well, you have me back. i am so ready to talk with you today about what's going on. morning, sunshine. i'm robin meade and here's what's going on. senate majority leader harry reid is taking fire for things that he said about president obama's race. the words that you were never meant to hear have set off a full-blown political attack. you know those airport body scanners are as personal as it gets, right? now we're hearing some things the government told you about them may not be true! plus -- >> i had that ring and it was my ring. i would like to have it back. >> aww. a boy scout troop is on a mission to find out who lost a

wedding ring. first, though, this just into "hln." three u.s. service members were killed today in afghanistan. nato officials say the troops were killed during a fight with militants in the southern part of the country. no other details have been released. at least ten u.s. service members have been killed in afghanistan this year. you know, this ridiculously cold weather still gripping a lot of the country could cost you at the grocery store. farmers are worried that a hard freeze overnight might damage florida citrus even more. now, that could push up the price of your orange juice, for example. the citrus harvest is at its peak right now, and some groves already got a lot of freeze damage friday and saturday. >> you've invested all of your time and effort and then to see 30% to 50% of your losses, you know, it hits you pretty hard. >> you know, it could take five weeks to determine the extent of the losses. florida citrus is a $9 billion industry. in a few minutes meteorologist

bob van dillen will look at how long that hard freeze is going to last. okay. brand new this morning, here's the story that has a lot of people up in arms. airport scanners, you know the things that can see through your clothes, do have the ability to store and transmit those images of you. huh? well, it's according to tsa documents. previously, though, remember the tsa said the scanners could not save or send images of you. a privacy group says the government is misleading you. but the tsa says that the storage functions are for training and for disabled before they actually get to the airports. some people say that the scanners could have found explosives, though. that a suspect bringing onto a northwest airlines flight on christmas day. others say that the scanners are privacy invasion big time. 19 u.s. airports use them, did you know? okay. you want to sound off about that? leo is already sounding off saying send the images to where? and why? yes, it would bother me. i wouldn't want someone to know

how big my belly is. jenny says as long as it is utilized for safety reasons and provide more efficiency in screening passengers, i do not have a problem with it. oh, i know you have an opinion. now, you can go to cnn.com/robin if you're a facebooker. there's an "f" there, just press on that. if you're an e-mailer, there's a contact list button on our web page. it will send it to us and we'll be reading them all morning. there is a new huge debate over race and racism in washington. republicans want senate majority leader harry reid to step down. now, he apologized this weekend for comments that he made about two years ago about president obama's skin color and speech. the democratic black caucus now says it accepts his apology, but the gop says there is a double standard. >> senator reid very appropriately immediately went out and apologized for comments that were insensitive. they were comments made in the context of him praising senator

obama and supporting his candidacy for president. but still, they kind of reflect the thinking of a day gone by. >> when democrats get caught saying racist things, you know, an apology is enough. if that had been mitch mcconnell saying that about an african-american candidate for president of the united states, trust me, this chairman and the dnc would be screaming for his head. >> it's coming out now because of a new book called "game change." and reid said that he thought that the country was ready for a black candidate, especially, quote, a light-skinned african-american with no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. well, reid apologized to president obama saturday. the president says that he accepted the apology and considers the matter closed. all right. it's official. nbc wants jay leno to move back to his old time slot. what? well, they're scrapping his primetime show after several nbc stations complained about the poor ratings and led into their evening news. if leno agrees to it, he'll be

on at 11:35 eastern starting next month and just for a half hour, though. and if conan o'brien agrees, his show would start at 12:05 a.m. and then jimmy fallon even later, right? more than 1 million jobs are up for grabs. and some of them are in your community. and our money expert, jennifer westhoven, has word about the census jobs. there are pros and cons, though. good morning. >> good morning. yeah, but there are jobs for a little while, there are a lot of people who want some money. if you can get some of this work, that could be good news in a bad economy. we're talking about more than 1 million who would go door to door collecting information. the jobs are temporary. they're part time. the pay is between $10 and $25 an hour. now, most of them don't -- >> wow! >> yeah, most of them don't become available till the spring. some are available now. if you want to know how to apply for those jobs, go to cnn.com/robin. if you go to important websites, there's a link to get in the running. i've got family members trying

to get in on that. >> i do, too. exactly. i wonder, it's part time and you just said the hourly rate. i wonder how many hours you actually get. that will be interesting to find out. hey, thank you. hundreds of people around the world came together to take off their pants in public. the cold weather did not keep new yorkers from the annual no-pants subway ride. the stunt started there in 2002 and organizers say, hey, it's now in 16 countries. >> i got the invite on facebook from a random person that i know a little bit. it just looked like a great thing. >> a random person you know a little bit told you to take your pants off in public and you did. >> and now that random person knows you a lot more. knows you a lot of bit. well, another guy in washington said that, yeah, there's no real point. just trying to put smiles on people's faces. or bring tears to their eyes. however you want to look at it. >> smiles are one thing, but if people are laughing at you when you take your pants off, that's

totally different. >> put them back on. >> welcome back, robin. good to see you. >> more than a few days off, but i'm grateful to be back with you. >> it's all good. you're coming back to cold temperatures once again. things will change finally i'm thinking tomorrow through the middle part of the week. we start to warm up a little bit. here's your high-pressure region, an arctic high with a reinforcing shot. this one makes it down to georgia and the carolinas. not all the way down to florida for tomorrow. this morning, the coldest morning of the week for florida. windchill warnings in advisories. warnings in areas shaded in purple. these both go until 10:00. when you see windchill warnings, that means you'll feel like the teens to mid-20s. here's some of the current readings. feels like 33 in miami. feels like 35 in ft. lauderdale. felt like 34 last hour when you got in towards key west. look at the rest of the temperatures. 19 in atlanta. these are the air temperatures. add the wind to it, windchills once again looking at around the single digits in atlanta. eight degrees. 23 in orlando. 18 in charlotte. light snow for the great lakes. get to that coming up, robin, in just a little bit.

>> hey, thank you very much. an important morning for parents, some children's jewelry could be extremely dangerous. jen's working on the details of that. and this comes after chinese manufacturers were told don't be putting lead in kids' stuff. you'll hear what they do put it in now, allegedly. also -- >> i was out the door so fast the slide didn't deploy. >> another air scare and passengers could not wait to get off of that plane.

our salute to the troops today is for private 1st class reyes ramos from his wife. this is his first deployment. you know that he's missed. so here's his wife, marissa. >> hi, robin. my name is marissa ramos. i would like to salute my

husband of the united states army. i just want him to know that i'm very proud of him and his service for our country. he's currently on his first deployment overseas. and i'm thinking of him every second of the day. i really hope this deployment will pass quickly, and that he'll come home safe and i can be in his arms again. i love you with all my heart, always and forever. >> very touching. if you have somebody in the service you want to salute them, love to help you. cnn.com/robin. all right. more details about the senate majority leader apologizing for some racially charged comments about president obama during the 2008 campaign. democratic leaders and even the president say that they have accepted that apology. correspondent richard lui now. why are they standing behind him? >> morning, robin. mainly about politics. reid was already facing a tough re-election bid in nevada before these comments became public. and democrats cannot afford to lose that seat. >> there are three republicans right now that are trying to take on the senate majority leader in november. they have to get past the

primary. but according to these poll numbers, if reid were to face any of these three, he would lose re-election. they are going to spend $25 million to try and get harry reid elected in november. >> members of the black caucus saying they do not want to distract from health care, job creation or energy. >> now, republican leaders say that there is a double standard going on here. many of them have cited back in 2002 when the dems pushed for senate majority leader trent lott to resign. >> you might remember him saying the country would be better off if strom thurmond had been elected president. >> when strom thurmond voted for president, we voted for him. we're proud of him. and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either. >> well, lott then stepped down from his leadership post after that came out. senator reid has the advantage here, robin, that his comments are not on tape.

but democrats still say the contact is also much different in his case because he was speaking in support of mr. obama's campaign. >> all right, richard, thank you. we'll hear more about this throughout the morning. if you want to e-mail us about it, too, you're welcome to do that. thanks. you know these companies in china that were told to stop putting lead in kids' products? might be replacing with something even worse. jennifer westhoven looking out for you. good morning. >> good morning. thanks, robin. this is a pretty upsetting story that some chinese manufacturers are putting the dangerous metal c cadmium into kids' jewelry. the associated press went out, bought 100 different trinkets, pendants, at stores you know all across the country, ran them through lab tests and found startlingly high levels. sometimes we're talking about 90% of the piece of jewelry was cadmium. this is a known carcinogen, that means it could cause cancer.

and technically there's no restrictions on cadmium in jewelry. robin, i almost think there's no restrictions because they thought, yeah, this is so dangerous, nobody would ever do that. it is number seven on the cdc's most hazardous substances in the environment. and it's on kids' jewelry. you know they put that in their mouths. >> so i wonder if, you know, there's testing for lead. if the cadmium testing will become more popular now or more widespread. jen, thank you very much. >> it's a whole new ball of wax, yeah. >> looks like it. thanks for bringing that to us. business stinks for a quirky new york cheese shop. it's all good. stephanie elam has this "small business success." >> reporter: rob is a cheese wiz. >> garocha from spain. >> reporter: as owner of murray's cheese, new york city's oldest cheese shop, rob combines the past with the present. >> the idea of a neighborhood store, it's very old-fashioned. the customers see what they see,

the old-fashioned cheese counter. at the same time, we've changed. >> reporter: murray's sells more than 250 different cheeses, meats and other products. rob says layout is key. >> visual merchandising is very important. essentially it should be full. it should be fresh. we're trying to get the idea of delicious across. >> reporter: murray's also does who wholesale and mail orders and popular cheese classes. >> the main goal is to educate our customers. >> reporter: the staffer known as cheesemongers. a big part of their job is to create an experience for the customer. >> if you come here, you find a very, very friendly staff that will give you a taste and explain things to you. we tend to hire people that are a little eccentric. customers seem to enjoy that. >> if you're a small business owner, we'd like to see your success story. go to cnn.com/robin, upload a video ireport and share your information. new york city went after transfats and high calorie fast

food. now it's taking on something that you keep in a bottle right there on the kitchen table.

okay. new york city is tackling salt now. the city's health department will release some guidelines

today suggesting that the foodmakers slash the salt content. it calls for a 25% reduction in breads and a 40% cut in breakfast cereals. never thought of cereals as having a lot of salt. but honey, soup, that's another thing. the guidelines suggest that foodmakers lower the salt content gradually so that you don't go -- i don't like it. the nfl playoffs kicked off what some are calling an instant classic between the packers and the cardinals. didn't get to see it? no problem. hi, rafer. >> good morning. welcome back, young lady. >> thank you! >> so great to see you. >> i used all my vacation for the whole year. >> robin meade going nowhere. and i don't want you to go anywhere because this was one of the best football games we've ever seen. it was the highest scoring game in nfl history. aaron rodgers who took over for brett favre in green pay, this was the very first play of the game in his first playoff game. intercepted, right?

so the cards go up early. larry fitzgerald, look at this amazing one-handed catch that he makes right there. that put the cardinals up 38-24. but the packers battled back to tie it at 45-45 to send it into overtime. and this was the deciding play. rodgers is sacked, coughs it up. they take it for the score. cardinals win a thriller, 51-45. the other shocker, the new england patriots lost their first playoff game at home since 1978. kids. the ravens' ray rice on the very first play ran it all the way for a score. and then new dad tom brady probably's not getting a lot of sleep. that's my guess. harassed like never before. intercepted, sacked three times. baltimore win it. they get to take on indianapolis next. new this morning, in other news, authorities have arrested two people in angola and accused them of a deadly shooting attack on the togolese soccer team.

gunmen attacked their team bus, killing and wounding at least seven others. togo's president pulled the team out of the tournament after a separatist warned there would be more violence at the tournament. the team, though, still wanted to play. >> that is such a shame. ladies, bad news. baseball's most eligible bachelor might be going off the market. >> hear now, hear now. >> derek jeter according to "the new york post" will marry girlfriend minka kelly who was an actress on the show "friday night lights." after shaq was fouled hard, he crawls up to daniel baldwin in the front row. a little hug, a little kiss. daniel, you might recall, was on "the sopranos" and "celebrity rehab." one more time. shaq and a baldwin. k-i-s-s. lastly, a high school basketball player with special needs is the hero for his team. do not miss this young man's amazing story in the next half

hour. >> i love that. all right. thank you very much. it's a very heartwarming story. we're sticking around for it. and so is the weather forecast. so how about our travelers on a monday? hi, bob. >> a better week than last week, robin. a little snow still flying around towards the great lakes. not that big of a deal. let me show you flight explorer. here's michigan. look at the snow headed into right around detroit out of toledo getting in towards cleveland, too. so we'll get that snow in and out for most of the day. just short delays out of this. they can handle this kind of thing, but the visibility is a different issue. look for about a 30-minute delay around cleveland later today. also into the great lakes, detroit, 30-minute to one-hour delays are a possibility. haven't seen anything pop up yet. delays around cincinnati and san francisco, morning fog, same with seattle with rain. >> i just want to point out, and we got new toys while i was gone. look at that. that looks good. >> santa was good to us when you were gone. >> all right. we have new video of a quake that hit california yesterday. for example, here are some people rushing out of a building when the rattling started.

you're going to see what things looked like when it was all over from your fellow viewers. ñ?

democrats are accepting senator harry reid's apology and say that it's time to move on. republicans want him to step down as majority leader. the debate is over two-year-old comments about president obama appearing in a new book. reid described him as a light-skinned african-american with, quote, no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one. we have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. >> another night of freezing temps has florida citrus farmers nervous. you might want to be, too, because some of the groves have already been damaged. and it could mean higher orange juice prices, for example, for you. now, a citrus industry group

says the trees rarely survive when the temperatures stay in the mid-20s. balloon boy's father is set to go to jail today. richard heene says he's innocent and that he truly believed his son was up there in the balloon. he says he only pleaded guilty to the hoax to keep authorities from deporting his wife to japan. well, heene faces a 90-day jail sentence. for the fourth week in a row, "avatar" was king at the box office. the james cameron film made more than $48 million. worldwide it's taken in $1.3 billion. that makes it the second highest grossing movie worldwide behind "the titanic." those are some offed headlines we're following this morning. just peeking in on you, seeing how your coffee and orange juice is going down this morning. i'm robin meade. welcome. brand-new video, airport scanners that see through your clothes do have the ability to store and transmit images of

you. maybe not brand-new video, but a brand-new piece of information here. it's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. previously you remember the tsa said that, oh, these scanners could not save or send images of you. but a source at the agency says that storage functions are only for testing and are disabled before they go to the airports. some people say that these scanners could have found the explosives, for example, that a suspect is accused of bringing onto a northwest airlines flight christmas day. but others say huh-uh. these scanners are a privacy invasion. 19 u.s. airports use them. okay. you go ahead and sound off about it. teresa has posted this on our facebook. she says, what bothers me more is the thought of getting blown up because the machines were not effective enough to detect a bomb in a terrorist's pants! sherri says not okay, i am done flying the friendly skies. and i don't think she means a certain brand, just that she's

done flying. go to cnn.com/robin. click on "f" if you're a facebooker. if you're an e-mailer, there's a contact us button. love to hear from you. we just told you about the controversy over some racially charged comments made by senate majority leader harry reid in 2008. they're actually in a new book out today called "game change" all about the 2008 presidential campaign. correspondent richard lui joins us now. the book also has new insight into the republican ticket, too. >> you're right. it's got that plus a lunch of other potential revelations in it. the journalist who wrote the book says john mccain's campaign team only devoted five days to vetting sarah palin as a vice presidential nominee. on "60 minutes" last night, the author said, according to unnamed sources, palin was also ill-prepared when prepping for network interviews. >> a week later after the convention was over, she still didn't really understand why there was a north korea and a south korea. she was still regularly saying

that saddam hussein had been behind 9/11. and literally the next day her son was about to ship off to iraq. and when they asked her who her son was going to fight, she couldn't explain that. >> a palin spokeswoman responded to this saying that palin addressed all these topics in her own book, "going rogue." the statement saying, quote, her descriptions are accurate. she was there. these reporters were not. robin. >> some kind of book. it also claims to give an inside look at the die nynamic between president obama and his pick for vp. >> then senators obama and biden, guess what? they rarely spoke. according to their sources, the biggest blowup was after biden predicted that mr. obama would be tested with an international crisis. now, mr. obama then reportedly reacted by saying, quote, how many times is biden going to say something stupid? end quote. yes. talk about dynamics, right? a spokesman for biden released a statement about the book saying, quote, we are not going to comment on rehashed rumors about

the campaign. but i can say that if the authors were concerned about accuracy, they might have checked their reporting with people on the vice president's staff, end quote. just some of the potential revelations there in that book, robin. >> i thought it was interesting, too, when this first came out about harry reid, i was surprised to not see him saying, oh, it was taken out of context or this quote is wrong. he did not say that. >> that's right, yeah. >> thank you. can you believe it? another midair scare for airplane passengers. investigators are looking into why part of the landing gear of united jet would not deploy yesterday. and the pilot told everybody on board, brace for a crash landing. well, fortunately, the landing at newark went very well. the passengers cheered, and then they exited down the emergency slides. >> it was quiet, intense. the flight crew and the pilots were unbelievably professional. they were just very in control. they gave us great instruction

and direction. and i'll be very honest with you, the way the pilot brought the plane in, i've had rougher landings here at newark. it was just tremendous. >> all 48 passengers and 5 crew members made it off the plane safely. thank goodness. oopsy. a reporter accidentally gave people a demonstration of how powerful the winds in oregon were this weekend. >> the wind is blowing 60 to 70 miles per hour out here. with the windchill, it is just painful. >> who decided to put people out here in this? those were 100-mile-an-hour wind gusts that sent her flying and the person standing behind her trying to hold her up, the poor thing. this is near the oregon/washington state border. thank goodness she's okay but it took her a while to get back on her feet. i can see why. you just know someone had the assignment saying, who's our

smallest reporter? send her. >> that's exactly right. when i was doing that kind of thing, send a 200-pounder out there. he'll be fine. that was me just standing there. yeah, it's pretty windy out here. >> morning, bob. >> good morning, robin. welcome back. i want to show you the cold temperatures out there now. this is the main story for the weather. this is what we're looking at. one more day of subfreezing temperatures for just about everybody in florida. this is a windchill warning and advisory. the warnings are all purple. notice windchill warnings, it's going to feel like the teens to mid-20s through about 10:00 this morning. that includes areas just outside miami. the advisory area's up to the north. i want to show you readings right now live, 33 is the way it feels in miami. 35 in ft. lauderdale. the rest of the peninsula into the 20s, back into the low 30s. even right around key west, feels about 34 with your windchill. actual temperatures, 19 in atlanta, 22 in jacksonville. 36 in miami. 61 in nassau. memphis, 25. a little warmer air here. but there's another shot of cold

air coming down. it affects the carolinas for you tomorrow morning. but right now windchill eight in atlanta. 22 degrees in jacksonville. again, 31 in miami. ten degrees up in nashville. a little light snow, too. that's all coming in. i want to show you what it looks like just on friday. we kind of put together a greatest hits for you out of the atlanta metro. one and two. >> oh! >> yeah. you know, this is just the way it was. all the local stations around atlanta reporting this kind of stuff all weekend. look at this. atlanta metro north of here, roswell. when i got home on friday, robin, i helped push out seven cars plus a cop car that was stuck in my neighborhood. >> really? >> i had to walk home, too, by the way. >> i was in a tropical destination texting my niece who lives with me to go to college. >> right. >> you are not to go out. she's, like, i'm from ohio. >> yeah, well. ohio doesn't matter. no, it's a sheet of ice. yeah, six cars plus a cop car on friday. that was my afternoon. so there you go. >> wow! >> all right. >> i'm glad you're okay. >> now everything is back to normal.

>> and it's still 20 degrees. there are stories we're watching today in the "morning express planner." at 10:00 a.m. eastern, scott roeder will go on trial on charges of killing wichita abortion doctor george tiller. roeder admits killing him. at 11:00 a.m., the national archives release thousands of hours of tapes, pictures and more than 280,000 pages of documents from former president nixon's days in the white house. and at 11:45 a.m., a group known as witness against torture will hold a rally in washington to mark the eighth anniversary of guantanamo bay. the group wants president obama to honor his campaign promise to close the detention facility is what we're talking about here. a man ais accused of going into a gas station and throwing a molotov cocktail at the cashier. then the suspect walked away without saying anything or taking anything. also ahead, have you ever wondered what an earthquake can do to a home? well, our ireporters, your fellow viewers, give you a firsthand look.

okay. let's check out today's papers. "usa today" reports that congress launched at least 25 ethics investigations last year. but no one has been punished since congress passed sweeping ethics reforms nearly three years ago. unmanned u.s. drones collected so much surveillance footage over iraq and afghanistan last year that it would take 24 years to watch it all. that's from "the new york times." and the military's even turning to the tv industry for tips on faster ways to analyze the video. and you haven't heard the last of jimi hendrix. "the l.a. times" reports that sony is releasing a new album with a dozen unreleased songs.

"valleys of neptune" comes out march 9th. that's a look at the papers. milwaukee police are looking for the person who tossed a molotov cocktail in a gas station. here's the surveillance tape of it. somebody in a mask threw a flaming bottle and then just walked away without taking anything. nobody was hurt. the cashier was behind protective glass. now, cops say that it may be some kind of retaliation for a recent arrest in a 2007 robbery there. so we're not even two weeks into the new year, and the price that you are paying for gas is higher than all of 2009. what gives? our money expert, jennifer westhoven, is here. hello. >> hello. so welcome back. did you see the signs and go, ooh! >> i barely looked up because i was shivering so hard. >> it's true. and i'm thinking, you know, maybe a lot of people, this is going to be the first time they see the gas prices because maybe you stayed inside for the weekend trying to keep warm. and then when you go out this weekend and you've got to fill

up, you'll go out this week, you're going to go, what happened? gas prices have shot up almost a dime a gallon. the latest price from aaa puts the price at $2.75 for a gallon of regular unleaded, and some analysts expect it to hit 3 bucks a gallon during the spring. we usually have a little bit of a spring run-up. it's already at $3 a gallon in california, hawaii and alaska. and what's happening is, as the economy is pulling a little bit out of this spin it's been in, we're burning more oil. that drives prices higher. it's that time of year. here come the headlines about the wall street bonuses. just what you want to hear, right? after all the financial trouble. but they're still raking it in. including the bonus, that is the storied headquarters of goldman sachs on wall street, the average pay there, including the bonus, $600,000 a year. average. >> wow! >> one of the president's top advisers told cnn's john king,

it just doesn't seem right. >> yeah. >> you would certainly think that financial institutions that are now doing a little bit better would have some sense. and this big bonus season, of course it's going to offend the american people. it offends me. >> "the new york times" also reports that goldman may require that the employees give away a certain percentage of their pay to charity. >> were we supposed to feel good -- i mean, i'm glad that they would do that, but wow! okay. uh-oh. former governor rod blagojevich is speaking again to the media, and he's comparing himself to president barack obama. and these firefighters needed to call their neighbors to fight a fire at their own station.

oh, my goodness. ousted illinois governor rod blagojevich is opening his mouth again. and here comes the controversy. in an interview with "esquire" magazine, blago said that he is, quote, blacker than barack obama, unquote. he says he shined shoes growing up and, quote, saw everything.

blago's corruption trial is set to begin later this year. he's also set to appear on the new edition of "celebrity apprentice." if there's a blago story, put it in for bob. >> i love the guy. >> he's always a story when he speaks. >> who else do you know could get busted on tape with the worst things imaginable, allegedly, but still come out golden? aces, as you'd say. >> he'll be exonerated. >> he'll be exonerated. >> hi, bob. >> robin, good morning to you. i want to show you what's happening at the airports. if you are traveling in or out of, say, the great lakes, detroit towards cleveland, light snow overhead right now. but i don't expect to see delays of more than a half hour to an hour, which is good news. cloo cleveland, half hour-same with detroit, half-hour delays. earlier this weekend we saw the fog in and out of san francisco. it will be there again. watch for about an hour delay. seattle, heavy rain. about an inch or so. poor visibility. more on that in just a bit. prosecutors are turning up

the heat on a mom whose baby has been missing since last month. you're going to hear the charges just brought up against baby gabrielle's mother. that is new for you in 45 minutes. i love this story. i think you're going, too, as well. a high school basketball player with special needs has become a big hero for his team and his town. here's rafer with the story. good morning. >> good morning to you. yeah, this guy deserves all the national attention that he is getting. kirkwood high senior david chch chubbs stillman, the team manager who's been in special education since preschool was put in a game last week. his teammates made sure he got the ball. he had one three-pointer in the first quarter from the corner. then in the final minutes he did it again. listen to the crowd's reaction. they went crazy for chubbs who had his own cheering section. he has become a celebrity in his school and in his town. god bless him. >> i love the support that he

got. in nfl news, packers' aaron rodgers in his first playoff game taking on veteran kurt warner who's been in 783 of them. just kidding. it was the scoring nfl game in history. the packers battled back 21 points but in overtime, aaron rodgers is sacked and coffers the ball up. it bounces carlos dance buy's way. the coach of the nhl flames is furious. a fan pointed a laser at his goalie throughout the game. a laser at a goalie. he still stopped most of the goals. security could not find the person who did it. the university of alabama showed off its bcs championship trophy where most everybody could see it. at walmart. it was on display at a walmart in cuss ka loose sa.

fans were getting their picture taken with the tlirt,000 hear dollar trophy. >> funny. >> speaking of funny, charles barkley hosted snl doing a fake commercial for barkley's bank. >> i promise you two things. i'm going to double it or lose it all. that's a promise. >> we are going to show you a lot more of what he did in the next hour, including his golf swing parody. it's hilarious. speaking of golf, i got to give you our golf highlight of the week. the pga tour took off without tiger woods. the sbs classic in hawaii. he won it by won stroke. the australian also won this turn. last year. that's sports for now. >> i think charles barkley did pretty well on snl. >> my question was how did he get that gig, because usually it's -- >> he went on the air with you. >> yes. >> you gave him the robin bump.

>> remember will farrell's christmas movie elof. they got a laugh and lesson on safety. is that a trend? 

good morning,sunshine. i know, it's been a couple of days. it's been more than a few days. i'm glad to be speaking with you on this monday. i'm robin meade. senate majority leader harry reid is taking fire for things he said about president obama's race. the word you were never metropolitan to hear have set off a full-blo political attack those airport body scanners are as personal as it gets. now we're hearing some of the things the government told you about them and the pictures of you may not be true. plus a random person you know a little bit told you to take your pants off in public

and you did. we're not talking about the airport scanners. hundreds of people took their pants off in the middle of a day on a train. okay. we'll hear why. what was it all of 20 degrees? new this morning, three u.s. service members were killed today in afghanistan. nato officials say the troops were killed during a fight with militants in the southern part of the country. no other details have been released. at least ten u.s. service members have been killed in afghanistan this year. big story today. these airport scanners that see right through your clothes do have the ability to store and transmit the images of you. that's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. previously, you remember the tsa saying the scanners could not save or send those images, that privacy group's director talked to jeanne meserve with our sister network cnn. >> tsa has been lying?

>> yes. i would use a more polite word if i could, but it would be less accurate. >> a source from the tsa says that storage functions are for the testing only and are disabled before they go to the airports. some people say those scanners though could have found the explosives that a suspect is accused of bringing on a northwest flight on christmas day. others say the scanners are a big invasion of privacy. did you know 19 u.s. airports use them. >> hit me with with what think. joe says flying is an option. if you don't want to get canned then walk. joy writes is it going to be females scanning females and males scanning males. it kind of gives me the creeps. >> go to cnn.com/robin. if you e-mail, press the contact us button. we want to read your e-mail or your facebook comment this morning. ridiculously cold weather gripping a lot of country. freeze warnings in some spots

are making life miserable. the big chill could cost you at the grocery store. the citrus harvest is at its peak right now. >> you've invested all your time and effort and to see 30 to 50% of your losses. it hits you pretty hard. >> well, it could take five weeks to determine what the extent of the losses are. florida citrus is a $9 billion industry. if a few minutes bob van dillen is going to look at how long that hard freeze it going to last. harry reid is apologizing but republicans are arguing that what he said was racist and they want him to step down. reid made remarks about president obama's skin color and speech. they are now surfacing in a new book, the democratic black caucus says it accepts his

apology but the gop says there's a double standard here. >> senator reid very appropriately went out and apologized for comments that were insensitive. they were comments made in the context of him praising senator obama and supporting his candidacy for president. >> when democrats get caught saying racist things, an apologize is enough. if that had been mitch mccon e8 saying that about an african-american candidate for president of the united states, this chairman and the dnc would be screaming for its head. >> the book is called game change. it is out today, and reid said that he thought the country was ready for a black candidate, especially a light skinned african-american with no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one. reid apologized to prz obama saturday. the president says he accepts the apology and considers the matter closed. harry reid's comments were just the tip of the iceberg. we're going to tell you some of the other 3w08 shell claims in

that book from concerns about sarah palin's readiness to friction between candidate obama and his future vice presidential nominee. can you believe it, another mid air scare for airplane passengers. investigators looking into why part of the landing gier on united jet would not deploy yesterday. the pilot told everyone on board brace for a crash landing. fortunately the landing went very well. the passengers cheered and exited down the slides. >> it was quiet, intense. 9 flight crew and the pilot were unbelievably professional. they were just very in control. they gave us great instruction and direction, and i'll be very honest with you, the way the pilot brought the plane in, i've had rougher landings in newark. >> he has rougher landings at newark. all 48 passengers and five crew members made it off the plane safely. it's 0 feshl, nbc wants jay leno to move to his old time

slot. in scrapping his old show. several stations complained about the poor ratings. if 11 no agrees to it, he'll be on at 11:35 eastern but just for a half hour and if conan o'brien agrees his show would start at 1205:00. o'brien joked about the situation on the tonight show. >> i want to go over some of the rumors that have been flying around the jay leno show is going to be cancelled. jay is moving to 11:30 and midnight. both of our shows will be on at 1130 running simultaneously. jay and i are quitting both of our shows and cor co-starring in a new buddy cop drama called cocoa and the chin. jay and i will be joining the cast of jersey shore. i'm pregnant with jay's baby. nbc is going to throw me and jay

in a pit with sharpened sticks. the one who crawls out alive is going to leave nbc. under this plan, jimmy fallen's show would move back a half hour. he would be back to 1:00 a.m. >> more than one million jobs are up for grabs. some of them are in your community too. our money expert jennifer westhoven has the word about census jobs. >> that is a lot of people who could find some work at a time when many people are looking to make extra money to pay their bills. you would be going door to door for the census. that hiring is good news in a bad economy. it's in communities all across the country. these are part time jobs. they are temporary jobs. 9 pay is between 10 and 25 dollar dplr an hour. most of the jobs become available in the spring. a few are available now. if you want to apply, we've got a link to get you to the government. everything you need to know on cnn.com/robin. scroll down to important websites.

>> i wonder how many hours you would get, part time, obviously you wouldn't get 40 a week. >> they say it depends on where you live. if you're in a rural area, there's not as many doors to knock on. >> for the fourth week in a row, "avatar" was king at the box office. >> the james cameron film made more than tray million worldwide. "avatar" has taken in 1.3 billion. it makes it the second highest grow grossing film behind the titanic. very rich man, i would hope. eight minutes after the hour. please, can we have a warm up? bob says one more day of ridiculous temperatures. >> good morning, robin. it is going to warm up starting for into into tomorrow. another cold day. let me show you the records from yesterday morning. austin, texas, 13 degrees

yesterday morning. gainesville, florida, 19. even snow in northern florida, lake land florida, 25 degrees. what's the situation today? high pressure dominating around the lower part of the gulf coast. you are looking at the cold atmosphere in place but windy. windchill is a definite factor for you in central florida. also notice the cold front, it's a weak won moving to the east. this one doesn't race as far south as the last couple of air masses have. one more cold shot of air for the carolinas, north georgia, same thing. that should with warm up over the northeast in the next couple of days. windchill warnings and advisories, the warnings are in purple. teens in some of the areas around florida, 34 is the way it feels in miami, feems like 37 degrees when you get to ft. lauderdale. these are actual air temperatures, 15 in birmingham, 16 in jackson, mississippi, 18

degrees in mobile. 19 in atlanta. add the winds, a little more windy, feels like 8 in atlanta, 22 in jacksonville, 15 in birmingham, feels like 14 degrees in dallas, texas. again, this is the coldest morning of the week. it's going to ride up to the north as the cold air retreats. 14 in richmond now, look at the light snow. detroit, cleveland, couple bands of light snoechlt it's a quick hitter, not a lot of moisture to work with but snow is out there for the morning. that can make it a little tricky. let me show you video from the atlanta metro area friday. this was saturday and even sunday morning. nothing but cars smacking into trees. people going way to fast for the conditions. please, just be careful when you see something like that. this is atlanta and this is why many people didn't get to work on friday. >> i guess the problem is you can't see the ice. >> yeah, but -- >> you haven't have been driving anyway. >> we were right on it with the

forecast, so it's not like you didn't know it was coming but be careful. >> i would have to -- i would have to have a change of clothes if that were me. >> absolutely. >> an important warning for parents, some children's jewelry can be extremely dangerous, even after all changes and people telling chinese manufacturers do not put lead in the kids' jewelry. rod blagojevich never disappoints. you can hear him compare himself to president obama.

love to salute our troops. today the salute is for private first class reyes ramos.

here is his wife. >> hi, robin. my name is marissa ramos. i would like to absolute my husband. i want him to know i'm very proud of him. he's currently on his first deployment overseas and i'm thinking of him every second of the day. i really hope this deployment will pass quickly and he'll come home safe and i can be in his arms again. i love you 88 yez. if you have somebody in the service, why don't you salute them. more details about the senate majority leading apologizing for racially motivated comments. democratic leaders and even the president say they have accepted that apology. richard lui joins us now. >> robin, good morning. democrats, they just simply can't afford to lose senator reid's seat. he was already facing a very

tough re-election bid in his home state of infoof nef adda. they have to get past the primary, but according to the poll numbers, if harry reid were to face any of these three, he would lose. they are going to spend $25 million to try and get him elect nd november. >> the congressional black caucus has forgiven him for the comments. they don't want distractions on things like health care. >> republican leaders say it's a double standard here. many of them have cited 2002 when the dems pushed for trent lott to resign. >> lot said the country would be better off if strom thurmond had been elected president. this is what he said then. >> when strom thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. we're proud of you.

and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, woe wouldn't have all these problems over the years. >> robin, lot after that, stepped down from his leadership post. senator reid has the advantage that his comments are not on tape. democrats say context is also much different in this case because he was speaking in support of mr. obama's campaign. >> interesting, richard. thank you so much. the conversation will continue. companies recently told china stop putting lead in kids' products, but now, those companies might be replacing it with something even worse, at least the manufacturers. jennifer westhoven is looking out for you? >> this story made my hair stand up on end. i mean, they can't put the lead in, we put all the rules in place after all the headlines 679 now chinese manufacturers are putting cadmium in

children's jewelry, so the associated press, they went out and bought 100 trinkets at stores you know across the country, ran them through lab tests. some of them were 90% cadmium. cadmi cadmium, this is the number seven most hazard substance in the environment. it's known to cause cancer, and you know what little kids do with jewelry, they suck on it. there are technically no restrictions on cadmium in jewelry, i think nobody ever thought they would put it in there. federal officials promise to investigate. chrysler stirring up controversy. it has unveiled a new car at the detroit auto show called the detonator. maybe they weren't thinking. you know, they didn't know that there was going to be this attack on the detroit plane. anyway, awkward. what do you think, bob? >> wasn't it the pinto that was

a detonator back in the day. >> we had one of those. you hit the back bumper. >> boom. good morning. if you are traveling out today, so far no delays. i'll show you flight explorer. we have snow across areas like cleveland and detroit. could see a delay. here's what we're all calling for, delays could get to be a half hour for cleveland, towards detroit, san francisco and seattle it's rain. new york city went after the transfat high calorie fast food and how it's taking on something you keeping a bottle on your kitchen table. a football game made history. this one was drama from start to finish.

i'm rafer weigel with sports. the packers and cardinals is being called an instant classic. it was the highest scoring game in nfl playoff history. aaron rodgers taking over for brett favre in green bay was intercepted on the first play of the game. the cardinals responded going up early. look at this amazing catch by larry fitzgerald. one handed. that put arizona up 38-24. packers battle up to tie it at 45. sending it to overtime. here was the game changer. rodgers is sacked. karlos dansby takes it in. the other big shocker, the new england patriots lost the

first playoff game since 1978. before this guy was even born, the ravens ray rice on the first play runs it all the way back. new dad tom braid buy harassed like we've never seen before. he was intercepted and sacked three times. baltimore wins. they get to take on names next. now this morning, authorities have arrested two people in angela. togo withdrew from the nation's tournament after the government attacked their team bus killing three and wounding seven. togo's president pulled them out of the tournament. the team still wanted to play. lastly shaquille o'neill was caught loving on a baldwin. after the shaq was fouled. he crawled up to daniel baldwin gives him a hug and kiss. you may remember him from celebrity rehab. a high school basketball with special needs has an amazing story. >> it really is a great story.

thank you. we have new video of a quake that hit california yesterday. for example, here are people rushings out of the building when the rattling started. you're going to see what things look like when it was all over.

another night of freezing temperatures has florida citrus farmers nervous and maybe you as well. some of the groves have already been damaged and that could mean higher orange juice prices for you. a citrus industry group says trees rarely survive when the temperatures stay in the mid 20s. three u.s. service members were killed in afghanistan. they were killed during a fight with mill at that points in the southern part of the country. balloon boy's father goes to jail today. richard heene says he's innocent and that he truly believed that his son was in a balloon. he says he only pleaded guilty to the hoax to keep authorities from deporting his wife to

japan. heene faces a 90 day jail sentence. all right. those are a few of the stories. we got a lot more than that. just wanted to say good morning to you. a book that hit stores today is shedding new light on the 2008 presidential campaign. game change, already exposed some racially charged comments from senator harry reid, but correspondent richard lui provides new he details how president obama selected his secretary of state. >> hillary clinton was shocked to get the offer and prepared a statement to say why she would turn it down, but president obama reportedly made an after midnight call to clinton that changed her mind. on 60 minutes last night, one of clinton's biggest concerns was her husband telling the president, you know, i can't control him. on the one hand you have hillary clinton saying something she says to almost no one, admitting that her husband is a problem.

at the same time, obama comes back and shows vulnerability to her. he says given the economic crisis, i need your help. >> the clintons have not commented on this look as of yet, robin. one of the big revelations in this book. >> it also claims there was more going on behind the scenes between president obama and his vp pick. >> the authors say that senators obama and biden, they rarely spoke. according to their sources, the biggest blow up was after biden predicted that mr. obama would be tested with an international crisis if elected. mr. obama then reportedly reacted by saying, "how many times is biden going to say something stupid." very strong. according to the book there, a spokesperson for biden releasing a statement about the book saying, "we are not going to comment on rehashed rumors about the campaign, but i can say if the authors were concerned with accuracy they might have checked with reporters on the staff."

>> with harry reid, he did not say, as far as i know, that quote is wrong. he just went ahead and apologized? >> in fact one of the gop leaders saying we're waiting for him to explain that comment. >> brad new this morning, airport scanners that see through your clothes do have 9 ability to store and transmit those images of you. that's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. previously tsa said the scanners could not save or send images of you, and of you, i mean, of, well, let's say intimate photos of you. a source at the agency says storage functions are only for testing and are disabled before they go to the airports. some people say, for example, the scanners could have found the explosives that a suspect is accused of bringing on to a northwest flight on christmas day. others say the scanners are a big privacy invasion. did you know 19 u.s. airports use them. i know you have a very strong opinion about this.

for example, bob writes, if it makes a difference between me landing at my destination and seeing my family again, they can do a body cavity search if they want. paul wants to know, what about children, will the scanned images make their way to child porn sierts. has this whole thing really been thought through. go to cnn.com/robin. there's a facebook i ccon on ou page. you can e-mail us. i would love to read your comments. a georgia teenager is recovering after he and two other boys fell through a partially frozen pond. the two others drowned of the the ice broke as they were sliding on it. >> i was sad. hoshly sad. i'm probably not going to be able to go over there again. in a few minutes, bon van dillon is going to tell you when we can expect relief from the

frozen temperatures. what a sad story. today a federal judge will hear the lawsuit over california same sex marriage ban. it will be on youtube later in the day. same sex marriage opponents want the supreme court to stop the broadcast. the cameras could affect the testimony. those who want the coverage tells us what happens in court is public property. secretary of state hillary clinton is trying to strengthen ties with key allies this week. she will focus on terror itch as she kicks off a ten day trip. it's going to take her to australia and new zealand. she will also meet in hawaii. discussion about climate change and energy. ousted illinois governor blagojevich has opened his mouth again. in an interview with esquire, magazine bloggo said he is blacker than barack obama. he says he shined shoes growing up and saw everything.

bloggo's corruption trial is set to begin later on this year. he's also set to appear on the new edition of celebrity apprentice. celebrity apprentice is like when you have to make business deals and stuff. he'll be like hey, come here. >> you know what he can say, instead of saying you're fired, go home and get your shine box. >> where is that line from? >> good fellows. i took out some of the good words. another cold start for you in southern florida. this weather brought to you by tylenol flu. that's whapg, same atmosphere, high pressure dominating the eastern half of the nation, down to the south, look at that sitting right over the gulf of mexico. another weak storm coming out of canada, light snow right here, but behind it, the big story, another shot, a reinforcing blow of colder air coming around the carolinas and georgia. that's going to be in there for tomorrow. here's what it looks like this morning, coldest morning of the week, you have windchill advisories and warnings, warnings are the areas shaded in

purple. we are calling for teens to 20 degrees. interior sections of florida, feels like 26 degrees, just west of miami, miami feels like 31 degrees. take you live to miami, here's what it looks like. if i didn't tell you the temperature, you would think it's beautiful, lots of sunshine, but it's a cold start and the coldest morning of the week. you should warm up into the upper 30s or low 40s tomorrow. you can get to the 50s by the end of the week. >> those poor birds are trying to fly south. this didn't work. >> hey wait a minute, now we got to go further south. i love that city. 22 in jacksonville, 19 in atlanta, 15 in birmingham. add the winds to these areas, it feels just as bad. 8 degrees in atlanta, 10 in nashville. 17 in shaft. mid atlantic, not as bad, 19 in roanoke, 14 in richmond, light snow continues to fall for the

ohio valley into detroit and northern michigan. lake effect snow as well. 3 to 5 inches of snow for snow, let me show you this, this is 0 cal la, florida, snow and ice piling up around the region. that was saturday morning. look at the rooftops here. this is north central florida. you don't see that. there you go, rob, more details in a little bit. >> you're saying that was snow, not frost? >> no. that was snow and ice both. >> thank you. so a guy is accused of going into a gas station and throwing a molotov cocktail at the cashier and then he walks away without taking anything. also ahead. >> i had that ring and it was my ring, i would like to have it back. >> a boy scout troop is on a mission to find out who lost their wedding ring.

well look at you up so early at 19 minutes to the hour. let's check out the headlines in the papers today. "usa today" reports congress launched at least 25 investigations last year. no one has been punished though. unmanned u.s. drones collected so much surveillance footage over iraq and afghanistan that it would take 24 years to watch it recall. the military is even turning to the tv industry for tips on how you get through that video so quickly. and you have not herd the last of jimi hendrix.

the "l.a. times" reports sony is releasing a new album with a dozen unreleased songs. those are stories from the papers. an arizona mom whose baby disappeared last month is charged with kidnapping and child abuse. gabriel johnson was last seen with his mom, elizabeth johnson. the baby's faergt said johnson texted him saying she killed gabriel but told a tv station she gave him away. we have not heard from her. also police have been talking to a couple who wanted to adopt the baby. so awful. milwaukee police are looking for a person who tossed a monthly to have dock 25i8 in a gastation. somebody in a mask through a flaming bottle and walked away without taking anything. thankfully nobody was hurt. cops say it may have been retaliation for a recent arrest in a 2007 robbery there.

not only not even two weeks into the new year and the price you are paying for gas is higher than it was in all of 2009. our money expert jennifer westhoven. i hope this is not more of what's to come. >> i think it is. a lot of experts say we got the spring runup coming a little bit. as the economy gets better, gas prices tend to go higher. for awhile we were at 2.50 or 2.60. gas prices up almost a dime a gallon in the latest week. that comes from aaa. the latest peg, a gallon of unleaded regular, $2.75 some experts say we are likely to hit 3 bucks a gallon. we're already at 3 if you are living in california, hawaii or alaska. >> if you wake up there, you are going 2.zpif sounding okay. >> we burn more oil in general, more gasoline and that drives prices a little bit higher when

demand goes up. it's that time of year, we haven't seen the job market come back yet but it sure has come back for wall street, not 9 job market but the bonuses. they are still raking it in with the bonus. "the new york times" says that average pay, average pay at goldman sachs, that's their headquarters on wall street, it's about $600,000 a year. average pay. >> average pay? >> yes. one of the president's top advisers told cnn's john king, it's just not right. >> you would certainly think that the financial institutions that are now doing a little bit better would have some sense, and this big bonus season, of course it's going to offend the american people. it offends me. >> the times said goldman may require the employees to give a certain percentage of their pay to charity. to us it looks obscene. the banks argument is they will

move to a different bank. >> that's always been their argument, but -- >> i'm just telling you what it is. >> i know. you could see my mind going. >>. the man accused of ducking past security and causing a lock down is expected in court this week. police arrested haisong jiang friday night in new jersey and he was released hours later. he's charged with trespassing. the report is that he went to get a kiss from his girlfriend. it happened after a tsa officer left his post. what happens when the fire trucks and their station are the things up in flames? eye high schooler has a big night on the court.

nand ♪ what do you do if your a firefighter in your own firehouse and all the equipment is on fire. it happened in ashland, new york. they had to sit there and wait for other fire departments to

help. all four of its fire trucks and a brand new ambulance were destroyed. the town hall was also gutted. a boy scout troop in california has a tough job to do right now. they want to find out who lost their gold wedding ring. somebody apparently dropped it while they were leaving a christmas tree for recycling, the scouts who were volunteering found it near the recycling station. >> if i had that ring and it was my ring, i would like to have it it back. >> the scout law is to be helpful and kind. it's an opportunity to teach scout oath and scout law in action. >> so far, nobody has claimed the ring. a high school basketball player with special needs has become a hero for his team and his town. he had a big night on the court.

here's rafer with more on that. >> great success story for this young man who has become a sell brit in his hometown. kirkwood high senior david hillman has been in special education since preschool. they put him in the game for the first time last week and his teammates made sure to get him the ball. in the first quarter hits a 3 pointer from the corner. then he does it again in the final minutes. listen to the crowd. they went crazy. he has become a big time celebrity and has his own cheering section. it was a shoot-out for the ages, packers aaron rodgers taking on veteran kurtd warner. this was the highest scoring nfl playoff game in history. the packers actually battled back from down 21 points to tie it at 45 and send it into overtime. after they were driving though, packers aaron rodgers sacked and look at the ball bounce off his foot and into the arms of karlos dansby. runs it back.

cardinals win 51-45. they get new orleans next. the coach of the nh calgary 234r5i78s the goalie still stopped most of the shots against vancouver and the flames won. he got medical treatment after the game. it was not reported what it was for. can you believe it? pointing a laser at a guy's face? forget about it. bad idea. the university of alabama showed off in its bcs trophy where most everyone can see it -- the walmart. not kidding. it was on display at the walmart in tuscaloosa and gardendale on sunday. fans were able to take their picture with the trophy. i guess it made sense it would be rollback tide. >> i got it. >> charles barkley, your buddy, he hosted "snl." parodied his golf swing. listen. >> to get to the root of the problem i wanted to see how charles would do on a more

natural action on like sweeping a floor. >> look at the fridge magnet. good old charles was hilarious. good sport. he did great. >> not an actor and did a very good job. thank you. to stutter stop talk sing sweet for some reason. just a little pose. okay. bob, i was just reacting to the music there. now, not we have to sit around and listen to a lot of music if we are at the airports today? >> i don't think so. a new week. i think things will be much better than last week. de-icing delay in detroit. it is short. you don't have to worry about it. live to chicago. cold start. 18. light snow being reported. may slow you down the first part of the day at the airport. no delays there. cleveland calling for a half hour delay because the snow moving on through. detroit had the same thing. light snow showers overhead. look for short delays. san francisco morning fog. about an hour delay.

seattle, rain off and on. poor vis and half-hour delays. new video of a quake in california yesterday. here are the people rushing out of the building when the rattling started. you are going to see what one fellow i-reporter captured firsthand.

[ music ] >> welcome to comcast local edition, i'm donna richardson, and my guest this hour is leslie prewitt, director of external operations, opportunity builders. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> can you tell the viewers about opportunity builders incorporated and what exactly the organization does? >> absolutely. we have been around for 47. we were started in 1962. we provokessa provide training d

rehabilitation. >> what are the services you offer your clients? >> there are 170 that stay in our warehouse that do packaging then we have 180 individuals that go out and work for local employer. >> you have the employers who are helping out and also having the contracts to give those, like you said, in the warehouse employment possibilities. >> absolutely. we're always looking to new contracts to fulfill, inside of our warehouse and then outside we're always looking for new employers to hire our adults. >> now all of this, i know it takes funding, and you've got a fund-raiser coming up. >> right. >> so tell us about your mardi gras. >> well, hence the beads so you know why i'm wearing beads. we are very proud of our 12th

annual mardi gras. we have live music, we have a casino, an auction, great food, beer, wine, and ice cream and it's a great night and a lot of fun. >> it does sound like a lot of fun. how much are the tickets to be able to enjoy all this fun? >> the tickets are $50 each. >> very, very reasonable, and it sounds like you're getting a huge value with the opportunity of the casinos and the great food and the auctions and the dancing. >> uh-huh. >> so with this, because i know it takes a lot of dollars in order to run the program, how do you plan to use the proceeds? >> the proceeds will help with our operating expenses, especially with the downturn in the economy and budget cuts, we will be using it to assist the organization.

>> leslie, i do have a question. how do your clients become a part of opportunity builders? >> they are funded for the developmental disability administration. if someone is interested, if a family is interested in having family members participate in an opportunity with opportunity builders, they would call and then we would direct them to our director of employment that would start them through the process of the program. >> once they're in the program, do you also provide training before the clients either work in the warehouse or go out to work with your partner businesses? >> absolutely. in the warehouse, we do have an instructor to assist individuals with each contract, and as far as the individuals who go out into the community and work, we do training for those individuals. they have a one on one coach so we'll make sure the individual knows how to do the job before we have them working on their

own. >> in going back to mardi gras, do you need any volunteers to help out, because that's a big undertaking you have so many different activities going on? >> absolutely. we can always use volunteers, but we can always use the ticket sales, and that's really a big emphasis for us, ticket sales and sponsorships. >> exactly. so there are sponsorship opportunities available? >> absolutely. >> how can they reach you if they want to buy tickets or become a sponsor? they can call our office. >> perfect. well, leslie, thanks so much for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> our guest this hour is less by prior to director of external operations at opportunity builders. for comcast local edition, i'm

donna richardson. [ music ]

good morning, sunshine. hello, my friend. how are you? thanks for having me back. and i have been waiting to speak with you. glad you are awake now. i'm robin meade. comments about president obama's are causing big problems for a powerful democrat. you will see what harry reid said about president obama's skin color. a privacy group said the government misled you about the airport security scanners that can see through your clothes. wait until you hear what else those scanners can do. also, some boy scouts found a wedding ring near a christmas tree and now their mission is not over yet.

one of the big stories, a new debate of race and racism in washington. republicans want harry reid to step down. he apologized this weekend for comments he made two years ago about president obama. they are just now surfacing in a new book. reid said he thought that the country was ready for a black candidate, especially, quote, a light-skinned african-american with no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one. the democratic black caucus now says that it accepts reid's apology but there is a double standard here. >> harry reid deeply regrets those comments. he apologized to the president. he is someone that feels, i think, personally pained that the comments he made were not appropriate. he clearly said that. >> the reality of it is this. there's this standard where

democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own. but if it comes from anyone else, it is racism. it is either racist or it is not. it is inappropriate, absolutely. >> reid apologized to president obama on saturday. the president says he accepted the apology and considers the matter closed. coming up correspondent richard lui looks at what this controversy means to both political sides here and senator reid's re-election bid. big story here. new this morning. airport scanners that see through your clothes do have the ability the store and transmit those images of you. and that's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. do you remember previously tsa said that the scanners could not save or send your images? that privacy group's director talked with jeanne meserve, sister network cnn. >> we think it is obvious that the machines are designed to store and record images. >> the tsa has been lying?

>> yes. i would use a more polite word if i could but the less accurate. >> they depict a whole lot about you. a source from street tsa says storage functions are for the testing only and are disabled before they actually go to the airports. you know, some people point out hey, the scanners could have found explosives that the suspect accused of bringing on a northwest airline flight on christmas day. others say that this is a privacy invasion. did you know that 19 u.s. airports use them already? so what do you think? do you want to sound off? mandy says i did like them but i don't like that they can be sent. yes, i changed my mind. wayne says i don't care if they post them on billboards from coast to coast. i'm for anything that will keep the planes up in the air and not blown to bits by some nut. all right. go to cnn.com/robin. if you facebook, there is a facebook icon and hit that. if you are an e-mailer, there is a contact bunt only for e-mailers so it will satisfy

everybody so we can read your comments. this ridiculously cold weather is gripping a lot of the country and could cost you at the grocery store. farmers are worried a hard freeze may damage florida's citrus even more. that could push up the prices of your orange juice. the citrus harvest at its peak now. talk about bad timing. some got freeze damage friday and saturday. >> invested all of your time and effort and then to see 30% to 50% of your losses, you know, it hits you pretty hard. >> it could take five weeks to determine what the extent of the loss is. now florida citrus has a $9 billion mystery. in a few minutes bob van dillen will look at how long the freeze will last. another mid air scare for plane passengers. investigators are looking into why part of the landing gear on united jet would not deploy. this was yesterday. the pilot told everybody onboard brace for a crash landing.

fortunately the landing at newark went very well. if passengers and exited down the emergency slide. >> it was quiet, intense. the flight crew and the pilot were unbelievably professional. they were just very in control. gave great instruction and direction. i will be honest with you the way the pilot brought the plane in, i have had rougher landings here at newark. it was just tremendous. >> can you believe that? he had a rougher landings and that was a brace for a crash landing. all 48 passengers and five crew members made it off the plane safely. look at this. more than 1 million jobs are up for grabs. if you are out of a job here, some of them might be in your town and our money expert jennifer westhoven joins us to tell us how to get the census jobs. >> we have a link to this right on our hoepage, too. cnn.com/robin. listen up. more than a million jobs. just as robin said. million people going to get work here. they will go door-to-door for

the census. that hiring is good news in a bad economy. lot of people thinking an extra job for a little while will be a big help. and the census is hiring in communities all across the country. now, these are part-time temp jobs. they will not last. just until they get enough counting on. the pay is between $10 an hour and $25 an hour and most of the jobs will be available come spring. some are available now. but if if you want to apply, all the information, gets you to the link of the census, cnn.com/robin. >> i wonder what makes a good census taker. what qualities they are looking for. >> one thing they wrote was veterans preferences. and language skills. >> that's a good point. very good. thank you. it is official. nbc wants jay leno to go back to his old time slot. it is scrapping his new prime time show. it is after several of the nbc stations complained about poor ratings because, obviously, it affects their late news. if leno agrees, he will be on at

11:35 eastern starting next month but for only aan, isn't he 15 minutes long some night? if conan o'brien agrees his show will start at 12:05 a.m. and puts jimmiful only at 1:00 a.m. isn't that where he was to begin with? no, he didn't have a late night show. >> robin is back. country music. >> when i'm gone they don't play country music? >> no. >> really? >> not during my part, no. >> good morning. >> good morning, robin. hey, banner headline again today. windchill advisory for key west, florida. temperatures right there now feeling like low to mid 30s without wind and cold temperature out there. look at the warnings. all the areas shaded in purple, advisories from west palm down through miami and into the keys. cold temperatures starting out today and i want to show you the readings we have now. feels like 33 in miami and 34 in ft. lauderdale. into the mid to low 20s,

interior sections of southern florida. look at the actual temperatures now. 21 degrees in jacksonville. 16 in mobile. 23 in houston. 15 in birmingham. 18 degrees in atlanta. add to that the wind. the this is the way it feels on your skin. feels like 8 in atlanta and 18 in charlotte. feels like 32 around miami and 24 when you get towards orlando. here is the cold air. there for another day. northern half of florida tomorrow morning, again, waking up to subfreezing temperatures. but the lower half of florida begins to warm up starting tomorrow morning. and then it is going to pretty much carry through the weekend. i think things will gradually be on the uptick for you in florida. north florida tomorrow, more hard freeze warnings. snow around detroit, cleveland. it is a fast-moving cold front across the west. it is moving on in towards cleveland now. you can see right out of sandusky, fresh snow. it is opening up the skies, flurry action. that's it. detroit radar, most of it moving towards ontario and lake erie. you can see what it looks like there.

there is your light snow. that's where it will be. let me take you back to the east farther. we have the advisories for west virginia. so far, d.c. looks nice. let me show you a time lapse we get out of the washington, d.c., area. temperatures today into the low 20s. up to about the mid 30s. here is what it looks like. sunrise, little light snow coming in overnight tonight. probably about a dust when you wake up tomorrow morning. that's about it. nice little shot of the capitol building. what about the rest of the region? georgia, we talked about the icing going on across georgia and into the carolinas and alabama. this is outside of atlanta, robin. just hundreds of car collisions like this recorded on tape. >> if you ask me, the videographer was too close to the cars. >> no doubt about it. you can see this is a major interstate. that's the way it was up until yesterday morning. still icy out there this morning if you can believe it across the atlanta metro area. more on that in a minute. >> that was scary there. it is quick and unexpected and strong. shoppers make a run for the doors when an earthquake hits. we aretalying tallying up the

damage.

our salute today is for private first class romos. this is from his wife. this is his first deployment. you know she's missing him so much. here is marissa. >> hi, robin. my name is marissa romos. i would like to salute my husband. i want to let him know i'm proud of him and he's on his first deployment overseas. i'm thinking of him every second of the day. i really hope that this deployment will pass quickly and he will come home safe and i can be in his arms again. i love you with all of my heart, always and forever. >> marissa, thank you. if you have somebody in the service we would love to help you salute them. cnn.com/robin. more details about the senate majority leader apologizing for some racially charged comments about president obama during the 2008 campaign.

democratic leaders and even the president say that they accepted the apology. the correspondent richard lui -- let's talk about the reasons they say they are standing behind senator harry reid. >> robin, democrats just simply can't afford to lose senator reid's seat. he was already facing a pretty tough re-election bid in nevada before these comments went public. >> three republicans right now that are trying to take on the senate majority leader in november. they have to get past the primary. but according to these poll numbers, if harry reid were to face any of the three he would lose re-election. they will spend $25 million to try to get harry reid elected in november. >> there you have it. the congressional black caucus has forgiven reid and some pebs say they don't want distractions from health care, job creation, or energy to happen. >> republican leaders say that hey, this is a double standard here. they cite many -- many people sided the 2002 incident when the democrats pushed for senate majority leader trent lott to resign.

>> that's right. lott had to step down as majority leader after controversy stemming from these comments. take a listen. >> we are proud of him. and if the rest of the country followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years. >> lott came under fire. unlike lott senator reid has the advantage here of his comments not being on tape. some democrats admit that they were insensitive but say the context was different this time around because reid was speaking in support of mr. obama's campaign. >> all right. richard, thank you very much. companies told china hey, stop putting lead in our kids' products. now there are accusation it is companies may be replacing it with something worse. jennifer westhoven is looking out for you. good morning. >> good morning.

and the bottom line, you know, i will bring you the details. it seems like what's happening when they found out they couldn't put lead in, a little bit of lead, they started putting in, in some cases, a lot of another very dangerous metal. some chinese manufacturers are putting the dangerous metal into kids' jewelry. sparkly bracelets and pen debts. just the kind of thing little girls put in their mouths sometimes. the associated press went out and bought 100 trinkets at stores you know across the country, well-known names, ran them through lab tests and found startlingly high levels. sometimes i'm talking 90% of the piece of jewelry was cadmium. number seven most hazardous substance. it is known to cause cancer, technically there are no restrictions on it and i'm -- i'm thinking maybe it is because they thought nobody would put this in something. federal officials are promising to investigate. >> that's mind-blowing.

>> it really is such dangerous thing. one of the stories i saw some of the manufacturers said it was -- we have used in our country for a long time. >> yikes. all right. we are going to hop subjects and take a look at travel trends. a lot of people are getting into the idea of how do i cut my carbon too print? basically, the actions you take in your life, how do you put out less greenhouse gases? one thing you could do, says the report, take the train. traveling by rail creates only a third to a tenth of the co2 compared to flying. according to paris-based train organization. of course. right. the train company says hey, come here. they might think well, sure. but i mean, it takes so much longer. wane to get to my vacation. but you know, maybe not in the future. researchers in boston say that ten years from now, it will be faster to take the train. at least in many of europe's busiest routes. we will see if that happens here. >> that will be interesting. all right. thank you. prosecutors are turning up the heat on ahman whose baby has

been missing since last month. the charges just brought up against gabriel's mother. and then first it was transfat, then bad food. now new york city is doing something else that -- well, they are trying to make it healthier. maybe it is what you are eating this morning.

the nfl playoffs kicked off this weekend. the packers and the cardinals made history. here is rafer with some of that tape. >> i know i'm prone to hyperbole and go over the top but not one of the greatest nfl football games of all time -- i mean it this time. >> show me. >> the highest scoring game in nfl playoff history. now we will give to it you in 30 seconds. aaron rodgers, took over for brett favre in green bay, in his first playoff game on the have first play gets intercepted.

that set the tone. cardinals rolled all over him early. larry fitzgerald, best play he made all game, one-handed catch, to put the cards up 38-24. the packers battled back and down 21 at one point to tie it at 45 and send it to overtime. but in overtime, rogers is sacked and coughs it up. carlos dansby. the other big shocker, new england patriots lost their first playoff game at home since 1978 before this guy was even born. ray rice -- this was also the first play of the game -- ran it all the way for a score. new dad tom brady, maybe he's not getting a lot of sleep which is what i'm guessing. intercepted and sacked three times. baltimore gets the take on indianapolis next. blame your son. i'm kidding, tom brady. congrats. authorities arrested two people in angola and accused them of a deadly shooting

attack. togo withdrew after a gunman killed one and injured seven others. a separatist leader warned there could be more violence at the tournament. the team still wanted to play but has to make you worry what will happen at the world cup in south africa in a few months. ladies, bad news. baseball's most eligible bachelor may be going off the market. derek jeter, notorious bachelor, is going to marry girlfriend minka kelly november 5th on long island. >> how about that? >> i'm not familiar with her work but apparently she is on a tv show on "fry night lights." shaquille o'neal, watch this. fouled hard. goes in the front row and crawls up and starts kissing that man. that's daniel baldwin from "the sopranos." high school basketball player with special needs is the hero for his team. don't miss his amazing story in

30. >> a good, good story. thank you. some train riders saw people taking off their pants right there on the train. and they weren't the only ones to get quite a sight. abc's of politics may have been confusing for sarah palin. claims about her vice presidential run.

three u.s. service members were killed today in afghanistan. nato officials say that the troops were killed during a fight with militants in the southern part of the country. no other details have been released. secretary of state hillary clinton wants to strengthen tie was key allies to fight terrorism in asia and pacific. she is start inging a ten-day t in australia and new zealand. besides terrorism she's going to talk about climate change and energy. oh. balloon boy's father goes to jail today. richard heene says he's innocent and that he true reply believed his son was trapped inside that balloon. okay. he says he only pleaded guilty to the hoax to keep authorities

from deporting his wife to japan. heene face as 90-day jail sentence. hello. good morning. it has been a while since i have seen you. how are you? good. i'm robin meade. here is what's going on. brand-new this morning, you know the airport scanners that see through your clothes? yes. do have the ability to store and transmit images of you. yikes. that's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. previously the tsa had said no, no, no, the scanners could not save or send these images. but a source at the agency says the storage functions are only for testing and are disabled before they go to the airports. some people point out that the scanners could have found explosives that a suspect is accused of bringing on to a northwest flight on christmas day. others say that the scanners are a big privacy invasion. did you know that 19 u.s. airports use them? your turn. sound off about it. bob has e-mailed us saying -- people object to the use of

airport scanners must have missed 9/11. those are afraid it will show their size of their stomach should try diet and exercise. okay, bob. david says sorry, this is not going to catch a single terrorist. not to mention depending on how much you fly, this can't be healthy for your body over time. so go to cnn.com/robin. if you are a facebooker, there's a facebook icon, click right there. if you are an e-mailer, there is a contact us button for the e-mailers. no matter what it is your opinion is, we are happy to get them. a book that hits stores today is shedding new light on the 2008 presidential campaign. "game change." it exposed racial remarks that senator harry reid made about president obama. core department richard lui joins us now. you know, it provides new details also about the republican ticket. >> that's right. both sides. journalist who wrote the book you talked about say john mccain's campaign team only devoted five days to vetting

sarah palin as the vice presidential nominee. on "60 minutes" last night, the authors said according to unnamed sources, palin was also ill-prepared when prepping for network interviews. >> a week later after the convention was over, she still didn't really understand why there was a north korea and south korea. she was still regularly saying saddam hussein had been behind 9/11. and literally the next day her son was about to ship off to iraq and when they asked her who her son was going to fight, she couldn't explain that. >> palin's spokeswoman responded saying palin addressed all of these topics in her book "going rogue." her descriptions are accurate and she was there. these reporters were not. >> okay. so more from the book. it claims there are more going on behind the scenes between president obama and his pick for vice president. the person who is now vice president. >> that's right. the authors say they rarely spoke. according to their sources, the

biggest blowup was after biden predicted mr. obama would be tested with an international crisis if elected. mr. obama reportedly reacting saying, quote, how many times is biden going to say something stupid, end quote? a biden spokesperson responds to that saying, quote, we aren't going to comment on rehashed rumors about the campaign but i can say if the authors were concerned with accuracy they might have checked their reporting with people on the vice president's staff. end quote. >> ouch. >> yes. >> both sides there. thank you. a man police called a person of interest in his wife's disappearance has moved out of the couple's home in utah. with the help of neighbors and friends, josh powell loaded up a moving truck and took his family to a suburb of seattle this weekend. despite the ongoing search for his wife susan, neighbors say they felt compelled to help josh powell move. >> i would hate to think that anyone i knew could do anything. i'm hoping that -- hoping he has -- i'm hoping susan shows

up. i don't know where. >> regardless of who is responsible for susan's disappearance, josh is really suffering. and if we can help him out, that's what i want to do. >> susan powell went missing last month. police say that josh powell has not been cooperating with them. powell says that at the time of his wife december disappearance he was on a camping trip with their kids. 35 minutes past the hour. ridiculously cold in many of our viewers' back yards today. let's hope that we can say good-bye to those temperatures. i'm not saying it will be 70, 80 or 90. >> one more day of ridiculously cold temperatures for some in florida and gulf coast. still going to be cold when you wake up tomorrow morning. right around northern florida and northern alabama and mississippi. same with louisiana. i will tell you, it will be extremely cold again this morning. here is your high-pressure region. wind chills are definitely a factor. winds stiffer than it was yesterday. let me show you some of the windchill readings we are

looking at now across the deep southeast. there are advisories and warnings for the windchill for florida. right now, feels like about 15 in jacksonville. feels like 32 in miami. feels like the mid 30s for key west right now, too. atlanta, 8 degrees. birmingham, 15. houston, windchill is 23. let me take you live to houston. this is the way it looks for the tower cam. beautiful. lots of sunshine. temperatures right now below freezing. waking up tomorrow to freezing temperatures and gradually shifting up into the warmer side by middle part of the week. you can see the sun coming up now. wind chills below freezing. we had the windchill advisories out there. for the rest of the country, let me show you what's going on. weak area of low pressure. great lakes. moving towards the middle part of the ohio valley. in the snow around columbus stretching back in towards covington, on the light side near cincinnati. picking up a little bit when it heads towards cleveland. if you look at the radar picture, it is a quick shot of it. you can see right now outside of cleveland, we will probably catch a delay out of that first thing in the morning and later today, little breezy for you when you get to cleveland and detroit. i think most of the heavy snow

is just about over with. especially by noon today. how about southern california? the reason why i became a meteorologist, predict when the waves will be big so i can surf. san diego. high surf advisory out there. those guys are absolutely loving it. now that i'm a professional and land locked i haven't touched the surfboard in three years. these guys sure have. that's gorgeous. san diego yesterday. big waves again today. enjoy it. >> you have to hear what ousted illinois governor rod blagojevich said this time. blago says he's blacker than barack obama because th. you can resist temptation while you drive. how you would like to guarantee your cell phone will never again work while your car is working?

good morning. let's take a look at the papers. you don't have to go outside in your robe. "usa today" reports that congress launched at least 25 ethics investigation last year. no one has been punished since congress passed sweeping reforms three years ago. collected so much surveillance evidence over iraq last year it would take 24 hours to watch it all. that's from "the new york times." the military is turning to the tv industry for tips on faster ways to analyze the video. have you not heard the last of jimi hendrix. "l.a. times" reports that sony is releasing a new album with a dozen unreleased songs. valleys of neptune comes out march 9th. oh, no. ousted illinois governor rod blagojevich is opening his mouth again and here comes the

controversy in an interview with "esquire" magazine, he says he's blacker than bark. he says he shined shoes growing up and saw everything. blagojevich's corruption trial is set to begin later this year. he's also set to appear on the new edition of "celebrity apprentice." we are not even two weeks into the new year. the price that you are paying for gas is right now higher than all of 2009. our money expert jennifer westhoven is here. what's the price? >> so it is getting higher and higher. about a quarter away from $3 a gallon. so if you filled up this weekend you saw they shot up almost a dime a gallon in the latest week. here is your latest price. get the full screen out for you. $ $ $2.75. some analysts say we are going to get to about $3 a gallon sometime this spring. there's normally a spring run-up as people get out of their houses and start doing things more. but also, the economy is perking

up a bit. that means that people are out there burning more oil. we are already at $3 a gallon in california, hawaii, and alaska. i know if you are waking up there you are going what do you mean, $3 is coming? i'm already paying that. this is the time of year when wall street bonuses start making the headlines. they are still raking it in despite the economy having a hard time. with the bonus. the average pay at goldman sachs is about $600,000 a year. according to "the new york times." $600,000 on average. one of the top adviser told john king -- doesn't seem right. >> you would certainly think that the financial institutions that are now doing a little bit better would have and sense. and this big bonus season, of course, it is going to offend the american people. it offends me. >> from their point of view their profits are way up from last year. just it doesn't seem that long ago many of them were borrowing

billions of dollars to get through the financial crisis. how's that paid for performance? goldman sachs may require its workers to give a certain percent of their pay to charity. okay. >> is it charity if you are made to do it? >> like when your mom says you will apologize. is that a real apology? someone tossed a molotov cocktail into a store and that may no be the strangest part of the story. sal the cat gets summoned for jury duty and it may have to show up.

. for the fourth week in a row, "avatar" was king at the box office. i mean king. james cameron's film made more than $48 million worldwide. "avatar" has taken in $1.3 billion. that makes it the second highest grossing movie worldwide behind cameron's "titanic."

the man accused of ducking past security and causing a lockdown at newark airport is expected in court today. the police arrested the man friday night in new jersey. he was released hours later and is charged with trespassing. reports say jeng went under security ropes last week to get a kiss from his girlfriend. it happened after a tsa officer left his post. milwaukee police are looking for the person who tossed a molotov cocktail into a gas station. here's the surveillance tape. somebody in a mask threw a flaming bottle and just walked away and didn't take anything. no one was hurt. the cashier was behind protective glass. cops say it may be a retaliation for a recent arrest in a 2007 robbery there. this just one of those stories. a high school basketball player with special needs had his big night. he brought fans to their feet when he got to play. here's rafer with more on that story.

>> he's deserving of all of the national attention he is getting. david stillman has been in special education since preschool. he's the team's manager and got put in the game for the first time last week. look how psyched he is and how psyched the crowd is. they got him the ball and in the first quarter he hit a three-pointer from the corner. and then in the final minutes he did it again. listen to the crowd's reaction. they are going crazy for chicago cubs. he has become saebl in his school and his town and he has his own cheering section there. the nfl playoffs kicked off this weekend. this was a shoot-out for the ages. packers arnlg rogers in his first playoff game taking on kurt warner who has been in 786 of them. and that's not true. it was highest scoring nfl playoff game ever in history. the packers battled back from down 21 points to tie it at 45 and sent it to overtime. but then in overtime, rogers coughs it up and the ball

bobbles into dans by's hands. they get the new orleans saints next. this is crazy. the coach of the nhl ae's flames says a fan pointed a laser at his goalie during the game. somehow he managed to play okay. he blocked most of the shots by have an koour and won. he got medical treatment after the game. we do not know what it was for. it was not reported. their coach furious the guy could not find the guy that did it. the university of alabama won the bcs national championship and got a nice trophy. guess where they put it on display. at the walmart. >> the walmart. >> the walmart. that's where people can check it out. you are in us tuscaloosa, you were able to go and pose with the trophy and take pictures. it was roll back tide. charles barkley hosted "saturday night live" and parodied his most notable -- if

you ever saw charles barkley's golf swing. >> like a stutter stop. >> to get to the root of the problem i wanted to see how charles would do a more natural motion like, say, sweeping a floor. >> my friends told me about this. >> it is highly entertaining. >> it is highly entertaining. that guy was supposed to be the golf coach supposedly going to help him with his swing. >> he did a good job, charles did. >> he was hilarious. >> i can't argue. >> he's not afraid to make fun of himself. >> that's true. blackwater was heavily criticized three years ago when its guards opened fire in baghdad, killing 17 civilians. now the company is settling with the victims 'families. a man wound medical the gunfire says that 16 of the 17 families have agreed to $100,000 settlement.

people who were wounded are being offered between $20 thousand how and $50,000. there is a new program that will shut down your cell phone while driving. clark howard tells you how it works. howard tells you how it works. >> state after state around the country has added these restrictions that requires you go hands free when you're using a cell phone. you have to have a bluetooth thing or a wire so the phone is not in your hands. but so far the research has shown that there's no safety advantage to hands free, the real problem is how distracted, how much we go into a zone when we're on a cell phone. well, if this is something you know and you're worried about maybe you're going to cause an accident, who knows what because you get distracted by a cell phone, but you can't seem to stop yourself from getting on that call or answering one, well, there's a website called

zoomsafer.com. if you go to zoomsafer you essentially voluntarily put your cell phone into jail while you're driving. it automatically senses in your cell phone that you're moving and shuts down to keep you safe. i'm clark howard. for more ways to keep your wallet safe, go to cnn.com/clarkhoward. >> clark will teach you to save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. catch him at noon eastern here on saturdays and sundays. today a federal judge will hear a lawsuit over california's same-sex marriage band. it will be on youtube later in the day. but they want the supreme court to stop the broadcast. they say the cameras can affect testimony. those who want the coverage tell the "san francisco chronicle" that what happens in court is public property. the fire hit the one place that they couldn't use their

fire trucks to knock it down.

okay. well, good morning. if you're just waking up and joining us i'm so glad to see you. i know it's been a while. i'm robin meade, away we go. senate majority leader harry reid is taking fire for things that he said about president obama's race. the words you were never meant to hear have set off a full-blown political attack. those airport body scanners are as personal as it gets. and, now, we're hearing that some things the government told you about them, more specifically, your pictures in them, may not be true. plus -- >> a random person you know a little bit told you to take your pants off in public and you did.

>> that's a regular thing. >> that's a regular thing, he said. hundreds of people took their pants off on a train in the middle of the day. okay. first, though, our top story. those airport scanners that basically see right through your clothes to your naughty parts do have the ability to store and transmit those images of you. that's according to tsa documents obtained by a privacy group. previously the tsa said, no, no, the scanners could not save or send those images of you. the privacy group's director talked with our director. >> we think it's obvious the machines are designed to score and record images. >> the tsa has been lying? >> i would use a more polite word, if i could, but it could be less accurate. >> the storage function are for testing only. some people point out that the scanners could have found explosives that a suspect is

accused of bringing on to a northwest flight on christmas day. others say these scanners are a big invasion of privacy. 19 u.s. airports use them. so, fire away. what do you think about it? carrie writes, whatever they need to do to keep us safe. everyone complains too much. come on, people. >> the next step is for retail establishments to use them to watch shoppers. won't that be comfortable? go to cnn.com/robin. if you like facebook hit the f icon. if you like to e-mail instead, there's a little contact us button, you can do it that way, too. ridiculously cold weather is still gripping a lot of the country. the freeze warning in some spots are making life just miserable. the big chill could cost you at the grocery store, as well. farmers are worried a hard freeze overnight could damage the florida citrus even more. that, for example, could push up

your orange juice prices. the citrus harvest is at its peak right now. >> to see 30% to 50% of your losses, it hits you pretty hard. >> it could take five weeks to determine the extent of the losses. florida citrus is a $9 billion industry. in a few moments, by the way, meteorologist bob van dillen will look at how long the freeze will last. senate majority leader harry reid is apologizing, but republicans are arguing what he said was racest and they want him to step down as majority leader. reid made remarks two years ago about obama that are now surfacing in a book. he said he thought the country was ready for a candidate especially a light skinned with no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one. the caucus accepts his apology but the gop says, hey, there's a double standard here. >> harry reid deeply regrets those comments. he apologized to the president.

he is someone who feels y think, personally pained that comments he made were not appropriate. he clearly said that. >> the reality of it is this. there is the standard where democrats feel they can say these things and can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own but when it comes from anywhere else it's racism. it's inappropriate, absolutely. >> president obama said he accepted reid's apology and considers the matter closed. more than 1 million jobs are up for grabs. some of them may be in your community. our money expert jennifer westhoven is here to tell you about the censuseses jobs, 2010. >> a lot of people are looking for work a little extra out there and also maybe if your jobless benefits are running out, a good way to get extra money. we're talking about more than a million people who will go

door-to-door in the census. a little bit extra, that would be nice. the sensesis hiring in all communities across the nation and these are temporary jobs and part-the pay is between $10 to $15 an hour. most of the jobs will be available in the spring. if you want to apply for one of these, we got the link. you can get to it right on our web page. all the information takes you straight to the census. go from cnn.com/robin and if you look under important websites, you can click right there. >> pretty decent pay. >> yeah. can you believe another mid-air scare for airplane passengers. why part of a landing gear on a united jet wouldn't deploy yesterday. the pilot told everybody on board to brace for a rough landing. >> the plane came to a stop and then, you know, everybody calmly

opened the doors, i stepped out of the door and literally i was out the door so fast the slide hadn't deployed and i stood there for a second and the slide deployed and slid down the slide and a lot of people on the ground saying come over here. we all kind of ran over to the grassy area. >> all 48 passengers and five crew mayembers made it off that plane safely. it's official, nbc wants jay leno to move back to its old time slot. after several nbc stations complained about that show's poor ratings. if he agrees to it he will be on at 11:35 eastern and if conan o'brien agrees, he will be on at 12:05. a half-hour show? >> it doesn't seem right. >> his monologue, like you said before, is like 25 minutes. >> something is a little messy. >> i think you're right.

starting to the west coast right now and cold air for the east half of the nation and show you the pacific storm coming in off the ocean and see the clouds they extend all the way towards western nevada and idaho getting in towards montana and the heavy rain around the puget sound area for the morning and all the blues all rain and the yellows and greens heavy rain and northern elevations and a little bit of snow but freezing rain is also around the cascades, especially in the valleys, watch for freezing rain this morning and that rain now is extending down just off shore from northern california near eureka and then you'll get heavy rain tomorrow when you get in towards the bay area. the rain will stretch gradually down to the south. here's the seattle radar and big rain off towards your west. showers lining up the entire day and thunderstorms cranking up especially later on around the coastline later. up to the east coast and here's your arctic high and kind of split, though, and a cold front racing down out of the great lakes and reinforcing shot of

cold air and below that, still extremely cold and windchill advisories and warnings and shaded in purple in southern florida and 32 currently when you get to miami and you add to that what it looks like, 36. take you to orlando live, 36 degrees your windchill. tomorrow morning not as cold, still 32 the actual temperature and tomorrow the temperatures will bottom out in the upper 30s to low 40s. tomorrow and right now we're actually above freezing in orlando we're at 37. tomorrow morning 32 the low. watch out. more on that in just a bit. >> thank you. >> you got it. prosecutors are turning up the heat on a mom whose baby has been missing since last month. you'll hear the charges just brought against baby gabriel's mother. rod blagojevich is comparing himself to president obama. this is a stunner.

our salute today is for prive first class ramus. here is wife, marissa. >> hi, robin, my name is mu lis xau i would like to salute my husband of the united states ar army. i just want him to know that i am very proud of him and he is currently on his first deployment overseas and i am thinking of him every second of every day. i hope this deployment will pass quickly and i will be in his arms again. i love you with all of my heart always and forever. >> if you have somebody in the service and you want to salute them, we want to help you. today a federal judge will hear the lawsuit over california same-sex marriage band. as of now, it will be on youtube later in the day but same-sex marriage opponents want the supreme court to stop the broadcast. they say that cameras could affect the testimony. those who want the coverage tell

"the san francisco chronicle" that what happens in court is public property. government spending on roads and bridges was supposed to help boost jobs under the president's stimulus plan. did it, though? richard lui has the impact on unemployment new for you in the next half hour. you know, companies in china told, were told to stop putting -- let me try it again. in china, hey, don't be putting lead in kids' products and, instead, they could be replacing lead with something even worse, possibly. jen is looking out for you. good morning. >> thanks, robin. it's worse, but no rules against cadmium. if they couldn't use lead they were going to use the dangerous metal cadmium, instead, in children's jewelry. at stores across the country you

know, these products were all over the place. they ran the products through lab tests and found startling high levels, sometimes 90% of it would be made out of cadmium. the number seven most hazardous substance in the environment according to the cdc. it is known to cause cancer, it's linked to other problems, as well. i think, technically, there are no restrictions on it because nobody ever thought that anybody would use this in a kids' product. federal officials have promised to investigate and hopefully they'll move very speedily on that. again, a very dangerous metal and right now in your kids' products. now, of course, you know when carmakers are showing off new cars, they want to make a splash at the detroit auto show. do you think this is what chrysler wanted us talking about? people are talking about the name, not the new car. chrysler showing off the new vehicle, called the dettenator. right after the failed terror

attack on a jet that was headed for the same city, detroit. so, yeah, bob, what we don't know i think the other cars in this line have names like heat and shock. >> what about the hydroplane? >> were they trying to be controversial or did they just -- >> i just don't think they were thinking. the detonator this isn't the ford pinto we're talking about. if you're doing any traveling today, one area we're watching, detroit. deicing going on. short delay out of here and also looking at cleveland for light snow overhead directly you can see a couple delays out of that. saber flight explorer, here's your snow and here's cleveland. stretches down to ohio and more snow behind that. let me show you what it looks like for the day. every delay should be short. light snow in cleveland and light snow when you get to detroit, also. light snow around cincinnati and less than half an hour there. west coast, bay area fog, we're counting on that and seattle it's going to be rain.

more on that in just a bit. transfats and high-calorie fast food. how it's taking on something you keep in a bottle on your kitchen table. a football game made history last night. this one was drama from start to finish.

more details about the senate majority leader apologizing for racially charged comments about president obama during the 2008 campaign. democratic leaders and even the president said they accepted the apology. correspondent richard lui, let's talk about the reasons they say they're standing behind senator harry reid. >> democrats simply can't afford to lose senator reid's seat. he was facing a tough re-election bid in nevada before these comments went public. >> three republicans right now that are trying to take on the senate majority leader in november. they have to get past the primary. according to these poll number physical harry reid would face any of these three, he would face re-election. >> there you have it. the congressional black caucus has forgiven reid and some members saying they don't want

distraction. >> you know, republican leaders say, hey, this is a double standard here. and they side, many people have sided the 2002 incident when the democrats pushed for then senate majority leader trent lott to resign. >> that's right, robin. lott had to step down after majority leader after controversy stemming from these comments. take a lissen . >> when strom thurmond voran fo president, we voted for him. we're proud of him. for the rest of the country to follow our lead, we wouldn't have all these problems over all these years either. >> he ran on a segregationist platform but reid has the advantages of his comments not being on tape. some democrats admit they were insensitive but say the context was different because he was speaking in support of president obama's campaign, robin. >> richard, thank you very much. the nfl playoffs kicked off

over the weekend. the packers and the cardinals making history. you didn't get to see the game? we got the tape. >> if you didn't get to see the game, when you get to work you'll hear people talking about it, it was the highest scoring playoff game in nfl history. aaron rodgers who took over for brett favre in the play that was green bay, wisconsin, on the very first play was intercepted. first play of the game. so, the cardinals went up early 21-0. you figure, oh, my goodness, they're going to win this and walk away with it. larry fitzgerald made this catch, but the packers battled back and send it to overtime and this is the play they're talking about. rogers was sacked and cardinals win it 51-45 in a thriller. the new england pate revts not lost a playoff game at home since 1978. before this young man was even born. ray rice on the first play of the game. ran it in for a touchdown.

the ravens went up strong and then tom brady was harassed like we have never seen him harassed before. he is a brand-new dad, maybe he wasn't getting a lot of sleep. baltimore gets to take on indianapolis in the next round. authorities have arrested two people in angola and accused them of a deadly shooting attack on the soccer team. togo withdrew after gunmen attacked their bus killing three and wounding several others. togo's president made the call to pull the team out after they were warned there would be more violence. in other news, ladies, we have bad news baseball's most eligible bachelor may go off the market. he will marry his girlfriend minka kelly. kellyanne actress on "friday night lights."

as he goes up, he gets fouled hard and he keeps on going and just plants one -- >> almost looks like he did it on purpose. >> it looks like he totally sought out daniel baldwin. he was waiting for this moment to give daniel baldwin a kiss. in high school a basketball player with special needs, do not miss his amazing story and you'll hear from him in the next half hour. robin? an arizona mom whose baby disappeared last month is charged with kidnapping and child abuse. police say that gabriel johnson was last seen with his mom, elizabeth johnson. the baby's father said that she texted him saying she killed gabriel. she told a texas tv station she gave the baby away. . police have been talking to a couple that wanted to adopt the baby. a new year's resolution that many voters wish he had not. all right, here you go. >> i think it's ridiculous and

i'm glad he's almost out of here. plus, these people ran for the door when a quake struck in california. you'll see more of that tape.

there you have it. the new york stock exchange just opened for business and looks like markets will kick off the week on a good note. we'll get to the what and the why about five minutes away. first, though, three u.s. service members were killed today in afghanistan. nato officials say that the troops were killed during a fight with militants in the southern part of the country. no other details are released yet. imagine being trapped on a frozen highway overnight. that is a nightmare that more than 160 people endured during heavy snowfall in northwest germany, including 19 kids.

they survived by running their cars' engines. you may be noticing that your wallet is lighter when you leave the gas station. aaa says that gas prices are up for the fifth day in a row. the national average for regular is about $2.75 a gallon. that is higher than it was in all of 2009. those are some of our top stories. well, hello, look at you. better late than never. i'm robin meade. a book that hits stores today sheds new light on the 2008 presidential campaign. the author of "game change" say that hillary clinton was willing to reject secretary of state job until she got a last-minute call from president obama. >> on the one hand, you have hillary clinton saying something she says to almost no one, admitting that her husband is a problem. in the same time, obama comes back and shows vulnerability to

her. he says to her, given the economic kriss and given all i have to deal with, i need your help. >> the clintons have not commented on this book. brand-new this morning, airport scanners that see right through your clothes do have the ability to store and transmit images of you. that's according to tsa documents ubstained by a privacy group. remember previously the tsa said, nah, the scanners could not save or send images of you. but a source at the agency says the storage functions are only for testing and are disabled before they go to the airports. i mean, do you see how much they see. they see everything. some people say, you know, the scanners could have found the explosives that a suspect is accused of bringing on to a northwest flight on christmas day. others say the scanners are a privacy invasion, did you know, 19 u.s. airports use them. okay, here's what you think or many of you do. ken, one of our viewers writes, no one wants to look at me anyway way.

they need to make sure the personnel operating the equipment won't abuse their position and distribute the images. if i'm violated like that, somebody ought to be buying me dinner and not airport food. how long does it take to get the proofs back? are enlargements available? go to cnn.com/robin and click on the facebook icon, if you like facebook if you're an e-mailler, there's a contact us button. this just in, the l.a. bomb squad right now is trying to carefully, very carefully remove a suspicious device. that device is in a car and they've got a couple roads closed down here and according to our affiliate ktla police found some kind of device at a traffic stop at 6:00 a.m. eastern. it looks like a bunch of fireworks taped together and we're watching this here and as we get more details we'll bring it to you. a reporter accidentally gave people a demonstration on how

powerful the wind were in oregon over the weekend. look at this. >> sustained winds blowing 60 to 70 miles per hour out here, but the windchill is just painful. oh, my goodness. that picked her up, didn't it? even with the guy standing behind her bracing her. those were 100-mile-per-hour wind gusts near the washington/oregon state border. thank goodness the poor thing is okay, but it took her a while to get back on her feet. yeah. if someone is sitting at the assignment desk at the newsroom, let's take the smallest person. >> she took a tumble but she's all right. holy cow, man. that's bottom of the rung. you could tell one people knew at one point. no, i'm not doing it. not on the base of a cliff. >> uncle bobby says, tell them no next time. >> tell them no. some of the record lows we recorded earlier this morning.

these are the this morning's lows. tallahassee down to 14 degrees this morning and gainesville, florida, 17. ft. myers 17 degrees and west palm beach almost freezing. 33 degrees. this morning the coldest morning for you, a little better tomorrow but the big weather picture, the big picture dominating over the region and wind coming around that high and you're also looking at a weak low pressure system moving through the great lakes and light snow. ahead of this, it's windchills. current readings and all across the deep south. i want to show you these because we don't get temperatures like these this often. 23 degrees in jacksonville and new orleans 28 degrees, that's the way it feels outside. live to new orleans headed down here, another cold morning for you. temperatures below freezing. a lot of sunshine, up to the 50s today and tomorrow morning only bottoming out in the upper 30. little bit better tomorrow and then gradually warming through

the rest of the week. cleveland getting back on in here. cold front moving through the great lakes and see light snowfall pulling on through cleveland and stretches down to the eastern part of that state and down south towards western west virginia. as that snow races up the mountains and calling for three to five inches of snow when you get south of elkens. look at the snow over the next 48 hours. see that piling up right across southwestern pa and basically west virginia getting that higher elevation snow, that's what we're calling for. out across the west, another area of low pressure and more rain and more snow. we'll show you that in a bit. some airports from this weekend. how about some snow in florida. ocalla, florida. north central florida. not frost, that is snow and ice. something we don't see very often. temperatures dr s dropping belo freezing. that's definitely worth an ireport picture. >> some kids have to go to school and they don't have

jackets. >> or hats. it should warm up a little bit for you tomorrow. >> okay, thank you. a strong report on chinese exports could help lift the dow to its fourth straight gain. susan lisovicz has an early look. good morning. >> good morning, robin. welcome back. we've got a nice rally for you and we had a terrific first start of the trading week for the new year. and what's fueling an optimism this morning? those exports dropped by about 20% in december after more than a year of declines and that has stocks moving higher in the first seven minutes of trading. this also amped up for corporate earning season which kicks off today when aluminum giant alcoa has results. if chipa is making more things, they're using aluminum for some of them. the bank failure, unfortunately, that tally begins again. the first bank to fail in the

new year horizon bank. it's assuming all deposits. last year 140 banks failed, that's the most since 1992. we've got a merger monday for you. this one in the beverage industry. heineken is buying the beermaking operations of mexico's femsa for more than $7.5 billion bucks. make heineken the second largest brewer. finally, expect volatility in the commodity's market, specifically orange juice futures. the freezing temperatures that bob talks about on a daily basis is causing oj prices to jump 17% in one week alone on fear of major crop damage. those fears haven't materialized just yet. florida hasn't had a major freeze. related crop damage in 20 years, but that's not how the market works. the market is ahead of that and it's fear, it's greed and, you know, might be a good time to switch to amjuice if prices get

any higher, robin. >> i guess it won't be five weeks until they really know the extent of how badly the crops did in this freeze. >> they're doing everything they can in the meantime to keep them nice and warm. >> thank you so much, susan. >> you're welcome, robin. a man is accused of going into a gas station and throwing a cocktail at the cashier and then calmly walking out. okay. also ahead -- >> i had that ring and it was my ring and i'd like to have it back. >> a cub scout troop is on a mission to find out who lost their wedding ring.

you know, president obama and his top commanders say that the u.s. does not intend to send troops to yemen. u.s. military commander general david petraeus spoke to our sister network cnn and he says that intelligence officials believe that al qaeda poses the most recent threat in yemen and the u.s. will send the country more money for security. >> the programs that we submitted that was part of the budget that was approved, the appropriations bill signed by the president would, in fact, more than double the security assistance. last year it was around $70 million. over the course of this fiscal year, it should be somewhere around $1 to million or more and the amount of economic aid increased, as well. >> petraeus said that yemen made it clear it does not want u.s. ground troops and that the money will only provide assistance. it's believed that the suspect in the christmas day plane bombing attempt trained in yemen. milwaukee police are looking

for the person who tossed a molotov cocktail. they just walked away without taking anything. nobody was hurt. the cashier was behind protective glass. cops say that it may be retaliation for a recent arrest in a 2007 robbery there. most people make new year's resolutions to better themselves or others, but one san francisco politician says he plans to use the f word in every board supervisor's meeting this year. city supervisor chris daily announced his new year's resolution at a meeting and many of his constituents and colleagues are not very happy. >> i think it's f'ing ridiculous and i'm so glad he's almost out of here. >> i think it's a nonissue and a publicity stunt. >> i actually dropped off a bar of soap in his office so that he could use it to clean up his language. >> interesting. san francisco's mayor says that daily's behavior is an embarr s

embarrassment to the city. balloon boy's father goes to jail today. richard henne says he's innocent and that he truly believed his son was trapped in the balloon. henne faces a 90-day jail sentence. a country is running out of brides. that is one of the stories that richard is working on for the next hour. where this is happening? >> good morning to you, robin. let's put it to you this way, if china did the show "the bachelorette" you see men lining up around the block it become contestants. then, robin, more on the uproar over common senate majority leader harry reid made about president obama. "avatar" is raking in over $1 billion but is the most popular movie in the world right now racist? we'll have that for you, robin, in about 15. a cub scout troop in california has a tough job. they want to find out who lost

their wedding ring. the scouts found it near the recycling station. >> i had that ring and it was my ring, i'd like to have it back. >> trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, kind and then they really follow that and it's really an opportunity to really teach scout oath and scout law in action. >> well, so far no one has claimed the wedding ring. you hope that the fire department can race to your home if it ever got on fire, let's hope not. what happens when their trucks and their station is the things up in flames? some train riders saw people taking off their pants right there on the train and they weren't the only ones to get this sight.

the cold weather did not keep new yorkers from their annual no pants subway ride. the stunt started here in 2002. . some of the riders say they were a little bit surprised. >> we got on and everyone had their pants on and as we started, they definitely started to come off. we were confused. >> we were thinking they were maybe going to take the rest of their clothes off. >> organizers say no pants day is now in 16 countries. >> and we had it on friday on our show, but you missed it. yeah, friday we had no pants day. >> luckily they shoot us from the waist up and you couldn't tell. >> a high school basketball player with special needs brought fans to their feet with a special performance and here's rafer with this performance.

>> this guy's story is absolutely fantastic and he deserves all the national attention he is getting. he has been in special education since preschool. he is the team's manager and he got put in the game for the very first time last week and he was pumped up and so were his teammates. they got him in the ball and in the first quarter hit a three-pointer. he was practicing for weeks. in the last minutes he did it, again, listen to the crowds reaction. chubs later talked about the experience. >> a lot of people were going crazy. it was awesome. that would be the best night. >> how long do you think you'll remember it for? >> ever. >> chubbs has become a celebrity in his school and his town because of that. >> that's great. in nfl, a shootout for the ages. taking on veteran kurt warner and the vet schooled the young

one. the iwhoest scoring nfl playoff game ever in history. the packers actually battled back from down 21 points to tie the game at 45-45. tied it at rogers got sacked and right into the arms of karlos dansby. cardinals win 51-45. the university of alabama, they won the national championship, they showed the trophy off at walmart. they figured that's where everybody could come and see it. the coach's trophy was on display at the walmart in tuscaloosa. fans got to take their picture with the $30,000 trophy. there was no little man dancing with a smiley face. charles barkley hosted saturday night live and parodied his most notable idiosyncrasy, that being his golf swing. >> to get to the root of the problem, i wanted to see how charles would do a more natural

motion, like sweeping a floor. how come my friending didn't tell me about this. >> the best thing about barkley is that he's not afraid to make fun of himself. >> that's true. >> or anybody else for that matter. >> you would know. >> all right. thank you. just like a stutter stop on that golf swing. >> it's a little bit of a hitch. >> so far so good. just a couple deicing delays. cleveland, detroit, short delays because of the deicing. watch for half hour delays in cleveland and detroit. it's going to be morning fog setting up around the bay area. rain heavy at times. watch for delays due to poor visibility at seattle. a quake hit california yesterday. here are people rushing out of a building when the rattling

started. you're about to see what one i-reporter captured firsthand.