CNN NewsStand

Bill Requiring Trigger Locks on Handguns Likely to Become Maryland Law; CEO of Smith and Wesson Defends Company's Alliance With Government

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: It's Friday, March 31st, 2000. Tonight on CNN NEWSSTAND: It could be the first state to pass a law requiring built- in trigger locks on handguns, and one of America's biggest gun manufacturers bucks the trend, calling for safer guns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED SHULTZ, CEO, SMITH AND WESSON: Putting those gun locks on Smith and Wesson guns, if it would save one child's life, would be worth it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, a candid interview with the CEO of Smith and Wesson and how his competitors are responding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're interested in looking for solutions: We just didn't happen to think this was the one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Al Gore's split decision on Elian Gonzalez.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop using a little boy to play politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight how going against the grain on White House policy is playing in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT (D-MO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I disagree with the vice president but I respect his position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Some employers are trying to set a new standard for work productivity by encouraging this: why catching a few Z's on the job is actually a good thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A napping room at work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're not talking about sleeping on the job. We're talking about napping at work on one of your sanctioned breaks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Dozing during the day, and it won't get you fired.

CNN NEWSSTAND, with anchors Stephen Frazier and Carol Lin in Atlanta.

STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to NEWSSTAND.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, new skirmishes over handgun safety. It's been a day of rapid-fire exchanges in a controversy already hotter than a $2 pistol.

FRAZIER: We're going to go first to Maryland, where a few hours ago a legislative committee voted to require safety locks on handguns. That committee was bitterly divided, the debate was intense, and the gun lock bill has become easily the most controversial legislation state lawmakers will consider this year. Other states are watching closely.

The bill that cleared the committee would require built-in locks on all handguns, beginning in three years. It would prohibit gun ownership by anyone convicted of a violent crime as a juvenile until that person turns 30. It would require gun makers to provide what's called a "ballistic fingerprint" of shell casings on all new guns.

The National Rifle Association has lined up its sights on this bill. A television commercial produced by the NRA took advantage of Maryland Governor Parris Glendening's two minutes of fumbling while he tried to demonstrate to reporters the ease of using the locking device.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Glendening wants an integrated trigger lock on your handgun.

GOV. PARRIS GLENDENING (D), MARYLAND: Part of my job here is to show, in theory, how easy this is. It should be very simple.

NARRATOR: But if your family's in danger, how much time will you have to unlock the firearm you depend on for protection.

Tell Speaker Taylor that you oppose integrated trigger locks...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Push the back piece to the side again.

NARRATOR: ... because your safety is no laughing matter.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRAZIER: The governor said later he should have been trained in the proper use of the locking device before he took it before a news conference.

LIN: Maryland's full House will vote on the bill next week, and if it passes the governor will, of course, sign it.

Michael Dresser is the Statehouse reporter for the "Baltimore Sun." He's been covering this bill since it was introduced.

Good evening, Michael.

MICHAEL DRESSER, "BALTIMORE SUN": Good evening.

LIN: What are the chances you give it in the full House now?

DRESSER: It appears to be a lock in the House.

LIN: It does. Some of the more controversial provisions managed to survive. I'm wondering if you can explain why. For example, opening up these juvenile records, the mandatory sentencing?

DRESSER: Well, what happened here is that some of the liberal Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, who did have concerns and objections about minimum mandatory sentences and about the confidentiality of juvenile records, essentially put aside those reservations and voted for the bill, because, in my view, they did not want to hand, you know, the gun industry and the NRA a victory. They were all on board on the gun safety provisions of the bill, and that's they way they voted.

LIN: Boy, the NRA really geared up pretty much at the last minute. What sort of presence did they have there today?

DRESSER: It really wasn't big in the number of people who were out there. There was a lobbyist for the NRA who did testify, and -- but really the NRA's efforts here in Maryland seemed to be a bit of too little too late, and when they did come in, a bit too strident.

I think they made a big mistake in kind of trying to target the House speaker. I think that probably just, if anything, rallied the Democrats on the committee around the idea of pasting a bill without amendments.

LIN: Michael, maybe you can explain to us why Maryland: Why is the state of Maryland considering this sort of legislation? I can't think of any sort of high-profile gun crime recently that might have triggered this sentiment.

DRESSER: Well, Maryland has -- is a very Democratic state. It's a very urban state. Most of the population of Maryland does tend to be concentrated in the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas. There are commanding Democratic majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. And we have a governor who is certainly one of the more liberal in this country.

LIN: Did he have to do much horse trading to get this bill passed in committee?

DRESSER: I think -- I think that in a way that there were some, but I think that largely he probably gave away things he was going to give anyway to good friends. I think that -- yes, there were certainly some deals made and he made no bones about it. They call that -- in Maryland, it's known as using the full resources of the office...

(LAUGHTER)

... and that he certainly did.

LIN: Michael, is there any concern about the wording of this bill? I understand that some people are saying that it's worded so vaguely, for example, on these trigger locks that a simple gun safety lock, which would be relatively standard, would pass muster under this bill.

DRESSER: That may be up to the courts. The state attorney general's office issued an opinion saying that the wording of the language is OK, that it does mean what, you know, the Assembly clearly meant it to mean, the internal locks, using something like a combination or a pin number. But you know, how the courts will read the language, we don't know.

Clearly, though, for now it would be an important symbolic victory for the governor.

LIN: All right. Well, certainly as this goes to a vote in the full House next week.

Thank you very much, Michael Dresser, for joining us.

DRESSER: You're quite welcome.

FRAZIER: Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles and at the RAND Corporation say there's a potentially deadly combination in many homes of children and unlocked loaded weapons. The study coming after grade-school children had been caught with guns in class. Interviewers asked 45,000 households in 1994 and again 19,000 this year about weapons, and found, for example, that 35 percent of U.S. homes with children contain at least one firearm, 43 percent of these are unlocked, and 9 percent are both unlocked and loaded.

LIN: In a complete turn-about, Smith and Wesson is getting financial help from some of the government agencies that sued the gun manufacturer. Smith and Wesson settled 30 lawsuits by cities and counties by promising to beef up background checks on gun buyers and install trigger locks on guns. And that triggered the NRA's wrath and boycotts by gun retailers.

Siding with Smith and Wesson, 65 cities and counties say they'll make Smith and Wesson their source for police handguns. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has dropped the company from a multimillion dollar lawsuit and is instead rewarding the gun manufacturer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW CUOMO, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: If you can deal with a more responsible company, why wouldn't you? "Newsweek" reports this week that sales at Smith and Wesson's six retail outlets are up 300 percent. I believe you're going to see governments heading this way. We already are. I believe you're going to see the private market moving this way, and I think that movement has also started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Several state attorneys general are investigating whether gun manufacturers and dealers are now conspiring to retaliate against Smith and Wesson.

CNN's Bill Delaney now on why Smith and Wesson ended up the in the cross-hairs of the gun lobby.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHULTZ: Putting those gun locks on Smith and Wesson guns, if it would save one child's life, would be worth it.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Spoken from the heart by a man who insists he's really just a hard-headed businessman: Ed Shultz, CEO of the world's largest manufacturer of handguns, Smith and Wesson of Springfield, Massachusetts, who by agreeing now to put mandatory safety locks on all his company's guns, and among other things, introduce smart guns only the owner can fire, has both gotten himself out from under millions of dollars of lawsuits, and shaken-up, defied, infuriated the gun industry.

SHULTZ: We do it because we need to continue to ensure the future viability of the company.

We really had an option. We could spend our equity of our company on our friends, the lawyers, or we could spend the equity of our company perpetuating our business as we go forward.

DELANEY: The practicality of a son of the Midwest, a farm boy, who first learned to shoot as a child, now trying to balance between keeping up profits in a $1.2 billion a year industry and doing what he sees as the right thing in changing times. SHULTZ: The market that we have has changed dramatically over the last several years. It -- rather than being rural, it's much -- much of it is urban. Whereas, when I grew up, my father taught me all the safety things about guns. In many single-parent homes, there aren't people to do that today. We've lost the ability to train people in schools. The shooting clubs aren't there.

DELANEY: Schultz hasn't got a lot of affection for either the Clinton administration, urging more and more laws restricting guns, or for the more extreme pronouncements of NRA president Wayne LaPierre.

SHULTZ: What we have here is two people making dumb statements, and there's no way you can comment on that. They've escalated it to a level that it makes no sense to anyone from either side.

DELANEY: Between the extremes, as he sees it: Ed Shultz, convinced he's where the country and his industry are headed.

(on camera): Ed Shultz' basic attitude all along in the gun debate that he's just doing what makes good business sense has already worked in a business sense now that 29 cities and counties and three state attorneys general have joined with the Clinton administration to give purchase preference of guns for law enforcement to companies that manufacture safer guns.

(voice-over): Bottom line stuff likely to appeal to Tomkins PLC, the British conglomerate that in 1992 hired Shultz, an engineer by training, to basically save Smith & Wesson. Shultz did, largely by diversifying into everything from bicycles, to software, to auto parts. Some say, in fact, Tomkins based as it is in a country that's banned handguns, would like to get out of the gun business altogether.

John Rosenthal of an anti-gun alliance in Massachusetts has met with Shultz over the years.

JOHN ROSENTHAL, CO-FOUNDER, STOP HANDGUN VIOLENCE: I believe Tompkins PLC is losing their nerve and doesn't have the stomach to continue making guns when they're virtually banned in their own country. I think they are going to try to spin Smith & Wesson off.

DELANEY: Shultz, the hard-headed businessman, says don't believe it. What Tomkins is really concerned about like him is keeping Smith & Wesson's 20 percent share of all firearm sales.

SHULTZ: They are looking at this as a business and it either makes sense as a business or it doesn't make sense as a business.

DELANEY: It's just that Shultz more than anyone in his business so far is making changes to confront another number beyond the bottom line: 32,000 death a year from guns.

SHULTZ: Nothing is all business. You know, one has to live with themselves as they go forward.

DELANEY: In this case, forward down the trickiest road of all in the gun debate: the middle of the road. Bill Delaney, CNN NEWSSTAND.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRAZIER: That road was abandoned by another gun manufacturer that had joined Smith & Wesson's negotiations with the federal government: Glock, Incorporated, which until now made the handgun of choice for many police departments around the country.

Earlier, I spoke with Paul Jannuzzo, Glock USA's vice president and general counsel, and asked him how involved he got in those talks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL JANNUZZO, V.P. & GENERAL COUNSEL, GLOCK, INC.: We've been involved for about three three years now. The most recent negotiations with Treasury were initiated by Mr. Shultz and I can't quite recall if we attended two or three meetings basically going over the agreement that Smith & Wesson eventually signed. You know, we were interesting in looking for solutions, we just didn't happen to think this was the one.

FRAZIER: What about it didn't appeal to you?

JANNUZZO: It's just too overreaching, it's a business school case book example of how to fail for an agreement. You're trying to control the ultimate conduct of a consumer three steps away in a vertical distribution network by a contract between a manufacturer and a distributor. It's just not workable.

FRAZIER: I'm a little confused by that. Can you put that it in non-business terms?

JANNUZZO: Sure. It -- basically, the government is trying to control the conduct of a consumer with their settlement agreement of Smith & Wesson, but unfortunately there's going to be a distributor and a dealer before you ever get to that consumer and I just don't think it's a workable solution.

FRAZIER: You heard in the story that Mr. Shultz says this kind of a gun lock is a good deal if it saves one child's life. How do you respond to that kind of emotional remark?

JANNUZZO: You know, as a father of five children, I can understand also, and I know Ed Shultz and I know he's a father also, so I fully believe him. We put gun locks on our guns also. This agreement wasn't about gun locks, though. That's been a total red herring that's been thrown up by the administration to make us look unreasonable if we don't sign it.

FRAZIER: It's really about, is it that the waiting period and the way it leaves consumers leaving with only one gun at a time if they buy a bunch?

JANNUZZO: No, you know, it's so much more than that. It's 20 pages of controls on the dealer and how he's going to run his business, how he's going to secure his business, what kind of records he's going to keep, how he's going to keep them, what kind of computer he's going to have, and for the manufacturer it controls every -- this monitoring committee is going to control everything from distribution to advertising, design also.

FRAZIER: Design. Well, that's -- Glock is famous for design. You revolutionized handgun design. You wouldn't be worried about the need for new technology?

JANNUZZO: No, it's not the new technology. There were certain things that Mr. Glock didn't build into the gun in the first instance because it was his research that proved they weren't safety items, this magazine disconnect that's in the agreement. It's our opinion that this is not a safety item and we are not going to put it in just because the government is trying to extort us into doing it.

FRAZIER: So how do you deal with questions like you're a father and you keep guns at home, you have five children, how do you keep them safe from your weapons?

JANNUZZO: Firstly, you know, education, which is one of the key passes I think that should be implemented under this program, only it's not even addressed in the government's agreement. And secondly, we lock them up. You know, I have a safe and I also have a safe box with an electronic combination by my bed.

FRAZIER: How does that work?

JANNUZZO: It's a key combination -- strike that. It's a punch code just like a house alarm.

FRAZIER: There's a little unpleasantness facing Smith & Wesson now, which is thought by some attorneys general to be sort of a conspiracy restraining trade. Some wholesalers won't carry their products, some retailers won't, some gun shows won't permit them to be used at their shooting matches. Are you party to any of that behavior?

JANNUZZO: No, and nobody is. You know, this is just part of the government's interim campaign, this is going to be another way of harassing us, another way of running up our legal bills. You know, I think it was General Spitzer himself who told me that, you know, we are going to have bankruptcy lawyers knocking at our door if we didn't kowtow to his extortion.

FRAZIER: Eliot Spitzer, attorney general of New York?

JANNUZZO: Yes, sir.

FRAZIER: And New York City uses Glock handguns in its police department, is that right?

JANNUZZO: About 26,000 of them.

FRAZIER: Twenty-six-thousand.

JANNUZZO: Larger than the Dutch army.

FRAZIER: If they were to switch over to Smith & Wesson as part of this deal, you would lose a lot of business then.

JANNUZZO: And the city of New York would spend probably $35 million.

FRAZIER: So how are you -- what are you going to do to go forward now? Final question.

JANNUZZO: We are going to go as we've been going. We've always addressed safety campaigns, we are going to look at the agreement. I think there are certain things in there that are not too intrusive and that are addressed at one of the two goals, and the two goals have always been to curb criminal conduct with firearms and to help prevent accidents. Some things in there do address those. Those that do we'll adopt by ourselves, but we're not going to sign this agreement.

FRAZIER: Mr. Jannuzzo, thank you.

JANNUZZO: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Up next, more fallout as the vice president breaks ranks with the White House on the Elian Gonzalez issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And because he's the vice president, Al Gore has a unique opportunity to put a stop to this heavy-handed approach from our federal government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Reaction from both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, when NEWSSTAND returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: No legal action in the fight over Elian Gonzalez today, but the case continues to generate debate. An attorney for his Miami relatives says if the father comes to the United States, he can see the boy, but with supervision. But the family will not give him up during the appeals process. As of yet, Juan Miguel Gonzalez and 30 others have not applied for visas in Havana. But State Department officials say they'll only expedite the applications of the father and the immediate family, not the delegation hand picked by president Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, Elian's family in Cuba has sent a letter to the U.S. Senate, saying no thank you to granting them permanent residency in the United States.

FRAZIER: Among those who support such a move is Vice President Al Gore, a new stance of his that has created quite a political stir. The position he has taken is opposite that of the administration, and it has opened him up to a lot of criticism from both parties. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm deeply troubled by the heavy-handed approach of the Clinton/Gore administration, and I am concerned that Al Gore's sudden change of position yesterday may have had more to do with the vice president's president's political interests than with the best interests of Elian Gonzalez.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FRAZIER: "Stunned" might best describe how members of Gore's own party feel.

CNN's John King has that in his "Reporter's Notebook."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The vice president has now decided to endorse legislation that would grant Elian Gonzalez, his father and other immediate family members permanent residency status in the United States. That would allow them, Castro permitting, to come to the United States, but what it effectively would do, is it would make Elian a resident of the United States, and since he now lives in Florida, Florida's family courts would get jurisdiction. That is the complete opposite of what the president says.

On a policy level, it is a very dramatic split, the most dramatic split the vice president has taken with the president during this campaign. This puts a lot of people in a very awkward position. In doing these things that, a, separate yourself from the party, but b, doing them in a way that catches people off guard, you put your friends in a very difficult position, and the vice president has done that.

Behind the scenes here, they're rolling they're eyes at the vice president. Publicly, they have to come out and defend him.

JAKE SIEWART, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: We've said for some time now that the president and the vice president would occasionally differ on issues, particularly as the vice president makes his views known, as he begins to run for the presidency himself, and that's to be expected.

KING: On Capitol Hill, all these people trying every day to frame the debates up there as Democrats versus Republicans, Gore versus Bush. Instead the Democratic leader of the Senate Friday, put in a very difficult position of having to say, well, the vice president surprised me, I disagree with him, but I respect him.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D-SD), MINORITY LEADER: I disagree with the vice president, but I respect his position. Obviously, we are going to have disagreements. He now has the same position as Senator Bob Graham, and as I say, there are those in our party who share that point of view. KING: There are a lot of Democrats in town who think that the vice president needs a sharper political organization, regardless of his position, whether agree or disagree, they don't think they handled the big things terribly well.

How will this will affect him in the long run? Even Governor Bush says, in a week or two, the court's going to make a decision. Maybe there'll be another appeal. Will this issue be front and center come November? Probably not. Will it be front and center in Florida come November? Probably so. One state, 25 electoral votes. The vice president would have had a very difficult time there any way. This will bubble up in Florida from now through November. Whether it matters anywhere else, very hard to say.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Later on NEWSSTAND: a possible cure for the on-the- job blahs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's an easy solution from the problem of being so lethargic or not being able to concentrate at certain parts of the day. And it's a simple nap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Hey, you'll want to stay awake for this one.

NEWSSTAND will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: As we've discovered over the weeks, the offices of the country's movers and shakers come in quite a variety of shapes and sizes. But not all "Cool Digs" come in tall, corporate towers. We found tonight's in a decidedly more comfortable setting. Guess who works here:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN (voice-over): Our man doesn't like to be disturbed while he's working: A high-tech security system shows him who's coming over. His workdays start at 6:00 in the morning, seven days a week. He calls work his "happy zone."

Check this out, three computers and a drawing board. We hear one of the computers automatically prioritizes the hundreds of e-mail messages he gets everyday. It's usually pretty quiet around here, because he has no employees. He says he doesn't want to be anyone's boss.

When he isn't working, he can shoot a little pool. Actually his time's quite valuable. He gets about $25,000 per speaking engagement. That's why we found this over in the corner, a high-tech video conference studio. There are a lot of computer books on the shelves. He was an engineer in his former life. But it seems his tastes in literature lean towards Howard Stern, Dave Barry, and dictionaries too.

The framed best-seller lists on the wall might lead you to guess he writes books. You'd be right.

Well we've disturbed the cat long enough. We'll switch things off and let you guess whose "Cool Digs" these are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN (voice-over): So whose home office has a cat on the computer and a teleconference studio in the corner? That isn't our man behind the door, but these cool digs belong to Scott Adams, the creator of "Dilbert," the comic strip, and now TV series, that chronicles the paranoias, frustrations, and absurdities of life in the cubicles of corporate America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Even though the "Dilbert" TV show went on hiatus this month, Scott Adams is staying busy. This week, he joined the board of advisers for a video conferencing business called Videoshare. He also has his own food company, Scott Adams Foods, which produces the "Dil- burito." It's available in supermarkets or online, which Adams says brings him one step closer to his ultimate goal of never leaving his home.

FRAZIER: This week it seemed as though technology stocks had joined the "Dilbert" show on hiatus. But things bounced back today.

Stuart Varney's in New York with our "MONEYLINE" update.

STUART VARNEY, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.

The first quarter of the new century ended today, and like much of the quarter, it had its ups and certainly its downs. After four brutal sessions, it was time for a tech rebound. The Nasdaq composite moved up 114 points today to close at 4572. But even with today's impressive gain, the index still suffered its largest weekly point loss ever, down almost 400 points.

As for the Dow industrials, a mixed day. The blue chips were up about 127 points at midafternoon. But losses by GE and IBM led the Dow into red. It was down 58 to close at 10921. There was more buying in the bond pits. The 10-year note up 13/32, the 30-year Treasury up nearly 3/4 of a point, pushing the yield down to 5.83 percent.

Despite Alan Greenspan's attempt to slow down the freight train that is the U.S. economy, the shopping spree will not end. Spending outpaced income and personal spending shot up more than 1 percent. CNN's Ceci Rodgers has more from Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CECI RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Americans emptied their wallets in February to buy clothing, cars and other big-ticket items, as spending increased at twice the rate of incomes. The breakneck pace of consumption worries economists, who fear the Fed's five rate hikes thus far have done little to cool the economy.

PAUL CHRISTOPHER, A.G. EDWARDS: Clearly, it's not yet beginning to slow down. Probably, it's not slowing enough for the Fed. This would be two more numbers that would weigh in on the side of higher interest rates yet again in May.

RODGERS: Even more important for Fed watchers, an inflation gauge in the spending report, closely watched by Fed Chairman Greenspan, is flashing red. The personal consumption price deflator rose at a nearly 3 percent annual rate, the steepest rise in nearly seven years.

Separately, manufacturers in the Chicago region said they're paying sharply higher prices for materials. Energy costs account for much of that jump, something Fed policy-makers tend to dismiss unless they feed through to the cost of so-called core goods and services.

PAUL KASRIEL, NORTHERN TRUST: What's happening in the U.S. economy today is that, yes, energy prices are moving up sharply, but other prices are not moving down to offset the higher energy prices. You call it what you want, but, I'd call that inflation.

RODGERS: The Chicago-area manufacturers also said their inventories rose sharply.

(on camera): And Kasriel sees a possible inflationary threat from that as well. He reasons that businesses are not only building up inventories to keep up with sales, but they're buying ahead to try and avoid still higher prices for materials in the months ahead.

Ceci Rodgers, CNN Financial News, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VARNEY: Some earnings reports are due out next week. Keep an eye on share price of Pier One imports, Yahoo!, Alcoa and Circuit City. They're all due to report. We'll get the latest figures on the construction industry and also factory output. They'll due out next week, as is the employment report, coming out next Friday, with analysts expecting it to show a rise in the number of new jobs created.

That's it for the "MONEYLINE" update. For a complete look at the day's business news, be sure to watch "MONEYLINE," week nights at 6:30 Eastern, right here on CNN.

Now back to Stephen and Carol in Atlanta. FRAZIER: Stuart, thanks. Later in the program, this week's power plays and power players. The singers in boy band 'N Sync are among them, so, too, the boys of summer during a first-of-a-kind opening day.

LIN: And when we return, a powerful volcano in Japan follows up with another spectacular eruption.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Quickly to other top stories. A series of doomsday cult killings in Uganda now rank among the worst on record. More bodies were unearthed today, raising the death toll to more than 920. That surpasses the number of people killed at Jonestown, Guyana more than two decades ago. Officials, overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy, are appealing for international help in their investigation.

CNN's Catherine Bond with more on that, from Uganda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A police spokesman told CNN Uganda's police force now felt it had little idea how to go about handling this case, the largest mass killing in recent history. It now wants to set up a task force, he said, and was appealing for logistic systems and forensic expertise. "Can you imagine," the spokesman said, "one pathologist performing 900 post- mortems?"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: And Japan's Mount Usu volcano apparently is still erupting. Cameras have recorded more thick smoke rising from the west side of the volcano. That's where a massive eruption occurred hours earlier. So far, no reports of any casualties: 15,000 residents have evacuated the area.

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, an IPO for him, no more ABC for her, a banner day for MLB. And one mil for them. You got all that? This week's "Power Plays & Power Players" when NEWSSTAND returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FRAZIER: You make the list by hitting a home run, either inside the ballpark or on Wall Street, even in a recording studio. Here this week's lineup of "Power Plays & Power Players."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRAZIER (voice-over): "Wireless on Wall Street": AT&T chief C. Michael Armstrong finds a new home for his wireless business, a new subsidiary: AT&T Wireless Group. The new entity goes public in April with an initial public offering expected to net more than $13 billion. The group includes cell phone and mobile Web services.

This week, AT&T also boosts its voting stake in Internet portal Excite@Home and pledges to use it as its high-speed Internet carrier until 2008.

"Record Breakin' Boys": What a week for Jive Records and 'N Sync. The boy band's second album, "No Strings Attached," sells more than 1 million copies in a single day and shatters the Backstreet Boys' sales record for an entire week.

Success is no to stranger to this pop sensation. This week, their U.S. summer tour sold out 51 cities in 24 hours.

"ABC Exit": Pat Fili-Krushel signs off the air as president of ABC Television and takes the lead at the consumer division of Internet health care giant Healtheon/WebMD.

During her seven-year stint, the highest-ranking woman in broadcast TV pushed ABC to the top spot, past CBS and NBC, in the television ratings and ushered in the megahit "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?")

REGIS PHILBIN, HOST: We're a hit. I mean a big hit.

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FRAZIER: "Potter's Spell": Warner Brothers taps Hollywood's Chris Columbus to direct the film version of J.K. Rowlings bestselling children's book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

Columbus, known for the "Home Alone" franchise and the Oscar- nominated "Bicentennial Man," was hired after Steven Spielberg opted out of the project last week. The film, set for release in summer 2001, is the first of possibly six Potter installments. The fourth book, due out in July, "Harry Potter and the Doom Spell Tournament," has already hit the top spot on Amazon.com's bestseller list.

"Baseball Abroad": Major League Baseball hits the road and starts the season in Tokyo, its first-ever opening day overseas.

BUD SELIG, COMMISSIONER, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: And I know that there are some people who criticized us because it took so long, but we're here and you're going to see a lot more of this in the future.

FRAZIER: Selig wants the game to go global. The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs split the two-game opener at the Tokyo Dome. Sammy Sosa and Mark Grace were batting a thousand to push the Cubs into the lead in game one, while Benny Agbayani hit the first grand slam of the century for a Mets' victory the second night.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A grand slam home run by Bennie Agbayani.

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FRAZIER: And that's this week's "Power Plays & Power Players."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Don't go to bed just yet.

FRAZIER: No, stay with us a little bit longer, and see why it may do you lot of good to take a nap at work.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FRAZIER: This is National Sleep Awareness Week, reminding us that we live in one of the most sleep-deprived nations of the world.

LIN: A poll released by the National Sleep Foundation shows 43 percent of U.S. adults are so sleepy during the day it interferes with their regular activities.

But as NEWSSTAND's Bruce Burkhardt discovered, some people are taking all of this lying down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're getting sleepy, very sleepy, but they're doing it on company time.

CAMILLE ANTHONY, CO-AUTHOR, "THE ART OF NAPPING AT WORK": Americans, I think, are burning the candle at both ends. We're extremely busy. We're involved in many different activities.

BURKHARDT: Burning the candle? No, maybe the problem is that we're not burning the candle anymore.

RICHARD GELULA, EXEC. DIR., NATIONAL SLEEP FOUNDATION: The light bulb was a big problem. When we began to lengthen our daylight, it all went downhill from there, all the labor saving devices giving us the impression that we could do more.

BILL ANTHONY, CO-AUTHOR, "THE ART OF NAPPING AT WORK": The amount of sleep we get is certainly different. We're down to on the average of six hours and 57 minutes, and we used to sleep eight and a half hours or more before Edison invented the light bulb.

BURKHARDT (on camera): So he's the villain in all this?

B. ANTHONY: I guess would say...

C. ANTHONY: Part of it.

B. ANTHONY: You know, there's an easy solution for the problem of being so lethargic or not being able to concentrate at certain parts of the day and it's a simple nap. It shouldn't be any big deal.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): Well, it is kind of a big deal in this country, where napping is synonymous with goofing off.

(on camera): Do you think there's a lot of closet nappers out there? B. ANTHONY: Well, I think there are, and they come out of the closet when you talk to them and tell them you're writing a book on napping.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): Bill and Camille Anthony are to napping what Masters and Johnson were to sex.

C. ANTHONY: People love to talk about their naps.

BURKHARDT: In their books, tongue-in-cheek in style but based on real science, the Anthonys argue that napping isn't just good health, it's good business.

C. ANTHONY: A number that was given out by the National Sleep Foundation, which is based in Washington, D.C., was that it was a loss of productivity of $18 billion.

B. ANTHONY: A third of the work force admits to being sleepy on the job and it having an affect on work. I mean, there are statistics on and on and on, but you know what statistics do? They make you nap.

BURKHARDT: There is a reason we might nod off: circadian rhythms.

GELULA: In the middle of the afternoon, there's a second smaller urge to sleep, and in many, or most primitive societies, historically there is an afternoon napping time, or what was called in Latin countries, siesta.

BURKHARDT: As silly as this napping idea may seem, consider the costs of our sleep deprivation in both economic and human terms.

GELULA: Forty percent of Americans tell us that they are so sleep deprived that it affects their daytime activities. Sixty-two percent have said that they have driven while drowsy. Twenty-seven percent have fallen asleep at the wheel.

JOYCE WALSLEBEN, PH.D., DIR., NYU SLEEP DISORDER CTR.: In this country, we tend to be macho, and you hear people bragging about how well they can do with very little sleep. We have to make sleep a priority. We have to pay attention to it just like we do for food or water.

BURKHARDT: According to the Anthonys and the information they gather from nappers on their Web site, many of us do sneak a quick nap.

B. ANTHONY: In our workplace napping survey, 70 percent of the people that responded said they nap privately. Interestingly, they would go to the cars and nap in their cars, that's a very common one. Many people mentioned they go to the bathroom and nap, they go behind the door, pull the stall, lock it and nap on the toilet fully clothed.

BURKHARDT: Napping on the toilet? There's got to be a better way. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I come in I turn on the noise machine and my favorite sound is the ocean. There is a lot of different settings on it. The rain is OK, but the ocean tends to be my favorite, and then it's just recline back, set the timer for 20 minutes, and hopefully I'm out cold instantly.

BURKHARDT: Napping at this company is easy. Circadian Technologies, a research firm that consults on sleep and performance issues. But other companies are waking up as well. Transportation companies have an obvious interest in non-sleepy employees, and surprisingly, some small companies, like O.P. Contract of San Francisco, and Yarde Metals in Pennsylvania.

(on camera): Is there a fixed amount of time that we should be napping? I mean, how long should we nap?

C. ANTHONY: Well, 10 to 30 minutes is what you should do. Otherwise, you're going into the deeper stages of sleep.

B. ANTHONY: We're not talking about sleeping on the job, we're talking about napping at work on one of your sanctioned breaks. The problem is that if people -- if they do take a break and nap, they are in danger of losing their job, or their reputation, or both, and that's what we want to change.

BURKHARDT (voice-over): And while we all welcome such change, we must recognize that napping isn't as simple as it sounds. There are things we need to learn.

C. ANTHONY: You need your napnomic devices.

BURKHARDT (on camera): Napnomic devices?

C. ANTHONY: You certainly do.

BURKHARDT: Such as?

C. ANTHONY: Well, it could be a blanket, it could be music, as well as background noise.

B. ANTHONY: There are what we call seven habits of highly effective workplace nappers.

(LAUGHTER)

B. ANTHONY: We made that up. What does somebody else think about that?

BURKHARDT: I don't know. Who are some famous nappers in history?

B. ANTHONY: Edison, Reagan was a great napper, a lot of geniuses.

C. ANTHONY: Churchill was the other one. That's what enabled him to carry on through the war. BURKHARDT (voice-over): So maybe it can happen, a bright day in the future, when all employees can pull the shades and be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of a nap. A day when we can all close our eyes without shame or guilt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel I am sleep deprived, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's why a lot of New Yorkers are like grumpy all the time, because they don't get enough sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wouldn't feel comfortable taking in a nap at work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A napping room at work?

B. ANTHONY: We have a slogan: It's time for nappers to lie down and be counted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FRAZIER: Too many good lines. If you're wondering about those seven habits of highly effective workplace nappers, they are posted at the Anthony's Web site: napping.com, of course. Look under "presentations and workshops about napping."

LIN: And as an ironic end to National Sleep Awareness week, remember, just about all of us will lose an hour of sleep Sunday morning, when our clocks spring forward for Daylight Savings Time at 2:00 a.m. And I guess that's when CNN becomes a 23 hour network. We'll get more sleep that way.

FRAZIER: Just this weekend, just this once.

"SPORTS TONIGHT" is coming up next.

LIN: Fred Hickman from CNN "Sports Illustrated" in the news room with a preview.

Hi, Fred.

FRED HICKMAN, CNN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: Sorry, I was just taking a little nap.

FRAZIER: Yes.

LIN: Wake up.

HICKMAN: Hi, Steven and Carol.

Freaky Friday on CNN "SPORTS TONIGHT." Let me give you a couple of examples of what lies ahead. Mike Ditka has been banned from a New Orleans casino for throwing a cigar at a pit boss. And Dennis Rodman's neighbors are complaining about the noise level of his parties. Oh, we'll also have the usual outstanding fare like Ozzie Smith's spring count-up reaching number one. Andre Agassi and Peter Sampras in action, one losing very badly. And a preview of tomorrow's Final Four games from Indianapolis. "SPORTS TONIGHT" is next and it's freaky -- Carol, Stephen.

FRAZIER: See you in a minute, Fred, thank you.

LIN: Thanks, Fred.

HICKMAN: Sure.

LIN: Monday on NEWSSTAND, a woman who is the subject of a photo spread in the latest "Life" magazine.

FRAZIER: She is Palestinian, expecting her third child, and this week she was nominated to head a newly created human rights commission in her own country, Jordan, where she once worked for Apple Computer and is now the queen. Jordan's 29-year-old Queen Rhonia (ph), Monday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

That's it for us tonight. I'm Stephen Frazier.

LIN: And I'm Carol Lin. Have a great weekend, and good night from the NEWSSTAND.

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