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CNN Live At Daybreak

Steel Curtain; Tornado Veteran; Going the Distance; Hanna in Africa

Aired November 09, 2005 - 05:30   ET

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

(WEATHER REPORT)
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: OK. It was a very effective graphic, I must say.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Jacqui.

In the news this morning, a suicide car bomber kills seven Iraqis, four of them police officers, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. And in western Iraq, the U.S. military's Operation Steel Curtain continues to come down hard on insurgents.

Our Arwa Damon is embedded with the Marines there. And she joins us now to bring us up to date.

Good morning -- Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN PRODUCER: Good morning, Carol.

Well, Operation Steel Curtain now on day five here, and it's been a fairly quiet morning. In fact, you could call it deathly quiet, compared to the last five days, where U.S. forces, at sunrise you'd start to hear firing throughout the city. And I have to say, you know I've spent the last five days embedded with U.S. Marines and the Iraqi army and seen that side of the war. I have seen them come under fire. I have seen them respond. I have seen them struggling against a very, very challenging enemy.

And this morning, I saw the -- what can be called the other side of the battlefield, the civilian side of it. The civilians who live here in this city who, essentially, are stuck in between the U.S. forces, the Iraqi security forces and the insurgents.

I was able to walk from this firm base that has been established in the city down the streets completely comfortable, which is an indication of the amount of you know relative security that there is here right now, and speak with some of the civilians and local population.

I was taken to a house where there were seven civilians who were killed. The house had been hit by, they are telling me, by a 500- pound bomb. They had pulled out seven bodies from that house. And now we're awaiting permission to go bury them. Further up the street was another house. Another very intense kind of emotional moment where most of the neighborhood, about 30 or 40 people from the neighborhood had gathered around, were on top of the rubble trying to clear it. They have been trying to clear it for two days. Their story is that the house was hit two days ago on day three of the operation. And now they are standing around trying to clear it.

Emotions are very high. And they are saying, you know why do you need to bomb us? They are acknowledging that there is an insurgency here. They are acknowledging that they did see men with black masks running around with AK47s. They are acknowledging that their lives were very difficult, that most people had fled.

But at the same time, they are asking why does there have to be so many bombs dropped? They are saying, you know the military told us to stay in our homes, that we would be safe if we stayed in our homes and left our doors open. We did and now look at what has befallen us -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Arwa Damon reporting live this morning. Thank you.

Tornado victims are being allowed back to a devastated mobile home park in Evansville, Indiana today. They are going to be allowed to search through their belongings, what's left of them anyway. Of course that's the area where most of the 22 people were killed in Sunday's twister.

Survivors in the neighboring community of Newburgh already have been sifting through the rubble of their destroyed homes.

Our Rob Marciano talked to one who survived a war, a typhoon and now this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARRY MILLER, TORNADO SURVIVOR: I was sound asleep in the upstairs bedroom in the rear of the house and this tremendous crash, the feeling of a terrible wind force hitting my body and, obviously, you can see in my face, some pellets hitting my face. Then I kind of like blacked out. I have no memory.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): Early Sunday morning in Newburgh, Indiana, the tornado tossed Larry Miller from his bedroom somewhere into his front yard.

MILLER: And, need I say, without a stitch of clothes.

MARCIANO (on camera): OK.

MILLER: Raining, so I -- from there I looked down this way and I saw some lights.

MARCIANO (voice-over): Larry was looking for help and looking for his wife of nearly 60 years.

MILLER: Two or three guys stopped, and I says get my wife out. She's at the back of the house. And the...

MARCIANO (on camera): Sir.

MILLER: ... house was down like this. And they dug around and they found her.

MARCIANO: Your wife is OK now?

MILLER: Yes, yes, she's fine. She didn't lose any consciousness. And I think a sofa kind of rolled over on top of her, or something, and protected her, because a whole wall caved in on her.

MARCIANO (voice-over): Their home completely destroyed, yet they still survived. And they are not the only ones. People in surrounding homes shared similar stories.

MILLER: The neighbor, you can see what happened to the house, and there was -- they got out alive, didn't have a scratch.

MARCIANO (on camera): You're kidding, another one.

MILLER: Another one, yes. And same thing over here, my neighbor, he's a man maybe five years younger than I am, retired, and his wife has ALS and she's semi-invalid. And we ran into them at the hospital and they got out. They had scratches like we did, but they got out of that one.

MARCIANO (voice-over): As luck would have it, Larry Miller has lived through other life-threatening storms.

MILLER: Going way back, when I was 18, during World War II, was on a ship in the South Pacific that was wrecked in a typhoon. It drove us right on the coral and wrecked the ship and all 30 of us survived. One person I think had a broken arm.

MARCIANO (on camera): But you've lived through a typhoon or, in essence,...

MILLER: Yes. Yes.

MARCIANO: ... a hurricane on a boat?

MILLER: Yes, on the sea, yes.

MARCIANO: And now you've lived through...

MILLER: Yes.

MARCIANO: ... a major tornado.

MILLER: Right. How do you explain that?

MARCIANO: Which one, in your eyes, was worse?

MILLER: This is much worse, because I had my wife in my mind all the time. You see we were in two different rooms, and I had no idea whether -- you know I knew she was in there, but I didn't know that she was alive or not. And that was the hardest few minutes. The guys dug like blazes and got her out from under that rubble right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, mom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I think these are grandma's, aren't they?

MILLER: Those are grandma's.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

MARCIANO (voice-over): And as Larry's family sifts through the rubble, he finds happiness knowing he and his wife survived.

(on camera): That you lost your home, that's got to be one feeling, and then the feeling of making it out alive.

MILLER: Just sheer gratitude that we're alive. If you let yourself get a little bit, you know you're sorry you lost some possessions, but as long as -- we've been married almost 59 years, as long as you have each other, why, you don't care.

MARCIANO (voice-over): Rob Marciano, CNN, Newburgh, Indiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good for him.

In other news "Across America" this morning, a man's leg was severed when a car driven by an 89-year-old woman slammed into him in front of a Winn-Dixie store. The car then crashed through the store, injuring six more people. Police say the woman hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

Take a look at these puppies. Aren't they cute? Cute, right? Police in Portland, Oregon say the theft of pedigree puppies is up and methamphetamine may be behind it. Authorities say thieves sell the puppies to supply their meth habit.

And in Oregon there are some very happy people. Two Oregon couples, accompanied by lots of family members, have claimed a $340- million Power Ball Lottery. Frances and Bob Chaney, along with their daughter and her husband, bought the winning October 19 ticket. The holiday should be a real treat for this family.

You'll be able to get a new set of patriotic postage stamps starting tomorrow. They honor some of the heroes from the Marine Corps. Names like Lejuene and Puller are part of the set. The stamps will be officially unveiled during ceremonies at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington and at Camp Pendleton in California.

He's the Energizer Bunny of world travel. Up next, our own Richard Quest will keep going and going and going around the world on a record flight. We have saved a first class ticket.

And a CNN exclusive, the Rwanda massacre has now taken a toll on more than just humans. We'll explain.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Wednesday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Well our baby has taken the morning plane. In just a few hours, a new era in air travel is set to begin. That's when Boeing's new 777 long-range airplane takes off from Hong Kong on its way to London. It'll fly over the United States. And it will set a new distance record, all the way there without refueling.

Our own Richard Quest is one of the select few chosen for the long haul. And Richard joins us now live from Hong Kong.

Are you still on the ground -- Richard?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are. We're about to leave for the airport. But, Carol, you haven't told the whole story, this flight is going to last 23 hours. I'm going to see sunrise twice. Thursday we'll arrive, first of all, over northern Japan. And then after we've crossed the dateline, the Pacific, the United States, I will see sunrise again over Washington, D.C. And then it's across the Transatlantic into London. You might ask, 23 hours stuck on a metal tube.

COSTELLO: I might ask that question. We were seeing pictures of you already on the plane sleeping and checking your -- what was that from?

QUEST: Well that was -- now that was from when I did the last long flight. That was Singapore Airlines from Singapore to New York. That was only 18-and-a-half hours.

Basically, Boeing is now trying to get back into this long-haul game. And with the 777-LR, this is the plane that really pretty much you can pick any two cities anywhere in the world and Boeing says they can now link them up using these ultra long-haul flights.

COSTELLO: So what's the advantage of that for Boeing?

QUEST: For Boeing, it puts them back into a much competitive game against Airbus. Until now, it's only been an Airbus plane that's really been able to do an 18, 19-hour flight. Now Boeing will have the same capability.

For the passenger, you know it's a mixed blessing, Carol. On the one hand, do you want 19 hours in a metal tube with horrible smelly people next to you? Or do you want to have to change planes in places like Los Angeles, Frankfurt, London or Hong Kong? These new long-haul flights basically mean we can go A to B without going via Z.

COSTELLO: How do they entertain you for 23 hours? They must offer you at least three or four movies.

QUEST: On this plane tonight, there's only 35 of us, and there is a full range of movies and things. And I -- let me be honest, this is a demonstration flight. This is Boeing saying to the world, you know, size matters. We've got one bigger, longer, faster than the other guys. Nobody will ever really do 23 hours like this. But I think what we can say is that tonight's plane is going to be full of aviation geeks, like myself. And I am sorry to say we probably are going to enjoy most of the time.

COSTELLO: OK. So you're going to call us mid-flight tomorrow. You're going to set some kind of alarm to wake yourself up.

QUEST: By my reckoning, when I speak to you tomorrow from the air, I will be somewhere over the United States just about to start the Transatlantic crossing. So, yes, we will talk tomorrow night -- tomorrow morning when I'll be in the air.

COSTELLO: Can't wait.

Richard Quest reporting live from Hong Kong this morning. Enjoyable, as always.

Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:44 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

Tennessee authorities are deciding whether to charge a 15-year- old boy as an adult after he allegedly opened fire at his high school in Jacksboro. An assistant principal was killed and the principal and another administrator were wounded.

Republican leaders are calling for an investigation into who leaked classified information about CIA secret prisons for suspected terrorists. They say last week's disclosure published in "The Washington Post" could damage national security.

In money news, home accessory store Linens -- home accessory story, I should say, Linens 'N Things, with 516 stores nationwide, has agreed to a billion-dollar deal with a private equity company. The purchase agreement calls for the company to meet some tough sales and profit goals.

In culture, listen to this, Ozzy is playing for the Queen. Yes. Aging rocker Ozzy Osbourne was invited to play in front of Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Variety Performance on November 21. He's going to be joined by the Blue Man Group and Andre Portasio. Now that's a strange trio.

In sports, the Los Angeles pitcher Bartolo Colon is the American League's Cy Young Award winner. The league's best pitcher ended the season with 21 wins. He is the first Angel to ever win the award. The managers for the year for both leagues will be announced later today.

To the Forecast Center and -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Carol.

COSTELLO: What? What? JERAS: It's not that funny.

COSTELLO: What?

JERAS: Ozzy singing in front of the Queen.

COSTELLO: Why?

JERAS: Isn't he English anyway?

COSTELLO: Yes, but he's incoherent.

JERAS: I think so. What an interesting group of three, huh?

COSTELLO: Exactly.

JERAS: That is variety entertainment right there, folks.

(WEATHER REPORT)

JERAS: And big changes -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I'll be ready.

JERAS: Reality.

COSTELLO: I'm getting my woolens out.

JERAS: See you got the vest today.

COSTELLO: I do.

Thank you, Jacqui.

Listen up all you java junkies, ahead, some good news for those ladies with the coffee habit.

And don't forget about our e-mail "Question of the Morning," should oil companies pay an extra tax on high profits, you know, to help you and I out this winter on our heating bills, maybe with our gas tanks? Because you know some oil company executives are going to appear before a Senate committee today to answer some tough questions about whey they are raking in the profits and we're paying big bills. What do you think? E-mail us at DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Some "Health Headlines" for you this morning.

Good news and bad news about sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. Federal researchers say the gonorrhea rate has reached a new low, but their yearly study also says the number of syphilis cases rose for the fourth straight year in 2004. The rise was fueled by increases among men who have sex with men. But the overall incidents of syphilis in the United States is still relatively low. Ladies, if you are holding a cup of coffee, drink up. Researchers say when it comes to choosing between coffee and a cola, choose java. Cola appears to bring on a greater risk of long-term high blood pressure. Indications are that women who drink lots of coffee face a slightly lower risk for high blood pressure than those who drink little or no coffee. You can read all about the study in the latest AMA journal.

To the wilds of Central Africa now with renowned zoologist Jack Hanna. He went to Rwanda, a nation still healing from the 1994 massacre of more than 800,000 people.

Anderson Cooper explains Jack Hanna's amazing visit in this exclusive CNN report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rwanda, this breathtakingly beautiful land is soaked in blood. The people living with the pain of their history.

Akagera National Park, once a spectacular wildlife refuge, is now refuge to many Rwandans who survived the genocide and returned to their native land trying to start life anew. There are so many people in Rwanda now, they've taken over two-thirds of the national park. And because of that, Rwanda now faces a problem. What will happen to the wildlife? How will the animals coexist with humans?

That's what Jack Hanna, the renowned wildlife advocate, wanted to find out as he went in search of wild elephants. They're said to be 80 elephants in Akagera. But for Hanna and his crew, finding even one was not unlike looking for that proverbial needle in a haystack.

JACK HANNA, DIRECTOR EMERITUS, COLUMBUS ZOO: Now, the elephant is back that way, right?

COOPER: Hanna hired a boat to take him to a fishing village where there had been reports of a male elephant. They searched for hours and hours and finally...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See the elephant?

HANNA: Yes, I see it!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

COOPER: But even a wildlife expert, like Hanna, was surprised to find such a mighty creature submerged in lake water. It was very unusual behavior.

HANNA: Look at that, he's like a submarine. He's going to use his trunk. Look at that. Look at him move. He is going fast. That is fast. Big elephant.

COOPER: An estimated 11 feet tall, weighing perhaps 14,000 pounds, the mature bull elephant was as big and angry as any they had seen before. And he started to pursue them.

HANNA: That is fast. Remember, elephants can swim, everybody. And they've got like a periscope. I don't know if he's walking or swimming, but he is moving.

COOPER: Hanna and his crew beat it to shore and to safety, not realizing that in April the U.S. embassy in Kigali had issued a warning to American tourists about a rogue elephant charging visitors.

HANNA: Lower your trunk. Go like this.

COOPER: On shore, Hanna was greeted by local kids.

HANNA: Trunk. That's it! That's it!

COOPER: And in exchange for his kindness, they shared a little- known secret about the rogue elephant. It turns out this monster of the deep was, in fact, an old friend of the children's. And to prove it, they lured him in with sweet words and sweet potatoes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Hello.

HANNA: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. That's something else. That's all I can tell you.

COOPER: Akagera National Park may not be all that it once was, nor, of course, is Rwanda. But Jack Hanna says that there is a sense of healing. And, as in the mighty steps of elephants, there are small steps being made towards recovery.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Anderson Cooper reporting. And you can catch "ANDERSON COOPER 360" tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Time for our DAYBREAK "Eye Openers" right now.

Meet the stars of the newest reality show on TV in the Czech Republic. Yes, they are gorillas. Organizers say the 16 cameras following their every move will also help educate people about gorillas. Viewers vote for their favorites and can even send e-mails to the gorillas. Why, I don't know.

This is a sugar glider. But in this case, you could call him an infrequent flier. The tiny marsupial was found running loose on a flight from Las Vegas to Honolulu. But sugar gliders are not welcome in Hawaii. In fact, there has been a statewide ban on the critters due to the threat of disease to native animals. It's unknown how it got on the plane or how much money it won while it vacationed in Vegas.

So what did you do with your leftover pumpkins? At the National Zoo, they became toys for the elephants. The pumpkins are part of a program to stimulate the playful nature of elephants and also hippos. And, as you can see, it works beautifully. You can never have too much of a good thing, right? Wrong. Coming up in -- coming up new in the next hour, Lisa Drayer takes a look at healthy habits that can sometimes be overdone. Step away from that antibacterial soap and stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JERAS: Manilow.

COSTELLO: And it is DAYBREAK.

JERAS: I thought it was Neil Diamond.

COSTELLO: You know Barry Manilow is Chad's favorite artist.

JERAS: I like Barry Manilow. You've got to love the guy.

COSTELLO: It must be a weather person thing.

JERAS: Who doesn't like "Coppa Cabana?"

COSTELLO: I don't know.

You know a lot of people are e-mailing about Chad, and I think we should quickly say...

JERAS: They are.

COSTELLO: ... he's just taking a little break from this shift because he needs to rest.

JERAS: Right.

COSTELLO: But he'll be back in the morning in January.

JERAS: Yes. Another month you have to put up with me.

COSTELLO: Anyway, it's time to get to our e-mail segment of the morning. And we're asking an interesting question this morning -- Jacqui.

JERAS: Yes. We want to know if you think there should be an extra tax on all those profits that the oil companies made, particularly after all of the hurricanes? And we have got a lot of responses from these, Carol, but not quite as sharp as I anticipated.

Caitlin (ph) from Skokie, Illinois, says pay an extra tax for making money, no. Lose the extra tax breaks they have been getting while turning those huge profits, absolutely.

This one from Lisa M. (ph) in Virginia, she says, yes, they most certainly should pay a higher tax for the profits that they have made off of us. They have charged outrageous gas prices for far too long. It's time the government step in and did something about this.

Dennis H. (ph) from Little Rock says additional taxing of oil companies is the wrong answer. We live in a risk-reward world and oil companies should be applauded, not cursed. I challenge anyone to invest millions of dollars on the chance of striking oil. America needs to stop whining.

And Steve (ph) in Corpus Christi, Texas, says, yes, and the tax revenues should go towards developing alternative fuel vehicles or to other funding to reduce the demand for oil products.

And I did get a few e-mails about the ethanol, Carol.

One person says that a Berkeley study said that it takes more energy and fuel to actually make the ethanol than what you save by burning it.

Another person says that it's bad for your carburetor.

But I also got another e-mail from one of our producers who says that there is a bumper crop of corn in Iowa this year, so what are we going to do with it? Support your American farmers.

COSTELLO: You can't feed it all to the cows. That's right.

JERAS: That's right.

COSTELLO: Interesting responses. Thank you for your e-mails, as usual.

Thank you, Jacqui.

The next hour of DAYBREAK begins in 30 seconds.

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