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American Morning
Gulf Coast Cleaning Up After Ivan; "Gimmie a Minute"; Women Not Getting Enough Folic Acid?; "Minding Your Business"
Aired September 17, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We are live again in Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's the Sawgrass Landing, a strip of shopping malls here in the southern part of the state.
There is literally junk all over the place here. This is someone's boogie board that washed up here sometime yesterday or sometime during the storm. And this is just a small slice of what you're getting around here.
There is literally junk all over the place. In fact, along Highway 59 behind me, in the middle of the highway, there is a set of wooden stairs that came off the back of someone's home, somewhere along Pleasure Island. Pleasure Island is a 12-mile strip of land that is inaccessible. The police, the National Guard would not allow anyone to get back there, including reporters and the residents who live here. It's raised a bit of a nerve here so far today with people wondering what is left now for their homes back on the island behind me.
In a moment, we'll get you further east in places like Pensacola and Panama City Beach, that we know for a fact were hit so hard by Ivan just about this time 24 hours ago.
Also, Heidi Collins, good morning again to you back in New York.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Bill, once again, as well.
As you know, people, it is Friday. We're going to have "Gimmie a Minute" coming up today. The panel will be talking about reports that some in Congress want to now investigate CBS News. Right now, though, we're going to talk about the stories now in the news this morning.
As of this morning, the Pentagon has a week to release all of its files related to President Bush's National Guard service. A federal judge is ordering the administration to find any previously withheld information regarding the president's Vietnam-era service. It is part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.
The U.N. Security Council debating a new draft resolution on Sudan. It demands the Sudanese government stop the violence in the Darfur region where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.
Meanwhile, rebels in the region are expected to announce later this morning whether they will participate in stalled three-week-old peace talks with officials. The third time may be the charm for peace talks for Northern Ireland. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern are trying to broker a plan of shared power between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Blair says this is a moment of decision for the leaders of the opposing political parties, who are both present at the talks.
And they're on a mission -- an "I do" mission. A bridal boutique in a Seattle suburb is giving away 100 wedding dresses to local military couples. The owners say this is a small way to help young service couples, who are often on a tight budget, start their lives together. The gowns are worth about $1,200 each. Nice of them to do.
All right. Back now to Bill in Alabama once again -- Bill?
HEMMER: All right, Heidi. Thanks.
The Red Cross on hand -- not only in Alabama, but also in the Panhandle of Florida, which is such a critical area right now for the story on the day after Ivan passed through.
Chris Paladino's with the Red Cross. He's a relief worker live in Panama City Beach. Chris, we welcome you to our program here. How can you and the Red Cross help at this point?
CHRIS PALADINO, RED CROSS: Well, what we're focused on right now is meeting people's most urgent needs: shelter, a place to stay; food to eat; something to drink. Even before Ivan struck, this was the largest sheltering operation and the largest feeding operation we've ever undertaken, and it's just growing.
HEMMER: If that's the case, when you talk about Ivan then Frances before it and Charley before it, how is the Red Cross dealing with this, if indeed it's the largest relief effort that you've ever undertaken?
PALADINO: Well, you know, I've been with the Red Cross for 12 years, and it's hard for me even to get my mind wrapped around. We've served almost six million meals so far, opened 951 shelters -- if you can imagine that -- and sheltered over 330,000 people.
Our staff and our volunteers are stretched thin. We're tired, but we're doing a great job at it still. The biggest challenge right now is, of course, paying for all of this. We expect to spend almost $67 million on relief for Charley and Frances alone -- we haven't even begun to put the estimates together yet for Ivan -- and have raised less than $40 million.
HEMMER: Now, Chris, when you talk to people living there, what do they want from you? What do they tell you?
PALADINO: I think people right now are just stressed and they're tired. Again, I hate just throwing numbers out, but we've had over 25,000 mental health contacts. What they want is somebody who's going to feel for them, understands what they're going through, and is going to help them get through it. HEMMER: What have you seen so far, Chris, in your area?
PALADINO: Well, I think the biggest challenge here in the Panama City area and Bay County has been the tornadoes. My understanding is that there were 14 tornadoes that went through this county and the one north of here and damaged a couple of hundred homes there. Power is out.
And I know folks probably don't feel that being without power for a week or two is a big deal. But you have to understand, there are lots of folks living day to day, and losing their power, losing everything in their refrigerator is a big challenge for them.
And I'll also add, you know, there are a lot of businesses here that have been affected, a lot of service industry jobs, people who are going to be out of work for a couple of weeks. And for a lot of folks, that can put them over the edge.
HEMMER: Yes, indeed it can. Chris, good luck to you and everybody over there at the Red Cross. Chris Paladino there in Panama City Beach.
For the folks living in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ivan is still a headache. Let's get to Chad Myers watching the radar now. Chad, good morning there back at the CNN Center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: All right, Chad. Thanks so much for that.
Every Friday at this time, we give the week's big stories the once-over in our "Gimmie a Minute" segment. So, with us now this morning to do just that, in New York, WABC radio host Mark Simone. Mark, good morning to you.
MARK SIMONE, WABC RADIO HOST: Good morning.
COLLINS: In Pittsburgh, Bev Smith with the American Urban Radio Networks. Bev, good morning to you, as well.
BEV SMITH, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: Hi, Heidi.
COLLINS: And with us here, Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com. Hey, Andy.
Thanks so much to all of you for being here. Mark, I want to start with you. This new National Intelligence Estimate Report that came out talked about the scenarios that they would project for what could happen in Iraq. Some of them not very good -- for example, the possibility of civil war. How is this going to be used by the government?
SIMONE: Well, you got to remember that basically says things will be shaky for another year. I don't think that shocks anybody. But in a worst-case scenario is a civil war, and that doesn't shock anybody. Also bear in mind, though, this is the first report since the war. The last report we got from the same group said there were definitely weapons of mass destruction and that we'd find stockpiles. So, take this with a grain of salt.
COLLINS: Bev, I think Mark is saying this could be flawed, as well.
SMITH: Well, I don't understand why he's saying that. This report was a shock to some folks -- obviously so was a shock to the Bush administration who had the information.
This is a shock to some folks. Talk to the soldiers -- many of them young -- on the ground floor, or talk to the reporters like Lisa Baron, who's been reporting and come home for 14 months there. It is a shock to a lot of people, and it's a shock to the people in Iraq who are living with it. They did not expect this level of insurrection. It's a shock.
COLLINS: All right, Andy?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: President Bush said we must bring the evil-doers to justice, but he was talking about Kitty Kelley.
COLLINS: Ah, OK. I was confused about that. All right. Thanks so much.
Bev, want to start with you on this one. CBS now is standing by its story that we've been talking about quite a bit involving these records of President Bush's National Guard service. But now they're saying that they want to actually investigate CBS. Is this a journalistic issue now, or a political one?
SMITH: I think it's both. I think it's both. I think it points to the fact that we need to, as journalists, investigate all sides of the story.
And I think it points to the fact that we need to report, because what isn't being reported is that in the controversy of the authenticity of this report, the woman who says she didn't type it does not say that the information isn't factual. "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" over the weekend reported it's factual.
So, I think that it's political, because that issue isn't being discussed, and I also think that it questions, again, the journalist and the news. And we've been doing a lot of that lately.
COLLINS: So, Mark, which is it? And how accurate -- does it matter if it is?
SIMONE: No, it doesn't. You know, it's sad. Rather has turned "60 Minutes" into "Ripley's Believe It or Not." I hate to break it to you, it's not a missed story that Bush missed a doctor's appointment 35 years ago. A big story is that John Kerry is a Senator from Massachusetts, and he literally hasn't shown up for work in two years. COLLINS: Andy, "Ripley's Believe It or Not?"
BOROWITZ: You know, I trust President Bush. He says those memos have to be fake because he knows where the real ones are hidden.
COLLINS: OK. All right, Mark, we know that out in California, a Republican Congressman there is introducing this constitutional amendment, I should say, in order to permit foreign born Americans, who have been citizens for 20 years or more to actually become president. Is this an idea that's likely to catch on, do you think?
SIMONE: Well, you know, they say in this country anybody can be president. And if you've seen some of our presidents, anybody can be president. I don't know. We're supposed to be a nation of immigrants. Some think this is being done to pave the way for Arnold. Some think it's a being done to pave the way for Teresa some way.
The problem is, you've got to make it for a long period of time, that someone up to the age of 35 lived in another country; who knows where their loyalties could be?
COLLINS: Bev, does it need to be 20 years or more, or does it matter?
SMITH: I think that it matters. I think it warrants discussion. And I think that I might agree with my conservative counterpart.
COLLINS: What?
SMITH: That this is the Arnold bill, and that's what worries me. The man who proposed it is a friend of the Terminator, and I'm very concerned about the background of the Terminator. So I would be concerned how this is used for the Terminator. But it is a discussion whose time has come.
COLLINS: Hey, Andy, these guys are agreeing. Help me out.
BOROWITZ: You know, I think President Bush has paved the way for this, because English isn't his first language.
COLLINS: OK, want to take a moment now, if we could, guys. Bev, we'll start with you, for undercovered stories of the week. What have we missed here?
SMITH: Well, I think one of big stories, at least for the community that I serve, and that's the African-American, Caribbean and Spanish-speaking community, is the story of Michigan legislators, state, that is, who said the Democratic vote in Michigan, particularly in Detroit, had to be suppressed; 65 percent to 80 percent of the city of Detroit is African-American who votes Democratic.
Looking at what took place in Florida in 2000, and this year, it's a story we thought the media should have covered more. They didn't. It's important to our community.
COLLINS: Mark, what's important to you these days? SIMONE: Well, you know, a lot of people think if you live up north, they don't have to worry about the hurricanes. It's affecting food prices, the price of berries up 300 percent. Crops have been wiped out. Orange juice up 400 percent. If they want to show off at the World Series, they'll pour Tropicana over each other's heads.
COLLINS: OK, Andy, lash out here.
BOROWITZ: Well, some good news for John Kerry: He was named employee of the month at a Kinko's in Abilene.
COLLINS: Touche!
All right, to the three of you guys, thanks so much, as always, Mark Simone, Bev Smith and Andy Borowitz.
SMITH: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thanks again. Have a great weekend.
SIMONE: You, too.
COLLINS: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, why are more men now claiming they've been sexually harassed at work? That's ahead.
And Chuckie the alligator on the loose after Hurricane Ivan. Stay with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: More American women than ever now take vitamins containing folic acid. But according to a new study, a majority still aren't getting what they need.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now with details on this. So that's a bummer. I mean, people are trying to take these vitamins, still not enough.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Forty percent, that's the number, 40 percent of women who should be taking folic acid, getting enough folic acid, are getting it. That's the good news, because it's up from 32 percent last year, more women than before.
The bad news, if you do the math, very simply, 60 percent aren't getting enough folic acid.
It's one of basic things when you talk about folic acid. Its a vitamin that women are taught about at a very young age to take in their childbearing years to try and prevent birth defects. And they find that this simple vitamin can reduce the incidents of birth defects, some of them, by 70 percent.
COLLINS: That's amazing.
So how much do you really need then of folic acid? GUPTA: They say about 400 micrograms is what you need.
COLLINS: What's that?
GUPTA: Well, micrograms is a quantity of a type of measurement. But you can get that pretty easily in a vitamin. There is tons of multivitamins that are fortified with folic acid. So that's your No. 1 source.
You can also get it from food. And most doctors, most nutritionists will encourage you to try to get it from food instead, if you can, orange juice, green, leafy vegetables. You need to get a lot of it though. A cup of raw spinach, for example, will give you one quarter of what you need, so four cups.
COLLINS: Now he's picked that ever-popular raw spinach for the green, leafy vegetable.
GUPTA: Because we know you eat your raw spinach every morning. Fruits, oranges, beans, all those sorts of foods, they're also -- the interesting thing, fortified foods, and all these breads and cereals, they're all fortified with folic acid. But there's been this low-carb diet craze that we've been hearing about.
COLLINS: Yes, that's for sure.
GUPTA: So what's happening? Eating less of the fortified grains and things like that. Women are supplementing with the vitamins better than they did, but they still need to do a lot better.
COLLINS: So then the question might be, is this folic acid important, even if you aren't planning to have a baby?
GUPTA: I think that's the most crucial thing, because when women start paying attention to folic acid and other vitamins, is when they become pregnant. The problem is that most -- or a lot of birth defects, I should say, could occur in that time between conception and the time that a woman realizes she's pregnant. So what's the message? If you think you could become pregnant, if you're of child-bearing age, take your folic acid.
COLLINS: All right, good advice.
GUPTA: Good advice?
COLLINS: Yes, like that. Always good advice from you.
Thanks, Sanjay.
Still to come this morning, is Hurricane Ivan taking any toll on Wall Street? We're going to look at that ahead, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: The hurricane damage just did not take a toll on the market yesterday, but investors may not be quite so optimistic today. Andy Serwer is there "Minding Your Business."
Also, a look at oil, which the Gulf oil facilities didn't get hammered as badly as they might have during the storm, right?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Right. But the price of oil, Jack, is still up. We'll talk about that in a second.
Let's look and see what happened yesterday. A little bit of relief on Wall Street. Stocks moved up, you can see here, pretty much across the board -- the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500.
Price of oil is up, though, this morning, and it's a little counterintuitive, Jack, because the hurricane has passed. Why? They're having some trouble reopening some of the rigs. It's going a little bit slowly. You can see the price of oil there over the past year.
And this sort of speaks to another thing that's going on in the Gulf all over there today -- inspecting things. They've got inspectors out on the rigs. And so, even, for instance, back on land if your condo or motel didn't get blown down, you might need an engineer there to inspect it.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
SERWER: So, that's going to also take a huge toll on the recovery down there.
Another subject, Jack -- this is a very important topic -- more and more men are being sexually harassed at work.
CAFFERTY: Oh, no. Is that happening?
SERWER: Now, before you get all hot and bothered, very little of this is women harassing men, as in -- remember that film "Disclosure" where Michael Douglas was harassed? The innocent Michael Douglas was harassed by Demi Moore?
CAFFERTY: Demi Moore, yes.
SERWER: Yes. Not a whole lot of that going on, actually.
CAFFERTY: That was a pretty hot movie, too.
SERWER: Yes, well, you know, he had "Basic Instinct" and "Fatal Attraction." He had a whole bunch of movies like that.
CAFFERTY: Didn't he confess to being like a sexaholic or something at some point?
SERWER: You know, I don't know, Jack.
COLLINS: But you digress.
SERWER: I really don't know, but Jack digresses. More and more men are being sexually harassed at work, this according to EEOC figures -- this is the Equal Opportunity Commission. And you can see here, the numbers of all claims: nine percent in '92; 15 percent last year. Most of this is men harassing other men, if you can believe.
And it really is about bullying. In other words, hey, get me a cup of coffee. And I'm not sure exactly why that's sexually harassing people rather than just harassing people, but you know, I'm not in charge of the EEOC.
And so, there you have it, Jack.
CAFFERTY: Think about it.
SERWER: There's a whole lot of things that you can probably do with this story and places you can go, but you're not going to.
CAFFERTY: Maybe we should just plunge right into the "File" and...
SERWER: Yes, let's do that. That's a good transition.
COLLINS: Let's do that.
CAFFERTY: ... leave well enough alone.
COLLINS: I like that idea.
CAFFERTY: What's wrong with this picture, you ask? Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are the billionaire twins much in the spotlight recently. Mary-Kate, you may recall, made headlines this summer when she checked into rehab suffering from an eating disorder. She was released in July.
And now, she and her sister have started stumping for McDonald's in France. They are promoting happy meals earlier this month. I don't know, is that like an alcoholic selling booze? I don't know. Maybe not.
SERWER: Well, get them some Big Macs. Get them a couple of Big Macs.
CAFFERTY: If the presidential election ends up as close this time as it did last time, perhaps we can borrow a page from the smart folks over there in Hong Kong. No need for recounts, hanging chads, Supreme Court decisions: In Hong Kong, if the race ends up in a dead heat, they bring out a bag of ping-pong balls. And the candidates draw a ping-pong ball out of the sack and the one with the highest number wins the election.
SERWER: That's easy.
CAFFERTY: Pretty easy, right?
COLLINS: They play a lot of ping-pong there, too. CAFFERTY: That's why they have the bags full of ping-pong balls. I can follow this deal.
Hong Kong officials feel the tie-breaking method is suitable because many of the Hong Kong people are gamblers who believe in fate. And I'm kind of sorry I brought it up, actually.
And as Bill Hemmer reported earlier, the favorite story of the hurricane season so far has to be this one: Chuckie is a 12-foot- long, 1,000-pound alligator who got loose from the zoo down there in Alabama. And they don't know where he is.
They said -- the officials put out a statement: Chuckie is unaccounted for, and we can't send people in to assess the damage to the zoo until we find him. Makes some sense.
Now, here is what they did to try and find him. They all got around Chuckie's pond and put dead chickens on the ends of sticks.
SERWER: Oh, the chicken pole!
CAFFERTY: And held their chicken out over the water, hoping that Chuckie would then rise up out of the water and grab the chicken.
SERWER: That chicken-pole-ing thing is -- that's some trick.
CAFFERTY: But he -- I mean, he ain't going for it so far.
SERWER: No, he's too smart. Chuckie!
CAFFERTY: So, somewhere out there...
COLLINS: He's making the big escape.
SERWER: You can't catch Chuckie there with a chicken pole.
CAFFERTY: He might be in New Orleans by now.
SERWER: Yes, well, the food's better over there than in Alabama.
COLLINS: Probably is.
Hey, let me get it back to Bill Hemmer now, who's standing by for us in Alabama. Bill, what's the latest there now?
HEMMER: Yes, listen, Chuckie's in love, because Chuckie's on the loose right now and loving that. Listen, that zoo by the way, Jack, Andy, Heidi, about 200 yards off to my right here. Chuckie is around here somewhere.
Yesterday they had two different rifles walking around: one with a tranquilizer gun to get the deer; the other with live bullets to get the gators. and they're still on the hunt today.
In a moment here, the Alabama director of Homeland Security is my guest. What is the assessment now here in this state? Back in a moment live here in Alabama on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired September 17, 2004 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We are live again in Gulf Shores, Alabama. That's the Sawgrass Landing, a strip of shopping malls here in the southern part of the state.
There is literally junk all over the place here. This is someone's boogie board that washed up here sometime yesterday or sometime during the storm. And this is just a small slice of what you're getting around here.
There is literally junk all over the place. In fact, along Highway 59 behind me, in the middle of the highway, there is a set of wooden stairs that came off the back of someone's home, somewhere along Pleasure Island. Pleasure Island is a 12-mile strip of land that is inaccessible. The police, the National Guard would not allow anyone to get back there, including reporters and the residents who live here. It's raised a bit of a nerve here so far today with people wondering what is left now for their homes back on the island behind me.
In a moment, we'll get you further east in places like Pensacola and Panama City Beach, that we know for a fact were hit so hard by Ivan just about this time 24 hours ago.
Also, Heidi Collins, good morning again to you back in New York.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Bill, once again, as well.
As you know, people, it is Friday. We're going to have "Gimmie a Minute" coming up today. The panel will be talking about reports that some in Congress want to now investigate CBS News. Right now, though, we're going to talk about the stories now in the news this morning.
As of this morning, the Pentagon has a week to release all of its files related to President Bush's National Guard service. A federal judge is ordering the administration to find any previously withheld information regarding the president's Vietnam-era service. It is part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.
The U.N. Security Council debating a new draft resolution on Sudan. It demands the Sudanese government stop the violence in the Darfur region where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed.
Meanwhile, rebels in the region are expected to announce later this morning whether they will participate in stalled three-week-old peace talks with officials. The third time may be the charm for peace talks for Northern Ireland. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern are trying to broker a plan of shared power between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Blair says this is a moment of decision for the leaders of the opposing political parties, who are both present at the talks.
And they're on a mission -- an "I do" mission. A bridal boutique in a Seattle suburb is giving away 100 wedding dresses to local military couples. The owners say this is a small way to help young service couples, who are often on a tight budget, start their lives together. The gowns are worth about $1,200 each. Nice of them to do.
All right. Back now to Bill in Alabama once again -- Bill?
HEMMER: All right, Heidi. Thanks.
The Red Cross on hand -- not only in Alabama, but also in the Panhandle of Florida, which is such a critical area right now for the story on the day after Ivan passed through.
Chris Paladino's with the Red Cross. He's a relief worker live in Panama City Beach. Chris, we welcome you to our program here. How can you and the Red Cross help at this point?
CHRIS PALADINO, RED CROSS: Well, what we're focused on right now is meeting people's most urgent needs: shelter, a place to stay; food to eat; something to drink. Even before Ivan struck, this was the largest sheltering operation and the largest feeding operation we've ever undertaken, and it's just growing.
HEMMER: If that's the case, when you talk about Ivan then Frances before it and Charley before it, how is the Red Cross dealing with this, if indeed it's the largest relief effort that you've ever undertaken?
PALADINO: Well, you know, I've been with the Red Cross for 12 years, and it's hard for me even to get my mind wrapped around. We've served almost six million meals so far, opened 951 shelters -- if you can imagine that -- and sheltered over 330,000 people.
Our staff and our volunteers are stretched thin. We're tired, but we're doing a great job at it still. The biggest challenge right now is, of course, paying for all of this. We expect to spend almost $67 million on relief for Charley and Frances alone -- we haven't even begun to put the estimates together yet for Ivan -- and have raised less than $40 million.
HEMMER: Now, Chris, when you talk to people living there, what do they want from you? What do they tell you?
PALADINO: I think people right now are just stressed and they're tired. Again, I hate just throwing numbers out, but we've had over 25,000 mental health contacts. What they want is somebody who's going to feel for them, understands what they're going through, and is going to help them get through it. HEMMER: What have you seen so far, Chris, in your area?
PALADINO: Well, I think the biggest challenge here in the Panama City area and Bay County has been the tornadoes. My understanding is that there were 14 tornadoes that went through this county and the one north of here and damaged a couple of hundred homes there. Power is out.
And I know folks probably don't feel that being without power for a week or two is a big deal. But you have to understand, there are lots of folks living day to day, and losing their power, losing everything in their refrigerator is a big challenge for them.
And I'll also add, you know, there are a lot of businesses here that have been affected, a lot of service industry jobs, people who are going to be out of work for a couple of weeks. And for a lot of folks, that can put them over the edge.
HEMMER: Yes, indeed it can. Chris, good luck to you and everybody over there at the Red Cross. Chris Paladino there in Panama City Beach.
For the folks living in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ivan is still a headache. Let's get to Chad Myers watching the radar now. Chad, good morning there back at the CNN Center.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COLLINS: All right, Chad. Thanks so much for that.
Every Friday at this time, we give the week's big stories the once-over in our "Gimmie a Minute" segment. So, with us now this morning to do just that, in New York, WABC radio host Mark Simone. Mark, good morning to you.
MARK SIMONE, WABC RADIO HOST: Good morning.
COLLINS: In Pittsburgh, Bev Smith with the American Urban Radio Networks. Bev, good morning to you, as well.
BEV SMITH, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: Hi, Heidi.
COLLINS: And with us here, Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com. Hey, Andy.
Thanks so much to all of you for being here. Mark, I want to start with you. This new National Intelligence Estimate Report that came out talked about the scenarios that they would project for what could happen in Iraq. Some of them not very good -- for example, the possibility of civil war. How is this going to be used by the government?
SIMONE: Well, you got to remember that basically says things will be shaky for another year. I don't think that shocks anybody. But in a worst-case scenario is a civil war, and that doesn't shock anybody. Also bear in mind, though, this is the first report since the war. The last report we got from the same group said there were definitely weapons of mass destruction and that we'd find stockpiles. So, take this with a grain of salt.
COLLINS: Bev, I think Mark is saying this could be flawed, as well.
SMITH: Well, I don't understand why he's saying that. This report was a shock to some folks -- obviously so was a shock to the Bush administration who had the information.
This is a shock to some folks. Talk to the soldiers -- many of them young -- on the ground floor, or talk to the reporters like Lisa Baron, who's been reporting and come home for 14 months there. It is a shock to a lot of people, and it's a shock to the people in Iraq who are living with it. They did not expect this level of insurrection. It's a shock.
COLLINS: All right, Andy?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: President Bush said we must bring the evil-doers to justice, but he was talking about Kitty Kelley.
COLLINS: Ah, OK. I was confused about that. All right. Thanks so much.
Bev, want to start with you on this one. CBS now is standing by its story that we've been talking about quite a bit involving these records of President Bush's National Guard service. But now they're saying that they want to actually investigate CBS. Is this a journalistic issue now, or a political one?
SMITH: I think it's both. I think it's both. I think it points to the fact that we need to, as journalists, investigate all sides of the story.
And I think it points to the fact that we need to report, because what isn't being reported is that in the controversy of the authenticity of this report, the woman who says she didn't type it does not say that the information isn't factual. "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" over the weekend reported it's factual.
So, I think that it's political, because that issue isn't being discussed, and I also think that it questions, again, the journalist and the news. And we've been doing a lot of that lately.
COLLINS: So, Mark, which is it? And how accurate -- does it matter if it is?
SIMONE: No, it doesn't. You know, it's sad. Rather has turned "60 Minutes" into "Ripley's Believe It or Not." I hate to break it to you, it's not a missed story that Bush missed a doctor's appointment 35 years ago. A big story is that John Kerry is a Senator from Massachusetts, and he literally hasn't shown up for work in two years. COLLINS: Andy, "Ripley's Believe It or Not?"
BOROWITZ: You know, I trust President Bush. He says those memos have to be fake because he knows where the real ones are hidden.
COLLINS: OK. All right, Mark, we know that out in California, a Republican Congressman there is introducing this constitutional amendment, I should say, in order to permit foreign born Americans, who have been citizens for 20 years or more to actually become president. Is this an idea that's likely to catch on, do you think?
SIMONE: Well, you know, they say in this country anybody can be president. And if you've seen some of our presidents, anybody can be president. I don't know. We're supposed to be a nation of immigrants. Some think this is being done to pave the way for Arnold. Some think it's a being done to pave the way for Teresa some way.
The problem is, you've got to make it for a long period of time, that someone up to the age of 35 lived in another country; who knows where their loyalties could be?
COLLINS: Bev, does it need to be 20 years or more, or does it matter?
SMITH: I think that it matters. I think it warrants discussion. And I think that I might agree with my conservative counterpart.
COLLINS: What?
SMITH: That this is the Arnold bill, and that's what worries me. The man who proposed it is a friend of the Terminator, and I'm very concerned about the background of the Terminator. So I would be concerned how this is used for the Terminator. But it is a discussion whose time has come.
COLLINS: Hey, Andy, these guys are agreeing. Help me out.
BOROWITZ: You know, I think President Bush has paved the way for this, because English isn't his first language.
COLLINS: OK, want to take a moment now, if we could, guys. Bev, we'll start with you, for undercovered stories of the week. What have we missed here?
SMITH: Well, I think one of big stories, at least for the community that I serve, and that's the African-American, Caribbean and Spanish-speaking community, is the story of Michigan legislators, state, that is, who said the Democratic vote in Michigan, particularly in Detroit, had to be suppressed; 65 percent to 80 percent of the city of Detroit is African-American who votes Democratic.
Looking at what took place in Florida in 2000, and this year, it's a story we thought the media should have covered more. They didn't. It's important to our community.
COLLINS: Mark, what's important to you these days? SIMONE: Well, you know, a lot of people think if you live up north, they don't have to worry about the hurricanes. It's affecting food prices, the price of berries up 300 percent. Crops have been wiped out. Orange juice up 400 percent. If they want to show off at the World Series, they'll pour Tropicana over each other's heads.
COLLINS: OK, Andy, lash out here.
BOROWITZ: Well, some good news for John Kerry: He was named employee of the month at a Kinko's in Abilene.
COLLINS: Touche!
All right, to the three of you guys, thanks so much, as always, Mark Simone, Bev Smith and Andy Borowitz.
SMITH: Thank you.
COLLINS: Thanks again. Have a great weekend.
SIMONE: You, too.
COLLINS: Still to come on AMERICAN MORNING, why are more men now claiming they've been sexually harassed at work? That's ahead.
And Chuckie the alligator on the loose after Hurricane Ivan. Stay with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.
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COLLINS: More American women than ever now take vitamins containing folic acid. But according to a new study, a majority still aren't getting what they need.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now with details on this. So that's a bummer. I mean, people are trying to take these vitamins, still not enough.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Forty percent, that's the number, 40 percent of women who should be taking folic acid, getting enough folic acid, are getting it. That's the good news, because it's up from 32 percent last year, more women than before.
The bad news, if you do the math, very simply, 60 percent aren't getting enough folic acid.
It's one of basic things when you talk about folic acid. Its a vitamin that women are taught about at a very young age to take in their childbearing years to try and prevent birth defects. And they find that this simple vitamin can reduce the incidents of birth defects, some of them, by 70 percent.
COLLINS: That's amazing.
So how much do you really need then of folic acid? GUPTA: They say about 400 micrograms is what you need.
COLLINS: What's that?
GUPTA: Well, micrograms is a quantity of a type of measurement. But you can get that pretty easily in a vitamin. There is tons of multivitamins that are fortified with folic acid. So that's your No. 1 source.
You can also get it from food. And most doctors, most nutritionists will encourage you to try to get it from food instead, if you can, orange juice, green, leafy vegetables. You need to get a lot of it though. A cup of raw spinach, for example, will give you one quarter of what you need, so four cups.
COLLINS: Now he's picked that ever-popular raw spinach for the green, leafy vegetable.
GUPTA: Because we know you eat your raw spinach every morning. Fruits, oranges, beans, all those sorts of foods, they're also -- the interesting thing, fortified foods, and all these breads and cereals, they're all fortified with folic acid. But there's been this low-carb diet craze that we've been hearing about.
COLLINS: Yes, that's for sure.
GUPTA: So what's happening? Eating less of the fortified grains and things like that. Women are supplementing with the vitamins better than they did, but they still need to do a lot better.
COLLINS: So then the question might be, is this folic acid important, even if you aren't planning to have a baby?
GUPTA: I think that's the most crucial thing, because when women start paying attention to folic acid and other vitamins, is when they become pregnant. The problem is that most -- or a lot of birth defects, I should say, could occur in that time between conception and the time that a woman realizes she's pregnant. So what's the message? If you think you could become pregnant, if you're of child-bearing age, take your folic acid.
COLLINS: All right, good advice.
GUPTA: Good advice?
COLLINS: Yes, like that. Always good advice from you.
Thanks, Sanjay.
Still to come this morning, is Hurricane Ivan taking any toll on Wall Street? We're going to look at that ahead, right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
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JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: The hurricane damage just did not take a toll on the market yesterday, but investors may not be quite so optimistic today. Andy Serwer is there "Minding Your Business."
Also, a look at oil, which the Gulf oil facilities didn't get hammered as badly as they might have during the storm, right?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Right. But the price of oil, Jack, is still up. We'll talk about that in a second.
Let's look and see what happened yesterday. A little bit of relief on Wall Street. Stocks moved up, you can see here, pretty much across the board -- the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500.
Price of oil is up, though, this morning, and it's a little counterintuitive, Jack, because the hurricane has passed. Why? They're having some trouble reopening some of the rigs. It's going a little bit slowly. You can see the price of oil there over the past year.
And this sort of speaks to another thing that's going on in the Gulf all over there today -- inspecting things. They've got inspectors out on the rigs. And so, even, for instance, back on land if your condo or motel didn't get blown down, you might need an engineer there to inspect it.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
SERWER: So, that's going to also take a huge toll on the recovery down there.
Another subject, Jack -- this is a very important topic -- more and more men are being sexually harassed at work.
CAFFERTY: Oh, no. Is that happening?
SERWER: Now, before you get all hot and bothered, very little of this is women harassing men, as in -- remember that film "Disclosure" where Michael Douglas was harassed? The innocent Michael Douglas was harassed by Demi Moore?
CAFFERTY: Demi Moore, yes.
SERWER: Yes. Not a whole lot of that going on, actually.
CAFFERTY: That was a pretty hot movie, too.
SERWER: Yes, well, you know, he had "Basic Instinct" and "Fatal Attraction." He had a whole bunch of movies like that.
CAFFERTY: Didn't he confess to being like a sexaholic or something at some point?
SERWER: You know, I don't know, Jack.
COLLINS: But you digress.
SERWER: I really don't know, but Jack digresses. More and more men are being sexually harassed at work, this according to EEOC figures -- this is the Equal Opportunity Commission. And you can see here, the numbers of all claims: nine percent in '92; 15 percent last year. Most of this is men harassing other men, if you can believe.
And it really is about bullying. In other words, hey, get me a cup of coffee. And I'm not sure exactly why that's sexually harassing people rather than just harassing people, but you know, I'm not in charge of the EEOC.
And so, there you have it, Jack.
CAFFERTY: Think about it.
SERWER: There's a whole lot of things that you can probably do with this story and places you can go, but you're not going to.
CAFFERTY: Maybe we should just plunge right into the "File" and...
SERWER: Yes, let's do that. That's a good transition.
COLLINS: Let's do that.
CAFFERTY: ... leave well enough alone.
COLLINS: I like that idea.
CAFFERTY: What's wrong with this picture, you ask? Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are the billionaire twins much in the spotlight recently. Mary-Kate, you may recall, made headlines this summer when she checked into rehab suffering from an eating disorder. She was released in July.
And now, she and her sister have started stumping for McDonald's in France. They are promoting happy meals earlier this month. I don't know, is that like an alcoholic selling booze? I don't know. Maybe not.
SERWER: Well, get them some Big Macs. Get them a couple of Big Macs.
CAFFERTY: If the presidential election ends up as close this time as it did last time, perhaps we can borrow a page from the smart folks over there in Hong Kong. No need for recounts, hanging chads, Supreme Court decisions: In Hong Kong, if the race ends up in a dead heat, they bring out a bag of ping-pong balls. And the candidates draw a ping-pong ball out of the sack and the one with the highest number wins the election.
SERWER: That's easy.
CAFFERTY: Pretty easy, right?
COLLINS: They play a lot of ping-pong there, too. CAFFERTY: That's why they have the bags full of ping-pong balls. I can follow this deal.
Hong Kong officials feel the tie-breaking method is suitable because many of the Hong Kong people are gamblers who believe in fate. And I'm kind of sorry I brought it up, actually.
And as Bill Hemmer reported earlier, the favorite story of the hurricane season so far has to be this one: Chuckie is a 12-foot- long, 1,000-pound alligator who got loose from the zoo down there in Alabama. And they don't know where he is.
They said -- the officials put out a statement: Chuckie is unaccounted for, and we can't send people in to assess the damage to the zoo until we find him. Makes some sense.
Now, here is what they did to try and find him. They all got around Chuckie's pond and put dead chickens on the ends of sticks.
SERWER: Oh, the chicken pole!
CAFFERTY: And held their chicken out over the water, hoping that Chuckie would then rise up out of the water and grab the chicken.
SERWER: That chicken-pole-ing thing is -- that's some trick.
CAFFERTY: But he -- I mean, he ain't going for it so far.
SERWER: No, he's too smart. Chuckie!
CAFFERTY: So, somewhere out there...
COLLINS: He's making the big escape.
SERWER: You can't catch Chuckie there with a chicken pole.
CAFFERTY: He might be in New Orleans by now.
SERWER: Yes, well, the food's better over there than in Alabama.
COLLINS: Probably is.
Hey, let me get it back to Bill Hemmer now, who's standing by for us in Alabama. Bill, what's the latest there now?
HEMMER: Yes, listen, Chuckie's in love, because Chuckie's on the loose right now and loving that. Listen, that zoo by the way, Jack, Andy, Heidi, about 200 yards off to my right here. Chuckie is around here somewhere.
Yesterday they had two different rifles walking around: one with a tranquilizer gun to get the deer; the other with live bullets to get the gators. and they're still on the hunt today.
In a moment here, the Alabama director of Homeland Security is my guest. What is the assessment now here in this state? Back in a moment live here in Alabama on this AMERICAN MORNING.
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