensed driveway knocked him off his motorcycle onto the highway. other cars narrowly missed him while he was in the road. perez is expected to recover but his days as a biker are over. he proposed to his girlfriend the night he left the hospital. she said it was either her or the bike. she said yes, by the way. it s now 7:12. let s go back to matt and al. that would have been a bummer. thank you very much. mr. roker, we have a photo that showed you had a crepe-y time at the white house. kelly ripa made a crepe. so we shared it. mrs. obama looked on saying i don t want any part of this. we had 30,000 people, perfect weather. it was fantastic. weather not so fantastic for the other big event the royal wedding. today, partly cloudy. cool, 64. friday, not degrees. friday, not so nice. 7:00 a.m., chance of a shower. by noon, 60% chance of showers, and that continues with winds. our forecast for today here in the states, well, we re looking at a risk of strong storms from western new york all the way back into texas, and clouds in the pacific northwest, and breezy in southern california, and sunny and warm along the eastern states as well. just a few minutes ago we had sun but now it s cloudy over washington. a live view from the sky watcher camera, and we are off to a mild start. we re in the cities throughout the entire region. later today upper 70s to 80 degrees, and a slight chance of a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and then wednesday evening all the way through thursday evening, a slight r and that s your latest weather. now back to london and meredith. al, thank you. now to our countdown to the royal wedding. just three more days to go. as you can imagine, the planning is down to the final details, but things are changing by the minute. today national correspondent natalie morales is at westminster abbey with the latest. good morning. reporter: good morning, meredith. they are putting up the finishing touches on the scaffolding where the media will camp out friday. there are decorations throughout london. the city is looking beautiful. as you mentioned the one thing that s changing is the forecast. there is a threat of rain for friday. so everyone here is talking about will the first glimpse of kate s wedding dress be covered by an umbrella. after days of sunny skies in london, the weather could soon take a turn for the worse. cloudy skies are in the forecast with showers predicted for the day of the royal wedding. after they are married william and kate are supposed to take an open carriage from westminster abbey to buckingham palace but there is a backup plan. if it rains they will take a glass coach. rides lady diana. reporter: the same one used by princess diana when she was married. all over london, security sweeps have begun. on the day of the wedding, 5,000 police officers will take to the streets on foot and on horseback. they will also patrol along the thames and watch from above in helicopters, with live pictures fed to central command. we ll make sure the security is in place, providinging basically for the reassurance of those in charge of the event on the ground. reporter: new details are emerging about the ceremony. we learned prince william and kate middleton will enjoy one private moment with their families during this very public event. after their vows the newlyweds will pass through the chapel behind the altar out of the public s view to sign to marriage register in complete privacy. billions are expected to watch the royal wedding on television. and the wedding is getting the x factor, the hip british tv show is lending a top stage manager to oversee the coverage. one fan couldn t wait for the big day. john loffery of south london is already camping out at westminster abbey. diana will be proud of her son, prince william, and catherine s marriage. prince harry as best man. she ll be with them in spirit in westminster abbey on their special day and always. reporter: there are now others joining as well, camping out here. we have a lady here who brought her sleeping bag, tent and everything. she s been knitting. she ll need that sweater. the conditions have changed dramatically. officials in london want all to feel they are wedding guests for the day on friday. they are encouraging everyone here to dress for the occasion, hats and all, meredith. i hope you have your hat picked out by now. i do. they are making it. that lady better knit fast. it s getting colder by the moment. reporter: it is. thank you very much. tom bradley is the only person to interview william and kate together after their engagement. good morning. good morning. what do you make of the poll that suggests most people in britain aren t interested or excited about the wedding. do you take it with a grain of salt? it was always like this. it was like it with the golden jubilee. everyone says it s not a big deal. come the big day i mean, on the golden jubilee everybody was cynical and it was millions and millions of people. everyone got teary singing god safe the queen. we are conflicted. we think they do a good job. we don t like politicians. i don t think anyone is much keen on a change but we have the attitude that s for sure. most see william and kate as a modern couple. what makes them the right couple to take the monarchy into the next century? i think their reluctance, actually. it s often billed as the middle class meets the monarchy. i think that s true. they are both quite middle class in sense bill tis. they don t grow up on a count s estate or worry about where the next meal would come from. but they have had a quiet, relatively main stream upbringing and come across as normal. thanks to princess diana for prince william. she was good with smacking him around, telling him he was no big deal and to be polite and everything else. to understand william you have to understand he thinks the paparazzi killed his mother. he saw it for a long time. it used to make him boil with rage. it s taken him a long time to get used to dealing with media. he s always been determined to preserve domestic happiness. he wants a normal life. he s tried to live that. what s his best bet of getting that? what does he need to do? actually trying to stay in the military for as long as possible. there is a possibility of extending it. he s desperate to serve in afghanistan. would they ever let him go? i think it s talked about. it is realistic as a prospect to discuss. there are jobs he could do that wouldn t be flying in the air. he might be in an operations base. he s desperate to do it. they live in a small cottage and it s remote up there. their best chance is to keep away from the madness. is he able to keep the paparazzi at bay? well, the british press is better behaved and his relationship with them is better these days. i m told a shot of them on honeymoon is millions and millions of pounds. they will get hounded but there used to be an enormous amount of hacking into their phones. that doesn t happen anymore. the chances are better than they have ever been and they live a remote life. i think their best chance is to keep it that way as long as possible. and you are going to the wedding. lucky you. i am. well, it will rain obviously. because it is the uk. i don t know why we ever thought it would be sunny. but i m sure it will be a nice day. i m fairly certain that there will be millions of people in central london. there always are on thooes occasions. thank you so much. for a special insider s look catch inside the royal wedding hosted by matt and me tomorrow at 8:00 on nbc. remember to set your alarm early on friday. our live coverage begins at 4:00 a.m. eastern, 1:00 a.m. pacific. just ahead, the secret side of the royal family. what you don t know about the house of windsor. first this is today on nbc. 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( announcer ) turning complex data into easy tools. we re 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that s health in numbers. good morning. it s 7:26 on this tuesday, the 26th day of april. i am joe krebs. in the news for today, a 16-year-old is in custody accused of stabbing another teenager at the zoo. it was in the family celebration, one of the zoo s . temperatures in the 60s. later today a. little sunshine in and out, but cloudiness around 80. and then a slight chance of an isolated thunderstorm this afternoon. and then mostly cloudy tomorrow near up 80 again and then a likelihood of storms coming in on wednesday and off and on through the day on midday thursday, and then drying out thursday afternoon and into the weekend. along i-66 it s a parking lot from before manassas to fair oaks. it is running extremely slow. and the topside of the beltway, a car fire has been cleared. they are looking at an accident in the inner loop, and outer in thyour lawn is a living,r breathing thing. it depends on you. it needs food. you have to feed your lawn. that s a must. i use scotts turf builder. it makes the roots really strong. 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[ male announcer ] scotts turf builder. feeding pays. it is the best thing you could do for your lawn. it is 7:30 on tuesday morning, april 26, 2011. it took a while but spring has arrived in new york city. al says it will go up into the 80s. we re looking forward to going outside saying hello to the big crowd on the plaza. meanwhile, meredith has assembled an impressive group outside buckingham palace in london. some of them may have been there for the changing of the guard. others with ms. meredith vieira. we ll check in with her in a little while. meanwhile, coming up from here, the latest on a heartbreaking story. two 14-year-old girls who were best friends committed suicide together at a sleepover. this morning their parents will share a cautionary tale in an exclusive live interview. meredith? also ahead, matt, on a much lighter note from london, take a closer look at the royal family. they are one of the most famous families in the world and yet we know surprisingly little about them. we ll have more on that ahead. plus, former american idol judge kara dioguardi has written a new book about her life and she doesn t hold back when it comes to her time on the show. she called part of it, quote, torture. coming up, why she thinks she was brought in and forced out after just a couple of seasons. we ll get to that in a moment. let s begin with the search for answers following the tragic suicides of two 8th graders in minnesota. we ll talk to their mothers in a moment. first today national correspondent amy robach has the latest on this. good morning. reporter: good morning. this tragic story gripped the rural area where the girls lived and went to middle school. the family of one of the victims said she complained she was bullied. there are still even more questions. fast friends, best friends, paige and hailey, both 14 years old, both found following a sleepover where they hanged themselves. for their families, indescribable heartbreak. she s gone. she s not coming back. reporter: paige s mom said her daughter was being treated for depression, though paige never talked to her about being bullied. there is no do-over. kids need to know that. suicide is not the answer. it is not the answer. reporter: the girls became close when hailey moved to minnesota from indiana a year ago. they attended marshall middle school and hailey s family said she had been expelled for defending paige in a fight. in an interview with meredith last week hailey s cousin said the girls may have carried out a preplanned suicide pact. i have to believe myself that they thought this out, you know, pretty thoroughly. seems to me they were going out of their way to keep this to themselves. reporter: hailey complained to family members that she was rids ku ridiculed by students about her weight and red hair. she said, i m so done with people here, they are so mean and two-faced to me it s not even funny. both girls left behind suicide notes telli ining their familie they loved them but offering no clues. the toughest part is just understanding reality. realizingi inthat i can t go ho and see her or say hi to her. reporter: relatives want to get the message out about suicide prevention and the consequences of bullying. there is texting, facebook and other mediums of communication. nobody s safe. reporter: we should note tragically suicide is the third leading cause of death among teens. matt? amy, thank you very much. amy robach reporting. the girls mothers are with us now exclusively. good morning. my condolences to you both. thank you. i know you want to be here to share the story as a cautionary tale for other parents and teens out there. i also know you must have both asked this question a thousand times over the last several days. that is, what did i miss? was there a sign? was there some indication that this could have been in the offing? how do you answer that question? no. i think we were doing everything in our power as mothers to help the girls. but i question it every day, ten times a day. tricia you have asked the question. was there a sign? did you notice something different in your daughter in the days leading up to this? i have played it over probably a million times. there is nothing that she even slightly did different. there was nothing. both of these girls talked about some form of bullying. was it bullying in the traditional sense of being picked on at school? was it cyber bullying? how would you describe it? it was more of the facebook, texting and i mean, that s what i got from it. yeah, i think so, too. bullying in the traditional sense is different to me than what it is nowadays. kids are so mean and cruel to each other. the things they say to each other is horrible. when they came to you individually and said, look, people are saying awful things. as we heard on hailey s facebook or saw on the facebook page i m over this. how did you talk about this with her? how did you try to get her through it? you know, i told her that she needs to be the bigger person and turn the other cheek and not let those people get to her. you know, i tried helping her through it as much as i could. with paige? paige never came to me so much about bullying issues. it was just her regular issues she had with school. i just gave her the best advice i could. i tried to teach her to see past tomorrow. i was reading some of the notes this morning and both of your daughters had some issues with depression. i think both were being treated, counseled at least. i think haylee was on medication for depression. correct. were you experiencing mood swings you just attributed to depression? yeah, i think so. she had ups and downs. i think so. paige as well. was paige? yep. this is the hardest part to talk about. i m a parent of three and i know your daughters left behind notes. yeah. is it too personal to ask what you have learned from the notes that were left behind? can you share any of the contents of the notes? haylee s was pretty short and sweet. you know, it was thank you for giving me an amazing life. i m sorry for doing this to you. i love you. thank you for giving me she described her life as amazing. yeah. parents at home will say, how can young lady who thinks her life is amazing as i thought. you know, you try to give your kids everything within your means that you can. you know, maybe it s never enough. i don t know. i hope that the school will implement a program to teach kids about this stuff. the harassment between girls at this age is horrible. it is. in paige s note she wrote to you? she wanted us all to know she was very sorry and she never meant to hurt anybody. she wanted us to know she loved us and never to forget her. so for the parents of teenagers and younger children at home today who, like you, may not see any signs, what s the message? what s the lesson you would like to share? never, never let a day go by where you don t tell your children that you love them and give them a hug. yeah. that s the hardest part is seeing other kids their age. tracy and tricia, my sincere condolences. it s brave of you to share the story. we want to thank the community for the support they have shown us. it was unbelievable. amazing. thank you for sharing the stories. my that. let s get a switch of the gears, and we re turning to al for a check of the weather. we have been telling you about the severe outbreak of weather. knox vim, tennessee we re not going to look at that. 80s and 90s through the gulf coast. hundreds in southern texas. and 50s and 60s was move your way into the pacific northwest. it s a clash of cold air and warm air that gives us the risks of storms. the risk extends into western new york and much of pennsylvania today. out west, windy conditions and plenty of sunshine. the gulf coast sunny and warm as well. that s what is going around the country and here s what is happening in your neck of the woods. a slight risk of storms in western maryland and virginia today, but locally a small chance of a thunderstorm. mild and 60s throughout most of the region. and then tomorrow, mostly cloudy again up around 80 degrees. and then evening storms on thursday night, and then cooling down on friday with the sunshine back and a dry weekend to follow. on a day like today you want to keep track of your weather all day long. go to weather channel on cable or weather.com online. still ahead from london we ll be live with what you don t know about the royal family. kate middleton is now marrying into. that and more ahead on a tuesday morning after this. whatever l lola gets and, little man, little lola wants you [ cellphone dings ] [ cellphones ringing ] [ women screaming ] make up your mind to have one diet pepsi, please. no regrets ahh. what s going on over there? 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[ female announcer ] lyrica is not for everyone. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior or any swelling or affected breathing, or skin, or changes in eyesight, including blurry vision or muscle pain with fever or tired feeling. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don t drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don t drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. i found answers about fibromyalgia. then i found lyrica. ask your doctor about lyrica today. then i found lyrica. man: and all the pens are put down. woman: and everything there is to learn is learned. man: till the heroes retire and the monsters return to their dens. woman: and all the plots are wrapped up. man: till that day. boy: by hook or by crook. girl: by book or by nook. woman: i will read. back now with more of our countdown to the royal weddinging. kate middleton becomes princess catherine on friday. how well does she know the windsor family she s about to join? peter alexander is here with details. good morning, peter. reporter: nice to see you. welcome to london. wills and kates have known each other a decade but she s still getting to know her future in-laws. kate s parents met the queen for the first time last week, but in just three days they will all be family. give me some love. we re family now. come here! reporter: so it s not exactly meet the fockers but kate middleton will face her own challenges blending in with another set of in-laws, the windsors. they may be the most famous family in the world but it is remarkable how little we know about britain s royals. in all that time in public office she s never given an interview. when the queen meets people it s like she s going through the motions but she has a set pattern. she gives nothing away. so they don t really know her. reporter: while kate will marry the future king she can rule out any unscheduled visits with william s 85-year-old grandmother queen elizabeth. can i pop in for a cup of coffee or tea? no. what happens is she has to write a little note and her footman will take it to the queen s page and the queen will say yes. reporter: as seen in the queen elizabeth loves quiet nights at home where insiders say she prefers supper served on a tray while watching soap operas and anything starring clint eastwood. go ahead, make my day. reporter: it s said her husband prince philip wears the pants though by tradition he s required to walk two steps behind her in public. in private he s very much head of the mountbatten-windsor family. what catherine needs to do is go slowly, quietly and ask his advice. reporter: prince charles has been the heir apparent since the age of 3. he reportedly employs 149 staff members including 25 butlers, dressers, chefs and valets, one of whom squeezes the toothpaste onto his toothbrush. prince charles lives in such an ostentatious style that it almost embarrasses the queen. reporter: then there is camilla, the steely duchess of cornwall or, to some, the other woman. still blamed by many brits for breaking up charles and diana. she was blamed by diana personally for breaking up the marriage. reporter: add all the aunts, uncles and cousins. prince andrew still dealing with sarah ferguson s scandal. their daughters here in the easter best are well known for partying ways. sometimes a little bit too much, like dad. they may be sweet but they have dull, ordinary boyfriends. reporter: princess ann who hasn t changed her hairstyle in decades is said to be her father s favorite child. her stunning daughter zara is set to be married this sum tor a rugby star who s broken his nose eight times. and peter and his wife just gave the queen their first great-grandchild, savannah. then there is prince edward, the only child still in his first marriage to the beautiful countess of wessex who, like kate, was once a commoner. their 7-year-old daughter, lady louise will be one of kate s bridesmaid. as she will enterer buckingham palace, this time as a member of the unique family. for now the royal family has to worry about a wedding gift. i guess flatware won t cut it. the queen s go-to gift is a signed photo of herself and prince philip. if you are high on the list it comes in a silver frame. otherwise in leather. mine would be in plastic. that s what matt gives away. a picture of him. meanwhile, we are learning of thousands of pictures of the royal family taken by ian turner, a royal photographer, just discovered in his agent s office, including 5-month-old william. what do you know? they were taken in 1982. a beautiful shot there with mom diana. they were taken at kensington palace. the former agent left roughly 100,000 photographers behind in the building in east london. they are not all of the royals. this is a sampling. that s adorable of william with his parentses. how do you leave behind 100,000 photos? the timing is suspect. that s what matt thought, too. beautiful pictures. meanwhile the biographer who called prince andrew s daughters boyfriends dull, that s nasty. tough around here. look over your shoulder. you have the british suit on as well, looking dapper. kind of you to say. much more on the royal family. download the free nbc royal wedding app for the ipad and iphone and the android as well. coming up, more from london. up next, lindsay lohan speaks out to jay leno about her recent legal troubles. we ll preview what she had to say after this. is a big deal. thanks. so i m glad it s with fidelity. they offer me one-on-one guidance to help me choose my investments. not just with my savings plan here at work. they help me with all of my financial goals. looking good, irene. thanks to fidelity, i can stay on top of my financial future, huh? 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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. this is stacy. who runs circles around asthma. and dan. he never lets high cholesterol get him too low. and amy with her arthritis well in hand. they go to walgreens. where their pharmacist not only refills prescriptions but gives advice. immunizations. and health tests. staying on top of your health starts right in your neighborhood. walgreens. there s a way to stay well. 7:51. we are back with lindsay lohan speaking out for the first time since she was sentenced to 120 days in jail for probation violation. monday she taped an interview for the tonight show with jay leno . at what point did you realize, oh, my god, i could lose this, it could slip away from me? i think being young and being in the position i was in you don t take the time to appreciate, you know, what you have. it all kind of i m not a kid anymore. i m 24. i have made a lot of mistakes. i recognize that. but i m in the clear now and i feel like as long as i stay focused i will be able to achieve what i want to achieve. 120 days in jail, community service including time at a women s center and janitorial work at the l.a. county morgue. that s an interesting choice. i think especially as a dui involved they try to show people the fragility of life. that s something that happens. it s hard to think of her when she said she was 24 i was thinking, 24. how much you have already experienced. and, gosh, i hope the next 24 are more calm. i agree. you can see jay s full interview with lindsay tonight on nbc. just ahead, former american idol judge kara dioguardi after your local news. with chili s new $6 lunch break combos. choose from a house salad or hot, tasty soup. then pair it with a massive texas toast half sandwich, like our delicious classic turkey or our gigantic new southwestern blt, smothered in cilantro lime mayo and jam-packed with three glorious slices of applewood smoked bacon. served with fries, that s big flavor for just 6 bucks! the $6 break for bold, weekdays at chili s. 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[ female announcer ] now, select cards come postage paid. our time right now is 7:56. 69 degrees outside. beautiful picture. lots of leaves on the trees. clouds above us, and we ll get the forecast coming up. i am joe krebs on this tuesday, the 26th of april. an hov crackdown is under way on i-66. a member of our news4 team took this picture inside the beltway less than an hour ago. can you see the state trooper standing there in the highway checking cars as they go by. and marylanders will get a chance to say good-bye to donald schaefer today. city hall will be open for public viewing from 9:00 this the kincaids live here. across the street, the padillas. ben and his family live here, too. ben s a re/max agent, and he s a big part of this community. there are lots of reasons why re/max agents average more sales than other agents. experience, certainly. but maybe it s also because they care about the markets they serve and the neighbors who rely on them. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. visit remax.com today. better than any other luxury brand. intellichoice proclaims that lexus has the best overall value of any brand. and j.d. power and associates ranks lexus the highest in customer satisfaction. no wonder more people have chosen lexus over any other luxury brand 11 years in a row. see your lexus dealer. rich amador, our capital one commercial banker really rolls up his sleeves to help keep our business growing. he s done hands-on research to better understand our growing cash flow needs. rich, i am very excited about what you ve put together. and with the strength of the largest bank headquartered in the dc area, he s able to fiercely protect our bottom line. plus, he always looks for new perspectives on the club to help us grow. 75 by 16! [ laughs ] [ all ] what s in your wallet? today with highs near 80 degrees, and a chance of a afternoon thunderstorm. jerry, how is traffic? an accident inner loop of the beltway just after the avenue. and then it s going to be slow most of the way to the 14th street bridge. using music to treat autism. 8:00 on this tuesday morning, april 26, 2011. a cloudy day in londontown as big ben counts down the minutes to friday s royal wedding. as we pull out you will take a look at trafalgar square. tomorrow i will report live from there. we are at buckingham palace today which will host not one but two receptions for william and kate. i m meredith vieira live in london. matt and al back on the plaza in new york where the weather is nicer. just ahead, what s in a name? there have been a number of queens named catherine. things didn t end up well for many of them. we ll explain. plus, someone who knows prince william best, our exclusive interview with his godfather coming up, matt. thank you very much. you know who s in studio now? kara dioguardi. she s best known to people as the judge of american idol for two seasons. she s written a new book about her life, revealing stories about her childhood and career. yes, she talks about american idol as well. it wasn t always the easiest time for her. she admits to being crucified by viewers. she ll talk about why it was so difficult when we join her in a few minutes. we have been telling you about the problems the play spider-man: turn off the dark has been having. there is a new creative team trying to rework the show. they will speak out in an exclusive live interview. okay. a lot to get to. let s head inside. ann curry has the headlines of the morning. hi, ann. good morning again. in the news a relentless rain is pounding southern missouri leaving levees ready to burst and residents fleeing to higher ground. severe storms began monday. they have ravaged half a dozen states including arkansas where at least seven people were killed and 100,000 left without power. the governor declared a state of emergency. italy says it will now take part in strategic bombing raids over libya as premiere silvio berlusconi announces that he wants to do more to protect civilians. meantime, the u.s. state department is telling americans to leave syria. on monday, at least 11 people were killed as the army cracked down on prodemocracy demonstrators in a southern city at the centerer of the uprising against president asad. new hampshire police are seeking answers after a young single motherer disappeared over the weekend. her car found in a parking lot with her baby daughter sleeping alone inside. nbc s ron allen has the latest now from conway, new hampshire. good morning. reporter: good morning. the parking lot of the ski resort is where the mom s car was found, the engine running. it was 6:30 a.m. saturday morning. her 14-month-old daughter is doing just fine. police are convinced someone forced the mother to leave her child alone. krista ditmire vanished without a trace. those who know her say she s a devoted, loving mother who never would have abandoned her child. little aliyah is healthy and well, staying with her grandmother. the family says she s missing her mother. ditmire, a waitress who lives in portland, maine spoke to her family by phone friday night. nothing unusual. her car was found an hour and a half away in conway, new hampshire, where she has friends. police say that isn t particularly suspicious, but they believe there is no doubt she s the victim of a crime. nothing to indicate in her background that she was suicidal. reporter: her family said she s a strong, bold woman who they think convinced an attacker to spare her child and left the car with flashers on in a place where someone would find it. regardless of whether or not she knew her say say lant assai likely she convinced the person to leave the child there and the reality is the child would never be a witness in the case. reporter: all they can do is help and pray for help. i m waiting for her to show up. i feel like it s not real. if anyone remembers seeing her at any point at all, just please let us know any details. reporter: at this point authorities are operating under the assumption that the mom is still alive. the best news of all is that her child is doing fine healthy and unharmed. ann? a story that s still developing. ron allen, thank you. a dare devil stunt before a live audience in england took a tragic turn when a human can bonnball plunged 40 feet to his death as spectators and young children looked on. an investigation is under way. it is believed the 23-year-old man died when his safety net failed. on a different night keko, the shebaemu became a world wide internet sensation when her owners put the live feed of her first litter online. since the third litter was born two weeks ago, more than 27 million people have visited upstream.com to watch the live video of the pups. many viewers enjoying their furry antics pups. what a better way to relieve stress. it s 8:05. let s get a check of the weather outside. thanks, ann. young lady, you survived the st. louis airport tornado. yes, i did. how long did it take you to get home? we were actually supposed to be here friday night, but we were supposed to switch planes in st. louis, and then the airport closed. glad you are here and that everybody is safe. let s check your weather. pick city of the day is jacksonvil jacksonville, florida. isolated storms, and a high of 88 degrees today. we have strong storms unfortunately, the system that moved through arkansas yesterday is slowly moving east. we will see more storms from texas through much of arkansas into missouri. a risk of strong storms into western new york. that s what is going on around the country and here s what is happening in your neck of the woods. there is a slight risk of strong storms in the mountains of west virginia, and western maryland later today. a small chance of a isolated thunderstorm locally. and 68 at reagan national. later today up around 80. we will have quite a bit of cloudiness around and temperatures around 80 again tomorrow, and mostly cloudy and sunny at times. and a likelihood of evening storms on wednesday, perhaps some other storms lingering in through midday on th> and that weather. matt? al, thank you very much. kara dioguardi has written lots of hit songs. now she s written a new book about her life and, yes, her time on american idol. we ll talk to her right after these messages. introduciat pizza hut, beyond we know your tuesdays are busy. introducing purina one beyond [ male announcer ] on tuscani tuesdays, any family-sized tuscani pasta is just ten bucks. dinner made easy? check. 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(both) literally! keep your photos right at your fingertips. oh! ok. this is my mom and dad. robin, whatcha doin ? i m dealing with a slight underwear malfunction. oh, you need hanes panties. they don t ride up. hanes panties. so cute. and they don t ride up. we are back at 8:10 with kara dioguardi, the grammy nominated songwriter took her seat at the american idol judges table and instantly became a lightning rod for controversy. after two seasons she took her final bow. now she s opening up about her life and time on the show in her new book called a helluva high note. nice to see you. welcome back. it s been a while. it has. you re young to write a memoir and the american idol stuff, some people may see as a little bit of score settling. is that the way you see it? no. i decided to write a book because i was doing shows at the end of season 9 where i would go out, sing the songs i had cowritten and tell the stories behind the songs. it telt with challenges i have come through, things i faced and how difficult it was to attain dree your dreams. i thought it might help other people looking to pursue a career outside the norm. there are about 50 pages at the end dedicated to american idol. they will get a lot of attention. one of the things you feel is your introduction was mishandled. they didn t announce your arrival in the right way and tell people why you deserved the seat at that table? i don t know that it was mishandled. i think they did a montage at the beginning to introduce me, but i think people were so confused by songwriter? record executive? what are these things. i don t think a lot of people know that s a job, that people write songs. so it took the viewers a while to understand why i was there. it was like i broke up the beatles. you were interrupting the chemistry of the panel. you write, as far as i m concerned american idol season 8 might have been called survivor. every moment was mentally, physically and emotionally challenging. every fear or insecurity about the way i looked, what i said ond who i was leaped to the front of my mind before each show. it was torture. i came from behind the scenes. i was used to sitting on the couch in the back of the studio. to be thrust into the homes of millions of people and live television and things i didn t know how to do was so challenging. but, you know, that s why the book talks to people who have to face their fears and tells them that, you know, you can come through this. you can do this. we reached out to fox and they declined comment. do you believe you were brought on to bring paula online so she wouldn t go crazy on contract negotiations? they bring another hot chick and say, if you leave she ll take your place? i don t know that that was true. i think they wanted to mix it up. they wanted the chemistry to be fresh. it was really difficult to come into something so established. you know, i have to say i have nothing but love for american idol. i came through it. i m stronger for it. i got to face some really big fears. some of the other things you write about in the book. you talk about an episode where you are 11 years old and repeatedly molested by a family friend. used to play hide and seek and you write the game soon became hide, seek and touch. what s most disturbing is you went to your mother and said, this boy, this teenager is doing this to me. she did nothing. you know, it was at a time when there were no oprahs. i came from a conservative catholic family. i don t think i heard my motherer say sex until i was 22. it was hard for her to deal with. but the good news is i have heard from a friend of hers that it did weigh on her and that she did reach out to friends and talk about it. before she died, we spoke about it. there is another incident in the book. i think it will prove controversial. you write about a music producer. fairly well known. who date raped you. you write in the book, he asked if i wanted to have dinner one evening. i was looking for a friend i could talk shop with, someone to give me career advice. i didn t get that. within a few hours he was on top of me. the thing about date rape is you don t know it s happening until it s too late. you don t name a name. why did you decide to include that? these are things that affected my songs. going through an experience like that was so difficult. when i went to choose men i didn t always choose the greatest guys. a lot of those experiences ended up in, like, angry songs. for me it was important to express why i got into these bad relationships. but, again, following my dream is what saved me. by including the story and not naming names, which i understand why you don t name names, it will create a lot of speculation. are you worried at all that some innocent people might be wrapped up in the speculation? that s why i didn t name names. it s not about that person. i don t want it to become about that person. i want it to become about all the other people who have been through this experience and tell them that you can get through it. you can be stronger for it. one of the other things you write about in the book is your mom passing away after a battle with cancer. you write that on your resumé it s your proudest moment because you were 100% there for her when she needed you. you write that after you watched them take her body and remove it from her home nothing could ever touch you again. nothing anybody ever said about you or did to you could harm you again. in the moment it may have stung if they said something but it could never hurt me the way losing a parent and watching them die from a terrible disease like that feels. i think it is nice that you were able to put everything else aside at that time. despite ups and downs in your life together, be there 100%. yeah. i don t know how i had that foresight, but i did. you know, i know that i spent years of time with her in those years. every moment i could. you know, it was the right thing to do and she was a great mom. none of us are perfect. we re all human. the book is called a helluva high note. kara dioguardi, thanks for being here. good to see you again. thank you very much. speaking of idol coming up we ll catch up with the latest cast-off. but first from london how william and kate s will compare to other royal weddings. meredith will have that right after this. 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a bad case of car envy. - oh, we miss you, honey. - i ll be home soon. until then. tommy? - behind every open heart is a story. - it s beautiful. - tell yours with my open heart collection at kay jewelers. keep your heart open, and love will always find its way in. miracle-gro results ever? spectacular plants without all the weeds. with miracle-gro shake n feed plus weed preventer. just a few shakes stops weeds before they start. plants grow twice as big. with almost no weeds. even in your vegetable garden. want three months of feeding, without all the weeding? all you need. is shake n feed plus weed preventer. welcome back to buckingham palace where we are counting down to the royal wedding. on friday, kate middleton will walk out of westminster abbey as princess catherine, a name that has an interesting place in royal history. once married to prince william, catherine middleton will join a long line of british queens called catherine. and there is food for thought there. the problem is they have been unlucky, all of them. no love and no real luck. reporter: catherine who married henry v was a widow. completely unpopular in england because she was roman catholic, couldn t really speak english. reporter: and then there was henry viii whose love of feasting was matched by his attraction to women called catherine. catherine of aragon, the marriage which ended in divorce and the hapless 15-year-old catherine howard, one of the first commoners to become queen. instead of having a mid-life crisis and buying a porsche he took a younger woman and beheaded her. she preferred to be with young, handsome men. reporter: her ghost still haunts the gallery of the palace. wife number six was catherine parr, a former lady in waiting. at least she didn t lose her head. reporter: in the past, princesses were political pawns in the marriage game, but this catherine is marrying for love and she may be a bit of a game-changer. you are the author of several novels including the other boleyn girl and the red queen. good morning to you. thank you for having me. nice place you have here. great view here. let s talk about the abbey. there is a tremendous amount of royal history there. the queen mother was married there, the queen herself was married there, william s uncle andrew and aunt ann as well. what does it mean to the family? why do you think this couple chose the abbey? i think what was important is when the queen mother married there it was after the first world war. it was trying to connect to windsor family who were of german descent with the english royals and the english royal history. it was a calculated move. of course. these are ace p.r. people. they have a title and have retained the title for, you know, a thousand years by making sure they captured the mood of the people and respond to it. i think after the first world war there was a sense of identifying this family with english history and with this very, very ancient church and the queen mother put her bouquet on the tomb of the unknown soldier to connect the royal family with the people. does every bride do that? they do. catherine will? if she wants to. i imagine she will. how do you think this wedding will be different from others? it will be just the same, really. they will have the same service. it s quite interesting whether she promises to obey or not. i read that she s not going to. most brides don t anymore. it was always a lie. now people don t feel the need to do it. it will be a traditional wedding. i doubt there will be anything they are not going to tinker with it. i doubt that. prince william reportedly said he wants to follow in the example of his grandparents once he and catherine are married. they spent two years living as a royal navy couple in malta. the queen said it was one of the happiest times of her life and they will do the same thing. what do you make of that? it s an understandable ambition. i m sure he would like to delay the on set of the public attention they will get as a couple and particularly she ll get as a princess. it s never going to happen. unfortunately we live in an age now where everybody has a camera on their phone. everybody can join the internet in a second. everybody wants to know everything. there is no sense anymore that people should have a private life and that the media interest stops at any door. i m afraid they will step onto the world stage on friday and they will never get off it. thank you so much. i could talk to you forever. thank you very much. just ahead an interview with prince william s godfather. now back to matt, ann and al in new york. thank you very much. we are here with stefano langone, the latest contestant voted off american idol. nice to see you. are you okay with this? oh, man. how can i not be? i was on the biggest show in the world. i did a good job. i went out there every week doing the best i could do and it turned out great. lucky number seven. jennifer lopez says speaking for the girls in the audience, your last performance, i thought was very, very good. you had your swag going on. i did something different with my last performance going with an up tempo song, really current. my last segment with jimmy he was like, you got to be sexy and i m like, yeah, why haven t i been sexy yet? so i went out, showed my chops and it was a great performance. you haven t really been able to bust out musically. yeah. what would you have done differently? i saved my piano chops and that part of my artistry to myself. i wanted to hold that moment for after, you know? i wanted it shall that s really speciale to me. i think it will be special when people hear that. there is so much scrutiny on the show. i would rather have my music and do my music than a cover and be judged on that. that s how i went about that one. a long way from washington. shout out to them. i love them so much. you did great and the ladies on the show said you could flirt with a piece of paper. way could flirt with a piece of paper. j lo and steven tyler on our show monday. 8:26 is your time now. 72 degrees. a warm start to your day. will it feel more like summer today? a 16-year-old is in custody this morning accused of stabbing another teen at the national zoo. it happened late yesterday afternoon during the african-american family celebration. the teen that was stabbed is expected to be okay. we ll take a b a delightful spring morning. we have sunshine and a few clouds coming through. temperatures in the 60s and later today near 80, and increasing clouds and a small chance of an afternoon thunderstorm, and tomorrow partly sunny and near 80 again. and police headed for an accident southbound just before route 28. look out for that. and one more stop, still struggling to recover, 66. using music to treat autism. how one mother we are back at 8:30 on a tuesday morning. it s the 26th day of april, 2011. it is pretty in the northeast. finally got warm temperatures. we are going near 80 today. that s nothing but good news for people wearing crowns out on the plaza in honor of friday s royal wedding. or burger king s giving them out. i m not sure. out on the plaza i m matt lauer along with ann curry and al roker. miss meredith in london where she s outside buckingham palace. i understand coming up you will get to talk to someone who will be an attendant at friday s wedding. yes, i am. i got to talk to a cousin to prince charles and godfather to the groom. he ll tell us why he thinks william will make a great king and who william should rely on most for advice. al, matt? all right. also, coming up, we have been documenting all been documenting all the problems with the broadway play spiderman. now it s on high eightious. tha. this show as a distinctive difference. we start with just the voice. forget the quest to become a celebrity overnight. this is an authentic search for new talent. we are not judging people who hit a sfanlg but looking to discover and then mentor, and ultimately find the voice of america. the mentorship is key. as i understand let s talk about your judges. you have serious judges. christine aguilera. yeah, and christina has been fantastic. she is like mother hen on the show. adam, from maroon five, and then blake shelton, and see low green is having a heck of a year. they wanted to be part of the show to offer some of the advice they got on their way. and they have interesting competition among themselves. the four judges, they want to be the one to find the voice, too. how do they pick their voice? somebody walks on the stage, and they don t know anything about them, and if they get goose pumps, they hit a button and they can turn around and see them. those are the blind additions which start tonight. the contestant, then, if one or more judge or mentor gets to work with them yeah, the power shifts to the kid, who is sitting there star struck from christina and it s a rich musical experience. much different than all the other shows. we want to remind people, it premieres tonight. we promote these things that we like. two-hour premier tonight. check it out. thank you. always a pleasure. mr. roker. that s what s going on around the country. a pleasant spring morning under way. we are in the 60s now with sunshine and a few clouds coming through. looks like it will be mostly cloudy later on with highs near 80. a small chance of a isolated thunderstorm popping up later this afternoon. and then tomorrow partly sunny and near 80. and then maybe showers through thursday, and then the storms should settle down and then sun back thursday afternoon and high 70s and 60s on friday. should be dry into the weekend and a bit warm don t forget to check your weather any time day or night. weather channel on cable. weather.com online. thank you for that. when we come back, meredith talks royal wedding with prince william s godfather. that will be happening, but first this is today on nbc. welcome back to buckingham palace and our countdown to the royal wedding. in just three days now friday has been declared a public holiday but it is also a personal occasion. among the guests the former king of greece constantine. we caught up at his home here in london. constantine is a king in name only, and has been for more than 40 years. at age 23 he assumed the throne. he married shortly after. the young, handsome king was already a national hero for winning a gold medal in sailing in the 1960 olympics. just three years into his reign, things went terribly wrong. the young monarch and his queen anne-marie fled in the middle of the night after a military coup. king constantine has lived in exile since 1967. why are you not become a bitter man given what happened to you? life is way too short. i remember when i was a child my mother told me once, if you hit your toe at the end of the bed when you walk around your room it doesn t help going back to that place and hitting it again and again. there is no point. you have to get on with life. constantine found a home in london near his relatives from the house of windsor. he is second cousin to prince charles and godfather to prince william. there is a wonderful picture of prince william directly behind you as a little boy. saluting. i turned around and he was saluting. i don t know. children do funny things. if you had to describe prince william how would you? they are lucky. they have a guy who s hard-working with a fantastic sense of humor. above all he has from his parents and grandparents the first thing that s important service to the people. he will be a great king one day. have you spoken to william since the engagement? i spoke to him once. i really feel that why should he bother with me? you re his godfather. are you excited about the wedding? very. i think it s wonderful. it s nice to see a young couple happy like that. it think it will be a fantastic moment. do you think he will be nervous on his wedding day? william? yes, i m sure he will. excited and nervous. she will be, too. so will the parents, grandparents and the godparents. constantine and his wife will attend the wedding along with their youngest son crown prince pablo and his wife. constantine said he and prince charles have learned to raise royals in a modern world. you knew princess diana well. did she talk about her dreams for her oldest son prince william knowing that he was on that path to become at some point the king? of course as a mother she was concerned about what would be. you give them everything, all the love. at the end of the day they have to choose. i think both parents did that. they chose to do a job which is very important. it saves lives. he is not wasting his life. do you think he understands the burden of becoming king? i think he does. i m sure he does. if he needs anything, all he s got to do is ring up his grandmother. she s the most unique human being you can find. vast experience. my grandmother once said that grief is the price we pay for love. as prince william and catherine make their way, embracing royal traditions thousands of years gone, they are redefining royalty for the modern age. the young glamorous couple captured the world s attention and looks to be the future of the british monarchy. he s a good chap, very good boy. i think he s, of course, lucky. she s also lucky. she has a wonderful man who will be a fantastic husband, no question about it. don t forget. our coverage of the royal wedding begins on friday at 4:00 a.m. eastern, 1:00 a.m. pacific time here on nbc. we ll have much more live from london in a moment. up next, from new york, the new creative team in charge of fixing spider-man: turn off the dark. we ll talk to them exclusively. first this is today on nbc. a great looking lawn like this, but trying to grow grass from seed in tough areas like deep shade, along the driveway, and where the kids play can be a little intimidating. until now. with scotts ez seed. it s scotts best grass seed, starter fertilizer and a growing material that absorbs water and expands to surround and protect the seeds, you ll get a thick, green scotts lawn even if you ve never been successful with other seed before. the revolutionary scotts ez seed. grow grass anywhere. we re back now at 8:43 with the web of problems for the broadway musical spider-man: turn off the dark. you re laughing now. faced with bad reviews, on-stage accidents and an enormous budget it s on hiatus. the script is being reworked. we ll talk to the creative team in a moment. first, anne thompson. here we go. spider-man 2.0 sprks this . reporter: this is the task of the biggest do-over in broadway history. after months of previews and $70 million, spider-man: turn off the dark is retooling. walk through, do your patterns so we know everyone is safe. reporter: from the beginning this high-flying musical pushed the edge of creativity and safety. five crew members injured including christopher tierney. then the critics weighed in. atrocious. horrendous. a national joke. undaunted, spider-man is trying again inspired by tierney s return. i love being on stage. i love my cast. reporter: out is the director julie tamor and in is a director of the circus. you make the impossible possible. that s this company. reporter: even rehearsal is a spectacle. whe this looks like a nasa control room. it takes all this technology and 136 people to make the show fly. making it last is more basic. it needs a great story and great music. a task even a superhero can t guarantee. for today, anne thompson, nbc news, new york. three members of the new spider-man: turn off the dark creative team are with us. director philip mckinley, writer and glen burger. good morning. good morning. your shrinks are all asking you this question and your family. why would you sign up knowing the troubled history of the show? why not? it s stirring to be part of something with great integrity, great dedication. that was my decision. i joined a company that i knew had the fortitude to do it. no fears that you wouldn t be able to turn it around and that the press would continue to haunt the show? if you are allowed a mulligan in golf you should be allowed a re-do of a broadway musical. i think everyone knew spider-man is one of the most beloved characters of all time in popular culture. people didn t want to let it go at just being okay. people wanted to make it as great as it could be. when you three first sat down and watched the show with your own eyes what was your first reaction? first time i saw it i was thrilled. i had a great time. i went to see it as a spectator, not a person from the business. it is visually incredible. julie s work is stellar. you didn t see any of the comments, the criticism from reviewers? those weren t evident to you on stage? wait, wait. we would be lying if we didn t see some of that. the problems. but, look, we re fortunate. we have been able to take the critics and what they have said. that s free advice. that s great. we take that advice, turn it into taking in what they have said and now we ll work on it. audience members said in the past the tone was off. it was too dark. it didn t do justice to the legacy of spider-man. how do you change that? one of the things we all felt, i think, and the company and the producers felt was there wasn t enough emphasis on the love story between peter parker and mary jane, two high school kids who fall for each other and fall in love. we really made an effort to bring that story to the forefront and warm them up, give them a little bit of spunk and humor that wasn t there. really, just honor the characters in the marvel comics. uncle ben is there, aunt may. the characters we know and lo. what s the mood of the cast now? they have been beaten down for a long time. whose the morale level? great. high. they can t wait. they see a new dawn in the future. one of the thingses that s interesting and we need to note is that at the box office, this show has done very well. is there a little piece of you that worries people were buying tickets for the morbid curiosity factor and that if you fix the show all of the sudden that factor will be gone? we ll push phil down the aisle every night if that s what people want. i don t think it will be gone because of the spectacular flying that s in it. there will be that element. not like a hockey game where they are going for the fight? i think that element may exist. we have guys that drop 30 feet off the top balcony of the theater and fly. we re not taking that away. and the all new spider-man makes its debut in three weeks? we open to previews june 12 with a new song. freak like me. have us back to do it on the plaza. turn us into freaks. the job has been done for you. good luck, guys. appreciate you coming in. up next, why yoga is hotter than ever. first, this is today on nbc. from hollywood to middle america and dozens of countries around the world bikram yoga has developed a cult-like following. today correspondent jenna wolfe caught up with the man behind the fom nanphenomenon. i didn t realize it was a man. it is a man. this is the hot yoga. people will try to convert you. the reason for that? a man with a big plan. he s been called many things, evangelical, egotistical, but with millions in the bank clearly bikram is doing something right. you don t look or sound like a typical yogi. so many people embrace you and this practice. why do you think it is? that s why i m bikram. i m the yogi. open your lungs and fill up. reporter: he s attracted quite a following with names like michael jackson, lady gaga, richard nixon and a former pope. the pope came to learn from me. for one week i taught him all about india. reporter: bikram started practicing yoga at 4 in india. he was crowned yoga champion by 13. and at age 27 he moved to the united states to start his dynasty. it will be the best in the world. reporter: we caught up with the 65-year-old yoga guru turg a recent bikram teacher training program in los angeles. quite a speech you gave. oh, that s nothing. reporter: it s here people come to get certified in bikram. you won t recognize your face in the mirror at the end. reporter: jennifer lobo was a former graduate. she went on to teach and open her own studios in new york city. it s very healing yoga. it s a beginning series yoga so anybody can do it. reporter: with over 500 certified studios and a million people practicing around the world, almost anyone, anywhere can experience bikram. take a deep breath. reporter: what is bikram yoga? of the thousands of postures bikram chose 26 along with two breathing exercises. he took an ancient art form and copy righted it, branding the unbrandable. i m the only person in the history of india to create a system in bikram yoga. reporter: then there is the heat. bikram calls it a torture chamber with class temperatures around 105 degrees and 40% humidity. he says the heat allows the muscles to loosen up and deeply stretch. when the room is more hot you never hurt, never injury, never any problems. reporter: ask him about the benefits of bikram and this is what you get. ruscoliosis, osteoporosis, tendinitis. anything else? reporter: his claims of a miracle cure also come with criticism. the main medical risks with bikram yoga would be dehydration and heat stroke. as a physician i would be skeptical about trains that you can treat and cure all those disease states with one exercise regimen. reporter: from someone whose practice is pure, his own habits seem less than ideal. i work 24 hours a day, no food, no sleep? reporter: you really don t sleep much? hardly. not 30 hours a month. reporter: come on. you don t sleep 30 hours a month? do you drink coffee? never. you will never meet another human being in this earth more pure than me. reporter: some may argue that bikram is a contradiction to his own brand. he sells yoga, the purest, most ancient form of spirituality. its wealth comes from within. bikram s wealth and he doesn t hide it comes from the outside. reporter: do you like money? yeah, i like money. why not? i m 110% in what i do. i sell the truth. reporter: perhaps it is that very truth that fills up his classes year after year. every time you are in the room you learn something about yourself. reporter: people come to my class. they give up everything from their life. the mind is gone, spirit is gone. those people come to me. i bring hope to them and give them brand new life. reporter: we should mention bikram and his wife want to make yoga an olympic sport. they are trying hard to do it. i took this class. i take bikram regularly and have been for nine months now. i took the class from bikram. i don t have a problem with the heat. if you can stand it i know, ann, you take yoga. if you can stand the heat this pushes you to your edge and allows you to really stretch as deeply as you can. and you relax. if you call that relaxing. relaxing. taking a live look outside. 72 degrees out there. good morning. it s 8:56. i am kimberly suiters. voters are participating in a special election today. nine candidates are vying for the seat formally held by brown. the montgomery county school board named joshua starr as its next superintendent. he will start in july if approved. weather and tra good morning. right now we have a few clouds coming through and temperatures are near 70 degrees. later today up around 80, and mostly cloudy this afternoon. there is a slight chance of a isolated thunderstorm this afternoon, and then a likelihood wednesday evening through midday thursday of storms coming through. dry into the weekend. how is traffic? tough morning. 270 is jammed germantown all the way to the beltway where police are dealing with yet another accident. 355 an accident in the roadway. still jammed, 66, fair oaks to the beltway even though the accident is long gone. using music to treat autism. how one mother says we re back with more of today on a tuesday morning, the 26th day of april, 2011. some of the people out on the plaza this morning joining us. maybe up to 80 today. that would be nice. let s hear it for the weather. been a long time coming. we deserve it. i m matt lauer with ann curry and al roker. natalie morales is reporting from westminster abbey in london. good morning. reporter: hey, good morning, guys. i know one thing we have been talk about is how gorgeous the weather has been here and how warm and amazing for london. now things seem to be changing a little bit. there is some concern that there will be rain here on friday. i m telling you guys so you are well prepared and pack accordingly. but here outside westminster abbey we have a tent city growing. people staking their claim, trying to find a good vantage point for the royal wedding on friday. it s getting exciting. we are ramping things up. media is here from all over the world. it s going to be great, guys. we ll check in with you in a little while. also, what else to see if you happen to be traveling to london for the wedding. meantime, kate s dress will fit her to a tee but for a lot of women the question is are you a 4, 10 or a 14? we could be all three depending on where we shop. for many women it s a big self-esteem issue when we measure by the dress size. we ll talk about why this is. is there something called vanity sizing? why is it inconsistent? we ll look at how different brands measure up. and later on, some u.s. marines pay tribute to britney spears. that s right. dozens of marines are featured lip synching to her hit hold it against me. now a viral hit online. ann will talk to two of the marines in the video. more than 2 million views. that s good. first a check of the top stories for the day. in fact, we want to talk about a deadly tornado that tore into a small town in central arkansas late last night threatening trees and power lines, tearing the roofs off home and leaving at least four people dead. three more died elsewhere in the state. emergency crews are racing to find dozens of missing people as more storms are expected to strike this afternoon. italy says it will take part in strategic bombing raids over libya. meantime the u.s. state department is telling americans to leave syria. at least 11 people were killed there on monday as the army cracked down on pro democracy demonstrators in the south. two new developments in the 2012 race for the white house. ron paul is in. haley barbour is out. ron paul is forming an exploratory committee. the governor of mississippi is not running because he says he doesn t have the, quote, fire in the belly for the job. memorials are held in ukraine today marking the 25th anniversary of the world s worst nuclear disaster at chernobyl. they need to raise $300 million to build a new shelter to contain the damaged reactor. this as japanese officials announced their own crisis is, quote, less serious than chernobyl. a third air traffic controller has been fired for sleeping on the job. the f.a.a. says the controller was caught napping twice this year while on duty at boeing field in seattle. five similar incidents nationwide have been revealed since march. and levi johnston is writing a tell-all to set the record straight about his contentious relationship with the palin family. he said the book will be released in the fall and it is called deer in the headlights: my life in sarah palin s crosshairs. enough said. it is now three minutes past the hour. you re up to date. that was a good choice. very good. smart. i don t know if i would have made that choice. glad you were doing that story. how about a check of the weather? sadly, we ve got more severe weather to talk about. same areas that were hammered yesterday will get it again we are going to get it again today. upper level energy. warm, moist air riding up behind it. we have a risk of storms from texas to new york. and the strongest risk from northeast texas into memphis, tennessee, and texarkana, and arkansas, all have the possibility of seeing tornadoes today. not only tornados, but heavy rain, three to five inches from texarkana into nashville. flood watches are in effect all the way to cleveland, ohio, and parts of new england. that s what s going on around the country and here s what is happening in your neck of the woods. a delight full spring day on the way. temperatures climbing into the low 70s. increasing clouds. there is a small chance of an isolated storm later this afternoon. and then tomorrow, partly sunny and near 80. a likelihood of wednesday evening, wednesday night storms, some of which could be severe. maybe a lingering shower through thursday. and then drying out and cool weather and dry into the weekend, time now for our countdown to the royal wedding. just three days to go until prince william and kate middleton tie the knot. our own natalie morales is at westminster abbey with the latest on the wedding preparations. i guess it includes getting ready for rain, nat. reporter: yes, unfortunately it looks like everybody is watching the skies here. the scaffolding is up. they are putting on the finishing touches. decorations are up throughout london. the city looks magnificent but everybody is watching for the possibility of rain on friday for the royal wedding. the big talk here, if that happens, the first glimpse of kate s wedding dress could be covered by an umbrella. reporter: after days of sunny skies in london the weather could soon take a turn for the worse. cloudy skies are in the forecast with showers predicted for the day of the royal wedding. after they are married william and kate are supposed to take an open carriage from westminster abbey to buckingham palace but there is a backup plan. if it rains they will take a glass coach. rides lady diana. reporter: the same one used by princess diana when she was married. all over london, security sweeps have begun. on the day of the wedding, 5,000 police officers will take to the streets on foot and on horseback. they will also patrol along the thames and watch from above in helicopters, with live pictures fed to central command. we ll make sure the security is in place, providing basically for the reassurance of those in charge of the event on the ground. reporter: new details are emerging about the ceremony. we learned prince william and kate middleton will enjoy one private moment with their families during this very public event. after their vows the newlyweds will pass through the chapel of st. edward the concessor behind the altar out of the public s view to sign to marriage register in complete privacy. billions are expected to watch the royal wedding on television. and the wedding is getting the x factor. the hip british tv show is lending out a top stage manager to oversee the coverage. one fan couldn t wait for the big day. john loffery of south london is already camping out at westminster abbey. diana will be proud of her son, prince william, and catherine s marriage. prince harry as best man. she ll be with them in spirit in westminster abbey on their special day and always. reporter: that guy now has company here. more and more people are starting to camp out here, staking their claim to a good viewing spot here. meantime, officials in london are encouraging all who will be here for the royal weddinging t dress for the occasion, hats and all. al, morning suit for you and a top hat. got that? okay. i guess i have to get to a rental place when i land. okay. natalie, thanks. we ll see you tomorrow. sure. if you are headed to london for the big day, what else is there to see and do? kate maxwell is outside buckingham palace along with british airways simon smith joining us in studio. we should also mention british airways is sponsoring ourle royal treatment contest. good morning to you both. good morning. good morning. first of all, the atmosphere right now, what s it like in london at this point? it s getting exciting. as you know the weather has been amazing the last few days. that puts a smile on londoners faces. the union jacks are flying, there s bunting everywhere, memorabilia for sale. people are looking forward to a big party friday. first of all, you say one of the places you should stop at is where they are going to get married westminster abbey. exactly. are they still doing tours? we have just seen westminster abbey on natalie s piece. if you didn t get an invite to the wedding on friday, it re-opens to the public on saturday. it s an immensely important historic building. 17 monarchs are buried there. it is where coronations have taken place since 1066. wonderful stained glass, beautiful architecture. definitely have a look around. it s also just opposite the houses of parliament and big ben. you can do three sites for the price of one, if you like. is it closed to the public now until the wedding? it is closed at that time moment, yes. all righty. you have to wait until the weekend. another place i know you like and simon likes as well is the london eye. i have ridden this. it s amazing. not many people know it but it is the number one tourist attraction. we were one of the founding partners when it was built. how long does it take to go around? 30 minutes all around. i would recommend it as a key thing to do. if you can t see everything on foot, go see them from a bird s eye view. your next place on the list, kate, the tower of london. that s iconic. absolutely. it was founded in 1080 by william the conquerer. it s been a royal residence and also a prison. ann boylyn was beheaded there. it also has the crown jewels. this is a serious amount of priceless bling. everything from diamond and ruby-encrusted crowns to swords, sceptors and rings. get a tour from a beefeater, the official tower guards. they have fantastic stories and watch for the raven. legend has it that if the e.r.a..e.r.a ravens escape the tower the kingdom will fall. there are seven at the moment. that s not good. and joe michaels our producer enjoys the beefeaters gin. very good. and simon, you say you ve got to tour down the river thames. you must do that. london is a city built around a river. there is fantastic tour boats and also buses on the river. you could go down river to greenwich, up river to the fantastic and beautiful hampton court palace, the home of henry viii. it s there all summer long. it s a beautiful time to be in london. if you can t go to the wedding go next week or the week after. british airways has ale sale for people who want to go enjoy the english sunshine. speaking of enjoying something british, kate, you say to visit the royal parks. absolutely. there are several royal parks in central london. green park is in front of me here. there s hiyde park where the wedding will be broadcast on large screens. if your name is kate or will you get in free this weekend. and it has primrose hill one of my favorite spots and go to royal roaster for a picnic, food and put your blanket down in the park to watch the world go by for a couple of hours in the sun. weather permitting. thank you so much. don t forget, you can watch the royal wedding live with matt, meredith and natalie and yours truly starting at 4:00 a.m. eastern, 1:00 a.m. pacific friday morning on today. coming up next, when is a size 8 not a size 8? 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[ female announcer ] new stouffer s sautes for two. like many chefs today, i feel the best approach to food is to keep it whole for better nutrition. and that s what they do with great grains cereal. see the seam on the wheat grain? same as on the flake. because great grain steams and bakes the actual whole grain. now check out the other guy s flake. hello, no seam, because it s more processed. now, which do you suppose has better nutrition for you? mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. you might be surprised to learn that the most e-mailed article from monday s new york times didn t have anything to do with the royal wedding or unrest in the middle east but about the crazy system of women s clothing sizes. stephanie clifford reported the story called one size fits nobody. leslie jane seymour had a ringside seat to the chaos as editor of more magazine. good morning. this is a crazy situation. you have struck a nerve in reporting it. you wrote it based on your own experience. that s right. i m 5 0 and i go between a 0 and an 8, sometimes a 10. everybody has that moment in the fitting room where you are trying to zip something up and it doesn t come close. it s frustrating. what size are you? 0, 2, 4, 6, 8. unbelievable. i could be a 0 to a 6. it depend ops where you go. depends on if you know the brand. the big problem is when you want to shop online. how do you know? i have friends who buy five at a time, send them all back. i buy at least three sizes when i shop online. sometimes they are even in the same store that they have different sizes. within the same brand you can t tell what you will wear. how much does it have to do with vanity sizing? men s sizing is standard because it s based off military uniforms from the civil war. when women started wearing ready to wear clothing there was no standard sizing. some of the catalogers were pushing for standards. the government came up with a good system that took into account hip size, waist size, but nobody wanted to use it because they started realizing if they made sizes seem smaller you feel more petite. if you could fit into a 4 rather than a 6 or 8. you might be more likely to buy it. right. however you reported something staggering saying there is a 194 billion dollar price tag in terms of returns last year alone. and a lot of that, you think, is returns because of the wrong size. exactly. 1 in 10 purchases are returned. that s completely crazy. i know from being an editor at a magazine, i have to tell you, when we go to shoot it s all about ego. we cut out the size. if the celebrity says she s an 8 and we know she s not we cut out the sizes because she won t put it on if it s a 10. so we re the problem. i think the retailers are the problem. women shouldn t feel bad trying on clothes. we just need to know what size it is. let s take an example here. these areal all supposed to be a size 6. look at the difference in how big they are. right. different torso, different waist sizes. look at this one. this looks huge on top. it will fit some people but not others. we have jeans as well. this is the worse thing to shop for. it is. this is actually a solution to the problem. these are jeans from levi s. each of the backs are a little bit timpdifferent for different shapes. these are for the fuller figured women and these are for the slimmer woman. it is a system based on shape rather than size. levi s tried to tackle the problem. there are now scanners to help figure that out. that s the cool part. it is cool. aren t the scanners revealing though? they measure you as you step inside? they do but it s a wand that surrounds you and takes the measurements. it s like an airport scan. you re fully clothed. they will say you best match to a 6 in ann taylor khaki but a 4 in ann taylor blouse. we just had a huge scanner scandal, right? all about the airport scandal but in fashion it s okay. we need it. to be continued. obviously we need a new chapter on this story. get it done at the airport, right? scan for your size and get on the plane, right? thank you so much for writing the piece. it s gotten us talking. maybe you ll start a revolution of changing sizes. thank you so much. coming up on today the latest cast-off from the biggest loser. we ll meet the fearless contestant, plus answers to your diet and nutrition questions are coming up after this. hey! hey! hey! that s our snack machine. you should try something new. activia parfait crunch! crunchy granola you mix right in to creamy and delicious activia yogurt. mmm! crunchy! and creamy! watch your toes! new activia parfait crunch. now you can brew over ice for delicious iced coffee or tea. hot or cold, keurig is the way to brew everyone s favorite cup in under a minute. choose. brew. enjoy. keurig. where everyone feels at home. where the company, the conversation, and the food make all who enter feel welcome. a place that feels as warm with a crowd. as it does with just a friend. it s a place you ll find town house crackers. because they re part of what makes your place the place. welcome to town house. where good times reside. with olay, taking it all off that s my cleansers job. olay facial cleansers remove 2x more dirt and makeup. for skin so naturally beautiful, it d be a shame to cover it up. cleansers by olay. don t suffer waiting for your pills to kick in. add alaway. for fast eye itch relief that works in minutes and lasts up to 12 hours. only alaway comes from bausch & lomb. for fast eye itch relief, add alaway. where? it s really good. do you see it? it s called hope. hope? yeah, hope. i don t see any hope. i don t see any hope in here. you can t see it there, but you can see it here. cause every time you get a happy meal or a mighty kids meal some of the money goes to ronald mcdonald house charities to help lots of kids and families. hope s good! happy meals. the simple joy of helping. now we want to say hi to ken andrews. he s the latest contestant to have the scales tip against him on the biggest loser couples. good morning. good morning. i read here your starting weight was 377 pounds and on the show you lost 134 pounds. now where are you? just about down 145 pounds. remarkable. you got voted off. how tough was it leaving your son austin behind? it was really difficult. we had been together and the show helped to make our relationship really healthy. so it was tough leaving him behind. i know he ll do great. he looks terrific. meantime it s amazing that both of you, have you talked about how much better you feel? what s the common denominator in terms of the impact on your life? on the biggest loser there were dozens of things we did for the first time together on that show. being in a swimming pool with him, boxing with him. so many first time things we did as father and son, it was incredible. how touching. congratulations to you both and your boy. and you re inspiring us this morning. thank you. thank you. the biggest loser couples airs tonight at 8:00 on nbc. we ll talk to marines who are big hits on youtube of your local news and weather. 25% of the fat that you eat ck and keep it from being absorbed. that s got to be better for ya than something that is absorbed into the system. alli is not only just a pill but it is a total program. it s a way of teaching yourself to eat more healthy. it does force a lifestyle change. [ female announcer ] fda approved alli. learn more at myalli.com. [ female announcer ] fda approved alli. these ladies have been exercising, watching their diets and enjoying activia light. well? i m managing my weight really well, and i ve never felt so light. at 70 calories, delicious activia light helps you be light and feel light too. activia taking a live look outside. it s warming up nicely. look how green those trees are. almost looks like summer. good morning. 9:26. a 16-year-old is in custody this morning accused of stabbing another teen at the national zoo. it happened late yesterday afternoon during the african-american family celebration. one of the zoo s busiest days of the year. the teen that was stabbed is expected to be okay. your weather and traffic are coming up next. coming up next. stay with us. bree: sis, help me create my oasis. marcy: ok, romantic garden? bree: oh, is there a castle nearby? marcy: no, but there s a charming farmhouse. bree: right next to my posh castle! i m sensing a theme here. well, i am the queen, dear sister. good morning. we have some increasing clouds now, and it s rather humid. temperatures are near 70. later today near 80. there is a chance of an isolated storm this afternoon and then a likelihood of storms wednesday night and through midday thursday, and a risk of an isolated severe storm. still dealing with plenty of delays. had trouble at the american legion bridge outer loop. that has been cleared. from river road on down, still heavy. headed for downtown, 395 back up against shurling ton, to and across the 14th street bridge. using music to treat autism. how mozart lady diana spencer who married prince charles in 1981 becoming the people s princess and mother to two boys before her tragic death in 1997 won t be far from the minds of many people who will be watching the royal wedding on friday. tomorrow on today, live from london we ll be talking about the influence of princess diana. i understand her son william is expected to perhaps refer to her during the ceremony on friday. meantime, coming up in this next half hour, something closer to home. we ll talk to joy bauer about your diet and nutrition questions and what she s got to say about them. from revving up your weight loss plan for that special occasion to changing your diet or lifestyle, joy has answers you re looking for. also, phil rosenthal. the man behind everybody loves raymond. now he s out with a documentary about what it was like to take the show and try to transplant it to documentary, trying to transplant this to russian tv. sometimes life is stranger than fiction. we will hear from u.s. marines in afghanistan who wanted to put a smile on the faces of their worried loved ones back home, and they posted take a look at this, a video on youtube that has gotten more than 2 million hits. it features marines having fun, and lip syncing on britney spears new hit. we will talk to a cup null a few minutes. let s get a check of the weather from you. risk of strong storms, much of arkansas and parts of missouri. the real risk are right there but extends as far north as western new york. we have rain in the pacific northwest. sunshine along the southeastern atlantic and gulf coast. tomorrow that strong risk moves into the lower mississippi river valley. the slight risk extends all the way up to new england. hot down in southern texas. more rain in the pacific northwest, with showers around the central and western great lakes. here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good morning. partly to mostly cloudy around the region now. temperatures are climbing into the 70s. 72 at reagan national. later today should peak around 80 or so with cloudiness and a small chance of a isolated thunderstorm. and then tomorrow partly cloudy and maybe a likelihood of storms wednesday night through midday thursday, and then a chance one of the storms will be severe. sun back thursday afternoon and cooler, and that s your latest weather. all the good weather is inspiring people to want to get more healthy and from peanut butter to kick starting your diet plan, we have the answers from joy bauer to your diet and nutrition questions after this. hey! hey! hey! that s our snack machine. you should try something new. activia parfait crunch! crunchy granola you mix right in to creamy and delicious activia yogurt. mmm! crunchy! and creamy! watch your toes! new activia parfait crunch. [ female announcer ] smooth. like you ve never felt before. touch of smoothness body wash with new hydra iq provides moisture throughout the day with no greasy feel. now available in a variety of scents. nivea. touch and be touched. of gourmet coffee and tea to choose from. it s the way to individually brew fresh, delicious coffee in under a minute. way to brew, hon. [ female announcer ] choose. brew. enjoy. keurig. [ male announcer ] on tuscani tuesdays, any family-sized tuscani pasta is just ten bucks. dinner made easy? check. [ male announcer ] with over three pounds of your favorite pasta, plus an order of breadsticks, you get enough for the whole family. only on tuesdays. and only at your pizza hut. these 4 brands took home more allure best of beauty awards than any others. pantene. olay. venus & gillette. and secret. the four most awarded brands. keeping you your most beautiful from head to toe. - definitely the one on the right. - yeah, are y - seriously, the clorox one. - oh, okay. the difference is obvious. for the whitest whites, use detergent, plus the advanced whitening formula of clorox bleach. mmm. i think this deserves. .wine. [ female announcer ] inspiring meals like grilled chicken asiago tortelloni not bad for a tuesday. [ female announcer ] new stouffer s sautes for two. find more ways to get to the table at letsfixdinner.com. of getting vitamins and minerals. others will try incredible total raisin bran with 100% of the daily value of 11 essential vitamins and minerals, juicy raisins and crunchy whole grain flakes. guess it s all about what kind of crunch you like. how are you getting 100%? this morning on joy s diet s.o.s., answers to your daily diet dilemmas. joy bauer is here to answer everything from how to jump start a diet to the nutritional value of the oil on top of your peanut butter. good morning. good morning. our first question is from megan in virginia on the telephone. what s your question? caller: i m a senior in college. last year i played soccer competitively. now that i have stopped i find myself gaining weight. how do i know what food to choose in the college cafeteria when i have no idea how they cook it or the nutritional value of the food? i want my soccer body back. it s a great question. it applies to buffet-style eating as well. first i will tell you, don t make yourself nuts worried about the uncontrollable. instead focus on what is controllable. avoid all things fried. go heavy on the vegetables. salad is a terrific way to get a hearty dose of produce and the nice part is most campus dining halls will have an elaborate salad bar. go easy on the dressing. then take advantage of whatever hot vegetable they have as well. even if it has oil, butter, sauce it s still a great option. if the vegetables are drenched in a butter or oily sauce, you can blot it with a napkin to get rid of some of it or put some off to the side. you want to minimize your starch at meals. i would say one to two slices of bread or one serving scoop. instead of dessert, grab fresh fruit or fruit salad. if you want something more indulgent keep the portion it is size of your palm like a scoop of ice cream, a cookie or half a slice of pie or cake. those tips will get you back to your soccer bod. we have nanne cy from new yo on the phone. what s your question? caller: hi, joy. hi ann. thanks for taking my call. i m already dieting, eating mostly protein, lots of vegetables, fruit. and my daughter is getting married this summer. i hope you can give me tips for ramping up the weight loss in the home stretch. well, congratulations. i have a couple of tips. you re already doing a will the of things right. two things you can add. i would say one to two cups of green tea with each meal. research shows that green tea may be able to fill you up more than plain water. it also can slightly rev your metabolism but don t add sugar. okay. also when it comes to dinner, completely wipe out the starch. no bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. instead have a great big piece of lean protein and lots of nonstarchy vegetables like spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and salad. that will help you significantly trim calories off dinner and you re going to see a drop on the scale. you start those tips today and you will feel smashing by your daughter s wedding. by the way, green tea does have caffeine in it. so we have to warn people about that. you re right. nancy, good luck. best wedding wishes to your child. now we have a viewer e-mail from debbie in st. louis. she writes, should i pour off the oil at the top of the natural peanut butter jar? it seems like a lot of oil and fat, but i m not sure if this is where the bulk of the nutrients are. what s the right thing to do pour it off or stir it in? stir it in. that peanut oil is heart healthy unsaturated fat. it helps to lower your cholesterol and it s rich in vitamin e which is great for sharp vision and radiant skin. most importantly, that oil helps to give peanut butter the creamy, velvety, spreadable texture. if you pour off the oil you can trim off a lot of calories but you will lose some nutrition and you will affect the peanut butter texture. it will dry out and not be that spreadable. definitely keep the oil in. i worry that i can t stop eating peanut butter. i m one of the jar-spoon girls. the problem with peanut butter is it is very, very fattening. just take a spoonful, put it aside, close the jar and put it back. i re-open it, honey. then i m stuck. it is a problem. it s delicious. joy bauer, thank you so much. thanks, ann. up next, the creator of everybody loves raymond on recreating the comedy show in russia after this. kwoez. ghs ] morning! mor-ning. i m your genie. you re wishing for. a tasty fiber cereal? well you don t want that one. kellogg s fiber plus cereal. the delicious taste of berries, 40% of your daily fiber. plus.wait for it. antioxidants! so, two more wishes! mmmm. mmmm. maybe later, then. [ female announcer ] kellogg s fiber plus cereal. positively delicious. [ female announcer ] lunchables turkey and cheddar cracker combos, now with fruit because a great lunch inspires great ideas. can i borrow your orange? give me a big smile. it doesn t get better than this give me a big smile. these ladies have been exercising, watching their diets and enjoying activia light. well? i m managing my weight really well, and i ve never felt so light. at 70 calories, delicious activia light helps you be light and feel light too. activia thankfully, there s new crest pro-health clinical gum protection toothpaste. it helps eliminate plaque at the gumline, helping prevent gingivitis. it s even clinically proven to help reverse it in just 4 weeks. new crest pro-health clinical toothpaste. life opens up when you do. [ male announcer ] for the most slam-dunk whites, it only takes three-quarters cup of clorox bleach. in the game. [ cheers and applause ] you think i have allergies? you re sneezing. i m allergic to you. doubtful, you love me. hey, you can t take allegra with fruit juice. what? yeah, it s on the label. really? here, there s nothing about juice on the zyrtec® label. what? labels are meant to be read. i d be lost without you. i knew you weren t allergic to me. [ sneezes ] you know, you can t take allegra with orange juice. both: really? fyi. [ male announcer ] get zyrtec® s proven allergy relief and love the air®. don t suffer waiting for your pills to kick in. add alaway. for fast eye itch relief that works in minutes and lasts up to 12 hours. only alaway comes from bausch & lomb. for fast eye itch relief, add alaway. just love me oh oh oh just hold me oh oh oh just kiss me oh oh oh just want me l-o-v-e love, love, love the highly acclaimed sit com everybody loves raymond wowed audiences for five seasons. i can t do this tonight. i can t keep going to work like this. what about me? what? you don t have to w [ laughter ] shortly after the show ended in 2005 its creator phil rosenthal was approached to recreate the show in russia, an offer that was hard to resist. when the studio said, wouldn t it be great to do raymond there? just make sure you have k & r insurance. i said, what s that? he said, kidnap and ransom but he said that never happens. i said, that happens enough for an abbreviation. it shows the difficult journey navigating through mother russia. nice to see you. good to see you, my friend. was it tough to adapt an american sit com for russia? yes. i made raymond. they wanted everybody loves kostya. i had a production meeting and i said, i think you want it to be relatable to russians and a beautifully dressed woman raised her hand and said, i think the show should be used to teach the population about fashion. she was the costume designer. so she dresses up the character in a cashmere character, fancy pants, high heels and jewelry to clean the house, just like your typical russian. i said, what are you doing? she s cleaning the house. yes, she said, but she s on television. yes, i said, but she doesn t know she s on television. she thinks she s cleaning. see where i m coming from, i like to find the humor in real life and put it on. when you get to russia they say, her life is terrible. why would we put that on television? you met interesting dark ters. characters. we have a clip when you meet the head of russian comedy. let s take a look. time to meet the made of comedy for the russian network. we meet him and he doesn t look like the head of comedy. he gets around to saying when i read raymond he does not find it i don t have to come to moscow to be told i m not funny. i can hear that in my house. that s a rough start. it s a rough dinner to sit there. right? but that s how they are. listen, they like what they like. you learn, right? i guess the point of the movie is you raise your kids as well as you can, nurture them, teach them and they have to be free to go off and disappoint you. so everybody loves kostya. was it funny? could you tell if it was funny or not? and okay. next question. when you shot the documentary not for me. not for you even. it s for them. it has to be for them. that s what i learned. you shot it with two cameras for a documentary. that was my big directorial decision. most are te with one camera. you talk to me and later they come behind and film my fake reaction shot. then they make a movie. i didn t want to cheat. every moment in the movie is real. i thought if i m in if movie, too, which i had no intention of doing, i just wanted to direct. they wanted me to go to russia and help the russians. so i had to be the subject of the thing. the show started airing in 2009. how did it do? i think it s a big hit. not bad. not for me. for them. where can people see it exporting raymond ? by the way, i want to thank today for saying three days until the big day, exporting raymond . right. the royal wedding and exporting raymond. one thing. i ll tell you what i tell my wife. we hardly know these people. i have to sit through the whole ceremony and they re not even feeding you? yes, you do, and you will like it. i don t think so. see the movie. exporting raymond opens april 29, the same day as another wedding. maria is in the middle east paying tribute to soldiers with a video gone viral. first this is today on nbc. britney spears knows a thing or two about having a hit music video but some marines in afghanistan are proving to be tough competition. take a look. want to whisper in your ear earlier this morning via skype i spoke to two of the marines in the video. i started by asking them if they ever dreamed their video would get the attention of britney spears. we never thought it would be as big as it was. you had 488 hits within hours. then britney spears got word of it and she actually tweeted about it. let me tell you what she said. you probably heard about it. she said, i m in love with t s this. i always knew our soldiers were fierce. thanks for everything you do. and then the video has now gone up to 2 million views. corporal adam, what s your response to that? we love it. like i said, we never expected it to get this big. it s a big morale boost. your families had a big reaction. how do you describe that? andrew? my family loves it. they just love to see i m getting better. we re having a good time. no kidding. you really put the groove on. now, i need to get into logistics here. it is not easy to make a video like this. you guys are well, you re keeping the beat very well. how did you get so many people to sign on? and how did you get so many people talented at dancing to sign on? everyone just pretty much wanted to do the same thing as me. put a smile on the faces back home. i said, hey, what do you think? we thought we d keep what we liked and if we didn t, take it out. how long did it take? three months. three months to make it. once you shot the video you had to edit it all together. you did a good job. you definitely put a smile on our faces. if you can smile and have fun, so can the rest of us. thanks for the great gift, guys. thank you. all right. andrew and adam. they did a nice job. great morale booster. we love watching the video. i imagine it won t go above more than 2 million views as a result of the interview. still to come this morning, law & order svu s iced tea chats with kathie lee and hoda. don t miss that. first we have your local news and weather. 9:56 right now. 74 degrees outside. we could hit 80 today. more on that in a minute. good morning. a 16-year-old in is custody this morning accused of stabbing another teen at the national zoo. it happened late yesterday at the african-american family celebration. the teen that was stabbed is expected to be okay. right now voters are participating in a special election in the district. nine candidates vying for the at-large council seat. polls close tonight at 8:00. we are beginning to climb into the 70s now and should peak around 80, because we will have cloudiness developing. there is a small chance of a isolated thunderstorm today. and a likelihood of storms wednesday night through midday thursday, and only a chance a isolated storm could produce damage then. and then friday, we will dry out and cool down a bit. highs near 70 on friday and saturday, with sunshine, partly cloudy, and maybe rain on monday. we ll head on over towards the american legion bridge where it will be tough for the midday construction crews. they just set up down into the dulles toll road. we are looking at delays at river road, and it will be miserable for your midday. be prepared for that. 66 remains heavy. and earlier problems have all been cleared, still a tough morning out there. thank you, jerry. thank you, jerry. coming up, the truth about self captions paid for by nbc-universal television hey, everybody. so glad you joined us for this booze day. we would be very lonely without you. it s april 26th. you look beautiful in that color. what? really. i know you re not used to compliments from me, but you look gorgeous. i love your tan with that purple. what s going on? nothing. you look gorgeous. it s just a few days to the royal wedding. yes. everybody is leaving tomorrow. we ll have the whole place to ourselves. it will be all ours. let s trash it. let s do a charlie sheen on it, okay? actually, tonight on leno, if you tune in you will see lindsay lohan on the show. she taped yesterday and they released a couple of clips. i guess she talked a little bit lately, it s always interesting to hear what she has to say, especially after the jail sentence and the whole business. jay asked her a direct question. why don t we listen? at what point did you realize, oh, my god, i could lose this? it could slip away from me? i think being young and being in the position i was in, you don t really take the time to appreciate what you have. it all is a whirl wind and people make decisions for you. i m not a kid, i m 24. i made a lot of mistakes and i recognize that. i m in the clear now and i feel as long as i stay focused, then i will be able to achieve what i want to achieve. i hope so. you really want her to have learned from her lessons she had to go through and take that forward, apply it towards your art, towards her relationships. if you close her eyes, she sounds like a much older woman, the voice. it s a smoky voice to me. she is a talented girl. a sweet girl when i met her years ago when she did her first film. i wish her the best. she is not in the clear though. she is wrong about that. think it s about actions. people say things. people want to see what you do. anyone can say anything. right. they don t necessarily take care of it. i think about people that have been in worse position than her someone like robert downey jr. he has turned it around. that should be an inspiration to her. it s possible. so on britain s got talent we remember susan boyle. there is something completely different. i guess equally as earth-shattering. that s what they are saying. he is a drama teacher. edward reed. everyone was able to sing any song they wanted. some sang whitney, some sang mariah. this guy sang these songs i know we are all going to recognize. listen to the 35-year-old. it s good. what? e-i-e-i-o twinkle twinkle little star i wonder what you are humpty dumpty sat on a wall humpty dumpty had a big fall if you re happy and you know it clap your hands genius. wow. he s gotten half a million hits on that. what do the judges think? love it. they say he is the next sensation. that took such guts. is it early in the run? i think so. it would be hard to i guess there are a lot of stupid songs out there he could do it next week. i thought that was genius. he s got a gorgeous voice. he does. so there are many things that bug us in life. one of them involves cell phones. if you ve ever been at a coffee counter or at the drug store or the grocery store. you re trying to buy something and the cashier doesn t have time for you because they are busy on the phone. they are texting. and people don t make eye contact as much any more. that was the question that came up. one area is the elevator. what do you think about talking on the phone? i m guilty of getting in an elevator or stepping into it making a call so he is not waiting in new york, you can t park anywhere. you ve got to be standing there when your car comes by and you ve got to jump in so you don t get mugged. you just have to. what? i m only kidding. you don t get people mad at you and honking and crazed at you. they take umbrage if they are in any way held up. so i do try to do it quickly. while you re in there. i m in the elevator coming down now. there is something about that confined space. when my phone rings, the s one of the few places i don t answer it or don t make a call. you can t find it in your purse. first of all, you don t get good reception in the elevators ever. they still walk around with it. can you hear me? we can. it s enough. all you have to do is, it s six floors and you ll get out and make your phone calls. what if you re up at the 110th. then you ve got troubles. we would love to know what you all think. more and more we are chipping away at the common decencies that make up a true society of human beings that have to survive together. i don t know why it bugs me so much to watch someone texting or talking on the phone walking down the street and they don t see me. you re i walking and is there a person coming right at you. i m right here and they are too busy. that doesn t me half as much as people in their car picking their nose. like they are alone and can pick your nose. you re sitting right next to them. they are digging for gold. you re going, excuse me. i can see you. i just i don t know how vito feels about that. here is for vito. what the heck. brick house she is mighty mighty vito is our friend from boca and loves to watch kathie dance. sent an e-mail to his daughter yesterday and said, we are speechless. don t expect it every day. i m an old lady. she is tapped out. here is something ridiculous with a couple of bank robbers. if you rob a bank, you do not rob a bank and go on facebook and tell everyone how rich you are and how you got money and stuff. and you re wiping your nose with $100. a bank teller and another co-worker apparently robbed a bank. allegedly. and posted just little messages about how rich they were. they didn t post pictures, but they were busting to tell people they got $62,000. they don t have it any more. do we have their mug shots? don t we? i thought we did. here is what the attorney says, i always heard you shouldn t post pictures of yourself on facebook smoking pot or drinking. i never knew there should be a warning about don t post pictures about robbing a bank. that s their lawyer. that is sad. isn t he supposed to try to defend them? you can t defend that. impossible. it s indefensible. i don t know how you feel about this, but there is a parisian designer selling a $1,395 tank top made to look like a taerted american flag. we ve seen this before. i lived in the 60s. i remember when they wore american flags. the thing is these have cigarette burns in them and holes held together by safety pins and stuff. it s one of the spring s hottest sellers. is it selling that well here or just in france where they are not crazy about us? it s selling at top shop which is in britain. they are designing knock-offs. here, too. we would love to know how you feel about that. this is the best part though. right after these came out, the designer checked into a mental hospital for exhaustion and depression. i m not sure the two are in any way connected. but follow the dots. here is a little to get you in the royal mood. we have tea bags. look, it looks like they are lounging. they re in a hot tub. there is will. you know what s sad? they are going to get married. in he need to be in the same hot tub together. they are not allowed to touch. why don t they hold hands in public? they lived together but they can t touch. they cannot hold each other s hands in public. there s lots of stuff i don t understand. one thing i want to hold up one second. it is this has been parkinson s awareness month. i ve been meaning to hold this up before the month is over. a lady who suffers from parkinson s disease designed this. it may shake me, but it can t break me. my daddy also had parkinson s when he passed away. wanted to hold that up. you can go to parkinson s disease.org, probably, okay? what s up, sara girl. we were talking about the cell phone. we ve got fans saying i won t pick it up in the bathroom, at a cash register. a lot in the bathroom. have you heard someone talking in the bathroom? yes. on the phone in the bathroom and they don t wash their phone. they don t. they are on the phone. they use the bathroom. they come out and their phone is icky. i think it s weird when you come in and you think you re alone and hey, baby. what are you doing? somebody in the stall down the row. i m not doing anything. next we have carson daley. this is a great new show out tonight. it s called the voice. our guys are going to tell all. oh, my gosh. woman: till all the books are read. man: and all the pens are put down. woman: and everything there is to learn is learned. man: till the heroes retire and the monsters return to their dens. woman: and all the plots are wrapped up. man: till that day. boy: by hook or by crook. girl: by book or by nook. woman: i will read. 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[ female announcer ] choose. brew. enjoy. keurig. there is a new reality show hitting the air waves here that stars christina aguilera, blake shelton, ceelo green, adam lavine. it s the voice. the host carson daley is here to tell us about it. i have that task. it is so buzzy, this show. it is everywhere. it s unbelievable. it s great. thank you. it s a fun show. we are excited it s finally airing tonight. you know what it remined me of? remember when christopher cross came out with that sailing takes me away great song. you fell so in love with his voice. shouldn t that be? that is how it is. that initial point of discovery for an artist, that should be it. back to the 50s. before video killed the radio star. it doesn t matter what you look like that. comes onto play later. first time i heard barbra streisand sing people. this kid is from the smallest town in texas. when he sings, it blew everybody away. they turned their chair around. christina is not sure yet. you don t see them. none of them saw him. the minute this kid opened his mouth. christina is saying, i m in. i want him on my team. who is left? ceelo and blake. three turn their chairs around. now it s up to this kid. christina what can you do for me? the power switches to the artist. they get this creative control. given how crowded the field is with music shows and all these contests, there is room for this one? i do. american idol tells us that. it s a juggernaut on tv. there is a tremendous amount of passion and interest in the musical competitixecompetition . this show is a much different, fresher take on it. i think there was e.r., gray s anatomy. do the ages raeng? can there be a susan boyle? i don t know what the limit is. we have a couple of 16-year-olds and 50 plus. what s wrong with that? nothing. your point is? i should stop talking. i spend tonight s episode with the families watching their kids out there. and the love they have for them and the support is unbelievable. speaking of that, love and support, she is standing right over there, your mom. mom is here. how sweet. she took her glasses off. late night, rough landing, a lot of wine. in the show, do people at home get to vote? do we get to participate? we will get to that point. we ll have the blind audition and battle rounds where coaches have to narrow their own field down. by the time we hit the live shows, america will chime in. the talent level is excellent. isn t it amazing, you think we are all out of it. it is so great. thank you. we wish you all the best. you this, guys. you can catch the two-hour premiere of the voice tonight at 9:00. up next, what really goes on in your man s mind. hopefully it s not what goes on with these guys. [ robin ] my name is robin. and i was a pack-a-day smoker for 25 years. i do remember sitting down with my boys, and i m like, oh, promise mommy you ll never ever pick up a cigarette. i had to quit. my doctor gave me a prescription for chantix, a medication i could take and still smoke, while it built up in my system. [ male announcer ] chantix is a non-nicotine pill proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these symptoms or behaviors, stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don t take chantix if you ve had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop serious allergic or skin reactions, stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some of these can be life-threatening. dosing may be different if you have kidney problems. until you know how chantix affects you, use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. my benjamin, he helped me with the countdown. 5 days, mom. 10 days, mom. i think after 30 days he got tired of counting! [ male announcer ] talk to your doctor to find out if chantix is right for you. learn about the chantix challenge. chantix may not work for everyone. if you aren t quit after 12 weeks, we ll refund your cost of trying it. learnore at chantix.com. constipated? phillips caplets use magnesium, an ingredient that works more naturally with your colon than stimulant laxatives, for effective relief of constipation without cramps. thanks. good morning, students. today we re gonna continue. it s time to regroup with our guys tell all panel. they gathered to help us make rhyme or reason out of the men out there we ve got the signature single guy david good, author of the man code, a woman s guy to cracking the tough guy. there is the funny chuck nice who can be seen on trutv s world s dumbest saturday morning is host of the hot ten. has been married 13 years and has two kids. they are adorable. they couldn t be his. rick younger is married with a son. and the only sane one, level-headed andrew trees, author of decoding love and club rules. andrew is still married and has a toddler. your son has been a toddler for six years. we ll see what the questions are. i m here with patty from new hampshire. she has a question what guys are really looking for. do you find looks or personality more important? i m greedy. i want it all. to be honest. seriously, what are you looking for? looks or personality? i want an ugly girl that makes me feel good. you know, we all have to admit we probably all spent time with a woman we didn t think we would like because we liked the personality. we may not have taken her around to show all our buddies. and you ve got to have personality. guys are more visual. ultimately, personalitywise will work or not work. let s go to facebook. my husband seems to be on husband time if i say we need to be somewhere at 5:00 p.m., he never seems to initiate getting ready to go. why does he do this? because he doesn t want to go. and he is hoping one of these days you ll just forget him totally. that is such a pet peeve of mine. if someone is going to be late, they are saying their time is more important than your time. time is not something you can buy. in a marriage you get used to if a certain thing happens all the time, you re like, i m going to sit here and wait for her to tell me it s time to go. isn t the guy who is usually saying, let s go, let s go? that is a passive/aggressive way of saying, i don t want to go. if it were a yankees game, he would be out there. with the hat on. our next question is on tape. my name is ginny from north carolina. i want to know why my boyfriend doesn t like to hold my hand in public? maybe he is royalty and not allowed to. what is the story? it is a distinct possibility you have very clammy hands. come on. she meant her heart. my face is red. can t tell. we are going to be back. we ll take a commercial break and come back with questions from across the street. they are waiting for you. twizzlers. the twist you can t resist. just love me oh oh oh just hold me oh oh oh just kiss me oh oh oh just want me l-o-v-e love, love, love his family knows what to expect. hun, mike s coming let s get crackin . 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[ male announcer ] hey, if viva can handle mike rowe s mess, just think what it can do in your home. grab a roll for yourself and grasp the unquilted difference. we re learning more about the man chosen to become superintendent of montgomery county schools. we will ask him how he plans to keep the county schools among the top schools in the country. also coming up, we will look at popular beauty products and try to answer the question, do they really work? we will have help from this is the sleep number store, a place that changes lives every day. welcome to the sleep number store. a visit here can improve your whole life. as the sleep number setting goes down, the mattress gets softer. that s nice. as the sleep number setting goes up, the bed gets firmer. it s really molding to my body. here, you ll learn how your bed may be causing pain and how the sleep number bed can relieve that pain right in the store. the small of my back was not being supported before. now it is. we have a left and a right so you can each control your individual side. there s no debate, because you can have it your way and i ll have it mine. we save a lot of marriages. wow. they do that a lot. when you find somebody s perfect level of comfort, that may be the first time they ve ever felt a bed that feels exactly like they re hoping it would. hurry in now to the sleep number white sale, for amazing savings through april 30th. and queen mattresses always start at just $699. only at the sleep number store. to us, you re not just a person. you re a number. here s what you should be watching: your cable bill. because you could be paying way too much. stop spending more for second best. upgrade to verizon fios and get tv, internet and phone for just $99.99 a month for a year. call now and get this special bonus: $100 back. fios is a 100% fiber-optic network that delivers superior picture quality, the best channel lineup, more hd, plus the fastest internet in the u.s. and there s no term contract required. why keep paying for cable? get fios tv, internet and phone for just $99.99 a month, plus $100 back. this is a limited time offer, so don t wait. call 1.888.884.fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities that s 1.888.884.3467. at 800-974-6006 tty/v. get the network that delivers more. get fios. a network ahead. we are back on this booze day tuesday with our guys tell all panel. david good, chuck knight, rick unger and andrew trees. i m with cheryl from new hampshire. she has a question about hooking a sister up. are you willing to play matchmaker for your single friends? i don t have a problem with that, but after a certain point you run out of single friends to hook people up with. i don t have any single friends. that s not first why in your mind. you don t think about that? i don t want anything to do with making two people miserable. that is not my business. you want to find somebody, go find them on your own. as a token single guy, i like to hook my friends up. do you like to be hooked up? well, yeah. here is a facebook post. this is from stacey. why are some men lazy and indecisive about date planning? wow. where do you want to go? where do you want to go? that s what you say. i m going to be very serious for a second. it s because he s not a man who s been trained how to take care of a woman. because here is what women want. they want a man to be decisive and want him to be very, you know, straight forward, but they also want him to be considerate. guys don t know how to do that. nice caveman. that s what they want. here is how you become a nice caveman. girl, what do you like? what kind of food do you like? what movies do you like? then you take all that information what if she doesn t like being called girl. then you should be more than 17 because that it s last time i dated. a lot of this comes from the fear of messing up. you ve got to get over that fear to move on to something serious in a relationship. it does come from a fear. and a desire to try to do the right thing. is it sometimes being lazy? if a date ends in one way, it s a good date no matter what else happens. long as it ends in the right place for them. where is that place? holding hands. i didn t know. let s move on. this one is on tape. let s take a listen. i m diana from utah. what is your biggest fear about getting married? well, well, well. why don t we start down here at the end. the three of you weren t afraid. one has commitment issues. i don t have commitment issues. you sound like my mother now. i think it s finding the right person. what are you afraid of? okay. i m scared. are you afraid of not finding the person? as we get older, it s okay now to be 30 years old and single. are you afraid of the same person? afraid of the same person. my parents got divorced. it happen as lot. i want to wait until i make sure i find the right one. i m still scared. it s 14 years and i m scared to death. i do understand what fears i might have had before sometimes you re afraid that people make it seem like marriage is no fun. it s like they re afraid they are never going to have fun again. i wasn t afraid listen, i m scared of a lot of things. scared. i m scared of her. period. i live in fear. i live in fear is what i m saying. yet you re a happily married man. you know how i know? cause she told me. she told me i was happy. all the things associated with marriage, we make it seem like it s no fun. even when we talk about kids, it seems like it s awful. you find out what you get into it. i m glad i m here. i think that is a good point about not having fun any more. once you start sharing mortgages and baby poop, you stop having fun. long as you can find the fun, marriage is a great thing. don t married people live longer, andrew? happy marriages, you live longer, you re legalier. all the more reason. we try to go on dates. when we go on dates, we try to say, let s not talk about the stuff at home. when you do he out on a date with someone you just met you re talking about fun and exciting things. you marry, you talk about the same things that are weighing you down at home that you just left to have fun on a date. got you. thanks, guys. i don t like it when they are that serious. all right, guys, we ll see you next month. up next, about life, before and after and during american idol. call on me, brother when you need a hand we all need. brawny now comes with a money back guarantee. when you want a paper towel that can do it all, lean on me. when you need something strong brawny never lets you down. oh, bayer aspirin? 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[ both slurping ] [ female announcer ] the irresistible taste of cinnamon toast crunch. crave those crazy squares. is teaching my patients how to start taking insulin. and i ve learned a lot from patients who use levemir flexpen. flexpen comes pre-filled with my long-acting insulin, and i dial the exact dose of insulin i need. my flexpen is discreet and doesn t need to be refrigerated. and flexpen goes wherever i go. levemir is a long-acting insulin used to control high blood sugar in adults and children with diabetes. do not take if your blood sugar is too low. tell your healthcare provider about all medicines you take and all of your medical conditions, including if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. the most common side effect is low blood sugar. other possible side effects include reactions at the injection site. get medical help right away if you experience serious allergic reactions, such as body rash, trouble with breathing, fast heartbeat or sweating. ask your healthcare provider about levemir flexpen today. learn more about the different insulins available in flexpen at myflexpen.com. flexpen, insulin delivery that goes with you. company of randy, simon, she was a songwriter and executive. kara wrote a biography called hell of a high note, surviving life, love and american idol. you say that title so well. a hell of a high note. she wrote a book surviving war scenes, war zones, cancer and me. there are so many interesting things in the book. i didn t realize the back story. when you parachuted into american idol we didn t realize how uncomfortable that situation was. you re behind the scenes. i was used to being on the couch in a recording studio. all of a sudden i m in front of millions of people being scrutinized. i didn t even know where the cameras were. the panel. it was a totally brand-new world. you re breaking up the beatles. they had this great chemistry. i had to find my groove. when i say it was torture, season eight was that. by season nine, i was feeling really good. i felt like i found a role, i was giving constructive criticism. it felt more natural to me. how did they treat you, the group? they were good. simon was tough on you. i have this terrible habit of speaking more when i get nervous. he was like, are you done, kara? could you shut up, kara? then i just shut down. as i got used to it, it became much better. there are so many revelations in your book. where should we start? when you think far back. reading you were sexually molested as a young girl and happened as you were going through your career path. you talk openly and honestly about all that. i do because those experiences really, you can find them in my songs. unfortunately, i dated some men and it was the wrong kind of relationships. that translates into kelly clarkson s walk away. then finally i got it right and i m with my husband now and that s ain t no other man. i thought uncovering the truth would also help other people who found themselves in this position. i remember when i first heard with oprah what she had gone through, i remember thinking she went through that, so can i. you have a new show coming up. i do. that s premiering soon. finding the next big songwriter. if you think about these shows, imagine there were no songs to sing? you ve got to have songs. it s bravo so there is a lot of drama. when will that air? may. little baby dioguardi? i want one. i m sure your parents are asking but that. i ve been trying. i ve been through some ivf. then again, you look at someone like brooke shields and what she had to do to get there. i have hope. you re inspired by other stories. i am inspired. once you put everything down on paper and people are going to be picking up that book, reading it, is there anything you wish you didn t put in there? it s very revealing. no. i feel like when you ve gone through things like molestation or date rape, the way to get over it is speak openly. it s nothing i did. people have gone through this have nothing to be ashamed about. if they can openly speak about it, it s going to help them in their recovery. i used my music to help me. i want to inspire people in this book to really move past those things and to not let them hurt achieving their dreams. embrace the moment you have now. great luck with the book. you guys are great. you re so sweet. great to see you. ice-t is in the house. [ male announcer ] there s a place where everyone feels at home. where the company, the conversation, and the food make all who enter feel welcome. a place that feels as warm with a crowd. as it does with just a friend. it s a place you ll find town house crackers. because they re part of what makes your place the place. welcome to town house. where good times reside. welcome to town house. want longer, stronger lashes? new almay one coat get up and grow mascara instantly lengthens. 98% of women saw healthy, longer lashes in 30 days. for your longest, most stunning lashes yet. almay get up and grow mascara. only from almay. only for me. now you can brew over ice for delicious iced coffee or tea. hot or cold, keurig is the way to brew everyone s favorite cup in under a minute. choose. brew. enjoy. keurig. [ male announcer ] for the things you can t wash, freshen it with febreze. febreze eliminates odors and leaves a light, fresh scent. it s a breath of fresh air. here s what you should be watching: your cable bill. because you could be paying way too much. stop spending more for second best. upgrade to verizon fios and get tv, internet and phone for just $99.99 a month for a year. call now and get this special bonus: $100 back. fios is a 100% fiber-optic network that delivers superior picture quality, the best channel lineup, more hd, plus the fastest internet in the u.s. and there s no term contract required. why keep paying for cable? get fios tv, internet and phone for just $99.99 a month, plus $100 back. this is a limited time offer, so don t wait. call 1.888.884.fios. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities that s 1.888.884.3467. at 800-974-6006 tty/v. get the network that delivers more. get fios. a network ahead. he plays tough detective finn on nbc s law and order svu. on the other side of the camera, ice-t is an influential rapper who had a successful and at times controversial career. he has a new book called ice. thanks for having me. good to see you. what a road you were on. just the beginning of the book where it talks about you were an orphan at such a young age and had to fend for yourself. your life makes sense when you see the beginning. i think everybody s life makes sense when you get the whole story. my survival instincts kicked in real early. i took advantage of what i thought were the opportunities that were available to me early in life. which were limited. like a lot of kids. you wound up in a gang. i wound up doing a lot of things. i went into the military because i was a teen parent. i tried to figure my way out. rap music came out and i changed my career by telling my story. that created what they call gangsta rap then i got into new chance city which got me into acting. a lot of your lyrics caused controversy. anything you would take back or is it part of your journey? i wouldn t take it back. that s how i felt at the time. there are a lot of kids in the streets who feel the same way. i didn t create anything in my lyrics. it was just how i felt. reflected what was already there? yeah in my heart at the time. you were becoming famous. you were stealing things. there was a point where you realized while you were in mid, just about to grab something and some kids recognized you as a famous guy. tell us that story. i was just getting started. i made my first album. what is kind of famous. i didn t know. there was a piece for my car i wanted. the guys knew where a car was with the pieces on it. i didn t need it. i could have bought it. i wanted to prove i could still do it. i went into this back parking lot and taking apart this car. these kids surrounded me and they are looking at me. i m like, i m busted. what is going on. autographs, ice-t. now i m standing in front of this hot car taking pictures with their parents, autographs. then i finished i mean when i finished, i left and called my friends and said you ve got to move that car. it was a moment where i realized, dude, you re no longer just a nondescript person. you re becoming famous. i didn t have to do it. it s like a lot of things when you start to make it you still reach back for your old ways to show sometimes your friends you re still cool. you re still tough. you don t need to do that. i don t do that any more. em s an honest citizen. good for you. what would you say to a kid today with the same circumstances you came out of? what advice would you give them? one thing is when you do have an opportunity, take advantage of it. when we come from bad neighborhoods, we complain. when you do have an opportunity, whatever it is, make it the best. if someone gives you a chance, make them so happy they gave you that chance that they give you another chance. who thought i could act? i never thought i could be an actor. when that door opened, i ve got to bust my self. this isn t going to happen again. it s never too late to change. it s never too late to say, you know, i m going so far in this direction i can t turn. i was 27 before i made my first record. you can change. we ll always continue to change and grow. and you ve got a new reality series called ice loves cocoa. we ll talk to but that next time. could you plug, today i m going to be at barnes and noble. what time? at union square at 7:00 p.m. with a book signing. see the ice man. all right. will you have the fish, chicken or filet? i ll take these. love those jeans. $175. ch-ching! excuse me? ever consider showing your customers what other stores charge for jeans? um.no. when it comes to car insurance, progressive direct does. i saved hundreds when switching. that s a lot. the jeans are skinny. the savings. are fat. out there with a better way. now, that s progressive. we are counting down to the royal wedding. with three days to go, we have the royal menu prediction. while an official royal menu hasn t been released, we are sure nothing but the best will reign at the banquet. i m quite confident. i know the queen is inviting 600 people back to buckingham palace. i know they are going to serve canapes. usually it s stuffier. this time one bite only in case the queen comes by. you can t have a mouthful when that happens. you want to be there to greet. you do. we have our royal subjects bringing them out. jerry. nothing less than a silver tray. hello, gentlemen. we ve got sausage potato puffs. there are hot appetizers. can t beat a good sausage puff. this is supposed to be a wedding of the people. this is more than one bite. two bites and the queen can wait a second. the second one is a smoked salomon wrapped around salomon perfect for kate and william. they met at st. andrew s which is in scotland. that is quite the bite. you ve got to do it. it s like a sushi bite. oh, my gosh. if i want something to wash it down because you might need help. we ve got a lemonade here. the royal family serve as lemon refresher. the lemon refresher has epsom salts. what? the kind you soak in? the kind you put your feet in. it is a digestive. the queen says the lemon refresher keeps her on her porcelain throne. we didn t do that today. this only has salt. i trust dana. it s a buffet. nice talking to you. this happens often. after the couple rests at clarens house, they come back. are you all right? fine. so sorry. heimlich over there. prince charles, he has high grove, this sustainable farm. he is going to bring the lamb in from the farm, we are sure. lamb chops, klg. giddyap. to have the great flavor of the lamb, it only has salt, garlic and rosemary. also we imagine from prince charles farm is some fresh asparagus perfectly in season. and some wild rice. you re going to cut into small bites. i found that out. hopefully the queen has better knives. the queen leaves the evening ceremony early so that people can have a good time. nobody wants to party around the queen. right. that s the answer. then we move on to dessert. dessert is a pudding. kate being sort of a modern girl, we thought something light like a rhubarb parfait with ginger and tapioca. i know something like the groom s cake will be served. those are biscuits with chocolate ganache. it all looks great. dana, thank you. sorry i was choking. wedding live 4:00 a.m. eastern, 1:00 a.m. pacific.