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American Morning

Pre-K Problems; Star Wars Blitz

Aired May 18, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson is today with Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, after comments Fox made about blacks in the United States. The Reverend Jackson arrived in Mexico City on Tuesday, the same day Fox's assistant foreign secretary offered a formal apology on his behalf. Fox has been sharply criticized for saying Mexicans take jobs in the United States that quote, "not even blacks want."
And new allegations against the federal emergency management agency, known as FEMA. According to the "USA Today," government auditors say the agency gave out more than $30 million in disaster relief for phony claims. The fund was reserved for homes hit by Hurricane Frances last year. The auditor's report is set for early release today.

Back to you, Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on a story that we first told you about on Tuesday. Researchers at Yale's Child Study Center found pre-schoolers are three times as likely to be expelled from school than kids in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld is a child psychiatrist and the co-author of "The Overscheduled Child." Nice to see you. Good morning. When you see this study, do you think this is an indication that the kids are just out of control, or is it that they're just too young to be in school?

DR. ALVIN ROSENFELD, CHILD PSYCHIATRIST: Well, I don't think we know what's going on. The study doesn't really help us with that. What it tell us is that kids are getting expelled more frequently at younger ages. I think that we're pushing kids to school. School used to start at seven, now it's starting at three. If it continues, pretty soon, moms will be taking lamaze and kids will be doing sort of pre-"Baby Einstein."

You know, so I think part of it is that they're too young. But the interesting part of this study is it's not the young ones who are thrown out, it was the older ones. And what 5 and 6-year-olds were doing in pre-K is beyond me.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, what I thought was kind of interesting, that the 3-year-olds had a lower rate of being expelled, as you point out, than necessarily the 4-year-olds, which seemed surprising. I sort of thought the younger you were, the more likely you just weren't ready for school. There was indication in the study, one of the conclusions that they made, was that if there was a child psychologist working with the kids, then the kids were 50 percent less likely to be expelled. Is that because these kids, then, have psychological problems?

ROSENFELD: Well, I think probably many of them do have psychological problems. But if it was a child psychiatrist or child psychologist involved with seeing -- with working with the teachers, they were less often expelled. But I think that many kids this young have emotional problems and it's our duty as a society, if they're identified as such, to get them some early interventions. Furthermore, I think that psychiatrists and psychologists can help a teacher understand what's going on.

So you move from a teacher being overwhelmed or frightened about what she's seeing to a teacher who understands, going to be more sympathetic. And God knows that pre-K and kindergarten teachers are probably the nicest, kindest people in the universe. So they don't want to expel a kid. But they -- if they're stressed, if they're overwhelmed, they need some help.

O'BRIEN: The study found that boys expelled at a rate four and a half times higher than girls. And that didn't surprise me, because I think boys at that age are sort of a little more antsy. What did surprise me was the racial breakdown, where you saw African-American children were being expelled at twice the rate of Latino and Caucasian and five times the rate of Asian children. How do you explain those numbers?

ROSENFELD: I don't really explain it. I think we'd have to look more closely at the families, but we'd also have to look at the socioeconomic groups, because I bet it's connected to being indigent. It's an interesting question. I'd love to know more, why Asian kids are first of all are expelled so much less often and are so much more often seen at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. So there's something that Asian families are doing that we can learn a lot from.

O'BRIEN: What's the impact on a 3, or a 4 or a 5-year-old who's kicked out of pre-school? Do you think there's a serious impact or are they...

ROSENFELD: Of course there is. How would you feel if you're rejected? And not only the kid, how do the parents react? If your child was expelled -- expelled from pre-K, you'd feel awful. You'd feel you were a failure as a parent. And I think that leads to a life-long interaction that's not particularly good for the kid. So I think we need more mental health services, we need more intervention, because this is our chance. If we can intervene in pre-K and prevent 50 percent of these kids from being expelled, imagine how much money, time and suffering we spare kids in our society.

O'BRIEN: So you read some really good news into the study, in that it's an opportunity.

ROSENFELD: If we take the opportunity and use it constructively.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, nice to see you, thanks.

ROSENFELD: Pleasure seeing you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Bill?

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: About 25 minutes now before the hour, Soledad, thanks. "The Sith" is just hours away from millions of anxious fans of "Star Wars." Here in New York City, only three short streets away, live pictures now from the Ziegfeld Theater. Swarms of fans camped out overnight in anticipation of tonight's opening. You can a little bit of a tent there.

Here on AMERICAN MORNING, we have our own version of the "Star Wars" trilogy. continues today with episode two, called "The Marketing Blitz." Here's Chris Huntington this morning on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The force is with you, young Skywalker.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And apparently with all of us. The marketing force, that is. Prepare to be bombarded by the ultimate "Star Wars" merchandising blitz. Who knew Yoda cared about calories?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your drink desire you not.

HUNTINGTON: The little guy is fronting a million dollar "Star Wars" sweepstakes for Pepsi. 7-11 is pumping out Darth Dew Slurpees. Kellog's is packing light-up saber spoons into cereal boxes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With new light-up saber spoons.

HUNTINGTON: You can get M & M's from the dark side, "Star Wars" ring tones from Cingular wireless, "Star Wars" scratch-off games at Burger King and, of course, action figures, toys and gadgets from the likes of Hasbro and Lego.

CNN's corporate cousins, AOL and Moviefone, are in on the action as official online promoters. There is even a "Star Wars" video game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't like the video game, you can always read the novel.

HUNTINGTON: While there's nothing novel about movie merchandising, George Lucas, the creator, producer and master of the "Star Wars" universe has, by all accounts and any accounting measure, raised the stakes of the game. Total box office, home video and merchandise sales for the six "Star Wars" films is expected to easily top $20 billion, far more than any other film series has ever made and greater than the gross domestic product of several European countries. Marketing from earlier "Star Wars" films was so aggressive, it became a joke. Literally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.

HUNTINGTON: But with "Revenge of the Sith" billed as the last "Star Wars" film, Lucas has pulled out all the stops.

ANDREW GREENBERG, GREENBERG BRAND STRATEGY: For the last hurrah, I think he has opened the door to a lot of merchandising opportunities. It is a feeding frenzy.

HUNTINGTON: A frenzy feeding on the "Star Wars" faithful, most of whom grew up with the films and many who still shell out astronomical sums of money to collect memorabilia or dress the part.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With everything ever related to "Star Wars," probably at least $50,000, easily.

HUNTINGTON: Still, none of the fans we spoke to seemed concerned that Yoda was hawking diet soda. Evidently, even a 900-year-old Jedi master is entitled to cash in for his retirement.

Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Thanks, Chris. And you can catch the final chapter of the AMERICAN MORNING "Star Wars" trilogy. That's tomorrow, on Thursday, without waiting in line. Episode three looks inside the psyche of those die-hard fans, camping out overnight on the sidewalk.

O'BRIEN: Probably the best in the series.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A judge in a massive corporate fraud case reveals the potential conflict of interest. Could it derail the trial? Andy is "Minding Your Business," just ahead.

HEMMER: Also, what is behind the rise in a potentially deadly food allergy? Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates that, next here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: If you have a school-aged child, you're probably well aware of peanut allergies. But if you think back a few years, they were barely on parents' or doctors' radar.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us with the recent rise in peanut allergies, getting the word out can save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peanuts, as American as baseball. We ate nearly 1.7 billion pounds of them last year. But for those who are allergic to peanuts, even 1/1000 of a peanut can mean big trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had all these hives all over my back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't breathe and then I, like, started wheezing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within 20 minutes I was completely unconscious on the front porch when the ambulance was pulling up.

GUPTA: All these reactions from peanuts and nuts, trace amounts they didn't realize were in the foods they were eating.

Dr. Robert Wood is an expert on peanut allergy, and has had a life long allergy to peanuts himself.

DR. ROBERT WOOD, CHARLES HOPKINS CHILDREN'S CENTER: I have certain rules that I abide by, and one of those rules is I don't eat any baked goods.

GUPTA: The one exception he thought he could safely make, accepting a homemade gift from a colleague, an expert on food allergies like himself, who assured him it was safe.

WOOD: You get an immediate sensation in your mouth that you've been exposed to something, and it turned out that they had made peanut butter Christmas cookies and non-peanut butter Christmas cookies, and they had used the same spatula, maybe even the same cookie sheet, without cleaning them in between. But that amount of contamination, just from the spatula, when it comes to peanut allergy, is enough to cause severe reactions.

GUPTA: What Wood found himself in the middle of was a massive allergic reaction called anafalaxus (ph), caused by peanuts and many other foods. It can include symptoms like hives, swelling, difficulty breathing. It took five shots of epinephrine to stop Woods' reaction. That's why those with serious food allergies need to carry epi pens, adrenaline in a cube. Without it, these reactions can lead to a sudden drop in blood pressure, or worse.

WOOD: I've lost three patients to an anafalaxus.

GUPTA (on camera): What happened.

WOOD: They're all teenagers. One was a baked good, one was Chinese food, one was a candy. None of them had epinephrine available.

GUPTA (voice-over): All these foods had peanuts or peanut oil hidden inside, and the reactions aren't as rare as you might think; 11 million Americans have food allergies, accounting for tens of thousands of emergency-room visits, and 150 to 200 death as year.

But perhaps the most startling trend, according to Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the number of American children allergic to peanuts doubled in five years.

Michelle Risinger has been severely allergic to peanuts and all nuts for as long as she can remember. She and her boyfriend found out about the severity of her allergy the hard way.

MICHELLE RISINGER, ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS: He started kissing me, and my lips started tingling, and immediately I was, like, we have to stop and I need to go take Benadryl.

GUPTA: And to avoid what literally could be the kiss of death, Michelle gives her dates a choice. It's either peanuts and nuts or her.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Sanjay says the medical community still cannot fully explain the phenomenon, noticing that developing countries have almost no allergy. But doctors just suspect that our society is too germ- free. Another theory is that we're exposing children too early to peanuts. And still, experts admit they don't know for sure why food allergies are on the rise -- Bill.

HEMMER: Now to one of those stories and those pieces of videotape that we must visit today, these guys had a tough day, a really tough day. Trapped in a storm drain until a public works crew came along, saved the ducklings the first time. But there's a bonus: Once they got out, the duckling fell down another drain. A second rescue ensued.

Later, they were finally reunited with mom, and the whole family was last seen ducking into some woods nearby, where apparently there are no drains. So today looks like a pretty good day for them -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's hope it stays that way.

Well, what happens to the economy without Alan Greenspan? The White House is wondering whether to ask the Fed chief to stay or go. Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business," with a look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: What a beautiful day there, huh? What a postcard that is. High on top of time Warner Center, Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

Welcome back, everybody. Here is Jack.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is due to retire in January. But the question around the White House is, will President Bush let him go? Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business."

How old is he?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Seventy-nine. He's 79 years old. He's supposed to go in January, as you said, and now the administration seems to be indicating that he might stay on for a couple more months, because they need some time to find a successor.

Well, that rings a little hollow because, they've known that he's going to be ending his term for years now, and there's a list of successors, Martin Feldstein, Glen Hubbard, et cetera, known to everyone.

And what the thinking is now, though, is people have noticed that if he stays on until May 11th, next spring, he would be the longest Fed chairman tenure in history -- the longest tenured fed chairman in history, I should say, beating William McChesney Martin, from 1951 to 1970. He will have been there 18 years, 9 months and 29 days. This is a story in "The Washington Post." So you wonder if that's what he's trying to do, like Cal Ripken and Lou Gehrig, break the record.

CAFFERTY: Maybe Andrea Mitchell just didn't want him hanging around the house.

SERWER: Maybe Andrea Mitchell doesn't want him hanging around the house, too. That's also a possibility.

Let's talk about this HealthSouth trial, you know always a favorite of mine. A bombshell yesterday down in Birmingham, Alabama. Documents released yesterday indicate that the judge in this trial, Karen Bowdry (ph), a U.S. district judge, had a relationship with the Scrushy family. She knew the Scrushy family from back in 2003 and before that. The judge said she knew Scrushy's daughter, Melissa, and his ex-wife, Karen, from riding American saddle-bred horses at Camelot Stables, which was on Scrushy's estate in suburban Birmingham.

She said, quote, "She's quite fond of Melissa Scrushy, though she hadn't seen her in a while." She said she met Scrushy a couple times. And here might be a little balance to the story. She said, though, that Scrushy had evicted her trainers from the stables, causing these trainers to lose money, moving to a facility with awful conditions.

CAFFERTY: Don't they call that voir dire when you ask jurors before the trial starts if there's any reason they might not be able to be objective? Aren't judges supposed to sit on case where's they don't have a conflict of interests?

SERWER: She said she was uncomfortable that her name was picked at random.

O'BRIEN: Why say it now and when it started?

SERWER: Well, she did say it. The real question here, is why did the U.S. attorney let this go on? And the U.S. attorney said she didn't think it was a problem.

CAFFERTY: Where is this trial taking place?

SERWER: Alabama -- Birmingham, Alabama. So closing arguments today.

Let's talk a little bit about the markets here quickly, Jack. Yesterday, the second day, up in a row this week for the Dow. You can see here the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, coming across the tape, just moments ago, indicating that inflation was actually nonexistent last month.

CAFFERTY: Good. SERWER: So that should be good stuff, and futures are ticking up a little bit, as we speak.

CAFFERTY: Great. Thanks, Andy.

It's Wednesday, time for the file, things people say. Beginning with this, "Just because you're rich and famous doesn't mean your bladder is more important." This is a party-goer talking about Lindsay Lohan trying to butt in at the front of the line for the ladies room.

SERWER: She's a blond now.

CAFFERTY: She is?

OK.

"Get better tactics, don't wuss around and quit saying they're so mean and vicious. They only do it because it works." Bill Clinton, calling on Democrats to stop being wimps when it comes to fighting the Republicans.

"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity has been slipping in recent months, as residents slowly realize they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger to be their governor." That's Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live's" weekend update.

"That's unconscionable. I believe in family values," Jim Stellings, the Seminole County, Florida Republican Party chairman testifying in a defamation suit he filed against a political rival. The rival accused him of having been married six times. The correct number of marriages is five.

And finally this, "I told him, you gotta be kidding. I ain't getting any, nobody's getting any out of here," Philip Petronella, a confused retiree on his reaction when his police mistakenly broke in his door, thinking his home was a prostitution place, a brothel.

HEMMER: He set the record straight.

CAFFERTY: Gotta be nuts. Ain't nothing going on around here like that.

SERWER: Was his wife at home when he said that?

O'BRIEN: Unclear.

CAFFERTY: Don't even know if the man's married.

SERWER: We don't want to go there.

O'BRIEN: Yes, so don't.

Thanks, Jack. Good "File."

Well, lots of surprises from country singer Kenny Chesney these days. Last night, Chesney edged out Tim McGraw and won the Academy of Country music's entertainer of the year award, coming eight days after he tied the knot with actress Renee Zellweger. Chesney spoke about his new marriage for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNY CHESNEY, "ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR": To be honest with you, it's not that different. It's just I'm a little more at ease. You know, I'm not searching, and that's what's great about her. And she's a great girl.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Tim McGraw wasn't left out. He won for top single and song for his hit "Live Like you Were Dying."

You like the way I said that, with the country twang?

SERWER: I like that.

O'BRIEN: Other winners include Keith Urban, who took home the aware for top male vocalist and album. Over in the ladies camp, newcomer Gretchen Wilson awards for best new artist and top female vocalist, an award that was won by Martina McBride over the last three years. A little controversy right there.

HEMMER: Kenny Chesney, 2005. He's kickin' it.

SERWER: Big year.

O'BRIEN: Halfway through and he's doing so well.

HEMMER: Keep it up.

Top stories in a moment here.

Also, did you know that some of your tax dollars help pay for Viagra? This has some folks quite hot about it. We'll hear about it next hour, as we continue in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired May 18, 2005 - 08:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson is today with Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, after comments Fox made about blacks in the United States. The Reverend Jackson arrived in Mexico City on Tuesday, the same day Fox's assistant foreign secretary offered a formal apology on his behalf. Fox has been sharply criticized for saying Mexicans take jobs in the United States that quote, "not even blacks want."
And new allegations against the federal emergency management agency, known as FEMA. According to the "USA Today," government auditors say the agency gave out more than $30 million in disaster relief for phony claims. The fund was reserved for homes hit by Hurricane Frances last year. The auditor's report is set for early release today.

Back to you, Soledad.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on a story that we first told you about on Tuesday. Researchers at Yale's Child Study Center found pre-schoolers are three times as likely to be expelled from school than kids in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld is a child psychiatrist and the co-author of "The Overscheduled Child." Nice to see you. Good morning. When you see this study, do you think this is an indication that the kids are just out of control, or is it that they're just too young to be in school?

DR. ALVIN ROSENFELD, CHILD PSYCHIATRIST: Well, I don't think we know what's going on. The study doesn't really help us with that. What it tell us is that kids are getting expelled more frequently at younger ages. I think that we're pushing kids to school. School used to start at seven, now it's starting at three. If it continues, pretty soon, moms will be taking lamaze and kids will be doing sort of pre-"Baby Einstein."

You know, so I think part of it is that they're too young. But the interesting part of this study is it's not the young ones who are thrown out, it was the older ones. And what 5 and 6-year-olds were doing in pre-K is beyond me.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, what I thought was kind of interesting, that the 3-year-olds had a lower rate of being expelled, as you point out, than necessarily the 4-year-olds, which seemed surprising. I sort of thought the younger you were, the more likely you just weren't ready for school. There was indication in the study, one of the conclusions that they made, was that if there was a child psychologist working with the kids, then the kids were 50 percent less likely to be expelled. Is that because these kids, then, have psychological problems?

ROSENFELD: Well, I think probably many of them do have psychological problems. But if it was a child psychiatrist or child psychologist involved with seeing -- with working with the teachers, they were less often expelled. But I think that many kids this young have emotional problems and it's our duty as a society, if they're identified as such, to get them some early interventions. Furthermore, I think that psychiatrists and psychologists can help a teacher understand what's going on.

So you move from a teacher being overwhelmed or frightened about what she's seeing to a teacher who understands, going to be more sympathetic. And God knows that pre-K and kindergarten teachers are probably the nicest, kindest people in the universe. So they don't want to expel a kid. But they -- if they're stressed, if they're overwhelmed, they need some help.

O'BRIEN: The study found that boys expelled at a rate four and a half times higher than girls. And that didn't surprise me, because I think boys at that age are sort of a little more antsy. What did surprise me was the racial breakdown, where you saw African-American children were being expelled at twice the rate of Latino and Caucasian and five times the rate of Asian children. How do you explain those numbers?

ROSENFELD: I don't really explain it. I think we'd have to look more closely at the families, but we'd also have to look at the socioeconomic groups, because I bet it's connected to being indigent. It's an interesting question. I'd love to know more, why Asian kids are first of all are expelled so much less often and are so much more often seen at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. So there's something that Asian families are doing that we can learn a lot from.

O'BRIEN: What's the impact on a 3, or a 4 or a 5-year-old who's kicked out of pre-school? Do you think there's a serious impact or are they...

ROSENFELD: Of course there is. How would you feel if you're rejected? And not only the kid, how do the parents react? If your child was expelled -- expelled from pre-K, you'd feel awful. You'd feel you were a failure as a parent. And I think that leads to a life-long interaction that's not particularly good for the kid. So I think we need more mental health services, we need more intervention, because this is our chance. If we can intervene in pre-K and prevent 50 percent of these kids from being expelled, imagine how much money, time and suffering we spare kids in our society.

O'BRIEN: So you read some really good news into the study, in that it's an opportunity.

ROSENFELD: If we take the opportunity and use it constructively.

O'BRIEN: Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld, nice to see you, thanks.

ROSENFELD: Pleasure seeing you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Bill?

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: About 25 minutes now before the hour, Soledad, thanks. "The Sith" is just hours away from millions of anxious fans of "Star Wars." Here in New York City, only three short streets away, live pictures now from the Ziegfeld Theater. Swarms of fans camped out overnight in anticipation of tonight's opening. You can a little bit of a tent there.

Here on AMERICAN MORNING, we have our own version of the "Star Wars" trilogy. continues today with episode two, called "The Marketing Blitz." Here's Chris Huntington this morning on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The force is with you, young Skywalker.

CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And apparently with all of us. The marketing force, that is. Prepare to be bombarded by the ultimate "Star Wars" merchandising blitz. Who knew Yoda cared about calories?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your drink desire you not.

HUNTINGTON: The little guy is fronting a million dollar "Star Wars" sweepstakes for Pepsi. 7-11 is pumping out Darth Dew Slurpees. Kellog's is packing light-up saber spoons into cereal boxes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With new light-up saber spoons.

HUNTINGTON: You can get M & M's from the dark side, "Star Wars" ring tones from Cingular wireless, "Star Wars" scratch-off games at Burger King and, of course, action figures, toys and gadgets from the likes of Hasbro and Lego.

CNN's corporate cousins, AOL and Moviefone, are in on the action as official online promoters. There is even a "Star Wars" video game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't like the video game, you can always read the novel.

HUNTINGTON: While there's nothing novel about movie merchandising, George Lucas, the creator, producer and master of the "Star Wars" universe has, by all accounts and any accounting measure, raised the stakes of the game. Total box office, home video and merchandise sales for the six "Star Wars" films is expected to easily top $20 billion, far more than any other film series has ever made and greater than the gross domestic product of several European countries. Marketing from earlier "Star Wars" films was so aggressive, it became a joke. Literally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.

HUNTINGTON: But with "Revenge of the Sith" billed as the last "Star Wars" film, Lucas has pulled out all the stops.

ANDREW GREENBERG, GREENBERG BRAND STRATEGY: For the last hurrah, I think he has opened the door to a lot of merchandising opportunities. It is a feeding frenzy.

HUNTINGTON: A frenzy feeding on the "Star Wars" faithful, most of whom grew up with the films and many who still shell out astronomical sums of money to collect memorabilia or dress the part.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With everything ever related to "Star Wars," probably at least $50,000, easily.

HUNTINGTON: Still, none of the fans we spoke to seemed concerned that Yoda was hawking diet soda. Evidently, even a 900-year-old Jedi master is entitled to cash in for his retirement.

Chris Huntington, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Thanks, Chris. And you can catch the final chapter of the AMERICAN MORNING "Star Wars" trilogy. That's tomorrow, on Thursday, without waiting in line. Episode three looks inside the psyche of those die-hard fans, camping out overnight on the sidewalk.

O'BRIEN: Probably the best in the series.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: A judge in a massive corporate fraud case reveals the potential conflict of interest. Could it derail the trial? Andy is "Minding Your Business," just ahead.

HEMMER: Also, what is behind the rise in a potentially deadly food allergy? Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates that, next here on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: If you have a school-aged child, you're probably well aware of peanut allergies. But if you think back a few years, they were barely on parents' or doctors' radar.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us with the recent rise in peanut allergies, getting the word out can save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peanuts, as American as baseball. We ate nearly 1.7 billion pounds of them last year. But for those who are allergic to peanuts, even 1/1000 of a peanut can mean big trouble.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had all these hives all over my back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't breathe and then I, like, started wheezing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within 20 minutes I was completely unconscious on the front porch when the ambulance was pulling up.

GUPTA: All these reactions from peanuts and nuts, trace amounts they didn't realize were in the foods they were eating.

Dr. Robert Wood is an expert on peanut allergy, and has had a life long allergy to peanuts himself.

DR. ROBERT WOOD, CHARLES HOPKINS CHILDREN'S CENTER: I have certain rules that I abide by, and one of those rules is I don't eat any baked goods.

GUPTA: The one exception he thought he could safely make, accepting a homemade gift from a colleague, an expert on food allergies like himself, who assured him it was safe.

WOOD: You get an immediate sensation in your mouth that you've been exposed to something, and it turned out that they had made peanut butter Christmas cookies and non-peanut butter Christmas cookies, and they had used the same spatula, maybe even the same cookie sheet, without cleaning them in between. But that amount of contamination, just from the spatula, when it comes to peanut allergy, is enough to cause severe reactions.

GUPTA: What Wood found himself in the middle of was a massive allergic reaction called anafalaxus (ph), caused by peanuts and many other foods. It can include symptoms like hives, swelling, difficulty breathing. It took five shots of epinephrine to stop Woods' reaction. That's why those with serious food allergies need to carry epi pens, adrenaline in a cube. Without it, these reactions can lead to a sudden drop in blood pressure, or worse.

WOOD: I've lost three patients to an anafalaxus.

GUPTA (on camera): What happened.

WOOD: They're all teenagers. One was a baked good, one was Chinese food, one was a candy. None of them had epinephrine available.

GUPTA (voice-over): All these foods had peanuts or peanut oil hidden inside, and the reactions aren't as rare as you might think; 11 million Americans have food allergies, accounting for tens of thousands of emergency-room visits, and 150 to 200 death as year.

But perhaps the most startling trend, according to Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the number of American children allergic to peanuts doubled in five years.

Michelle Risinger has been severely allergic to peanuts and all nuts for as long as she can remember. She and her boyfriend found out about the severity of her allergy the hard way.

MICHELLE RISINGER, ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS: He started kissing me, and my lips started tingling, and immediately I was, like, we have to stop and I need to go take Benadryl.

GUPTA: And to avoid what literally could be the kiss of death, Michelle gives her dates a choice. It's either peanuts and nuts or her.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Sanjay says the medical community still cannot fully explain the phenomenon, noticing that developing countries have almost no allergy. But doctors just suspect that our society is too germ- free. Another theory is that we're exposing children too early to peanuts. And still, experts admit they don't know for sure why food allergies are on the rise -- Bill.

HEMMER: Now to one of those stories and those pieces of videotape that we must visit today, these guys had a tough day, a really tough day. Trapped in a storm drain until a public works crew came along, saved the ducklings the first time. But there's a bonus: Once they got out, the duckling fell down another drain. A second rescue ensued.

Later, they were finally reunited with mom, and the whole family was last seen ducking into some woods nearby, where apparently there are no drains. So today looks like a pretty good day for them -- Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's hope it stays that way.

Well, what happens to the economy without Alan Greenspan? The White House is wondering whether to ask the Fed chief to stay or go. Andy Serwer's "Minding Your Business," with a look at that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: What a beautiful day there, huh? What a postcard that is. High on top of time Warner Center, Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

Welcome back, everybody. Here is Jack.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Fed chairman Alan Greenspan is due to retire in January. But the question around the White House is, will President Bush let him go? Andy Serwer is here "Minding Your Business."

How old is he?

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Seventy-nine. He's 79 years old. He's supposed to go in January, as you said, and now the administration seems to be indicating that he might stay on for a couple more months, because they need some time to find a successor.

Well, that rings a little hollow because, they've known that he's going to be ending his term for years now, and there's a list of successors, Martin Feldstein, Glen Hubbard, et cetera, known to everyone.

And what the thinking is now, though, is people have noticed that if he stays on until May 11th, next spring, he would be the longest Fed chairman tenure in history -- the longest tenured fed chairman in history, I should say, beating William McChesney Martin, from 1951 to 1970. He will have been there 18 years, 9 months and 29 days. This is a story in "The Washington Post." So you wonder if that's what he's trying to do, like Cal Ripken and Lou Gehrig, break the record.

CAFFERTY: Maybe Andrea Mitchell just didn't want him hanging around the house.

SERWER: Maybe Andrea Mitchell doesn't want him hanging around the house, too. That's also a possibility.

Let's talk about this HealthSouth trial, you know always a favorite of mine. A bombshell yesterday down in Birmingham, Alabama. Documents released yesterday indicate that the judge in this trial, Karen Bowdry (ph), a U.S. district judge, had a relationship with the Scrushy family. She knew the Scrushy family from back in 2003 and before that. The judge said she knew Scrushy's daughter, Melissa, and his ex-wife, Karen, from riding American saddle-bred horses at Camelot Stables, which was on Scrushy's estate in suburban Birmingham.

She said, quote, "She's quite fond of Melissa Scrushy, though she hadn't seen her in a while." She said she met Scrushy a couple times. And here might be a little balance to the story. She said, though, that Scrushy had evicted her trainers from the stables, causing these trainers to lose money, moving to a facility with awful conditions.

CAFFERTY: Don't they call that voir dire when you ask jurors before the trial starts if there's any reason they might not be able to be objective? Aren't judges supposed to sit on case where's they don't have a conflict of interests?

SERWER: She said she was uncomfortable that her name was picked at random.

O'BRIEN: Why say it now and when it started?

SERWER: Well, she did say it. The real question here, is why did the U.S. attorney let this go on? And the U.S. attorney said she didn't think it was a problem.

CAFFERTY: Where is this trial taking place?

SERWER: Alabama -- Birmingham, Alabama. So closing arguments today.

Let's talk a little bit about the markets here quickly, Jack. Yesterday, the second day, up in a row this week for the Dow. You can see here the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, coming across the tape, just moments ago, indicating that inflation was actually nonexistent last month.

CAFFERTY: Good. SERWER: So that should be good stuff, and futures are ticking up a little bit, as we speak.

CAFFERTY: Great. Thanks, Andy.

It's Wednesday, time for the file, things people say. Beginning with this, "Just because you're rich and famous doesn't mean your bladder is more important." This is a party-goer talking about Lindsay Lohan trying to butt in at the front of the line for the ladies room.

SERWER: She's a blond now.

CAFFERTY: She is?

OK.

"Get better tactics, don't wuss around and quit saying they're so mean and vicious. They only do it because it works." Bill Clinton, calling on Democrats to stop being wimps when it comes to fighting the Republicans.

"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity has been slipping in recent months, as residents slowly realize they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger to be their governor." That's Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live's" weekend update.

"That's unconscionable. I believe in family values," Jim Stellings, the Seminole County, Florida Republican Party chairman testifying in a defamation suit he filed against a political rival. The rival accused him of having been married six times. The correct number of marriages is five.

And finally this, "I told him, you gotta be kidding. I ain't getting any, nobody's getting any out of here," Philip Petronella, a confused retiree on his reaction when his police mistakenly broke in his door, thinking his home was a prostitution place, a brothel.

HEMMER: He set the record straight.

CAFFERTY: Gotta be nuts. Ain't nothing going on around here like that.

SERWER: Was his wife at home when he said that?

O'BRIEN: Unclear.

CAFFERTY: Don't even know if the man's married.

SERWER: We don't want to go there.

O'BRIEN: Yes, so don't.

Thanks, Jack. Good "File."

Well, lots of surprises from country singer Kenny Chesney these days. Last night, Chesney edged out Tim McGraw and won the Academy of Country music's entertainer of the year award, coming eight days after he tied the knot with actress Renee Zellweger. Chesney spoke about his new marriage for the first time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNY CHESNEY, "ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR": To be honest with you, it's not that different. It's just I'm a little more at ease. You know, I'm not searching, and that's what's great about her. And she's a great girl.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Tim McGraw wasn't left out. He won for top single and song for his hit "Live Like you Were Dying."

You like the way I said that, with the country twang?

SERWER: I like that.

O'BRIEN: Other winners include Keith Urban, who took home the aware for top male vocalist and album. Over in the ladies camp, newcomer Gretchen Wilson awards for best new artist and top female vocalist, an award that was won by Martina McBride over the last three years. A little controversy right there.

HEMMER: Kenny Chesney, 2005. He's kickin' it.

SERWER: Big year.

O'BRIEN: Halfway through and he's doing so well.

HEMMER: Keep it up.

Top stories in a moment here.

Also, did you know that some of your tax dollars help pay for Viagra? This has some folks quite hot about it. We'll hear about it next hour, as we continue in a moment on AMERICAN MORNING.

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