Transcripts For WRC Today 20110929 : vimarsana.com

delivered closing arguments in the appeal of her murder conviction as knox, herself, gets set to address the court. and matt is there, live, today, gets set to address the court. and matt is there, live, today, thursday, september 29th, 2011. captions paid for by nbc-universal television welcome to a special split edition of today. matt has made his way to italy where all eyes are on the amanda knox trial and a verdict expected any day now. is that right, matt? good morning. reporter: it is. right now the defense attorney for amanda knox is delivering his closing argument in a courtroom not far from where i m standing and boy is he painting a different picture than the one painted earlier this week by the prosecution. he is saying basically amanda knox is the innocent victim of a tragic judicial case, one that has kept her behind bars for the better part of four years. you ll remember she was sent to prison back in november of 2007 after being found guilty of murdering her roommate. this morning we ll talk a lot about the details of what has been said in the courtroom during this appeal. we ll also talk about the fascination with this case not only here in peruga and italy in general but in the united states and around the world. a little later we ll have a live interview with the sisters of amanda knox, but for now back to you. matt, what are you hearing about just when we can expect a verdict in this case? reporter: you know, it s changed a little bit, ann. over the last couple of days the judge was saying if the rebutals in the case are handled in a brief fashion this could come sometime on saturday, but in the last several hours we ve been hearing that this could probably drag over through the weekend and perhaps the verdict in the appeal will come sometime on monday, ann. all right. okay. thanks so much. we ll be checking in with you in just a little while. meantime, also ahead this morning a dangerous decision that could cost a swimmer his life. the man decided to ignore a shark warning at a beach in south africa and was almost immediately attacked by a great white shark. helicopters captured the shark still lurking in the water. we ll have the latest on this story coming up. we begin this morning with the terror arrest tied to a plot to use large scale model planes filled with explosives to attack the pentagon and u.s. capitol. pete williams is in washington with details. reporter: the fbi says this was an elaborate plot to attack the two washington landmarks and then shoot at people as they fled but the man accused of planning it was under fbi surveillance constantly. on wednesday agents arrested rezwan ferdaus in massachusetts, a u.s. citizen born here. fbi agents searched his house, accusing him of plotting for the past nine months to bomb the capitol and pentagon. they say he planned to use six-foot-long remote-controlled model airplanes, three in all, filled with plastic explosives. he wanted to fly them into the pentagon and the capitol. investigators say he came to washington last may and took a surveillance picture of the pentagon. the fbi says he thought he was meeting here with al qaeda recruiters who helped with his plot. what he did not know was that they turned out to be fbi undercover operatives. he actually had to borrow the money from them to buy the model plane and his airplane ticket to washington. he never had any explosives either. so the fbi says while he was deadly serious about wanting to be a terrorist, he lacked the means to carry out an attack, ann. what do we know about what exactly tipped the fbi off to this man? reporter: well, we re told it was a tip from a source. typically the fbi hears about people in cases like this because they brag to others about what they re planning or they make comments on internet chat rooms or send videos to youtube. all right. pete williams, thank you so much this morning for your reporting on this story that is still developing. it was another day of powerful testimony at the trial of michael jackson s doctor on wednesday as new details emerged about the singer s final moments with nbc s jeff rossen in los angeles with more on this, jeff, good morning to you. reporter: good morning to you from los angeles. it s all coming out now, all the things michael jackson never wanted to get out, all the things he spent his entire life to keep private, how he lived behind closed doors. no question about it, the most emotional testimony yet of this trial, and it s only day two so far, came from michael s body guard who described the scene as michael died inside his bedroom and how his kids were right there watching and crying. in the weeks after michael jackson s death, she was the beacon of strength. daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. reporter: now we re learning just how brave paris jackson was. in court wednesday, excruciating detail from michael s bodyguard, what the kids saw standing outside their dad s bedroom as michael lay motionless. paris was on the ground bound up crying and prince was just he was standing there and he was just he just had a real shocked, you know, just slowly crying type of look on his face. paris was actually on the floor? yes. that s powerful testimony. the prosecution has a challenge in creating emotion in this case. no better way to do it than bring in the children and take away the propofol and medical testimony and make it about kids and the loss of their father. reporter: in court wednesday prosecutors revealed the chaotic minutes after michael stopped breathing, saying dr. murray didn t call 911. instead, he left this voicemail for michael s personal assistant. it s dr. murray. please call me right away. thank you. he said mr. jackson had a bad reaction. i don t know what you presume when you hear that but when i hear someone had a bad reaction i don t think anything fatal, me, personally, and i reporter: now the legal team is mounting an aggressive defense pointing the finger at another doctor whom they claim was also medicating jackson with demerol. he s the greatest entertainer in the world. reporter: the defense pointed back to that recording of jackson sounding incoherent just weeks before his death. i ve never seen nothing like this in my life. go. go. when you left dr. klein s office have you observed him sometimes to talk slow? sometimes when we d leave he would talk slow like that. reporter: dr. klein, who has denied doing anything wrong in treating jackson, has not been charged with any crime. how many hours a day you working on this case? every hour that i m not sleeping i m working on this case. reporter: charles unger is on conrad murray s defense team and sat down for an exclusive interview. a lot of people heard that audiotape and said what doctor in his right mind would continue to medicate somebody in this kind of condition? dr. murray s goal was to get him off it. you have these competing medications, demerol by day which is keeping him up and then propofol and lorazepam by night, which is putting him to sleep. that s a tough way to live. that s how michael jackson was living. it really was. reporter: he says michael jackson was $400 million in debt. and needed this comeback tour. but without sleep he couldn t rehearse, putting the entire show in jeopardy. he was apparently willing to do whatever he needed to do to find rest. reporter: and your contention is he would have done anything including giving himself propofol and lorazepam. without a doubt. and that combination is why michael jackson is not here today. reporter: once again, michael jackson s family, including his mother in court yesterday, expected in court every single day to hear it all. on the stand today another big day of testimony. four different witnesses, ann, including michael jackson s personal chef, the body guard who actually called 911 and is on those tapes, and the two paramedics who responded to the scene that day. all right. jeff rossen, thank you so much. savannah guthrie is today s legal correspondent and star jones is a former prosecutor and veteran legal commentator. good morning to both of you good morning. the prosecution is clearly trying to establish that the loss of michael jackson was not just the loss of an entertainer. he is trying to create this kind of compassion. i think when you have that testimony from the body guard who saw paris crumpled in a ball as her father lay dying if not already dead on the bed and you have the older son looking in kind of this stunned silence, it does create a very sympathetic view of the events here. as we talked about yesterday, michael jackson has a lot of baggage and people, you know, they have to remember this is a real person that died. but he is a dead father right now. yes. in the eyes of the jury. the children humanize him. it s been effective that way but at the same time the prosecution is also trying to establish that dr. murray was reckless and negligent. michael s personal assistant testifying dr. murray never even actually called 911. this has got to be a very damning bit of evidence. they are, the block almost like legos of levels of gross negligence and at any given moment you can find any one element of gross negligence from not calling 911 to leaving a patient unmonitored to not having the monitoring equipment to not having life saving equipment to asking someone else do you know how to do cpr. every single step, even goes back to ordering the propofol to his girlfriend s house not to an authorized clinic. you ve got gross negligence every which way you turn. what is interesting about it, though, star is right. the prosecutor is building this piece by piece. on any given piece of evidence the defense may have what they consider to be a legitimate explanation. for example the doctor could say i didn t call 911, you know, i was trying to attend to his care. i was trying to take care of him. there s always a legitimate explanation but when you add it all together, you add up the prosecution s pieces of evidence that s where you get a more guilt. duty of care he owed to michael jackson and that is the crux of the issue. to be continued. thank you so much. and now to washington state on another very serious story where a husband of a missing utah mother has now lost custody of his two sons, at least temporarily. nb reporter: the boys were taken from their father josh powell after susan powell s father-in-law steven powell was arrested on child pornography and voyeurism charges. today steven powell remains in jail as josh powell fights for his kids. the children cannot be safely returned home at this time. reporter: a judge wednesday ordered susan and josh powell s sons to remain in the temporary custody of susan s parts chuck and judy cox. the children, who had been living with josh in steven powell s home were first moved to their grandparents home tuesday. last night went well. the children are doing well in the cox home. there are no issues in that regard. reporter: the children were removed from the powell home after steven powell, susan s father-in-law, was arrested on 14 counts of voyeurism and possession of child pornography. he s pled not guilty. in court on the custody case, josh powell said he had nothing to do with his father s alleged activity. i have not harmed them. i have not subjected them to any environment or person that i believe to be even a potential threat to them. steven powell is accused of secretly videotaping susan and an unknown number of other females. do you want to say anything? reporter: including taking nude images of two girls from outside a home in a neighborhood. authorities say they re investigating whether josh was involved in the pornography case. and as they pored through 15 computers taken from the powell home wednesday they claim josh may have taken some of the pictures. mr. josh powell has indicated to the cps investigator that he does take pictures of people s legs in public without their knowledge. reporter: a claim josh denied in court. i do not take photos of people. i certainly do not take any photos of any person s body parts. reporter: the environment of the home has also been called into question. two of josh s adult siblings live at the powell residence including a brother with a mental illness. law enforcement has reported that the adult brother is schizophrenic, that he s answered the door to law enforcement in the nude, and that he s often naked around the home. reporter: josh has been ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation, and for now was granted just three hours of visitation on sunday. susan powell vanished in 2009 on the same day josh told police he took his boys camping overnight in a snowstorm. police have named josh a person of interest in the case. he s denied involvement in the disappearance. final custody is yet to be determined, and the boys could eventually be returned to their father. i m here for the best interest of my sons and i believe that in the best interests of my sons they should come home and be with me. reporter: in court josh powell said he would rather see his children live in foster care than with susan s father and mother. as for their part the cox family left court without making any comments. this deep-seeded family feud certainly shows no sign of ending any time soon. okay, miguel almaguer, thank you so much. now let s check the rest of the morning s top stories with natalie morales at the news desk this morning. reporter: good morning, everyone. the legal fight over president obama s health care overhaul could come to a head at the very height of next year s presidential campaign. the administration on wednesday asked the supreme court to hear its appeal of a ruling that struck down the central provision of the health care law, the one requiring all americans to carry health care insurance. now, this could open the door for the high court to hear other challenges to the overhaul as well. federal health officials are telling people who don t know where their cantaloupes came from to throw them away. officials say listeria traced to melons only from jensen farms in colorado may have caused up to 16 deaths and that more illnesses and deaths are possible in the coming weeks. wall street s brief winning streak came to an end wednesday with a triple digit plunge. cnbc s courtney reagan is at the new york stock exchange. good morning. markets will make another run today to restart the rally after we snapped a three-day winning streak on wednesday. at the forefront of investors minds today will be the final report on how much the economy grew in the spring, plus pending home sales and the latest unemployment claims. meantime, the european debt crisis remains firmly in wall street s focus as german lawmakers vote to put more money in the european bailout fund. natalie, back to you. courtney reagan at the new york stock exchange. thank you. thank you. a dramatic final day of baseball s regular season and two major meltdowns. leading by nine games earlier this month in the american league wild card race it was an epic collapse by the red sox. in a crucial game last night they lost to the orioles. meanwhile, tampa bay beat the yankees with a major come-from-behind win as well sending the rays to the playoffs and the atlanta braves had a huge lead over st. louis a month ago in the national league but blew that lead in the major meltdown of their own. so now it s the cardinals heading into the playoffs as well. 7:18 right now. back to ann and al. it was pretty crazy last night. i know. taking a champagne shower. al is here for the first check on the weather and we have weather to talk about. that s right. more rain in the northeast though up in boston those are tears coming down. so sorry, so sorry, boston. i m just joking. let s show you we have the pesky low that will just not get out of here. but finally will start to get kicked out but not before we see more rain, another one to two inches in new england and also the up of michigan, we will see rain as well. and 103 in phoenix today. beautiful day in the pacific northwest, and sunshine in seattle. a slight risk of strong storms back through the central great lakes, and showers in the southeast today. that s what is going on around the country and here is what a is happening in your neck of the woods. i am meteorologist, chuck bell. we have cloudy skies and dense fog for your thursday, so be ready for that. temperatures are in the upper 60s in the ridge area, and not much rain in the immediate future but there are showers lingering across parts of and that s your latest weather. now back to matt. reporter: al, thank you very much. the appeal of amanda knox s murder conviction is being held in a courtroom a short distance from where i m standing. her fate could be decided as early as this weekend or early next week. it will be a much anticipated conclusion to a case that s generated headlines and enormous curiosity all around the world. amanda knox entered court this morning like so many times before, but it could be all over soon. she s in the final days of appealing her conviction on murder and sexual assault charges. very soon she is expected to stand up in court and make a final plea for her freedom. since her arrest in 2007, amanda knox has gone from an unknown 20-year-old college student to an object of enormous international attention. she was voted the most fascinating woman in italy in a television poll. there have been marriage proposals, books, and a made-for-tv movie. i would never hurt her. my conscience is clean. reporter: italian lawmakers sent a letter to italy s president on her behalf. even donald trump weighed in on her conviction telling seattle tv station komo i think people should boycott italy. they shouldn t go to italy. reporter: the all american girl from seattle is often called angel face by the italian media. british tabloids painted a picture of a wild party girl with a dark side, a portrait her family has furiously contested. for years, knox has resolutely maintained her innocence, saying she was with her then boyfriend the night meredith kercher was killed. he was also convicted and is also appealing. knox s family has been unwavering in their support flying back and forth from seattle to perugia dozens of times. her step father and also her best friend even moving here to support her. the whole family is here right now, hoping to bring amanda home. i spoke with amanda s father on wednesday. you ve got a 24-year-old kid that s essentially fighting for her life and this is her last chance to actually tell the judge and jury that she truly had nothing to do with this horrific crime. reporter: since the start of her appeal, knox has remained focused in court but in the last few days she appears to be worn out and anxious as she waits for the decision on her future. as you can imagine, family members of amanda are very anxious as they await this decision in the appeal. coming up, we ll speak to two of her sisters, ashley and delaney. they just got to visit amanda person to person for the first time in two years. we ll talk to them in a little while. but first, this is today on nbc. look, 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. people who observed the amanda knox appeal process closely and talk about what role the media has played. also coming up a man attacked by a great white after ignoring a shark warning on a popular beach, after your local news. osed to be following that fidelity green line? well, yeah, but it keeps leading me back to my old office. i think it might be broken. or maybe it s trying to tell you something. yeah, but what could it be trying. oh, i left my 401(k) at my old job. and i left a jacket on the back of my door. but i think the line is talking about my 401(k). leave a 401(k) behind? roll it over with the company that s helping more people reach retirement than anyone else. when it comes to investing, never settle. fidelity investments. good morning. it s 7:26 on this thursday, the 29th of september. i am joe krebs, and let s go to our meteorologist, chuck bell, for more on the rainy forecast. temperatures are generally speaking in the upper 60s to low and mid-60s. a little milder in town and alongside the bay. but there are rain showers out to the west and southwest, and they are encroaching on the area and should be arriving around lunchtime today. dense fog advisory for the highlighted counties go until 10:00 this morning. and showers likely by lunchtime. and better weather tomorrow, but cool and breezy for the weekend, joe. thanks very much. good morning. a few moments ago a pedestrian was struck in southbound, southbound 14th street at c street. we are seeing delays on 270. joe, back to you. we will have another news 7:30 now on a thursday morning. the 29th day of september, 2011 as we take a look at some of the people gathered in rockefeller plaza on what appears to be a humid and slightly overcast morning there. we thank these people for stopping by. i m thousands of miles away in perugia, italy this morning where the weather is considerably nicer. ann is back in studio 1-a. ann, coming up we ll have more on the murder conviction appeal of amanda knox and will be speaking to two of her sisters, ashley and delaney. up until this week they had not seen amanda face to face in nearly two years. they ll tell us about that meeting, what they had to talk about, how she is doing and how their family is holding up with a decision in this case coming in the very near future, ann. all right, matt. thanks so much. also ahead this morning has the pressure to get into the right college become just too intense? a former student at a prestigious high school is being accused of taking the s.a.t. for at least a half dozen students and allegedly charged them up to $2500 per test. we ll have the latest on that story and also if you were at the beach and told a great white shark was just offshore, would you still go swimming? one man did and he was viciously attacked. we ll have the story coming up. first, back to matt in perugia. reporter: thanks. we ll begin this half hour with the latest on the amanda knox case. keith miller has been covering it for its duration and joins me here in perugia. good morning to you. good morning, matt. this is it. we ve now had nine months of the appeals trial and it s come down to a matter of days. today it was the summation for the defense attorneys and of course they declared that amanda knox is innocent. appearing subdued, knox joined her co-defendant at the defense table for the final day of closing arguments. her lawyers told the court, mistakes have been made. at the center of the appeal is the dna evidence that was used to convict knox and her former boyfriend of murdering meredith kercher, an exchange student from england. court-appointed forensic scientists determined the dna was unreliable, blaming sloppy police work for contaminating the evidence. attempting to paint knox as a victim, her lawyer said the most intimate aspects of her life had been revealed and attacked. she was overwhelmed, they said, by a media tsunami. with the prosecution s evidence largely discredited, it appears the defense tactic is to get the judge and jury to see the softer side of amanda knox. not the she devil character hated by the prosecution. still, predicting the outcome of this appeal is risky business. because she was found guilty once for something she didn t do you can t be surprised if it happens again because there is no evidence against her, because this trial has gone so well for us, you can t be surprised if she is let go. reporter: the knox family says it is not emotionally prepared if the guilty verdict stands, but sister deanna has already planned amanda s first day of freedom back home. well, amanda, in all of her letters, she tells me that she wants to feel grass, that she wants to lay down and put grass in between her toes and in her fingers and feel sun light. it s the little things that she misses the most, so we re just going to lay in the sun. reporter: this is a different knox from the naive young woman attending the first trial for murder. she no longer plays to the camera and gone is the t-shirt proclaiming all you need is love. friday will be taken up with rebutals primarily by the prosecution, but the defense gets another chance, as well, and of course everybody, matt, is waiting to hear from amanda knox, who will be addressing the court. that s right. keith, thank you very much. we re getting a little more on the timeline of all this. it was earlier this week said that the rebuttals and statement from amanda knox would happen today, perhaps early tomorrow, and a decision in this appeal could come as early as tomorrow afternoon. the court is now hinting that this could take through the weekend and we might not get a verdict until monday. we ll keep you posted on that but right now we re joined by two of amanda knox s sisters ashley and delaney. ladies, nice to see you both. how are you doing? up until this week you had not seen your sister face to face in two years. tell me about the meeting. what was it like? it was wonderful to see her. i haven t seen her in two years and it was just wonderful to give her a hug and be able to touch her in person. and, delaney, i think of you, you were 8 years old when this all started so for the past four years this has been a part of your life as you saw your sister this week how has she changed? she s become a stronger person and she s just she is smarter. she s learned more. is she at peace? i mean, there has to be enormous stress in her life right now as she sits in her cell and goes from court and back every day and knowing that this weekend or early next week her fate will be decided. she ll either possibly get to go home with you both or stay here for a very long time. does she talk about that? yeah, she says she s very anxious about her verdict coming up. she s very nervous about it because of what happened last time but we are also very hopeful about it. reporter: you both have been following this very closely, as much of the information you can digest at your age, you re 16 and 13. some very difficult things were said in the courtroom this week about your sister. how do you handle that? well, i just int know the truth about my sister so i don t think about it that way because my sister isn t like that so i just think of the positive. how about you, ashley? like she said, i know my sister. she is not the witch that everybody says she is. she is very loyal, down to earth, matt. i know, and everyone that knows her knows. i mentioned you hadn t seen her face to face in two years but you have been communicating. there are phone calls and she s been writing you letters. and one of the letters she wrote you, delaney, back on august 8th, 2011, you ve given me here. do you mind if i read a couple portions? she says it s almost your birthday. what are you planning to do to celebrate? anything with the family? what would you really like for a present? here i m doing all right. i m a bit sore since yesterday when it was my turn to do the cleaning and i was wiped out afterward. do you two when you re alone with your thoughts try to imagine what her life is like in prison on a daily basis? yeah. she doesn t get all of the birthday cakes we get. she doesn t get everything that we get and she s always trying to make the best out of every situation. she always has the positive. she always thinks positive. she asks us about how are we doing? what do you like for a present? amanda has missed three birthdays. what do you want? she doesn t like to talk about herself. she wants to learn about us and she wants to just catch up on things and ask us questions. obviously her mind is on the very near future. she says that i m thinking a lot about court in september, what i could say, what needs to be said, how to counter the prosecution. i feel like this will end well but you never know. i m afraid but okay. she is going to stand up in court and make a statement to the jury and the judges. what do you think she wants to say and what would you like to say about your sister that perhaps we haven t heard over these last four years? i think you ve heard it, that she isn t the witch that she is featured to be. she is a very loyal, simple person. if she has nature around her, she is happy. she doesn t need a whole bunch of stuff to be happy. she isn t a bad person at all. are you confident that you might be going home with her in the near future? yeah. i have my hopes pretty high. reporter: delaney and ashley, thanks. it was a pleasure to meet you, ladies, and thank you for being here this morning. thank you. reporter: we ll have more ahead in a little while from perugia but for now back to new york and al roker. thanks so much. a cloudy day, some showers. we had a lot of rain in central and southern pennsylvania yesterday. we had flooding. there had to be folks rescued by boat yesterday from pennsylvania all the way down to richmond, virginia. heavy rain. in fact, down in richmond they picked up 9 inches o in fact, in richmond they picked up nine inches in rain. in the atlantic, we have tropical storm ophelia. we could see philippe right now. ophelia has 60-mile-per-hour winds. and the path, it sometime on sunday passes east of the bermuda as a category 1 storm. we have wet weather in the northeast, and new england. western two-thirds of the country looking good. temperatures in the 60s. low 70s, and along the west coast, sunshine in l.a. a good thursday morning to you. i am news4, meteorologist, chuck bell. we are off to a cloudy and foggy start to your thursday. the fog will be lifting over the next couple hours. you might get a little sunshine. and we will see more clouds and believe it or not more rain chances coming our way from lunchtime to the afternoon hours, and not heavy but you got some nice friends from joplin. everything okay there? yes. our thoughts are still with you. now back inside to ann. coming up next, a cheating scandal as one of the top high schools in the country, kids are accused of paying a former classmate thousands of dollars to take their s.a.t.s. [ laughs ] [ laughs ] [ laughs ] [ laughs ] that s awesome. you can read that? [ female announcer ] the accufit digital system, exclusively at lenscrafters. is about 5 times more precise than manual measurement techniques. lenscrafters. we earn more cash back for the things we buy most. it s 1% cash back everywhere, every time. 2% on groceries. 3% on gas. automatically. no hoops to jump through. that s 1% cash back on oscar. .tony. oscar! 2% back on whatever she ll eat. 3% back on filling up this baby. [ male announcer ] now get 1-2-3 percent cash back. it s that simple. [ male announcer ] apply online or at a bank of america near you. we re talking 3% back on gas. sundays are just for watching football. believe that? [ thinking ] relax. you ordered off mcdonald s dollar menu at breakfast. everything s so good and just a buck. so go. he s a jerk. [ thinking ] the simple joy of being smart. [ thinking ] the simple joy of being smart. 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. back now with the s.a.t. cheating scandal that rocked one new york community and it comes as days before an estimated 700,000 high school students are set to take the grueling test this weekend. we re in great neck, new york with more. mara, good morning. reporter: good morning. the s.a.t. is considered the most important test a student will take in high school. here at great neck north high school the students are considered the best and the brightest in the country but this morning their community is feeling the sting of a scandal after six current and former students are accused of fraudulently having a classmate take the test for them. prosecutors say 19-year-old sam eshaghoff was paid between $1500 and $2500 to take the s.a.t. test for students. he is a graduate of great neck north high school and now a sophomore at emory university. prosecutors say he used fake i.d.s to impersonate the six students including one female at testing centers where the students wouldn t be known. the s.a.t. s top score is 2400. the national average is about 1500. eshaghoff scored well above that average. scores were 2220, 2210, 2140, 2180. what these six kids did was they took an opportunity away from every other child. reporter: four of the accused are already in college. two are still enrolled at great neck north. in recent years it has been named one of the country s top 100 high schools. if they have the money on hand and i guess they can, like have the opportunity, it s just not that surprising. reporter: while some students are not surprised by the scandal, others say the pressure to get into college is too intense. i feel it s really competitive and really hard. reporter: students s.a.t. scores can be critical for their future. i think the pressure on students right now to get into very good schools is really great. the students who get into elite universities have a better chance to get into elite grad schools which means they have a better chance of getting high paying jobs later on. so there is a lot at stake and they understand it. reporter: eshaghoff faces up to four years in prison if convicted. he has pled not guilty. his attorney says the case is not a matter for criminal court. even if something happened it happened within school grounds. it was when they were under age. the issue should be handled administratively within the school. reporter: the students accused of paying eshaghoff are facing unspecified misdemeanor charges and are not identified due to their ages. the investigation has been widened to two other area high schools. ann? thank you so much for your reporting on this story. coming up next, a man ignores shark warnings posted on one beach and ends up being mauled by a great white. the story right after this. [ beep ing ] 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. we re gonna have, we re gonna have we re gonna have a good day [ female announcer ] wouldn t it be nice if we focused less on the number and more on how the fit makes us feel? and all my ladies got pride today [ female announcer ] take the special k challenge. drop a jean size in two weeks and slip into size sassy. so many delicious ways to get started at specialk.com. what will you gain when you lose? [ male announcer ] each of these photos was taken by someone on the first morning of their retirement. it s the first of more than 6,000 sunrises the average retiree will see. as we re living longer than ever before, prudential s challenge is to help everyone have the retirement income they ll need to enjoy every one of their days. prudential. bring your challenges. [ male announcer ] 20,000 btus produce a delicate sear. double-oven range makes dinner and dessert at the same time. turbo-charged advantium oven cooks more than twice as fast, in this culinary powerhouse. dan. yes? molé sauce. [ male announcer ] with ge s most advanced cooking technology, the café line takes food further. back at 7:49 with a vicious shark attack in a south african beach that never should have happened because the victim ignored warnings that great whites were in the area. we ll go to london with more on this story. michelle, good morning. reporter: hi, ann. there were signs up saying, no swimming. the beaches were closed. but one man who was personally warned, don t go in the water, did. he was almost immediately attacked by a great white shark. rescuers raced from all directions toward the man on the beach pulled from the water with one leg gone, the other mangled. a man had been bitten by a shark. reporter: no one had been in the water but him. an amateur video shows the rescue helicopter hovering in the air while something hovers below in the water. the camera zooms and there it is an enormous shark, believed to be the attacker. this sunny day began ominously with sightings of possibly three great white sharks here. flags were up, cautions raised, beaches closed. yet officials say michael cohen, a 42-year-old briton living in south africa, insisted on going in. that s how quickly the warnings came viciously true. london s telegraph quotes a shark spotter employed here as saying, cohen never took any notice of our warnings. if he wanted to swim, he swam. shark scientists generally do blame people. as our populations have grown over fishing has limited their food. and we play where they hunt. typically in south africa in the summer months they leave the seal colonies and go inshore to feed on other species of sharks as well as other fish so we see them very close to where humans recreate. reporter: most attacks by far have been in the u.s. followed by australia then africa. this year 14 people were killed by sharks, three this month. in august a british man was mauled to death on his honeymoon in the seychelles. rare but fatal encounters at the top of the ocean s food chain. the victim, who is now stable, had been pulled out of the water by two people just passing by who jumped in while the shark was right there. yes weerks ha yes, we have seen shark attacks increase over the years as human populations along the coasts increase. they seemed to be leveling off lately. however, this year s 14 deaths, the average over the last ten years has been four or five a year so we are now at triple the average. scientists are still looking at the data, ann. we ll want to know what they find out. michelle, thank you so much. just ahead, a sister determined to save her brother s life and to do it first had to drop 135 pounds. this is coming up right after your local news. [ male announcer ] it s always having a reason, from the smallest details to the big decisions. and putting everything through everything before we stand behind anything. doing things right has always defined what we do. and now it defines how we ship. announcing free shipping. no minimum order. no end date. from l.l. bean. why you gotta be like that? don t be like that cause i deserve better than this did i catch you playing up like that? [ jones ] if your dry hair has a mind of its own, tell us about it. and you could star in the next dove hair commercial. go to dovehair.com/friends and learn how you can make friends with your dry hair. go to dovehair.com/friends you got that, right? we do! science diet® advanced fitness. something to help his joints and help keep him fit? [customer] yep. healthy mobility™ large breed. [associate] science diet . [together] hairball control. [female announcer] petsmart has over 500 expert-recommended, premium nutrition formulas. like hill s science diet® - vet s #1 choice for their own pets. petsmart®. happiness in store.™ [ cellphone rings ] cut! [ 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. good morning. i am joe krebs. we have clouds outside, and let s find out the forecast from meteorologist, chuck bell. good morning to you, and good morning, everybody. plenty of clouds outside and a lot of thick fog out in the western and southern suburbs this morning. temperatures are in the low 60s out west and mid to upper 60s around town and 70 along the bay side. and you see the fog advisories in the gray areas there. and showers will be arriving around lunchtime, so find the umbrella you will [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose to make the world a safer place. that s the value of performance. northrop grumman. good morning, a pedestrian was struck southbound 14th street and c street. traveling 270 at farther hurley. we have a car turned on the side in the median. it s blocking the left shoulder lane, and fur going nort 8:00 now on a thursday morning. it s the 29th day of september, 2011. another rainy day here in the northeast, but that hasn t stopped us from joining our friends outside here in rockefeller plaza. people are pretty happy to say hi to folks back home. meantime i m ann curry with al roker and matt is in perugia, italy, where we ll be hearing more about this murder conviction appeal for amanda knox which is now in the final stage. hey, matt. reporter: hey, ann. good morning. you re right. the legal team for amanda knox is presenting their closing arguments in court right now. we could hear from amanda, herself, late today. most likely tomorrow. it could be carried over into monday morning and then there will be a verdict in this appeal process shortly after she speaks. as you can imagine, her family must be extremely anxious. coming up, we re going to talk to a couple journalists who have been watching this process throughout. we ll get their take on whether they think amanda will be freed or not. ann? okay, matt. thanks so much. from here in new york, we re going to be hearing about a woman who was too heavy to donate a much needed kidney to her brother so made it her mission to drop more than 130 pounds so she could try to help save her brother s life. we ll meet her and her brother coming up just ahead. what a great story. yeah. and a consumer report on why you could be in for a big refund if you bought a pair of reebo reebock s popular toning shoes. first let s check the top stories with natalie at the news desk. good morning, everyone. prosecutors in los angeles are calling a key witness on this the third day of the involuntary manslaughter trial of michael jackson s doctor. they plan to question the first body guard to reach jackson s room the day the pop superstar died. prosecutors hope to show that dr. conrad murray failed to call 911 so he could cover up evidence that he d given jackson a powerful surgical anesthetic to help him sleep. a massachusetts man with a degree in physics is charged with plotting to blow up the pentagon and the u.s. capitol using remote-controlled airplanes filled with explosives. 26-year-old rezwan ferdaus was arrested wednesday in a sting operation after undercover agents delivered the materials he allegedly requested including what he thought was 24 pounds of c-4 explosive. federal officials say the public was never in danger. a federal judge says the suspect in the tucson shooting rampage can eventually be made mentally fit to stand trial. judge laurie burns issued the ruling wednesday after finding that treatments for jared loughner who suffers schizophrenia are making measurable progress and restoring him to competency. loughner has pleaded not guilty to the january shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 including arizona congresswoman gabrielle giffords. federal health officials say listeria from contaminated cantaloupes may cause more sickness and death in the coming weeks. so far the outbreak is traced only to jensen farms in colorado and it is blamed for up to 16 deaths nationwide. officials say if you have cantaloupes and don t know where they came from you should throw them out. now for a look at what s trending today, our quick roundup of what has you talking online. there s a lot of chatter about the state of demi moore s marriage to ashton kutcher. the stars reportedly spent their sixth anniversary on september 24th apart. this isn t the first time the pair has been rumored to be splitting up, but a day before their anniversary moore tweeted this quote from a greek philosopher. quote, when we are offended at any man s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. then you will forget your anger. people are tweeting a sad farewell to the beloved cross-eyed possum named heidi. workers at a zoo say she was left in very poor health due to age and had to be put to sleep. poor thing. amazon s challenge to the ipad has potential buyers comparing features online. on wednesday amazon introduced the kindle fire. it connects to the web, streams movies, and supports thousands of apps for less than half the ipad s price. it is now 8:04. let s go back outside to ann and al. thank you so much. al has made his way to another corner of our plaza. that s right. i found triple the fun. we ve got triplets here turning 12. that makes you 36 years old. what s your name? jimmy. and? louis. and? grace. where are you guys from? . very cool. is today the day? yeah. happy birthday. right? yeah. all right. guys, good to see you. let s check your weather, show you what s going on. happy birthday. let s check your weather and show you what is going on. the pick city of the day, tucson, arizona. mostly sunny, and hot, 95 degrees. and we have the upper level low being kicked out of the northeast, and not before it drops more rain. we are looking for strong storms in the upper ohio river valley. and tomorrow more rain in the ohio river valley and interior new york, and more showers move into the pacific northwest. mild conditions and plenty of sunshine in the mid-atlantic states. that s what is going on around the country and here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good morning. i am news4 meteorologist, chuck bell. we have clouds and fog outside this morning. ae will get a little sunshine here in the mid to late morning hours before rain clouds and more rain chances sneak back into the area. and then you can see the light rain showers out across the mountains of west virginia. cloudy skies, and showers about noontime and lingering and that s your latest weather. ann? all right. al, thank you so much. coming up next we ll meet a woman who had to lose 130 pounds to save her brother s life. that s coming up right after this. good morning! [ female announcer ] nutri-grain one good decision. .can lead to another. with real fruit, more of the whole grains your body needs, and a good source of fiber. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. [ laughs ] [ laughs ] [ laughs ] that s awesome. you can read that? [ female announcer ] the accufit digital system, exclusively at lenscrafters. is about 5 times more precise than manual measurement techniques. lenscrafters. big. big. big, big. big, big. big, big, big. big, big. big, big. big. big big-big -big. -big! [ cheers and applause ] big-big-big -big, big. -big! -big! - big -big. big, big, big. big, big, big. small. big, big, big, big. small. [ male announcer ] the space-saving, eco-friendly, totally unique smart. unbig. uncar. we re off to a good start. but now it s time to go to the next level. so let s do a little detective work. pick up what we need. roll out. caulk.and install. and pretty soon, we re seeing the fruits of our labor right there at our bottom line. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. owens corning ecotouch attic insulation is only $9.97 a roll. [ woman ] we didn t know where to go next with eric s adhd. 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. back now at 8:09 with a pretty unique weight loss story. kerry roberts dropped 135 pounds not for herself but for her brother. that s because he was in desperate need of a kidney transplant. he is still in desperate need of that kidney transplant, and she was too overweight to be a donor. so kerry and her brother, tony, are now joining us along with nbc s chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman. good morning to everyone. you re diagnosed about six years ago. right. with this disease. it is called? iga. it is basically a protein that we normally have that fights infection but in this case it gets deposited in the kidney and starts a slow process of kidney failure. so you need a transplant. you go in and you re told what about why you cannot, when you went in, donate? well, i didn t go in at first. i told him that i wanted to be tested and he informed me that they wouldn t even consider me until i lost some weight. i was too overweight. because you were so overweight. yeah. now, you when someone loves somebody enough to want to lose weight for this purpose, that makes a lot was there fear that you might not be able to do it? yeah, yeah. but i tried to stay hopeful and stay motivated to try. i mean, how terrible would i have felt if, you know, i couldn t because just because i was overweight, you know? but you didn t even know if you were a match when you decided to lose all this weight. right. i didn t find out until april that i was a perfect match, actually. the fact that she did that, tony, means what to you? well, it s given me my life back, you know? just giving me back all the things i love to do and just feel very fortunate that i got a sister like kerry to do that for me. you know what is really interesting here, ann, is she couldn t have been considered a donor before because when you re really obese, that s enough of a strain on a kidney that doctors wouldn t have wanted to test her because they wouldn t have wanted her to just have one kidney left. but in an interesting way this has worked out, two lives have been saved a kidney life and a life that might have been shortened from obesity so it is really an extraordinary sort of doubleheader. in other words you helped each other possibly live longer, but we still have to wait for this transplant and you are hoping you re going to be scheduled next week? we re hoping to hear something tomorrow. and then have the doctors told you what you re in for? are you prepared? oh, yes. they ve totally prepared me. when i went through all my testing they walked through everything that i would go through and, yes. i m ready. okay. i think a lot of people listening, you know, can see you were highly motivated to lose this weight. but then how did you lose the weight? i started off just eating healthier. i definitely cut out any fatty foods, any high sugared, fattening sweets, and started walking a mile a day and eventually started walking two miles a day and three miles a day and now i do anywhere from three to six miles three to five days a week. tony, as you re watching your sister, you know, do this. yes. every day, lose weight for you, this must have been so emotional for you on a day-to-day basis. sure, yes, it was. just couldn t be more proud of her, you know. she s amazing. and so, dr. nancy, what are they saying in terms of if this operation is successful it will be. kidney transplants have come a long way. kidney transplantation has sort of led the other organ transplantation in this country. tony has been staying alive through kidney dialysis so three times a week he goes in. his blood is washed of all the toxins and a machine does the work his kidneys normally do for him. now getting one, good healthy kidney, that will take over. and the cool thing is for some wonderful reason god and mother nature gave us two kidneys and we re able to give one up and because they re a perfect match, i really do expect this to be an extraordinary success. wow. we can t wait for that. you ve got a smile and put a smile on their face as well. it s all going to be fine. you are something. you re both something. and we wish you every luck. i can t wait to hear what happens after this when you have this transplant. thank you. you re good sister. how lucky. you drew a good card in the lottery. thank you very much to both of you for being here and dr. nancy as well. coming up next, why reebock may owe you a refund if you bought their popular line of toning shoes. that s coming up right after this. when you spend more days than not separated from your own life. when the only thing you can be sure of is migraines with 15 or more headache days a month, you re living a maybe life. and you may be living with chronic migraine. but knowing that this thing you re going through has a name, means knowing you can find treatments that are right for you. go to mychronicmigraine.com to find a headache specialist. and don t live a maybe life. we d have to get all new appliances. we ll go to the warehouse stores and pick out everything you want. the sinks ringing. hello? you think those guys have everything you want? consider this your wake-up call! only sears has kenmore, and all ten of the top ten brands. the other guys don t even carry all top three. i hope you brought an umbrella cause it s raining cold hard facts up in here. thinking about buying appliances somewhere else? think again. sears. phone retract. setting that goal to become a principal. but, i have to support my family, so how do i go back to school? university of phoenix made it doable. i wouldn t be where i am without that degree. my name is dr. carrie buck. i helped turn an at risk school into an award winning school, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. welcome back to perugia, italy where we are covering the appeals trial of amanda knox, expected to speak to the court sometime today, tomorrow, or even early next week. a verdict just a couple of days away. so what is the mood like in the courtroom? we re joined now by an italian journalist and lawyer and an investigative reporter for king 5, the nbc affiliate out in amanda knox s hometown of seattle, washington. ladies, good morning to both of you. good morning. good morning. reporter: in some ways i am going to ask you to sum up nine months of an appeals process in just a couple of minutes, but give me your assessment. what s been going on? what s been going right for the defense? what s gone right for the prosecution? well, for certain, the turning point of the appeals case has been the new, independent report of forensic evidence and this has radically changed the atmosphere both in court and outside of the court with the media coverage. the forensic report mainly established that many mistakes were made and that a lot of the evidence was inconclusive. it seemed to me once the defense had chipped away at the forensic evidence the prosecution changed tactics and went much more in a personal character assassination. has that worked in some ways in your opinion? well, it worked initially, but these four years in court for amanda have worked in her favor because they ve seen her. they ve seen a student, they ve seen a large family here rallying to support her, her friends, and so even the prosecution has in its closing statements moved slightly from its initial description of amanda from the she devil, whip brandishing manic to also a student and a model prisoner. linda, talk about the role of the media, both the prosecution and defense having used the media selectively to get their side of the story out. do they continue to do that? has it been effective? i think it has to some extent. in the beginning of course when the prosecution was presenting their case that s what people were hearing, and it was a dark, tantalizing tale that captured people s imaginations. there was a lot of confusion. i think what people were waiting for in seattle was if this is all true, let s see that smoking gun come out at trial. and that didn t happen. in fact, it was the opposite. and when the forensic evidence came forward, when the super witness was discredited, people started saying, ah ha. and i think there was a lot of doubt that this all american girl from seattle could be involved in something like this. as the closing argument from the defense was being given in the courtroom this morning you were there. talk to me about the reaction from the jurors and the judge. well, i think significant point of today s closing arguments is that it s the first time that we see the judge not at o nod at one of the parties. which seems like a little thing to hear. maybe like i m agreeing. it does seem little but considering he is a casting vote and in case of a tie he is decisive because he has two votes. reporter: to put you on the spot and i hate to do this but we should have a verdict in the next couple days. what is your gut telling you? wow. well, my gut is telling me that the prosecution s case isn t holding up and if you follow the law and look solely at the evidence, i think they re going to have to overturn the verdict. i think as today knox s lawyer rightly stated, a lot of uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty only adds up to uncertainty. it doesn t add up to a definitive answer. reporter: so reasonable doubt. yes. i know people in seattle will really be watching this. i have to tell you that i ve been covering the news there for 24 years. i ve never had so many people come up to me whether i m at the grocery store or out on the soccer field and ask me about this case. they really want to know what s happening. reporter: thank you both very much. appreciate it. let s go back to new york and ann. all right, matt. thanks. if you own a pair of reebock toning shoes you could be in for a refund. the company has settled a $25 million false advertising case with the federal trade commission. it has to do with claims that the shoes help reshape your legs and your back side. nbc s tom costello has details. tom, good morning. reporter: good morning to you. this is big business. toning shoes are a billion dollar market and reebock has about 42% of that market. now it s pulling its ads and claims but not the shoes. in a 24/7 society eager to lose weight and tone up the commercials made it seem too good to be true. reebock easy tone shoes not only look fantastic, they ll help make your legs and butt look great, too. reporter: and reebock left little doubt where it was putting the emphasis. better legs and a better butt with every step. reporter: endorsed by celebrities like kim kardashian and eva mendez the shoes have been a big seller but do people believe the claims? come on. you re not going to wear those shoes and look like her. i thought the ad was absurd. and i don t believe the claim. reporter: turns out the federal trade commission didn t buy it either. it calls the ads misleading and deceptive. for the millions of americans who paid up to a hundred dollars for a pair of reebock toning shoes, reebock s claims didn t with stand scrutiny. their consumers expected a workout, not to get worked over. reporter: reebock has agreed to a $25 million settlement for customer refunds, but in a statement reebock says we stand by our easy tone technology. settling does not mean we agree with the ftc s allegations. we do not. reebock invited us to their secret testing lab to show us the science behind their design. reporter: it was two years ago that nbc s janice lieberman reported for the today show on reebock s balance ball approach to toning shoes. air pods under the ball and heel of the shoe. reporter: then the american council on exercise looked into it, even ran a study with the university of wisconsin at la crosse. there are essentially no differences between running shoes and toning shoes. reporter: no difference. reebock has now agreed to stop claiming the shoes can improve muscle tone and that means dropping the commercial. excuse me. i take it you agree. i think it was a little hard to focus on the claims when you re seeing what you re seeing. reporter: that wasn t intentional, was it? no, not at all. reebock s aren t the only toning shoes on the market but the ftc won t say whether it s investigating any other shoe manufacturers. the consumer products safety commission, ann, has complaints against a whole variety of shoe manufacturers on toning shoes. back to you. to be concontinued. thank you so much. now let s head to washington and say hello to mr. willard scott. got to wish my friends up in marshal, virginia, their little elementary school is 100 years old. how about that? a lot of education in that school. lovely people. happy birthday. speaking of birthdays take a look if you will, the jam jar spins about and you see helen haught, sistersville, west virginia, 101 years old. loves to play basketball. maybe she could do some hoops with the president. how about that? gladys barkley of convoy, ohio is 105 years old, has keen memory, attributes her longevity to her love of god and family. family crazy about her and they take good care of her. we have mildred turner of woodland hills, california, 105, and she is very good at cooking. loves to cook and everybody loves to eat her food and she likes to keep her memory sharp and it is. there. good thing. wish mine was. john hand, wethersfield, connecticut 100 years old today. w w-2 vet and he loves to fish and golf and hunt. bring it home and cook it and have a feast. estaline watkins, redding, california, is 105. likes to write poems and also play the piano. but not at the same time. that can be confusing. oh, boy. this happens about more and more it seems. twins. lillian dworman and faye burke, riverdale, new york and north hills, new york respectively. they are twins and they are 100 years old today. happy birthday to you. that s it. thanks. love seeing the couples still together. that s so nice. just ahead healthier option. that s it. thank you. 8:26 is your time now on this thursday, september 29th, 2011. good morning. i am eun yang. let s get to chuck bell in the storm center for a look at the forecast. rain showers arifing late morning into the afternoon hours. temperatures in the mid-around town, and low 60s in the west. and then those are all moving in our general direction, so mostly cloudy today. and light rain off and on through much of the after foon. today s highs, mid to upper 70s good morning. traveling 270 at father hurley. accident not slowing you down at all. the delays continue towards the dulles road. you are traveling at 25 miles per hour now, and slow at new 8:30 now on a thursday morning. it s the 29th day of september, 2011. that s nikola shea, taking donations for education nation s school supply drive. there is just one more day left for you to get involved so if you want to head to our website at today.com for details please feel welcome to go there. a lot of teachers are spending their hard-earned cash on supplies that their kids don t have and that they need to learn. the average teacher spends $3,000 of their own money each year. and they re only making $45,000. really terrific. people are donating. we want to mention that nick is here because he is also cohosting our fourth hour with hoda coming up this morning. that should be dramatic. meantime i m ann curry with natalie morales and al roker. matt has been reporting from perugia this morning. we ll check in with him in just a little bit. with more on the amanda knox case there. also ahead, kids meals may look small but a lot of them are just loaded, jam packed with calories and lots of fat. in fact, david found one dish that is the same as eating 17 steak taquitos. you see them there. he ll give us healthier options coming up. plus we ll meet a 50-year-old woman who decided to follow her dream and go back to college. she s a bit of a slacker. she didn t go to any college. she went to harvard. and by the way, she s the mom of 11. she also runs her own business and she commutes from boston to oklahoma each week. so she doesn t really have much going on. i am such a loser compared to her. we ll meet her and hopefully be inspired. let s check the weather. i can almost feel a sprinkle. here in the northeast almoste there, al. here in the northeast we will put up with a little more rain as we check out and show you what is happening for today. saturday, we have more rain in the northeast. showers in the pacific north west. heat continues in the southwest. on sunday, sunday, we are looking for some rain and some mountain snows in the northeast, and new england. afternoon showers in the pacific northwest. heat continues in the southwest. may get monsoonal moisture. that s what is going on around the country, and here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good thursday morning. i am news4 meteorologist, chuck bell. we are off to a cloudy start this morning. temperatures are mostly in the 60s. 69 in washington and 70 in fredericksburg. and low 60s out towards the panhandle of west virginia as well as the shenandoah valley. and they are making steady progress to the east, and as a result showers are in the forecast for this afternoo don t forget you can get your weather any time of the day or night. go to weather channel on cable or weather.com online. up next, kids meals packed with adult sized fat and calories. you have to see it to believe it including one dish equal to eating two bags of gold fish crackers. first, this is today on nbc. back at 8:35, healthier options for kids. take a close look at the kids menu at the family s favorite restaurant and you ll be shocked by the calories packed into some of the meals. we have the author of eat this not that and good morning to you. good morning. as a parent i m guilty because i see a lot of foods my kids are eating but 1 in 3 kids are obese in this country. we re dealing with a real epidemic and parents need to take responsibility. it is a real public health crisis. you have to not call it healthier food. call it foods that will make you faster or stronger or smarter or awesomer or whatever but don t call it, you know, health food. make it a quest not a drag. that makes all the difference. right. incorporate the child into it in this kind of ninja nutrition and it will pay off hugely. calories count for kids too as we ll find out. let s start off and look at meals from the popular chain restaurants from their kids menus, this time looking at four meals here, starting off with on the border, a very well known establishment. we ve got the kids cheese quesadilla with mexican rice. this is 1200 calories on the border of disastrous. my goodness. we re talking about 31 grams of saturated fat, almost two days worth for a child. that is crazy. so that ends up being the equivalent of these 17 shredded steak taquitos. disgusting. mexico is clearly mad at us for stealing selma hayek. you like to use that one every now and again. just dragging out the same old this one, if you re at on the border get the kids mexican plate with the crispy chicken taco. it s corn based not flour based and only 260 calories. you re saving a thousand calories. that s like one-third pound body fat just by eating that instead of this. much more protein in this, too. that s all carbs. that s 18 grams of protein right there. all right. let s move over here to another kids meal. this one is from kfc, kids meal with popcorn chicken, the potato wedges and the pepsi. so this is all deep fried. it s 730 calories worth of beige madness. you know, the problem with the chicken popcorn is it s just very little bits of bird surrounded by breading and grease. a lot of empty calories that will leave the child hungry again very quickly, the calorie equivalent of these seven chocolate chip waffles. so have a couple waffles and a third of that dish. exactly. at kfc what you can have instead is this grilled chicken drum stick with the mashed potatoes. kids love mashed and they keep the skin on for the flavoring and you re only at 210. you just saved 500 calories. a major savings. okay. over here we ve got the mcdonald s. now mcdonald s has done a lot to improve on their kids meals options i believe but this is the mighty kids meal and it packs a mighty punch with the mcdouble cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate milk. if kids are really mighty they should fight off this meal at mcdonald s. at 790 calories it ends up being the equivalent of these 18 slices of american cheese. that s almost like an entire package worth. wow. so at mcdonald s, which has a lot of nutritious options these days, go with this happy meal. it s got hamburger, apple dippers, apple juice box, it s 380 calories. no fries. and you re going to save almost 500 calories. again, it s a much more healthful way of eating and is still delicious. okay. next over here the cheesecake factory. they re not known for small portions as we all know. i still love them. okay. this is the kids pasta with alfredo sauce. that is taking a bath in alfredo sauce right there. yeah. this is a good meal for, you know, keate plus eight. this is 1810 calories. it has 89 grams of saturated fat, like a week s worth of saturated fat right there. don t do that to a loved one. the calorie equivalent of 775 pe pepperidge farm crackers. go with the pasta with the marinara sauce, it has antioxidents and is only 510 calories. you are saving 1400 calories just by not going with the cream based alfredo sauce. we have to watch the calorie intake. it all adds up. if this is just one meal you can imagine that is one meal that should be three over the full course of a day. a full day of eating in one meal without side dishes or appetizers or drinks in some cases. david, as always, you shock us. thank you. thank you. coming up next speaking of kate plus eight we have a mom of 11 running her own gym in oklahoma, going back to college at harvard. but 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. style like a fashionista. save like a maxxinista. fashion direct from designers. savings direct to you. t.j.maxx. let us make a maxxinista out of you. education nation today is proudly brought to you by university of phoenix because we believe an educated world is a better world. back now at 8:43, this morning on education nation, inspiration for anyone who has put their personal dreams on hold to raise a family. we have one woman s remarkable story. good morning, janet. reporter: good morning. allison renault dropped out of college to raise, get this, 11 children. but the oklahoma woman is now back in school in a big way. the morning scramble. it s the daily race of getting the kids up, fed, and off to school. we need to make like a 16 slot toaster for me. reporter: hectic in any household they have a challenge unmatched my most. allison is the mother of 11 children, seven still at home. let s load. let s go. i need number seven, number nine, number 11 with me. reporter: it s been controlled chaos for as long as she can remember. endless car pools and decades of diapers but not a single regret that she left college to marry her husband, dale, and raise their family. when you start raising your children, you get very engrossed in their goals and you want them the best for your kids, so sometimes those things just kind of go to the way side. girls, hands up. pretty hands. reporter: as the kids were growing allison started working outside the home and now owns this gym in oklahoma city. it s beyond what most of us can imagine. 11 children, a never ending round-the-clock job, and then her other job, full-time here at the gym. but for allison, there was still something else the power of an unrealized dream. on a morning run the idea came to her. already back in college classes, could she at 50 cut it at one of the biggest names in higher education harvard? it took me a couple weeks to even call information to get their phone number. i thought, that is so far out there. that is not not distance wise but so far reaching of a dream, libra i didn t feel worthy to call them. reporter: eventually she did and look whose walking the ivy league now. it s a bit of a commute. oklahoma city to boston once a week. allison is enrolled in harvard s extension program and just three classes away from full fledged grad school. i think when you ve dreamed of something for almost your whole life and over 30 years and you walk on the campus, you walk through harvard yard for the first time, it s overwhelming. reporter: back home, it s nothing short of inspiring. seeing my mom have children and have a business and then go to school, it just makes me, you know, want to try new things and especially when i have a family to keep going after my goals. i m a renault. i m smart. reporter: something else she has taught her children for years? always finish what i start. reporter: she now shows them. but perhaps no one more than allison who is on a mission to encourage other moms that it is never too late for a dream. janet, thank you so much. allison is with us now along with a personal finance expert carman wong ulrich the author of the real cost of living. i m exhausted just watching that tape. you still have seven kids living at home, commuting 4,000 miles once a week to go to the harvard extension school. how are you doing all of this? well, i think you have to have good balance, a great husband, a great, supportive family. i do three things. i get up in the morning and i read inspirational material. for me it s the bible. then i head into the kitchen and i drink a spark energy drink and i say, allison, are you going to be a weenie or a hot dog today? which one are you most days? the hot dog. and i go run outside. and by the time i get back from my run i feel like, you know, my morning mojo is going. yeah. then i execute. i don t do slow. you say finish what you start as we heard the mantra there in the car with the kids. i don t let anybody steal my mojo. what motivated you to go back now though? it took you 30 years to get there. what motivated you to get back? i always promised myself when my baby was 5 that i would go back. it took ten more kids. i m not mormon. i m not catholic. i use birth control. and i guess i maybe i don t know what caused it but i was a really slow learner. you love your kids more importantly. carman, i think her story is such an inspiration. wonderful. for a lot of people who say i gave up my dreams when i started having my kids. i love my kids but i still have that part of me that wants to go back. how do i get there? allison said something interesting. life is really long but you get one shot at it and if you start having kids early you ve got a long life ahead of you and a lot of time to fulfill your dreams. the first is our heads may be in the clouds a little bit. i want you to bring that down to reality. see how can i really make this dream happen? first you have to say what am i going to have to do with my life? once that dream is real and you can see it, what are the hurdles that you ll have to overtake to fulfill that dream? there are hurdles personally. who is going to take the kids to school, practice, and to this? when are you going to sleep? when are you going to study? think about the practical things. how are you going to pay for it? what kind of financial sacrifices will the family have to make? in the end you have to think about what is the next step beyond the cost? where is that dream team that s going to help you fulfill this dream? you mentioned this, allison. you said a supportive husband, your kids are supporting you. if you can get that team together, i ve seen it when it is not a team and that can break things up. but also like allison, fantastic. get your husband onboard. get the kids onboard. get them to help you with chores, things around the house, financially. if you re making this accomplishment and getting this dream, but the family is in it with you too because you are a family. allison, you do have great support. you also had a benefactor, private benefactor who helped you finance the dream. that is important to consider the cost of what it is going to take to pursue that dream. that said i know getting back to the classroom is a little adjustment as well. how hard was that? it was terrifying. the first day i walked back into class i wanted to just quit. and i walk in the classroom and i am so old because everybody is so young. and everybody starts shuffling around and scooting their chairs and they think i m the professor. and then i sit down and they re like, what is going on here? and then the professors will always say, i have three students three children that were students at the university of oklahoma before i got there and they ll always say, you know, i have your daughter in class. i m like, yes. this is her book. there you go. i think the message is to just keep going. absolutely. thanks so much. allison, you ve inspired so many. carman wong ulrich, as always, thank you. coming up next we ll say hello to the beautiful and exotic creatures howling over there making all that noise if you can hear them. that is the screaming armadillo living up to its name. but first, this is today on nbc. harry little bugger, too. we re back at 8:51 with today s call of the wild. this morning animals from all around. our guest from the national wildlife federation is here and he has some amazing creatures. hi guys. good morning. so listen, this is an alligator snapping turtle, the largest fresh water turtle species in the world. this lives in north america in the deep south, up the mississippi river all the way up into illinois. obviously you don t want to put your fingers anywhere near its mouth. hence the snapping part. these guys have a great adaptation. when they open their mouth, on the inside of the tongue they have a little appendage that looks like a worm and they sit in the bottom in the mud. you can see how camouflaged they d be and a fish swims right into their mouth going after the worm. you can t see it now though. it is getting ready to open its mouth. open it up. quite all right. how old do they get? these guys can live for decades. they aren t quite as long lived as the big tortoises but this is an old turtle. you would find these in the u.s. this is a kind of animal we have here. a lot of people don t know about them. pretty amazing. let s go to our next animal. okay. this is the screaming hairy armadillo. we love this. it screams and is hairy. we don t like it already. he is really, really cute. check this guy out. this guy, screaming hairy armadillo. here we go. can you take the battery out? this is what he would do if a predator was trying to eat him. he would make this noise. it s his defense mechanism. just like kathie lee came back from vacation. ooh. okay. here is a really special animal. a baby zebra. this is adorable. we are going to feed her. hi, buddy. so it s true the stripes aren t black when they re born? exactly. they re brown and that helps them camouflage. you want to feed her? just calmly there. hold it up so she can get all yes, when they re born the stripes are more brown to help with camouflage but the striping is actually a way, you would think this would stand out on the african savannah and the predators come after them but in a big herd it breaks up their sig w silhouette. a predator can t pick out one individual and it helps them survive. what kind of thing can they do to protect themselves from prey? zebras actually, you would think they would be sitting ducks for lions and things but they can bite and kick and they can actually do a number on a predator. all right. really cute. what s this one s name? ziggy. they do this for a while. when they re born do they have the stripes? they do. they re more of the brown color you can see on the back. beautiful. we ve got one for savannah now. yes. a great one for savannah. let s step over to the table here. oh, my god, no. yes. you thought frogs were bad. how cool is this? you have to admit this is cool. that s disgusting. these guys, obviously they re lizards and you can see it s flicking out its tongue. you want to feel the back? no. it is very smooth. not particularly. see? it s harder than i would think it would be. the scales. how did you find this? these guys are from south america. and so the tongue you can see it sticking out, just like a snake s tongue. they use it as a sense of smell. they stick out the tongue, they pull the scents out of the air. what does it eat? this guy is an omnivore so animal material, insects, small animals. savannah s fingers. lots of different reptiles are common this species, people release them in the wild and in places like florida they escape and become invasive. does the tongue always go like this? yes. just always goes like that. oh, my gosh. kathie lee is on the phone. one more. one more animal. this is the spot nose. she is going to do her little thing here. she is going to go back to daddy. what s going on here is that monkeys are social, right? so she lives in a social group and what she is hoping is to get groomed. see that? [ laughter ] now i m not going to pick off any paparasites and eat them bu that is what she is going for. it helps get rid of parasites and build social bonds. she wants a massage. does that work every time? it works for me. try that at home. come on, al. oh, look. get a little lower there. and still to come first your local news. wants a massag. does that work every time? 8:56 is your time now on this thursday, september 29th, 2011. good morning to you. i am eun yang. let s go to meteorologist, chucchuck bell with the forecast. there are rain drops sneaking into the area from the west and from the southwest, so don t be surprised to see some rain drops on the windshields and on your yards over the next couple hours. some of them are getting earlier than lunchtime. that highs today mid to upper 70s. much i am a face unclogger. i am a nose coach. i am a throat untickler. i am a human cough suppressant. and i am the sniffles worst nightmare. i am a target pharmacist. ask me about cold and flu remedies. [ speaking french ] movie buffs! this film is tres bien, but the interest rate on your checking account is le pew. interest on your checking? earn more with new high yield free checking at capital one bank. your interest rate will be five times the national average. five times the interest! and free atms at any bank. show s over folks. make your way to capital one bank. what s in your wallet? were you crying? yeah. 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. stay with us. good morning. right now we have 14th street shut down between southwest because a pedestrian has been struck in that area. delays on 395 slow from the pentagon all the way across the 14th street bridge. and new hampshire avenue, seeing delays there as well. we re back with more of today for a thursday morning, the 29th day of september, 2011. all the nice folks from iowa and all across the country, come down to rockefeller plaza, kick off our morning with us. i m al roker along with savannah guthrie and ann had to leave a little early and matt is on assignment right now in perugia, italy covering the amanda knox trial. matt, good morning. reporter: hey, al and savannah, good morning to both of you. that s right. the appeals phase of this trial is now winding down. probably another day or two left in it. we re in closing arguments, summations. there will be some rebutals and then amanda knox herself will stand before the court and make a statement. after that it goes to a judge, an assistant judge, and six people on a jury to decide her fate. will she remain in prison or be set free? that will be decided the next couple days. we ll have more on what has been going on in court over the last week. tomorrow morning we ll talk to the parents of amanda knox and you can only imagine what they re going through in these last couple days. al, savannah, back to you. a lot of anxiety for amanda knox right now. and today s professionals are here to talk about another high profile trial, the death of michael jackson and the doctor accused of causing the death, conrad murray. we ll talk about it with star jones, an attorney, dr. nancy snyderman, of course a well renowned doctor, and donnie deutsch as we all know head of a multibillion dollar corporation. they ll all be here to talk about the hot topics of the day. every week donnie looks sharper and sharper. he is. man, like that outfit. yes. affordable family vacations. we ll talk about some great vacations from great quaint side inns, bohemian get aways and we have bargains you won t want to pass up. first let s check the day s news stories with natalie morales over at the news desk. good morning, everyone. a massachusetts man is in custody today accused of plotting to attack the pentagon and the u.s. capitol using remote controlled model planes filled with explosives. under cover federal agents arrested rez withdrawn ferdaus afte delivering grenades, machine guns, and 24 pounds of what he thought was c-4 explosive. he is charged with attempting to destroy federal buildings and providing support to al qaeda. today the defense wraps up in the appeal of amanda knox. her attorney says knox is innocent and has been the victim of what he called a tragic judicial case. she was sentenced to 26 years in prison. a verdict in her appeal is not expected before monday. michael jackson s body guard takes the stand today in the involuntary manslaughter trial of jackson s doctor. prosecutors claim dr. conrad murray delayed calling 911 the day jackson died with the intent of covering up evidence that he had given jackson the powerful drug propofol. the body guard s testimony is considered crucial to the prosecutor s case. u.s. officials say they have arrested almost 3,000 dangerous criminals who are also illegal immigrants. all of the arrested had at least one criminal conviction and most of them had been convicted of at least one felony including attempted murder, rape, and kidnapping. they ll now face deportation. and a british man was attacked by a great white shark this week off soupgt afrith afr. it happened in an area where the beaches were closed because of shark sightings. the man who had been warned not to go inside the water insisted on going in and was attacked almost immediately. one leg was bitten off and the other severely mangled. he had earlier said if a shark takes me then blame me not the shark. and reebock has agreed to pay $25 million in customer refunds over its so-called toning shoes. the ftc accused the company of falsely advertising that the easy tone shoes can measurably strengthen muscles in the legs, thighs, and buttocks. in agreeing to the settlement reebock said it does not agree with the ftc accusation. it is now four minutes past the hour and now here is al with another check of your weather. thanks so much, natalie. got a nice group of folks here from fairfield, connecticut. and at all points around. let s check your weather. connecticut, and all points around. let s check your weather and we will show you today we re looking basically at wet weather here in the northeast. have flood watches for new jersey, new york and pennsylvania, as this low slow moving system makes its way out of here. we are talking one to three inches of rain from new york city all the way up into new england and in the central great lakes. and 103 in phoenix, and strong storms today in the central ohio valley. and sunshine in the gulf coast. that s what is going on around the country and here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. good thursday morning. i am news4 meteorologist, chuck bell. clouds out there on this thursday, and light rain and passing showers coming our way as well. get the um brel yauz ready to go. and here is a look at live doppler. you can see the showers out to the west and southwest of us, but they are coming inbound. again, grab your umbrellas. light rain and passing showers likely from late this morning through the midafternoon savannah? taking care of business all right. thanks. time for today s professionals our team of power players breaking down the day s hottest headlines. star jones is an attorney, author, and tv personality. donnie deutsch is chairman of deutsch, incorporated, a multibillion dollar advertising agency, and dr. nancy snyderman is a head and neck surgeon and nbc s chief medical editor. good morning to all of you. good morning. let s talk about a trial in the news, the michael jackson trial. conrad murray, a doctor who cared for michael jackson at the time of his death is now on trial for involuntary manslaughter. star, just to start with you, we had heard now the beginnings of the prosecution s case and essentially what they have to show here is that he was so reckless as to be indifferent to the health of michael jackson. do you think prosecutors have a strong case? i think they are putting together a tremendous building block of gross negligence. nancy and i and you had a conversation about this earlier in the week and as you think about it, they re just laying out piece by piece at every twist and turn dr. murray made a bad choice. he made a bad decision. and a lot of it looked to be motivated by money. that s the way that the prosecution is proving gross negligence. from everything from where he ordered the propofol, where he got it delivered, how he left the room with michael jackson, no monitoring equipment, no resuscitation equipment, every single step was gross negligence. if you really look at this we need not only a lawyer, star, but a doctor. if he were not charged with the possible death of a celebrity would this be a medical malpractice case? i think the prosecutors are alleging it is something more than malpractice, that it so grossly deviates from any standard of care a doctor would give that it rises above negligence. you can t even argue with that. there are a zillion mistakes here. first of all, he wasn t even paid by the patient. he was paid by a company so that raises the question to whose allegiance was he really under? but i wouldn t even know if you asked me today for propofol, i wouldn t even know how to order it. that s a drug anesthesiologists order and hospitals order. that is my question, nancy. i ve been wondering. who helped him get this? to even give propofol outside a hospital context in your view as a doctor, does that deviate from the standard of care? i have done out patient surgery in my office. i ve never given propofol ever. it s interesting to see just moving away from the legal aspects of this for a moment, how people have become fascinated once again with michael jackson s story. i want to ask a provocative question of you. i don t answer provocative questions. in some strange way, is this trial good for michael jackson s image to the extent he is now once again a sympathetic character inside that courtroom? i think it s on brand for his image. a lot of people say, well will this hurt him? interesting, he was on trial as a pedophile and the fans were outside. we love you, michael. we love you, michael. and he was acquitted. he was acquitted. people look at him as the ultimate artist and put up with and understand and empathize with things that ordinary people wouldn t. so it s michael jackson. and no matter how strange it gets, no matter how weird it gets, people accept him as an artist and he gets a pass for things he shouldn t get a pass for. no doubt a drug addict. so oh, it s michael jackson. i want to move to another pretty controversial topic. chris christie, new jersey s governor, is all in the news this week and there is speculation yet again that he may get into this presidential race no matter how many times he s denied it. but it does raise a question. there is kind of this conventional wisdom among the political chattering class that someone as heavy as chris christie. as fat as he is. would not be elected. you are so sweet to where you put that. you are really asking us will america elect a fat president? well, star, you said it. what do you think? as the resident used to be fat girl? you know. honestly, there is a lot of prejudice against people who are overweight. people who are overweight or obese or grossly obese. does it get in his way of becoming president? actually, i do think if we look back to history, if you look at like nixon and kennedy, america looked at the two of them, one looked like the little troll and the other like harrison ford. obviously there is a bias but i think now that people are looking for the quintessential outsider, quintessential, nonpolitician does it give authenticity? i think it does. he doesn t look like a politician. we want a healthy person. he looks like me. but there are two down side issues. number one, can he handle the physical rigors of a race? number two, and this is, please, i m not taking a knock at overweight people because a lot of people have health issues. if it s not something where he can t control it, if he is not disciplined enough to keep himself healthy, is he disciplined enough to make the tough decisions for our country? you know, it s self-discipline. once again, people who struggle with weight have struggles but you kind of go, wait a second. is he really if he is not in charge of himself can he be in charge of country? is it a health issue? he is not healthy. i mean, he is prediabetic. if he doesn t have high blood pressure he soon will. i m sure his knees hurt, his feet hurt, his hips hurt. he is morbidly obese. i can tell you he s not healthy. but it is interesting about leadership. do we want our leaders to look like us? if so, two-thirds of americans are overweight or obese. or do we want a leader to lead in a different way? we ve blurred the lines with that. if we vote for people based on cosmetics, i mean, you have to ask yourself if that s what you get. next topic, 53 and pregnant. did you see the cover of new york magazine this week? wow. it was photo shopped but showed an older woman with a very pregnant belly but told the real life story of a woman who was 53 and had a child with some fertilization help of course because her eggs were too old to carry but it raised the issue, when is it too old to be a parent? i was ticked off when the producer even presented this topic because he said, when an old lady has a baby, and i said, how old is the lady? because i hadn t senior citizen article. he said, 53. i said, well, somebody looking at the door of 50 in march doesn t consider 53 to be an old lady. i kind of think this is between the woman and her doctor. i m somebody that believes that we don t know her health. yes. so i go with the doctor. i have a great survey. anybody who thinks that is too old i want them to interview her son or daughter in second grade at age 8 and ask them was your mother too old to have you? because his answer is going to be no because otherwise he or she wouldn t be here. in fairness should the child be making the decision? the child wouldn t be here so they ll always vote yes. secondly, my first biological as a dad, i had my first biological child at 49. i am so much of a better parent now than i would have been when i m younger just because i m smarter about everything. i have different perspective. i knew you when you were younger. ooh lord. i didn t plan it this way but you re a better parent when you re older because you have more resources the pluses and the minuses? there are health risks for older moms. you have to make sure you have a doctor who knows how to take care of women who aren t going to fit the norm. but it raises the question, and it gets a little bit to what you re saying. you know, when you re if you have a baby at 53, chasing a toddler at 55 is a whole different ball game. so the hands on idea of raising a child and then when your child is 17 you really are a geriatric age. but they re still alive at 17. if you didn t have the child they wouldn t be here. i regret very much i didn t have a child earlier now that my eggs are powder. i think the photo shopped woman on the cover needs a meal. that is another topic for next week. to our next two topics before we run out of time, starbucks squatters. starbucks which is the place we re supposed to hang out and write your screenplay and drink lots of coffee is adopting a new policy where it is trying to urge customers not to spend hours on end. you see, donnie, i thought you d say they were going against their brand. first of all, they are not a hotel. they ar business. i want to say to those people that sit in starbucks for five hours at the computers, get a life. okay? get an office. it s like obnoxious. get a life. that is their life. isn t that what starbucks was selling all these years? they sell coffee. they want to be hospitable. there comes a point it is bad business and annoying. not everybody has the thing to make the next hewlett-packard. this is the place where ideas are massaged and the next big things. i think starbucks is making a huge problem. it would be like the book stores saying we don t want you on our sofas anymore reading our books. this is not experiential. starbucks wants to kick these people out, starbucks no longer smells like coffee. now it s not going to be an experience. now it s just one more big chain. we re going to take away the caffeine next. let s do our last topic really quick. marriage with miles. a new book, an author makes an argument that marriages where the spouses are long times apart are better because there is more excitement. i certainly hope it is. my relationship just became a long distance relationship. my guy lives now on the other side of the country in las vegas and so i m hoping that absence makes the heart grow fonder. we re mature, working individuals, so we re not trying to raise kids together. i think that it can work. look, i m an expert on successful marriages. ah ha. i have a lot of friends in that situation. it makes you appreciate the person more. it s common sense. on the other hand you get out of connection with your spouse. if you want to raise children there is nothing like two parents in a sitdown family dinner and structure and kids like that structure. once your kids go off to college, you guys want to separate, and live in different houses, that s different. father travels for business and is away one night a week? no. the more structure you can have the better for kids. nancy all right. thank you so much. star jones, donnie deutsch, dr. nancy snyderman. savannah that doesn t mean it s over for you and i. okay? state of the relationship. real close. if you have a question of this crazy panel go to our website today.com or tweet us at today show. still to come, amanda knox prepares to take the stand in her appeal. we ll take a look at why the young american convicted of murder in italy is getting so much attention. but up next, affordable family get aways. we ll show you the best bargains right after this. [ female announcer ] from the very first moment we arrive. we re on the move. and we don t want anything, ever, to slow us down. so it s surprising that most women aren t getting enough calcium. but thankfully, with over 25 great flavors, like strawberry cheesecake and blackberry harvest, only yoplait original gives you 50% of the daily value of calcium and vitamin d in every cup. yoplait. it is so good. why you gotta be like that? don t be like that cause i deserve better than this did i catch you playing up like that? [ jones ] if your dry hair has a mind of its own, tell us about it. and you could star in the next dove hair commercial. go to dovehair.com/friends and learn how you can make friends with your dry hair. announcing shipped for free, guaranteed to last. no minimum order. no end date. from l.l. bean. this morning on today s money get away deals for fall. if you dream of relaxing by the beach or taking in fall foliage travel & leisure has great destinations with affordable rates. good to see you. don t want to demote you. no, sir. now you ve actually nabbed some really great locations and some really primo spots. this is the heart of the adirondacks. this is right in the prime leaf peeping season. if you want to go and see the beautiful leaves turning, sit in an adirondack chair and enjoy a steaming cup of delicious cider, this is the place to go. for $239 a night you can stay in one of their beautiful, lake front rooms. you can go for a sunset kayak. you can do yoga. there are tons of activities. this is a very family friendly resort as well. we like that. unless of course you get all the fall foliage as a bonus. now heading to southern california, malibu always a very tony but very nice spot. well, we re a little obsessed with southern california. everyone looks at them and says, why do they seem so relaxed? they re always wearing flip-flops. their hair is kind of loose and they have convertibles. we want to channel that. that s right. all of us people from the northeast go over there and we rent a convertible. we drive down the pch. go straight to this hotel and true to its name it s right on the beach. $169 a night you can stay on the beach. wow. you re surrounded by multimillion dollar homes all around you and there is a great place called malibu seafood that i love to go to for delicious fish sandwiches there. it is very affordable as well. you ll be where the locals are. now let s go to south carolina, the charleston place hol. you can t say enough about charleston and southern hospitality there. charleston place is one of the hotels our readers consistently vote one of the world s best in travel & leisure s world best awards. there is a reason for that. they have a staff-to-guest ratio of one to one. you get lots of pampering, old world hospitality and great food as well. they have a deal where you get three nights for about 250 a night. they re throwing in dessert for two. just because you always need to have a little because you can. let s go with the beautiful people down to miami beach, south beach. an this is dream hotel and it s all about being at the right place. it s right on collins avenue. they took two art deco hotels and made them into one so you ll be kind of at the center of it all. they have a hot, new york restaurant owner doing the food there. utah, we ll go to the montage deer valley. you get to be in the perfect place at a great deal. being in utah in deer valley at the height of the beautiful season for leaves but also being there for slow season means you get to stay at the montage for only 225 a night. the rooms are 600 square feet on average. that means giant rooms. not a lot of money. and great outdoors. fantastic. always good to see you. features director. thank you. now, coming up, whether your child is starting kindergarten, moving on to middle or high school, we re going to tell you how you can make their transition a smooth one. but first, these messages. ahh, one. two. three. one. two. and, three. [ male announcer ] with the bankamericard cash rewards credit card, earn more cash back for the things you buy most. 1% cash back everywhere, every time. 2% cash back on groceries. 3% back on gas. automatically. no hoops to jump through. it s as easy as one. -two. -three. [ male announcer ] the bankamericard cash rewards card. apply online or at a bank of america near you. [ female announcer ] pillsbury chocolate chip cookies with hershey s chocolate chips. for a moment of warm, gooey, togetherness. chocolate chip cookies. from pillsbury. chocolate chip cookies. igni te ycolate chip cookies. our youth gene now. igni introducing anew genics. 10 years in the making. avon s first to use youth gene science. helps undo upto 10 years from the look of skin. clarity.reborn. wrinkles? transformed. visit avon.com now. have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don t drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions, such as tongue or throat swelling, occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then get lunesta for $0 at lunesta.com. there s a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. [ female announcer ] nutri-grain one good decision. can lead to another. with real fruit, more of the whole grains your body needs, and a good source of fiber. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. coming up a key day for the defense in amanda knox s appeal. matt ness perugia. we ll head to the kitchen for three classic southern dishes. u. [ cat ] inside and out. and i m not the only one who thinks so.right doc? [ female announcer ] vets agree, a healthy check up starts inside. our breakthrough iams premium protection formula is developed with vets. .with cutting edge ingredients for the lifelong health of your pet. [ cat ] what a surprise. straight as again! [ female announcer ] iams premium protection. our most advanced iams nutrition. ever. [ cat ] oh, i m not in your way, am i doc? i.[yawns] am an iams cat. you want that? you want a warm, super-delicious strawberry toaster strudel yeah but now i have nothing to eat sure you do. hey! you can have the pop tart! pillsbury toaster strudel. the one kids want to eat [ female announcer ] there s a place called hidden valley where kids not only eat their vegetables, they can t get enough. hidden valley ranch, makes vegetables delectable. 9:26 is your time now. let s go to meteorologist, chuck bell, for a look at your forecast. thursday off to a cloudy thursday off to a cloudy start. i just joined extracare advantage for diabetes at cvs pharmacy. i m taking the right steps to manage my diabetes and my budget. extracare advantage for diabetes is a program that helps me save money on the supplies i need so we can stay a step ahead of. all: our diabetes! join extracare advantage for diabetes and get special savings. visit cvs.com/diabetes to find out more. good morning. traveling in southwest, i still have 14th street shut down. this is between c street and d street. a pedestrian was struck there. you may just want to take 12th street instead. traveling 395, seeing big delays here at route 27. those delays continue to the 14th street bridge. making the trip in maryland, looking better on the outer loop, but traveling just under the speed limit at 35 miles per hour. thank you so much. more news, weather and traffic for you in 25 minutes. for now, back to the today [ 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. two trials on two continents that have millions of people fascinated. the appeal of amanda knox in italy and the involuntary manslaughter trial of michael jackson s doctor, conrad murray. tomorrow a special split edition of today with ann reporting live from los angeles and matt live from perugia, italy. matt has been reporting from there all morning. in a few minutes he ll have the latest on today s closing arguments and italy s obsession with the knox case. we re all a little obsessed with both of these trials. also ahead we re taking a look at school transitions. you know, kids have been back in school for a couple weeks but whether in kindergarten or just making the leap to middle or even high school, any transition can be rough. not just on the kids, also the parents. we ll help you help your kids get through it. we hear about it when they get home. yes. we ll try to calm them down. exactly. homework, too. in today s kitchen all i have to say, two words. bourbon and bacon. we re making some good old southern favorites from chicken and waffles to an apple and bourbon pecan salad. our director says just leave out the pecan and apple. a pretty good deal. bourbon salad. first check the weather for us, al? you bet. looking ahead toward the we> for tomorrow, we have rain in the pacific northwest and also in the northeast, great lakes, sunny and hot through the southeast on into the central part of the southwest. more of the same on saturday. more rain in the pacific northwest and the northeast. we have windy conditions around the great lakes. sunday, sunday, rain and a little mountain snow in new york and new england. say what? what the what? the afternoon showers in the pacific northwest and sunny and hot in the southwest with a little monsoon moisture. that s what is going on around the country and here is what is happening in your neck of the woods. i am news4 meteorologist, chuck bell, one or two breaks of sunshine getting through but those will be few and far in between over the next few hours as a patch of rain comes our direction from the central parts. and grab umbrellas on your way out. generally rainfall amounts will be one-tenth of an inch or less. that s your latest weather. coming up next the worldwide fascination with amanda knox as the defense makes its final plea in her appeal. ma irregularity is no big deal, think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! gives you a 50% annual bonus! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody. would you like 50% more cash? no! but it s more money. [ male announcer ] the new capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash. what s in your wallet? woah! [ giggles ] a dab of concealer here. a flurry of powder there. what if there was a makeup that didn t just hide your breakouts. but actually made them go away. neutrogena skin clearing makeup. it has our proven blemish fighting formula blended with silky gorgeous makeup. so it gives you a beautiful flawless look while undercover it works to clear breakouts. does your makeup do that? neutrogena® cosmetics. does your makeup do that? [ female announcer ] there s no right way or wrong way. every baby plays by his own rules. and they need a diaper that lets them do it. new pampers cruisers with 3-way fit adapt at the waist, legs and bottom with up to 12 hours of protection for all the freedom to play their way. pampers. it s time to play. where d ya go? there you are. there you go. [ female announcer ] you always went for the tall, dark, handsome types. so who d have ever thought the love of your life. would be short and bald? having a baby changes everything. now to the latest on amanda knox the college student convicted of killing her roommate four years ago. today with a verdict in her appeal just days away the defense is arguing it is time for her to be set free. matt ness prunis in perugia thi with the latest. reporter: thank you very much. amanda knox s appeal is being heard in a courtroom just about a block or so from where i m standing right now, her lawyers delivering their closing arguments. we will soon have a much anticipated conclusion to a trial that s generated headlines all around the world. amanda knox entered the court this morning like so many times before, but it could be all over soon. she s in the final days of appealing her conviction on murder and sexual assault charges. very soon she is expected to stand up in court and make a final plea for her freedom. since her arrest in 2007, amanda knox has gone from an yuunknown 20-year-old college student to an object of enormous international attention. she was voted the most fascinating woman in italy in a television poll. there have been marriage proposals, books, and a made-for-tv movie. i would never hurt her. my conscience is clean. reporter: italian lawmakers sent a letter to italy s president on her behalf. even donald trump weighed in on her conviction, telling seattle tv station komo and i think people should boycott italy. they shouldn t go to italy. reporter: the all american girl from seattle is often called angel face by the italian media. british tabloids painted a picture of a wild party girl with a dark side, a portrait her family has furiously contested. for years, knox has resolutely maintained her innocence, saying she was with her then boyfriend raffaele sollecito the night meredith kercher was killed. raffaele sollecito was also co convicted and is also appealing. knox s family has been unwavering in their support flying back and forth from seattle to perugia dozens of times. her step father and also her best friend even moving here to support her. the whole family is here right now hoping to bring amanda home. i spoke with amanda s father on wednesday. you ve got a 24-year-old kid that s essentially fighting for her life, and this is her last chance to actually tell the judge and jury that she truly had nothing to do with this horrific cre. reporter: since the start of her appeal knox has remained focused in court, but in the last few days she appears to be worn out and anxious as she waits for the decision on her future. and again, we don t have much longer to wait. neither does amanda knox. a decision in this appeal is expected either over the weekend or early next week. savannah, back to you. matt, thank you. coming up next helping your kids make the transition from elementary school to middle and high school. that s after these messages. 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. [ female announcer ] nutri-grain one good decision. .can lead to another. with real fruit, more of the whole grains your body needs, and a good source of fiber. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. i d like a decaf 360 calories please. i ll have a triple iced 410 calories please. you know what. i ll have this instead. [ female announcer ] swap one thing a day for a yoplait light at around 100 calories. it will add up to amazing. [ laughs ] [ laughs ] [ laughs ] that s awesome. you can read that? [ female announcer ] the accufit digital system, exclusively at lenscrafters. is about 5 times more precise than manual measurement techniques. lenscrafters. than manual measurement techniques. [ male announcer ] indulge all you want. now there s no need to hold back. new revolutionary scope with dualblast technology obliterates strong food odors and kills bad breath germs leaving your breath minty fresh. hey. sorry i m late, baby. i bet you re starving. [ male announcer ] so there s no trace of evidence. hey, i thought i did the dishes. [ male announcer ] blast away strong food odors and bad breath germs with new scope dualblast. also, try crest complete extra white with scope dualblast. g pasta bowl is almost over. for just $8.95 try new sauces like roasted mushroom parmesan and hearty pizzaiola meat. choose all the sauce and pasta combinations you want just $8.95, with unlimited salad and breadsticks. so hurry in to olive garden. she won t eat eggs without hot sauce. she has kind of funny looking toes. she s always touching my hair. and she does this dancing finger thing. [ male announcer ] with advanced technology from ge, now doctors can diagnose diseases like breast cancer on a cellular level. so that women, like kristy s mom, can get personalized treatment that s as unique as she is. [ kristy ] she s definitely not like other moms. yeah, my mom is pretty weird. 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. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. education nation is proudly brought to you by university of phoenix because we believe an educated world is a better world. this morning on education nation today helping ease the way while your child gets older and moves to a new school. new spaces, new faces, and more homework can all be pretty overwhelming. 11-year-old emmy has just transitioned from elementary school into middle school. she is starting sixth grade. having a lot of different teachers is good because you get to, like, know different teachers personalities, but it s bad because they give out different homework. like in elementary school, i usually just had like one page for math. this year i have a whole packet. and then reading i would just have to read my book for 30 minutes. this year i have a book report. i have a lot to do. reporter: emmy s mom, beth, understands the challenges. everything was so comfortable at her old school. emmy wants to please her teachers. so she gets nervous about that. reporter: yet expects her daughter to manage these new responsibilities. we re focusing a lot on organization because i think that s key in middle school. expecting her to take a little bit more independence in her work, to know what tests are coming up, and know what books she has to take home. reporter: challenges pop up in unexpected places, like the school bus. when i get on the bus to school, it s good. but then i have a little problem getting on to the bus coming home. the first day she took the bus home, i would say maybe three days later she missed it again. she wasn t sure exactly which exit she is supposed to go out. reporter: even having a locker takes some getting used to. i used to have the top locker and i felt like i couldn t see the numbers at all. and i had to stand on my tippy toes. so i ended up getting the bottom locker. not quite sure exactly if the locker is just a fun thing for her or if it s really useful. reporter: emmy s principal sees incoming students with similar issues every year. sometimes they still do miss the buses. sometimes they have trouble with the lock ersberg. some kids still struggle with it and we try to be attentive to that. reporter: chalk it up to learning the ropes, something emmy is confident she will master very soon. i will be able to tell you that it went fabulous. she is such a cutie. francy alexander is a former teacher. good morning. hi there. good to have you here. school has been in session now for a month for most people but a lot of us are still dealing with a lot of these issues with transitioning our kids, right? that s right. the crayons aren t new anymore. the computer is not new anymore. kids are really having to settle into school. and the hard part comes. right. kids are being academically and socially challenged for maybe the next ten months. let s talk about some of those challenges. you saw emmy dealing with everything from her locker to the work load, the home work, the social pressures as well. and parents are going to go through a lot of those same transitions along with their children, right? how can we help guide them? one thing is to have a partnership with the teacher because as you said, the parent is going through the transition, too. so there are tips that the teacher can help you with. good things like i always reminded my parents on back-to-school night there is a reason we call it homework. that is your time to shine. there is your opportunity to check in on the school day and to help your kid get ready for the next one. all right. and it s normal for parents then to really feel sometimes the pain that goes along with the pain that their child is feeling. oh, sure. if you come home and your child said, i didn t have anybody to sit next to at lunch, you feel that. it hurts. so being able to talk about it, the communication is so important because actually you want your child to tell you what s going right and wrong so you can be supportive and offer advice. okay. let s talk about some of the areas where they re transitioning first. with me, i have a second grader and a new preschooler and i think a lot of people are going through that where you start with first pre-k, kindergarten, and the elementary school ages. what are some things that as parents we can do to help them and guide them in the right direction? first of all, those are the foundations of learning and their attitudes about school, with your preschooler, he s learning how to do school. that s a whole new world. so you can help by reading with them. that s the gateway skill to everything else. and by starting the whole talking process. and the talking with, not to process. getting your kids to ask you questions about things that are going on or to tell you about things going on. in fact, i used to encourage parents to have a share and tell day just like we did at school for them to share and tell you about their elementary or preschool experiences so you really know what s going on. one of the things you say though is don t as a parent panic or get overwhelmed with some of the things they re dealing with. absolutely. because the day that somebody wasn t your friend, the next day they re your best friend. right. so being there to listen and be supportive, but, no. don t panic. okay. next, middle school into, i guess middle school they ll be dealing with social challenges peer pressure and all the friend, not being friends anymore. we saw with emmy how many things that is almost like starting school all over again. right. it s like if you move to a new state or a new job because she is having to adjust to higher academic standards. lots of things happen at that level that are really important to their ongoing education. and then you mentioned, if you re a kid that age, she was talking about having trouble getting on the bus. pretty soon she is going to care more about who she s sitting next to on the bus so you need to be there to help guide them through those transitions, too. absolutely. then high school is a whole other ball game. we re out of time right now, but thank you so much. for more tips on helping your kids be sure to go to our website today.com. coming up next in today s kitchen a southern favorite, chicken and waffles. does it get any better than that? first, this is today on nbc. good morning. in today s kitchen step by step we re making southern favorites with a modern twist. todd richards is the chef at the rich carlton buckhead in atlanta. chef todd, good to see you. good morning. i understand this is not your mom s chicken and waffle. no. this is almost like sacrilegeous for her. we ll keep it between us. all right. how do we get started? we have the chicken, very quickly we ll add some pepper corns. right. some thyme, salt. all of this? all of it. we re going to add some water to it. sugar? sugar in there and then water. put it in a zip lock bag. make it really easy. this is a brine basically. this is a brine. how long you going to keep this? 4 to 12 hours. we ll zip it up. in the fridge. in the fridge. then we have the chicken here. we already have it browning and everything like that. definitely skin side down first. right. very, very important. both sides, we add the peaches. ah. making a little something to go a little compot. bourbon. a little skimpy on the bourbon. i drink the rest before hand. then maple syrup. we have that, let that reduce. right. then put the chicken on first. we have a beautiful waffle going here. what kind of waffle batter do you like? i like a good malted waffle batter. definitely gives us a good flavor. caramelizes very well. we re going to add a little bit of cheddar cheese to it as well. ooh. i have a little thing where i put some already cooked bacon and lay it across. you can t close it up. you can t go wrong with bacon. you finish it up. you got your waffle. the waffle, the chicken on top. add a little bit of peaches to it. a good amount of the bourbon maple syrup. that looks fantastic. let it soak in. we add a little roughage here. to make it look like something a little healthy. yes, you know. all right. fantastic. we ll bring this to the back. all right. now you re making loaded corn. yes. now, this is really, really one of my favorite dishes to make because it is really simple. so we took the bacon off the pan and everything, going to put it here. let it drain off a little. let it drain off a little. we ll reserve a little bit of the fat. thank goodness. yes. then we ll put the corn in here and actually caramelize the corn. ah. i mean, we want to make sure we get some of the flavor of the bacon and everything and the corn and get it caramelized and ready to go. once you re done there you ve cooked your corn. put it on a platter. now you have to make your own loaded corn. we ll bring a couple over here for you. i ll do a couple over here. the way i do mine i start with a little parmesan cheese first. okay. just a little. a little bit of ranch seasoning. mm-hmm. chives. you don t have any more bourbon left over do you? we have something in the apple walnut salad. a little piece of bacon on top. you know? i ll give you the whole plate because i know you like bacon. that s good. okay. very nice. and then you ve got something a little bit lighter. not too much lighter. not too much lighter. we have little apple, pecan, and bourbon vinegarette. tossed the pecans with a little bourbon, cook it. a couple croutons, a little roughage. definitely chicken and waffles. chef todd, folks want to check you out, ritz-carlton, buckhead. good to have you. thank you. thank you so much. nick le shea sitting in for kathie lee. plus ashanti stops by after your local news. go for it! good morning, everybody. i am barbara harrison. it s september 29th. let s go to our meteorologist, chuck bell, for a look at the forecast. good morning, barbara and everybody. still a break or two of sunshine, but won t last much longer though. light rain showers move into western and northern parts of areas. mostly cloudy and light rain and passing showers from late this morning into the early afternoon hours. barbara? danella? right now, still seeing 14th street shut down between c and d street. it s better to take 12th street while police are investigating. traffic in the area, still a little congested on i-66. it s slow as you head inside of the beltway. barbara, back to you. thank you. thank you. 85% of women wear the wrong bra captions paid for by nbc-universal television girl you re telling me you want me this is thirsty thursday, september 29, 2011. if you think it s warm where you are, guess how hot it is in europe? it s 98 degrees. we are take you back to 2000 with give me one more night. our guest co-host today nick lechey. if that doesn t get the party started, i don t know what will. great video where was that shot, by the way? that was actually down in the mexican riviera. i m glad you made it to co-host today. kathie lee is off this week. i follow you on twitter. i look at 1:00 in the morning you re tweeting, 2:00 in the morning you re tweeting because you re watching that baseball stuff that was driving everybody crazy. that s the most unbelievable day of baseball. two of the most fantastic finishes. the red sox, that was a complete meltdown. are you a fan? i m not. red sox and braves, both of them found a way to choke it away. you ve been busy. we know you ve been doing your, you ve got a bunch of gig goes. what happened to your show the sing-off. we had sara bareilles. just so you didn t feel left, this is your drink of choice? i never looked more forward to doing a show than this morning. all right. how is that? you have to pry me out of this chair at the end of the day. this is like my dream job. come to work and drink beer at the desk. it s all right. the sing-off is a hot show. there is something about watching these voices meld that is nothing to hide behind, it there? that s the beauty of a cap capella music. you have to appreciate the talent of the contestants. on the stage, there is nowhere to hide. you get a real feel how talented they are. do you get nervous doing your thing? it s weird. i don t get nervous doing the hosting thing. it s fun. it s such an exciting thing to be a part of and to be around this music and groups. i like your outfit you picked today. somebody saw me earlier on the air and said nick doesn t look foe cute for his today show. i made an effort to morning, put a tie on. you read your tweets? i do occasionally. you do. that s good to no. our real kathie lee is in salt working on the musical called saving aimee opening at the fifth avenue in seattle. she is so pumped about it. this is one of those shows we know will come to broadway. the show opens october 20th. did she write it? she wrote it. you know the song hooray to hollywood. from shirley temple to aimee temple. casty lee doesn t sing, she cheers them on, in case you re wondering. here is something we came across. help us out here. ten signs, this for women looking for their man. you re the guy and you can be the judgment this is what i-village says, the ten signs he is really into you. first one is he leans in. do you lean in? through go. yes. his eyes have it. do guys always lock eyes when they are interested in a girl. i think so. if you re looking away and not engaging something, it s a showing you re not into them. if you re locking eyes, that is a definite sign. he s got the touch. guys who take any opportunity, they re tactile. there is a fine line here. if you touch too much, you know they re into it and that crosses a line. i think physical contact and engaging someone whether it s touching them or looking them in the eye. you re recently married, aren t you? i am. you got married how long ago? i should know this, shouldn t i? july 15th. just want to point out they are mouthing july 15th. i m worried about my wife going, he doesn t know the date. july 15th. this is at branson s home that later burned down. we got married, thankfully, in branson s personal home. it was the main house on the island that caught fire and burned down. we didn t look at it as any sign that the place we got married burned down. we are not reading into that at all. when you look back at your wedding, it turned into a tlc special. when you look back at the video, what do you think? we had the best time watching this. you go through a wedding, it s such a whirlwind you don t have a chance to stop and appreciate it and enjoy it. looking at it on tv was so much fun to be part of it all over again. you got married the first time, a lot of your life was public. this time you were not going to live your life out loud. we talked about doing the wedding special over and over again, beat it to death. in the end we felt it was something we could wrap our head around because it was a clear start and clear end. it wasn t going to go on season after season. you proposed to her how long ago was that? november 3rd. november 3rd last year. how did you propose? i took her down to the montage in laguna and took a nice dinner and nice romantic walk on the beach and got down on both knees in the begging position and popped the question. what did she do? did she laugh or cry? i think she told me, stop it. she was like, stop it, stop it. this is not how this is supposed to go. it s a moment that is surreal. she couldn t believe it was actually happening. we have cool video. everyone has their own way of proposing. there was a flash mob. this happened on the campus of ucla. this guy named nam and his girlfriend tran, and he decided to do a flash mob proposal. that s impressive. can t take my eyes off of you that s cute. pretty baby don t bring me down i feel you baby o pretty baby come let me love you baby let me love you will you marry me? now my proposal doesn t look like anything. you just one-upped me on national television. i tell you my touching story and this guy gets a flash mob. we ve been doing the cutest baby contest. are you going to have kids? i saw this yesterday. i ve got the itch for the baby. do you? these kids yesterday were so cute. i couldn t believe it. we have to narrow it down. we had 37,000 plus entries. we have to narrow them down to ten. these were our final ten. take a look at the winners. trinity from arizona. wyatt from florida. darling. i would look at them all day. william and harrison. that counts as one from georgia. and abby from new york. andre. am i able to pick one? you can vote. you re going to pick among the ten. go to our facebook page and vote. you only get one vote each. we ll announce the winners on october 3rd. the winner, we ll bring five of the babies here to new york. you have a beauty contest. i m not playing favorites. that wid from ohio, adorable. i ve got to share this song with you. every thursday i do a song i pick. this one i think is the finest love song ever written. it works for people who i guess are two moving targets, if you re on the go. if you can t always meet, it s a great song. it s a billy joel song called you re my home. . when you look into my eyes and you see the crazy gypsy in my soul it always comes as a surprise when i feel my withered roots begin to grow well i never had a place that i could call my very own but that s all right my love cause you re my home isn t that beautiful? nobody does it like billy does. isn t that a beautiful song? when you touch my weary head rumor has it i was able to pick a song. you get to pick one? this is no billy joel classic here. you ve got that beautiful billy joel song. i m partial to this one. never going to give you up never going to let you down get them, rick. this is one of the feel-good videos. there were two bear cubs wrestling. i don t know where we found this, but it s adorable. look at them. look over to the side. the mother is over there watching. they are really small. i m sure this camerawoman was like, oh, my god, there s the mother bear. time to go. just cute video we got our hands on. i could watch it all day long. that mother is ready to pounce on anything that comes close to those cubs. we do our okay/not okay and it s that time of the day. is it okay to bring your dog on a date? kathie lee says what page you on? i don t know. kathie lee says, doggone right. apparently kathie griffin thinks it s okay to bring a dog on a date. both of them. mine says, what do i say? you read mine. it s not okay. a date should be one-on-one, no third wheels even if they have four legs. what do you think? you have a dog you are gaga about. on the date if you go to the park or it s doggy day, i think it s cool to bring a dog. a dog just change your intimate dynamic. i m not a believer having the dog sleep in bed with you at night. i think the dog has to have its own space so mommy and daddy have their own space. why does it mess with your intimacy if they are not in the bed? it s awkward. today is national coffee today. i m sure there is alcohol in here. we are double fisting. it s a javatini. that s nice. you re not the only musician in the house. we have ashanti. if you think occasional irregularity is no big deal, think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! unleash the hidden power of bisquick. but you go in pieces. [ female announcer ] you can t pass mom s inspection with lots of pieces left behind. that s why there s charmin ultra strong. its diamondweave texture is soft and more durable so it holds up better. fewer pieces left behind. charmin ultra strong. 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. when you pour chunky beef with country vegetables soup over it. you can do dinner. four minutes, around four bucks. campbell s chunky. it s amazing what soup can do. i love it. not wash. power wash. ok. whoa. [ female announcer ] life comes with headaches. excedrin extra strength gets rid of them fast. in fact, for some, relief starts in just 15 minutes. excedrin. for life s headaches. you are listening to the smooth sounds of the grammy award winning singer asante. she is right here in the studio. we love so many things about you. number one, you always come with your mom, your manager and she is videotaping on the side. second of all, we open the new york post today and look at this picture of ashanti. i m not sure what you think of it. that is incredible. oh, my god! sexy ashanti posing at heidi klum s halloween bash. so you re all about halloween. a year later. i can t believe it. let s talk about new music you ve got coming out. yes. i am so excited. the track never too far away is from the movie dream house that is coming out tomorrow with daniel craig. the title track to the movie was a phenomenal experience. is that the horror movie? it s a horror movie, but it s like a love story. he is so in love with his wife and family, but you have to see the movie. did they tell you, here is the movie, can you write a track? or did you say i have this great track. l.t. hutton invited me, we worked together, he said this is going to be an amazing opportunity. you get in here and write this. very cool. you do, in addition to your singing, and we love hearing you. you do a lot with charity. absolutely. there was that big brothers/big sisters group that has a great psa that takes your breath away. boys and girls club of america, amazing. myself, j. lo, a bunch every alumni. they gave us an amazing opportunity to shoot present psa. it s my foundation. it s all about giving back to the kids and teaching about education. it s an amazing opportunity. what an incredible alumni. i ve done work for them recently. so the ideas is kids can see you and realize you came from there, too. exactly. so many people want to do what you re doing. for some reason they just don t make it. what do you think the ticket is? i think you have to have passion, drive, you have to understand it s about rejection. you re going to get rejected way more than you re accepted. you have to be determined, believe in yourself despite the haters. there will always be someone telling you you can t do it. follow your dreams. it s so important at that age when you re developing your talents and interests to have someone there, a group of people to support you and encourage you. that s what the club does a great job of. absolutely. it s another family. when does this album come out? the single. first of all, the single is called it s so exclusive. i haven t told anybody this. give it up. it s called no good. this is the title track to the movie. my official single will be out very soon. it s so phenomenal. people are tweeting when, when, when. ashanti, thank you for joining us. sara is here with a double dose of webtastic. your favorites, in pieces. [ female announcer ] pillsbury chocolate chip cookies with hershey s chocolate chips. for a moment of warm, gooey, togetherness. chocolate chip cookies. from pillsbury. [ indistinct talking on tv ] [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] vicks nyquil cold and flu. the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep you ever got with a cold.medicine. if you think occasional irregularity is no big deal, think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! we are back with our special series we call webtastic. sara has the internet video you want to share with your entire cass. and since it s rosh hashanah. this is the rosh hashanah rock video. . rosh hashanah in the house tonight we ll learn about the book of life it s holiday time this had 15,000 hits. it was posted on september 11th. it says it will motivate people to realize there is fun in the meaning of these holidays. we do have a second one. our next one, another one about the holiday because that s what we re doing is called parody of a popular song called soul bigger parody to gold digger. i m trying to make my soul bigger. . this is a jewish outreach program and has over 82,000 hits. it s not only about a sweet new year, they say it s looking back at what you ve done and that s exciting. they made light of it. makes you want to dance. thanks, sara. still to come, some of the latest gadgets that will help you sleep soundly through the night. if you want to heat things up, know the answers to cosmos relationships. 123450 . dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there s a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o s made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda. 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. wowww look how beautiful mommy is ! boy: yells and giggles shutter snaps he, he, he mom: that was gooood. boy: oops ! shutter snaps look at this cowboy. dad: that s a funny photo ! he he my turn ! we sing along to all our favorite songs uhhh ! dad: okay shoot the video ! we can make em up its shooting video. cause we were made for each other, boy: i m making a movie ! for always mom: that s cool ! dad: yeah ! take a picture of yourselves ! shutter snaps oh ! oh ! girl: daddy ! hey, jessica, jerry neumann with a policy question. jerry, how are you doing? fine, i just got a little fender bender. oh, jerry, i m so sorry. i would love to help but remember, you dropped us last month. yeah, you know it s funny. it only took 15 minutes to sign up for that new auto insurance company but it s taken a lot longer to hear back. is your car up a pole again? [ crying ] i miss you, jessica! jerry, are you crying? no, i just, i bit my tongue. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm. we are back on this thirsty thursday with today s relationship. you are listening to nick lachey singing. we are going to go head-to-head with relationship competition. i ve been warned that you like to remain one step ahead. they say you like to cheat is what i ve been hearing. i do not cheat. i win fair and square. kate white is from cosmo magazine and is here to put us to the test. we are ready for you. when you fight at night, is it better to finish the fight so you can kiss and make up before bed? better to finish. no. it s not. you re supposed to go to bed mad. we heard that. yes. when you re tired, fights spiral out of control. go to sleep. partner gives you a gift. you don t like, a necklace your grandmother would wear. are you honest? no. take it and say thank you. absolutely. tell the white lie. you wear the sweater. this is a good question for nick. when it comes to sexting your partner, what is sexier. this is a good one for me. illicit pictures or naughty text? better to do naughty text. absolutely. a cosmo polls show guys like it more mysterious. i thought it was so you wouldn t get in trouble later. you have a big day at work tomorrow. is it smarter to skip sex and get a good night s rest or stay up later and get it on? i always say stay up and get it on. oh, yeah. sex triggers brain chemicals that make you more creative at work. yes. yes or no. is calling your guy, sweetie, honey or darling or the other way around good for the relationship? no. you are so right. studies show you re the guru. we do all these things. those generic nicknames kill the chemistry. specific personal names are good. like what? what if they call you four-letter words? no. it depends on the couple. is it better to own a dvr and catch up on your favorite shows together or should you completely ignore tv and spend your quality is it a balance between the two? you have to pick one. dvr, watch together. yep. surprisingly, 80% of couples said dvrs made them happier because you share a guilty pleasure together. game is tied. if your partner has an attractive flirty co-worker, should you voice your concerns or let it go? let it go. no. voice your concern, voice your concern. we have one more. 40% of people dated a co-worker and she may b coming on. here we go. last question. are periodic conversations that evaluate your relationship beneficial or not? no. no. i think they re good. nick is right. now it s 4-4. time for one more. i have to take one off the top movie head. you ve got a killer mother-in-law. should you try to work it out with her or not? yes. that s right. yes, work it out? nick lachey. you got a neglegie. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn t use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit when consumed 3 times per day. 7 out of 10 doctors recommend activia. and the great taste is recommended by me! mary? what are you doing here? it s megan. i m getting new insurance. marjorie, you ve had a policy with us for three years. it s been five years. five years. well, progressive gives megan discounts that you guys didn t. paperless, safe driver, and i get great service. meredith, what s shakin , bacon? they ll figure it out. getting you the discounts you deserve. now, that s progressive. call or click today. challenge that thinking with olay. there s more than a jar of olay moisturizers in every bottle of olay bodywash to leave your skin feeling soft and smooth. with olay. if you dream, you can do it. some creative minds have wonderful, wacky dreams. bobbie with some unique and beautiful finds. i had no idea you two have known each other for many, many years. many, many, more than either one of us wants to admit. 13 years. we won t get into your history. back in the day. all bobbie s cool finds. we have not independently verified any of the claims by these companies. we found them interesting. this is fun. this is courtesy of the manzo brothers of real housewives. this is blackwater. there is no smell. it s like water, regular water? it looks like a diet soda or something. it s regular water. it takes like water. why is it black? it has folic acid which lets you absorb the water faster. there is lots of great stuff in it that is supposed to be good for you. this could be the new trend. you think you re going to get coke. i ve been drinking this for the last two days to try it. i now adjusted. it s kind of cool. it is very cool. that s what they say. this is a website i if he ll in love with. get cheeky.com. this person has come up with all kinds of ideas including the workout utensils. that is a two-pound dumbbell. i was shaking while i was trying to do this at home. it s a workout while you seat. these are heavy. these are stickers that if you put on your bag, you will definitely have your bag stand out. you might get pulled over by security. you may not real ize it s jut a tag on there. what else is in, cat hair. it s the big new craze. there is a book november 1st crafting cat with cat hair. this is an artist i love. they are all about cycling. heidi abrahamson is one. cat hair. i have to say it s catching on. i know it s not what you re expecting, but it comes with a certificate of authenticity. it came from a cat. hoda, if you don t know what to do with the wedding rings once a marriage hasn t worked out, you can get a wedding ring coffin. it s not just me, okay? you can have it personalized. six feet isn t deep enough. and beauty trends. these are pills in case you don t, you think your stuff stinks, if your friend says my stuff doesn t stink, it s called odrfree. thank god kathie is not here. i m not saying i need it. wash it down with blackwater. you heard the trend about your girlfriends you got it? there is a big trend about your girlfriends looking perky. now the new trend is your girlfriends are supposed to be pink. it s a pink nipple cream. your girlfriends? your girlfriends. oh. last but not least, i was hysterical laughing at this website, booty pillows.com. they have a video. this is an actual item that you can sleep with. can i take this on the plane with me? this is the boyfriend pillow. i was going to make sure if i found the head version, i would find her version. how you sleep is affecting your weight. [ male announcer ] at cheez-it, we expect a lot from our cheese. hmmm, what are you doing? studying. studying? quantum physics. that s not mine?! i don t know where that came from! aw, do you ha. is that a check? that s not a good check is it? what do you think? it s a bad check. [ male announcer ] we take the time for our cheese to mature before we bake it into every delicious cracker because at cheez-it, real cheese matters. it s bring your happiness to work day. campbell s microwavable soups. in three minutes the deliciousness that brings a smile to any monday. campbell s it s amazing what soup can do. these things are for real. so is excedrin migraine. it starts relieving migraine pain in half an hour. that s not all. gets rid of sensitivity to light and sound.everything. [ male announcer ] number one neurologist recommended. guys. [ female announcer ] pillsbury cinnamon rolls with cinnabon cinnamon are an irresistible sunday morning idea. nothing calls them to the table faster. sunday morning ideas made easy. i m a curious seeker. to the table faster. 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. 3/4 of us struggle to get a good night s sleep. if you re watching us yawning, you know hour. whether you have trouble falling asleep or toss and turn, we have gadgets that might change your life. people love these segments because everyone is trying to get a better night s sleep. sleep is a big problem for people. we hat shape found great gadgets that help you change and improve your sleep. you re wearing one of the gadgets. what is this? this is the body media fit core. this is a new smaller arm band. basically, this helps you track how efficiently you re sleeping at night. it has four sensors. it s part of a bigger weight loss program. it tells you if you keep it on all day how many calories you re burning at the gym or if you re having food, how many calories you re taking in. you unplug this, put it in your computer to read it? yes. there is an ipad app for everything. this is sleep cycle. it s only $1.99. put this by your bed. it tracks how your body is actually moving. the alarm clock comes in because you have different stages of sleep. it guarantees to wake you up during your lightest phase of sleep. so you re more alert and more refreshed. you hold it while you sleep? no. you put it next to your pillow or bed. somewhere close by where it can feel you moving. that is interesting. this looks too fancy for me. this is a head band that you wear at night. actually, it s connected to this little clock here. on the morning time you put it here and it tells you how efficiently you re sleeping. it s going to give you quality of how well you re doing throughout the night. this alarm clock on wheels looks like trouble. this is my favorite. this is for people who are addicted to precious the snooze button. you hit this once. if you need to snooze it again, it will jump up and you have to run after it. wait a minute. wait a second. you re chasing the alarm clock? you know that is not happening. some might say it s annoying, i think it s brilliant. it goes get you out of the bed. it s going to go off eventually. we ll go back to it. it s almost time. after that we have the wake mate. this goes on your wrist. it s connected to your ipad or iphone. throughout the night it s measuring. where did it go? that is not a good way to wake up, running after it. it s a fun way to wake up it. like it. it s a cute gadget. it s not going to go off, is it? not until we stop it. i do need to run after it? jerry s got it. this is a sleep pillow. for anybody who likes to fall asleep to music without waking up your spouse or boyfriend, put your ear here. if you want to listen to music while falling asleep, the actual head phone is in the bag. it s hidden there and only you can hear it. finally, this is a watch that also doubles as a sleep tracker. it s a little bit more masculine. if you don t want to wear that head band, it s a good way to also gauge how well you re sleeping. interesting. coming next, we ll sip wine and figure out what dish goes with what. now we are talking. first this is today. we invited jessica, a wine critic and president of the canadian wine association and sommeliers to get the perfect pair with your wines and your favorite dish. we are starting with white. we know chardonnay, this is a sauvignon blanc. it s from argentina. the guy that makes it is michel rolland. he shares his wine and his project. any white fish it works? exactly. green beans, vegetarian meal because it has grade acidity. i have a question, is this kentucky fried chicken? it is, i think. picking a red. yeah. offering this on the menu. this is a troublemaker. it is a comfort food wine. it is so lush, a lot of fruit. isn t it good? delicious. 18 bucks. the trouble is you re going to drink the whole bottle. what s the trouble? what are you trying to say? i don t know. steak, red. steak cries for red. this is an australian shiraz. it s the director s cut. just like in the movies, it s the best part of shiraz. you have an explosion of fruit. is that affordable. it is affordable. it s $29, but i swear with a steak, it s a killer. nick, how do you like this? a beer, wine. this is from turkey. this is a fine wine maker. when i tasted that, i thought whoa. i can t pronounce the word of the grape. it sounds better when you say it. rustic, but a very nice finish, very well balanced. paired with a nice lamb. this is a dessert wine. in memories of montreal. made in quebec. this is neige. it s delicious. that s a little too good. just make an apple pie and pour some blue cheese on it. we just have 30 seconds. we have a couple of wines with music. exactly. the first one is from arizona. cheers. we ve got to run. thank you, thank you. here is to your show the sing-off. catch it on monday need. tomorrow brooke shields is here. captions by vitac www.vitac.com 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.