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American Morning
'90-Second Pop'; Discussion with Ken Jennings
Aired December 22, 2004 - 09:30 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.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a live picture at Evansville, Indiana, where some light and fluffy snow is falling, we're told, as Jacqui Jeras is reporting there for us this morning. We've got about six inches so far.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: And we're going to get more.
O'BRIEN: And A 100-mile swathe, I think is what she said. Huge, huge, huge.
Welcome back, everybody. Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
In all that chaos in the attack in Mosul, a phone call. Lieutenant Sean Otto was there, didn't have much time, but he called his wife back home to tell her he was safe. She's telling us this morning about that conversation and just what it meant to her.
HEMMER: Also this morning, have we gotten the final word on importing prescription drugs? The administration now saying the price is just too high to do it safely. We'll talk to Elizabeth Cohen in a moment, find out whether or not the government's numbers add up. So stay tuned for that.
O'BRIEN: Carol Costello has the headlines for us.
Hello. Good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you. Now in the news, British Prime Minister Tony Blair taking part in a landmark visit to the Middle East. The prime minister arrived in Ramallah earlier for a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Blair is the first foreign leader to make the trip since the death of Arafat.
Earlier this morning, Blair met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He also announced an upcoming Middle East peace conference. That's set to take place in London.
The French government insisting it has not paid a ransom for the release of two journalists held hostage by insurgents in Iraq. The two men were released yesterday after four months in captivity. They're now heading home to France, expected to arrive in Paris shortly to a hero's welcome.
Another court hearing tomorrow for the woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and snatching her baby. Lisa Montgomery is facing a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death. Emotions running high in Maryville, Missouri. Some 300 mourners turned out to pay their last respects to the 23-year-old victim, who was buried yesterday.
And in sports, a Major League Baseball deal just ain't gonna happen. The L.A. Dodgers have withdrawn from a three-team, 10 player trade. It would have sent Randy Johnson, you know him better as the Big Unit, would have sent him from Arizona Diamondbacks to the New York Yankees. Dodgers' general manager says the deals just did not make sense for the team now. Part of me wants to go nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.
O'BRIEN: I was going to say, you're having a hard time keeping the glee out of your voice this morning.
HEMMER: Or taking the smile off your face.
O'BRIEN: She's so happy.
COSTELLO: You know, it's funny, when you talk to New Yorkers, even they understand why some people just hate the Yankees.
I'm sorry.
O'BRIEN: Don't be sorry.
COSTELLO: I'm a Detroit Tigers' fan, it's painful.
O'BRIEN: We hear you. We hear you.
HEMMER: Welcome to Manhattan.
COSTELLO: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Carol.
This morning in Iraq, the FBI on the scene of Tuesday's deadly blast inside a dining tent at the U.S. military base in Mosul. They are searching for clues as to the exact cause of the attack. And they are ruling nothing out, including the possibility of a bomb planted inside the tent. Lieutenant Sean Otto, a Virginia National Guardsman, was on his way to the mess hall at the time of the attack. I spoke with his wife, Trish, earlier on AMERICAN MORNING about a critical phone call from her husband.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRISH OTTO, HUSBAND SURVIVED MOSUL ATTACK: He called and it was after the incident, because they were ahead of us. He called and said, Hi, honey I want to let you know I'm OK, and I love you very much. And immediately, I knew something was wrong. He said, I can't talk, but something bad has happened, and I can't talk right now. I have to go. I love you. And then he hung up.
O'BRIEN: So he couldn't be specific on the phone. What was it like for you when you discovered what had actually happened inside that tent?
OTTO: I was horrified. I was upset. I knew that he was OK. I didn't know if he was completely OK. But I was really upset for the soldiers. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next, if there was going to be another attack. I was just -- I was just filled with emotions, not knowing, like I said, what was going to happen next, when I was going to hear from him again, not knowing, you know, what the other families were thinking what was going on, knowing that they were not going to hear from their soldiers. I got a lucky call.
O'BRIEN: Have the two of you communicated since that lucky call?
OTTO: Last night, on the Internet, he I.M.d me a few times, and said he was OK, and they basically -- after they had everything under control, they had to go and complete the missions as usual.
O'BRIEN: How is he holding up? I know there was a newspaper article that was focusing on Shawn that actually had to be rewritten because he told the writer he felt very fortunate, very lucky, because he had not lost a man in the year-long deployment to Iraq. Obviously, now, not the case. How's he holding up?
OTTO: He's holding up really well. He's a very strong man, a very decent, honorable person. He would give his life for one of his soldiers. I think deep in his heart, he is hurting. But I could not tell that by his I.M.s. He just said, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I have to keep my men up, I have to their morale up, and we have to get the mission completed so we can come home.
O'BRIEN: And how are you holding up? One has to imagine that anytime you hear a news report, about anything happening where you think your husband might be, it's got to be a roller coaster. I mean, it must be really horrible.
OTTO: It is a roller coaster. I cried a lot of tears yesterday, mainly for the families that won't have soldiers coming back home to them, all the people out there serving our country. I just have so much love for them, giving their lives for us, and the ones that are just going to be coming home, and their family, thinking of everyone. My heart goes out to them, my prayer goes out to them. It's just full of emotion. I can only imagine what all the other families are going through right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Trish Otto, whose husband, Lieutenant Shawn Otto, was near yesterday's attack on the base in Mosul. By the way, Lieutenant Otto scheduled to return home sometime in mid-February. In just a few minutes, though, those who were injured in that attack are expected to arrive at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. We're going to have that for you when it happens, live.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: All this week in our series, "They've Got the Goods," we're profiling people who made 2004 a year to remember. This morning, it's the man whose record-setting run on "Jeopardy" had the game show calling him daddy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX TREBEK, HOST, "JEOPARDY": Ken?
KEN JENNINGS, FMR. "JEOPARDY" CHAMP: What is cubism?
TREBEK: Ken?
JENNINGS: What is global warming?
TREBEK: Ken?
JENNINGS: What's a black hole?
O'BRIEN (voice-over): You've been living in a black hole if you don't know who Ken Jennings is. This summer and through the fall, he became a game show legend, winning 74 "Jeopardy" games.
How much money did you win at the end of the day?
JENNINGS: $2,520,700?
O'BRIEN (on camera): Oh, you know the number off the top of your head. Your like, umm...
JENNINGS: I know because I've had to do interviews like this, but I didn't know it until someone told me.
O'BRIEN: $2.5 million bucks -- what are you going to do with all of that money? Have you spent some of it already?
JENNINGS: That's a lot of money. Really haven't much.
O'BRIEN: You've been busy.
JENNINGS: I've been pretty busy. My wife and I do want to travel quite a bit. We'll probably go to Europe sometime next year.
O'BRIEN: OK, that's $2,000, done.
JENNINGS: Yes, I might take a few more trips to Europe to get down to the bottom. I don't really see myself buying a lot of toys and stuff with the money. I don't think people get happy because they own a lot of stuff, you know. I sort think it would be cool if the money could buy free time, you know, more time with my family, and less time working, you know, more time to work on things that interest me, working on a book, or whatever it is. That would be cool if it could finance some stuff like that.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): So after 150 competitors and a 92 percent right answer rate at the buzzer, how did it all end for Jennings?
TREBEK: Here is the clue, ladies and gentlemen. Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year. What is H&R Block? You're right. His final response was FedEx.
O'BRIEN (on camera): I've got to tell you, I am terrible at "Jeopardy," I mean horrifically bad. I thought that was an easy question. I was like, I got that question. I was yelling at the TV, I got the answer.
JENNINGS: If only I could have heard you, you know. Yes, I think it's the kind of thing that either comes to you or you don't.
O'BRIEN: How did you know the answers to all those questions? Because again, I thought the FedEx question -- the H&R Block that you answered, FedEx question was actually kind of easy, but there were some that were so incredibly tough that I was just amazed that you could get. How do you know the answers to that many questions across a really wide range?
JENNINGS: I guess you can see from the H&R Block question that, you know, nobody knows everything. Even if you think you're pretty good, you don't know everything.
But I guess I've just always been interested in a lot of different things. So maybe I sort of have a very shallow level of knowledge about a very wide range of subjects. Just because I'm interested in a lot of stuff, you tend to remember stuff about what you're interested in.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The final Jennings episode, November 30th, got a 13 share in major TV markets. The next day, it was down in the nines.
(on camera): You raised the ratings tremendously. Do people come up to you on the street. Has it been weird? Have you lost your privacy to a large degree? Do you like it? Do you hate it?
JENNINGS: You know, the whole experience has been so great that it seems like it would be ungrateful of me to quibble about anything. But I am sort of a quiet person at heart, and it's sort of hard to not be able to go out without double-takes and people pointing and stuff. But everyone's been very nice; it's not like everyone's been like, you suck, you ruined "Jeopardy." You know, people have been very congratulatory, which is good.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Up next for Jennings is a book for Random House, due in the summer of 2006.
JENNINGS: There will be some other thing. There's going to be a Ken trivia board game, I think. Can you beat Ken, that kind of thing, and do some public speaking. There's a lot of fun things. I'm looking forward to it.
O'BRIEN: You want to do a reality show?
JENNINGS: No, I would be perfectly happy to go back to the quiet life if that was the option.
O'BRIEN: "Fear Factor?"
JENNINGS: No, see, that's the great thing about "Jeopardy," you don't have to eat maggots, and they still give you lots of money.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Ken Jennings has just signed on as a spokesperson for Microsoft's "Encarta Electronic and Online Encyclopedia."
HEMMER: He's got some quick ones, too, doesn't he?
O'BRIEN: Can I tell you how much money that guy's going to make on top of the $2.5 million?
HEMMER: Very true. He had a great year?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
HEMMER: Understatement.
O'BRIEN: Yes, he did.
HEMMER: Imported drugs can be safer or cheaper, but not both. That's according to a new government study on legalizing prescription drug imports.
Elizabeth Cohen, back with us this morning, at the CNN Center.
What gives here, Elizabeth? Good morning.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, we've all heard about people from the United States going to Canada to import cheaper drug. And while now a report by the surgeon general says that, in fact, there's no way to monitor the safety of those drugs.
This is the issue, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't monitor how drugs are brought into Canada. For example, just to give you one example, the U.S. doesn't make sure that when the drugs are transported, that they're refrigerated at the right temperatures. Well, some people have proposed setting up a system whereby the U.S. could monitor to make sure that those Canadian imports are safe. But this report says that is not economically feasible. They say it's too expensive. It is possible, but it would just be too expensive. And even if you just decided to set up a monitoring system for a sliver of the importations, let's say just the most expensive or the most common drugs, they say it would still not work well, it would only save consumers about 1 percent of the cost, and they say that there's just no reason to do that, and it just wouldn't save people that much money.
So it's still status quo, the U.S. still says they can't monitor the safety of drugs Americans bring in from Canada -- Bill.
HEMMER: Help us shake down this angle of the story that does not get a lot of attention. Are some U.S. drugs in the U.S. actually cheaper than they are in other countries?
JENNINGS: That's right. That is definitely true. There are some generic drug that are cheaper in the United States. If you don't buy the brand name, if you buy the generic, it can definitely be cheaper. For example, Enalapril, a blood pressure medicine, is 80 cents cheaper if you get it in the U.S. Fluoxetine (ph), better known as Prozac, 90 cents cheaper. Lisinopril, another blood pressure medicine, 50 cents cheaper. And that's something that people need to remember. People forget sometime, generics is the exact same thing as a brand name.
HEMMER: Thanks, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cohen there at the CNN Center.
O'BRIEN: Well, how about this? So long South Beach Diet, adios to the Atkins Diet. You got to find out what they're doing with the Twinkies. I like that. I think I'm liking it already. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business," just ahead.
HEMMER: Also the tennis starlet-turned celebrity Anna Kournikova back in the news. Seems she's better up serving up rumors than aces. "90-Second Pop" takes a shot after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: See what we can do with satellite radio now? It's kind of cool. "90-Second Pop" on a Wednesday. Meet the real Fresh Prince. Andy Borowitz from BorowotzReport.com.
Good morning, Drew. How are you?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.
HEMMER: And the Princess Sarah Bernard, contributing editor for "New York" magazine. I'm sucking up now.
SARAH BERNARD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Oh, thank you.
HEMMER: And my man, Toured.
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: I was...
BERNARD: You don't get a title?
HEMMER: Pop culture correspondent.
TOURE: I don't get to be royalty?
HEMMER: Pop culture correspondent at CNN.
TOURE: Oh!
HEMMER: Take us to California. Josh Brolin and Diane Lane got into a bit of a scrap. What do we know that's fact on this?
TOURE: It's a -- I mean, the crazy kids had a rough night. You know, they had an argument.
HEMMER: Crazy.
TOURE: He pushed her.
HEMMER: Yes.
TOURE: She went to bed. He was upset that she was able to go to bed during the argument, which we all know is very upsetting.
BERNARD: I was going to say, a very big mistake.
TOURE: So then he then kicked her out of bed, at which point she called 911. And it became a whole other thing. I mean, you know, any sort of domestic abuse is sad. It's wrong. But, you know, it's Hollywood. So we all...
HEMMER: They said it was a misunderstanding? What? Are they living in Malibu?
BOROWITZ: Well, she meant to call 411? I mean, what does that mean?
BERNARD: It's the help line. I just think, you know, they've been married for four months.
HEMMER: Right.
BERNARD: That's really in Hollywood years, that's like 20 years.
BOROWITZ: That's an eternity.
HEMMER: There were...
BOROWITZ: This was one of the matrimonial success stories.
BERNARD: Right. They're reaching the end.
HEMMER: They were engaged, what, two years ago? They have been together a while.
BERNARD: Something like that. But, oh, the other thing that's interesting is...
HEMMER: Yes?
BERNARD: ... he is Barbara Streisand's...
BOROWITZ: Stepson.
BERNARD: ... stepson. And, you know "Meet the Fockers" comes out today. So this is actually just kind of like a little promo.
HEMMER: That's publicity.
BOROWITZ: A promo.
HEMMER: You know, Sarah...
BERNARD: Yes.
HEMMER: ... she's too good for him anyway.
BERNARD: Diane or Barbara?
HEMMER: Diane. Next topic, Anna Kournikova. What's happening here? Is she married or not?
BERNARD: I don't know.
HEMMER: And why do we care?
BERNARD: That's a good question. You know...
TOURE: Weren't you there?
BOROWITZ: I was there, yes.
BERNARD: Oh, right. He was the only person at the wedding.
BOROWITZ: I feel so betrayed.
BERNARD: He's so popular.
BOROWITZ: It was I took part in a sham obviously.
(CROSSTALK)
BERNARD: And so we're not sure. We were talking about how we thought that Anna and Enrique got married secretly in Mexico a week or two ago. And now it turns out that the ring she was wearing was a ring she had for a long time. And she just had it on her finger.
BOROWITZ: This, by the way, is what Diane Lane and Josh Brolin were arguing about, whether or not they were married. So it's kind of...
BERNARD: No, it's very intense. But, I mean, this is the kind of thing where she is a tennis star who doesn't play tennis. He's a pop star who hasn't had an album in two years.
HEMMER: I want that job.
TOURE: And hasn't had a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in much longer than that.
BERNARD: Yes.
HEMMER: So that's how they dribble things along for publicity these days, right? BERNARD: Right.
HEMMER: You ask them the question. They do not issue a denial.
BERNARD: Right.
TOURE: Part of the story is "US" versus "People." "People" is reporting this did not happen.
BERNARD: "US" magazine.
BOROWITZ: Right.
TOURE: Right, "US" magazine, not us.
BERNARD: That was like...
TOURE: "US" magazine. And so "People" is trying to embarrass "US" magazine, which got the scoop on this.
HEMMER: I have another question here. I'm sorry. I think I had asked it before. Does anyone really care?
TOURE: Hello!
HEMMER: See you, guys. Happy holidays. Here's Soledad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Happy holidays. Here's Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Well, we are waiting for those soldiers -- injured soldiers to arrive at Ramstein Air Base there, of course, en route to the Landstuhl Medical Center. We're told that lots of the soldiers need medical attention. Eight of them in critical condition. And there are developments in the story. We're going to continue to investigate what exactly is the cause of that attack in Mosul.
We're back in just a moment after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Twinkies are going gourmet. Plus a check of the market after a big surge. Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business." Should we talk about the market or talk about the Twinkies?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Well, I know you want to talk about the Twinkies.
O'BRIEN: You know I do.
SERWER: I can see that look. But we're going to talk about the markets first, Soledad. Let's go down to the big board on the corner of Broad and Wall and see what we're doing here. Well, just down a little bit this morning. GDP revised for the third quarter, a little bit higher, to four percent, just above 3.9, which is a first read on that. Big day yesterday on the street.
A little follow-up today for Fannie Mae. The CEO, Franklin Raines, left, I guess. The thinking there is the stock is up and they're getting the problems behind them. Microsoft down a little bit. A big ruling in Europe.
Twinkies, though, Twinkies. Let's talk Twinkies. One of Soledad's favorite subjects. Did you know that this spring, Twinkies will be 75 years young?
O'BRIEN: I did not know that.
SERWER: And to commemorate this very important day in American history, the good people at Interstate Bakeries, which is a company that's bankrupt, by the way -- they make Twinkies and Wonder Bread. Yeah, they've had tough times. They've come out with a Twinkie cookbook with all kinds of gourmet recipes there.
Let's check this out. Twinkie kabobs. The Twinkie kabob would be cubed Twinkies on spears with berries and kiwi. You don't cook them. There's Twinkie mousse. A pair of Twinkies in instant chocolate pudding, avec whipped crimped. There's some sort of Twinkie taco. And a Twinkie sushi. But we got to go, surprisingly. After that piece of information.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.
HEMMER: Andy, Andy. Getting news right now from Landstuhl, the largest American hospital base outside the U.S. This giant cargo plane just now, carrying the wounded from the attack yesterday, Mosul, Iraq. Matthew Chance is on the scene. Matthew reported a short time ago, 40 to 50 of the injured survivors will be landing there today. Also, seven or eight, we're told, in critical condition.
Matthew, if you're with us, what do you have there from Germany?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I can just about hear you over the noise of the engines of this C-141 starlifter (ph) aircraft, which has just touched down a few moments ago from the Iraqi air base in Balad, just north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, of course. On board, we understand, there are between 40 and 50 of the survivors, injured from that devastating attack in Mosul, which, of course, killed 22 people and injured another 72.
You can see, it's just taxiing along the runway now to take up position here at the Ramstein Air Force Base in southern Germany, where those patients on board, the injured, some of them severely injured according to doctors here, have received forewarning of the extent of the casualties. At least eight of them said to be in extremely critical condition on board that aircraft.
They're being waited for here by ambulances on the ground. They'll be loaded on to those ambulances and then taken the short distance to the Landstuhl Medical Facility, which is the biggest U.S. military hospital outside of the U.S. There, they'll receive the kind of intensive care, the kind of specialist treatment that they need in order to build up their strength and to make them stable enough to sustain a flight back home, back to the U.S., as soon as that's possible.
Now, for some of the people on board, that's not going to take very long at all. They basically need patching up, is what we've been told by medical officials here. And then sent on back to the United States. Others, though, those who injured a lot more seriously, will take several days, perhaps even several weeks, before they're fit enough to be medivacked out of Germany and into the United States.
Some of the injuries that the doctors are dealing with, stomach injuries, as a result of shrapnel. Some of them have been injured in the blast and so they have quite severe burns. Others have either lost limbs or may well have to lose their limbs in operations to follow. They'll be checking up, obviously, in as much detail as they can, giving them as much care as they can, at the Landstuhl Medical Facility over the coming days, to try and really give these people as much care as they can.
Now, it's interesting, because as we've been reporting, this was a kind of unexpected influx of casualties. It had been running -- the wards in Landstuhl had been running at quite a low level over this holiday period. There's not a big offensive under way in Iraq at the moment. There were no battles taking place and so the authorities weren't anticipating this rush of incidents.
But obviously, this has happened now and what they're saying is that they've had to rush to get all the staff available that they can. People who had been given Christmas leave, get them back into the medical facility, so that the right teams are prepared on the ground so that these individuals, these soldiers, can get the kind of medical treatment that they absolutely need. Back to you.
HEMMER: Good, Matthew. Matthew Chance on the scene there now. There is a lot of speculation as to what happened there at this time yesterday when the news first broke. Was it a rocket fired in that mess tent? Was it a mortar round? Or could it possibly have been an explosive device? A bomb of sort? That would have been inside that mess hall to bring the devastation that we talked about this time yesterday. And now we're seeing the aftermath. An all-too-familiar scene now at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
O'BRIEN: We're going to continue to monitor these live pictures, we're going to send down, though, to Daryn Kagan and Randi Kaye, they're at the CNN Center. They're going to take you through the next few hours while we sign off for this morning. Good morning, Daryn. Good morning, Randy.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 22, 2004 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a live picture at Evansville, Indiana, where some light and fluffy snow is falling, we're told, as Jacqui Jeras is reporting there for us this morning. We've got about six inches so far.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: And we're going to get more.
O'BRIEN: And A 100-mile swathe, I think is what she said. Huge, huge, huge.
Welcome back, everybody. Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.
In all that chaos in the attack in Mosul, a phone call. Lieutenant Sean Otto was there, didn't have much time, but he called his wife back home to tell her he was safe. She's telling us this morning about that conversation and just what it meant to her.
HEMMER: Also this morning, have we gotten the final word on importing prescription drugs? The administration now saying the price is just too high to do it safely. We'll talk to Elizabeth Cohen in a moment, find out whether or not the government's numbers add up. So stay tuned for that.
O'BRIEN: Carol Costello has the headlines for us.
Hello. Good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you. Now in the news, British Prime Minister Tony Blair taking part in a landmark visit to the Middle East. The prime minister arrived in Ramallah earlier for a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Blair is the first foreign leader to make the trip since the death of Arafat.
Earlier this morning, Blair met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He also announced an upcoming Middle East peace conference. That's set to take place in London.
The French government insisting it has not paid a ransom for the release of two journalists held hostage by insurgents in Iraq. The two men were released yesterday after four months in captivity. They're now heading home to France, expected to arrive in Paris shortly to a hero's welcome.
Another court hearing tomorrow for the woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and snatching her baby. Lisa Montgomery is facing a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death. Emotions running high in Maryville, Missouri. Some 300 mourners turned out to pay their last respects to the 23-year-old victim, who was buried yesterday.
And in sports, a Major League Baseball deal just ain't gonna happen. The L.A. Dodgers have withdrawn from a three-team, 10 player trade. It would have sent Randy Johnson, you know him better as the Big Unit, would have sent him from Arizona Diamondbacks to the New York Yankees. Dodgers' general manager says the deals just did not make sense for the team now. Part of me wants to go nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.
O'BRIEN: I was going to say, you're having a hard time keeping the glee out of your voice this morning.
HEMMER: Or taking the smile off your face.
O'BRIEN: She's so happy.
COSTELLO: You know, it's funny, when you talk to New Yorkers, even they understand why some people just hate the Yankees.
I'm sorry.
O'BRIEN: Don't be sorry.
COSTELLO: I'm a Detroit Tigers' fan, it's painful.
O'BRIEN: We hear you. We hear you.
HEMMER: Welcome to Manhattan.
COSTELLO: Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Carol.
This morning in Iraq, the FBI on the scene of Tuesday's deadly blast inside a dining tent at the U.S. military base in Mosul. They are searching for clues as to the exact cause of the attack. And they are ruling nothing out, including the possibility of a bomb planted inside the tent. Lieutenant Sean Otto, a Virginia National Guardsman, was on his way to the mess hall at the time of the attack. I spoke with his wife, Trish, earlier on AMERICAN MORNING about a critical phone call from her husband.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRISH OTTO, HUSBAND SURVIVED MOSUL ATTACK: He called and it was after the incident, because they were ahead of us. He called and said, Hi, honey I want to let you know I'm OK, and I love you very much. And immediately, I knew something was wrong. He said, I can't talk, but something bad has happened, and I can't talk right now. I have to go. I love you. And then he hung up.
O'BRIEN: So he couldn't be specific on the phone. What was it like for you when you discovered what had actually happened inside that tent?
OTTO: I was horrified. I was upset. I knew that he was OK. I didn't know if he was completely OK. But I was really upset for the soldiers. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next, if there was going to be another attack. I was just -- I was just filled with emotions, not knowing, like I said, what was going to happen next, when I was going to hear from him again, not knowing, you know, what the other families were thinking what was going on, knowing that they were not going to hear from their soldiers. I got a lucky call.
O'BRIEN: Have the two of you communicated since that lucky call?
OTTO: Last night, on the Internet, he I.M.d me a few times, and said he was OK, and they basically -- after they had everything under control, they had to go and complete the missions as usual.
O'BRIEN: How is he holding up? I know there was a newspaper article that was focusing on Shawn that actually had to be rewritten because he told the writer he felt very fortunate, very lucky, because he had not lost a man in the year-long deployment to Iraq. Obviously, now, not the case. How's he holding up?
OTTO: He's holding up really well. He's a very strong man, a very decent, honorable person. He would give his life for one of his soldiers. I think deep in his heart, he is hurting. But I could not tell that by his I.M.s. He just said, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I have to keep my men up, I have to their morale up, and we have to get the mission completed so we can come home.
O'BRIEN: And how are you holding up? One has to imagine that anytime you hear a news report, about anything happening where you think your husband might be, it's got to be a roller coaster. I mean, it must be really horrible.
OTTO: It is a roller coaster. I cried a lot of tears yesterday, mainly for the families that won't have soldiers coming back home to them, all the people out there serving our country. I just have so much love for them, giving their lives for us, and the ones that are just going to be coming home, and their family, thinking of everyone. My heart goes out to them, my prayer goes out to them. It's just full of emotion. I can only imagine what all the other families are going through right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Trish Otto, whose husband, Lieutenant Shawn Otto, was near yesterday's attack on the base in Mosul. By the way, Lieutenant Otto scheduled to return home sometime in mid-February. In just a few minutes, though, those who were injured in that attack are expected to arrive at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. We're going to have that for you when it happens, live.
(WEATHER REPORT)
O'BRIEN: All this week in our series, "They've Got the Goods," we're profiling people who made 2004 a year to remember. This morning, it's the man whose record-setting run on "Jeopardy" had the game show calling him daddy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX TREBEK, HOST, "JEOPARDY": Ken?
KEN JENNINGS, FMR. "JEOPARDY" CHAMP: What is cubism?
TREBEK: Ken?
JENNINGS: What is global warming?
TREBEK: Ken?
JENNINGS: What's a black hole?
O'BRIEN (voice-over): You've been living in a black hole if you don't know who Ken Jennings is. This summer and through the fall, he became a game show legend, winning 74 "Jeopardy" games.
How much money did you win at the end of the day?
JENNINGS: $2,520,700?
O'BRIEN (on camera): Oh, you know the number off the top of your head. Your like, umm...
JENNINGS: I know because I've had to do interviews like this, but I didn't know it until someone told me.
O'BRIEN: $2.5 million bucks -- what are you going to do with all of that money? Have you spent some of it already?
JENNINGS: That's a lot of money. Really haven't much.
O'BRIEN: You've been busy.
JENNINGS: I've been pretty busy. My wife and I do want to travel quite a bit. We'll probably go to Europe sometime next year.
O'BRIEN: OK, that's $2,000, done.
JENNINGS: Yes, I might take a few more trips to Europe to get down to the bottom. I don't really see myself buying a lot of toys and stuff with the money. I don't think people get happy because they own a lot of stuff, you know. I sort think it would be cool if the money could buy free time, you know, more time with my family, and less time working, you know, more time to work on things that interest me, working on a book, or whatever it is. That would be cool if it could finance some stuff like that.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): So after 150 competitors and a 92 percent right answer rate at the buzzer, how did it all end for Jennings?
TREBEK: Here is the clue, ladies and gentlemen. Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year. What is H&R Block? You're right. His final response was FedEx.
O'BRIEN (on camera): I've got to tell you, I am terrible at "Jeopardy," I mean horrifically bad. I thought that was an easy question. I was like, I got that question. I was yelling at the TV, I got the answer.
JENNINGS: If only I could have heard you, you know. Yes, I think it's the kind of thing that either comes to you or you don't.
O'BRIEN: How did you know the answers to all those questions? Because again, I thought the FedEx question -- the H&R Block that you answered, FedEx question was actually kind of easy, but there were some that were so incredibly tough that I was just amazed that you could get. How do you know the answers to that many questions across a really wide range?
JENNINGS: I guess you can see from the H&R Block question that, you know, nobody knows everything. Even if you think you're pretty good, you don't know everything.
But I guess I've just always been interested in a lot of different things. So maybe I sort of have a very shallow level of knowledge about a very wide range of subjects. Just because I'm interested in a lot of stuff, you tend to remember stuff about what you're interested in.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The final Jennings episode, November 30th, got a 13 share in major TV markets. The next day, it was down in the nines.
(on camera): You raised the ratings tremendously. Do people come up to you on the street. Has it been weird? Have you lost your privacy to a large degree? Do you like it? Do you hate it?
JENNINGS: You know, the whole experience has been so great that it seems like it would be ungrateful of me to quibble about anything. But I am sort of a quiet person at heart, and it's sort of hard to not be able to go out without double-takes and people pointing and stuff. But everyone's been very nice; it's not like everyone's been like, you suck, you ruined "Jeopardy." You know, people have been very congratulatory, which is good.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Up next for Jennings is a book for Random House, due in the summer of 2006.
JENNINGS: There will be some other thing. There's going to be a Ken trivia board game, I think. Can you beat Ken, that kind of thing, and do some public speaking. There's a lot of fun things. I'm looking forward to it.
O'BRIEN: You want to do a reality show?
JENNINGS: No, I would be perfectly happy to go back to the quiet life if that was the option.
O'BRIEN: "Fear Factor?"
JENNINGS: No, see, that's the great thing about "Jeopardy," you don't have to eat maggots, and they still give you lots of money.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Ken Jennings has just signed on as a spokesperson for Microsoft's "Encarta Electronic and Online Encyclopedia."
HEMMER: He's got some quick ones, too, doesn't he?
O'BRIEN: Can I tell you how much money that guy's going to make on top of the $2.5 million?
HEMMER: Very true. He had a great year?
O'BRIEN: Yes.
HEMMER: Understatement.
O'BRIEN: Yes, he did.
HEMMER: Imported drugs can be safer or cheaper, but not both. That's according to a new government study on legalizing prescription drug imports.
Elizabeth Cohen, back with us this morning, at the CNN Center.
What gives here, Elizabeth? Good morning.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, we've all heard about people from the United States going to Canada to import cheaper drug. And while now a report by the surgeon general says that, in fact, there's no way to monitor the safety of those drugs.
This is the issue, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't monitor how drugs are brought into Canada. For example, just to give you one example, the U.S. doesn't make sure that when the drugs are transported, that they're refrigerated at the right temperatures. Well, some people have proposed setting up a system whereby the U.S. could monitor to make sure that those Canadian imports are safe. But this report says that is not economically feasible. They say it's too expensive. It is possible, but it would just be too expensive. And even if you just decided to set up a monitoring system for a sliver of the importations, let's say just the most expensive or the most common drugs, they say it would still not work well, it would only save consumers about 1 percent of the cost, and they say that there's just no reason to do that, and it just wouldn't save people that much money.
So it's still status quo, the U.S. still says they can't monitor the safety of drugs Americans bring in from Canada -- Bill.
HEMMER: Help us shake down this angle of the story that does not get a lot of attention. Are some U.S. drugs in the U.S. actually cheaper than they are in other countries?
JENNINGS: That's right. That is definitely true. There are some generic drug that are cheaper in the United States. If you don't buy the brand name, if you buy the generic, it can definitely be cheaper. For example, Enalapril, a blood pressure medicine, is 80 cents cheaper if you get it in the U.S. Fluoxetine (ph), better known as Prozac, 90 cents cheaper. Lisinopril, another blood pressure medicine, 50 cents cheaper. And that's something that people need to remember. People forget sometime, generics is the exact same thing as a brand name.
HEMMER: Thanks, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cohen there at the CNN Center.
O'BRIEN: Well, how about this? So long South Beach Diet, adios to the Atkins Diet. You got to find out what they're doing with the Twinkies. I like that. I think I'm liking it already. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business," just ahead.
HEMMER: Also the tennis starlet-turned celebrity Anna Kournikova back in the news. Seems she's better up serving up rumors than aces. "90-Second Pop" takes a shot after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: See what we can do with satellite radio now? It's kind of cool. "90-Second Pop" on a Wednesday. Meet the real Fresh Prince. Andy Borowitz from BorowotzReport.com.
Good morning, Drew. How are you?
ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Good morning.
HEMMER: And the Princess Sarah Bernard, contributing editor for "New York" magazine. I'm sucking up now.
SARAH BERNARD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEW YORK" MAGAZINE: Oh, thank you.
HEMMER: And my man, Toured.
TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: I was...
BERNARD: You don't get a title?
HEMMER: Pop culture correspondent.
TOURE: I don't get to be royalty?
HEMMER: Pop culture correspondent at CNN.
TOURE: Oh!
HEMMER: Take us to California. Josh Brolin and Diane Lane got into a bit of a scrap. What do we know that's fact on this?
TOURE: It's a -- I mean, the crazy kids had a rough night. You know, they had an argument.
HEMMER: Crazy.
TOURE: He pushed her.
HEMMER: Yes.
TOURE: She went to bed. He was upset that she was able to go to bed during the argument, which we all know is very upsetting.
BERNARD: I was going to say, a very big mistake.
TOURE: So then he then kicked her out of bed, at which point she called 911. And it became a whole other thing. I mean, you know, any sort of domestic abuse is sad. It's wrong. But, you know, it's Hollywood. So we all...
HEMMER: They said it was a misunderstanding? What? Are they living in Malibu?
BOROWITZ: Well, she meant to call 411? I mean, what does that mean?
BERNARD: It's the help line. I just think, you know, they've been married for four months.
HEMMER: Right.
BERNARD: That's really in Hollywood years, that's like 20 years.
BOROWITZ: That's an eternity.
HEMMER: There were...
BOROWITZ: This was one of the matrimonial success stories.
BERNARD: Right. They're reaching the end.
HEMMER: They were engaged, what, two years ago? They have been together a while.
BERNARD: Something like that. But, oh, the other thing that's interesting is...
HEMMER: Yes?
BERNARD: ... he is Barbara Streisand's...
BOROWITZ: Stepson.
BERNARD: ... stepson. And, you know "Meet the Fockers" comes out today. So this is actually just kind of like a little promo.
HEMMER: That's publicity.
BOROWITZ: A promo.
HEMMER: You know, Sarah...
BERNARD: Yes.
HEMMER: ... she's too good for him anyway.
BERNARD: Diane or Barbara?
HEMMER: Diane. Next topic, Anna Kournikova. What's happening here? Is she married or not?
BERNARD: I don't know.
HEMMER: And why do we care?
BERNARD: That's a good question. You know...
TOURE: Weren't you there?
BOROWITZ: I was there, yes.
BERNARD: Oh, right. He was the only person at the wedding.
BOROWITZ: I feel so betrayed.
BERNARD: He's so popular.
BOROWITZ: It was I took part in a sham obviously.
(CROSSTALK)
BERNARD: And so we're not sure. We were talking about how we thought that Anna and Enrique got married secretly in Mexico a week or two ago. And now it turns out that the ring she was wearing was a ring she had for a long time. And she just had it on her finger.
BOROWITZ: This, by the way, is what Diane Lane and Josh Brolin were arguing about, whether or not they were married. So it's kind of...
BERNARD: No, it's very intense. But, I mean, this is the kind of thing where she is a tennis star who doesn't play tennis. He's a pop star who hasn't had an album in two years.
HEMMER: I want that job.
TOURE: And hasn't had a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in much longer than that.
BERNARD: Yes.
HEMMER: So that's how they dribble things along for publicity these days, right? BERNARD: Right.
HEMMER: You ask them the question. They do not issue a denial.
BERNARD: Right.
TOURE: Part of the story is "US" versus "People." "People" is reporting this did not happen.
BERNARD: "US" magazine.
BOROWITZ: Right.
TOURE: Right, "US" magazine, not us.
BERNARD: That was like...
TOURE: "US" magazine. And so "People" is trying to embarrass "US" magazine, which got the scoop on this.
HEMMER: I have another question here. I'm sorry. I think I had asked it before. Does anyone really care?
TOURE: Hello!
HEMMER: See you, guys. Happy holidays. Here's Soledad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HEMMER: Happy holidays. Here's Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Well, we are waiting for those soldiers -- injured soldiers to arrive at Ramstein Air Base there, of course, en route to the Landstuhl Medical Center. We're told that lots of the soldiers need medical attention. Eight of them in critical condition. And there are developments in the story. We're going to continue to investigate what exactly is the cause of that attack in Mosul.
We're back in just a moment after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: Twinkies are going gourmet. Plus a check of the market after a big surge. Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business." Should we talk about the market or talk about the Twinkies?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE": Well, I know you want to talk about the Twinkies.
O'BRIEN: You know I do.
SERWER: I can see that look. But we're going to talk about the markets first, Soledad. Let's go down to the big board on the corner of Broad and Wall and see what we're doing here. Well, just down a little bit this morning. GDP revised for the third quarter, a little bit higher, to four percent, just above 3.9, which is a first read on that. Big day yesterday on the street.
A little follow-up today for Fannie Mae. The CEO, Franklin Raines, left, I guess. The thinking there is the stock is up and they're getting the problems behind them. Microsoft down a little bit. A big ruling in Europe.
Twinkies, though, Twinkies. Let's talk Twinkies. One of Soledad's favorite subjects. Did you know that this spring, Twinkies will be 75 years young?
O'BRIEN: I did not know that.
SERWER: And to commemorate this very important day in American history, the good people at Interstate Bakeries, which is a company that's bankrupt, by the way -- they make Twinkies and Wonder Bread. Yeah, they've had tough times. They've come out with a Twinkie cookbook with all kinds of gourmet recipes there.
Let's check this out. Twinkie kabobs. The Twinkie kabob would be cubed Twinkies on spears with berries and kiwi. You don't cook them. There's Twinkie mousse. A pair of Twinkies in instant chocolate pudding, avec whipped crimped. There's some sort of Twinkie taco. And a Twinkie sushi. But we got to go, surprisingly. After that piece of information.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Andy.
HEMMER: Andy, Andy. Getting news right now from Landstuhl, the largest American hospital base outside the U.S. This giant cargo plane just now, carrying the wounded from the attack yesterday, Mosul, Iraq. Matthew Chance is on the scene. Matthew reported a short time ago, 40 to 50 of the injured survivors will be landing there today. Also, seven or eight, we're told, in critical condition.
Matthew, if you're with us, what do you have there from Germany?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I can just about hear you over the noise of the engines of this C-141 starlifter (ph) aircraft, which has just touched down a few moments ago from the Iraqi air base in Balad, just north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, of course. On board, we understand, there are between 40 and 50 of the survivors, injured from that devastating attack in Mosul, which, of course, killed 22 people and injured another 72.
You can see, it's just taxiing along the runway now to take up position here at the Ramstein Air Force Base in southern Germany, where those patients on board, the injured, some of them severely injured according to doctors here, have received forewarning of the extent of the casualties. At least eight of them said to be in extremely critical condition on board that aircraft.
They're being waited for here by ambulances on the ground. They'll be loaded on to those ambulances and then taken the short distance to the Landstuhl Medical Facility, which is the biggest U.S. military hospital outside of the U.S. There, they'll receive the kind of intensive care, the kind of specialist treatment that they need in order to build up their strength and to make them stable enough to sustain a flight back home, back to the U.S., as soon as that's possible.
Now, for some of the people on board, that's not going to take very long at all. They basically need patching up, is what we've been told by medical officials here. And then sent on back to the United States. Others, though, those who injured a lot more seriously, will take several days, perhaps even several weeks, before they're fit enough to be medivacked out of Germany and into the United States.
Some of the injuries that the doctors are dealing with, stomach injuries, as a result of shrapnel. Some of them have been injured in the blast and so they have quite severe burns. Others have either lost limbs or may well have to lose their limbs in operations to follow. They'll be checking up, obviously, in as much detail as they can, giving them as much care as they can, at the Landstuhl Medical Facility over the coming days, to try and really give these people as much care as they can.
Now, it's interesting, because as we've been reporting, this was a kind of unexpected influx of casualties. It had been running -- the wards in Landstuhl had been running at quite a low level over this holiday period. There's not a big offensive under way in Iraq at the moment. There were no battles taking place and so the authorities weren't anticipating this rush of incidents.
But obviously, this has happened now and what they're saying is that they've had to rush to get all the staff available that they can. People who had been given Christmas leave, get them back into the medical facility, so that the right teams are prepared on the ground so that these individuals, these soldiers, can get the kind of medical treatment that they absolutely need. Back to you.
HEMMER: Good, Matthew. Matthew Chance on the scene there now. There is a lot of speculation as to what happened there at this time yesterday when the news first broke. Was it a rocket fired in that mess tent? Was it a mortar round? Or could it possibly have been an explosive device? A bomb of sort? That would have been inside that mess hall to bring the devastation that we talked about this time yesterday. And now we're seeing the aftermath. An all-too-familiar scene now at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
O'BRIEN: We're going to continue to monitor these live pictures, we're going to send down, though, to Daryn Kagan and Randi Kaye, they're at the CNN Center. They're going to take you through the next few hours while we sign off for this morning. Good morning, Daryn. Good morning, Randy.
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