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CNN Live At Daybreak

North Korean Meeting; Dust Cloud Looms; Extreme Heat Heads East; Egyptians Continue Investigations; Labor Rift Is Growing; Who Is Judge Roberts?

Aired July 25, 2005 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN HOST: And good morning to you. We'll have more on those stories in just a minute. Also ahead, just now breathing easy after a hurricane, now keep an eye out for the sand.

And waiting for the final countdown. We'll go to the Kennedy Space Center where all systems are apparently go.

But first, now in the news. Fourteen Iraqis are dead, nearly 30 are wounded after two suicide car bombings in Baghdad this morning. The first bomb went off near a checkpoint at a hotel. The second went off at an Iraqi police commando checkpoint. Police officers and hotel guards are among the victims.

Police officers also the target of a bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. At least two officers were injured. The attack comes a day after one American soldier was killed and several others were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Weather extremes are keeping many people on the alert. An excessive heat wave has settled over the Midwest, which has led to warnings of potential health risks. In the meantime, heavy rains caused flash floods in parts of the California desert. The fast- moving floods forced several hundred people to be evacuated.

To the forecast center now. Any relief for anyone today?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely. It was over 100 in Chicago yesterday, 91 today, 81 tomorrow. Now the problem is there is a front, cold front, pushing that hot weather to the east and guess what is east of Chicago, the Ohio Valley and obviously New York City, Philadelphia, DC, DC., you're going to get to 99 or 100 degrees on Tuesday into Wednesday. It's going to be a hot one. Then all that weather does get pushed out to the ocean.

We'll start you here, though, around DC, Annapolis, all the way over to Easton in the Eastern Shore seeing heavy rain showers move through DC very quickly. Could have been a little bit of wind with some of these heavier storms. No reports of damage right now but that may be a little bit of a while before those storms come in, those damager reports come in. There's Easton right there on the Eastern Shore across the Choptank (ph) Bridge. Some rain showers coming in. And here you go, from Scranton, across Wilkes-Barre, into Hazleton and then farther to the east, there is New York City, and you can see the line if you draw it, it's right on back into that area.

If you are traveling today, the rain showers will go away in the northeast by about four o'clock or so. Boston you get to 89, Providence, 88, scattered storms mostly offshore. Here you see the storms have moved away. If there were storms here we'd have actually some blue on the map. There is not very much blue at all.

We have something called a cap in the atmosphere. Even though it is very hot, hazy and humid, just too warm aloft to actually let it rain. Now you want it (ph) to happen today.

COSTELLO: Woo! Thank you, Chad.

We start this morning with the London terror bombings and a whitewater rafting trip is now part of the investigation. Take a look at that picture. Two of the bombers from the July 7th attack attended at the same time. The guy giving the peace sign is one of the alleged bombers. Pictures of the pair have been plastered across the front pages in London. They are also in the tabloids here.

British media reports also say some of the July 21st bombers may have been at the rafting center on the same day. In the meantime, police say their shoot-to-kill policy will remain in effect. That word comes in the wake of a mistaken shooting of a Brazilian man in a train station in London. An investigation into that shooting begins today.

FAUSTO SOAIREZ, FRIENDS OF SLAIN MEN (video clip): Basically, we are not going to accept, "sorry," only, "sorry." Because we are all scared and worried (ph) about the bombs and now we have got much more scared from the police.

COSTELLO: More Underground stations have been reopened this morning. Commuters in London are trying to get back to some sense of normalcy.

Now to the attacks in Egypt. CNN has learned that authorities there are looking for several Pakistani individuals but it is unknown whether they were involved in the bombings and in the meantime more then 100 people have been arrested as part of the investigations.

We get more now from CNN's Chris Burns in Sharm el-Sheikh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Near the suddenly deserted beaches of Egypt's Red Sea Riviera, they were picking up not only broken debris but broken hopes of a booming tourism business. A day after the triple bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh, streets in the usually busy old market district were eerily quiet.

Shopkeepers like Haled (ph) say they would like to get their hands on who planned the attacks. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (unintelligible) I kill him.

BURNS (on camera): This is where the car bomb exploded here in the old market, leaving this crater about a meter deep. It went off just as the night life was reaching its peak, shredding these shops and restaurants, laying waste to these cars, these taxis and this is also where most of the people died in the three attacks.

(voice-over): As the city reels in mourning, flags flew half mast, survivors lay in pain at the local hospital. Foreign tourists were among the victims, though most were Egyptians.

"I was watching an English couple taking pictures of each other and the next thing I knew, they were gone," he said.

Security in this already heavily guarded resort was beefed up. Bomb sniffing dogs are searching vehicles. But an effort also to return to normalcy. The shattered hotel where the other suicide car bomb exploded was shrouded in canvas.

And though many frightened tourists were leaving, others were back on the street, some as disaster tourists, taking home a souvenir the government here would rather they forget.

Karen and Richard Birch of Britain plan to return even though the bomb at the hotel across the street blew in the windows of their hotel rooms. Karen was cut by the glass.

KAREN BIRCH, BRITISH TOURIST: Across it. Had a bit of ...

BURNS: That was crawling on the floor.

BIRCH: Yeah, because you couldn't see it, you just though, I'll go in the bathroom, you know?

BURNS: But for someone who grew up with IRA bombings in London, she tries to take it in stride.

BIRCH: It can happen anywhere. This is what we were saying last night. Anywhere we go for holiday it could have happened.

BURNS: Good hopes broken but perhaps not lost that the place that hosts so many summits on ending conflict won't lose its nickname as the City of Peace. Chris Burns, CNN, Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Now let's talk about a rare meeting. This rare meeting took place just a couple of hours ago between the United States and North Korea. The two sides held informal meetings ahead of more official multinational nuclear talks.

For the latest on this important development, and the nuclear talks, we are joined by CNN's Stan Grant. He is in Beijing this morning. Tell us more, Stan. STAN GRANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Carol, you'd like to be a fly on the wall in this meeting, wouldn't you? No details emerging as yet. The U.S. envoy, Christopher Hill, had said this is a meeting the basically get reacquainted and to swap notes. We know the notes that the U.S. and North Korea have been swapping over the past couple of years since President George W. Bush branded North Korea part of an "Axis of Evil."

Condoleezza Rice branded it an "outpost of tyranny." North Korea, in the meantime, is continued to talk up its nuclear threat. It walked away from six party talks over a year ago now. During that time it has continued to build its nuclear arsenal. Some observers say it could have as many eight or nine nuclear weapons and the bottom line from the United States wants North Korea to give up its nuclear program unconditionally.

Condoleezza Rice recently in Beijing saying that the thing here is not to have more talks but to have real progress at these talks. Some indications from North Korea that they may be willing to make some more progress, perhaps even give up its nuclear weapons program. In return, security guarantees from the United States and also for much needed aide to ease the foot shortage that is crippling North Korea at this moment. But the latest round of talks, the fourth round due to get underway in a bit more than sort of 12or 15 hours from now. Hopes are high but expectations, Carol, perhaps a little low.

COSTELLO: Stan Grant live from Beijing, China this morning.

A question -- Just what does undercover mean? That's a question likely to be raised during the Senate hearings into the CIA. Among the issues they'll look at is the status of outed agent Valerie Plame.

There have been questions about whether she was really undercover. It was her uncovering that led to the investigation into a possible White House leak.

SEN. PAT ROBERTS, (R) INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE (video clip): In the Intelligence Committee we are going to go into quite a series of hearings in regard to cover. You cannot be in the business of outing somebody, if that is the proper word.

COSTELLO: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted he told Chief of Staff Andrew Card about the Justice Department investigation into the Plame case but he said he didn't tell President Bush until the next morning. Gonzales was White House counsel at the time.

In other news across American now, an ongoing manhunt has failed to turn up any sign of a missing eight-year old Nevada girl. Police believe Lydia Bethany-Rose Rupp was taken from her home by a 47-year- old convicted sex offender. An Amber Alert has been issued. A serial child molester may have been working on his memoirs when he was caught by police.

Police found several notebooks with more than 36,000 coded descriptions of possible crimes when they arrested Dean Schwartzmiller in May. They believe he was putting together a book about his more than 30 years of crime.

The countdown continues for the Space Shuttle Discovery. NASA will try again to launch the shuttle Tuesday morning. A fuel sensor problem delayed the launch for nearly two weeks. We'll have a live report from the Kennedy Space Center coming up a little later.

Still to come this hour. At 14 minutes past, we will check out the floating cloud. It is bigger than the United States. That big dust cloud is headed toward some of you this morning.

And, judging Roberts. At 24 past the hour, the Supreme Court nominee continues the charm offensive. How would John Roberts personality fit in with some of the more senior justices on the highest court?

And in the next half hour of DAYBREAK, riding out the heat wave across the country. It will feel like triple digits for a lot of you this morning but first, here's a look at what else is making news this Monday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Well, Chad, it's a little dark in Miami right now. We were hoping that we would see the sunrise because this huge dust cloud from the Sahara Desert -- Sahara Desert -- I apologize for pronouncing it that weird way. But anyway, it is going to be blowing over Florida. Tell us about this, Chad.

MYERS: Well, you called it the Tour de France, too, so ...

COSTELLO: Well, that's correct. Some people say potato, some people say potato, some people say France, some people say France.

MYERS: As long as you put the E at the end.

Yes, this dust cloud, which was a sand storm at one point in the Sahara but all the sand is too heavy to make its way all the way across the Atlantic. The sand has actually fallen out. Only the very, very, very fine dust particles that came off with the sand are still in the air but that dust is still moving its way from east to west, the same direction that a hurricane would move.

It was a big, what we call "wave" as it comes off the Atlantic Ocean. You can see the big cloud cover to the south of it there and that wave had enough, that storminess had enough wind with it to pick up the dust, pick up the sand and blow it through the trades. Happens all the time. But this one here is going to make South Florida a very pretty sunrise and probably a really great sunset for all of the Caribbean tonight. Carol?

COSTELLO: Okay. So 6:44 Eastern Time is when the sun comes up in Miami.

MYERS: Okay.

COSTELLO: So that's not very long. MYERS: We'll get color before then for sure.

COSTELLO: Okay, well, we'll jump back into that live shot when we get it.

MYERS: Okay.

COSTELLO: Still to come on DAYBREAK this hour.

Trouble in the ranks. What's got some of labor unions in the nation so worked up? We'll tell you about it in our business buzz.

Plus, sun, fun and sand? Think again. We'll tell you why a Texas hiker would rather forget his tropical vacation.

But first, one more look. Well, it's still dark in Miami but this big dust cloud is going to be blowing over soon so we'll check back with Miami. DAYBREAK will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Time now for a little business buzz. Honda says it will start selling Acura brand automobiles in China beginning next spring. Honda says the Chinese are earning more money and they want high end cars. It will be the first time Honda has sold Acura outside of North America.

Wal-Mart is also taking advantage of growing incomes in China. The world's biggest retailer plans to operate 90 stores there by the end of next year. That's more than double the Wal-Mart stores now open in China.

Several large unions may split from the AFL-CIO. Carrie Lee joins us with details on this.

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, four of the biggest labor unions in the country aren't happy with the organization and so the word is that they're going to boycott the AFL-CIO's annual convention and will likely leave the labor federation.

Now the unions expected to leave are the Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE, which represents textile and hotel workers.

Those four groups represent about five million of the group's 13 million members. The biggest problem for organized labor is declining membership.

Now when the AFL-CIO was formed 50 years ago, 35 percent of American workers were in unions. Now only eight percent of private sector employees are unionized. Also, the dissident groups have become critical of the AFL-CIO for putting more money into political campaigns at the expense of union organizing and the split seems to be along the line of service and retail workers versus old economy industrial workers. Service, a growing part of our economy, industrial workers have been wracked by layoffs in recent years. So, bottom line, summing it all up, a split could reduce the power of an already weakening organized labor movement and we'll see what happens Carol. That's the latest.

COSTELLO: Interesting.

LEE: Yeah. A quick look at the futures. Things looking a little bit weak for today's session. We do get some reports on the housing sector of the economy, which you know has been strong, but slight gains yesterday, some decent momentum over the last couple of weeks so we'll see what happens at 9:30.

COSTELLO: We will. Thank you, Carrie Lee.

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts continues his charm offensive today. He meets with California Democrat Diane Feinstein. Roberts and his family were seen leaving for church on Sunday. Much has been made of the fact that he and his wife are Roman Catholics. Joining me live from Washington with more on the judge is "Time Magazine" correspondent Viveca Novak. Good morning, Viveca.

VIVECA NOVAK, "TIME MAGAZINE": Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Okay, you and others have written an extensive article on Mr. Roberts. You have used adjectives like humble, fair, intellectual, family-man, this guy sounds like the perfect guy.

NOVAK: Well it is very difficult to find anyone to say a bad thing about the guy. We can't find that he collects barbed wire or loves the ponies or anything like that so people do say he is almost always the smartest person in the room but never lords it over anyone. He is just an incredibly fair, decent person and sounds in many ways like he would be a fabulous Supreme Court justice.

COSTELLO: You sound so disappointed.

NOVAK: Well, you know, you kind of look for at least some stuff that people don't already know about him but we don't -- we haven't found much.

COSTELLO: Okay, well let me read you a quote from the article, a quote on ideology. This is the quote. "There were a few people on the law review that were social conservatives, very strong views about abortion, separation of church and state. John was not one of them -- this comes from a Harvard classmate. So is John Roberts the same man he is today? Do we know?

NOVAK: We don't really know because he spent most of his career representing clients and taking their views as he represented them. He was a very good advocate for his clients. Whether it was the government when he was in the solicitor general's office and he argued that Roe v. Wade should be reversed as the administration believed or when he was representing Toyota Motor against a handicapped worker or -- and he also took some other positions. He was in favor of affirmative action for the State of Hawaii when he represented them and so it's been only the last two years that we've seen his real -- his own opinions come out and the caseload of the DC Circuit tends to be very, very dry. There are a couple of cases, including one involving the war on terror where a decision came out where he joined -- came out about 10 days ago -- where he seems to defer to executive authority to a great deal in times of war and said military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo should go forward.

A couple of things like that but most of his cases have been pretty dry.

COSTELLO: Okay. Well we know his wife has done some legal work for a feminist antiabortion group. Will that matter?

NOVAK: Well, it is interesting. People are certainly noting that but even Senator Kennedy who has led the charge for Democrats against some Republican judicial nominees and way back against Robert Bork, certainly. He said that what his wife does really is out of bounds. She is a lawyer, she is her own person, she should be able to do this work and not necessarily have the feelings associated with it ascribed to her husband.

COSTELLO: Okay, so on the subject of humble, let's talk about that. Roberts lost a case before the Supreme Court. His client asked him, how could we lose nine to zero? Roberts responded "Because there were nine justices."

NOVAK: There were "only nine justices" or it would have been worse. Right. No, he's a -- people say that he is just -- he does not come across as someone who is cocky when he could be. He's almost always the smartest person in the room and he is just very decent, makes people feel at ease. I don't know what else to say.

COSTELLO: You've said enough. Thank you, Viveca. We appreciate it.

NOVAK: Thank you.

COSTELLO: If you want to read more, that article is in this week's "Time Magazine." Time now for a look at stories you may have missed in our "Weekend Rewind."

A pregnant woman sitting outside her Brooklyn apartment was killed in the crossfire of a gunfight. The doctors successfully delivered a baby boy from the body of his dead mother. People now calling him a miracle baby.

A Texas hiker has a brush with death but lives to tell the tale. He was missing for six days in a volcano lava field in Hawaii. He says he survived by squeezing water from moss he found on trees sprinkled across the barren landscape. A teenager on a helicopter tour spotted him trying to attract attention with a mirror from his camera -- actually it was his camera lens.

And cheers to the winner of winners. Lance Armstrong has pedaled his way into the history books again. He won his seventh straight Tour de France this weekend. Armstrong says he is retiring but the race will always be a part of him. LANCE ARMSTRONG, BICYCLIST (video clip): This is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it so "Vive la Tour" forever. Thank you.

COSTELLO: The 33 year old cycling sensation came back from a battle with cance to dominate the sport.

Still to come on DAYBREAK, drink lots of water and check on the elderly. That's what city leaders are reminding people to do across the country. We'll see how one of the largest cities is coping with the heat wave.

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