this morning on "early today" head-shaker. the much-anticipated verdict in the casey anthony trial has many asking did she get away with murder? dirt devil. a massive cloud of dust barrels across arizona. and hold your breath. rafters get tossed into the and hold your breath. rafters get tossed into the frigid waters in california. captions paid for by nbc-universal television hello, and good morning. welcome to our viewers across the nation, including the pacific time zone. i'm lynn berry. today we begin with a stunning verdict.

after just 11 hours of deliberations, a florida jury found casey anthony not guilty in the murder of her 2-year-old daughter caylee. an unexpected decision that left casual and close followers of the case in shock. nbc's kristen dahlgren is in orlando for us this morning. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. casey anthony was only convicted on four misdemeanor counts of making false statements to police. she'll be sentenced on those tomorrow, but with time served could be a free woman after what is being called most controversial verdict since o.j. simpson. >> as to the charge of first degree murder, verdict as to count one, we, the jury, find the defendant not guilty. >> reporter: casey anthony sobbed after hearing the verdict. not guilty on the three most serious charges related to her 2-year-old daughter caylee's death. after weeks of testimony the jury took less than 11 hours to decide, and while none who participated in deliberations spoke to the media, one

alternate offered his take. >> the prosecution didn't meet the burden of proof. we had a lot of reasonable doubt there. >> reporter: but outside the courtroom the jurors' unanimous decision was met with a shared shock and outrage. >> you got everything. how do you give her a verdict like that? >> we are just devastated. it's just unbelievable that somebody can get away with doing this to a little beautiful baby. >> reporter: for weeks millions watched the wall-to-wall coverage, transfixed by a mother facing the death penalty. anthony's defense included allegations her father molested her and helped cover up the fact that caylee drowned in the family pool. >> casey did not murder caylee. it's that simple. >> reporter: but she was convicted on four counts of providing false information to police. >> the defendant was telling

them she was alive, that she was somewhere else. she was asking for their help. >> reporter: on thursday the judge will sentence her on those charges. up to four years. but with time served since she was arrested in 2008, casey anthony could soon walk free. now anthony's parents had nothing to say to the media as they left the courthouse. they did release a statement saying in spite of casey anthony's baseless defense, they do think the jury made a fair decision based on the evidence. they then asked for their privacy, lynn. >> kristen dahlgren, thank you. president obama stepped up his role in capitol hill's stalled budget talks yesterday. he's calling on congressional leaders to meet tomorrow at the white house where he wants lawmakers to hammer out a long-term deal to raise the nation's borrowing limit before the country's credit is tarnished.

tracie potts joins us with more on that. >> reporter: long-term being the keyword there. a short-term deal to prevent defaulting for a few short months won't do. he thinks they need to come up with a permanent solution and they need to do it before the markets get spooked about the indecision. what they're facing is cutting 2.5 trillion from the budget over that time period president obama says it must include some tax increases on the rich. house speaker john boehner says it absolutely will not pass his republican house. he's calling this meeting of the white house tomorrow fruitless if the president, as he puts it, doesn't face reality. we'll hear more about this later today as the president hosts the first-ever presidential twitter town hall meeting. you can submit a question for that at the hashtag ask obama.

thousands already have. >> i bet they have. tracie potts there for us in washington. thank you. here is a look at other stories making news today. the dust in arizona took a while to settle on tuesday. a spectacular display of wind and dust swept across phoenix. dwarfing downtown skyscrapers and producing blinding conditions that led to airport delays as well as thousands of power outages. no serious injuries were reported. >> an ohio horse had its own getaway plan this holiday weekend. the horse escaped from a nearby farm turning a stretch of highway into its own racetrack. the horse ran for hours until it tired itself out. it was then safely captured and returned to its owner. a group of california rafters survived a wild ride on the river last night. the raging rapids sent all seven people airborne, throwing them into the cold and rough water.

they all survived holding on to the overturned raft and paddling to shore. finally, in san francisco one man's mad dash for a home run ball netted him the perfect souvenir along with a couple bruises. still can't get over this one. the man leapt into mccovey cove to retrieve the ball, giving himself and the young fan with him, a tale to tell. now for a look at your national and regional weather here's meteorologist bill karins. >> the little boy gives him the high five. the best part. i want to show you these again. almost speechless when you look at the scene. almost out of a sci-fi movie when this dust cloud also known as a haboob, that's a weather term, it was a mile high and

knocked out power and made a huge mess on the downtown phoenix area. very historic dust storm that rolled through last night. the rain and the thunderstorms that produced that are all now by lake havasu city produced flash flooding. significant rain in the interstate 10 area. we've dried it out in the phoenix area. cleanup and dust in people's backyards. just a mess. we could do it again today. odds of seeing something like that again are very slim. we're still in that setup. the big high ridge of high pressure is over north texas. that's keeping some of the humidity on the increase in arizona. once we heat it up today, we'll get more showers and storms late in the afternoon to this evening. phoenix 109 with showers and storms. same forecast for you in tucson. vegas 104. very hot in interior sections of california. beautiful weather here. seattle, i know you like to be a little warmer, but at least a

good deal of sunshine. we probably won't see anything like that again for a while. >> let's hope not. bill, thanks so much. more positive economic data. oil prices rise, and impressive honesty in austria. your early morning business headlines are straight ahead. a high paid hollywood actor risks life and limb in iceland on an adventure show. coming up, disappointing news for tiger woods. derek jeter gets another step closer to 3,000 hits. the fans have voted.

good morning, and welcome back to "early today." i'm lynn berry. here are some of your top headlines this morning. officials say a member of a terror group in somalia who was secretly interrogated for two months aboard a navy ship was brought to new york yesterday to face terrorism charges. in a case likely to reignite debate over the prosecution of terror suspects, the man said to have provided interrogators with valuable information is accused of providing money and weapons to terrorist groups. exxonmobil has been ordered rebury the pipeline that spilled oil into the yellowstone river to better protect it from external damage. exxon and federal officials say oil has been spotted 25 miles downstream, although department of transportation reports some found as far away as 240 miles. california lawmakers have approved a bill that would make the state the first requiring public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies

curriculum. governor jerry brown has not said whether he would sign it. and on day six of the north america tour prince william and wife catharine were out in the canadian wilderness. william also gave a shot at hockey, although he wasn't able to score. they couldn't let him score? he's the prince. come on. now here's an early look at how wall street will kick off the day. the dow opens at 12,569 after losing 12 points yesterday. the s&p was down a point but the nasdaq added nine. taking a look at overseas trading this morning, in tokyo the nikkei gained 110 points, but in hong kong the hang seng fell 230. light, mostly flat trading put an end to wall street's recent winning streak tuesday except for the nasdaq, which barely eked out a sixth day of gains. the nasdaq was lifted by netflix

which soared 8% and hit a new high after announces it was expanding its online video service to 43 countries. just when wall street had put greece in its rearview mirror, moody's investors service slashed portugal's credit rating into junk territory on risks the country will need another bailout before it can return to capital markets. on the data front, new factory orders bounced back in may, boosted by demand for transportation equipment. oil futures surged 2% to settle at just under $97 a barrel after barclays capital raised its forecast for the commodity for 2012. chevron rose 1% t most of any stock on the dow and marathon oil jumped more than 3% on the news. deal news, blood transfusion instrument company immucor rose 30% after agreeing to be taken private by tpg capital for nearly $2 billion.

energy transfer increased its bid to buy pipeline company southern union, agreeing to pay over $5 billion in cash or units in an attempt to thwart a rival offer by williams. finally, talk about honesty. two 15-year-olds on a school trip in austria found an envelope stuffed with over $14,000 in cash and handed it in to lost and found. if the rightful owner doesn't show up in a year, they get to keep it. sounds like a fair deal there. coming up, another setback for tiger. jeter's march towards 3,000, and the first lady takes in a ball game for a good cause. plus, a nail-biting ending between the jays and the red sox in boston. your early morning sports headlines are straight ahead. in weather more 100 degree heat, and thunderstorms will be widespread. your forecast is coming up. you're watching "early today."

good morning. if you are just waking up, this is "early today." in sports tiger woods fans waiting for his return to the golf course will have to wait a little longer. here's nbc's fred roggin with an early look at all your sports headlines. good morning. after years of dominating golf, tiger woods quickly becoming a forgotten man. he's not played in a tournament in months and announced yesterday that he will miss next week's british open because of nagging injuries.

tiger can't get healthy while the cards' albert pujols recovered from a broken wrist a month ahead of schedule, and he is expected to start tonight. the cards did fine without him against the reds. yankees derek jeter is two hits closer to 3,000. picked up a single on the slow roller to third. eerily similar to a play that was ruled an error on monday. this went jeter's way. then in the second the two-run double wr in the gap. yanks beat the indians 9-2. great finish between the red sox and blue jays. tying run at second. mcdaniels at left. darnell mcdonald came up firing, a dart to the plate and nailed him. what a finish. sox won it 3-2. in washington where michelle obama was on hand to honor children of military families before the nats and the cubs game. having the first lady at the park can make anybody nervous, and maybe that's what happened here. jeff baker air mailed his toss to second. in came two on the error.

the nationals could use mrs. obama at all their games. they won it 3-2. finally pick the miami heat to win the championship. the rangers mike napoli was one of them. last night he paid off his debt. listen to this. ♪ i'm too sexy for my shirt ♪ too sexy for my shirt ♪ so sexy it hurts >> napoli had to face the music. fans voted on his at-bat song, they picked the '96 "i'm too sexy." everybody got a kick out of it, and the word is still out whether napoli is still too sexy for his shirt. that's your early look at sports on "early today." i'm fred roggin. "early today" sports the brought to you by touch of gray. get rid of some gray, not all. whose the highest paid actress in hollywood? it's a tie. your early morning entertainment headlines are straight ahead. plus, the last thing most fighter pilots want to see themselves doing is opening a parachute. for one older veteran it was the right thing to do at the right time. you're watching "early today."

welcome back. very hot forecast once again in areas including vegas and phoenix. but we have theáa moisture. so a little more humidity makes it more uncomfortable. that will spark more afternoon showers and storms. still cool on the coast. we're nice in the northwest and sunny. that continues to thursday with the exception of seattle.

if you're watching us on kmir 6 in palm springs, california, see and compare native american to the 13th century to present day comic at comic art indigene. that's your pacific event of the day. now here's an early look at this morning's headlines in entertainment. for now charlie sheen gets the last laugh in his game of yun upsmanship with chuck lorre pf he's reportedly killing off sheen's character. tuesday comedy central announced its newest roast target will be sheen himself. and coincidentally but probably not the roast airs september 19th, the same night "two and a half men" airs with rashton kuchar. >> ratings war. the premiere of "man versus wild." imagine how his agent let alone his mother felt about seeing him crawl on a rope between two mountains. finally no surprise forbes

list of top earning act retss for 2010 is headed by anja lena jolie. but sarah jessica parker tying her may be a surprise. but much of that income is linked to her line of fragrances, not her movies. this comes to us from kn knsd nbc 7 in san diego where a fighter pilot enjoyed the view. he survived several dogfights in three wars but he was in the doghouse after telling his wife he planned to celebrate his 90th birthday sky diving. he got a welcome reception from the missus. always important. >> so cute. >> i'm lynn berry. this is "early today," just your first stop of the day on your nbc stations.

a group of orphaned antelopes have found their new mother. a bank clerk in china has begun taking care of six tiny tots after they survived a wolf attack. she gets up early to feed them fresh milk every morning that's shipped in especially for them. they have a nature reserve to call home safe from attacks. one new zealand penguin is nicknamed happy feet. he lost his way and was stranded on a beach after swimming the wrong way from antarctica. he's recuperating at a local zoo. they expect him to be fully recovered in two months.

and, finally, consider it a modern-day version of the wild, wild west. officials in wisconsin spent the holiday weekend trying to lasso in a wayward boat. the vessel spun out of control after its driver was tossed by a large wave. the driver was pulled from the water a little shook up, but otherwise unharmed, and the boat eventually came to a stop. i don't know if you can see that, but the guys there had literally a rope. i don't know how they thought they were going to lasso that boat, but -- >> get a tow on it. so what happened? ran out of gas? >> just stopped. lucky for them, because that was not going to end well if they tried to drag that. it's time for an early look at some of the stories we'll follow throughout the day here on nbc. the white house will host its first town hall on twitter where participants will have to limit their questions to 140 characters or less. president obama has previously hosted town halls on youtube and facebook. former mob boss james whitey bulger is scheduled to be arraigned for his alleged role in 19 murders. the fugitive who was on the fbi's most wanted list was

captured in california last month after 16 years on the run. on this fateful day in 1957 iconic musical partners paul mccartney and john lennon of the beatles met for the first time. all day long you can stay on top of the very latest developments in those stories and others as they break on msnbc. tonight be sure to watch brian williams with "nbc nightly news." finally, here's a look at what's coming up later this morning on the "today" show. an alternate juror in the casey anthony trial defends the not guilty verdict. plus, an exclusive interview with the case's lead prosecutor. and the road trip continues. the latest on prince william and catherine's tour of canada. now keep it on this channel for continuing local news, weather, sports and more. i'm lynn berry. thanks for watching "early today," just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. the day today on your nbc station. have a good one. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

[ male announcer ] you don't makeby pressing a button.cken it takes a cook. we're kfc and we've got a certified cook in every restaurant freshly making the colonel's original recipe, today and every day. 11 herbs and spices, hand-breaded, hands down the world's best chicken. today is a kfc day. so bring home a real meal -- 10 pieces of that famous chicken, 3 large sides and 6 biscuits. enoued a family of four or more, just 20 bucks. today tastes so good.