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American Morning
New England Flooding; 9/11 Pentagon Attack; Gay Marriage Fight
Aired May 17, 2006 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody.
Checking our top stories for you, less rain for parts of the Northeast. That's good news. Authorities in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, though., remain concerned about hundreds of dams.
Pro-immigrant advocates rally in Washington today. It's called The Day of Action. They're going to meet with members of Congress and rally on the National Mall.
Also in Washington, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee says the White House will brief the panel on the National Security Agency's domestic wiretapping program. The briefing to be held before confirmation hearings on the president's pick to head the CIA.
Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm John Roberts, in for Miles O'Brien.
The White House there trying to allay a few concerns about that NSA thing.
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes. They have...
ROBERTS: Try to tamp it down a little. The hearing's tomorrow.
O'BRIEN: A lot of work ahead of them on that issue, certainly. And others, as well.
We're talking weather this morning, first, though. For many residents in rain-soaked New England states, really kind of a matter of watching the skies and praying and keeping your fingers crossed. Record rains, the most in 70 years, have left parts of the region under water, forced residents to fight back with sandbags and shovels.
Let's get right to reporter Sarboni Banerjee of CNN affiliate WHDH. She's live in Amesbury, about 40 miles north of Boston.
Sarboni, good morning to you. How is it looking where you are?
SARBONI BANERJEE, REPORTER, WHDH: Well, Soledad, relief is in the sky. I mean, it's finally sunny out. We haven't seen the sun in about four days. But right where I am, in the heart of downtown Amesbury, is a perfect example of how even after the rain let up, all this water that's built up is still an incredible problem. This is the Powwow River, just surging right through the heart of downtown from around the corner where there's a dam. That dam is structurally sound, according to engineers this morning. There are two walls, though, on the side of it that might not be.
Those walls look a lot like this one right over here. You can see kind of uneven, a couple leaks, cracks. Definitely old. So there is concern and worry this morning that a chunk of it could fall off into the water and then start pulling other pieces of debris into the water.
Check out over here. You see this telephone pole just laying on its side. That's a good example of what the river is doing right along the edges here.
It actually ate up a whole eight-foot chunk where the grass is right there, knocking over that pole. And that has business owners down here, where the water is surging underneath this bridge, really concerned.
You can see they're piling up sandbags, they boarded up walls, reinforced all the glass and the doors there. Their basements are already flooding. But one of the big problems here is that the Powwow River actually flows underneath these old mill buildings.
They date back to the Civil War. So those pilings are old. If debris did start coming down the Powwow, it would actually knock out those pilings and end up causing some sort of collapse, possibly flooding the downtown area.
That's why evacuations do remain intact here this morning and across our region from, you know, Peabody, all the way to (INAUDIBLE). It is a lot of soggy, soggy situations all around, flooding, and a lot of evacuations remain intact today -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: Wow. Sarboni, I tell you, I can believe it when I see that water rushing behind you. I am not surprised about those evacuations.
Reporter Sarboni Banerjee of CNN affiliate WHDH.
Thanks very much for the update. Appreciate that.
Let's get right to the forecast. Jacqui Jeras at the CNN Center.
Jacqui, did you see those pictures behind Sarboni? Oh my gosh.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Incredible.
(WEATHER REPORT)
ROBERTS: Jacqui, thanks very much.
For the first time, officials are making public the surveillance video from the September 11th terror attack on the Pentagon. Up until now, we've only seen still frames from it. The video is being released under pressure, and only after the trial of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
CNN's Sumi Das is live in Washington and joins us.
Good morning to you, Sumi.
SUMI DAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, John.
Well, a public interest group sought out the new footage to complete the historical record of September 11th, but the video is proving emotionally difficult to watch for many, especially victims' families.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAS (voice over): The surveillance video of the Pentagon being hit by American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11 from two Pentagon security cameras show similar views. Both offer only a quick glimpse of the jet plane in the lower right-hand corner, a split second before it slams into the building. A shock of orange flame erupts from the site, and then volumes of billowing black smoke.
The footage was released by the Justice Department following a Freedom of Information Act request and a lawsuit filed by public interest group Judicial Watch. The government withheld the video until after the trial of convicted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who was sentenced earlier this month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we wanted to help put to rest conspiracy theories suggesting it was something other than a plane that hit the Pentagon, that it was a missile or a decoy of some type.
DAS: One hundred and eighty-four people died in the Pentagon attack. Rosemary Dillard's husband Eddie was one of them.
ROSEMARY DILLARD, HUSBAND DIED ON 9/11: You see it going further and further into the building itself. Then -- then it hurts. It really hurts. And it hurts to think that all those people both in the building and on the airplane suffered. Or did they suffer?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DAS: The widow you just heard from, Rosemary Dillard, says she does not believe these videos will put an end to the conspiracy theories -- John.
ROBERTS: What are those conspiracy theorists saying? Do they believe that the video proves them wrong?
DAS: It doesn't seem that these videos are doing much to quell conspiracy theories. One organization, 9/11 Truth, which says it's on a campaign to expose the truth about September 11th, says these videos don't definitively prove anything because they don't clearly show a Boeing hitting the Pentagon. Also, John, they are questioning the amount of time it took to release the footage.
ROBERTS: Right. Well, certainly there are a lot of people who are saying that they saw the airplane that day. So those conspiracy theorists have some eyewitnesses to battle against.
Sumi Das, thanks very much. Appreciate it -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: A battle over gay marriage rights heating up in Georgia. A judge on Tuesday ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the state's constitution. The measure was approved by more than 75 percent of the voters. So there's lots of anger and disappointment now over the decision.
Rachel Kim of our affiliate WSB is live at the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta this morning.
Hey, Rachel. Good morning to you.
Give us an explainer. Why was this struck down?
RACHEL KIM, REPORTER, WSB: Good morning, Soledad.
I can tell you that Superior Court Judge Constance Russell ruled that Georgia's ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution's single subject rule on ballot questions, meaning this ruling has nothing to do with same-sex marriage, but the way this amendment was written. Now, this ruling, of course, drawing a lot of attention because it certainly has national implications.
Governor Sonny Perdue here of Georgia disagrees with this decision, saying, "This decision highlights the effect activist judges can have on our system of governance. People of Georgia knew exactly what they were doing when an overwhelming 76 percent voted."
Now, we talked to several Atlantans who are happy about this decision, but they note that same-sex marriage will not soon become a reality.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It probably will take a little while since this town is so conservative, and also the religious part. So I think that's going to make it a little difficult.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KIM: So this issue obviously drawing a lot of opinions here in Atlanta and surrounding Atlanta.
Soledad, back to you.
O'BRIEN: Let me ask you a quick question. At the end of the day, then, you're saying it was really based on a technicality. So does this mean that they regroup and they put this before the voters again?
KIM: Soledad, Governor Perdue has the option of appealing this ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court. Or, are a special session of the legislator -- legislature can be held to put this issue back on the ballot for this fall. Soledad, back to you.
O'BRIEN: All right. Rachel Kim from our affiliate WSB in Atlanta.
Rachel, thanks.
A new survey of drivers finds that it's Miami that's a hotbed of road rage. A survey of 20 cities placed Miami right at the top, followed by Phoenix and then New York, L.A., and Boston. That's the top five there. Minneapolis is rated as the most courteous of the 20 cities in the Auto Club survey.
ROBERTS: You know, I am surprised that there is so much road rage in Miami for...
O'BRIEN: Yes, I wouldn't have picked Miami as number one.
ROBERTS: Well, for this reason -- because a lot of people have got guns in their cars. And when I was living in Miami, I lived by the rule, you never cut anybody off because you don't know if they're packing.
O'BRIEN: Because they might shoot you?
ROBERTS: Yes, exactly.
O'BRIEN: Interesting. I don't know. I mean...
ROBERTS: They like to live dangerously down there.
O'BRIEN: ... I never thought of people being -- I never had any issues driving in Miami.
ROBERTS: Hey, you know...
O'BRIEN: L.A. is a whole other story.
ROBERTS: It's not the laid back Sunshine State of California. That's for sure.
Still to come, a dangerous volcano still rumbling along Indonesia's ring of fire. We're going to have more on the situation there.
S. O'BRIEN: Plus, "The Da Vinci Code" making its debut at Cannes. Some early buzz already. We can tell you what people are saying about the movie.
ROBERTS: And decoding your dreams. One group of women says understanding dreams can make your everyday life better. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has got that story for us. It's part of his sleep series just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Volcano alert in Indonesia. That tops our look at stories CNN correspondents around the world are covering today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STAN GRANT, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm actually standing now at Mount Merapi. This is the volcano that's been threatening to fully erupt now for the past few weeks. I can tell you that this is one of the villages that have been evacuated. Yet, some people are staying behind, hoping they won't see the mountain's full fury. It has been a lot calmer the past 24 hours, but the island of Java is still at code red.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jim Bittermann in Paris, where I'll be covering the French parliament this afternoon as it votes on a law meant to crack down on illegal immigration and put further controls on those people who are allowed to come to this country legally. A law to address an issue not that much different than the one being faced in the United States.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Ryan Chilcote in Baghdad. There had been some hope and speculation Iraq's incoming prime minister might announce his government this morning as the country's parliament met. That didn't happen. The pressure is now mounting on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He has just five days to make that announcement to beat a constitutional deadline.
Meanwhile, Saddam was back in court today objecting to the testimony of a witness who was just seven years old at the time he's alleged to have ordered a massacre.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: For more on these or any of our top stories, head to our Web site, CNN.com. We've got all the information for you there -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: The Cannes Film Festival officially gets under way today. A little over 100 films are screening there over the next week. None, though, more anticipated than the controversial "Da Vinci Code".
CNN Entertainment Correspondent Brooke Anderson is in Cannes. Got a sneak peek.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: "The Da Vinci Code" opens up this Friday in the U.S., but some of us here at the film festival in Cannes got an early look at the controversial film.
Now, this was an audience of hundreds of journalists from around the world. So it could have been a more cynical audience than average. But I did an informal survey after the screening was over, and the consensus that I got was a thumbs down.
Now, keep in mind that many, many people have read this book and have different visions of how it should be played out. But an example, one scene which was meant to be serious elicited laugher from the audience.
OK. Now, despite the tremendous amount of controversy surrounding the book and the film, there have not been formal organized protests yet here at the Cannes Film Festival. "The Da Vinci Code" has its world premier tonight. It is one of more than 60 films that will be presented over the course of the next 12 days.
Reporting from the 59th Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, I'm Brooke Anderson.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Nice work if you can get it.
Coming up, a big fight between XM Satellite Radio and the music business. We'll tell you why it could end up costing subscribers big time.
And then later on, Tom Cruise called on the carpet by Marie Osmond of all people. My goodness.
O'BRIEN: It's getting ugly.
ROBERTS: It really is. You know, what's next, dogs and cats living together? Mass hysteria. We're going to tell you why ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: They are two natural allies in the music business, but they're on opposite sides in a lawsuit. Carrie Lee is in for Andy Serwer. She's "Minding Your Business" this morning.
Who are we talking about?
CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: We're talking about XM Radio and the big record labels. You know, technology is advancing so much when it comes to recording and listening to music. Well, the latest here, XM is battling with record labels over its new device called the Inno.
Now, this is sort of like an iPod. It let's users record songs, look up songs they want to hear on the radio. And they can record up to 50 hours worth of music.
Well, the record labels say the devices amount to massive wholesale infringement. They want licensing fees. They're seeking $150,000 for every song copied. You know, the record labels often sue when they don't like the way things are going in this industry. XM says no way, the devices are legal, that people have been recording from the radio for years. This makes it a little easier.
The record labels say it cannot be copied, you cannot do this, that even Sirius Satellite Radio, as well as Yahoo!, Rhapsody, iTunes, and others, are paying licensing fees. So XM should, as well.
But it's a very interesting situation because you have...
ROBERTS: Well, you know, I was just going to say, I get music channels on my satellite television. But my TiVo will not record those channels.
LEE: Right. Right.
O'BRIEN: Yes. And people have always recorded off the radio...
LEE: Exactly.
O'BRIEN: ... but the quality was so crummy that you really weren't actually making a good copy. With digital radio, though, now the copy is good.
ROBERTS: Yes.
LEE: It makes it easier.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
ROBERTS: I mean, you can imagine how, like, a little tiny cassette recorder off an AM radio...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Then you go out and buy the album, right?
LEE: You have to be a subscriber in order to get these songs, and they can't be copied elsewhere. So there are some limitations to this device even though the quality can be decent.
OK. On to Bausch & Lomb.
You know the company removed its ReNu with Moisture-Loc contact lens solution from the markets worldwide on Monday. Well, now the FDA is saying Bausch & Lomb failed to notify it in a timely way.
About 35 cases of a potentially blinding fungal infection among contact lens wearers in Singapore. Also, the FDA saying Bausch & Lomb did not tell it that it removed Mositure-Loc from the Singapore and Hong Kong markets in February. So potentially some more hot water.
ROBERTS: I was reading about that yesterday. That's frightening.
LEE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Oh, that's a nasty little disease.
LEE: But potentially, really, bad. If you don't have it taken care of within a couple of months, it can be blinding and very damaging.
ROBERTS: Carrie, thanks.
LEE: OK.
ROBERTS: See you soon.
LEE: Sure.
ROBERTS: Coming up, are your dreams random or do they hold a deeper meaning? And why am I being chased naked down the street? We'll introduce you to a so-called dream group and show you how they're using dreams to guide their daily decisions.
Plus, a look at why these Republican voters may be the biggest election threat to Republican candidates this November.
Stick around. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: It's day three of our weeklong series, "Sleepless in America". Did you dream last night? If so, what did you dream about, and what do you think it meant, if anything?
There's debate among experts about how important our dreams are. But talk to someone in a dream group and they'll tell you how your dreams can help shape your life.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you dream in color?
BOB STICKGOLD, HARVARD DREAM RESEARCHER: I do.
GUPTA: Do you dream with sound?
STICKGOLD: Yes.
GUPTA: Can you dream your own death?
STICKGOLD: Yes.
GUPTA (voice over): Harvard dream researcher Bob Stickgold believes dreams are important and can be educational. But...
STICKGOLD: A lot of our dreams are probably just goofy dreams. And to read too much into that is probably a waste of time.
GUPTA: Yet, for many of us, dreams hold a key to a deeper understanding of ourselves. Even the goofy ones.
JUSTINA LASLEY, DREAM GROUP LEADER: A dream is multifaceted. You can look at it from different viewpoints.
GUPTA: Author and dream analyst Justina Lasley is a dream group leader.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The title of my dream is...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Misplaced items.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the cabins looked the same.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My dream that I want to share was...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Taking pictures of the fog.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I first recorded the dream, I didn't see all this.
LASLEY: The dream group just multiplies the amount of impact that one dream can have on one individual.
GUPTA: This group has met for more than 10 years. They say they've gained confidence, insight, and new ways of using their dreams in their waking lives.
CORINNE ADAMS, DREAM GROUP PARTICIPANT: I kind of float out with some kind of wisdom, some -- some little extra bit of wisdom.
EMILY WOOD, DREAM GROUP PARTICIPANT: The whole idea that I would take the job that I have now, I don't know that I would have had -- had an idea that I would do that.
PAULA MCINERNY, DREAM GROUP PARTICIPANT: Someone will say something that touches a nerve, something that I haven't been able to share or even think about. And it just opens the floodgates.
TALLULAH LYONS, DREAM GROUP PARTICIPANT: The important thing has been the recognition of patterns and themes. I want to go to sleep so that I can dream. And I think that makes a big difference.
GUPTA: A difference that she and others work on seeing when they're awake.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, can sleep help you lose weight? Studies have shown that sleep-deprived people tend to eat more. Personally, I'm famished. Rest assured, Dr. Sanjay Gupta's got the answers for you.
And be sure to catch Sanjay's one-hour special on sleep. It's airing this Sunday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
O'BRIEN: Before we start our next hour, let's get a check on the forecast. Jacqui Jeras, she's in for Chad this morning.
Hey, Jacqui. Good morning.
JERAS: Hey. Good morning, Soledad.
(WEATHER REPORT)
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