Transcripts For WRC Today 20110923 : vimarsana.com

and in my book, i said no such thing. is the republican race already down to two men? and today exclusive. they gained fame for crashing a party at the white house. now michaele salahi has run off with a rock star. her heartbroken husband is filing for divorce. some people are wondering is this just another publicity stunt. we ll ask tareq salahi today, stunt. we ll ask tareq salahi today, september 23, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. welcome to today on a friday morning. police say the arrest of steven powell is not tied to her disappearance. the images in the home were discovered during a search related to the case. according to a police officer they found thousands of images of females being videotaped without their knowledge. and they include both susan powell and girls as young as 8 years old. we ll have the latest on that strange development ahead. and is amanda knox just days from being free? her appeal is entering the final phase. coming up, we are live in italy with the latest from the court. and a story that s making big tab lby-loid headlines. a cat disappears in colorado. the family gave up hope of finding willow. believe it or not, she showed up five years later, 1,800 miles away here in new york city. they are all with us this morning to talk about the remarkable reunion. we begin with the arrest overnight of the father-in-law of missing utah mother susan powell. nbc s miguel almaguer has the latest. he joins us now. good morning. reporter: good morning. police say this arrest is not related to the two-year disappearance of susan powell, but investigators believe the missing mother is one of many victims secretly recorded on camera by her father-in-law. steven powell was brought to police headquarters overnight. the 61-year-old father-in-law of missing mom susan powell charged with 14 counts of voyeurism and possession of child pornography. last month, investigators raided his home and they now say they found thousands of images of women and young girls. video and pictures taken without their knowledge. the victims, often nude, were in various states of undress. we also found hundreds, probably thousands of other photos of kids in parks and inappropriate photographs of body parts. reporter: the police raid on steven powell s home came just hours after he sat down with nbc news, claiming his missing daughter-in-law, susan, ran off with another man. she was very flirtatious and very sexual with people. there was a lot of tilt litigation going on. reporter: speaking to ann, susan s father fired back. i see these attacks as outrageous, cowardly, despicable and not believable in any way. basically he s trying to blame a victim. my daughter is the one missing. reporter: during the august raid at the powell home investigators were believed to be looking for susan s journals. hours later, detectives left with bags and boxes full of computers, recordings and photographs. during the investigation we also found pictures of susan cox powell. it doesn t look like she knew the photos were being taken of her. reporter: investigators found images of girls as young as 8 years old bathing and getting dressed. we found them in showers, in bathtubs, on toilets. it appears they were his neighbors. reporter: powell s estranged daughter jennifer, a friend of susan s, had this reaction. well, honestly, i laughed and cri cried. it s not unexpected, i guess. i have thought for a while he had issues that were pretty big. reporter: steven powell shares his washington state home with his son josh and the couple s two children. josh told police he last saw his wife nearly two years ago when he took their boys camping overnight in a snowstorm and susan vanished from their utah home. josh has always denied any involvement in susan s disappearance, but police say he remains their only person of interest. and now while investigators continue to search for susan s body in the utah desert, her father-in-law has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies. steven powell is scheduled to be arraigned later today. he could face five years in prison. the powells have had no comment, but susan s father who will be in court today to try to block the release of susan s journals say he s relieved his grandchildren are no longer living with susan s father-in-l father-in-law. ann? we turn to politics now in the 2012 presidential race. things got heated between the gop front-runners during the republican debate last night. chief white house correspondent chuck todd is in washington with the details on this. good morning, chuck. reporter: good morning, matt. i had to check my calendar this week to see if it was september 2011 or september 2012. we have the president in ohio. and the third debate in less than 15 days. the campaign in full throttle mode. you re already retreating from the positions that were in the book. not an inch, sir. reporter: it was part debate and part contentious book club meeting with rick perry and mitt romney pushing back. we said was we ought to have as one of the options. it s different from what the governor put in his book. you better find that rick perry and get him to stop saying that. reporter: perry used romney s book to hit him over the massachusetts health care plan. in fact, in your hard copy book you said it was exactly what the american people to have. in your paperback, you took that line out. i actually wrote my book. and in my book i said no such thing. reporter: the two got into it over immigration, particularly perry s support of the so-called texas dream act which allows texas children of undocumented immigrants to get in-state college tuition. it s an argument i can t follow. to go to the university of texas if you are an illegal alien you get an in-state tuition discount. do you know how much it is? $22,000 a year. over four year, almost $100,000 if you are an illegal alien. if you say we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they were brought there through no fault of their own, i don t think you have a heart. reporter: perry tried to pin the flip-flopper label on romney but struggled. i think americans just sometimes don t know which mitt romney they are dealing with. is it the mitt romney against the second amendment before he was for the second amendment? was before he was before the social programs from the standpoint of he was for standing up for roe versus wade before he was against verse row v roe versus wade. race to the top. he s for obama care and against it. there are a lot of reasons not to elect me. one reason to elect me is i know what i stand for. reporter: the line of the night came from gary johnson. my next door neighbor s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration. reporter: the candidates were asked who they would pick as the running mate last night. the guy who got the most votes was newt gingrich. rick perry wanted to combine newt gingrich and herman cane into a super v.p. that s a crowded stage. reporter: it is. most of the attention going to mitt romney and rick perry. will someone have to exit the stage soon? reporter: we have a big fund-raising report that comes up in two weeks. we ll find out there. that s going to drive some folks out of the race. if you were to talk about that crowded stage there was an invisible candidate on stage last night. it was michele bachmann. she has to be concerned that a guy like rick santorum may start getting momentum with social conservatives. he had a very good night. she s fading into the background. you start wondering can she hold her own in iowa? that will be something to watch for. chuck, thanks. it is now ten minutes after the hour. here s ann. the state of the economy was a big issue at last night s debate. it came on a day when the dow plunged nearly 400 points, renewing fears of a double dip recession. jim cramer is the host of mad money. good morning. we know there are deepening fears because of new economic data of a recession in europe but also comments from the fed chairman talking about a significant downside risk. he scared us. the fed chairman had not used the word significant before, even seven weeks ago. that was a wake-up call saying, don t be complacent. maybe things are worse than we realize. why spook the market though? he s a realist. he wants policy makers to take action whether in the united states where there is grid lock or in europe where things are quite bad. it s bad there. sit 2008 all over again? for europe, yes. for our country, no. our banks, economy and companies are better off. i don t want to be viewed as a pollyanna. it s not a constructive day for the market. it can keep going lower but the u.s. is stronger than europe. what could stop the downward spiral? tim geithner told me, look, if the europeans get political will and take action with banks like we did we can avoid a severe crisis. if not, we ll feel it. meantime there is new census data that i want to ask you about. almost 6 million americans ages 25 to 34 are living with their parents, 25% more than before the recession. what has happened to the american dream, jim? the american dream is being throttled. i don t want to say it s because of the democrats or the republicans, but we feel, i think mainstream business feels the uncertainty has made it so it s too difficult to hire right now. until the political uncertainty like europe is resolved i don t think you will see a lot of hiring. a lot of what s driving this is fear? oh, yes. there are hard numbers. but to what degree is fear feeding into this? when you see the stock market go down the way it did, people are losing confidence by the day. the fed chairman told us, look, don t be so confident. there is significant downside risk. don t be complacent. i m not. frankly, that was a downer. you can catch jim on mad money on cnbc. here s matt. top executives from a now bankrupt solar energy company were given half a billion in taxpayer loans by the obama administration are appearing at a congressional hearing this morning but they are pleading the 5th. lisa myers is in san antonio with the latest on this. good morning. reporter: good morning, matt. this company was the poster child for the president s green jobs initiative. images of its executives taking the 5th today are not the optic it is white house had hoped for. taxpayers now stand to lose as much as a half billion dollars. solyndra executives personally showed the president around their operation last year. top executives promised to testify today, under oath, before house investigators. their lawyers now say they will show up but decline to answer questions and invoke their 5th amendment protections against self-incrimination. they have now broken their word yet again. we re not going to stop until we get all the answers. reporter: as recently as this summer solyndra officials gave congress an upbeat report. now republicans and democrats feel deceived. in july, the ceo of solyndra told me that company was doing very well. they were even going to double their revenues. a month later they went into bankruptcy. i feel like i was misled. reporter: so far the investigation has revealed that even before the $535 million loan guarantee was approved two years ago, there were warnings that the project potentially runs out of cash in september 2011, which it did. another key point came early this year when solyndra was in trouble and the administration debated whether to pour in still more taxpayer money. in a january e-mail, a staffer suggested it might be better to let the company fail. if solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will arguably be worse later than they would be today, he wrote. questions will be asked why the administration made a bad investment not just once but twice. they should have stopped then knowing they were playing with taxpayer money, not funny money. reporter: instead the administration let solyndra draw down $75 million moren taxpayer loans. and it agreed some investors would take priority over taxpayers in a bankruptcy which is highly unusual. administration officials say they believe they made the right decision at the time, that giving solyndra more money may have enabled the company to succeed if solar prices had not plummeted. the fbi is investigating whether the company intentionally misled about its finances. the company says it did not. matt? thank you very much. now a check of the other top stories of the morning from natalie morales at the news desk. good morning, everyone. today is the day a six-ton piece of space trash comes down to earth. the question is where. nasa says the defunct satellite won t pass over north america as it makes the reentry this evening or this afternoon. it s been in a slow fall since 2005 and is expected to break into 26 half-ton pieces of debris. the odds that a piece will hit a person somewhere in the world are at 1 in 3,200. early this morning the house passed a bill to prevent a government shutdown and fill dangerously low disaster aid coffers, but the move could be dead on arrival in the senate where harry reid pledged to kill the legislation because of republican cuts to clean energy programs. the bush-era no child left behind law may be left out. president obama outlines the way for states to opt out of the initiative. republican lawmakers oppose the president s involvement in the issue saying it is a matter for congress to decide. and a rare public mother-daughter chat from the former first family as chelsea clinton ribbed her mom at the clinton global initiative. as a daughter i remember when i helped you send your first text message. yes. that wasn t long ago. and my father still refers to the internet as the worldwide web. while clinton admits being low tech, chelsea called her techno mom. she s still more tech savvy than matt is. oh! i don t know. wow. do you see that bus? i didn t see that coming. that s true. mr. roker, what s going on? ouch.roker, what is going on? we re looking at flooding in the east where we have seen record amounts of rain, upper level low. a lot of moisture coming up out of the south. between the two we can see the showers and thunderstorms firing up from atlanta all the way up into new england. rainfall amounts and flood watches in affect from raleigh to boston. anywhere from three to five inches of rain because we already picked up in some areas two feet of rain between irene and the remanence of tropical storm lee. good morning. we have patchy dense fog in addition to light rain now in montgomery county and areas to the north and west of washington. we can see downpours in south and central virginia. right now just some scattered light rain around washington and northern virginia and maryland, and the eastern shore are getting downpours there. later today the rain will increase in intensity in the metro area and that will likely and that s your latest weather. ann? al, thank you. the appeal of the murder conviction of amanda knox is entering its final stages this morning with prosecutors presenting final arguments. could she go free soon? keith miller is in perugia this morning with more. keith, good morning. reporter: good morning, ann. this may be the beginning of of the end as the prosecution attempts to convince the judge and jury that amanda knox is a murderer who should not be released from prison. amanda knox knows her future will be determined in a matter of days, after years of claiming she s paying for a crime she didn t commit. the prosecution, despite being humiliated in the appealed trial by testimony that it used unreliable dna evidence to convict knox and her former boyfriend, is demanding her 26-year sentence be extended. both were convicted of the murder and violent sexual assault of knox s roommate, meredith kercher, an exchange student from england. the victim s sister and mother went on television and said meredith had been forgotten. the victim s mother said all she wants is justice for her daughter. in the courtroom, knox s family and friends offered her support. arriving from seattle, knox s mother said she returns to italy with mixed feelings. i m glad to see her. but i m anxious to bring her home. it s interesting. i thought the same thing flying in. maybe that s the last time i have to look at that view flying in. reporter: but knox s father is not prepared emotionally if the guilty verdict is upheld. i haven t thought of that yet. to be frank i don t want to think about that. but, yes, it s obviously out there. given what happened after the first trial, i am hopeful. but it s a guarded hopeful. reporter: the italian state invested millions of dollars in this trial and the reputation of the judicial system is in some ways also on trial here. this morning the chief of perugia s prosecutor s office defended the conduct of government lawyers. the prosecutor s closing arguments will take two days and cover all the evidence entered in court. the judge has multiple options. he can overturn the guilty verdict. he can maintain the guilty verdict but reduce the sentence that knox is serving. or, in extreme cases, ann, he could extend the prison sentence. we are expecting a verdict by the end of next week. thank you so much. just ahead, tareq salahi opens up about filing for divorce after his wife ran off with the guitarist from journey. first, this is today on nbc. just ahead, the woman who mocked a company s search for a plus-sized model with a series of tongue in cheek photos and won the competition. and the cat that was lost in colorado and got found here in new york five years later. the remarkable reunion with his family after your local news. [ man ] our retirement isn t a simple budget line item. [ man ] i worked hard. i paid into my medicare. [ man ] and i earned my social security. [ woman ] now, instead of cutting waste and loopholes, washington wants to cut our benefits? that wasn t the agreement. [ male announcer ] join the members of aarp and tell washington to stop cuts to our medicare and social security benefits. good morning. 7:26. i am joe krebs. we are covering the rainy and dreary start to the morning. let s check in with meteorologist, tom kierein. we have patchy fog in areas to the west of washington. on the radar we do have areas of moderate to heavy rain in the yellows and oranges. and right now around washington getting light rain. we will have that with us from time to time this morning. late morning and during the afternoon, the period of heavy downpours may cause flooding. downplook, every day we re using more and more energy. the world needs more energy. where s it going to come from? that s why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what s it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we ve got to be smart about this. it s a smart way to go. good morning. traveling 270 in maryland seeing delays at west montgomery avenue, and your slows continue. and back to you, joe. another news update in 25 labored breathing ] [ coughing continues ] [ gasping ] [ elevator bell dings, coughing continues ] [ female announcer ] washington can t ignore the facts: more air pollution means more childhood asthma attacks. [ coughing continues ] log on to lungusa.org and tell washington: don t weaken clean air protections. 7:30 now on this friday morning, september 23, 2011. welcome to the first day of fall. it s a wet one in the northeast as we say hello to everyone in rockefeller plaza. inside studio 1a i m ann curry along with matt lawyer. just ahead, what appears to be a public end to the murder of tareq and michaele salahi after she s run off with journey s guitarist. people are wondering if this is another publicity stunt. tareq is speaking out in a live interview just ahead. plus a case in florida that made headlines around the world. a young mother kidnapped from her florida home. her family launched a desperate search. now investigators say she faked the whole thing. we ll tell you more about that. and a company s search for a plus-sized model that backfired in a big way. a texas woman decided to enter as a form of protest, sending in these mocking photos of herself posing with food. voters declared her the winner, so why is the company saying, not so fast? the woman will be here to share her story in a live interview this morning. we begin this half hour with the latest scandal involving tareq and michaele salahi. we ll talk to tareq exclusively in a moment. first, kristen welker has the details. good morning to you. reporter: good morning, matt. ever since the now infamous gatecrashing incident, the salahis have seemed inseparable, always putting on a united front until now. he just wowed me. reporter: tareq and michaele salahi seemed to be a happy couple during last season of the real housewives of d.c. and now this made for tv marriage is falling apart. photos show her in the arms of neal schon, long time guitarist for the band journey. the couple spotted kissing after a concert this week. neal should be ashamed of himself. reporter: in an interview with e news, tareq said he s devastated about his wife s affair. this was a beautiful marriage we had. you know, i was just blindsided that it was going on for two years. going on a tour bus with a rock band. that s like what a groupie [ bleep ] does. reporter: tareq said due to the abandonment of the marriage and adultery by michaele i have suffered both emotional and physical harm. there is no hope or possibility of reck sell united nations. this is wrong! reporter: this happened when he returned home and his wife was nowhere to be found. he reported her missing to the police. i m missing my wife. reporter: he would soon learn the truth that she had run off with neal schon and was on tour with journey, as seen in this video obtained by tmz. reporter: the band even put up posters backstage warning security to ban tareq salahi from the air. this just another in the series of bizarre headlines for the couple who first drew attention in 2009. they looked the part at the white house, but their names were not on the guest list. we were invited. not crashers. there isn t anyone that would have the audacity or the poor behavior to do that. reporter: the couple was never charged with a crime. as for their future i love you. i love you, too. reporter: hard to believe this will be the last time we hear or see this reality tv couple. we reached out to michaele salahi but she didn t want to comment right now. the divorce proceedings are still pending. matt? kristen, thank you very much. tareq salahi is with us. good morning. good morning. this went down last week. you hadn t seen her for six hours. you started e-mailing people, texting people. you called the media, the fbi saying perhaps she was kidnapped or abducted. did you not have any hint at that point, any clue that she may have gone off on her own free will and might be with another man? no. when i came back home she wasn t home, but it wasn t unusual that maybe she got a call from hln or cnn. we have been talking about the richard armstrong issue and the suicide for real housewives of beverly hills. why did you think she was abducted? it wasn t until later in the evening. i got a call from an oregon cell phone. she said, hi, love, i m on my way home. i m going to see my mom. i called her mom and she said, i haven t seen her all day, you better call the police. i said the moment i do that, this becomes news. the marriage when this is all happening, tareq, it s great, rosy, everything s fine? you didn t have a clue that there were issues? no. great things were happening. there were new contracts, different offers for television projects. things were looking great for us. we were on the comeback if you will. it turns out she was not abducted, not kidnapped. she left on her own free will and went to be with neal schon, the lead guitarest from journey who she s known for a long time. you know him. i considered all those guys as friends, buddies. you knew that 15 years ago or so she dated neal at the same time she dated you. well, she was just dating hihim and we met in 2000. she dated him prior to us. did you understand they had remained close, remained in contact? do you now know there was an affair going on for a couple of years? now, unfortunately i know. i didn t know she had a double life, was lying and we found e-mails she was communicating, having an affair. you actually went to a journey conference not long ago with michaele, went backstage, spent time with neal. any inkling of a romantic connection between them? i considered neal a best friend. a best friend? i m betrayed in my view by not just my wife but by neal and the whole gang of journey knew this. they sent the plane to get her. having totally been betrayed by my wife and my friend, neal. i have seen comments she s made since she left. basically she says, tareq, that she couldn t take it anymore. not only was she always in love with this man but that you became unbearable to live w. you were controlling. you controlled everything she did. how do you respond to that? you know, our marriage was beautiful. it was perfect in our view. we talked about it on your show. we talked about it on the real housewives. we had a beautiful marriage. i just didn t know she had this double life. i had no idea she would say one thing to me and lie to me and has been cheating this whole time with neal. she says she s made comments to a writer and she said she s now deeply in love, that she has been for a long time. it does not sound like she s coming back. would you take her back? do you want her back? you filed for divorce. i filed because i have been betrayed by my wife and she just abandoned the house, left us. you know, even our poor dog who was sick, didn t even leave the bed space for a few days. then he passed away searching for her. would i take her back? you know, i m a forgiving person. i love her. there is no question. i don t think i could. have you spoken to her? she s very cold. so you have? i twitted her, the dog s dying. the manager called, she doesn t want to speak to you. this is not the woman any of us know. she s not being herself. on the other side of it, everyone said she had this double life and she s been living a lie. when she called he was cold about the dog. she really didn t care. she didn t want to talk about what was going on. she just left. she left all her personal belongings at home. you re clearly emotional about it. i apologize for being blunt but there are probably people watching saying, you know, this couple became famous for all the wrong reasons, tried to stretch that 15 minutes of fame for as long as they could and this is not an unexpected turn of events in what is, in some ways, a slow motion train wreck called the salah salahis. how would you respond? it s not a publicity spot. i wish it was. i wish ashton kutcher would pop around the corner and say you have been punked. we re messing with you. we had a beautiful marriage. this was real love. all our friends and people who know us, we thought it was real love. i have been duped, lied to, cheated on. our family and home was full of love and now it s an empty home. what do you want her to know? she broke our family. she broke our love. she destroyed our relationship just because she wanted, in my view, more money, more fame. she wanted to go more to the a celebrity, if you will. but it s an 80s band. she s acting like a 16-year-old jumping on a tour bus from the 80s. this is just a different woman. i don t know who she is. total betrayal. tareq, thank you for coming in this morning. it s 7:40. now a check of the weather from al. thank you very much, matt. we have nice folks out here. you say you re a weather weinie? i am! where are you where are you from? alabama. let s take a look and see what is happening. you talk about some heat. 89 in yakima today. and 89 in billings. a big ridge of high pressure dominating but we have a trough here in the east so 50s and 60s through the great lakes, and the mississippi river valley and 90s in florida, and more heavy rain making its way into the mid-atlantic states and northeast and flood watches will be in effect later today and on into tomorrow and on into new engla england. we have pockets of heavy rain coming out of georgia through the carolinas into virginia this morning closer to washington, we have scattered light showers around virginia and maryland, and we have patchy dense fog which will likely dissipate once the rain increases and will do that by mid to late morning, and in the afternoon periods of heavy rain could cause flooding and could have heavy downpours that s your latest weather. of course, it s coming township the weekend and that can mean only one thing football, fall and sunday night football night in america. the steelers at lucas oil stadium. they have a roof and it s a good thing. cloudy, cool, 60% chance of showers. upper 50s, low 60s as the colts see if they can hold on with the cold, hard steelers on sunday night, football night in america! matt? all right, al. thank you very much. up next, why would a young mother fake her own kidnapping? a case that rocked a community and tore a family apart, right after this. my walgreens pharmacist recommends bubble gum flavor. and patience. mine recommends antacid tablets and only one taco. 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[ monica ] i have a small part in a big movie. i thought we d be on location for 3 days, it s been 3 weeks. so, i used my citi simplicity card to pick up a few things. and i don t have to worry about a late fee. which is good. no! bigger! bigger! [ monica ] .because i don t think we re going anywhere for a while. [ male announcer ] write your story with the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries. get started at citisimplicity.com. back now at 7:45. dateline kicks off tonight with a story of a young mother s apparent kidnapping. her family searched for days, never expecting where it would lead. josh, good morning. good morning, ann. the first thing you need to know is that old-fashioned kidnapping as a crime has practically died out in the united states. law enforcement agencies simply cooperate too well and tracking someone who picks up a bag of money has never been easier. that s why this kidnapping was such a shock to just about everyone involved. this is the sheriff s office. my wife phoned me to say she was held by gun point. reporter: reed gray is on the phone to 911 reporting that his 37-year-old wife, quinn, the mother of their two children, has just called saying she s been kidnapped. it sounds like a movie, but it s not. reporter: over labor day weekend 2009, more than 150 people from the st. john s county sheriff s office and the jacksonville division of the fbi were looking hard for quinn gray. fbi agent tony cravit. we have surveillance units out, an airplane out. you re watching. we re watching. reporter: her ab douk tors demanded $50,000 for her return, but a series of money drops failed and then quinn was unexpectedly released. quinn told investigators her entire ordeal. duct tape around my face. at this point i was like, no, no, no, no, no. reporter: quinn s story, aided by surveillance footage led to the arrest of jasmine ismanovich. i have a feeling i m in a bad movie now. reporter: he shocked investigators with a secret recording he d made. investigators say quinn and jasmine were lovers and made up the whole kidnapping scheme in order to extort money from quinn s husband. but to the surprise of many, reed gray stood by his wife, defending her on today. i believe in all my heart she was kidnapped. reporter: jasmine pleaded guilty to extortion. quinn gray pleaded no contest to the same charge in january of 2010. each was placed on probation and ordered to pay back tens of thousands of dollars in investigative costs. reed gray s support for his wife didn t last. the couple divorced later that same year. quinn sent us a statement saying she was abducted at gunpoint and never knew ismanovich but said, i do not deny all forms of responsibility for thing that is occurred after the abduction. she said because of her mental state at the time, her past experiences and her fresh recovery from alcoholism, osmanovic was able to manipulate her. was it a desperate act to get attention? i don t know the answer. but she sure picked a colorful way to do it. reporter: quinn and reed now share custody of their two children. if you wonder why the penalty wasn t harsh, it s because it wasn t a real kidnapping and fortunately nobody was hurt. not physically. thank you so much. for more on the story catch dateline tonight at 9:00/8:00 central time on nbc. still ahead, the plus model search didn t sit well with one woman so she entered as a joke and won. first, these messages. fourteen. i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school. the opportunities that i had at the university of phoenix got me to where i am today. i m mayor cherie wood, i m responsible for the largest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. 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[ male announcer ] with ge s most advanced cooking technology, the café line takes food further. coming up next, the colorado cat found 1,800 miles away in new york five years after she ran away. after your local news. his stimulant medicine was helping, but some symptoms were still in his way. so the doctor kept eric on his current medicine and added nonstimulant intuniv to his treatment plan. [ male announcer ] for some children like eric, adding once-daily nonstimulant intuniv to their stimulant has been shown to provide additional adhd symptom improvement. don t take if allergic to intuniv, its ingredients, or taking other medicines with guanfacine, like tenex. intuniv may cause serious side effects, such as low blood pressure, low heart rate, fainting, and sleepiness. intuniv may affect the ability to drive or use machinery. other side effects include nausea, tiredness, trouble sleeping, stomach pain, and dizziness. tell the doctor about your child s medicines and medical conditions, including heart, liver, or kidney problems. [ woman ] adding intuniv helped eric. [ male announcer ] ask the doctor about once-daily nonstimulant intuniv. [ woman ] my heart medication isn t some political game. [ man ] our retirement isn t a simple budget line item. [ man ] i worked hard. i paid into my medicare. [ man ] and i earned my social security. [ woman ] now, instead of cutting waste and loopholes, washington wants to cut our benefits? that wasn t the agreement. [ male announcer ] join the members of aarp and tell washington to stop cuts to our medicare and social security benefits. good morning. it s 7:56. i am joe krebs. we have 73 degrees now in town and we also have rain on the way. let s get the forecast from meteorologist, tom kierein. we have pockets of heavy to moderate rain from the carolinas into virginia this friday morning. in washington we have late rain, and the nearby suburbs, parts of northern virginia and maryland. and the rain arriving later this morning and during the afternoon may cause flooding. watch out for high water later in the afternoon and this evening. passing showers are possible on saturday and sunday, and maybe with thunder and lightning in the good morning. heading east on the dulles toll road, we have an accident blocking the right center lane. in the inner loop of the bemt way, we are jammed in virginia. it s all the way up to i-66. we will give alive view. brace yourself. it s a mess. 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[ female announcer ] see for yourself, aetna.com aetna. know more. get better. we re back now. 8:00 on a friday morning on the 23rd day of september, 2011. it s an overcast, drizzly day in midtown manhattan. you know what? weekend not looking much better. we re looking at three, four days of unsettled weather. mr. roker is working on that. he ll make it better by the time we get to him in a couple of minutes. wiping the brow because of your feverish work. coming up we ll talk about a search for a plus-sized model that turned controversial. her name is nancy upton. she didn t like the wording of the contest, so she decided to mock it by making up images you re looking at now posing with everything from five chickens to ranch dressing in the bathtub. to her surprise and the company s well, maybe anger, she actually won the popular vote. she ll talk about that coming up. someone with a sense of humor would like that. five years in the making, willow the cat from colorado, missing for five years turns up in new york city. how did that happen? we re going to talk to willow s overjoyed family. she hadn t lost weight. she gained weight. there s a story there to get to the bottom of. joy bauer will do the cat diet. did you hear? george clooney got married! kind of. it s a viral commercial online. we will tell you about it in a little bit. something like 860,000 hits. about 540 were mine. very clever. lots to get to. a big crowd here. natalie is at the news desk with a look at the headlines. good morning. the republican front runners sparred over immigration, social security and health care during their presidential debate in florida last night. texas governor rick perry denied he wanted to let the states run social security saying it was just one of the options and mitt romney denied he flip flopped on universal health care after supporting the cause as governor of massachusetts. with signs that the global economy could be sliding into recession, world economic leaders are pledging to do what s necessary to bring stability and calm to financial markets. the group of 20 represents some 85% of the global economy. meanwhile here at home the dow fell nearly 400 points thursday as fears of a double dip recession sparked a widespread sell-off. meanwhile president obama tried to build support for his construction and jobs bill thursday by putting his main republican rivals on the spot. he made his pitch while standing near an outdated bridge that connects ohio, the home state of john boehner to the state of mitch mcconnell. officials say surgeries and cancer treatments are being delayed and they blame the drug shortages for at least 15 deaths. the fda says the main cause of shortages is production shut-down because of manufacturing problems such as contamination. new footage reminds us of the destructive power of the japanese tsunami. this dash camera on a delivery truck captured the moment when the wall of water began surging through inland roads. the car and camera were only recently discovered. the driver escaped. now what has you talking online. thanks a latte. starbucks barista got fired after this one went viral. hello, rich white lady. you want a skinny vanilla latte. well that won t make you skinny, got to work for that and in case you re wondering, i just called you fat. reporter: he was looking for a little comic relief after a stressful shift. maybe einstein wasn t such an einstein after all. brainy types are googling his theory of relativity after scientists in geneva say they may have found particles that move faster than the speed of light which sign stein said is possible. and a fake zuckerberg. we have continued to expand throughout the world to the point that honestly, we just stopped counting, you guys. to give some perspective it s more people than the population of europe. it s more people than are in the cast of glee. it s even more people than claim they came up with facebook. burn! reporter: it s easy for the real zuckerberg to be a good sport. forbes put his net worth at more than $17 billion. let s go to ann and al. hard to tell who s the real zuckerberg. especially during that man hug. let s find out where al is. talking about a man hug. a big man hug. we have a big weather hug. you re 80 years old? yes. you look fantastic. what s your name? elnora fischer from north dakota. and my swimming group is watching this morning. do you do the backstroke? not really. you re like me. all right. let s check it out, show you what s happening. tampa, florida, news channel 8, tampa, florida, news channel 8, scattered thunderstorms today, and 92 degrees. we have a lot of wet weather coming up from the south into the mid-atlantic states and northeast. look for rain there. big ridge of high pressure dominating the east or west i should say, with lots of sunshine temperatures. anywhere from 15 to 30 degrees above normal. the big story will be the flooding as we move into the weekend. and we have people with a baby boom. when is the baby expected? december. fantastic. here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good morning. we have an area of moderate to heavy rain pulling out of the carolinas to central virginia. north of there and closer to us, we have light rain. the eastern shore getting heavy downpours now. later today some of the heavier rain move into the metro area, perhaps another two or three hours, and then in the afternoon and evening as well, periods of heavy rain are possible and may cause flooding. more r and that s your latest weather. matt? thank you very much. when we come back, the woman who mocked a company s search for a plus-sized model and then won the competition. we ll talk to her right after this. 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[ kristy ] she s definitely not like other moms. yeah, my mom is pretty weird. things like fresh fruit, fruit juices, have acids that can soften our enamel. once you ve lost your enamel it s gone for good. pronamel iso-active is different, it s new, it s a toothpaste in a can. it starts off as a gel, transforms into a foam and actually surrounds your teeth and gets into all those nooks and crannies. dentists recommend pronamel. pronamel iso-active rehardens enamel and helps protect against the effects of acid erosion. hershe y s bliss. one square inch of incredibly smooth rich chocolate. one square inch of joy. fun. indulgence. one square inch of bliss. hershey s bliss. it feels like help is never far away. it feels like you re protected against life s little mishaps. it feels like you ll make it home. that s what it feels like to be a member. back now at 8:11 with a story that s getting a lot of attention online. american apparel held a search for a plus-sized model, an ad wo one woman found insulting. she sent in photos to mock the competition and won. first, how it all unfolded in her own words. the copy of the text was like, you need a little extra wiggle room in your pants, big girls? it just had this condescending nature to it. i found it really insulting. i didn t understand why you have to use cutesy or fake words like bootyfull to describe a plus-sized woman. why can t you call her beautiful? why make it so silly? i feel like they are all in l.a. sitting there, not eating and just imagining plus-sized woman being women who eat and are lady and don t take care of themselves. wouldn t it be funny if i took pictures of this idea of like, i want to be a sexy lady, but i just can t stop eating. so i called my friend shannon. we took the photos. i ate ice cream on the kitchen flour and poured chocolate syrup all over myself. i ate a roasted chicken in my swimming pool, covered myself in ranch dressing and put myself in a bathtub full of ranch dressing. i ended up winning the competition. kind of unexpectedly, for me at least, i got number one one. i got the most votes based on the kind of entry i did they sent the e-mail response letter that said, sorry, we don t want you to model for us. we want someone that exemplifies beauty on the inside as well as the outside. seeing them send a scathing e-mail to a chubby girl in texas who took funny pictures of herself. since then we have had nice conversations. american apparel will fly shannon and me out to visit them at the factory and meet with the creative director. i think being able to stand up for my belief about being plus-sized and do it in a humoro humorous, free spirited way, i m happy to have been able to have done that. nancy upton, good morning to you. good morning. what a sense of humor you have. you have touched a nerve. why do you think? think plus-sized women are rarely depicted as real people. they are often depicted as women trying to look thinner or cuter than people might think they are. and there is no reason to do that. we should just look real and look awesome. i think people actually seeing that for the first time, it hit a nerve with them. and it changes minds. after that scathing e-mail we now have reached out to american apparel and it says there is a lot we have learned from this experience. we realize there are aspects of the xl model search we could have done differently. given the opportunity we certainly would. we can t wait to work with them. now you are headed to los angeles. yes. are you open minded? what s your goal in talking to them to get a modeling job? i feel like any time you put your name or face on a brand you really have to agree with the way the company does business. as far as me and american apparel, i don t know if that s a good fit. that said, i know they have discovered amazing women through the contest. i m sure they will find great people. as far as heading out there, i m excited to talk to the creative directors and see what it s like from a woman s perspective being inside the machine, seeing what it s like being in the fashion world and maybe being able to offer a different consumerist, plus-sized perspective. what would be your message to any company trying to market to plus-sized woman? what s the message? what are you trying to say? you know, kind of this idea that even if you re plus-sized, even if it s removed from the normal ideal of fashion, you re all people. we are all the same people. we may look different, sound different, but you don t need to market to women individually or differently just because they are a little bit bigger or smaller. you re saying some of the words they were using were marginalizing saying you re booty licious which is a word you don t mind right. but but why okay. if we were being marketed the same dress why would you be called beautiful and i would be called booty licious because i m bigger than you? why can t we both be beautiful or booty licious or sexy or attractive or whatever. we can use words, terms, ideas that don t simultaneously exclude one or another. kind of the idea that no matter what size you are, we can all be marketed together because we re all beautiful. we re all individual people. i think somebody will want you to model for them. i m telling you. you re coming with the complete package. you are beautiful but you are also coming thank you. i ll tem telling you. you have a strong message. if you found the right fit? absolutely. again, like i said, if you re going to be the face of somebody, you ve got to believe in it. believe in it. if i m approached by that. if there is the right fit, absolutely. but it was never really part of my idea or part of the plan. it will be fun to find out what happened after the meeting. nancy upton, good luck. thank you. thank you very much. fun, fun having you here. thank you for having me. here s matt. now to the tale of the colorado cat missing for five years before she was finally found 1,800 miles away in new york city. willow has been reunited with her family. we ll talk to the family in a moment. but first, their story. we were having some work done in our bathroom. but the people coming in and out left the door cracked. memories that was the last time jamie and chris squires and their children saw willow. posters were put up, but no willow. we thought she was eaten by coyotes. but five years after she went missing willow was found in new york city. we were really actually shocked. we agreed not to tell the kids because we absolutely didn t want them to get their hopes up and then it not be her. a good samaritan brought willow to a shelter where she was tracked back to her unners thanks to a tracking chip they had implanted. the cat s tale struck a chord with folks. people called from india saying, your cat looks like one down from my house. or new zealand. this headline-grabbing, talk show appearing cat is a bonified celebrity. even new york city s mayor weighed in. cats repeatedly have nine lives and he clearly wanted to spend at least one of them here in new york city. on thursday, willow and her family were reunited, including 3-year-old lola, too young to have met the wayward kitty. but how did willow make the journey from colorado to new york? many speculated on what the journey may have looked like. perhaps even a stop in the catskills before heading south. but an anonymous tip on a blog may shed light. the tipster said willow was found as a stray by a new yorker visiting colorado on a ski trip and was flown to new york. the anonymous tipster posted a photo allegedly showing willow relaxing at home in brooklyn. do these unique markings match willow s? it appears they do. no new york owner has come forward so far, but it s a likely scenario. experts say willow who was five pounds when she went missing is now a healthy, hefty seven. so it s unlikely she made the journey alone, but we may never know for certain how it was done. now willow the cat is with us along with her owners, jamie, chris, shelby, jack and lola squires. she s happy as can be, this cat. she hasn t left your side since we got in here. no, she s perfectly content. did she recognize you guys right off the bat? i think so. i think she did. there s been so much attention for her and she s been shuffled around so much. she s a blil anxious, i think, about everything. you guys had given up hope. nobody thinks a cat will show up five years after the cat di disappears, especially when you live in colorado and you mentioned there are coyotes and all kinds of predators there. what was it like to get the news she was located? we were really excited. yeah. we weren t 100% sure. we wanted to make 100% sure. it s her. when you watched this thing snowball and the talk shows and the mayor of new york city mentioning her in a press conference, what was that like? surreal. surreal. it felt a little surreal. but any attention that can bring attention to microchipping or people finding lost animals, we re fine with that. what a great idea you had back when you got willow. you had the microchip implanted and never thought you would have to use it. that s how you guys were connected again. right. is this something you want all pet owners to figure out? yeah. we think it should be almost a requirement like you get rabies shot. get your pet microchipped. it s important. have you weighed in as a family on how this cat got from colorado to new york city? we talked about it to lola. i don t think anybody will ever really know the actual truth of what actually happened to her. so even though we explained it, but it s better for us to think she s been off on a great adventure. we travel a lot as a family. so it s good to think maybe she was doing the same thing. but with another family. we don t think willow hiked from colorado to new york. the tunnels alone and the bridges right, right. but for a 3-year-old it s an adventure. lola, do you love willow already? is she going to be your cat from now on? not jack s, not shelby s? just yours? yeah. good for you. we re happy this has a happy ending. we are. so are we. when are you getting back home with willow? sunday. are you keeping the door shut from now on? absolutely. i know there is a contract. there is a contract between jack and lola. all right, guys. nice to meet you. good luck. thanks. let s go to ann, natalie and al. that s right. he s one of hollywood s most eligible batch lukas rossi ache appears george clooney has tied in knot in a commercial that s an internet sensation. take a look. well, hey there. i was letting you sleep. i like your dress. looks better off than on. oh, i have been going online looking for places for us in lillestrom. look at that. wow. i m telling you. did it hit a button with you? oh, man. i have seen it four, five times. i think i will see it another ten. it makes me happy. isn t it every girl s dream really? being cast next to george clooney. that dream. my goodness. we don t know who she is, but the vapors. it was quite a night. i think ann s finding another one. what s the commercial for? a bank. i wanted to make sure you were watching that. some people are born lucky. the rest of us have to save. i got the final line. you did watch it a lot. a lot. 860,000 views. i expect it to hit a million. just ahead, we ll change subjects and talk about what you should be doing to get the outside of your home ready for the cold months that are to come. first your local news. first your local news. good morning. it s 8:26 on this friday, september 23rd. in the news this morning, the weather, let s go to tom kierein in the storm center. earlier we had a lot of fog around that is beginning to dissipate now. here comes the rain, getting heavy to moderate rain in much and southern and central virginia. the area of red and yellow is where the rain is coming down hardest. the shore is getting heavy rain. close to washington, light rain around. and later today some of the heavy rain come into the metro area by 11:00 or so this labored breathing ] [ coughing continues ] [ gasping ] [ elevator bell dings, coughing continues ] [ female announcer ] washington can t ignore the facts: more air pollution means more childhood asthma attacks. [ coughing continues ] log on to lungusa.org and tell washington: don t weaken clean air protections. good morning. seeing significant delays in our area. a live look right now. this is robinson terminal inner loop. you are seeing big delays as you make your way from the 95 interchange to i-66. i-66 your delays start at route 50 and continue to the be 8:30 now on a friday morning, september 23, 2011. we ve got a great group of folks ready to get a jumpstart on the weekend with a visit to rockefeller plaza. we re so grateful they are spending time with us. we have a lot coming up including a remarkable story about a dolphin with a prosthetic tale on the big screen. we ll talk to the star of the movie in are a little bit. also, first day of fall. a lot of people hunker down for winter but it s a good time to do things to your lawn and yard that will make them better for the winter and next spring as well. we ll talk about that. as a reminder, next week we ll collect much-needed school supplies here on our plaza for communities that are in need. so if you are headed to the plaza, bring anything you think kids night use in schools, pens, backpacks, calculators. it s all for a good cause. it s part of the education nation week across all platforms of nbc. to find out how you can be a port of it where you live head to our website, today.com. sounds good. in the meantime shall we get a check of the weather? i was here anyway. check of the weather? i am here and was here anyway. it is moist and feels like rain. we have showers in the northeast. heavy rain. record highs out west and showers move into the pacific north west, and hot through texas, and then sunday, sunday, we re looking at more rain along the eastern seaboard, and rain through the ohio river valleys, and in the pacific northwest the heat continues, and texas has extreme drought and all the way into the southwest and the record heat continues into the northern plains. that s what going on around the country and here is what happening in your neck of the woods. rain is falling through south central through central virginia, and beginning to approach fredericksburg. on the eastern shore they are getting heavy downpours now. later today some of the heavy rain may come through from time to time as well as this evening and that may cause flooding. watch out for high water especially late in the got some nice ladies. where are you from? nashville, tennessee. music city. very nice. now to a guy who spent time in nashville, tennessee. uncle willy scott. ah, it s always delightful to see a lady celebrate her birthday from smuckers jar to your jar. happy birthday to minnie olsson from kentucky. right across the river. she loves to read and swim and walk all around the senior center. good exercise. that will keep you alive forever. a handsome devil. james mccachren from gainesville, florida, affectionately known as the coach. he loves any game anybody ever plays. a good man. we re getting it right for once. ella mae jones should be a singer. she s from perry, florida. i know that town. 105 and she loves to cook and sing hymns softly and tenderly. jesus is calling. i love it. we have leonard snow. that s a great radio name. plattsburgh, new york, 100 years old. enjoys fishing and drinking a little scotch whiskey. nothing wrong with that. nothing wrong with you. and we have robert cross of pensacola, florida. 100 years old today. a proud ww 2 vet. he lives independently and he s proud of that, too. active in the community. they all love him. can t beat that. and we have beautiful augusta. classy name. she s from huntington station, new york. she loves to make her famous meatballs. i think you can forget the cocktail party. meatballs and good old devilled eggs. now back to new york. thank you very much. now to a remarkable dolphin about to get her moment in the spotlight. kerry sanders is in clearwater, florida, with the story. good morning to you. good morning, matt. this is winter. she lost her tail when it got entangled in a crab trap and she almost died. thanks to engineers who work with returning war vets who lost legs they figured out how to build a prosthetic tail which helped winter survive. we first told you about the story years ago on the today show and among the viewers was a producer in hollywood who said, you know, that sounds like a blockbuster. six years ago, winter washed ashore in florida. she was tangled in a fisherman s crab trap, her tail nearly sliced off by the unforgiving line. how s she doing? great. reporter: engineers figured out how to give winter a new tail. she s a fighter. she had the will to pull through. reporter: the new movie dolphin tale stars winter herself. she s drinking, dad. morgan freeman plays the engineer who in real life figured out how to attach a tail to a dolphin s smooth skin. trying to put a tail on a fish. reporter: just like real life, impossible becomes possible. you can do it. up and down. reporter: as hollywood likes to do, the movie story line includes added drama. an injured vet returning from war. just because you re hurt doesn t mean you re broken. trust me. i m broken. reporter: when the vet meets winter, things begin to change. that may sound like an over the top hollywood plot device, except it s all true. retired army sergeant russ marek was wounded in iraq by an ied. he said it wasn t until he met winter he knew it was possible. i knew i had to try to conquer it. seeing her i was like, whoa, all right. reporter: this week, ross invited retired army sergeant mark lolly to join him and winter. i remember laying in the hospital one time asking god, hey, why did this happen? i was the same way. had that conversation. reporter: mark was seriously wounded when his blackhawk helicopter crashed four years ago. one vet sharing with another a little of winter s fight to survive magic. mark, are you glad russ told you to come? absolutely. this has inspired me to get up and do more myself. reporter: now that is an inspiring story from winter. you know, i got a chance to see the movie. it is a great movie. now that she s had a chance for her close-up, i fear that winter is now likely to start demanding things like squid with the ink removed. she has to live up to her diva responsibilities. she ll turn into ann. it s going to be terrible. reporter: don t feed ann too much squid. kerry, great story. up next, coping with anxiety. what you can learn from one woman s efforts to bring calm into her life. first this is today on nbc. i m a curious seeker. i am a chemistry aficionado. diphenhydramine. magnesium hydroxide. atheletes foot. yes. i m a people pleaser. if elected, i promise flu shots for all. i am a walking medical dictionary. congratulations virginia. inflamed uvula. i m virginia. i m a target pharmacist and i m here to answer your questions. back now at 8:40. approximately 6 million people in this country suffer some form of anxiety disorder. our next guest documents her search for peace in the new book learning to breathe: my yearlong quest to bring calm to my life. she joins us along with psychologist dale adkins. good morning. good morning. here you are a happily married woman with two wonderful kids, a best-selling books. by all appearances a successful life but you say you had a deep secret. i did. you know, i was on a plane in tulsa, oklahoma, about to take off after an extended book tour which i was very grateful for having. the secret was that everywhere i went, i felt different from everyone else on the planet. i felt anxious and i took medication which helped me enormously. i was reading about monks whose meditation practice was being studied by neuroscientists. their brains lit up on cat scans or mris. i said, i want the brain of a monk and everything that goes with it like peace, tranquility, loving kindness and compassion. in order to develop compassion, you have to understand your own suffering and then you can understand the suffering of others. i took a trip. i didn t know it would work. i didn t know i would be on today. i wrote a book proposal and told a few friends. my husband said, okay. and i took off. my first retreat was with a wonderful tibetan monk who had panic attacks as child which is why i have an affinity with him. he grew up in the himalayas with green fields, blue skies and lovely parents but panic followed him like a shadow. tears just rolled down my cheeks when i heard that. these panic attacks, it s not uncommon, is it? not at all. so many people suffer from some kind of anxiety and some people have panic. the real key to priscilla s book is this is accessible to anybody. what we can all do is understand that we have this available to us, this ability to breathe, this ability to sit quietly and find stillness so we can focus. quiet our brain so we can be creative, relax and then really do what we need to do which is not run from the fear and panic but understand that it s temporary and it will go away if we kind of relax our bodies and minds. i think we all can identify with the idea of having deep anxiety. this idea of having panic attacks, there are some people who are more predisposed. we were talking about this being a fix or a help for people who suffered deep, deep panic. yes. they can be assisted. what s important to understand is that we can all be helped by this. certain people are perhaps more predisposed but it s often a result of trauma in life. it could be something in the family in terms of predisposition because of inherited items. absolutely. or it could be because of specific trauma. you talked in your book about having had some trauma. here s the thing people want to know. now that we have disclosed the problem, what s the first step? what is the one thing above all that makes you, in those moments of panic and fear calm down? i did something called endr therapy which is fantastic. we do it a lot with ptsd. she said to me, okay, i m in a subway and the car stops and you re in between stations and nobody is telling you why. what do i do? i freak out. the fluorescent lights. she said, if you re sitting there i can guarantee you try to focus. i promise you there is one tiny spot in your body where you feel okay. where you feel grounded. focus on that spot. i did another wonderful exciting therapy where you feel that spot and pend late back and forth between the feeling of fearfulness and groundedness. meditation practice is the heart of the book. by definition when you meditate you are rooted to the reliability of the earth as my yoga teacher taught me. you feel a groundedness and strength you can build upon through your practice. one of the things i think that s so useful is no matter what you re dealing with at the time whether it s being caught in the subway or wondering if ek go through a crowded room or if you re afraid to fly, you can always sit and be conscious of your breath and breathe deeply. generally when we are anxious we breathe from here. we want to have a deeper breath so we can really focus on keeping ourselves grounded, as you said. whether it s post traumatic stress as you were talking about or moving your eyes in a certain way, each of us has this available to us. it isn t something it s not related to something far out or distant. it s available all the time. we can do it ourselves. we can model for others. we can teach our children. we can really have compassion for ourselves. not just a breath but a deep breath. all the details are in our book in your effort to help people and yourself. thank you so much for being generous. i hope i helped some people. i m sure you will. coming up next, what you can do this weekend to prepare your lawn for the fall and winter months. first, this is today on nbc. [ male announcer ] combine a pnc cashbuilder visa credit card with a pnc performance select checking account and get up to 1.75% cash back for just about every purchase. learn more and apply today at pnc.com/cashbuilder. pnc bank. for the achiever in you. if it ain t broke don t fix it this morning on today s home we are talking about fall fix-ups. it s the first day of autumn, the perfect time to start taking care of your yard and lawn now to get ready for the colder months ahead and then the spring after that. kevin o connor is the host of this old house and the author of the best homes from this old house welcome back. good to see you. good morning. great time of year to do lawn work because the temperature s right. you don t have to suffer in the heat. it s a great growing season. we ll talk about getting the yard set now so in spring it looks great so the lawn is lush and the gardens are full of nice flowers. first talk about aerating the lawn. the lawn, the soil can be compacted, pressed down so water, nutrients and oxygen can t get to the roots. you will run this along the lawn and it will pull out plugs. they will leave a hole in the lawn so the water will get to the roots, the oxygen will get there and store the nutrients. you leave the plugs on the surface and they will decompose over winter. by spring you won t see them. you were supposed to be backing off on fertilizer. how do you get great root growth for the spring. different fertilizers at different types of years. in the spring 75% of growth is in the blades. in the fall, 75% is in the roots. now you concentrate on the root. high phosphorous. roots love phosphorous. we have a drop spreader and that will make a neat, even line. this is better for small spaces. a simple question. you have kids playing on the lawn. is that a problem if they come in contact with that? generally not. but keep them off the lawn for a day or two. that s phosphorous? and lime so you can see it. do you cut the lawn differently now? yes. disease and fungus likes the top part of the blade. just before winter comes, remove much of the blade. so cut it lower. instead of cutting the lawn in the summer two and a half to three and a half inches on the final mow bring it down to an inch and a half or two. that will reduce the chance of fungus. so final cut of the year, your hair is summer and mine s the final cut. absolutely. the leaves are falling from the trees. you have good ways to get rid of them. a rake will do it but a blower does a better job. this is great for small areas as well as cleaning out the beds. look at this. it will move about 135 cubic feet per minute. you have to recharge that a couple of times. this one, backpack blower, 500 cubic feet per minute. gas powered. put it on your back, get the leaves out of the way. we want our lawn and yard to bloom beautifully in the spring. now s the time to think about it. absolutely. if you want beautiful bulbs in the spring this is the only time to plant them. you have to get them in the ground now. we have a variety of different bulbs. what s fool-proof? daffodils. deer and pests don t like them. they will come up again and again. but something like this is an allium globemaster. three to four feet high and a ten-inch flower. how do you plant them? put them in the ground. put it two and a half to three times the depth of the bulb. the bigger the bulb, the deeper it goes. two-inch bulb, six inches down. cover them up and spread them around. put three, four different kinds in one area. that will look great in the spring. thank you very much, kevin. my pleasure. nice to have you here. when we come back, much more ahead on a friday morning. first, this is today on nbc. things are slowly improving in joplin, missouri, which was decimated by a deadly tornado this past spring. and one company is trying to do its part one new job at a time. it s an effort drawing praise from former president bill clinton who stopped by our studios on monday to talk about this week s meeting of the clinton global initiative. here s nbc s ron mott. reporter: tornado-ravaged joplin, missouri. more than 150 lives lost in may. thousands of properties, is on the rebound. also among the casualties, the regenerating jobs. one company, onshore technology, hopes to trigger an economic recovery. you guys have managed to add to the staff here after this tornado. yeah. there were so many jobs affected. reporter: brad hinman whose family s house was destroyed by the tornado runs the office. we have added five people to the office. for me it s important because i know that i m participating in breathing life back into the community. it looks like a bomb went off. reporter: laurie wright, unemployed at the time, lost her job, too. but found a new job at onshore. they are offering hope that there are jobs out there. reporter: as businesses like this fast food restaurant continue to rebuild and re-open, more jobs will return. an expert says over 95% of displaced businesses are already back or well on their way. local business has made a hard effort in the second week to say, we are going to rebuild and our employees will be taken care of. reporter: onshore would sell the idea of putting rural americans to work handling i.t. outsourcing duties companies routinely send over seas is expanding promising 1,000 jobs over the next five years in joplin and in the headquarters in macon, missouri. why send things offshore when there are opportunities at home to make a difference? i believe it s about helping our country turn itself around. reporter: it s one of nearly 2,000 commitments praised by former president bill clinton who talked jobs this week with matt on today. right now what we need to do is get the economy going again. what i m trying to do is gather people to talk about what would get the banks to loan, what would get the corporations to spend. reporter: for one company at least it took a disaster and a pledge to help a community see a brighter future, one new worker at a time. for today, ron mott, nbc news, joplin, missouri. cool. just ahead, the items that are worth paying for at your local supermarket. first your local news. and weather. to talk about what would get the corporations to suspend. good morning. it s 8:56 on this friday, september 23rd. first day of fall. let s go to tom kierein with a look at the forecast. hey, tom. another gray morning. we have a little light rain in washington and the nearby suburbs, but right now there s heavier rain advancing through virginia as far north as near fredericksburg. it s advancing north getting heavy persistent downpours on the eastern shore up through easton, and that good morning. if you are traveling on southbound route 210, indian head highway you will have an accident there at wilson bridge drive taking two lanes away, and between i-95 and we re back with more of today on a friday morning, the 23rd day of september, 2011. first day of autumn. i think it rolled in this morning at about 5:05. and it rolled in with cloudy weather in new york. no problems for these nic people on the plaza. thanks to them for stopping by. cleveland indians fan there. i m matt lauer along with al roker, ann curry and savannah guthrie. coming up in this half hour we have been following this couple for a long time. we are talking about the salahis. they are the famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, white house crashers. now apparently their relationship is over. tareq filed for divorce after michaele ran off with a rock star. can t make this stuff up. and took a picture kissing. tareq was here a an interview this morning and talked about where he plans to go from here. we ll talk about it. also ahead, your embarrassing health questions answered. we asked you to send in your most embarrassing questions. boy, did you deliver. we ll talk about everything from canker sores to skin tags and we have even more embarrassing stuff. that didn t sound bad. that s nothing. didn t scratch the embarrassing surface. when you scratch the embarrassing surface you could really use a soothing ointment. then whether you are in the mood to splurge or save when you go on vacation, we have deals for you. great family destinations. you almost said if you re in the merge to splood. i did. we have affordable options whether you want to splurge or save. speaking of saving and splurging we ll talk about going to the supermarket and basically tell you what health foods from whole grain breds ads to grass- me meats are worth the extra money. kind of a potpourri. let s check headlines with natalie. good morning, everyone. today is the day a six-ton piece of space trash comes barrelling down to earth. the only question is where. nasa says the defunct satellite will not be passing over north america as it makes its reentry sometime this afternoon or this evening. the satellite, about the size of a bus, has been in a slow fall to earth since 2005. it is expected to break apart into about 26 half-ton pieces of debris. the odds that it will hit an unlucky person somewhere in the world is currently 1 in 3,200. the father-in-law of missing mother susan powell was arrested and charged with child pornography and voyeurism. it s part of the investigation into the disappearance of susan powell. they said susan was among the women and girls secretly videotaped. closing arguments started today at the appeals hearing for ayman do knox, the american student accused of killing her roommate in italy. another gop debate, another face-off between mitt romney and rick perry. the battle of the governors zeroed in on social security, each accusing the other of flip-flopping on the issue. the seven other contenders at the debate had to struggle to stay in the spotlight as perry and romney repeatedly traded jabs. iranian president ahmadinejad is standing down after his room-clearing speech thursday at the united nations. on thursday ahmadinejad launched into an explosive tirade that sent diplomats from the u.s. and 30 nations storming out of the general assembly. now ahmadinejad is saying time has not run out for the u.s. and iran to repair their relationship. as for the freed american hikers he said it is important that they are back with their families. white house gatecrashers tareq and michaele salahi have been tabloid fodder for days with many crying out publicity stunt. tareq sat down today with matt in an attempt to set the record straight on his personal and public heartbreak. would i take her back? you know, i m a forgiving person. i love her. there is no question. but i don t think i could. have you spoken to her? she s very cold. so you have? i twitted her, the dog s dying right now. the manager called, she doesn t want to speak to you. she s just a different woman. this is not the woman any of us know. she destroyed our relationship just because she wanted, in my view, more money, more fame. she wanted to go more to the a celebrity, if you will. but it s an 80s band. she s acting like a 16-year-old, you know, jumping on a tour bus from the 80s. michaele salahi is now reportedly dating journey guitarist neal schon. and don t call it a catwalk. these dogs know how to turn heads on the runway, showing off a new pet fashion line. a rare moment in fashion where even the models got upstaged. very cute. five minutes past the hour. now back outside to matt and ann. thank you very much, natalie. mr. roker is on the other side of the plaza. yes, i am. we have a good cause. hi. we re here in new york to work out at david barton gym for diane s day in the fight against ovarian cancer for the cleary ug foundation. you should come. we like david barton. ann has oregon ducks here. let s check your weather while ann is doing some congratulations. let s check your weather while ann is doing alma matering. we have deep tropical moisture. a slow-moving low. that rain is starting from georgia all the way into the northeast. we have flood watches in effect, really from the carolinas all the way sbup into new england. a lot of rain from 15 inches to 24 inches of rain since august 1st, and so we have saturated grounds. look at the rainfall amounts, anywhere from 2 to 7 inches of rain from now until sunday. that s why we will look at flooding in the mid-atlantic states into the northeast. that s what is going on around the country, and here s what is happening, oregon ducks, in your neck of the woods. we have had light rain around the immediate metro area, and to the south there s a line that stretches from fredricks, virginia, to south carolina, and that is on a track to come into the metro area in another hour or so. eastern shore has been getting pounded with rain and that will continue for and that s your latest weather. savannah? al, thank you. this morning on today s health, your embarrassing questions answered. some health concerns aren t easy to bring up with your doctor, but getting answers now can prevent serious problems down the road. dr. kerry peterson is here. she s a contributor to women s health magazine. you have seen and heard it all. i have. our today viewers sent in these questions. bravo to the viewers. we ll answer them anonymously. fear not. the first question is, quote, i m in my 40s and started getting canker sores and they are painful. are they anything to worry about and is there anything i can do? they are so painful. they re little ulcers on the inside of the mouth. i want to clarify that they are not the same as cold sores. they are not caused by the herpes virus but they are associated with factors like trauma in the mouth. if you nicked your gums or bit your cheek it can turn into a sore. if you have vitamin deficiencies of zinc, folate, b-12 or iron. celiac disease which is a wheat gluten allergy or your immune system may be faulty and attack your mouth and create little sores. is there anything you can do? are there treatments for it? well, the majority of the time they go away on their own in a week. they re painful so i recommend anbesol to ease it. if they are big and lasting a long time there are prescription solutions you can use. our next question is i have pimple like bumps on my buttocks and thighs. what are they? is there anything i can do to prevent them? this is unfortunately really common. people often think it s acne, but it s not. most commonly it s foliculitis, an infection of the hair follicle caused by sweat being trapped in the pores of the hair follicle. bacteria gets in there and it creates pimples. so you will typically see it in hot weather in people wearing snug clothing or in people who sit all day like drivers, for example. any treatment? you can use an anti-bacterial wash or ben zoil peroxide wash. what are the foul smelling particles that appear on the back of my throat and how do i get rid of them? i see it in my office all the time. the tonsils are filled with nooks and crannies if you look in the mirror. bacteria, mucus and dead cells collect and create a white, really foul-smelling material. it can solidify and create tonsil stones. you can get symptoms from them. you can have sore throat, bad breath, difficulty swallowing and it can swell up your tonsils. people hate them. how do you address it? most commonly people just swallow them eventually. because they can smell foul, you can use a little q-tip to dislodge them. just swab them out? yeah, pop it out. or you can use salt water gargles and hydrate a lot to flush the tonsils and prevent them from forming. this one, i have lots of skin tags under my arms and neck. what causes them and how do i get rid of them? skin tags. people worry because they think it s skin cancer. it looks like a little fleshy hanging mass. it s completely benign. it happens in areas that rub together on the skin. so areas of friction. you will see it in the armpits, under the breast and more commonly in people who are over weight, pregnant or diabetic. nothing to worry about. but maybe you don t want them hanging there. can you take the swab no, no. but there is over-the-counter material you can put on them to work like a wart remover. they fall off or go to a dermatologist and they will freeze or cauterize it. next, i have blood in my stool sometimes. that s a vague symptom that can mean a lot of things. right. patients are often alarmed. it can be disturbing. most commonly if you see bright red blood it s nothing to worry about. it s typically hemorrhoids or anal fissures but it can be from po polyps. so get it checked. i have dark skin on my inner thighs. it feels rough. dark velvety skin can be a sign of diabetes. get your sugar checked if you see it. thank you for answering the questions. if you have more questions you want us to ask go to today.com the send them to dr. peterson. we won t reveal you but we ll answer your question. up next, splurge versus steal. great getaways for every budget. and throwing a great party for your kids without spending a fortune. i m talking about you! hi! ew cash rewards card gives you a 50 percent annual bonus. so you earn 50 percent more cash. if you re not satisfied with 50% more cash, send it back! i ll be right here, waiting for it. who wouldn t want more cash? [ insects chirping ] i ll take it. i ll make it rain up in here. [ male announcer ] the new capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash. what s in your wallet? sorry i ll clean this up. shouldn t have made it rain. sorry i ll clean this up. now there s no need to hold back. new revolutionary scope dualblast obliterates strong food odors leaving your breath minty fresh. hey. [ male announcer ] so there s no trace of evidence. new scope dualblast. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that s a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on. her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. as a va doctor, i have more time to spend with my patients. and that s the kind of attention our veterans deserve. (announcer) learn more about careers with today s va at vacareers.va.gov. hush, little baby don t you cry soon the sun is going to shine [ male announcer ] toyota presents the prius family. walk if i want, talk if i want [ male announcer ] there s the original one. the bigger one. the smaller one. and the one that plugs in. they re all a little different, just like us. they re all a little different, wait a second. with olay challenge that. new regenerist wrinkle revolution. relaxes the look of wrinkles instantly, and the look of deep wrinkles in 14 days. ready, set, smooth. regenerist. from olay. this morning on today s travel, splurge versus steal getaways. whether you want extra luxury or more bang for your buck travel & leisure magazine has options for you. good morning, al. i thought you said you would wear bright colors today. what happened? i tried to tone it down. let s see the shoes. there you go. i just wanted to do something low key for fall. speaking of fall, great times to get to california wine country. it s the ideal time. if you want to splurge head to meadowwood, the grand dame of california hotels. you will be coseted in the lap of luxury. i do like being coseted. who doesn t? the price tag is $700 but if you re splurging this is the way to do it. to save you can still get value at the avilla hotel in downtown napa. you can stay at the hotel for a third of the price of meadowwood and sit outside at the fire pit, sip cabernet. everyone goes to french laundry if they can but it s pricey. why not go to ad hoc which is thomas keller s other restaurant where you can get a four-course price fixed for only $42. now to a great area here, new york city. new york, new york. in the fall. the crosby hotel is an english import. it s a destination hotel. it s right down the street but has a price tag to match the amount of luxury and service there which is $525 which is not that high for new york city. in brooklyn, new york. for the steal. where i live. is brand new aloft brooklyn. this is the little sister of the w brand. all of the tongue in cheek stuff you expect from the w you get from the loft. you are in the hippest part of brooklyn, again, where i live. of course. you will get access to shopping, restaurants. again, you will be able to stay for two nights for the price of staying one night at a crosby. good deal. and you are just a few subway stops from manhattan. get the unlimited metro card. that s what i do. when the weather gets colder people think about orlando. kids love orlando. there is a lot to do there. disney, universal. staying at a disney yacht club resort is a great idea with a family. in fact, travel & leisure named it one of the best family resorts. it s $360. you will get a water slide complex where you can go the kids climb to the top of a ship wreck mast and slide down. it s fun. they have lots of activities. for i didn t raealize there was waldorf astoria. for $199 a night you can stay there. they have flat screen tvs, cabanas and shuttles to the attractions as well. what a steal. that s why i m here, al. of course. when we talk about the tropics, a caribbean vacation. donna karan, bruce willis and keith richards, what do they have in common? they share a toothbrush? no. they love parrot key. the celebrities flock there. flock. parrot . honestly. clear water, powdery beaches, one of the best in the caribbean for starting at $450 a night. i love this property. if you are going for a romantic get away. i have never heard it described as gin clear. i m a wordsmith. you re a drunk. what s the steal? it s afternoon somewhere. the steal is a fantastic property, the four seasons. travel & leisure brings you steals. unbelievable. $250 a night, you can stay at the four seasons neves. it s one of the most up and coming resorts in the caribbean. we are calling it the next st. bart s. if you are looking for laid back luxury they just had a $24 million renovation in the hotel. it s brand new again after two years in hiatus. and the water there, vodka clear. that s too clear. gin has color. good to see you. thanks so much. coming up next supermarket splurges. what foods are worth the extra money? first, these messages. 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[ laughs ] [ male announcer ] make the switch. take action. take advil. i don t normally associate with salty snacks. huh. i thought berries were supposed to be sweet. [ female announcer ] new quaker chewy smashbar. kid-loved ingredients, smashed together. with 33% less sugar than the leading sweet snacks. kid-loved ingredients, smashed together. we know how to tighten our purse strings. sugar salmon flakes! sorry buddy. even with bath tissue. that s why i buy new charmin basic. it s very reasonably priced. and it holds up so much better than the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic has a duraflex texture. that s soft and durable. plus, it s two times stronger when wet versus the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic works for my bottom line. and my bottom. we all go. why not enjoy the go with new charmin basic? coming up, makeup expert bobbi brown is here to answer your questions. and creative ideas for your kids birthday party that won t break the bank. and we ll reveal. good morning. it s 9:26 on this friday, september 23rd. we have lots of rain headed our way. let s go to tom kierein with a look at the forecast. we do have a long line of moderate to heavy rain that stretch from our southern suburbs all the way down into the carolinas. unfortunately it s on a track to come into the metro area. right now the leading edge of the moderate to heavy rain is through stafford and to the south. it s persistent downpours on the eastern shore. and later today, enough of the heavy rain may cause flooding by mid to late afternoon and likely flooding from early to mid evening this evening with more heavy take a look at traffic next. good morning. still as, some delays in our area, especially on 66. you are slow from 123 as you make your way towards the beltway. and outer loop of the beltway in maryland, you are traveling just below the speed limit at about 43 miles per hour. another news i m a curious seeker. i am a chemistry aficionado. diphenhydramine. magnesium hydroxide. atheletes foot. yes. i m a people pleaser. if elected, i promise flu shots for all. i am a walking medical dictionary. congratulations virginia. inflamed uvula. i m virginia. i m a target pharmacist and i m here to answer your questions. this thing they want to badly. what is it? an incre crepenkrifted crypt people who sold secrets. your name is on the list, isn t it? you have a vivid imagination. that s a dangerous thing. taylor lautner plays nathan harper in abduction who finds out professional killers are after him. he ll tell us more about it later on this morning. coming up in this half hour, is it worth it? that s a question many people ask themselves when they shop for healthy foods at the grocery store whether it s greek yogurt, organic milk or grass-fed beef. are the items worth the splurge? especially with grocery store prices rising we ll tell you what makes sense for you. and we have makeup guru bobbi brown answering your beauty questions from which type of foundation is best to how to treat acne-prone skin. bobbi is here with the tricks of the trade. and we want our kids to have fun on their birthdays but some go over the top, way over budget. and way over the creep factor. that s just scary birthday there. how to have three creative party themes for a fun, kid-friendly birthday bash that doesn t cost a fortune. those men are not included. wow. they don t come with the party. we have jenna wolf and amy robok here as well. coming up, amanda knox. we talk to her best friend attending the trial in italy, speaking out about why she believes her friend is innocent of murder. plus, lights, camera, action, reality tv is popular, but just how real is it? we ll take a closer look at the business side to the unscripted world of hollywood. also, he was michael jackson s doctor, but is he to blame for the pop icon s death? the manslaughter trial of dr. conrad murray begins monday. we ll have a preview. and dishing the dirts. the secrets behind our favorite soap operas and what the stars do when not on the set. we ll tell you more on weekend today. now a check of the forecast, al. not a great weekend. not great in the east. that s for forecast for us. not so great. not a great weekend here in the east. that s for sure. as we look and show you we have rain up and down the east coast and we have record heat out west. a big ridge of high pressure that is dominating a few showers in the pacific northwest, and then sunday we have more rain in the east on into the ohio river valley, and into the pacific northwest, the heat continues as does the drought continues in texas. here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good morning. unfortunately, we have a corridor of moderate to heavy rain from sketch from stafford, west virginia, to south carolina. that corridor is advancing right along 95 heading towards the metro area and will be come into washington and inside the beltway in the next hour or so and we could get three or four inches of rain from this during of course, it s the weekend. that means it s time for america s favorite indoor past time well, second favorite. sunday night football night in america. this is a good one. pittsburgh steelers, lucas oil stadium. they come in to take on the indianapolis colts. it s a domed stadium. they re going to close it for the rain. temperatures, upper 50s, low 60s on sunday night, football night in america. so what s the first favorite activity? parcheesi. all right. al, thank you. exactly. coming up next, where to save and where to splurge at the grocery store. which foods are worth the money? happy birthday to you. happy birthday to you. happy birthday. happy birthday. happy birthday to you. and my wish is for a world with less cancer and more birthdays. with the touchably smooth collection. a smoothing serum built right in for hair so silky smooth. ferocious hair, beware! 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[ male announcer ] apply online or at a bank of america near you. we re talking 3% back on gas. it s real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance. lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. to help get omega-3 dha into your kid s diet. new flintstones gummies plus omega-3 dha. the only complete children s multivitamin that s also an excellent source of this key nutrient. all in a great-tasting gummy. new from flintstones. [ male announcer ] little owen wanted to play, but his nose was raw and sore. achoo! [ male announcer ] and common tissue made it burn even more. puffs plus lotion is more soothing than common tissue, and it delivers our most soothing lotion for every nose issue. a nose in need deserves puffs plus lotion indeed. to give your cold a comforting scent, try puffs plus lotion with the scent of vicks. this morning on eat smart today, supermarket splurges. when shopping for healthy food for the family it can be confusing to figure out which items are worth the money. here to help us sort it out is today diet and nutrition editor madeline bernstrom. we have seen prices going up significantly at the store, but there are areas where it s worth the splurge when you are talking health benefits. that s true. all the food on supermarket shelves will be safe, approved for human health. the issue is there are certain items that are costlier and you may want to opt for them because there are advantages. okay. most people already, if you have a well balanced meal, is it worth paying the extra dollars sometimes to go organic? we re going to break it out. there is a lot of confusion we ll clarify. we should first start with milk. organic mill, is there a benefit? the issue is that organic milk you can be sure there are no added antibiotics, pesticides or extra synthetic hormones. the cows eat organic feed. correct. if you are concerned about antibiotics, passive antibiotics may not be a good thing it s better to go organic. conventional organic, same calcium and protein. the added value here is you can be sure there are no extra additions you may not want. and taste. taste is important here. that s what consumers really choose first above cost and above nutrient density. the taste is good, mild, creamier and especially with skim milk that s important. let s talk yogurt. another great food overall that s healthy for you, but you were saying the explosion of the greek yogurt market. it s supposed to be better for you. how so? number one it s really tasty. for people that don t like the sliminess of yogurt you can have something almost pudding-like. you take yogurt, almost like putting it in a coffee strainer to get rid of the water. it s thick. they double strain it. then you have something that s almost cheese-like. you can use it in baking to replace fat. kids love it because it s creamy, milder. the mouth feel is good. you can mix it with berries. you can substitute it, use it instead of sour cream on potatoes. it goes a long way. lots more prosecutein as wel it s concentrated. you get rid of the water. so worth the splurge. it is worth it. grass-fed beef. how much more does it cost and why is it something to consider? we sometimes forget meat comes from the animal and when you eat grass that s what nature says the animal should be eating. when animals eat corn you have higher fat, higher saturated fat product. with grass-fed, it s less. you have more heart healthy fats, less total fat and it will be a better and healthier product. you can eat conventional meat as well. if you are looking for the advantages, you can get them. the health benefits will be better. the issue is the price point. there are studies that say if you buy a half cow and split it with neighbors the price is the same. typically it will be double the price. we re running out of time. but fruits. when should you buy organic? for things that are thin skinned like berries and grapes. apples. well, the apples are things that if you eat them a lot. anything that s thin skinned or you eat a lot, get organic. pesticides can penetrate the th skins. and the same goes for frozen. when berries are expensive you can buy that. breads, seven grain, multi grain, it s confusing. go for the whole grain product. if you are looking for a different taste, there are those that blend seven, nine grains for crunch, texture. you get the same vitamins, folic acids and extras. it s a nice splurge because it makes your taste buds bounce. much more on the website, today.com. thank you very much. up next, we dip into the mail bag. bobbi brown answers your beauty questions after this. [ male announcer ] we asked real people right off the street to help us with an experiment for the febreze set & refresh. they agreed. [ facilitator ] take a deep breath. what do you smell? there s a freshness. actually it takes me outdoors. apples and pears. sort of a crisp, fresh feeling. it s a friendly environment. [ facilitator ] go ahead and take your blindfold off. [ laughs ] no. [ male announcer ] the febreze set & refresh with scented oils that eliminate odors for 30 days so you can breathe happy, guaranteed. . . . rs. we know how to tighten our purse strings. sugar salmon flakes! sorry buddy. even with bath tissue. that s why i buy new charmin basic. it s very reasonably priced. and it holds up so much better than the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic has a duraflex texture. that s soft and durable. plus, it s two times stronger when wet versus the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic works for my bottom line. and my bottom. we all go. why not enjoy the go with new charmin basic? this morning on today s beauty bobbi brown is answering your beauty questions over skype and e-mail, the old fashioned way, on the phone. nancy is in wichita, kansas. what s your question? i don t wear makeup most of the time because i don t know what to wear. they used to say powder would settle in the face lines and make you look older. they say the mineral powder is the on sichlt what do i choose? good question. first of all, make sure you have the right moisturizer. a nice hydrating moisturizer. with mineral foundations, a lot of them on the market are pink and pasty. go for one of the new formulas that s skin tone correct. it has to be yellow in tone so the foundation matches your body. is the there a preferable way to apply it? powder puff versus brush? a brush is the best. a loose brush that gets a small amount on and doesn t pack too much. that s the trick. drink a lot of water and use moisturizer with it. hydration is key. thanks for the question. let s move on. we have cara in newport, rhode island, with her mom. cara called with a question for her mom. go ahead. hey, savannah and bobbi. here with my beautiful mommy. what are the three or four must haves that my mom should have in her makeup bag for an easy polished look based on her coloring? mom is really i have to say. actually, joan, she s beautiful. did you bring your makeup bag? can we show bobbi what you have now? i don t k see it. hold it up high so we can see. oh, she s got a brush. that s a place to start. get rid of the brush and go for three things that are quick and easy. a pot rouge, a nice pink, rose color you can put on cheeks and lips. and maybe get an eye shadow to fill in the brows. kind of a gray. you can also use it as eye shadow. third, i think a mascara. i think those three things and that s all you need. really it s about bringing color back and you have such beautiful skin and with the white hair, a little bit of pink will be gorgeous. joan, is that a good answer to the question? thank you, yes. cara, adorable. let s move on to maria on the phone in ohio. go ahead and ask your question. caller: okay. i have acne prone skin. i m in my late 40s. i have scars still and uneven and oily skin. i can t afford expensive products and i have a bathroom full of stuff i have tried that i just keep buying. what s the best thing to use at my age? first of all, bring your bag to a counter near you where you like the way the makeup artist looks. she can help you go through it. don t buy things unless you can try them. it s hard. so to smooth out your skin, you probably need a moisturizer that s oil-free. also a foundation that s oil-free. it will smooth out your skin. but, again, don t buy too many things until you know they work. that s a good idea about going to the cosmetic counter so they can help you sift through what you have. look at yourself in daylight when the makeup is on so you know what to buy and don t make the mistakes. was that a good answer, maria? caller: it was. our next question comes from e-mail from nelda in texas. she said, i m always in search of the right lipstick. i usually end up buying and mixing two shades which is a pain and costly. i like a natural look with a hint of coral and peach but when i put it on i can hardly see it. do you have any suggestions? first of all, a lot of women don t realize women have different lip colors. make sure you choose a color that s nude in tone with a natural color of your lip. nude doesn t mean beige or washed out. it is the color of your lip. we are often pinky and rosy. you want a color that looks good when you don t have to fix it with a lip pencil and gloss. that s the best way to find a perfect lipstick. great, bobbi. thank you very much. thanks for having me. up next, budget birthday bashes. but first this is today on nbc. happy birthday to you this morning on today s family, birthday parties on a budget. we know how much you can spend on a big celebration and it can put a strain on your finances. here with creative ideas that won t break the bank, the executive editor of real simple. hi, al. we have all made the mistake of overspending and realizing the kids don t really know or care. they just want a good time. they are not taking out the calculator. the key is a fun theme. we have three great themes here. abby and lizzy, happy birthday. this is actually your birthday. 7 today. tell us about the party. this is a circle party. it s just a simple theme. circles. craft store and drugstore and party store. look for anything wrong. activities, bubbles, of course. cakes, think outside the box. doughnuts, donut holes. stack it up into a tiered confection. you have cheerios and froot loops, tomatoes, lollipops. and balloons to take home afterward. now we move on to the messy creative. this is a messy party. it s all about getting messy. it s a combination of jackson pollock and pigpen. real simple hasn t gone crazy. this is washable paint. do it outdoors. tell the kids to wear old clothes. provide swimming goggles to protect their eyes. this is a great idea. all they are doing is making decor for you. you don t have to do anything. show us your art work. let s see it, jackson. jackson. outside just put up a tarp. put industrial strength bags underneath. washable paint. washable paint, outdoors or in a garage with bags underneath. it can get wet. are you going to decorate the cup cake? yeah. go ahead. grab a bag. they are decorating for you, too. the decor and the food. take store bought icing, tint it, thin it with milk and put it in baggies. they can decorate. i like the sliders. sloppy joes. who doesn t like a sloppy joe? no one. is this a lollipop or a weapon? who knows? feel how heavy it is. is that a heavy lollipop? it s not heavy for me. it s heavy for me. look, i m pumping lollipop. feel that muscle. feel it. all right. now we move over here. now we go into the land of rainbo rainbows. unicorns. and happiness. pots of gold. this is a rainbow party for girls, obviously. 8 to 10. the center piece here is the cake. beautiful. the cake is a store bought cake. before you bake it, a white batter. six different colors and then put it in the cake pans and bake it. looks grateful dead. looked like timothy leery baked this cake. you can do rainbow manicures. every nail a different color. oh, look. hi, girls. beautiful. very nice. so cool. you can make friendship bracelets. is this real gum or fake? it s real gum. as i say that, you break your tooth. i like the cotdots. sarah humphries, thank you very much. coming up, hollywood heavy weight morgan freeman stops by. go ahead, natalie. and foods try one more. that help your mood like gumballs. after your local news and weather. so, at our company, we pay about the same, even though i m a great driver, and he s. not so much. well, for a driver like you, i would recommend our new snapshot discount. this little baby keeps track of your great driving habits, so you can save money. [sighs] amazing. it s like an extra bonus savings. [ cackling ] he s my ride home. how much can the snapshot discount save you? call or click today. and that s after your local news and weather. good morning, everybody. i am barbara harrison. 9:56 is our time. friday, september 23rd. it s raining out there around our region. let s talk to tom kierein about how long that will last. tom? right now we are getting a long band of moderate to heavy rain where you see the oranges and reds. and it s heading north into the district of columbia. later today we could have flooding this afternoon and evening from the heavy downpours. more rain is possible over the weekend with thunder and lightning. the accident out of the beltway. university boulevard looks like this right now, the road is wet and slow. 95 to 270 on the outer loop, you are traveling at 37 miles an [ screaming ] [ zapping ] there goes dwayne s car. oh, man. there goes dwayne s house. whoa! whoa! and there goes dwayne. man, that thing does not like dwayne. [ male announcer ] state farm s got you covered. nice landing. it was. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. captions paid for by nbc-universal television nice landing. it was. congratulations to all of you out there. you made it to try day friday. you also made it to the first da of fall, september 23rd. i can t believe it. we are going to celebrate. morgan freeman, taylor lautner. it s his first leading role. it s called abduction. he pumped a lot of iron for this would be. did he need to? what is he 19? i just met with him. very cute. here is a list you need to know about. there are five things do you every day, some do that are actually addictions, meaning there is a chemical something happening. you need to do it. and we are not even discussing wine, believe it or not. nothing to do with that. yes. this is number five on the list of things that become addictive. listening to pop music. you re totally addictive. the whole club was looking at her see what i mean? pop music is addictive and the brain seeks pleasure. it gets a shot of dopemine. there is another song that does it, too. there is a music video to this. where is my music? pull it up. can you feel the chemistry? feel it, chemical. that should have been a hit. that was number 33 till people found out it was me. if you want to have fun, go on google, google the music video for love never fails. we might be able to pull it up by the end of our chat. i was so skinny. we are going to pull it up. i don t like to watch it because it s like my life is over. another one you re addicted to, eating salty and spicy snacks. i do the salty, you do the sweets. body needs salt to live and it can t create it. it creates it like gold and salt makes you want more salt. this is your other one, lip balm. i m not addicted to lip balm, lip gloss. i get up twice a night to put on lip gloss. when i get up why? i just, i feel dry and naked without my lip gloss. now i m two for three. thank you, anthony. love you. it actually dries out your lips. leave me alone. number two is one of mine, tanning. we are very attractive people, apparently. i feel it when i m out there i like the feeling of the sun on me. and that s okay for ten minutes. you do it for ten hours. i know. the number one addiction is chewing ice. that s just an oral fixation. i heard if you re sex deprived you chew ice. apparently joanne la marka s husband does. yes. we want to say thank you to crack.com. outed again. i can t make up to joanne. you keep digging deeper and deeper. do you have the video? not yet. it is coming up. it is friday. on this particular day, you re supposed to be unwinding. if you re like a lot of people, you know it s friday, but you re tight as a drum. you only have so much time to do it. they re saying that the best way to relax is to get out into nature. that s the way to do it. you have to take your mind completely out of the environment you re in. that truly does work. if you can t get into nature, go online and looking at nature will do it for you. that s what we ve come to in this world. you re going to washington this weekend. yes. i m going to the library of congress. there is the national book festival. my mom is big shot at the library of congress. a lot of authors are going to be. how old is your mom and she is working there? she is still working there. don t get me in any trouble there. i love that about your mom. she wakes up every morning. she does fall in love every day. she is adorable. give her my love. what are you doing this weekend? i am going to be on a sitcom tonight with betty white and valerie bertinelli and jane leeves. hot in cleveland. i don t think they work in the morning. i am a very naughty woman. i can t wait. the lines are good. we heard a couple in the make-up room. i ll be on the set and won t be able to watch miss cass. a couple of weeks ago she was shooting an episode of blue bloods. it s three lines. who cares? we want to see it. your daughter plays the role of a well, tom selleck s son goes into a bar to do a whole thing on underage drinking. cass is a drinker? let s watch. any drink i can get to you? sorry. it s not gambling. if she gets into the college, you buy her the booze to drink. she s really good. she s got a sixth sense. sixth sense? yeah. okay. i get to ask three questions. don t be a whore. screw you. i m just guessing where he went to college. i m so proud. that s why they call it acting. cass acting like a tramp is acting. she is the polar opposite. did she have fun doing that? she is learning that it is really hard work. she was there for all day long. all day long, all day long. you believe her, don t you? she is great. the way she lookds at her boyfriend like she would slap him? she s got attitude. all these kids are just terrific. you don t have to see the show now because we showed cassie s entire scene. people are finding a new way to make money. there s a place called cloo. it s coming to you with an app. this is sickening to me. if you go online, you can find out a bathroom in someone s house or apartment nearby when you just got to go. so there is an app. morgan freeman is listening to us. morgan freeman is listening to you. he s not listening. he doesn t care. that upsets me he thinks this is this kind of show cloo. c-l-o-o. do it like this one, this is me if i do not do my roots. she has a tattoo on her chest that says do not resuscitate. i shouldn t laugh. you ve got to be proactive in life. on the back it says, turn me over. sometimes you re not in position to let your feelings be known on this subject because you re out of it. she just makes no bones about it. you know what i like to do? i like to laugh right now. friday funny. why is morgan freeman here? do it. a man and his wife were having problems at home and giving each other the silent treatment. suddenly the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him up at 5:00 a.m. for an early morning business flight. not wanting to be the first to break the silence and lose, he wrote on a piece of paper, please wake me at 5:00 a.m. the next morning the man woke up only to discover it was 9:00 a.m. and he missed his flight. furious, he was about to see why his wife hadn t wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bechltd the paper said, it is 5:00 a.m., wake up. men are not equipped for this kind of contest. i love this part of our show. you know what i love about fridays? bobbie s buzz. i love that that s left over from cher in the 60s. it s really fun and affordable. i love it. this is not an animal. it s a faux fur bag you can keep on your shoulder. it also doubles, sandra roberts, double duty, a muff. it s still functional as a purse. this is also sandra roberts. what i love about these clutches, it looks like a regular. then it goes into nighttime. isn t that great? when you re packing for a trip. two-in-one. see? it s this. it is a magnet that holds it together. very smart. then we have these bracelets which are purse hooks. they are stylish bracelets you keep on your wrist. then you twist it and hangs your purse. then we have one last thing. these are real down puffers for $75 that actually pack into these. where do they pack into? pack into these pouches. that s beautiful. it doesn t get bulky. even kids that need to shove it in their backpack or lockers at school. we love you, bobbie. we have got a huge show today. big show. oscar-winning actor morgan freeman. has morgan left? he s still here. look at those two. morgan freeman is in dolphin tale. snflt snflt minimizes the look of wrinkles. hydrates. renews. seems like an amazing moisturizer? actually. it s an amazing makeup. introducing revlon age defying with dna advantage. its powerful skincare ingredients and spf 20 help protect skin s dna. 96% of women saw flawless, younger-looking skin in just 2 weeks. new revlon age defying with dna advantage cream makeup. age. defy it! we re all out of toilet paper. can you toss me a roll? too rough. we re out of toilet paper. can you toss me a roll? too soft. can you toss me a roll? that s better. angel soft. an ideal balance of softness and strength. is best absorbed in small continuous amounts. only one calcium supplement does that in one daily dose. citracal slow release. continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal. imagine your teeth are giant glass sculptures covered in yellow graffiti. most whitening toothpastes only remove stains from the surface of your teeth, but there s also a layer beneath called dentin. dentin discolors over time. rembrandt deeply white toothpaste uses the same enamel-safe whitening ingredient dentists use to noticeably whiten teeth from the inside and out. rembrandt deeply white. whiten inside and out. to noticeably whiten teeth from the inside and out. in one day, i could have three auditions. and, it s really important that you go in looking like the role. i go straight to t.j.maxx. i find what i m looking for. done. it s amazing to find so many gorgeous designer clothes. i m like dut, dut, dut. yes, yes, yes. and, it also works with my somewhat unpredictable paycheck. fashion direct from designers. savings direct to you. this fashionista. is a one-to-watch maxxinista. t.j.maxx. let us make a maxxinista out of you. so i took my heartburn pill and some antacids. we re having mexican tonight, so another pill then? unless we eat later, then pill later? if i get a snack now, pill now? skip the snack, pill later. late dinner, pill now? aghh i ve got heartburn in my head. [ male announcer ] stop the madness of treating frequent heartburn. it s simple with prilosec otc. one pill a day. twenty-four hours. zero heartburn. no heartburn in the first place. great. how would you keep the daggone thing on her? there is nothing there. preposterous any way trying to put a tail on a fish. nobody in his right mind would even try. luckily, i m not. not what? in my right mind. that s oscar-winning actor morgan freeman in dolphin tale. the amazing true story of winter, a dolphin whose tail was amputated. freeman plays dr. mccarthy creating a new tail for winter. hey, morgan. and you starred alongside the real dolphin. the real dolphin. did she know you were plaking a movie about her? i guarantee she knew it. i don t know how you could not know it. even a horse would know it. you had a great cast, harry connick jr, ashley judd, kris kristofferson. what drew you to this script? it s a terrific story. i know about dolphins. i m a sailor. they re out there. this is something i m telling people they seldom realize. there are no creatures in the wild that will approach humans other than dolphins. that s interesting. that s all the more reason to make sure we take care of them. were you familiar with the story before the movie? i did not know anything about winter until i read the script and it said based on a true story. you re one of the elite members of the business offered the finest, finest scripts. you probably had 20 you could have said yes to and you said yes to this one. it s got to be in the writing as well as the story, right? absolutely. did you know the minute you read the story you wanted to be part of this? i called my agent up and said, this is a good one, let s do it. that is what harry said, too. right after that i hear ashley is going to be in it. okay. you re in. it s all about the people though. it seems like years, it s months, but you spend a lot of time on the set. you better like the people you re hanging with. it helps a lot. was there fun on the set? what was the vibe? charles smart-in smith is the director. he s got a great sense of humor. he also wrote it, didn t he? co-wrote, i think. i m not sure. but he run as good set. that s important too. did you know of his work as a director before? no, i didn t. i only knew of him as an actor. generally, actors make pretty good directors. what films are you interested in seeing? i m curious what actors like to go see. the most memorable film i remember seeing lately, i went to see something, let me think of what it what is, what is upper most in my mind right now is angelina in salt. did you see the help? i haven t seen the help. you re going to love that. that is what everybody said. it was my home state. i read the book. i m familiar, very familiar. i was reading the book thinking, how are they going to pull this off? it was amazing. they did a good job. i wish you great luck with this movie. i think this movie should do very well. it should appeal in what we ve seen, it should appeal to a broad section of people. children are going to love this. kids have an innate sense how cool it is, the animal kingdom and how we mistreat them. we love you. thank you, morgan. i know you re in the middle of one film right now. you can come back and tell us about it. i absolutely will. dolphin tale opens today. healthy foods to boost your mood. welcome to glad tv. thanks, skyler. let s go to last night s highlights. look what sometimes happens with the ordinary bag. it slips. bingo, falls in. mom was mad. mom should have used glad forceflex with the stretchable drawstring that grips the can and stays in place. plus, it has the stretchable strength of forceflex. that s all today for glad tv. [ both ] don t get mad get glad! [ male announcer ] and try glad black bags strong for tough jobs. maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. [ male announcer ] get five dollars in money-saving coupons at v8juice.com. in money-saving coupons now there s no need to hold back. new revolutionary scope dualblast obliterates strong food odors leaving your breath minty fresh. hey. [ male announcer ] so there s no trace of evidence. new scope dualblast. we are back with foods that boost your mood. if you re stressed and having a bad day, it can be tempting to turn to the closest candy bar. luckily there are healthy food options that can improve your mood. congratulations. looks like you ve been taking all that advice cosmo has been giving out. when you have a snack and i like sweets, it takes your mood down like a rock 30 minutes after you have it. first you love it. then you feel terrible. these will work much better. we are starting with blueberries. they can help with your memory. you walk into a room and you don t know why you re in there. blueberries contain a particular antioxidant that scientists found help neurons communicate better together. blueberries, if you have half a cup of fresh blueberries a day, it will help your memory. watermelon is good for many. i don t need any more watermelon. it helps improve sexual arousal, sexual function. get in there, klg. it s so good. watermelon is delicious. it increases the nitric oxide in your blood. it helps your blood vessels open up. your flood flows to your errogenous zone. watermelon is good. it went flying. okay. oatmeal. this is oatmeal with cinnamon on it. it will help cheer you up. help you what? cheer you up. when you have candy, your mood goes up and crashes. you get the glucose rush to your brain and it s gone and you feel terrible. this helps keep a steady stream of glucose to your brain and helps your brain release serotonin. take us to the vitamin c. several studies have shown vitamin c will help reduce stress. if you think you re going to go into a stressful situation such as a morning commute, have a glass of orange juice. almonds. unsalted. protein. naked ones. protein are better than complex carbs when it comes to giving you a steady amount of energy. just have a handful between meals. edamame help with concentration. they provide iron which prevents you from getting tired. guacamole. tomatoes and avacados are rich in b vitamins. turkey by itself can boost your alertness. thank you. he is flexing his acting muscles. being your average bears. we know how to tighten our purse strings. sugar salmon flakes! sorry buddy. even with bath tissue. that s why i buy new charmin basic. it s very reasonably priced. and it holds up so much better than the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic has a duraflex texture. that s soft and durable. plus, it s two times stronger when wet versus the leading competitive brand. new charmin basic works for my bottom line. and my bottom. we all go. why not enjoy the go with new charmin basic? to help get omega-3 dha into your kid s diet. new flintstones gummies plus omega-3 dha. the only complete children s multivitamin that s also an excellent source of this key nutrient. all in a great-tasting gummy. new from flintstones. the rain is moving back to the area, and some areas hit hard from recent storms are bracing for flooding. tom kierein will tell us how much rain we can expect and when labored breathing ] [ coughing continues ] [ gasping ] [ elevator bell dings, coughing continues ] [ female announcer ] washington can t ignore the facts: more air pollution means more childhood asthma attacks. [ coughing continues ] log on to lungusa.org and tell washington: don t weaken clean air protections. i m one of your keepers put in place to look after you. it s an arrangement i made with your father in case something like this happened. this is crazy. call the police. she heard too much already. are you serious? soon as you can, dump those clothes. don t lose that kid. we are back on this try day friday with more of today. that is taylor lautner shedding his fur. oh, boy. nathan harper, a teenager who finds out his whole identity has been a lie. professional killers are after him. add that with the usual teenage angst loving the girl next door. look at you out of the box. i m sure a lot of scripts are thrown at you to make your big debut in as the leading man. what was it about this movie that caught your eye? i mean a few things. it s great to make movies you re passionate about and something you re interested in. makes it easier to get out of bed at 4:30 in the morning. absolutely. it was extremely challenging and stretched me in different ways. what was challenging also just in a physical way because you re already built. we ve seen your abs. you really had to do a lot more. this was a physical film. it was a very physical film. there was a lot of action, a lot of stunt work. then a very emotional one, as well. my character goes on an incredible journey. oh, boy. through go. look at you. what people don t realize, you probably had to do this 50 times. just about 50. this was awesome. it s pnc baseball stadium in pittsburgh. we got to use the stadium for a couple of days and do some awesome things in it. that s you. you didn t have a stunt double? that was me. were you black and blue all over afterwards? not as bad as you think. you have a love thing going on too with lilly collins. there is a great romance in the movie. what are you guys talking about? that is not true? we are very good friends. i read a few interesting things about me. usually when you co-star with someone that person becomes your girlfriend, at least in the tabloids. is that frustrating or funny? a little bit of both. sometimes it becomes frustrating. you can t be seen with a female without the rumors you re getting married. at the same time you ve got to laugh it off because it comes with the job. it s going to happen. you ve got to know that. your family left grand rapids, michigan, and moved to los angeles, i read, because you wanted to be an actor. you re a very closeknit family. that had to be a huge decision for your parents. you re the highest paid actor in the teenage years. really? did you know that? i did not know that. oh, boy. it worked out well, is my point. i m very thankful, very fortunate. i wouldn t be sitting here without the support of my family and friends, a lot of people. i m having the time of my life. we wish you great luck with this movie. if things don t work out with lilly collins, cassidy gifford is available. you can catch the movie near a theater near you today. next, ambush makeovers. would be easy without gravity. with olay challenge that. regenerist day and night duo. the uv lotion helps protect skin and firms during the day. the cream hydrates to firm at night. gravity doesn t stand a chance. regenerist, from olay. we are back on this try day friday. it s time for today s plaza ambush makeover. we surprise them with a beautiful brand-new look. here with us is our crack makeover team, contributor and style to the stars luis lacari and us weekly contributor and author jill martin. we ll have to fix up that. how was it today on the plaza? great, great. tons of ladies. we found two that wanted to update their look for fall. donna hill, 39 years old from richmond, kentucky. she never wears make-up, never dresses up and she was so thrilled at the chance to glam up for a new style. let s listen. it is girls weekend here. surprise, donna is getting a makeover. why does she deserve it? she works really hard. never takes time for herself. i think she deserves it. she will look beautiful. she deserve as hot date. you re single. what are you looking for? smart, funny, intelligent. we have those in new york city. you ready for a glam makeover? yes, i am. it will be fun. we have donna hill here with her friends kim and tammy. keep your blind folds on. here is donna s before picture. let s see the new you. donna, hold on. you guys ready? take off your blind folds. that is amazing. you are going to freak out. you ready? turn around. put your glasses on so you can see what s happening. all right. tell us, luis. that is a perfect haircut by jennifer lauren. you look 30 years younger. it s unbelievable. and dateable. we made her hair brighter, warmer. look at the girlfriends. look at that body. now you have a little black dress with great statement jewelry from calvin s those are for the single men out there. nine west high boots. our second lady is 60 years old today, happy birthday from dallas, texas. it s been 20 years since she changed her hairstyle. she was excited to changeup her look. let s listen to her story. it s girls weekend number two. you re already crying. i know. why do you want this for your mom? she is the most wonderful mother you could ever ask for. she has done so much for me and my sister and brother. just makes my day. we are so happy we could give you this birthday gift. we need tissues, kathie lee. are you ready to go? yeah. all righty. she is here with melissa and her best friends casey and dianne. let s bring the new beth out right now. wow! wow! all right, take a gander. beth, turn around and look. look at you. that is a good sign when they start playing with their hair right away. look at the difference. look right there. tell us what you did. fresh, young and sun-kissed. soft highlights and freshly around the face. took inches off to give her more fullness and the sun bronze look. melissa, look at you. you love your mama, don t you? i do. i do. i couldn t ask for a better mother. that is so sweet. this outfit looks like it could go lots of different ways. these are whether white house to black market jeans. i love winter white blazers so i wanted to give her one. let s bring donna out. coming up next before we go anywhere, we have this is your last chance to get your baby pictures in. you ve got till sunday. go to klg and hoda.com. this is all we play any more at our house. i thought they were grown men. they are unbelievable. [ male announcer ] this is lara. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that s a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on. her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. [ male announcer ] little owen wanted to play, but his nose was raw and sore. achoo! [ male announcer ] and common tissue made it burn even more. puffs plus lotion is more soothing than common tissue, and it delivers our most soothing lotion for every nose issue. a nose in need deserves puffs plus lotion indeed. to give your cold a comforting scent, try puffs plus lotion with the scent of vicks. prego?! but i ve been buying ragu for years. [ thinking ] i wonder what other questionable choices i ve made? [ 80s dance music plays ] [ sighs ] [ male announcer ] choose taste. choose prego. il volo is the name of a hot new singing group that also means flight. for these three young italian teenagers, their career has been soaring when they won a singing contest in italy two years ago when i heard them. since then il volo has gone platinum and won two grammy nominations. they are here to sing for us today. they will be at the beacon october 3rd. what are your names? pierrot. jean luca. how old are you guys? 18. 16. 17 almost. in one week. when you hear them sing, you think they are grown mature men. literally been listening to you guys two years now. every time i hear one of their voices, that s the one i love the most. the next one sings, oh, no. you guys are amazing. what are you going to sing for us today? the first song we performed together, o sole mio. [ singing in italian ] the three baby tenors. we love you guys. that was excellent, excellent. they re on tour. we love it. see them in washington, in philadelphia. all over. beacon theater october 3rd. big feature for you guys. so you know il volo means the flight so thanks for flying with us. first this is today on nbc. what is that? oh, we call it the bundler. let s say you need home and auto insurance. you give us your information once, online. [ whirring and beeping ] [ ding! ] and we give you a discount on both. great! did i mention no hands in the bundler? bundling and saving made easy. now, that s progressive. call or click today. that have earned the keurig brewed seal of approval. the keurig brewed seal is our commitment that the coffee inside will deliver a delicious cup of coffee every time. keurig brewed. look for the only mark of genuine keurig quality. we are back on this try day friday. sara haines across the street. let s go across the street to sara. i m here with sandra from palm beach with a fashion question. i love your style, especially your dresses. do you have a favorite designer? oh, gosh, we ll get in trouble. we love kay unger, adrienne arpel, we love them all. next up dana from dallas with a question from dating. i m 45. obviously single and wondering if you had dating advice for me? i just think you ve got to be open and out there and game. i wasn t. then i became game and then i got game. you know what i m saying? be the kind of person people will want to be with. be that person that s exciting, interested and full of life and funny. not a debbie downer. you look like you shouldn t have any trouble at all. you are beautiful. thanks, sara. next week gloria estafan. have a great weekend. captions by vitac www.vitac.com