Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Giuliani in 2008?; Girls Fined in Cookie Lawsuit

Aired February 10, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

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


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. In just a few moments, how strong of a candidate would Rudy Giuliani be for president if indeed he runs in 2008? Some say he's already the front- runner. What does he say? Kelly Wallace is going to join us looking at that. She'll be with us in just a few moments.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Just the beginning of a very long list, don't you think? Eventually? For candidates?

Also this half hour, you might have heard about two teenage girls in Colorado -- they were sued by a neighbor for putting cookies on her front porch. They had to pay a fine, about 900 bucks. We're going to talk to the girls in a few moments about what they have learned from all of this.

O'BRIEN: That's a bizarre story, isn't it?

HEMMER: It is. We'll fill in the details in a moment here.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I can't believe the woman sued and won.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I can't believe -- I understand why she sued, but I can't believe she won.

HEMMER: Maybe we need to talk to the judge.

COSTELLO: Maybe so. Because she got the money because the girls scared her or something. Wasn't it...

HEMMER: She had anxiety.

O'BRIEN: When they were dropping off the cookies.

COSTELLO: Maybe it was the smell of the cookies.

O'BRIEN: No, who knows? I guess we'll find out just ahead.

COSTELLO: Yes, we will.

O'BRIEN: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. "Now in the News," word this morning that Pope John Paul II is well enough to go home. Vatican sources making that announcement just hours ago. The pope will be released from a Rome hospital later today. Sources say he will spend the next week at a retreat for the Lenten season, so he's not expected to make any public appearances for several more days.

Victims of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia may soon be getting more aid. President Bush says he will ask Congress for an additional $600 million. That's on top of the $350 million the U.S. has already pledged. The president also praising the fundraising efforts of his father, the former President Bush and the former president Bill Clinton.

Trying to help the news now. New recommendations this morning that more Americans should be tested routinely for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Two studies published today in the "New England Journal of Medicine" report routine HIV testing would cut the rate of infection down the road. Previously, the recommendation for routine testing was made for only major U.S. cities where AIDS rates are high.

And thousands of men in Saudi Arabia are heading to the polls this morning. They're taking part in the first round of local elections. They're the first of their kind in the kingdom. Women are watching from the sidelines. They are barred from running or voting in the election cycle.

Back to you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks.

Well, apparently, it is never too early to start handicapping the next presidential race. The GOP's morning line favorite for 2008 is Rudy Giuliani. In a new poll, 34 percent of Republicans said Giuliani is their choice. 29 percent chose John McCain. Much further back were Jeb Bush and Bill Frist.

Kelly Wallace with more on a possible candidate Giuliani. Good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Can you believe we're talking 2008? It's only about four years away, but never too early, as you said. Republican observers, Soledad, say it's no surprise Rudy's on top right now. He's got name recognition, he really is America's most popular former mayor, but should he ultimately decide to run for the White House, they say he'll have to overcome some major obstacles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Oh, how he dodges.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: We got to get out of 2004 first.

WALLACE: OK. It's 2005, and the normally matter-of-fact Rudy Giuliani still won't answer the question.

GIULIANI: I don't think we start thinking about the next one until some time from now. WALLACE: That hasn't stopped Republicans in CNN's latest poll from declaring him the current front-runner for '08, with his rock- star status following his handling of the September 11 attacks.

He is a maverick of sorts. After all, he's for abortion rights, gay marriage, and gun control.

STEPHEN MOORE, PRESIDENT, FREE ENTERPRISE FUND: In some ways, in social issues, Rudy Giuliani is more of a Democrat than he is a Republican.

WALLACE: And to that, cultural conservatives say, Houston, we have a problem.

MATTHEW STAVER, PRESIDENT, LIBERTY COUNSEL: The only way Rudy Giuliani can win is if, in fact, he has a true conversion on the issue of marriage, he becomes pro-life, he supports the sanctity of human life, and he's strong on those issues...

WALLACE: But could his crowd-pleasing performance at the Republican National Convention...

GIULIANI: The president of the United States, George W. Bush.

WALLACE: ... his stumping for President Bush, and his razzle- dazzle celebrity lead conservatives to look past their differences?

Maybe, says Michael Daly, a columnist for the "New York Daily News," who has covered Rudy for years and was at the GOP convention.

MICHAEL DALY, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": It's interesting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you talk, you'll be talking to some guy from Texas who, you know, is pro-life, you know, anti-gay, and you say to him, you say, well, you know, this is a guy who's pro-choice, who lived with two gay guys for a while. They look at you like, so what?

WALLACE: The gay men were his friends, by the way, who put him up after his separation.

And then there is this.

GIULIANI: Get lost. That's a, that, that's a, that's a, that's a sneaky way of trying to invade somebody's personal life.

WALLACE: City Hall sparing with the New York City press is one thing. But could he handle the scrutiny of a national race?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And to all of this, Giuliani's spokeswoman says that the former mayor is very focused on his business and not on presidential politics at the moment, Soledad. So those last words leave us all wondering, well, could it be true? Would be run in 2008?

O'BRIEN: Everybody always says that. You know, let's talk about Bernard Kerik. When he looked like he was going to be the next secretary of Homeland Security, everyone was pointing out that it gave Giuliani a solid base in Washington, D.C. Then of course, Kerik imploded. What did that do, you think, in the big picture for Giuliani?

WALLACE: Well, it's unclear. A little bit of an open question right now. Big question about Giuliani's own reputation because he was lobbying the White House to go ahead and nominate Bernard Kerik to the post. There would be again, national scrutiny. So renewed questions over that issue for Rudy Giuliani.

Michael Daly, the columnist with the "New York Daily News," he said one of Rudy's main weaknesses, he thinks, is loyalty. He kind of thinks that if you're loyal to him, you're OK. You're a good guy and perhaps, perhaps, you know, this person, Bernard Kerik, wasn't as loyal. If he knew that there were a lot of questions, maybe he shouldn't have gone for that post.

O'BRIEN: Kelly Wallace, thank you, as always. We have, by my count, four more years to discuss this. So we'll chat about it a little more.

WALLACE: I think it will come up again.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Kelly -- Bill.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HEMMER: Two Colorado teenagers have become accidental celebrities in their state after a random act of kindness landed them in court. Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Zellitti, surprised neighbors with an anonymous delivery of homemade cookies -- that happened last summer. One neighbor, though, said she became so frightened when the cookies were dropped off, she suffered an anxiety attack. She sued and last week was awarded $930 to cover her medical fees.

The cookie girls are with us this morning in Englewood, Colorado to talk about their reaction to the story. Good morning, Taylor. Good morning, Lindsey. Thanks for your time this morning. The fire looks good behind you. But I want to get a sense of how long you were doing this and for how many neighbors. How many people had you dropped off cookies for in the past?

TAYLOR OSTERGAARD, SUED FOR COOKIE DELIVERY: Well, that night, we decided to go to 11 houses. In the past, we've done various different things like deliver bread to people or do the ten days of Christmas. And just fun things like that.

HEMMER: Why did you select Renea Young's house?

LINDSEY ZELLITTI, SUED FOR COOKIE DELIVERY: We just decided to do it to neighbors and friends and we, you know, kind of chose her as one of our friends and just delivered them to a lot of people.

HEMMER: So you bang on the door. Do you ring the doorbell? What do you do when you knock? OSTERGAARD: Well, the whole purpose of our deed is we wanted to be anonymous so that we could leave some people some cookies and kind of say, here's some cookies, someone cares about you even if you don't know who the person is. Sometimes it seems that people like to do things to get the credit and we just wanted...

HEMMER: I got the idea. All right, so she was startled. Apparently burglars had been to her home before. Did you have any idea that had been the case?

OSTERGAARD: No, we had no idea of any of it.

HEMMER: So then this court case comes up, the judge slaps you with a $930 fine. How did you react when that was ordered?

OSTERGAARD: Well, you know, of course, we were kind of, you know, sad because we lost. But you know, as the saying goes, you know, two people can't win, and you know, somebody has to lose. But it was just kind of ironic and crazy.

HEMMER: You think crazy?

OSTERGAARD: Yes, it was a totally different case anyway.

ZELLITTI: We're not mad. We understand, but it just was unfortunate that we were on the losing end.

HEMMER: Apparently you're on the winning end at this point because radio stations, a cookie company has given you, what, a year's supply of dough or something like that. Who all is chipping in because they've heard about your story?

ZELLITTI: Yes, it's been amazing, the support we've been getting just from people all around, and the letters that we've been getting from people on the East Coast and the West Coast, saying that we support you girls, and keep going, be strong. And we just really appreciate everything everyone's done.

HEMMER: How do you feel about your neighbor right now?

OSTERGAARD: We have no hurt feelings. She did what she thought she had to do, and we just didn't want to, you know, cause any harm, or we didn't have any intent. And we were just sad that it turned out that way.

HEMMER: You're still baking cookies, I see, because you have a plate of them in between the two of you.

Hold those up for a quick second. What kind are they?

ZELLITTI: And that's a note that we put on all of the cookies.

HEMMER: What's the note say? Sorry, can't see it.

ZELLITTI: It says, "have a great night, love the T&L Club."

HEMMER: All right, listen, good luck to both of you, out in Angolo (ph), Colorado. That's Taylor and Lindsey talking to us live.

Thank you, guys. Good luck to you. Keep baking away.

ZELLITTI: Thank you.

OSTERGAARD: Thank you.

HEMMER: Bye-bye.

Cute girls.

O'BRIEN: What a shock for them, huh, to be hauled into court.

HEMMER: An understatement.

O'BRIEN: I guess they'll never surprise anybody again.

Millions of parents put their children in day care. A new study, though, says picking the wrong day care site could have dire consequences. We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" for some tips, just ahead.

HEMMER: Also what's on the president's reading list? Would you believe a book about college sports, coeds and sex. That's ahead after this, on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: Welcome back, everybody. We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" this morning about day care and child development. New research suggests that those early experiences can actually influence a child's growth. So what's a working mother or father to do? Sanjay's at the CNN Center with some advice.

Hey, Sanjay, good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, early childhood development, early brain development been a big topic for sometime. What's the influence on later childhood and later adulthood and how do day care facilities fit into that as well, couple of stats, important ones, 60 to 70 percent of children under the age of six use some sort of day care facility. And what's startling is from the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying about half don't meet the minimal standards. I wanted to investigate that a little bit and figure out what the impact of that was later on in life.

What they found was that lower quality of care. In turn, the children have lesser childhood development in terms of cognitive skills, in terms of their language, social development, school performance, all those sorts of things later on in life. They may have lower scores on math tests, as well. The relationship is a little bit hard to predict, a little bit hard to make definitive, but they're starting to find some of these childhood development centers, if they're not meeting these minimal standards, could have an impact on these child's test scores, cognitive skills later on.

What are they looking for specifically? They want consistent childhood development centers. They want developmentally sound, and they want ones that also are emotionally supportive in order to try and give children the best outcome later on in life -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: So, Sanjay, then as a parent walks around trying to figure out where they should put their 1, 2, or 3-year-old or something into school, what should a parent be searching for?

GUPTA: Yes, sometimes it's hard to tell, to try and find some of these things when looking for a day care center that's consistent, for example. What does that mean? Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics has some guidelines, things to look for, questions to ask when you're actually visiting some of these centers. For example, the state license and accreditation, do they have one, where is it, can you see it?

Also the staff experience and turnover. You want high experience, low turnover. Also things like hand washing and cleaning. You know, a lot of times children in these day care centers, they can be little germ factories. So you want to try and minimize illness. Clear emergency procedures. Do they have them? And back-to-sleep practices. This is something we talk about a lot, with regards to SIDS. Do they put children on their back to go to sleep?

If they know these sorts of things, they're more likely to have a better outcome overall, again, in terms of these things like cognition and later childhood development -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Is one day care situation, Sanjay, better than any other, I mean, assuming they all sort of basically generally meet what you've just listed there?

GUPTA: You know, a couple things. First of all, for a lot of mothers and fathers watching, it's hard -- there's a lot of children in day care. And when you're looking for these sorts of things, there's nothing that you can sort of say besides the things that I just pointed out that necessarily make it better. What they want to say, though, is that a lot of day care centers are going to be OK as long as they're meeting some of these requirements.

Also keeping in mind that they are going to be more likely to develop some respiratory illnesses from time to time, probably recover from those just fine, but not to forego one-on-one time between the parent and the child, as well during the day, at some point during the day. Don't forego that because the child is in a day care center -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Got it. Duly noted.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta for us. Thanks, Sanjay. Appreciate it -- Bill.

HEMMER: Our "Cafferty File" is up in a moment here. Jack telling us today how a teddy bear in a straitjacket proved costly and not cute. Back in a moment after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: All right, welcome back.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Union workers not welcome at a Canadian Wal-Mart and Google can't seem to hire enough people fast enough. With those stories and a check of the markets, my friend Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Jack.

A lot of stuff. Let's start with the markets. First of all, yesterday, a bit of a downer on the street. Dow is down 60 points. Nasdaq down even more on a percentage basis. Cisco hangover. They reported numbers the street didn't like. Today, Dell reports after the bell. Futures are up. Dell's going to have good numbers. They pretty much always do. They dominate that PC business.

Also, jobless claims came in very low. That's good news for the economy. Lowest in four years. 303 new claims last week. Trade deficit though, $617 billion for 2004. A record. 24 percent more than the previous record in 2003. That means simply that we are buying $617 billion more goods than we're sending out of this country, which is amazing.

CAFFERTY: That works...

SERWER: Yes, not...

CAFFERTY: ... but not for very long.

SERWER: That's what you've got to add to that. Let's talk about Wal-Mart. This is a north of the border story. Unions trying to organize the store in Quebec. Wal-Mart just shut it down. Wal-Mart said that the store was underperforming, and also it acknowledged that unionizing efforts were disruptive. The unions are trying to organize at two other stores in Quebec. So this story is not at all over. Wal-Mart said they would have had to add 30 workers to the 190 that worked there if they had followed union guidelines.

Another job story. Google says it can't hire people fast enough. First analysts meeting since the company's initial public offering in August. Listen to this. They now have 3,000 people working at the Googs, up from 2,300 in June.

CAFFERTY: What do you do if you work at Google?

SERWER: You're sort of a computer guy. If you're not -- listen, they have these rigorous tests they put you through there. But you have to be very...

CAFFERTY: I probably couldn't...

SERWER: No. CAFFERTY: I couldn't go there.

SERWER: Yes. I'm glad.

CAFFERTY: Thanks, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

CAFFERTY: Time for "The Cafferty File." Not often do we get an exclusive -- I don't know if it's exclusive. I think we're one of the first people that are report on this "Crazy for You" Vermont teddy bear. The head of the company resigned yesterday from the board of Vermont's largest hospital after coming under fire from mental health experts for selling this "Crazy for You" bear. The bear was kind of a Valentine's Day gag. It came complete with a straitjacket -- we may have a picture -- there it is -- and commitment papers.

And, but some mental health groups got really steamed over this thing, said it violated sensitivities. They sold the last one last week -- $69.95 a pop. They sold out like hotcakes. The company said it's not going to make any more because of public pressure.

And the president of Vermont Teddy Bear, Elisabeth Robert, explained her resignation from the hospital board, saying, "The recent controversy surrounding one of my company's teddy bears will detract from my ability to serve effectively and I cannot allow this to occur." She's out of here. She and Carly could open up a -- well, I guess she's still going to run the Teddy Bear Company.

SERWER: She's going to run the Teddy Bear...

CAFFERTY: She's just out the board of the hospital.

Cuba's Benito Martinez, probably the oldest guy in the world. According to his I.D. documents, he was born in Haiti in 1880.

SERWER: Wow.

CAFFERTY: That makes him 124 years old. The previous record holder, 119, according to Guinness. Now, Mr. Martinez says he worked on Fidel Castro's father's hacienda when he was a young man. He's lived in three different centuries. He says he's living the best years of his life right now. Death, he says, seems to fear me.

Torture techniques like those allegedly used at Guantanamo are going to be the subject of a new British reality television show. That's if the Prince Charles/Camilla Bowles thing doesn't take off as horror TV over there. British TV's channel 4 will begin airing "Guantanamo Guidebook" in March.

The program will film seven British volunteers as they're subjected to techniques like extreme temperature, mild physical contact while being kept awake for long periods of time. Techniques are based on information from declassified U.S. government documents. Will be carried out on the program by expert interrogators from the United States. HEMMER: That's intriguing.

SERWER: Who would want to watch that?

O'BRIEN: That's creepy.

SERWER: People getting tortured?

CAFFERTY: It is creepy.

O'BRIEN: That's just sick.

HEMMER: Why don't we do Charles and Camilla? They could be the next newlyweds.

CAFFERTY: That's creepy, too.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: That's also creepy.

CAFFERTY: That's also creepy.

SERWER: Naked karaoke.

O'BRIEN: Also creepy.

SERWER: We're not making any headway here.

O'BRIEN: Not today. Thanks, you guys. Today's top stories are straight ahead this morning. The U.K. wakes up to a royal surprise. What do the Brits think about the impending wedding? We're going to take you live to London and Richard Quest. Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: North Korea making a defiant declaration, publicly stating it has nuclear weapons and will not discuss giving them up.

Ten days in the hospital. Now the pope is going home. Is he really cured, as the Vatican says?

And the big news from England. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are getting married, planning on a spring wedding. On this AMERICAN MORNING.

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 February 10, 2005 - 08:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. In just a few moments, how strong of a candidate would Rudy Giuliani be for president if indeed he runs in 2008? Some say he's already the front- runner. What does he say? Kelly Wallace is going to join us looking at that. She'll be with us in just a few moments.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Just the beginning of a very long list, don't you think? Eventually? For candidates?

Also this half hour, you might have heard about two teenage girls in Colorado -- they were sued by a neighbor for putting cookies on her front porch. They had to pay a fine, about 900 bucks. We're going to talk to the girls in a few moments about what they have learned from all of this.

O'BRIEN: That's a bizarre story, isn't it?

HEMMER: It is. We'll fill in the details in a moment here.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I can't believe the woman sued and won.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I can't believe -- I understand why she sued, but I can't believe she won.

HEMMER: Maybe we need to talk to the judge.

COSTELLO: Maybe so. Because she got the money because the girls scared her or something. Wasn't it...

HEMMER: She had anxiety.

O'BRIEN: When they were dropping off the cookies.

COSTELLO: Maybe it was the smell of the cookies.

O'BRIEN: No, who knows? I guess we'll find out just ahead.

COSTELLO: Yes, we will.

O'BRIEN: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. "Now in the News," word this morning that Pope John Paul II is well enough to go home. Vatican sources making that announcement just hours ago. The pope will be released from a Rome hospital later today. Sources say he will spend the next week at a retreat for the Lenten season, so he's not expected to make any public appearances for several more days.

Victims of the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia may soon be getting more aid. President Bush says he will ask Congress for an additional $600 million. That's on top of the $350 million the U.S. has already pledged. The president also praising the fundraising efforts of his father, the former President Bush and the former president Bill Clinton.

Trying to help the news now. New recommendations this morning that more Americans should be tested routinely for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Two studies published today in the "New England Journal of Medicine" report routine HIV testing would cut the rate of infection down the road. Previously, the recommendation for routine testing was made for only major U.S. cities where AIDS rates are high.

And thousands of men in Saudi Arabia are heading to the polls this morning. They're taking part in the first round of local elections. They're the first of their kind in the kingdom. Women are watching from the sidelines. They are barred from running or voting in the election cycle.

Back to you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: All right, Carol, thanks.

Well, apparently, it is never too early to start handicapping the next presidential race. The GOP's morning line favorite for 2008 is Rudy Giuliani. In a new poll, 34 percent of Republicans said Giuliani is their choice. 29 percent chose John McCain. Much further back were Jeb Bush and Bill Frist.

Kelly Wallace with more on a possible candidate Giuliani. Good morning.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Can you believe we're talking 2008? It's only about four years away, but never too early, as you said. Republican observers, Soledad, say it's no surprise Rudy's on top right now. He's got name recognition, he really is America's most popular former mayor, but should he ultimately decide to run for the White House, they say he'll have to overcome some major obstacles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Oh, how he dodges.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI (R), FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: We got to get out of 2004 first.

WALLACE: OK. It's 2005, and the normally matter-of-fact Rudy Giuliani still won't answer the question.

GIULIANI: I don't think we start thinking about the next one until some time from now. WALLACE: That hasn't stopped Republicans in CNN's latest poll from declaring him the current front-runner for '08, with his rock- star status following his handling of the September 11 attacks.

He is a maverick of sorts. After all, he's for abortion rights, gay marriage, and gun control.

STEPHEN MOORE, PRESIDENT, FREE ENTERPRISE FUND: In some ways, in social issues, Rudy Giuliani is more of a Democrat than he is a Republican.

WALLACE: And to that, cultural conservatives say, Houston, we have a problem.

MATTHEW STAVER, PRESIDENT, LIBERTY COUNSEL: The only way Rudy Giuliani can win is if, in fact, he has a true conversion on the issue of marriage, he becomes pro-life, he supports the sanctity of human life, and he's strong on those issues...

WALLACE: But could his crowd-pleasing performance at the Republican National Convention...

GIULIANI: The president of the United States, George W. Bush.

WALLACE: ... his stumping for President Bush, and his razzle- dazzle celebrity lead conservatives to look past their differences?

Maybe, says Michael Daly, a columnist for the "New York Daily News," who has covered Rudy for years and was at the GOP convention.

MICHAEL DALY, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": It's interesting (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you talk, you'll be talking to some guy from Texas who, you know, is pro-life, you know, anti-gay, and you say to him, you say, well, you know, this is a guy who's pro-choice, who lived with two gay guys for a while. They look at you like, so what?

WALLACE: The gay men were his friends, by the way, who put him up after his separation.

And then there is this.

GIULIANI: Get lost. That's a, that, that's a, that's a, that's a sneaky way of trying to invade somebody's personal life.

WALLACE: City Hall sparing with the New York City press is one thing. But could he handle the scrutiny of a national race?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And to all of this, Giuliani's spokeswoman says that the former mayor is very focused on his business and not on presidential politics at the moment, Soledad. So those last words leave us all wondering, well, could it be true? Would be run in 2008?

O'BRIEN: Everybody always says that. You know, let's talk about Bernard Kerik. When he looked like he was going to be the next secretary of Homeland Security, everyone was pointing out that it gave Giuliani a solid base in Washington, D.C. Then of course, Kerik imploded. What did that do, you think, in the big picture for Giuliani?

WALLACE: Well, it's unclear. A little bit of an open question right now. Big question about Giuliani's own reputation because he was lobbying the White House to go ahead and nominate Bernard Kerik to the post. There would be again, national scrutiny. So renewed questions over that issue for Rudy Giuliani.

Michael Daly, the columnist with the "New York Daily News," he said one of Rudy's main weaknesses, he thinks, is loyalty. He kind of thinks that if you're loyal to him, you're OK. You're a good guy and perhaps, perhaps, you know, this person, Bernard Kerik, wasn't as loyal. If he knew that there were a lot of questions, maybe he shouldn't have gone for that post.

O'BRIEN: Kelly Wallace, thank you, as always. We have, by my count, four more years to discuss this. So we'll chat about it a little more.

WALLACE: I think it will come up again.

O'BRIEN: Thanks, Kelly -- Bill.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HEMMER: Two Colorado teenagers have become accidental celebrities in their state after a random act of kindness landed them in court. Taylor Ostergaard and Lindsey Zellitti, surprised neighbors with an anonymous delivery of homemade cookies -- that happened last summer. One neighbor, though, said she became so frightened when the cookies were dropped off, she suffered an anxiety attack. She sued and last week was awarded $930 to cover her medical fees.

The cookie girls are with us this morning in Englewood, Colorado to talk about their reaction to the story. Good morning, Taylor. Good morning, Lindsey. Thanks for your time this morning. The fire looks good behind you. But I want to get a sense of how long you were doing this and for how many neighbors. How many people had you dropped off cookies for in the past?

TAYLOR OSTERGAARD, SUED FOR COOKIE DELIVERY: Well, that night, we decided to go to 11 houses. In the past, we've done various different things like deliver bread to people or do the ten days of Christmas. And just fun things like that.

HEMMER: Why did you select Renea Young's house?

LINDSEY ZELLITTI, SUED FOR COOKIE DELIVERY: We just decided to do it to neighbors and friends and we, you know, kind of chose her as one of our friends and just delivered them to a lot of people.

HEMMER: So you bang on the door. Do you ring the doorbell? What do you do when you knock? OSTERGAARD: Well, the whole purpose of our deed is we wanted to be anonymous so that we could leave some people some cookies and kind of say, here's some cookies, someone cares about you even if you don't know who the person is. Sometimes it seems that people like to do things to get the credit and we just wanted...

HEMMER: I got the idea. All right, so she was startled. Apparently burglars had been to her home before. Did you have any idea that had been the case?

OSTERGAARD: No, we had no idea of any of it.

HEMMER: So then this court case comes up, the judge slaps you with a $930 fine. How did you react when that was ordered?

OSTERGAARD: Well, you know, of course, we were kind of, you know, sad because we lost. But you know, as the saying goes, you know, two people can't win, and you know, somebody has to lose. But it was just kind of ironic and crazy.

HEMMER: You think crazy?

OSTERGAARD: Yes, it was a totally different case anyway.

ZELLITTI: We're not mad. We understand, but it just was unfortunate that we were on the losing end.

HEMMER: Apparently you're on the winning end at this point because radio stations, a cookie company has given you, what, a year's supply of dough or something like that. Who all is chipping in because they've heard about your story?

ZELLITTI: Yes, it's been amazing, the support we've been getting just from people all around, and the letters that we've been getting from people on the East Coast and the West Coast, saying that we support you girls, and keep going, be strong. And we just really appreciate everything everyone's done.

HEMMER: How do you feel about your neighbor right now?

OSTERGAARD: We have no hurt feelings. She did what she thought she had to do, and we just didn't want to, you know, cause any harm, or we didn't have any intent. And we were just sad that it turned out that way.

HEMMER: You're still baking cookies, I see, because you have a plate of them in between the two of you.

Hold those up for a quick second. What kind are they?

ZELLITTI: And that's a note that we put on all of the cookies.

HEMMER: What's the note say? Sorry, can't see it.

ZELLITTI: It says, "have a great night, love the T&L Club."

HEMMER: All right, listen, good luck to both of you, out in Angolo (ph), Colorado. That's Taylor and Lindsey talking to us live.

Thank you, guys. Good luck to you. Keep baking away.

ZELLITTI: Thank you.

OSTERGAARD: Thank you.

HEMMER: Bye-bye.

Cute girls.

O'BRIEN: What a shock for them, huh, to be hauled into court.

HEMMER: An understatement.

O'BRIEN: I guess they'll never surprise anybody again.

Millions of parents put their children in day care. A new study, though, says picking the wrong day care site could have dire consequences. We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" for some tips, just ahead.

HEMMER: Also what's on the president's reading list? Would you believe a book about college sports, coeds and sex. That's ahead after this, on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: Welcome back, everybody. We're "Paging Dr. Gupta" this morning about day care and child development. New research suggests that those early experiences can actually influence a child's growth. So what's a working mother or father to do? Sanjay's at the CNN Center with some advice.

Hey, Sanjay, good morning.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

Yes, early childhood development, early brain development been a big topic for sometime. What's the influence on later childhood and later adulthood and how do day care facilities fit into that as well, couple of stats, important ones, 60 to 70 percent of children under the age of six use some sort of day care facility. And what's startling is from the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying about half don't meet the minimal standards. I wanted to investigate that a little bit and figure out what the impact of that was later on in life.

What they found was that lower quality of care. In turn, the children have lesser childhood development in terms of cognitive skills, in terms of their language, social development, school performance, all those sorts of things later on in life. They may have lower scores on math tests, as well. The relationship is a little bit hard to predict, a little bit hard to make definitive, but they're starting to find some of these childhood development centers, if they're not meeting these minimal standards, could have an impact on these child's test scores, cognitive skills later on.

What are they looking for specifically? They want consistent childhood development centers. They want developmentally sound, and they want ones that also are emotionally supportive in order to try and give children the best outcome later on in life -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: So, Sanjay, then as a parent walks around trying to figure out where they should put their 1, 2, or 3-year-old or something into school, what should a parent be searching for?

GUPTA: Yes, sometimes it's hard to tell, to try and find some of these things when looking for a day care center that's consistent, for example. What does that mean? Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics has some guidelines, things to look for, questions to ask when you're actually visiting some of these centers. For example, the state license and accreditation, do they have one, where is it, can you see it?

Also the staff experience and turnover. You want high experience, low turnover. Also things like hand washing and cleaning. You know, a lot of times children in these day care centers, they can be little germ factories. So you want to try and minimize illness. Clear emergency procedures. Do they have them? And back-to-sleep practices. This is something we talk about a lot, with regards to SIDS. Do they put children on their back to go to sleep?

If they know these sorts of things, they're more likely to have a better outcome overall, again, in terms of these things like cognition and later childhood development -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Is one day care situation, Sanjay, better than any other, I mean, assuming they all sort of basically generally meet what you've just listed there?

GUPTA: You know, a couple things. First of all, for a lot of mothers and fathers watching, it's hard -- there's a lot of children in day care. And when you're looking for these sorts of things, there's nothing that you can sort of say besides the things that I just pointed out that necessarily make it better. What they want to say, though, is that a lot of day care centers are going to be OK as long as they're meeting some of these requirements.

Also keeping in mind that they are going to be more likely to develop some respiratory illnesses from time to time, probably recover from those just fine, but not to forego one-on-one time between the parent and the child, as well during the day, at some point during the day. Don't forego that because the child is in a day care center -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Got it. Duly noted.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta for us. Thanks, Sanjay. Appreciate it -- Bill.

HEMMER: Our "Cafferty File" is up in a moment here. Jack telling us today how a teddy bear in a straitjacket proved costly and not cute. Back in a moment after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: All right, welcome back.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Union workers not welcome at a Canadian Wal-Mart and Google can't seem to hire enough people fast enough. With those stories and a check of the markets, my friend Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Jack.

A lot of stuff. Let's start with the markets. First of all, yesterday, a bit of a downer on the street. Dow is down 60 points. Nasdaq down even more on a percentage basis. Cisco hangover. They reported numbers the street didn't like. Today, Dell reports after the bell. Futures are up. Dell's going to have good numbers. They pretty much always do. They dominate that PC business.

Also, jobless claims came in very low. That's good news for the economy. Lowest in four years. 303 new claims last week. Trade deficit though, $617 billion for 2004. A record. 24 percent more than the previous record in 2003. That means simply that we are buying $617 billion more goods than we're sending out of this country, which is amazing.

CAFFERTY: That works...

SERWER: Yes, not...

CAFFERTY: ... but not for very long.

SERWER: That's what you've got to add to that. Let's talk about Wal-Mart. This is a north of the border story. Unions trying to organize the store in Quebec. Wal-Mart just shut it down. Wal-Mart said that the store was underperforming, and also it acknowledged that unionizing efforts were disruptive. The unions are trying to organize at two other stores in Quebec. So this story is not at all over. Wal-Mart said they would have had to add 30 workers to the 190 that worked there if they had followed union guidelines.

Another job story. Google says it can't hire people fast enough. First analysts meeting since the company's initial public offering in August. Listen to this. They now have 3,000 people working at the Googs, up from 2,300 in June.

CAFFERTY: What do you do if you work at Google?

SERWER: You're sort of a computer guy. If you're not -- listen, they have these rigorous tests they put you through there. But you have to be very...

CAFFERTY: I probably couldn't...

SERWER: No. CAFFERTY: I couldn't go there.

SERWER: Yes. I'm glad.

CAFFERTY: Thanks, Andy.

SERWER: You're welcome.

CAFFERTY: Time for "The Cafferty File." Not often do we get an exclusive -- I don't know if it's exclusive. I think we're one of the first people that are report on this "Crazy for You" Vermont teddy bear. The head of the company resigned yesterday from the board of Vermont's largest hospital after coming under fire from mental health experts for selling this "Crazy for You" bear. The bear was kind of a Valentine's Day gag. It came complete with a straitjacket -- we may have a picture -- there it is -- and commitment papers.

And, but some mental health groups got really steamed over this thing, said it violated sensitivities. They sold the last one last week -- $69.95 a pop. They sold out like hotcakes. The company said it's not going to make any more because of public pressure.

And the president of Vermont Teddy Bear, Elisabeth Robert, explained her resignation from the hospital board, saying, "The recent controversy surrounding one of my company's teddy bears will detract from my ability to serve effectively and I cannot allow this to occur." She's out of here. She and Carly could open up a -- well, I guess she's still going to run the Teddy Bear Company.

SERWER: She's going to run the Teddy Bear...

CAFFERTY: She's just out the board of the hospital.

Cuba's Benito Martinez, probably the oldest guy in the world. According to his I.D. documents, he was born in Haiti in 1880.

SERWER: Wow.

CAFFERTY: That makes him 124 years old. The previous record holder, 119, according to Guinness. Now, Mr. Martinez says he worked on Fidel Castro's father's hacienda when he was a young man. He's lived in three different centuries. He says he's living the best years of his life right now. Death, he says, seems to fear me.

Torture techniques like those allegedly used at Guantanamo are going to be the subject of a new British reality television show. That's if the Prince Charles/Camilla Bowles thing doesn't take off as horror TV over there. British TV's channel 4 will begin airing "Guantanamo Guidebook" in March.

The program will film seven British volunteers as they're subjected to techniques like extreme temperature, mild physical contact while being kept awake for long periods of time. Techniques are based on information from declassified U.S. government documents. Will be carried out on the program by expert interrogators from the United States. HEMMER: That's intriguing.

SERWER: Who would want to watch that?

O'BRIEN: That's creepy.

SERWER: People getting tortured?

CAFFERTY: It is creepy.

O'BRIEN: That's just sick.

HEMMER: Why don't we do Charles and Camilla? They could be the next newlyweds.

CAFFERTY: That's creepy, too.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: That's also creepy.

CAFFERTY: That's also creepy.

SERWER: Naked karaoke.

O'BRIEN: Also creepy.

SERWER: We're not making any headway here.

O'BRIEN: Not today. Thanks, you guys. Today's top stories are straight ahead this morning. The U.K. wakes up to a royal surprise. What do the Brits think about the impending wedding? We're going to take you live to London and Richard Quest. Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: North Korea making a defiant declaration, publicly stating it has nuclear weapons and will not discuss giving them up.

Ten days in the hospital. Now the pope is going home. Is he really cured, as the Vatican says?

And the big news from England. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles are getting married, planning on a spring wedding. On this AMERICAN MORNING.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com