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CNN Live At Daybreak
American Hostage; Baseball in D.C.
Aired April 14, 2005 - 05:00 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Straight ahead on DAYBREAK, fearing the worst and praying for help from Washington. An Indiana businessman held hostage in Iraq.
Plus...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMILY LYONS, CLINIC BOMBING VICTIM: There'll never be any closure because Rudolph lives with us every day. Every time I get up and look in the mirror or have to clean my fake eye...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: A victim of the Birmingham Women's Health Clinic bombing talks about Eric Rudolph's plea bargain.
And in the wake of tragedy sparked by war, raising the spirit of the mind and the body. The story of two very determined boys.
It is Thursday, April14. This is DAYBREAK.
Good morning to you. From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
"Now in the News," three hours ago in Iraq, two nearly simultaneous suicide car bombs in southern Baghdad kill 11 people and wound 37. The attacks targeted an Iraqi police convoy.
It's happened again in Florida. A 13-year-old girl is missing south of Tampa. The Hillsboro County sheriff says investigators are questioning a registered sex offender. A news conference is scheduled three hours from now.
If you're heading to the airport anytime soon, leave that cigarette lighter at home. Starting today, cigarette lighters are being banned by the Transportation Security Administration. But again, you can bring your matches.
Some unsettling news if you have a GM-branded MasterCard. The international bank HSBC has sent letters to 12,000 customers warning them of a possible security breach. The bank says as many as 187,000 cards may have had their personal information compromised.
To the forecast center and Chad.
Good morning. CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. Have you ever had your identity stolen or credit card used by somebody else?
COSTELLO: No, thank god.
MYERS: No? I had somebody charging $50 a day on my credit card in San Francisco at a gas station.
COSTELLO: In San Francisco?
MYERS: Yes. So finally American Express calls me and said, "Are you in San Francisco?" "No, and I can't use $50 worth of gas a day either, you know?"
So they finally stopped it. It was like $1,000 of fraud.
COSTELLO: Wow.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: But you're lucky it was that easy to get out of.
MYERS: Exactly. Sometimes it's just a nightmare for that. People just take years.
Orelon Sidney had her identity stolen here at the weather office. It took her a year to get all that straightened out.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: To our top story now, reaction to the abduction of an American worker in Baghdad. This is the third day of captivity for Jeffrey Ake. Al-Jazeera released this video of the 47-year-old from LaPorte, Indiana.
His friends say they're shocked.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CHRISTIAN, AKE FAMILY FRIEND: That's the tragic part about this whole thing, that the uncertainty as to just what's happening with him and the concern of the family and the children.
MAYOR LEIGH MORRIS, LAPORTE, INDIANA: It's really almost as though somebody had kicked me in the stomach when I learned that Jeff Ake had been taken hostage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Details now on the kidnapping, and more reaction from Washington and from Indiana. Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel has that for you. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The videotape aired on Al-Jazeera shows armed men pointing guns at a visibly frightened Jeffrey Ake, a 47-year-old American businessman from Indiana kidnapped Monday in Iraq. Reading from a prepared statement, Ake asked the U.S. government to open a dialogue with insurgents to save his life and calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, demands Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice effectively ruled out.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Obviously, the United States continues to hold to a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them. But we are working very, very hard to try and secure the safety of the American there.
KOPPEL: Ake is founder and president of Equipment Express, which manufactures water bottle equipment. A local Indiana newspaper reports Ake was in Iraq doing business related to reconstruction.
In the small city of LaPorte, Indiana, a yellow ribbon marks the home where Ake lives with his wife and children. The FBI has advised his family and employees to lie low.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The family's position is that they do not wish to make any comments at this time.
KOPPEL: But in nearby Rolling Prairie, where Ake's company is based, Jeffrey Ake's faith is the talk of the town.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know him, but I've seen him. And I know of him, you know. But that's -- it really shakes you up a little bit.
KOPPEL (on camera): A State Department official told CNN the U.S. doesn't know who kidnapped Ake, and said the hostage-takers could be insurgents or common criminals who often grab unsuspecting civilians and then try to sell them off to the highest bidder.
Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Let's talk about Eric Rudolph. He's pleaded guilty to four bomb attacks in the late 1990s, one at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Killed a woman, injured more than 120 there. A plea bargain will spare Rudolph from the death penalty. In an 11-page statement, Rudolph says he picked the summer games in order to embarrass the U.S. government in front of the world.
His statement reads in part -- and I quote -- "Abortion is murder. And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern."
Another Rudolph target, that clinic in Alabama that performed abortions. That's what he was referring to in the statement that I just ready.
A security guard died in that explosion. Emily Lyons, a nurse at that Birmingham clinic, was terribly maimed. She tells CNN's Aaron Brown that Rudolph's guilty pleas give her no comfort.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYONS: There'll never be any closure because Rudolph lives with us every day. Every time I get up and look in the mirror or have to clean my -- my fake eye, or I feel the arthritis and the pain in by body, he's there. So he'll never go away. So there can't possibly be any closure.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Would there -- would it have mattered in that sense if he had received the death penalty?
LYONS: Yes. The crimes he committed warranted the worst punishment the government can give. And everybody assumes that the death sentence is the worst that is offered.
Whether I was there that day or not he would have gotten a life sentence anyway. So, in essence, he got away with the injuries that he caused to my body and to the others in Atlanta.
BROWN: Is it no comfort at all that -- that here's a guy who almost certainly will spend the rest of his life -- he'll die in prison?
LYONS: The only comfort is knowing that he cannot hurt anyone else, that he had at least some thought of right and wrong to agree to the plea and give up where the dynamite was buried.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Two eyewitness accounts proved critical to the identification of Eric Rudolph in the Birmingham bombing. Officials now identify them as Jerome Hughes and Jeff Tickle.
Hughes was nearby, heard the explosion. And then he saw Rudolph striding purposefully away from the clinic, carrying a backpack. Hughes stopped at a restaurant to call 911.
A customer, lawyer Jeff Tickle, overheard that conversation. He followed Rudolph, saw his gray pickup, and he got the license number.
And that brings us to our email "Question of the Day," Chad.
MYERS: Yes. Eric Rudolph, the plea deal. What do you think, justice served or legal copout?
COSTELLO: And we ask you that because, you know, he also shed some light on why he planted this bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games. Just nothing makes sense about this guy.
I'll read you something from CNN.com.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: He -- it says, "Rudolph also shed light on his intentions regarding the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. He called it an opportunity to shame the United States for its legalization of abortion. He said his goal was to knock out Atlanta's power grid and shut down the Olympics."
"Rudolph said the plant went awry, calling the result a disaster for which he apologized. He said he did not intend to harm innocent civilians. But, as you know, that pipe bomb attack killed 44-year-old Georgia resident Alice Hawthorne and injured 120 others."
MYERS: I heard a report that said that that bomb was about five pounds of dynamite, five pounds of TNT. And he -- what he did -- why he did this plea deal -- or why the U.S. did it, is because there was still 250 pounds that he still had some hidden somewhere, that he told them where it was. That's how he got the plea deal.
COSTELLO: Right. He had this huge cache of explosives, and they were buried. But they weren't hooked up to be any sort of bomb.
MYERS: Right.
COSTELLO: But we're wondering what you think.
MYERS: That's right.
COSTELLO: Do you think that a plea deal was the right way to go? Or should he have faced the death penalty? DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
Coming up in the next half-hour, we're going to hear from Eric Rudolph's former sister-in-law. Hearing from her will give us more insight into the motives of this confessed bomber and killer.
A Georgia courthouse has extra security today. Suspect Brian Nichols is due in court for a hearing. It will be his first appearance since the court shooting rampage that left four people dead last month. Prosecutors have not yet charged Nichols in the shootings, but he's being held without bail on earlier rape charges.
A sheriff's deputy seriously injured during that courtroom rampage is making progress, though. Doctors say Deputy Cynthia Hall will continue her rehabilitation care as an outpatient. Authorities say Hall was taking the handcuffs off the suspect, Brian Nichols, when he struck her in the head several times and took her keys. They say he then took her gun from a nearby lock box and headed into the courtroom, where he shot and killed a judge and his court reporter.
The fight to get silicone breast implants back on the market isn't over yet. A day after rejecting one manufacturer, a federal advisory panel made a surprising recommendation. It will allow another company to sell the implants, but only if it meets strict conditions. Topping that list, that women understand the risk that the implants can break inside their bodies, causing dangerous leaks.
Some women say, though, the price is worth it. But others don't.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIM HOFFMAN, IN MENTOR STUDY: I liked my husbands, and my husband loved my implants. I would have liked to have kept my implants. I certainly wouldn't have removed them for any reason other than they were killing me.
DR. DEBORA BASH, SILICONE BREAST ADVOCATE: I have done well, with no complications. I have never attempted suicide. I do not have fibromyalgia, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The FDA isn't bound by the panel's recommendation.
Still to come on DAYBREAK this morning, CNN stars shine on late- night TV. Anderson, he's all over the place. Hear what he had to say.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The international markets all looking lower this morning. Tokyo's Nikkei down 74 points. The London FTSE down 12. The German DAX is lower by 13 points.
Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:14 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.
Chilling video out of Iraq. A prominent Indiana businessman working in Iraq is shown in a hostage video holding his identification. And he's surrounded by gunmen. Jeffrey Ake begged his family and friends to negotiate with what he calls the Iraqi national resistance.
Starting today, all cigarette lighters are banned from the cabins of airplanes. The ban was sparked by shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to light a bomb unsuccessfully with matches. Congressional leaders say if he had a lighter he might have been successful.
In money news, the House passed a bill that will eliminate the so-called death tax. This is the fourth time the House has approved ending the estate tax. But the measures all died in the Senate.
In culture, the redesigned Museum of Modern Art in New York City seems to be a hit with tourists. More than one million people have visited the museum since it reopened just over four months ago.
In sports, pitcher Curt Schilling made his first appearance this year for the Boston Red Sox, but it didn't turn out very well. Schilling gave up a big homerun to Jason Giambi that sealed the 5-2 win for the Yankees -- Chad.
MYERS: We're calling that game 14 of the World Series, Carol. It just keeps going on and on and on and on.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MYERS: D.C., nice weather there for the cherry blossoms. At least what's left of them.
COSTELLO: What do you mean what's left of them?
MYERS: Well, they don't last as long as you think.
COSTELLO: But I'm going there Friday to look at them.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: That was a lame laugh.
MYERS: There'll still be some there, but they peaked. Actually, they peaked this year between the 7th and the 9th. And so now they're kind of on their -- but it's nice when -- they're falling like snow now.
COSTELLO: So I'll look at the petals on the ground. That will be beautiful.
MYERS: There you go.
COSTELLO: Time for our DAYBREAK "Eye Openers" right now, Chad. And stay with me on this one.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: The attorney for a Las Vegas woman who says she found a finger in Wendy's chili...
MYERS: Yes?
COSTELLO: ... says Wendy's will not be sued. That's coming after an animal sanctuary worker in California called a Wendy's hotline to suggest the finger may be linked to a leopard attack on a woman in February.
In that attack, the woman lost part of a finger. Police are investigating.
MYERS: Weird.
COSTELLO: The San Jose State Dance Team won't be doing this anymore this year. The team has been suspended.
MYERS: What?
COSTELLO: The controversy arose -- yes, Chad. The controversy arose after a performance at a basketball game last month when a fan criticized the routine, calling it trash. The university says it suspended the team for -- and I'm quoting here -- in adequate infrastructure. MYERS: At least there wasn't a -- something -- what do they call that, a wardrobe failure, malfunction?
COSTELLO: No, no wardrobe malfunction.
MYERS: No. No.
COSTELLO: Anyway, the swez (ph) roll is now being evaluated.
MYERS: Right.
COSTELLO: In Israel...
MYERS: They can make it fox trot.
COSTELLO: You never know. In Israel, a tongue-in-cheek competition. Student engineers reenacted the biblical Red Sea crossing. Their projects had to cross a 10-foot pole with a contraption, pouring a glass of wine on the other side.
They know this was in the bible. No simple task, but certainly worth the $4,000 first prize.
MYERS: Very interesting contraptions there.
COSTELLO: I just wanted to see what it was doing and if anyone drank the glass of wine at the end. Maybe not.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I don't know if you caught it, Chad.
MYERS: What's that?
COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper all over the place last night.
MYERS: Oh, right. They were.
COSTELLO: They were. Let's go back to that.
Let's start with Christiane Amanpour. She sat down with Jay Leno before Anderson Cooper dropped in on Conan O'Brien. Jay was curious about the life of the intrepid Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: My son has just turned five. He turned five on Easter Sunday. His birthday coincided with Easter Sunday.
JAY LENO, TALK SHOW HOST: OK.
AMANPOUR: And it changes me a little bit in that I still do what I do, but I'm more afraid.
LENO: Yes.
AMANPOUR: I am. I feel that I have to stay alive now.
LENO: Well, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
AMANPOUR: Before you didn't think so much about that.
LENO: Yes. Yes.
AMANPOUR: You did your job, you didn't think so much about the danger. But, you know, this little boy relies on me, my husband, of course, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: Congratulations are in order. "Playgirl" magazine named you the second hottest anchor.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A, how do you know that?
O'BRIEN: A big fan of the magazine.
COOPER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I've been in it so many times I thought I'd check it out.
COOPER: Yes. Yes, the competition -- I beat Larry King. Woo! Woo!
O'BRIEN: Yes. And narrowly edged out Sam Donaldson. I think we have his -- there he is.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Was he slamming Larry King?
MYERS: I think so. No, I'm sure not.
COSTELLO: It's going to be really bad here at CNN for Anderson now. I'm just kidding.
MYERS: He's fine.
COSTELLO: No, they were funny.
In other news "Across America" right now, an Army reservist has been charged in Arizona for detaining several illegal immigrants at gunpoint. Sergeant Patrick Hobbs (ph) says he was afraid the men were going to jump him at a border area rest stop. But police say he shouldn't have taken the law into his own hand.
Two members of the Air National Guard have been charged with smuggling drugs into the United States. The pilot and master sergeant are accused of carrying nearly 300,000 ecstasy pills into the country from Germany aboard their Air Force cargo plane. The pills are worth millions of dollars on the street. Both men are being held in New York without bail.
In Phoenix, this small plane crash-landed on a busy highway. But amazingly, no one was seriously injured. The plane clipped a lumber truck before skidding to a stop in the median. The cause of the crash still under investigation.
And there is excitement in the air in Washington today, but it's not about the latest legislation or confirmation hearings. Instead, it's all about the return of baseball to the nation's capital.
For more on opening day in D.C., we're joined by longtime Washington sports broadcaster Dave Johnson.
Good morning, Dave.
DAVE JOHNSON, WTOP RADIO: Well, good morning. But don't kid yourself. We get giddy about legislation around here sometimes, too. But that's not the case today.
COSTELLO: It's sick, isn't it? Yes. Well, tell me, I'm sure it's a sellout crowd.
JOHNSON: It's going to be a sellout crowd. And, again, you know, actually, the basketball team clinched the playoffs last night, the baseball team is tied for first place.
There's a legendary Orioles broadcast of Chuck Thompson. If he was on this story he'd be saying, "Ain't the beer cold?" Because in D.C., suddenly a lot of things are going in the right direction for sports, but especially baseball.
Covering this story for years is like covering Groundhog Day. You do the same thing every year, you come out, and the commissioner would say, "No more baseball."
But all of a sudden, last year they really did the move team. And -- but people are still in shock, a bit of disbelief. And it will really hit home today.
It started to hit home when they played one exhibition game at RFK Stadium. But I think for a lot of people it's really going to flood home, you know what? We really do have a baseball team. That team we -- they've been giving the scores on that says Washington is playing in Atlanta and all these other cities, they really are a team that belongs to D.C.
COSTELLO: Well, you know, RFK Stadium is kind of creaky. How's it looking these days?
JOHNSON: Oh, well it's never going to look better than today. I think if it's creaking and -- people are not going to be looking at its blemishes and the fact that it's 45 years old and not as pristine as some of these newer ballparks. But actually, they've done a really nice job with upgrading RFK, with getting the field ready.
You know, they've had a soccer team playing there the last 10 years. So that's kept it as an active stadium even after the Washington Redskins left town. And, in fact, because they have a soccer team playing there, they actually have a pitcher's mound, that if you flick a switch it goes up and down.
COSTELLO: Oh.
JOHNSON: So it goes up for baseball; it goes down for soccer. So it may be a little creaky, but it's a little high tech. How many stadiums have a pitcher's mound that go up and down?
COSTELLO: How do you like that technological master, Chad?
MYERS: Hey, Dave. How's the new ballpark coming? I know they're spending a lot of money. I know where it's going to be down there by the old shipyard.
Is it on its way yet? Are they building anything? Are they just knocking stuff down? What's happening?
JOHNSON: Well, you know, I'm sure it's already behind schedule and over budget.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNSON: No. That's the way they're always supposed to work.
MYERS: Yes.
JOHNSON: No, they're still in the planning stages. But it's going to be along the waterfront in D.C., and they're hoping that that will be a catalyst of an area that they've long thought this has some potential if only somebody does something here.
And nobody's done anything. Nobody's really developed anything. And there's already signs now that -- with the stadium, that suddenly big-time developers have gotten interested in the property around there, they're buying the property.
And there are already plans. In addition to having stadium plans, there's already now plans for condominiums and other things to go near the stadium. So that's -- the city officials will tell you that's the exciting thing about all of this, it's going to develop an area of the city that they now are able to develop.
MYERS: Great.
Hey, Carol... COSTELLO: Right, and should be developed.
Yes, Chad?
MYERS: Twelve hundred bucks a ticket for ticket scalpers right now to get into the game tonight.
COSTELLO: Oh, that is crazy. Well, the president is going to throw out the first pitch. So perhaps it's worth it.
MYERS: Hey, thanks, Dave.
JOHNSON: No problem.
COSTELLO: Bye, Dave.
Dave Johnson from WTOP, joining us live here in DAYBREAK.
Here's what's all new in the next half-hour.
Just ahead, Eric Rudolph's former sister-in-law speaks out. Hear her incredible explanation of how the convicted serial bomber views the world around him.
And a reminder. Our email "Question of the Day," the Rudolph plea deal, justice served or legal copout? Send your comments to us, DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired April 14, 2005 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Straight ahead on DAYBREAK, fearing the worst and praying for help from Washington. An Indiana businessman held hostage in Iraq.
Plus...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMILY LYONS, CLINIC BOMBING VICTIM: There'll never be any closure because Rudolph lives with us every day. Every time I get up and look in the mirror or have to clean my fake eye...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: A victim of the Birmingham Women's Health Clinic bombing talks about Eric Rudolph's plea bargain.
And in the wake of tragedy sparked by war, raising the spirit of the mind and the body. The story of two very determined boys.
It is Thursday, April14. This is DAYBREAK.
Good morning to you. From the Time Warner Center in New York, I'm Carol Costello, along with Chad Myers.
"Now in the News," three hours ago in Iraq, two nearly simultaneous suicide car bombs in southern Baghdad kill 11 people and wound 37. The attacks targeted an Iraqi police convoy.
It's happened again in Florida. A 13-year-old girl is missing south of Tampa. The Hillsboro County sheriff says investigators are questioning a registered sex offender. A news conference is scheduled three hours from now.
If you're heading to the airport anytime soon, leave that cigarette lighter at home. Starting today, cigarette lighters are being banned by the Transportation Security Administration. But again, you can bring your matches.
Some unsettling news if you have a GM-branded MasterCard. The international bank HSBC has sent letters to 12,000 customers warning them of a possible security breach. The bank says as many as 187,000 cards may have had their personal information compromised.
To the forecast center and Chad.
Good morning. CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Carol. Have you ever had your identity stolen or credit card used by somebody else?
COSTELLO: No, thank god.
MYERS: No? I had somebody charging $50 a day on my credit card in San Francisco at a gas station.
COSTELLO: In San Francisco?
MYERS: Yes. So finally American Express calls me and said, "Are you in San Francisco?" "No, and I can't use $50 worth of gas a day either, you know?"
So they finally stopped it. It was like $1,000 of fraud.
COSTELLO: Wow.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: But you're lucky it was that easy to get out of.
MYERS: Exactly. Sometimes it's just a nightmare for that. People just take years.
Orelon Sidney had her identity stolen here at the weather office. It took her a year to get all that straightened out.
(WEATHER REPORT)
COSTELLO: All right. Thank you, Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: To our top story now, reaction to the abduction of an American worker in Baghdad. This is the third day of captivity for Jeffrey Ake. Al-Jazeera released this video of the 47-year-old from LaPorte, Indiana.
His friends say they're shocked.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CHRISTIAN, AKE FAMILY FRIEND: That's the tragic part about this whole thing, that the uncertainty as to just what's happening with him and the concern of the family and the children.
MAYOR LEIGH MORRIS, LAPORTE, INDIANA: It's really almost as though somebody had kicked me in the stomach when I learned that Jeff Ake had been taken hostage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Details now on the kidnapping, and more reaction from Washington and from Indiana. Our State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel has that for you. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The videotape aired on Al-Jazeera shows armed men pointing guns at a visibly frightened Jeffrey Ake, a 47-year-old American businessman from Indiana kidnapped Monday in Iraq. Reading from a prepared statement, Ake asked the U.S. government to open a dialogue with insurgents to save his life and calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, demands Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice effectively ruled out.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Obviously, the United States continues to hold to a policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them. But we are working very, very hard to try and secure the safety of the American there.
KOPPEL: Ake is founder and president of Equipment Express, which manufactures water bottle equipment. A local Indiana newspaper reports Ake was in Iraq doing business related to reconstruction.
In the small city of LaPorte, Indiana, a yellow ribbon marks the home where Ake lives with his wife and children. The FBI has advised his family and employees to lie low.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The family's position is that they do not wish to make any comments at this time.
KOPPEL: But in nearby Rolling Prairie, where Ake's company is based, Jeffrey Ake's faith is the talk of the town.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know him, but I've seen him. And I know of him, you know. But that's -- it really shakes you up a little bit.
KOPPEL (on camera): A State Department official told CNN the U.S. doesn't know who kidnapped Ake, and said the hostage-takers could be insurgents or common criminals who often grab unsuspecting civilians and then try to sell them off to the highest bidder.
Andrea Koppel, CNN, at the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Let's talk about Eric Rudolph. He's pleaded guilty to four bomb attacks in the late 1990s, one at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Killed a woman, injured more than 120 there. A plea bargain will spare Rudolph from the death penalty. In an 11-page statement, Rudolph says he picked the summer games in order to embarrass the U.S. government in front of the world.
His statement reads in part -- and I quote -- "Abortion is murder. And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern."
Another Rudolph target, that clinic in Alabama that performed abortions. That's what he was referring to in the statement that I just ready.
A security guard died in that explosion. Emily Lyons, a nurse at that Birmingham clinic, was terribly maimed. She tells CNN's Aaron Brown that Rudolph's guilty pleas give her no comfort.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYONS: There'll never be any closure because Rudolph lives with us every day. Every time I get up and look in the mirror or have to clean my -- my fake eye, or I feel the arthritis and the pain in by body, he's there. So he'll never go away. So there can't possibly be any closure.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Would there -- would it have mattered in that sense if he had received the death penalty?
LYONS: Yes. The crimes he committed warranted the worst punishment the government can give. And everybody assumes that the death sentence is the worst that is offered.
Whether I was there that day or not he would have gotten a life sentence anyway. So, in essence, he got away with the injuries that he caused to my body and to the others in Atlanta.
BROWN: Is it no comfort at all that -- that here's a guy who almost certainly will spend the rest of his life -- he'll die in prison?
LYONS: The only comfort is knowing that he cannot hurt anyone else, that he had at least some thought of right and wrong to agree to the plea and give up where the dynamite was buried.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Two eyewitness accounts proved critical to the identification of Eric Rudolph in the Birmingham bombing. Officials now identify them as Jerome Hughes and Jeff Tickle.
Hughes was nearby, heard the explosion. And then he saw Rudolph striding purposefully away from the clinic, carrying a backpack. Hughes stopped at a restaurant to call 911.
A customer, lawyer Jeff Tickle, overheard that conversation. He followed Rudolph, saw his gray pickup, and he got the license number.
And that brings us to our email "Question of the Day," Chad.
MYERS: Yes. Eric Rudolph, the plea deal. What do you think, justice served or legal copout?
COSTELLO: And we ask you that because, you know, he also shed some light on why he planted this bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games. Just nothing makes sense about this guy.
I'll read you something from CNN.com.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: He -- it says, "Rudolph also shed light on his intentions regarding the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. He called it an opportunity to shame the United States for its legalization of abortion. He said his goal was to knock out Atlanta's power grid and shut down the Olympics."
"Rudolph said the plant went awry, calling the result a disaster for which he apologized. He said he did not intend to harm innocent civilians. But, as you know, that pipe bomb attack killed 44-year-old Georgia resident Alice Hawthorne and injured 120 others."
MYERS: I heard a report that said that that bomb was about five pounds of dynamite, five pounds of TNT. And he -- what he did -- why he did this plea deal -- or why the U.S. did it, is because there was still 250 pounds that he still had some hidden somewhere, that he told them where it was. That's how he got the plea deal.
COSTELLO: Right. He had this huge cache of explosives, and they were buried. But they weren't hooked up to be any sort of bomb.
MYERS: Right.
COSTELLO: But we're wondering what you think.
MYERS: That's right.
COSTELLO: Do you think that a plea deal was the right way to go? Or should he have faced the death penalty? DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
Coming up in the next half-hour, we're going to hear from Eric Rudolph's former sister-in-law. Hearing from her will give us more insight into the motives of this confessed bomber and killer.
A Georgia courthouse has extra security today. Suspect Brian Nichols is due in court for a hearing. It will be his first appearance since the court shooting rampage that left four people dead last month. Prosecutors have not yet charged Nichols in the shootings, but he's being held without bail on earlier rape charges.
A sheriff's deputy seriously injured during that courtroom rampage is making progress, though. Doctors say Deputy Cynthia Hall will continue her rehabilitation care as an outpatient. Authorities say Hall was taking the handcuffs off the suspect, Brian Nichols, when he struck her in the head several times and took her keys. They say he then took her gun from a nearby lock box and headed into the courtroom, where he shot and killed a judge and his court reporter.
The fight to get silicone breast implants back on the market isn't over yet. A day after rejecting one manufacturer, a federal advisory panel made a surprising recommendation. It will allow another company to sell the implants, but only if it meets strict conditions. Topping that list, that women understand the risk that the implants can break inside their bodies, causing dangerous leaks.
Some women say, though, the price is worth it. But others don't.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIM HOFFMAN, IN MENTOR STUDY: I liked my husbands, and my husband loved my implants. I would have liked to have kept my implants. I certainly wouldn't have removed them for any reason other than they were killing me.
DR. DEBORA BASH, SILICONE BREAST ADVOCATE: I have done well, with no complications. I have never attempted suicide. I do not have fibromyalgia, lupus, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: The FDA isn't bound by the panel's recommendation.
Still to come on DAYBREAK this morning, CNN stars shine on late- night TV. Anderson, he's all over the place. Hear what he had to say.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Thursday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The international markets all looking lower this morning. Tokyo's Nikkei down 74 points. The London FTSE down 12. The German DAX is lower by 13 points.
Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:14 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.
Chilling video out of Iraq. A prominent Indiana businessman working in Iraq is shown in a hostage video holding his identification. And he's surrounded by gunmen. Jeffrey Ake begged his family and friends to negotiate with what he calls the Iraqi national resistance.
Starting today, all cigarette lighters are banned from the cabins of airplanes. The ban was sparked by shoe bomber Richard Reid, who tried to light a bomb unsuccessfully with matches. Congressional leaders say if he had a lighter he might have been successful.
In money news, the House passed a bill that will eliminate the so-called death tax. This is the fourth time the House has approved ending the estate tax. But the measures all died in the Senate.
In culture, the redesigned Museum of Modern Art in New York City seems to be a hit with tourists. More than one million people have visited the museum since it reopened just over four months ago.
In sports, pitcher Curt Schilling made his first appearance this year for the Boston Red Sox, but it didn't turn out very well. Schilling gave up a big homerun to Jason Giambi that sealed the 5-2 win for the Yankees -- Chad.
MYERS: We're calling that game 14 of the World Series, Carol. It just keeps going on and on and on and on.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MYERS: D.C., nice weather there for the cherry blossoms. At least what's left of them.
COSTELLO: What do you mean what's left of them?
MYERS: Well, they don't last as long as you think.
COSTELLO: But I'm going there Friday to look at them.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: That was a lame laugh.
MYERS: There'll still be some there, but they peaked. Actually, they peaked this year between the 7th and the 9th. And so now they're kind of on their -- but it's nice when -- they're falling like snow now.
COSTELLO: So I'll look at the petals on the ground. That will be beautiful.
MYERS: There you go.
COSTELLO: Time for our DAYBREAK "Eye Openers" right now, Chad. And stay with me on this one.
MYERS: OK.
COSTELLO: The attorney for a Las Vegas woman who says she found a finger in Wendy's chili...
MYERS: Yes?
COSTELLO: ... says Wendy's will not be sued. That's coming after an animal sanctuary worker in California called a Wendy's hotline to suggest the finger may be linked to a leopard attack on a woman in February.
In that attack, the woman lost part of a finger. Police are investigating.
MYERS: Weird.
COSTELLO: The San Jose State Dance Team won't be doing this anymore this year. The team has been suspended.
MYERS: What?
COSTELLO: The controversy arose -- yes, Chad. The controversy arose after a performance at a basketball game last month when a fan criticized the routine, calling it trash. The university says it suspended the team for -- and I'm quoting here -- in adequate infrastructure. MYERS: At least there wasn't a -- something -- what do they call that, a wardrobe failure, malfunction?
COSTELLO: No, no wardrobe malfunction.
MYERS: No. No.
COSTELLO: Anyway, the swez (ph) roll is now being evaluated.
MYERS: Right.
COSTELLO: In Israel...
MYERS: They can make it fox trot.
COSTELLO: You never know. In Israel, a tongue-in-cheek competition. Student engineers reenacted the biblical Red Sea crossing. Their projects had to cross a 10-foot pole with a contraption, pouring a glass of wine on the other side.
They know this was in the bible. No simple task, but certainly worth the $4,000 first prize.
MYERS: Very interesting contraptions there.
COSTELLO: I just wanted to see what it was doing and if anyone drank the glass of wine at the end. Maybe not.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: I don't know if you caught it, Chad.
MYERS: What's that?
COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper all over the place last night.
MYERS: Oh, right. They were.
COSTELLO: They were. Let's go back to that.
Let's start with Christiane Amanpour. She sat down with Jay Leno before Anderson Cooper dropped in on Conan O'Brien. Jay was curious about the life of the intrepid Christiane Amanpour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: My son has just turned five. He turned five on Easter Sunday. His birthday coincided with Easter Sunday.
JAY LENO, TALK SHOW HOST: OK.
AMANPOUR: And it changes me a little bit in that I still do what I do, but I'm more afraid.
LENO: Yes.
AMANPOUR: I am. I feel that I have to stay alive now.
LENO: Well, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
AMANPOUR: Before you didn't think so much about that.
LENO: Yes. Yes.
AMANPOUR: You did your job, you didn't think so much about the danger. But, you know, this little boy relies on me, my husband, of course, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O'BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: Congratulations are in order. "Playgirl" magazine named you the second hottest anchor.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: A, how do you know that?
O'BRIEN: A big fan of the magazine.
COOPER: Yes.
O'BRIEN: I've been in it so many times I thought I'd check it out.
COOPER: Yes. Yes, the competition -- I beat Larry King. Woo! Woo!
O'BRIEN: Yes. And narrowly edged out Sam Donaldson. I think we have his -- there he is.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Was he slamming Larry King?
MYERS: I think so. No, I'm sure not.
COSTELLO: It's going to be really bad here at CNN for Anderson now. I'm just kidding.
MYERS: He's fine.
COSTELLO: No, they were funny.
In other news "Across America" right now, an Army reservist has been charged in Arizona for detaining several illegal immigrants at gunpoint. Sergeant Patrick Hobbs (ph) says he was afraid the men were going to jump him at a border area rest stop. But police say he shouldn't have taken the law into his own hand.
Two members of the Air National Guard have been charged with smuggling drugs into the United States. The pilot and master sergeant are accused of carrying nearly 300,000 ecstasy pills into the country from Germany aboard their Air Force cargo plane. The pills are worth millions of dollars on the street. Both men are being held in New York without bail.
In Phoenix, this small plane crash-landed on a busy highway. But amazingly, no one was seriously injured. The plane clipped a lumber truck before skidding to a stop in the median. The cause of the crash still under investigation.
And there is excitement in the air in Washington today, but it's not about the latest legislation or confirmation hearings. Instead, it's all about the return of baseball to the nation's capital.
For more on opening day in D.C., we're joined by longtime Washington sports broadcaster Dave Johnson.
Good morning, Dave.
DAVE JOHNSON, WTOP RADIO: Well, good morning. But don't kid yourself. We get giddy about legislation around here sometimes, too. But that's not the case today.
COSTELLO: It's sick, isn't it? Yes. Well, tell me, I'm sure it's a sellout crowd.
JOHNSON: It's going to be a sellout crowd. And, again, you know, actually, the basketball team clinched the playoffs last night, the baseball team is tied for first place.
There's a legendary Orioles broadcast of Chuck Thompson. If he was on this story he'd be saying, "Ain't the beer cold?" Because in D.C., suddenly a lot of things are going in the right direction for sports, but especially baseball.
Covering this story for years is like covering Groundhog Day. You do the same thing every year, you come out, and the commissioner would say, "No more baseball."
But all of a sudden, last year they really did the move team. And -- but people are still in shock, a bit of disbelief. And it will really hit home today.
It started to hit home when they played one exhibition game at RFK Stadium. But I think for a lot of people it's really going to flood home, you know what? We really do have a baseball team. That team we -- they've been giving the scores on that says Washington is playing in Atlanta and all these other cities, they really are a team that belongs to D.C.
COSTELLO: Well, you know, RFK Stadium is kind of creaky. How's it looking these days?
JOHNSON: Oh, well it's never going to look better than today. I think if it's creaking and -- people are not going to be looking at its blemishes and the fact that it's 45 years old and not as pristine as some of these newer ballparks. But actually, they've done a really nice job with upgrading RFK, with getting the field ready.
You know, they've had a soccer team playing there the last 10 years. So that's kept it as an active stadium even after the Washington Redskins left town. And, in fact, because they have a soccer team playing there, they actually have a pitcher's mound, that if you flick a switch it goes up and down.
COSTELLO: Oh.
JOHNSON: So it goes up for baseball; it goes down for soccer. So it may be a little creaky, but it's a little high tech. How many stadiums have a pitcher's mound that go up and down?
COSTELLO: How do you like that technological master, Chad?
MYERS: Hey, Dave. How's the new ballpark coming? I know they're spending a lot of money. I know where it's going to be down there by the old shipyard.
Is it on its way yet? Are they building anything? Are they just knocking stuff down? What's happening?
JOHNSON: Well, you know, I'm sure it's already behind schedule and over budget.
(LAUGHTER)
JOHNSON: No. That's the way they're always supposed to work.
MYERS: Yes.
JOHNSON: No, they're still in the planning stages. But it's going to be along the waterfront in D.C., and they're hoping that that will be a catalyst of an area that they've long thought this has some potential if only somebody does something here.
And nobody's done anything. Nobody's really developed anything. And there's already signs now that -- with the stadium, that suddenly big-time developers have gotten interested in the property around there, they're buying the property.
And there are already plans. In addition to having stadium plans, there's already now plans for condominiums and other things to go near the stadium. So that's -- the city officials will tell you that's the exciting thing about all of this, it's going to develop an area of the city that they now are able to develop.
MYERS: Great.
Hey, Carol... COSTELLO: Right, and should be developed.
Yes, Chad?
MYERS: Twelve hundred bucks a ticket for ticket scalpers right now to get into the game tonight.
COSTELLO: Oh, that is crazy. Well, the president is going to throw out the first pitch. So perhaps it's worth it.
MYERS: Hey, thanks, Dave.
JOHNSON: No problem.
COSTELLO: Bye, Dave.
Dave Johnson from WTOP, joining us live here in DAYBREAK.
Here's what's all new in the next half-hour.
Just ahead, Eric Rudolph's former sister-in-law speaks out. Hear her incredible explanation of how the convicted serial bomber views the world around him.
And a reminder. Our email "Question of the Day," the Rudolph plea deal, justice served or legal copout? Send your comments to us, DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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