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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Mother, Daughters, Die in Californian Mudslides; U.S. Marines Unarmed in Indonesia; Fatal Crash on Florida Golf Course; U.S. Government Announces New Dietary Guidelines

Aired January 12, 2005 - 17:00 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.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. We're just learning about the victims of a landslide out in California. Coming up, the search for three little girls, and their mother comes to a heartbreaking ending.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): California calamity. A community buried under mud.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tragic. People we know that lost their lives, our friends that are gone from here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people who lived in this community are very strong. That's what I noticed right away. I mean, the first things they said was, you know, we'll be back.

BLITZER: From floods to fires, what's going on with the world's weather?

Before it was a disaster zone, it was a war zone. U.S. Marines give a helping hand in Indonesia. But should they go unarmed?

Emergency landing. A fatal crash on a Florida golf course. Is there a better way?

Cutback on cookies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you should do is you should get these bags of carrots.

BLITZER: The government tells you how to keep yourself and your kids healthy.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, January 12, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thanks for joining us. The sun is out in the West, but the mood is grim in parts of the region hard-hit by days of record- setting rain. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the coastal town of La Conchita where 15 homes were destroyed in Monday's spectacular and deadly mudslide. Round the clock rescue efforts continue there. But with no one pulled out alive in more than 12 hours, officials may soon switch to the recovery mode.

Aftereffects of the storm are also being felt elsewhere. Look at this, this Union Pacific train derailed 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, possibly because of the flooding. The railroad reports numerous washed out tracks and major delays in service. The focus right now continues to be the coastal town of La Conchita where 10 people are confirmed dead in Monday's mudslide, with as many as 10 more still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Hope took a beating early this morning when rescuers found the bodies of Michelle Wallet (ph) and her daughters, age 10 6 and 2. Husband and father Jimmy Wallet went out to get ice cream Monday when the slide hit. He had been on the scene round the clock ever since, searching alongside fire fighters for his wife and children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tragic. All the people we know that lost their lives, our friends that are gone from here.

BLITZER: Despite the grim discovery, rescue crews continue to probe the mud and debris, 30 feet deep in spots, with listening devices and cameras, searching for survivors.

CHIEF BOB ROPER, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: After talking with rescuers, they continue to find voids under the mud where some of the collapsed structures are creating these areas. As long as the rescuers continue to find these voids, we're holding out hope that we can find somebody still alive.

BLITZER: But that hope can't last forever. Officials plan to reevaluate the rescue operation at some point today. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured La Conchita this morning by air and on foot, seeing the destruction firsthand.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: They're very strong, the people that lived in this community are very strong. That's what I noticed right away. The first thing they said was we'll be back. We're not going to leave this community, no matter what anyone says.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: For the latest on the situation in La Conchita, let's go out there directly, Chief Steve Gage (ph) of the California Office of Emergency Services is standing by to give us an update.

Chief, thanks very much for joining us. Any hope of still finding someone alive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can hear him, but that...

BLITZER: Chief, I don't know if you can hear me. But if you can, is there still hope of finding someone out there alive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not coming through.

BLITZER: Unfortunately, we'll try to correct that audio problem with Chief Steve Gage, deputy chief of operations, California Office of Emergency Services, we'll work that out, get back to the chief in a moment.

After leaving California, the storm headed into other Western states. Floods have destroyed at least 18 homes and closed five bridges in southern Utah. Utah Governor John Huntsman flew over hard- hit Washington County and declared it a state disaster area, a first step toward obtaining federal relief.

Seven of Arizona's 15 counties have been declared states of emergency, the northwestern tip of the state suffered some of the worst flooding. Preliminary estimates put the damage in the state above $3.9 million. Hundreds of residents of Beaver Dam, Arizona, remain cut off from the rest of the state.

In the East, a new round of storms is causing rivers to rise again in Ohio. Some people who had returned to their homes after earlier flooding were forced to evacuate for a second time. Flood gates remain up in multiple locations along the Ohio River, including Cincinnati.

BLITZER: Add all that, deadly wildfires in Australia, strong winds in England, of course, last month's tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and some are wondering what's going on with the world's weather. CNN's Brian Todd is here to take a look at some of the questions that have been going on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Images that have terrified us. Southern California simply can't absorb some of its most devastating rainfall since records have been kept. Deadly mudslides swallowing subdivisions. Floods catch motorists, even rescue workers, by surprise. California's storms move inland, flooding and corrosion wash away houses in southern Utah. Some experts believe in the western U.S., at least, this all may be part of nature's cycles.

SANDI DUNCAN, FARMER'S ALMANAC: Mother nature kind of has a way of balancing out sort of the checkbook, so to say. In the past, for how many years, it's been so dry out there for so long. And it kind of seems like nature kind of does its thing and unfortunately too much too fast, but kind of balances back out.

TODD (on camera): But take a look elsewhere. Here on the East Coast, some people are acting like it's springtime, and it almost is. Temperatures in New York and here in D.C. expected to reach well into the 60s on Wednesday and Thursday. This is mid-January. So it has prompted us to ask meteorologists and climate experts, what's going on with the world's weather? (voice-over): Why would brush fires make this area of southern Australia look like another planet? Why are people in northern Europe, from Ireland, through the Baltics, picking up from their most violent storms in years, hurricane force winds and rain that have killed at least eight people? The experts we spoke to all say, take a deep breath, the world is not falling apart.

BOB LIVEZEY, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: All of this is business as usual. These are serious weather events but they're not unprecedented. They've happened before. They'll happen again.

TODD: The experts we spoke to say there is no connection between the South Asian tsunamis and the deluge in California. They say don't blame global warming for these events. The only connections in all of this, they tell us, jet streams, systems of strong winds in the upper atmosphere, they push extreme weather in certain directions.

LIVEZEY: What's causing it is a shift in the jet stream that extends all the way from the north Pacific to the eastern part of the United States.

TODD: A similar but separate branch of the jet stream pushed extreme weather into northern Europe. The bottom line advice from weather experts, don't panic. Most of this is coincidental. Oh, and folks on the East Coast, don't mothball those coats. It's going to get cold again this weekend.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we'll have much more on the extreme weather around the world tonight here on CNN, Aaron Brown will host a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT." That begins 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific tonight, only here on CNN.

Coming up, empty, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq officially comes to an end. We'll have details.

Unarmed in Indonesia. Are U.S. Marines helping tsunami victims putting themselves at risk? John King has details of that.

And searching for survivors. Our live coverage of the California mudslide will continue. I'll speak live with a fire fighter involved in the recovery efforts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: U.S. marines have been spearheading relief operations in Indonesia's disaster zone. Before the tsunami struck, that area was a combat zone. Are the marines now putting themselves at some risk? CNN's John King has the story from Banda Aceh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. military role here in the tsunami relief effort includes one compromise that might not sit well with military families back home in the United States and several sources of frustration. A marine spokesperson confirms to CNN that when the marines go ashore here for humanitarian missions, they do so unarmed. The marines say that decision was made because of political sensitivities here in Indonesia a country where anti-American sentiment runs quite high.

The spokesman went on to say that the marines are comfortable with so-called force protection and other security measures negotiated with the Indonesian military. Now as for those frustrations, as CNN reported earlier in the week, when the marines first arrived here, they could have come ashore sooner to provide relief sooner, but they had to wait to get permission. The marines also wanted to bring bulldozers and other construction equipment ashore to help build roads in a devastated coastal area west of Banda Aceh, but the Indonesian government denied that permission. They did, however, bring a medical field hospital ashore in that area and the marine general who is the commander of U.S. troops in all of Indonesia tells CNN that when you are operating in a sovereign country especially one that has had strained relations with the United States in recent years that he has to be both a soldier and a diplomat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there's a need to build trust to a certain extent, to offer a helping hand, to say we're here to support your efforts at your direction, where you need it. We have this capability that we can provide for you.

KING: Now as for that decision for the marines to go ashore here in Indonesia unarmed while on humanitarian missions, the marines again say they have negotiated security measures with the Indonesian military that they are comfortable with, but this is a conflict zone, a place where there is sporadic fighting between the Indonesian military and separatist rebels and military sources also tell us that while on shore, the marines are in close contact with ships just offshore and could call for help if necessary. John King, CNN, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: It was portrayed as a threat worthy of war. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now, quietly, the United States has given up the hunt. Let's go live to our White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We now know that the hunt officially ended last month and that the chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer is expected to provide a final report on that hunt, but it essential is going to be an addendum to what he concluded in October, and that conclusion is that there are no weapon stockpiles in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It was the president's central reason for war in Iraq. GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

BASH: Nearly two years later, the fruitless search for that WMD Mr. Bush warned of is officially over. The White House says Americans should hold out no hope anything will turn up.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Weapons that we all believe were there based on the intelligence, were not there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is my judgment that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stocks do not exist.

BASH: Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Iraq had no WMD back in October. Though the search continued, he is now back for good, his team largely reassigned to the Iraqi insurgency. The White House is standing by the president's decision for war just as he did in the heat of the campaign.

BUSH: Based on all the information we have today I believe we were right to take action. America is safer today with Saddam Hussein in prison.

BASH: Bush aides say they avoided fatal political damage by painting his opponent as having contradictory, confusing positions on Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Yes, I would have voted for the authority.

BASH: Now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats insist the president owes Americans what they call an overdue explanation.

SUSAN RICE, FMR. KERRY ADVISER: The American people never got a clear understanding of the reality in Iraq.

BASH: And some say whether or not this impairs Mr. Bush politically, it could hurt the U.S. in finding allies to confront other global threats.

DAVID GERGEN, FMR. PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has created a credibility problem for the United States. As it deals with other rogue nations that might develop nuclear weapons programs whether it's Iran or North Korea or possibly even Egypt.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And just as they did during the campaign, administration officials insist that this report does show that Saddam Hussein was a threat who intended, at least, to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction programs and they promise here at the White House that the intelligence panel Mr. Bush put together last year is going to conclude its work in March and will they hope show exactly why the intelligence was so wrong -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Dana Bash at the White House. Thanks very much.

Buried under walls of mud and debris, the frantic search for survivors of the Californian mudslide continuing this hour. I will speak live with a firefighter involved in the efforts.

Also ahead...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a flash of light. I thought somebody got struck by lightening or a car wreck, because it was just bam!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Crash landing. An engine problem leads to an emergency situation at a golf course. Why the accident, though, could have been avoided.

And up next, the most unselfish act. A young, terminally ill girl gives up her original wish and comes up with a new one to help victims of the tsunami. She and her mother will join me live. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The worldwide response of the Indian Ocean earthquake and the tsunami disaster has been staggering. Governments around the world have pledged almost $1 billion in relief aid perhaps as much as $2 billion and people from all walks of life have dug deep into their pockets to help. One of them is very special, indeed. Raquel Monell is 14 years old and terminally ill. She has donated her wish from the Make A Wish Foundation to the children of the tsunami disaster. Her $5,000 gift is what would normally be used to grant her wish. Raquel and her father Rafael Monell are joining us now live from Norfolk, Virginia. Thanks to both of you very much for joining us.

Raquel, I will start with you. How did you come up with this decision?

RAQUEL MONELL: Well, Make A Wish contacted me. And I decided to donate my money to those kids down in Asia.

BLITZER: What was your, Raquel, original wish that you would have liked to have through the Make A Wish Foundation?

RAQUEL MONELL: I wasn't sure. I was going back and forth between a cruise and anything else, but, you know, when this happened, I knew that my heart wanted to give it to those kids.

BLITZER: When did you make that decision, Raquel?

RAQUEL MONELL: Probably a little while after I saw the accident.

BLITZER: It's an amazing contribution on your part. I know it's from the heart. Let me ask your father, Rafael, walk us through this process, tell us how it happened from your perspective.

RAFAEL MONELL, RAQUEL'S FATHER: Yes. First of all, let me clarify. She is not terminally ill. She was diagnosed in 2002. Like she said, she had been struggling with whether she wanted to go on a cruise and we tried to coerce her, well, you need to call the Make A Wish folks and let them know what you want to do. Shortly after I would say last week, I came home and mom told me she had decided to donate whatever the monetary value was for the Make A Wish to the folks effected by the tsunami. I'm very proud of her that she made that decision. They surely need it more than we do.

BLITZER: We're all very proud of her. Rafael, what kind of disease does Raquel have?

RAFAEL MONELL: She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is a bone tumor in her right femur and went through a protocol of chemotherapy and a series of surgeries, but thank God she's healed and is doing well and back in school. That in itself is a gift. The token that she has decided to give the folks that really need, it's nothing really. It's something that they need and we don't actually need.

BLITZER: It's a gift, indeed. Raquel, how do you feel?

RAQUEL MONELL: I feel like this is going to a good cause. If it was me, I would have been happy for that moment, but this will make a difference in everybody down there's lives.

BLITZER: How do you feel physically? How is your recovery?

RAQUEL MONELL: I feel good. I'm up. I'm walking. I'm alive. I'm very blessed.

BLITZER: You are very blessed. Do you need more chemotherapy, more radiation, additional treatment or are you done with that kind of treatment?

RAQUEL MONELL: I'm done with all of it. I'm completely healed.

BLITZER: What grade are you in?

RAQUEL MONELL: I'm in tenth.

BLITZER: Tenth grade, all right. Good. You have a lot of homework, boyfriends and I think you have a lot of things going on in your life and you deserve a lot of credit for making this contribution to young kids who really need it. Do you have a final word, Rafael, on what you want to share with our viewers?

RAFAEL MONELL: I would say that if the time we took to come here and do this would spark just a spark of compassion in anyone's heart to give to those who need, then it was all worth it. It was for a good cause. So, I would pray that somebody, somewhere, not only in the Virginia area but across this nation, would get sparked with some compassion, and give because that's what truly this world is all about, and the rest of the world would see that we're really a compassionate nation and that's an inherent thing that God puts in us.

BLITZER: Rafael Monell, well said, indeed. Raquel Monell, thanks to you very much. You have been, indeed, an inspiration for all of us. Appreciate it very much. And good luck to both of you.

RAFAEL MONELL: Thank you, sir.

BLITZER: Thank you.

Buried under a wall of mud, the desperate search for survivors in La Conchita, California.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been an emotional roller coaster, but I got my family, you know. And we'll get through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll take you to the scene live and talk with a firefighter and his dog, Duke, who are searching through the rubble right now.

Plus, the federal government releases new nutrition guidelines, the recommendations for a healthier life for all of us. That's coming up ahead.

And later, no need to crashland. There's new technology, amazing technology that could save lives for people who fly in these kinds of smaller planes. Miles O'Brien standing by with a remarkable story of his own.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

A reputed former member of the Ku Klux Klan will go on trial in March in connection with the killings of three civil rights workers more than 40 years ago; 79-year-old Edgar Ray Killen is charged with killing the three young men outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. The killings focused national attention on the civil rights struggle then under way in the South.

The U.S. Transportation Department says there's no credible or specific intelligence indicating that recent uses of lasers being beamed into aircraft cockpits are linked to terrorists. Secretary Norm Mineta today said the more than 30 incidents since late last month appear to be the work of pranksters. He also unveiled new measures designed to alert and better prepare pilots to handle such incidents.

A New York bound British Airways flight was forced to turn back to London three hours into the flight because officials said one passenger was on the U.S. no-fly list of suspected terrorists. The plane landed safely at Heathrow Airport outside London. The man was questioned by police and then released.

Now back to our top story, the tragic aftermath of the storms and mudslides in California.

Jennifer Davis of CNN affiliate KCAL has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER DAVIS, KCAL REPORTER (voice-over): One o'clock this morning and the search for Jimmy Wallet's wife and three girls is under way. Frantic handoff of buckets. Jimmy is flanked by crews.

He has hardly paused to eat or even sip water since the mudslide. Rescuers listen and watch for any sign of life. Then, in one crushing moment, Jimmy stops for the first time in two days. A cadaver dog has made a hit, The body of his wife, Michelle, is carried out first. Then, his three daughters follow, 10-year-old Hanna, 6-year-old Raven. And Paloma was only 2.

Jimmy and his family were staying with friend Charlie Womack (ph). His home is buried in mud. He was one of the first fatalities of the slide.

Neighbors remember him well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Charlie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie was a very special, dear, wonderful, caring, loving, spiritual friend to the world. And he touched so many people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He took in homeless people. He took in so many people, those little girls that died and their mom.

DAVIS: A town reduced to rubble, neighbors, now survivors, each with a story to tell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched the dirt hit that wall and just bend that wall. Then I watched telephone poles just lift up out of the ground and shake like french fries in the air going down. And that's when I grabbed my kid and all we tried to do was just get out of the house as fast as we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, we're the lucky ones.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We feel so blessed and fortunate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're the lucky ones.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So many of our friends have gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: That report from Jennifer Davis from our CNN affiliate KCAL.

And coming up, we'll speak to one of the firefighters involved in this search effort. Also other news we're following, an important decision from the United States Supreme Court. Should judges be forced to use federal sentencing guidelines? I'll discuss today's ruling with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. He's standing by live.

Plus, an emergency landing that turned deadly. Can scenes like this one, though, be prevented?

And all health care professionals tell us proper diet and exercise are necessary for good health. So, what's new in the dietary guidelines just released by the federal government? Information you need to know -- all that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

More now on our top story, the devastation out in California. Howard Orr is a firefighter from California's Santa Barbara County. He and a search dog, Duke, came to Ventura County to try to help search for survivors. They're joining us now live from La Conchita, California.

Howard, thank you very much.

First of all, any hope, do you believe, based on what you've been doing personally, that there are still people alive perhaps under that mud?

HOWARD ORR, FIREFIGHTER: At this point, I still think there is a possibility.

Even today, we are still removing enough debris and actually opening up some voids, pockets of space that people can still have been surviving for the last couple of days. So, there are still possibilities. And we're not going to give up until all those voids have been explored.

BLITZER: Has anyone suggested when the deadline, when they think that they would stop the search operation and begin the recovery operation?

ORR: Initially, there was plans of at least 48 hours they would continue with the rescue operation, but as long as we continue to open up those spaces, I think we're going to continue in the rescue operation mode.

BLITZER: Have you heard anything? Have there been any sounds emanating from anywhere close to that disaster area?

ORR: Not that I'm aware of in the last day. We have been working the dogs and the sound equipment pretty regularly throughout the day, moving as much debris to open up some of those new spaces, but, as of yet, we have not heard any new noises today.

BLITZER: You're there with your dog, Duke. And I want our photographer there to show our viewers Duke. What exactly can he do, your dog, Duke, do, that humans can't do?

ORR: What Duke uses is his sense of smell. He is a chocolate Labrador retriever, 7.5 years old, trained by the Search Dog Foundation specifically for air scenting, for finding live human scent.

And to him, it's a game of hide and seek. He's looking for that live human scent. What he uses, his nose, we would use our eyes and our ears. So what we're limited on how far we can see and how fear we can hear, he can use his sense of smell. Someone buried 10 feet under debris who is unconscious, we may not see or hear.

However, we bring in dogs like Duke in. Using their sense of smell, they pick up that live human scent and they bark. It's like him telling me he has found them. And he will stay with that victim and that source until he is rewarded, until we know that there's somebody there. We will start removing debris where the dog indicates that he has found that scent.

BLITZER: What kind of track record does Duke and other dogs like Duke have, based on your personal experience? In other words, have they ever found someone alive and saved their lives?

ORR: As of today, Duke has not been on a mission that he has found someone alive yet. We train on a regular basis, two to three days a week, where we actually do bury live people in debris piles, rubble piles, buildings, etcetera, try mimicking the disaster as closely as possible. And in the case of this, this would something that we've mimicked before. We have seen the dogs' behavior. We seen them alert in areas where people are buried. So, we have every indication or every belief that if somebody was out there, we would see that same behavior today.

BLITZER: How unusual is this situation that you've seen, based on your own personal experience?

ORR: We get disasters like this with Duke and disaster search dogs about once a year. So, it's not a real common occurrence. The challenge is to stay prepared for incidents like this, things like New York, building collapses, etcetera. It's not a very common scenario to see buildings impacted with soil to this extent.

BLITZER: Howard Orr of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, who has been helping out, good luck to you and to all your colleagues.

ORR: Thank you.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much. Appreciate Duke as well.

ORR: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: In other news today, a major decision from a closely divided United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 vote, it ruled that, for years, federal judges have been improperly adding time to prison sentences. The court said judges cannot be forced to use federal sentencing guidelines, which apply to more than 60,000 criminal defendants each year. The Justice Department has argued that the guidelines are constitutional, but the court's ruling today casts doubt on the future of this controversial system.

Joining us now for some analysis from Miami, the famed Harvard Law Professor and high-profile defense attorney Alan Dershowitz. He is also a leading civil liberties advocate and his latest book is entitled "Rights From Wrong."

Thanks very much, Professor, for joining us.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, AUTHOR, "RIGHTS FROM WRONGS": Thank you.

BLITZER: How significant of a decision was this today?

DERSHOWITZ: It's a very significant decision, because it involves thousands and thousands of defendants who are sentenced. But it's a very confused decision.

It really shows a leaderless Supreme Court in disarray. You have a 5-4 decision which, as you said, says that a judge can't add years on to a sentence by making fact findings which are disputed by the defendant. But then a dissenting judge gets to decide how this decision gets implemented, the dissenting judge. And he writes a decision which effectively overrules the majority decision. And the majority justice dissents from that.

You get four judges on one side, four on the other and one justice, Justice Ginsburg, joining both decisions and not writing anything to explain how she can joining two irreconcilable decisions.

BLITZER: The health problems of the chief justice, Rehnquist, is that a factor, you believe, in any of this?

DERSHOWITZ: Well, it may be.

There was no leadership shown in this decision. Here, you just have eight individual justices, nine with the chief justice, just going their own ways, giving very, very little guidance. I can tell you that my phone has been ringing off the hook from lawyers, clients, potential clients, just raising their hands and saying, what do we do now?

And what you do now is litigate. You're going to see case after case going into court, trying to understand how you can reconcile the court's majority decision on the merits with its majority decision on the remedy, which seem irreconcilable.

BLITZER: So, in other words, a lot of prisoners right now who are serving time, their lawyers and others, they are going to be seeking a way out because of this decision?

DERSHOWITZ: That's right.

And there are really four or five categories of people who are in prison, those who haven't yet been convicted, those who have been convicted, but not yet sentenced, those who have been sentenced, but their appeals aren't final, and those whose appeals are final. And the court gives a little bit of guidance about how those different kinds of cases should be dealt with.

But, again, you're going to get enormous, enormous confusion. And probably, in the end, Congress is going to have to go back to square one and say, look, this system just doesn't seem to make sense. We're going to have to decide how to make it rational, how to make it consistent with the constitutional rule that you can't give judges the power to increase sentences by making disputed fact findings.

That power either has to get with a jury or as -- that's what the majority said. But then the second majority said, you don't have to do it that way as long as you leave it discretionary with the judges. So, the judges can do the same thing they've been doing up to now. All they have to do is learn how to use a few magic words. Aha, it's discretionary. We're not really following the guidelines. We're just listening to the guidelines a little bit.

And then there was also something about a new standard for appellate review, which is going to keep the court of appeals busy, too. This is going to be a very big mess in terms of cases coming to the courts and hard decisions about how to resolve them.

BLITZER: All right. Professor Dershowitz, is there a high- profile case that comes to your mind, someone who is serving prison right now who you think is going to automatically go ahead and seek some sort of appeal based on today's Supreme Court decision?

DERSHOWITZ: I can tell you that hundreds of defendants, high and low profile, are going to seek remedies. The question is whether they'll get them.

Different courts -- we have many circuit courts. We have hundreds of district court judges. And right now, if a district court judge were to call and say -- you know, ask me or ask one of my colleagues how to rule in one of those disputed cases, it would be very, very hard to give advice and judgment.

So, we're going to get conflicting decisions probably over the next two or three years. Then it will get back to the Supreme Court. And, in the meantime, Congress may have to clean up the mess. The problem is that, in Congress, no Congress person or senator has ever lost an election for being too tough on crime or won an election for being too fair or too lenient.

So, probably we're just going to get kind of a knee-jerk approach in which harsher sentences are going to be legislated in a way to avoid the Constitution.

BLITZER: The whole federal sentencing guideline laws in the '80s that went into effect were designed to make sure that if two criminals commit the same act in two different states, they both have the same kind of sentence, as opposed to wildly different kinds of sentences.

DERSHOWITZ: Absolutely right. And that's why Justice Breyer, who dissented from the substantive decision, but wrote the decision about the remedy, said the best way to do it is to now leave it discretionary with the judges.

He seems to me what he was doing, with a wink and a nod to the was judges, saying, look, it's discretionary, but you ought to follow the guidelines. He, after all, helped draft the guidelines, Justice Breyer. He was with Senator Kennedy when Senator Kennedy passed the guidelines. And it's so interesting, because this is not a liberal- conservative issue. The breakdown of the court was not liberal- conservative, nor was the enactment of the statute liberal- conservative.

So, here you have a breakdown of the kind of traditional alliances on the court as well. It's a fascinating, fascinating decision. I can tell you, the law professors are going to have a ball. This is going to be the first case I assign my students when I get back in February to teach first-year criminal law.

BLITZER: They better start reading the opinions right now.

Thanks very much.

DERSHOWITZ: And understanding them, right.

BLITZER: That's right. That's another matter.

Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, appreciate it very much.

DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.

BLITZER: A majority of Americans are overweight. We all know that. Now the federal government is taking a new action to try to fight the epidemic. Details of brand new nutritional guidelines, that's coming up.

And Deep Impact lifts off heading for deep space. Look at this. We'll tell you about an exciting new space mission that is occurring right now.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Eat your vegetables, we have been hearing that since we were kids. But that advice still holds. And for a nation that's overweight and unfit, the federal government added some new ingredients to the recipe.

CNN's Sumi Das reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of...

ANN VENEMAN, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: Grains.

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Grains. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Grain.

SUMI DAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's the government's message. But turn on your TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)

NARRATOR: Part of this good breakfast with 12 key vitamins and minerals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAS: The new dietary guidelines for Americans announced by the secretaries of agriculture and health and human services aren't complicated.

THOMPSON: You lower your calorie intake. You lower your fats, your carbs. You eat more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and you exercise. And that is as simple as it can be.

DAS: Not much has changed from the guidelines published five years ago, but certain recommendations have been underscored, whole grains, calorie counting and sensible carbs.

(on camera): Which means no dining at the vending machine. But with one of these at every turn, how do you make people, especially kids, listen?

VENEMAN: That is really the $24,000 question.

DAS: A question made tougher by advertising.

MARGO WOOTAN, CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: Over the last 10 years, the amount of marketing aimed at children has doubled, from about $7 billion a year to $15 billion a year. About half of that is for food. And almost all of the food ads are for foods of poor nutritional quality.

DAS: How do you escape nearly 8 billion ad dollars? By making the right choices.

THOMPSON: Our medicines are no farther away than the shelves of the grocery and the sidewalks that we can use for a brisk walk.

KATHERINE TALLMADGE, AMERICAN DIETETIC ASSOCIATION: I hope these guidelines bring everyone down to earth and help them understand that variety is the spice of life.

DAS: That may be the cure to solving the obesity epidemic that affects almost two-thirds of Americans.

Sumi Das, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Authorities are investigating a deadly plane crash near Orlando, Florida. It was taped by a local television station.

As CNN's Miles O'Brien reports, the death might have been prevented by some relatively new technology.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With their oil pressure plummeting and their single-engine sputtering, pilot Steve Schieber and Dan Lawlor looked for a clearing and pointed their Cessna 172 toward a golf course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a flash of light, I thought it was somebody that got struck by lightning or a car wreck, because it was just -- all of a sudden, it was just bam.

O'BRIEN: Astonished, yet spurred on by adrenaline, some regular folks, turned heroes, sprinted to their rescue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was smoldering. And we saw the gas dripping out. And that was -- we were -- you know, it's just what you do when you have to do what you have to do.

O'BRIEN: Schieber lived to tell the tale. Lawlor did not. It might have been a happier ending if the plane had been equipped with one of these, a parachute designed to carry a plane and its occupants toward a gentle landing when all else fails.

LIONEL MORRISON, PILOT: And when the rocket goes off -- it's a rocket-propelled system -- it's a wonderful sound, because you know at least the first phase of the process has worked. And, for me, it was especially gratifying, since no one had done it before.

O'BRIEN: That's Lionel Morrison. Two years ago, he made history by not becoming history, pulling the lever and launching the shoot on his crippled Cirrus aircraft in Texas.

MORRISON: Bringing the airplane safely to ground would have been, oh, gosh, probably less than 50 percent chance of that happening.

O'BRIEN: Morrison was flying a four-seater with a pioneering standard feature, a built-in parachute.

ALAN KLAPMEIER, CEO, CIRRUS DESIGN CORPORATION: The idea on our part came about in at least in significant part because I had a midair collision in 1984.

O'BRIEN: Alan Klapmeier is the CEO and founder of Cirrus Design. His midair collision was a rare event.

KLAPMEIER: But, of course, when it happens, you've only got one choice, and that's the parachute.

O'BRIEN: Besides Lionel Morrison, three other Cirrus pilots have pulled their chutes and a total of eight people believe they owe life or limb to this safety feature. KLAPMEIER: It is a fantastic feeling knowing it's there.

O'BRIEN: Pilots apparently agree. As a matter of fact, I'm a part owner of one myself. Cirrus is now the second largest builder of small single-engine planes. And owners of Cessnas, like this one, can now have a chute installed. It's not cheap, about $15,000, but a bargain if it had saved a life.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: I didn't know there were parachutes for these small planes, but they're incredibly impressive. Thanks very much, Miles.

Cosmic collision. NASA launches a new space mission. We'll have details of that. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Our picture of the day is from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A NASA rocket took off today carrying a probe called Deep Impact. It's scheduled to collide with a comet millions of miles from Earth on the 4th of July, producing a huge crater. Scientists are hoping the mission will provide valuable information about what's inside the comet's core.

That's it for me. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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 January 12, 2005 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now. We're just learning about the victims of a landslide out in California. Coming up, the search for three little girls, and their mother comes to a heartbreaking ending.
Stand by for hard news on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): California calamity. A community buried under mud.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tragic. People we know that lost their lives, our friends that are gone from here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people who lived in this community are very strong. That's what I noticed right away. I mean, the first things they said was, you know, we'll be back.

BLITZER: From floods to fires, what's going on with the world's weather?

Before it was a disaster zone, it was a war zone. U.S. Marines give a helping hand in Indonesia. But should they go unarmed?

Emergency landing. A fatal crash on a Florida golf course. Is there a better way?

Cutback on cookies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you should do is you should get these bags of carrots.

BLITZER: The government tells you how to keep yourself and your kids healthy.

ANNOUNCER: This is WOLF BLITZER REPORTS for Wednesday, January 12, 2005.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thanks for joining us. The sun is out in the West, but the mood is grim in parts of the region hard-hit by days of record- setting rain. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the coastal town of La Conchita where 15 homes were destroyed in Monday's spectacular and deadly mudslide. Round the clock rescue efforts continue there. But with no one pulled out alive in more than 12 hours, officials may soon switch to the recovery mode.

Aftereffects of the storm are also being felt elsewhere. Look at this, this Union Pacific train derailed 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, possibly because of the flooding. The railroad reports numerous washed out tracks and major delays in service. The focus right now continues to be the coastal town of La Conchita where 10 people are confirmed dead in Monday's mudslide, with as many as 10 more still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): Hope took a beating early this morning when rescuers found the bodies of Michelle Wallet (ph) and her daughters, age 10 6 and 2. Husband and father Jimmy Wallet went out to get ice cream Monday when the slide hit. He had been on the scene round the clock ever since, searching alongside fire fighters for his wife and children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tragic. All the people we know that lost their lives, our friends that are gone from here.

BLITZER: Despite the grim discovery, rescue crews continue to probe the mud and debris, 30 feet deep in spots, with listening devices and cameras, searching for survivors.

CHIEF BOB ROPER, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPT.: After talking with rescuers, they continue to find voids under the mud where some of the collapsed structures are creating these areas. As long as the rescuers continue to find these voids, we're holding out hope that we can find somebody still alive.

BLITZER: But that hope can't last forever. Officials plan to reevaluate the rescue operation at some point today. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured La Conchita this morning by air and on foot, seeing the destruction firsthand.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: They're very strong, the people that lived in this community are very strong. That's what I noticed right away. The first thing they said was we'll be back. We're not going to leave this community, no matter what anyone says.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: For the latest on the situation in La Conchita, let's go out there directly, Chief Steve Gage (ph) of the California Office of Emergency Services is standing by to give us an update.

Chief, thanks very much for joining us. Any hope of still finding someone alive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can hear him, but that...

BLITZER: Chief, I don't know if you can hear me. But if you can, is there still hope of finding someone out there alive?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not coming through.

BLITZER: Unfortunately, we'll try to correct that audio problem with Chief Steve Gage, deputy chief of operations, California Office of Emergency Services, we'll work that out, get back to the chief in a moment.

After leaving California, the storm headed into other Western states. Floods have destroyed at least 18 homes and closed five bridges in southern Utah. Utah Governor John Huntsman flew over hard- hit Washington County and declared it a state disaster area, a first step toward obtaining federal relief.

Seven of Arizona's 15 counties have been declared states of emergency, the northwestern tip of the state suffered some of the worst flooding. Preliminary estimates put the damage in the state above $3.9 million. Hundreds of residents of Beaver Dam, Arizona, remain cut off from the rest of the state.

In the East, a new round of storms is causing rivers to rise again in Ohio. Some people who had returned to their homes after earlier flooding were forced to evacuate for a second time. Flood gates remain up in multiple locations along the Ohio River, including Cincinnati.

BLITZER: Add all that, deadly wildfires in Australia, strong winds in England, of course, last month's tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and some are wondering what's going on with the world's weather. CNN's Brian Todd is here to take a look at some of the questions that have been going on.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Images that have terrified us. Southern California simply can't absorb some of its most devastating rainfall since records have been kept. Deadly mudslides swallowing subdivisions. Floods catch motorists, even rescue workers, by surprise. California's storms move inland, flooding and corrosion wash away houses in southern Utah. Some experts believe in the western U.S., at least, this all may be part of nature's cycles.

SANDI DUNCAN, FARMER'S ALMANAC: Mother nature kind of has a way of balancing out sort of the checkbook, so to say. In the past, for how many years, it's been so dry out there for so long. And it kind of seems like nature kind of does its thing and unfortunately too much too fast, but kind of balances back out.

TODD (on camera): But take a look elsewhere. Here on the East Coast, some people are acting like it's springtime, and it almost is. Temperatures in New York and here in D.C. expected to reach well into the 60s on Wednesday and Thursday. This is mid-January. So it has prompted us to ask meteorologists and climate experts, what's going on with the world's weather? (voice-over): Why would brush fires make this area of southern Australia look like another planet? Why are people in northern Europe, from Ireland, through the Baltics, picking up from their most violent storms in years, hurricane force winds and rain that have killed at least eight people? The experts we spoke to all say, take a deep breath, the world is not falling apart.

BOB LIVEZEY, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: All of this is business as usual. These are serious weather events but they're not unprecedented. They've happened before. They'll happen again.

TODD: The experts we spoke to say there is no connection between the South Asian tsunamis and the deluge in California. They say don't blame global warming for these events. The only connections in all of this, they tell us, jet streams, systems of strong winds in the upper atmosphere, they push extreme weather in certain directions.

LIVEZEY: What's causing it is a shift in the jet stream that extends all the way from the north Pacific to the eastern part of the United States.

TODD: A similar but separate branch of the jet stream pushed extreme weather into northern Europe. The bottom line advice from weather experts, don't panic. Most of this is coincidental. Oh, and folks on the East Coast, don't mothball those coats. It's going to get cold again this weekend.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And we'll have much more on the extreme weather around the world tonight here on CNN, Aaron Brown will host a special edition of "NEWSNIGHT." That begins 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific tonight, only here on CNN.

Coming up, empty, the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq officially comes to an end. We'll have details.

Unarmed in Indonesia. Are U.S. Marines helping tsunami victims putting themselves at risk? John King has details of that.

And searching for survivors. Our live coverage of the California mudslide will continue. I'll speak live with a fire fighter involved in the recovery efforts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: U.S. marines have been spearheading relief operations in Indonesia's disaster zone. Before the tsunami struck, that area was a combat zone. Are the marines now putting themselves at some risk? CNN's John King has the story from Banda Aceh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. military role here in the tsunami relief effort includes one compromise that might not sit well with military families back home in the United States and several sources of frustration. A marine spokesperson confirms to CNN that when the marines go ashore here for humanitarian missions, they do so unarmed. The marines say that decision was made because of political sensitivities here in Indonesia a country where anti-American sentiment runs quite high.

The spokesman went on to say that the marines are comfortable with so-called force protection and other security measures negotiated with the Indonesian military. Now as for those frustrations, as CNN reported earlier in the week, when the marines first arrived here, they could have come ashore sooner to provide relief sooner, but they had to wait to get permission. The marines also wanted to bring bulldozers and other construction equipment ashore to help build roads in a devastated coastal area west of Banda Aceh, but the Indonesian government denied that permission. They did, however, bring a medical field hospital ashore in that area and the marine general who is the commander of U.S. troops in all of Indonesia tells CNN that when you are operating in a sovereign country especially one that has had strained relations with the United States in recent years that he has to be both a soldier and a diplomat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there's a need to build trust to a certain extent, to offer a helping hand, to say we're here to support your efforts at your direction, where you need it. We have this capability that we can provide for you.

KING: Now as for that decision for the marines to go ashore here in Indonesia unarmed while on humanitarian missions, the marines again say they have negotiated security measures with the Indonesian military that they are comfortable with, but this is a conflict zone, a place where there is sporadic fighting between the Indonesian military and separatist rebels and military sources also tell us that while on shore, the marines are in close contact with ships just offshore and could call for help if necessary. John King, CNN, Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: It was portrayed as a threat worthy of war. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now, quietly, the United States has given up the hunt. Let's go live to our White House correspondent Dana Bash -- Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We now know that the hunt officially ended last month and that the chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer is expected to provide a final report on that hunt, but it essential is going to be an addendum to what he concluded in October, and that conclusion is that there are no weapon stockpiles in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): It was the president's central reason for war in Iraq. GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

BASH: Nearly two years later, the fruitless search for that WMD Mr. Bush warned of is officially over. The White House says Americans should hold out no hope anything will turn up.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Weapons that we all believe were there based on the intelligence, were not there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is my judgment that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) stocks do not exist.

BASH: Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Iraq had no WMD back in October. Though the search continued, he is now back for good, his team largely reassigned to the Iraqi insurgency. The White House is standing by the president's decision for war just as he did in the heat of the campaign.

BUSH: Based on all the information we have today I believe we were right to take action. America is safer today with Saddam Hussein in prison.

BASH: Bush aides say they avoided fatal political damage by painting his opponent as having contradictory, confusing positions on Iraq.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Yes, I would have voted for the authority.

BASH: Now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats insist the president owes Americans what they call an overdue explanation.

SUSAN RICE, FMR. KERRY ADVISER: The American people never got a clear understanding of the reality in Iraq.

BASH: And some say whether or not this impairs Mr. Bush politically, it could hurt the U.S. in finding allies to confront other global threats.

DAVID GERGEN, FMR. PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has created a credibility problem for the United States. As it deals with other rogue nations that might develop nuclear weapons programs whether it's Iran or North Korea or possibly even Egypt.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And just as they did during the campaign, administration officials insist that this report does show that Saddam Hussein was a threat who intended, at least, to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction programs and they promise here at the White House that the intelligence panel Mr. Bush put together last year is going to conclude its work in March and will they hope show exactly why the intelligence was so wrong -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Dana Bash at the White House. Thanks very much.

Buried under walls of mud and debris, the frantic search for survivors of the Californian mudslide continuing this hour. I will speak live with a firefighter involved in the efforts.

Also ahead...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a flash of light. I thought somebody got struck by lightening or a car wreck, because it was just bam!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Crash landing. An engine problem leads to an emergency situation at a golf course. Why the accident, though, could have been avoided.

And up next, the most unselfish act. A young, terminally ill girl gives up her original wish and comes up with a new one to help victims of the tsunami. She and her mother will join me live. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The worldwide response of the Indian Ocean earthquake and the tsunami disaster has been staggering. Governments around the world have pledged almost $1 billion in relief aid perhaps as much as $2 billion and people from all walks of life have dug deep into their pockets to help. One of them is very special, indeed. Raquel Monell is 14 years old and terminally ill. She has donated her wish from the Make A Wish Foundation to the children of the tsunami disaster. Her $5,000 gift is what would normally be used to grant her wish. Raquel and her father Rafael Monell are joining us now live from Norfolk, Virginia. Thanks to both of you very much for joining us.

Raquel, I will start with you. How did you come up with this decision?

RAQUEL MONELL: Well, Make A Wish contacted me. And I decided to donate my money to those kids down in Asia.

BLITZER: What was your, Raquel, original wish that you would have liked to have through the Make A Wish Foundation?

RAQUEL MONELL: I wasn't sure. I was going back and forth between a cruise and anything else, but, you know, when this happened, I knew that my heart wanted to give it to those kids.

BLITZER: When did you make that decision, Raquel?

RAQUEL MONELL: Probably a little while after I saw the accident.

BLITZER: It's an amazing contribution on your part. I know it's from the heart. Let me ask your father, Rafael, walk us through this process, tell us how it happened from your perspective.

RAFAEL MONELL, RAQUEL'S FATHER: Yes. First of all, let me clarify. She is not terminally ill. She was diagnosed in 2002. Like she said, she had been struggling with whether she wanted to go on a cruise and we tried to coerce her, well, you need to call the Make A Wish folks and let them know what you want to do. Shortly after I would say last week, I came home and mom told me she had decided to donate whatever the monetary value was for the Make A Wish to the folks effected by the tsunami. I'm very proud of her that she made that decision. They surely need it more than we do.

BLITZER: We're all very proud of her. Rafael, what kind of disease does Raquel have?

RAFAEL MONELL: She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is a bone tumor in her right femur and went through a protocol of chemotherapy and a series of surgeries, but thank God she's healed and is doing well and back in school. That in itself is a gift. The token that she has decided to give the folks that really need, it's nothing really. It's something that they need and we don't actually need.

BLITZER: It's a gift, indeed. Raquel, how do you feel?

RAQUEL MONELL: I feel like this is going to a good cause. If it was me, I would have been happy for that moment, but this will make a difference in everybody down there's lives.

BLITZER: How do you feel physically? How is your recovery?

RAQUEL MONELL: I feel good. I'm up. I'm walking. I'm alive. I'm very blessed.

BLITZER: You are very blessed. Do you need more chemotherapy, more radiation, additional treatment or are you done with that kind of treatment?

RAQUEL MONELL: I'm done with all of it. I'm completely healed.

BLITZER: What grade are you in?

RAQUEL MONELL: I'm in tenth.

BLITZER: Tenth grade, all right. Good. You have a lot of homework, boyfriends and I think you have a lot of things going on in your life and you deserve a lot of credit for making this contribution to young kids who really need it. Do you have a final word, Rafael, on what you want to share with our viewers?

RAFAEL MONELL: I would say that if the time we took to come here and do this would spark just a spark of compassion in anyone's heart to give to those who need, then it was all worth it. It was for a good cause. So, I would pray that somebody, somewhere, not only in the Virginia area but across this nation, would get sparked with some compassion, and give because that's what truly this world is all about, and the rest of the world would see that we're really a compassionate nation and that's an inherent thing that God puts in us.

BLITZER: Rafael Monell, well said, indeed. Raquel Monell, thanks to you very much. You have been, indeed, an inspiration for all of us. Appreciate it very much. And good luck to both of you.

RAFAEL MONELL: Thank you, sir.

BLITZER: Thank you.

Buried under a wall of mud, the desperate search for survivors in La Conchita, California.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been an emotional roller coaster, but I got my family, you know. And we'll get through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We'll take you to the scene live and talk with a firefighter and his dog, Duke, who are searching through the rubble right now.

Plus, the federal government releases new nutrition guidelines, the recommendations for a healthier life for all of us. That's coming up ahead.

And later, no need to crashland. There's new technology, amazing technology that could save lives for people who fly in these kinds of smaller planes. Miles O'Brien standing by with a remarkable story of his own.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

A reputed former member of the Ku Klux Klan will go on trial in March in connection with the killings of three civil rights workers more than 40 years ago; 79-year-old Edgar Ray Killen is charged with killing the three young men outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964. The killings focused national attention on the civil rights struggle then under way in the South.

The U.S. Transportation Department says there's no credible or specific intelligence indicating that recent uses of lasers being beamed into aircraft cockpits are linked to terrorists. Secretary Norm Mineta today said the more than 30 incidents since late last month appear to be the work of pranksters. He also unveiled new measures designed to alert and better prepare pilots to handle such incidents.

A New York bound British Airways flight was forced to turn back to London three hours into the flight because officials said one passenger was on the U.S. no-fly list of suspected terrorists. The plane landed safely at Heathrow Airport outside London. The man was questioned by police and then released.

Now back to our top story, the tragic aftermath of the storms and mudslides in California.

Jennifer Davis of CNN affiliate KCAL has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER DAVIS, KCAL REPORTER (voice-over): One o'clock this morning and the search for Jimmy Wallet's wife and three girls is under way. Frantic handoff of buckets. Jimmy is flanked by crews.

He has hardly paused to eat or even sip water since the mudslide. Rescuers listen and watch for any sign of life. Then, in one crushing moment, Jimmy stops for the first time in two days. A cadaver dog has made a hit, The body of his wife, Michelle, is carried out first. Then, his three daughters follow, 10-year-old Hanna, 6-year-old Raven. And Paloma was only 2.

Jimmy and his family were staying with friend Charlie Womack (ph). His home is buried in mud. He was one of the first fatalities of the slide.

Neighbors remember him well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Charlie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie was a very special, dear, wonderful, caring, loving, spiritual friend to the world. And he touched so many people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He took in homeless people. He took in so many people, those little girls that died and their mom.

DAVIS: A town reduced to rubble, neighbors, now survivors, each with a story to tell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched the dirt hit that wall and just bend that wall. Then I watched telephone poles just lift up out of the ground and shake like french fries in the air going down. And that's when I grabbed my kid and all we tried to do was just get out of the house as fast as we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, we're the lucky ones.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We feel so blessed and fortunate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're the lucky ones.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So many of our friends have gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: That report from Jennifer Davis from our CNN affiliate KCAL.

And coming up, we'll speak to one of the firefighters involved in this search effort. Also other news we're following, an important decision from the United States Supreme Court. Should judges be forced to use federal sentencing guidelines? I'll discuss today's ruling with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. He's standing by live.

Plus, an emergency landing that turned deadly. Can scenes like this one, though, be prevented?

And all health care professionals tell us proper diet and exercise are necessary for good health. So, what's new in the dietary guidelines just released by the federal government? Information you need to know -- all that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

More now on our top story, the devastation out in California. Howard Orr is a firefighter from California's Santa Barbara County. He and a search dog, Duke, came to Ventura County to try to help search for survivors. They're joining us now live from La Conchita, California.

Howard, thank you very much.

First of all, any hope, do you believe, based on what you've been doing personally, that there are still people alive perhaps under that mud?

HOWARD ORR, FIREFIGHTER: At this point, I still think there is a possibility.

Even today, we are still removing enough debris and actually opening up some voids, pockets of space that people can still have been surviving for the last couple of days. So, there are still possibilities. And we're not going to give up until all those voids have been explored.

BLITZER: Has anyone suggested when the deadline, when they think that they would stop the search operation and begin the recovery operation?

ORR: Initially, there was plans of at least 48 hours they would continue with the rescue operation, but as long as we continue to open up those spaces, I think we're going to continue in the rescue operation mode.

BLITZER: Have you heard anything? Have there been any sounds emanating from anywhere close to that disaster area?

ORR: Not that I'm aware of in the last day. We have been working the dogs and the sound equipment pretty regularly throughout the day, moving as much debris to open up some of those new spaces, but, as of yet, we have not heard any new noises today.

BLITZER: You're there with your dog, Duke. And I want our photographer there to show our viewers Duke. What exactly can he do, your dog, Duke, do, that humans can't do?

ORR: What Duke uses is his sense of smell. He is a chocolate Labrador retriever, 7.5 years old, trained by the Search Dog Foundation specifically for air scenting, for finding live human scent.

And to him, it's a game of hide and seek. He's looking for that live human scent. What he uses, his nose, we would use our eyes and our ears. So what we're limited on how far we can see and how fear we can hear, he can use his sense of smell. Someone buried 10 feet under debris who is unconscious, we may not see or hear.

However, we bring in dogs like Duke in. Using their sense of smell, they pick up that live human scent and they bark. It's like him telling me he has found them. And he will stay with that victim and that source until he is rewarded, until we know that there's somebody there. We will start removing debris where the dog indicates that he has found that scent.

BLITZER: What kind of track record does Duke and other dogs like Duke have, based on your personal experience? In other words, have they ever found someone alive and saved their lives?

ORR: As of today, Duke has not been on a mission that he has found someone alive yet. We train on a regular basis, two to three days a week, where we actually do bury live people in debris piles, rubble piles, buildings, etcetera, try mimicking the disaster as closely as possible. And in the case of this, this would something that we've mimicked before. We have seen the dogs' behavior. We seen them alert in areas where people are buried. So, we have every indication or every belief that if somebody was out there, we would see that same behavior today.

BLITZER: How unusual is this situation that you've seen, based on your own personal experience?

ORR: We get disasters like this with Duke and disaster search dogs about once a year. So, it's not a real common occurrence. The challenge is to stay prepared for incidents like this, things like New York, building collapses, etcetera. It's not a very common scenario to see buildings impacted with soil to this extent.

BLITZER: Howard Orr of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, who has been helping out, good luck to you and to all your colleagues.

ORR: Thank you.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very much. Appreciate Duke as well.

ORR: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: In other news today, a major decision from a closely divided United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 vote, it ruled that, for years, federal judges have been improperly adding time to prison sentences. The court said judges cannot be forced to use federal sentencing guidelines, which apply to more than 60,000 criminal defendants each year. The Justice Department has argued that the guidelines are constitutional, but the court's ruling today casts doubt on the future of this controversial system.

Joining us now for some analysis from Miami, the famed Harvard Law Professor and high-profile defense attorney Alan Dershowitz. He is also a leading civil liberties advocate and his latest book is entitled "Rights From Wrong."

Thanks very much, Professor, for joining us.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, AUTHOR, "RIGHTS FROM WRONGS": Thank you.

BLITZER: How significant of a decision was this today?

DERSHOWITZ: It's a very significant decision, because it involves thousands and thousands of defendants who are sentenced. But it's a very confused decision.

It really shows a leaderless Supreme Court in disarray. You have a 5-4 decision which, as you said, says that a judge can't add years on to a sentence by making fact findings which are disputed by the defendant. But then a dissenting judge gets to decide how this decision gets implemented, the dissenting judge. And he writes a decision which effectively overrules the majority decision. And the majority justice dissents from that.

You get four judges on one side, four on the other and one justice, Justice Ginsburg, joining both decisions and not writing anything to explain how she can joining two irreconcilable decisions.

BLITZER: The health problems of the chief justice, Rehnquist, is that a factor, you believe, in any of this?

DERSHOWITZ: Well, it may be.

There was no leadership shown in this decision. Here, you just have eight individual justices, nine with the chief justice, just going their own ways, giving very, very little guidance. I can tell you that my phone has been ringing off the hook from lawyers, clients, potential clients, just raising their hands and saying, what do we do now?

And what you do now is litigate. You're going to see case after case going into court, trying to understand how you can reconcile the court's majority decision on the merits with its majority decision on the remedy, which seem irreconcilable.

BLITZER: So, in other words, a lot of prisoners right now who are serving time, their lawyers and others, they are going to be seeking a way out because of this decision?

DERSHOWITZ: That's right.

And there are really four or five categories of people who are in prison, those who haven't yet been convicted, those who have been convicted, but not yet sentenced, those who have been sentenced, but their appeals aren't final, and those whose appeals are final. And the court gives a little bit of guidance about how those different kinds of cases should be dealt with.

But, again, you're going to get enormous, enormous confusion. And probably, in the end, Congress is going to have to go back to square one and say, look, this system just doesn't seem to make sense. We're going to have to decide how to make it rational, how to make it consistent with the constitutional rule that you can't give judges the power to increase sentences by making disputed fact findings.

That power either has to get with a jury or as -- that's what the majority said. But then the second majority said, you don't have to do it that way as long as you leave it discretionary with the judges. So, the judges can do the same thing they've been doing up to now. All they have to do is learn how to use a few magic words. Aha, it's discretionary. We're not really following the guidelines. We're just listening to the guidelines a little bit.

And then there was also something about a new standard for appellate review, which is going to keep the court of appeals busy, too. This is going to be a very big mess in terms of cases coming to the courts and hard decisions about how to resolve them.

BLITZER: All right. Professor Dershowitz, is there a high- profile case that comes to your mind, someone who is serving prison right now who you think is going to automatically go ahead and seek some sort of appeal based on today's Supreme Court decision?

DERSHOWITZ: I can tell you that hundreds of defendants, high and low profile, are going to seek remedies. The question is whether they'll get them.

Different courts -- we have many circuit courts. We have hundreds of district court judges. And right now, if a district court judge were to call and say -- you know, ask me or ask one of my colleagues how to rule in one of those disputed cases, it would be very, very hard to give advice and judgment.

So, we're going to get conflicting decisions probably over the next two or three years. Then it will get back to the Supreme Court. And, in the meantime, Congress may have to clean up the mess. The problem is that, in Congress, no Congress person or senator has ever lost an election for being too tough on crime or won an election for being too fair or too lenient.

So, probably we're just going to get kind of a knee-jerk approach in which harsher sentences are going to be legislated in a way to avoid the Constitution.

BLITZER: The whole federal sentencing guideline laws in the '80s that went into effect were designed to make sure that if two criminals commit the same act in two different states, they both have the same kind of sentence, as opposed to wildly different kinds of sentences.

DERSHOWITZ: Absolutely right. And that's why Justice Breyer, who dissented from the substantive decision, but wrote the decision about the remedy, said the best way to do it is to now leave it discretionary with the judges.

He seems to me what he was doing, with a wink and a nod to the was judges, saying, look, it's discretionary, but you ought to follow the guidelines. He, after all, helped draft the guidelines, Justice Breyer. He was with Senator Kennedy when Senator Kennedy passed the guidelines. And it's so interesting, because this is not a liberal- conservative issue. The breakdown of the court was not liberal- conservative, nor was the enactment of the statute liberal- conservative.

So, here you have a breakdown of the kind of traditional alliances on the court as well. It's a fascinating, fascinating decision. I can tell you, the law professors are going to have a ball. This is going to be the first case I assign my students when I get back in February to teach first-year criminal law.

BLITZER: They better start reading the opinions right now.

Thanks very much.

DERSHOWITZ: And understanding them, right.

BLITZER: That's right. That's another matter.

Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, appreciate it very much.

DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.

BLITZER: A majority of Americans are overweight. We all know that. Now the federal government is taking a new action to try to fight the epidemic. Details of brand new nutritional guidelines, that's coming up.

And Deep Impact lifts off heading for deep space. Look at this. We'll tell you about an exciting new space mission that is occurring right now.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Eat your vegetables, we have been hearing that since we were kids. But that advice still holds. And for a nation that's overweight and unfit, the federal government added some new ingredients to the recipe.

CNN's Sumi Das reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of...

ANN VENEMAN, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: Grains.

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Grains. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Grain.

SUMI DAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's the government's message. But turn on your TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AD)

NARRATOR: Part of this good breakfast with 12 key vitamins and minerals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAS: The new dietary guidelines for Americans announced by the secretaries of agriculture and health and human services aren't complicated.

THOMPSON: You lower your calorie intake. You lower your fats, your carbs. You eat more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and you exercise. And that is as simple as it can be.

DAS: Not much has changed from the guidelines published five years ago, but certain recommendations have been underscored, whole grains, calorie counting and sensible carbs.

(on camera): Which means no dining at the vending machine. But with one of these at every turn, how do you make people, especially kids, listen?

VENEMAN: That is really the $24,000 question.

DAS: A question made tougher by advertising.

MARGO WOOTAN, CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: Over the last 10 years, the amount of marketing aimed at children has doubled, from about $7 billion a year to $15 billion a year. About half of that is for food. And almost all of the food ads are for foods of poor nutritional quality.

DAS: How do you escape nearly 8 billion ad dollars? By making the right choices.

THOMPSON: Our medicines are no farther away than the shelves of the grocery and the sidewalks that we can use for a brisk walk.

KATHERINE TALLMADGE, AMERICAN DIETETIC ASSOCIATION: I hope these guidelines bring everyone down to earth and help them understand that variety is the spice of life.

DAS: That may be the cure to solving the obesity epidemic that affects almost two-thirds of Americans.

Sumi Das, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Authorities are investigating a deadly plane crash near Orlando, Florida. It was taped by a local television station.

As CNN's Miles O'Brien reports, the death might have been prevented by some relatively new technology.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With their oil pressure plummeting and their single-engine sputtering, pilot Steve Schieber and Dan Lawlor looked for a clearing and pointed their Cessna 172 toward a golf course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a flash of light, I thought it was somebody that got struck by lightning or a car wreck, because it was just -- all of a sudden, it was just bam.

O'BRIEN: Astonished, yet spurred on by adrenaline, some regular folks, turned heroes, sprinted to their rescue.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was smoldering. And we saw the gas dripping out. And that was -- we were -- you know, it's just what you do when you have to do what you have to do.

O'BRIEN: Schieber lived to tell the tale. Lawlor did not. It might have been a happier ending if the plane had been equipped with one of these, a parachute designed to carry a plane and its occupants toward a gentle landing when all else fails.

LIONEL MORRISON, PILOT: And when the rocket goes off -- it's a rocket-propelled system -- it's a wonderful sound, because you know at least the first phase of the process has worked. And, for me, it was especially gratifying, since no one had done it before.

O'BRIEN: That's Lionel Morrison. Two years ago, he made history by not becoming history, pulling the lever and launching the shoot on his crippled Cirrus aircraft in Texas.

MORRISON: Bringing the airplane safely to ground would have been, oh, gosh, probably less than 50 percent chance of that happening.

O'BRIEN: Morrison was flying a four-seater with a pioneering standard feature, a built-in parachute.

ALAN KLAPMEIER, CEO, CIRRUS DESIGN CORPORATION: The idea on our part came about in at least in significant part because I had a midair collision in 1984.

O'BRIEN: Alan Klapmeier is the CEO and founder of Cirrus Design. His midair collision was a rare event.

KLAPMEIER: But, of course, when it happens, you've only got one choice, and that's the parachute.

O'BRIEN: Besides Lionel Morrison, three other Cirrus pilots have pulled their chutes and a total of eight people believe they owe life or limb to this safety feature. KLAPMEIER: It is a fantastic feeling knowing it's there.

O'BRIEN: Pilots apparently agree. As a matter of fact, I'm a part owner of one myself. Cirrus is now the second largest builder of small single-engine planes. And owners of Cessnas, like this one, can now have a chute installed. It's not cheap, about $15,000, but a bargain if it had saved a life.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: I didn't know there were parachutes for these small planes, but they're incredibly impressive. Thanks very much, Miles.

Cosmic collision. NASA launches a new space mission. We'll have details of that. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Our picture of the day is from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A NASA rocket took off today carrying a probe called Deep Impact. It's scheduled to collide with a comet millions of miles from Earth on the 4th of July, producing a huge crater. Scientists are hoping the mission will provide valuable information about what's inside the comet's core.

That's it for me. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" starts right now.

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