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NASA Scientists Recovering Samples From Crashed Genesis Capsule; Nevada, First State To Produce Paper Trail On E-Voting Machines;

Aired September 11, 2004 - 15:00   ET

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

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: And here is a look at what is making news this hour. Americans today are marking three years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. In New York City thousands of people attended a ceremony this morning at Ground Zero. More than 2,700 were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.
President Bush and his Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry, both setting aside politics today to remember those lost in the September 11th attacks. The president attended a church service in Washington this morning, and then headed back to the White House where he led a national moment of silence.

Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry placed flowers at a September 11th memorial at the Boston Public Garden. He later called on people to come together to fight terrorism saying while September 11th was the worst day America has ever seen it also brought out the best in all Americans.

And finally, people along Florida's Gulf coast are bracing for Hurricane Ivan. The storm is currently blowing past Jamaica. For an update and the rest of day's weather, let's go right now to Orelon Sidney at the CNN Weather Center -- Orelon.

ORELON SIDNEY, METEOROLIGIST: Kelly thanks a lot. Here's the latest now. The storm is drifting to the west-northwest, after having made a pretty good shot at Cuba. It's now about 40 miles from the western tip of Cuba, 170 miles east-southeast of Grand Cayman. Winds have come down a bit to 145 but it looks like it's going through what we call an eye wall replacement cycle so we do expect its strength to increase as it go towards the Cayman Islands tomorrow.

It should be over Grand Cayman 8 a.m. on Sunday, 8 a.m. Monday we find it across the northern coast of Cuba and then it is going to makes its way into the Gulf of Mexico. Remember the area of possibility extends from the eastern coast of Florida to the central Gulf of Mexico Tuesday into Wednesday is when we expect to see a landfall if it makes it this far to the north. Kelly.

WALLACE: Orelon we'll be watching. Thanks for the update.

I'm Kelly Wallace in Washington. More news at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now.

DANIEL SEIBERG, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Daniel Seiberg. Today on NEXT@CNN disappointment in the desert. It's NASA's eagerly awaited Genesis spacecraft crashes to Earth with its precious cargo of samples from the sun.

Also, online shopping goes extreme. Would you spend more than a million bucks on something you've never seen?

And chilling on the football field. A new system turns players' pads into personal air conditioners.

All that and more on NEXT.

When NASA's Genesis capsule slammed into the Utah desert on Wednesday, many scientific hopes felt the impact. You could just see the scientists cringing. But although the landing didn't go quite as planned, the space agency has managed to salvage some of the samples that Genesis was bringing home. Miles O'Brien reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was supposed to end with a high budget action movie hook. Instead it looked like grade "B" sci-fi, as the saucer-shaped Genesis capsule wobbled down to an unhappy landing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From our vantage point we did not see it go to negative growth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like we have a no shoot-serve. Sector 200, look for an impact.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Impact, impact at 5-8-5-5.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an impact bearing 2-0-0-8 miles.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have an altitude?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's impact sir, ground level.

O'BRIEN: The 450-pound five-foot wide craft plowed into the Utah salt flats at nearly 200 miles an hour. As dramatic as it was, the team of scientists and engineers carefully picked apart the wreckage and thanks in part to the soft surface, much of the scientific payload was intact and unexposed to the elements.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: It's just a testimonial factor. This is a pretty rugged piece of machinery to withstand this 200 mile-an hour impact out there in Utah. It was an inelegant landing. Fortunately, we weren't looking for any Olympic style points on the way it looked on the way in but at least the results and the whole objective of what the science mission is about, which is the purpose of the whole program in the first place, may actually have some returns we're proud of.

O'BRIEN: NASA's Genesis capsule returned after spending more than 800 days soaking up the sun in space. Tiny wafers made of silicon, diamonds, sapphires and gold snagged atom-sized bits of the solar wind, which contains the basic ingredients of our solar system. Scientists were anxious to get a clear unadulterated look at our origins.

ANDREW DANTZLER, NASA SCIENTIST: When it hit the ground, there was this moment of, gee, did that really happen?

O'BRIEN: Because the wafers are so fragile, even a gentle parachute landing was considered too much of a jolt. The Genesis teamed designed an odd landing system that called for the unfurling of two parachutes and then a mid air helicopter retrieval. NASA hired a pair of Hollywood stunt pilots to do the fancy flying. They practiced it 17 times and never missed, but when it came time for the money shot they got written out of the script.

ROY HAGGARD: We're sorry we didn't get to perform the midair retrieval that we've trained so hard to perform but our hearts really go out to the science team.

O'BRIEN: But within 24 hours of those condolences, the science team was celebrating. They believe they can accomplish much, if not all of their scientific objectives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right, sticking with space news, NASA's Mars Rovers are taking a two-week nap. Well desired. "Spirit" and "Opportunity" went into hibernation this week, while the sun passes between the Earth and Mars, blocking communication between mission control and the rovers. The down time is expected to last about 12 days.

During that period, the rovers won't move their wheels or arms but their cameras will continue to take pictures, based on advance instructions. The two rovers have been exploring the red planet for almost eight months. That's not bad, considering they were sent to Mars for a three-month mission.

Back on Earth, NASA's Kennedy Space Center was slammed by Hurricane Frances last weekend but apparently all the spacecraft made it through safely. Hundreds of panels were torn off the center's best- known structure, the vehicle assembly building. Many of the other buildings also sustained damage from the high winds and driving rain.

As NASA worked on repairs and damage assessment, administrator Sean O'Keefe said on Wednesday it wasn't clear whether the hurricane's ravages would delay the return to space of the shuttle fleet. That's planned for next spring.

And in the wake of Frances and Hurricane Charley, which was just three weeks before, Florida residents may wonder why some buildings hold up well in hurricanes while their neighbors are torn apart. Well, scientists and engineers are asking the same question, and as John Zarrella reports, they're finding some interesting answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Smith's, Christopher, Renee and daughter Isabella now know there is a lot of truth to the saying, "they don't build them like they used to." And the Smith's are thankful. They live in a stately very old home on the corner of Durance and West Marion Avenue in Punta Gorda.

RENEE SMITH, PUNTA GORDA RESIDENT: The sound was very much like a house being ripped apart. The chimney was torn off all of your vents and waste pipes and water pipes and electric lines from the house were all ripped off.

ZARRELLA: But the house itself, more than 80 years old, stood up against Charley's category four winds. The fact the Smith's house survived when others around it didn't does not shock Charlotte County emergency manager, Wayne Sallade.

WAYNE SALLADE, EMERGENCY MANAGER, CHARLOTTE COUNTY FLORIDA: There are two classes of buildings that seem to have stood up well, those that are 80 to 100 years old and those that are less than 2 years old. Tells me that way back when, they knew how to build things in Florida.

ZARRELLA: Dozens of scientists and structural engineers trying to figure out why certain buildings like the Smith's home made it through the storm intact and others didn't have turned Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte into a living laboratory.

RANDY SHACKELFORD, if it comes in it has to find a way out.

ZARRELLA: Engineer Randy Shackelford is volunteering his time and expertise to the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes. As he looks through what's left of this home, it's clear to Shackelford the house might have stayed intact if the windows had been boarded up or shuddered.

SHACKELFORD: That's one of the biggest things that a person can do is protect your opening, especially one this big.

ZARRELLA: Shackelford says once the window broke, the wind came in and blew up through the roof and out the back.

SHACKELFORD: What's happened, once the wind's gotten inside it's just become a tunnel and it's blown this back wall out and the water just coming right through here.

ZARRELLA: The house, built in the '60s, is nearly a total loss but right across the street, a home recently built barely has a scratch. Engineers say at first blush it appears a statewide building code that went into effect two years ago has made a profound difference. The new code requires buildings be constructed to withstand the pressures exerted on the roof and debris hurled at windows by a powerful hurricane.

According to the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, the hurricane code increases the price of a new home about 1 percent. An additional $1,000 on a $100,000 home. Kurtis Gurley, a University of Florida structural engineer, is studying picture after picture of destroyed homes. He sees an emerging pattern. Many homes built between the '60s and the turn of the century didn't do too well. KURTIS GURLEY, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Again, we saw the case where the older homes that were built up to older standards performed significantly worse.

ZARRELLA: The statewide-enhanced building code grew out of the Hurricane Andrew catastrophe. When experts looked at damage, what they found in many instances was poor construction. At least some people in Punta Gorda, those with new homes and businesses, were the beneficiaries of the Andrew legacy. The Smith's, with their very old, very sturdy home, appreciated the value of good construction.

SMITH: You have to just say that sometimes overbuilding isn't such a waste of, you know, those extra screws or nails, and maybe that building codes they implemented after Andrew obviously protected a lot of people.

ZARRELLA: What scientists and engineers are finding is that a house doesn't have to be a bunker to survive a hurricane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well, as we've been seeing at its worst, bad weather can be deadly, but more often, it's just annoying, as we can all relate to. Jenny Harrison reports on how some airlines cope with the result of thunderstorms.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNY HARRISON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Business as usual. You've arrived at the airport in plenty of time, checked in, cleared security, and waiting patiently at the gate. All is going according to plan, until that one element intervenes.

JACK KEYES: In a word, weather, and this time of year, it's thunderstorms.

HARRISON: The Federal Aviation Administration says weather- related delays due to thunderstorms are the single most disruptive force in U.S. air travel. All of the nation's air space is constantly monitored here at Air Traffic Control System Command Center, near Washington Dulles Airport.

There are about 7,000 planes in the sky over the U.S. at any given time on a typical day. This means approximately 157,000 surveillance operations, until that thunderstorm hits.

KEYES: Rain is not the issue in thunderstorms. It's the nature of them, convection, and its lightning and severe wind changes.

HARRISON: During the winter, thunderstorms may top out at 28,000 feet. Pilots can safely fly above them. In spring and summer, 55 to 60,000 feet is not unusual, and that means flying around the storm. New York, Chicago and Atlanta make up the northeast corridor, the most heavily trafficked air space in the entire country, and a heavy thunderstorm area as well. KEYES: So airplanes divert, airplanes are delayed on the ground, depending on the load factors in those airplanes that may run until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning to ensure they bring those flights through rather than cancel them and just leave the folks at the departure airport.

HARRISON: Delta Airlines has developed IROPS, this is their irregular operations team here in Atlanta, monitor every inbound flight.

RICH CORDELL, DELTA AIRPORT CUSTOMER SVC: Our team springs into action; even with the delayed flight when there's a possibility the passenger can misconnect here in Atlanta. Behind the scenes a lot of work goes on to re accommodate that passenger on the next best flight to their destination.

HARRISON: This now means you simply take your boarding pass to one of the designated areas and using a self-scan printing devise a new boarding pass is issued. So has all of the investments in these high tech systems improved your life as a passenger?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've had a lot of delays and especially concerning thunderstorms, hail, rain, and it's difficult, because you miss your appointments.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well there is only so much to do at an airport; I mean the shopping gets old after a while. If you have a long delay it is just horrible. There is more they can do, they can tell us this is sort of when we're expecting that it will clear up.

HARRISON: One more issue to add to the list of coping with the changes posed by rough weather.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, our sport fisherman catching too many fish? We'll hear from a researcher who says yes and some fishermen who say no way.

And later in the show some surprising faces and things are turning up on postage stamps. We'll show you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: One of the big issues when it comes to electronic voting is there's no paper trail. Well, Nevada this week overcame that hurdle. Tuesday, voters in that state used touch screen machines that printed out paper records of electronic ballots. It's the first time that's happened in a statewide election and could be a model for other states. The records will be kept for 22 months, and used in the event of a recount. The system was developed by California-based Sequoia Voting Systems Incorporated.

Well another maker of electronic voting machines, Debold is facing a false claims lawsuit. Tuesday, California's attorney general joined that suit. California's March primary, faulty equipment forced thousands of voters to use backup paper systems. Some polling places didn't open on time because of computer problems. The suit accuses Debold of selling shoddy equipment and software.

OK, if you like caviar, and you can afford it, enjoy it while you can. Quotas for caviar from the Caspian Sea have fallen 95 percent over the last 19 years, according to an Iranian sturgeon research center. Caspian Sea sturgeon provides 90 percent of the worlds gourmet fish eggs. The fallen quotas are based on the number of fish and are considered a barometer of health of the Caspian Sturgeon population. Sturgeons have been around since the time of dinosaurs. The poaching, habitat loss, and pollution now threaten their existence.

All right for years studies have blamed commercial fishermen for depleting fish populations. Well now the study says a bit of that blame should go to recreational anglers as well. Donna Tetreault reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Takes off the stress in your life that's for sure.

DONNA TETREAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): And another sure thing, Johnnie Holback, out fishing every day for the past 45 years. But what's not so certain is what and how much Holback can catch anymore. A new study which looked at 22 years of fishing statistics for the "Journal of Science" found that sport fishing is hooking 5 percent of the U.S. saltwater catch, that is up from the federal statistic of 2 percent. It's not the individual fisherman, according to the study. It's the 10.5 million individuals.

DR. SUZANNE EDMANDS, MARINE BIOLOGIST: If we want to see fisheries sustained, you know, for your grandkids, then recreational fisheries are going to have to experience some of the same real regulations that commercial fisheries have.

TETREAULT: Off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, the percentage of highly fished species such as lingcod and baccia (ph) has increased dramatically over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, 14 percent of those fish were caught by recreational fisherman. By 2002 that number was up to 59 percent.

TETREAULT (on camera): But sportsmen have another story to tell. They say strict regulations already in place have sunk a lot of opportunity, more than 35 skull pin (ph) have been caught on this excursion alone, all thrown back in the water.

CAPT. RICK CARBAJAL, FISHERMAN: I'd love to go fishing and catch 100 or 200 skull pin (ph) but I can't. Because they have taken that away from us.

OSCAR BAUTISTA: We have limits and every time we catch fish it's not the right size we toss it back and sometimes out of respect the big fish we throw it back because he's been out there for awhile.

TETREAULT: Edmond says 20 percent of fish caught die after they're put back into the ocean but that's not how dads out with their kids for a day of fishing see it.

CARBAJAL: They took our rock fishing away, taken our skulfin (ph). We're already regulated. We don't have a problem with that but now they're saying we are the problem. We're a big problem. What's next? Are they going to shut us down completely?

TETREAULT: So while the numbers may have changed it's not going to change the war on the waters, say marine biologists. Sport fishermen say new regulations would leave them reeling.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we come back we'll go for a ride on Hong Kong's venerable trans and show you why people like them so much.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Long before Segue scooters, in fact, long before most people had ever seen an automobile, Hong Kong launched its tram service. Over time, the tramcars have been modernized but they are still made mainly of wood. As CNN's Andrew Brown reports they remain true to their mass transit roots.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For 100 years they've flied back and forth on Hong Kong Island, groaning their way around street corners, charging through some of the world's most densely populated areas, where the windows open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The spin is quite fast and the wind is quite big.

BROWN: Which is a relief. These unpretentious, tramcars have no air con, yet they've herded through 100 summers, with temperature outside rising to the low 30 centigrade, low 90s Fahrenheit. Some passengers seem to like it hot. Some passengers just like it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The weather is hot.

BROWN: Some passengers just like it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went on the tram yesterday, profoundly cool.

BROWN: its not surprising trams are popular, unlike subway trains; they give passengers a view of life at street level.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can hear, you can see.

BROWN: The trams travel from Hong Kong's western district, past dried seafood stores, through the glitzy downtown to colorful Coors Way Bay, where chopper-wielding merchants sell raw fish head, a Chinese delicacy. No wonder these guys look scared.

FRANKIE YICK: The trams (INAUDIBLE) it has a lot of memories. BROWN: Not all of them are happy memories. In 2003, during the SARS outbreak, passenger's donned masks before boarding crowded tram cars. Or they stayed away from public transportation all together. But rider ships recovered, 240,000 people use the trams every day now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tram is very useful.

BROWN: And sociable. These trams get so close, that you can even try to have a conversation with a person in the next tram. You have to be quick, though. Trams wait for no one! Why do you like riding on the tram?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can relax.

BROWN: This is tramtastic. And good value. Two Hong Kong dollars or 25 cents U.S., you can ride the entire length of Hong Kong Island. It's the cheapest way to travel this route -- almost the cheapest.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour, should people who live close to nuclear power plants be worried they might become terrorist targets?

And some football teams are trying a new way to beat the heat on the field. Those stories and a lot more are coming up right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, is Iran close to building a nuclear weapons program? Some experts think so. The International Atomic Energy Agency will meet next week to discuss the issue and the pressure on Washington to do something soon is growing. David Ensor reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Iranian officials have admitted to international inspectors that by the end of this month they will have reprocessed 37 tons of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride, producing enough for five nuclear warheads. But, the Iranians insist the material is for nuclear power production only.

At the rate they're going, experts say, the Iranians could have nuclear weapons to put on their medium-range missiles within two to four years.

ROBERT EINHORN, FMR. ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: We don't have much time. They're making steady progress now.

ENSOR: Both President Bush and his challenger, John Kerry, have called a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable." How to stop it, though, is far from clear. Back in 1981, with a single bombing raid, Israel stopped Iraq's nuclear bomb program in its tracks, but Iran's program reflects lessons learned from that. Nuclear facilities are widely dispersed, and U.S. officials say only some of them have been identified.

GEOFFREY KEMP, THE NIXON CENTER: These are deep deeply buried facilities. There are thousands of them. We don't know where they all are. And so, even if we bomb them with the most precise weaponry, it won't be clear that we've got them.

EINHORN: An ineffective military strike would be the worst of all worlds.

ENSOR: The Bush administration has been relying on European diplomacy to convince Tehran to give up any potential for nuclear weapons. But even Republican experts now say the U.S. needs to take over and needs to offer Iran something in return.

KEMP: What this will require on the part of the Bush administration is some carrots. There is no way the Iranians are going to back down on this issue, unless they are offered something in exchange.

ENSOR: The U.S. could offer to let Iran finish its peaceful nuclear energy plant at Bushehr with spent fuel being re-exported back to Russia. It could also offer Iran's Mullahs a non-aggression pact, even the lifting of economic sanctions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency Board meets next week on Iran, but no one expects real movement before the November U.S. elections. At that point, though, experts say whoever wins needs to tackle the problem and quickly.

EINHORN: I think we've lost a lot of time in the last few years.

ENSOR (on camera): Senator Kerry has said, if elected, he would try to set up talks on nuclear matters with Tehran. But even if the president gets a second term, experts say look for a new sense of urgency and a new approach.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Clearly a tense situation no matter how you look at it.

Well, workers this week began destroying one of the last stockpiles of chemical weapons in the United States. They're using remote controlled equipment to start disposing of the nearly 4,000 tons of nerve gas and other weapons stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon. The weapons have been there since 1962, a relic of the cold war. The stockpile is being carefully incinerated. It's the same process being used for weapons disposal in Aniston, Alabama and Tewella, Utah.

A new documentary raises questions about the security of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. It's just 20 miles from New York City. The filmmakers say it would be an easy target for terrorists, but some scientists say the danger is minimal. Maria Hinojosa reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant is so close to residential areas that people can see it from their local parks, close enough for environmental activists to release rubber ducks to show just how close terrorists could get.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: On September 11, 2001, the hijackers actually used the Hudson River as a navigational point.

HINOJOSA: Close enough for a famous brother and sister, Bobby and Rory Kennedy, to legally fly a helicopter right over a nuclear plant.

ROBERT KENNEDY JR.: If they had banked left and hit Indian Point rather than proceeded down to the World Trade Center, this area could be uninhabitable today.

HINOJOSA (on camera): What is in fact declared a no-fly zone now in a post-September 11 reality?

ROBERT KENNEDY, JR.: You know, that -- it's not too hard to get declared a no-fly zone. Disneyland has a no-fly zone. Disney World has one. The Super Bowl has a no-fly zone. My cousin Caroline Kennedy's wedding had a no-fly zone.

HINOJOSA (voice-over): As another September 11 approaches, the debate about safety at Indian Point is heating up.

RORY KENNEDY, FILMMAKER: On the day the World Trade Center was attacked America...

HINOJOSA: An HBO documentary made by Rory Kennedy called "Imagining the Unimaginable" raises new fears about security.

RORY KENNEDY: New York City is only 24 miles south of Indian Point. That there's just too much at stake. There's simply too much at stake.

HINOJOSA: A group of scientists favoring nuclear power accuses Kennedy of basing her conclusions on fear, not science.

DR. LETTY G. LUTZKER, ST. BARNABAS MEDICAL CENTER: A slow release of proportions large enough to damage the community or any outlying areas is virtually impossible.

HINOJOSA: But after 9/11, activists say no scenario is too farfetched.

DAVID LOCHBAUM, NUCLEAR SAFETY ENGINEER: All of these past reactor accesses have been caused by people making mistakes in the control room. The fully-loaded jet airplane hitting the control room can do far more damage than those people did with their mistakes over the years.

HINOJOSA: Or could it?

JERRY KREMER, NEW YORK AFFORDABLE RELIABLE ENERGY ALLIANCE.: The construction of this plant is such that, even if you crashed an airliner into it, every test shows that with the depth of the plant, 100 feet below, plus the six feet of concrete, there's just no way that you can penetrate the core and create the kind of disaster they're talking about.

HINOJOSA: But that, we just don't know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, would you buy a home you've never seen in person? Some people do on the web. We'll tell you about them when we come back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: These days, you may want a cell phone with as many bells and whistles that can fit in a hand set. It's amazing what they can cram in there. But, that sort of thing's not for everyone, especially people in lower income nations. Still, as Eunice Yoon reports, telecom firms are hoping to ring up profits in these developing markets.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EUNICE YOON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the outskirts of Beijing, migrant farmer, Chen Jan Wa (ph) takes home $83 a month. Modest wages for most, but good enough for him to consider buying a mobile phone. Chen and others like him are becoming a growing force in the telecom industry willing to pay $120 for a cell phone.

(on camera): With most of the markets in the developed world maturing, handset makers and service providers alike, are looking for new ways to generate revenues. One way is to target the lower income subscribers.

DAVID ALMSTROM, TROLLTECH: Today we have one billion subscribers and we have to get another billion subscribers.

YOON: Handset makers are targeting the markets by offering mobile phones with simple functions like voice calls and text. In China, some of the functions are simpler.

RICHARD LEE, HUAWF TECHNOLOGIES: In China we are sending the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) handsets, sending them almost to one million right now, and these handsets are very cost-effective, especially for this low end customers. YOON: Service providers have come up with innovative ways to cater to the needs of the low income consumer, using the text message as a virtual prepaid calling card.

DAVINA YEO, IDC: It might be valid for a shorter amount of days, but -- you know, it's much easier for a subscriber, rather than paying three U.S. dollars, they pay one U.S. dollar each time for X-amount of minutes.

YOON: Philippine telecom companies started selling minutes over SMS and the trend has spread to India, Indonesia, and Thailand. Telecom's analysts say China may be next, making the mobile phone even more accessible to consumers like farmer Chen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well, the Internet is making real estate markets more accessible to people who live out of town. So much so that some buyers don't even visit their new home before they buy it. Photos on the web are good enough for them. Darby Mullaney has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DARBY MULLANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Los Angeles resident and father of five, Steve Lubarsky, is pretty relaxed considering he recently paid more than a million dollars for an apartment that he's never even seen. You might call him crazy, but Lubarsky says the move was smart.

STEVE LUBARSKY, HOME BUYER: I guess I would say that it seems pretty unconventional to buy anything you haven't really been able to see or touch, but this is an opportunity and sometimes with opportunities you have to try to take advantage of the situation, because if you wait to get all of your ducks in a row, the opportunity may no longer be there.

MULLANEY: Lubarsky and his wife Suzanne found the apartment on the Internet. They thought it was a good buy, but did not have time to go to New York to see the place, which is still under construction. Lubarsky wanted the apartment on the tenth floor so he contacted broker Jill Sloan. She says the market is so hot made sense for Lubarsky to buy sight unseen.

JILL SLOAN, HALSTEN PROPERTY: For a three-bedroom condo, there wasn't a lot on the market, so it was either this or it was wait, and he decided to jump in, even knowing that it was a year -- a year away that he could even live in the apartment.

MULLANEY (on camera): People who buy a property without even taking a walk around the neighborhood are obviously in the minority, but experts say the number of people doing this kind of thing is actually increasing.

(voice-over): And RealtyBid.com, an online auction house, says 10 percent of the houses they list now sell sight unseen. Tight housing supply in the hot real estate market are driving the trend, so has the Internet and improving technologies. With a click of the mouse, Lubarsky saw his apartment's floor plan, what his kitchen and bath would look like, even what the flooring would be and the Internet is giving increasingly detailed information about communities.

BRAD INMAN, HOMEGAIN.COM: We're getting school data, so you know the quality of schools, very important to home buyers. We also have great neighborhood information, so you can get really good localized information on where to get the best latte and bagel, and we're also seeing more and more crime statistics being put up.

MULLANEY: Still, experts say becoming a cyber settler is not a good idea for most people.

ILYCE GLINK, THINKGLINK.COM: If you don't see what the neighborhood is like, in most cases, and it may not be true for New York City, but in most cases, you may be surprised by what you find.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well, it's probably no surprise that politics is everywhere these days, including the dating scene. And the web is helping keep the blues with the blues and the reds with the reds, as Alina Cho reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jen Tramantozzi is 26, single and a member of New York's Young Republicans Club. Yes, traditionally liberal New York, where Tramantozzi says Republican suitors are in short supply.

JEN TRAMANTOZZI, SINGLE REPUBLICAN: When I tell people I'm a republican they are kind of like, "Ooh." Like their face just falls, and they're so disappointed and they're, like, "Oh, no, everything was going great until you had to mention that."

CHO: Dan Cohen is also a single New Yorker. He's a democrat looking for a lovely liberal.

DAN COHEN, SINGLE DEMOCRAT: It's one signal. It's not the only one, but for me it's been a good one of determining whether I would get along with that person.

CHO: Cohen and Tramantozzi disagree on politics, but agree on dating strategy. Both want to date members of their own political party.

TRAMANTOZZI: I feel like -- you know, if I dated someone who was a liberal, he would just be getting annoyed with me all the time. Or I'd be, like, "Well, I don't understand why he doesn't get it. He's not seeing it my way."

CHO (on camera): Little doubt that this year's election is going to be a close one. Bush, Kerry, red states, blue states. It's political lingo most of us have heard. And now it's popping up on Internet dating sites. So if you're looking for love, get ready to show your colors.

(voice-over) More than a half dozen web sites are out there to help both single republicans and democrats find their political soul mates. Sites like ConservativeMatch.com and ActForLove.org, a liberal site started by John Hlinko, who's now engaged to a fellow democrat he met on the Web.

CHO: Some do make it work, despite disagreeing politically: Arnold, Maria; Carville, Madeline.

Dan Cohen says no way.

(on camera) You're a blue state guy.

COHEN: I'm a blue state guy, and I don't think I could date anybody but a blue state gal.

CHO (voice-over): Red states need not apply.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, when it's really, really hot, how would you like to wear your own air conditioner? Some football players are doing just that. We'll show you how.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Playing a demanding sport like football in sweltering heat isn't just uncomfortable, it can be deadly. Now, a new system turns protective pads into cooling units so player can say chill out while they're warming the bench.

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SIEBERG (voice-over): Football season is officially here, on the sidelines, cheers and cheerleaders are flying high, but between the stripes, crushing blows, devastating heat, and severe dehydration can drop even the strongest players to their knees. Summer isn't over yet, and the death of 335-pound former NFL all-pro Cory Stringer is a constant reminder heat can be a football's worst enemy.

PROF. NIKOLAUS GRAVENSTEIN, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: The typical football game is played in an environment that is higher than body temperature. Temperatures on a football field are commonly 100 plus degrees.

SIEBERG: But, now the same university that invented Gatorade has teamed up with William's Sports Group to create a solution that might make heatstroke a thing of the past. TMS or Temperature Management System pads allows trainers to send a 45 degree burst of cold air directly into a player's pads. MELVIN CARTER, PRESIDENT TMS SYSTEMS: You've got to put it on to feel it. It's instantaneous. It's just like flipping a light switch. The air is coming directly from the compressor, it's coming through here, going through the filters, and then going into the core cooler and coming out the other end.

SIEBERG: We visited Clemson's Death Valley Stadium this past weekend and got a first look at the system in game action against rival, Wake Forest. Most of the 80,000 fans were too busy cheering to notice, but as the players came off the field they quickly hooked in, small channels running throughout the pads provided ventilation that amounts to sideline air conditioning. Until Clemson's decision to use the gear in the season opener, the pads had gone through minimal battle testing. But, the cool idea is still catching on in football stadiums across the country.

CARTER: At this point, Tampa Bay Buccaneers has ordered it, the Dallas Cowboys, Georgia, the University of Tennessee, the University of South Florida. There's several schools...

SIEBERG: Those involved believe one reason the concept is getting attention may be that the pads could make the game safer. But, researchers caution that the new pads are only part of the equation.

GRAVENSTEIN: I think everybody needs to understand that this approach is intended to supplement, not to replace common sense, and not only common sense, but good science says you have to be conditioned. So, you've got to train. This does not replace training. The other thing is, this doesn't mean you don't have to drink fluids.

SIEBERG: According to developers, the system can be retrofitted to existing pads or installed on new ones and they say no structural integrity is compromised. Despite their new pads, Clemson needed double overtime to beat Wake, whether or not the equipment helped to put them up over the top is up for debate. But on this day, the Tigers needed all the help they could get.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, how did Monica Lewinsky's blue dress wind up a postage stamp? We'll explain.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: All right, we've decided we simply can't go another week without showing you some baby animals. Yes, this may look like a pink rat, but it's actually a baby panda, one of a pair of twins born at a Chinese panda reserve last week. The mother abandoned the babies, which is not unusual by first time panda moms. So the twins are being raised by the staff at the center. The mother is famous in panda circles; she was born at the San Diego Zoo and then sent to China earlier this year. Officials at the reserve say they've been successful at breeding and raising pandas during the past four years.

Well, another first-time animal mom did better in the nurturing department. Kula, a gorilla at the Brookfield Zoo, outside Chicago, gave birth to a little female last week and immediately cuddled the baby. The infant is important in efforts to preserve the species since her father and here maternal grandfather are both wild-born gorillas.

And a zoo in Australia recently welcomed three white lion cubs from South Africa. The hand-raised cubs are about six months old and eventually will be part of a breeding program at the zoo. White lions are extinct in the wild and only three blood lines exist. So, officials say it's important to manage their breeding carefully. The long-term plan is to return them to their home in a South African game reserve.

All right, you might remember a few weeks ago we told you about a company that would let you put your own face on a postage stamp that could actually be used to send male. I think my mug wound up on one. Well, you wouldn't be surprised to know that some pranksters immediately started testing to see what other pictures they could get on a stamp. Jeanne Moos has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ready to stamp out flags and presidents? Maybe you'd rather monkey around with your own image. You're looking at a valid U.S. postage stamp featuring Chippy and me. Or maybe you'd prefer your wedding photo, your baby, or former dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Hey, how did an alleged war criminal become valid postage?

KEN MCBRIDE, CEO, STAMPS.COM: In some cases people are doing it somewhat like a game to try to get stuff by us but we're...

MOOS: Ken McBride is the CEO of Stamps.com. On a trial basis, the postal service is allowing personalized stamps. You send in your favorite digital photo, pick a border and in a couple of days you're turned into a usable, actual stamp with a machine-readable bar code.

MCBRIDE: Babies and kids. That's about 40 percent of what we're getting.

MOOS: But then there's the five percent reject rate -- nudity, political content, violence, anything objectionable.

MCBRIDE: We actually have human beings who look at every photo that's submitted.

MOOS: But humans, being human, apparently neglected to recognize Linda Tripp or this now famous photo of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey and the former aide with whom he has reportedly had a sexual relationship. BILL BASTONE, CO-FOUNDER, THE SMOKING GUN: They pretty much did it to see if they'd get through.

MOOS: Bill Bastone is a co-founder of the Web site, Thesmokinggun.com. Their first attempts to bypass the photo stamp censors failed when Lee Harvey Oswald and the Unabomber was denied the stamp of approval, but Jimmy Hoffa made it and so did the Unabomber's Harvard photo.

BASTONE: We decided to just put it on an envelope and mail it to ourself.

MOOS: It arrived, valid postage. Though personalized stamps cost more than twice as much as regular ones. At the United Nations there's a similar service. Tourists pose and get their new stamps in minutes, valid only if mailed from U.N. headquarters. The idea behind photo stamps is to send in sentimental photos like this Santa picture of me with my brother, instead they let Monica Lewinsky's stained dress get by. Talk about a sticky stamp.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: I know there's a joke in there about licking stamps, but I'm not going to touch it.

All right, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:

The high tech treasure hunt game called Geocaching has been around for awhile now, but it's exploding in popularity, as the price of equipment drops and the prizes for winners get better. We'll join the chase.

That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at NEXT@CNN.com and don't forget to check out our Web site at CNN.com/NEXT.

Thanks so much for joining us. For all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.

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