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CNN Live Today

Terror By SUV; Moussaoui Trial; Supreme Court Rules On Recruitment; President Bush Introduces Line-Item Veto Bill; Search For Bodies In New Orleans; College Loan Tips

Aired March 06, 2006 - 10:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Launched a $67 billion bid for BellSouth. If approved over the next year, the acquisition would make AT&T the local phone company in 22 states. The ma bell phone monopoly was broken in 1984.
Right now at the White House, a live picture for you. President Bush will be attending the swearing in ceremony for one of his top economic advisors. But that will be the backdrop for another event. Mr. Bush plans to announce what he wants Congress to grant him authority for a line item veto. Congress had given President Clinton that power but the Supreme Court struck it down in 1998.

A dark horse movie crashes the party in Tinseltown. Last night's Academy Awards will probably be remembered for the upset in the best picture category. "Crash" took home the top trophy, edging out the heavily favored "Brokeback Mountain." Later this hour I'll talk to Hollywood observer Tom O'Neill about the night's highs and lows.

I'm Daryn Kagan at CNN Center in Atlanta. Good morning on this Monday morning to you. We do have a busy couple hours ahead.

We're going to start in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. That is where a recent UNC graduate is due in court to face attempted murder charges. Police say the man admitted to plowing his SUV into a gathering of people on campus. The Iranian native reportedly said he wanted to avenge the murders of Muslims around the world. We get details now from report Gloria Lopez from our affiliate WRAL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA LOPEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): He's charged with nine counts of attempted murder, from running nine UNC students down in a rented SUV at an area called The Pitt. Both Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar's smile and motive are difficult to understand. The police say Taheri-azar admits it was "to avenge the death of Muslims around the world." And some student leaders say to them, that qualifies as terrorism.

JILLIAN BANDES, PROTEST ORGANIZER: This is innocent people being attacked by an SUV who, you know, driven by a man who was doing it for the, you know, retaliation for treatment of Muslims around the world. To me, that spells terrorism.

LOPEZ: Do you think that's too extreme, an act of terrorism, or on the money? DAN VANATTA, SUSPECT'S FRIEND: I think it's extreme, but then again, I don't know what was going through his head.

LOPEZ: Dan Vanatta was a friend of Taheri-azars.

VANATTA: Mohammed was a good guy.

DAVID SCHANZER, TERROR EXPERT: Whether or not the FBI decides to charge this individual with a crime of terrorism, I think it was a terroristic act.

LOPEZ: The director of the Triangle Center for Terrorism and National Security says it's fine for students to voice their dismay but should be cautious.

SCHANZER: I understand the roots of it and understand strategies for addressing it in a constructive way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Gloria Lopez from our affiliate WRAL. Several student groups are set to hold a rally next hour in protest. Many are upset that the suspect is not facing any terror related charges. We will watch that for you and bring you the latest.

Now to Boston. Police investigating a brutal attack on a homeless man. The 30-year-old says he was in a city park when he was awakened by two men kicking him. He says after he drifted back to sleep, the men returned and set his legs on fire. The homeless man was treated for his injuries and the search is on for his attackers. Two teens are charged with manslaughter in last summer's fatal beating of another homeless man in Boston.

The only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the 9/11 attacks goes on trial today. Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges last year. Now jurors will decide whether he'll receive a death sentence or life in prison. Our Jeanne Meserve is covering the trial. She joins us this morning from Alexandria, Virginia.

Good morning, Jeanne.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Moussaoui arrived here at the courthouse in Alexandria under very heavy security this morning. Among those present for the start of his trial, his mother. I spoke with her last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AICHA EL-WAFI, MOTHER OF ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, (through translator): What I would like to say to the American people is that I'm extremely sorry for the things that my son says during the hearings. But one must understand that he's been in isolation for four years now. And he's in a situation of a person who cannot talk to other people. And what he's expressing is his pain, his suffering. MESERVE: What are your feelings tonight with the trial beginning tomorrow morning? What are your fears? What are your hopes? What are your thoughts?

EL-WAFI: Yes, he was clearly the most upstanding, most righteous, the kindest of all. So what switched, what triggered this change when he was in the U.K.? I really could not tell you. I really don't know.

As far as the American people, I am with the American people. I share their pain. I share their grief. Whether he was involved or not, because I share the pain, I understand the pain of all the people who lost loved ones in the United States. But I cannot say -- my own pain, my own inner grief, is something that I really cannot express. It is so deeply personal to me.

So what do I hope right now? I hope that he gets a fair trial. I hope that the truth will come out. The judge, her honor, up until now has done her job. She has done it well. I just hope that the jury will decide and act in according with their conscience. The only thing that I do hope is that my son will not be used as a scapegoat. All I can say is that he's not a liar.

MESERVE: Do you believe that he can get a fair trial here?

EL-WAFI: I don't think so. I will rely on the judge. I will rely on the jury. But the fact of the matter is, is that my son's trial is not a trial that is based on the evidence. It is turned into a political trial. So I don't think so.

MESERVE: Do you feel that he is a scapegoat?

EL-WAFI: Yes. What do they have against him? What can they reproach him? All they can have against him is the things that he's said, the words that he has used. But actual acts that he committed, there aren't any.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: At this hour, jury selection is beginning. This afternoon there will be opening statements. Moussaoui's mother is watching in closed circuit television and so are family members of 9/11 victims.

Daryn, back to you.

KAGAN: Jeanne Meserve live from Alexandria. Jeanne, thank you.

And this just in to CNN, news out of the U.S. Supreme Court. It concerns colleges that do accept federal money. They must also allow military recruiters on campus. This is a case that was brought by a number of campuses, of colleges that were concerned because of the military's anti-gay policies. Saying that they should not have to allow military recruiters on campus. But justices reject a free speech challenge from law school professors who claim they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campuses appearances. So if you're going to accept the money, law schools and colleges must allow military recruiters on campus. More on that with our Jeffrey Toobin just ahead.

Meanwhile, though, a new threat from al Qaeda's number two man. A tape message attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri surfaces on Islamic Web sites. The statement calls on Muslims to attack the economic infrastructure of the west. The audio appears to be taken from a recent videotaped message that aired on al-Jazeera. The statement also calls on Muslims to stop western nations from "stealing Mid East oil." There's been no independent confirmation that the voice on the tape is al-Zawahiri.

The head of Dubai Ports World wants to ease fears about his company's planned takeover of management at six U.S. ports. Giving an exclusive interview to our Wolf Blitzer, Mohammed Sharaf says his company is not directly responsible for port security. He says that job remains under U.S. authority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMED SHARAF, CEO, DUBAI PORTS WORLD: Number one, there's a misconception about port operators. Port operators don't control the security of the port. Any personnel coming in to work in U.S. will have to go through U.S. immigration, will have to go through U.S. security authorities and then only they can come in and work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: That's with our Wolf Blitzer who's in Dubai. But a lot of Washington lawmakers are not convinced on this one, including Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York. Here's what he tells CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: It is just poppycock that the port terminal operator has nothing to do with security. I know some pundits have latched on to that. Talk to anyone who knows about ports, they have a lot to do with security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: The port deal will now undergo a more comprehensive 45- day government review. And despite a flurry of legislative activity designed to stop it, President Bush insist he'll veto any attempt to kill the plan.

As this process plays out, our Wolf Blitzer is live in Dubai to cover the port deal and he'll have the latest today on "The Situation Room." That comes up at 4:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

There is concern this morning about lax security, out of all places, Homeland Security headquarters. About a dozen current and former guards of a private security firm tell the Associated Press they have no training in how to deal with weapons of mass destruction. They also complain about shoddy radio, lightly guarded entrances and what they say is ineffective equipment that replaced chemical sniffing dogs. The firm handling security at the agency has been criticized in the past for its work at nuclear facilities and transporting nuclear and conventional weapons.

Be sure to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.

Let's get more on the Supreme Court ruling concerning -- allowing military recruiters on college campuses and what that might mean to the case that has now been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Our Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin standing by.

Jeffrey, this one played out, if I'm remembering correctly, pretty closely to what it seemed like with arguments were heard before this court.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I was in the courtroom for this oral argument and the result is no surprise. It looked like a wipe out in the courtroom and it was a wipe out, 9-0.

You know, this is a case about the culture wars. This is a case about how Congress and elite law schools really reflect different values. What happened in this case was, law schools have a policy that say, if you want to recruit on our campus, you can't discriminate on the basis of race, sex or sexual orientation. The military, of course, does not allow gays in the military. So they said, look, you can't recruit on campus.

Congress was enraged by this decision. Congress said, how can you not let our military recruit at your law schools. If you do that, we are going to cut off not only all funds to the law school, but all federal funds to entire universities. New York University, the law school, only got $75,000 a year from the federal government, but the university got $300 million a year in - mostly for medical research. So the university said, look, this is penalizing us for our exercise of our first amendment rights and the United States Supreme Court today said, nope, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If you want to take federal money, you have to let the military recruit on campus.

KAGAN: Yes, a couple things. Let's talk about this free speech challenge. As you were saying, the justices didn't buy it. Basically you can tell your recruiters to stay off, but if you accept the money, you have to play by our rules.

TOOBIN: That's right. And, you know, I haven't seen the opinion yet. It hasn't come out. But certainly at the oral argument the idea was, this isn't a case about free speech, this is a case about the federal government's spending power. We don't have to spend our taxes dollars, the Congress said, at places that reject our military. This is not a question of penalizing anyone for free speech. You want to keep the military off your campuses, fine, just don't expect federal money as a result.

KAGAN: Jeffrey Toobin. Jeffrey, thank you.

TOOBIN: OK, Daryn. KAGAN: We go live now to Washington, D.C. President Bush talking about his desire to have the line item veto.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Legislation that will meet standards and give me the authority to strip special interest spending and ear marks out of a bill and then send them back to Congress for an up or down vote. By passing this version of the line item veto, the administration will work with the Congress to reduce wasteful spending, reduce the budget deficit and ensure that tax payer dollars are spent wisely.

Congress is on record, by the way, that the president should have the line item veto authority. It's been proved previously. Forty- three governors have this line item veto in their states. Now it's time to bring this important tool for fiscal discipline to Washington, D.C.

I am really optimistic about the future of this country. I don't think that there's any problem we can't tackle. It's really important as we put pro growth policies in place to understand that the engine of growth is the ingenuity of the American people. You know, I like to remind people, government doesn't create wealth, government creates an environment in which the entrepreneurial spirit can flourish, in which people can realize their dreams, in which small business . . .

KAGAN: Listening in very briefly there to President Bush. But we have the news nugget out of there and that is President Bush is going to present legislation. He would like to get the line item veto, pork barrel politics, it's been a big topic of Washington, D.C. and this is one way President Bush would like to go about it. It's something that President Clinton tried to do as well. Let's go to Kathleen Koch at the White House with more on this push.

Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

And what the president is saying in his speech this morning, he said that when many lawmakers come up with ideas here in Washington, he says everyone thinks they're spending idea is a great idea. It looks great on paper. But the president said, "it's important for Congress to set priorities. We are a country at war. We can't be all things to all people." And what the president wants is something like the line item veto which Bill Clinton had, was able to secure back in 1996 from the new Republican Congress. And President Clinton, at that time, was able to go through every spending bill and excise items that he thought were outrageous, were unnecessary, that wasted taxpayer dollars and saved almost $2 billion the 38 times that he used it.

However, in 1998, the Supreme Court said no, no, no, that is -- that goes against the Constitution, which says that it is Congress, not the president, who has the power of the purse. So this morning when Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, briefed reporters, he says, what the president is proposing would that he would be able to go through a large spending bill and scratch out various things that he did not like, again that he thought were wasteful spending, then he would send that to Congress and Congress would indeed have the final say, but they would have to either accept and pass everything that he said need to be pulled out of those spending bills, or they would have to turn them down. So it would be sort of an all or nothing vote that they would make after 10 days of studying it. He believes that would pass then the Supreme Court's muster.

Daryn.

KAGAN: All right. Kathleen Koch at the White House. Thank you.

Let's get more on the legal aspect of this and bring back Jeffrey Toobin.

Jeff, your not excused quite so soon. Let's talk or pick up where Kathleen Koch was, about what the Supreme Court wasn't happy about, about the last line-item veto. How does it have to be different this time around?

TOOBIN: Well, the Supreme Court, in recent years, has been very insistent on clear structures for each branch of government. Congress passes a law. The president really has only one choice. He can sign it or he can veto it. Two choices. But he can't pick and choose what parts of the bill he likes and only approve that part. That was the problem with the 1996 law and that's why the Supreme Court struck it in 1998.

What the president is trying to do is get around that with this proposal which sends it sort of as a whole back to Congress. I think its still got a lot of problems. It's probably -- its biggest problem is political rather than legal. There's no great groundswell of support on Congress for this idea. So it may never get to a legal test of it because it may never get passed.

KAGAN: All right. Well, we'll be watching it. Jeff, thanks for all your help on the legal stories today.

TOOBIN: OK, Daryn.

KAGAN: Appreciate that.

Just ahead, we're going to talk about six months since Hurricane Katrina and they still are finding bodies. Why is it taking so long? More on that search just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: It is six months after Hurricane Katrina and search dogs discover the remains of another victim. The body was discovered inside a home in New Orleans' Lake View neighborhood. Homes in that area are scheduled to be demolished, but before that happens, more search crews and their dogs are going house to house, making sure the houses are empty. Our Sean Callebs joins us by phone now from New Orleans.

Sean, that search continues today?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Daryn.

There are three separate dog teams, cadaver dog teams, that are working various areas of the city. Most of them right now are in the devastated lower ninth ward. We are actually uptown a bit with another team. This one from Alabama.

To give you a little bit of information, the dog team last night is from Maine. They went into the house and the dog trainer tells me immediately the dog, which is a German Shepherd named Buddy, looked up at the ceiling and so he thought for sure there was someone upstairs. The firefighters, 16 members of New Orleans special ops fire department team is working there. So they went up into the attack and after looking around found an individual who was behind an air conditioning vent. The state medical examiner presumes this was somebody who was simply trying to escape the flood water all the way up to the top of the house.

People may wonder, why is it now six full months after the hurricane that they are finding victims? Well, they actually used cadaver dogs from October until December of last year. Then the city ran out of money. They asked FEMA for extra money to pay for overtime for this search and rescue operation. That funding only recently came through.

And while the Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to work with these cadaver teams, with the dog trainers to go in and move heavy debris, the corps so far hasn't done that. They were supposed to start early this morning, a couple of hours ago. So far no machinery has showed up. So somewhat of a slow process today that the teams are working their way through, Daryn.

KAGAN: Sean, any estimates on how many bodies they think they're going to find at this point?

CALLEBS: Yes, that's a good question. They say there are 2,000 people listed as missing. They don't expect to find anywhere near 2,000 bodies. But the medical examiner, Louis Cataldi, believes somewhere between 300 and 400.

And the way they came up with that number, there are routinely people who call every week at the Family Find National Call Center saying I'm looking for so and so at this address. So they are using those numbers of phone calls that come in week after week after week and those are some of the houses that the crews are going to today. The other ones are called blocking a right of way. In essence, a house that got blown off its foundation and is right in the middle of a road.

KAGAN: Sean Callebs live from New Orleans on the phone with us. Sean, thank you.

Also we have this just in to CNN. It comes out of the Pittsburgh area. Apparently a school bus accident. We're getting these live pictures here.

A school bus went down a steep slope and into a house this morning. Several children were injured. The bus driver, as well as the man in the house, were hurt as well. The bus was driving for Pittsburgh Public School.

And this accident happened about 7:30 a.m. Eastern. The man in the house was taken to the hospital. Several students also taken to the hospital and police and paramedics on the scene. What caused this accident in the first place still under investigation.

So a bus goes of the road, down the hill and into a house. Students, the bus driver and a man in the house all injured. We'll bring you more information on that as it becomes available.

Talking to you parents out there. The cost of college, sorry to tell you this, it's going up, even if you've already graduated. That sounds confusing? We are talking about student loans. That's coming up in "Top Five Tips."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's check the latest numbers on Wall Street. The market has been open about an hour for the week. You can see the Dow is down a few points. It's down about six or seven points. The Nasdaq down a smidge, but things are about even at this hour.

Talking about the cost of college. It's about to go up again. Costly new terms are about to go into place for students and parents taking out college loans. Our Personal Finance Editor Gerri Willis offers her "Top Five Tips" on how to make your best deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GERRI WILLIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paying for college is about to get harder. Starting in July, interest rates on new student loans will rise to 6.8 percent from today's rate of 4.7 percent. And interest rates on new loans that parents take out, called plus loans, will rise to 8.5 percent. The bottom line is that getting your degree is getting even more expensive. On a $20,000 loan, students will be page about $2,500 more just in interest payments over the life of the loan. And parent will have to put up $3,000 more.

CARMEN WONG ULRICH, AUTHOR, "GENERATION DEBT": This is going to prevent a lot of young adults from living independently out of school, from being able to pay off their credit card debt because we see credit card debt continuing to rise and adding more interest payments on to a student loan is going to affect that. Parents are also going to be in trouble. You're talking about supporting children in their 20s while saving and trying to retire.

WILLIS: Whether you're still a student or you're a grad who's already strapped with payments, you should consolidate. This will let you lock in today's lower interest rates while combining all your debts into one loan.

For more tips on how to avoid drowning in college debt, check out cnnmoney.com.

I'm Gerri Willis and this is "Five Tips."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: A vacation nightmare. That mystery illness aboard some cruise ships may have struck again. How officials think it got aboard.

And a baseball Hall of Famer, still young by most standards, fights for his life. The latest on the condition of Kirby Puckett when CNN LIVE TODAY continues.

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