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American Morning

Bombing Investigation; Peacekeeping Force; Karr in Colorado; Tornado Clean-Up; Nagin's Swipe at NYC; "Welcome to the Future"

Aired August 25, 2006 - 06:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome, everybody. It is Friday, August 25. I'm Soledad O'Brien.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. I'm Tony Harris in for Miles O'Brien.

Let's get you started this morning with a look at what's happening now in the news.

S. O'BRIEN: We're expecting word today on when John Mark Karr is going to make his first court appearance in Boulder, Colorado. The suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey killing arrived in Colorado last night. Right now he is being kept in solitary confinement.

Another appeal for the release of two journalists kidnapped in Gaza. The Muslim-American Society says it's going to send a delegation to Gaza. The kidnappers want Muslim prisoners held by the U.S. released in exchange for the hostages and they have set a Saturday deadline.

HARRIS: Northwest Airlines goes to court today to head off a flight attendant strike. Workers are threatening sporadic walkouts if they don't get a better contract. Northwest imposed a new contract last month after negotiations failed.

Reinforcements are being called in to help battle several major wildfires in Washington State. Firefighters from Arizona, Oregon and New Mexico have joined the fight. The largest fire in the central part of the state has burned nearly 130,000 acres.

S. O'BRIEN: Minnesota's governor is going to get an up-close look today at the damage after yesterday's storms. One man died, at least a dozen homes were damaged when a tornado swept through the southern part of that state.

And Tropical Storm Debby is no longer a threat to hit land. Forecasters say it's going to stay in the Atlantic. Now they're watching a tropical depression north of Venezuela and that could become Tropical Storm Ernesto today.

Brings us right to Chad at the CNN Center, he's got the forecast for us.

Good morning.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, Soledad. And really, for all intents and purposes, it probably already is Tropical Storm Ernesto. The storm system right here a major threat to the Caribbean now. If you got a great vacation deal in Jamaica in the summertime and -- or right now next week, and you figured out how could it be so cheap? Well now you know why, because you are in the teeth of hurricane season here, September 10 being the peak of hurricane season. This water is as warm as it's going to get and that storm looks very, very impressive.

The forecast, though, from the Hurricane Center is anywhere from killing this storm in what they call the graveyard of the eastern Caribbean to well into a major hurricane as we get it into the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend. Looks like, look, we're talking about Saturday, Sunday, Monday and then Tuesday and probably on up into the Caribbean by Wednesday into Thursday of next week. And after that, man, I mean you're in the loop current, you're in the Gulf of Mexico, the warm, warm water there. This storm could explode if it makes it that far.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you guys.

S. O'BRIEN: All right, Chad, thanks for watching them for us.

MYERS: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Be talking about it this morning.

And also this morning, an investigation into Israel's air attacks against Hezbollah. There is a report in this morning's "New York Times" that says the State Department is examining whether Israel broke a secret agreement with the U.S. over the use of American-made cluster bombs.

CNN's Chris Lawrence is live for us in Jerusalem.

Hey, Chris, good morning.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad.

And right now the "New York Times" says that they are getting these -- information that the Americans got this information based on sources from the United Nations and other non-governmental authorities in southern Lebanon and that they are investigating whether Israel violated what's being termed secret agreements on when and where they would be able to use some of these cluster bombs.

Now the U.S. has never publicly come out and confirmed that there is any such agreement with Israel, but there have been unsubstantiated reports over the years that say that those cluster bombs are only to be used against organized Arab armies and clear military targets. Again, the U.S. State Department apparently getting some information from non-governmental agencies that that agreement may have been broken. According to the "New York Times," they are now investigating. We placed our own call to the Israeli Defense Forces. They released this statement. Doesn't say much, it's very short and to the point. The IDF says, "All the weapons and munitions used by the IDF are legal under international law and their use conforms with international standards."

Now there have been cases where these so-called secret agreements have been violated in the past. After Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, there was a U.S. congressional investigation that found that they were improperly used in civilian areas. And the Reagan administration, at that time, imposed a six-year ban on their sales.

Just to give you a little bit of information on what we're talking about here when we say cluster bombs, these are bombs that are meant to explode on the ground and release hundreds of small, what you might call bomblets. CNN crews in southern Lebanon have documented more than a dozen cases, just by ourselves, of people who have been injured by some of these cluster bombs in southern Lebanon.

One bomb in particular that a CNN crew saw had markings that indicated it was made in the United States in 1973. Now normally cluster bombs are meant to explode when they hit the ground, but they have about a 10 percent failure rate. Some of these bombs so old, 1973, they can fail up to 40 percent of the time. And it's often children who are hurt in many of these explosions -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: And Chris Lawrence is in Jerusalem with -- for us this morning.

Thanks, Chris -- Tony.

HARRIS: And meanwhile, an international force for southern Lebanon is starting to come together. France now says it will commit 2,000 troops. Some of those troops arriving today. The French contingent will be part of an international force to help the Lebanese Army keep the peace in southern Lebanon.

CNN's Jim Clancy joins us live.

Jim, good morning.

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Tony, from the southern part of Lebanon, very close to the border with Israel. This is the United Nations port at Naqoura. What we have going on right now is the French engineers bringing in heavy equipment, bulldozers, front loaders, heavy trucks, kitchens, if you will, all kinds of things that are coming in. Maybe we can show you some of the action here behind me.

The scene right now is one where we've had about four-and-a-half hours of these landing ships coming in and bringing in heavy equipment. We understand there's some other very heavy equipment they're going to bring in through the port of Beirut. They can't land it here, this port isn't big enough.

But this is going to help the 100 or 70-so engineers that are being deployed here, help them to create some infrastructure to build roads. They are going to be building some of the housing for those 2,000 French troops, 2,000 in total. That would be another 1,600 that are going to come in here.

You can see that looks like a communications man, Tony.

But this is an operation. It is only just beginning. You can look at it in one way, the United Nations wants 13,000 more UNIFIL peacekeepers here in south Lebanon. Today we have 200, so there's 12,800 still to go.

Back to you, -- Tony.

HARRIS: Hey, Jim, any thought that this peacekeeping force would come together a little more quickly if folks could agree on kind of the rules of engagement?

CLANCY: Well you know there's a draft document that's out there that is being shown to the people. It is being shown in Brussels today to some of the Europeans that explains that the peacekeepers really are going to have the power to fire back, the power to take action. But it's not a Chapter 7. Some people call it a Chapter 6.75. In any event, it's a very touchy subject among people here, as is security.

Now we talked to General Xavier Magne, who is the admiral in charge of this task force here, and we learned that task force is going to stay off shore for the duration of this deployment. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADMIRAL XAVIER MAGNE, FRENCH NAVY: Whatever happens, the French force Balista (ph) will remain here in support. So I have on board helicopters, I have combat capabilities so that in case of something, I can extract people from here. I also have medical facilities. And that was one of the lessons learned from Lebanon in '83. We have a road to hospital and so we are able to come and pick up someone on the ground and do heavy surgery on board.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: Now, Tony, the incident he's referring to in 1983 was when suicide bombers attacked the multinational forces. More than 240 U.S. Marines, more than 50 French paratroopers were killed in those incidents, separate incidents in Beirut. And incidents, we must say, were blamed at the time on Hezbollah.

Back to you.

HARRIS: OK, CNN's Jim Clancy for us in southern Lebanon.

Jim, thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: We're getting this just in. The Associated Press is reporting this morning that an Aer Lingus flight going from New York to Ireland has been evacuated during a scheduled stop in Shannon, Ireland. It's Aer Lingus Flight 112. Airport authorities say there was a threat, referring to the plane, and explosives was called into a police station in Dublin. No explosives have been found in the initial search. An airport spokesman said it was not an emergency landing, it was not a red alert, the flight was coming here anyway, is what he said.

John Mark Karr, the suspect in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, will wake up in a Boulder, Colorado jail this morning. He was transported to Colorado from California last night. He could find out today when his first court appearance is going to be.

CNN's Ed Lavandera has more on the investigation this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): One week after being arrested in Thailand, John Mark Karr is finally here in Boulder at the county jail where he has been segregated in a jail cell all by himself. It's not exactly clear when he will appear in court now, but officials say that first court appearance probably won't happen until Monday.

Investigators at the D.A.'s office say they have no comment about what's going on in the investigation. But we do know one of the things that they will be looking at closely in the coming days is DNA evidence, although it's unclear whether or not a DNA sample has been taken from John Karr since he's arrived in the United States.

Also in court documents made public Thursday, the D.A.'s office states that they only learned of John Mark Karr's full identity five days before he was arrested in Thailand, another indication that the investigation and building the case against him is still in its very early stages. And it's not exactly clear how much progress they have made in trying to prove or disprove whether or not John Karr is guilty of murdering JonBenet Ramsey.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Boulder, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And happening in America.

In Essex, Vermont, charges could be filed as early as today against a man who allegedly went on a shooting rampage after his girlfriend broke up with him. Police say Christopher Williams shot four people, killing two of them, before shooting himself. His ex- girlfriend's mother was among the victims. The accused gunman is expected to survive.

In Rochester, New York, nine people recovering this morning after a car crashed into an open air market. Police say an 89-year-old driver plowed his car through a crowd of people. The man apparently lost control when his foot slipped off the brake and hit the accelerator. At least two people were seriously hurt. Crews will be out today in South Dakota fixing downed power lines and homes after some wild, wild weather. There are several reports of twisters ripping through the eastern part of the state last night. There are also reports of hail. So far, no injuries to report.

And Minnesota's governor plans to tour the storm-damaged area in the southern part of the state. Last night's tornado killed at least one person and ripped apart dozens of homes.

Boyd Huppert from affiliate KARE reports from Nicollet. That's about 80 miles southwest of Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOYD HUPPERT, KARE-TV REPORTER (voice-over): No one should have to deal with this once in a lifetime.

DOUG LUKES, LOST HIS HOME: Watch out, there's nails in this.

HUPPERT: So what do you even say to Doug Lukes?

LUKES: We moved here from St. Peter after a tornado blew us out of there.

HUPPERT: One house destroyed nine years ago in St. Peter, now a second in Nicollet.

LUKES: This is about a 20-by-15-foot family room, carpeted, all refinished.

HUPPERT: Perhaps the cruelest of several swipes taken tonight by the storm.

SONJA SHAY, WITNESSED TORNADO: The pressure was very high, very high. Instant headache and our ears popped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

SHAY: Just that fast, it was gone.

HUPPERT: Sonja Shay stood in front of the pickup she drove to work this morning, but won't be driving home. The day care provider had just two kids left in her care when the storm bore down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were the kids scared?

SHAY: No, the kids weren't, the adults were.

HUPPERT: A few miles outside of Nicollet, the Oshua (ph) town hall is destroyed, as were a garage, a barn and two machine sheds on Hazel Bog's (ph) farm. As she headed to the basement, windows blew in in her home.

HAZEL BOG, VICTIM: I went down in the basement, and then I heard glass, so I didn't dare come up until it was over with.

LUKES: Isn't much left to her.

HUPPERT: What do you say except you're sorry it happened again.

LUKES: There isn't nothing you can say. It happens. The good lord wanted it. He took it. You can't do nothing about that. The only thing you can do is pick up the pieces.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: Isn't that the truth? That was Boyd Huppert from affiliate KARE.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, I guess you could say that guy is always quotable. Well he was asked about progress in New Orleans, and we'll tell you what he said about Ground Zero.

HARRIS: Huh? OK.

Fire fears leading another major computer maker into recalling computer batteries, more than a million people could be affected.

S. O'BRIEN: And does this look a little out of focus to you? A little blurry? We've got results of a new study that names the nation's drunkest city.

Plus, Carrie Lee has got business headlines for us.

Good morning, -- Carrie.

CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good Friday morning to all of you.

That's right, another big battery recall from Apple Computer. We'll have some more details on that. And Barr now expected to see Plan B sales double now that it is available over the counter. That is the latest. We'll have more coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: This morning more controversy for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. With the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina just days away, the mayor is at the center of yet another storm. In a "60 Minutes" interview, Nagin defended the slow pace of rebuilding in his city by taking a shot at progress at New York City's Ground Zero.

Here's Sean Callebs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once again, officials working with the New Orleans mayor are in damage control. During an interview with "60 Minutes," Ray Nagin was asked why flooded-out cars and other debris still litter areas like the Lower Ninth Ward nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina. MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: It's all right. You guys in New York City can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later, so let's be fair.

CALLEBS: Nagin is talking about Ground Zero in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

The mayor's spokeswoman says it's disappointing that "60 minutes" would release a statement she says is taken out of context.

Nagin's off-the-cuff remarks have landed him in trouble before. He apologized and spent weeks trying to distance himself from this.

NAGIN: This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.

CALLEBS: Right now New Orleans is trying to lure tourists, industry and investment back to the city.

Business leader Rob Couhig ran for mayor against Nagin. Now they're on the same team. Couhig is heading up a committee Nagin appointed to rejuvenate New Orleans during the mayor's second term. He labels this a media-created story.

ROB COUHIG, NAGIN APPOINTEE: You guys, wait, you're so desperate to say look at what Ray said now. Go with that story if you want. But if you ask me my opinion, I'm going to tell you that that story is inconsequential in the building of the city.

CALLEBS: Sean Callebs, CNN, New Orleans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: That would be damage control.

Sean's report first appeared in "THE SITUATION ROOM" which airs weekdays at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time right here on CNN.

We're going to be live in New Orleans on Tuesday for a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We begin at 6:00 a.m. Eastern. We're taking a look at "Katrina: One Year Later."

Let's get right to severe weather expert Chad Myers. He's at the CNN Center. He's keeping an eye on something else that could become a hurricane, I guess.

Chad, good morning.

MYERS: Certainly worried about this storm.

Soledad, good morning.

This storm could make an approach to New Orleans on Thursday, so that would only be a couple of days after what Katrina was.

Now, that said, this storm could go over Cuba and approach the Florida Keys. It could go through the Caribbean, over Cancun and approach Florida. It's just too early to know, because, literally, we are five to six days away and you get that cone getting so big by the time it gets that far out; but that, obviously, a major system now.

Still tropical depression number five, but I can't imagine that by 10:00 they haven't figured out that this thing is now a tropical storm. They're already forecasting it to be a hurricane. It would be Hurricane Ernesto. Debby is still out there in the middle of the Atlantic but basically inconsequential compared to what Ernesto could be for the U.S.

(WEATHER REPORT)

Back to you.

HARRIS: Grapefruit-sized hail.

MYERS: Can you imagine? The four-inch hail. And one of the reporters says I will measure the hail. It's on there, on the computer.

HARRIS: Yes.

MYERS: I will measure the hail when it's safe to come out of my shelter.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Don't you want to see that? I want to see that.

MYERS: You could get hurt by that. You could get killed by that.

HARRIS: No, no, no, no.

S. O'BRIEN: You could get killed by that, yes.

HARRIS: Yes, yes, yes.

MYERS: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: My god.

HARRIS: All right, Chad, thanks.

MYERS: You're welcome.

HARRIS: Still to come, power problem.

S. O'BRIEN: A big problem, really.

HARRIS: Yes, yes, yes, affect maybe a million people or so? Apple Computer out with a recall involving two of its notebook computers. We'll tell you what the problem is and how to solve it.

Also, sales of the morning-after pill expected to boost the bottom line in a big way for one company. Carrie Lee has your business headlines.

Stay with us on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: First, laptop batteries burned Dell, now they're biting Apple.

Carrie Lee is here checking the morning business headlines.

Carrie, what's the story here?

LEE: Well, Sony makes batteries for both of these companies, and that's really the core of the problem here. Apple Computer now recalling 1.8 million Sony laptop batteries. And this, of course, follows a recall from Dell. Dell recalled 4.1 million batteries recently. Those were also from Sony. And the problem is they can short circuit, overheat, and in rare cases, catch fire. Now Apple says there were nine cases of overheating and two cases of minor burns and property damage, so trying to be proactive here.

Sony is most affected by the recall, of course. Its stock was down about 3 percent yesterday. Sony says together both recalls will cost anywhere from $175 million to $275 million.

And turning to Barr Pharmaceutical, the company got the approval to sell the morning-after pill over the counter to adults, but didn't really help the company's stock very much. It actually lost some ground yesterday, although shares are up about 1.5 percent early this morning. One analyst expects sales for the drug to double over the next three years. But still, that would only be about $100 million a year. Barr last year made $1.3 billion, so small when you look at the whole big picture.

Finally, quick check on stocks, overall, not too much action yesterday. The Dow Jones industrials up just about 7 points, Nasdaq, S&P similar. We got some data on sluggish home sales, also news of a moderating economy. And, Soledad and Tony, not too much happening on the economic front today. Right now it's looking like a flat to slightly higher open.

HARRIS: No reports yet?

LEE: So we'll see if we can end the week on a positive note, but not too much...

HARRIS: That would be nice.

LEE: ... is going to affect trading today in particular.

HARRIS: OK, Carrie, thank you, thank you.

LEE: OK. Sure.

HARRIS: The morning's top stories are straight ahead, including what's next for John Mark Karr now that he's been transferred to Colorado?

And allegations of sexual assault at a top military school, how the Citadel is dealing with the problem.

S. O'BRIEN: Plus, a deadly tornado caught on tape. Tell you what the pictures look like. Look at that, the damage terrible. Show you that too.

Those stories and much more ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I definitely think stadiums are getting better. Everything is becoming so much more fan friendly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the future stadiums will be much more environmentally friendly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Moving sidewalks to get to the stadium. That would be great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There should be, like, some hovercraft form where you could like get closer to the players.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The invention of retinal and fingerprint scanners instead of actual paper tickets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as they stay true to the roots, and it will still be fun.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): Peanuts, Cracker Jack and some cheap seats in the bleachers. Used to be so simple going to the game, didn't it? But these days, for many kids, it's all a bore. So what could be done to keep the video game generation in the stands?

(voice-over): David Manica, project designer for the architecture firm HOK Sport, creates venues of the future from environmentally-friendly building materials to stadiums that change color on the outside depending on who's winning inside. Manica says the future game-day experience will be one that's affordable, comfortable and interactive.

DAVID MANICA, HOK SPORT: One of the things that we're looking at are what we're calling smart seats. And it might be a PDA that slides into a slot in a pre-wired smart seat. It would feedback stats and replays. And also with the microphone, allow you to actually interact with others people in the stadium.

M. O'BRIEN: Some other possibilities, floating stadiums, clear field with fans seated below the action or a stadium where athletes' attendance is no longer required.

MANICA: In the future, crowds could get together in a stadium and actually watch a holographic version of a game that's being played on the other side of the world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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