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American Morning
Duke Rape Investigation; Middle East Violence; The Fight For Iraq; Rumsfeld Defense; Texas Power Shortage
Aired April 18, 2006 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Alina Cho in Durham, North Carolina, where there is breaking news in the Duke rape investigation. Two men we believe are the suspects have just been brought to the local jail. We will have much more on that story coming up.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld trying to turn the tide of some harsh criticism. A closed door meeting with some retired generals. We're going to have a live preview.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem where all eyes are on the Israeli government to make a move in retaliation for Monday's deadly bombing in Tel Aviv. More on that coming up.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The price of oil hits a peak and you are headed for some whopping big bills at the gas pump. We'll have details.
NGUYEN: Plus, an early heat wave in Texas brings rolling blackouts and a call for help.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Heat wave, you bet. Look at this, Dallas, Texas, 101 yesterday. The heat is on again today. More records coming up.
O'BRIEN: Good morning, I'm Miles O'Brien.
NGUYEN: And I'm Betty Nguyen. Good morning, -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Good to see you.
NGUYEN: Soledad is off today.
O'BRIEN: Let's get right to breaking news out of North Carolina, two men in custody, apparently members of Duke University's lacrosse team, accused of rape more than a month ago. It's happening just one day after a Durham grand jury handed up indictments in the case that has torn the college town apart.
AMERICAN MORNING's Alina Cho live now from Durham with the latest.
Alina, what can you tell us?
CHO: Well, Miles, good morning. As you mentioned, it is all happening and it is all happening very fast. Here is what we know. We are still waiting on confirmation from defense attorneys, but two men we believe are the suspects were brought to the local jail this morning. They were in the same squad car. We can tell you one man was in a yellow shirt, one man in a jacket and tie. Both came out of the car in handcuffs. Both did not make any statement.
All of this happened about an hour ago. And this would be consistent with what defense attorneys told us late yesterday. They did tell us they believed that the suspects would be brought into the jail around 4:00 a.m. Eastern Time, so all of that is consistent.
Now, if all is going according to procedure, the suspects will be processed at the jail. That means they will be fingerprinted and photographed. Perhaps it has already happened. We simply do not know because, for now, this is a closed proceeding.
The suspects will also appear before a local magistrate later this morning. And it is our belief that at that time the indictment will be unsealed. That is significant because it is at that point we will learn the exact charges that these suspects are facing and the identities of the suspects. In fact, I can tell you that this morning we do believe we know the identity of at least one of the suspects, the man in the yellow shirt, but we are waiting on additional confirmation of that.
Now, late yesterday, one of the defense attorneys, we do not know yet if he is representing the suspect or suspects in this case, but his name is Robert Ekstrand. He released this statement late last night. "Today two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy for the two young men. An ordeal lies ahead. They do not face it alone, they face it with the love of family and friends and strengthened by the truth." The statement ends by saying, "they are both innocent."
Again the headline, Miles, is that two men we believe are the suspects in the Duke rape investigation have been brought to the local jail for processing. As soon as we get any more information, including their identities, we will get right back to you on that.
O'BRIEN: Alina Cho in Durham, North Carolina, thank you very much -- Betty.
NGUYEN: A new court motion today in the hideous killing of a young girl in Oklahoma. Kevin Ray Underwood is charged with the murder of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. His lawyers now want a gag order to stop prosecutors from talking about Underwood's alleged plan to torture, sexually assault, mutilate and cannibalize the little girl.
Jamie Rose Bolin's family is just stunned by the brutal details of how she died and overwhelmed at seeing Underwood at yesterday's arraignment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I felt like throwing up. I felt like I was going to pass out. To think a person could do that to anyone, let alone a child, and especially mine, it's all I can...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: The family is planning a funeral for Thursday.
Now, a man arrested in the Natalee Holloway case will remain in custody for another eight days. That man now identified as 19-year- old Geoffrey van Cromvoirt by the Aruban newspaper "Diario." He is scheduled to go before a judge today. Cromvoirt is not necessarily a suspect. Aruban authorities are allowed to hold a person without charges. Holloway disappeared nearly a year ago while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba.
O'BRIEN: You may soon be seeing some new faces at the White House. Josh Bolten, the new White House Chief of Staff, telling senior aides to be prepared for more personnel changes in the coming days.
Here's what the White House spokesman says about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: This is a time to reenergize and renew our commitments to help the president advance his agenda and so that's the way he was looking at it. It's a time to reenergize ourselves and to really refresh ourselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: The White House spokesman would not comment on just how extensive any changes might be, only that Bolten intends to "put his stamp on things." That was a quote.
We expect more testimony this morning about the mental health of Zacarias Moussaoui. A psychologist testified yesterday Moussaoui suffers from schizophrenia. The jury also heard videotape depositions from his two sisters, both of whom take anti-psychotic medications. Later today, the jury will hear so-called Shoe Bomber Richard Reid with written responses to defense questions.
Former Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian has pleaded guilty to raising money for Palestinian terrorists. He will be deported in a few months. It was part of a deal with prosecutors that now ends one of the most high profile terrorism cases. Al-Arian has lived in the United States for 30 years. No word on where he will be deported to.
NGUYEN: Israel's acting prime minister is meeting with his top advisors today to discuss how to respond to Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv. That attack at a restaurant at the city's central bus station killed nine people. Islamic Jihad is claiming responsibility for the attack.
Paula Hancocks is live in Jerusalem. Paula, how do we expect the Israeli government to respond to this?
HANCOCKS: Well, Betty, at the moment in this meeting they will be weighing up their options. The Israeli government has already said that they hold Hamas responsible in part for this particular attack. It was Islamic Jihad that carried out this suicide bombing itself, but Hamas did not condemn the attack. In fact, a Hamas official actually said that what happened was in self-defense against Israeli aggression.
So what the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be looking at is whether or not they should consider Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which is controlled by Hamas now, to be an enemy entity. Now if they decide this is the case, then that could open up the way for strikes against the Palestinian Authority itself.
Now it's not new for the Israeli government to blame the Palestinian Authority for suicide attacks, no matter which militant group has carried them out. They blame the Palestinian Authority because they are not actually trying to stop these attacks. Hamas has said that it doesn't condemn the attack and it won't try and stop future attacks -- Betty.
NGUYEN: OK, let's look into that just a little bit more, what does the Palestinian response to the bombing say about its new leadership under Hamas?
HANCOCKS: Well there is quite a fragmented response from the Palestinian side. The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has condemned the attack. He says that he condemns any attack on civilians whether they are Palestinian or whether they are Israeli. But Hamas itself has said that this was an act of self-defense.
Now it's a very tricky position for them to be in saying that sort of thing because Hamas is trying to make itself seen in the international community as a legitimate democratically-elected government and it is desperately trying to increase financial aid. The United States and the European Union have already stopped giving financial aid because they won't recognize Israel -- Betty.
NGUYEN: CNN's Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem for us today.
Thank you, Paula.
O'BRIEN: Heavy insurgent activity in Iraq right now in the western province of Anbar and in Ramadi. U.S. Marines in the city are under almost daily attacks.
CNN's Arwa Damon is embedded with Marines there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Yet another complex attack against the governor's compound in downtown Ramadi. Mortars and small arms fire being shot from the south. RPGs and heavy machine gun fire coming from a mosque located 300 meters to the north.
At the same time, a suicide car bomber attempting to drive his vehicle into this location shot at by U.S. Marines. The vehicle turns away and detonates itself on another observation post located a few hundred meters away from here, wounding one Marine.
The ongoing gun battle lasted for about an hour, at which point U.S. Marines called in an airstrike against the mosque that they were receiving heavy fire from. Quick reaction forces ended up responding to that request, firing two tank rounds into the mosque.
Now this is actually a normal occurrence for this part of the city. This location comes under attack four to five times a day, sometimes it's just a potshot, sometimes it's a sustained gun battle, like the one we saw today.
Now despite the violence, despite the dangers, U.S. military commanders say that there is progress being made in Ramadi. The Iraqi army is now some three brigades strong and an Iraqi police force is in the process of being trained, all in an effort to bring the insurgency under control.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Arwa Damon embedded there with troops.
Happening in America this morning.
In Georgia, strict new immigration measures signed into law by Governor Sonny Perdue. Employers there now facing sanctions for hiring undocumented immigrants. Police in Georgia also now required to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest.
Former Illinois Governor George Ryan faces up to 20 years in prison for racketeering and fraud. A jury found the 72-year-old Republican guilty on 22 charges. He was accused of spending or sending millions of dollars in government contracts to political insiders. Ryan resigned from office when the scandal broke two years ago. He plans an appeal.
More than two dozen FEMA trailers being given to tornado victims in Marmaduke, Kansas -- Arkansas, that is. That area was hard hit by tornadoes two weeks ago. The trailers came from the stockpile of more than 10,000 trailers kept at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. You'll remember those trailers were originally intended for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
And today marks 100 years since the Great Quake. About 3,000 people died in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Experts say it's just a matter of time before a similar quake strikes again and that it could be even more devastating to the city this time. We'll have much more on those claims and the anniversary coming up a little later on AMERICAN MORNING -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Just a matter of time and possibly more devastation. Well let's hope it doesn't happen anytime soon. Let's time -- right now it's time to check with the weather and Chad Myers.
Nothing like that happening right now, huh?
MYERS: Well, you know those are so literally unpredictable. There are certain things that seismologists can do to find a little bit of shaking maybe a day or two in advance. But other than that, there's very little advance warning.
Unlike like the weather, where we can actually see a couple of storms coming through and know that there is going to be severe weather two, three, four, five days in advance. And that's going to be the case today.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Back to you guys.
NGUYEN: All right, thank you, Chad.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad.
The Pentagon circling the wagons around Donald Rumsfeld, enlisting the help of retired generals. Later this morning, the so- called TV generals trying to fight back those calls for his resignation. We'll be live in Washington shortly.
NGUYEN: Also, new hope in the fight against breast cancer, and it comes from an old drug used to fight another common disease. We'll tell you about it.
O'BRIEN: Plus, oil prices skyrocketing to another all-time high. We'll tell you what it means for gas prices for you.
But first, here's a look at what else is making news on this Tuesday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Our top stories this morning.
Some breaking news to tell you about, two men are now in custody in connection with the Duke University rape investigation. Here is some new video coming in to CNN of them arriving in handcuffs. It follows a grand jury indictment against two lacrosse players on Monday.
A man surrenders in connection with the fatal shooting of a toddler in New York. That child was shot while strapped in his car seat as his family was out for a drive on Easter Sunday.
And authorities will hold a man arrested in the Natalee Holloway case for another eight days. The 19-year-old is scheduled to appear before a judge today. O'BRIEN: Under fire and now shoring up support. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will meet today with retired generals and analysts on Iraq. When asked about demands that he step down, Rumsfeld answered yesterday, this too shall pass.
Brianna Keilar live now in Washington with a preview of this meeting, which of course will be behind closed doors, unfortunately for us -- Brianna.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.
We also heard Donald Rumsfeld say yesterday on Rush Limbaugh's radio show the sharper the criticism, the sharper the defense. And it now appears this war of the words could get even bigger.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Poor military judgment has been used throughout this mission.
KEILAR (voice-over): In the wake of calls from six retired generals for his resignation, Donald Rumsfeld is mounting his defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are all magnificent people who are making their opinions known and I think that's OK. Frankly, I would not go so far as to say the secretary of defense should resign, primarily because it doesn't provide a solution. It doesn't provide an alternative.
KEILAR: Friendly words from other retired military leaders as Rumsfeld hosts a quickly arranged meeting today with retired generals and military analysts.
Friday, the Pentagon press office armed some of them with talking points like this. "Senior military leaders have been involved to an unprecedented degree in every decision making process." Exact words from the memo and figures from Rumsfeld's numerous meetings with military chiefs and commanders showed up verbatim Monday in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed piece countering Rumsfeld's critics.
MCCLELLAN: General Myers has spoken about his deep trust for Secretary Rumsfeld.
KEILAR: In Iraq, the real fighting is a world away from the battle for public opinion. For now, troops are focused on making it from one day to the next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sacrifice is what we do for people back home and hope they appreciate that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Polls show a majority of the people back here at home still believe the war in Iraq is winnable and analysts say removing Rumsfeld would undermine that argument.
Brianna Keilar, CNN, Washington.
O'BRIEN: CNN will have -- thank you, Brianna.
CNN will have live coverage of the Rumsfeld story all day today, so stay with us -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Miles, there is new hope for older women at high risk for breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute says Reloxifine prevents breast cancer just as well as Tamoxifen, but with fewer side effects. Reloxifine is already widely used to treat osteoporosis. Now Eli Lilly plans to ask the FDA to approve the use of the drug.
The price of oil is at a record high right now. Big surprise there, right?
Carrie Lee joins us with the latest on that.
We knew it was headed there.
CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We knew we were getting close and we did yesterday. Oil finishing yesterday the highest closing price ever, $70.40 a barrel.
NGUYEN: Wow!
LEE: At the peak, $70.45. And that's just 45 cents away from the all-time high we hit last August, August 30.
Why is oil rising? Same issues we've been talking about, disruptions in Nigeria caused by militant attacks, also concern over Iran's nuclear program and good old supply and demand pushing the prices higher.
Now this, of course, is having a big impact on the price of gasoline. Oil prices account for 60 percent of gas prices. Gasoline prices up 10 cents over the past week to an average $2.78 a gallon now. This is 55 cents higher than a year ago, still below the all- time high of $3.07 last September. But of course the summer driving season is now picking up, so we could potentially see gas prices move even higher. So oil prices up.
Also gold at $600 an ounce, that's near a 25-year high. These inflation fears spooking investors. Stocks lost ground yesterday. And this morning, it's looking like a mixed start on Wall Street.
O'BRIEN: So are you going to buy gold?
LEE: I would have bought it already. I'm not touching it now.
O'BRIEN: A little too late now.
LEE: Yes.
NGUYEN: Buy it to pay your gas bill, how about that?
LEE: It's funny because gold and precious metals, they've always been seen as a safe haven for investors.
NGUYEN: Yes.
LEE: But at a 25-year high, looking pretty risky.
O'BRIEN: Not now.
LEE: Yes.
NGUYEN: All right.
O'BRIEN: Carrie Lee, thank you very much.
NGUYEN: Thank you.
LEE: OK.
O'BRIEN: Coming up on the program, NASA keeping mum on a mission mishap. We'll tell you why the agency is keeping a lid on it or trying to.
Plus, a father sees his daughter for the first time since she was kidnapped almost 13 years ago, but the reunion didn't exactly go as planned.
All that ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NGUYEN: Let's take a look at some of the most popular stories on CNN.com right now.
Prosecutors file first-degree murder charges against a man accused of killing a 10-year-old girl in Oklahoma. The victim's aunt says -- quote -- "I hope they give him the death penalty."
White House senior staffers are told to expect more changes. New White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten told aides he wants to refresh and reenergize the Bush administration.
And NASA is keeping quiet about why a spacecraft did not complete its mission last year. The agency says the information is just too sensitive. The $110 million project was to see if robots could do human tasks in space.
O'BRIEN: It's hotter than the devil's anvil in Texas and there is not enough juice to keep everyone cool. That could mean more rolling blackouts today with triple digit temps in the forecast.
Todd Duplantis of our affiliate KRIV joining us now from Houston.
Todd, what's the latest?
TODD DUPLANTIS, KRIV-TV REPORTER: Well, Miles, right now the local energy provider, CenterPoint, is saying it was an emergency that led to Monday's rolling blackouts. And, quite honestly, they're not sure when or if it will happen again.
It started just after 4:00 Monday afternoon, the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT as it's known, declared an emergency. In response, ERCOT asked distributors, like CenterPoint, to turn off about 1,000 megawatts of power, meaning Houston was one of four major Texas cities where customers began experiencing 15-minute rolling blackouts with power company turning off the juice in 15- minute intervals randomly. A CenterPoint official says about 80,000 people locally were affected.
A combination of factors led to the dilemma, mainly unseasonably high weather and public demand for higher power than they expected. Normal high for this time a year is around 79 degrees. It hit in the 90s on Monday. More of that is expected to be today. Also, April and October are months when the electricity companies apparently schedule maintenance, meaning, at times, their plants could be off-line.
Now of course yesterday was a situation where it caught literally everyone in Houston off guard. CenterPoint officials say there is no solution except conservation. And right now, as far as a guarantee on whether this will happen again today, there's no guarantee. It could happen this afternoon, maybe, maybe not.
Reporting live in Houston, I'm Todd Duplantis.
O'BRIEN: All right, it's kind of good having the early shift with this weather, Todd Duplantis, thank you very much.
Todd is with our Houston affiliate KRIV -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Time now to check on that weather outside. Chad Myers is at the CNN Center.
Are they going to get some relief sometime soon, -- Chad?
MYERS: Yes, later on. I mean this -- today is the hottest day again.
NGUYEN: Again.
MYERS: And then tomorrow, 79 in Dallas tomorrow.
NGUYEN: OK.
MYERS: And so it gets better.
(WEATHER REPORT)
Back to you, -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, let's hope it happens soon.
MYERS: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Thank you, Chad. The morning's top stories are straight ahead, including new rumblings of a shakeup in the West Wing. We'll go to the White House for that. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: This morning we're going to take you to the wild blue yonder, not the one above us, the one below us. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all explore the wonders of the deep? Well "Welcome to the Future," underwater flight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. CARLSON: It's like going to another planet. It's totally different than anything you can experience on land. We've just got this tiny little surface layer of water in the ocean that we can actually go and explore. The problem with scuba, you've got to watch that gauge all the time. And suddenly I'm out of air and I have to come back up.
Every time we go a little deeper, we find a whole new layer of life. The question is what else is down there? I'd love to see the day when we have readily accessible vehicles that allow us to go down and spend some time with the fish in deeper water.
O'BRIEN (on camera): So would a lot of others. Yet the mysteries that lie deep beneath the surface of the sea have been out of reach for most of us, but maybe not for long. Imagine a private submarine that could take you well beyond the limits of mask, fins and scuba tanks.
GRAHAM HAWKES, HAWKES OCEAN TECHNOLOGIES: I'm right alongside a manta ray.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Graham Hawkes, founder of Hawkes Ocean Technologies, has created a vehicle that can fly through water.
HAWKES: And the Wright Brothers really did that 100 years ago, but we're taking it out into this big deep blue space.
O'BRIEN: Built like a jet, these winged submersibles dive more than 1,500 feet with speeds up to 12 knots.
HAWKES: Well in terms of filming, studying animals, there's going to be a whole new ballgame. You can put on a big suction cup on the front and try and grab animals out of the water.
O'BRIEN: But you don't have to be a marine biologist to get in on the fun. Hawkes' flight schools let amateurs become deep sea explorers. And Hawkes' ultimate goal, to reach the deepest depths of the ocean, about 37,000 feet below.
HAWKES: Just Google this planet and you'll see it's all blue. Our future lies with understanding exploring the ocean.
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