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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

The Future of AIDS; Priest Abuse Scandal

Aired February 15, 2005 - 22:00   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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
AIDS in little more than a generation has gone from a mystery to a death sentence to a serious but treatable chronic illness in the country and the rest of the developed world. This is a blessing. It may also be an omen.

A generation, it turns out, is long enough for behavior to change and more than long enough for a virus to mutate. A generation from now we may look back on the early part of the 21st Century as the beginning of the end of AIDS or is the moment when AIDS rose back up to bite us.

Either way, a new chapter is being written in New York tonight and so we begin with CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's only one case, one case in a city where as many as 100,000 people are HIV positive or have AIDS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular strain is broadly resistant.

FEYERICK: But for New York City doctors like Roy Guelik (ph) one case is more than enough.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, NYC HEALTH COMMISSIONER: That is this man progressed from being someone non-infected to someone with AIDS in a matter of months.

FEYERICK: The concern is that this might be a super virus, a rare strain of HIV so aggressive virtually no drugs work. New York City's top health official is warning the gay community to be careful.

DR. ANTONIO URBINA, ST. VINCENT'S CATHOLIC MEDICAL CENTER: I want to emphasize that this is a single case. We do not know how widely spread it is or will become.

FEYERICK: The virus was found in a man in his mid 40s. Doctors say he had had unprotected anal sex with numerous men while using the club drug crystal meth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A rapidly growing crystal methamphetamine epidemic in New York City is facilitating the transmission of HIV at an alarming rate. FEYERICK: Usually it takes years before HIV turns into full- fledged AIDS. Some doctors say the problem is not the virus it's the patient. One of the nation's top experts on AIDS Anthony Fauci is skeptical about a so-called super bug.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Is it due to the particular virulence of this microbe or is it due to the fact that this particular single individual was not able to handle HIV very well? So, it's something to stay alert for.

FEYERICK: Local and federal officials usually agree before breaking this kind of news. Local New York City officials decided to go public in part to prevent any outbreak. Activists say they did the right thing.

ANA OLIVEIRA, GAY MEN'S HEALTH CRISIS: We want to tell the public in general is that we don't know enough yet about this particular case that was identified.

FEYERICK (on camera): City officials say they just want to keep the virus from spreading. They're now trying to track down anyone who may have had unprotected sex with the infected man.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And just to underscore one part of this problem, police outside Atlanta in the city of Smyrna busted a large lab for making methamphetamines, the largest seizure ever of its kind in that state.

You can explain the rise of crystal meth in many ways. It's cheap to make, affordable to buy, available everywhere and very, very addictive. The attraction of and the battle against crystal meth through the eyes of two gay men now their stories told by CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOMMY FOSTER, HIV POSITIVE: In high school I was a total geek, didn't smoke. I didn't drink until I was in college and I was drug free until I was 24.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-seven-year-old Tommy Foster is a struggling Broadway actor in New York City. He looks like an all American boy.

FOSTER: Just say no. .

GUPTA: The songs are Broadway tunes, the context his life story, the date the one year anniversary of the day he was diagnosed HIV positive.

FOSTER: For nearly 20 years I was Nancy Reagan's poster child for a drug free America. Just Say No and the DARE program scared me silly. GUPTA: But now you might say he's a poster child for a new face of HIV AIDS. Difficult times and a craving for acceptance led Tommy into a rising sub-culture which is tearing up the gay community, both medically and morally.

FOSTER: I gave in to a craving, a three-day marathon of unprotected crystallized sex that did leave me infected with HIV with no idea who gave it to me.

The purpose of me doing my show is to offer myself and what happened to me up as a specimen to be examined.

GUPTA: Crystal methamphetamine, also known as crystal, meth, crank, ice or Tina (ph) is a cheap, highly potent stimulant. It first surfaced in poor areas of the rural Midwest and southern United States. More recently it's been glamorized in certain sexually- charged environments in some gay communities across America.

(on camera): You can snort it. You can smoke it. You can inject it. You can swallow it. Simply put, it messes with the serotonin and dopamine in your brain. Those are the cells that stabilize mood. It will keep you up for days, take away all your inhibitions and is as addictive, if not more so, than heroin.

FOSTER: You get a rush of almost like adrenalin immediately. Just thinking -- just thinking about doing it causes my body to react as if I have just done it and it's like all of a sudden your eyes focus in a way like you've never seen things before and immediately it turns everything sexual, everything sexual.

GUPTA (voice-over): In the mid-'80s after Rock Hudson disclosed he was dying of AIDS, more than 50 percent of gay men in New York City and San Francisco were HIV positive. The numbers have dropped since then but crystal use may have a hand in reversing that trend.

PETER STALEY, HIV POSITIVE: The fact that ten to 15 percent of gay men are using it and half of those are HIV positive is a very shocking number.

GUPTA: Peter Staley was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 when it was considered a death sentence. Anger and frustration pushed Staley to doing Act Up and he became one of the most recognizable faces in gay rights and AIDS activism. He was on the front line of a societal transformation.

STALEY: Every gay man started wearing condoms if they engaged in sex and it almost completely eliminated the spread of HIV among gay men.

GUPTA: And when the protease inhibitors arrived in the late 1990s people started living longer than ever before but something else happened.

STALEY: I think safe sex fatigue set in and there also was a rise of complacency about what living with HIV actually meant. FOSTER: There are young guys that aren't scared of it anymore so they're being a little more lax about it. I knew better but on the drug you'll let anybody do anything.

GUPTA: After a two and a half year struggle with his own crystal addiction, Staley was compelled to move again to the front line.

STALEY: This is a very dangerous drug. It's destroying the lives of many of my friends and we need to have that conversation and ask why we're playing with this particular drug.

GUPTA: Staley started that conversation by posting provocative in-your-face ads around Chelsea. That's New York's self-proclaimed gay ghetto, which triggered an immediate reaction from all sides, including the city government which helped fund the campaign. Staley is now working with New York's HIV forum to change the social norms around the drug.

STALEY: The title of the campaign is "Crystal Free and Sexy," so what's sexy to you? I'm crystal free.

GUPTA: A similar ad campaign was launched in San Francisco's gay neighborhoods where crystal use has been rampant for the past few years and has left a devastating hangover.

And they're targeting the highway where men cruise for drug- induced sexual encounters, the Internet. Along with ads for party and play or BB, which is slang for Tina and unprotected sex, are popup ads, surveys and links to crystal information sites, straight talk about crystal, sex and HIV.

STALEY: We can't stop the spread of HIV unless you talk about sex.

FOSTER: I don't want other people to end up in the situation that I'm in. I want to make a difference and I'm not going to wait until I'm a big movie star to do it because I may never be a big movie star.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Charles Kaiser joins us now. He's the author of "The Gay Metropolis." It's nice to have you with us.

CHARLES KAISER, AUTHOR, "THE GAY METROPOLIS": It's nice to be here.

BROWN: I'm almost inclined to ask, you know, what is going on here in a sense? Is it that a group of men who did not know someone who died?

KAISER: That's certainly part of it. I mean there's nothing to compare to the shocks that people my age lived through in the 1970s of losing ten, 15, 20 of your best friends and nobody has had that experience now for 15 years. Thank God they haven't had it but they haven't had the shock effect either and I don't think the reality of this disease is anything like it was for us to the people who are in their 20s today.

BROWN: But there's more.

KAISER: But there's more. There's fatigue with having safe sex and there are ads for protease inhibitors in every gay magazine which make it look as if this is a completely innocuous disease.

BROWN: Can I tell you that I don't understand what that means that there is fatigue with having safe sex?

KAISER: Well, the most horrifying quote I ever had in doing my first article on the subject, which is now a long time ago in 1992, was someone in San Francisco who said the easiest place you can be in San Francisco today is to be newly infected with the AIDS virus. You know you won't get sick for ten years because there are drugs to keep it off and you can stop worrying about when you're going to get it, pretty horrifying.

BROWN: That's pretty horrifying. What are you going to do about it?

KAISER: Well, we're all and I mean the story in today's "New York Times" really was kind of an eye opener to all of us who read it.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: Because there were so many people saying we can't just sit back and be complacent anymore. We have to become more proactive. We have to do more. I mean part of the problem with the protease inhibitors is that they've reduced the sense of crisis that there was at the beginning.

I compare it to the draft lottery's effect on the antiwar movements back in the beginning of the Nixon administration. The draft lottery made half of the population. and two-thirds of the draft age population. feel immune to the draft. Protease inhibitors have made, thank God have made many people live much longer but they've also made people think this is not a catastrophic disease and that is a catastrophe.

BROWN: The talk in the "Times" today was essentially that people were talking about a very aggressive, I mean very aggressive, effort to interfere with people having safe sex.

KAISER: Yes, they were even suggesting going into sex parties and stopping people from having it. And there was a period a few years ago in bars and back when I was in New York City where people would go in with flashlights and say "Stop doing that. Use a condom."

I mean people like me who grew up during this epidemic, survived it by a miracle and then learned that all you really had to do to protect yourself was to use a condom every time you had anal intercourse it seemed to us this was not such a tremendous sacrifice to make. This is not tears, toil, blood and sweat.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: This is wearing a condom, so to people like us we are appalled that this is something that some people can't learn to do but we should emphasize that this is a minority of the gay population. Most gay men do practice safer sex.

Most gay men do wear condoms but the problem is the ones who don't are also the ones who were using methamphetamine and they are the ones with dozens or in the case of the newly-identified victim hundreds of sex partners in a few months so that makes them all the more virulent.

BROWN: Is there a pressure within the gay community not to talk about this in the broader community in the sort of way that Cosby I think felt some backlash for talking about race issues in front of white people?

KAISER: I don't think so. There was that worry at the very beginning of the epidemic and, in fact, one of the reasons it wasn't written about more at the beginning was because gay activists didn't want it to be written about because they were afraid that we would all be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

But I think we're way beyond that now and the homophobia that exists in the United States on the part of the religious right and the Bush administration is going to exist whether we talk about this or not and we have to be responsible for our own lives and we have to be responsible for protecting one another.

BROWN: Just very quickly do you think it's at least possible that this concern of a new strain with what we believe, I mean we don't know much more than there is a concern, might have a positive effect in that it's just like a smack in the face to people?

KAISER: I certainly hope so and I think the New York City officials have done exactly the right thing and I think the criticism of them by the federal officials is absolutely outrageous because, imagine if they hadn't announced this.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: And six months from now there were 60 cases of this new strain and then a reporter discovered, well guess what, the Health Department knew about this way back in February and didn't report it. Imagine what a firestorm there would be then. So, I think they've done exactly the right thing. And the health commissioner said today we haven't been treating this like an epidemic.

BROWN: Right.

KAISER: Well, anything that contributes to its treatment is an epidemic is a good thing.

BROWN: I said to someone today they've raised the threat level for national security on less than this.

KAISER: Absolutely true.

BROWN: Nice to see you. Thanks for coming in.

KAISER: Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you.

If much of what we've done so far on the program tonight is to talk about things that have gone wrong, our next stop is about something that's gone right, which given that it's taking place in tsunami-battered Sri Lanka says something and given that it involves an infant says something more.

In this case it's Baby 81, the 81st survivor brought to a hospital after the wave, a baby whose real name is Abhilash, but whose real parents are very, very happy tonight.

Satinder Bindra has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After seven weeks of worrying, waiting ad fighting in court, the Jeyarajah family finally has something to look forward to. They bought food, lots of toys and prepared this room for their 4-month-old son who will soon be coming home.

JUNITA JEYARAJAH, MOTHER (through translator): We will be taking the baby first to the temple to say our prayers. Then we will take him to see our house destroyed by the tsunami. And then we will bring him to the place where we are staying now.

BINDRA: Many Sri Lankas believe there was a divine touch to Baby 81's story because he managed to float to safety wrapped in a pile of garbage on top of this old tire. As word spread of his miraculous escape, nine couples began fighting for him, each claiming to be his parents.

Yet again this baby became another symbol of this country's grief and suffering but while many claimed Baby 81, it was only the Jeyarajahs who took their case to court.

Earlier this month, a judge ordered the couple to submit to a DNA test. They agreed but later in desperation tried to snatch their baby from the hospital. The confrontation led police to briefly arrest Murugupillai Jeyarajah. He was later released on bail.

Such raw emotion touched millions across the world and just two days ago the world also witnessed this jubilation, Murugupillai Jeyarajah hugging his lawyer after hearing DNA tests proved he was the baby's father.

The Jeyarajahs say they'll now keep their planned celebrations to welcome Abhilash low key. They say they want to respect thousands of other grieving Sri Lankan families who will never be able to hug their children again.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Kalmunai, eastern Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have much more ahead on the program tonight, including a young man in court contemplating the rest of his life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My life's in the hands of God. Whatever he decides that's what it's going to be.

BROWN (voice-over): But first it was a jury, then a judge, two killings to consider, one prescription drug and a 12-year-old boy.

Out west, kids who still know how to smile it's just not the only thing they know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes I wonder, you know, why does it have to be my dad why our family has to go through this.

BROWN: A school where more than one in three kids has a parent in the service overseas.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's why we need to welcome faith-based programs.

BROWN: That was five years ago. What's happened in the meantime? A big name Republican wants to know.

And is this the ultimate faith-based initiative?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been trying for 40 to 50 years to perfect the system and we still can't get the system to work.

BROWN: Half a century and tens of billions of dollars, the state of missile defense, no shot in the dark from us.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Those who were in the courtroom in Massachusetts today say a former Roman Catholic priest showed no emotion as he was sentenced to 12 to 15 years for raping a boy in the 1980s.

Paul Shanley was convicted last week of rape and assault in one of the sex abuse cases that have shaken the Catholic Church. The judge said it's difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority. The father of the victim put it a little bit differently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RICHARD BUSA, VICTIMS'S FATHER (voice-over): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what he did to my son can never be fixed a priest is supposed to help people not hurt them. A priest is supposed to be a role model for children not prey on them. A life sentence in prison doesn't even begin to bring justice for the lifelong horror he knowingly, intentionally (UNINTELLIGIBLE) caused my son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A statement from the victim now 27 years old was read in court as well. In it the young man called Shanley a monster.

Politics and religion we are sometimes reminded are two subjects that should be avoided at proper dinners and cocktail parties but around dinner tables in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and probably in many communities around the country religion and its often rocky relationship to public schools has indeed become a hot topic for debate.

We have two examples tonight from CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just beyond the beltway and the high-minded debates about separation of church and state, Samira Hussein is waging a one woman war.

SAMIRA HUSSEIN, MUSLIM ACTIVIST: We have students come from all over the world.

FOREMAN: She wants schools in suburban Maryland to show greater respect for the Islamic faith.

HUSSEIN: I have been asking for ten years for them to honor us not to schedule tests on our holidays.

FOREMAN: And what have you heard all that time?

HUSSEIN: It's not happening.

FOREMAN: It is an issue because her county school system officially recognizes not only the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter but also Jewish holidays. Schools are closed on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah.

The Montgomery County schools would not explain the policy to us but community leaders say so many Jewish students and teachers live here. If classes were held, making up the work would be very hard.

JAY RUBIN, FMR. DIR., JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCILS: But it's one thing if it's just a handful of people that may need to stay after class and do it and it's another thing I would assume if, you know, if 20 or 25 percent or more of the student body needs to do that.

FOREMAN: But the Muslim population has grown dramatically here. A quarter million now live around Washington and although the state has tried to make some adjustments, Muslim holidays often collide with school obligations.

HUSSEIN: Just imagine if I'm talking to a Christian mother or a Jewish mother. If their child has to go to school on Christmas Day or Yom Kippur, not just to attend also to do a test how would they feel?

FOREMAN: That's what your child is going through now?

HUSSEIN: Yes.

FOREMAN: Clashes over schools and religion are showing up everywhere. Just a few hours away in Staunton, Virginia the school board rejected a minority demand to shut down a Christian education program. That program lets kids leave public schools for a short time each week to be educated at local churches. Critics say that should happen only after school hours.

EDWARD SCOTT, STAUNTON, VA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER: Where's the church after school to pick up the children?

FOREMAN (on camera): All of this can be very touchy business. Although the vast majority of Americans call themselves Christians, in any given community there can be a great many Muslims, Hindus or Jews.

(voice-over): Samira's children were born here.

HUSSEIN: If they ask to be treated equally, this is not something foreign. This is -- it's their country. It's their lives.

FOREMAN: And she believes schools across the country soon enough will have to decide what is fair and whether a minority can be too minor to count.

Tom Foreman CNN, Rockville, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Religion and the public business is rarely without controversy. Take the president's call for the marriage of religious groups and social services, a central theme of what the president calls compassionate conservatism.

To date it has been far more talk than action and the president himself now getting some of the blame; reporting tonight CNN's Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During the 2000 campaign, David Kuo was a freelance speechwriter for George W. Bush.

BUSH: That's why we need to welcome faith-based programs.

HENRY: Kuo says compassionate conservatism was a dream come true.

DAVID KUO, FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE: I think that Governor Bush's agenda in the 2000 campaign for helping the poor was one of the most exciting social service agendas for the last 40 years. I mean he really put forward an agenda to help the poor that was extraordinary.

HENRY: Kuo joined the White House staff to help pass the president's $8 billion program to promote religious charities. But provisions to pay for it were stripped from the president's tax cut in the spring of 2001. Kuo, who left the White House in 2003, has now written an online column on a religious Web site charging the president has failed to deliver.

KUO: I think when the tax incentive provisions to encourage charitable giving were dropped it sent an unfortunate signal to Capitol Hill that said really the compassion agenda isn't as important as a lot of the other things that are out there.

HENRY: A senior Republican agreed with Kuo's claim that there was only a minimal commitment from some White House aides.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think there's -- there may be some critique that many within the White House are not as enthusiastic about this proposal as the president.

HENRY: But Senator Santorum insists the real problem was Democrats.

SANTORUM: You can blame the president for maybe not pushing as hard as he could have to get this done but I'm not too sure that Tom Daschle was going to be any kind of willing cooperative legislator when it came to this issue.

HENRY: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said both the president and his staff remain deeply committed to this issue.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has made his faith-based and community initiative one of his highest priorities.

HENRY: McClellan blamed Congress for letting the legislation die and noted the president has signed two executive orders implementing pieces of the agenda. David Kuo says that's not enough but he still has faith in his former boss. Kuo says the president has four more years to follow through.

Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight American history on the auction block, things that belonged to President and Mrs. Kennedy and how personal some of it is to some of the people who showed up at the auction.

And, a look at headlines for Wednesday morning's papers, that's coming up at the end. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Bushes are perhaps the real American political dynasty of the time, but there remains something about the Kennedys. In their lives and in their deaths, they seem to generate outsized attention.

A New York City auction house today put up for sale property that belonged to the president and Mrs. Kennedy, in many ways, ordinary stuff owned by people anything but ordinary. And, in this case, their value was determined more by the who than the what.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One by one...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) at $4,250.

CARROLL: ... items once belonging to the Kennedys went to the highest bidder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sold for $4,250.

CARROLL: Item No. 87, beach chairs. Item No. 233, China set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forty-two fifty.

CARROLL: For most, a chance to buy part of history.

ROBERT LITTELL, FRIEND OF JFK JR.: This is when he walked into Martha's Vineyard, the main house there.

CARROLL: But when Robert Littell flips through the auction catalogue, he sees more than just item numbers.

LITTELL: The entire book is evocative.

CARROLL: He sees a time when he was college roommates with John F. Kennedy Jr. He knows his friend's feelings about the oak rocking chair.

LITTELL: He loved rocking in it. He loved sitting back and closing his eyes and going back home, if you will, to the White House.

CARROLL: And the stories about the living room at Martha's Vineyard.

LITTELL: John loved this rug so much, he brought it down to New York, but it was too dirty.

CARROLL: The rug wasn't for auction, but the dining room table from the family's Manhattan apartment was.

LITTELL: She gave me milk and cookies. And I thought it was my next-door neighbor. She wasn't Jackie O. in any sense. I remember sitting right here in this chair and being scared because they served her first scallops and some rice dish that I wasn't going to eat. And the next thing, they brought me, the guest, the next meal, and it was a burned hamburger with minute rice. And I just said right then and there, these people are kind.

(LAUGHTER)

LITTELL: And that's the truth.

CARROLL: One of John Jr.'s most beloved items, says Littell, an engraved whale bone from the family's scrimshaw collection.

LITTELL: If a flood or an earthquake had come, he would have run and he would have grabbed the scrimshaw collection first and ran with that. So, that reminds me of his love for his father.

CARROLL: Caroline Kennedy pulled it from auction. But, for $950, this couple bought another part of the collection.

TOM RILEY, AUCTION BIDDER: We bought the book on scrimshaws collected by the president.

CARROLL: The Rileys are from Iowa. They felt coming here was their duty after meeting Caroline at a political fund-raiser in their home.

T. RILEY: We were impressed, weren't we, Nan?

NAN RILEY, AUCTION BIDDER: We were.

T. RILEY: Tell him how lovely she was.

N. RILEY: She was. She was just gracious, friendly and so pretty, just very nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen hundred on the right

CARROLL: They don't mind the spectacle.

T. RILEY: It demonstrates the affection, admiration and the happiness that the family brought to this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nineteen hundred, $2,000.

LITTELL: To look at these pictures and to see this furniture and this memorabilia, it really does help you connect. So I understand this auction.

CARROLL: The Kennedys say they've already given away everything of historical importance, but sometimes importance is personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sold at $40,000.

CARROLL: Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, verdict and sentencing in the case of a teenager whose murder defense was: Zoloft made me do it.

And perhaps the hardest lesson to learn from mom or dad, that mom or dad won't be home when you come home, because they're in Iraq, a school where nearly 30 percent of the kids have parents overseas.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In South Carolina, two grandparents are dead and their greatgrandson is a killer. Nothing can change it. No one disputes it. It wasn't for the jury to decide.

What jurors did have to grapple with was this. Was the grandson responsible for his actions, responsible when he was 12 years old and, perhaps, suffering from the side effects of a prescription drug under suspicion for what it can make people think and possibly make them do?

Reporting from Charleston, South Carolina, tonight, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chris Pittman stood with his head down as the verdict was read.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We, the jury, find the defendant guilty...

COHEN: The jury was out for about six hours. One juror said from the start of deliberations, most wanted to convict. They agreed with the prosecution that the child waited to shoot his grandparents in their sleep, then burned down the house as a cover-up. That showed deliberate planning, the jury decided.

STEVEN PLATT, JUROR: He took the time to light the fire, to turn the light on, to hide the shotgun shells.

COHEN: The defense argument that the antidepressant drug Zoloft clouded the boy's mind and drove him to kill made little impression on the jury.

PLATT: Always seemed like the defense was grasping at straws, trying to use the, you know, the drug and the side effects as a smokescreen.

Would it actually push him to the point where he would commit murder? No, we came to the decision that it did not.

Just because you take prescription medication doesn't mean you can't be held accountable for your actions.

COHEN: The teenager's family pleaded for mercy. DANIELLE FINCHUM, SISTER OF CHRIS PITTMAN: It's just I know for a fact that there is absolutely no possible way that my brother in his current state of mind could have done something like that.

COHEN: Chris, now 15, spoke only once during the trial, just before he was sentenced.

CHRIS PITTMAN, DEFENDANT: All I can really say is that I know it's in the hands of God, and whatever He decides on, that's what it's going to be.

COHEN: It was what the law of the state demanded, no less, no more. The judge gave him the minimum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A sentence of 30 years.

COHEN: The teenager was led away, to be put back behind bars, probably until he's past 40. His sister was left in tears.

FINCHUM: Today has been a lot worse for me than even finding out when all this happened, because I feel like I've truly lost all three of the people that I loved the most.

COHEN (on camera): The FDA has not linked Zoloft and similar drugs to violence against others. However, they do say that antidepressants increase suicidal thoughts and behavior in some children and teens.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Charleston, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, what kind of missile defense has the country bought with tens and tens of millions of billions of dollars?

And later, how to save two bits in your morning paper. Let us read you the headlines. Doesn't get easier than that, does it?

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: One Guard unit in that one area of Louisiana took a terrible hit that day in January.

In generations past, it may have been that a lot of students in a given high school had a parent employed in the local factory, maybe the coal mine, maybe the shipyard. These day, in many communities where the primary employer is the U.S. military, the workplace is of course Iraq.

And, tonight, Sean Callebs take us to a high school in Fountain, Colorado, a company town in a different time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do I know her?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Don't let the light-up-the-room smile fool you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

CALLEBS: It masks the fact Widefield High sophomore Dianne Lachuga (ph) misses her father. Sergeant Jose Lachuga (ph) is serving his second tour in Iraq in two years, the second time he's left two daughters broken-hearted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I know how they feel sometimes, because I can see it. I can see how sad they are. It is hard, because they want their dad to be at their programs or activities.

CALLEBS (on camera): Seventy percent of the families in the school district that serves Widefield High have ties to the military. And roughly 40 percent of the students at Widefield have at least one parent deployed overseas right now.

(voice-over): For the teens, it is a bond.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The students here are -- we're very close. Like, we're not the typical school that has the popular kids, the losers, the geeks. We're all tied in together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This packet here covers you guys for the installation.

CALLEBS: That bond led Widefield counselors to start what they call the Military Student Coalition. Adults envisioned a support group, touchy-feely, sharing the ups and downs of having a mom or dad gone. The students, counselor Jan Schuetz says, morphed it into something much more active and positive.

JAN SCHUETZ, COUNSELOR, WIDEFIELD HIGH SCHOOL: The thing that I see in al of these kids is their adaptability, a sense of resilience, of going with the flow.

CALLEBS: On this day, making valentines for troops in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roses are red. Violets are blue. You defend our freedom. And that's why we love you.

CALLEBS: Students also help older or disabled local veterans baby-sit and organized a winter clothes drive, basically anything to stay busy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good job.

CALLEBS: Anything to find distraction from the daily headlines of Iraq violence. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes, I wonder, why does it has to be my dad, why our family has to go through this. But, when I think about it, it's not just for me. It's, like, for everyone around the world and stuff. And I don't know. I try not to be so selfish with it, but he's doing a good thing and I'm glad he's over there.

CALLEBS: A lot of these students have moved six, eight, even 10 times because of the military. That means parents may be the only constant in these teen lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, my mom is so strong. I respect her so much for what she's going through.

CALLEBS: The e-mails to the family that come almost daily help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's titled, "I Love You."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think about him every day and I pray for him every day. Like, I tell him in the e-mails and stuff, but just telling him face to face would be better.

CALLEBS: For now, this self-professed daddy's girl says e-mails and occasional phone calls will have to do. It will be at least a year before dad returns for good, embracing not duty, but family.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Fountain, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And now to missile defense and a few names from the past, Night Zeus -- Nike Zeus, rather -- Sentinel, Safeguard, SDI. That would be in order of decade missile defense in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s and the '80s.

Safeguard actually was deployed, only to be decommissioned, literally, a few months after going online. The current system is up and running in Alaska and in California, depending on how you define up and running. Yesterday, it turned out, it was neither.

From the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The target missile launched flawlessly from Alaska, but the interceptor deigned to shoot it down never got off the ground, $85 million for a test that produced no data on whether the complex technology to destroy a warhead in space is working any better.

Critics say the failure, the second in two months, shows that, after sinking more than $50 billion over the last five years into missile defense, the U.S. is not even close to having a system that can protect against long-range nuclear missiles. JOHN ISAACS, COUNCIL FOR A LIVABLE WORLD: We've been trying for 40 to 50 years to perfect the system. We have new technology advances. We have new missiles. We have new sensor data and we still can't get the system to work.

MCINTYRE: Overall, the program is batting .500, with five hits and five misses. But critics charge, the early tests were too easy. The new head of the Missile Defense Agency rejects that skepticism, insisting the latest failure was an anomaly involving tried-and-true ground launch technology, not an indication of serious problems.

LT. GEN. TREY OBERING, DIRECTOR, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY: We have some rust that we have got to get out of the system, so to speak. We also understand we have some quality control issues on the ground side that we have to address. But, again, I would call these on the margins. These have nothing to do with the basic design, the basic performance of the system.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon argues, whatever its limits, some missile defense is better than none, especially with North Korea claiming to have nuclear weapons and developing missiles that could reach parts of the United States.

OBERING: When everything else fails, we're going to be the only thing between an incoming warhead and what could be mass destruction on the ground.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. now has six interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska and two more in California that could be used in a pinch. And, if an interceptor failed to launch during a real attack, officials say other missiles would automatically take over.

(on camera): The recent failures have been in the area of standard rocket science, proven technology that Pentagon officials say is difficult but doable. And while it may be disappointing for missile engineers and scientists, they insist they will solve the problems over time.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead, fussy eaters, button noses, grooming emergency. All that. Then there's the dogs, the Westminster Dog Show.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Mark Twain might have had some nice things to say about cats from time to time, but from the sound of it, he was a dog person. Anyone who's ever really loved a dog knows how true these words of Twain's are. "Heaven," he wrote, "goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." Then Madison Square Garden counts as heaven on Earth this week for many in the dog word. For two days, the annual Westminster Dog Show is one of the best collections of characters and canines around. We know why the dogs do it. They have no choice. But what about the owners?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're out of our minds. We have a lot of fun doing it. Some people go off on the weekend and play golf. And we come and do dog shows.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the Westminster Kennel Club. It is the Rolls Royce of dog shows.

I think you meet people of all sorts when you're in this court. There are people here who are probably multimillionaires and other people at the opposite end of the spectrum.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think a lot of it is individual personalities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're all kind of alpha personalities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I would say dog people are very crazy, because you're spending more money than you're earning. My husband and I met each other by showing our dogs. We used to compete against one another. And we joined forces.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like the fuzzy face and the personality.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's fun to put two dogs together and make puppies and raise them well and train them and show them. And it's fun to win.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To go into competition having people watch me, every move you make, and it's really quite scary, but the first time going around that ring, the adrenaline goes and it's wonderful. And it's exciting. And it's a lot of fun, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You live, eat, breathe, spend all your money, all your time. I don't think there will be many people here who don't tell you that these aren't their kids. And that's our passion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty. Maisy (ph). Maisy, cookie. Come here. Cookie?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My dog is sitting at home going, oh, my goodness.

Morning papers after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.

We'll start -- all right, enough with the music.

"The Washington Times."

Sort of a cranky thing to say on my part, wasn't it?

Up in the corner, please, Ed (ph). "Prayer Eyed in Virginia Schools. Amendment Goes to the Senate." This would allow for -- it doesn't mandate -- prayer in the public schools. I think there's some law on this already. Anyway, that's the -- it's on the front page of "The Washington Times."

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch." This may have to do with a different deadline. I don't. Down in the corner, Ed. "Amendment on Prayer Gets Stalled. Senate Panel Sends Measure to Courts Committee, Where Such Proposals Usually Die." And so, maybe they won't be praying in the public schools in the state of Virginia. It's been kind of a theme in the program, hasn't it?

"The Detroit Free Press," up in the corner here, "Sides Make Last Effort to Save NHL Season. Players Concede to Cap of" -- salary cap -- "of $52 Million. Owners Make Final Offer of $42.5." Basically, here, folks, the players caved, OK? They're going to play, like, 20 games, call it a season. Honestly.

OK, I'm going to stop now. "The Cincinnati" -- I just think this thing has been goofy, OK? Just kind of why didn't they do this six months ago? "We'll never agree to a salary cap."

Speaking of sports on the front page. When I was a boy, they didn't put sports on the front page. "Opening Day Salaries Will Be a Third More Than '04. Reds Dig Deep to Beef Up Lineup" is the front- page story in "The "Cincinnati Enquirer." I guess pitchers and catchers have reported already. Baseball season is around the corner. Hockey season hasn't even started yet. How can you have baseball season?

"Miami Herald." Worshipping Youth. Churches Are Turning to Rock Music and Frank Discussions of Relevant Topics to Attract Young People." You would kind of think frank discussions of relevant topics would always have been a good policy. Anyway, it seems to be something new.

"The Des Moines Register." This headline should not be amusing, but it does amuse me. "FDA Will Add Drug Safety Board. Openness Pledged." You'd think they would have set that up before. That's their job to regulate.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is "mundane." The program never is. We're back tomorrow 10:00 Eastern time. Join us, please. Until then, good night for all of us.

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 15, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
AIDS in little more than a generation has gone from a mystery to a death sentence to a serious but treatable chronic illness in the country and the rest of the developed world. This is a blessing. It may also be an omen.

A generation, it turns out, is long enough for behavior to change and more than long enough for a virus to mutate. A generation from now we may look back on the early part of the 21st Century as the beginning of the end of AIDS or is the moment when AIDS rose back up to bite us.

Either way, a new chapter is being written in New York tonight and so we begin with CNN's Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's only one case, one case in a city where as many as 100,000 people are HIV positive or have AIDS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This particular strain is broadly resistant.

FEYERICK: But for New York City doctors like Roy Guelik (ph) one case is more than enough.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, NYC HEALTH COMMISSIONER: That is this man progressed from being someone non-infected to someone with AIDS in a matter of months.

FEYERICK: The concern is that this might be a super virus, a rare strain of HIV so aggressive virtually no drugs work. New York City's top health official is warning the gay community to be careful.

DR. ANTONIO URBINA, ST. VINCENT'S CATHOLIC MEDICAL CENTER: I want to emphasize that this is a single case. We do not know how widely spread it is or will become.

FEYERICK: The virus was found in a man in his mid 40s. Doctors say he had had unprotected anal sex with numerous men while using the club drug crystal meth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A rapidly growing crystal methamphetamine epidemic in New York City is facilitating the transmission of HIV at an alarming rate. FEYERICK: Usually it takes years before HIV turns into full- fledged AIDS. Some doctors say the problem is not the virus it's the patient. One of the nation's top experts on AIDS Anthony Fauci is skeptical about a so-called super bug.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Is it due to the particular virulence of this microbe or is it due to the fact that this particular single individual was not able to handle HIV very well? So, it's something to stay alert for.

FEYERICK: Local and federal officials usually agree before breaking this kind of news. Local New York City officials decided to go public in part to prevent any outbreak. Activists say they did the right thing.

ANA OLIVEIRA, GAY MEN'S HEALTH CRISIS: We want to tell the public in general is that we don't know enough yet about this particular case that was identified.

FEYERICK (on camera): City officials say they just want to keep the virus from spreading. They're now trying to track down anyone who may have had unprotected sex with the infected man.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And just to underscore one part of this problem, police outside Atlanta in the city of Smyrna busted a large lab for making methamphetamines, the largest seizure ever of its kind in that state.

You can explain the rise of crystal meth in many ways. It's cheap to make, affordable to buy, available everywhere and very, very addictive. The attraction of and the battle against crystal meth through the eyes of two gay men now their stories told by CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOMMY FOSTER, HIV POSITIVE: In high school I was a total geek, didn't smoke. I didn't drink until I was in college and I was drug free until I was 24.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty-seven-year-old Tommy Foster is a struggling Broadway actor in New York City. He looks like an all American boy.

FOSTER: Just say no. .

GUPTA: The songs are Broadway tunes, the context his life story, the date the one year anniversary of the day he was diagnosed HIV positive.

FOSTER: For nearly 20 years I was Nancy Reagan's poster child for a drug free America. Just Say No and the DARE program scared me silly. GUPTA: But now you might say he's a poster child for a new face of HIV AIDS. Difficult times and a craving for acceptance led Tommy into a rising sub-culture which is tearing up the gay community, both medically and morally.

FOSTER: I gave in to a craving, a three-day marathon of unprotected crystallized sex that did leave me infected with HIV with no idea who gave it to me.

The purpose of me doing my show is to offer myself and what happened to me up as a specimen to be examined.

GUPTA: Crystal methamphetamine, also known as crystal, meth, crank, ice or Tina (ph) is a cheap, highly potent stimulant. It first surfaced in poor areas of the rural Midwest and southern United States. More recently it's been glamorized in certain sexually- charged environments in some gay communities across America.

(on camera): You can snort it. You can smoke it. You can inject it. You can swallow it. Simply put, it messes with the serotonin and dopamine in your brain. Those are the cells that stabilize mood. It will keep you up for days, take away all your inhibitions and is as addictive, if not more so, than heroin.

FOSTER: You get a rush of almost like adrenalin immediately. Just thinking -- just thinking about doing it causes my body to react as if I have just done it and it's like all of a sudden your eyes focus in a way like you've never seen things before and immediately it turns everything sexual, everything sexual.

GUPTA (voice-over): In the mid-'80s after Rock Hudson disclosed he was dying of AIDS, more than 50 percent of gay men in New York City and San Francisco were HIV positive. The numbers have dropped since then but crystal use may have a hand in reversing that trend.

PETER STALEY, HIV POSITIVE: The fact that ten to 15 percent of gay men are using it and half of those are HIV positive is a very shocking number.

GUPTA: Peter Staley was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 when it was considered a death sentence. Anger and frustration pushed Staley to doing Act Up and he became one of the most recognizable faces in gay rights and AIDS activism. He was on the front line of a societal transformation.

STALEY: Every gay man started wearing condoms if they engaged in sex and it almost completely eliminated the spread of HIV among gay men.

GUPTA: And when the protease inhibitors arrived in the late 1990s people started living longer than ever before but something else happened.

STALEY: I think safe sex fatigue set in and there also was a rise of complacency about what living with HIV actually meant. FOSTER: There are young guys that aren't scared of it anymore so they're being a little more lax about it. I knew better but on the drug you'll let anybody do anything.

GUPTA: After a two and a half year struggle with his own crystal addiction, Staley was compelled to move again to the front line.

STALEY: This is a very dangerous drug. It's destroying the lives of many of my friends and we need to have that conversation and ask why we're playing with this particular drug.

GUPTA: Staley started that conversation by posting provocative in-your-face ads around Chelsea. That's New York's self-proclaimed gay ghetto, which triggered an immediate reaction from all sides, including the city government which helped fund the campaign. Staley is now working with New York's HIV forum to change the social norms around the drug.

STALEY: The title of the campaign is "Crystal Free and Sexy," so what's sexy to you? I'm crystal free.

GUPTA: A similar ad campaign was launched in San Francisco's gay neighborhoods where crystal use has been rampant for the past few years and has left a devastating hangover.

And they're targeting the highway where men cruise for drug- induced sexual encounters, the Internet. Along with ads for party and play or BB, which is slang for Tina and unprotected sex, are popup ads, surveys and links to crystal information sites, straight talk about crystal, sex and HIV.

STALEY: We can't stop the spread of HIV unless you talk about sex.

FOSTER: I don't want other people to end up in the situation that I'm in. I want to make a difference and I'm not going to wait until I'm a big movie star to do it because I may never be a big movie star.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Charles Kaiser joins us now. He's the author of "The Gay Metropolis." It's nice to have you with us.

CHARLES KAISER, AUTHOR, "THE GAY METROPOLIS": It's nice to be here.

BROWN: I'm almost inclined to ask, you know, what is going on here in a sense? Is it that a group of men who did not know someone who died?

KAISER: That's certainly part of it. I mean there's nothing to compare to the shocks that people my age lived through in the 1970s of losing ten, 15, 20 of your best friends and nobody has had that experience now for 15 years. Thank God they haven't had it but they haven't had the shock effect either and I don't think the reality of this disease is anything like it was for us to the people who are in their 20s today.

BROWN: But there's more.

KAISER: But there's more. There's fatigue with having safe sex and there are ads for protease inhibitors in every gay magazine which make it look as if this is a completely innocuous disease.

BROWN: Can I tell you that I don't understand what that means that there is fatigue with having safe sex?

KAISER: Well, the most horrifying quote I ever had in doing my first article on the subject, which is now a long time ago in 1992, was someone in San Francisco who said the easiest place you can be in San Francisco today is to be newly infected with the AIDS virus. You know you won't get sick for ten years because there are drugs to keep it off and you can stop worrying about when you're going to get it, pretty horrifying.

BROWN: That's pretty horrifying. What are you going to do about it?

KAISER: Well, we're all and I mean the story in today's "New York Times" really was kind of an eye opener to all of us who read it.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: Because there were so many people saying we can't just sit back and be complacent anymore. We have to become more proactive. We have to do more. I mean part of the problem with the protease inhibitors is that they've reduced the sense of crisis that there was at the beginning.

I compare it to the draft lottery's effect on the antiwar movements back in the beginning of the Nixon administration. The draft lottery made half of the population. and two-thirds of the draft age population. feel immune to the draft. Protease inhibitors have made, thank God have made many people live much longer but they've also made people think this is not a catastrophic disease and that is a catastrophe.

BROWN: The talk in the "Times" today was essentially that people were talking about a very aggressive, I mean very aggressive, effort to interfere with people having safe sex.

KAISER: Yes, they were even suggesting going into sex parties and stopping people from having it. And there was a period a few years ago in bars and back when I was in New York City where people would go in with flashlights and say "Stop doing that. Use a condom."

I mean people like me who grew up during this epidemic, survived it by a miracle and then learned that all you really had to do to protect yourself was to use a condom every time you had anal intercourse it seemed to us this was not such a tremendous sacrifice to make. This is not tears, toil, blood and sweat.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: This is wearing a condom, so to people like us we are appalled that this is something that some people can't learn to do but we should emphasize that this is a minority of the gay population. Most gay men do practice safer sex.

Most gay men do wear condoms but the problem is the ones who don't are also the ones who were using methamphetamine and they are the ones with dozens or in the case of the newly-identified victim hundreds of sex partners in a few months so that makes them all the more virulent.

BROWN: Is there a pressure within the gay community not to talk about this in the broader community in the sort of way that Cosby I think felt some backlash for talking about race issues in front of white people?

KAISER: I don't think so. There was that worry at the very beginning of the epidemic and, in fact, one of the reasons it wasn't written about more at the beginning was because gay activists didn't want it to be written about because they were afraid that we would all be rounded up and put in concentration camps.

But I think we're way beyond that now and the homophobia that exists in the United States on the part of the religious right and the Bush administration is going to exist whether we talk about this or not and we have to be responsible for our own lives and we have to be responsible for protecting one another.

BROWN: Just very quickly do you think it's at least possible that this concern of a new strain with what we believe, I mean we don't know much more than there is a concern, might have a positive effect in that it's just like a smack in the face to people?

KAISER: I certainly hope so and I think the New York City officials have done exactly the right thing and I think the criticism of them by the federal officials is absolutely outrageous because, imagine if they hadn't announced this.

BROWN: Yes.

KAISER: And six months from now there were 60 cases of this new strain and then a reporter discovered, well guess what, the Health Department knew about this way back in February and didn't report it. Imagine what a firestorm there would be then. So, I think they've done exactly the right thing. And the health commissioner said today we haven't been treating this like an epidemic.

BROWN: Right.

KAISER: Well, anything that contributes to its treatment is an epidemic is a good thing.

BROWN: I said to someone today they've raised the threat level for national security on less than this.

KAISER: Absolutely true.

BROWN: Nice to see you. Thanks for coming in.

KAISER: Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you.

If much of what we've done so far on the program tonight is to talk about things that have gone wrong, our next stop is about something that's gone right, which given that it's taking place in tsunami-battered Sri Lanka says something and given that it involves an infant says something more.

In this case it's Baby 81, the 81st survivor brought to a hospital after the wave, a baby whose real name is Abhilash, but whose real parents are very, very happy tonight.

Satinder Bindra has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After seven weeks of worrying, waiting ad fighting in court, the Jeyarajah family finally has something to look forward to. They bought food, lots of toys and prepared this room for their 4-month-old son who will soon be coming home.

JUNITA JEYARAJAH, MOTHER (through translator): We will be taking the baby first to the temple to say our prayers. Then we will take him to see our house destroyed by the tsunami. And then we will bring him to the place where we are staying now.

BINDRA: Many Sri Lankas believe there was a divine touch to Baby 81's story because he managed to float to safety wrapped in a pile of garbage on top of this old tire. As word spread of his miraculous escape, nine couples began fighting for him, each claiming to be his parents.

Yet again this baby became another symbol of this country's grief and suffering but while many claimed Baby 81, it was only the Jeyarajahs who took their case to court.

Earlier this month, a judge ordered the couple to submit to a DNA test. They agreed but later in desperation tried to snatch their baby from the hospital. The confrontation led police to briefly arrest Murugupillai Jeyarajah. He was later released on bail.

Such raw emotion touched millions across the world and just two days ago the world also witnessed this jubilation, Murugupillai Jeyarajah hugging his lawyer after hearing DNA tests proved he was the baby's father.

The Jeyarajahs say they'll now keep their planned celebrations to welcome Abhilash low key. They say they want to respect thousands of other grieving Sri Lankan families who will never be able to hug their children again.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Kalmunai, eastern Sri Lanka.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We have much more ahead on the program tonight, including a young man in court contemplating the rest of his life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My life's in the hands of God. Whatever he decides that's what it's going to be.

BROWN (voice-over): But first it was a jury, then a judge, two killings to consider, one prescription drug and a 12-year-old boy.

Out west, kids who still know how to smile it's just not the only thing they know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes I wonder, you know, why does it have to be my dad why our family has to go through this.

BROWN: A school where more than one in three kids has a parent in the service overseas.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's why we need to welcome faith-based programs.

BROWN: That was five years ago. What's happened in the meantime? A big name Republican wants to know.

And is this the ultimate faith-based initiative?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been trying for 40 to 50 years to perfect the system and we still can't get the system to work.

BROWN: Half a century and tens of billions of dollars, the state of missile defense, no shot in the dark from us.

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Those who were in the courtroom in Massachusetts today say a former Roman Catholic priest showed no emotion as he was sentenced to 12 to 15 years for raping a boy in the 1980s.

Paul Shanley was convicted last week of rape and assault in one of the sex abuse cases that have shaken the Catholic Church. The judge said it's difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority. The father of the victim put it a little bit differently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RICHARD BUSA, VICTIMS'S FATHER (voice-over): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what he did to my son can never be fixed a priest is supposed to help people not hurt them. A priest is supposed to be a role model for children not prey on them. A life sentence in prison doesn't even begin to bring justice for the lifelong horror he knowingly, intentionally (UNINTELLIGIBLE) caused my son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: A statement from the victim now 27 years old was read in court as well. In it the young man called Shanley a monster.

Politics and religion we are sometimes reminded are two subjects that should be avoided at proper dinners and cocktail parties but around dinner tables in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and probably in many communities around the country religion and its often rocky relationship to public schools has indeed become a hot topic for debate.

We have two examples tonight from CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just beyond the beltway and the high-minded debates about separation of church and state, Samira Hussein is waging a one woman war.

SAMIRA HUSSEIN, MUSLIM ACTIVIST: We have students come from all over the world.

FOREMAN: She wants schools in suburban Maryland to show greater respect for the Islamic faith.

HUSSEIN: I have been asking for ten years for them to honor us not to schedule tests on our holidays.

FOREMAN: And what have you heard all that time?

HUSSEIN: It's not happening.

FOREMAN: It is an issue because her county school system officially recognizes not only the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter but also Jewish holidays. Schools are closed on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah.

The Montgomery County schools would not explain the policy to us but community leaders say so many Jewish students and teachers live here. If classes were held, making up the work would be very hard.

JAY RUBIN, FMR. DIR., JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCILS: But it's one thing if it's just a handful of people that may need to stay after class and do it and it's another thing I would assume if, you know, if 20 or 25 percent or more of the student body needs to do that.

FOREMAN: But the Muslim population has grown dramatically here. A quarter million now live around Washington and although the state has tried to make some adjustments, Muslim holidays often collide with school obligations.

HUSSEIN: Just imagine if I'm talking to a Christian mother or a Jewish mother. If their child has to go to school on Christmas Day or Yom Kippur, not just to attend also to do a test how would they feel?

FOREMAN: That's what your child is going through now?

HUSSEIN: Yes.

FOREMAN: Clashes over schools and religion are showing up everywhere. Just a few hours away in Staunton, Virginia the school board rejected a minority demand to shut down a Christian education program. That program lets kids leave public schools for a short time each week to be educated at local churches. Critics say that should happen only after school hours.

EDWARD SCOTT, STAUNTON, VA SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER: Where's the church after school to pick up the children?

FOREMAN (on camera): All of this can be very touchy business. Although the vast majority of Americans call themselves Christians, in any given community there can be a great many Muslims, Hindus or Jews.

(voice-over): Samira's children were born here.

HUSSEIN: If they ask to be treated equally, this is not something foreign. This is -- it's their country. It's their lives.

FOREMAN: And she believes schools across the country soon enough will have to decide what is fair and whether a minority can be too minor to count.

Tom Foreman CNN, Rockville, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Religion and the public business is rarely without controversy. Take the president's call for the marriage of religious groups and social services, a central theme of what the president calls compassionate conservatism.

To date it has been far more talk than action and the president himself now getting some of the blame; reporting tonight CNN's Ed Henry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During the 2000 campaign, David Kuo was a freelance speechwriter for George W. Bush.

BUSH: That's why we need to welcome faith-based programs.

HENRY: Kuo says compassionate conservatism was a dream come true.

DAVID KUO, FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE: I think that Governor Bush's agenda in the 2000 campaign for helping the poor was one of the most exciting social service agendas for the last 40 years. I mean he really put forward an agenda to help the poor that was extraordinary.

HENRY: Kuo joined the White House staff to help pass the president's $8 billion program to promote religious charities. But provisions to pay for it were stripped from the president's tax cut in the spring of 2001. Kuo, who left the White House in 2003, has now written an online column on a religious Web site charging the president has failed to deliver.

KUO: I think when the tax incentive provisions to encourage charitable giving were dropped it sent an unfortunate signal to Capitol Hill that said really the compassion agenda isn't as important as a lot of the other things that are out there.

HENRY: A senior Republican agreed with Kuo's claim that there was only a minimal commitment from some White House aides.

SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: I think there's -- there may be some critique that many within the White House are not as enthusiastic about this proposal as the president.

HENRY: But Senator Santorum insists the real problem was Democrats.

SANTORUM: You can blame the president for maybe not pushing as hard as he could have to get this done but I'm not too sure that Tom Daschle was going to be any kind of willing cooperative legislator when it came to this issue.

HENRY: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said both the president and his staff remain deeply committed to this issue.

SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president has made his faith-based and community initiative one of his highest priorities.

HENRY: McClellan blamed Congress for letting the legislation die and noted the president has signed two executive orders implementing pieces of the agenda. David Kuo says that's not enough but he still has faith in his former boss. Kuo says the president has four more years to follow through.

Ed Henry, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on the program tonight American history on the auction block, things that belonged to President and Mrs. Kennedy and how personal some of it is to some of the people who showed up at the auction.

And, a look at headlines for Wednesday morning's papers, that's coming up at the end. We take a break first.

From New York this is NEWSNIGHT. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Bushes are perhaps the real American political dynasty of the time, but there remains something about the Kennedys. In their lives and in their deaths, they seem to generate outsized attention.

A New York City auction house today put up for sale property that belonged to the president and Mrs. Kennedy, in many ways, ordinary stuff owned by people anything but ordinary. And, in this case, their value was determined more by the who than the what.

Here's CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One by one...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) at $4,250.

CARROLL: ... items once belonging to the Kennedys went to the highest bidder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sold for $4,250.

CARROLL: Item No. 87, beach chairs. Item No. 233, China set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forty-two fifty.

CARROLL: For most, a chance to buy part of history.

ROBERT LITTELL, FRIEND OF JFK JR.: This is when he walked into Martha's Vineyard, the main house there.

CARROLL: But when Robert Littell flips through the auction catalogue, he sees more than just item numbers.

LITTELL: The entire book is evocative.

CARROLL: He sees a time when he was college roommates with John F. Kennedy Jr. He knows his friend's feelings about the oak rocking chair.

LITTELL: He loved rocking in it. He loved sitting back and closing his eyes and going back home, if you will, to the White House.

CARROLL: And the stories about the living room at Martha's Vineyard.

LITTELL: John loved this rug so much, he brought it down to New York, but it was too dirty.

CARROLL: The rug wasn't for auction, but the dining room table from the family's Manhattan apartment was.

LITTELL: She gave me milk and cookies. And I thought it was my next-door neighbor. She wasn't Jackie O. in any sense. I remember sitting right here in this chair and being scared because they served her first scallops and some rice dish that I wasn't going to eat. And the next thing, they brought me, the guest, the next meal, and it was a burned hamburger with minute rice. And I just said right then and there, these people are kind.

(LAUGHTER)

LITTELL: And that's the truth.

CARROLL: One of John Jr.'s most beloved items, says Littell, an engraved whale bone from the family's scrimshaw collection.

LITTELL: If a flood or an earthquake had come, he would have run and he would have grabbed the scrimshaw collection first and ran with that. So, that reminds me of his love for his father.

CARROLL: Caroline Kennedy pulled it from auction. But, for $950, this couple bought another part of the collection.

TOM RILEY, AUCTION BIDDER: We bought the book on scrimshaws collected by the president.

CARROLL: The Rileys are from Iowa. They felt coming here was their duty after meeting Caroline at a political fund-raiser in their home.

T. RILEY: We were impressed, weren't we, Nan?

NAN RILEY, AUCTION BIDDER: We were.

T. RILEY: Tell him how lovely she was.

N. RILEY: She was. She was just gracious, friendly and so pretty, just very nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen hundred on the right

CARROLL: They don't mind the spectacle.

T. RILEY: It demonstrates the affection, admiration and the happiness that the family brought to this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nineteen hundred, $2,000.

LITTELL: To look at these pictures and to see this furniture and this memorabilia, it really does help you connect. So I understand this auction.

CARROLL: The Kennedys say they've already given away everything of historical importance, but sometimes importance is personal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sold at $40,000.

CARROLL: Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Ahead on the program tonight, verdict and sentencing in the case of a teenager whose murder defense was: Zoloft made me do it.

And perhaps the hardest lesson to learn from mom or dad, that mom or dad won't be home when you come home, because they're in Iraq, a school where nearly 30 percent of the kids have parents overseas.

A break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In South Carolina, two grandparents are dead and their greatgrandson is a killer. Nothing can change it. No one disputes it. It wasn't for the jury to decide.

What jurors did have to grapple with was this. Was the grandson responsible for his actions, responsible when he was 12 years old and, perhaps, suffering from the side effects of a prescription drug under suspicion for what it can make people think and possibly make them do?

Reporting from Charleston, South Carolina, tonight, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chris Pittman stood with his head down as the verdict was read.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We, the jury, find the defendant guilty...

COHEN: The jury was out for about six hours. One juror said from the start of deliberations, most wanted to convict. They agreed with the prosecution that the child waited to shoot his grandparents in their sleep, then burned down the house as a cover-up. That showed deliberate planning, the jury decided.

STEVEN PLATT, JUROR: He took the time to light the fire, to turn the light on, to hide the shotgun shells.

COHEN: The defense argument that the antidepressant drug Zoloft clouded the boy's mind and drove him to kill made little impression on the jury.

PLATT: Always seemed like the defense was grasping at straws, trying to use the, you know, the drug and the side effects as a smokescreen.

Would it actually push him to the point where he would commit murder? No, we came to the decision that it did not.

Just because you take prescription medication doesn't mean you can't be held accountable for your actions.

COHEN: The teenager's family pleaded for mercy. DANIELLE FINCHUM, SISTER OF CHRIS PITTMAN: It's just I know for a fact that there is absolutely no possible way that my brother in his current state of mind could have done something like that.

COHEN: Chris, now 15, spoke only once during the trial, just before he was sentenced.

CHRIS PITTMAN, DEFENDANT: All I can really say is that I know it's in the hands of God, and whatever He decides on, that's what it's going to be.

COHEN: It was what the law of the state demanded, no less, no more. The judge gave him the minimum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A sentence of 30 years.

COHEN: The teenager was led away, to be put back behind bars, probably until he's past 40. His sister was left in tears.

FINCHUM: Today has been a lot worse for me than even finding out when all this happened, because I feel like I've truly lost all three of the people that I loved the most.

COHEN (on camera): The FDA has not linked Zoloft and similar drugs to violence against others. However, they do say that antidepressants increase suicidal thoughts and behavior in some children and teens.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Charleston, South Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still to come tonight, what kind of missile defense has the country bought with tens and tens of millions of billions of dollars?

And later, how to save two bits in your morning paper. Let us read you the headlines. Doesn't get easier than that, does it?

This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: One Guard unit in that one area of Louisiana took a terrible hit that day in January.

In generations past, it may have been that a lot of students in a given high school had a parent employed in the local factory, maybe the coal mine, maybe the shipyard. These day, in many communities where the primary employer is the U.S. military, the workplace is of course Iraq.

And, tonight, Sean Callebs take us to a high school in Fountain, Colorado, a company town in a different time.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do I know her?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Don't let the light-up-the-room smile fool you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

CALLEBS: It masks the fact Widefield High sophomore Dianne Lachuga (ph) misses her father. Sergeant Jose Lachuga (ph) is serving his second tour in Iraq in two years, the second time he's left two daughters broken-hearted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I know how they feel sometimes, because I can see it. I can see how sad they are. It is hard, because they want their dad to be at their programs or activities.

CALLEBS (on camera): Seventy percent of the families in the school district that serves Widefield High have ties to the military. And roughly 40 percent of the students at Widefield have at least one parent deployed overseas right now.

(voice-over): For the teens, it is a bond.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The students here are -- we're very close. Like, we're not the typical school that has the popular kids, the losers, the geeks. We're all tied in together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This packet here covers you guys for the installation.

CALLEBS: That bond led Widefield counselors to start what they call the Military Student Coalition. Adults envisioned a support group, touchy-feely, sharing the ups and downs of having a mom or dad gone. The students, counselor Jan Schuetz says, morphed it into something much more active and positive.

JAN SCHUETZ, COUNSELOR, WIDEFIELD HIGH SCHOOL: The thing that I see in al of these kids is their adaptability, a sense of resilience, of going with the flow.

CALLEBS: On this day, making valentines for troops in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roses are red. Violets are blue. You defend our freedom. And that's why we love you.

CALLEBS: Students also help older or disabled local veterans baby-sit and organized a winter clothes drive, basically anything to stay busy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good job.

CALLEBS: Anything to find distraction from the daily headlines of Iraq violence. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes, I wonder, why does it has to be my dad, why our family has to go through this. But, when I think about it, it's not just for me. It's, like, for everyone around the world and stuff. And I don't know. I try not to be so selfish with it, but he's doing a good thing and I'm glad he's over there.

CALLEBS: A lot of these students have moved six, eight, even 10 times because of the military. That means parents may be the only constant in these teen lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, my mom is so strong. I respect her so much for what she's going through.

CALLEBS: The e-mails to the family that come almost daily help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's titled, "I Love You."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think about him every day and I pray for him every day. Like, I tell him in the e-mails and stuff, but just telling him face to face would be better.

CALLEBS: For now, this self-professed daddy's girl says e-mails and occasional phone calls will have to do. It will be at least a year before dad returns for good, embracing not duty, but family.

Sean Callebs, CNN, Fountain, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And now to missile defense and a few names from the past, Night Zeus -- Nike Zeus, rather -- Sentinel, Safeguard, SDI. That would be in order of decade missile defense in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s and the '80s.

Safeguard actually was deployed, only to be decommissioned, literally, a few months after going online. The current system is up and running in Alaska and in California, depending on how you define up and running. Yesterday, it turned out, it was neither.

From the Pentagon, CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. MILITARY AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The target missile launched flawlessly from Alaska, but the interceptor deigned to shoot it down never got off the ground, $85 million for a test that produced no data on whether the complex technology to destroy a warhead in space is working any better.

Critics say the failure, the second in two months, shows that, after sinking more than $50 billion over the last five years into missile defense, the U.S. is not even close to having a system that can protect against long-range nuclear missiles. JOHN ISAACS, COUNCIL FOR A LIVABLE WORLD: We've been trying for 40 to 50 years to perfect the system. We have new technology advances. We have new missiles. We have new sensor data and we still can't get the system to work.

MCINTYRE: Overall, the program is batting .500, with five hits and five misses. But critics charge, the early tests were too easy. The new head of the Missile Defense Agency rejects that skepticism, insisting the latest failure was an anomaly involving tried-and-true ground launch technology, not an indication of serious problems.

LT. GEN. TREY OBERING, DIRECTOR, MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY: We have some rust that we have got to get out of the system, so to speak. We also understand we have some quality control issues on the ground side that we have to address. But, again, I would call these on the margins. These have nothing to do with the basic design, the basic performance of the system.

MCINTYRE: The Pentagon argues, whatever its limits, some missile defense is better than none, especially with North Korea claiming to have nuclear weapons and developing missiles that could reach parts of the United States.

OBERING: When everything else fails, we're going to be the only thing between an incoming warhead and what could be mass destruction on the ground.

MCINTYRE: The U.S. now has six interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska and two more in California that could be used in a pinch. And, if an interceptor failed to launch during a real attack, officials say other missiles would automatically take over.

(on camera): The recent failures have been in the area of standard rocket science, proven technology that Pentagon officials say is difficult but doable. And while it may be disappointing for missile engineers and scientists, they insist they will solve the problems over time.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead, fussy eaters, button noses, grooming emergency. All that. Then there's the dogs, the Westminster Dog Show.

A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Mark Twain might have had some nice things to say about cats from time to time, but from the sound of it, he was a dog person. Anyone who's ever really loved a dog knows how true these words of Twain's are. "Heaven," he wrote, "goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." Then Madison Square Garden counts as heaven on Earth this week for many in the dog word. For two days, the annual Westminster Dog Show is one of the best collections of characters and canines around. We know why the dogs do it. They have no choice. But what about the owners?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're out of our minds. We have a lot of fun doing it. Some people go off on the weekend and play golf. And we come and do dog shows.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the Westminster Kennel Club. It is the Rolls Royce of dog shows.

I think you meet people of all sorts when you're in this court. There are people here who are probably multimillionaires and other people at the opposite end of the spectrum.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think a lot of it is individual personalities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we're all kind of alpha personalities.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I would say dog people are very crazy, because you're spending more money than you're earning. My husband and I met each other by showing our dogs. We used to compete against one another. And we joined forces.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like the fuzzy face and the personality.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's fun to put two dogs together and make puppies and raise them well and train them and show them. And it's fun to win.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To go into competition having people watch me, every move you make, and it's really quite scary, but the first time going around that ring, the adrenaline goes and it's wonderful. And it's exciting. And it's a lot of fun, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You live, eat, breathe, spend all your money, all your time. I don't think there will be many people here who don't tell you that these aren't their kids. And that's our passion.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty. Maisy (ph). Maisy, cookie. Come here. Cookie?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: My dog is sitting at home going, oh, my goodness.

Morning papers after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(ROOSTER CROWING)

BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world.

We'll start -- all right, enough with the music.

"The Washington Times."

Sort of a cranky thing to say on my part, wasn't it?

Up in the corner, please, Ed (ph). "Prayer Eyed in Virginia Schools. Amendment Goes to the Senate." This would allow for -- it doesn't mandate -- prayer in the public schools. I think there's some law on this already. Anyway, that's the -- it's on the front page of "The Washington Times."

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch." This may have to do with a different deadline. I don't. Down in the corner, Ed. "Amendment on Prayer Gets Stalled. Senate Panel Sends Measure to Courts Committee, Where Such Proposals Usually Die." And so, maybe they won't be praying in the public schools in the state of Virginia. It's been kind of a theme in the program, hasn't it?

"The Detroit Free Press," up in the corner here, "Sides Make Last Effort to Save NHL Season. Players Concede to Cap of" -- salary cap -- "of $52 Million. Owners Make Final Offer of $42.5." Basically, here, folks, the players caved, OK? They're going to play, like, 20 games, call it a season. Honestly.

OK, I'm going to stop now. "The Cincinnati" -- I just think this thing has been goofy, OK? Just kind of why didn't they do this six months ago? "We'll never agree to a salary cap."

Speaking of sports on the front page. When I was a boy, they didn't put sports on the front page. "Opening Day Salaries Will Be a Third More Than '04. Reds Dig Deep to Beef Up Lineup" is the front- page story in "The "Cincinnati Enquirer." I guess pitchers and catchers have reported already. Baseball season is around the corner. Hockey season hasn't even started yet. How can you have baseball season?

"Miami Herald." Worshipping Youth. Churches Are Turning to Rock Music and Frank Discussions of Relevant Topics to Attract Young People." You would kind of think frank discussions of relevant topics would always have been a good policy. Anyway, it seems to be something new.

"The Des Moines Register." This headline should not be amusing, but it does amuse me. "FDA Will Add Drug Safety Board. Openness Pledged." You'd think they would have set that up before. That's their job to regulate.

The weather tomorrow in Chicago is "mundane." The program never is. We're back tomorrow 10:00 Eastern time. Join us, please. Until then, good night for all of us.

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